The Gaming Den

If we can get ten players while my other game is still running (not me), then I will run the draft, set up the mod script and the map for people.

Otherwise, it'll have to wait; I would like to play so I won't cry horribly if we can't get ten participants for a while. This is how I'm thinking of setting up the draft order, but I would like feedback. In particular, this would be "better" for 8 players than for 10, since there are 8 pairs of mirrored lists that'd mean with 8 players that everyone would get a chance to go first+last, and everyone would get a chance to go last+first, at least once. But the whole point of this setup is that this shouldn't be needed, since within each pair of mirrored-drafts the different orders are hopefully relatively balanced.

1. Colors, Nation Names and Package of National Powers (see below)
   • Pick:1.1----1st (Korwin)
     Pick:1.2----2nd (K)
     Pick:1.3----3rd (Tador)
     Pick:1.4----4th
     Pick:1.5----5th
     Pick:1.6----6th
     Pick:1.7----7th
     Pick:1.8----8th
     Pick:1.9----9th
     Pick:1.10----10th (DrPraetor)
2. Scout (will be starting scout) and Minor Mage or Specialist
   • Pick:2.1----2nd
     Pick:2.2----3rd
     Pick:2.3----4th
     Pick:2.4----5th
     Pick:2.5----6th
     Pick:2.6----7th
     Pick:2.7----8th
     Pick:2.8----9th
     Pick:2.9----10th
     Pick:2.10----1st
3. General (will be starting commander and leader for PD 1-19) and Priest
   • Pick:3.1----1st
     Pick:3.2----10th
     Pick:3.3----9th
     Pick:3.4----8th
     Pick:3.5----7th
     Pick:3.6----6th
     Pick:3.7----5th
     Pick:3.8----4th
     Pick:3.9----3rd
     Pick:3.10----2nd
4. Build-anywhere Commander (any, presumably a mage)
   • Pick:4.1----3rd
     Pick:4.2----4th
     Pick:4.3----5th
     Pick:4.4----6th
     Pick:4.5----7th
     Pick:4.6----8th
     Pick:4.7----9th
     Pick:4.8----10th
     Pick:4.9----1st
     Pick:4.10----2nd
5. Build-anywhere Commander (any, second pick)
   • Pick:5.1----2nd
     Pick:5.2----1st
     Pick:5.3----10th
     Pick:5.4----9th
     Pick:5.5----8th
     Pick:5.6----7th
     Pick:5.7----6th
     Pick:5.8----5th
     Pick:5.9----4th
     Pick:5.10----3rd
6. Capital-only Commander (any)
   • Pick:6.1----4th
     Pick:6.2----5th
     Pick:6.3----6th
     Pick:6.4----7th
     Pick:6.5----8th
     Pick:6.6----9th
     Pick:6.7----10th
     Pick:6.8----1st
     Pick:6.9----2nd
     Pick:6.10----3rd
7. Capital-only Commander (any, second pick, will be PD commander for 20+ PD)
   • Pick:7.1----3rd
     Pick:7.2----2nd
     Pick:7.3----1st
     Pick:7.4----10th
     Pick:7.5----9th
     Pick:7.6----8th
     Pick:7.7----7th
     Pick:7.8----6th
     Pick:7.9----5th
     Pick:7.10----4th
   NOTE: At this stage I think people get the point so I'm just entering the first and final person in each draft order.
8. Build-anywhere troop (any, will be PD unit for 20+)
   • Pick:8.1----5th
     Pick:8.10----4th
9. Build-anywhere troop (any, second pick, will be PD unit for 20+) -
   • Pick:9.1----4th
     Pick:9.10----5th
10. Build-anywhere troop (any, third pick, will be starting army and PD unit for 1-19)
    • Pick:10.1----6th
      Pick:10.10----5th
11. Build-anywhere troop (any, fourth pick, will be starting army and PD unit for 1-19)
    • Pick:11.1----5th
      Pick:11.10----6th
12. Capital-only Troop (any)
    • Pick:12.1----7th
      Pick:12.10----6th
13. Capital-only Troop (any, second pick)
    • Pick:13.1----6th
      Pick:13.10----7th
    NOTICE - Pretender God and National Spells *both mirror* the "national powers" draft order. This is a somewhat subjective call on my part but I think it's fair.
14. Pretender God
    • Pick:14.1----10th
      Pick:14.10----1st
15. Spell 1
    • Pick:15.1----10th
      Pick:15.10----1st
16. Spell 2
    • Pick:16.1----8th
      Pick:16.10----7th
17. Spell 3
    • Pick:17.1----7th
      Pick:17.10----8th
    Now, you really can't have a late era game without huge scads of blood sacrifice and armies of the dead, can you? So each nation will start out by selecting some major advantage from the list below. These want to be as well-balanced against one another as possible, so I'm definitely taking suggestions.
    
    Also, I've added a category of "minor mages and specialists". To qualify for this, a commander must:
    • Not qualify to be chosen as a general, priest or scout: so either lacking leadership 40, stealth or holy magic; or, being capital-only.
    • Have at-most minor magic, and thus not really qualify for being chosen as a Mage either. In general, recruit-anywhere mages can have 1 pick and still be minor while capital-only mages can have 2 picks and still be minor... but I'm making an executive decision and excluding the Iron Crafter since he has a forge bonus, and the Mictlan Priest because that would be insane.
      
      Minor Mages and Specialists
      • Judge (1645) Man
        Magister (1644) Man
        Lord Warden (1666) Man {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Fortune Teller (1011) Ulm {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Wolfherd (1028) Ulm {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Hochmeister (1237) Ulm {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Chartmaker (1031) Marignon
        Admiral (1030) Marignon {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Monk of the Fivefold Path (2098) Jomon
        Blindlord (1444) Agartha
        Slayer Anathemant (1966) {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Slayer Sanguine (1967) {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Empoisoner (502) C'tis {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Black Dryad (901) Pangaea {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Vanherse (263) Vanheim {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Iassacharite Sage (1997) Gath
        Seren (2001) Gath {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Star Child (443) R'lyeh
        Serpent Acolyte (830) Pythium
        Leo (1872) Pythium
        Mystes (1876) Pythium
        Reveler (1880) Pythium
        Theurg (1874) Pythium {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Serpent Assassin (1879) Pythium {CAPITAL ONLY}
        Eparch (1961) Bogarus {CAPITAL ONLY}
      Package of National Powers
      • (option 1)
        #zombiereanim
        #horsereanim
        #wightreanim
      • (option 2)
        #manikinreanim
      • (option 3)
        #tombwyrmreanim
      • (option 4)
        -- one of your capital-only sites makes 50 gp. Note for admin alone that's actually 75.
        #startfort 31
      • (option 5)
        #sacrificedom
        #templecost 200
      • (option 6)
        #sacrificedom
        #idealcold -1
      • (option 7)
        #startfort 31
        #defaultfort 8
        #castleprod 25
        #idealcold 1
      • (option 8)
        #defaultfort 20
        #labcost 300
      • (option 9)
        -- Your PD is calculated at 300gp/10 PD instead of 200gp/10 PD.
        -- Your starting army is 800gp worth of troops instead of 400 gp worth of troops.
      • (option 10)
        -- Your capital has 10-pt path bonus site, of your choice but not Construction (sorry). This makes you a lot more desirable to conquer!
        -- Your capital makes 4 more gems/mo of your choice, for a total of 8.
        -- At the end of the draft process, choose an additional National Spell from those remaining. If someone takes options 16-18, you pick before they do.
      • (option 11)
        #idealcold 2
        #templecost 300
      • (option 12)
        #idealcold 3
        -- One of the sites in your capital has #incscale 2, to help you keep things cold.
        -- Your capital makes 2 more gems/mo of your choice, for a total of 6.
      • (option 13)
        #idealcold -2
        #templecost 300
      • (option 14)
        #idealcold -3
        -- One of the sites in your capital has #decscale 2, to help you keep things warm.
        -- Your capital makes 2 more gems/mo of your choice, for a total of 6.
      • (option 15)
        -- When the draft is over, make one additional choice from two different draft lists, chosen from: . If someone takes options 16 or 17, you pick before they do.
      • (option 16)
        -- When the draft is over, make two additional choices from the same draft list, chosen from:. If someone takes option 17, you pick before they do.
      • (option 17)
        -- When the draft is over, make one additional choice from three different draft lists, chosen from: .

I'm kind of obsessed with the draft format right now, so I'd play.

That being said, I think tombwyrm reanimation needs to be linked to zombie reanimation. Otherwise, I think you only get tombwyrms and can't make zombies and ghouls. You'd need to check that.

I also think we could have an option for more national spells. There really are a lot of good ones, especially considering LA Ermor's spells.

In the other draft I also floated the idea of an extra trait added to a unit of your choice, but I'm not sure if that would work. Adding Holy or Lifeless to a unit might be too powerful.

Maybe also an option to get something like Loremasters or Wizards as your national heroes?

Maybe also an option to make Aquatic PD and Aquatic forts?

Yeah, we could give people more than 3 spells. I'd be open to adding a round to draft heroes - I think I would allow any capital-only, early era commander to be selected as a multihero, and each nation would get two? That seems fair.

How about this:
* In round 15, you pick two spells at once.
* In rounds 16 and 17, you pick a single spell (so a total of 4), and also you pick an EA, capital-only commander to serve as a multihero.

I'm not sure if underwater PD is modable, unfortunately. I know you can provide underwater recruitment for land nations, and I assume that entering any fort in the underwater fort specification will enable you to build the corresponding fort in shallow water.

First, if it doesnt start to soon I'm interested.

Second, you pair the worthless choices with meaningful ones (name + nation package).
How about pairing the spy + priest draft with an second round package? Where the remaining packages are drafted and/or you can buy upgrades to an existing package draft (cold 2 into cold 3?).
But if an upgrade is possible there must be a chance someone could take it away (upgrade is not cold2 into cold3, but increase your temp. preference by one)...

If there is only on package draft is it after units and commander or do you get to draft units via package before any are taken?

Thirdly, Spells...
Are there many spells restricted to an era? The only one who comes to my mind is Lord of Civilication (the Grigori one).
Do you want to restrict spells by Era or not?

Enough Brainstorming for now...

I think that the national power round would kinda come down to reanimation or blood sac as those open up the most powerful options in my opinion. Everything else should be balance to be competitive with cheap freespawn and massive dompushing. I know people here are skeptical of bloodsac victories, but if you are the only sacrifice nation they become an order of magnitude easier.

EDIT: Looking at the packages, you should really go with ideal cold 3 or -3 because the production bonus is a free sloth 2 if you want to look at it that way. Or dial down the prod bonus to 15% so it is only sloth 1.

For the extra spell package, how about you select a nation and you get all of their spells that haven't already been drafted? People would select Patala, Mictlan, Pangaea, or Ermor and have a whole interlocking shtick dropped on them.

Heat doesn't interact with sloth much at all, because it changes your gold and supplies, not your resources. It is heat and growth which largely counteract.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Heat doesn't interact with sloth much at all, because it changes your gold and supplies, not your resources. It is heat and growth which largely counteract.

-Username17

My point was more that temp preference is free points and that as it stood, there was another option which had comparable free points and something else if you choose to look at it that way.

Frank: Akula is comparing bonus resources and reanimating priests. Not really a fair comparison, obviously.

Nothing else is done on a per-nation basis, so I'm reluctant to make spells work that way. I'd be happy to let people choose spells from other eras... I need to revise my code-diving into spells anyway, I'll make a list.

Korwin - in terms of "pairing" worthless + meaningful, do you mean pairing in the sense of choosing at the same time (as in nation name and also nation power?) or do you mean "pairing" in terms of - if you choose 1st on this list, you choose last on that one?

My theory was basically:
* national priest will actually get recruited several times probably, also several people will have sacrificedom or reanimation, so is most important.
* national general can be a good thug, so is second-most important
* the "expert" was added with the assumption that they'd be good, but I think there actually aren't enough decent ones in the late era; I'd like people to have the option of recruiting Wolfherds, Iassacharite Sages and Admirals but it's not going to matter at all, no-one will. I was originally going to give out Judges and Magisters but really those guys are mages and shouldn't be available for free at this stage.
* national scouts don't really matter, everyone uses Indies. I mean, you start with one so it's not completely irrelevant.

--DrP

By far the strongest choices are blood sac and +3 slaves, Bonus site and +3 gems, and Manikin Reanimation. I don't think that a "national advantages" round can really be balanced, as some of those choices will just warp the rest of the draft. Bonus site guy will want to turtle for his life as he has built in gem gen discount which is insane and awful for the game. I don't really want to play in a game where I have to deal with MA Ermorx2-3, LA Mictlan, and some dick who will spend the entire game forging gem gens and making his secret numbers go up. 3-4 out of a prospective 10 player will have an annoying gimmick on top of whatever they draft, one player will be a fucking facehugger, and the rest of us get to play around that shit as best we can. Then one or two of "the rest of us" hit lategame and suddenly they are domkilling everyone because seriously fuck dealing with forts full of thousands of undead and some asshole with a million gem gens.

I'm... obviously less impressed by these various powers than Akula is.

For starters, I'm quite certain that blood sac + cheap temples is *way* better than blood sac + 3 slaves; 3 slaves is nothing! That's half a warlock apprentice worth of monthly hunting income.

I can't figure out how to attach documents to these posts. I have a new list of spells?

Anyway, there are 36 national spells which are not at all found in the late era:

• Apostacy
  Attentive Statues
  Banquet for the Dead
  Barathrus Pact
  Celestial Music
  Contact Boar of Carnutes
  Contact Cu Sidhe
  Contact Huli Jing
  Contact Iron Angel
  Contact Nagaraja
  Contact Nagarishi
  Contact Nagini
  Dance of the Morrigans
  Dirge for the Dead
  End of Culture
  End of Weakness
  Enliven Granite Guard
  Enliven Marble Oracle
  Enliven Sentinel
  Faery Trod
  Healing Song
  Heavenly Fires
  Heavenly Rivers
  Horror Seed
  Monster Boar
  Release Lord of Civilization
  Rhuax Pact
  Song of Bravery
  Soothing Song
  Sounder of Boars
  Summon Monster Toads
  Summon Morrigan
  Summon Nagas
  Summon Shikome
  Summon Spectral Infantry
  Thousand Year Ginseng

Dude, you want to hand out a discount site in the capital. That is some Amos nation shit right there, even though it is a small discount, it means more gem gens and I flat out don't want to deal with the guy running that strategy.

Honestly you should just remove the reanimation, blood sac, and discount sight options. They will have an impact which will drastically change the way draft works and the game plays, they should not be available at the same time as other options that could be described as nice bonuses. Having vs not having reanimation, blood sac, or a discount site make or break a game in a way that a slightly better starting army or slightly better forts really don't.

Having those +3 slaves from turn 1 could save your life, or let you finish an early war with saccing. Having discounted temples will save you something like 2-10K gold over the course of a game probably. I value the potential lifesaving niche over the low return savings. 10K gold requires you to make 50 temples as a blood sac nation.

Oldest Profession just ended. I had only a single blood hunter left at the end, and on the last turn of the game he made... 17 slaves. 3 Slaves is a very small amount. Over a 59 turn game (like Oldest Profession was), that would be a total of 179 blood slaves. That's roughly what you'd have if you'd recruited an extra Mictlan Priest and set him to blood hunting on turn 23. As in: that's seriously an extra 132 gold worth of Mictlan Priest (recruitment + upkeep), more or less.

3 blood slaves a turn is cool in the early game because it means that you don't have to blood hunt until you have dousing rods. But that's all it does. The actual total change in your overall blood economy is trivial.

The 200 gold temples is a better deal even if you only ever build one temple.

-Username17

Sacrifice isn't that interesting. The only real application is dom-killing someone who you can't successfully siege but have otherwise beaten.

The same goes for reanimation. Cheap priests are not hard to mass and the undead you get are no longer effective in combat once someone has done that. Mostly, they are good for sieging and some disposable chaff.

K wrote:Sacrifice isn't that interesting. The only real application is dom-killing someone who you can't successfully siege but have otherwise beaten.

Or winning the game. Every other dom3 community is actually right about this, and the fact that it hasn't happened here is more of a product of our small size and the falsehoods that our more experienced players spread about it's efficacy.

Raw math here, with jade knives and H3, a temple generates 11 temple checks per turn, with dom 10 all those checks succeed. With 20 temples involved you generate 220 raw dominion per turn at the cost of 100 blood slaves and 20 priest/mage turns. Assuming 10 players and 15 provinces per player and a temple in every enemy province and all gods awake, your enemies will generate a combined total of 9 automatic candles and 148 temple checks. Since not all your opponents will have dom 10 not every check will succeed, lets say that average dom is 8 so that around ~120 candles actually get made each turn. Every turn you generate around 100 candles more than the rest of the world combined. So roughly you fill 10 provinces with your dominion each turn. The world has a little more than a year at best. Keep in mind that every single province that is not your own is assumed to have a temple here, which is ridiculous.

The same goes for reanimation. Cheap priests are not hard to mass and the undead you get are no longer effective in combat once someone has done that. Mostly, they are good for sieging and some disposable chaff.

These will not be nations that only have undead. Unlike MA ermor they will also have significant magic diversity and powerful mages recruitable everywhere, throwing reanimation on top of that will mean that the mages blowing all your shit up also have never ending waves of chaff to stand in front of them. Also high quality troops. At a bear minimum, the undead can patrol for extra gold for free. Making it better than any of the free gold or free scales choices, even assuming that the combat utility is 0 (which it isn't) and that the priests cost nothing (they don't). Throw down darkness and antimagic and those priest don't do as much and the undead are twice as effective.

I don't think my point should be hard to grasp: as proposed some people would get super powers and some people would get to suck a dick. Either the superpowers have to go or everyone needs to get one. I also don't feel like playing in a game where the premise is that you get to tac a bunch of "extra bullshit" on your nation. Having a draft is already complex and has enough to distinguish nations sharply, you don't need a round of incredibly poorly thought out, and balanced, extras to go with it. I feel that maybe, once people have played and reported back on these games, and when we have a handle on what is good and what is unusable, it might be good to mod things like MA ermor's mages or pan's summons to perform their base game functions without the nation coding that backs them up. But people should cool their jets on shaking up the shaken up format a bit for fucks sake. One game has been completed testing this idea, and none of us played in it.

Im intresting in the draft.

and other Question have entuell anyone an Learning kurse for noob drafters.

You know all my drafts are not the best and i will be becomming better.

Greetings..
tador

Re: Dominion Kill...

I haven't played enough games to say for sure, but I will note that I very nearly died of Dominion Kill in Oldest Profession. I was hovering at less than 50 Dominion at one point, and I had to essentially drop everything to build temples and Stone Idols.

The sad part? The people who nearly DomKilled me weren't even intentionally trying to do it - Pangaea and Hinnom both simply had very high Dominion vs my Dominion of 6.

I'm interested.

As for Domkill, I've never heard of someone winning the game exclusively through blood sacrifice. You can bet you'll take out your immediate neighbours with a concentrated dom push, but you should expect some hefty reprisals from the surviving players.

If they can't put aside their differences and coordinate their efforts to take out the Blood Sac'ing nation, then they are going to lose. If the Blood Sacrificing nation is strong enough to protect themselves while their priests convert the world, they deserve to win. It's that simple. In some ways, it can be compared to raising Arcane Nexus or another game-changing global.

Zinegata wrote:The sad part? The people who nearly DomKilled me weren't even intentionally trying to do it - Pangaea and Hinnom both simply had very high Dominion vs my Dominion of 6.

In part this is from your own dom score, take 7 or 8 (most experienced players seem to advise these dom levels for everything) and you shouldn't die to dom by accident. But the only thing that can stop a concerted dompush is a coalition. If you suspect someone is starting a major dom push, you and the rest of the players in the game need to invade and take them out.

@Winnah: I kinda doubt that most players here have enough experience fighting concerted dom pushing to respond effectively in time. The way I heard it from a vet is that "when enemy dom enters into your land, you personally have 3-5 turns." When people have been denying that it can work I don't think they will grasp the immediacy and scope of the threat. Also, in this game, at most two nations could blood sac, which makes it more dangerous. I do mainly agree with your post though.

Akula wrote:

Zinegata wrote:The sad part? The people who nearly DomKilled me weren't even intentionally trying to do it - Pangaea and Hinnom both simply had very high Dominion vs my Dominion of 6.

In part this is from your own dom score, take 7 or 8 (most experienced players seem to advise these dom levels for everything) and you shouldn't die to dom by accident. But the only thing that can stop a concerted dompush is a coalition. If you suspect someone is starting a major dom push, you and the rest of the players in the game need to invade and take them out.

Dom 6 isn't bad, the problem is that I neglected to build any temples at all until something like Turn 50. So I had to Stone Idol some of the higher enemy Dominion provinces (which "soaked" the spill over) while I built up temples to properly build up my Dominion again.

Winnah wrote: As for Domkill, I've never heard of someone winning the game exclusively through blood sacrifice. You can bet you'll take out your immediate neighbours with a concentrated dom push, but you should expect some hefty reprisals from the surviving players.

Now, you have. I won an game only with Blood Sac.
When I started the blood sac, I was one of the leading nation.
All other players started to act against me, but the longer it took the more players got killed by my blood saccing.

If they would have interrupted my blood hunting (they tried, but did'nt shut it down completly) they would have lived a little longer (until I would have started to wish for blood slaves).

I think they got to destroy 3 temples (they where behind forts), could they have done an better job of stopping me? Yes, but I think now I would be more effective if I tried it again, too...

Tador wrote: and other Question have entuell anyone an Learning kurse for noob drafters.

Greetings..
tador

You want an learning course?
Play the game, its the only solution.

Or maybe read Let's play of Dominion3.

Korwin wrote:

Winnah wrote: As for Domkill, I've never heard of someone winning the game exclusively through blood sacrifice. You can bet you'll take out your immediate neighbours with a concentrated dom push, but you should expect some hefty reprisals from the surviving players.

Now, you have. I won an game only with Blood Sac.
When I started the blood sac, I was one of the leading nation.
All other players started to act against me, but the longer it took the more players got killed by my blood saccing.

Relevant part bolded.

When I started the blood sac, I was one of the leading nation

Winnah wrote:If the Blood Sacrificing nation is strong enough to protect themselves while their priests convert the world, they deserve to win.

Congratulations on the win.

Akula wrote:

K wrote:Sacrifice isn't that interesting. The only real application is dom-killing someone who you can't successfully siege but have otherwise beaten.

Or winning the game. Every other dom3 community is actually right about this, and the fact that it hasn't happened here is more of a product of our small size and the falsehoods that our more experienced players spread about it's efficacy.

Raw math here, with jade knives and H3, a temple generates 11 temple checks per turn, with dom 10 all those checks succeed. With 20 temples involved you generate 220 raw dominion per turn at the cost of 100 blood slaves and 20 priest/mage turns. Assuming 10 players and 15 provinces per player and a temple in every enemy province and all gods awake, your enemies will generate a combined total of 9 automatic candles and 148 temple checks. Since not all your opponents will have dom 10 not every check will succeed, lets say that average dom is 8 so that around ~120 candles actually get made each turn. Every turn you generate around 100 candles more than the rest of the world combined. So roughly you fill 10 provinces with your dominion each turn. The world has a little more than a year at best. Keep in mind that every single province that is not your own is assumed to have a temple here, which is ridiculous.

If you can protect 20 provinces from assassination spells, enemy armies, and disruptions of your blood hunting supply for a year AND no was was smart enough to be preaching, then you could have won the game a while ago. The dom-kill was just spiking the ball.

I mean, your neighbors let a blood sac nation build 20 temples. That's basically letting you win the game.

The same goes for reanimation. Cheap priests are not hard to mass and the undead you get are no longer effective in combat once someone has done that. Mostly, they are good for sieging and some disposable chaff.

These will not be nations that only have undead. Unlike MA ermor they will also have significant magic diversity and powerful mages recruitable everywhere, throwing reanimation on top of that will mean that the mages blowing all your shit up also have never ending waves of chaff to stand in front of them. Also high quality troops. At a bear minimum, the undead can patrol for extra gold for free. Making it better than any of the free gold or free scales choices, even assuming that the combat utility is 0 (which it isn't) and that the priests cost nothing (they don't). Throw down darkness and antimagic and those priest don't do as much and the undead are twice as effective.

I've used undead a lot. They really aren't as good as you make them out to be, and this is why nations like MA Ermor and Lanka don't win every game they are in. They don't even win more often than the top ten nations in their Era for the simple reason that reanimation costs mage turns. Even the H1 priests in the few provinces with them cost temples, gold, and upkeep and they only give out crap ghouls. Castle turns spent cranking out pure priests is time not spent cranking out mages.

At the point where you are blowing gems and tossing down Darkness, people are tossing down crap like Earthquake or Rain of Stones. Armies of thousands of undead look impressive in late game until they make contact with any player who is actually trying to play well.

Heck, even 500 gold of H1s with a real army is going to demolish an army of a thousand longdead.

Yeah, leading nation.
I had at max 1/5 provinces with 5 nations in the game. I would'nt have been able to win in any other way.
Shinuyama's Dai Oni regulary trashed me...
My luck was, Shinuyama being the second nation to die from my blood sac.

K wrote:If you can protect 20 provinces from assassination spells,

Domes.

enemy armies,

Takes time

and disruptions of your blood hunting supply for a year

People can stockpile slaves.

AND no was was smart enough to be preaching,

You have to be kidding. Preaching is not the same as temple checks.

I mean, your neighbors let a blood sac nation build 20 temples. That's basically letting you win the game.

Note that that example had the other players building 130 temples.

I've used undead a lot. They really aren't as good as you make them out to be, and this is why nations like MA Ermor and Lanka don't win every game they are in. They don't even win more often than the top ten nations in their Era

Those statistics are not meaningful.

for the simple reason that reanimation costs mage turns. Even the H1 priests in the few provinces with them cost temples, gold, and upkeep and they only give out crap ghouls.

Sometimes you need a hoard of chaff. And you can more then equalize that disparity by overtaxing. It is an option significantly more powerful than a larger starting army.

Castle turns spent cranking out pure priests is time not spent cranking out mages.

Mage priests will probably be the order of the day for this.

At the point where you are blowing gems and tossing down Darkness, people are tossing down crap like Earthquake or Rain of Stones.

Earthquake is not good and they are welcome to try. Rain of stones requires a crosspath that is not common at all.

Armies of thousands of undead look impressive in late game until they make contact with any player who is actually trying to play well.

It isn't just an army with a bunch of undead, the undead are the chaff. The main force will be some kind of demons, backed by mages, because LA is full of blood.

Heck, even 500 gold of H1s with a real army is going to demolish an army of a thousand longdead.

The point is that you have a real army and they have a real army and 200+ longdead. Or they have manikins in every province and raiding them is a nightmare on wheels. The point is that the one nation that is made with cranking out undead in mind, MA ermor, pays a significant amount of extra gold for their mages, and gets poor magic diversity, plus their army is hardly optimized for supporting undead. Since this is a draft you just can't count on those things. I mean they could lay down that cold fatigue thing and antimagic and laugh about your attempt to rid them of undead because they are really only their to slow you until everyone on your side is passed the fuck out. It isn't hard to think of tactics where the undead form a free blocking force and their loss is expected, but you trade them for time to make something work, it could be something as simple as evo spam.