CBM MA Races Rankings - Voted by the community!

[Baalz]

Early Mid Late
Here's my opinion with notes. - indicates I haven't played that nation recently enough to comment.

Ashdod - - -
Ermor 80 80 70 Weak non cap mages, poor magic diversity
Jotunheim 90 100 100 Giants + B + D + S
Pythium 100 100 100 Good troops, mages & national summons
R'lyeh 50 125 150 Awesome recruit anywhere mages + water defense. Great chaff.
Shinuyama 70 90 80 Lack of shields can be a problem, no astral or blood
Marignon 90 60 70 Weak magic diversity, but angels help end game
Vanheim 100 100 100 Great melee, thugs, combat magic, B+A covers most of the S lack
Mictlan 80 80 80 A bit one dimensional, not as flexible as some
T'ien Chi 70 90 100 Very strong research and great magic diversity
C'tis - - -
Pangaea 80 80 60 Good alteration carries through mid game, lack of diversity hurts
Arcoscephale 60 70 60 Good combat & ritual mages, struggle with mobility
Abysia 70 60 80 Make it through midgame and blood kicks in good
Caelum - - -
Bandar Log 25 45 80 Takes a lot of work to unlock potential
Machaka - - -
Man - - -
Eriu 30 100 0 Raiders + air evo strong midgame, struggles once countered
Ulm 50 70 60 Good recruit anywhere combat mages, struggles with mobility
Oceania 50 20 0 Nowhere to go with research
Atlantis 20 50 60 Recruit anywhere Kings, teleport, acid storm
Agartha 10 60 40 Good recruit anywhere combat mages + good blockers

[Squirrelloid]

I can understand giving Pythium straight 100s. I mean, they have 7HoF wins listed in the first post, and probably more that haven't been added yet.

I can't understand giving Vanheim straight 100s. It just doesn't fit the data. They have no wins reported in the HoF thread's first post, and only a single win in those since it was last updated. If it was so amazing, you'd think it would be dominating the HoF like Pythium is.

I mean, I certainly don't think the HoF is a sufficient sample to tell when a nation is really bad. But there is a significant difference between Pythium's performance and Vanheims. They simply can't be equally good at all phases of the game - Vanheim must be significantly worse somewhere. So all these 'Vanheim is awesome' rankings seem to be based on nothing.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

I can't understand giving Vanheim straight 100s. It just doesn't fit the data. They have no wins reported in the HoF thread's first post, and only a single win in those since it was last updated. If it was so amazing, you'd think it would be dominating the HoF like Pythium is.

I mean, I certainly don't think the HoF is a sufficient sample to tell when a nation is really bad. But there is a significant difference between Pythium's performance and Vanheims. They simply can't be equally good at all phases of the game - Vanheim must be significantly worse somewhere. So all these 'Vanheim is awesome' rankings seem to be based on nothing.

I don't know how many times it can be said that the HoF doesn't really have much bearing. I have personally won 2 different MP games with MA Vanheim....both times I've played them. FWIW the Overlords game in progress right now has a very good chance of being won by Vanheim. Based on nothing...let see. Top notch melee troops out the gate. Strong earth mages for early support (strength of giants/legions of steel/destruction) folding into strong A mages for mid game power (arrow fend/storm/fog warriors) put your infantry second to none. Slap weapons of sharpness on either of your good infantry types and they'll carve up most anything in the game, and weapons of sharpness + fog warriors isn't *that* late into the game. Cloud trapeze, recruit anywhere medium thugs who can switch hit to blasting air evo or leech spam and not that hard to boost plenty of L4L spammers who drop out of the sky. Air drop sabbaths for important fights. Blood sacrifice + H2 guys all over + easy enough shoehorning into vamps, liches & wraith lords fold in with glamoured troops to make an extremely stout defense and dom push. Rain of stones, wrathful skies, earthquake and iron bane are all very easy to drop without even using a booster. Darkness + demons/undead, bloodletting, mist of deception and army of * are easy enough with a little prep. They've got great mobility and flexibility through the whole game and hit like a ton of bricks. Yeah, just like anybody they're not perfect, but they've got multiple strong vectors across the whole game and top of the line maneuverability.

[BigDaddy]

When does early game end? Maybe that is what I'm missing.


Here, I'll do 2:

Ulm 120 50 10
If you start near Ulm and he send knights up in your shizzle it's really going to suck, and if you're Ulm you can count on sending knights up in his shizzle really sucking for him. Your mages rock and each can make themselves a squad of clockwork horrors as soon as its reasearched. To me, they, as a nation, don't go anywhere, and they lean heavily on your pretender to coddle their units, despite their oft tauted forge bonus. They fall off end-game without a doubt. All in all, there are a lot of things I'd rather have on my border turn 3 than black plates.

[rdonj]

Ma mictlan doesn't really do blood that well. It's also not the mictlan people speak of as an early rush power. I used to think that the reputation of jaguar warriors was overblown too... then I faced them in mp for the first time and they wrecked a huge army of mine, and I realized that it wasn't overblown at all.

[Squirrelloid]

Quick comparison for you BigDaddy. Try equal gold F9W9 jags vs. black knights, see how you feel about mictlan vs. ulm's early games afterwards.

(And equal gold is probably unfair to the jags, since they're so much easier to mass).

MA Mictlan can use jags in the early game just fine. But its recruit anywhere sacred is eagle warriors, which is also pretty brutal.

[BigDaddy]

Oops, I edited my post, forgot we were doing MA Mictlan. MA is pretty much bless mictlan. Baalz is right, they are terribly inflexible. Their blood nations are inflexible enough. I don't really like MA Mictlan. They are, however, tough, and it is good old Mict in that you more or less know what they'll do, but how do stop em?

I'd use arbalasts and black knights, and probably some smiths. They just have suck protection. The whole key to killing jags is to hit them two times, so when fighting jags, use more units. The flail guys would be OK, I suppose, but I'd prolly use smiths.. Oh, yes, and guardians. Don't overlook guardians.

Yes, I would spend it all on guardians and see what happens. Or maybe half arbalasts... Oh, I can't decide! I could also go with 2.5 short bows per jag or 4 slings... maybe mix it ups with slings and guardians would get me the most startling damage. On the other hand, arbalasts would stand up longer to eagle warriors.


Sure, you can give me less units cause of the resource req. But not too much less as I'll take P and you'll prolly take S.

I've had my jags killed before.

I could probably win with half as much or less spent just on guardians. I'd have to try that out.

[thejeff]

I'd use Guardians and Sappers, backed up with some Smiths to earth meld to slow them down. And I'd get slaughtered, unless I'm underestimating the Guardians special abilities. I don't think so. They're better against sacred thugs or heavies.
Anyway, you'll have trouble massing enough to equal them, even with Prod-3 and Ulm's resource bonus. Especially since Guardians and Sappers aren't what you need for expansion.

[BigDaddy]

Originally Posted by thejeff

I'd use Guardians and Sappers, backed up with some Smiths to earth meld to slow them down. And I'd get slaughtered, unless I'm underestimating the Guardians special abilities. I don't think so. They're better against sacred thugs or heavies.
Anyway, you'll have trouble massing enough to equal them, even with Prod-3 and Ulm's resource bonus. Especially since Guardians and Sappers aren't what you need for expansion.

Maybe you're right. Maybe MA Mict is that tough, but I think that would be a very traumatic encounter for Mictlan. Especially if the archers fled... Especially if there was also PD, which contains arbalasts, which will surely kill jags or eagles with ease.

I think calling MA Ulm weak at the early game is silly. I could spend the bulk of that money on PD and probably have excellent results against them. Probably enough that taking me out would be out of the equation. Archers rail jags, and armored crap kills eagles. Arbalasts are both and Mictlan could find an easier target. Like mid-game MA Ulm.

Correction from earlier post:
Emerald guard has 15 defense and 17 protection.
Principe has 16 defense and 12 protection.

The differences are pretty staggering actually, the guard appears to be a much more robust experienced soldier, but costs a whole gold more upkeep.

[Festin]

I think somebody did tests using Guardians vs Jags after Ulm was boosted in vanilla, and found that guardians kill Jags reliably. But I may be mistaken.