Factions without Landscapes

[CHTennis]

So I started playing online this past Arena season so I got used to the factions with their landscapes. Now that they dont have them, I wanted to know how does that change the factions value.

Landscape rules
https://download.svet-deskovych-her.cz/ ... E_V101.pdf

Better
Darklings - Better, their landscape is terrible
Nomads - Better, I never used this one very effectively
Witches - Better , this was to me the worst one in the game (worse than darklings due to being harder to place)
Chaos Magicians - Better, this one was rarely placed and even more rarely useful

Neutral
Halflings - Could be good sometimes, but situational, not a big loss.
Mermaids - Was interesting but not a huge loss
Engineers - I actually really liked their landscape, was tricky but made for some cool towns and helped with building bridges for stronghold scoring, but probably just neutral on the loss
Dwarves - I dont really know, I never really used it but seems neutral here.
Cultists - This one seemed useless to me at first but can actually be pretty helpful, but on balance I think it is even for them.

Bad
Fakirs - This seems crushing to the fakirs, their landscape really shored up problems for them.
Auren - While this only would usually give about 8 points usually, that was a big help and made them much better, without it I would almost always prefer to be Witches.
Alchemists - This really helped the SH opening as it alleviated the need for 2 priests, with out it I feel like you need to open with a temple
Giants - A lot of times this was just 6 victory points but that 6 was pretty useful and sometimes it helped get all the way down to just 2 workers per double dig.
Swarmlings - I think this makes them worse, possibly just worse for me as I do not know how to play them without their landscape

What do you think, I have never really played without them so I could be way off? Where am I wrong and what would you move up and down? Was the dwarves one actually good and I never knew it?

[Ranior]

You mostly have it correct. I'd argue Swarmlings aren't impacted much by their landscape, the massive town strategy isn't really that great, they often can 3 town anyhow without it and still connect.

Nomads I'd actually argue are also neutral, their landscape was fine. It didn't hurt them but it was easy enough to place and helped 4 town strategies out.

But mostly yeah I'd agree with all of that. Landscapes shift the balance of the game around a bit and you seem to have the general gist of it. The only other thing I'd point out is that landscapes as a whole tended to increase the value and pressure on spades as factions often wanted one more than they otherwise would, and it also helped factions get down one more structure/hex which meant 3 and 4 town strategies were a bit easier.

[ChristopherHo]

Hi CH Tennis,

Great post - I think this is my power rankings on the landscapes! Interested in what other players think.

1. Fakirs
2. Dwarves
3. Mermaids
4. Giants
5. Engineers
6. Alchemists
7. Auren
8. Swarmlings
9. Cultists
10. Nomads
11. Chaos Magicians
12. Darklings
13. Halflings
14. Witches

[Rooster6975]

Personally, I think they did a great job with the Landscapes. There are some factions players simply would never pick, like Fakirs. Their non-Landscape abilities simply left them in a middle-of-the-pack place, it was very difficult to push them to victory especially when playing against some of the stronger factions. The Landscape leveled the playing field, actually making them a competitive faction.

Giant are another good example. They were generally considered a weaker faction, unable to expand sufficiently to compete for end-game bonuses. Their Landscape power suddenly made them competitive. But my favourite Landscape tile? Undoubtedly the Engineers land-bridge.