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[EnigmaticHat]

So I've realized something about this game: I REALLY like mage-priests.  Halved upkeep on what is often your biggest money sink AND the ability to self-bless, for a manageable increase in price.  Sure, as actual priests they're horribly inefficient usually but as mages they're pretty much straight better.

The only real problem with them is that you have to pay the extra startup costs to get going.  500 to 1000 gold in temples is a big hit in the early game (equivalent to having a small army wiped out), but on the plus side you want temples in your forts eventually anyway.

[ZebioLizard2]

Yep that's their problem, you don't always want to maximize labs and temples in every fort however early on as that can kill your gold reserve.

That and they do have their benefits, being able to self bless for E4+ fatigue regeneration is always good.

[Karlito]

4.20 is out! I haven't played it yet, or even read the entire changelog at the time of this post.

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

[Culise]

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.  I've been looking forward to the UW update for so long. 

*vanishes*

EDIT: Also, Telkhine kingdom, for reference. 

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to figure out what use for the Protogenos (crabhead guy) from a cursory glance over the stats.  W3 is not something any of the underwater nations need, since Water doesn't need that much in the way of paths (boosting is easy and you only need 5 or 6 at the most), and there isn't a UW nation that doesn't have water paths.  Can't leave water even with magical means due to basically a super-steroid Aquatic.  The only thing I can think of is a UW SC for early expansion, but there are other, cheaper options for that.  Mega-jelly has Astral, Innate Spellcaster, and Void Sanity (not that I'd risk it in R'lyeh's Gate, but there are other uses for such), not to mention giving cumulative fatigue chances to enemy units in a wide area, all for dirt cheap.  Telkhine God-King is a smith par excellence.  Father of Monsters gives Fire paths, which are really rare underwater, but not exactly crucial. 

[Karlito]

But giant floating head...


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.

[hemperor]

But giant floating head...


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.

hahaha i want this game so bad!

[ChairmanPoo]

But giant floating head...

[EnigmaticHat]

So... can nations like EA R'yleh have a chance of leaving the water now?

[E. Albright]

Their core troops are still aquatic.

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.

[Frumple]

If aquatics are more capable than previous at getting out of the water, I haven't figured out how, yet.

Also, did just notice they nerfed vengeful waters ;_;

New nation's kinda' neat. Freespawn ethereal sacreds. Reliance on the 1/4th D little guys for their base nation summons is a bit of a PitA, though (especially if you get unlucky... test game I'm playing now took like two years to get the first one >_<). And you really kinda' need/want a lot of the priest ones -- you get freespawn, but the numbers are kinda' shitty as near as I can tell and it takes the spirit calling to make up the difference.

E: Bright side to 'em, though, is once you've got your first one they can forge their own skull staff and spit out a handful of revenants to handle ephor summoning duty, if you've got a land province and the gems ready for it. Still, bit annoying to reach that point considering how integral the little buggers are.

[E. Albright]

A few nations have more/better coastal recruits, but that's about it.

[EnigmaticHat]

Their core troops are still aquatic.

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.

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.

[Culise]

Their core troops are still aquatic.

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.

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. 

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. 

[Cruxador]

But giant floating head...


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.

Being able to go from one sea to another without crossing the intervening land is a good thing on some maps.

Their core troops are still aquatic.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

[Shadowlord]

I went underwater because the Lower Throne was there. :V