Nation List Selection

So its that time again. We have to come up with a ranked list of nations. Middle Age.

1 - Ashdod - I don't think there can be debate here. Even if the noobs get first pick, we'd be stupid not to put Ashdod here on the off-chance
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I would prioritize good early nations. Vanheim comes to mind, they have everything Vanheim and Helheim had in EA. Eriu is a personal favorite which has a really strong midgame and no endgame to speak of, which is exactly how we hope this will play out. Ermor and R'lyeh are both pretty strong in this era, hordes of dead and mindblasters without team-killing domains. Marignon might also be decent. I'm not a fan of MA Mictlan but they have great path coverage.

I would put at the bottom, Argatha, Man, Oceania, Atlantis, and C'tis. There are also a few nations that might be good only as forge bitches, like TC, Atlantis, Shinuyama, and Ulm, but I think we would want everyone to have a nation that can stand on its own in a fight.

If you have any really good builds, just remember that its made easier by a 150 money/resource/supply multiplier (hello sloth+death) and easy research. I would personally like to play Eriu, but whatever works is good.

One thing to remember about 150% gold+resources is that they weaken the bless horde rush nations at least a bit, since the holy score is a limiting factor instead of resources et al.

If Namad's getting a first pick due to "returning alt" status it just means he's to pick Ashdod?

I'd like to stress Vanheim, as if I've understood correctly a big part of first game's vet defeat was thanks to endless Midgård skinshifter rush that was paid by other noobs. And Vanheim gets those same skinshifters.

Agree on Ermor and R'lyeh, how's the with the land astral supreme, Pythium? Can't personally rate Pyth and Ermor since I've never quite got hold of Pyth early game...

And wouldn't totally count out Ulm, as they've got those sacred-killing Guardian troops. Don't know if there are a lot of sacred-using nations in MA, though.

Atlantis is a decent recruitable teleporting thug nation, at least Baalz managed to beat me ugly with that nation once. Don't know if it would be worth it to put all the eggs in underwater basket and corner it with two nations, though.

Most of the symetrical maps that sept wants don't have water starts, so unless the player count goes up, picking water is probably not a good idea.

And the noobs also have a returning alternate (Unoptimized) so we probably wouldn't snag Ashdod. We could get Vanheim or Mictlan though. Should ask Sept how that's going to work.

Pythium might top out Marignon. Marignon has (as likely picks) F4, S3, with possibility of flaming xbows, and spies. Pythium has S4, A3, Hydras and communicants. Pyth might be stronger, but they can't introduce a noob to flaming arrows.

As for the forger, honestly Vanheim might work, they don't need much combat research since they have skinshifters and between Dwarves and A4 random Vanadrotts they have some very useful paths. Mictlan has good path coverage but they have no earth. If we could snag Ashdod they would be ideal.

Yeah, probably should ask whether water nations are allowed or not before lists are submitted. Now it might be 6 vs 12 game, so some extra nations are in. Should we lobby for banning any nations (read: Ashdod if it goes to noobs) on grounds of unbalance? Might cause unwanted hassle.

Anyway, policy on "returning alts" status and water nations need to be defined.

Dunno about Vanheim and straight Const, Evo for Mists, Storms and Wrathful Skies is also a nice straight path for them. Though with Const they've got Staff of Storms and other utility that helps the team also.

Some nations not yet mentioned at least on this thread:

Jotunheim is probably about Woodsmen first and werewolf-form equipped Skrattis then on, some bless and Shrouds of the Saint included. Might do well?

Bandar Log, well got sacreds and elephants. I had fun with them some time ago, but probably topped by Pythium?

I don't see why we would have a case to lobby for banned nations, I mean, we took Hinnom and Niefelheim last game and didn't think twice about it. I had another look at Jotunheim and the woodsmen seem decent, you'd want to get the skratis going as quickly as possible. BL is pretty iffy, their sacreds have good defensive power but are lanceless, and without good battle magic they aren't a great nation defensively. If they can get summoning Yaksha, they're a lot better, but the site frequency is back down to default this game so we're looking at a lot less gems to throw around. I'm a bit warry on relying on elephants or mammoths as their counters are well-known. I'd put them on the same level as Caelum in MA.

OK, I am watching this thread again. I honestly thought the game would never happen. As I posted in the shrapnel thread, just give me a nation to pick. I don't have any preference. I can play any of them.

I will continue to admin the board, unless theDemon wants to take over. I guess we could both do it.

top6 in terms of overall ability and in terms of expansion speed:

ashdod vanheim ermor mictlan pythium jotunheim(with jotun clearly being the worst of this bunch?) ??

if there will be three water nations one of which is ours we should pick r'lyeh in the top 5or6
if there will be one water nation which is us we should not

other nations i think are worth including in our top 11 (thats how many we need including the nations preselected assuming we go first if we go second we need 12)

shinyuma, marignon ... lets see... assuming no water nations that means we've got 8maybes and need 11total?

In following order:

Ashdod, Vanheim, Pythium, Eriu, Ermor, Mictlan, Jotunheim, Marignon, Arco, Bandar, Pangaea, Abysia

?

We got Ashdod already, and Baalz said he's taking anything noobs want him to take, so that might cut the list a bit.

Other is the team roster, we've got a bit more of people than the initial team needs. Which is good. Anyway, wanted to point out that there have been some people currently on that have expressed some doubt about the game. This would be a good time to start from the alternative-sideline, as it seems we've got interested people coming in.

atul wrote:
Other is the team roster, we've got a bit more of people than the initial team needs. Which is good. Anyway, wanted to point out that there have been some people currently on that have expressed some doubt about the game. This would be a good time to start from the alternative-sideline, as it seems we've got interested people coming in.

Is that a dig at me Atul? I have been in all of these games since the beginning. Forgive me if I am not all that enthused about this one, I am a bit jaded. But I will still play, and when I play, I play well. That said, if you guys want me to alt, I can do that as well.

Not specifically. I'd rather see things first come, first served based. Just that both you and TheDemon have at least once expressed disinterest / interest in alt position. So thought to get it over with, so that we'd all know what's the score. There still isn't the level of activity on these boards (or on #vets) I'd think would be sufficient to win this game like the last one.

But if you and TheDemon both want to play from get-go, guess the lineup's Ling, atul, TheDemon, Baalz, namad, Hadrian-II with DrP as the alt. Or?

I'm ambivalent, I can play or go as an alternate if somebody else wants to play. I'll also play any nation, so (said in a stoner voice) like whatever man....

For expansion: Ermor, Vanheim, Mictlan
For sneakyness: Pan, Vanheim (also stealth means strategic deployment through friendly teritorry without problems)
For funny magics: Pythium (Raw Power), Shin (Evocations)
Also if the noob team is really a noob team, early battlemagic could be fun (marignon, abysia)

So i suppose this would make my 10 nation list: Ermor, Vanheim, Mictlan, Pan, Pythium, Shin, marignon, abysia, and 2 more

For the record, I play Pan and Van the best, since I have the most experience with them. Although, I can play any nation as needed.

Hmmm, Ulm might be a good choice in this matchup. Good teamwork potential, strong evocations, and the enemy team is less likely to exploit their weakness.

Eriu also has some nasty potential that the newbs might have some difficulty with.

Abysia sounds good here to.


I guess in the vacuum of other opinions these would be my choices to play.

Hey guys. There's been some talk on IRC about perhaps backing out of the Ashdod pick in favor of Vanheim. CBM really hits Ashdod hard with the nerfbat, the Zazummites lose a E/D pick, so they aren't great combat mages anymore and using them as thugs is a lot harder fatigue-wise. I'm not a big fan of ashdod troops, the useful ones are 45 gold+, sacreds 125+, all size 4+ with no good humans to fill the size 2 gaps. Their national summons are top-shelf and their top-tier commanders are pretty useful but without the uber Zazummites its hard to make a case for them over Vanheim, who has skinshifters, vans, and top-tier earth and air mages.

I wanted to collect some more input for those of you who don't venture into #vets. None of us have decided that it would be a good idea yet, but I'm personally leaning that way. If we did choose to change the pick, I'm sure namad would be easilly able to back out "in the interests of fairness" or "to demonstrate that we don't need Ashdod" or something like that.

e: whoops, had been logged in as Admin. This is TheDemon

^^^^ That's me.

if the decision was correct i'd agree with it



the arguing actual doesn't make me feel that ashdod is a bad idea... it just makes it sound like the wars ashdod has will be even more exciting!



i'd be willing to play either nation and i have a feeling in a duel vanheim would obliterate ashdod i'd be interested in hearing what atul/baalz/ling think about the matter before doing something as drastic as not playing ashdod

i posted to ask septimus if he wanted to ban ashdod entirely because you know... if the nation is "unfair" it would be awesome for us if no one used it and we got to pick something else without them having it....
then again if unoptimized is a noob.... a noob is a lot more capable of using vanheim than ashdod i'd reckon.. since an ally only has to tell them "spend all money on skinshifters" to get them doing alright whereas it looks like ashdod is powerful yet requires versatility to function in that there is no unit as "efficient" as skinshifters

I hate to say it, but this is the most unorganized NvV game yet, and it's my fault. I have not been paying much attention at all. Demon, you should probably take over as admin, and I will function as back-up admin.

I do have some questions though.

Who is on the team? I'm not even sure who our actual players are.

Who do you guys want me to play? Should I just go with whatever Sept gives me?

I'm sure we can get much more organized after players and nations are decided.

I think our players are:
Lingchih, atul, namad, baalz, TheDemon, drp

Our alternates are:
Hadrian, chrispedersen

We have to rank nations, and submit a list as a team. We are then assigned 6 nations by alternating picks with the noobs (5 since namad gets first dibs). We then deal the nations out amongst ourselves. Hopefully we'll have one of your preferences or something you've played before.

I've already been using the admin account to add people so I'll keep an eye out for the rest of our team.

My ranking:
Vanheim, Ashdod, Pythium, Ermor, Mictlan, Eriu, Pangaea, Marignon, Shinuyama, Jotunheim, Abysia, Bandar Log

The top 5 are pretty self-expanatory. My gut feeling is Vanheim over Ashdod but they're pretty equal. Maybe switch around Mictlan and Ermor. Eriu is a personal favorite and strong air nation, if Unoptimized takes vanheim they are even more valuable. Pangaea is ranked highly as it can cast rain of toads, which the noobs might find hard to deal with. I know cap shutdown annoyed us to no end in the last game, but that tactic goes both ways and we're better able to exploit it. Marignon is pretty strong, good magic and might be able to rush angel summons. Shinuyama, battlefield evocations. Jotunheim, giants. Abysia, blood and fire (hah). Bandar Log, elephants and astral, and might be able to rush ghandharvas under easy research. The borderline pick was Arco, but I think Bandar Log is better.

My ranking:

Ashdod, Vanheim, Ermor, Pan, Marigon, Mictlan, Jotun, Pythium, Eriu, Abysia, Ulm, Shin.

we keep discussing the optimal list... but i just realized maybe optimal is not the best idea...

every nation on the list has to be a nation someone on the team is willing to play

maybe we all agree marignon is better than ulm but baalz kinda thinks ulm is fun and maybe no one thinks marignon is fun? (marignon is a nation i don't much like myself)

so maybe if there are any nations people just outright do not want to play they should comment on what those might be? we could always remove a couple powerful unpopular nations from the list to make room for personal pet favorites?


i think my optimal list would be: ashdod, vanheim, ermor, eriu, mictlan, jotunheim, pythium, pangaea, shinyuma, arco, bandar, abysia ? those last 4or5 i'm really not sure on theres a lot of room for debate on which mediocre nations are best

namad wrote:we keep discussing the optimal list... but i just realized maybe optimal is not the best idea...

every nation on the list has to be a nation someone on the team is willing to play

Not only that but there's also a metagaming component, where we try to guess what nations the noobs will underrate, so we place them lower than nations they might overrate. For example, Pythium, although its top 6 in many of our lists, I think will be underrated by the noobs.

I'll see about putting together a lists that includes everyone's opinions so far.

edit:
So here's what I have:
Lingchih
Ashdod, Vanheim, Ermor, Pan, Marigon, Mictlan, Jotun, Pythium, Eriu, Abysia, Ulm, Shin.
TheDemon
Vanheim, Ashdod, Pythium, Ermor, Mictlan, Eriu, Pangaea, Marignon, Shinuyama, Jotunheim, Abysia, Bandar Log
Namad
ashdod, vanheim, ermor, eriu, mictlan, jotunheim, pythium, pangaea, shinyuma, arco, bandar, abysia
Atul
Ashdod, Vanheim, Pythium, Eriu, Ermor, Mictlan, Jotunheim, Marignon, Arco, Bandar, Pangaea, Abysia
Hadrian
Ermor, Vanheim, Mictlan, Pan, Pythium, Shin, marignon, abysia
Baalz
preference to play Ulm, Abysia, Eriu

Compiled list:
Ashdod, Vanheim, Ermor, Mictlan, Pythium, Eriu, Pan, Marignon, Jotunheim, Shinuyama, Abysia, Arco

I ranked them in how they compared directly. As in, I looked at options for the next one, then compared them within lists. Also on advice from namad in the IRC channel I only gave Baalz's list weight in the bottom, since its not a power ranking but rather a preference ranking. Its clear ashdod, vanheim, ermor are the top 3. mictlan/eriu/pan/pythium are all rated next by at least one. Mictlan(4) vs Pan(1), Mictlan(3) vs Eriu(2), Mictlan(3) vs Pyth(2). So mictlan is next. Eriu/Pan/Pyth all rated next by at least one. Eriu(3) vs Pan(2), Pyth(4) vs Eriu(1), Pyth(3) vs Pan(2). Pyth is next. Eriu/Pan all rated next by at least one, Eriu wins that. Pan/Jotunheim all rated next by at least one. Pan(3) vs Jotun(2). Jotun/Marignon/Shin all rated next by at least one. Marig(3) vs Jotun(2). Jotun(3) vs Shin(2). Marig(3) vs Shin(2). Marignon is next. Jotun/Shin, Jotun wins. Shin/Arco/Abysia, Shin(3) vs Abysia(3), Shin(4) vs Arco(1), Abysia(4) vs Arco(2). Shin is next. Abysia/Arco, Abysia wins. Arco/Ulm/BL, Arco(2) vs BL(1), Arco(2) vs Ulm (2), BL(3) vs Ulm (2). Hard to decide but Arco has it technically.

We can game this list a bit to take into account the noobs' likely picks. I would say they'd probably underrate Pythium and overrate Jotunheim. So why not move them around a bit to get other picks in first. We can also sub Ulm for Arco since that side of the list hardly matters:
Ashdod, Vanheim, Ermor, Mictlan, Eriu, Pythium, Pan, Jotunheim, Marignon, Shinuyama, Abysia, Ulm

That's not set in stone of course. Feel free to raise objections.

the more i think about it the less i like arco and the more i like ulm
revisiting marignon's stats i definately think we have to consider .... ESPECIALLY if we use lingchich's map suggestion that 12provinces per player means there won't be time for angels to matter much although if we used zeldor's map at 23provinces per player it might be... again this point leads me to conclude it's really rather key septimus tell us the map before we tell him the nations we want (also taking into account amphibians and water province #)


additionally i feel that a 150% gold/resources map will hurt mictlan slightly because all of their recruitment is based on holy as the only resource as everyone else gets 150% as much power as normal but mictlan gets 100% as much power as normal (very much an oversimplification) but also i wouldn't fear a poorly exucted mictlan nation as it seems like a nation with a lot of weaknesses that takes a lot of skill to avoid being picked apart by those weaknesses? yes?no? maybe so?

also eriu seems like a nation that doesn't have enough brute force for a new player to play them effectively... they seem quite subtle... in fact i don't think personally i'd want to play them... so we could move them lower down the list... STILL END UP WITH THEM LIKELY but if we didn't... would they really be any threat to us? even if they would be useful on our side? I doubt the noob team will rate eriu anywhere nearly this high

along that same note... which nations do we not fear as much being controlled by the noobs? we have to consider the possibility that all nations on our list will be in the game so then we have to consider which nations on that list do we want them to have? and which nations do we not want them to have? then move the ones we don't want them to have up the list? maybe this is over thinking things



also if we end up using the bigger map maybe we should consider moving ma abysia up the chain i have a feeling lesser horror spam is something that new players could be obliterated by??? (lesser horror spam is far deadlier and much less counterable than rain of toads spam.... although pan i think would better be able to hold its own in wars and abysia would be purely remote attack artillery)