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Author Topic: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension  (Read 520346 times)

Sean Mirrsen

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2820 on: September 30, 2016, 09:30:53 am »

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...

I'm taking an imprisoned statue. It's the only way to get W9F9 with Pangaea and still stay at decent scales. I mean. I could gain more Luck but then I'd need to dip into something else. Death is not a good choice, Sloth isn't either since Turmoil 3 already drops income. Turmoil 3 Luck 1 with 7 Dominion is about the best I could ever squeeze out of the concept.

And yeah, they're berserkers. Thing is, stuff either has a hard time hitting them, or does not survive for long afterwards. Or they don't survive long. The fatigue is not a problem, at least normally. Them not routing is a much bigger benefit than the fatigue loss is a drawback.

There's almost no point bringing flak along with them. At best the flak soaks up arrows in the first rounds of combat. If there's an H3 priest anything between them and the enemy just gets in the way. If there's a few regular priests, like a few Hierophants, then they can Hold and Attack, waiting two turns for the priests to bless them up. And even then they usually enter combat at the same time as the rest of the army because they're so damn fast.

Their only weaknesses are ranged/magic attacks backed by lots of tough stuff. They don't have that much protection or MR. Watchers are especially nasty, though the magic fire damage does mean they can grind through them better than any regular army would.

And don't get me started on the dryads. My favorite unit in the game hands down. :D
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Kagus

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2821 on: September 30, 2016, 10:05:03 am »

Eh, you can go sloth easy with MA Pan. Their only high-resource units have obscene encumbrance values and the satyr hoplite doesn't even have a proper longspear, just a regular shorty, so you can get by with the low-resource troopers just fine. Revelers are pretty amazing, and only 3 res. The problem would be the white centaurs in the first 2-3 turns, as they've got a whole 12 res they need per each. But outside of that, sloth is fine.

Trading sloth for growth nets you +1% income per scale, as well as extra supplies and popgrowth which will, in the long run, translate into even more income and resources. Plus a couple nice events, but nothing outstanding.


It's perhaps a bit cheesy, but I think Nature is actually a pretty good alternative bless for them. White centaurs have 23 health, which means the +8 from N9 will juuuuust push them into the health class where they regen 4 HP per turn, which is pretty great. An imprisoned Irminsul with F9N9, 3 Turmoil and 6 Dom will have 89 points left over for however else you want to balance your scales. Sloth as mentioned is a nice pick, and a tap into cold will get you 40 more points and the income penalty will neutralize itself in the first summer, when funds tend to be particularly tight.

I was just mucking around a bit and 3Turm2Slot got me 8 dom and 3 luck, and it was a perfect 0 points left to boot. So there're options.


But, again, Pan isn't really the best bless nation out there. You might wanna muck around with Bandar Log a bit, those tiger riders are pretty goddamn scary... And after that, they open up into all sorts of no-upkeep cheap summonable sacreds.

ThtblovesDF

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2822 on: September 30, 2016, 11:10:03 am »

I tend to play Pan as a "Better then Human troops, buffed to surive enemy magic, with sneaky armys to force army-splits" and decent scales.
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Kagus

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2823 on: September 30, 2016, 02:46:54 pm »

Yep, that's pretty much what they are. Very little magic diversity on some very expensive mages, but satyrs are amazing little bastards. And let's not forget the fuckery you can do with those delightful little black harpies.

The centaur cataphracts would be good units, except that they're not considered "mounted", and thus take full encumbrance from all that armor they're wearing. They wear out rather quickly. And don't get me started on those armored war minotaurs... Poor saps.


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.

Shadowlord

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2824 on: September 30, 2016, 02:53:34 pm »

Sean's sacred centaurs (as EA Pan instead of MA) worked quite well in a previous game when he used them against me. Of course, I was playing EA Xibalba with no bless and trying to stop them with zotz, summoned undead, and so forth. :P

He went AI for no reason I could figure out (IIRC he said he forgot his plan or something?), considering he was winning every battle, after which I was able to eventually conquer his stuff because the AI was too stupid to continue invading me, and too stupid to make any more of the centaurs.

I think the lesson here is that the AI is guaranteed to be a worst planner than you, even if every turn is a week apart and you don't remember what you were doing.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2016, 02:56:34 pm by Shadowlord »
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2825 on: September 30, 2016, 02:58:55 pm »

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
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Kagus

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2826 on: September 30, 2016, 03:03:29 pm »

Not to mention you also get the lovely sagittarians and carrion centaurs we were talking about before, who are also sacred and have 6+ attacks.

EnigmaticHat

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2827 on: September 30, 2016, 05:08:02 pm »

Plus you're a freespawn nation, which I've heard is a +2 to your diplomacy stat :P
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2828 on: September 30, 2016, 06:38:56 pm »

Tis asphodel, though, so it's only +1 at most :P
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ThtblovesDF

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2829 on: October 01, 2016, 07:31:52 pm »

Ugh...

When picking a spell to cast (ritual) you can press letters to limit the magic schools - A for Air, S for Astral, etc...

Still learning...

Also: Magic Duel makes heads explode.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2016, 08:11:44 pm by ThtblovesDF »
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Cruxador

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2830 on: October 01, 2016, 10:54:58 pm »

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.
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Sean Mirrsen

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2831 on: October 02, 2016, 01:12:53 am »

There's lots of little useful shortcuts like that. 'i' to see province history, 'y' to do army setup on whoever will be in the province next month, 'M' to autocast spells monthly, etc.
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Culise

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2832 on: October 02, 2016, 01:16:25 am »

Along those lines, ? for a list of shortcuts available for the screen presently open is probably the most useful one, I think.  I didn't know about it for years, and when I learned it existed, it let me learn all the other shortcuts.
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ThtblovesDF

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2833 on: October 02, 2016, 03:24:03 pm »

Nation Gen created Snail Cav ; )

(and they are actually pretty kickass, but only have 6 movement, obviously)

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*fixed link
« Last Edit: October 02, 2016, 04:16:20 pm by ThtblovesDF »
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Shadowlord

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #2834 on: October 02, 2016, 03:33:47 pm »

Why do you use imgur?

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