Favorite/Best nation

[Arkrow XIV]

Hi guys, this game is awesome (Three years playing and still I'm amazed by all the stuff and mods, everything). Lately I've been posting some questions, so now I want to make another thread like the one of murphy laws.
So I have three questions for you:
1)Which is your favorite nation and why(If you have more than one go ahead)?
2)Which nation you consider the strongest and the weakest?
3)If you had the chance to add one nation to the game, what kind of nation would it be?

My opinions
1) I have two MA Marignon and MA Ermor, the first one feels like a european fire nation (Avatar), I like the idea of crusaders and using fire. In other hand I like necromancers and usually I play as the death/dar/bad deity/mage/guy(Hades, Zerg(Yeah I love swarmming), Russia(Swarmming again)), playing by the trope of I have reserves.

2)The strongest for me is MA Ermor, it's nearly broken and it has a lot of stuff for free, althought, you need a lot of micro, it's really powerful only limited by dominions and death gems. The weakest is EA Marveni (Never played myself) they have a lot of undiciplined troops, also I consider MA Abysia, they have many ways to counter them that really hurt them like rain and burden of time (It hurt even worse for having old and fire mages), they lack archers and they have a very limited diversity of magic.

3)Playing with Nationgen I got an all-slave egyptian nation led by undead(Two other version, one with c'tis like units+human slaves and the other with a mix(Like an Alexander's army) of nation), a troll/samurai/japanese nation and a fire snake nation. Another is a Leonardo DaVinci army, I saw some models of his inventions used as units form dom3, that would be cool.

See you guys hope you share your ideas.

[forrestomintero]

Ya I meant the consul. I tend to reserve the lemur for casting duty, and the consul doesn't really need spell-buffs to thug it up.

Not to mention there's a rather stark difference between spending 30 gems for an immortal thug chassis to thug with, and spending 50 gems for a major caster/possible supercombatant chassis, and then using it as a thug.

[✏pencils✏]

All of them. They are all beautiful.

[Nalbem]

1) EA Ulm is pretty cool. I love Steel Maidens and Steel Warriors and while I'll get frustrated from time to time with randoms (*shakes fist*) you always end up with a bunch of varied battlemages. Also, I'm a sucker for good recruit-everywhere human infantry with good buffing mages and EA Ulm fits that niche pretty nicely.

I also have a soft spot for Abysia, specially since they get their own cool story going through the ages, with pure Abysians slowly disappearing and being replaced by the Warlock-created humanbred. I'd like to see Illwinter do a patch dedicated to revisiting them and giving them a few more tools and maybe some cost reduction of mages/troops.

2) While I'll agree on EA Xibalba being the strongest, Ragha is pretty crazy too, specially for the age they are in. Zhayedan are insane and they get mages so good you'd wonder if they weren't meant to be a MA nation. Even their normal troops are pretty varied: flyng lancers with magic weapons, mid/heavy infantry, Elephants, good heavy cavalry, flying composite bows...

As for weak, it's probably Lemuria. They just... don't have much going for them. Once the enemy has some battlemagic, you are kind of screwed and forced to turtle for a nasty global and hope everyone gives up or you live long enough to maybe get some battlefield magic your mages can use.

3) Maybe some Oceanian or African nation. I'm much less familiar with those cultures than I am with greco-latin, asian or norse mithology, so I guess I'd be pleasantly surprised by anything Illwinter adds from those places. Also, EA Rus and later versions of Ur could be cool too and have been more o less confirmed already.

[Ica]

1) Favourite nation (per age):

EA:
Mictlan. It's just a very fun nation with nice lore. It's very powerful, but also very enjoyable to play. Since it's so powerful when played in an optimal way, you can play it in many different ways and still have a decent nation. You can even play without any strong bless and just have good scales, and it'll still be stronger than like half of the EA nations.

MA:
I dislike the age, but probably Pelagia. They have very nice mages and good research. Units on land aren't anything to write home about, but that's fine since the mages make up for that.

LA:
R'lyeh, though I honestly like most nations of this age. R'lyeh has just plain awesome national spells, some good heroes and the nation has many of the advantages of MA R'lyeh which is also a good nation. I contend that as long as Atlantis isn't in the game, LA R'lyeh is very strong. However, unfortunately Atlantis is a rock to R'lyeh's scissors.

2) Strongest and weakest:
Strongest in no particular order: EA and LA Xibalba, LA Ragha, EA Lanka. They're all very strong.

Weakest: I have no idea how good or bad EA R'lyeh is now so I'll skip it. LA Lemuria seems awful. Also EA and MA Abysia are quite weak. LA Pythium is very weak but I still kinda like it.

3) What nation would I add:

More nations inspired by sub-saharan Africa. There's so much fascinating and not widely known mythology and history there.

Other than that there was this great idea that a player I know suggested. There's a concept of dreamtime, it has to do with australian aboriginal people and their beliefs. You could make a late age nation inspired by those cultures and their beliefs and connect the lore to LA R'lyeh's dreamlands. You could maybe mix some pacific islander influences in there even though they're unrelated in real life.

[Findus]

Originally posted by Ica:

I contend that as long as Atlantis isn't in the game, LA R'lyeh is very strong. However, unfortunately Atlantis is a rock to R'lyeh's scissors.

They really should add another underwater nation to LA. An underwater blood nation would be fun.

[Hawk]

you can't hunt for blood slaves underwater though, so you'd need to use temple gemgen's or something to work around that.

[Findus]

Originally posted by Hawk:

you can't hunt for blood slaves underwater though, so you'd need to use temple gemgen's or something to work around that.

If you were to make an underwater blood nation then it probably could. I mean its easy to change if you were a dev.

It literally makes no sense that you cant anyway.

[Ica]

There could be an UW nation that hunts slaves in land provinces. I'm pretty sure there's some myths about creatures coming from the sea and taking people with them.

[forrestomintero]

theres a whole race in conquest of elysium specifically devoted to that actually. theyre the illythid analogues i think

[ナルゴ]

1. Favorite Nation - Yomi and Marverni

Yomi - It's a mediocre nation, but it is fun and I like the nation's concept of using japanese folklore creatures for war. Heavily armored Horde of Skeleton spammers with Dai Oni/Hannya enchantments/evocations is especially good against those massed troop nations. Dai Oni make for decent thugs too with their access to bless/summon earthpower/defensive buffs, and phoenix pyre. Dai Oni that get air paths in particular are good for becoming flying RoS casters and burning excess air gems by summoning Dai Tengu.

Marverni - Fast research, stellar cascade/gift communions, sacred free spawn, and cheap cost-effective troops.
They start out strong and can keep churning out armies. Golems are always fun to have as well.


2. Most powerful nation - EA Xibalba

I haven't played that many multiplayer games, but even then it became obvious that this nation is a problem. It expands fast, masses troops fast, bloodhunts fast, they're flying and stealthy, and they get great national summons on top of that. It's just a nightmare to play against.


3. OC nation - Dedicated Tengu Nation

It would be like Caelum, but with more emphasis on Earth/Nature, and thugging. They would also have japanese themed summons/national spells rather than whatever those spentas/daevas are. Sprites would be more like the humanized depictions of tengu with red skin and long pinocchio noses, rather than anthropomorphic/bird-head.

[Arkrow XIV]

Originally posted by 花鳥風月、嘯風弄月:

1. Favorite Nation - Yomi and Marverni

Yomi - It's a mediocre nation, but it is fun and I like the nation's concept of using japanese folklore creatures for war. Heavily armored Horde of Skeleton spammers with Dai Oni/Hannya enchantments/evocations is especially good against those massed troop nations. Dai Oni make for decent thugs too with their access to bless/summon earthpower/defensive buffs, and phoenix pyre. Dai Oni that get air paths in particular are good for becoming flying RoS casters and burning excess air gems by summoning Dai Tengu.

Marverni - Fast research, stellar cascade/gift communions, sacred free spawn, and cheap cost-effective troops.
They start out strong and can keep churning out armies. Golems are always fun to have as well.


2. Most powerful nation - EA Xibalba

I haven't played that many multiplayer games, but even then it became obvious that this nation is a problem. It expands fast, masses troops fast, bloodhunts fast, they're flying and stealthy, and they get great national summons on top of that. It's just a nightmare to play against.


3. OC nation - Dedicated Tengu Nation

It would be like Caelum, but with more emphasis on Earth/Nature, and thugging. They would also have japanese themed summons/national spells rather than whatever those spentas/daevas are. Sprites would be more like the humanized depictions of tengu with red skin and long pinocchio noses, rather than anthropomorphic/bird-head.

I got something similar in nationgen one is a amazon/tengu nation with AN paths and the other is a japanese ogre/caelian nation with NBE paths

[Morsigil]

Favorite nation: EA T'ien Ch'i, MA T'ien Ch'i, and LA Jomon. My predilection for all things Asian and never wanting to miss out on anything (all the magic paths) means these guys are my favorite. EA Ermor and EA Machaka are runners up.

EA TC stands above the rest, only just barely above MA TC. I love their sacreds, their flexible human soldiers, their magic diversity (though it's hard to access in a meaningful way), their awesome summons, and flying mages. One of the most enjoyable experiences I had with Celestial Masters was flying some in unexpectedly and murdering a bunch of Guhyaka with fire elementals.

Strongest: Probably EA Xibalba like the others have said. MA Ermor is stupid strong with their tribless though.

Weakest: Probably Lemuria.

Add a nation: Some more African mythology themed nations.

[Arkrow XIV]

So as I can see for EA Xilbaba is the strongest and Lemuria the weakest

[Mormacil]

Still the skilled Lemuria can trash the newest EA Xibalba player. Knowledge is power.

[Arkrow XIV]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Still the skilled Lemuria can trash the newest EA Xibalba player. Knowledge is power.

Of course, even better with some mods Lemuria getting a ghost version of a Lictor is a incredible upgrape, also I believe having more focus on cold auras or terror would be good for them