NationGen game: Introducing the nations

I’m starting a new game, one different from before. It’s using NationGen, a mod that generates new nations randomly to play as. It’s an interesting single-player diversion and now in multiplayer it’s been curated by the admin – he has generated a whole lot of nations and picked the most interesting ones, and now about half of the ones he selected have players. Mostly the more powerful ones, there was a really awesome nation of glamoured Africans on lions all decked out in teal that ended up going by the wayside because Nationgen isn’t perfect, and they were weak. Some of these other nations that did get picked are very strong.

I’m playing as something called KyoAni. I think that sharing a name with the animation studio is a coincidence, but it’s still an appropriate name, because this is a Japanese nation that doesn’t care about magic being drained from the world, and their most sacred followers are the ones who thrive when the world is coming apart around them. In other words, I have drain researchers and sacreds with deathpower. I also have a couple abyssians, which I may use for gimmick purposes at some point, but the cost (and the fact that they’re my only heat-resistant units) makes them not the best choice for typical situations. I don’t have some stand-out gimmick like many of my opponents do, but I do have a strategy that I think will make a reasonably robust counter to many of those gimmicks.

I’ll go into greater depth and talk about my nation and pretender next week, so for now let’s look at my enemies.

Durholm

These guys were actually my first choice, mainly because they look really cool, but someone else had asked for them first. They’re your typical vanir (stealthy, glamour, horses) with some typical caelians as auxiliaries, but they have a recruit-anywhere sacred with regeneration. Expensive as heck, so it’s hard to get a good bless on them and still have a decent number, but imagine it! There’s also native access to every path, though blood, astral, and water are only on randoms.
Here’s the pretender I put together for it:

Sgaridh

Another with recruit-anywhere sacred horsemen, this one doesn’t have regeneration but it has three attacks, for a pretty solid nine attacks per square with a water bless. Also all their mages ride bears for some reason? Lots of water access, as well as air, nature, and fire.

Bainoilinn

These are the representatives of the Sidhe in this game, and they’re pretty cool actually. As is normal for the sidhe, every last one of them has stealth and glamor. They have pegasus-riding sacreds, dinosaur-riding assassin-mages (both cap-only) and elves on flying snakes that spray poison. Lots of easy access to air, so thunderstrike spam may be worth denying the sky to their flying units with a storm spell. Small nature and water, and the battle scion adds cap-only fire and death.

Phuinn

Elves are bad enough, but what about giant elves? Well, the ones with glamour are cap-only though, and besides them only the little abysians with the bare thighs are stealthy. Everything’s what it looks like, more or less: Expensive. The black-kilted fomorian is an assassin, the mages all have drain, and they access death, air, and a little blood.

Miaria

Even worse than giant elves: Tiny elves. Glamour and stealth on every unit, plus you can cram six of them in a square. Well, there’s also some caelians but they don’t bring that much to the table. The sacred, on the other hand, is a hawk-mounted glamourous invulnerable hoburg. Tons of water, and also good air, nature, and fire.

Waen

Hoburg Space Marines! That’s what the guy playing them is talking about anyway, and they look cool but they’re cap only and not really super special, they just look cool. The really noteworthy thing here is the cheap blood hunter and the paths for demon knights and storm demons.

Lieneck

Twelve attacks per square, at dirt cheap prices. Well, they’re gladiators, but still. They also have caveman riders, magmacasters, and skelespam.

Eholm

Twelve attacks per square, at ten gold per unit, and this time without a catch. (aside froma pair of lost Fomorian mages) are stealthy berserkers, but undisciplined, and all the mages have drain research. Much ado has been made about their scouts, who generate gold per turn in excess of their upkeep, but I suspect that in play it will rarely be wise to recruit a scout when you could recruit a mage, regardless of the small gold bonus. Paths are nature and blood.

Janvaldorf

Hoburgs, hoburgs riding cavemen, hoburgs riding deer, caelians with fear, and hoburgs riding giant hawks. In other words, little guys, big guys, fear checks for your back line guys, and stealthy fliers. What a pain in the ass they’ll be. They have plenty air and water, plus fire and earth on their cap-onlies.

Sardash

You think Janvaldorf is bad? Well Sardash also has fear birds. You know what’s worse than that, though? Stealthy fear birds. The stealthy ones are 55g each but with enough of them, there won’t be any casualties from that before an entire mage corps is wiped out, and they can hit you in your back country. Oh, and they have access to every path aside from astral and blood, although outside the capital they only get earth and fire.

Panani

If you’ve got fear, the other side of the coin is awe. Guess what, there’s birds with that too! And also death recruitment and cold protection, so no bets on what scales they’ll take. They get reliable astral and fire access, and one mage has S1 and three randoms, each of which could be astral, fire, water, or earth.

Gythia

Some stately and quite aesthetically appealing bronze-clad minotaurs, with flying mages and archers. As you would expect, their stuff is quite expensive. All the casters have earth, there are some with E1F1, some with E2 and a random, and three cap-only Slow-to-recruit mages with E2 and your choice of F2, D2, or S2.

Ishria

These minotaurs have Fomorian allies. There’s some deathpower and deathrecruit on those. Paths: Death, blood, air.

Minasan

This is unusual in that Nationgen chose a name that makes some degree of sense. “Mina-san” is a Japanese way to address a group of people, and it means more or less “everybody”, phrased reasonably respectfully. So it’s sort of like native American groups that name themselves descriptively in that way, but Japanese. They have bear riders, which I guess is cool. Fire, water, and earth. In the capital, also astral and air.

Posinia

Basically this guy’s gonna want to claim the sea. Paths: earth, air, fire, astral.

Seor

Dust Walkers and lizards. The dust walkers are average price undead with fire power, the lizards are expensive and have brute force. The chariots are sacred, have high stats, and are size 5 tramplers, making them very potent units and on top of that they apparently turn into earth elementals when defeated. At least they’re expensive and cap-only. There’s earth, fire, and death magic, but outside the capital there’s only earth.

Imyt

Finally, here’s a slightly better version of Abysia. Their sacred is worse but it’s recruit anywhere and it’s doing the bare thigh thing that Abyssians do in Nationgen for some reason. I don’t know why, it doesn’t get a seduction bonus. But the commander version does get an inspiration bonus, maybe that’s why. The guy playing them said that he likes their armored flying demonbred, which are also nice. Paths: Lots of fire, some astral and death.

Flags and Pretenders