Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

Your kidding, right? Ive seen tons of games that werent decided by turn 20. Surely thats playing on a map where there is only like 10-20 provinces per player?

If that were true then there would never be games where Arcos won by holding out and researching heavy magic, or Jotunheim by taking the expand slow and defend strongly strategy, or Pangaea/Caelum/Man checkerboard strategy. Much less any of the water nations. Its a good thing that the game supports maps up to 1500 provinces and victory conditions other than rush-kill.

Graeme Dice said:
It's not anywhere near as fun as Dom2. The neutering of magic, and presence of a morale system that's just as broken as Dom2's provides little reason to play the game.

Ahhh that explains alot.
Thank you for sticking around to let us all know that.

[Evil Dave]

Gandalf Parker said:

If that were true then there would never be games where Arcos won by holding out and researching heavy magic, or Jotunheim by taking the expand slow and defend strongly strategy, or Pangaea/Caelum/Man checkerboard strategy. Much less any of the water nations. Its a good thing that the game supports maps up to 1500 provinces and victory conditions other than rush-kill.

I think I understand how to play the defensive and checkerboard strategies, but I've never had much luck with Arco. Could you say a little more about the research strategy for them?

[Endoperez]

Gandalf Parker said:

Your kidding, right? Ive seen tons of games that werent decided by turn 20. Surely thats playing on a map where there is only like 10-20 provinces per player?

Actually, he was saying that a nation that was in a bad position at turn 20 couldn't win the game. By his theory, in, say, ten nations left in the game by turn 20, and 4 of them have conquered another nation and have two capitals. If magic resources including research, and the amount of military power left, and the composition of the armies, and the dominion strengths etc aren't rather extraodrinary, one of the four nations would win. Of course, strength of a nation isn't directly related to just the resources available to it, but let's use this as an example.

If diplomacy, multi-front wars, really successful surprise attack/tactic etc are left out, one of the four would win. Even when diplomacy and all other uncontrollable things are considered, the four nations are in a much better position to win than any other nation, even though there are six smaller nations.

However, if the four nations in good position are in the good position because they are controlled by the players with most optimized strategies, Graeme's description is totally accurate. The best players' skill shines through in the early game, and will let them control the late game against less experienced players (who learn from them and become more skilled).

[Gandalf Parker]

Evil Dave said:
I think I understand how to play the defensive and checkerboard strategies, but I've never had much luck with Arco. Could you say a little more about the research strategy for them?

Really? Usually the checkerboard strategy takes explanation (skipping across dangerous indepts to get to an enemy without leaving an easy route back to your capital).

Arcos is usually accepted as being the most magically capable and research powerful nation. It appears central to their build. And very astral. They are one of the easier nations to build around for a research push into powerful end-game magic. Of course that tends not to work too well on small maps and quick games. That CAN hold their own fairly well in such armor-to-armor games but they have to drop the focus on a reasearch push.

[FrankTrollman]

Deleted.

[Huzurdaddi]

Frank did this condition apply in your victory:

However, if the four nations in good position are in the good position because they are controlled by the players with most optimized strategies, Graeme's description is totally accurate.

[KissBlade]

I find in veteran heavy games, the ones who command the largest early lead wins the game. In games where there are a mix of newbie, average and veterans, it's obviously just a toss up between which vets get luckiest.

[FrankTrollman]

Deleted.

[KissBlade]

In most veteran filled games, the games have been consistently won by the best expander. There is the occasionally fluke here and there usually caused by the two most aggressive expanders butting heads.

[Baalz]

Endoperez said:
If diplomacy, multi-front wars, really successful surprise attack/tactic etc are left out, one of the four would win. Even when diplomacy and all other uncontrollable things are considered, the four nations are in a much better position to win than any other nation, even though there are six smaller nations.

Well, yes and no. Yes, there is a definite advantage to having a larger territory and controlling a second capital, but at this point in the game there is also a growing advantage to having more of a long term focus rather than dual-bless-crappy-scales-no-research-expand-as-fast-as-possible. Its easily possible that one of the "smaller" nations has more income and more research than one of the "leaders" in this case. When you throw in the fact that the more aggressive (and nominally leading) players are more likely to have enemies and less likely to have strong alliances (people don't tend to support someone who seems likely to win) this skews it even more. Certainly it's possible to put yourself enough ahead to take the win with quick expansion, but I disagree that it is the only significant factor that decides who wins. Perhaps it is under certain conditions (few players, small maps, etc.), but as I said before that sounds like a fairly boring game, and doesn't sound like the game I'm playing which IS filled with diplomacy, alliances, effective surprise tactics, dark horse comebacks, counters and shifting strategies, and generally a lot of stuff that makes a whole lot of different play styles viable.