Faction Observations: Who's the strongest? Who's the best?

[sparr]

I find that the only reliable way to rate factions is against each other. Given enough time I would compile a list of the factions ranked by their effectiveness against each other faction. I happen to enjoy playing Knalgans, but against Undead their lack of any fire/holy attacks and poor damage type variety otherwise is totally crippling.

One thing that would be nice to have is statistics of games played on the official server. This would help in such comparisons.

[tadpol]

on rating factions against eachother based on a sever log of win/losses:
I'd think it would indicate which factions new/vetran players prefer. But I've already posted my thoughts on that point.

on scouts:
I guess I would count the surian as a scout as much as I'd count the horseman as a scout, when I look at them I see a good attack with the ability to place that attack where it counts (surian- skirmisher, horseman- high movement) they can be used as scouts I guess, but the horse is sooo expencive, and the drake fighter/glider can do better than the surian depending on the map. The gryphon kinda falls into this category too in my mind, except it's such a good scout and the footpad isn't.

on calvary:
with all their resistances they make decent fighters against any faction and can turn back into true form scouts if they get into trouble, this is not to say anyone should try attacking with only calvary, but they do indeed rock.

on undead:
ok, I see the light. After playing a few games paying attention to such things the undead are quicker to swarm than most, but I'm not convinced it's as big a difference as it has been represented in this thread.

[Doc Paterson]

I happen to enjoy playing Knalgans, but against Undead their lack of any fire/holy attacks and poor damage type variety otherwise is totally crippling.

So, there's this great new damage type, and it's called IMPACT.

[Tmoiy]

Yeah, impact is good enough to deal with most undead. Knalgans still die against ghosts, though.

[Tux2B]

Yeah, impact is good enough to deal with most undead. Knalgans still die against ghosts, though.

But ghosts being more expensive than skeletons, and thunderers being quite effective against ghosts, is that a very big deal? Because anyway, ghosts don't do very high damage. You won't win a game if you use only ghosts.

[Elvish_Pillager]

You won't win a game if you use only ghosts.

That really depends who you are playing against.

[Gale]

ok i'll tell the drakes are.......
depends on their money! (hahahaha<?)
weak to pierce? they can cover them with clasher or saurian, thay have resistance for pierce
ok clasher r slow and don't have ranged attack, but clasher have variation of melee attack
glider r fast n ignore terrain(except cave). the augur r helping, they r fast to make them can aid army quickly and yes, almost drakes are quick(except clasher) so they can attack & retreat quickly.
if drakes start with low money (100 is cheap for drakes) you need extra tactics to get money. if you get high money(like 300 or 500) thi faction can kill everything easily with swarming drakes(they'r above average at offensive and have healing unit, and can cover the weakness with their clasher)
oh yeah about lava... they can cross the chasm and lava give you day when dawn/dusk and dawn when night(yeah get your drakes on lava)
well.. drake weak on ice but not for saurian(while they'r weak for fire)
i don't think about other faction, and i think drakes r great, and i see for some people dwarve r good,yeah, with their thunderer (ok its a 1 hit chance)the elves r good in forest with high def, their woses are good for distracting enemy with their ambushing, Northerners eh? i'm not exprienced with it, but however, its not a big problem to fight with their killing melee(poison is killing ), loyalist... hm.... they can charge!!(but it can kill them self) and shock trooper r sucks with their strong scout, undead r high defensive from some attack(skeleton have 60% resistance for...(i forgot ) and their ghost keep draining my drakes(thats make them immortal unit ) but somehow get the ghost with fire.
ok for some tactics, get the elf with your magic(because it will hit 70% )
get the undead with holy(some units don't have holy attack,but undead have small health, the adept is killing at ranged but not in their melee, and all know, get them at day)
for the dwarves..... no idea
for the drakes...... get your ice attack to them and attack them whenever you have high defend (cause you will almost hit them)
don't have idea for loyalist, i just slay them
northerners? get your ranged units ready n cure units+defensive units

[Tmoiy]

ok i'll tell the drakes are.......
depends on their money! (hahahaha<?)...

I think my head might be exploding from the world-breaking lack of grammar.

[Kamamura]

Yea, that post gave me a headache too. Quite unreadable, really.

[Gale]

sorry about that, english is my second language

[martenzo]

English is my second language too, but I still can consider myself fluent in it. No offense though, I understand that for some people English can be difficult, especially when your first language is not similiar enough to english.

[KingofNoobia]

I think Loyalist are best as they are very flexible. If you recruit wisely they can beat almost any faction, as they have almost all attack types (no cold though...). The only treat is Knalgans in extremely mountainous terrain, so they can't use their powerful cavalry, nor their heavy infantry (which is one of the few units that can actually beat up dwarfish fighters in melee combat). They can also have some trouble beating up rebels in a giant forest, because their cavalry is weak and slow there and their infantry is very slow there.

-They beat up Knalgans in open terrain or forests easily.
-They defeat Rebels in open terrain, hills or mountains easily.
-Drakes don't last long against the large Loyalist pierce weapon arsenal.
-Undead get mowed down by them, skeletal units by HI, ghosts and melee undead by mages and adepts by horsemen.
-Northerners are mowed down in ranged combat, and their scouts dont stand a chance against powerful human cavalry. Just stay out of the hills and get these northies out in open terrain.

So i think that Loyalists are the kings of the plains, and most of the terrain is plains. As long as there is not too much of the enemy's favorite terrain, Loyalists own all

[KingofNoobia]

I think dwarves are the strongest faction because of the damn gryphons and their great resitance. In my opinion gryphons are still owerpowered even if they have become more expansive from release to release. 12-2 is the second best level 1 attack while having got scout movement and even can fly.

Gryphons are indeed strong when level one, but in campaign games, they get quite underpowered in experienced armies... The Gryphon Master isn't that powerful anymore compared to other lvl 2 units, and he cant get lvl 3 too...

[Noy]

...Notice, their talking about MP, not campaigns. Balance has nothing to do with single player.

[TL]

I think Loyalist are best as they are very flexible. If you recruit wisely they can beat almost any faction,

So long as you're playing against the computer and not against a competent human player, sure.

Knalgans: Poachers/footpads/thieves are effective cheap stallers for holding loyalists off of forest hexes until nighttime, when you can pound all the lawful loyalists with impunity. Loyalists defend in the night, knalgans defend in the day... and knalgans are much better at defending than loyalists are. Loyalists need mages to effectively deal with 60% and 70% defense, and mages are ulfserker kills waiting to happen.

Rebels: Again, rebels can just stay in their forests and villages during the day and strike at night when the loyalists are weak, and the loyalists don't have as much defensive terrain to use as rebels do. Woses can be a major headache for the loyalists since they can bash basically any loyalist unit with impunity (cavalrymen can more or less stand up to woses, but in turn are horribly vulnerable to rebels' bows) and can't be removed quickly except with expensive and vulnerable mages.

Drakes: OK, loyalists vs. drakes is something of a tricky spot. In the last few dev releases the MP devs have been fine-tuning this to make saurians a more effective counter to pierce units.

Undead: Undead can mow down loyalists as fast as loyalists mow down undead. Give an opportunity skeletons kill mages even faster than mages kill skeletons (and at 15 gold per skeleton vs. 20 gold per mage), heavy infantry is vulnerable to adepts, horsemen do rather poor damage except against adepts and are too expensive to recruit many anyhow. Plus ghouls can spread around poison while soaking up attacks, since hardly anything can kill them quickly.

Northerners: Grunts are weak individually but are inexpensive and represent lots of HP for their cost, coupled with trolls to hold hills and mountains during the daytime. Heavy infantrymen can be dealt with using poison and fire.

So i think that Loyalists are the kings of the plains, and most of the terrain is plains. As long as there is not too much of the enemy's favorite terrain, Loyalists own all

It doesn't matter how much of each terrain there is, because a human opponent will avoid using bad terrain. It doesn't matter how much of the map consists of forest hexes, if you're playing rebels you're going to have to fight them in forests because that's where they're going to be (unless you're playing the computer). Even a loyalist player is going to avoid leaving units in plains if they're smart.