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Author Topic: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension  (Read 517511 times)

Shadowlord

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #675 on: May 30, 2014, 04:40:01 am »

I played 403 as Abysia with this pretender, and there were soooo many times that I wished I had made a rainbow sage instead:
Spoiler: Screenshot (click to show/hide)

Also, at the end of the game I had 2N and I don't think I ever had any N income, but I had no N site-searchers and no mages with N at all. It's literally not possible unless you find a place to hire indie mages with N skill, or your pretender has it.

I didn't do very well, but I can point to some reasons why:
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. Of course, I successfully took a ton of Mictlan's provinces and then their throne, but they really WERE basically undefended. I also failed in my attacks on both of the thrones to my south, held by Berytos, one of which had a hero at it, who my Demonborn failed utterly to kill, but Berytos didn't want to pursue a war, or I'd have ended up in a three-front war instead of a two-front war. I lost most of my armies at the time by doing this because I overestimated the effectiveness of my troops and underestimated my targets' troops.

I also ended up in permanent war with Ur and Mictlan. Of those, Ur was the real threat, and Mictlan was only a threat because I couldn't send my capital-defense army far enough to crush them conclusively (their jaguar warriors might as well have been made out of butter - the few victories they won were largely against either armyless provinces, indies I had hired, or mercs I deliberately suicided into their army because their contract was about to run out #VaderWouldBeProud).

As for Ur, they had 200-300 troops and 25ish mages in their army, so when they first showed up to besiege my capital, I had my army sit inside while assassins killed their mages/commanders, until they finally called off the attack for a while (they attempted to return, but then we get signal: all your base are belong to tompliss).

That reminds me, in my province information for the under-siege province, the turn before Ur's army completely left, the supplies were about to run out in the province while I was under siege. I was assuming at the time that those were my supplies, and not the enemy army's supplies. Is that correct?
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tompliss

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #676 on: May 30, 2014, 04:43:26 am »

I don't know whether the Astral gem per turn would be such a great bonus...
On the other hand, you have access to the Neteret of Many Names, that has inspiring researcher 2, to help you boost your research engine. She has bast costs to magic patchs at 20, but higher starting dominion (that compensate the buying cost of 2 paths).
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #677 on: May 30, 2014, 05:16:20 am »

I agree, EA Abysia needs a good way to diversify. With only fire you end up as a one-trick pony. Easy to push others around up to mid game, completely useless in late game.
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Mindmaker

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #678 on: May 30, 2014, 05:19:29 am »

Problem is that you are being limited by turns. Your pretender can only do one thing per turn.
A rainbow should be sitesearching, not researching. Also to really benefit from him you would need to get an awake one, which leaves you with little points.

I mean I was considering getting one of the inspiring researchers, but then I saw that your national researchers aren't all that bad. You can get the F2 ones and use them as battlemages later.
I probably should be getting some of those paths at 4 instead of 2, but I don't know which ones.

Edit:
Also astral gems never hurt, they are a rather rare sort and very precious for endgame so +1 right from the start is nice.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2014, 05:26:04 am by Mindmaker »
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tompliss

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #679 on: May 30, 2014, 05:26:26 am »

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.

EDIT: but it may be a good idea to keep him at home for a turn or two, to get Evo:1 up quickly, so the pretender helps in combats...
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #680 on: May 30, 2014, 05:58:53 am »

Yeah, I'm not actually sure if I'd want to go rainbow with an abysian pretender. Not quite sure what I'd be looking for (I mean, a decent high earth would be nice for making my ridiculously tough troopers moreso later on -- armies of foo -- as would decent N for GoH.), but it would probably 3/4 in 1-3 (Not fire/blood, probably not astral -- Abysia's got native S3 via one out of ten cap'd warlocks) paths... maybe less, depending on booster access for said path. At the very least, instead of going 2 across the board, I'd be tailoring it to boosters -- water could be left at 1 (gets to 3 without much difficulty, and can go even higher if you burn some artifacts on it) pretty easily, ferex, but other stuff might be able to stand being higher. Not so much looking for a site-searcher (though that would help, early on), but rather a ritualist -- someone to summon more diverse battle casters/summoners. Or a forger, too... elemental staves would probably be pretty nice on your anointed if you could wrangle 'em. Expensive, but being able to easily turn your anoints into E4 or E5 (boots, earth power)...

Problem being that if you did run for staves, you'd be having either a fire or earth overlap with your nationals. Not exactly the worst thing (at least for earth -- fire would be kinda' wasteful), but eh.
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tompliss

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #681 on: May 30, 2014, 06:29:30 am »

Well, for element staff, E4A4 would be quite nice : sacred mages would get reinvigoration to help them with spell fatigue, and a little bit of precision to help them aim their fireballs.
And you get to have easy access to the earth spells that offer nice boosts to the armies.
For water, 1 may be a bit low for site-searching and as the booster would need construction 6, you would have to wait for a long time before you can get something good from that.

Also a little thing you might want to think about, even if it goes agaisnt the other pieces of advice : the Heat inducing ritual is F3A1. You won't have air on your mages, and you may not want F3 on your pretender, but the spell can be good...
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #682 on: May 30, 2014, 11:59:37 am »

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.

Actually it was undefended. I remember scrambling to get defenders up to try and stop your troops from rampaging across my lands. When I saw how easily I managed to stop you I literally couldn't believe it. That bit about your demonbreds suiciding themselves on 5 PD was pretty silly too.
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azurelao

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #683 on: May 30, 2014, 02:32:25 pm »

Does anyone have tips for playing EA Ulm?
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RexMundi

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #684 on: May 30, 2014, 05:25:56 pm »

This game on sale anywhere? i keep missing sales on gamersgate and steam >.<
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TripJack

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #685 on: May 30, 2014, 05:28:56 pm »

it is still 50% off on steam, deal lasts until monday
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E. Albright

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #686 on: May 30, 2014, 06:09:30 pm »

Does anyone have tips for playing EA Ulm?

The Desura forums have a guide generally described as pretty solid.
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RexMundi

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #687 on: May 30, 2014, 06:17:42 pm »

it is still 50% off on steam, deal lasts until monday
holy crap, didn't see that, thanks so much!
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Mindmaker

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #688 on: May 30, 2014, 06:46:50 pm »

Well I think I managed to make a workable pretender for EA Abyssia, even if some other people complain about an exploitable weakness.
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #689 on: May 30, 2014, 09:56:15 pm »

Exploitable weakness being... well, if I'm guessing right, no less than S3 on your pretender, unless you've got easy-access S3 nationals. Otherwise, mind hunt* will be used to violently murder it. Seriously, on a pretender, if you go astral, no less than 3. Ever. Unless it's a very, very disposable pretender, because it's going to be disposed of. Immortal chassis, maybe? Well... maybe two, if you get a cap quicklike, but better not to risk it.

*40% chance to prevent per level, apparently. S3 or higher is guaranteed protection for the province that caster is in. Incidentally -- if you know S3 or better is in the province in question, don't mind hunt.
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