I love Arcos!!!

[lillumultipass]

I am playing a golden era arcos and I really like it! By turn 24 I researched all level 4 (except blood magic) which is a lot faster than my previous games!!! I guess it's not that quick, but for me that's an improvement! But with those 50 gold philosophers it's not hard!!! Now I can even use my mystics to cast rituals, forge items...Ok, their troops are not that great...
Anyway, two questions:
1. I have captured Man's starting provinces, and there are various sites that allow to recruit special units, but I can't recreuit them. Why???
2. What does the sceptic do???
3. As I am supposed to get the full game soon, I was wondering which nations I shouldn't play, as I have seen that some people find some nations to be overpowered...and I don't want to play and love a nation that nobody would like to play against in MP!!!
Thanks!!!

[magnate]

1. You cannot recruit other nations' national units, with the exception of Pythium's Hydra Hatchling.

2. Dunno

3. You can play all of them, because they're all perfectly balanced.

CC

[Alneyan]

The Sceptic reduces Dominion. All Dominions, yours included. I do not know how quick it works though, but a couple of them should be enough to break an enemy Dominion quicker than you can say "Inquisitor".

Caelum is the one nation said to be overpowered, though a few others are Banned from time to time, and water nations depend on the map (you do not want to have both Atlantis and R'lyeh competing for three sea provinces). But in the case of Caelum, the problem seems to be more the False Horror spell than an actual powerful nation.

[archaeolept]

no. its overpowered even w/out false horror spam. but that really pushes it whole-hog over the edge.

Ermor is sometimes seen as overbalanced, though that tends to be more accurate in newbie games.

Perhaps Vanheim is a bit powerful.

[The_Tauren13]

Abysia is typically among the first nations chosen in MP... but that doesn't nescesarily mean anything. I think it has to do with getting 240 (!) practically free points for pretender design.

[Kel]

240 ? Not 120 ?

- Kel

[Alneyan]

Abysia does not lose supplies with scales of Death. It does lose population however. The same goes true for scales of Growth. The other 120 points come from Heat 3.

[Kel]

Ah, I only count the heat as free points since the other costs you something.

- Kel

[The_Tauren13]

Well, it costs you the population, but not the income. So i guess the Last 120 are half-free points... so lets say you get 180 free points

[Kel]

Fair enough
I wouldn't even worry about the population, except they make useful blood slaves and all...

- Kel