You are a God! You are master and ruler of a loyal nation. You have unimaginable powers at your disposal. You have claimed this world as yours. But there are others who stand in your way. You must defeat and destroy these pretenders. Only then can you ascend to godhood and become the new Pantokrator.
In Dominions you take control of a powerful being that rules a nation and aspires to godhood. The type of Pretender Gods can vary from magically powerful arch mages to huge titans or large monuments. The pretender gods have different strengths dependent on what kind of god you choose and what nation you play.
When you start the game you decide what kind of god you are and how your Dominion affects your lands and followers. It is an expression of your divine might and the faith of your followers. If your dominion dies, so do you. Your dominion also inspires your sacred warriors and gives them powers derived from your dominion.
In order to win and become the one true god you have to defeat your enemies one of three different ways: conquer their lands, extinguish their dominion or claim the Thrones of Ascension.
In Dominions 4 you can also play team games where one of the players take the role of supreme god, and the other members of the team are his servants and loyal subjects. The lesser gods rule their nations, but you all share the dominion of the supreme god.
Dominions is set in a fantasy world that draws inspiration from historical nations, cultures and myths. You will not encounter the elves of conventional fantasy in this game. Instead you might lead a nation of vanir from old norse myth. Aztecs, romans, israelites, greeks, shona and kievian rus are just a few of the inspirational sources of the game.
The first Dominions game was released in 2002 and was well received by strategy gamers. Since then Dominions has been much refined and Dominions series is still actively played making it one of the longest running 4x turn based strategy games.
Dominions 4 is also a highly moddable game. You can create your own monsters, spells and entire nations. Since Dominions 3 there has been a vivid modding community and Dominions 4 will enhance this capability even further.
There could be a lot done in the smoothening realm. I could usually do pretty well in AI games (not quite as well in multiplayer) up until the mid-game or so and things just got so complicated I'd get a headache and I practically needed to make an itinerary just to play my turn.
Honestly, just a few automation methods stuck into the UI would have done a... lot. Loopable building queues (which part of would be pre-setting commanders, what they're leading, and orders. This would also incorporate summons on all levels.), multi-province move orders (waypoint/rally commands), auto-site search, auto-scout (possible auto-assassinate!), nation wide order changing (say I want to change 1/3rd my <casters> to one set of spells, 1/2 to a different one, and the rest to something else, in one go or have all my <commanders> with >X units or leading Y unit type start moving towards province <whatever>... stuff like that)... just general tedium/micro removal. Don't even have to simplify the systems involved, just the means of using them.
My biggest complaint with Dom 3 has always been that it doesn't really give you the toolset to elegantly manage the game later on -- it's not that a toolset couldn't be made to do so, it's just that there wasn't one. Dom 3's biggest problem is UI.
Sideline a few things to encourage mid-late game usage (continued searching, etc. Make sites synergistic on a nation level somehow, so every extra one adds something potentially useful/possibly gamechanging instead of just more gems, stuff like that.) and it'd clean up the game a lot without having to sacrifice complexity or introduce more limitations.
Yeah, pretty much this. And at about the half way point, a lot of the compelling factors of the game stop mattering. When you've searched half the map for sites with a rainbow mage, none of the new ones really benefit you anymore. While I appreciate how open-ended Dom 3 is with the rules and limitations, sometimes I think the game would be more fun to play with a few more limitations in place. Less is more, and all that.I'd cautiously agree on that point - I definitely favour the level of choice and freedom you get in Dom 3 so I'd be wary about limiting it at all, but I do find that as the game goes on any choices I made/make all just kinda merge together as absolutely everything becomes available - if e.g. I choose to specialise in Death and Astral magic at the start, I'd kinda prefer not to find that by end game I have full access to all the other spheres to exactly the same extent; basically in Dom 3 the end-game is pretty much the same whatever race or god you picked as it becomes increasingly easy to unlock everything.
For once my curse has benefitted everyone.Homeworld 3 please and a new FF tactics :D
The second I bought Dominions 3 BOOM! 4 is announced.
You are welcome.
Anyone have any other sequels they are hoping for?
I hope they'll sell it on steam/gg/other, and not some shit, third-world service, for a ridiculous, unacceptable price, like they did Dom3. The amount of people interested in it will be small enough without poor marketing choices.
Hot damn! PTW!!
I hope they don't go the way of Conquest Elysium with simplified combat. Adding seasons like they are in CE would be awesome thou. >_< So excited!
That's better way of looking at it :). I only played the demo of CE some time ago. And was kind of disappointed, because it wasn't Dom4 i hoped for.Hot damn! PTW!!
I hope they don't go the way of Conquest Elysium with simplified combat. Adding seasons like they are in CE would be awesome thou. >_< So excited!
Well it worked in CE where everything was very localized. Where as Dominions takes place over huge areas.
Basically CE could have taken place in a single province.
Didn't Dominions 3 already have seasons with various effects? Though you didn't see the map change I'm pretty sure it affected the cold/hot scale and some events.
I'd like proper tactical combat. Please, make my dreams come true forever Dom4. I love you.Few things would be nearly as capable of potentially killing the game for me in one go. Dominions is one of the few standouts still remaining of the Ogre Battle ethos to combat, and by the gods I want more of that. We don't have nearly enough.
Appropriate heat scale shift (summer hot, winter cold), certain units are more powerful during certain seasons, and winter in particular was bad for health and aging -- old dudes were more likely to take age related injuries and/or die, maybe some disease related stuff. May be some other stuff... season specific events, junk like that. Somewhat subtle effects, but potentially rather big deals in certain scenarios.Didn't Dominions 3 already have seasons with various effects? Though you didn't see the map change I'm pretty sure it affected the cold/hot scale and some events.
Hm. Far as I remember it was just the little 'season' symbol changing.
I'd like proper tactical combat. Please, make my dreams come true forever Dom4. I love you.Few things would be nearly as capable of potentially killing the game for me in one go. Dominions is one of the few standouts still remaining of the Ogre Battle ethos to combat, and by the gods I want more of that. We don't have nearly enough.
Seriously. You can win the entire game by finding a human province or two and constantly pumping out the moderately armored spearmen and no-armor archers.... maybe against someone who's asleep... or the AI, ha.
Actual formations instead of squares of units would be nice. Something à la Knights & Merchants or even the Total War series, where you decide the number of rows in each battle formation.
In plain English, one of the new nations is Machaka: Lion Kings for the early era. The rest shall remain shrouded in mystery for a while yet.
Hey, they updated the page (http://www.illwinter.com/dom4/index.html). It almost seems like they're reading this thread.Nice looking really good
I'm excited to see wraparound map generation in the game, and hopefully the UI improvements are along the lines that I want them too as well. Teamplay will be interesting too; I hope we hear more details soon.
EDIT: Oh hey, developers are answering some questions in the Desura forum thread (http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-3-the-awakening/forum/thread/dominions-4-announced), nothing too concrete there yet, except forQuoteIn plain English, one of the new nations is Machaka: Lion Kings for the early era. The rest shall remain shrouded in mystery for a while yet.
I'd like to have direct tactical control over one unit, my pretender. If my pretender casts a spell that lets him/her/it assume direct control of a unit they should be player controlled too, but nothing else. Maybe the ability to give simple orders like in Mount and Blade if my pretender is in a battle or magically controlling a commander in that battle.I'd like proper tactical combat. Please, make my dreams come true forever Dom4. I love you.Few things would be nearly as capable of potentially killing the game for me in one go. Dominions is one of the few standouts still remaining of the Ogre Battle ethos to combat, and by the gods I want more of that. We don't have nearly enough.
Also, shattered timeline idea is awesome
I'd like to have direct tactical control over one unit, my pretender. If my pretender casts a spell that lets him/her/it assume direct control of a unit they should be player controlled too, but nothing else. Maybe the ability to give simple orders like in Mount and Blade if my pretender is in a battle or magically controlling a commander in that battle.
I'd also like to be able to either order mages to not cast certain spells when in battle, have units undeadified during battle stick around, or be able to re-undeadify bodies that were undeadified during battle after they collapse once the battle is over.
Are you aware this exists, Neonivek?
maybe a MA or LA R'lyeh with more aboleths
mostly when you start looking at things like how capitals generate different amounts of gems in different ages and how mages are overall much more powerful in EA than LA, among other things
Here's a short list with the most important changes compared to Dominions 3.
Teamplay, one pretender and one or more disciples per team.
Thrones of Ascension. Claim thrones to gain extra powers and to win the game eventually.
Many sprites have been redrawn and the 3d terrain is also improved.
Many user interface improvements.
Formations like line formation or skirmish formation.
Improved random map generation with wraparound maps, caves, rivers and mountain passes.
Rivers that can only be passed when frozen, mountain passes that can only be passed by special units and when it's warm.
Pierce, slash and blunt weapons have slightly different quirks. E.g. don't shoot arrows at skeletons.
Darkness and dark vision plays a more important role. Notably in deep seas, caves and sometimes during assassinations.
Range restrictions on magic rituals and items and spells that can be used to boost ritual ranges.
Improved network support, turns can be resumed from any computer and turns can be marked as only half finished.
Global random events
Can build castle improvements like extra towers or extra supply storage
Province Defence dependent on the local population and some nations have easier or harder to organize it.
Improvements to AI and to modding.
Many new monsters, spells, magic items, sites, random events and some nations too.
Many user interface improvements.
Can build castle improvements like extra towers or extra supply storage
Province Defence dependent on the local population and some nations have easier or harder to organize it.
well, you seem fine with one map in fifteen-thirty minutes, from the forum you're on, so maybe they'll go with that ;p
You give every nation the ability to build their own Ermor Legionnaires and there won't be much reason to do anything but.
QuoteYou give every nation the ability to build their own Ermor Legionnaires and there won't be much reason to do anything but.
The costs, quality, and even availability would be on a nation per nation basis.
Under which terms though?
Dom3 was never about customizing your troops
I just think more balance work needs to go into the factions themselves instead of that.
I'd argue the armor system itself almost needs fixing. Can't be too detailed with it as I don't remember the specifics, I just remember that 1 unit with 15+ armor can be practically invincible to anything not special/blessed/Notaheropretender. What's that late age Fire nation, Abysia? With the guys in plate mail, tower shields, AND fire maces, with blessing ability? 24 resources to make. That shit is incredibly broken and should be removed completely, and you should have to spend crystals and research energy to create such elaborate equipment, not start the game with such ability [See below]. Would cut down on rushing castles to rush chaff to win.Iirc it takes like two/three level of research and some n2 or w2 casters to pretty much neuter most early game heavy armor rushes :P Probably less than that, it's been a while since I muddled about with Dominions. Most heavy armor period, really, when it doesn't have a heavy earth bless (which even that may not be enough) or heavy buffing backing it up. Little bit of fatigue spam and they keel over dead to spearmen.
With the fixed units it alleviates this strategy, unless of course they're like LA Ermor and have fucking stupidly broken chaff soliders [which are free, cost nothing to raise..] and then the strategy is still to zerg rush.Trying to say this as unaggressive as I can, but things like that make me wonder if you actually play Dom3 much Mict. LA Ermor's chaff units are pretty close to trash. They're broken, sure, but they're broken because of how useless they are against anything with two brain cells to rub together. They're hard countered by priest spam and like a half dozen specifically anti-undead spells, some of which can wipe out huge swaths of LA Ermor freespawn in one casting. They tromp the AI (which doesn't know how to react to chaff spamming, undead or otherwise) and basically nothing else, because they're so one dimensional it's almost painful :-\
Ermor doesn't spin out of control much (if at all) worse than any other of the death nations
Re: some of your later stuff in that post, don't get me wrong, some of the nations do have comparatively notable advantages, but it's never because of single units like that -- not even when it's a decent bless strategy (even EA or LA mict's relatively trivial to drop if they're not doing something more than just spewing blessed jaguar warriors around.). It's all about the ability to leverage combined arms -- particularly what the casters bring to the table -- not the sole ability to spew chaff. Armies in dominions live and die by their magical backup. The rest provides the lever itself, perhaps, but it's the casters that provide the leverage. You can get away without much magic use vs. the AI, but even a semi-decent human player would tear y'apart if you try that.
You can only compare late age Ermor to the other Late Age since there is no "Shattered Timeline Era".Yeesss... and there's a number of other LA nations with a strong death presence. Ermor's got a slight advantage in caster quality, but pretty much everything else has more casters, and better spell access outside of death.
So... How do you rate Caelum and Aero and Ermor, with their versatile and strong choices of troops, and strong magic to back them up? Other factions get largely unbalanced choices of troops, favoring one style or the other, while certain nations happen to be good at everything and wrecking-ball all other opposition. The factions need balance, bottom line. How many times have you opted to play as Jomon late age?Aero... do you mean Arco? Arco's solid across the board, with the elephants for early expansion and then the caster presence to leverage their higher map move chaff stuff excellently later, after everything and its little cousin can make those elephants demolish your own army. Heavy astral and good spread otherwise makes them an absolutely vicious communion nation, too. Arco's nasty in most of the eras due to that communion punch and solid early expansion.
Quit giving me these quips about 'that isn't how actual players play' because that's the game as is, and it's relatively easy to counter expensive priest spam. Don't make me PBEM you and prove the brokenness.Indie priests are kinda' cheap :P And you'd be going well out of the way of simple chaff spam to do it, which was... kinda' my point. Couldn't play yeh even if you wanted to, though... don't have access to the game at th'mo.
Also, I do not have issues with fatigue outside of tournaments or specific instances where a spell-caster blows their whole load on an exhaust spell and passes out the whole match to delay 20 of my soldiers. Worthwhile full battlefield effect fatigue spells are difficult to get to far as I remember.That's why you have five or six casters with maybe a minor earth bless if they're holy :P There's a couple of full field fatigue spells, checking on it -- one for fire and one for ice, at the very least, both at enchant six, 4 ranks in the respective path, which is a little high but pretty doable. Then a handful of decent AoE ones (sleep cloud, etc.) much lower down and easier to use.
It's why I opt for defensive magic in Dom3. Those types of spells fall pretty flat when you've got all sorts of counters and buffs ready, of which there is a wide availability. Isn't it something like three branches are defensive and utility oriented mainly?Ehn, not exactly. Or rather, depends on what you call utility. There's only one major direct damage school (evocation) and two largely non-combat ones (Conjuration, construction), but the rest of them have pretty good mixes of offense and defense.
Also, my game experiences might vary from others as I always went with having dormant [the long one] pretenders to enhance my dominion and magical abilities. Might give me an unfair advantage against things to have rainbow blessings on all holy units.Yeah... I leaned toward that myself, but I'm terribly aware that it's usually a fairly suboptimal thing to do. SC for the early expansion, rainbow for early rainbow-y stuff, etc., so forth, so on, is often a better idea depending on how capable your nation is of early expansion or conflict. If you've got a dormant pretender and your neighbors have an awake SC, there's even odds you don't survive 'till the pretender gets out, heh. To say nothing about the nastiness of what happens if you start near a blood sac nation without your pretender up and about.
Ermor... doesn't have versatile or strong troops, at least in LA, and while it's got strong death, it doesn't have strong anything else.
Also magic items for independents would be awesome (Everyone loves LOOT)!... more, anyway, perhaps. Dom 3 already had that to limited extents, heh. Was just fairly rare.
I'd love if we got more control over our armies during combat. Its not that I dislike the current system, I just feel it could be less simplistic and that way more could be done with it. Of course improved AI is greatly apreciated when multiplayer isn't an option, and maybe an actual diplomacy system so that we can interact with AI nations in ways other then total war. That would be specialy useful during multiplayer games in which a player becomes unable to continue playing and has to set his nation to AI.It would also certainly make single player more interesting.
Also magic items for independents would be awesome (Everyone loves LOOT)!... more, anyway, perhaps. Dom 3 already had that to limited extents, heh. Was just fairly rare.
Eh, kids these days.
Word.Eh, kids these days.
With their vulgar slang, baggy pants and lack of appreciation for email-based entertainment!
While I'm thrilled by new Dominions content...I don't think much of the actual work will show up graphically. Formations and teamplay seem like the two biggest additions to me, and there's some other interesting stuff there as well.
I can't help but feel like they're cashing in, again, on most of the base code for Dom 3. Very little actually looks different in those screen shots. And while it seems like the nations and spell lists have grown dramatically...and units seem to be slightly higher res.....I dunno. At least they're not charging $50 for what is starting to look like Dominions 3.5.
Illwinter, please bow down and let us throw our money at you. I think I speak for everyone.Don't worry, you can do that already. (http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions)
There's some new information here. (http://thurot.com/2013/07/13/dominions-4/#more-4097)
Notably, there's a pile of interface improvements. Just look at all those beautiful improvements. And I hear the UI's moddable, too.
I kinda miss my MA "Alive but still kinda undead" Ermor.They're called Sceleria now.
I kinda miss my MA "Alive but still kinda undead" Ermor.They're called Sceleria now.
As for myself, I forgot how bad I was at this game; I'm actually losing to the Normal AI. It's not that the AI is much better (though it does seem to be a touch smarter), it's just that I'm that bad. <_<
What with leadership giving morale bonuses now, national commanders that aren't mages are slightly more useful. I'm not sure how viable those "slow to recruit" ubermages will be though.
I think +1?
I think +1?
Any positive Growth at all makes a huge difference in limiting deaths from old age.
Currently going for 35 on Desura. D3 is ~16 on steam with the sale, 20 normally. Price is a lot more reasonable this time around. I'd probably expect a fairly decent sale for D4... maybe next summer or christmas? Not too long, really. Illwinter's gotten a lot more savvy about pricing since they ditched shrapnel, heh. Or at least whoever's handling the price for 'em.
Currently going for 35 on Desura. D3 is ~16 on steam with the sale, 20 normally. Price is a lot more reasonable this time around. I'd probably expect a fairly decent sale for D4... maybe next summer or christmas? Not too long, really. Illwinter's gotten a lot more savvy about pricing since they ditched shrapnel, heh. Or at least whoever's handling the price for 'em.
That really remains to be seen. Putting your 9 year old game on Steam at a discount isn't exactly proof that they'll follow suit like most gaming companies and start discounting at 3 months.
TBH Illwinter games tends to market it's products at obscenely expensive prices.
Am I the only one wary of the relatively scant -at-a-glance improvements of dominions 4 over 3?
I like the nerf to the magic site spells so that they only has a 5 providence range.
(Acashic Record is 10, though. So if you want to go all-out, it can still hit most of the map.)Only it's no longer a site-searching spell.
Only it's no longer a site-searching spell.
Also, there are items that increase ritual range.
I agree it's kinda more micromanagement-ish, but it's still an interesting new change.
It's also worth noting that LA Lemuria is the old Soul Gates Ermor (or rather, Sceleria; you'd think that the thaumaturges would have learned after destroying one empire, but no, they did it twice), the same way that Asphodel is the Carrion Woods Pangaea. What I love most of the new additions are the Rus, myself; the Vanarus were added to MA as a precursor to the LA Bogarus, and there are clear plans for an EA Rus as well that will likely be pre-conquest or shortly after conquest by the Scandinavian-equivalents.
What? Where is it 6 bucks?yes do tell
What? Where is it 6 bucks?yes do tell
I got wrecked by the mighty difficulty AI... Everywhere I see are complaints of the AI being bad. Where does that put me?
All the AI does is recruit hordes of units and send them at you. It doesn't do proper thugs or make good use of magic or use elite units to their fullest potential, which is why it's not considered very good, but a new player can have a difficult time dealing with all those units nevertheless.I got wrecked by the mighty difficulty AI... Everywhere I see are complaints of the AI being bad. Where does that put me?
The difficulty is pretty standard TBS fare, higher difficulties give much better bonuses to the AI. So it isn't that good but it is strong if you set it that way.
Plus at this point the AI probably knows the game better than you do :P
I missed the sale, huh?
I learned Dom3 playing underwater nations. EA and MA Atlantis/R'lyeh aren't terrible on land, and the AI will have a hard time attacking you beneath the waves.
So.. what's a good/easy early nation for newbies?.
Got the game, and It's quite a nice gem among colored rocks.
AT first I did not know what I was doing, as the tutorial required me to read some documents (I don't have a printer at home).
Fortunately, I watched an LP on Youtube to get hang of the basics.
While I am not sure what nation to start playing as, I did try a little bit with the Middle Age's monkey people.
So now it's 50% off (12,50€):Because you want the company selling the game to get more money from it, mostly. Prevalence of sales lets you kinda' pick your price point -- i.e., how much you appreciate the people selling and/or making the game -- these days, which is kinda' nice. A more stratified humble-bundle type thing, spread out over months and years, ha.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DOM4TA/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascension
Makes me wonder, why would I buy anything off-sale these days.
Also: Holy shit, complicated.
[snip]As an aside, fucking Twiceborn.[snip]... roll a n5+ (or less, if boosters are involved) pretender, get that gift of health going? I think that still mostly works on undead. S'a nice global if you can poach it fast enough, anyway.
[snip]As an aside, fucking Twiceborn.[snip]... roll a n5+ (or less, if boosters are involved) pretender, get that gift of health going? I think that still mostly works on undead. S'a nice global if you can poach it fast enough, anyway.
Singleplayer is brutal and long, it seems like it would be more fun to play a turn a day.
Also: I need to get into one of those multiplayer games. Singleplayer is brutal and long, it seems like it would be more fun to play a turn a day.
I had horsemen that said they had two world move points, but I could only get them to move one. How do I get them to move two? I checked to make sure their armies all had two movement as well.
I was playing on a map with streams, and it wouldn't let most units cross them (They had to use the bridge) but siege engineers could cross some of the rivers. Why is that?
Also, does the fort resource yoinking work across rivers as well?
Resources
And then Ermor came and undeadified me with about a thousand troops.
QuoteI had horsemen that said they had two world move points, but I could only get them to move one. How do I get them to move two? I checked to make sure their armies all had two movement as well.
2 things:
1. Mixed unit armies use the lowest movement available I believe. So if you have a mounted commander and gave him unmounted body guards, the whole army will move at their speed.
2. Terrain types. W/o Forest or Mountain (or Hill?) Survival, fast moving ground troops move at 1 through difficult terrain. This includes moving into terrain. So if you're second move would take you into a forest, you have to end your movement before the forest.
I don't know if that is the exact problem you were running into, but it's something to be aware of.
Mictlan has Jaguar Men but they kinda suck compared to the guys wearing actual armor.
I forget, is there a spell that makes all troops on the battlefield sacred for the duration?That would be ridiculously powerful if there was, hah. There definitely wasn't in D3, and I haven't noticed anything like that in D4, yet.
I forget, is there a spell that makes all troops on the battlefield sacred for the duration?
Mictlan has Jaguar Men but they kinda suck compared to the guys wearing actual armor.
Hehe. It's funny because Mictlan's jaguarmen are some of the best sacreds. I've never used them myself, but I think just about any double bless makes them really scary.
Re: Mict's Jaggies: Throw a fire bless on 'em or somethin'. Tear through armor like they tear through everything else, unless they got nerfed in D4 or something. Ridiculous bless beasties in D3, though.
I forget, is there a spell that makes all troops on the battlefield sacred for the duration?I don't think there are spells that make even one unit sacred. For mass Bless, you can use Divine Blessing, which is accessible to Priest 3 - so, basically, just your Prophet for most nations. For equips, you can use Shroud of the Battle Saint if you have Astral 1, 5 gems, and have researched Con 4, which occupies the Armor slot on a commander and makes that commander sacred - this is mostly used to get E9 blesses on non-sacred mages, since nations with common S1 mages are also typically compatible with communion strategies.
Otherwise, investing in magic at Pretender Creation, to me, is all about the availability of sacred units for your nation. I think it pays higher dividends in smaller maps where there is less distance between your capital and the action, as most sacred units can only be recruited there. (Or at least, the ones worth it. Mictlan has Jaguar Men but they kinda suck compared to the guys wearing actual armor.)
I don't think there are spells that make even one unit sacred. For mass Bless, you can use Divine Blessing, which is accessible to Priest 3 - so, basically, just your Prophet for most nations. For equips, you can use Shroud of the Battle Saint if you have Astral 1, 5 gems, and have researched Con 4, which occupies the Armor slot on a commander and makes that commander sacred - this is mostly used to get E9 blesses on non-sacred mages, since nations with S1 priests are also compatible with communion strategies.
I don't really see them decimating in D4, but maybe I just don't have the right blessings. (IIRC D4, N4, B4, A3.) They're relatively cheap for sacred troops compared to the armored ones, but they don't seem to last as long. The lack of armor means they get wounded pretty much instantly.Yeah, I think a W9 bless is fairly standard for th'jaggies, and possibly an F9 or somethin' and then additional junk. Lets 'em get in there and abuse that second form (which has multiple attacks and fairly high strength) even better. They're usually involved with a major bless or two, at least. Sometimes even three, banking on jaguar rush decimating everything (and a triple bless hoard of jaguar warriors will wreck serious face, especially before notable battlefield magic hits the floor) and blood saccing keeping domain issues under control before the utter crap scales wreck you.
Although I will say it's sort of impressive to have a legion of jaguar with 4+ afflictions a piece that are still fighting. Their commitment to the Teotl is truly admirable.
I don't really see them decimating in D4, but maybe I just don't have the right blessings. (IIRC D4, N4, B4, A3.)
It's true, I don't think I've done a Pretender yet with 9 anything in their Blessing. Mostly because, like I said, I'm being a generalist and I think in a long SP the advantage from a beneficial dominion makes for a smoother game.
Claiming certain thrones can improve your bless. This is usually a bad thing because these thrones are useless for anything else so if you don't utilize sacreds then there is no point claiming them.To be fair, though, I'd still rather have a useless throne than a detrimental throne. Countries like Abysia, Mictlan, and C'tis loathe the Throne of Winter, while almost any nation that doesn't have a killing dominion will actively avoid claiming the Throne of Death.
I'm pretty sure that Mictlan doesn't really need good scales. You can only recruit so Jaguars a turn, and I'm pretty sure that their middle/late game is focused on blood sacrificing anyways. So all they really need is good growth and the high-magic paths for early expansion until they can get the slaves flowing.
So now it's 50% off (12,50€):Because you want the company selling the game to get more money from it, mostly.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DOM4TA/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascension
Makes me wonder, why would I buy anything off-sale these days.
(movement stuff)
(River stuff)
Also, does the fort resource yoinking work across rivers as well?
Double/triple/quadruple major bless is not the only way to play Mictlan, though it seems to be by far the most popular way. One reason I think Mictlan takes a bless so often is because it's one of those nations with "free" points. They can take sloth 1-3 quite willy nilly whereas some nations are more or less required to take at least a little production to get some troops out.
Re: magic sites
That they're a fairly low-resource certainly helps, but it's their recruit-anywhere availability coupled with ungodly strength that makes them such a favorite with ruinous scales and double/triple major blesses.
QuoteRe: magic sites
Having played about 4 good, lengthy games in Dom 4 now, I feel like Magic Sites have actually gotten....worse? In the sense I see far fewer of the rarer ones that I used to. Which I assumed meant that the path requirements had been bumped on them. Or have they just simply reduced the # of truly interesting sites per game? I like that they come up with essentially 4 names for each basic gem site, but that was like one of the funnest parts of Dom 3 for me was hunting for new and not-yet-seen sites. So far, I've been a bit disappointed in Dom 4 at the same site frequency, 55%.
7. Finding magic sites of the type of magic you want is impossible, especially when all your mages only have one level in that type of magic. Seriously how do I do it. I guess I alchemize gems then empower them?Use site-searching spells: Augury, Auspex, Haruspex, Astral Probing, Dark Knowledge, Blood Bowl, Voice of Tiamat/Apsu, Gnome Lore. Each finds all sites of the relevant kind in a province. Each requires at most 2 levels of relevant magic path. You should be able to get at least one mage to lvl2, either by empowerment, item forging(magic boosters), random event(of the "a mage joins" kind), or by designing your pretender accordingly.
6. Getting mages ranked up is critical, so leave some in your army stack so you can get guys with more then one point in magic (Research can evidently rank them up to level 1, though?)What do you mean by that? The only "ranking up" I can think of is experience, which increases by 1 for ALL units every turn, more if they take part in battle, even more for each swing they take in actual combat.
love blood magic! combined with fore magic and abyssians it's just super fun summoning fiends and hunting anything in sight.
i really want to try a crafting civ, any suggestions?
7. Finding magic sites of the type of magic you want is impossible, especially when all your mages only have one level in that type of magic. Seriously how do I do it. I guess I alchemize gems then empower them?1-2 levels in a path is typically enough to find the majority of sites. Only higher-level sites require 3 levels. It might just be unluckiness.
problem is he has 0 leadership. perhaps there's an item that gives leadership?
in another different issue "goddammit mages! stop casting useless enchantments on yourselves and start nuking!". id it just me or is the AI not so brilliant when it comes to spell selection?
in another different issue "goddammit mages! stop casting useless enchantments on yourselves and start nuking!". id it just me or is the AI not so brilliant when it comes to spell selection?
I don't know if the Crown of Command or Scepter of Authority will give leadership to solo operators, which seems to come hand in hand with the Assassin Trait. I'm thinking no but you could try. If their magic paths give them zero magical leadership, chances are items won't either.
1. Arrows are great, except for piercing armor.
3. Getting super high production and growth is not needed for civ's without super expensive units, and should instead be put towards, oh, lets say, better bless bonuses.
Started a new game as Vanheim. Man these troops are expensive. Also found a site for recruiting sages and a province that lets me recruit troll kings, trolls, armored trolls, and moose knight trolls.
Also worth noting re: arrows is that crossbows are plenty good at tearing through armor. Dunno if the hoberg are still around, but them or indie crossbow folks can do in a pinch if you're looking for ranged armor killers (that aren't mages, anyway), if your nation doesn't have crossbow access.
Trolls are nuts. I was having ~200 Merman getting rolled by ~50 Triton and Triton Guard. Add in 15 Sea Trolls? Crush them with minimal losses.
Does upping the magic site make provinces more interesting? I found a province with independent archers who wear plate cuirasses. Note that this is EA era, where everyone seems to charge in bare chested. They cost 22 resources though, but have a nice 14 protection.
Did you watch the battlereplay nenjin? Maybe the trolls soaked enough damage to allow mermen to get some free hits in. Or maybe the trolls hit so hard as to one-shot tritons. 50 divided by 15 doesn't take many rounds to kill them all.
Troglodytes oh how have i misjudged you
using Abyssian atm getting blood/fire mix of spells with revealing spells to reveal magic sites faster.
is there a Dwarf civ by any chance?
is there a Dwarf civ by any chance?Nah. There's a few dwarves recruitable in some of the norse-et-al influenced nations (Niefal, etc., I think.), but no non-mod pure dwarf civs. There were a couple mod nations for D3, but no clue about for D4.
Question: is there some kind of magical mathematical formula to use when determining the # of units to Storm Castle?The short answer is "no", iirc. The big thing with storming castles is precisely the bottleneck you've noticed allowing a small force of the right sort of critter to hold off much, much more than they should be able to.
Sorry, when I said "upping the magic site" I meant the frequency of magic sites option before starting a game.
*Actually, the only native-underwater critter I can remember with trample is Asp Turtles (which are gloriously brutal monstrosities that can take most indie water provinces either solo or in groups of two or three and do horrible things to armies in general.) and... probably Leviathans, which are those but undead (and amphibious). Both really high up in terms of research, though. Conj or Ench 7.
Most tramplers seem to be animals (elephants) or very stupid things (trogs?). Playable giant races seem to be human in all respects, save physical. It makes sense that they'd rather swing a giant spear rather than trample whatever it is they're fighting. Minotaurs make an exception here, sort of. But Pangaea's shtick is that they're closer to nature (ie. animals) so it makes sense for their big minotaurs to be able to 'zerk and trample all who oppose the leafy lord.
By making the statement while I was staring at the research list in game instead of looking at unit lists or whatev' :P
I do remember those things, now, though. They're also pretty nasty, but I think there was something about them being easy to get knocked into a second form or somethin'?
There's a few things you can do. The big one is magic and flyers, which can bypass the natural bottleneck and wreck all sorts of havoc.
I believe there just was a non-Steam sale that let you activate your key on Steam.
There's something about how everything comes together in Dom that really inspires me. That 3 star, crippled soldier you find in a remote province, that once fled a battle. He set out at the start of the war in his prime, but now he's old and ruined, leagues from home. What's his story? What has he seen? The individual experiences of each populace your armies encounter. Did they go quietly, other than that group of free thinkers you had to kill? What do they think of your strange God? The inner politicking between mages and priests, generals and prophets. The stories of heroism and sacrifice. The sheer horror of the (many) things you can do in Dominions. And just a lot of really cool imaginary, like a dude in Legionnaire armor, staring down a long valley against the setting sun, a Legion of soldiers living and dead at his back.
I believe there just was a non-Steam sale that let you activate your key on Steam.
Anyway, question time. Is there a way to protect my army from banishment, or should I just create less demon-centric armies?There's spells that can increase magic resistance, some of them battlefield wide, iirc (higher up in the research). Banishment damage can be negated (or halved? Something like that.) by a successful MR check, so if your demons have higher magic resistance...
I'm playing as early age Ulm. I have a fully kitted out Tartarian cyclops that killed about 200 soldiers in one battle and I have other equally capable commanders but against the sheer numbers my armies always rout eventually.Unless D4's changed it, one thing you can do is send stuff like that cyclops in solo (or only supported by equally capable units). The rout is based, at least partially, on number of things killed (or something like the amount of HP lost by those things or whatev'.) on your side. If you've only got two or three guys that won't die, they won't rout. If they're in an army with a bunch of crap that does die, they can and will rout.
What is the most efficient way to deal with massive enemy armies? I'm up against Pangea and their armies are about 3-5k in size. It's mostly chaff like maenads, but they are backed up by many many mages. I've fought them a couple of times and my much smaller armies do very well, but they still lose. I'm trying to pump out some as many soldiers as I can, but I can't seem to match Pangea's output.
I'm playing as early age Ulm. I have a fully kitted out Tartarian cyclops that killed about 200 soldiers in one battle and I have other equally capable commanders but against the sheer numbers my armies always rout eventually.
You can go into the .map file and manually add in names for provinces.
I also noticed that sometimes (But not always) my undead swarms would be undisciplined. WHY. How do I make them disciplined and/or remove the undisciplined unit from the squad?
For the priests, you can cast different raise units with priests instead of preaching. However, I noticed it only works if you have corpses to raise. But I also noticed that units still freely spawn even when there are no more corpses in a province. How exactly does the free unit spawning work? Is there anything I can do to effect it? I noticed some provinces spawn more units then others, what effects that?In the case of Ermor, three things effect their freespawn, so far as I'm aware. The strength of their dominion, and whether there is a castle or a temple in the province. Higher dominion = more spawns. Temple = better spawns. Temple + Castle = even better spawns. I'm not sure about castle by itself, though. I imagine that provides better spawns as well. S'far as I know, that's it.
For the priests, you can cast different raise units with priests instead of preaching. However, I noticed it only works if you have corpses to raise.
But I also noticed that units still freely spawn even when there are no more corpses in a province. How exactly does the free unit spawning work? Is there anything I can do to effect it? I noticed some provinces spawn more units then others, what effects that?
Also, when I was putting together armies, I noticed ghouls can't be grouped in the same squad as soulless or skeleton legionaries. It's because they aren't mindless, right?
"The Daimon is a captain from Marignon that led a doomed expedition into the jungles of Mictlan in search. In one final act of madness and hubris, he ritually sacrificed all the men under his command and feasted on their blood, forever altering his essential nature. Now he has returned to Marignon, donning a godly mantle, and intending to rule over Inquisition, Diabolists and Mictlanese alike. The Daimon is a capable blood mage, and chaos, horror and bloodshed follow in his wake, and unrest and murders will increase in whichever province he resides."(as you might notice, it's is heavily influenced by Aguirre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lope_de_Aguirre) and Carvajal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Carvajal)... maybe it would work better as a rand -or not rand- hero?)
Priest reanimating is a different thing entirely and yeah, as you note, primarily takes corpses (or just plain population, in some cases).
Uhh, unless they changed it from Dominions 3, you should be able to build them wherever, but you need a unit with holy magic paths to build them.
Woah. Note to self. Lemur consuls make a pretty impressive thug chassis. 25 death gems (i.e., lemuria can have one out on turn... three?), built in fear, immortality, chill aura, ethereal, and h3 (so undead blessing, power, protection built in...). Map move 3, amphibious... base stats are solid, too. 33 hp, 18 prot, 17 defense. Actually has a physical weapon. You can send an army with them if you feel like, but they apparently have pretty good odds to solo many indie provinces right out the gate, sans kit, sans backup. Little bit of kit and they do a pretty good job of wrecking face. I think I like these critters.
Hell, looks like the plain centurions aren't that far from 'em, either. Lacking the immortality and some of the stats, though. And the holy levels, of course. Think I may have just noticed how lemuria can expand quicklike, ha. Makes me wonder if the Ermor commanders match this stuff...
E: Also learned that max PD is tied to population now. That's actually kinda' nasty for the domkill nations...
Would anyone recommend gimping myself on candles at creation and making up for them later with temples so I can have more magic and buffs for blessed troops? Thinking of playing as pangea and spamming temples to make up for low initial candle strengthGenerally that's a very bad idea, but Pangaea can pull it off because of their cheap temples. You still have to be careful though.
Would anyone recommend gimping myself on candles at creation and making up for them later with temples so I can have more magic and buffs for blessed troops? Thinking of playing as pangea and spamming temples to make up for low initial candle strength
People tend to recommend 6-7 as a minimum with multiplayer to avoid death by domloss. If you're just playing SP then you can make do with less. Taking negative scales is pretty good way to get more points, depending on your faction. I don't think Pan needs many resources so they could get some points by taking a bit of sloth. One bit of misfortune or drain nets you another 40 points for magic paths.
The thing about sacred troops is that you can only recruit (per fort per turn) as many sacreds as you have dominion. In addition most sacreds (pangaea included) are capital only. Low candles combined with cap only sacreds doesn't really work. You'll want decent dominion to be able to crank out those sacreds.
What kind of a bless were you thinking? Major? Double major? And/or some minor blesses to go?
that's insane! what map is this? i love the amount of caves you got thereJust a random map with caves set to the max value. I wanted an underground map. It's not entirely cave provinces, but... mostly. Mostly. And I'm playing lemuria so everything's undead and you kinda' see why I did it maybe :P Mostly wanted to play with cave summons, really.
Neatest thing about it so far, really, is that there's a number of disconnected provinces. Stuff where the only way I'm going to get into it is teleportation or whatev'. Several of which are throne holding provinces, heh.
Have to give remote attacking a shot, then... bit more before I can test it, but eh.
In other news, why in Zeus's name is the advanced orders stuff not just in the freaking menus!? I just now learned there's a monthly forging command. I knew about the monthly ritual for a while, but this... argh. Thug production just got ridiculously more streamlined :-\
In other news, why in Zeus's name is the advanced orders stuff not just in the freaking menus!? I just now learned there's a monthly forging command. I knew about the monthly ritual for a while, but this... argh. Thug production just got ridiculously more streamlined :-\
I had no idea. Is there a "cheat sheet" somewhere that has hotkeys and stuff like this? I've tried perusing the manual but this sort of thing seems buried in it.
I have this pretender concept to be ironed out...Quote"The Daimon is a captain from Marignon that led a doomed expedition into the jungles of Mictlan in search. In one final act of madness and hubris, he ritually sacrificed all the men under his command and feasted on their blood, forever altering his essential nature. Now he has returned to Marignon, donning a godly mantle, and intending to rule over Inquisition, Diabolists and Mictlanese alike. The Daimon is a capable blood mage, and chaos, horror and bloodshed follow in his wake, and unrest and murders will increase in whichever province he resides."(as you might notice, it's is heavily influenced by Aguirre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lope_de_Aguirre) and Carvajal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Carvajal)... maybe it would work better as a rand -or not rand- hero?)
So, question: I have Dominions 3.
Is there any real reason for me to get Dom4?
I mean, to be honest it sounds like its exactly the same game.
It's not a revolutionary improvement. It's an evolutionary one. It's probably along the lines of Dom1->Dom2 in terms of scope. A lot of UI improvements, rule refinements and rebalancings, new mechanics (e.g. thrones, revamped fortresses, non-fortress recruitment for certain nations, poptype-based PD, etc. etc.), improved modding functionality, a number of new nations (EA Phoneticians and Babylonians, EA Machaka, MA Bogarus, Carrion Woods/Soulgate as freestanding nations, Oceania split in two), some new pretenders, a lot of enrichment to underground and underwater play (e.g., new native poptypes and summons, aquatic PD for non-aquatic nations), updated graphics for a lot of old units... It's mostly (mostly) small changes, but it's a lot of small changes. I'd say it's worth it.
As silly as it sounds I kind of wanted there to be even more pretenders then the 4th had, especially for the under water races.
Devlog mentions new pretenders for the next update if I understand it right, not sure exactly what they are though.
Based on the names, Maharishi and Raksharani should be a great guru and a raksha queen. As for "Caelum gods", yeah, no idea. Presumably something Zoroastern. But the next patch looks like Caelum is getting a serious massaging, so it should be interesting.
I couldn't help but notice that "seasonal mages" was added in the change log at the same time that the Caelum changes started popping up in there. So I'm kinda tempted to think there may be some coming of those for them.
My first thought was mages whose power ebbs and flows with the changing of the seasons.
Based on the names, Maharishi and Raksharani should be a great guru and a raksha queen. As for "Caelum gods", yeah, no idea. Presumably something Zoroastern. But the next patch looks like Caelum is getting a serious massaging, so it should be interesting.Yeah, the new India based pretenders are kind of straight forward. Not sure what "Caelum gods", "Caelum Pretenders" or "Some pretenders" refers to in the notes though.
My first thought was mages whose power ebbs and flows with the changing of the seasons.
The deepness of the mechanics only actualy shows up in multiplayer, in all honesty this game only shows how incredible it can be when you're facing off against actual players that can make use of the huge spell variety and different strategies.
Errr.. from what I recall.. dominions multiplayer is everyone does their turns, than turns them into the host, the turn resolves, and everyone gets a new turn to play. Generally only one or two turns happen per day, so you're not holding anyone up really unless you take more than a day for one turn.
Or did they change that for 4?
The deepness of the mechanics only actualy shows up in multiplayer, in all honesty this game only shows how incredible it can be when you're facing off against actual players that can make use of the huge spell variety and different strategies.
I thought that might be the case. I'm not really a fan of turn based strategy multi-player, as I always feel rushed in my turns and the waiting gets tiresome until mid/late game. I might have to try it sometime though I guess.
EA Kailasa, MA Bandar Log and LA Patala can summon a "Siddha" with four arms. Too bad it's really high up the conjuration tree and costs a bundle of pearls so you won't be seeing them in a long while. I'm not aware of any other 4handers.
Yeah, bronze or copper arm or something like that. Should be... 3e1f? Around there. Needs some sort of e/f caster, anyway. Either the second or third tier of construction, too. It's pretty costly, gem/caster/research wise.
As for arrow spam in general, it's not really the worst of ideas (especially for, y'know, those handful of nations that are really good at it -- anyone with longbows, poison bow whatsits, etc.). Throw in some dudes with some sort of moral-hitting spam (terror, etc.) and you can cause plenty of armies to route pretty easily. Arguably worse than worthless against your average SC or thug (they'll survive the arrow rain, get into your army, and then the arrow rain kills more of your dudes than theirs), but eh.
I don't know the specifics, but when a unit takes damage it makes a morale check. Fail a check = rout. I don't know if spells like panic and frighten lower morale or just force additional morale checks, same goes for fear. Either way, do a lot of constant damage (like say.. an arrow barrage) and spam other sources of "I wet myself" on the enemy and you make them run pretty fast. Depends on the enemy of course. Indy barbarians will run a lot faster than blessed elite sacreds.
Although...how easy are dom games to mod? :P
I will totally make a custom nation based entirely around arrow spam XD
Yeah I've seen that before, so how does one start on the path to modding?Mostly with a text editor, ha. There's also a vaguely ridiculously huge modding manual for D3, and probably something similar for D4. You might take a gander at this thing (https://code.google.com/p/dom4editor/), but from what I understand most of your scut work would be done via simple text. Probably something like notepad++. And yeah, check around the forums -- there's good stuff at both the places Delta mentioned. Downloading a few mods and poking them to see how they were done is, of course, also a good idea.
I know this is a silly question..
But are the tigers actually supposed to be tigers? Or are they meant to be some sort of mythical tiger horse mount?
Urgh I hate PBEM.Can you start a game against multiple Late Age Ermors? :P
What about AI mods, does anyone know a decent one?
AI mods in SupCom made it go from barely playable to pretty intense, similarly with GalCiv2 so I'm sure a similar thing could/might have been done? I looked on the official forums and couldn't find much though.
I started another game today in which I tried to play a bit more tactically rather than just spamming everything and it's a bit more fun. I feel the problem is that I KNOW I can win just by spamming stuff. Any good race combinations to play against?
Yeah I've seen that before, so how does one start on the path to modding?
Urgh I hate PBEM.
What about AI mods, does anyone know a decent one?
AI mods in SupCom made it go from barely playable to pretty intense, similarly with GalCiv2 so I'm sure a similar thing could/might have been done? I looked on the official forums and couldn't find much though.
I started another game today in which I tried to play a bit more tactically rather than just spamming everything and it's a bit more fun. I feel the problem is that I KNOW I can win just by spamming stuff. Any good race combinations to play against?
AFAIK the Dom 4. AI is hardcored sadly..
If you check the devlog here: http://jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/dom4log.html
You can see that there are some AI improvements for the upcoming patch.
- AI item distribution improvements
- AI improved thug creation
- AI improved research item creation
- AI forge improvements
I am wondering when is the new patch coming, since they added/fixed so many stuff already. ::)
-snip-
Quick question: How does Orb lightning work exactly? From the wording of the spell description it sounds like you have to cast Orb lightning, then lightning to get the extra bolts. Is that how it works?
Ah. That clears things up a bit. Thanks.
-snip-Well your reply cam up when I was about to post mine.
Well your reply cam up when I was about to post mine.
Dom4 Inspector claims that Pans aren't sacred, only the dryad is.
Orb lightning also has a fairly short range (not melee-close, but you have to risk the mages a bit) I think. Nothing you have to worry about too much with good placement though.
That is true. The shrouds I mentioned confer your bless effects to any commander wearing it, sacred or not. So any Pan with a shroud gets +2 precision +2 reinvigoration.Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?
I feel that understanding of the magic system comes with experience. Don't really know any good ways to teach it.
edit: the shroud gives +2prec+2reinv only if you created your god with A4E4, of course.
The item is called "Shroud of the Battle Saint", is S1 (= 5 pearls) and requires construction-4 to forge.
Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?
Well wasn't meant as an SC, but I thought that you'd get 4W4S with boosters so it might add some spell variety to Pangea.Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?
Definitely not. A Titan of Rivers is not a good super combatant out of the box, so you should make it sleeping/dormite/whatever-the-second-option-is to get some more points and better everything. Or look at another pretender that'd do better awake.
Just my two cents.
Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?
Dom5 is definitely low, not horrible against AI but you're just asking for a domkill if you take that to MP. 6 or 7 is generally recommended just to avoid dying.Well they do have cheap temples so I assumed it wouldn't be too bad.
You're not taking any production? LA Pan is a pretty resource heavy nation to play without it. I think a little magic/drain scale is a matter of opinion. I'm not too comfortable with drain but some people do pretty well with it. I'd switch order-1 growth-3 around since order gives more gold per scale than growth. Growth is probably better if you plan on going into blood at any point though.I actually did take production, but I forgot to include it in my post.
Any why exactly is Order prefered over Growth? Doesn't the population increase production and gold income?
-snip-
An at-least minor E bless is strongly desirable for fatigable early-expansion pretenders.
And yeah, looking at it, an annuki of love and war would be kinda' terrible for out-of-box early solo expansion. Low prot, relatively low HP, no AoE and only two attacks, fatigable (and worse, flying, which chews up fatigue like damn), and a pair of built in route bait.
I can't find a source on it (or remember/find the hotkey to display the by-side rout numbers in combat), but I'm pretty sure autosummons don't count against the autorout calculation.
Unless you're talking about disciples, having a dominion with a minor Earth bless will do nothing for the pretender's survivability.*blinks* Oh... odd. For some reason, my memory was telling me there's some way to get reinvig via caster levels. Do believe that was a mistake on my part, yeah.
I can confirm through anecdotal evidence that the lions don't cause the pretender to rout. Besides, with 30 Morale and more than twice the HP of the lionesses, would it even be a problem?If it counts, it counts. Autorout is autorout. But yeah, if they're not enough to trigger the HP threshold it probably wouldn't be an issue. Was operating under the assumption they did and were sufficient, heh.
If it doesn't, then not so much of a problem. Doesn't help the poor lass much, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.
Haha, oh yes. Several of the shields are kinda' incredible, and the eyeloss one is one of the earliest ones available. Excellent on defensive critters for just ruining entire armies, heh.
Honestly, the only time I've seen her route was when both of the lions died, and she was down to around one tenth of her health. Otherwise she was perfectly fine with fighting it out to the death.
-snip-
Right now I feel that Ur could do best with a dormant pretender to max our some scales or to get a nice cheap bless (like A4E4 or E4+).
Really? I'm not normally one to go for awake pretenders, but I'd really be more tempted to go with one for them than with most other nations simply because of their "no pathloss"/elegists combo. Admittedly, they have no access to pretenders with recuperation, so you're still risking permanent damage, but it seems like the reduced risk to an awake SC would possibly make it worth pursuing.
Spoiler: Best EA Race (click to show/hide)
Really? I'm not normally one to go for awake pretenders, but I'd really be more tempted to go with one for them than with most other nations simply because of their "no pathloss"/elegists combo. Admittedly, they have no access to pretenders with recuperation, so you're still risking permanent damage, but it seems like the reduced risk to an awake SC would possibly make it worth pursuing.
Is it just me, or has MA Ulm become awesome now?
High stat/Prot troops, resource bonuses, cheap and effective chaff (War Dogs), great forging....
I think I'm in love.
Thought the same about Marignon, but then you realize that they are a one-trick pony and easy to counter.
Doesn't make them any less fun to play though.
I've been eyeing quite a few nations lately, not sure which will get some good MP time next. Monkeys of all ages look fun with their cheap plentiful S mages and strong sacreds. LA Midgård, T'ien Ch'i and Gath all look very appealing too.LA Mid has a delicious early game, iirc. Skinshifters steamroll a great deal of things until mage support really starts rolling in, and by that point you've got your own leverages. I... I'll admit I'm kinda' terrible with them past that point, though.
Of course neither MA Ulm nor Marignon are considered particularly strong nations in the current meta.>:(
The word "thug" is not in the manual, but I keep seeing it mentioned in connection to Dominions 4. What does it mean?A commander who with some items and support spells can take out provinces by himself.
The word "thug" is not in the manual, but I keep seeing it mentioned in connection to Dominions 4. What does it mean?
A commander who with some items and support spells can take out provinces by himself.
Not the be confused with a SC (Super Combatant) who can do the same without items and spells.
Also, I'm pretty sure that a Super Combatant still needs items and spells to be effective. The major difference is that they can take out entire armies by themselves (hence the term Super Combatant).Dragons and Wyrms count as SCs and you use them to take out neutral provinces by themselves turn one.
Dragons and Wyrms count as SCs and you use them to take out neutral provinces by themselves turn one.
Of course you can stick items on them, but they fare quite nicely without them.
Basically a thug becomes a thug through magic and items. If a unit can thug without items and spells he's a SC.
Eh... Let's just agree to disagree. We're just going to be arguing against each other otherwise.
Eh... Let's just agree to disagree. We're just going to be arguing against each other otherwise.
The above applies to what you just said, Neonivek. We obviously have different definitions of what constitutes a Thug and SC, and we're just going to talk past each other because of it.
I just thought the argument is more based off of a perceived strict definition that may or may not be true.
Or rather that people aren't really arguing with each other, they just think they are.
Also still mad about that Vine Arrow...
My favorite Chaff are the Fairy Chaff. "Behold my army that looks 10 times larger then it really is!"
Too bad I have a feeling they aren't that good.
I like the horror helmet if I can get my hands on one. Fear is good to have, though many such pretenders already have innate fear. I'm not sure if it's worth it to stack it, but I do it anyway.It's totes worth it to stack fear, and even against stuff that's immune (dead stuff, etc.) the horror hat is actually a pretty decent helmet in and of itself. The extra head protection probably isn't going to hurt. It's a good item on pretty much anyone that's going to be seeing melee, if you've got the death gems for it.
Cam't seem to get much out of my regular troops as Yomi, once I encounter other players.
The murder everything short of a Dai Oni, rendering the whole investment lost.
-snip-
I'm sure if there's enough demand, we can just put up another game. 4.03 is newbie-only, but it's also full as of a couple of minutes ago.
Well they are still magic centric and the whole conjuration tree is way to overwhelming.
I'd rather stick to evocation, construction and the various other schools for buffs.
they've got hella' punch. R'lyeh's pretty sexy, as water nations go, imo
Basically, I'd probably say don't worry too much about finesse with R'yleh, at least to start. They've got some incredibly huge bludgeons you could be waving about instead, and get pretty far with it. and then they don't expect the wishdagger to the spine, nyohoho.
*A particularly big deal in underwater fights. You're basically the only thing bringing the ranged game to the fight down there, to any meaningful degree, until at least mid game.
I don't know, (EA/MA) Atlantis doesn't seem that bad.
I mean sure, they're expensive and despite their hunky HP they die like flies. Most big mages are either cap only or non-sacred which doesn't help the gold issue. Sacred troops are amusingly high enc and people's favourite armour is "the way god made me".
But even with all that the paths on basalt kings/mages of the deep look good enough that I'd be willing to give Atlantis a whirl some time.
Water Lens (Cons4): 5W to craft, 1W per combat, +1 range W rituals
Basalt Kings have Earth 3, so they don't even need armor for protection. First turn Ironskin, instant bamf. The only downside is that they're not really spammable; slow-to-recruit plus capital-only hurts a lot.I don't know, (EA/MA) Atlantis doesn't seem that bad.
I mean sure, they're expensive and despite their hunky HP they die like flies. Most big mages are either cap only or non-sacred which doesn't help the gold issue. Sacred troops are amusingly high enc and people's favourite armour is "the way god made me".
But even with all that the paths on basalt kings/mages of the deep look good enough that I'd be willing to give Atlantis a whirl some time.
Yeah, Atlantis and MA/LA R'yleh are the only water nations that I haven't heard people badmouth. Which... doesn't mean a lot, but it's definitely worth something. Any other water nation is probably going to be utter crap though. Atlantis and MA/LA R'yleh are just not as crappy.
Also, the Basalt Kings of EA Atlantis seem pretty damn thuggable to me. The only problem is their defense skill, but they have surprisingly good natural protection and HP for mages. Slap on some armour and regen and they should last long enough for fear to take effect. Seriously, they've got 16 base protection and 51 HP. That's pretty insane.
EDIT: Secondary question, do any items provide temporary water gems?
Since you don't have any ranged sacreds short of the Conj-9 SeraphAnd the conj 6 harbingers! Who come with a3 and an AoE ranged attack to boot. Kinda' iffy attack though... may be AoE and armor piercing, but it's only a base 5 damage vs anything not undead or demonic. Still...
Flags will probably want something offensive, since any defensive buff will only make them ok-ish. Something offensive will instead capitalize on their numerous attacks (so F or W probably).
N9B9 is a seemingly popular combo, though I've seen it used mostly for beefier units (astral and blood sacreds of monkey people, jaguar warriors). The difference between those and flagellants is that flagellants die and take a few enemies with them. Beefy N9B9 sacreds stay up while taking their enemies down. Still, I've never fought with or against N9B9 flagellants. It probably won't work but hey, it might.
Well the problem is, you are going to use mages no matter what you do, so 4A4E is a pretty good investment.
I've never played MA Marignon to lategame, so I don't know if you'll have enough angels to build a thug strategy around them, although I heard you can summon good amounts of the cheaper ones.
Your sacred knights would benefit from a major nature bless as much, havin only low HP and less regeneration because of that.
I see if I can get a 4A4EN9 pretender.
@USEC_OFFICER
Remember that those temples still cost 400g and can be wrecked by a cheap raiding party (nation depending). But yeah, I guess flagellants are THE most spammable sacred, since most others at least require either a fort or some gems. Doesn't make them any less crappy :P
I don't think B9 flagellants have much synergy with their nation, since Mari seems to revolve around fire flinging mages and massive crossbow armies. Could be fun to fight it some time though.
Guess there's no use arguing over it. I'll just have to start up a game and see if it works.
You know that saying about opinions and buttholes :P
Pretty much. That's how Doms works. Honestly I think that your pretender definitely needs some Astral for summoning and site searching, but that's just me.To be fair, I think that's actually one of the things Marignon is actually safe on. When it comes to site-searching, 1 point in a path is enough to find most sites; 2 for safety; 3 for the most powerful. Anything beyond that is usually overkill. A single Grand Master at F3S3 should be enough to cover anything they need as far as Fire or Astral is concerned.
You know that saying about opinions and buttholes :PStories told about them tend to end with awkward lies told to ER staff?
3 new pretenders : Maharishi, Raksharani and the Celestial Carp (http://i.imgur.com/2IkBOiT.jpg)
From their names, they may be only available to asian/indian nations... :/
Well there goes the idea that Pantocreator was neutral or benevolent.
If he hated you he will just freeken feed you to his pet fish.
Underwater nations don't get the carp, though, so you may need to retract some of that forgiveness. ;D
I may have seen some story events, but I don't think so. The only dramatic new events I've seen were the ones from claiming the Throne of Bones, and while that was dramatic and disruptive, I thought I saw a list from RandomEvents on the forums that that wasn't on.It was probably this post. It lists the story events so spoiler alert I guess (though it doesn't tell what they do).
The tartarian description and some pretender descriptions in particular threw that idea to a maneating carp way before this patch.
the Pantokrator is always a huge dick.who likes to throw everybody in jails (that magically open when he's gone).
If there's an overriding theme of Dominions, it's that the Pantokrator is always a huge dick.If there's an overriding theme of Dominions, it's that the Everyone is always a huge dick.
How the bloody hell does a W1 mage have an insta kill spell like that?Is called alteration 6 :P
That's why you want cold resist if you're fighting W mages. Since I don't know the exact gear I can only guess, but here's a few low level ways to kill him:
How's his astral level and magic resistance? If they're still at base 4 and 18 (I'm assuming you're using MA Pythium/MA LA Marignon's Seraph summon), he could easily be killed by a few S2 or a ton of S1 guys instead with soul slay and magic duel.
How high is his encumbrance and reinvigoration? If enc minus reinvig is higher than 0, he can probably be tired to death by undead spam from D2 casters.
B1 mages could spam Leech for 25 dmg per casting on your Seraph (for reference, Frozen Heart is 10 dmg)
I can't think of other schools having such spells (I may very well be wrong). But F1 mages could at least blind your Seraph, making him a much worse combatant.
I'm guessing he's wearing Armor of Virtue? That would cause him to teleport back to your capital if he gets wounded. There are probably other ways but that's the one I remember for now.
The key here is that there's a counter to pretty much anything. The good/bad thing is that the AI can't utilize most of them.
Is there a military use for The Ark?
... shield of gleaming gold and hat of terror is all they really need to route 90% of all non-thugs/SCs. Throw in some decent armor (maybe just ethereal) and an AoE damage sword (frost/fire brand) or something and they'll wreck pretty much everything not specifically tooled to kill SCs. Unless seraphs are flimsier than I remember (which sure, maybe. Go summon something tougher next time.), I guess.
Really, you don't need artifacts to make an unholy terror of an SC. Artifacts provide for some interesting opportunities, but there's plenty of bloody incredible stuff a lower const, and building an army (or SC) destroyer doesn't even remotely require them. Personally, I'd usually prefer an artifact's gem cost in lesser-but-functionally-as-good kit when it comes to SC or thug building. Artifacts are for fancier stuff than facerolling armies.
Is there a military use for The Ark?
Mind you, obesity still works pretty well
2014-04-20 18:52:54 +0200
Turan units (part placeholder graphics)
Airyan units
Many Ragha Descriptions
EA Caelum is almost finished.
MA Likewise.
LA needs some more fixing.
A couple of pretenders are made.
Three more pretenders are on the todo-list.
National summons are on the todo-list.
1-3 new nations depending on how much I want to wait with a release. I suspect it is better if I wait until they are finished. Otherwise they are likely not to appear in the near future. If they are included in the patch I have to work to finish them before the patch takes too long.
They're currently not marked as cap-only, so that's great. The game didn't really have that many sacred archers.I'm definitely loving the possibilities, with the potential for an F9AX bless. Yes, you too can now have your own free Flaming Arrows spell with boosted precision from Turn 1. ^_^
I'm definitely loving the possibilities, with the potential for an F9AX bless. Yes, you too can now have your own free Flaming Arrows spell with boosted precision from Turn 1. ^_^
Wouldn't D9Ax work a lot better? Or is it impossible to imbue frost bows with death too?
3. Astral Corruption - Horror show, but definitely not horrorshow. If an opponent has this up, kiss your non-blood mages goodbye if you cast or forge anything, which is a bad thing in the magic-heavy late-game. And if you try and fail to dispel it? Horror-marked. Eugh..
... anyone know how much gold an F10 or E10+ (base X9+boosters) pretender squeezes out per gem?
Advince for designing LA Jomon?
Thinking about a dormant Celestial general (once he awakes I can outfit him with items to take a water province) with 4A4E5S.
Not sure about scales though. Their great maintainance/research ratio monks seem to cry out for magic scales and I'd like to take 1-2 there.
Troops cost a high amount of resources (25 resources for your mid/late infantary unit and archers). I'd like to take 2-3 production there.
Not sure about gold. On the one hand all your troops are low gold, but on the other hand you want a lot of high upkeep mages, who have high variance so you might need to recruit a lot to get what you want.
Advice on EA Abysia pretender design? I know about high Order and Production, but I'm unsure about chasis, paths and the other scales.
Have to have at least base proficiency in a path for a booster to, well, boost.Oh. :c
A rainbow should be sitesearching, not researching.Well, the inspiring researcher doesn't really matter in the first years, when raindow site-searching brings the most it can (as you get a new province per turn then), as afterwards, you can expect to have a bit of income in most paths, and provinces you get from enemies are susceptible to have been researched.
I invaded three people at once early on in an attempt to grab four thrones, one of which was deep in Ur, and I was just assuming I could punch my way through their territory because it LOOKED undefended, but my entire Ur-invading army got clobbered the second it stepped into their territory, and then a massive army came back out and took several of my provinces.
Does anyone have tips for playing EA Ulm?
it is still 50% off on steam, deal lasts until mondayholy crap, didn't see that, thanks so much!
Does anyone have tips for playing EA Ulm?
The Desura forums have a guide (http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/primer-ea-ulm-not-gods-not-giants-just-men) generally described as pretty solid.
There's some good ones for Dominions 3 (http://lparchive.org/Dominions-3/) around, and 4 is basically just a straight upgrade from 3. All the video content I remember seeing for Dominions 4 was by people who didn't really know how to play (this was prior to release), so I can't recommend anything there.This (http://lparchive.org/Dominions-3-%28by-Lilli-et-al%29/) one is especially good. Lots of fun and interesting stuff.
there's one (Oath Stone) with no effects whateverIt may be linked to events happening there. I think I read something about events possible only with sites (other than the obvious throne-related events).
Oh, yes, there are lots of site-specific events; e.g., the Mist-Covered Highlands or the Silver Sarcophagus. Those are normal low-level sites though. From a design perspective, I can't see why there needs to be level 6 sites unless they're just really, really hard to find, and even setting aside the extreme oddity of having randomly generated level 6s while level 5s are only event spawned, the scant handful of level 6s don't seem to have power commensurate with that level. There's probably something glaringly obvious that we're just not thinking of, though.Events, unlocked recruitable commanders/units, those lovely increases in ritual ranges for some of them (Necromancer Lair, Tower of Ice/Thorns), healing in the Isle of Rebirth (especially with the massive reduction in Disease removal for Dom4), and probably some other hidden effects for the others.
Spear+shield at the front, multi attack weapons like flails if you can get them for low protection enemies, and axes for high protection enemies. At least that's how I use Bogarus troops in Dom 3. I can't remember what Abyssia infantry uses.
They lack [...] archersWell, that's why they have Fireballs ! :D
Sounds like it'd be fairly amusing. Can't help but wonder if it'd be a good idea to just go directly at the source and adjust costs instead of finagling with custom sites, though. That would let you be a lot more versatile about where/who is, well, where and doing what.Or make a "hill" region rather than a hill province, either at the hill itself or a conduit of provinces leading in - one large enough that they can't just throw rituals over it at a whim (4-6 provinces). That way, if they want to hit you with rituals, sure, but they'll need to station all of those casters in hitting range. That would also solve the flying issue.
How would you deal with the freespawn nations, though? Mod in low cost or costless recruitment for 'em? Units with dom or active summoning? Just disable the sad buggers? And those poor underwater nations... give everything amphibious, maybe, and just sprinkle water provinces around? Also maybe some caves. Somewhere.
Also, flying/teleporting/offensive ritual spells/etc. Honor system, mod out, let the shenanigans flow free, something else? Gods know one of my first thoughts with a blood nation would be to take my massive income, hire up a crapton of toad rain capable casters, and blanket everyone else's provinces with crippling income penalties :P
Similarly, anything with ready access to pop killing spells would just be, like, "Allz y'all get rekt, lololololol" and then walk into the center after everyone else has lost their entire income base.
E: Though in immediate retrospect, that might be a good argument in favor of cost adjustment instead of anything province based. Less room for chicanery.
Expect a patch in the upcoming week. [...] Ragha and Caelum are more or less finished now.Notice the singular "week".
So, just how hard is it to get into this? Me and a friend were looking to expand our 4x/Grand Strategy library after playing Fall From Heaven and several other games a few times. But we're unsure if we can get into playing this with just how much depth there is behind it, or if we're going to be stuck learning even how to play he game at its basics for weeks on end.There's a decent amount of depths and a ton of stuff to find out. I wouldn't say the game is difficult to get into, and the manual has a tutorial that it walks you through if you need it. It helps you get around the big barrier to playing the game, which is designing a god.
Caelum nations have got some new/altered units, equipment, descriptions and sites
Ice Crafting for MA Caelum
Ice Lances have charge ability
Many new Pretenders for Caelum and Abysia
New Summons for Caelum/Ragha
New national spells for Caelum/Ragha
Fliers get size*2 as charge damage if it exceeds the old AP/3
And now to create a nation of size-6 fliers for maximum justice.
E: Also just noticed their main line PD commander... is their scout. I think someone screwed up, there :P
Illwinter is at least half a step ahead of you. Ragha has size 5 sacred secondshape (IOW, jag-esque; they regain their riders if the riderless mount survives the battle) gryphons with heavy armor and 3 strong attacks beyond their oneshot lance. That's in addition to the sacred iceclad Caelians with ice lances and normal Caelians with ice lances.
4.07's up on gamersgate, mate. 4.07b isn't, if that's already out, but 4.07 is. Raggy's pretty neat.
Alternately, if you've got steam, the GG activation code will kick it on for steam. They might already have the latest version.
You mean the totally awesome bane fire -flinging monsters?4.07's up on gamersgate, mate. 4.07b isn't, if that's already out, but 4.07 is. Raggy's pretty neat.their mages are kinda... eh. Still, Ragha is definitely awesome.
Alternately, if you've got steam, the GG activation code will kick it on for steam. They might already have the latest version.
You mean the totally awesome bane fire -flinging monsters?
Ragha is pure awesome, wish they had some national spells for temperature control but that would probably be bit too good.
Also, tHEY GET SPIRITS TO GUARD THEIR PRIESTS IN BATTLE?!?!? HOW AWESOME IS THAT?Wait what ?
Wait what ?
-snip-
(Major water would probably be ideal, since they're both flying with a charge attack, but they want at least minor earth and probably some degree of N or D if they can swing it, too.)
Oh, that might be a balance thing. The shikigami are very weak but are present at the start of every battle. Do the Fravashi appear once the priests take any damage?
Should be easy to test with a few priests v archer indies.
[EA] Harab Seraphs have a 100% chance of A/E/D instead of 10% D that they had before.I though I read about that going also for the LA StR mage... ???
They've got new summons, but they're at the high end of the Conjuration school of magic.
[EA] Harab Seraphs have a 100% chance of A/E/D instead of 10% D that they had before.I though I read about that going also for the LA StR mage... ???
It would be great to give them more ThunderStrike/Storm potential.
Did you notice the new combat spell and remote (neutral) attack spell under Thaum6 and 7, respectively?
E: Though now I kinda' wonder. If both nations hit the same province on the same turn with the spell, and the first one conquers the province... does the second group join up with the first, or attack it?
what is disappointing, with all those Stealth 25 summons is that stealth boosters are either Nature-based and cheap, or Astral-based, higher in the constr tree, and expensive (constr4, S2, for +20 stealth)... :/
EDIT: @ E. Albright : Well, looks like there are 2 modding keys for Stealth boosting items... I think that's because the Death+Earth ones give stealth even if you don't have before, and the Astral/Nature ones only boost natural stealth. :/
Anyway, the death/earth ones can be crafted, at least by LA Caelum and lucky EA Caelum
(even if 10 gems for 20 stealth is a bit much, when you already spent many in summoning) ...
Though, for what it's worth, the RNG is, well, R. It's unlikely that several commanders would get hit with disease from zap-bolts, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. Could very well just be a statistical fluke, such as it is. After all, while there's many commanders and many afflictions to pick from, there's only so many commanders and afflictions to pick from. Repeats are possible, et al.Of course. most of the other things are unlikely as well, but any of them could be the cause. I haven't had my commanders targeted that hard by wrath of god so far. Which makes me think it's unlikely, and that it cause all the disease even more so... Then again I haven't had it active that long in the games I've played so far (which I'm thankful for since it's a pain).
Or it could be some or all of the other stuff already mentioned, heh.
Wow, that seems really nice.
The textures seems a bit weird, though. without selecting the different ones, I thought the yellow where wastelands (they see mdesert-ish), the dark-green were forests, and the current forest were farm/wastelands...
You may also want to give it a few rivers (from lakes to oceans) to add bleu links, and the lack of mountains realyl is disturbing. I think there could be some at some points where skulls meet. Also, there could be some giant cliffs (used as mountain passes) between skulls, where you can thee se shadow from one into another.
Last thing, I have a problem with the sea provinces in the north-south wrapping : http://puu.sh/aBEz2/afda0b49b3.jpg
some people seem to really dislike the PBEM aspect of most MP games.
As admin of 408, I may force the turn hosting tomorrow, if most other games don't move (after all, the quickturn doesn't launch a turn if the last player sent his turn while it was off) or/and if there is no message about that from llamabeast ;)
Hi - since there isn't a general dominions4 bay12 thread, I thought I'd post this in one of the newer game threads. What is this? Read on:
I created a brief survey to evaluate the size and interactions between different dominions communities. I've compiled a list of 17 distinct communities from various sources and interactions. There are three levels of activity: Play games with, post to, and lurk (and none, if you want to count not responding) I would appreciate it if people post this to different communities (e.g., SA) of their own initiative, as I don't have accounts or a presence on the majority of the communities I have listed.
survey (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ha0LRy5P8Ogc9fRLXKlkv35Ug1BZ9QNI4Jgd4jGv5FU/viewform?usp=send_form)
How many other places did you actually post this?4chan at least.
With about 95 responses, Bay12 appears to be around the third largest place for dominions 4 multiplayerSeems weird.
There are always more independent nature mage when you make tests than when you go for a real play.I know you get nature income, but I don't really want to waste design points on that.
Dom8 may be a bit high (expensive, but no awe). I don't know whether you want to recruit your sacred troops, but dom 6-7 may not be a bad option (even if it depends on your potential neighbours), and will get you some more points for scales.
Same thing about the temp scale (neighbors and stuff).
I don't know how well (or badly) minor misfortune and drain combine, but I would generally advice at least misfortune-1 if you take order-3. Anecdotal as it is, I've never had a devastating event with O3M1 setup. But seeing how you're Man and can take freebie drain, you might not need the points (or want to risk misfortune & drain).
You know what, I'd definitely play something like that. It sounds rather interesting and fun, if a little bit clunky to see what units/commanders the other nations have. So... Sign me up?
A friend and I want to play together, and since we would be skyping and the like, we would want to have a direct connect.
Can't really give specific pointers as I've never properly played Ur.
"Massing" the sirrush would both be financially ruinous and a hideous waste without a stronger bless, imo -- N9, at the very least. That much gold per critter and you can't let it be something that's going to go down relatively easy.
(which would entail a chassis switch, iirc, but blood stones***)
Misfortune 2I can go with Misfortune one, but I took it because your research as Ur isn't very good (your researchers aren't great, your fortresses are very expensive and slow to build) and that for a nation that can use a lot of spells across all schools.
high DominionI've got two high scales and spreading dominion into the territory of a conquered players takes forever.
magic pathsFor Staves, boosters and the minor blesses.
Annuki of the Morning StarThis was actually my original pretender, but I dropped him due to point issues (which I found a solution for right now). While S5 gives you a good shot for boosters and mid to lategame rituals, I'm not sure how much you'll be able to use those, considering you have no native S income.
recruit anywhere units are crapThe longbows are quite nice.
It is rumored that the Old Ways have not left this land.I assume I have to patrol that province with a Magister Arcane.
The longbows are quite nice.
(your researchers aren't great, your fortresses are very expensive and slow to build)
-snip-
Sorry for the doublepost, but it's somewhat urgent.I think I got that event once; if I recall, I personally got a new commander (no spoiler) out of it, but I think there were penalties up to and including an attack if you roll badly enough on the event, the chances of which are also affected by not sending the prompted commanders (e.g., send a magister of theology or some other kid instead of a full magister arcane, or send nothing at all).
Got the following interaction event as LA Man in a PBEM:QuoteIt is rumored that the Old Ways have not left this land.I assume I have to patrol that province with a Magister Arcane.
Anybody knows what the outcome is? Do I have to expect attacks or assassination attempts related to it?
I... wouldn't mind setting up the thread for the nationgen game. It's mostly just copying junk from the other Doms threads, adding in info on Nationgen, and setting up the game on llamaserver, correct? Plus I think that the names/descriptions that nationgen generates are junk, so if I was admin I could always edit in something more sensical before I distribute the mod...
Traces of the Old Magic has emerged in a remote village. A young girl has the Witches Mark upon her! Perhaps it would be wise to send a Magister of Theology, lest her power grows, or perhaps one of the Arcane to find out more.and had a Magister Arcane Search, Patrol and Wait in that province for 6 turns with no results.
That seems nice - is MP still dominated by SC? Anything op? Might pay up just to be in another mp game with ya all.SCs are still very prevalent in MP, from what I've seen, but there's been quite a few changes that seriously curtail their power. The luck change* alone was enough to do serious damage to SC staying power, heh. Number of other small changes like that make SC critters considerably easier to counter. Still quite powerful, as is appropriate for the resource investment involved, but now more a tool instead of the tool.
Reports suggest this event chain is broken in the current version, though they're not 100% consistent.Well that sucks, I really could have used that N2 mage you get.
I'm looking to buy Dom 4 if it's an overall improvement over Dom 3. What do you guys think? :)
It's not a revolutionary improvement. It's an evolutionary one. It's probably along the lines of Dom1->Dom2 in terms of scope. A lot of UI improvements, rule refinements and rebalancings, new mechanics (e.g. thrones, revamped fortresses, non-fortress recruitment for certain nations, poptype-based PD, etc. etc.), improved modding functionality, a number of new nations (EA Phoneticians and Babylonians, EA Machaka, MA Bogarus, Carrion Woods/Soulgate as freestanding nations, Oceania split in two), some new pretenders, a lot of enrichment to underground and underwater play (e.g., new native poptypes and summons, aquatic PD for non-aquatic nations), updated graphics for a lot of old units... It's mostly (mostly) small changes, but it's a lot of small changes. I'd say it's worth it.
[Edit: oh, and some under-the-hood changes too. I think it's able to host a bit fast, and the AI is more efficient. Not smarter, but more efficient - and an additional difficulty level was added. So while an experienced player will still feast on its bones, a novice-to-middling player will have a noticeably harder time winning.)
I remember, a long time ago in a galaxy far away, I've installed Dom 3 and have decided that it is one of the only games that will never, ever be wiped from my harddrive for any reason whatsoever.
That promise has been broken, because of Dom 4. Get it.
The Disciples game type is, I believe, new in Dominions 4 too. That's basically a game with teams where one person on each team is the pretender and the rest are disciples. Each player has their own nation and avatar guy, but only the pretenders choose scales and when they awaken (disciples awaken one tick sooner than their pretender in the awaken-time-chooser).
As C'tis (and EA, from the 4.04 game that just recently finished) can testify, an assassin with death is kinda' ridiculous. Skelliespam vs. off script anything has an entirely too good of a chance of wrecking face.Testify, yo.
One of the few things that bugged me about dom3 is the power escalation and the attached massive micromanagement, especially if you did bloodslave hunting and all that.
I got the game and found that to be very nice - also read some of the Dom4 threads in play with your buddys, which are quite intimidating - i'm struggling against well.. normal AI, still trying to get into it (again) - not that I ever was very good.Movement of the same kind is simultaneous. The first "movement" that happens are rituals and sneak attacks happening in the province that is already snuck into. After that you have movement into friendly provinces, and after that you have movement into hostile provinces. The final movements are broken sieges and stormed forts. If you want to catch someone moving into friendly territory, you have to use rituals or sneaks. If you want to catch someone moving into hostile territory, you have to anticipate where they are going and catch them there.
I might join in the next big game, maybe I can slip past the cracks or find a nation that is really good at not dieing.
Oh and what decides "who goes" first into a army? Often I'd invest heavly into attacking a army... and it just left the moment before i could strike.
(Tri, maybe even quad, though iirc a quad would put off your first consul a handful of turns due to needing to empower something) bless and put those guys out more or less every chance you get.
[all the good stuff Frumple said]You know, this is why I like dominions. It's vast and wide enough to hear about hilariously odd and offbeat strategies when I post something stupid, so thanks for that Frumple. They still seem trap like for their freespawn, but a player that early might not take into consideration army composition juuuust yet anyway.
Apparently corpses in provinces lets you animate humanoid manikins, which are better than the animal critter ones.Hnn... not really. Humanoid manikins are like your third worst manikin, after harpies and plain... wolves, or something like that. Both of your best manikins (bear, elephant) are animals, as are... well, all of your better ones but maybe the minotaurs, if you assume the centaurs are naturally omitted. The order of quality goes something like harpy->wolf carrion beast->plain manikin (humanoid)->boar carrion beast->satyr manikin (humanoid)->horse carrion beast->mandragora (humanoid?)->minotaur manikin (humanoid?)->bear carrion beast-> elephant carrion beast. And of the upper ranks, the mandragoras in particular are quite rare. You can do a lot worse than an aspho chaff blob made mostly from the better carrion beasts. The humanoid ones do tend to have somewhat better attack/defense scores, but it's fairly marginal and the animal one's greater HP/protection tends to (readily, if you've got access to H4 via prophet or booster) make up any difference on that front.
Gorgon dies too easily.
your agarthan intrantry don't count because they've got the worst atk skill and are agaisnt mounted units.
Doesn't it make it more likly you hit your own troops, however?
If you don't want to hit your own troops, use mind-eaters (like olms) instead.
Though if you're Agartha, your troops are probably the best to weather missiles. High protection + kite shields gives them good odds against crossbows and almost impervious against arrows.
Mind blast units are relatively expensive to archers and they seem like they're better for supporting your heavy infantry than doing damage of themselves.Playing r'lyeh actually left me kind of curious on that subject -- not nearly curious enough to run the ridiculous amount of number crunching that would be involved to find out in any definitive way, but curious. Mindblasters definitely have a higher upfront cost and immediate upkeep, but I've also found them considerably less vulnerable to attrition and also notably more capable in general of combat-killing (not necessarily removing something's HP, but paralyzing them long enough for something else to kill them). There's probably all sorts of weird breakpoints where mindblasters become more cost efficient than archers and vice versa.
Mind blast units are relatively expensive to archers and they seem like they're better for supporting your heavy infantry than doing damage of themselves.Playing r'lyeh actually left me kind of curious on that subject -- not nearly curious enough to run the ridiculous amount of number crunching that would be involved to find out in any definitive way, but curious. Mindblasters definitely have a higher upfront cost and immediate upkeep, but I've also found them considerably less vulnerable to attrition and also notably more capable in general of combat-killing (not necessarily removing something's HP, but paralyzing them long enough for something else to kill them). There's probably all sorts of weird breakpoints where mindblasters become more cost efficient than archers and vice versa.
S'like. In one fight, is five archers (nevermind the significantly higher resource cost) going to be able to cause the death of more critters than a single illithid? Which will survive more fights? How much gold is it taking to keep those five archers around (i.e. maintain them in the face of combat losses) compared to that illithid? The equation almost certainly changes when there's 50 archers vs 10 illithids, or 500 vs 100, but... how much?
And naturally enough, those illithids are going to be massively more effective against certain types of armies... and the opposite is also true. It's an incredibly messy thing to consider, heh.
S'far as I'm aware, yeah. Also won't work on mindless astral mages, ala golems. It's strictly anti-astral, and one of the reasons taking astral (particularly low astral) on a combat pretender is incredibly risky.
Im playing as the ape deamons, how on gods green earth do I beat the EA Abyisians? fire too stronk.
Though... is there a way to see what your formation looks like in combat without actually starting a fight? That would be intensely helpful, but I couldn't seem to find a command for it browsing the ? lists.
... just to check, you do know most of the warhammer fantasy ones do have mods, right?
I do, did I not say 40k?The "problem" with W40k is the lack of Magic.
Frumple, don't forget that if you're willing to wait until they besiege you, you can forgo the Shademail and just send the Blackhearted Tartarian out to assassinate people in the besieging army willy-nilly, although a Wraithlord seems more appropriate for defensive measures like that. And, uh, because it's slightly less ridiculous overkill.If it ain't got stealth, then it'll assassinate a random unit from the army. Good luck targetting a commander this way.
... WH40k totally has magic. It has great honking swaths of magic that occasionally devour entire solar systems and start spewing out things whose entire form is raw magic. It's a setting where thousands of magic users are sacrificed daily to keep a galaxy-scale global active. You could totally stick WH40k into D4 and still have psykers flailing around and calling upI do, did I not say 40k?The "problem" with W40k is the lack of Magic. [snip]
If it ain't got stealth, then it'll assassinate a random unit from the army. Good luck targetting a commander this way.
Ooh.... and from the multiplayer perspective, death, particular high death, is also a pretty strong declaration of intent -- a death nation can't really afford to not be aggressively expansionist. The only way they can really cope long term is to outpace the erosion of their income with new acquisitions. I'd imagine it would make diplomacy more difficult, as well as make you a more attractive target for alliances (because the sooner you die, the more they get out of your decaying provinces). More than just about anything, a death dominion makes you a very unattractive neighbor.
Drain is probably a really good idea, though -- MA Ulm's MR is generally kinda' terrible, from what I saw, and some drain would help counteract that. Prooobably not drain 3, though -- iirc, that opens up some pretty terrible events.
So, what kind of consequences are there from taking death scales ?Don't forget about the old-age afflictions :
I speak from experience in 4.06. While besieged, I put a black heart on a flame spirit, which then proceeded to assassinate skeletons and other assorted chaff from the besieging army.If it ain't got stealth, then it'll assassinate a random unit from the army. Good luck targetting a commander this way.
...I'm not sure what you mean. If a unit w/o stealth is given a Black Heart, it'll behave exactly like a unit with stealth and a Black Heart (or a normal assassin) when both are in a besieged fort; i.e., both will assassinate besieging enemy commanders in a completely normal manner.
Or are you just talking about targeting a particular commander for assassination? The bit about stealth is what's confusing me.
... y'know, just to check, that innate spellcaster (2) (or 3, in the case of the hero) means what I think it means, right? Multiple spellcasts per round?
Plus the big scorpions are somewhat more tougher than your average bat, though that's not saying much...
Ah, but the biggest scorpions are tanky sacred monstrosities which are unlike anything else in Xibalba's lineup. Yes, they're a mage-turn each to summon, but Xibalba has would-be summoners as foreign recruits, so that's not such an issue.
The reanimates that Nazca gets (at H3+) are delicious -- sacred, ethereal, defence 16 magic-weapon wielding terrors. Then again, they suffer from having their damage being reliant on MR being penetrated.
The reanimates that Nazca gets (at H3+) are delicious -- sacred, ethereal, defence 16 magic-weapon wielding terrors. Then again, they suffer from having their damage being reliant on MR being penetrated.
I've heard F9 touted (and described as successfully tested in early blitzes) as a very effective means of overcoming that shortcoming.
How do you see the results without voting?
1. How good am I going to have to get to bother playing multiplayer?You don't need to be very good at all. I personally consider single player pointless; multiplayer is the core of the game. I'd say, at minimum, know how the UI works, and have a vague notion of how at least 1 nation plays earlygame(expanding against independents; rushing other players; troops dominant) to midgame(fighting other players; magic becomes important), and that's probably enough. You can look for newbie games and only play against less experienced players, if you like.
2. I know you can recruit local troops from conquered provinces. So to what extent is my choice of race a "starting package" versus a class that will define me for the whole game?Nation choice is very much a "defining class" sort of thing, though most nations support more than one strategy. Generally, independent troops suck even more than your national troops, and won't be worth recruiting, but there are exceptions. For example, a nation with no archers may find it beneficial to recruit independent archers. It can often be worthwhile to recruit independent mages that have access to magical paths that your national ones don't.
3. You guys keep talking about "chaff". What is the strongest troop you would categorize as chaff?Hmmm, chaff is really more of a troop role than a troop descriptor, in my mind. Like, most human nations will start out using their infantry as the primary way to kill enemies, but eventually research into magic will cause them to become obsolete in this role, and they'll be relegated to soaking up fire and guarding the back row. Conversely, even the lowly makarta can become quite deadly with a few well-picked buffs.
Am I going to spend most of the game fighting with summoned monsters or are my starting elites good enough?I've put these questions together because the answer is the same: it depends entirely on your nation choice and strategy. If you have a particular nation that you like to play, we could discuss these questions in more detail.
Any tips for what to research at first?
How quickly should I gobble up the independents,As fast as possible. As a rule of thumb, average at least 1 province/month in the first year.
how concerned should I be with defense at this stage of the game?At every stage of the game, I usually put only 1 point of province defense everywhere. In most cases, spending gold on troops is more worthwhile. However, as you are playing singleplayer, this advice is not necessarily applicable. It's very easy for a player to kill 20 or 30 gold worth of pd, but the AI probably has more trouble (though I have not seriously played dominions 4 singleplayer ever).
At every stage of the game, I usually put only 1 point of province defense everywhere.More explicitly here, if you're playing multiplayer, you always put at least one point of PD everywhere. No exceptions, ever. If PD = 0, make PD >= 1.
2014-01-26 12:52:23 +0100
AI improved item distribution
AI improved thug creation
AI improved research item creation
1. Am I correct in noticing that province defense increases resolve BEFORE move orders? Cause that seems a bit cruel.
2. If a province is cut off from the capital/main mass of a faction, does it suffer supply damage? One time an AI force advanced into my territory, only for me to cut off their gains into a two province bubble. In one turn, 30/50 of them died (without any fight I could see). This is with 3 cold mind you, and the attackers were those bat people vulnerable to cold.
3. Anyone know a mod, hotkey or option that makes stealthed scouts more visually obvious? I keep forgetting to move them. Warning on end turn sort of helps but not in finding the damn guys.
4. I used my pretender to help expand rapidly... and now she has a limp. Any way to deal with that?
5. This is less of a minor question, but if I wanted to make a "suicide squad" that could go up against a huge enemy force and still inflict reasonable casualties, how would I go about doing that? I've heard talk in this thread of mages who curse the whole army before they die and such, but there don't seem to be many AoE spells and all of them are restricted to higher levels.
Worth noting that since a patch or two ago, seducers almost never assassinate. They either seduce or do nothing (with maybe a small chance of assassinating thrown in?). Makes seducers somewhat less useful as assassins, though I guess Pan will forever be a pain to siege out.Well, theres always the choice to either seduce or kill. Some nations such as Man have only female mages and high resist commanders. Your not likely to try seducing such an army, and are more likely to try and assassinate the mages.
Most notable times to use Body Guards are against any nation that has hireable seducers or assassains in the first place, OR against nations who have several decent flying units.... or if one of the global assassination rituals goes up. By that point, a few summoned critters (or just particularly tough nationals) guarding your commanders can make the difference between your armies being left stranded and, well. Not. Also a possible salve against someone able and willing to spam earth attack at you.
Well, theres always the choice to either seduce or kill. Some nations such as Man have only female mages and high resist commanders. Your not likely to try seducing such an army, and are more likely to try and assassinate the mages.
Is there a game starting? Just picked up Dom4 from Steam and feel the need to dive right in without any testing on my part. Oh and on that note what are the most important bullet point differences from 3?There is a noob game starting up pretty soon
In theory.Is there a game starting? Just picked up Dom4 from Steam and feel the need to dive right in without any testing on my part. Oh and on that note what are the most important bullet point differences from 3?There is a noob game starting up pretty soon
Oh and on that note what are the most important bullet point differences from 3?
Who is supposedly starting it?I am, thread is in play with your buddies. voting on map wrap, already decided early era. in the morning for me i'm genning like, 4-8 maps to vote on. while map voting i plan on pming people to confirm entries and set up llamaserver
Damn, I missed the Steam sale :(
How does heretic interact with being the prophet. In round 14 I will be playing Machaka and it has 2 heretic mages and one is a disease healer and I was thinking it might be a good early prophet to keep my indie stompers from being diseased.
And... just throwing it out there, but while pretender design is important, it's not that important :P
So what would you guys suggest to break me out of this stupid thing I (don't) do?
If you're really lazy about searching, and especially if you're playing Dom3 where rituals don't have range limits, use "M" to set a couple of mages on infinite sitesearch spellcasting duty. It's zero effort even if it's only one path at a time and costs more than manual searching.Echo this for D3. Usually a pretty good use for indie mages, even, if you've got floating boosters that aren't seeing more productive use. As noted, bit more expensive gem wise, but it's usually significantly more efficient mage-time wise, which has its place.
No! Do NOT use site searching spells. You will waste HUNDREDS upon hundreds of gems and mage turns doing that. A level 1 mage will find almost every site in the game--astral is the only exception.
Are thrones more likely to have magic sites by the way? Specially high level thrones?I haven't done a test but it sure seems that way. If you're gonna exhaustively search a province, it's probably most worth it to remote search those.
Are thrones more likely to have magic sites by the way? Specially high level thrones?
As long as each mage has more than two paths, the mage turn argument is valid. Every three path mage searches three paths every two turns. Every site search remote spell searches one path every turn. The more 3+ path mages you send out searching, the larger the more turns saved. You're not thinking.
EDIT: P.S. Asphodel is broken as fuck.
Dominions provinces are not exactly a rat maze. Plotting a course without overlap is trivial.
Remote search by all means at thrones and areas that you believe may harbor something tasty. But outside of that, it's a waste of gems.BUT WHAT IF YOU MISS A SITE? WHAT THEN EINSTEIN, HUH?? HOW CAN YOU CARRY ON LIVING?
That's when I use them most often, when I have a rare non-national path mage. When I have 20 provinces and one mage it's a lot more appealing to just start spell searching rather than marching all over.
Beyond that, my most used search spell is the S one. Thaumaturgy is rarely a priority path for me, while evocations is almost standard. In addition you only need S1 while most spells require X2. It's also "only" 3 pearls per cast as opposed to 4 gems some others cost. It's still not my preferred way to search for S, but finding a random S is common enough that I find myself casting astral probing a lot more often than any of the other spells.
The inspector (http://dom4editor.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/inspector/index.html) is perfectly good for checking sites out. Also for items, units, spells...
If such a thing as "too many pearls" existed then I guess, but I've never hit that ceiling.I definitely have in SP. Given the right variables, it's possible to get your pearl income to rise faster than you can spend it. Definitely late game and clam/wish spam and whatnot, but it's possible. This is especially true if you're a nation with somewhat limited astral access -- if you've got a slow trickle of able astral mages and don't want to go empowerment crazy, it's pretty easy to slip 25S in the casting queue and still be building a surplus or have all your other casters going full blast without running out of resources.
Dominions provinces are not exactly a rat maze. Plotting a course without overlap is trivial.
Though yeah, you silly people haven't really mentioned the actual major advantage to site search spells: Significantly less micromanagement. M is considerably less moving parts than ferrying around some crud load of mages and hoping nothing kills them while they're twiddling their thumbs waiting to get places. Frumple is perfectly willing to trade some efficiency for having less things to pay attention to. Especially later in the game where a single moment of inattention can cause entire fronts to collapse... spending a little gem on some sanity management is a pretty damned good investment, imo.
That said, there are some special pretenders that bear mentioning... Sorta. The Machakan giant fetish is a pretty funny one, especially since it's Dom4 and 50 points, while having the health and protection of a monolith or the like.
That said, there are some special pretenders that bear mentioning... Sorta. The Machakan giant fetish is a pretty funny one, especially since it's Dom4 and 50 points, while having the health and protection of a monolith or the like.
It's also mindless, which means a whole bunch of traditional SC counters do nothing to it.
....oh. So, basically, Meditation Sign is completely worthless.
I'm playing a small random map against just four normal AIs. I shudder to imagine what sort of fustercluck a larger game against real people can devolve into.
When it comes to prophets the only special thing to note is that with a priest lv3 and up it adds plus 1 to the level where as everyone else just gets set to lv3. If I don't have a high level priest I just tend to prophetize whatever I can easily get that has the ability to move a lot of troops around at once.
The new H5 just seems like a "Banish ALL the things!" button, can't come up with much of a better use for it unless you want to turn a bunch of H2's into smiters for some reason.
Only nations that get the carp are T'ien Ch'i and Yomi/Shin/Jomon, and of those only EA and *possibly* LA (if you're insane, like me) T'ien Ch'i. And of THOSE, only EA seems like it could really do much with a water bless. Even then, an immobile pretender would probably be able to get you an overall better bless.
Mmm, yes. I mean, the game is just about taking the role of a god attempting to compete with other gods to gain ultimate control of the universal pantheon. Why should your god actually mean anything or be at all as useful/powerful as generic summons?
If they were gods, they would be gods. As it is, they're just pretenders.Well, they're pretender gods, not pretending to be gods. There's a difference. There might be many gods, but these gods in specific are pretenders to the position of Pantokrator. In this case, pretender gods are gods with a claim to the throne, in the same way that, say a King's brother might have a claim on that throne as well. Pretend meaning make believe is actually Victorian in terms of how old the use is, so I don't think it makes much sense here.
Also, their power is kind of sewn into their pretender stats - the bless bonuses and province benefits. Those are the reasons that they are pretender gods, not any kind of personal power (even if they might actually have that personal power). So I think that ultimately makes sense. The different options must be balanced against each other, so that every one is a viable choice.
Re: Pretender balance, am I the only one who thinks that non-awake pretenders shouldn't give bless bonuses until they become active? Seems like the main trade off of non-awake is early weakness, and if the primary point of your pretender is its bless bonus... you aren't going to be that much weaker early on for not having them.The problem with your suggestion is that what you describe being a problem (from my understanding) is the trade off for getting a good bless. An awake pretender can do anything from getting more provinces to boost your research before others so you can do stuff like hurry towards artifacts and such. So yes making them not give bonus would "balance" stuff but you wouldn't be able to have a good bless and actually use it when it is most important.
(this is coming from someone who really doesn't understand the game, mind you)
I'm not sure if you're actually for or against the suggestion, because I can't seem to correlate his suggestion and your description. :PRe: Pretender balance, am I the only one who thinks that non-awake pretenders shouldn't give bless bonuses until they become active? Seems like the main trade off of non-awake is early weakness, and if the primary point of your pretender is its bless bonus... you aren't going to be that much weaker early on for not having them.The problem with your suggestion is that what you describe being a problem (from my understanding) is the trade off for getting a good bless. An awake pretender can do anything from getting more provinces to boost your research before others so you can do stuff like hurry towards artifacts and such. So yes making them not give bonus would "balance" stuff but you wouldn't be able to have a good bless and actually use it when it is most important.
(this is coming from someone who really doesn't understand the game, mind you)
Re: Pretender balance, am I the only one who thinks that non-awake pretenders shouldn't give bless bonuses until they become active? Seems like the main trade off of non-awake is early weakness, and if the primary point of your pretender is its bless bonus... you aren't going to be that much weaker early on for not having them.
(this is coming from someone who really doesn't understand the game, mind you)
As for bless strategies, it was my understanding that bless strategies were a kind of tradeoff in that you can start the game with a comparitively really powerful troop buff, but one that's kinda overshadowed by regular researchable buffs later in the game. So you're basically trading in having an active pretender to help out in the early days, to just have an early "spell" that lets you help yourself.Emphasis added. Even with the research many buffs will simply be out of reach because of national pathing. Those researchable buffs also require a mage to be present to lay them down whereas you can simply use the cheap indie priests(or your own better ones).
Seriously, how do they (the game's creators) expect someone to keep track of all this stuff? There's like three hundred spells in there! :\Fanworks I expect. People tout the inspector (http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/) which has most everything and I love to examine the slightly outdated spell breakdown (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80573254/Dominions%204/4.04/spells.txt).
I'd really rather have it go off on the opening volley, since that's usually when it really counts, before any counterattacks and potential deadly magics.Defenders act first in battle. I think spells are also the first part of the turn. So you are going to need to boost a mage to F3 out-of-combat to get that first strike capability. The end of the manual has a list of magic boosters by Const level that shows what is boosted. The inspector allows item sorting based on boosted paths and also shows all the requirements to forge.
And thanks for pointing me at the Wind Guide spell. Seriously, how do they (the game's creators) expect someone to keep track of all this stuff? There's like three hundred spells in there! :\
Another thing I found out is perhaps even more interesting... You know how the spell description for flaming arrows mentions how it doesn't affect magic weapons? That generally means that any bows o' botulf or whatnot you've got your commanders toting around won't get the bonus.Hm. Middle Age Man has dirt cheap sacred commanders. Horrible logistics issues of moving around hordes of monks aside, would a fire-blessed Bow of War be an in any way decent enough weapon to even consider using that combination? I.e. a platoon of monks wielding bows of war with fire blessings (that they can themselves apply)? Obviously with some kind of other support for tougher opponents, but would it be viable in principle?
However, a fire bless DOES affect magic weapons. If you've got a sacred commander and a fire bless, you can give them a bow of war and turn it into a bow of FLAMING war; which is pretty nifty, all things considered.
Also I can't remember, does the extra fire damage from Flaming Arrows trigger on a hit or on damage? Because if it's only on damage than massed arrows aren't going to be all that effective, especially against anyone with a good shield and some armour. Though with massed crossbows...The description for fire arrows explicitly states that the fire damage will go through even if the arrow itself is stopped by armor.
FWIW, Ghost Ship Armada got buffed in Dom4. It'll still fall to serious resistance, but Torgrin and his officers have better gear and paths, his crew is tougher, and there's more of them. You also get a moderate pile of of gold every month if they succeeded in pillaging their target.It's not a guaranteed thing, but I've actually seen Torgrin drop a 100 PD province before :-\
And thanks for pointing me at the Wind Guide spell. Seriously, how do they (the game's creators) expect someone to keep track of all this stuff? There's like three hundred spells in there! :\
Oh, you're using Ba'als? Pffft, no worries then. Just send them off on a blood feast if they get some injuries that actually mean anything.This is a good point that I hadn't considered. Thank you.
...or, hell, get a couple acha to sneak alongside them and automatically heal all their afflictions for free, including the stuff like dementia or feebleminding which can make blood feasting difficult. You have precisely zero worries.
Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, healers can heal their own afflictions.Nifty.
...or, hell, get a couple acha to sneak alongside them and automatically heal all their afflictions for free, including the stuff like dementia or feebleminding which can make blood feasting difficult. You have precisely zero worries.
Oh glory, more buggy features... Y'know, sometimes it feels like I wound up getting the game with some pre-installed community modpack, with all the unprofessionality that entails.Probably because (IIRC) 1 programmer (screen name jk.illwinter) and 1 assembler (Kristoffer puts the nations together and tweaks). Also a ton of mechanics built on an old engine and the whole thing isn't their only job.
Just reading up a bit on blood magic. I'd still really really like to put Yomi in on that action, but bootstrapping into blood seems more than just slightly painful... If only blood had some kinda B1 summonable early commander like the revenant for death, then... Well, then everybody would use blood, probably.Maybe. I have my doubts though.
Oh glory, more buggy features... Y'know, sometimes it feels like I wound up getting the game with some pre-installed community modpack, with all the unprofessionality that entails.Probably because (IIRC) 1 programmer (screen name jk.illwinter) and 1 assembler (Kristoffer puts the nations together and tweaks). Also a ton of mechanics built on an old engine and the whole thing isn't their only job.
Personally I probably wouldn't even be willing to play test the dev versions because of how opaque bug-spotting is.
In my recollection it's 50 to empower from 0-1, then 30 to go from 1-2.Yeap, it's *[new level], except for the first :)
Used to be one guy doing graphics, and one guy doing everything that wasn't graphics. Is it even the same duo? I thought I remembered seeing some different names mentioned aside from Kristoffer. It just seems like the design direction has taken some different curves, stuff like Xibalba and Berytos still really just look like mod nations that some fan put in. Then again, I thought Agartha was an oddball when they put them in...
Berytos are pretty clearly Phoenecians, and while they're the only ones specifically based on that, there are a lot of overlaps between (what we know of) those beliefs and the other mediterranean legends, and as an in-game nation I really just don't see how they're supposed to stand out. They're really just Gath with some palette swaps.Gath in the EA. They might play the same (haven't got to them either) but the EA is a whole different ball game compared to LA.
Agartha is totally artificial, though.I don't think so. Significant liberties have been taken with the concept, but a world of underground cities and tunnels inhabited by spiritually, technologically and magically advanced beings guarding ancient sleeping entities/ancestors, is something that has been played with in the occult writings of the past century.
To say nothing of the endless variants of "x level summon", "x level magic attack" that are all basically interchangeable as far as I can tell.
To say nothing of the endless variants of "x level summon", "x level magic attack" that are all basically interchangeable as far as I can tell. Its like the game designers haven't realized yet that when you do this in a multiplayer game, experienced players will pick 10% of the content as worth using and ignore everything else.
I don't want to abandon my games, and I suspect that the lategame could be really fun once I get a grip on how to play. But PBEM is a massive pain in the ass. I've played asynchronous TBS games before, but most of them have this understanding that you start several games at once and then quickly play them as they come in. As a result you generally have at least 5 days to submit turns. Also I didn't realize how much the minute or so of fiddling with email would make each turn feel like a chore, but it does.
Shape changing units can die in one strike if it's powerful enough to kill the next shape too.Oi, that's huge and I didn't know about it.
I thought N9 jaguars were already a thing to some extent.
Does anyone know how the Raven of Underworld's 'eater of the dead' works? Surely, it doesn't mean endless hitpoints?
Tried my first MA game as Ashdod in a 1v1 map, AI randomed MA Ermor. Such great practice ::)
Anyway, I decided to try something different and go for a W9E4 bless. I figured with quick berserker giants I would have a bunch of offense. Unfortunately I kinda forgot to check their encumbrance, which was 5. So they would take 10 fatigue per turn of melee combat with quickness :/
Is this useless? I'm thinking I could maybe up it to E9, or fight a non-domkill faction. But my PD is outperforming my sacreds, which might be a sign to think of a better bless. Probably boring old E4N9.
A "Boring Mage" that randomly gets one of D3, E3, S3, or F3.
"-- Nation seeds generated with seed 556118595"A "Boring Mage" that randomly gets one of D3, E3, S3, or F3.
Do you have the seed (and NG version) of this nation? Boring is basically never supposed to come up as an adjective, so either that was the result of some very slim odds (which is possible) or (more likely) something not working how it was supposed to.
Is there a link to the nation gen update?
They're "quasi-unofficial", insofar as they're made with the knowledge, blessing, and input of Elmokki, but no actual participation since he doesn't have time to work on it himself. Latest version is here (http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/nationgen-for-dominions-4/page/11#1032912).
Get those amazing* new cloaks here: Mega.co.nz (https://mega.co.nz/#!7RkmnbAA!lQkcd5U5bMqPQZdmkYHuYTHNDWk3cQYlm-TuWctgROk)
*Cloak graphics may not actually amaze you; individual results will vary. If your amazement lasts longer than four hours, please consult a physician.
ThanksIs there a link to the nation gen update?They're "quasi-unofficial", insofar as they're made with the knowledge, blessing, and input of Elmokki, but no actual participation since he doesn't have time to work on it himself. Latest version is here (http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/nationgen-for-dominions-4/page/11#1032912).
EDIT: Oh, unless you meant a more direct link. In that case:Quote from: EalbGet those amazing* new cloaks here: Mega.co.nz (https://mega.co.nz/#!7RkmnbAA!lQkcd5U5bMqPQZdmkYHuYTHNDWk3cQYlm-TuWctgROk)
*Cloak graphics may not actually amaze you; individual results will vary. If your amazement lasts longer than four hours, please consult a physician.
This update to the NationGen makes me want to run up a hundred or so nations, load the Oeridia map, and go hog wild. :D
For stealth, IIRC non-scout-types get either +0 or +20. That might be worth pushing up a bit. For units, it wouldn't matter (0-50 and 51+ are the only meaningful value ranges) but commanders of course are another story.
If you have both on one mage, casting Naiad Warriors is pretty fun.
-snip-
-snip-
So, new question.
I've got MA Tien Chi running a communion strategy to get up to E3 and cast a big battlefield buff or debuff. This isn't my only strategy of course, but its my rush to get some combat support up.
So the way I look at it I've got two potential targets for my early research: Construction 4 and Alteration 4. Alteration gets me Curse of Stones, Destruction, and it also opens the way to some higher level spells I really want. Construction, on the other hand, will let me build Earth Boots, which lets me communion with less mages, but all it will get me in combat is Legions of Steel. Which... still seems pretty kick ass. It also of course gets me a bunch of great items and would let me kit out a titan pretender into an SC.
So, which should I go after first?
-snip-
Nothing wrong with always playing a nation that you like and are good with.
I'm fairly sure Legions of Steel targeting was fixed within the last few patches, but I couldn't find any mention of it during a quick googling.
What's the nagot gik fel message? My first thought is that there are AI players who are trying to cast spells that don't exist.
So, trying out MA Jotunheim. If I want to dip into blood, how important is it to go construction 4 first to get SDRs? Considering that I have some use for construction anyway.
Gottcha.
Separate question: is beginning the construction of my first fort on turn 3 a "just because you can doesn't mean you should" situation?
Separate question: is beginning the construction of my first fort on turn 3 a "just because you can doesn't mean you should" situation?Do you use Cap-only troops to expand ?
Anyone know exactly how damage vs protection is calculated? The manual refers to a "random number", but its not clear exactly what that random number is.
It is one of those pages that is early, very easy to gloss over, and extremely important.Dominions Random Number (DRN)
Most Dominions game mechanisms use something called the Dominions Random Number (DRN). When a random number is called for, the number used is actually a DRN. This is a roll of two six-sided dice (2d6) but with an additional bonus: if any individual die roll is “6,” one is subtracted, and then that die is re-rolled and added to the result. This is referred to as an “open-ended” 2d6 roll. Example: The game calls for a DRN. Two dice are rolled and they come up 2,6. Because one of the dice was a “6,” one is subtracted from the total (making 7), and the die is rolled again. But this die is also a 6. So one is subtracted from the total (now up to 12) and a die is rolled again. It is a 4. The final
result for this DRN is 16.
Note that if both original dice came up as 6, both would be re-rolled and added as above. If a die keeps coming up 6, it keeps getting re-rolled and added, which can very occasionally lead to large numbers. Dominions has a lot of situations where something is very unlikely to happen, like a militia soldier hitting an ethereal monster. However, in the real world of Dominions, very few things are actually
impossible. To model this fact as closely as can be, the Dominions Random Number was created. With it, it is always possible for such an event to occur, which would not be the case if the roll was not openended. In some very few cases, there may only one six-sided die rolled. It is still open-ended, but in this case, the rules refer to it as a drn, in lower-case letters. An example is the dispelling of global enchantments.
Oh right, forgot about the existence of hags. They'll certainly benefit from the dowsing rods.
This looks amazing: http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/archaea-early-age-releaseOooh...
It's a 29 player map with start positions for every EA nation.
#necromancy
Our dominions community is probably more in the 15-20 player range, sadly. I'm not really sure I see the appeal of the HUGE games either.
That and after a while basic nationals in most cases will begin to lose power to Thugs and Super Combatants. Creatures that are kitted up with strong artifacts that can deal well with armies with only one or two units.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tw3uQDvH6RosHpdWhtgOxZq0lx4g-tzDwZtc6TVf1-c/edit?usp=sharingHeh, ignoring the most obvious issue in the game I see :P I can understand why, UW is seriously broken.
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tw3uQDvH6RosHpdWhtgOxZq0lx4g-tzDwZtc6TVf1-c/edit?usp=sharing)
UW is not currently touched.
Btw, has the water patch been released yet and if not, what's the ETA on that? If it takes a while longer it could be a good opportunity to get back on the PBEM wagon.
I thought it was funny that EA Kailasa was listed as a weak nation, but MA Bandar Log wasn't.
Hm...this is highly skeptical on being able to pull off because all that is required, C'tis nation, Devourer of Souls pretender, get to construction 8, make and equip the black heart (blood 2) and amulet of the doppelganger(air 3) to pretender. Run into enemy capital and instant kill the enemy pretender. I'm also thinking you have probably already wasted too much resources by the time you could pull that off, and luck plays just as big of a factor. It actually might be easier to go with a Teotl of the night and add equipment if your going that route.
Ring of regen prevents disease? Or cures it? That would definitely have been cheaper. I was playing ea machaka, so I used their spies and added rangers cloaks and such as well, and, yeah, deployed them to my forts where the enemy blobs were going. (That was the other game I was playing before and during 404, before I understood SCs - I probably could have done something more useful with all those gems.)
I've had difficulty pulling off dust to dust in the past because of how close you have to get to cast it. Did you figure out a way to get your mages to keep distance?I stopped telling them to cast dust to dust each turn and just turned on spells, they would cast various buff spells then start casting dust to dust once enemies were in range. The AI seems to be rather efficient with it, but that may be from the lack of spells. More often then not they would cast quicken self then dust to dust. Although during the fights EVERY enemy commander had a staff of the storms, so accuracy may have been way off. I also had 100-200 or so Muuch warriors backed up by 10 priests and/or dust mages. For 10 gold and 4 resource the Muuch warrior is pretty good.
I've had difficulty pulling off dust to dust in the past because of how close you have to get to cast it. Did you figure out a way to get your mages to keep distance?
What kind of additional control would you add?
And by "lag time between turns," how would you speed up the other human players? :V
Or do you only play singleplayer, and aren't considering everyone who plays PBEM?
hah, wasn't expecting that Il. I've a question though. how to best defeat elephants?As usual, "depends".
You'll want every land province to be adjacent to or containing one land fort as well. (And the same for sea provinces with sea forts)That has almost no effect on income. Its more for getting all your resources in one place where you can hire your national troops. A faction like Mictlan that has low resource costs doesn't really care about that. Still good advice that you should follow.
You'll want every land province to be adjacent to or containing one land fort as well. (And the same for sea provinces with sea forts)That has almost no effect on income. Its more for getting all your resources in one place where you can hire your national troops. A faction like Mictlan that has low resource costs doesn't really care about that. Still good advice that you should follow.
Another question, what's the best way to maximize income? As far as I know it's order3/production3/growth3, no temp (or perfect for your nation), and no unrest. Anything else major that I'm missing?
hah, wasn't expecting that Il. I've a question though. how to best defeat elephants?As usual, "depends".
They have bad MR and morale, so you can try to use fascinate or panic or something to exploit that. "Resist or die" effects like Bone Melter or Soul Slay also work but they're not very available. You can increase the size of your troops or bring in a thug with an amulet of the giant, to prevent the trampling. Or an innate size 6 unit.
Dominions SP is rather quite like masturbation. It's got some potential for fun, and nothing wrong with that. But complaining that the toy is not ideally suited to what you're using it for is somewhat missing the intentions behind the design.
For most games, people who play a lot of MP tend to prefer human opponents over AI. Dominions is no exception. That doesn't really mean that Dominions is a bad game for SP.
Unsurprisingly, many of the posters here (Il Palazzo included) are a common sight in Bay12 Dominions MP matches.
I've head that /v/anheim is a good place to get blitzes:That's a community steam group, and the community it's for isn't Bay12. Why would you go play where you're not wanted?
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/vanheimageofvidya
You can get one done in an afternoon, though the length of that afternoon will depend on player count and game settings.
I've head that /v/anheim is a good place to get blitzes:That's a community steam group, and the community it's for isn't Bay12. Why would you go play where you're not wanted?
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/vanheimageofvidya
You can get one done in an afternoon, though the length of that afternoon will depend on player count and game settings.
anyone who wants to play Dom 4 is wantedWhat kinda game?
This update focuses on the underwater part of Dominions. A new underwater nation is available as well as a bunch of new underwater pretenders to choose from. Many of the old underwater nations have also got some new recruitment options. There has also been some work to make the AI better as well as more modding, more random events and the usual bug fixes.
Game
New nation: Therodos
UW resources increased 25%
Press 'r' when designing pretender to get a random design
Dominion less likely to spread across sea-land borders
Horror chances altered
Being dead will make horror marks fade away over time
New summon spells: Flame Jelly, Bishop Fish
Oceanian lore rewritten
Oceania turmoil in coastal provinces, order in land/sea provinces
Haliades replaces Bishop Fish as oceanian priests
Initiates of the Deep, deep seer: lore remake
Witness of the Deep, Soldier of the Deep
Capricorn and Siren coastal recruits and chaos rebate
New unique items for Marignon and R'lyeh
Improved magic item info
UW pretender rebates and nation restrictions
Dagon remade (grab and swallow instead of trample)
New story events
Save and exit also marks turn as unfinished
Pelagian/oceanian name lists
Replaced some iron with meteoritic iron
Starting position improvements
Mummy Nazca Arena fix
Chakram flysprite
Double flysprite bug removed
Academy underneath didn't produce lab
Rainbow enchantment now affected buy own luck effect
Bodyguard mrl bonus bug fixed
Philosopher icon
Fullscreen resolution defaults to desktop resolution instead of highest
Updated tip of the turn
Some new bronze and iron weapons and armors
Some more units got weapons and armors changed
Giants reanimated into correct shape
Berserk bless (war-dance)
Lanka description now mentions blood hunt bonus/malus in turmoil/order
Couldn't cast spells if you had two 'life long protection' items
Send Dream Horror castable at UW provinces
Assassins must be stealthy to be able to assassinate
The four Balams are now unique
EA/MA Pelagia nation descr changes
Pelagian Mystic
Iron armaments rust in the sea
Rust permanent until repaired
Damaged weapons/armors lower dmg/prot
New poptypes: Ichtyid shaman, Bone Tribe barbarians
New mermen/ichtyid sites
Mermage & Pelagian Mermage remake
Pelagian Explorer
Enkidu Headhunter & Bone Tribe Headhunter Club -> Skull Club
EA Pelagia Hero
Turtle Warriors Javelin -> Coral Tipped Javelin
New Pelagian coastal recruits
Mermage/priest sprite remade
New 'rusty armor' icons
UW indeps a bit weaker
Lower throne no longer appears UW
Divine Glyph and Baphomet magic beings
Can't compete in arena while sneaking
Ancient kraken doesn't lose Ink attack if equipped with weapons
Abomination doesn't lose tentacles if equipped with copper arm and weapons
Macaw and Condor got headslots
New switch: --listnations
Some new throne defenders can appear now
Some nations got pretender discounts
Many typo, stat and event fixes
Non-commander communion possible
Theurg Communicant -> not commander
Theurg Communicant rec-limit 1
Theurg Communicant cost 35 -> 50
Option --partamount didn't work properly
Battlefield spell didn't affect everyone in enormous armies
Particles effects didn't look properly in huge battles
Minor memory leak fixed
National underwater PD takes precedence for local UW PD
Faster battle deployment for huge skirmish armies
Murdering Winter less effective vs commanders
Murdering Winter cost 50 -> 40
Flames from the Sky cost 35 -> 30
Thetis Blessing research level 9 -> 7
Therodos got proper names
Music can now start with a rare tune
Sirens are cheaper to recruit when Lure of the Deep is up
Looming Hell slightly harder to defend against
Vengeful Water less effective and cost 50 -> 70
More ability modifiers printed
Shambler base cost 25 -> 20
Cannot try to send more than 32 messages
Friendly Currents didn't affect encumbrance properly
Soul Leech and Consume Soul cannot be repelled
New network option (--maxholdups) to run over serial stallers
New network option (--timeleft) to set nbr of hour to first host
Auto refresh for html statuspage
Auspex could be pathed though the sea, fixed
Looming Hell vs stealthy didn't work properly
Berytian Melqarts reduced blood sacrifice
Land/Water shape recruitment fix
AI
Certain nations more likely to go for good bless effects
Smarter pretender god design
Can make pretenders with high levels of blood magic now
Fixed bug where AI for blood and death nations could waste up to 80 DP
More likely to buy holy units when having a good bless
Army and PD strength evaluation improved
Higher score for scripted spells
Modding
#aigoodbless, #aimusthavemag
#aifirenation, #aiairnation, #aiwaternation, #aiearthnation
#aiastralnation, #aideathnation, #ainaturenation, #aibloodnation
Deserter abilities now work for non commanders too
New unit mod commands: #incscale, #decscale, #reform, #domrec, #haltheretic
New item mod commands: #incscale, #decscale, #reform, #haltheretic
New nation mod command: #noforeignrec
Eventmodding #req_notnation didn't work
#blessbers, #uwheat, #hpoverslow, #poisonskin, #xploss, #enchrebate50
Linux
no multi processes on low memory machines
But giant floating head...
(http://i.imgur.com/GRWxgpe.png)
His advantage as an expansion focused pretender seem to be that he can move more than one sea province at a time, though exactly how much you'd need that is up for debate. Also, he kind of sucks at fighting independents right out of the box.
But giant floating head...
(http://i.imgur.com/GRWxgpe.png)
Their core troops are still aquatic.Augh, just make a reverse barrel of air and gift of water breathing, its not that hard! I mean its impossible for us but with access the source code it shouldn't be that hard. That still wouldn't be enough for water to be balanced, but it would be a huge leap.
This sorta feels like half a patch, albeit a large half. Either its scope got scaled back, or there's more to come. Time will tell.
Their core troops are still aquatic.Desura says this is the first part of the UW revamp. I definitely agree with you that it fits what the patch feels like. The revised Pelagia fluff is pretty blatantly setting hooks for an LA Merfolk Pelagia, for instance.
This sorta feels like half a patch, albeit a large half. Either its scope got scaled back, or there's more to come. Time will tell.
But giant floating head...Being able to go from one sea to another without crossing the intervening land is a good thing on some maps.
(http://i.imgur.com/GRWxgpe.png)
His advantage as an expansion focused pretender seem to be that he can move more than one sea province at a time, though exactly how much you'd need that is up for debate. Also, he kind of sucks at fighting independents right out of the box.
One thing people complained about on Desura is that there wasn't really a reason for most land nations to go underwater. So I guess this is (part of?) that.Their core troops are still aquatic.Desura says this is the first part of the UW revamp. I definitely agree with you that it fits what the patch feels like. The revised Pelagia fluff is pretty blatantly setting hooks for an LA Merfolk Pelagia, for instance.
This sorta feels like half a patch, albeit a large half. Either its scope got scaled back, or there's more to come. Time will tell.
Also, H3s for everyone with water paths and a single UW province, for the low price of 20 water gems and research to Conj6. That's a pretty nice touch.
doublepost because BUMPBalance is completely different in Dom 4. For one their Basalt Kings can only be recruited in their capital and take 2 turns (which is standard for expensive mages now).
So question: Did they nerf EA Atlantis in 4?
Well I was mostly calling them OP based on comparison to things like MA Ulm, which in 3 had epic armies, but as a balance had NO sacreds whatsoever, and pretty terrible mages.
Atlantis on the other hand has pretty awesome sacreds (Living Pillars, just shy of 30 health and 20 protection, making them good with nature blesses, and probably quite a few other blesses to boot. Oh, and they have magic weapons by default, so no worries against ethereal units.) it also has good mages, and its regular army is nothing to sneeze at, with Deep Shamblers that you can produce by the bucketload to take the first few provinces that will bring your resource production up enough to get the Living Pillars out at a reasonable rate.
Oh, and it has level 3 priests to divine bless them too, so no worries there either.
Basically its just good all around. There are probably better things, but it doesn't seem to have any real weaknesses, at least in 3.
And now I will be testing it out in 4, which just finished downloading :P
All I have actually accomplished so far is discovering that Caelum and Kailasa are the only EA nations with ranged sacreds (and thus the only thing worth using the new air bless on)Maggggggge-priiiiiieesssssstttttsssss
So now that I have Dom 4 I'm having that silly issue where I can't seem to do anything because I want to try ALL THE THINGS, and thus end up doing a lot of nothing.
All I have actually accomplished so far is discovering that Caelum and Kailasa are the only EA nations with ranged sacreds (and thus the only thing worth using the new air bless on)
Basically I'm being very spoiled for choice and my random flailing at the depths of this game isn't getting me anywhere yet :P
Watching a few LP's helped as well. I at least understand enough now to wish that I could stop my archers from firing at enemies when my melee units are engaging them or chasing them down.That's the "Fire" command, instead of "fire and keep distance". They'll try not to shoot if there's friendlies in the way, and go into melee when they're out of ammo or options.
So now that I have Dom 4 I'm having that silly issue where I can't seem to do anything because I want to try ALL THE THINGS, and thus end up doing a lot of nothing.
All I have actually accomplished so far is discovering that Caelum and Kailasa are the only EA nations with ranged sacreds (and thus the only thing worth using the new air bless on)
Basically I'm being very spoiled for choice and my random flailing at the depths of this game isn't getting me anywhere yet :P
It's what I've done while learning the game. It's the type where I think you need to push through a few games, lose horribly and learn from your mistakes a few times. Like learning Dwarf Fortress in a way.
Watching a few LP's helped as well. I at least understand enough now to wish that I could stop my archers from firing at enemies when my melee units are engaging them or chasing them down.
Would blood vengeance even trigger if your thug were mind-controlled?No, its a 1:1 damage thing. No red numbers appear, no red numbers bounce back. I do believe that Soul Slay, which technically does 999 damage instead of being an instant kill effect, should be able to bounce back the instant kill.
Oh, and just a quick aside: Am I the only one annoyed that the random maps are wraparound now? The way this game does it is just so terrible and ugly BLEGHGametools->RandomMapCreator
I haven't played dominions 4 yet, is the interface any better than that of dominions 3?
*throws cookie at Ark*Oh, and just a quick aside: Am I the only one annoyed that the random maps are wraparound now? The way this game does it is just so terrible and ugly BLEGHGametools->RandomMapCreator
You can uncheck wraparound.
I'll give you the lack of combat spells, but that's kinda not the paths focus.Generally speaking if you're using magic in a way that is both practical and purposeful you're better than the average beginner.
I think nature is a fairly ritual focused path, and rituals are what I tend to use. Granted I'm probably doing roughly all the things wrong, but hey, its what I know.
Also, if you like nature magic, consider this: whoever has the strongest nature magic/income in a game, will get to cast Mother Oak. Whoever casts Mother Oak, will have nature gems to recast Mother Oak, which means they'll constantly have a free 10 gems per turn every turn for the rest of the game. Gotta use diplo so people don't team up on you tho.Well EVERY path has one of those, so its hardly competing. And frankly that is one of the low end income globals. Though the other globals in nature make up for its weak income one. In fact one could go so far as saying nature is THE global path. I mean GoH is just majorly good in every way, and then you can also throw in...I think its called Natures Bounty? But I suppose that IS on the last tier, so YMMV.
If you're going for a ritual or construction focused playstyle you're still going to need some kind of combat magic. You're never going to win a multiplayer game without some form of competent combat magic, unless maybe you go hardcore into blood magic. One thing you could look into is, instead of bringing a dozen low path mages to every fight, bring a single competent mage who casts a key spell. Something like Flaming Arrows, Fog Warriors, Grip of Winter, Howl, that kind of thing. Its not particularly hard to build an army around Flaming Arrows or Grip of Winter and using magic this way will leave you plenty of mage turns for whatever else you're doing.Admittedly this is the exact opposite of my problem with combat magic. Specifically all I really USE is the "one competent mage casting key spell" and don't really have the know how of when/how to use mage swarms. Actually I have issues GENERATING loads of mages for anything other then research monkeys, so that's probably a significant portion of that.
The way that research works is that each level in a school costs twice as much as all the levels before it combined. So, 50>100>200 etc. research points. Mother Oak being castable on level 5 alteration means that A practically speaking its the earliest sane global to come out every game and B the fact that you get it earlier means it generates more gems. Its "worse" than the other gem gens but its still the most *important* gem gen because of its accessibility compared to the others.Also, if you like nature magic, consider this: whoever has the strongest nature magic/income in a game, will get to cast Mother Oak. Whoever casts Mother Oak, will have nature gems to recast Mother Oak, which means they'll constantly have a free 10 gems per turn every turn for the rest of the game. Gotta use diplo so people don't team up on you tho.Well EVERY path has one of those, so its hardly competing. And frankly that is one of the low end income globals.
Admittedly this is the exact opposite of my problem with combat magic. Specifically all I really USE is the "one competent mage casting key spell" and don't really have the know how of when/how to use mage swarms. Actually I have issues GENERATING loads of mages for anything other then research monkeys, so that's probably a significant portion of that.The truth of the matter is... it hurts your economy to put out mage swarms for combat. But its such a good strategy, at least early on, that you need to do it anyway. You really only want to have one or two mage swarms out a time for your first war. For the first, I dunno, three years, you ideally be recruiting a mage at every fort every turn, and get 2-3 forts up quickly to facilitate that. From there, think of your mage force as something akin to a medieval levy. Their primary value is economic, AKA sitesearching and research, you only send them out to war if they'll save you money by taking territory or preventing territory loss. You want to minimize the number of mage-turns spent at war, while having as many mages as possible in the important fights. So seek out fights with your mage swarms, don't pay them to passively patrol your territory or something. You also want troops that don't overlap with your mages. So if you're using evocations, you want the cheapest possible wall of units between the enemy and your mages that won't route. If you're using buffs, you need melee units that can do damage in melee, or all you're doing is delaying the inevitable. If you're using summons, a huge wall of infantry will actually prevent your 100% expendable combat summons from reaching the front while your troops you paid gold or gems for die in their place. Ect. Ect.
I do enjoy the "lines showing which provinces are linked" thing though.
Oh, and is anyone planning on doing any MP anytime soon? I would be interested ingetting horribly wreckedplaying a game
TBH I recently read that thread and I'm loving the idea of NationGen stuff. While I'm new to multiplayer and have issues with a lot of the aspects of the game, I don't think I'm quite in the category that you're worried about (though I'm probably totally wrong XD) but even if I am I don't really expect to WIN my first MP game.Oh, and is anyone planning on doing any MP anytime soon? I would be interested ingetting horribly wreckedplaying a game
Well. On the one hand, I'd not mind, as the only game I'm in now is pretty low-commitment. On the other hand, past experience suggests that I shouldn't be left alone with new players. On the third hand, I'd really like to do another NationGen game since the last fizzled out faster than expected. On the fourth hand, past experience suggests that NG shouldn't be left alone with new players. On the fifth hand, the next NG game I'd like to do would be along the lines of the "hash your forum name and play whatever garbage results" that Karlito suggested, and by eliminating the metagame of nation selection, NG becomes a lot more friendly to newer players. On the sixth hand, however, random nations are still unfriendly to new players. So I think finally on the seventh hand, I must conclude that while I personally might be up to starting a game up, I'd not really want to play one that would be accessible to newer players, and I'd suggest you just set up a thread and try to get your own rolling.
Huh?
And of course your only way of getting your freespawns is to summon a priest that your nation has neither the paths nor the gems to practically summon in any large numbers. Because why not.You actually have the paths -- the d random smith guys can natively forge skulls staves, which gives them (well, anything with any death paths at all) access. Later, you can just pass off staves to revenants or whatev' and call up as many spirit callin' critters as you have resources for. The gems are more of an issue, heh. Takes a bit of research, but it's not terribly difficult to have enough by the time you actually roll a d-random smith, if the RNG's being recalcitrant.
The amount seems really low compared to ermor or lemuria, especially considering the critters aren't much (/any) better than lemuria's.
Oh I'm aware of all that. But that strategy you just outlined involves a .04% random, researching 6 and 4 in two different schools, all to START your strategy. I did specify "practical". On the other hand, your pretender needs to do a lot, I'm not sure single-handedly sitesearching death and and slowly summoning ghost-mages is the way to go either...And of course your only way of getting your freespawns is to summon a priest that your nation has neither the paths nor the gems to practically summon in any large numbers. Because why not.You actually have the paths -- the d random smith guys can natively forge skulls staves, which gives them (well, anything with any death paths at all) access. Later, you can just pass off staves to revenants or whatev' and call up as many spirit callin' critters as you have resources for. The gems are more of an issue, heh. Takes a bit of research, but it's not terribly difficult to have enough by the time you actually roll a d-random smith, if the RNG's being recalcitrant.
These generated one after the next; I can only assume the "u vs. e" schism is at the root of their violent separation, but I suppose non-believers will never understand the deepest mysteries of a given faith. A keen eye will detect colossi towering over the common southern hoburgs comprising the rank and file of each nation...Burg is German for castle, while Berg is German for mountain. For what it's worth, I would expect them having the opposite names from what I see. Kongburg looks very tribal and wild while Kongberg looks very civilized. Should be the other way around.
No clue why oceania is labeled as a powerful priest nation, though. Their priest is actually pretty iffy, decent casting paths aside. Rest of 'em is pretty consistent in what's causing it (access to at least an H3 capital commander -- several also have summons or, in the case of Abysia, H3 recruit-anywhere).
(Or just summon Queens of Elemental Water, since two out of three of them have uwregen.)These are what I was thinking of actually. Since they have ONE HUNDRED PERCENT uwregen.
The sad thing is that would still be pretty easy to kill... I mean at that level of research.With 1000 or more health that replenishes completely every turn? Unless something changed from Dom3 then wishing for power gives you BUCKETLOADS of HP
Plus the moment she attacks she dies, no questions asked. Autoroute for the win :PWHUT
Attackers rout after 50 turns, defenders after 75, and everybody dies at 100.
Berserkers don't rout, but slave collars only give 50 morale, so they still auto-rout.
Hum , I was tryign to find a definite answer on the forums, but apparently can't : nobody agrees about the 30 and 50 :/
I think the "Road" improvement from the castles negates the "hindered movement" ;)Assuming it comes with the road improvement :V
... would also mean that farmlands are wasted on capital provinces, which is interesting. And that forest/mountains are perhaps the only ones that matter in terms of raw numbers (though just regarding resources)?
I'd also point out that in caves, if you have darkvision or blind-fighter units, you have a bit of a tactical advantage in battles there. (Probably not a very large one, though)Speaking of caves, do they count as surface in relation to certain Globals? Perpetual Storm is the one I'm thinking of specifically.
Freespawn would require changing the sourcecode. Well, you might be able to jury-rig it via data files and filters, but it'd be an awful mess. Popkill OTOH would be trivial to add via straightforward changes to the nation filter files.
To actually answer the question I think you meant to ask, though, NationGen as it is release will generate neither of those sorts of nations, and further there's no plans in the foresable future to add them baring some serious changes to available modding commands.
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 1
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#rarity 0
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 1
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 2700
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 2
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 2
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 2700
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 3
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 3
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 2700
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 4
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 2700
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 4
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 5
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 512
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 5
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 6
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 6
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 512
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 7
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#kill 1
#delay 0
#end
#newevent
#req_fornation 100
#req_fullowner
#req_dominion 7
#notext
#nolog
#nation -2
#1unit 512
#end
Then play a game as Hobnia.Outside of heroes, pretenders, and summoned/independent mages, there would be no multi-path mages in the nation.I think this would cause your nation to be very difficult to balance.
I think this would cause your nation to be very difficult to balance.
Construction and rituals, really. They'd have no easy access to multi-path mages, unless they luck in on an indie site or one of their mages sprouts a second path (10% chance of that), or get a throne. And even then the indie mages wouldn't get the full benefit from their national quirk, they'd still need to enter communion manually. And they have no way to easily get an E1S1 mage to craft crystal matrices, either.QuoteI think this would cause your nation to be very difficult to balance.
The main issue is actually construction.
I mean I guess it could work if that nation gets a really great unique rainbow pretender....have you guessed what the nation is? D:
Also, I was thinking about the idea of giving the nation specific sacred/special units if specific pretenders are chosen. I.e. if you choose a particular pretender, an event spawns an additional site at your capital allowing you to recruit additional types of units.
Oh, by the way, can you mod in items restricted to your race ?
That does remind me. Is there any way at all to have a pretender with random magic paths?
Press 'r' when designing pretender to get a random design
Can't the units themselves also be made nation-restricted? Or does the site availability override it?Also, I was thinking about the idea of giving the nation specific sacred/special units if specific pretenders are chosen. I.e. if you choose a particular pretender, an event spawns an additional site at your capital allowing you to recruit additional types of units.
Major issue: only starting sites are nation-restricted, so if your capital falls, your sacreds won't show themselves to be particularly, ah, faithful.
And won't #homemon take care of that anyways, seeing as you'd be the "original owner" of the site regardless? Can't events spawn sites that have a particular "original owner"?If the province is your capital you are the original owner and that is it. You can event create more sites in your cap with the #homex stuff and have it work. Is how I figured this out in 4.14
Yes, but if you have an event create the site, it'll be a "generic" site as far as the game is concerned, and every nation will be able to use it.It doesn't have the checks you are thinking of. The only thing a site with #homex checks is if it is in the original capital of the nation owning it.
#newsite 1760
#name "The Frozen Tower"
#path 2
#rarity 5
#gems 2 3
#gems 1 2
#homecom 1536
#end
#newevent
#rarity 0
#msg "Appearo!."
#nologs
#req_indepok 0
#req_pop0ok
#req_nositenbr 1760
#addsite 1760
#end
Even if you take another capital without game end it will still only be your own original capital.
Even if you take another capital without game end it will still only be your own original capital.
I guess what you could do is have it constantly create dangerous Indy monsters that kill off pop. So you have a larger population, but you have to be constantly defending it. Would make thematic sense too in a way; it causes large population growth but it also causes the growth of creatures that youdon'twant to mind control into service.
How do Harvester of sorrows/ bane venom charm/ void spectre work?
Cold Blooded or Swamp survival negates the effects, but yes, and creatures that naturally resist disease (undead)
Is there any chance for person lost in space and time to return?Yes.
It sounds really weird, but it looks like, that only good working way of asassination for asassins is asassin summoning something better then himself to do the job.No, but it's definitely the cheapest. Thugging out assassins or getting your hands (usually via shenanigans) on better-than-human ones are also pretty much perfectly workable, it's just that a simple skelliespam+acorn (or whatever) combo is probably going to do better than it 90% of the time. Doesn't mean the non-summoning option isn't good, just that the summoning method is faintly ridiculous :P
Do poisons stay after the battle ends?No.
Any way to remotely horror mark someone without combat?Blood magic has a few ways. Mostly by sending horrors (which mostly can horror mark with some of their attacks) to remote attack. Which still sorta' involve combat, but you don't actually have to have your mages there for it.
Is there anything capable of absorbing people for hp increasing like eater of dead?Some pretenders can do the same thing.
There is horrific angel from hell, it has 25 nonmagical damage resistance( something like chance not to get damage at all thing), it is also ethereal because of some special robes to be even more pitchforkresistant, it has pendant of luck and flying shield and the shield in each hand to finish pitchforkproof kit. How peasants with pitchforks still kill him?Fatigue + RNG, probably. Defensive methods are half-way to irrelevant if the critter isn't fatigue neutral -- eventually the fatigue will add up and the critter will die. SCs that aren't fatigue neutral pretty much have to rely on heavy offensive (probably on top of fear, or some equivalent effect) and just enough defense to survive, instead of heavy defense. Especially because you had two shields, the thing was likely just not doing any damage, got tired, and basically keeled over dead.
Do effects of two same items stack? For example two scutata volturna for double disintegrate per turn(+ lightening bolt shooting helmet c:) or double bane venom charms on harvester of sorrowsGenerally they don't. Weapons are about the only exception, iirc. Not sure how stacked up shields work with regards to stuff like auto spell -- you'd definitely get the defensive bonuses, but not sure about the spells. Can test, quicklike...
But not always in the same province they departed from, and they may have to fight things before coming back. It's basically a 95% goodbye against SC, and 99% goodbye against others.Is there any chance for person lost in space and time to return?Yes.
There are a handful of generic sacred summons that aren't cold blooded/undead/lifeless/have swamp survival, though, I do believe. C'tis would have access to those just fine.
Blood magic has a few ways. Mostly by sending horrors (which mostly can horror mark with some of their attacks) to remote attack. Which still sorta' involve combat, but you don't actually have to have your mages there for it.
What do you mean they can't do anything? The idea was to have physically powerful commanders act as slaves in the communion to obtain the buffs that the wizards mostly just sit around wasting (Strength of Gaia for example)I see you read the Dom 3 guide on communions :P Its been nerfed so you can't do all that fanciness anymore.
Actually I just came up with that idea off the top of my head. Also: FUCK.What do you mean they can't do anything? The idea was to have physically powerful commanders act as slaves in the communion to obtain the buffs that the wizards mostly just sit around wasting (Strength of Gaia for example)I see you read the Dom 3 guide on communions :P Its been nerfed so you can't do all that fanciness anymore.
The buffs go down the communion ladder only. Never up or laterally.GARGLEBARGLEACK
Eh, yeah I mean I KNOW what its SUPPOSED to be used for, but It just disappoints me that because people found an interesting secondary application of the system the devs cried "exploit" and nerfed it into JUST being what its SUPPOSED to be.Nah, its BS.
Dominions, to me is a game where things SHOULD be more then they were intended, and nerfing "reverse-communions" seems like a step in the wrong direction in my eyes.
Tried vampire queen with high dominion for vampire spawn strategy, but there are no vampires spawne and everyone on the map just gets domkilled (i cant call 2 guys in 3 years good spawn) how does it even work? ( i had 10 dominion rather early in the game)Pretenders that dom-spawn troops do it by summoning troops only in a province they're in, not everywhere in their dominion.
So are there ANY good counters to Seeking Arrow?1.Forge and equip missile protection equipment. It's cheap.
Right now my only real answer to the massive swarms of instalose is "throw more commanders at it" and that seems counterproductive.
Right now my only real answer to the massive swarms of instalose is "throw more commanders at it" and that seems counterproductive.
Actually, it's not. A pile of chaff commanders is very expensive, but if you don't have any other option it makes flattening your commanders with arrows a lot more expensive for them, too (especially if they take more than one hit to kill) and also less reliable.
Speaking of seeking arrows, I'm firing a bunch of them at someone right now, but can't see how well they're working.
My opponent has a whopping 65 PD on the province I've been targetting, and catches every scout I send instantly - and for some reason scrying on it doesn't show the result.
Is there any way to get accuracy without eye of accuracy? cant waste misc slot, as my pretender certainly needs 3 bows of war or six fire bolas.Aim spell?
Death / fire weapons bless spreads on bows?
I had magic resistant eater of dead with 405 hp regen per turn + flying shield+ ark + it is prophet, and now this thing turned on the way to my capital after genociding lizards. WHAT TO DO? Any attempt to stop it ends up with making several hundreds hp stronger.
It's a fort and they're blood hunting there. I can see the population dropping and they don't have death scales (and they're Abysia and throwing demons at me and such). They also have some demons also on patrol there, to keep their blood-hunting unrest down - they show up when they catch my scouts.Ah... remote kill the province population then? If you can get it below 650 the PD will start going away. If you can get it below 5000 the province will be mostly useless for blood hunting. Maybe... hurricane would do that? I'm not entirely sure what hurricane does. Failing that, enough remote unrest could have a similar effect.
Since it's a fort, though, the sneak+attack won't show me anything different.
I could still take out the PD, of course.
Is there any way to get accuracy without eye of accuracy? cant waste misc slot, as my pretender certainly needs 3 bows of war or six fire bolas.That is HILARIOUS by the way. Like something that would happen to the bad guys in a fantasy novel (which let's be honest, is who we play as in Dominions).
Death / fire weapons bless spreads on bows?
I had magic resistant eater of dead with 405 hp regen per turn + flying shield+ ark + it is prophet, and now this thing turned on the way to my capital after genociding lizards. WHAT TO DO? Any attempt to stop it ends up with making several hundreds hp stronger.
Anyway, just spam undead at it until it autoroutes and take the province behind it so it dies from having nowhere to retreat to. You'll need a LOT of undead unfortunately because of trample, but if you could create that monster a bunch of longdeads should be downright pedestrian by comparison.
That is HILARIOUS by the way. Like something that would happen to the bad guys in a fantasy novel (which let's be honest, is who we play as in Dominions).And this is why I love playing Dominions. All those damn RPGs and such where "magic" means "fireballs and lightning bolts" and maybe if the devs were feeling fancy "invisibility/flight/teleporting/any utility spell that is infinitely more useful then fireballs"
Desintegrate/ soul slay/ ethereal crossbow were doing just 13 damage, then some guy1. LOL
banished thing to kokytos, it returned, banished it to hell, it returned, bit sending it to the void worked out( pantokrator knew how to solve problems)
One tartrarian decided to build mausoleum, what will it give?
Is there a way to cure tartarians?
The guy with void rod sometimes starts searching for rlyeh/ waiting for stars to come in right position, wow, dominions 4 4 best fluff in vydia ever.
Desintegrate/ soul slay/ ethereal crossbow were doing just 13 damage, then some guyTartarians building mausoleums is just something they do. It doesn't do anything but waste their turns.
banished thing to kokytos, it returned, banished it to hell, it returned, bit sending it to the void worked out( pantokrator knew how to solve problems)
One tartrarian decided to build mausoleum, what will it give?
Is there a way to cure tartarians?
The guy with void rod sometimes starts searching for rlyeh/ waiting for stars to come in right position, wow, dominions 4 4 best fluff in vydia ever.
Has anyone ever used Vafur Flames? What does it do? I can't find any info on it, and would like to avoid the hassle of testing.
... someone remind me, can anyone see astral windows you open up, or is it just you? I vaguely remember it looking like a magic site from your side of things, but can't recall if the visibility of the thingjigger is limited to the caster or not.
... anything except dragons.I've actually had really nice results with a dragon recently. So long as you make them attack the back to prevent friendly fire that breath attack wins against practically everything.
Oh, don't get me wrong, they're perfectly functional pretenders. They're just boring as all hell. Thoroughly uninteresting SC form (with limited slots and all of a breath weapon (more or less shared with like six other pretenders) to spice it up), morph form that's just another pretender chassis except worse. They'll get the job done, better than a lot of other pretenders, even, but gods save me from actually have to use one of the painfully vanilla things.
Really, if there's one beef I have with D4 it's that they somehow made god-dragons uninteresting. I don't even know how you manage that. Though having four or five palette-swap varieties is definitely how you start that process.
E: Y'know what this game needs? Mercenary performance tracking. Bands should really adjust their prices by how other bands manage under your command, with major markups if you end up with a lot of them wiping out on your pay, and gradual discounts as ones survive (especially if they survive with few losses). Playing one game and I'm half confused why any mercenary bands are still letting me bid -- I've killed off like five or six of the things so far, and of them, only one has lived to the point their contract lapsed (and I later re-hired them and got them killed, too). You'd think rumor mill would have kicked in by that point.
Underwater efffects: slashing and blunt weapons have an attack penalty equal to weapon length
underwater, while piercing weapons do not. If a weapon does both piercing damage as well as another
type, the underwater penalty is halved.
Could it be this?Must be, since the discrepancy disappears on land. However, the numbers still don't match: the glaive is length 4, does both slashing and piercing, and has inherent -1 attack modifier. That should add up to a -3 attack, while they get a -2.Quote from: ManualUnderwater efffects: slashing and blunt weapons have an attack penalty equal to weapon length
underwater, while piercing weapons do not. If a weapon does both piercing damage as well as another
type, the underwater penalty is halved.
And for some reason that made me wonder: Is it possible to mod in weapons with absurd lengths? Could you make a weapon with a length of 50? If so, would it have any effect on the game?
Yes, there is a finite number, even though that number was upped in Dom4.Excellent.
Those poor defenseless soldiers of fortune!
The economy makes slaves of us all sir.Those poor defenseless soldiers of fortune!
But they were free not to join god of misfortune.
You can make them riskier and/or costlier, yes. However, because BV is MR-based, high MR mages and/or those with solid MR gear can largely ignore it, especially if they have high HP and/or regen to make the occasional inevitable failure less disastrous. It's a good counter to hordes of low-cost mages engaging in evo spam, though.
I guess I could sorta' see it if you're playing one of those hyperaggressive bless nations that crush the entire map before turn 20 and just outrun your own dominion? I'd rather just take death scales or some heat/cold or... anything but misfortune, really. Seem to recall that some people swear by order/misfortune, but I've tried that and it... doesn't really help. Plus there's some really good beneficial order events.An update - sometime in the last month or three, I dunno - changed it so that the effects of order/turmoil on the likelyness of events is pretty damn minuscule. It used to be that you wanted either order/misfortune or turmoil/luck/magic, but now... now the optimal way of doing it is luck+magic and do whatever you want with order/turmoil because it makes no real difference to the other two. I believe its a 12% swing to event chance from max order to max turmoil, who cares about that? Luck + magic is THE strong scale right now IMO. Let's say you have, to pick arbitrary numbers, an 80 gold 7 research mage as your main lab rat. At magic 3 they're at 10 research, which effectively "saves" 35 gold and a little under half a fort turn every recruit, AND about 2.5 gold every turn in upkeep. So it saves you money and fort turns (which are the same thing as money until at least the start of year 3). And then all the gem-gen events will flood you with gems once finish your earlygame expansion and domspread.
I'unno, mostly it just seems to add an element of RNG to the game that is incredibly risky. Extra points can give you an edge, obviously enough, but you're counting on the bad events to not be ruinous and, well... putting a(n even) large(r) part of your success in the game in the hands of Dom4's RNG is not exactly what I'd call desirable. It likes to kill people.
The GOOD thing about BV summons is that it doesn't matter even a tiny bit the actual quality of the sacreds. Those 15 protection 18 defense skill heavy cavalry will be helped exactly as much by BV as a 0 protection 8 defense skill animal summon. There is literally one concern, and that is the HP of the sacred compared to how difficult and costly it is to recruit. This is why LA C'tis LOVES BV, because their Tomb Kings can freespawn two big bags of sacred health every turn totally for free. I've really considered picking up a nation with beefy but useless sacred summons (like MA Tien Chi with their celestial servants) and getting B9, and then putting them second row just as a *hit me you fucker I dare you* in the mid game. Seems like too much of a gimmick rather than an actual useful strategy tho.You can make them riskier and/or costlier, yes. However, because BV is MR-based, high MR mages and/or those with solid MR gear can largely ignore it, especially if they have high HP and/or regen to make the occasional inevitable failure less disastrous. It's a good counter to hordes of low-cost mages engaging in evo spam, though.
Only if they're not casting high-end evos. A mage casting Fire Storm on a Flagellant zerg with BV is pretty much going to die, even if their MR is 24+. It is highly effective against strategies that are relying on mass destruction battle spells because the type of mages that can tank that are end-game summons; and in an MP game you probably aren't getting access to them if you raced for high-end evos.
The problem with B9 bless isn't its anti-mage effectiveness, it's that it tends to be a big waste of design points: The Pretender buff sucks, it's not a good choice for site searching, and you don't get much in the way of battlefield help from it... all so you can run a one-trick pony strategy based around hoping that most of your army gets killed by the right enemy.
24 is not the same as 29 - not by a long shot. As a quick test, I took an MR-29 Debug Sensai and had it cast Fire Storm on a horde of 280 B9 sacreds. The sacreds routed, and the DS never took a single hit.
I suspect you've never tried dealing with really obscene MRs - when you've seen a single unit laugh off 20-30 boosted Disintegrates per turn for 50+ turns, you gain some respect for what MR stacking can really do.
The unfortunate thing about early vs late bloomers is that they scale WILDLY based on the type of game being played. Like, the current NG game is squarely in the lategame and while many people are crippled no one is huge that I know of and no one is 100% dead yet. Because its a big fricken game.I'm out of the game and Turland AI'd
Yeah not going to lie... Water does kind of feel... a LOT less complex then land.
I realize why this is (there are what? 1-3 maybe underwater races in each age... versus the billion of land), but it is just so jarring and kind of turns me off Water races every time.
...do you realize how large I was when you guys teamed up on me? Its a big map, thirty provinces or whatever doesn't count as huge.The unfortunate thing about early vs late bloomers is that they scale WILDLY based on the type of game being played. Like, the current NG game is squarely in the lategame and while many people are crippled no one is huge that I know of and no one is 100% dead yet. Because its a big fricken game.I'm out of the game and Turland AI'd
And if you REALLY think "no one is huge" you've been paying even less attention to Rizdos then I was :P
My issue with water is, like, nothing works. There are very very few ranged attacks, spells seemed to have been designed with the default being land-only rather than either way, troops are all very similar, and there are very few amphibious units (which makes the fact that poor amphibian is even a thing kind of a kick in the teeth). The Queens of Elemental Water can only be summoned UW making them only useful for camping the oceans, which if you get that far you're already easily capable of doing.Yeah not going to lie... Water does kind of feel... a LOT less complex then land.
I realize why this is (there are what? 1-3 maybe underwater races in each age... versus the billion of land), but it is just so jarring and kind of turns me off Water races every time.
Actually there's a modest sum of races at this point, though still very much a minority. EA is 5 aquatic (albeit one being a weird domkill one) plus 1 amphibious; MA is 4 aquatic plus 2 amphibious; and only LA really suffers with 1 aquatic, 1 semi-aquatic, 1 amphibious, and 2 semi-amphibious.
No, what kills UW for me is how blah all the provinces are; they're Sea or Deep Sea (and neither of those are particularly appealing), and they're one map move no matter what. Everything feels sluggish and samey, even if you have a race completely adapted to the environment. Mapmakers generally don't help either, as maps are usually designed with seas as strung-out barriers (the land/sea dominion spread penalty from the last patch helps with this, but only a little), ill-developed afterthoughts, or in the extreme, entirely omitted.
I meant he's ABOUT to fucking explode all over your lands and there is nothing you can do about it you poor bastard....do you realize how large I was when you guys teamed up on me? Its a big map, thirty provinces or whatever doesn't count as huge.The unfortunate thing about early vs late bloomers is that they scale WILDLY based on the type of game being played. Like, the current NG game is squarely in the lategame and while many people are crippled no one is huge that I know of and no one is 100% dead yet. Because its a big fricken game.I'm out of the game and Turland AI'd
And if you REALLY think "no one is huge" you've been paying even less attention to Rizdos then I was :P
How the blood bless damage works?I'd like to point out that this is the kind of thing which is answered by the wiki. The wiki (http://dom4.wikia.com/wiki/Bless), like every wiki, is an eternal WIP, but the bless info is pretty decent.
What are yer favorite nations, bay12ers?EA Agartha, hands down. I like that they can go anywhere (amphibious) but have a home base (in the caves) and I like big mages with big earth. I've blogged (https://cruxador.wordpress.com/about/) a game of that and will have another dropping soon.
So EA Rl'yeh doesn't fuck you up with no chance of retaliation?EA R'lyeh is the worst nation in the game. They get big mages, but they're aquatic and so are all the troops. With enough construction, and somehow breaking into air, you can get the commanders to be amphibious. But even then there's no solution for the troops.
Flying fish mount for pygmiesI... don't see why not?
As in most such cases, the problem isn't the Glamour, it's the stealth.Meaning it won't work?
Who defeated the ashen empire in lore?
How to protect mage from rain of stones?
Is la rlyeh freespawn supposed to cost money?
How you, guys, play MA Ermor / Lemuria?Kill everything ever.
It got cast recently in a game I'm playing now. It turned all my provinces cold, which would be bad for my cold blooded units, but then it disappeared the next turn.Happened recently in one I was playing in too. I had a pile of astral gems and some S3 sages from a Golden Throne I was occupying though, so I just took it down with a Dispel. Does that one actually awake giants of some sort if left to last, as its descriptions alludes to?
I figured someone whacked the pretender who cast it.
Granted, I've only cast it once, in Dom3, so it might have been changed.Nope, there still are the Niefel giants attacking randomly everywhere. I read that they're more likely to attack where there is high enemy dominion.
How does one protect himself from acid?
Being on fire is some real effect or just ,, fancy" graphics?
Are angels supposed to be that creepy?
It got cast recently in a game I'm playing now. It turned all my provinces cold, which would be bad for my cold blooded units, but then it disappeared the next turn.Happened recently in one I was playing in too. I had a pile of astral gems and some S3 sages from a Golden Throne I was occupying though, so I just took it down with a Dispel. Does that one actually awake giants of some sort if left to last, as its descriptions alludes to?
I figured someone whacked the pretender who cast it.
Oh hey... Trafalgar. Should've noticed your steam profile link sooner. >_>It got cast recently in a game I'm playing now. It turned all my provinces cold, which would be bad for my cold blooded units, but then it disappeared the next turn.Happened recently in one I was playing in too. I had a pile of astral gems and some S3 sages from a Golden Throne I was occupying though, so I just took it down with a Dispel. Does that one actually awake giants of some sort if left to last, as its descriptions alludes to?
I figured someone whacked the pretender who cast it.
Same game, and aha, so that's what happened. By the way, after you went AI your AI got aggressive and started taking provinces. Hasn't sieged any forts yet, though. :P
It got cast recently in a game I'm playing now. It turned all my provinces cold, which would be bad for my cold blooded units, but then it disappeared the next turn.Happened recently in one I was playing in too. I had a pile of astral gems and some S3 sages from a Golden Throne I was occupying though, so I just took it down with a Dispel. Does that one actually awake giants of some sort if left to last, as its descriptions alludes to?
I figured someone whacked the pretender who cast it.
The holiness of the Ark is so great that it constantly spreads the Dominion of its owner to all nearby provinces. If the Ark is brought into battle, it will kill and blind all heretics and spread disease among them. Only priests and sacred troops of the proper religion are spared from the wrath of the Ark.That's an artifact you can make.
Are there any army wrecking battlefield enchantmets, which stay after the caster retreats from the battlefield?Any of the damaging/debilitating battlefield enchantments would, near as I can recall, though most of them wouldn't do much if the caster was the only allied thing on the field before retreating. Wide spread poison would tick away for a bit after a retreat, but it isn't likely to do much to anything except bog-standard human armies, and even then from what I recall the actually battlefield wide one(s?) take some time to ramp up (so an immediate retreat would be fairly suboptimal). Otherwise SL covered most of it pretty well.
Oh and the temples are expensive but they give you fire gems. Only up to a certain amount, though I'm not sure what number it caps off at.Wait so they stop giving you gems after you've gotten ten gems from ALL your temples, or each temple gives you a max of 10 gems?
That doesn't sound very useful.
Will the plague/ wind of death( or how that killing all non undead wind spell is called) continue working and help my thug geared for EXTREME SURVIVAL, while this 10 hp old fat caster guy runs away trying not to fall down in mud with his face because his ermorian toga is such an awesome thing for jogging?
If I had to guess, that would be due to how the nation was added later on in a patch. The manual came out earlier than the nation did and I suppose the manual wasn't updated if you don't see anything about Ragha in there.Reminder that there's also a wiki.
That doesn't sound very useful.
Shrug. An extra ten gems per turn never hurt anyone. I'd rather have temples that create gems than temples that don't create gems. Besides I like to use soul contracts with Ragha, so I actually find it reasonably useful.
Does attacking seraph actually make unit blind?Yup. No clue if there's a resistance check or not, but the mod inspector definitely says they've got eyeloss on attackers, so anything that has a go at the blighters in melee has at least a chance of losing eyes.
Stygian paths, how does it work, man?MR-resist death WILL kill undead unless the spell has the "undead-immune" tag AFAIK.
I've just sent a lich with 100-odd soulless using that spell. The army benefited from +100% hp from the gift of health.
Now, the manual says units (all? most?) should be hit by a MR death attack (so, undead should be immune) and a 1 AN attack.
Still, 90% of the soulless perished, which is way too high for a mere statistical fluke.
Anyone knows anything more about the nuts and bolts of the spell? Had some experience?
That doesn't sound very useful.
Shrug. An extra ten gems per turn never hurt anyone. I'd rather have temples that create gems than temples that don't create gems. Besides I like to use soul contracts with Ragha, so I actually find it reasonably useful.
10 gems per turn sounds a lot better than 10 gems total. :P
Yep. There was a recent discussion about this on the zombie Desura forums, and I recall testing it with 0-MR, 1000hp soulless. Heavy casualties ensued.
Thank you, as Shadowlord noted, 10 per turn is amazing.That doesn't sound very useful.
Shrug. An extra ten gems per turn never hurt anyone. I'd rather have temples that create gems than temples that don't create gems. Besides I like to use soul contracts with Ragha, so I actually find it reasonably useful.
10 gems per turn sounds a lot better than 10 gems total. :P
Just looked at the overall conversation. I suppose some ambiguous things were said. Anyway, it is 1 gem per temple per turn. From what the other posters said, that goes up to a max of 10 gems per turn assuming 10 or more temples. 1 gem per temple up to a max of 10 temples. Having more than 10 temples will not raise the monthly gem income past 10. The limit is set by Max Dominion, so having less than 10 Max Dominion will lower the monthly fire gem income from 10 down to a lower number.
Oh gods why is the code box tiny.It isn't for me ???
It is for me as well. I'm on Chrome, maybe it's a browser thing?Oh gods why is the code box tiny.It isn't for me ???
@gman
I've thought about testing if the polymorph (it is the curse of the frog prince's) effect works in rituals but I haven't. It is also unknown what it will target as a ritual.Spoiler: Curse of the Frog Prince (click to show/hide)
Generally the answer to "how do I change the paradigm for this spell" is "you can't". A lot of stuff is totally hard-coded. I'm pretty sure that includes everything where a creature changes from one unit type to another.It is for me as well. I'm on Chrome, maybe it's a browser thing?Oh gods why is the code box tiny.It isn't for me ???
Oh yeah, another thing regarding the recent patch(es)... I also find it very amusing that they've added the "made of iron" tag to a lot of weapons, to indicate that they can be rusted by spells or by just being underwater for some time.
...and then they still kept in all the underwater units and nations that use those iron-based weapons and armors.
Maybe it's thematic that they like using rusted stuff?Oh yeah, another thing regarding the recent patch(es)... I also find it very amusing that they've added the "made of iron" tag to a lot of weapons, to indicate that they can be rusted by spells or by just being underwater for some time.
...and then they still kept in all the underwater units and nations that use those iron-based weapons and armors.
Yeah, I thought that was funny as well.
One thing that disappoints me about this game is that sometimes there is not an obvious winner, so you end up spending hours trying to win a game where one blob of soldiers and summoned creatures fight another blob of soldiers and summoned creatures. Micromanaging your 100 commanders and trying to find all the castles that you left on autoproduce that are eating up your money.
How do you guys deal with games that get this tedious?
One thing that disappoints me about this game is that sometimes there is not an obvious winner, so you end up spending hours trying to win a game where one blob of soldiers and summoned creatures fight another blob of soldiers and summoned creatures. Micromanaging your 100 commanders and trying to find all the castles that you left on autoproduce that are eating up your money.
How do you guys deal with games that get this tedious?
It sounds like you're playing on too large of a map. I know it's tempting the make ludicrously huge maps (I'm guilty of doing that all the time in SP), but the larger the map the bigger the micro and the longer the game.
It's also possible for it to become a slog even with thrones, of course. It depends on how many you need to win and how hard it is to get enough of them.
On a side note, I am about to play a caelum game and one of their obvious flaws are that you have no way of stopping them from flying right into the enemy army and getting chewed up with their lower stats and your own troop's arrows.
Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally?
Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat.
Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally?
I'm almost entirely certain that that is how it works. They'll retreat after running through the script as you planned it.Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat.
That sounds like a terrible plan, honestly. Some spells force morale checks, so the enemy could capitalize on that to ruin your plans.
Your army won't necessarily retreat into the same province IIRC(picks from all of your adjacent randomly) and if you have PD there will be a commander so your scattered troops won't route again from an incoming army.Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally?
I'm almost entirely certain that that is how it works. They'll retreat after running through the script as you planned it.Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat.
That sounds like a terrible plan, honestly. Some spells force morale checks, so the enemy could capitalize on that to ruin your plans.
Well I won't need to test if my low morale idea if the retreating commanders thing works. I imagine that it will piss off opponents to no end to have an army of archers and mages throwing down freezing arrows and thunderbolts, then retreating after all that initial damage.
Because it never shows up as an option. Shift-click on your target, and if you can raid you will. I'd love to say this is a place where it's helpful to remember to check the keyboard shortcuts via "?"; alas, however, that's no help in this particular case. You either know it (I wanna say it's in the manual, but I don't wanna go back and look) or you don't...Actually, it does show up. It works the same as "Move and patrol" or "Sneak and attack". Give the move order first, then it'll be in the orders menu. At least, that's how I recall it working. It may default to raiding on shift-click if the commander is not stealthy, though.
Because it never shows up as an option. Shift-click on your target, and if you can raid you will. I'd love to say this is a place where it's helpful to remember to check the keyboard shortcuts via "?"; alas, however, that's no help in this particular case. You either know it (I wanna say it's in the manual, but I don't wanna go back and look) or you don't...Actually, it does show up. It works the same as "Move and patrol" or "Sneak and attack". Give the move order first, then it'll be in the orders menu. At least, that's how I recall it working. It may default to raiding on shift-click if the commander is not stealthy, though.
I found an ancient ruin and got an event for either a mage to explore it or an adventurer to enter it. I have sent all sorts of mages and commanders to it but none can enter it. Anyone know what I have to do?I think it works on the basis of a %chance per turn to trigger an event - as long as you've got a mage or an adventurer in the province.
Did they hack away for 50 turns straight? Attackers auto-rout at 50 turns, so unless they were berserk, they'd turn tail at that point.
Did they hack away for 50 turns straight? Attackers auto-rout at 50 turns, so unless they were berserk, they'd turn tail at that point.Kinda makes me wonder what would happen if two Monuments ended up fighting at low magic levels. How long can the game go with two combatants that PHYSICALLY CANNOT rout, or do any damage to each other?
Throughout my entire playing of this game, I have shoveled gems into enchantments and dispels and have never dispelled an enemy's enchantment, yet have had mine dispelled.
My most recent game had the fastest Burden of Time I have ever seen cast, yet many turns later, after I got enough gems to cast a dispel with 33 extra gems, it fails! It just does not seem reasonable that the AI could get that many gems in such a short amount of time to resist such a huge dispel, and I just blew all my gems. Wtf are you suppose to do when it's too risky to try to dispel an enchantment, but if you don't then you will lose the game?
You know why I don't like this game?
Because I feel that within a day I could design an interface that doesn't suck as hard as the one in Dominions.
All the potential the game has is ruined by a refusal of the makers to acknowledge the importance of a good user interface.
Does the game even have waypoints for move orders?
You know why I don't like this game?
Because I feel that within a day I could design an interface that doesn't suck as hard as the one in Dominions.
All the potential the game has is ruined by a refusal of the makers to acknowledge the importance of a good user interface.
Does the game even have waypoints for move orders?
Have you played Dwarf Fortress?
In reality though, you're right. Everything seems like a hold over from the first game with only minor graphical and UI improvements.
Kill the caster?
You know why I don't like this game?
Because I feel that within a day I could design an interface that doesn't suck as hard as the one in Dominions.
All the potential the game has is ruined by a refusal of the makers to acknowledge the importance of a good user interface.
Does the game even have waypoints for move orders?
Have you played Dwarf Fortress?
In reality though, you're right. Everything seems like a hold over from the first game with only minor graphical and UI improvements.
Let's face it, interface is a serious weakness in DF too, there are few people that seriously play DF without third party management tools.
Kill the caster?
I have very little access to commander assassination abilities and their capital is too far away for me to reach without going to war with 2 other nations. The best access I have are some indie astral mages for mind hunting but they keep going feeble minded. Even if I had some other methods I can just imagine the dozens upon dozens of mound kings they have stored up.
From what I can tell, the devs never bothered to set the AI to see this enchantment as a threat, so they ignore it and make it impossible for the human to win. Wasn't this also a huge problem in Dom 3? Seems like something that should be fixed.
In reality though, you're right. Everything seems like a hold over from the first game with only minor graphical and UI improvements.
Eh, I find Dwarf Fortress easy enough. It's the Third Party management tools I don't understand.
The AI and peace is definitely a tricky thing. Bascially, each AI nation is at peace with the player until either the AI nation declares war on the player or the player attacks the AI nation. Then the AI is at war with the Player FOREVER. So I understand your reluctance to declare war.
You know why I don't like this game?
Because I feel that within a day I could design an interface that doesn't suck as hard as the one in Dominions.
All the potential the game has is ruined by a refusal of the makers to acknowledge the importance of a good user interface.
Does the game even have waypoints for move orders?
Have you played Dwarf Fortress?
In reality though, you're right. Everything seems like a hold over from the first game with only minor graphical and UI improvements.
Let's face it, interface is a serious weakness in DF too, there are few people that seriously play DF without third party management tools.
Eh, I find Dwarf Fortress easy enough. It's the Third Party management tools I don't understand.Kill the caster?
I have very little access to commander assassination abilities and their capital is too far away for me to reach without going to war with 2 other nations. The best access I have are some indie astral mages for mind hunting but they keep going feeble minded. Even if I had some other methods I can just imagine the dozens upon dozens of mound kings they have stored up.
From what I can tell, the devs never bothered to set the AI to see this enchantment as a threat, so they ignore it and make it impossible for the human to win. Wasn't this also a huge problem in Dom 3? Seems like something that should be fixed.
Uh, have you mentioned what nation you are playing? Can't give good advice without knowing that.
In my limited single player experience, its all about thugging. Unlike a human opponent, the AI will never figure out how to kill off your thugs and Supercombatants, so they can just tear through the masses of units that the AI gets to make up for its lack of ability.
The AI and peace is definitely a tricky thing. Bascially, each AI nation is at peace with the player until either the AI nation declares war on the player or the player attacks the AI nation. Then the AI is at war with the Player FOREVER. So I understand your reluctance to declare war.
That being said, provincial defenses supported by a small force of national troops and a mage can generally hold back the AI nations forever, so the waves of attacks aren't as big a threat as they may initially appear. Plus, whatever nation is wasting its gold on trying to assault your provinces is going to be weak to its AI nation neighbors, who will probably do the bulk of the conquering for you.
But again, it all depends on your nation. Some actually get worse when they try to use their nation's troops, lol. And some have mages that should never see a battlefield (although most magic paths bring something to battle, even at Level 1).
You can probably destroy them with a couple iron angel SCs kitted out for crowd control (provided they carry a supply item). If you have earth blood deep well up, and hammers for your smiths, you can pop those out and kit them up ridiculously fast. The learning curve there is probably in figuring out what will actually make them survive and be effective against your enemies.
There is an item that gives stealthiness, I think, but I don't remember what item it is.
Shademail Haubergeon, Death 2 Earth 1 Paths, construction 6 research. Protection is a bit low for frontline combat though (13). No fatigue or defense malus however.Const 4, actually. Probably the most fun thing to do with it is to stealth S4 casters along with your armies when the enemy is fond of mind hunt :V
The only real problems I have with Dom4 are things like not being able to select 20 mages and set their script orders on the army management screen at once instead of having to do them all individually.Not a complete fix for that, but you are aware you can save order sets, right? Ctrl+1-9 (or 1-0, don't quite remember) to save, then mouse over the change order thing and press the number. Still sorta' have to assign orders individually, but a mouse over and 1 button press is a lot less painful than going through the whole process. Can save a lot of time when you're mostly scripting the same things.
Because I feel that within a day I could design an interface that doesn't suck as hard as the one in Dominions.Do it then. The devs are pretty open to using community-made stuff. Though personally, I don't really see the problem anywhere aside from the messager, which stays that way because if you mention it on their forums, you'll get a bunch of people telling you how dumb you are for using it in the first place.
Does the game even have waypoints for move orders?No. That's not an interface thing though, it's a feature. If we're talking features, it would also be nice to automate scouting and site searching, those are like three quarters of the time that my turns take in the mid/late game if there's no war on. Problem is, the automation would have to be good enough to prevent you from just needing to do it yourself anyway.
Not sure if people care, but my AAR is still going. It's been moderately popular on other sites in the past, so maybe you folks like it too.
The first post is here: https://cruxador.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/another-aar-stalewarriors/ (https://cruxador.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/another-aar-stalewarriors/)
You can see a list of posts on this game, independent of other unrelated posts, here: https://cruxador.wordpress.com/category/stalewarriors/ (https://cruxador.wordpress.com/category/stalewarriors/)Because I feel that within a day I could design an interface that doesn't suck as hard as the one in Dominions.Do it then. The devs are pretty open to using community-made stuff. Though personally, I don't really see the problem anywhere aside from the messager, which stays that way because if you mention it on their forums, you'll get a bunch of people telling you how dumb you are for using it in the first place.QuoteDoes the game even have waypoints for move orders?No. That's not an interface thing though, it's a feature. If we're talking features, it would also be nice to automate scouting and site searching, those are like three quarters of the time that my turns take in the mid/late game if there's no war on. Problem is, the automation would have to be good enough to prevent you from just needing to do it yourself anyway.
I'm no programmer, but would a script to send scouts and mages to unknown areas, and have the mages site search when they arrive, be pretty easy actually?The problem isn't to make any at all, the problem is that if you don't make it good, anyone who uses it is at a disadvantage. That means that a scout needs some manner of deciding what's important, including both what's important enough to be in, and what's important enough to be near. So they need to assess what nations are probable threats and what areas are probably chokepoints and where there might be troops and battles that you'd like to see. You need some manner of prioritization. "Travel to nearest unrevealed land" might not be very useful, depending on the amount of fucks you give.
If no scout report, Then send scout.
Mage of x magic path: If no magic site search path x, then Goto province and site search.
Mutable terrain is awesome but it's a thorny problem with the map system we have. Of the two, I'd rather keep the map system. That said, the random maps do things like sprinkle trees on provinces that should be forest, and if a map maker could add a set of tree sprites (and if undefined, elect to use vanilla ones or disable visual mutability) it would definitely be cool. I'd like it if we could make custom forts and temples and thrones for different maps too, with option to make special ones for special provinces.I'm no programmer, but would a script to send scouts and mages to unknown areas, and have the mages site search when they arrive, be pretty easy actually?The problem isn't to make any at all, the problem is that if you don't make it good, anyone who uses it is at a disadvantage. That means that a scout needs some manner of deciding what's important, including both what's important enough to be in, and what's important enough to be near. So they need to assess what nations are probable threats and what areas are probably chokepoints and where there might be troops and battles that you'd like to see. You need some manner of prioritization. "Travel to nearest unrevealed land" might not be very useful, depending on the amount of fucks you give.
If no scout report, Then send scout.
Mage of x magic path: If no magic site search path x, then Goto province and site search.
Mages are more of a problem, because you need to consider the efficiency of travel, provinces that are searched in some but not all of the paths a mage has, and areas of potentially elevated danger.
Agreed, although the current UI makes me cringe at how an order queue would most likely be implemented. It would almost certainly, on the first iteration, be harder to queue orders than just issue new orders each turn.Mutable terrain is awesome but it's a thorny problem with the map system we have. Of the two, I'd rather keep the map system. That said, the random maps do things like sprinkle trees on provinces that should be forest, and if a map maker could add a set of tree sprites (and if undefined, elect to use vanilla ones or disable visual mutability) it would definitely be cool. I'd like it if we could make custom forts and temples and thrones for different maps too, with option to make special ones for special provinces.I'm no programmer, but would a script to send scouts and mages to unknown areas, and have the mages site search when they arrive, be pretty easy actually?The problem isn't to make any at all, the problem is that if you don't make it good, anyone who uses it is at a disadvantage. That means that a scout needs some manner of deciding what's important, including both what's important enough to be in, and what's important enough to be near. So they need to assess what nations are probable threats and what areas are probably chokepoints and where there might be troops and battles that you'd like to see. You need some manner of prioritization. "Travel to nearest unrevealed land" might not be very useful, depending on the amount of fucks you give.
If no scout report, Then send scout.
Mage of x magic path: If no magic site search path x, then Goto province and site search.
Mages are more of a problem, because you need to consider the efficiency of travel, provinces that are searched in some but not all of the paths a mage has, and areas of potentially elevated danger.
And this is why the game badly needs an order queue to give orders turns in advance. Giving a lengthy search path order at once is a lot less tedious that having to update the order every turn. Does the strategic situation change as to warrant another order? Fine go ahead, no problem.
And instantly you have the same amount of micromanagement control, but vastly less tedious.
At 100 fatigue a summon? They wouldn't help much. Forging Earth Boots and using Summon Earthpower is probably your best bet to manage fatigue and gems. Assuming that you're using E2 mages to spam Earth Elementals, that'll get them up to E4 and should let them suffer only 50 fatigue per summon. You'll have to have a scout or something following your army so that you can ration out gems, but I think that that should work. I would certainly test that out first before using it.Thanks, I'll do that.
Believe it or not, but Conquest of Elysium was/is even more unbalanced than Dominions...They both have the same problem where once you reach the end game some factions can enter combat with stuff that will stomp other factions regardless of relative resource count.
Speaking of CoE, I played the 3rd one and it felt like a small slice of dominions pie. Is it really just a smaller game, or did I miss large amounts of content?You missed the Demilich, that would become a pretender in Dominions 4. He's awesome.
That's a problem in the beginning of the game too, especially EA. :V
Giants with frost aura for example. Or troops which are fireball-throwing demons which turn into ethereal spirit forms if they "die," making them nigh-impossible to kill without massed magic (or fire bless).
Speaking of CoE, I played the 3rd one and it felt like a small slice of dominions pie. Is it really just a smaller game, or did I miss large amounts of content?You missed the Demilich, that would become a pretender in Dominions 4. He's awesome.
I have a ghost king pretender in an MP game, sitting in 9 candles. He's spawned/attracted only one ghost since breaking out of imprisonment. It's turn 65 now. 3 years would be 36 turns? So it's been roughly 30 turns that he's been free, and he's been in high dominion provinces the entire time.Answer: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=1987 (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=1987)
Anyone know what's up with that?
It really is a smaller game. However, CoE also has a lot of "hidden" content, like special rare encounters and interactions between some units and map sites. For the most part, however, it's just smaller and shorter.Yomi has to treat their troops like a levy. None of them cost much resources so just hire them all the moment you need them.That's a problem in the beginning of the game too, especially EA. :V
Giants with frost aura for example. Or troops which are fireball-throwing demons which turn into ethereal spirit forms if they "die," making them nigh-impossible to kill without massed magic (or fire bless).
I never really managed to get Yomi to work out all that well for me, honestly... The demons are ludicrously expensive, and although the chaos recruitment thing helps, I'm pretty sure that only has an effect on the "down payment", not the upkeep. And the upkeep will quickly soar to very unmanageable levels with a few troops... Also they can't hit a goddamn thing with those fireballs, haha.
Heeeey. Someone remind me, for disciple games, is there any way to filter things so each team is under a single flag/color?... I mean, it would be an easy mod.
Ok so now I turned on conservative casting and THEY REFUSE TO USE THE SPELLS I TOLD THEM TO USE.Which spells? Do they have the paths without gem empowerment? (Shouldn't be affected by turning on conservative casting, but...) Is there a range issue? (They'll go off-script if a scripted spell has no valid targets in range.) Did anything change item-wise or path-wise? (See paths) Are they hitting 100 fatigue? (No gem empowerment means lower paths means less/no fatigue reduction.)
HOW DO I MAKE THEM USE THE SPELLS I WANT THEM TO USE AND NOTHING MORE?
I am suddenly upset by lack of plague doctor character. Gaping hole in game design.Gaping hole in YOUR MOM.....
http://a mod
You can mod in catapult/arcing fire units fairly easily, iirc. Would really be mostly an issue of changing their attack/attack sprite and giving them long range -- the regular arrow trajectories work well enough for the effect. They're not used very often -- I think about the closest thing to them are some of the giant nations and their boulder throwers -- but the mechanics for it are there. Easy de-crew would just be one of those second shape thingies, akin to the oni, where the first form is flimsy and the second isn't.
There are sprites in the files for catapults, ballistas, and trebuchets, but they're only used in CoE.
I am suddenly upset by lack of plague doctor character. Gaping hole in game design.They're a bit late for the game's time period.
I always wanted something with siege engines, like in-battle units that provided a siege bonus and could also, like, shoot long-range fireballs or boulders.EA Agartha might be relevant to your interests. Their stone hurlers are exactly this, and are sacred so you can soup them up (though I wouldn't consider it an optimal strategy) and their mages do these things but magically, and are also quite good. Mages in general (and evokers in particular) tend to take the battefield role of artillery and do it better than any siege weapons from antiquity through the high middle ages, so it makes sense that they're not really a thing. Would be pretty easy to mod in if you wanted to, though.
Their AI just never works the way you'd expect/want them to, and even then it's difficult to find a bless that really helps.For the AI, you can set them to fire, it's just that the range is really short so they have to be pretty much on top of the enemy for anything to work, and as Agartha you usually want to be further back. A line of blessed HP-bags up front with stone throwers behind them is a substantial battle force. It's not really viable in actual play, since it's expensive as all get-out (and vastly inferior to olms+chaff at similar gold expenditure and no bless) but there's always single player.
Does fire/death blesses even effect boulders? Those or air would probably be about it. Well... actually, blood would help, too, for the strength boost, wouldn't it? I could sorta' see a blood bless with a couple strength of giant (or whatever) casters sitting in the back line bumping their range up.F9BxAx would be the classic bless, inasmuch as there is a classic bless for such a fringe strategy. Blood helps for range, but the range calculation is not very generous. In my opinion it should be STR/2, not STR/3 to make them viable. Agartha has a good set of options anyway, since the cave patch, but it would be nice if some of the older options worked a bit better.
'Course, blood doesn't exactly bring much to the argathan table (except blood stones, anyway), but still... maybe a disciples game with a blood-capable subordinate leaning on your god for heavy rituals/forging?
Aside from fire not affecting ice weapons, fire/death blesses affect pretty much everything.Not mind blast, which is pretty significant. If it did, Olms with F9 would be lethal as all hell. Or D9, since Agartha likes big D a lot anyway.
I think some of the Dom3 balance mods gave thrown boulders an AoE attack.... y'know, it's very possible that's where I remember it from. Would make sense, I did play D3 with one or two of 'em a ways back, and never really had a need/interest in using boulder throwers (pale one or giant) in D4, so... yeah.
For the AI, you can set them to fire, it's just that the range is really short so they have to be pretty much on top of the enemy for anything to work, and as Agartha you usually want to be further back. A line of blessed HP-bags up front with stone throwers behind them is a substantial battle force. It's not really viable in actual play, since it's expensive as all get-out (and vastly inferior to olms+chaff at similar gold expenditure and no bless) but there's always single player.Yeah, but if you don't have a line of units in front of the throwers they'll occasionally just eschew throwing at all to go and punch things. And you don't really *want* anything standing in front of them, because they're still Agartha so their aim is still pretty atrocious... Sometimes even with a front line, a few of the hurlers will walk out and punch things without ever throwing a rock.
Also bear in mind that the extra strength applies to the damage dealt, since they're throwing weapons. It's not much, but it's something to take note of... I tried doing blood bless on the Xibalban Muuch dart throwers, but they never really managed to do anything all that well even with the bless.Does fire/death blesses even effect boulders? Those or air would probably be about it. Well... actually, blood would help, too, for the strength boost, wouldn't it? I could sorta' see a blood bless with a couple strength of giant (or whatever) casters sitting in the back line bumping their range up.Blood helps for range, but the range calculation is not very generous. In my opinion it should be STR/2, not STR/3 to make them viable. Agartha has a good set of options anyway, since the cave patch, but it would be nice if some of the older options worked a bit better.
Blood Stones are a substantial advantage, and having access to them is potentially worth the small amount of blood dabbling it takes to get them if you want the bless anyway.
Or D9, since Agartha likes big D a lot anyway.Heh, heh. "Big D". Heh.
Agartha just manages death so easily, since most of their nationals are either not worth recruiting, throwaway, or sacred and non-eating.Heavy death scales on a nation where everything worth recruiting is expensive as hell but better in large numbers, and where your usual early game plan is to take your time building up?
And then those old guys with togas combine their powers and drop fire storms and bolts of dark energies on the attacking monsters. Being a giant isn't that helpful when you're paralyzed and on fire after all.
FIRE SPITTING GIANTS WHO BECOME ETHEREAL MONSTERS SFTER DEATH, OR DAMN MAGMAMAN.Both kind of mediocre for reasons pertaining to gold and mage access.
A handful of black onis were molesting a group of red onis and refused to stop.Daily life in Dominions, eh?
Actually, these are the second elements of the UW revamps. 4.21 did a moderate overhaul on Oceania and Pelegia, and made rusting an issue. But I nitpick...
bit harder for land nations to invade themThat's movement in the wrong direction...
I dunno, I agree that in general this is true, but I like R'lyeh having the theme it does. And turning the entire sea into a writhing mass of aboleth spawn seems like a good way to double down on that theme, countering out the (not huge, but still extant) loss of that particular aspect which comes from allowing the powerful ancient god-kings to project their power more effectively on the dry world.bit harder for land nations to invade themThat's movement in the wrong direction...
Only updating therodos and EA rlyeh, feels kinda dissapointingAlso LA Mictlan. And the dev log already told us the broad strokes of what was coming so the only thing to be disappointed in is how poorly thought out some of these balance decisions were.
So... does anyone know how to play EA R'lyeh now? I'm finding the low drive of troops tough to work around, so any idea what I'm supposed to be doing? Aboleth troops are only good for aquatic fights, and there doesn't seem to be a way to make them go on land really, other than building a coastal fort to send mages back to have their brains replaced. Should I be using more rituals maybe? Use different units besides the slaves? Also, should I care to use any pretender other than the floating mind? Seems... really cheap in case you want good scales... but not sure how good scales are. Feel kinda lost with this nation.It's still a quite weak nation, nobody else knows how to play it either. I think you're pretty much doing it correctly. Scales are good (especially gold, since your stuff is all expensive, and magic since most astral stuff is MR-resists and the best astral stuff is high level) and it might be good to go to A4 as well; the first level of air gives easy access to amulet of the fish, which can bring mind lords topside and which you couldn't otherwise get, going up to A4 will allow you to bless androdai from a precision of 7 to 9, which is still not stellar but it's cheap once you've paid the price to add a path anyway.
Only updating therodos and EA rlyeh, feels kinda dissapointing
Also LA Mictlan.
Want to try ermor on big map strategy focused on getting burden of time as early as possible( remember someone on desura going with pulling out burden of time on turn 12 or something) ,At a wild guess, it seems like an Awake Great Sage pretender (Adept Researcher +15 for himself, and Inspired Researcher +1 for each and every other researcher in his province) is your best pick for RP-rushes, and a minimum of D5 in paths will be necessary as you won't have any Construction research. Magic 3 on your scales should help by giving an additional +3 RP to every mage, especially since Ermor can tremendously dump almost all of their scales without issue. You need to cover 50+100+200+400+800=1550 RP, to reach Thaum5, which means that over 12 turns you'll need to get around 130 RP per turn on average. Every time you summon a Spectator, you lose 13 RP for one turn in exchange for 13 RP per turn; it pays off after one turn, and with an income of 15 gems at a minimum, you can do this once per turn and twice every four turns. By contrast, attempting to summon even a single Dusk Elder with your pretender will cost you upwards of four dozen RP for a break-even point of at least 2-3 turns, not to mention requiring 20 rather than 12 gems. Same goes for using your pretender to forge; not only do you need to divert for Con 2 (150 points) for a single owl quill (+6 RP) per turn, you're also losing any RP you could be generating having your pretender research while it's instead forging.
I guess, that first step is magic three, it is rather obvious. Second is neteret of many names for additional rp. But what is the most effecient research alghoritm ?
And MA/LA Xibalba.What was done to them?
Want to try ermor on big map strategy focused on getting burden of time as early as possible( remember someone on desura going with pulling out burden of time on turn 12 or something),While possible, this was a gimmicky and unsuccessful way to play even before BoT was nerfed. Rushing it doesnt' give you the benefits to counter the cost, and depending on the meta, you either will not be able to get there without getting rushed, or casting BoT will incite everyone to gang up on you.
I guess, that first step is magic three, it is rather obvious. Second is neteret of many names for additional rp. But what is the most effecient research alghoritm?Summon a dusk elder every turn that you can, and everybody researches all the time.
By contrast, attempting to summon even a single Dusk Elder with your pretender will cost you upwards of four dozen RP for a break-even point of at least 2-3 turnsYes, but you only need to do it once. If Dusk Elders were more efficient, they would pay for themselves quickly. The real reason why not is because at magic 3, you get one RP per turn per gem regardless. It's slightly more efficient in mage turns, but in the first year that you want to be done by, that will only be relevant twice.
Technically with a GS and M3, Revenants are slightly better in terms of research-per-gem - you can summon 4@11rp/turn for the same price as 3@13rp/turn Spectators. However, it's probably worth it to go with the Spectators just because of how much more useful D2 is vs. D1 if you need to empty the labs...Revenants require research to get, they set you back too much. Also, if we were factoring in utility you would go for dusk elders. But then, if we were trying to be practical we wouldn't rush burden of time.
What was done to them?
I'm a fan of equipping researchers with quills and/or lanterns, and do it in any game that I can.
I'm not. I can't bring myself to spend the gems.Even if they're fire gems? What else are you going to do with them?
I'm not. I can't bring myself to spend the gems.
Or combat boost weak mages to spam elementals, if you can deal with some tedious scripting.Just the once though - everyone's familiar with the copy-paste commands for battle scripting, right? If not, you're doing yourself a major disfavor with any battle that contains more than one mage.
Or combat boost weak mages to spam elementals, if you can deal with some tedious scripting.
Bolas. Bolas for days.
Or combat boost weak mages to spam elementals, if you can deal with some tedious scripting.
Actually, what's probably more entertaining is fielding F1 labrats if you have them, giving them each a gem, and letting them spam fireballs after Phoenix Power.
Giving this the tiniest bump to see if people are interested in a multiplayer game of this. Something more beginner oriented. I've only played one and a half games of this and those were so long ago I doubt I'm in any shape to be super competitive.
Could just fool around with some weak or 'weak' nation.
I haven't been using the balance overhaul mod and that might throw me off.Without the experimental branch, it mostly just changes costs of things and makes tiny numerical adjustments, but okay.
mod freeWhat, not even Worthy Heroes?
Gift of Health (Ench 7; N6): Everyone who worships you becomes healthier. This one's more likely to be poached because someone else wants the effect, or fears you'll be Tartarianing it up (does it still work on Tartarian insanity?).
Illwinter (increases global cold; thematically the coming of Ragnarok)Unless they changed it, doesn't this also cause ice wolf and giant attacks on random nations?
Gift of Health (Ench 7; N6): Everyone who worships you becomes healthier. This one's more likely to be poached because someone else wants the effect, or fears you'll be Tartarianing it up (does it still work on Tartarian insanity?).
Tartarian insanity is incurable, but as they are undead and spawn with afflictions, GoH is one of the few ways they can be healed of those.
What is so great aboutbreaking the seal spell?
From what I remember it gives you some vastness like units. And rlyeh gets this stuff for free.
Does luck affect rlyeh void gate effect btw?
Anything dies if you hit it with enough disintegrates.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you just follow the God Vessels around with expendable armies and retake the land that they capture?
Anything dies if you hit it with enough disintegrates.You don't want to kill god vessels. They're worse after they die.
Pretty sure the damage from disintegrate will carry over and kill the wounded form the same way a 40 damage hit can one-shot a jaguar warrior.Might be right, actually. I haven't seen that done since before the patch that made damage roll over. I'd still rather just hope they go away, getting a disintegrate past their MR is going to take a lot of ablative chaff at best.
Pretty sure the damage from disintegrate will carry over and kill the wounded form the same way a 40 damage hit can one-shot a jaguar warrior.
... someone should make, like. A scenario or somethin'. That starts off with basically every omni-hostile roaming entity in the game (maybe some of them with multiples) already up and roaming. Maybe several really nasty global enchantments, too. Basically make the thing a hellworld full of wandering horrors, and see who can survive to conquer it. That sounds like it'd be good for a laugh :VHaving played a game that got to a similar state, it's not fun at all.
I'd love to have more big spells - not just endgame. Maybe a 30 F spell with low requierments that drops a metor on a completly random province, adding a amazing magic-site but removing most population and troops?Heh, it could even go one further and make it look "natural" like the Hurricane spell by utilizing the existing meteorite or comet events (for those not familiar, they create a Huge Crater - 1E1S - site; kill anywhere from 5%, 10%, or 75% of the population; and possibly destroy the lab or temple in the province depending on which particular event is triggered). I would like to see some love to go to Water, Fire, and Air, though. ^_^
(it wasn't very useful, but killed a lot of people).That is useful. Astral Corruption is amazing for hamstringing the opposition's ability to use big magic, and big magic is what wins games.
Modifying province types hasn't been in the game in a very long time, and will continue to not be in it for as long as maps use the current system.(it wasn't very useful, but killed a lot of people).That is useful. Astral Corruption is amazing for hamstringing the opposition's ability to use big magic, and big magic is what wins games.
Stalewarriors, a six month game which I was in, has ended. I kept a blog of the turns, and if you like you can check that out here: https://cruxador.wordpress.com/category/stalewarriors/ (https://cruxador.wordpress.com/category/stalewarriors/)
It ended up being a lot of relatively boring infrastructure building without a major war on my part, because it was on a huge map and my real life picked up and I had to step aside for 20 turns just as the midgame was transitioning to the lategame. But I avoid saying a lot when there's nothing to say so hopefully it'll be enjoyable to some folks anyway.
I have another game starting shortly, but it'll be different; it's nationgen.
Interesting game, even if the interface is a bit uncooperative at times.
How did you guys get in to dom4? Did you play previous iterations of the game?I played a bit of Dom3, after hearing good things about it, but I didn't get really into it and start playing multiplayer until Dom4. That I got into because it was kind of a big thing when it came out, in communities that I frequent. You have to start out being okay with not understanding everything. People that have been playing for a decade don't understand everything. And there are a lot of details that, while potentially useful for some tricky strategy some time, aren't really needed for playing the game.
I've done a couple ai games and am pretty overwhelmed by the mechanics.There's a tutorial in the manual which covers the very basics, if you haven't seen it, and Maerland has tutorials. But as long as you know a little bit, you're good to play. You'll likely lose, but that's true no matter how good you are – there's like 8-12 players per game and only one winner. If you can find a game intended for new players, great, because you'll thrive better that way, but you can do something or other even in a game with all skill levels. Blitz games might be the fastest way to learn but PBEM will allow you to learn new things at the pace that you encounter them. Either way, play with a community where you can ask questions and talk about things, and pick up knowledge by seeing the conversations.
How did you guys get in to dom4? Did you play previous iterations of the game?I had played 3, the main reason I had gotten into it was because of the let's plays on the lparchive. They seemed interesting, but I never got into multiplayer before 4, where I had gotten asked to sub for one game here on bay12 and I had played a disciples game on the Desura forums. Other than that I'd mostly been messing with single player stuff.
I've done a couple ai games and am pretty overwhelmed by the mechanics.I think in general, being overwhelmed is normal when you're learning the game. For the most part, what should be happening right now is you ought to be noticing some of the options you have you liekly won't depend on much. At least right off the bat, you'll have some 80 or 90 percent of all spells as spells you won't have access to without some work.
I wanted to join the round 20 game but I've got a lot to do right now. Since a new game is sparse here in Bay12, what other place would you advice me to look for a newbie game later?Well, the round 20 game filled up pretty quick. Other than here there's the Desura forums, not sure how good they are now. Besides Desura, there's also the official forums (at least pretty sure they're the official forums) right over here (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?act=idx). Some few posts back someone mentioned the other places as well where you can find some games being run.
I wanted to join the round 20 game but I've got a lot to do right now. Since a new game is sparse here in Bay12, what other place would you advice me to look for a newbie game later?Well, the round 20 game filled up pretty quick. Other than here there's the Desura forums, not sure how good they are now. Besides Desura, there's also the official forums (at least pretty sure they're the official forums) right over here (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?act=idx). Some few posts back someone mentioned the other places as well where you can find some games being run.
Theoretically, a mixed skill group is possible assuming disciple games, but eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh flashbacks to other two team members turning in stale turns 1/3rd the time sometimes with no warning. Theoretically sounds fun, but if I'd be in one again, I'd rather it be with people I know. The folks that won that game won since they were the most active players and always had their turns in, despite lower skill level.
I wanted to join the round 20 game but I've got a lot to do right now. Since a new game is sparse here in Bay12, what other place would you advice me to look for a newbie game later?Well, the round 20 game filled up pretty quick. Other than here there's the Desura forums, not sure how good they are now. Besides Desura, there's also the official forums (at least pretty sure they're the official forums) right over here (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?act=idx). Some few posts back someone mentioned the other places as well where you can find some games being run.
Theoretically, a mixed skill group is possible assuming disciple games, but eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh flashbacks to other two team members turning in stale turns 1/3rd the time sometimes with no warning. Theoretically sounds fun, but if I'd be in one again, I'd rather it be with people I know. The folks that won that game won since they were the most active players and always had their turns in, despite lower skill level.
We've got an opening on Round 19. While there are certainly sharks in those waters, the hoburg theme makes it more of a "lite" game.
I know I stall far more than I might otherwise, lol.
Also that's a nationgen game, and there are no guides for nationgen nations. :P
Also that's a nationgen game, and there are no guides for nationgen nations. :P
Yeah, I know. :)
8th March: The LlamaServer hard drive became full last night, leading to some confusing "no 2h file found" emails and to all the games briefly disappearing from the website. I think I've restored everything now, but if you still have any problems please drop me an e-mail.
It might be wise to double check the next hosting time for your game, as I just restored them from the last overnight backup and added 24 hours, which might or might not be appropriate.
Promised Nationgen guide, Glorious Kundorf!Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Promised Nationgen guide, Glorious Kundorf!Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also:Spoiler (click to show/hide)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Great stuff thanks! You going to blog your next game by any chance?Yep. There'll be posts ever Sunday starting with the upcoming, though the first turns aren't until the third post.
I'd start out with a generic human MA nation like Marignon and learn some basic magic like buffing, blowing things up, or spamming undead.I would say the best choice of nation is whichever one seems cool to you. Games last months, so one of the worst things that can happen is you play your nation and get all read-up and settled, but in the back of your mind it's just a second-best as you prepare for that nation you really want to play. That kind of situation is how MA Ulm, which is commonly recommended as good to learn with, got a reputation for staling and going AI in the first year. Simplicity is nice if it's literally your first game and you're learning the ropes against AI, but when you get into multiplayer you'll find that complexity hinders you far less than you'd previously expected.
Also I'd focus on learning each spell school in vacuum, its simpler and while crosspaths are great most mages that know multiple paths aren't terribly cost efficient anyway. Just knowing what you can do with, for example, 2 earth and nothing else, can get you pretty far into the midgame.2 earth is especially great because it lets you cast earth power, which brings you to 3 earth and that has a lot of good spells in Alteration and also Blade Wind, which is a great evocation for shredding unarmored enemies (and is passable against lightly armored).
Great stuff thanks! You going to blog your next game by any chance?Yep. There'll be posts ever Sunday starting with the upcoming, though the first turns aren't until the third post.I'd start out with a generic human MA nation like Marignon and learn some basic magic like buffing, blowing things up, or spamming undead.I would say the best choice of nation is whichever one seems cool to you. Games last months, so one of the worst things that can happen is you play your nation and get all read-up and settled, but in the back of your mind it's just a second-best as you prepare for that nation you really want to play. That kind of situation is how MA Ulm, which is commonly recommended as good to learn with, got a reputation for staling and going AI in the first year. Simplicity is nice if it's literally your first game and you're learning the ropes against AI, but when you get into multiplayer you'll find that complexity hinders you far less than you'd previously expected.QuoteAlso I'd focus on learning each spell school in vacuum, its simpler and while crosspaths are great most mages that know multiple paths aren't terribly cost efficient anyway. Just knowing what you can do with, for example, 2 earth and nothing else, can get you pretty far into the midgame.2 earth is especially great because it lets you cast earth power, which brings you to 3 earth and that has a lot of good spells in Alteration and also Blade Wind, which is a great evocation for shredding unarmored enemies (and is passable against lightly armored).
I absolutely must disagree HARD with the strategy of learning anything in isolation.There are stages to learning. Taking one thing at a time first and then putting them together is much easier than putting everything together at once.
Multi-path mages are GREAT in multiplayer, as your opponent has a harder time figuring out what you're going to do, and you can change magic strategies without changing your mages.This is true in the abstract but depends a lot on specifics of what's available to your nation. If you have mages with two levels* in one path for a good price, they can overwhelm your enemies with such volume that it doesn't matter that they're not as versatile, and be powerful in a quite narrow usage paradigm for the entire midgame. You do ALSO need bigger multi-path mages, but generally you're fine with only a couple of them per army, adding versatility and a wider array of key spells (mostly army buffs) to an otherwise less versatile setup.
So how do story events work?Have you ever thought "I need more chaos in my life," or "these independents just aren't causing enough trouble"?
Basically, they're random events that are linked to each other over a certain amount of time/player interaction. A kind of "mega-event".
Which brings me back to Ur, and the special event they can get which says they're gearing up for a fertility festival, so they need a priest-king and priest-queen available in the capital for when it does happen.
If you don't have them both there when the time runs out, there's a big spike in unrest and you get a couple death scales for a while. Fun times!
I love dominions 4!
8)
I love dominions 4!
8)
I think everyone on this thread does mate :P
I love dominions, but I've found pending MP turns end up being just another thing for me to be anxious about.There are definitely times when one isn't in the mood for them.
With experience, you can submit turns that move things forward sorta but don't take up a lot of your time. Better than stalling, at least.I love dominions, but I've found pending MP turns end up being just another thing for me to be anxious about.There are definitely times when one isn't in the mood for them.
Fun fact: Any undead/demon that is made into a priest can reanimate. For example, if you nation has access to blood, then you can forgo making your first prophet until you are able to summon a Shadow Imp. Once you have the Shadow Imp (which costs a whooping 4 blood slaves, making it the cheapest undead/demon commander, as it doesn't eat into the rarer death gems), make it your prophet, and you too can reanimate the dead!I had an earlygame build for Sauromatia that involved raising a black servant and making him prophet then using him to reanimate longdead horsemen on repeat. Since I'm not in a mood to join any MP games I might as well share it.
How good/bad is frozen heart spam?Its a niche for killing thugs/SCs mostly. If you're targeting something that would die to evocations anyway (like heavy infantry or ogres or something) you're better off with the classics like fireballs or lightning or some weird crosspaths shit like acid. But some big dude your opponent invested 40 gems in? He'll die just as dead to it as a militiaman would. Unless he has cold resistance.
How good/bad is frozen heart spam?
Hiss hiss, how do I LA Ctisss?
Also how to forge runesmasher? And what is the way to achieve maximum penetration on mage?
I usually have trouble spending all my water and fire gems so it works out.Heathen! Have you no respect for the two best items in the game: water bottles and fire lamps?
Hiss hiss, how do I LA Ctisss?One way to do it is get a double Blood/Death major bless and send a blob of mummy snakes at people. They'll have so much health that most enemies won't be able to kill them without dying themselves and the death bless lets them get through all that silly plate armor everyone in LA likes using.
Also how to forge runesmasher? And what is the way to achieve maximum penetration on mage?
I usually have trouble spending all my water and fire gems so it works out.Heathen! Have you no respect for the two best items in the game: water bottles and fire lamps?
That explains a lot. :PI usually have trouble spending all my water and fire gems so it works out.Heathen! Have you no respect for the two best items in the game: water bottles and fire lamps?
If I've got fire mages and any kind of fire gem income, I prioritize construction 6 as much as I possibly can - you really cannot believe what a difference it makes to your research - at the price of a mere 5 fire gems, each lightless lantern gets you an extra upkeep-free researching mage. Combine that with whatever your normal fort production is and you'll see your research/turn grow exponentially... well, until you run out of gems and/or mages to hold lanterns.I usually have trouble spending all my water and fire gems so it works out.Heathen! Have you no respect for the two best items in the game: water bottles and fire lamps?
Great items... Once you get to const-6. It usually takes a while for me to justify going past const-4. Those gems build up fast when I'm distracted by shiny summons, evocs and other fun bits in other schools.
Although I suppose I can test this when I get home, does anyone happen to know how blood mages (in this case, specifically ones with blood magic only) interact with their orders?
Will "conservative use of gems" make it so they don't cast any blood magic at all off-script, or just slow down the consumption of slaves?
If a mage is set to cast spells, but can't (because they've got no slaves, and have no other valid spells), what will they do? Sit around? Charge heroically at the enemies, hoping to punch them to death? Something else?
A mage who can't cast spells just sits there doing nothing. They don't try to get closer, or switch to attacking, or anything else.
Blood mages can use slaves that other folks on their side of the battle have brought. (I don't recall if they have to be nearby, though)
I'd try to answer more of your questions (having just finished a game where I used blood magic heavily), but can't, really, because I almost never used blood magic in battle, since I figured it was (1) a waste of slaves compared to what else I could do with them (blood sac, high-end mass demon summons, infernal disease), (2) a waste of low-level blood mages who could be blood hunting instead.
I remember the SC frame I once made which was built to last against horrors and then trying to stack as many horror marks on it as possible. Hot damn the horrors that eventually appear are crazy. Is there even anything that can consistently win from the most dangerous horrors?Mindless units are horror mark immune, barring you handing them a lightless lantern maybe. I have not seem a reason to hand a golem a lightless lantern.
Talking about a waste, i do love the concept of horror marks, but I recall they where useless in dom3 and it was always better to mind hunt or wish-spam or do anything else excep that. Does it have bite, now in dom4?Well, horror marking is free, the main thing about it is to kinda doom the unit you are fighting to a slow death of a thousand cuts. Cursing and horror marks can cut down the effectiveness of Super Combatants. Also, if the SC in question, or a mage has an item that casts returning on them when hit, then I'm pretty sure it would kill them by retreating if a horror attacked them and sent them returning, due to how assassinations worked.
Talking about a waste, i do love the concept of horror marks, but I recall they where useless in dom3 and it was always better to mind hunt or wish-spam or do anything else excep that. Does it have bite, now in dom4?
It's not exactly a secret - I'm planning to have a blood mage cast Blood Lust, which I'd say is worthwhile if 1) you've got enough demons around, and 2) you know there's about to be a large battle... like say if you just broke down a castle gate.A mage who can't cast spells just sits there doing nothing. They don't try to get closer, or switch to attacking, or anything else.
Blood mages can use slaves that other folks on their side of the battle have brought. (I don't recall if they have to be nearby, though)
I'd try to answer more of your questions (having just finished a game where I used blood magic heavily), but can't, really, because I almost never used blood magic in battle, since I figured it was (1) a waste of slaves compared to what else I could do with them (blood sac, high-end mass demon summons, infernal disease), (2) a waste of low-level blood mages who could be blood hunting instead.
Obviously, AlStar is desperate in whatever blood scheme he's cooking up.
Basically what I want to know is, can I ritually sacrifice pointless commanders who I am angry at.
If you have 20 slaves to spare, maybe you can use a horror seed at blood 9 and have a unit discretely horror mark and spread parasitic horrors in an enemy army. Given it's a unit in the army, it will travel with that army and horror mark things until it is killed, at which point it's true self is revealed and it attacks everyone. Fun for the whole family, but maybe use it for a war going on between two people you dislike.
Random question for you all - how do you determine if you came out ahead in a fight?
I mean, sometimes it's pretty easy - I spent 10 gold on PD who managed to kill 30 gold worth of an attacking army => that was a worthwhile investment in PD.
Similarly, in battles which involve only regular troops, a simple tally of gold/resource costs can give a good measure.
But what do you do when you start bringing in summoned troops into the mix?
For instance (and this isn't going to be perfectly accurate, since I don't have the battle open in front of me): I lost roughly 50 wolves, killing a demon knight and something like half a dozen 20 gold, high resource troops.
The wolves were either part of a werewolf's entourage as part of a 15 gem spell, or summoned up by bored werewolves for free.
The demon knight only costs 5 slaves, but required at least one turn to hunt down those slaves, then another turn to summon.
The troops took at least one turn to build (possibly more, depending on resources required vs how resource-rich my opponent's castles are) plus gold costs.
Did I come out ahead? Personally, I'm feeling like I did, since I see those wolves as a basically 'free' resource - even the ones that came out of a spell are basically just a plus for getting a werewolf, and the ones summoned by werewolves are also free, since werewolves aren't mages, so I'm not losing research/site searching/whatever opportunity costs - whatever carnage those wolves manage to inflict before dying a horrible death is a plus.
Thoughts?
If you want a more technical analysis, both the wolves and the Demon Knight are equal to two turns, one by the werewolf and the other by a blood/earth mage.Sure, but as I mention in my initial post, a werewolf's time is a lot less valuable then that of a blood/earth mage. If a werewolf isn't summoning up more wolves, he's just sitting on his ass.
A Horror is sent to possess a far away enemy. The Horror hides its true self and spreads its evil ways, marking and cursing soldiers in the province. The most horrible ability of the possessing Horror is to infect living soldiers with Parasitic Horrors. These Parasitic Horrors sooner or later break the mind and body of their host, transforming them into full fledged Horrors. Should the host of the Master Horror be slain, the true Horror will manifest and attack everything alive.
Hey AlStar, got any Nature gems left?Trolls are more economical then you'd think - the nature ones, anyway. A mere... 37 gems, I think? A steal compared to the 55 needed for earth trolls.
Did Desura just die? ;-;7The company has been dead for like half a year. The site was presumably only up because nothing had expired yet (aside from the mail service, the lack of which prevented new people from joining) and nobody had gone out of their way to take it down.
Talking about a waste, i do love the concept of horror marks, but I recall they where useless in dom3 and it was always better to mind hunt or wish-spam or do anything else excep that. Does it have bite, now in dom4?The problem with them is that while they do spell inevitable annihilation, they don't do anything in the immediate sense. So while you can slap a bunch of horror marks on an SC and it will be taken down eventually, in a straight army-vs-army fight, they're far less useful.
Can you do something useful with nature trolls?Basically no, tbh. The nature summon one is 1D1N 100% EDN with nothing going for it except being a troll, whereas the kings are both 3 in their respective paths and gem generators. Their coterie also significantly better than the forest troll one, too -- the forest trolls are basically the worst trolls. There's a reason the forest troll tribe is 37N compared to the courts' 55X, heh.
I've found it amusing: For instance, casting it on a castle I have no intention of attacking any time soon - eventually a horror shows up, kills the PD, and puts the fort under siege. Another time I cast it on a big army that looked poised to fight another big army. They fought, one side was losing, and then the horror popped out and went to town on both sides.
I'd look at whether you need to replace your losses, and how difficult it would be to do so. Getting 50 more wolves would take a while, for instance, unless you have a lot of werewolves or burned a lot of gems summoning more. On the other hand, you could replace them with a non-shit unit that would be less likely to die in droves :P. Of course if your army was strong enough and they were just chaff you could replace them with any other chaff unit or use in-battle summon spam.
Getting another demon knight, otoh, is easy if EuchreJack has even a tiny blood hunting operation going, although you have to ask yourself whether it's worth the mage-turn to summon a single demon cavalry unit (unless he has blood 9 and can summon 10+ per mage-turn with boosted/empowered mages). If he wanted to replace the lost conventional troops, I'd guess that his main constraint would be the time needed to produce them and ship them to the front. How fast he could do so would depend on obvious factors that you've probably already considered: where he wants to make them, the amount of resources available there, and the resource cost on the units, and how long it would take to ship them forward.
If he's using them as standard troops it's entirely possible that he could be producing and streaming them to the front constantly, so replacement time would be effectively zero, so there is that, too.
Well, thinking on that a little, a nature nation could use them to break into death, if they've absolutely got no better access.I'd say this is probably the best use of them. If I didn't happen to have a hero that had a single point in death magic, I would've needed to use them for this. As it is, I'll agree - the earth troll king is much more all-around useful, both for rituals and on the battlefield; and water trolls are great for moving into underwater provinces (but otherwise fairly mediocre, from what I've seen.)
How do I into blood megic, like every combat spell requires slaves, which I need for sweet rituals.
Casting transformation creates a up-keep free unit, right?
Speaking of VotD, is there any way to find those unit stats on mod inspector? Wasn't linked anywhere there and it's been a while since I had seen it in action.It's these guys. (http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/?page=unit&panes=unit+547@20@5&spelltype=2&pathD=1&spellgen=1&pathN=1&unitq=dead) Dead ones. Not much to 'em, really, you generally don't expect vengeance to actually directly kill anything particularly powerful (though it can wreck flimsier damaging battlefield casters pretty easily and does alright if the target doesn't have magic weapons), you expect it to outnumber them so badly the turn limit shows up and everyone dies. Or fatigue 'em out by sheer weight of bodies, if by some odd coincidence something worthing of targeting with VotD isn't fatigue neutral.
The three pretender design archetypes* (awake expander, bless, rainbow) all serve different needs. You don't need an awake expander if your troops are OP. You don't want a bless if your sacreds suck or you have a different strategy in mind. (Scales would be a sub-type, like you have to tank almost all of them to get a triple bless, if you even can)A scales build is definitely a more prominent type than rainbow.
Rainbows are good if you have specific plans to use specific spells or items and you need someone with paths your national mages don't have, or if you just want to keep your options open as far as making boosters for some of the paths.This isn't unique to rainbows, bless pretenders unlock a lot of big magic with bless builds too, and generally it's something you want to consider for any build; you can often get something useful for relatively cheap on top of achieving another goal.
Casting transformation creates a up-keep free unit, right?Yes, this is useful for pans especially.
It's worth noting that Transformation doesn't ALWAYS remove upkeep - worst-case scenario (http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/?page=unit&panes=unit+547@20@5&spelltype=2&pathD=1&spellgen=1&pathN=1&showids=1&showmodcmds=1&showmoddinginfo=1&showkeys=1&unitkey=transformation) upkeep-wise it turns you into a 270g Forest Troll Seithberender (which is obviously only worst-case as far as upkeep goes) or a 250g Hydra (which does kinda suck slot-wise, but gives you +1N half the time and is a hydra in any case), but most of the other costs are in the 0-20 range. The bigger risk is being turned into a Feebleminded bug or foulspawn...
I'm very much a noob to this game, and wonder if there are some general (as in, works for many nations) strategies to employ when facing large numbers of heavily armored units? Especially ways that doesn't include late game spells.Depending on just how large the groups are, lightning spells (thunder would be ideal - since otherwise you're looking at using chain lighting, which means your mages will be awfully close to the front lines) are good against heavy armor. Alternatively, if you can hit them with enough fireballs, you can hope to fatigue them out. Astral has its fatigue-causing spell, although that's fairly high up the tree.
I'm very much a noob to this game, and wonder if there are some general (as in, works for many nations) strategies to employ when facing large numbers of heavily armored units? Especially ways that doesn't include late game spells.
You may have a province with indie astral mages in it, if you haven't checked them. (Or maybe you have checked and you already know that you don't)Astral indies are rare enough that finding them is something that I take very seriously and exploit ASAP.
Sceleria has several good candidates for blesses, if I had to do it again I'd probably go for an S9 bless to resist MR negates undead killers in the midgame while pumping up survivability in expansion with twist fate.
The most important thing for a blood bless is gold to health ratio and that's terrible on Shadow Vestals. To put it in perspective, a lot of evocations are at least AoE 1 which means if they hit a shadow vestal square they could potentially do 105 gold of damage to you; there are evocation mages that are cheaper than that. It would also be a worthless bless during expansion.Sceleria has several good candidates for blesses, if I had to do it again I'd probably go for an S9 bless to resist MR negates undead killers in the midgame while pumping up survivability in expansion with twist fate.
Which MR-negates undead killers would those be? Vestals already have 15MR to protect against banishment spam, and if someone's invested enough into Thaum to cast Control the Dead, they'll be able to throw around Wither Bones soon enough.
I think a blood bless on Vestals isn't as ridiculous as you think. It makes conventional evocations against them problematic, which would otherwise be one of the best ways to counter them.
Will the endgame spells mod work on highly outdated version of game? (4.10, before Therodos was in game)Quickest way to find out is to try it.
I've piddled around with this game and have a decent understanding of the mechanics and I'm sure this has cropped up earlier in the thread somewhere, but what is everyone's favorite factions (including time period) and what faction does everyone feel is most *powerful*?That depends on who you're playing with. Large games, small games, and disciple games all have very different metas. And which groups you play with matter a lot. Bay12 tends to be laid back in diplomacy and let people live early on, but I've heard of groups that aggressively eliminate strong lategame factions, and gang up on people soley for the land very early on. The board game logic of playing the table is just as important as understanding the game mechanics (which is also very important).
I enjoy astral and nature nations, so anything thats pan, mostly because if you just spam minotaurs you can't do anything wrong.Growth is one of the strongest scales. It's certainly the best for gold, though luck provides gems and other benefits as well, and is boosted when coupled with order, and Magic is great for reasons entirely unrelated to income. It's true that you make your own provinces better for anyone who conquers them, but you make them better for yourself as well.
Growth scales - in human-MP your bascially screwed if you take them, since they only make your lands more attractive to others and the points are better used elsewhere, right? Just wondering how many mistakes I made before the game already started.
Growth actually works out to be better than Order if you're going to be in the game longer than...ten or twenty turns, I believe; I cannot recall the math off the top of my head. It's even better still for blood nations, since those can leverage the extra population directly as well as the resulting income. The main benefit of Order is that it's front-loaded; you get most of its benefit in the early game, when most players typically need it most.It actually depends on rate of expansion and dominion spread, but the calculated "typical" results gives you a better income on turn 16 and better total gold earned on turn 23. If your expansion is limited earlier, growth will matter more. If you expand faster (unlikely, with the assumed rates of expansion) order will matter more.
(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)This is definitely wrong. If you don't patrol, unrest skyrockets. Not patrolling means either that you accept having no income (by leaving unrest to grow unchecked) along with some bad events, or you let your blood income be tiny (by not hunting places with high unrest) and also have very limited income. Killing your pop is bad for income, but it's not nearly as bad as unrest, and conquering new land can make up the difference. You wouldn't generally be using your main armies to patrol anyway, but summoning cheap troops without upkeep specifically for that purpose.
MA Marignon is ... pretty powerful.Out of the 48 recorded games in which MA Marignon was played, they won zero. Marignon has poor access to magic, flagellants are too weak to be useful and knights of the chalice too expensive. Their angels are more cheaply acquired through a wish than through the national summon spells, and that's the sum total of what Marignon has going for them as far as I can tell. The only "obvious" strategy I know for them would be W9 knights, and spam some fire evocation as support. I don't see how you're going to be able to get enough numbers with this to do well against a competent player, though, and it won't hold up well against serious battle magic.
(I outmaneuvered and beat Caelum with Marignon, taking enough of their thrones to win that gameSubmit the details here, then: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform)
P.S. Diplomacy is best weapon and best defense in games where it's a thing.It's not a good indicator of nation strength, though.
I accepted having no income in those provinces, and kept other high-income provinces for income. I didn't need income for anything other than spamming temples and labs, and recruiting mages, for the most part, since all my troops at that point were coming from summoning.(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)This is definitely wrong. If you don't patrol, unrest skyrockets. Not patrolling means either that you accept having no income (by leaving unrest to grow unchecked) along with some bad events, or you let your blood income be tiny (by not hunting places with high unrest) and also have very limited income. Killing your pop is bad for income, but it's not nearly as bad as unrest, and conquering new land can make up the difference. You wouldn't generally be using your main armies to patrol anyway, but summoning cheap troops without upkeep specifically for that purpose.
Recorded? People record their games?MA Marignon is ... pretty powerful.Out of the 48 recorded games in which MA Marignon was played, they won zero.
Marignon has poor access to magic, flagellants are too weak to be useful and knights of the chalice too expensive.I never recruited flagellants or knights of the chalice. I used the orange knights instead ("Royal Guard"), which have better protection, cost less gold, and aren't cap-only, so if you have the gold you can recruit them from multiple forts to spread out the resource cost. ... I mostly used them as heavy chaff with lances, though.
Their angels are more cheaply acquired through a wish than through the national summon spellsI don't really understand how you can come to that conclusion.
The only "obvious" strategy I know for them would be W9 knights, and spam some fire evocation as support. I don't see how you're going to be able to get enough numbers with this to do well against a competent player, though, and it won't hold up well against serious battle magic.I thought crossbows in a line with flaming arrows with strong scales to enable pumping out massive amounts of them would be obvious, but okay.
Perhaps. It was a 5-player game, however, and not with expert-level players - and like I said, diplomacy made it easier since Caelum took losses defending against other players' attacks, as well as mine. (That thing you linked, which I don't think I've seen before, says it isn't interested in games with less than 6 players, which is fine, but I've mainly been playing games with less players lately)(I outmaneuvered and beat Caelum with Marignon, taking enough of their thrones to win that gameSubmit the details here, then: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform)
I imagine that the folks who address balance would like to hear how exactly you did it and any thoughts you might have about the nation. Your experience is obviously not typical, and I suspect that Caelum probably was not played well (basic thunderstrike spam should have been enough to wipe out a typical Marignon army) but if nothing else, having won a game as Marignon makes your experience worth sharing.
Recruiting mages is kind of a big deal, though.I accepted having no income in those provinces, and kept other high-income provinces for income. I didn't need income for anything other than spamming temples and labs, and recruiting mages, for the most part, since all my troops at that point were coming from summoning.(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)This is definitely wrong. If you don't patrol, unrest skyrockets. Not patrolling means either that you accept having no income (by leaving unrest to grow unchecked) along with some bad events, or you let your blood income be tiny (by not hunting places with high unrest) and also have very limited income. Killing your pop is bad for income, but it's not nearly as bad as unrest, and conquering new land can make up the difference. You wouldn't generally be using your main armies to patrol anyway, but summoning cheap troops without upkeep specifically for that purpose.
Recorded? People record their games?[/quote]"Reported" might have been a better choice of word. That would be using the form I linked, and you can see the results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dlrvyEqLFYIaXRc49TheMmfdoP8jEh1m5rZJHJAzDWQ/edit?usp=sharing (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dlrvyEqLFYIaXRc49TheMmfdoP8jEh1m5rZJHJAzDWQ/edit?usp=sharing)MA Marignon is ... pretty powerful.Out of the 48 recorded games in which MA Marignon was played, they won zero.
Their angels are more cheaply acquired through a wish than through the national summon spellsI don't really understand how you can come to that conclusion.
The only "obvious" strategy I know for them would be W9 knights, and spam some fire evocation as support. I don't see how you're going to be able to get enough numbers with this to do well against a competent player, though, and it won't hold up well against serious battle magic.I thought crossbows in a line with flaming arrows with strong scales to enable pumping out massive amounts of them would be obvious, but okay.[/quote]Oh, yeah. Seems like less of a strategy than just the default, but flaming arrows and crossbows can cut through a lot in the early game.
Perhaps. It was a 5-player game, however, and not with expert-level players - and like I said, diplomacy made it easier since Caelum took losses defending against other players' attacks, as well as mine. (That thing you linked, which I don't think I've seen before, says it isn't interested in games with less than 6 players, which is fine, but I've mainly been playing games with less players lately)[/quote]Yeah, a small game where diplo was the main deciding factor makes sense. How many turns did this take?(I outmaneuvered and beat Caelum with Marignon, taking enough of their thrones to win that gameSubmit the details here, then: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform)
I imagine that the folks who address balance would like to hear how exactly you did it and any thoughts you might have about the nation. Your experience is obviously not typical, and I suspect that Caelum probably was not played well (basic thunderstrike spam should have been enough to wipe out a typical Marignon army) but if nothing else, having won a game as Marignon makes your experience worth sharing.
(It's better not to patrol with blood hunting, I think, since patrolling kills pop and ties up your armies)
[...]
I accepted having no income in those provinces, and kept other high-income provinces for income. I didn't need income for anything other than spamming temples and labs, and recruiting mages, for the most part, since all my troops at that point were coming from summoning.
Is there any point in Lanka province defence? It gets BRUTALLY SMASHED just by basic ea tien chi human troops.PD provides some unrest reduction and patrol strength. Sometimes the bodies can be useful. And you only use Lanka PD on your forts, everywhere else it's based on indie troops. But in general I'm not a fan of huge PD and that doesn't change much when looking at Lanka.
Also managing all those skellingtons is pain in demonic ass.Fair enough. 'n' key helps, but there's still a lot of clicking around. Have you looked at nations with lots of D but no reanimators? They give you death focus without the drudgery of organizing all your permanent chaff. EA has some cool nations for that, C'tis, Ermor and Sauromatia spring to mind. Research Horde of Skeletons from enchantment school and you get a renewed wall of chaff for every battle.
What has best synergy with skill in death magic?You mean which spells scale best? I'm a big fan of Shadow Blast at evoc-5. It scales really well, has huge AoE and does AN damage. Only downside is that it checks for MR. In my experience high D skill, penetration gear and huge AoE compensate enough for that. Oh and it costs a gem to cast. Totally worth it for big mages. Best for your D9 pretender but any elite mage with D3 or D4 and penetration gear gets results.
Turmoil + luck seems more effective then just order 3, does anybody have calculations for this stuff?They do different things. Order is better if you want gold. Luck gives random stuff at random intervals. Turmoil just ups the event frequency while giving you less gold. Certain events also require certain scales so they can happen. I don't have a list handy right now, but I remember seeing one somewhere at some point.
Aspho is really easy to beat though. Hell, you really only have to keep them from expanding, and they'll burn out, even with growth scales."Only have to keep them from expanding" is how you stop... pretty much everyone :P
The blood hunting without patrolling things really puzzles me. So pros, you don't have to acquire a patrolling force and pay upkeep, you don't have to occasionally move when your population drops below 4000. Cons you lose income, you lose blood income, and if you're lazy like me you lost the ability to recruit mages in the blood hunting province (building a lab is a small price to pay for not having to aggressively micro)
Seems like from a cost efficiency basis it makes sense to at least keep an army of patrollers who's upkeep is less than the value of the province. From a blood hunting efficiency point of view once your unrest is 100 the straight chance of failure is 25% according to the manual. That means for every four bloodhunters you are paying one to just make people angry, and without managing unrest you can get to a hundred unrest in three or four turns, seeing as the unrest generated by succeeding at blood hunting is 1-(3xthe number of blood slaves collected+4) it would take on average 132 blood slaves collected before the chance of failing a blood hunt in that province is 50% from unrest alone and 265 blood slaves before blood hunting was entirely shut down by unrest. Now this is assuming that the passive things that reduce unrest balance unrest caused by failed blood hunting. This becomes less and less true as unrest rises because it causes more failed blood hunting.
Yeah, xibala make for really shitty patrollers.Actually, iirc even with the penalty, junky precision, and mildly low AP zotz are still slightly better than average patrollers (compared to say, indie militia), if only barely. Flight counts for a lot.
Totally theorycrafting here (IGNORE ME!) - but would it be better to send a SC by themselves, or with a couple of demon bodyguards?Actual SCs usually work better solo, yeah, if they're not being used to supplement an army. As you kinda' noticed, routing is a pretty serious issue with SCs that bring friends along. If you're going to have bodyguards, you'll probably want more than just a couple, heh, unless those are rather incredibly beefy bodyguards (i.e. you're just using packs of SCs instead of solo ones, which is just fine if you can afford it :P).
I'm 50% concerned that if the bodyguards die, the SC will flee, and 50% concerned that if I don't give my SC bodyguards, that he'll get killed before he decides it's time to leave.
What about using several horror seeds on mage center?( well, however, leprosy is just thaum 6 and does job 20 times better)
If I retreat will Lammashtas or battle summoned horrors stay in battle?
What are good cast and retreat spells?
As for cast&retreat, dunno - I thought earthquake was a good one, but I tested it in Round18 and ... the caster killed himself and nothing else happend at all.
It's not really for normal battle cases anyway. It's for taking out SCs. That is much less important now than in Dominions 3 though.What about using several horror seeds on mage center?( well, however, leprosy is just thaum 6 and does job 20 times better)
If I retreat will Lammashtas or battle summoned horrors stay in battle?
What are good cast and retreat spells?
Just never cast horror seed, in my test I never saw it hit a commander, even with 10-ish commanders and 5 groups in the target area.
Earthquake also does a lot more damage in caves, and Agarthan units have good HP. Slap some nice armor on an oracle and he can really fuck armies up even unsupported. Only reason this isn't more valuable is because if you have an oracle handy, then you probably have an army too.As for cast&retreat, dunno - I thought earthquake was a good one, but I tested it in Round18 and ... the caster killed himself and nothing else happend at all.
Who did you cast it with? I've had good experiences with a pair of pans casting an earthquake before bravely hopping away. And I think you really want those two casts. Humans have good odds of surviving a single quake as it's only 8AP. I don't use human HP mages to cast EQ unless I can flight them somehow.
Rain of Stones is another possibility, but it's harder to not die to, and for some target armies a single casting may not kill anything (except the squishy mage who is casting it - for humans, even if wearing armor, especially). It also seems to only hit about half the squares on the battlefield, but against certain kinds of armies it's still effective at eliminating half their number with one casting.Yeah, RoS is the go-to for a reason.
If you can cast RoS, you can forge a ring of floating or suchlike for your EQ caster...It's generally easier to spam RoS casters, and harder to counter them. Paying more for something less effective is seldom your best option.
Wait, you can decrease spell fatigue with dem gems?
How knowledge of path decreases fatigue for spell?
How far in research/ province capturing should I be in the end of first year to be able to compete in multiplayer?
Battlefield spells cost a certain amount of Fatigue. Each spell has a listed fatigue cost which a caster incurs when casting that spell. For each skill level in the required path that the mage exceeds the minimum, he incurs 1 / (1 + (mage skill – minimum skill) of the listed spell fatigue. In other words, having an extra skill level means the mage suffers only ½ fatigue, two extra skill levels means he suffers only 1/3 as much, three extra is ¼, and so forth.
How far in research/ province capturing should I be in the end of first year to be able to compete in multiplayer?
My bad.For what it's worth, you might've just gotten unlucky - from what I've read, it's only about a 15% chance for a bad result.
The new transformation seems to have a fairly high chance to feeblemind casters and with the cost of 8 gems, should I just not cast it anymore? Even on pans?
Transformation is affected both by luck scales, and personal luck of the caster. There are two Luck-granting trinkets that can be fairly easily acquired, and they both seem to stack in decreasing the chances of a bad transformation.
Also no, I don't think bad transformations reduce magic paths. I never saw it happen at least, besides the transformations to feebleminded or mindless forms that just take away all paths.
As someone who's spent a lot of time on the mod inspector, a lot of animal forms have path penalties (and a few have bonuses IIRC).
There are many variations of foulspawn, sadly. All bad.
I've been wondering.Yes, there's often games like that. There's also a new system being developed which would allow direct connect (like blitz, which is what you're describing) to a server with a HTTP-accessible front-end (like we do with PBEM).
Are there people out there who play normal multiplayer not Play by email?
I've been wondering.Yes, there's often games like that. There's also a new system being developed which would allow direct connect (like blitz, which is what you're describing) to a server with a HTTP-accessible front-end (like we do with PBEM).
Are there people out there who play normal multiplayer not Play by email?
I don't know; if not for the Feebleminding/if you can fix the Feebleminding, both 456 and 530 are actually pretty nice.488 is also pretty beast; technically not a foulspawn, but it's totally a crossbreed results, which counts well enough for me. Can also hit chimeras, which if not the most amazing slot wise are still plenty tanky and somewhat air attuned.
If you ask specific questions, maybe. Here's the Git: https://github.com/moggers/blitzserverI've been wondering.Yes, there's often games like that. There's also a new system being developed which would allow direct connect (like blitz, which is what you're describing) to a server with a HTTP-accessible front-end (like we do with PBEM).
Are there people out there who play normal multiplayer not Play by email?
Do you have any more info on this new system? I am very interested in this.
... though checking those, how exactly does attunement work from the mod angle? Pretty sure airattune 50 doesn't give you 50 levels of air, so, uh. Yeah. Percentile chance, base boost? Something else? Could probably check the modding resources but it's mildly easier to just ask :P
... yeah, that did it. That... could stand to be made clearer. Significantly.The value is that you have big casters who only cast 15 gems and a bit of gold, and are totally disposable and spammable. It's not great, but it's something. And in big games it becomes cost-effective to empower an S9 and then you have disposable S9s for such fun as pulling down astral corruption, or teleporting in and spamming Master Enslave. It's shit in the early game, true, but it opens up a whole lot of cool late game options.
It. Also appears to only impart the astral levels on the vessel? Though at least those update if the master changes. Aannnnd the mindlessness doesn't protect against insanity.
Good gods, this is. Kinda' terrible? 15 astral for a pretty flimsy insane chassis, that doesn't actually get its masters spell paths, and is basically instakilled by decay effects. I'm not seeing the value of this versus a fish amulet. I guess the slots, but... still. That's expensive for a lot of fancy tissue paper, especially including the gold cost.
... maybe if the slots went both ways? Like, a booster on the androdai bumped up the aboleth's paths, and vice-versa. That'd be neat instead of somewhat... dubious.
Well, if you cast a dome on the same turn as someone casts a spell targeting the dome, then you have to beat him in executing the spell, so it would be random order, however, I think the random is based on a unit's internal ID number.
Internal ID still goes in top-to-bottom order in combat though, and that can be figured out by looking at your army placement screen.
Feels like I already know all the races and games are starting to feel repetitive. Any idea on how to rekindle my interest?Multiplayer, especially disciple games tend to be a lot more interesting. Not sure if you've tried that yet :)
Feels like I already know all the races and games are starting to feel repetitive. Any idea on how to rekindle my interest?I'll second the advice to do multiplayer if you haven't. But then, if you haven't played multiplayer, you haven't really played Dominions in the first place.
I just lost a decisive battle to an opening move of mass flight that wiped out most of my rear-most mages :P
Is it always the defender that gets the first turn of a battle?
Why carmine cleaver though?Maybe the fire shield effect? If you've got access to carmine cleavers, though, you've almost certainly got access to charcoal shields, too, so if you're after that you'd want a brand (or whatev') and the shield instead...
...if you're masochistic, an updated version of the Cataclysm mod (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2963&st=0#entry22147608) just got released...
...if you're masochistic, an updated version of the Cataclysm mod (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2963&st=0#entry22147608) just got released...
Also the level 3 thrones have extremely strong defenders and pretender-level leaders guarding them (with high-end spells). It's possible to lose an entire army to them
Are caves always dark, like deep-deep-oceans?
<3 swanherds. I don't have a good reason, but I do. I do have a good reason to love the Morvarc'h: they're just so cute! Squee? Squee.
All I know looking at it is that forget the rest of the forces, those no-need-to-eat swans are gorram amazing. Get coastal province, get fort, set swanherds to repeat, never look back. Look out reanimators, we got flying supply free chaff pouring out of our orifices.
Also, those troops almost looked nice until I saw... their encumbrance. Holy gods, their armored underwater units have 7 and 9 encumbrance.
Their land units seem a bit limited too. Can anyone else take a look at them? They seem like they'd have ok thugs right away maybe? Anything I'm missing about evaluating them?
Having said that... I'm really not sure how they're supposed to work. Very cap-centric, and troops which aren't amazing. It seems like they'd have to thug, but even that's hard since their cavalry isn't stealthy. Odd bunch. I love the feel, but odd.
To be honest, 2 swans per swanherd isn't the worse thing in the world. Sure they absolutely suck at combat, but swans have no upkeep, flying and Need not Eat. With 1.64 siege strength (attacking or defending) they are surprisingly good at defending or breaking fortresses. Every single of Ys's aboveground forts should have a bunch of swanherds just spamming swans until the end of time. The massive swarm of swans generated should be more than enough to keep them safe from besiegers.
If only they were gooseherds and we wouldn't even need to cast Rage of the Cornered Rat to get the flock to berserk.
I have no personal experience with swans, but I grew up around geese, and based on that I shall agree with Frumple that we're better off not looking too closely at their methods...
...no regrets...Spoiler: sorrynotsorry (click to show/hide)
What does that even mean?^
What ZebioLizard2 said.If you're going to do that, you might as well go big. Fastforward to like turn 50 or somethin'.
I'm just thinking over weird/intresting variations for hosting, like "Normal game, but we just fast forward past the first 3 turns, so we got a bunch of "rich/old/kingdoms" at the start of the first playable turn.
From testing I know - sadly - that this kills nations with rando events/dominion. 3 turns will do. (Hardcore merc-betting fights)How high did you set initial province count?
There was a game set up not that long ago where Ermor was given a huge boost to be the BBEG for the rest of the nations to fight. I've also heard of a story where one player was essentially the GM. And from time to time, people assume primary goals that aren't "win" for a game, and people generally refrain from finishing those nations off out of respect for what they're bringing to the table. But I'm not sure a game with a lot of those could be orchestrated effectively. I think it would be much easier to go full RP or full competitive.If you were going to do it I would definitely stick to a single GM/"NPC" player and have everyone else be competitive. And make it pretty clear what the MO of the non-competitive player is so that the other players can plan around it.
From testing I know - sadly - that this kills nations with rando events/dominion. 3 turns will do. (Hardcore merc-betting fights)How high did you set initial province count?
That sounds like it's most like a dominion problem (from events) more than any other sort of event problem. Make a custom map that gives every "NPC nation" a completely isolated, 0-pop province with a temple in addition to their "normal" capital, and make sure there's a few temples for the non-NPC nations.Can Dominions even handle disconnected provinces?
It sounds like a good plan, although one could still lose a disconnected province to random events (e.g. barbarian invasions). So perhaps also give the disconnected provinces some ridiculous amount of PD and a strong PD type?
Yeah, it can. I can't remember why, but there was something that inspired me to make a non-connected map and play thirty or fifty turns to test some harebrained notion or another at one point. The game just chugs on as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening.Wow, Dominions devs confirmed better coders than the people who made the original Clausewitz engine.
Wasn't it 1 religious guy, one doc and one coder all working together?
The slider could just as easily be labeled "Sacred Ridiculousness". Which is to say, nope, you're not too literal, that's exactly right.This is funny because every time I put it to "batshit insane" it always, ALWAYS gives me hilariously shitty sacreds. Like they don't have a SINGLE SPECIAL ATTRIBUTE. No poisonarmor, no invulnerability, generally not even "better resistances" they get nothing.
Open the mod's .dm file. At the beginning there's a list with the seed that was used to generate the nation seed (ignore it) and right after that a by-nation list of specific seeds.How do I open the .dm file? Do I use 7zip?
I can't even remember... isn't it possible to pick up slave collars after a fight? I think it was at one point, but not sure if that was Dom 3 or what -- know it was at least possible to pick up those cheapo cursed knives. If it is, though, it may be that the AI didn't put a slave collar on its pretender, just had a hilariously bad RNG result after an indie fight :VYeah see the way I know this isn't what happened is that Yomi started surrounded by throne provinces and never managed to expand past its capital. So it never won a battle, probably because it STUCK A FUCKING SLAVE COLLAR ON ITS PRETENDER :P
Yeah see the way I know this isn't what happened is that Yomi started surrounded by throne provinces and never managed to expand past its capital. So it never won a battle, probably because it STUCK A FUCKING SLAVE COLLAR ON ITS PRETENDER :PNo, no... that's not a guarantee. Events can cause battles, too, and while as far as I can recall they're incredibly unlikely (save for the troll) to generate anything with an item, I'm pretty sure it's still possible. If collars really can be picked up post fight, there's still a(n incredibly small) chance Yomi could have basically landed on just about the worst RNG results in the history of D4, instead of making a rather impressively bad decision.
Any intrest in another near vanilla game, small-ish (8) and fast-ish? Last one went by in a flash tbh and was great.Count me interested.
Does anyone have access to a sprite dump from the most recent version? The one I am using for my modding is missing a lot.
Any intrest in another near vanilla game, small-ish (8) and fast-ish? Last one went by in a flash tbh and was great.After the missteps I made last vanilla game, I wouldn't mind trying another.
Goodness! An error? In Dominions? Never thought I'd see the day...Yeah, I never can get that to work, or at least not the way I expect it to. I heard a rumor or something that they were mixed up or something and that regular "fire" made them keep distance while "fire and keep distance" made them chase things.
It's been a while since I last played. One of the "new" additions since that time was the "fire and keep distance" command, which I've now fallen very much in love with. There's a looot of fun dickery that can be done with skirmishers...
What are the best two spell groups in your opinions, and why are they blood and death magic?
fire lets you be a complete dork and give a nataraja 4 fire bolas.
fire lets you be a complete dork and give a nataraja 4 fire bolas.
Not to be a nitpicky pedant, but you misspelled "give an Ancient Kraken five Fire Bolas, a Copper Arm, and an Amulet of the Fish" pretty badly, and technically that takes Air, Water, Earth, and Fire, even if it's soooooooo worth it...
(Also: don't forget to get a point of Water and script Quicken Self so you're flinging 10 low-accuracy bolas per turn from your fearsome stealthy death machine...)
...and then there's Therodos. Nobody knows what the hell Therodos is.Nerf-hammered into the ground, last I recall. They start weak, reach a mediocre mid-game, then descend into oblivion late-game if they haven't somehow already been wiped out. Mages are either poor-quality or both expensive and cap-only, freespawn is weak, and your dominion will literally murder your own gold income, making gold-recruiting a tricky endeavor. Their best bet is powerful sacreds and sneaking through a throne victory, but even that's not a great bet. I wonder if Asphodel isn't a good comparison for Therodos, as far as effectiveness is concerned.
I never really got the gist of Dominions 4, as I was always pretty good at managing the armies and to a lesser extent, the equipment, but I'm just really bad at magic, both using and countering it.1: Accumulate gems
I love it, I'm just not good at it.
You can play Ermor and get a good bless on your Lictors. Takes a while to set up a good base for reanimating, but once it gets going...
But Asphodel is pretty good, if I remember correctly. Their mages are effective, freespawn are good (for freespawn), have plenty of national spells for buffing and access to the summons needed for a late-game, gold-light economy. Not to meantion that what troops they have are good instead of mediocre/questionable, so the early game is not as rough.
You can't put them in formations, or give them orders. They start in a shitty formation of "like box but spread crazy far apart"I wrote 'commanders', didn't I? E.g. barbarian chief.
It doesn't do anything on commanders.You can't put them in formations, or give them orders. They start in a shitty formation of "like box but spread crazy far apart"I wrote 'commanders', didn't I? E.g. barbarian chief.
Isn't there a spell/effect that can turn a commander into a standard troop? Like, just strip them of their commander status? Or was that only in CoE?
DAMN IT READING COMPREHENSIONYou can't put them in formations, or give them orders. They start in a shitty formation of "like box but spread crazy far apart"I wrote 'commanders', didn't I? E.g. barbarian chief.
Played this game too much and burnt out my desire to play it a long time ago.
Played this game too much and burnt out my desire to play it a long time ago. Convince me to play it again.
For the first time ever, I have finally understood what the water magic path icon is supposed to look like... I always thought it was a funky looking wave before. Now I see that it's a tiny little goblet pouring out water.You just changed my life.
Played this game too much and burnt out my desire to play it a long time ago. Convince me to play it again.Nah. Your desire will regrow in time, or not. Just hang around somewhere that games start and people talk about such things a lot, and you'll probably get bit by the 2h bug again.
Besides sometimes turning you into trolls, yetis, and giants, Transform can also net you new magic paths from time to time. The reason a lot of people like the idea of it is that it eliminates upkeep in most (but not all) cases. It's best if you have a way to fix Feebleminding, though.You can FIX feebleminding?
You know what I HATE more then anything in this game? When my mages don't follow their scripts. I told you guys to use Ground Army, Mass Regeneration, and Army of Lead FOR A GODDAMN REASON. Ignoring my commands is irritating enough. Ignoring my commands AND THEN WASTING ALL YOUR GEMS ON THINGS I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO USE is un-fucking-forgivable.This always happens as a result of giving mages a script they can't actually complete, usually from fatigue costs. For example, Ground Army requires earth 4 to cast, but it causes 200 fatigue so an E4 mage needs another two gems to actually cast it.
I think it may also happen if the battle AI decides the enemies are not threatening enough to waste your precious gems on, and ignore scripting.You know what I HATE more then anything in this game? When my mages don't follow their scripts. I told you guys to use Ground Army, Mass Regeneration, and Army of Lead FOR A GODDAMN REASON. Ignoring my commands is irritating enough. Ignoring my commands AND THEN WASTING ALL YOUR GEMS ON THINGS I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO USE is un-fucking-forgivable.This always happens as a result of giving mages a script they can't actually complete, usually from fatigue costs. For example, Ground Army requires earth 4 to cast, but it causes 200 fatigue so an E4 mage needs another two gems to actually cast it.
WHY DID THEY HAVE TO MAKE THE CUP THE SAME SHADE OF BLUE HRRRNGGHHHFor the first time ever, I have finally understood what the water magic path icon is supposed to look like... I always thought it was a funky looking wave before. Now I see that it's a tiny little goblet pouring out water.You just changed my life.
It's probably an ice goblet pouring water out while underneath the sea, knowing W path. Actually, it kinda resembles the Sea King's Goblet...WHY DID THEY HAVE TO MAKE THE CUP THE SAME SHADE OF BLUE HRRRNGGHHHFor the first time ever, I have finally understood what the water magic path icon is supposed to look like... I always thought it was a funky looking wave before. Now I see that it's a tiny little goblet pouring out water.You just changed my life.
I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.
Ummm, that doesn't sound like a good thing to me.I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.
Eater of dead can actually become an unstoppable juggernaut if you summon it and keep it on a province with plenty of dead bodies. Eventually it'll berserk and turn on you, but by then it'll be a near invincible super killing machine
Ummm, that doesn't sound like a good thing to me.I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.
Eater of dead can actually become an unstoppable juggernaut if you summon it and keep it on a province with plenty of dead bodies. Eventually it'll berserk and turn on you, but by then it'll be a near invincible super killing machine
I don't think blood is good at all, and I don't think astral is either.
(Agartha is probably best suited to thumb its nose at conventional armies).
Pretty sure repel damage is no longer a thing; the attacker now only loses their attack if they fail the def check.
So, there's a multi-community disciple game (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=3050) that's being organized. I was going to try and get a disciple match organized here after round 22 had run down, but if there's another two or three people interested in teaming up with me and participating in this game, I'd be down.
Re: the bless discussion from yesterday: Always minor earth. No exceptions, everything else is secondary. Every nation, every strategy, even if you don't have native sacred mages, even if you're going scales. Always minor earth.
... is all I really have to say :V
Re: the bless discussion from yesterday: Always minor earth. No exceptions, everything else is secondary. Every nation, every strategy, even if you don't have native sacred mages, even if you're going scales. Always minor earth.
... is all I really have to say :V
I like the earth blessing for sacred mages, but isn't it almost useless on sacred troops? It seems like it would only help vs incredibly and unrealistically long battles or spammed fatigue spells.
This, pretty much. Fatigue is what kills easier than almost anything in the game, and is one of the reasons that thugs/SCs that aren't fatigue neutral (or better) are another way of saying "dead", most of the time. Pretty sure it also jacks up the chance of getting crit, though that may be a knock-on effect on the defense penalties.QuoteI like the earth blessing for sacred mages, but isn't it almost useless on sacred troops? It seems like it would only help vs incredibly and unrealistically long battles or spammed fatigue spells.
1) Depends on the sacred.
2) No, not really. Fatigue racks up after just a few turns and can quickly become a problem. Fatigue destroys your defense skill long before you hit 100 and pass out. Staying fresh is always nice.
Always minor earth. Always.
Can anyone think of anything interesting I can do with a commander Yeti?
Can anyone think of anything interesting I can do with a commander Yeti?
I got one from an event. It's a horrible leader - couldn't even control the base yetis that it came with, but with 46 HP, 22 strength, 13 attack skill, and a chill aura, it feels like there ought to be some minor thugging that could be accomplished.
Could someone explain to me why one of my commanders and one squads suddenly drowned? I had 3 commanders with goblets for water breathing. My army goes in fine. They take the province and survive. I move them to a second province and win that battle too, no commander deaths in it. However I get the message that one of my commanders (without one of the goblets) drowns, and I find an entire squad (that was under command of one of the captains with a goblet) gone. They did not route during the battle.
Why are my guys randomly drowning?
Could someone explain to me why one of my commanders and one squads suddenly drowned? I had 3 commanders with goblets for water breathing. My army goes in fine. They take the province and survive. I move them to a second province and win that battle too, no commander deaths in it. However I get the message that one of my commanders (without one of the goblets) drowns, and I find an entire squad (that was under command of one of the captains with a goblet) gone. They did not route during the battle.I wasn't even aware that you could use waterbreathing equipment that way (to support a separate commander + troops) - from what I've found, Dominions doesn't usually like it when you do that.
Why are my guys randomly drowning?
Could someone explain to me why one of my commanders and one squads suddenly drowned? I had 3 commanders with goblets for water breathing. My army goes in fine. They take the province and survive. I move them to a second province and win that battle too, no commander deaths in it. However I get the message that one of my commanders (without one of the goblets) drowns, and I find an entire squad (that was under command of one of the captains with a goblet) gone. They did not route during the battle.I wasn't even aware that you could use waterbreathing equipment that way (to support a separate commander + troops) - from what I've found, Dominions doesn't usually like it when you do that.
Why are my guys randomly drowning?
I'm not sure when the game checks the waterbreathing requirement, but it might be possible that, due to the order in which your commanders moved into (or out of) a water province, that you lost the support numbers that you needed at some critical moment.
I would very much recommend that you only ever enter the water with non-waterbreathing troops directly under commanders who have objects of waterbreathing - there's just too much that can go wrong otherwise.
Clearly this means the devs need to implement an item that steals the arms (and weapons) of non-commander troops. Kinda' like with corpse eaters except attacks instead of HP :VSend Super Combatant against Ashen Ermor= over 9000 attacks
Send the eater of dead.Clearly this means the devs need to implement an item that steals the arms (and weapons) of non-commander troops. Kinda' like with corpse eaters except attacks instead of HP :VSend Super Combatant against Ashen Ermor= over 9000 attacks
N1 can make bags of wine, +50 supply points for 5 gems, which in worst-case-scenario means 10 pearls. Hammers would of course help, as always.
Terracotta army takes fire gems, at least according to the mod inspector. With higher ranks in fire, you get an actually fairly decent deal for the cost.
And if you've got a horde of N1's, get them out searching... You're bound to find SOME nature site sooner or later. Prioritize forests.
Nature mages also provide some supply themselves (10/lvl?), so you could always stack them all on your army, if you wanted to. It'd be expensive and inefficient, to be sure.
Any reason you can't drop seeking arrows on them until everything stops moving? Or start wind riding enemy commanders out of the place. Unless they've been spamming couatls, most of mict's stuff is pretty small and squishy, so things like that can trim their commander roster fairly effectively if you don't have better options.
Would killing commanders actually make them unable to defend the fortress? Because my problem was sieging the place before my supplies caused all my guys to die.Beyond what kag mentioned, even if it doesn't your actual problem is they're attacking from the fortress. If they have no commanders (or at least not enough to do squat) they can't attack :V
Speaking of blood, have you been blood hunting? I consider it vital for Marignon to save grand masters from old age using boots of youth. Anyways, if you have, you could potentially have someone repeatedly horror seed the province, once they've been boosted or empowered enough to cast it.
I think I'm ready for a multiplayer game too. How do they work? What is the time limit on how long you have to make your turn?
I think I'm ready for a multiplayer game too. How do they work? What is the time limit on how long you have to make your turn?
Answered two posts above ;) had the same question :)
Speaking of blood, have you been blood hunting? I consider it vital for Marignon to save grand masters from old age using boots of youth. Anyways, if you have, you could potentially have someone repeatedly horror seed the province, once they've been boosted or empowered enough to cast it.
I find it pretty pointless to dip into blood magic if you don't have any mages with blood magic to start with (MA Marignon). I don't even recall successfully hunting for blood slaves without a blood mage. But to get enough to empower a mage with it? Doesn't seem realistic.
You can do it. It's not as easy as it was in... Dom2, I think? But it can be done. It helps to find a blood income site, and there are more than a few of those, including thrones. But even if not, you can cobble your way up to 55 and start proper collection.
I won a MP game and I still lose to the AI, its a strange world. Personally, while I enjoyed Dom3 (and had some fun with strange hotseat games [look away for 15 mins dude]), playing MP was certainly what made me stick to dom4.I haven't tried MP Dominions yet and am interested.
On that note, super casual near-vanilla Round 23, medium pace - rules basically like round 21, except maybe different throne settings & map, intrest check #2
Round 21:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=158361.msg7015442#msg7015442
Speaking of mass summon spells, how do you guys make use of ivy men spam and corpse construct spam? It doesn't really ever seem to be worth it other than to create a massive choke point in fortresses. Is it really worth the item building to make these summons more efficient?Corpse constructs, definitely, the things are honestly kinda' amazing. They're superlative and rather impressively gem efficient HP sponges if you stick a couple of the boosters on whoever's summoning 'em, if you have need for something that's basically just a bundle of health and sod else (and you'll almost certainly have plenty of situations where you will, so having a supply sitting around is nice if you can field 'em and if you have things that can summon them you have things that can lead them, probably).
Is there any way at all to get your hands on a Doom Horror? Doesn't matter if you need a pretender god with level 10 astral and every magic penetration option available and 100 communion slaves. I just want to know if it's possible.
Why crone? Crone ain't the bargain pick she used to be. Honestly I don't know why she costs as much as she does nowadays, the only thing she's got going for her now is slightly different inventory slots.
In other news, MA Man... Or should I say, MA Monksmonksmonks?
Seriously, just can not get enough of those little freaks. Too damn useful.
What's everybody's favorite era? I'm most used to the middle ages. I ask because I'm wondering about which era to do the blood magicks in.Definitely early, m'self... so long as I'm not playing freespawn nations. If I am it'd be middle age, with late a very close second.
Ehehe. MA R'yleh is actually my favorite for that nation. Most of the power of either one, without the domkill or the aquatic casters. Much less trouble to play, imo. Certainly the least thematic of the three but I'll take gold and/or my commanders going where I tell them to over style points just about any day of the week :V
Step 1: Go insane
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Prophet
I like LA. Not fully sure why. Less annoying stuff when it comes to popkilling dominions and elves. Though I'm not actually sure if LA has the least popkill.It's matched with MA, isn't it? Asphodel and Ermor, Lemuria and R'yleh. Least popkill is EA, iirc -- far as I recall there's only Therodos (and tbh it's probably the easiest of popkill nations to contain... still has a pretty rough time getting going, from what I recall.). Maybe changes a bit if you include nations that just have popkilling units, but those are the dominion linked ones.
I like LA. Not fully sure why. Less annoying stuff when it comes to popkilling dominions and elves. Though I'm not actually sure if LA has the least popkill.It's matched with MA, isn't it? Asphodel and Ermor, Lemuria and R'yleh. Least popkill is EA, iirc -- far as I recall there's only Therodos (and tbh it's probably the easiest of popkill nations to contain... still has a pretty rough time getting going, from what I recall.). Maybe changes a bit if you include nations that just have popkilling units, but those are the dominion linked ones.
So, it's totally these conversations that make me scared of trying multiplayer ;)These kinds of shenanigans are mostly just-for-fun things, and multiplayer games rarely get to the stage where they're possible, much less viable.
Did you ever see 4 full blesses pretender builds in multiplayer?( nonmictlan ones)Even for Mictlan, it's rare. It's pretty much a meme build because you need to tank both scales and dominion. You have ways to mitigate the scales, but dominion limits the amount of sacreds per turn that you can get, so the advantage that you're sacrificing everything else for is relatively hobbled; you can't build up fast enough for a rush. Theoretically if you could get to Ozelotls, it would be great, but it's not something I've ever seen pulled off. For nations which don't have massable sacred summons, there's not even that possibility.
Not really in ours. The most likely outcome of a four bless build (especially non-Mictlan) is to ruin one person's game with an early game rush and then lose to everyone else. We have a loose understanding that we're not going to engage in super earlygame rushes, and that build would only be used for that. Under anything approaching normal circumstances, you should be able to get what you want with a triple major (let's be honest, you don't even need that). Adding a fourth major forces you to stick those last, most brutal scales into the red.The most likely outcome of a four bless build is to get your shit wrecked without accomplishing anything. Tribless is as you describe for some nations (giants in particular) but it's a massive mid-game asset for MA Ermor and nations with sacred blood summons, and for those nations it remains a decent edge into the lategame, when the trade-off costs are long since obviated.
I did run a triple bless build in a disciples game. But then I was running with a totally new player so I saw it as the best way to victory.
What's everybody's favorite era? I'm most used to the middle ages. I ask because I'm wondering about which era to do the blood magicks in.I like Early. It has some great blood magic in Mictlan, Lanka, Berytos, and Xibalba. That said, you can browse around http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/ to see which nations have good blood mages and nation-specific blood spells. To be good at blood, you need a cheap blood mage to hunt for slaves and a somewhat strong one for rituals.
Speaking of which, what are the best teams for blood magic in the era?
Ehehe. MA R'yleh is actually my favorite for that nation. Most of the power of either one, without the domkill or the aquatic casters. Much less trouble to play, imo. Certainly the least thematic of the three but I'll take gold and/or my commanders going where I tell them to over style points just about any day of the week :VYou can say it's less thematic, but I don't think it's so compared to the average for Dominions. It's just compared to the crazy mechanics it gets in other ages. And a high imperial race of conquering squids is still interesting in my opinion, and everyone loves some good mindblast spam.
In round 21 we had a Mictlan with quad bless and a ton of Ozelotl. They had:
flying, strenght near 20 (blood bless), Blood Vengance, like 17 Attack, Flaming Weapons, Death Weapons and a Nature Bless (which with the death bless gave them near 50 effective hp + regeneration)
and most importantly 3 different attacks (Bite, Claw, Claw) that could all apply the magic weapon effects - additionally "need not eat", Forest surival and a moral of 30.
Thankfully they never really left there capital.
Plug: Sign Up for the casual round 23 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=160418.0).
In round 21 we had a Mictlan with quad bless and a ton of Ozelotl. They had:Death bless does good work keeping them alive, but they probably would have been much more effective with a water bless instead; it also helps with defense, which they're kind of lacking in (unlike D, it does nothing against (most) evocations, but Blood Vengeance and the nature bless have that pretty well covered) and a water bless would bring them up to 4.5 attacks per round, each one benefiting from that strength and the fire bless. Those additional attacks are gonna be worth more than the death weapon effect in pretty much every case.
flying, strenght near 20 (blood bless), Blood Vengance, like 17 Attack, Flaming Weapons, Death Weapons and a Nature Bless (which with the death bless gave them near 50 effective hp + regeneration)
and most importantly 3 different attacks (Bite, Claw, Claw) that could all apply the magic weapon effects - additionally "need not eat", Forest surival and a moral of 30.
Thankfully they never really left there capital.
it was your triple-blessed boars that kept me in check. :PHow does this even happen?
it was your triple-blessed boars that kept me in check. :PHow does this even happen?
In round 21 we had a Mictlan with quad bless and a ton of Ozelotl. They had:Death bless does good work keeping them alive, but they probably would have been much more effective with a water bless instead; it also helps with defense, which they're kind of lacking in (unlike D, it does nothing against (most) evocations, but Blood Vengeance and the nature bless have that pretty well covered) and a water bless would bring them up to 4.5 attacks per round, each one benefiting from that strength and the fire bless. Those additional attacks are gonna be worth more than the death weapon effect in pretty much every case.
flying, strenght near 20 (blood bless), Blood Vengance, like 17 Attack, Flaming Weapons, Death Weapons and a Nature Bless (which with the death bless gave them near 50 effective hp + regeneration)
and most importantly 3 different attacks (Bite, Claw, Claw) that could all apply the magic weapon effects - additionally "need not eat", Forest surival and a moral of 30.
Thankfully they never really left there capital.
What prevented them from leaving their capital area after getting the ozelotls? It seems about right for a mid-game rush, and if the player got to Ozelotls I would think they're pretty competent. Or did they only get that far due to being ignored?it was your triple-blessed boars that kept me in check. :PHow does this even happen?
Why can't you just take 3 luck alongside 3 turmoil and get a bunch of good events?It's generally the only way that domkill nations make any money. The main thing about turmoil plus luck is it can make getting your hands on gems at least a smidge easier for thigns that your nation does not normally dabble in, in case you need a spell here or there. The sheer amount of things you can do with gold though is too much to pass up on, so most people opt for order.
You can do that. Taking turmoil scales does unlock some bad events, which dilutes the pool of random events you want to aim for by getting lots of random events, but it's not incredibly terrible in my experience.You can try that. It's a theory oft tested on the domkill nations (that aren't r'yleh). I've actually done it quite a lot both in Dom 3 and 4, which is why I've stopped :V
EDIT: Great, just great... Looking at all these different events and their conditions, now I gotta go through and re-do damn near all my pretender designs thanks to how this works out. Yippee.
Also be neat to see if there's a sort of optimal event setup, where you maximize the number of potential good events and minimize the number of poor ones... trim the pool to be in your favor, basically.No. Please no.
No. Please no.The problem with this is, well, we have a lot of players who are ready to open pandora's box so to speak, and we can't put the horrors back in should anyone choose to do so. That being said, I don't think optimizing for events is a game winner. Dominions is very much not a one size fits all strategy, and even the best of scales mean nothing if they're funneled into the worst or the most ill suited troops and mages.
If there's one thing I hate in fun, broad multiplayer games like this, it's optimizing builds. What is the point of having variety of choices, if people start gravitating towards something known to be objectively better?
Misfortune 3 with Death 3 is actually a really useful combo for Therodos. You have national air mages, a national air income and an endless hunger for death gems. Hello, Raven Feast!Kinda. Therodos also has some of the best heroes, so there's a case to be made for a luck of 3. For the most part, luck is good in the sense that after a while it may be your only real source of income alongside permanent gold sites if you hit an expansion wall.
So, the bonuses you get from 4+ magics only apply to blessed troops, and the only troops that can be blessed are sacred troops?
Sadness : I
As Il Palazzo said, communion/sabbath slaves do not cast spells. This was changed because of the dickery of "reverse communions", which did pretty much exactly what you were testing with.
Yeah, basically the one way to still pull off a reverse communion is have the master load down with various buff spells particularly chosen to make it so everything that attacks the slaves die before the slaves do.I always wanted to try a communion with phoenix pyre. I wonder if it'd work.
I'm playing marignon in a game and haven't bothered with communions because it's easier to just have one dude cast light of the northern star, and still have all the mages available to spam stuff.Tangentially related, I don't know what update added the feature, but now if an item says it casts or affects the wearer with a spell, you can right-click the spell name for its description. I found out when I randomly got a shield that casts Power of the Spheres at the start of battle.
Clams of pearls help, too, since they can allow casters to self-buff without needing to burn real pearls in every battle.
I'm playing marignon in a game and haven't bothered with communions because it's easier to just have one dude cast light of the northern star, and still have all the mages available to spam stuff.
Clams of pearls help, too, since they can allow casters to self-buff without needing to burn real pearls in every battle.
Yeah, basically the one way to still pull off a reverse communion is have the master load down with various buff spells particularly chosen to make it so everything that attacks the slaves die before the slaves do.I always wanted to try a communion with phoenix pyre. I wonder if it'd work.
Having an optimal event setup isn't necessarily better. First of all, it's likely to cost a lot of build points. If it doesn't, and isn't something obvious like "max scales" then that would be a useful tool for the gents at Illwinter (or modders) to add some more events of certain kinds to remedy the balance a bit. However, even when used for competitive play, optimizing one thing doesn't actually mean you're better. Like, it wasn't that long ago in this thread that we were talking about optimizing your bless. You get maximum bless on Mictlan and... it kinda sucks. Because the tradeoff is too much. Maximizing your event scales is likely to be the same: Too much cost for too little benefit, so not likely to be advisable in the majority of cases.Also be neat to see if there's a sort of optimal event setup, where you maximize the number of potential good events and minimize the number of poor ones... trim the pool to be in your favor, basically.No. Please no.
If there's one thing I hate in fun, broad multiplayer games like this, it's optimizing builds. What is the point of having variety of choices, if people start gravitating towards something known to be objectively better?
That sounds amazing. Wish you could save battle replays for later viewing.You can, just keep the turn file handy.
Though I want to say there's also something with getting the master to rout off the map? Probably misremembering.
I've just teleported an E3 mage with 5 earth gems to cast Earthquake on an unsuspecting army, but he didn't. Any idea why?
I've just teleported an E3 mage with 5 earth gems to cast Earthquake on an unsuspecting army, but he didn't. Any idea why?
Just like attacking in combat, casting spells in battle costs fatigue. Each spell has a listed fatigue cost which a caster incurs when casting that spell. For each skill level in the required path that the mage exceeds the minimum, he incurs 1 / (1 + (mage skill – minimum skill) of the listed spell fatigue. In other words, having an extra skill level means the mage suffers only ½ fatigue, two extra skill levels means he suffers only 1/3 as much, three extra is ¼, and so forth.
Spell casters also incur fatigue equal to their base Encumbrance value + 2x Encumbrance value of any armor worn for each spell cast. This is not subject to reduction by skill bonuses. It is harder to make magical gestures in heavy armor. Everyone knows this from armor class days.
Mages can use magic gems in combat for two purposes: to temporarily raise their skill level, and to reduce fatigue. This represents the release of the distilled magical power of the gems themselves. Because it takes a skilled caster to keep things from getting out of control, a mage can only use as many gems as his current skill level in that path each turn.
By using a magic gem, a caster gains one skill level in that magic path. This can be used both to allow a mage to cast a spell for which he would not normally have the skill, or to reduce the fatigue of a spell, or both. However, a mage may never increase his skill level by more than one by using gems, or gain skill in a path in which he or she did not already have at least one skill level.
That would be why.But that's just it. He should have been be able to use the extra gems to boost himself to E4 and cast Earthquake normally.
Edit: The only things I'm not clear on is why he didn't power himself up a level for Curse of Stones (conservative casting?), and why he didn't kill himself casting it. It's an earth-3 3-gem 300 fatigue spell, and he burned 3 gems and had 200 fatigue after, and the same amount of HP as he had before he cast it.As far as I understand it, a caster can never kill himself by casting a spell, no matter how fatiguing - it's only if he incurs additional fatigue over 200 afterwards, that he takes damage.
Edit: The only things I'm not clear on is why he didn't power himself up a level for Curse of Stones (conservative casting?), and why he didn't kill himself casting it. It's an earth-3 3-gem 300 fatigue spell, and he burned 3 gems and had 200 fatigue after, and the same amount of HP as he had before he cast it.As far as I understand it, a caster can never kill himself by casting a spell, no matter how fatiguing - it's only if he incurs additional fatigue over 200 afterwards, that he takes damage.
Very entertaining test, I must say. Was also interesting to see that while he did get marked by the horrors attacking him, when combat was over he was no longer marked. Next I'll have to try doing a suicide communion using hellpower.
If you get lucky with thrones it could be possible, but if there's enough ones with mindless or 'zerking enemies to keep you from getting a throne win you're probably SOL.Well the beauty of it is, even if your pretender dies trying this, you still grab a couple Thrones really really early and can put your early forts there instead of in conquered territory. It's not even about getting all the Thrones before anyone can do anything about it so much as grabbing a really early lead on Thrones.
Well the beauty of it is, even if your pretender dies trying this, you still grab a couple Thrones really really early and can put your early forts there instead of in conquered territory. It's not even about getting all the Thrones before anyone can do anything about it so much as grabbing a really early lead on Thrones.I mean. You could? But you've wrecked your scales to nothing. Even if you somehow manage to fortify the areas around the thrones (easier said than done, since you're not going to have gold and building the forts is going to take a good few extra turns regardless, giving your opponents time to react) the chances of you being able to keep your (shortly-a-wasteland) capital and the surrounding area is... low. You either get a throne win within the first 15-20 turns or you lose. Early thrones are just going to mean your scales kill you slower, unless you do some serious trimming on those magic paths and bring the scales up to something non-suicidal.
An early lead on thrones isn't going to do much if you can't capitalise on it. It just makes you the obvious target with no way of fending off your enemies.
Which, again, is a hell of a crapshoot considering that none of the test builds mentioned have managed to reliably take all throne types, even of just the level 1 variety. And if you're tanking all of your scales to do this, including the frankly terrifying misfortune+drain combination, then you'd damn well better have a good reason for it.
Even if you do get an early lead in thrones, you're not going to be able to hold those provinces against much of anything. You'll have -50% income and all sorts of bullshit events that will quite happily launch massive invasions of the provinces, cause you to lose whatever savings you had managed to build up in the first place, or simply erase part of the PD.
Really, what you're most likely to do in this scenario is soften up the provinces for when someone with non-tanked scales arrives to clean up.
EDIT: And then USEC commented. Yeh.
And if you're tanking all of your scales to do this, including the frankly terrifying misfortune+drain combination, then you'd damn well better have a good reason for it.
Yeah, I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's possible to get unusual longdead with generic (scelarian or something) reanimators if they're in a proper province.
Also, eunuchs. Oh my god, eunuchs. They deserve their own goddamn shrine in the pantheon, right next to MA Man's monks.
So how does everyone treat PD? I usually set mine to 10 as soon as I get the province, eventually cranking it up to 15, and after that to whatever my gobs of money allow me to.One, to discourage scout-capping and to see the battles. Six, if I'm flush and fear elves, since that increases the description that they see to the next tier. But pretty much never more, unless it's a very specific situation where I need more bodies fast in a defensive fight and that's the only way to do it fast enough.
R'yleh might have one of the best PDs for 1 Gold, since the Illithid Lord is such a beast with his mind-blast. Do any Giants get a real big commander?Lemuria is another strong contender for best 1pd.
Horror marking happens sight unseen as well.
I thought the seduction immune tag was just [female] (because apparently there are no lesbians in Dominions).
I thought the seduction immune tag was just [female] (because apparently there are no lesbians in Dominions).Preeeetty sure it's not. It's just that female's close to it, because there aren't many male seducers. and by not many I mean there's two Easiest way to check would probably be with mari (troubadours) or LA pythium (satyr via the orgy spell).
So, what are the likely causes of EVERYONE becoming diseased?
I thought the seduction immune tag was just [female] (because apparently there are no lesbians in Dominions).
You can use bear claw charm masculinity bonus to seduce females with female seducers, as I know.
How do you guys prep for a MP game with humans?
Play a bunch of test games to figure out if your strategy will work how you think it'll work or not.
Also come up with a REALLY good pun to name your god. Seriously. Wouldn't you accept an NAP from Thy Lord Cod?
Personally, I stare at the inspector for a while ( https://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/ ), then do a AI game with my nation (like 20 turns of one anyway), then try again with a less silly pretender build and then just shrug and take whatever.That's pretty much what I do. The other thing to keep in mind, though, is the expansion phase. Since that doesn't actually depend on the other players, you can test it pretty reliably. So you can spend a few testing games making sure to get good expansion and that'll help you out.
During the game itself however, I do intense studys each turn.
How do you guys prep for a MP game with humans?
Did some more testing out with LA R'lyeh, was gonna look for effective methods of reducing upkeep costs on the starspawn commanders. Tested out the lychantropos amulet to see how that worked.
Doesn't Nazca have a magic boosting ritual? The Nazca lines, or whatever they're called in game. Probably too late in the research tree to use it effectively but still. That should be an option.Geoglyphs, apparently. Ench 5 isn't that bad, but it isn't good, either. Also you need an S3E2 flyer to cast it. So an astral random coya or a chunk more research for a booster. And it has to be in a waste.
Probably your best chance there would be doing it to a province with a magic scale site, heh. Can't recall if there's any rituals that would let you do it own your own.
... actually, now I realize I can't recall exactly which scales can be modified like that. I know heat/cold is an option, and sloth, but the rest...
Probably your best chance there would be doing it to a province with a magic scale site, heh. Can't recall if there's any rituals that would let you do it own your own.Mod Inspector (https://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/) sees all, Mod Inspector knows all. It looks like most scales can be affected by sites, though some scales are much rarer than others: Heat/Cold, Growth/Death, Order/Turmoil, Magic/Drain, Luck/Misfortune, and Production/Sloth. Heat/Cold and Growth/Death are by far the most common, while Production and Luck are both dead last with only one non-Throne site each, for which the Production site is also unique. Your site bets for Magic are the Cursed Land, Enchanted Current (UW), Fathoms Deep (UW), The Cliff of Seven Directions, The Last Void (UW), as well as The Shattered Throne and The Throne of the First Age. Save for the Cursed Land, all of these are unique and rather rare sites or thrones, and some of them have awkward side-effects (The Cursed Land curses units, and The Shattered Throne also spreads Misfortune, Curses, and Horror Marks).
... actually, now I realize I can't recall exactly which scales can be modified like that. I know heat/cold is an option, and sloth, but the rest...
But there's not really much reason you'd want to keep a province with heavy misfortune
Just popping in because I'm curious who is playing on your disciples team for community clash.The line-up is myself, Jilladilla, and Cheeetar, as well as some alternates standing by. There's a thread in PwYB, but most of our discussions have been via pm.
When attacking indie provinces, the distance between the front lines is exactly the distance both frontline troopers can move
¨When attacking indie provinces, the distance between the front lines is exactly the distance both frontline troopers can move
I don't think that is right.
Blood Stones need Blood 3 to craft, thats quite some empowering and anything that needs blood (1) is useless imo and Blood 2 only offers The Black Heart as useful item...
Enslave Mind has a range of 100 instead of 20. :)Ah, so it does. That's a good reason - at least to start off casting Enslave mind first, then switch over.
I had the crazy crazy idea of modding in a sci-fi alien invaders faction, which could potentially have a ton of nation-specific crafting stuff and "spells" for constructing most of their units (using gems as power crystals or something like that)... but it doesn't appear possible to disable a single nation's access to the generic spells and items.Also, MA R'lyeh is already space aliens.
(It'd be a ton of work anyways, though, so it'll probably just remain a crazy idea)
I had the crazy crazy idea of modding in a sci-fi alien invaders faction, which could potentially have a ton of nation-specific crafting stuff and "spells" for constructing most of their units (using gems as power crystals or something like that)... but it doesn't appear possible to disable a single nation's access to the generic spells and items.You could give the nation no national priests and make all of the spells use Holy instead of regular paths. Then give the priests Inspired Research at some low level.
(It'd be a ton of work anyways, though, so it'll probably just remain a crazy idea)
I had the crazy crazy idea of modding in a sci-fi alien invaders faction, which could potentially have a ton of nation-specific crafting stuff and "spells" for constructing most of their units (using gems as power crystals or something like that)... but it doesn't appear possible to disable a single nation's access to the generic spells and items.You could give the nation no national priests and make all of the spells use Holy instead of regular paths. Then give the priests Inspired Research at some low level.
(It'd be a ton of work anyways, though, so it'll probably just remain a crazy idea)
I'm like 60% sure holy spells can need research, actually. Cross-path ones, at very least.
Asphodel has spells that require only Holy paths and are in Enchantment.Enchantment 0, though, so they do not require research to unlock. That said, they do confirm the precedent set by Ulm and Ashdod's spells listed above for pure-holy spells, in that there is nothing stopping similar spells from being given non-zero research levels.
I just came up with the most stupid ...What do you even call that? The "Wandering Jello Salesman" strategy?
Gelatinous Cubes are stealthy (and pretty neat overall) - and one can make a lovly sneaky army with them and the silly Star Children of Ry'leh. I just imagine a little star kid and his band of funny cubes very slowly wandering the countryside.
Are you taking an awake pretender? Going to all the trouble of blessing the white centaurs, I'd just as soon take an imprisoned statue and get some better scales. The statue's barbarian summons aren't that great if they're just an add-on to pan swarms, and they cost just as much upkeep as regular recruited-barbs. Pump up luck at the very least, and I tend to like going for growth as well to kinda ensure your investment returns on provinces, and also to keep up with the supply demands of so many maenads and satyrs.
Also, the white centaurs are berserkers, which means that once they're set off they'll get +2 fatigue every turn whether they fight or not, and fighting will accrue the usual levels of fatigue. For berserker summons, at least some earth reinvig is really helpful if not outright necessary in order to offset that.
Aaand then there's the usual gripery about them being cap-only sacreds and you don't have any H3 priests to bless parties without a prophet, but the dryads are at least H2 so there's that...
Pan has decent access to earth and nature in order to buff up their delicious little footsoldiers with their boosted MR, fast speed, higher strength and HP and their recuperation... And that's about it.Now asphodel, on the other hand... black centaurs? They're recolored white centaurs. Stats are identical. Then you have just about everything else Pan has, except death access instead of blood and those teeming hoards of undead. If you can deal with the dying domain (made somewhat easier by having the carrion casters and the unending stream of chaff), well... you're pan, but with bigger money issues and better in almost every other way, including strategy diversity :V
When picking a spell to cast (ritual) you can press letters to limit the magic schools - A for Air, S for Astral, etc...It works in Research, too.
Nation Gen created Snail Cav ; )That is one slow-ass lance charge they've got going there, but they otherwise look pretty awesome.
(and they are actually pretty kickass, but only have 6 movement, obviously)
Ugh well my copy of Dominions 4 is useless. Dang switching how updates happens.
I'll just have to get it from steam when it goes on a super fantastical sale.
My first thought was that he picked it up at Desura, just as I did, but if that were the case, he should have been able to activate it on Steam with his Desura key before the site went down, back when Desura initiated bankruptcy proceedings and the notifications went out.Ugh well my copy of Dominions 4 is useless. Dang switching how updates happens.
I'll just have to get it from steam when it goes on a super fantastical sale.
Wait, what?
Ugh well my copy of Dominions 4 is useless. Dang switching how updates happens.Email illwinter, they're generally good about this. But yes, your game key should be in a plantext among your files.It's called Dom4key and it's in the same directory as your game. It's plaintext as mentioned so open it up with notepad. You may wish to include this in your email to illwinter.
I'll just have to get it from steam when it goes on a super fantastical sale.
Ugh well my copy of Dominions 4 is useless. Dang switching how updates happens.Every copy of Dominions should have a Steam-viable key. It only wouldn't if you got it from some disreputable third-party site which was essentially selling pirated copies. It's actually necessary that everybody have one, because the key is a major part of multiplayer cheat detection.
I'll just have to get it from steam when it goes on a super fantastical sale.
Ehh it is a Gamer's gate thing...If you activate the key on Steam, you should have it on Steam just the same as if you bought it from them in the first place.
I'd rather have it on steam at this point honestly.
My personal design ethos is "can it be based on something already in Dominions (or the Dominionsier bits of CoE)? If so, go for it, as ridiculously as possible, and preferably with hoburgs" - hence why we have pygmies riding swans, Sidhe riding giant swans, hoburgbred sailing about in black swan chariots... All it would take would be for KO to make one skunk sprite, and it'd be on...
Can I get a sub ready to take over for a few days for the beginner-average skill round 23? I'm MA T'ien C'hi.
A hurricane will be hitting near me, and there's a chance my power would go out for a few days. The game's been going at a great pace so far, and I'd hate to be the one to kill the momentum.
A hurricane will be hitting near me, and there's a chance my power would go out for a few days.
... and I have a population map and easy access to hurricanes, and soon, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves.
What spell allows someone to teleport everything in a province away? Haven't come up with anything from a cursory search of the dom4 inspector.
What spell allows someone to teleport everything in a province away? Haven't come up with anything from a cursory search of the dom4 inspector.
Wish, specifically wishing for "population".
It takes all units, including troops, population and unrest (since I now have a shitton of unrrest - thats why my income actually went DOWN) and teleports them to a random province of the wish-caster.
Also I delayed Round23 for 72 hours and will continue to delay as needed, of course. Stay safe everyone.
Hosting postponed for Bay12GamesRound423 by 72 hours. The game will now host at 00:13 GMT on Tuesday October 11th.
Ehm, seems, that desura forums are locked until the new owner will do something with them :cWell, the mod inspector (http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/) has them if you just need individual ones. If you want the whole dump, it's probably somewhere on the dom3mods forum.
Is there any nondesura link to dom 4 sprites ? :(
Dominions 4 is nr. 14 on RPS's 50 best strategy games on pcConsidering the stuff they put above it, that list is kind of meaningless.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/11/18/the-50-best-strategy-games-on-pc/38/Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Growth 3, Order 3, No heat/cold - but I also cling to bless strats to often, you always think you're going to be the one that breaks the meta with (X/Y) Bless, but "sadly" Earth/Nature seems to always be the best...
but "sadly" Earth/Nature seems to always be the best...
So here's a question. What kind of pretenders/disciples do you guys prefer making? Personally I might have become a little too fond of bless strategies after thinking they seemed silly. Although sometimes you just need scales.I love over the top meme strategies, especially mid-game stuff. Anything that has a clear and simple strategy to win with gimmicky spells, bless, or both. I have had problems of over-committing to something that seemed cool and paying too high of a trade-off or failing to pay attention to flexibility against other options, but I think I'm getting better about that. Pretty much never take an awake pretender or expansion-oriented build.
Sometimes I wonder if battle caster is the way to go because while spells are powerful... Killing casters pretty much cripples you forever... and there are a LOT of great strategies for doing so.Overcommitting mages and losing them will end you, but good luck winning major battles after the early game without significant mage support.
I tried devising strategies around that, it's mostly how I figured I'd use the Quicksilver Stampede. Too bad Pangaea is not big on Air mages, a bunch of casters Gift of Flight'ing a bundle of murderhappy White Centaurs set to Attack Rear would be quite hilarious.Sometimes I wonder if battle caster is the way to go because while spells are powerful... Killing casters pretty much cripples you forever... and there are a LOT of great strategies for doing so.Overcommitting mages and losing them will end you, but good luck winning major battles after the early game without significant mage support.
I tried devising strategies around that, it's mostly how I figured I'd use the Quicksilver Stampede. Too bad Pangaea is not big on Air mages, a bunch of casters Gift of Flight'ing a bundle of murderhappy White Centaurs set to Attack Rear would be quite hilarious.Sometimes I wonder if battle caster is the way to go because while spells are powerful... Killing casters pretty much cripples you forever... and there are a LOT of great strategies for doing so.Overcommitting mages and losing them will end you, but good luck winning major battles after the early game without significant mage support.
I assume they mean it's hard to recover from significant loses, or even to catch up if an opponent significantly outgrows or outpaces you. I'm not sure I agree with the statement as a general rule, because it makes assumptions about metagame factors (even if it's just the AI's swarm->kill->repeat mindlessness). But I don't exactly disagree with it either...I assume so too. The game is built around maintaining pressure and momentum. Either constantly pushing against the enemy, or always keeping the ability to. As soon as the momentum slips or some key variable in your strategy fails, your whole nation is liable to basically fold in, collapse without any chance of recovery. Unless you have allies, which in this game is highly unlikely, or usually happens in a situation where your enemy has allies too, so your allies are under just as much pressure.
As soon as the momentum slips or some key variable in your strategy fails, your whole nation is liable to basically fold in, collapse without any chance of recovery.
Heh, I sometimes do the ragnarok-proofing thing by mistake rather than intentionally. "Damn I just lost the main army, oh well, guess that's good game then. What do you mean I still have 200 units? Wait, that province has been cranking out minotaurs all this time?? And I was wondering why my income was getting low."As soon as the momentum slips or some key variable in your strategy fails, your whole nation is liable to basically fold in, collapse without any chance of recovery.
This really isn't as true as a lot of people hold it to be. I'm not saying it isn't true, but you can hold out in an underdog position a lot longer than many people are willing to even consider, and if you're willing to do so (and again, many if not most people aren't) it often has a huge effect on the momentum of the person who just crippled you. Sticking it out and forcing Pyrrhic victories instead of walking away as soon as your biggest army dies or you come under siege can make what had been a snowballing power grab into a slogging resource drain. Admittedly, you're more likely to be kingmaker than king. But still, it can be possible to eke out comebacks if you can make your would-be killer bleed enough to attract sharks.
The key point is you need to plan for the possibility of failure rather than just trying to come back only if you suffer a catastrophic defeat. This means doing things like not overcommitting resources, avoiding all-or-nothing confrontations, holding back reserves, and a variety of other unpopular non-all-out-offensive strategies that conventional wisdom in most Dominions communities dismiss as playing to lose...
(And yes, I'm told I am an absolute joy to play against, TYVM.)
I assume they mean it's hard to recover from significant loses, or even to catch up if an opponent significantly outgrows or outpaces you. I'm not sure I agree with the statement as a general rule, because it makes assumptions about metagame factors (even if it's just the AI's swarm->kill->repeat mindlessness). But I don't exactly disagree with it either...I don't really agree with it, personally. Unless you set up a strategy where your plan is to expand early or win an early war and then use your size to brute force a victory, and then fail to get that early game win that you need. But that's your choice. A plan that's more balanced towards performance in the middle of the game allows you to really do a good job taking advantage of opportunities later on and having a solid shot at winning. Of course, you can be totally annihilated, and everyone will at some point, and I don't know of a case of someone losing a capital and winning, but suffering setbacks doesn't put you out of the running for the game. I certainly prefer this to some sort of explicit "you're losing so you get bonuses" mechanic.
For what it's worth, it's... probably a good thing. If D4 had easily leveraged comeback mechanics the game could pretty easily end up having match lengths that are just too long to actually play. Considering MP games can already take up a few months without much trouble, if the game was designed so that it regularly got stretched out even further I'd probably wager the player base would just kinda' collapse. Very few people want to get stuck in a game that's unending back and forth. To say nothing of how unsatisfying it tends to be when you win a game pretty much strictly by dint of playing until the other side got sick of keeping things going and quit. Or being on the other side of that, heh.In fact, there was a Dominions 3 game that went on as an indefinite stalemate for some several years. It resulted in things being changed to make the holding of land more important, most significantly a change to how gemgen items work (though that also had the purpose of reducing micro).
The flip side to that is that the "key screwup" can happen at any point. Within the first few turns, if you slip up or get unlucky you'll lose enough momentum to allow your enemy to get an edge in territories, income, dominion, and production power, since those are all interlinked. And once that happens, it's very hard to come out on top again unless the enemy gets a similar magnitude of slip-up at some point as well. Lacking late-game comeback mechanics is one thing, but you also lack early-game ones. It's rather punishing.I agree that early game requires more perfection. Luckily, it also allows for more testing, since indies are the same in singleplayer as multiplayer. Diplomatic concerns do kind of address this, but even that takes a while to wind up, at least until after expansion. Even an expansion fail can be countered though. Lord knows I've played plenty of games where my expansion was shit, and rebounded. One expansion party is generally only two turns after all, if you expand for the whole first year, that's going to be a relatively small loss, proportion-wise. Definitely being trapped in a small underwater area with a stronger underwater nation means that you're liable to be screwed, but that's also sort of a perfect storm of problems.
You're not as likely to be the winner as if you won every war you fought, but that doesn't mean you can't win. After all, your enemy is now a big yummy treat for others to feed on – but once he's in a war, that gives you the potential to peace out with him and work on expanding elsewhere, then come back for him later. And whoever ate him, if you're lucky and skilled at diplomacy, it'll be multiple nations. Hell, if it's too much against him, you could even ally with that guy against his new enemies and let everyone get weakened by war until you're able to meet them.As soon as the momentum slips or some key variable in your strategy fails, your whole nation is liable to basically fold in, collapse without any chance of recovery.
This really isn't as true as a lot of people hold it to be. I'm not saying it isn't true, but you can hold out in an underdog position a lot longer than many people are willing to even consider, and if you're willing to do so (and again, many if not most people aren't) it often has a huge effect on the momentum of the person who just crippled you. Sticking it out and forcing Pyrrhic victories instead of walking away as soon as your biggest army dies or you come under siege can make what had been a snowballing power grab into a slogging resource drain. Admittedly, you're more likely to be kingmaker than king. But still, it can be possible to eke out comebacks if you can make your would-be killer bleed enough to attract sharks.
The key point is you need to plan for the possibility of failure rather than just trying to come back only if you suffer a catastrophic defeat. This means doing things like not overcommitting resources, avoiding all-or-nothing confrontations, holding back reserves, and a variety of other unpopular non-all-out-offensive strategies that conventional wisdom in most Dominions communities dismiss as playing to lose...Only a fool calls that playing to lose. Even if you're not already in a losing position, committing too much means you win this war but lose the next. Of course, having units sitting around doing nothing is pointless, but units aren't that important anyway, later on. It's the mages that matter, and when they're sitting around, they're researching.
You're not as likely to be the winner as if you won every war you fought, but that doesn't mean you can't win. After all, your enemy is now a big yummy treat for others to feed on – but once he's in a war, that gives you the potential to peace out with him and work on expanding elsewhere, then come back for him later. And whoever ate him, if you're lucky and skilled at diplomacy, it'll be multiple nations. Hell, if it's too much against him, you could even ally with that guy against his new enemies and let everyone get weakened by war until you're able to meet them.Somehow, that never works for me. Although I may just be especially bad at diplomacy. :P
Only a fool calls that playing to lose. Even if you're not already in a losing position, committing too much means you win this war but lose the next. Of course, having units sitting around doing nothing is pointless, but units aren't that important anyway, later on. It's the mages that matter, and when they're sitting around, they're researching.That's another problem of mine. I tend to almost completely rely on regular armies for fighting, unless there are spells that are basically gimmies and there are ready mages available for casting. For instance, LA Man's Magister Arcane and his 2A magic perfectly complements Man's longbowman swarms with Wind Guide. That sort of thing.
but units aren't that important anyway, later on. It's the mages that matter, and when they're sitting around, they're researching.
I once tested my Quicksilver Stampede against a max indie strength level 3 throne province full of undead.but units aren't that important anyway, later on. It's the mages that matter, and when they're sitting around, they're researching.
Oh come now, as someone who's general strategy tends to rely on bog standard units, I can tell you this is flat out untrue.
I have (figuratively) trampled over other armies with hyper-buffed infantry before after all. It's always fun to watch all the battle magic do absolutely nothing to deter my ranks. It's why I like earth magic so much.
And even if you prefer using mages in the traditional death dealing sense, you still need a healthy amount of infantry for your armies to act as ablative armor for those mages.
But at the same time let's not forget Reanimation style chaff spam, there just hits a point where there's just too many of them to deal with regardless of what you have.
Only a fool calls that playing to lose. Even if you're not already in a losing position, committing too much means you win this war but lose the next. Of course, having units sitting around doing nothing is pointless, but units aren't that important anyway, later on. It's the mages that matter, and when they're sitting around, they're researching.
That's another problem of mine. I tend to almost completely rely on regular armies for fightingHate to break it to you, mate, but you might be a scrub.
Note how all of those strategies rely on magic, though. You need mages to buff, in that context, units are important as vehicles for your buffs, not for what merit they might have independently of magic. The "traditional" magic, which as you describe it is basically evocation, focuses on the mages still and uses units as a screen to protect the mages, who are important. I actually took this one to a bit of an extreme in my latest AAR, but even for something like Abysia, this becomes true soon enough anyway. Well, that specific example has trouble as soon as someone researches Rain, but you know what I mean. Reanimation is also done by mages. Even freespawn nations don't use that later on. Lemuria tends to stick their ghosts in forts and rely on thugs and other shenanigans later on, and Ermor uses them a bit more but still relies primarily on lictors, which are a vehicle for a big bless – essentially equivalent to buffing, though it comes online earlier – and still want some big mages in the back line, but are probably the best argument I can think of for not relying heavily on mages in any situation after the earlygame.but units aren't that important anyway, later on. It's the mages that matter, and when they're sitting around, they're researching.
Oh come now, as someone who's general strategy tends to rely on bog standard units, I can tell you this is flat out untrue.
I have (figuratively) trampled over other armies with hyper-buffed infantry before after all. It's always fun to watch all the battle magic do absolutely nothing to deter my ranks. It's why I like earth magic so much.
And even if you prefer using mages in the traditional death dealing sense, you still need a healthy amount of infantry for your armies to act as ablative armor for those mages.
But at the same time let's not forget Reanimation style chaff spam, there just hits a point where there's just too many of them to deal with regardless of what you have.
I once tested my Quicksilver Stampede against a max indie strength level 3 throne province full of undead.Yeah, sacreds are great. Even so, they don't scale like mages. Anything that counters 100 will have a pretty good chance of countering 1000. Assuming it's in a single battle, raiding's another matter, and numbers help there. But in a stand-up fight, somebody's going to find out how to whup you, and it's almost always going to be "loads of mages". Sometimes it'll be an SC, but their heyday ended with Dom3.
There were the 5 priests on my side, sure, but still. They made quite the show. They chew up flak undead like there's no tomorrow, even ethereal ones.
(the satyrs mostly survived because they were stuck behind the wall of centaurs; the ones that died found a way around)
Then there are a lot of fools in the Dom4 MP community. Which, IMNPHO, there are. So, yeah. There are subcommunities out there which obsess about "dueling" in full-size games and dismiss diplomacy as weakness and a crutch. And OMG, they scoff at the idea of "defensive" play; it's all-out or nothing. It's almost charming in its simplicity...Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing things like "dueling" if that's how people play in your community and you do it for fun. It's not playing to win, but if that's how you like to play, it's a perfectly legitimate choice. It's definitely suboptimal though, at least if there isn't a gentleman's agreement to not interfere with these duels. In a free-for-all (that is, no such agreement) winning without diplomacy is a possibility only if you're a skilled veteran and your opponents are very much not.
I'd argue that having units sitting around is not always pointless, though. If they're idle but deterring, they're not idle. Take as a rather extreme example: round 4.18. I had literally hundreds of troops (and by the end, thousands) sitting idle for almost the entire game, by design. Ofc, these troops were ghouls, and they'd die to banishment spam just about as fast as the longdead or soulless I was also amassing while being more "expensive" to reanimate. And they were "sitting idle" in forts where they promised to make any attempts to siege me down slow and miserable, and that was even if the defenders didn't break out BVCs. Again, that's an extreme case. But if you can secure a border by having idle troops and reduce the odds of your one-front war turning into a two-front war... mission accomplished.I sort of agree with the thrust of this, and vampires especially are a good way to make nobody want to touch you. Ghouls are a good garrison, not only for deterrence but just so that if a fort gets sieged they'll have something that's not mindless in there to keep from being taken down in a turn. Something like that isn't a gain for you though, it's only a status quo, a lack of loss. Which is good, but it can't be your sole strategy, and the longer you spend only doing that, the further behind you'll fall.
For what it's worth, it's... probably a good thing. If D4 had easily leveraged comeback mechanics the game could pretty easily end up having match lengths that are just too long to actually play. Considering MP games can already take up a few months without much trouble, if the game was designed so that it regularly got stretched out even further I'd probably wager the player base would just kinda' collapse. Very few people want to get stuck in a game that's unending back and forth. To say nothing of how unsatisfying it tends to be when you win a game pretty much strictly by dint of playing until the other side got sick of keeping things going and quit. Or being on the other side of that, heh.
It's definitely suboptimal though, at least if there isn't a gentleman's agreement to not interfere with these duels.
For what it's worth, it's... probably a good thing. If D4 had easily leveraged comeback mechanics the game could pretty easily end up having match lengths that are just too long to actually play. Considering MP games can already take up a few months without much trouble, if the game was designed so that it regularly got stretched out even further I'd probably wager the player base would just kinda' collapse. Very few people want to get stuck in a game that's unending back and forth. To say nothing of how unsatisfying it tends to be when you win a game pretty much strictly by dint of playing until the other side got sick of keeping things going and quit. Or being on the other side of that, heh.In fact, there was a Dominions 3 game that went on as an indefinite stalemate for some several years. It resulted in things being changed to make the holding of land more important, most significantly a change to how gemgen items work (though that also had the purpose of reducing micro).
Probably but for a game that has such a "short" 'finish' it has a long campaign. I'd probably say 5% of the game is the actual "Playing the game" part, with the remaining 95% being clean up and the like.That was true in Dominions 3, but in Dominions 4, if you play with a throne victory (which is pretty close to universal in my experience) it's up to the game admin to make that not the case. Usually it seems to go the other way actually, in my experience, where someone becomes able to throne-rush without necessarily being the strongest. Perhaps this difference in perception is an artifact of who we play with.
And of all the Dominions games this is the one that really COULD have turn around and not bog the game down endlessly.
I agree with the "As long as ya got ya fucking mages, you can still do stuff".Also if you don't have mages, you can sometimes build up enough mages and make enough favorable trades to come back. You won't win without first recouping your losses, in this case, (unless you're so close to winning that it doesn't matter, like if you have an SC marching on each of several thrones) but even then it can be possible to win. The only thing I would say is a "you'll lose for sure now" is when you've lost your capital. Even then it's theoretically possible to win, but I've never seen or heard of it happening.
PS: Wouldn't it be great to be able to accept puppet states? Then again, anyone who can force 1-2 players to become puppets already has enough magic and troop diversity on the field to defeat nearly any enemy.It would be nice to have some diplomatic mechanisms built into the game, but I think they're really only relevant when dealing with AI. Still, unless you're in a very high level game you'll probably be up against significant AI opponents even in multiplayer, so an option to stop them from being a thorn in your side (by attacking you) without expending the resources to completely annihilate them would be nice. Being able to exact tribute as well would be gravy. For players, those things don't require mechanical recognition, and such a stance would only change what message they get at the end – presumably you'd treat them more kindly when becoming pantokrator.
Was this Forge of Godhood (I think that was it's name?) by any chance? There was a game with Very Hard research/no powerful blesses/no SC pretenders, but come to think of it I'm sure any long length in that one wasn't an accident.I don't remember the name, but looking that one up it doesn't seem to be what I was thinking of. Well, similar things happened more than once in Dominions 3 anyway.
Though, I think just about any MP game has a risk of getting stalemated. There's a VGA Planets game on Planets Nu that's been going on for three years (and still is). I don't recall, from my limited experience of VGA Planets, that it was that prone to stalemates in the first place.Nothing is immune to stalemates, but Dominions 3 was very prone to it because in the very late game, your production potential was all based on clams of pearls and other stuff that's in the capital, which means that like Byzantium, all non-capital land could ebb and flow and it wouldn't effect you much, except in decreasing the distance that your SCs need to walk before finding enemies to fight.
In, re: losing, I'm OK with little comeback in a game if the end comes quick. (M:tG does this well--if you're losing, you're losing soon.) The mechanics of Dominions (i.e. sieges) have ways to prolong the agony. There's still ways to "topdeck" of course.Depends on perspective. For me, any time you spend losing is time during which you can avoid the actual loss. In some games that might not be true, but in Dominions it is, even if the turnaround is harder than continuing a victory, though both cases risk loss of momentum. And I tend to enjoy losing because that's when I'm forced to be creative and efficient to the greatest degree. It's not an accident that the games I blog about are the ones I lose, the games I take most seriously are pretty much always ones where I'm in situations that are hard for me, either bad initial luck, particularly strong players as enemies, or most recently using a strategy I had little experience with.
Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).What we're talking about here is more on the strategic scale than tactical. Retreating is supposed to be a bad thing, as it generally was in historical warfare, which is why morale is a positive stat and you're given tools to boost it, not minimize it. There are some exceptions, such as scripting some mage to cast something then retreat, but these are niche cases anyway, and exceptions to the rule.
Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.
When someone barrels into an army that has 5 potential provinces to run into, they will run, in equal number, into each and every one of those five provinces.Small note of mechanical clarification, the province is random. That means that for arbitrarily large numbers of units, the amount will become equal, but for practical numbers there will generally be some inequality.
Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).What we're talking about here is more on the strategic scale than tactical. Retreating is supposed to be a bad thing, as it generally was in historical warfare, which is why morale is a positive stat and you're given tools to boost it, not minimize it. There are some exceptions, such as scripting some mage to cast something then retreat, but these are niche cases anyway, and exceptions to the rule.
Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.
This happens in Dominions too. Not with elite troops, but your typical militia will break when they've taken less than 20% damages usually. And it's not at all rare that human chaff will leave before the job is done. If you're playing a nation where your main troops are typical humans, you're likely to be looking for ways to avoid rout, if you don't hold a substantial advantage in other ways.Dominions clearly had an idea that turn around was possible because of retreating (so that even with a bad loss, the bulk of your army could get away).What we're talking about here is more on the strategic scale than tactical. Retreating is supposed to be a bad thing, as it generally was in historical warfare, which is why morale is a positive stat and you're given tools to boost it, not minimize it. There are some exceptions, such as scripting some mage to cast something then retreat, but these are niche cases anyway, and exceptions to the rule.
Mind you, that quickly ends up not being the case.
That is because armies retreated waaaay before they took serious casualties... AND the number of actual casualties in any engagement tended to be small on either side. As well the majority of casualties occurred upon retreat rather than direct engagement.
It is why it was not unheard of for armies to win victories over superior ones simply by not retreating.
the only real example I can think of in which morale played a historical roleWas there a single one where it hadn't?
And every kill/retreating enemy in line of sight gives a moral boost'Hey mister - you're a good person and what you did today was righhh...'
Well if anyone is bored, make a "real moral" mod, where everyone has like 6 moral, is affected only by things withhin 3 titles and there are up to 5 levels of retreat, from panic, rout, desperation etc-etc.
And every kill/retreating enemy in line of sight gives a moral boost.
Small note of mechanical clarification, the province is random. That means that for arbitrarily large numbers of units, the amount will become equal, but for practical numbers there will generally be some inequality.
Those are not things that you can do in a Dominions 4 mod (adding units with low morale is one thing, changing the game rules and adding new rules is impossible).No, no... you could. It's not impossible. It's just not something that's supported and would take a lot more work than I think anyone's gotten around to putting into modding a dominions game. You'd have to figure out how to crack the game open and mess with its internals, which is something that usually starts at bloody difficult and scales up to and past ridiculous, but it's not strictly impossible.
Those are not things that you can do in a Dominions 4 mod (adding units with low morale is one thing, changing the game rules and adding new rules is impossible).No, no... you could. It's not impossible. It's just not something that's supported and would take a lot more work than I think anyone's gotten around to putting into modding a dominions game. You'd have to figure out how to crack the game open and mess with its internals, which is something that usually starts at bloody difficult and scales up to and past ridiculous, but it's not strictly impossible.
Plenty of games get modded through straight up screwing with the game's programming instead of messing with available mod tools or whatev'. It's usually half-way or outright illegal (EULA violation, reverse engineering, etc.), but it's something that happens every once in a while. PC equivalent of an ASM hack of an SNES game or whatev'.
It's also worth mentioning dominions is less true to history and more true to myth. The Dominions Random Number system makes no real sense even if we presume that 30 foot tall fire breathing dragons do exist, it's still possible, no matter how unlikely, to kill that dragon in one hit.
It's also how DFhack works.Those are not things that you can do in a Dominions 4 mod (adding units with low morale is one thing, changing the game rules and adding new rules is impossible).No, no... you could. It's not impossible. It's just not something that's supported and would take a lot more work than I think anyone's gotten around to putting into modding a dominions game. You'd have to figure out how to crack the game open and mess with its internals, which is something that usually starts at bloody difficult and scales up to and past ridiculous, but it's not strictly impossible.
Plenty of games get modded through straight up screwing with the game's programming instead of messing with available mod tools or whatev'. It's usually half-way or outright illegal (EULA violation, reverse engineering, etc.), but it's something that happens every once in a while. PC equivalent of an ASM hack of an SNES game or whatev'.
(if your first question is "if all units are summons how do you start?", then the answer is "don't start with a dormant pretender, as that's your only caster at first")
(if your first question is "if all units are summons how do you start?", then the answer is "don't start with a dormant pretender, as that's your only caster at first")
Dominions is, as I believe I've said before, the closest anyone's ever come to making an actual MTG TBS.
Alternativly: All the MTG colors (roughly) as nations would be amazing. Sorc/Instants as Spells, Creatures as Creatures..... mhmmThe colors are more like magic paths than nations. Magic paths coupled with moral philosophies, but not nations. The nations of Dominaria and elsewhere would make good Dominions nations, though. Imagine having the Thran in the EA, and then both sides of the Brother's War in MA, and then I don't know, some neowalker stuff in the LA.
Might be better as a stand aloen game, optimally with some build your own planeswalker style (much like pretenders now) - you can water down by going multicolor, but that will denie you access to more powerful creatures - I'd imagine 5 colors being much like allys, power in mass & utility - lands create mana as well as cash, magic sites still exist, but the main mana income is more "fairly" spread out based on terrain.The concept has been done before. It wouldn't have much in common with Dominions though.
Much like MtG certain mechanics would mostly stick to certain colors, like trample to green, flying to white/black etc - Black could even have "cause a affliction" and other effects for most of its damage. Balance would be a bit of a issue - can blue just spam counterspell(s)?
Honestly, I'd just love to see some of the spells in Dominions, like forced evolution where you sac some of your animals/beasts and gain a rando (more expensive) unit for the fight, but lose the permanent...Both of those aren't really compatible with a battle system that you plan ahead of time.
Dominions needs some battlefield-enchantment-removal anyway.
The concept has been done before. It wouldn't have much in common with Dominions though.Why not? Dominions is already well underway to being that game. Capture land to gain magic resources, find unique units and effects in specific lands (including a "tap"-like mechanic where you designate a unit to "use" a land's features), summon units and cast overland spells from a wide, color-based variety. Dominions just has strategic, pre-planned combat between big armies instead of the spellfest battles between handfuls of units that MtG does in its format, and with the scripted spells mechanic it's actually not that far off from it. It's well within "fluff it" distance, planeswalkers instead of pretenders, influence instead of dominion, various Dominarian landmarks instead of thrones, etc.
Both of those aren't really compatible with a battle system that you plan ahead of time.Again, why not? The first is already almost present with the Crossbreeding spell, and you not only have the spell-scripting for the battle phase, but "battle disenchantment" could well be cast by AI easily.
Wind ride will whisk away a random enemy commander as long as it's not above size 3 and not an earth mage, I believe.
There's a small handful of nation locked (ish) items, actually. C'tis has 'em, ferex, and beyond ragha you could make a half-hearted argument that some of the reanimation nations do, too, since the boosting amulets only work for specific corporeal undead (not manikins, not incorporeal ones, etc.). Pretty sure one of the UW nations got some kind of jellyfish stick or somethin' relatively recently. Probably some I'm forgetting, heh.Quite a few. Mictlan has that Blood Sacrifice boosting knife, LA Agartha has Mercury Barrels, Ermor (Zombie Apocalypse Flavor) gets a thing to make their Lictor summons more efficient..... And I'm drawing blanks now, then again it's bed time for me so I'll leave it up to others to finish the list.
Magic items aren't the same as artifacts. Artifacts are Construction 8, and are unique. They are always recovered after combat, however.Argument could be made for Ragha's crown thingie, while it's not at Construction 8, it is unique (although it is always destroyed after being lost rather than always recovered...)
You can, however, prophetize a shah and then give him the crown, leading to a level 4 priest. Should you happen to want a level 4 priest, that is.
H4 is actually useful for Fanaticism..... But the Crown already does that... So yeah, don't do that people. (But if you really want to, remember: Prophetize THEN Crown)
And for Frumples sake, the thing casts Fanaticism and gives a whole lot of leadership (And the +1 morale boost for troops thing) and finally gives +1 to priestly powers, although given that the only units who can use it are only H1, this only really helps for blessings and vs undead...
To get good you must do what most people on the internet do...
do what someone else does unquestioningly.
GuysPlay the game a lot. Do it as different nations. Play multiplayer, and pay attention to what your neighbors are doing. Read guides and AARs. Write your own guides and AARs, explaining everything thoroughly so that you get a better understanding of it for yourself too. For that purpose, I write AARs as I do my turns, and enunciating my thinking helps me think more deeply about it.
How do ISpoiler (click to show/hide)
If the enemy is just to large, with a set of mages and buffs that make them impossible to defeat? The game allows you to work around that, just ignoring the doom-blob and hitting everything else...Size, mages, and buffs aren't going to make it impossible to defeat. For something like that, you can catch it in a defensive trap and use battlefield-wide spells to take everything out at a great price. It's only if the unit stats are also really good that you can't do that, but really good units are also expensive units so the numbers will be lower.
Just in case anyone is interested Dominions 4 is on sale on Gamersgate for 85% off. https://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DOM4TA-STEAM/ (http://www.bay12forums.com/DD-DOM4TA-STEAM/) For the next 6 days...
Is it worth playing, for five bucks? You bet your olives. It's not really better than a typical strategy game, in my opinion, if you only play singleplayer. But it's still well worth the sale price and the time that a couple playthroughs will take.Just in case anyone is interested Dominions 4 is on sale on Gamersgate for 85% off. https://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DOM4TA-STEAM/ (http://www.bay12forums.com/DD-DOM4TA-STEAM/) For the next 6 days...
That is an awesome deal.
Is the game worth playing though, if I don't do multiplayer and much prefer singleplayer? I'd probably play for a while, then get a bunch of mods. I know there is a lot of mods to choose from for Dominions 4, and those almost always spruce up the singleplayer experience.
The AI has been quietly improving with the assorted patches the game has received, as JK keeps picking away at it.Nationgen is fun to mix things up, but there's enough nations in the base game that you don't really need to add random ones without lore. If you're only playing single player, you're unlikely to play more than a few score games anyway. Another reason I'd put it on par with other good strategy games if only played as single-player.
I found the UnitGen metamod helped keep Dom3 single-player fresh and interesting. I feel conflicted about being the one to bring up its Dom4 continuation/successor NationGen (https://github.com/elmokki/nationgen), but I do know there are a fair number of people who have said they like it for SP in addition to those who use it for MP, and I can certainly attest that its development is ongoing...
Damn, I just bought it a few days ago with the 30% off on Steam and I thought I got a good deal. I'm really enjoying it so far and as far as I can tell the devs deserve the money I give them. The mechanics seem well done but I want to try multiplayer.There's ALWAYS room for a noob. ;D
If I understand correctly this is all done through LlamaServer, if I'm not mistaken? I see the Bay12 game is still waiting for players. Is there any room for a noob? ;D
Damn, I just bought it a few days ago with the 30% off on Steam and I thought I got a good deal. I'm really enjoying it so far and as far as I can tell the devs deserve the money I give them. The mechanics seem well done but I want to try multiplayer.Almost all. People will do direct connect games too, which take about a weekend but usually end because people run out of time to play. There's also blitzserver, which is a newer in-development thing for the game. By newer, I mean it's been around for a year or two, but it's still mostly in testing and refinement rather than general use.
If I understand correctly this is all done through LlamaServer, if I'm not mistaken? I see the Bay12 game is still waiting for players. Is there any room for a noob? ;D
There's also direct multiplay via dropbox and similar solutions. Usually requires an unusually high level of trust between players as it means everybody can technically see and control everybody else's nations (because entering a password every time is tedious). Also everyone can host.Damn, I just bought it a few days ago with the 30% off on Steam and I thought I got a good deal. I'm really enjoying it so far and as far as I can tell the devs deserve the money I give them. The mechanics seem well done but I want to try multiplayer.Almost all. People will do direct connect games too, which take about a weekend but usually end because people run out of time to play. There's also blitzserver, which is a newer in-development thing for the game. By newer, I mean it's been around for a year or two, but it's still mostly in testing and refinement rather than general use.
If I understand correctly this is all done through LlamaServer, if I'm not mistaken? I see the Bay12 game is still waiting for players. Is there any room for a noob? ;D
When a spell gives an AoE, is it in actual squares? Or is it like AP (two points for orthogonal, three for diagonal.)?Total number of squares, and squares past the first are just randomly attached to one face or other of already placed squares. There aren't shaped templates, and if you throw big blasts at your front lines you're likely to get your own dudes caught in it.
And if you throw a big blast into enemy lines, you're likely to hit every single square except the ones they're actually standing on...And the one square that does have dudes on it are your dudes....
That's happened a few more times than necessary.
But more generally what are the independent troops (and mages too, I guess) that you usually -as opposed to situationally- recruit. I'm thinking here of generically useful ones rather than those that fit niches in case of specialised strategies.
Zotz, Raptors, Pale One militia, Horse Tribe/Horse Brother, any archers if they're not resource-heavy and I don't have good national ones (especially crossbows and longbows), lizards, ichtyids with nets, jade/garnet/onyx Amazons as lineholding chaff, bakemono/atavi as concealable bulwarks/raider reinforcements, assorted aquatics if I don't have better and need to get wet (especially Shark Tribe), etc. But it's ALL circumstantial; all of the above are offering specific skills that my national troops may instead offer, depending on the nation...
Also, pale ones are not only great at smashing down castles, they're also amazing at holding them. They're strong, have minds, and don't eat supplies, so pound-for-pound they're great defenders (I believe their perception does play a part, slightly reducing their effectiveness)
Fortresses must be reduced before they can be stormed. To reduce a fortress, its Defense value must be reduced to zero. Each turn, the total reduction strength of the besiegers is compared to the total repair strength of the defenders.
Reduction strength = unit strength squared / 100
● Flying units get +1
Repair strength = unit strength squared / 100
● Flying units get +1
● Mindless units are only worth 10% of calculated value
The difference is subtracted from the fortress defense value if the Reduction strength is greater. If the fortress has been damaged, and the repair strength is greater, the difference is added back to the defense value, to the maximum of the original value.
As long as you can make amulets of the fish, there should be no problem getting aquatic gods, mages, and commanders onto land.
As long as you can make amulets of the fish, there should be no problem getting aquatic gods, mages, and commanders onto land.
It is more that it is surprising with so few water bound units in a UW nation (or none in a few cases) that their dominion leader is basically trapped down there.
I honestly do wonder how effective some of them are... Like is the Kraken really worth it as a UW super Combatant?
I still remember the last time I tried to do a super combatant run... and I used the White Bull... and died to independents who cast a single ivy arrow... A great god felled low because he has no actual attacks :P
On another subject entirely... Swans: How do we weaponize a horde of flying need-not-eat freespawn?Siege castles with them.
On another subject entirely... Swans: How do we weaponize a horde of flying need-not-eat freespawn?Siege castles with them.
But they are free, and don't need to eat. However terrible they are at sieging by default, they do get a flat bonus to it (and patrolling) because of flying.On another subject entirely... Swans: How do we weaponize a horde of flying need-not-eat freespawn?Siege castles with them.
Although I have been doing just that, they seem to be kind of bad at it.
Bishop Fishes are aquatic, but Amulets of the Fish (Const 4, W1A1) give aquatic units the ability to Do Stuff on land.
Better: put them in your own castles. Just set a few swan boys to call swans on repeat, and forget about them. Then, by the time someone comes up on that fort, it's all but untakeable.On another subject entirely... Swans: How do we weaponize a horde of flying need-not-eat freespawn?Siege castles with them.
bane venom charm :PBetter: put them in your own castles. Just set a few swan boys to call swans on repeat, and forget about them. Then, by the time someone comes up on that fort, it's all but untakeable.On another subject entirely... Swans: How do we weaponize a horde of flying need-not-eat freespawn?Siege castles with them.
Better: put them in your own castles. Just set a few swan boys to call swans on repeat, and forget about them. Then, by the time someone comes up on that fort, it's all but untakeable.bane venom charm :P
Nah, there's no limit save whatever conceptual max number of units in play the engine has or whatever logistical bottleneck that may be involved (iirc wolves still need food, ferex). If something like a swan herd or werewolf fills up their command with freespawn, they'll just start dumping the excess into the garrison. I... think it's possible to max out a garrison, but it's going to take multiple hundreds of turns with dozens of callers involved. I don't think I've ever actually managed it in D4. Same dealio with reanimation and longdead or whatev', basically, just a different means of getting the critter.Technically, you can max out a world. Once the unit numbers get sufficiently high the game will start deleting them.
...if there's no fort. If there's a fort, they hide inside unless herded out.Better: put them in your own castles. Just set a few swan boys to call swans on repeat, and forget about them. Then, by the time someone comes up on that fort, it's all but untakeable.bane venom charm :P
Yup. Ghouls are the best fort-fillers for a reason. In fact, they're quite happy to have some BVCs inside the fort to make sieging it a bit more demanding...
Wow, that looks cool. It's kind of awesome how they are able to make the style look so similar to the original game's while being all randomised.
BTW, what happens if two opposing armies move into each other's previous territory? Do they fight or just switch positions?
Likewise, if you give an army the order to move into an adjacent enemy province, and on the same turn an army in that province gets the order to move into yours, then one of three things can happen:I assume they'll only miss each other in rough terrain and if the forces involved are small, though; I've personally never actually seen it happen.Which event occurs depends on the size of the armies in question and the terrain involved.
- There is a battle in the enemy province between the two armies;
- There is a battle in your province between the two armies;
- The armies miss one another and exchange places.
Interesting. I've never actually heard of moves being run alphabetically. The manual claims turn resolution is simultaneous, and in the case of two armies from different nations entering the province of another nation, it indicates the first army to arrive is determined randomly rather than by alphabet order. Moreover, it indicates that it only determines which army arrives first in the case where three or more sides are present in a province at the end of the turn, and not at the time each movement order is resolved.Not all movement is processed before combat begins.In large part, what the case being described by Abysia and Man relies upon is what sort of province is being targeted for the move by the non-attacking army: friendly or unfriendly.Apropos of the great big turn resolution sequence list, friendly movement is always resolved before regular movement, and all movements are resolved before movement-related battles are processed. After that comes any castle storms, random event battles, battles from magic item/monster effects (Chalice, hi-yo), and discovered sneaks, in that order, and before all of this (even friendly movement) is movement through magical rituals and consequent battles, but that's likely irrelevant.
In fact, it seemed so curious that I thought I'd run a quick test, since it's fairly trivial to set this condition up. Pure vanilla, no mods. Map is Talis, since it's teeny, with Abysia and Man the two players. Pretenders are irrelevant. It took three turns to move both armies into position over the bridge, facing each other. I ran three tests with each, which is far from statistically significant, but I'm lazy that way. :P
Case 1: Abysian army moves into province occupied by army from Man; Man army moves into different (independent) province.
Result 1A: Man's army moves away. Abysia takes undefended province.
Result 1B: Man's army moves away. Abysia takes undefended province.
Result 1C: Man's army moves away. Abysia takes undefended province.
Case 2: Man's army moves into province occupied by army from Abysia; Abysian army moves into different (independent) province.
Result 2A: Abysia's army moves away. Man takes undefended province.
Result 2B: Abysia's army moves away. Man takes undefended province.
Result 2C: Abysia's army moves away. Man takes undefended province.
If someone's more bored than I, they can probably play around with the save (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nuo99zhbmggzx4k/TaliTest.7z?dl=0) as they wish, though I can't imagine why.
EDIT: Struck out a false statement from my own presumptions, but otherwise left it present for posterity. In fact, it doesn't actually matter; if all movement is resolved before all combats except in the case of two armies marching into each other directly, then moving into a friendly or unfriendly province is irrelevant, because it will still be processed before combat begins.
Not all movement is processed before combat begins.First of all, I must preface this with the statement that I am not an expert on the nitty-gritty of the movement or combat systems. However, I'm fairly certain there are no "bonuses" for friendly moves, because there is nothing contested between friendly and other regular movements. They're processed in entirely different phases of the turn resolution process. As such, they don't tend to move first, but rather simply move first. I had not done this originally due to the sheer length of the list and since Kagus was already familiar with it, but since there's apparently some confusion regarding the truncated turn order sequence list I wrote up, I'll post the entire thing. It can also be found on pages 80-83 of the manual, and it is very useful to at least have a familiar passing with.
Armies that move between friendly provinces have a high priority, so to speak, perhaps a bonus to the DRN in game terms, in any case they tend to move first and not be interrupted. Armies that attack other provinces though, apparently just roll DRN, maybe modified by army size or move rate or something.
Case in point: this current Bay12 game (round 425) I had a situation where my Pangaean forces were converging from 3 different provinces into one enemy province, to attack the Ulm force there. Ulm was, at the same time, attacking one of those provinces.
Result: Two of my groups attacked an empty (well, full of PD) province that Ulm had just left, and the Ulm army attacked the third group's province, with that group still in it. So the move order was: Ulm (met group #3), Pangaea group #1, Pangaea group #2. Because Ulm got the first move and group #3 probably failed an opposed roll, they did battle on my land, and the other two groups did not encounter them.
Odd, maybe they managed to work that out earlier in the series. I do definitely recall there being a mention of nation-specific turn priority.You need to drop enough forces on it in the ritual spell phase to actually defeat it or at least eliminate its commanders if you decide to use that technique; if it reaches the movement phase, those commanders able to do so will follow their movement orders. An attack in itself is not adequate to stop a movement order. Assassinating commanders works: Mind Hunt, Earth Attack, even Seeking Arrow or Wind Ride in a pinch. Unled troops won't obey movement orders, after all. Better still to drop an entire army on top of them, though: Astral Travel is expensive; Stygian Paths can be risky; Faery Trod can sometimes miss; but Cloud Trapeze is kind of a tradition for anything that can create an A2 thug or SC (Elemental Queens, ahoy) or, less commonly, Teleport for S3s. As such, it's not an option available to all nations.
And as for earlier-priority attack events stopping a raiding party, that's either no longer true or there's a special exception in place for the AI. Wasn't that long ago I had an AI army roaming around in my provinces, and I threw some call of x spells at it specifically so that I could hold it in place long enough for my retaliatory force to arrive.
Ritual cast, enemy army was attacked by weak summons that were quickly destroyed, actual army arrives in a vacant province as the enemy force has gone off to take another unprotected province in between those events. So something's definitely fishy.
Also, I am anything but an expert at this game. I've as yet never played so much as a single MP match of it. I just like fiddling with numbers and combos and such...
Not that a army in dominions can ever be "cut off" from supply (unless you got a commander with food items running around?) - supply lines would've been nice, with "Logistics" as a commander skill that sucks up supplys just like "administrator" does with castles, from provinces near him, with "well feed" armys (2x there supplys needs) getting more moral or something like that.
Fortresses do increase supply in relatively near provinces (maximum distance of four) based on Administration. I don't know how meaningful that is, but I suppose it can't hurt.Baring access to supply items like endless bags of wine, a fortress is a valid way of making sure you can strike into 0 pop provinces. Supply also goes down during sieges, so there is in a sense supply lines, but they're also closer to ancient and medievel supply lines, more disorganized. Don't forget that part of supply is getting the resources and gold, and you can cut off provinces from a fortress as well.
I did tons of raiding as Xibalba last game, but part of that is that between stealth, flying, and cheap units there was really no place I couldn't/wouldn't raid with my bats. But having played Xibalba, you kinda have to do it, since it's one of their main strengths.
Not that a army in dominions can ever be "cut off" from supply (unless you got a commander with food items running around?) - supply lines would've been nice, with "Logistics" as a commander skill that sucks up supplys just like "administrator" does with castles, from provinces near him, with "well feed" armys (2x there supplys needs) getting more moral or something like that.Forts raise supply in nearby provinces, so if your army is too large to live off the land then yeah you can get cut off from supply and starve. Unfortunately starvation itself is kinda an odd mechanic (IIRC it prefers giving units afflictions to actually killing them?)
So does Awe and Fear stack?
Unfortunately starvation itself is kinda an odd mechanic (IIRC it prefers giving units afflictions to actually killing them?)
So, are there any plans to run a game in the near future? I haven't had my ass kicked by competent (i.e. human) players in over a year, and I'm starting to miss it.One is currently running. 30 turns in at standard research, when it's over likely another will start I think.
Passing along that I am attempting to revive community clash in a somewhat more organized fashion. That is to say, I actually secured a working server option and obtained semi-delivery of a map before making a post. Post is on dom4mods if the team here is interested in signing up again.
...I'll go ahead and get a post up for interest/planning/scheming...
(And done (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=162258.0).)
Passing along that I am attempting to revive community clash in a somewhat more organized fashion. That is to say, I actually secured a working server option and obtained semi-delivery of a map before making a post. Post is on dom4mods if the team here is interested in signing up again.
Trying to pull the team for this back together, but only one other person replied, so as such if you feel up to the task of representing the glorious community of the Twelfth Bay, send me a PM.
I'm blogging another multiplayer game. (http://"https://cruxador.wordpress.com/category/aar/autisticrpgame/")Link didn't work, might wanna check it. Found the blog though, looks neat.
This one's gimmick is that we're doing some light roleplaying and staying in-character for diplomacy and other in-game messages.
Eesh, good luck. I seem to remember half-heartedly trying that at one point and it made communication just kinda' miserable, particularly on the time investment front. Fun to indulge sporadically, but less so consistently and especially as the game gets later into the play session, heh.Yeah, it gets more casual as the game goes on.
Mixed up the code format with some other forum software, I suppose. Fixed now.I'm blogging another multiplayer game. (http://"https://cruxador.wordpress.com/category/aar/autisticrpgame/")Link didn't work, might wanna check it. Found the blog though, looks neat.
This one's gimmick is that we're doing some light roleplaying and staying in-character for diplomacy and other in-game messages.
Two things:They're a good deal at 100g, and 14 morale isn't terrible, by the time they rout you've probably lost anyway. It's potentially costly if they run over some major mage support, but it's not nearly as bad as with, say, war elephants. And those cost the same as this guy.
1) The bug making those cost 10g instead of 100g has been fixed, so they'll be less absurdly priced next patch.
1a) Those don't have 50 (or even 30) morale, so they can rout, with predictably unfortunate results for their comparatively-petite kinfolk (aka hoburg poppers)...
2) While in broad terms I'm no more reluctant to promulgate sprite nudity than KO, I can assure you that in this case it's all unfortunate shading.
With low protection they tend to lose limbs fast, but whatever, right?If you have any E access and you've got these guys, you should probably be rushing Alteration for iron warriors/marble warriors/army of foo and give them good protection on top of their other benefits as soon as reasonably possible. Even if you don't, if you have other reasons to go into Alteration it might be worth taking some E on your pretender so you can throw that stuff up on major armies later, especially if you have sacred mages or troops that would like a Ex bless anyway.
I need to cast Sea Dogs, GoR one of them, and name it Scuba Duu.I occasionally have similar thoughts about GoR'ing a deer or something equally silly and making it my prophet... just 'cause.
...yes, I have the best tactics.
Think... what, tiniest scorpions are the smallest thing you can get outside battle? That'd be the target. Your entire religion hanging off the words of a bug smaller than your hand.You can polymorph a mage into a dragonfly.
That might be a bit of a bug in action there, then again "Death is the only cure" - no wonder it was so effective at stoping the Boar-invasion back then.
That might be a bit of a bug in action there, then again "Death is the only cure" - no wonder it was so effective at stoping the Boar-invasion back then.
Decay doesn't stop just because the battle stops. It's much the same as how the battle ending can still mean death from poison, bleeding, or burning.
I wish Dominions wasn't so damn expensive. I'd be buying copies for all of my friends if each of them didn't cost almost 50 Australian dollars.https://steamdb.info/app/259060/ shows that the game's had as high as a 75% discount (although those are just single day deals), but 40% and 60% deals look like they come around decently often.
Anyway, does anyone here have any good strategies for dealing with Ulm? My friends and I have been co-op'ing against the AI (not enough players for a decent free for all), and by the time we get to Ulm, assuming the AI hasn't already destroyed them, they often have armies involving 200+ black plate armour soldiers and close to (occasionally over) 1000 men in their doomstacks. I'm just not sure how to deal with that when our footsoldiers can't compete with them 1v1, neither outnumber them.
Fatigue it'll have to be. Thank you! I tried doing a spear/shield wall as Abysia, but my 300ish troops would always get surrounded and slaughtered by the thousands of Ulmdudes.
Anything that does fatigue? Or armor piercing/ignoring damage en masse. They're still humans, which means they're squishy if you can get through or bypass the armor, and they're mostly high encumbrance so if you can get your fatigue rolling they start dying easy.
If I have a crystal matrix on a mage X, will he be able to establish a communion even if he isn't astral?
Does it matter if slaves are casting their slave spell before or after X? I take it, the battle turn order follows the army list order?
I want to cast a level 5, three gem, spell on turn 1, X is currently level 3. If I have four slaves, I should be able to get to level 5 immediately, and cast it at a cost of three gems, right? If I have two slaves, X will be level 4, and needs 3+1 gems to cast the same spell?
Additionally, the slaves don't have the path of what is cast. Will X still get a level up in that path? How will it affect fatigue? In the battle spell queue, the spell I want to cast is greyed out, it doesn't seem to consider slave spells? What are the benefits of using a slave matrix instead? Less fatigue? Spell will get ungreyed in the battle spell queue?
I'd like to know what the deal with communions is anyway. I'm not a very frequent player.
Exactly what I wanted to know, thank you!LESS PLANNING, MORE SHIELD WALLS!
I like how intricate the rules of the game are, and how you need to go back to them to see if ideas are workable. The amount of spells, units and tactics combinations create a complexity that allows for quite creative play.
The one thing I find most annoying with the communions mechanic, is that it's impossible to use it for ritual spells, despite the "bunch of mages pooling their magic together to work a ritual for X amount of time" thing being a staple of basically any kind of fantasy-fiction.Because getting unlimited paths in combat is a useful strategy to win fights, but getting it for rituals would mean that you'd need a way to build communions as every nation you play, pretty much, to unlock those big game-changing globals.
Ritual mages could collaborate without the communion spell. Just, say, three level 1 mages to cast a level 2 spell, three level 2s (or nine level 1s) to cast a level 3 spell, etc. Maybe make every additional caster cost an extra gem to prevent abuse with low-level summoning spells. Rapid aging could be a thing as well since mages are channeling power above their individual level, or it could be an intrinsic ability of some nation's mages to circumvent the extra gem cost. It could work.The one thing I find most annoying with the communions mechanic, is that it's impossible to use it for ritual spells, despite the "bunch of mages pooling their magic together to work a ritual for X amount of time" thing being a staple of basically any kind of fantasy-fiction.Because getting unlimited paths in combat is a useful strategy to win fights, but getting it for rituals would mean that you'd need a way to build communions as every nation you play, pretty much, to unlock those big game-changing globals.
I'd like to know what the deal with communions is anyway. I'm not a very frequent player.
It makes a bunch of slaves stand around doing nothing, in return for a magic path boost for the masters and fatigue being spread around all participants. So it's good for getting high-level spells out or spamming mid-level ones all day. The path boost is log base 2 (ie: 2 slaves for 1 level boost, 4 for 2, 8 for 3, etc) but the fatigue spreading is not.
If the communion slaves are paralyzed and incapable of doing anything, as they are on the battle map, then that would mean a month without eating, drinking, sleeping, or in any way taking care of themselves. They would almost certainly die in short order, likely before the ritual was complete.Couldn't you just get your soldiers to feed them like a bird does to its babies?
Like, technically a Earth 2 mage should be able to cast EarthQuake (E4), by casting summon Earthpower, then using 1-2 gems (can't use more gems then your natural magic level in that path) to get to E4 for a single cast - but the 300 Fatigue will stop him, even if he would be able to.
So you can only pathboost by 1 in combat, regardless of source, outside of communions? I recall that different pathboosts don't stack (i.e. Power of the Spheres and Summon Earthpower), but spell-based pathboost and gem-based pathboost don't stack either?......Oh my wow. You asked a question that my near-encyclopedic knowledge of this game HAS NO IDEA ABOUT.
The fatigue issue you brought up is false, if a unit has less than 200 fatigue, any action that would kick them over 200 (Big spell, being a communion slave, massed heat auras, Stellar Cascades, etc.) will only bring them to 200. Any fatigue damage done to a unit that already has 200 fatigue will be converted into HP damage (15 to 1 rounded up ratio I think)
(I've never had reason to try to see if Power of the Spheres and Summon Earthpower stack... (PotS is so darn expensive...) Although I THINK they will stack? This is pure guesstimation though.)
Although Summon Hellpower (WHY WOULD YOU CAST THIS?!) does give +2 to all...
You don't cast Power of the Spheres. You forge Crystal Shields for your combat mages. :P
You don't cast Power of the Spheres. You forge Crystal Shields for your combat mages. :P
If we're talking about communions, and you want your slaves to benefit from the fatigue reduction from having higher levels in the spells the master cast, you can't rely on Crystal Shields since item spells get cast before the communion goes up or any slaves join (I'll firmly ignore Crystal Matrix and unit id shenanigans for the sake of this discussion)...If you give EVERYONE a matrix..... It may work. Maybe. Would be horrifically impractical though.
I wish Dominions wasn't so damn expensive. I'd be buying copies for all of my friends if each of them didn't cost almost 50 Australian dollars.
Round 26 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=162258.0) is in need of a sub for a nation in a strong position (a NationGen nation of illithids and their vanara thralls).
Yes, if only there were some kind of programmatic constructs one could use to stand in for human players in a multi-player game scenario as a means of training... :P
Yes, if only there were some kind of programmatic constructs one could use to stand in for human players in a multi-player game scenario as a means of training... :P
They are pretty dumb compared to real players, but singleplayer is still good for learning the basics of how to play.
My advice to new players would be to figure out an army that uses both mid level (2-3 in their best path) mages as well as national troops. Then repeatedly play the first 6-18 months, restarting whenever you fuck up, until you reliably have a large nation AND you get your target army together ASAP.So... You should figure out an army that uses mages and then repeatedly stop playing when you get to the part where mages begin to matter?
You should have one or two tricks at reaseatch 5 or less, ready for your army to use at turn 18 maximum (ideally way earlier).My advice to new players would be to figure out an army that uses both mid level (2-3 in their best path) mages as well as national troops. Then repeatedly play the first 6-18 months, restarting whenever you fuck up, until you reliably have a large nation AND you get your target army together ASAP.So... You should figure out an army that uses mages and then repeatedly stop playing when you get to the part where mages begin to matter?
Because there is a lot of spells to go through, what are some of the most common spells people use to buff their entire armies (other than blesses)? Or spells that can buff large amounts of their army if the spell caster is higher level, as I believe caster skill can affect the AOE of some spells?I'm a big fan of strength of giants (enchantment 3, 3E, 25 AoE gives +3 strength) if you've got the casters for it. +3 strength might not sound like a whole lot, but on humans it gives them like a 30% buff to damage... and you get even better returns if you cast it on something tiny - casting swarm followed (immediately, since they'll all fly away otherwise) by a strength of giants can be fun.
They'll still cast the buff if it's in their script but they have no valid targets, though.
AlStar, aren't most of the things summoned by Swarm only capable of doing 1 damage MAX? No matter how high their strength becomes?Huh, I didn't know that - shame (annoyingly, I'm fairly sure your mages will happily cast it on the swarm, since I've done that before.)
Do not fault them, for they do not know it's not really helping.AlStar, aren't most of the things summoned by Swarm only capable of doing 1 damage MAX? No matter how high their strength becomes?Huh, I didn't know that - shame (annoyingly, I'm fairly sure your mages will happily cast it on the swarm, since I've done that before.)
Lobo Guard die in droves, which is what they're for but my commanders lose hope and flee.
How is the intrest in a fast, easy research, land only game?What's the definition of 'fast' in this context? 24 hour turns (less? more?) - or something else?
Curious about other's thoughts on "splashing" Blood - particularly on a nation with no Blood access on its recruitable mages, but who manages to find slave pits (or similar, like the Lower Throne), so they've got a meager (but steady) income of slaves coming in.
Worth the time and expense of researching blood (how far up the tree?) and training up one (several?) caster(s)? Blood hunter(s)?
Yeah, I've been watching some LPs on it, and it looks surprisingly deep and complex. I hope they throw a sale sometime soonSurprisingly? The franchise has been in regular development since like 2000.
Dominions sales used to be the stuff of legends, obscure myths and children's fairy tales... But they've actually been reasonably decent about putting on good sales as of late. I picked it up at 75% off, personally.Used to be there was no such thing as a Dominions sale, but they got out from under their shitty publisher just prior to releasing Dom4. That's also why 3 (and 4) are on Steam now.
I, for one, feel all dominionsed out right now.It happens, doesn't it? I'm probably out of the game for a few months more for the same reason. Well, depending on how much time the gig I have lined up for the summer takes. Could be more than a few.
Intrest check for the next game (round 27)
Map: Anything that falls in the "10-20" Provinces/player Area
Mods: Worthy Heroes 5.5 (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2749)
Era: Early Age
Disciples: Nah?
Graphs: Off
Story Events: Off
Random Events: Common
Hall of Fame: 15
Special Site Frequency: 60
If I can get 3 intrested players I'll open up the thread, otherwise we'll give it a few weeks - games can be very exhausting.
What purpose does the "Ruined Halls of the Mountain King" serve? Just an empty site?It looks like it's the end of an event chain which involves defeating a Troll King - once he's defeated, whatever province that originally spawned him will pop the Halls (in addition to giving whoever beat him 2300 gold, 2 level 0-6 items, and 3d6 earth gems.)
Is there a good guide on strategies for middle age C'tis? They fascinate me, but I have no idea how to play them properly and I wind up falling the moment people wise up and deal with my runner flanks.
This. C'tis' strategy of combining foul vapors with as much Horde of Skeletons as you can muster is pretty much the poster child of a simple, straightforward, and effective strategy well suited to learning the game.Is there a good guide on strategies for middle age C'tis? They fascinate me, but I have no idea how to play them properly and I wind up falling the moment people wise up and deal with my runner flanks.
Skellie spam and Foul Vapors are a good place to start. Turbo communions with the shamans as communicants also help, especially if you have N9 to get them up to 20% regen (i.e., +6hp/turn).
Is there a good guide on strategies for middle age C'tis? They fascinate me, but I have no idea how to play them properly and I wind up falling the moment people wise up and deal with my runner flanks.
It's generally touted as an expansion strategy rather than a major battle strategy.Is there a good guide on strategies for middle age C'tis? They fascinate me, but I have no idea how to play them properly and I wind up falling the moment people wise up and deal with my runner flanks.
I've never used runner flanks, I don't see runners doing very well.
Yeah, some folks definitely play like that. I don't think terribly many, since by and large it slows the (already a significant length, with most multiplayer setups) game down by a fairly significant margin, but some people do it. Probably could poke around the usual places elsewhere online and see if anyone's trying to organize for a game like that.I don't know if it would lengthen the game, as the game takes so long because you have so much potential with all those gems you get that everyone spams hundreds of units in dozens of castles and you have to slowly grind your way through sieges.
Not least because MA Ulm would be able to happily just chew through everything without fear of repercussion.For a game like that, I'd recommend LA since the nations are a bit more designed to fit that kind of paradigm.
I've seen it, yes... I suspect it would favor blood nations, though; while blood hunting scales with site frequency, it can also be scaled up to arbitrarily high levels.
N = 24You could lump together the three B path treatments if you analyze the samples as paired, which would give you N=74. Some might argue that you should, because if you consider that your hunting and growth/death are influencing province population, time is potentially also pretty relevant.
My recent adventures in bamboozlement, i.e. playing Therodos, have brought out another mystery:Korybant's/Kouretes have a thing that says they only count as size 2 for the purposes of sailing. I don't think this is listed in game however.
There's a hero with sailing, and that sailing ability has max size 2. And yet, the hero can sail with their national size 3 dancers. What's up with that?
I must admit I don't think I've ever played with Death scales other than the few rare times I've played Ermor. Permanent income loss from losing population and your mages getting feebleminded from old age just don't seem worth it. Taking some sloth or temperature seems like an easier choice for extra points.
Hey, what happens if you get a vampire unit (immortal), it dies, and you're a water nation? Does it just die forever?
He ded. Like so ded.Oh dear. That's so unfortunate for him.
How does one kill a reassembled prince? I've been having quite some problems with this.He's immortal, so you'll have to kill him outside of his domain to keep him down. Either lure him to your domain (or anyone else's, although it's hard to tell one enemy dominion from another), or get some priests and start preaching.
Purchased this on steam sometime ago, but suddenly I realise I have no friends to play it with (should've thought about that in the first place), yet some people say it's better played in multiplayer mode rather than just versus the AI. Nevertheless, will this game be enjoyable to me if I'm only going to play it alone?
Purchased this on steam sometime ago, but suddenly I realise I have no friends to play it with (should've thought about that in the first place), yet some people say it's better played in multiplayer mode rather than just versus the AI. Nevertheless, will this game be enjoyable to me if I'm only going to play it alone?Any particular reason why you'd need to be playing specifically with friends? We've pretty much always got ~two games running here, and always welcome new blood. (Although you'll want to check which mods the game is running before you join - I'm not certain I'd recommend playing a NationGen game as your first step into Dominions multiplayer.) :P
Purchased this on steam sometime ago, but suddenly I realise I have no friends to play it with (should've thought about that in the first place), yet some people say it's better played in multiplayer mode rather than just versus the AI. Nevertheless, will this game be enjoyable to me if I'm only going to play it alone?it'll still be fun for a while, you just won't get much more out of it than a typical strategy game.
The AI is only really going to be challenging if you're not very good with magic, which is sort of the meat of the game. If course, you probably won't get good at magic of you just play against AI, so it's not like you can't have fun, you'll just be missing out on a major dimension of the game.Purchased this on steam sometime ago, but suddenly I realise I have no friends to play it with (should've thought about that in the first place), yet some people say it's better played in multiplayer mode rather than just versus the AI. Nevertheless, will this game be enjoyable to me if I'm only going to play it alone?
A majority of my games are spent alone, and I still find it to be incredibly fun. Multiplayer is better in the sense that Dominions 4, like any good strategy game, is not a game of rigid, fixed strategies, but more like a canvas that you paint your strategies onto. It has a very free style of gameplay that only really comes out with other players.
The AI doesn't grasp the subtle metastratgies that a human can perform, but it's suitably competent and can still provide fun and memorable battles. Besides, even if you don't like singleplayer, since it's a turn based game all you need is to find someone who is willing to play with you. I'm sure there's quite a few people here who would enjoy it.
(Although you'll want to check which mods the game is running before you join - I'm not certain I'd recommend playing a NationGen game as your first step into Dominions multiplayer.)
JK has consistently worked to improve the AI over the last few years, and it does do things (magic included) better than it used to. Dom4 SP is a lot more rewarding than Dom<4 SP. It's still a static opponent without the focused understanding experienced players have, but it's not completely hopeless.Well, perhaps my perspective is out of date, but it's definitely been the case in Dom 4 that see AI couldn't adapt to much of anything.
(Although you'll want to check which mods the game is running before you join - I'm not certain I'd recommend playing a NationGen game as your first step into Dominions multiplayer.)
It's probably just a matter of overhaul mods becoming more mature and the length of time since a content update growing, but it feels like there's increased acceptance of the idea that vanilla needs a grand-scale balance/overhaul patch. That sentiment was really strong when Dom4 first was released ("thanks", CBM), but it faded fairly quickly. It seems to be creeping back out of the shadows, though.I don't know what communities you've been around so I can't definitely agree or disagree, but what I've seen is more that people just agree that it benefits with one, and the most popular one (summod) provides more than enough benefit to outweigh any benefit or contention. Most types because it is almost entirely pure balance, and because (specific details aside) it is inarguably more balanced than vanilla. But it's been in heavy use since it was released years ago, at least in games at (or aspiring to be at) a high enough level for that level of balance details to matter.
While I don't think Dominions needs such a patch, I can definitely see the metagame growing stale in certain communities, and thus overhaul mods serve a similar function as new card packs in a ccg: they force players to experiment and seek out novel strategies.Eh, balance mods don't do this so much, and gimmick games (huge maps, things like "everyone is quadbless" or games using mod nations or nationgen, or other big content mods) have been popular for years. They already were when I started blogging, since the blog itself was initially a gimmick. That was something like three years ago.
I really think this is overstated, actually. It's true that people may be induced to gang up on Ermor, but taking out a game leader often suffers from a tragedy of the commons thing. In practice, we still see certain nations winning and a significantly higher rate than others. It's not necessarily a problem if you're just playing for fun and don't much care who wins, but some people do like for each nation to be similar in viability.
I don't necessarily think a huge "balance" mod is the best way to achieve that goal, and the political nature of a Dominions match does a lot to prevent the emergence of a single dominant strategy, but there is a case to be made for such mods.
the most popular one (summod) provides more than enough benefit to outweigh any benefit or contention. Most types because it is almost entirely pure balance, and because (specific details aside) it is inarguably more balanced than vanilla.
With Ermor specifically and other pop-kill dominions in general, that's doubly-true. Anyone who conquers these lands tends to bleed for it both in combat and attrition, neglecting Wineskins and Pots, but they don't get nearly as much back from those dead lands as they would from the conquest of a nation of equivalent power and an actual population to tax and recruit from. In addition to divvying up the gem-based spoils (or not), you end up with a bit of a case with them in particular where it's actually best if it's taken down by a coalition of people other than yourself, unless they cast something that hammers everyone in the game or threaten a full runaway victory.QuoteI really think this is overstated, actually. It's true that people may be induced to gang up on Ermor, but taking out a game leader often suffers from a tragedy of the commons thing. In practice, we still see certain nations winning and a significantly higher rate than others. It's not necessarily a problem if you're just playing for fun and don't much care who wins, but some people do like for each nation to be similar in viability.
I don't necessarily think a huge "balance" mod is the best way to achieve that goal, and the political nature of a Dominions match does a lot to prevent the emergence of a single dominant strategy, but there is a case to be made for such mods.
For summod specifically, it's not just based on opinions, it's based on nation win rate. Obviously some degree of opinion is still necessary for individual options, but it's still based on what sees a lot of use rather than what people see as strong. And I haven't seen the base game fading into irrelevance as you say in summod discussions. I think you're transferring opinions from CBM that don't necessarily apply. That's not to say I support summod unconditionally, but the only things that see gameplay changes (aside from numerical rebalancing) is Ermor getting special D sites to counter what Culise mentioned and MA Man getting some weird goodies, which I actually criticized for reasons similar to your own, but which are justified by the nation's general lack of good shit.the most popular one (summod) provides more than enough benefit to outweigh any benefit or contention. Most types because it is almost entirely pure balance, and because (specific details aside) it is inarguably more balanced than vanilla.
Enh. It's unarguably more tuned, but not perforce better balanced, even if it seeks to bolster/nerf what (a subset of) popular opinions deem to be strong and weak. A problem with something like this is it starts off adjusting balance according to the basegame, but soon enough it needs to begin balancing according to its own changes. It also bakes certain assumptions about "correct" playstyle into the redefined game mechanics. At a certain point, it becomes its own thing, with its own default assumptions, and those assumptions drive the (perpetually ongoing) balancing calculations. If you want to go with that, that's fine, but I can't say I'm pleased to see increasing enthusiasm for a "must-have" balance mod.
This is an old argument, though, and opinions on it tend to be calcified. I know mine is.
For summod specifically, it's not just based on opinions, it's based on nation win rate.
I think you're transferring opinions from CBM that don't necessarily apply.
A flamewar is by definition not a reasonable discussion anyway. I do remember some people on Desura contesting it, but I certainly don't remember any well-supported arguments discrediting it as an actually useful dataset.For summod specifically, it's not just based on opinions, it's based on nation win rate.
If this is supposed to be a reassuring statement, then you plainly don't remember the flamewars about the usefulness of sum1won's attempts to survey win rates.
Well, as a concern for the future I think your concern is reasonable, then. I don't think we're actually headed that way, at least to the degree you described, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be vigilant.I think you're transferring opinions from CBM that don't necessarily apply.
I think you're misunderstanding why I say I'm concerned to see "balance mods" growing in popularity. The basis for that concern is where it leads, not where we are ATM; CBM "got there" and summod looks to be walking down that path (albeit slower due to restraint about adding content). Balance mods, when widely adopted, create a "new normal" and make people's expectations revolve around what the mod promotes as "correct" and "normal" gameplay. This changes the opinions of the community about what is good and what is not, as well as what is balanced and what is not, and what a "normal" metagame is and is not. If you like the outcome, that's not a problem for you, but it distorts, narrows, and homogenizes the metagames within the sub-communities.
Also, and this is big, these sorts of mods have a bad habit of escalating power creep, and summod is definitely guilty on this score (https://github.com/sum1won/summod/blob/master/README.md). Per the above, it makes sense; e.g. it's tuned for shorter games, and many many MANY of its changes reflect that. Again, if that's what you're looking for, that's fine. But saying it's "unquestionably better balanced" when its selected pivot point is noticeably different than vanilla's makes the statement a whole lot more ambiguous.There's a number of things in this bit where I'm not certain I fully understand you. On power creep, are we talking about the total available power in the game, or the subset of which actually sees play? In the former case, the changelog does support your statement since a lot of things are made cheaper or stronger, but in the latter case, I disagree. The strongest and most commonly used options are typically nerfed; the things receiving buffs are great in number but are typically not used without summod except in very rare instances or in single player and otherwise non-competitive environments. As such, the overall power level goes down.
I do remember some people on Desura contesting it, but I certainly don't remember any well-supported arguments discrediting it as an actually useful dataset.
On power creep, are we talking about the total available power in the game, or the subset of which actually sees play? In the former case, the changelog does support your statement since a lot of things are made cheaper or stronger, but in the latter case, I disagree. The strongest and most commonly used options are typically nerfed; the things receiving buffs are great in number but are typically not used without summod except in very rare instances or in single player and otherwise non-competitive environments. As such, the overall power level goes down.
Tuning for shorter games is a complicated claim, so I want to make sure I know what you mean here; what do you define as a shorter game vs. standard game length?
Hm. Maybe share some of those reasonable arguments then, because they've eluded either my initial notice or my memory. The closest I saw was that it was insufficiently rigorous for some scientific disciplines, but since it's good enough for ecology or sociology, which it most closely resembles, those complaints never seemed relevant to me.I do remember some people on Desura contesting it, but I certainly don't remember any well-supported arguments discrediting it as an actually useful dataset.
I do. I also remember as much of the unreasonable discussion being in its favor as against it.
There are a lot of buffs to things that generally don't see a lot of play. Dominions has thousands of things in each general category, so it's understandable that this would include a lot of them. The nerfs are as narrowly targeted as the buffs, applying (generally) to single spells or single nations rather than entire strategies. Also, the notion of a powergamer mod doesn't even make sense in a multiplayer game. But if there was such a thing, it would be stripping away or ignoring the weaker options in favor of the strongest, so this is clearly not that.On power creep, are we talking about the total available power in the game, or the subset of which actually sees play? In the former case, the changelog does support your statement since a lot of things are made cheaper or stronger, but in the latter case, I disagree. The strongest and most commonly used options are typically nerfed; the things receiving buffs are great in number but are typically not used without summod except in very rare instances or in single player and otherwise non-competitive environments. As such, the overall power level goes down.
There's not a lot of nerfing going on. There are a few narrowly targeted nerfs, sometimes coinciding with other buffs. There are a huge amount of buffs, to most everything. As with CBM, the balancing philosophy is "moar is MOAR"; overall powerlevel is fairly drastically increased rather than applying significant nerfs. It's a powergamer mod.
Also, I'm not sure how the last sentence of the above-quoted paragraph is supposed to follow from everything before it. Weak (or perceived-as-weak) things get significantly boosted to the point that they're competitive enough to use against best-in-class things. The overall power level is unquestionably raised - however, if the things are now powerful enough to merit use in play with/against of the unnerfed or lightly-nerfed OP things, how is that in any way, shape, or form reducing the overall power level?Are you actually looking at the changes? Ermor received massive nerfs. EA Xibaba received massive nerfs. Rain of Stones received massive nerfs. Frost Brand received massive nerfs. Growth scales received massive nerfs. What best-in-class things are you seeing which are nerfed only lightly or not at all.
If the mod is as well balanced and competitively used as you've argued, those buffed things aren't going to see use unless they're as good or better than the oft-used-in-vanilla OP things. So again, how is that reducing the overall power level? If I may strain the analogy you seem to be alluding to: you're not proposing dilution of the cauldron of content by "adding" thinner solutions; you're proposing a bigger pot with more solutions of roughly equal strength being added in addition to the strong solutions that were already there.It's better balanced because things draw closer to the same level of power. That level of power may be higher than the median level in vanilla, but the strongest things are weaker and the weakest things are stronger. There's still a range, of course, but it's a smaller range than it used to be. And the higher median power may be an accurate assessment, but in actual play, the weakest options rarely saw use so the mean power level (if we count each nation's appearance in a game (or that of each spell or etc) as a separate datum) doesn't necessarily rise just because the median does, and as we see the options that are in most every game getting nerfed, the level can even fall.
Oh. Well that's just factually wrong. It comes from PBEM meta, and is based on other balance mods that also came from a PBEM meta. It came from an almost purely PBEM community, though sum1 intentionally broadened out to include other communities and collected tons of PBEM data. I don't know if he even accepted blitz data from the mod, I don't think he necessarily specified, but he was playing tons of PBEM (hell, he ran and won the first one on my AAR blog) and that's the meta he was from and developing for. Pretty much the only connection that blitz has to summod is that it's used to beta test, but that's more to do with bugs anyway since balance changes aren't going to come to the fore there.Tuning for shorter games is a complicated claim, so I want to make sure I know what you mean here; what do you define as a shorter game vs. standard game length?
Blitz. summod grew out of direct-connect blitz meta. It may have moved on beyond that, but I'm skeptical, as it still has a huge raft of changes aimed at getting more stuff out with fewer mage-turns and less research.
Another note: looking over the current changelog last night, I have to say I'm seeing a lot more content changes than I expected to see. Some of it is dubious (Sharknado? Really?), and some of it is extremely involved (LA Pythium). This is, to be charitable, straining the notion of "just a balance mod".Yeah, I don't care for the involved shit either and the sharknado reference is utterly retarded. I'm not saying there's nothing questionable in the mod (I already mentioned two other examples) but rather, that it's an improvement over vanilla if you're in a situation where balance matters. You're welcome to add your voice to mine in telling sum1won et al that those particular changes overstep what the mod should be, though I'll tell you now that he's of the opinion that involved additions are okay for nations that see almost no play in vanilla. I disagree with him on the specifics of this, but I do at least see his point.
2. Empower up to D2 and make a skull staff, then make a mound king and give him the staff. Then have him make a spare mound king.Revenants, you mean.
*Comes out to like 10D5A5N for a servant with a charm/boots/that N1 stealth boost armor, iirc. Probably better things to spend that on than crippling someone's gold economy, but it's a'ight.
What in the world is that icon before the dominion spreader candles? Don't think I've even seen that before.
Anyways, now it's obviously time for Ashdod to whip out the hashmalim and the chayot, since using undead against Marignon didn't work out so well (shockingly).
When crossed swords appear on the map, what does it mean?A fight happened there.
The defenders of Ashdod, last territory of the nation of Ashdod, dominion of Inanna, have met their deaths. After casting the Eyes of God, it seems that this is like kicking down a picket fence and reaching a brick wall:That's why scouts are a good idea.On the plus side, the Agarthans need seven points to win and they can get at most six - as long as I hold my two Thrones.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So I now understand how nasty astral corruption is. After casting it pretty much every global enchantment fell off within 3 turns and I've yet to see any enemy mages. Being able to throw greater horrors around is also pretty amazing since it seems to route almost any mundane army.The downside to Astral Corruption is generally only just that everyone else will want to kill you. However, the balancing effect of this sort of diplomatic concern is routinely overstated. If you can get and keep AC up from a position of non-weakness, it's likely to be a game winner. Of course, you'll likely only get there in an unusually large game anyway, or you'd use your slaves to win the game in a different way earlier.
Not since Dom3. Alas.
This is driving me crazy. I had 3 Global enchantments. Then we hit 5 global enchantments and all the new ones wiped mine out. I try to cast them again but the other global enchantments are overpowering mine. I am putting at least 40 extra gems into them. How many gems does the AI use???I don't know if you can call this a case of the AI being odd here, I don't think many players would use only 40 either, when a late enough for slots to be heavily contested.
I've been playing this more recently, and I have what is probably a newbie question: how do you all keep track of what you're doing with all your units? I understand the mechanics at a microscale level to do things like chain path boosters together or script units in a sensible way, but whenever I try to do that over dozens of provinces I always seem to miss something, and the inefficiencies pile up until I'm swimming in gold or mages or blood slaves or other things that are not themselves directly helping me take provinces while other necessary things are lacking. So how do you handle all the bookkeeping?That's part of why I do an AAR blog, it forces me to think about what I'm doing in greater depth. Aside from cognitive tricks like that, don't forget to spam the [n] key every turn. Between that and the turn's announcements, you should get most things. Just treat every announcement as something that needs a response. So battles take troop movement and training after you watch them, completing research merits considering your research goals, and finding new sites inspires you to look at your incomes and think what else you might spend it on. That kind of thing.
The shortcuts will help you. However, the real management problem is if you have lots of mages and need to cast things in a special order, and carrying that between battles through losses. It's only important enough in multiplayer, but I tend to have to make a commander - spell check list :PAnd on the subject of hot keys, don't nobody forget that you can press Ctrl+a number when hovered over a commander's orders to save those orders to the clipboard, and then press that number again when hovered over a commander's orders in order to paste.
And on the subject of hot keys, don't nobody forget that you can press Ctrl+a number when hovered over a commander's orders to save those orders to the clipboard, and then press that number again when hovered over a commander's orders in order to paste.
This is driving me crazy. I had 3 Global enchantments. Then we hit 5 global enchantments and all the new ones wiped mine out. I try to cast them again but the other global enchantments are overpowering mine. I am putting at least 40 extra gems into them. How many gems does the AI use???I don't know if you can call this a case of the AI being odd here, I don't think many players would use only 40 either, when a late enough for slots to be heavily contested.
Well, it depends. Sometimes people will add no extra gems, if it's early, in order to bait people into countering and using up their pearls. Especially with the toxic globals. But when globals are heavily contested, it's normal to throw in as many gems as you can, which would often be at least a couple hundred.This is driving me crazy. I had 3 Global enchantments. Then we hit 5 global enchantments and all the new ones wiped mine out. I try to cast them again but the other global enchantments are overpowering mine. I am putting at least 40 extra gems into them. How many gems does the AI use???I don't know if you can call this a case of the AI being odd here, I don't think many players would use only 40 either, when a late enough for slots to be heavily contested.
Well considering that I am playing a large map with every nation there was plenty of early globals. But either way, how many gems normally get put in?
If I can ask another noob question, what do people mean in terms of turns by early-/mid-/lategame now? It seems like dom3 moves a lot faster than dom4, and while I get the general idea of progressing from troops to mages & meatshields / thugs and then on to some nation-specific late-game plan (which is often supercombatants of some variety), I worry I may be undervaluing mage turns and taking too long to get there.There's never anything concrete, but I'd say that in general early game might be the first twoish years and lategame begins somewhere around five. However, when you hit early and late game are more characteristics of what you're doing than the time, and they're really vague anyway. Making sure your mages are always doing something useful is probably more practical than setting timing targets.
There's never anything concrete, but I'd say that in general early game might be the first twoish years and lategame begins somewhere around five. However, when you hit early and late game are more characteristics of what you're doing than the time, and they're really vague anyway. Making sure your mages are always doing something useful is probably more practical than setting timing targets.
These things all depend almost entirely on your nation and your specific strategy. Within that context, one way to think of it is to consider what strategy will allow you to win the game, and then rush for that while only focussing on low-investment strategies to keep you from losing before you get there. This is the way a lot of mid-game nations play, with early game nations forgoing the infrastructure development almost entirely and just throwing niefel jarls at any problem that comes up. But if you play this way, you have a core goal and your timeframe is "as soon as possible". Of course, this can get silly, like with the fellow who put Burden of Time out on turn fifteen back before it was nerfed, but as long as you add just enough reasonable moderation to the mix that you don't get obliterated first, it'll win you a war or two. And when it stops working (if you can't win first) then you move on to a new game-winning strategy and everything else becomes a holding action until you get there. This is kind of a simple way to go about it, but it's still basically the flow of the game.There's never anything concrete, but I'd say that in general early game might be the first twoish years and lategame begins somewhere around five. However, when you hit early and late game are more characteristics of what you're doing than the time, and they're really vague anyway. Making sure your mages are always doing something useful is probably more practical than setting timing targets.
That makes a lot more sense than some of the timelines I've been seeing. I suppose I'm just trying to get a handle on when a given task becomes the most useful thing to do, operating on the logic that ideally one would want to start putting the infrastructure (boosting, blood hunting, etc) for the next thing together before whatever is currently working stops being adequate.
For example, by the time my early/mid armies are usually running into trouble, I've often got a number of mages en route that could have spent those turns researching or site searching or whatever, had I known they would be obsolete (or inefficient) by the time they arrived.A mage is never really obsolete, they don't have to memorize their spells ahead of time. But if your armies are winning already, moving mages to the front line is definitely a waste of research turns. And if moving mages to the front lines is a big time investment, you should consider building or taking more forts nearer to where the fighting is happening, or possibly going for cloud trapeze/teleport/etc if those are available to you.
Maybe my entire conceptual framework for this is off, but it seems to me that the best way to think about getting a counter to your opponent's turn-X army out on turn X is to plan on building that counter on turn X-Y based on an ongoing Bayesian model of their likely strategy, for which a general timeline is a useful prior. Or am I overthinking this massively?You're not overthinking until you've thought twice as much as all the other players combined. Dominions is a game that's won or lost based on planning. But if you try to be predictive like that, there's you should definitely be wary of committing too much unless you're really certain you know what they're doing, because you can definitely waste a lot of resources on them if you miss-guess. Specific counters are great, but versatility also shouldn't be underestimated, not only because it can deny your enemy specific counters to your stuff, but because you'll want to be prepared if an additional enemy decides to get involved.
Try not to engage a large hostile player army if you don't have any idea of what it is capable of. But them attacking a 1 PD province would give you that intel.I wouldn't say you should avoid engagement entirely, just avoid engaging with any army you'd mind losing. It can be effective to harass a big army using thugs or battlefield wiping spells, even if you haven't seen much of their script yet, just as you might roll over a small army without expecting them to have a particularly nasty surprise waiting for you.
With a bit (ok, a lot of) familiarity with the spell list, you could figure out their rough research levels from the spells they cast, and checking their mages for gems would give you a rough idea of what 'big spells' they're bringing to the party.
If it's a game where the score graphs are on (or you have a site that reveals the research graph) you could get a vague guesstimate from their research score, though.
Generally, I'd say it's a question of: What does he have; what do I have to bring to the table, what can I research in the next turn or 3 that would have a significant impact, do I have enough ablative territory to accept territory losses to allow me to blob/tech up just a bit more, or am I just able to smash it without expending too much effort?
But that's just me, everyone has a different style/idea of what is fun in this game, I enjoy having to sit back and do extensive sifting through the spell list to sort all of those things out.
That's kind of my problem: being able to balance adaptability with the mechanics of force multipliers or synergy requires some concept of the atomic components of a given strategy, and that's wrapped up in my timeline question, since parts of a given idea come online sooner than others.Just from this, I can't conclusively say I understand what you're talking about, but I'll deal with your specific examples more.
1. indie commanders leading crossbows & shields aroundAlways do this, and do it for as long as it works. Even when it stops working in pitched battles, do it for raiding. This doesn't cost you anything except gold, and gold is also what it gives you.
2. Iron Priests carrying crystal matrices casting Wind Guide, Flaming Arrows, sundry earth buffs and some of the E/F magma evocations, using Illuminated Ones as communion slaves and crossbows as meat shields/more arrows.Avoid doing this as much as possible unless it'll win or lose the game for you. This costs mages and gems, which are what you need to win. You can get by in the mid-game with a few of these, and hopefully win a war with as few as two or three armies like this, and not that many iron priests or slaves per army. Especially if you rely more on the buffs than the evocations, though evocations are always nice as well. But if you've got enough thrones in close range, secretly prepare a few more armies like this and take them, and take the game. This could win you a mid-game victory, but it could just be the thing that keeps you alive until the late game. If it's going to be the latter, don't invest any more than you need to in order to win the wars your in. And of course, never be in less than one war for long, though that's a slightly different issue.
3. Vampires. Big blobs of vampires with boosted vampire lords casting Death and Blood buffs on them, with the Counts handling blood hunting and summoning and supplementary casting.By the time you can do this, do this. Vampires are an excellent defensive strategy since they're immortal. Get enough vampires that you can destroy any army before they reach something important, and take whatever's in your dominion. Without blood sacrifices, you can't push your dominion as well as some nations, but it's still more than worth it.
4. any of the high-end Blood summons leading demons around.You'll want these as well, for offensive play, but as with the mid game armies, have just enough to win unless it's the last war of the game or you're sure you've got enough vampires for the foreseeable future.
But those are composed of smaller pieces that can be shuffled around and are in some cases mutually exclusive; for example, communions big enough to make 2 work are going to delay researching to high-end Blood/Construction for 4 (and buying the S1s in the first place to get all the evo/thaum/alt needed for 2 quickly is going to slow down 1, which is partly needed to grab provinces for the blood needed for 3-4). Thus why I'm trying to figure out what needs to be in place to make a given thing work and what just makes it work better, which partially depends on being able to project, in a rough way, what my units need to not die on any given turn.After the first year, you should pretty much never let anything get in the way of your mage recruitment. If you've snapped up all (or almost all) of the indy provinces in the expansion phase, don't pay for any crossbows that'll keep you from recruiting mages. If you have to lose research, it'll be more effective to deploy those mages than to get something besides them anyway. The research issue is a stickier problem, and that's why it's often good to plan according to your game size, aim for a midgame victory on the back of strategy 2 if there's less than maybe eight players. In a bigger game, you still probably want to to some degree, but once you've got all of the research that's strictly necessary for that, dive into blood. The delay on your blood lategame will be less from researching other things than the gain will be from taking other people's land, assuming you win your wars. It's still better to switch to the late game strategy too early than too late though, because you can always switch back to the late game trees to make rapid progress, and anyway you'll want those support spells on your late game armies as well.
You're not overthinking until you've thought twice as much as all the other players combined.
[...]
tl;dr: Plan ahead for your own game-winning actions, but don't plan too much for specific enemy actions.
[/quote]That's kind of my problem: being able to balance adaptability with the mechanics of force multipliers or synergy requires some concept of the atomic components of a given strategy, and that's wrapped up in my timeline question, since parts of a given idea come online sooner than others.Just from this, I can't conclusively say I understand what you're talking about, but I'll deal with your specific examples more.
Yeah, I agree with all of these things but I would consider diplomacy to be kind of a separate thing from strategy. You always, diplomatically, have the same goals. You want to appear strong where you're weak and weak where you're strong, you want to have your potential enemies fighting each other and expending their strength while you build yours, you want to gang up on the stronger players and eat them up until you're the strongest player, and then you don't want to be ganged up on. Concealing your true intentions is a matter of course, but a competent player can infer a lot from your nation and your pretender paths. Rather than focusing on making your own motives impossible to discern (that's a losing battle unless you do nothing to further your own ends) it's better to avoid being the center of attention. Let your neighbors instead focus on what some other shmuck is doing, while you build up untouched. Of course, obscuring your progress helps there and you don't want to brag about your research, but there's only so much you can do to conceal your achievements.You're not overthinking until you've thought twice as much as all the other players combined.
[...]
tl;dr: Plan ahead for your own game-winning actions, but don't plan too much for specific enemy actions.
This is true if and only if you can avoid telegraphing your plans, because if you do, then following long-term plans means you're giving your enemies the maximum amount of advance warning to react to it. If you're working towards an uncounterable plan this obviously doesn't apply, but generally the idea of there being an uncounterable plan doesn't apply either - and when it does, it typically does because what you were doing in the mean time already neutered potential counters and you're counting coup.
Be flexible. Diplomacy can ruin the best plan even if you've out-thought every other single player in the game.
Regarding diplomacy, though, would I be wrong in thinking that planning around diplomacy requires some way to evaluate what any given thing (peace, hammers, etc.) is worth to you relative to the other players at any given time? "Include diplomacy in your planning" is certainly very good advice, but by itself it's actionable only in vague terms.Don't think of diplomacy as a quid pro quo. Your goal is not for everyone to get a fair deal. Your goal is to make temporary friends in order to screw a third party even harder than you're planning to screw each other at the first possible opportunity. It may be impossible to meaningfully plan until you've seen the map, but then you can at least come up with such timeless strategems as "I'll fuel hatred of elves in the hope that people will get riled up against them and I can steal some Eriu land". And then come up with specific ways to do that. Trading for peace is rarely worth it (though it can be if you're not done expanding or you're overpowered on all sides) since it's only going to let the disadvantaged party get a foothold and become a threat again, and trading for things like hammers is relatively minor with regards to the overall political situation of the game.
Or let's say two people attack you at the same time, one all out and the other opportunistically. Then you kill one of the main attacker's armies in a crushing victory. So you start spamming the opportunistic attacker every other turn with requests to end the war. You tell them you're crushing their ally, you tell them they can keep the 3 provinces they took if they don't keep going, you point out how threatening that neighbor is to the north or offer them a monthly tribute of gems to go away. 90% of the time, that attacker isn't going to listen to you.Well, part of the reason for that 90% failure rate is because you're only offering them stuff that they'd also get if they kept fighting you. Instead, try offering a non-zero sum, and an alternative. Suggest a mutual neighbor that the two of you could attack together, instead. That will give them provinces from a third enemy who they are then fighting together with another person (since you've neutralized the main enemy in your war) and will leave them the opportunity to conquer you some more afterward, but also gives you the opportunity to get your feet back under you. Although if you've beaten the main enemy, you may be better off just rebuffing the opportunist militarily before doing any kind of negotiation.
Finally, try not to leave massed troops or 0/1 PD on any of your borders.What? How many PD do you think should be on the border then?
As Jilladilla mentions, certain types of PD are vulnerable to multiple-scout raids even when they're a bit higher than 1, but that's a rather fringe tactic (albeit an entertaining one).Eh, if you use lots of PD6 people are going to know that's what you did even if technically the message could be a lot more. Although if you use only one, they may assume it's 11 thanks to +10PD events. In this regard, five PD may be best since it could theoretically kill a bunch of scouts attacking you without them realizing that they're doomed before the attack, but that's super niche for the gold cost.
On a less fringe note: aside from confusing scouts as to how much PD you have (as PD6 has the same message as PD19), PD6 is a lot less likely to die to a flock of hawks or ghouls than PD1. That can make a big difference in your ability to respond to an alpha strike setting off an invasion.
Who has the fiercest scouts? (I believe the scoutest scout are those harpies.)
Monkey people get an honorable mention for their scouts canonically being annoying little gits, and they also have something like +40 stealth on account of being a rhesus macaqueThey also have Atavi chieftains recruitable in every forest. In those same forests one can hire 5-10 stealthy Atavi, and send them all together as scouts. Should be able to take care of 1-2 Pd with robust reliability.
I for one don't usually have winning as nr. objective. Infact, I just enjoy being really hard to kill and very much not worth it to slow down the good/power Players.In other words, trolling.
No, trolling is when you find a troll pit, buy 40 trolls, forge a gate stone, and start teleporting around the map.I for one don't usually have winning as nr. objective. Infact, I just enjoy being really hard to kill and very much not worth it to slow down the good/power Players.In other words, trolling.
I thought it was 7 or something.
I for one don't usually have winning as nr. objective. Infact, I just enjoy being really hard to kill and very much not worth it to slow down the good/power Players.In other words, trolling.
My point was more, you should have something within a province or two of the border. Even if its just one of your old expansion armies. Or a fort with enough troops/mages that they could sally forth if the fort is bypassed. A completely undefended border leaves me nervous is all I'm saying...QuoteFinally, try not to leave massed troops or 0/1 PD on any of your borders.What? How many PD do you think should be on the border then?
TrollingSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Is Ashpodel a viable multiplayer nation?Every nation is viable. Even EA R'lyeh, in the vanilla game, has had a victory. As far as statistical history of successes, Asphodel* is in the bottom quarter.
So I was trying out EA R'lyeh, they have 10% insane commanders and one of the orders they have is "That is not a star."Probably referring to the "star" that crashes into R'lyeh in between EA and MA. It's definitely not an ordinary star since it's full of illithids, who we can infer were using it as something like a space ship.
I'm aware of that, I just found it funny that the insane commanders know its going to happen.So I was trying out EA R'lyeh, they have 10% insane commanders and one of the orders they have is "That is not a star."Probably referring to the "star" that crashes into R'lyeh in between EA and MA. It's definitely not an ordinary star since it's full of illithids, who we can infer were using it as something like a space ship.
So I was trying out EA R'lyeh, they have 10% insane commanders and one of the orders they have is "That is not a star.""That's no moon!"
I wonder how the simultaneous movement/firing is going to work for spells and arrows - will archers/wizards be smart enough to take into account the fact that their targets are moving? Will some spells (hello, vine arrow) still be crazy slow when flying across the battlefield, and will casters take that into consideration?I'm not in the beta, but from someone who is, it works fine.
I really, really like the idea of buyable bless and bless affecting priestly powers. Always seemed silly to me that all priests were functionally the same, even though one might be representing a god of fertility while another is serving a god of death, they both called down beams of holy light on their targets.It's technically not the bless that does this, but the pretender paths. The water smite is pretty cool, it does 10+ damage and then another 10+ drowning damage to creatures that breath.
I like the new fonts. But I'm a font nerd, and Dom has been using the same shit fonts for at least 2 games now.I'm a font nerd too and I see no grounds on which to like the new ones.
I was wondering why Dom 4 hasn't received any updates for a while. Now I know it's because they've been working on Dominions 5.
With all that said... As hyped as I am for the game, I get the feeling that it's going to be to Dom 4 as 4 was to 3.
since a minor bless no longer requires at least 4 points in a path.No, it does. You can spend less points than that at a time, but you still need four ranks in the path to get any points.
since reinvigoration and regen will undoubtedly require those paths.I can confirm that they do, though there are separate versions of regen for undead and for constructs that are in D and E respectively.
Hopefully it'll weaken the dominance of those blesses, probably by making them incarnate and needing your pretender to be around for them to work, or at the very least enable you to splash some other stuff on your pretender instead of being locked into EXN9. I wouldn't be surprised if, say, E5N6 or something similar got you the regen and reinvigoration you wanted, which should free up points for better scales or a handful of additional magic for another blessing. Basically something like that to make blesses less stale and/or predictable.Regen is N8 and Reinvig is E2 (per point) currently, though of course this is subject to change during the beta.
But since national generals and scouts cost half of a mage fort-turn wise, I'd imagine that they'd see more use than right now. Giving up recruiting a mage to get two generals or scouts/assassins is a more favourable than only getting one after all. Having only 8 commanders out of 10 being a mage is still an improvement after all.You say that, but I still see no reason why I wouldn't rather go for more mages in most situations.
How is this going to impact, say, Mictlan and other nations that can only build palisades? Or are they going to be able to build fortresses as well now to keep pace with everyone?Those limitations are still in place. Notably, Pangaea now has a national spell (for... 35N gems? I think, this is my memory now) that builds a palisade.
With all that said... As hyped as I am for the game, I get the feeling that it's going to be to Dom 4 as 4 was to 3. Not a massive improvement or change but enough of an iteration that most people will play it instead.I mean, isn't that what we all want though? How much more different could it be without becoming contentious?
EDIT: I found this thread with more info about the features in Dom 5. (https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/dominions-5-warriors-of-the-faith/131532/18) Lots of juicy details here. I'm still looking over them all.I'd recommend taking some of that list with a grain of salt, as the thing about placing units on the walls, at the very least, is misleading.
I like the new fonts. But I'm a font nerd, and Dom has been using the same shit fonts for at least 2 games now.I'm a font nerd too and I see no grounds on which to like the new ones.
I'm tempted to put this as potentially being more Dom1->Dom2 than Dom3->Dom4. It's still iterative, but the iterations are affecting systems at a much lower level.
QuoteWith all that said... As hyped as I am for the game, I get the feeling that it's going to be to Dom 4 as 4 was to 3. Not a massive improvement or change but enough of an iteration that most people will play it instead.
I mean, isn't that what we all want though? How much more different could it be without becoming contentious?
since a minor bless no longer requires at least 4 points in a path.
No, it does. You can spend less points than that at a time, but you still need four ranks in the path to get any points.
QuoteBut since national generals and scouts cost half of a mage fort-turn wise, I'd imagine that they'd see more use than right now. Giving up recruiting a mage to get two generals or scouts/assassins is a more favourable than only getting one after all. Having only 8 commanders out of 10 being a mage is still an improvement after all.
You say that, but I still see no reason why I wouldn't rather go for more mages in most situations.
QuoteHow is this going to impact, say, Mictlan and other nations that can only build palisades? Or are they going to be able to build fortresses as well now to keep pace with everyone?
Those limitations are still in place. Notably, Pangaea now has a national spell (for... 35N gems? I think, this is my memory now) that builds a palisade.
The blackletter font is the least terrible of the three. It's a really pedestrian choice for something that appears as though it's trying to stand out, but there's nothing worse to say about it than that. The sans-serif font (not arial) has big wide letterforms that look strange and overly airy; for the role it performs it should be heavier and more workman-like. The serif font used is very narrow and poorly kerned. I also find the letterforms themselves to be needlessly delicate; you're free to not like heavier fonts I suppose, but I don't want to have to lean into my compter to read things clearly. That's not to say that the old fonts were necessarily great, I think a lot of the people who like them do so on nostalgia, but I do hope that the fonts are moddable and if they are I'm replacing them straight away.I like the new fonts. But I'm a font nerd, and Dom has been using the same shit fonts for at least 2 games now.I'm a font nerd too and I see no grounds on which to like the new ones.
I missed this before.
I'm not saying I like all the new fonts. More I was talking about the Olde English font on the Pretender title bar.
The rest of what's on the game looks like....a mix of Arial and TNR? Kinda looks like they're testing out different fonts on different screens, because it's different between text descriptions, titles and the map text in some places.
What I didn't like about the old Dominions font is it was very thick. No real serifs and it made for thick blocks of uninteresting, workman-like text.
This actually looks like True Type Font. Which means it's possibly moddable. And it in generally looks like it takes less effort to read. Stylistically? Yeah it's kind of balls. But from a readability standpoint I think it's better, especially for menus. Might also mean dynamically resizing text is also now a thing, which is useful for a whole lot of stuff.
I said 8 out of 10 commanders, didn't I? Everyone is still going to be pumping out mages but you get punished less for taking a few national generals/scouts/assassins/whatever. So you should have twice as many situations were you'd take them (though twice of a small number is still not a lot).
The StR change isn't really comparable, because on either side of the equation what you're getting there is mages. An assassin specifically might be worth something since they do something that can't be done otherwise but... An assassin that's not also a mage won't do it that well anyway, except as a vehicle for bottles of living water.I said 8 out of 10 commanders, didn't I? Everyone is still going to be pumping out mages but you get punished less for taking a few national generals/scouts/assassins/whatever. So you should have twice as many situations were you'd take them (though twice of a small number is still not a lot).
I'd take dismissals of recruiting more non-mages in D5 as "non-optimal play" with a grain of salt, particularly since they're based on current meta and mechanics (and I'm wondering if meta might not shift even further from mages >>>> troops with non-instant spells and RT combat). A betatester on D4Mods cited MA Marignon's example: 3 command points in the capital, assassins take 1 and T1/T2 mages take 2. Over two turns, two assassins and two witch hunters (or 4+1, or possibly even 6+0) can very easily make more sense than 3 witch hunters - not least if you're short on gold, which is what always seems to be brushed aside in describing How To Play. Will it make sense if you don't use assassins but do use mages? Ofc not. But that really says nothing at all. And if the reason you don't currently use assassins is because their cost of a "fort-turn" is too high, this changes the calculus significantly; saying it doesn't is like saying that StR had no impact on recruitment priorities D3->D4.
That still takes for granted the baseline assumptions that 1) mages are superior to other recruitment options in all circumstances (regardless of paths or other considerations), and 2) quite specifically in this case (but related to a parallel underlying assumption in all similar cases) that you can afford to spend 150% as much gold every two turns. Both assumptions are based on untainted theorycrafting, and are just as sound as making calculations about marginal utility of gems based on the "fact" that path-1 items cost 3 to forge (or 1 if you're Ulm).Yeah but theory-crafting is all we can do at this point, and the previous game's assumptions will be held true for at least the first little while. Anyway, leaving aside that mages cost more, what can a non-mage offer that will make it worth delaying the mage? If you've not got enough gold you're not going to have full recruitment, but if that's the case it's probably still the expansion phase anyway. Or you're blood and your gold economy is irrelevant, in which case you would still rather wait for mages than spend on something else.
To say nothing of its assumption that the current meta and conventional wisdom will not noticeably change or become obsolete.
The blackletter font is the least terrible of the three. It's a really pedestrian choice for something that appears as though it's trying to stand out, but there's nothing worse to say about it than that. The sans-serif font (not arial) has big wide letterforms that look strange and overly airy; for the role it performs it should be heavier and more workman-like. The serif font used is very narrow and poorly kerned. I also find the letterforms themselves to be needlessly delicate; you're free to not like heavier fonts I suppose, but I don't want to have to lean into my compter to read things clearly. That's not to say that the old fonts were necessarily great, I think a lot of the people who like them do so on nostalgia, but I do hope that the fonts are moddable and if they are I'm replacing them straight away.I like the new fonts. But I'm a font nerd, and Dom has been using the same shit fonts for at least 2 games now.I'm a font nerd too and I see no grounds on which to like the new ones.
I missed this before.
I'm not saying I like all the new fonts. More I was talking about the Olde English font on the Pretender title bar.
The rest of what's on the game looks like....a mix of Arial and TNR? Kinda looks like they're testing out different fonts on different screens, because it's different between text descriptions, titles and the map text in some places.
What I didn't like about the old Dominions font is it was very thick. No real serifs and it made for thick blocks of uninteresting, workman-like text.
This actually looks like True Type Font. Which means it's possibly moddable. And it in generally looks like it takes less effort to read. Stylistically? Yeah it's kind of balls. But from a readability standpoint I think it's better, especially for menus. Might also mean dynamically resizing text is also now a thing, which is useful for a whole lot of stuff.
That said, while I don't think the old font is necessarily better, it definitely didn't have the stylistic contrast that the new ones do. Nothing else in Dominions has clean edges, so clean edges on the font doesn't look nice. This is potentially fixable with a font that has slightly noisy borders though.
Black Letter is what you get when you go to dafont and look for medieval fonts. Which is why I think a lot of this is testing to see which ones they like.Blackletter is a category. This particular blackletter font, and in fact all three of these fonts, were and are in CoE4 so I'm pretty sure this isn't just testing different ones.
I do like heavier fonts actually, there was just so little to like about the Dominions fonts. It did fit the aesthetic better, that I do agree, and this does less. But it seems like a lot of things in Dom are finally starting to look like it was made after 2000. Now if the world map could just oblige.
I agree that they could be working toward a more flavorful UI, there'd be some real value in that. But I still think it's good they're updating the program to at least handle TT fonts. Then modders can mod in fonts they like more.
I'm charmed that we've got some movement back towards Dom1-style dynamic maps.
This is probably a good time to remind everyone that this is the dom4 thread and dom5 has its own thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=167436.0) :)
I've actually got a couple dom4 related little questions.
First, I've got a province where I can't improve PD past 9. Is it a bug or is there some hidden site or is it a map feature? The map's Ragnaroc Comes.
Second, according to the manual undying grants the unit the ability to fight on while dead. Does the level of undying, e.g. undying +5, mean that the unit fights on until it takes another 5 points of damage? So it's kind of extra HP but the unit dies at the end of the battle? It's a bit difficult to check this in my current game as my blessed troops are bad at dying.
Is that how it works? The ingame description says that lifeless beings with the blessing will be able to stick around after the battle with negative hitpoints, but other, non-lifeless (a great descriptor, to be sure) units will die if their end-of-battle total is negative.
Does it still have the hidden property of Death Weapon damage having a massively increased affliction chance? I know that death bless used to be +affliction rate, but after the switch to undying I'm fairly certain they kept the really high affliction rates and just hid it inside of the major bless.
Take my money, as usual. Dominions beats out even Arma in hours played / € invested.
Sidenote: Negative PD would be intresting, like the population hates you so much whatever attacks you gets some villagers and dogs to help them.
Patrol strength (walkers) = (precision + ap)/20 + patrol bonus
Patrol strength (fliers) = (precision + MAX[ap, 30])/20 + patrol bonus
That's for the strength. I can't remember if the manual explains the mechanics of unrest reduction; it might.
Take my money, as usual. Dominions beats out even Arma in hours played / € invested.So Moctezuma lost because he had -100 PD?
Sidenote: Negative PD would be intresting, like the population hates you so much whatever attacks you gets some villagers and dogs to help them.
I agree that they could be working toward a more flavorful UI, there'd be some real value in that. But I still think it's good they're updating the program to at least handle TT fonts. Then modders can mod in fonts they like more.
Honestly, I don't mind the UI aesthetically; it's always struck me as kind of pretty in a quietly informative sort of way. If they really wanted to improve it, though, more automation would be amazing. Even something like being able to script commander movement on the strategic map would go a long way toward improving blood slave tedium, and some ability to send commanders to distant provinces through a series of waypoints would make distributing cap-only troops/commanders less of a headache.
Or, more globally, human-readable .2h files would do wonders for a lot of these problems, although you'd probably want to keep being able to convert them to binary for emailing.
I think back even when I started playing Dom 3, I'd already gotten used to games with really flexible UIs. And Dom has always been very retro in this regard. There's a lot of screen swapping going on, for everything. Tooltips are there but they're pretty limited. There's always been more information you wanted cross-referenced than they offer. Like, how much nicer would it be for a mouse interface to right click and have a drop down for actions, instead of the couple options we have now. Dominions' UI has always been functional it's just very......stolid? Utilitarian? Uncomplicated but also unevolved since what feels like the early 90s.Eh, I prefer it over a lot of more "evolved" UIs. It's functional and things make sense and there's plenty of hotkeys.
I think that's what I've been badly getting at above, is I'm just happy to see some change and some movement forward in the tech. I can only pay $30 to $40 dollars for essentially the same game so many times in a row before I start feeling like I'm being taken advantage of. At least for me this will be the most significant change I've seen out of a new Dominions game. I'd probably pay just for the new battle map.I mean, considering how long it's been out, I don't think forty bucks for continued development is a terrible deal, and there are pretty sizable changes each time. You're also short a year there, incidentally, we're well into 2017 now.
On that note, any rumors or word on pricing? Dom4 owners getting a discount maybe? I know it came out on Steam 3 years ago and was out on Desura for like 5 months before that. But I feel like I just bought it yesterday.
I don't think I've given Illwinter a hard time about it because of the overall awesomeness of the game. But I think it's based on an older philosophy of development when developers selling directly to their customers was more of a thing. And I'm thinking of like Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. If that had been made by Illwinter they wouldn't have cut anyone a discount. And I think it took them a long time to start offering sales on their own website for Dominions. My jimmies aren't super rustled about it, but it'll always set them apart for me from other developers who largely don't get away with shipping literally 95% of the same game ever couple of years. Dom 5 at least fits my expectations better because it's getting some much needed visual overhauls.
Nor does the fact that sprites (mostly) remain constant over time.
I appreciate iteration but I think you're more impressed with it than I am and more ready to pay for it. An engine rework feels like pretty tangible work to me, something that should have been done a long time ago. Reworking fort systems (again) or movement, while appreciated, doesn't blow me away. Thrones are cool but seriously, does an extra feature and some tweaks a full game make?I mean, "some tweaks" goes from a game where you manage a gem economy into the late game, where all nations end up playing very similarly, and where you must tediously take all provinces into one where nations remain different and where you can rush key locations to end the game prematurely even if you're not the strongest player (see my Marverni AAR, where I was the strongest player but made critical strategic errors regarding force deployment) which simply couldn't happen before. It's true that if we simplify to only the biggest features, it looks like something that could be an expansion pack, but the little changes do add up. Given the time span and the degree of changes, the idea that you're paying more for less with Dominions doesn't really line up with what's going on in the rest of the video game market.
Everything carries forward so why not....make a base game, do your content updates and bug fixes (which are standard part of the package deal for any reputable developer, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to applaud that) and actually sell content packs every year or two for $5, $10, $15, whatever seems reasonable. Because from when I started it doesn't actually feel like Dom 3, 4, 5. It feels like Dom 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. It's a very efficient way to sell your game.Paying ten five bucks twice a year might appeal to you more than paying forty bucks after four years, but for an incoming (new) player it's the difference between paying $40 for a new game or paying $40+($5t) for the new game, where t is number of expansions released. I mentioned Paradox for a reason; they do it this way. Crusader Kings 2 costs ~$400 for all the content. Dominions 5 costs the price of one game.
Like I said, I'm not actually upset about it. It just gets me every time a release comes around. Illwinter is the only developer in my library aside from Ed McMillen and Cyanide where I feel like I've paid retail price for the essentially the same game multiple times. (Cyanide in particular has caught a ton of shit from people for this.) I didn't give them a pass and didn't buy BB whatever Edition because I didn't feel like ultimately it was worth my time. I'm still buying Dom games. Doesn't mean I give them my wholehearted endorsement for how they do it though.Man, you think that's something, look at what Spiderweb's been up to with Avernum. On the second remake of the third iteration of a pair of trilogies now. But for something like Dominions, or something like Blood Bowl, where the bulk of the game is in the multiplayer community, it makes a lot of practical sense to release the game as a full release when you update it. Could there be discounts for owners of the previous game? Sure, Steam supports that. Now that owners of the previous game actually are, for the most part, on Steam, Illwinter may decide to do that if their liaison at Valve suggests it. Even if they don't, though, the kind of prices they charge are pretty worthwhile for four years of support. Even if they don't, I don't think it's an unreasonable price for support over the years. Of course, you can definitely quibble with that if you consider that a lot of the support is done by the community (and llamaserver in particular is a volunteer job) but I still find the price to be reasonable considering the size and the niche nature of this operation.
Well, that's sort of true, but they upgrade is so piecemeal that the changes aren't big and flashy. If resolution was doubled again (not like current computers can't handle it, and it would save work compared against a hypothetical eventual future doubling once all the sprites are updated) and the old ones were updated to that, then that would be a pretty drastic change. As it is, a few updated at a time changes relatively little.Nor does the fact that sprites (mostly) remain constant over time.
A quibble as someone who spends far too much time looking at Dominions sprites: they haven't. There have been progressive overhauls, reworks, replacements, and additions from the start. Dom4 in particular replaced and/or revamped A TON of the graphics, as well as increasing sprite resolution. Dom3 hurts to look at these days. I would not be surprised if some of the outstanding Dom2/Dom3 graphics disappear with Dom5 as well. I'm not going to hold my breath on all of them going away, but I expect it'll be a lot harder to find old graphics come Dom5. Well, except maybe in Jotunheim. Those haven't changed in forever and show no sign of doing so, though in fairness they probably aged better than most or all of the rest.
Paying ten five bucks twice a year might appeal to you more than paying forty bucks after four years, but for an incoming (new) player it's the difference between paying $40 for a new game or paying $40+($5t) for the new game, where t is number of expansions released.
Crusader Kings 2 costs ~$400 for all the content.
Even if they don't, I don't think it's an unreasonable price for support over the years. Of course, you can definitely quibble with that if you consider that a lot of the support is done by the community (and llamaserver in particular is a volunteer job) but I still find the price to be reasonable considering the size and the niche nature of this operation.
And to further clarify, I'm not saying that I think Illwinter's efforts are flawless or, in every regard, even adequate.
Avernum
Surprised you didn't mention splitting the playerbase as a consequence of DLC driven development. Because for a game like Dom it would be a big one.Eh, mods do that anyway. People that are relatively deep in the meta see a lot of balance problems that don't exist for people who know less about the game, so overhauls are a lot more necessary for some than on others. On top of it, CBM had a lot of "added" stuff that made people wary of it, and a lot of that carried over into the far more conservative balance mods of Dom 4. And then there's all the little mods. But seeing as you can easily swap them in and out to play the right game, it works out. It's not like many folks wouldn't buy the stuff anyway, assuming it didn't get to the same ridiculous level of some certain other companies.
Yeah as I was typing that I was thinking of CK2. There's definitely a dark side to constantly expanding the same game but I think there's a balance to be had.I mean, if you call the devs getting paid a dark side. It's not even barely applicable to this game since the devs are well employed, and Swedish (thus, strong social safety net) besides.
I mean, if you call the devs getting paid a dark side.
QuoteI mean, if you call the devs getting paid a dark side.
$400 for a complete game is insane though.
"Complete game" as in "all the game's content." Obviously CK2 is playable with none of the DLC.
"Complete game" as in "all the game's content." Obviously CK2 is playable with none of the DLC.
But no one is making you buy all the game's content; there's just a lot of it available.
It just seems silly to call a pricing model ridiculous based on a figure that no one is paying for an amount of content that very few people want all of. That seems to me to be equivalent to calling Steam overpriced because it would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to buy all the games on Steam -- except that all of the expansions to CK2 work together.
"Complete game" as in "all the game's content." Obviously CK2 is playable with none of the DLC.
But no one is making you buy all the game's content; there's just a lot of it available.
It just seems silly to call a pricing model ridiculous based on a figure that no one is paying for an amount of content that very few people want all of. That seems to me to be equivalent to calling Steam overpriced because it would cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to buy all the games on Steam -- except that all of the expansions to CK2 work together.
Are we trying to have a discussion about DLC? Because that wasn't my point. My point is, $400 is a lot of money for the complete experience a game offers. It's unusual even today.
Yeah, I was sort of trying to avoid spending an hour looking through spells.Generic:
Hurricane
Volcanic Eruption
Tidal Wave
Breath of the Desert
Wolven Winter
Blight
Baleful Star
Locust Swarm
Raging Hearts
Black Death
Rain of Toads
Wrath of Pazuzu
Send Dream Horror
National:Monster Boar
Call of the Drugvant
Change it to ritual only then look through the list for Affect Province with Anonymous Event
What version i should have to have Xibalba? I have 4.10 and can't find it anywhere.
Also, is banner of northern star is powerful self-trolling item? It gives your mages + to astral magic during battle, but since you can't say them to use yet unusable spells before... ::) they will just buff themselves as usual?
That's a dangerous train of thought to follow... Next thing you know, someone's casting of Rain of Toads becomes infinitely more lethal on account of dropping the size 5 monster toads instead of the much smaller normal variants. Everyone gets mushed by the falling torrent of frogbombs.I see no problem with this.
People can usually guess who did it however...Pretty sure some of them do? Have to double check to be sure about anonymous ones (which in complete honesty, I'm not going to do because I don't care nearly enough about the question right now), but there's certainly remote attack spells that scale to some degree with caster power. Usually not much, from what I recall, but some.
I wish those spells would scale with your magic scales, like if the god of "I have 9 water + ring of water + the booster cape" hits you with a lvl 11 water magic tidal wave, it should hurt more...
When looking at blood research in my recent games I've noticed a lvl 8 B3 spell called 'end' (lower case). It's a single-target, 40+ damage AN unresistable combat spell with no description.This is an ingame bug that causes L4L to be renamed "end" in most modded games. Some mods have workarounds renaming it Life for Life because of this issue.
The only mod I'm using is Worthy Heroes.
Was it always there? Mod Inspector doesn't list it. What's going on?
So, here's a thought... If you give a copper arm to something like a master smith or a forge lord or something, that means they'd have 3 hands, yeah? So wouldn't you then be able to wield both a dwarven hammer and the hammer of the forgelord for a total fixed cost reduction of -7 or -8 gems?Yep. And they even play nicely with things like steel forges. Source: Once got steel forges in a game as Ulm, and had a dedicated smith with Forge lord and Dwarven Hammer using a copper arm pounding out (items) for virtually nothing.
Y'know, just in case you feel like making more of everything than has ever been made before.
What version i should have to have Xibalba? I have 4.10 and can't find it anywhere.Yes, you can. You just script them, and they will cast during battle if they are now able to. That said, I'm pretty sure that some of the pirated versions of Illwinter's games were leaked by illwinter with deliberately busted mechanics. So that might be causing problems for you.
Also, is banner of northern star is powerful self-trolling item? It gives your mages + to astral magic during battle, but since you can't say them to use yet unusable spells before... ::) they will just buff themselves as usual?
Just when I thought the AI couldn't show me it was more retarded, an astral mage just blinked itself into a retreating army of those heretic independents to die.
Also, Illwinter definitely has engaged in complex DRM sabotage shenanigans in the past. Their traditional MO was making parts of the UI eventually stop working for pirated keys. There were workarounds that still let pirates play Dominions as something other than a glorified demo, but they definitely impacted QOL in oblique yet noticeable ways, so it's hardly incredible to suspect such things.Nagot gick fel!
Also, Illwinter definitely has engaged in complex DRM sabotage shenanigans in the past. Their traditional MO was making parts of the UI eventually stop working for pirated keys. There were workarounds that still let pirates play Dominions as something other than a glorified demo, but they definitely impacted QOL in oblique yet noticeable ways, so it's hardly incredible to suspect such things.
After turn 10, all your areas are getting raided by pirates.I played a little with the unleashed mechanic but decided not to incorporate it into my main mod. I think Red_Rob did some stuff with it, though.
While we are brainstorming, man would it be nice to have more "unleashable monsters" - like the guy that eats dead people and then goes berserk.
In Fall from Heaven (A civ mod) - you could research, well, a portal to hell and summon them into the world, losing your main nation and playing as them (if you so desire) - I can imagine opening the first gate, breaking thrones to release some sort of indi-force, deamon troops that will only fight for one round, mercs that go rogue, a spell that affects enemy commanders and makes them go indi-if in a province with pd < troops & alone...
__________
Commander-Equipment (limited to 1 / leader) like:
"Weapons of Paris" [The guy that killed archiles] - Weapons of the troops ignore any magical armor
"Winter Clothing" - Winter Movement & 2 Forst resistance
"War Dogs" - Get one free War dog per 25 Size of troops and 1 for the commander
Also, sum1won, I'm not getting whatever gif/image there to show up. Just says "user posted image". Judging from the comments, it has something to do with penis, which I can only imagine is heartily endorsed by the Illwinter games team, considering how many penises they include in the vanilla versions of their games.
He's just linked to a mod that uses the mechanic y'all were talking about. Download it and try it out to see more.
...just be glad that unarmed satyrs in Dominions aren't as excited as unarmed satyrs in CoE4...
Elmokki appears to have suffered a fit of better taste at some point and removed it.Nah, his hosting probably just dropped it due to time elapsed.
Since round 27 ended not to long ago, there is the possiblity of starting round29, next to 28, but I doubt we'll have 6-8 players willing for it right now...I had an interesting thought for a game, nationgen pool. Each player give the number to generate a nation then once all the players have sent one then the host would make the mod, distribute it then randomly assign each player a nation. It would discourage finding the most overpowered nation since it could end up being used against you. Easiest way I found of searching for an interesting nation is under nation restriction then nation or race theme. As an example, seed 1573659351 is hoburgs that have a recruit at any fort sacreds that are power frames, but they consume a lot of supplies.
I've been playing (and losing to) super hard AI and the amount of blesses they have is gross as all hell...
I had an interesting thought for a game, nationgen pool.
10 perception on a good day, even if you DO manage to hit himParalyze has 100 spell precision, so that's never an issue.
He could mean "eternal" in the sense of "never doing anything else again" or spawning enough of them that the supaya sea just goes on forever and ever.Pretty much what I was thinking the first few times he said that in our game with me as Therodos. By now it looks like a simple mistake.
Undead swarms can potentially give you some grief due to poor priests, but you've got astral and death access to help out with that.
I did a test game with em and while silly, the idea of going drain 3, never researching, just spamming ethereal undead ghosts with MR 14 (screw your priests) and two buffs of your choice.Day back, but you might have better luck with this with ghost ermor if you really want to do it. Do the same thing, but go triple-bless and spam their 0-research self-blessing mini wraith lords all over the place. Iirc a W/something or another (I want to say N?) consul can solo most indie provinces right from the start, and a handful bunched together can tear apart quite a number of armies.
... Still not very good tbh though.
Isn't that pretty much the only semi-viable Lemuria strategy these days? Not necessarily triple bless or whatnot, but spamming consuls?Nah. Like the orthodox "stay home, be defensible, and fuck the world with globals" strategy, it lacks a good way to actually claim victory. Unless you're playing a small game and can do it quite quickly, anyway. But once people have forted most thrones, you're gonna have a bad time. Although if you count this kind of thing, you can "win" by making the game so un-fun that everyone else quits.
Eternal Ermor of legions, Jesus and priests of ancient faith learning secrets of dark arts from lizardmen to make said eternal Ermor more eternal.
Eternal Ermor, which went a bit too eternal and happily wants to share its eternity with everyone.
Ermor of averege eternity trying to outeternal too eternal ermor and snek ermor by reasonable necromancy.
Ermor, which tries to figure out, how to stay eternal without necromancy, but with HYDRAS and snaeks.
Even more eternal ermor then all other eternal ermors alltogether, so eternal, that it even got back dudes, who made first mentioned eternal Ermor so eternal with just gladius and pila, and they want to make it great again.
Mostly the cheap/freespawn reanimators that can put out mostly better chaff than skeleton ermor or people ermor (though massing the reanimators is arguably easier with people ermor)
I believe lorewise Marignon is also an offshoot of Ermor, who felt that Ermor got too eternal for its own good because it simply didn't go to church often enough. Ulm used to be as well, before pre-Ulm was introduced.
But dispossesed spirits and shadow soldiers only have paralyze as a weapon, which deals no actual HP damage (except in bizarre, undocumented overload-situations which I don't really understand how they work).
Though that does cause the amount of ermors in this game to strike me again. I forget about it occasionally. People ermor, I think splinter people ermor, skeleton ermor, ghost ermor, pretty sure there's a lizard ermor or two, too? Might even be forgetting something. Illwinter likes ermor, apparently.
Actually, that sounds good to me. Anything that brings the output of NG more in line with the vanilla flavor (under default settings) is a positive change in my opinion.Though that does cause the amount of ermors in this game to strike me again. I forget about it occasionally. People ermor, I think splinter people ermor, skeleton ermor, ghost ermor, pretty sure there's a lizard ermor or two, too? Might even be forgetting something. Illwinter likes ermor, apparently.
Would this be a bad time to mention that the next NG update is very probably gonna be ErmorGen? 'Cause it is.
I think I'd have to disagree on them having better reanimations than skellymor. Sure, an H1 being able to summon 10 size 1 ethereal paralyzing ghosts with massive morale but that aren't actually mindless is great, but the main problem Lemuria has is that most of its freespawns and reanimations simply don't do any damage.Eh, think you underestimate things, possibly because you actually remember dispossessed spirits exist :P
Spirits also require corpses, and are undisciplined.
Btw: Wouldn't it be grand if you could pick dominion effects from options like blessed in the upcoming Dom5?Sounds like the system before there were ages. I think keeping a thing which differentiates nations is preferable, though.
My fav, if useless, spam nation is still EA maverni - with the holy pigs : )Not useless. They're good blockers for your mages, which are also good by virtue of being cheap and therefore plentiful. Heavily blessing them is a trap option, but so it is for most things. Although since they're tramplers, the size increase bless in Dominions 5 should go a lot to make them more killy against human - sized things, which will be especially useful since Marverni has magic generally better suited to dealing with small groups of elites. Although the spell cast time change is going to nerf the heck out of them anyway, I reckon.
im not nearly as deep into this game as some but i have fun playing it like a simple strategy game; i barely make use of magic at all. Mass infantry led by empowered commanders. it helps that i play usually play as either middle ages Man or Marignon.Even if you play purely troop based combat, there's a lot of strategy to the game and unit positioning. You're definitely missing a lot by not using magic, though. Try easing into it by just sending a mage or two along with your armies. But Dominions 5 has balance changes that seem likely to reduce mage dominance a lot, so proficiency with troops will become more useful.
which leads me to a massive noob question; do blessings help normal troops in anyway? cuz i know it does for sacred units
It does not, near as I can recall. There's holy spells that do, but blessing specifically isn't one of them. Closest thing to an exception is the shroud whatsit for commanders, maybe one or two other things.The shroud also makes them sacred. Making a unit into your prophet does the same. And in Dominions 5, your pretender will always be blessed (but in 4, doesn't even count as sacred).
im not nearly as deep into this game as some but i have fun playing it like a simple strategy game; i barely make use of magic at all. Mass infantry led by empowered commanders. it helps that i play usually play as either middle ages Man or Marignon.A lot of the advice on the internet overstates the importance and easiness of magic, because its from dom3 where fast magic research was the standard. Nowadays magic takes a lot longer to come into play in a meaningful way. It can be a little discouraging for new players.
which leads me to a massive noob question; do blessings help normal troops in anyway? cuz i know it does for sacred units
First response was to rush twiceborn and just accept that he was going to lose his forge master trait, but then I remembered blood feast and rushed that afterwards (after smacking myself in the head).
In other news, I have determined that Shinuyama is actually Mordor.how do you figure?
I've just had two gurus mind duel two sages, and in both cases both duellists died.
Is this normal? I've never seen it happen before.