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[Cruxador]

So for those who are into this sort of thing, I'm blogging again. This is an AAR where I play as Marverni, and do reasonably well so far. As of now, I've released pretender and game overviews, and the first "real" update, and will release more twice per week. Since the game is multiplayer, things are on a one-month delay, and I can therefore tell you that this one will be interesting if you like reading about diplomacy.

Previous completed AARs are linked in the Index at the top of the page.

[ThtblovesDF]

Dominions 4 is nr. 14 on RPS's 50 best strategy games on pc
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/11/18/the-50-best-strategy-games-on-pc/38/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

14: Dominions IV (2013)
Developer: Illwinter Game Design
Publisher: Illwinter Game Design
From archfiends to gods. Wannabe gods. Pretenders.
Dominions IV, like Solium Infernum, can be offputting at first. It has a complicated ruleset that takes a few playthroughs or a determined study of the monstrous manual to understand, and even when a session begins, following the flow of action can be difficult. That’s despite the game being separated into tidy turns, with distinct sets of instructions to put into action. There are cities to build, victory points to secure and armies to move around the randomly generated maps.
That tricksy rulest, along with a combination of graphics that are functional at best and a demanding interface, can make the basics hard to grasp. Or perhaps it’s that there are no basics. Dominions is a deep game and inexperienced players can lose before the first turn, by creating a pretender god with a confusing and contradictory set of abilities.
Break through the hard crust, however, and there are rich veins to tap into. The clash of deities isn’t a reskin of monarchs or emperors at war – there are disciples to nurture, totems to worship and all manner of nations that can be subject to the whims of the possibly-tentacled pretenders. As we said in our review: “This is a game in which Zeus can punch Cthulhu in the face and an immortal lich king can reanimate his fallen bodyguard to create a dread army, more powerful than the mortal flesh that the enemy so foolishly flayed from moon-white bones.”
Notes: The War of the Ring boardgame was one of the key inspirations for the new features added to Dominions IV.
Where can I buy it: Steam, Desura.
What else should I be playing: Few games are as extraordinarily complex and varied as Dominions IV but Illwinter’s own Conquest of Elysium 3 offers a similarly rich experience, in slightly more accessible form.

[sprinkled chariot]

Ehm, seems, that desura forums are locked until the new owner will do something with them :c

Is there any nondesura link to dom 4 sprites ? 

[Cruxador]

Ehm, seems, that desura forums are locked until the new owner will do something with them :c

Is there any nondesura link to dom 4 sprites ? 

Well, the mod inspector has them if you just need individual ones. If you want the whole dump, it's probably somewhere on the dom3mods forum.

Dominions 4 is nr. 14 on RPS's 50 best strategy games on pc
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/11/18/the-50-best-strategy-games-on-pc/38/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

14: Dominions IV (2013)
Developer: Illwinter Game Design
Publisher: Illwinter Game Design
From archfiends to gods. Wannabe gods. Pretenders.
Dominions IV, like Solium Infernum, can be offputting at first. It has a complicated ruleset that takes a few playthroughs or a determined study of the monstrous manual to understand, and even when a session begins, following the flow of action can be difficult. That’s despite the game being separated into tidy turns, with distinct sets of instructions to put into action. There are cities to build, victory points to secure and armies to move around the randomly generated maps.
That tricksy rulest, along with a combination of graphics that are functional at best and a demanding interface, can make the basics hard to grasp. Or perhaps it’s that there are no basics. Dominions is a deep game and inexperienced players can lose before the first turn, by creating a pretender god with a confusing and contradictory set of abilities.
Break through the hard crust, however, and there are rich veins to tap into. The clash of deities isn’t a reskin of monarchs or emperors at war – there are disciples to nurture, totems to worship and all manner of nations that can be subject to the whims of the possibly-tentacled pretenders. As we said in our review: “This is a game in which Zeus can punch Cthulhu in the face and an immortal lich king can reanimate his fallen bodyguard to create a dread army, more powerful than the mortal flesh that the enemy so foolishly flayed from moon-white bones.”
Notes: The War of the Ring boardgame was one of the key inspirations for the new features added to Dominions IV.
Where can I buy it: Steam, Desura.
What else should I be playing: Few games are as extraordinarily complex and varied as Dominions IV but Illwinter’s own Conquest of Elysium 3 offers a similarly rich experience, in slightly more accessible form.

Considering the stuff they put above it, that list is kind of meaningless.

[E. Albright]

Sprite dump thread on Dom4Mods: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=2747

Sprite dump thread on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/app/259060/discussions/0/357288572132316534/

Both are through 4.25, but there hasn't been much new art since then.

[sprinkled chariot]

thanks

[chaoticag]

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.

[ThtblovesDF]

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...

[Jilladilla]

I tend to go scale heavy, doesn't matter how tough your few sacreds are if they're drowned in a endless horde holding them down for a numerically superior mage line to blast them (Granted, there are some exceptions to this... And of course there are some units that just don't care how elite and heavily blessed your sacreds are.)

That said, I do know the value of a bless, it can turn some units into glorious bastions of not dying ever lol, or others into almost unstoppable balls of murder, but never expect me to go tri or quad bless, dual at most for me, and even then the paths tend to have value to my strategy anyway.

[Grek]

I've noticed I tend to go more heavily into paths than most people, am more willing to go X9Y9 for a bless and shun early expansion pretenders. For paths, I prefer Order to Growth (5% extra gold in year one is better than 8% in year two, imo) and am willing to go heavily into Drain/Death if I have even a single point of Luck to negate the worst events. I also like to take 'mixed' scales - I'd prefer Cold 2 Order 2 to Temp 0 Order 0.

[Cheeetar]

When I'm in my comfort zone, I generally play with an imprisoned pretender and good scales without much of a bless- luck, turmoil, and growth, with magic possibly thrown in.

[chaoticag]

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...

I had a fun pretender for Jomon actually. 9D/9N for two reasons. One is it gives my sacred units more bite, another lets my tengus tank more hits. Pairing regen with undying also lets your units live if they have negative hitpoints. They also had a flavor of sacred that already had good stats for attacking. Alternatively, a minor water and fire bless is quite powerful on those same units anyway, they just end up less resilient.

[Shadowlord]

but "sadly" Earth/Nature seems to always be the best...

Not always. It depends on who you're playing and what your strategy is. I have a N9W4 bless and strong scales for Ys in the game I'm playing now (IIRC Order 3, production 3, growth 3, heat 3 because free points and reasons (I can cross rivers with my amphibious troops even if said rivers never freeze, so it's a strategic advantage), and I think magic 1 too). I don't really need an earth bless because my sacreds are so damn hard to hit as it is, and the minor water bless boosts their defense even higher (a little, anyways). Plus they regenerate due to the nature bless. Ys doesn't have H3 priests, but bishop fish are easy to summon, and amulets of the fish are easy to craft (Ys can recruit casters with both air and water).

[ThtblovesDF]

Ys is quite special, I agree, but I found it extremly hard to get any amount of blessed sacreds going with it - and maybe Earth is still good there, to manage fatigue vs chaff

I used to play with high income bless(s) for big armys, now I play the same for mage/fort/lab spam (Pan/Oceania and R'yleh all enjoy this greatly, a trend I didn't notice myself for a while).

I want to like nations with mixed themes (like lanka, Ys, etc), but I just can't seem to make em work...

Oh and Bless strats are great if you want a "fairly" low effort game, it tends to be a bit of a one trick pony.

[E. Albright]

Most of the pretenders I make tend to be imprisoned titans or immobiles with a 9/4 N/E, high Luck and Drain, and some mix of Growth and Order with temp variations and/or Sloth for cost counterbalance.

However. Most games I play are SP games testing NationGen features, not played to completion, and frequently with nations I haven't even looked at. The above mix is one that I've found to be flexible and comfortable for generic early games on large maps for as long as it takes for me to test or get a sense of foo, where foo is whatever change or implementation I'm sanity-checking. Under very specific circumstances I've done similar things in MP, but I'd be more likely to go minor-only or 9S in those cases, depending on the paths available to the nation.

Generally, I don't like to rush. I can do it, but I'd rather come up with a plan that lets me avoid rushing while staving off anyone who rushes me. All the preceding reflects that.