Dominions FOUR: Sequel to the Best Game Ever

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dominions FOUR: Sequel to the Best Game Ever

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

LordLeckie posted:

I thought the animal siege penalty was that they dont contribute/reduced contribute to fort defence

Roland Jones posted:

Yeah, animals (and things like lobo guards) can't defend well. They can still smash things, and that includes walls and gates.

Anyway, I'm going to see something on this topic soon, so I'll report my findings when, well, I find them.

Animal siege penalty is literally bullshit that people made up and you should feel bad for spreading it. It doesn't exist.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:00

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# ? May 10, 2024 00:36

LordLeckie: Nov 14, 2009

Christ i didnt loving know this detail about this stupidly complex and impenetrable game. Sorry.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:02

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Does anyone know of a way to mod starting forts other than giving the nation in question a universal #fortera number?

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:08

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Well, that's fine and all, hell I don't know all the mechanics. But if you then erroneously correct someone else who's right, I kind of have to correct you back or next time there'll be four people piping up that hey monkeys are bad at sieges because animals (false).

jBrereton posted:

Does anyone know of a way to mod starting forts other than giving the nation in question a universal #fortera number?

Nope! I asked this one on another forum and got a dev response. Currently not possible.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:09

Wolfsbane: Jul 29, 2009; What time is it, Eccles?

Incidentally, if any mod makers want to make requests for features, there's a thread here that the devs are reading and posting in.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:17

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

http://jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_modding.pdf
#animal
Indicates that the monster is an animal. Animals
are affected by the Animal Awe power. Animals
have a penalty when besieging castles, but
receive a morale bonus when led to combat by a
beast master.

How big is the penalty?

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:49

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

TheDemon posted:

Nope! I asked this one on another forum and got a dev response. Currently not possible.

Alright well I'm going out for a little while, but after I get back, I'll knock up and post some Fort Equality mods (already got EA and MA done before I realised what the time was), plus an All Era Fortresses mod which should go some way to allaying how loving awful the LA game is for attacking capitals. Couple of hours, maybe.

amuayse posted:

http://jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_modding.pdf
#animal
Indicates that the monster is an animal. Animals
are affected by the Animal Awe power. Animals
have a penalty when besieging castles, but
receive a morale bonus when led to combat by a
beast master.

How big is the penalty?

If it exists at all, which I don't think it does, the best way to test it out would be to make a Human vs Human game, and attack a nation with lovely PD but a high-defence capital (like Formoria, I guess) with Kailasa or some other nation which is mainly animals.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Sep 16, 2013

# ? Sep 16, 2013 13:52

KOGAHAZAN!!: Apr 29, 2013; a miserable failure as a person

an incredible success as a magical murder spider

jBrereton posted:

If it exists at all, which I don't think it does, the best way to test it out would be to make a Human vs Human game, and attack a nation with lovely PD but a high-defence capital (like Formoria, I guess) with Kailasa or some other nation which is mainly animals.

If there's a thread the devs are listening on

Wolfsbane posted:

Incidentally, if any mod makers want to make requests for features, there's a thread here that the devs are reading and posting in.

would it not be simpler and faster just to ask them directly?

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:01

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

amuayse posted:

http://jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_modding.pdf
#animal
Indicates that the monster is an animal. Animals
are affected by the Animal Awe power. Animals
have a penalty when besieging castles, but
receive a morale bonus when led to combat by a
beast master.

How big is the penalty?

I doublechecked it in a human vs human game and the penalty is non-existent.

Four Elephants (20 str) and one 13 str commander did 17 damage to an empty fort.
The formula says they should do:
(20^2 * 4 + 13^2 * 1) / 100 = 17.69

10 hydra hatchlings (12 str) and one 11 str commander did 15 damage to an empty fort.
The formula says they should do:
(12^2 * 10 + 11^2 *1) / 100 = 15.61

I'll re-report the error in the mod manual, but this has been a manual error since Dom3.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:03

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

amuayse posted:

http://jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_modding.pdf
#animal
Indicates that the monster is an animal. Animals
are affected by the Animal Awe power. Animals
have a penalty when besieging castles, but
receive a morale bonus when led to combat by a
beast master.

How big is the penalty?

Zero. It should read when defending castles. Other than black hawks, who are specifically nerfed for sieges, animals have normal siege values.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:07

Dropbear: Jul 26, 2007; Bombs away!

Is there a list of actually worthwhile spells that you can build your strategy around somewhere? As in, which offensive spells are actually worth aiming for etc? Seems like there's a ton of useless fodder-spells that are either just rubbish or so niche you very, very rarely see a reason for them.

It's a shame they still haven't had anyone with a functioning brain take a look at the UI. The design decisions in it are still just baffling - for example, why can't I see the nations' details when I'm choosing a nation, only AFTER that at the start of the game when it's too late to change anything? It'd be handy to see the spell lists when making a pretender, as well. A lot of the nation flags are also very similar looking, so it'd be nice to have some kind of a distinct border around your lands (like in Civ V, for example). The first Dominions had a nice colored gradient overlay that showed your dominion, which sort-of did the trick.

Still like the game a lot, mind you, but drat. It could be so much more approachable with relatively small changes.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:08

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Nuclearmonkee posted:

Zero. It should read when defending castles. Other than black hawks, who are specifically nerfed for sieges, animals have normal siege values.

I also just tested defending forts and the results with animals were consistent with the str^2/100 formula. There is no siege defense penalty in Dom4 for animals, just like there was none in Dom3.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:09

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Dropbear posted:

Is there a list of actually worthwhile spells that you can build your strategy around somewhere? As in, which offensive spells are actually worth aiming for etc? Seems like there's a ton of useless fodder-spells that are either just rubbish or so niche you very, very rarely see a reason for them.

It's a shame they still haven't had anyone with a functioning brain take a look at the UI. The design decisions in it are still just baffling - for example, why can't I see the nations' details when I'm choosing a nation, only AFTER that at the start of the game when it's too late to change anything? It'd be handy to see the spell lists when making a pretender, as well. A lot of the nation flags are also very similar looking, so it'd be nice to have some kind of a distinct border around your lands (like in Civ V, for example). The first Dominions had a nice colored gradient overlay that showed your dominion, which sort-of did the trick.

Still like the game a lot, mind you, but drat. It could be so much more approachable with relatively small changes.

For battle spells specifically, here's a list.

All: Conj: xpower spells like Summon Earthpower, some of which have prerequisite battle conditions

Air: Evo: Thunder Strike, Alt: Fog Warriors, Ench: Mass Flight
Water: Evo: Falling Frost
Fire: Evo: Falling Fires, Flaming Arrows
Earth: Evo: Blade Wind, Alt: Destruction, Earth Meld, Maws of the Earth
Death: Evo: Shadow Blast, Alt: Darkness, Ench: Horde of Skeletons and lesser equivs
Astral: lol gently caress you astral nations (Evo: Stellar Cascades, Thau: Soul Slay)
Nature: lol gently caress you nature nations

Path Combos: Evo: Freezing Mists, Acid Rain, Bane Fire, Magma Eruption, Rain of Stones, Nether Darts

Not all of that are blasting spells but I included some game-changers that get used on the battlefield a lot. There are lesser and situational spells in all paths, nature for example has quite a few that can be good sometimes maybe.

Out of battle, it's even more situational and it would be really hard to make a list. No one actually knows what's good yet.

TheDemon fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Sep 16, 2013

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:21

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

Caelum with Storm/Staff of Storm/Perpetual Storm & Storm Power with Orb/Thunderstrike/Wrathful Skies/Shimmering Fields is great.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:27

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

TheDemon posted:

I also just tested defending forts and the results with animals were consistent with the str^2/100 formula. There is no siege defense penalty in Dom4 for animals, just like there was none in Dom3.

I am a big dumb babby and was thinking of mindless units.

Watch them fix the bug by adding the modifier that mindless units have and in the process completely destroy the ability of the monkey civs to siege :v:

# ? Sep 16, 2013 14:34

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Alright it looks like this modding thing is working. Now the only thing which is going to affect starting fort balance should be the start location of a nation (which I can't seem to be able to specifically mod, so ho hum), but all starting forts are thus:

EA Fort Equality:

Land: 35 (Mountain/Swamp/Wastes) or 40 (Other) Admin, 700 Defence Fortresses.
Water: 34 Admin, 150 Defence Kelp Fortresses.

MA Fort Equality:

Land: 40 (Mountain/Swamp/Wastes) or 45 (Other) Admin, 850 Defence Castles
Water: 39 Admin, 600 Defence Basalt Castles.

LA Fort Equality:

Land: 49 (Mountain/Swamp/Wastes) or 54 (Other) Admin, 1100 Defence Citadels
Water: 39 Admin, 600 Defence Basalt Castles.

And then All Era Fortresses, same as EA, but for all nations (which maybe fucks water nations over a little in terms of defence, but benefits them in terms of build time and cost for additional forts).

Is there are a good place to put this mod, other than the Desura forums?

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Sep 16, 2013

# ? Sep 16, 2013 16:06

Deep Thought: Mar 7, 2005

I just got the beta and am down for any newbie game about to happen.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 16:13

How are u: May 19, 2005; by Azathoth

Sorry for spreading false information about animals and sieges, I thought it was true

# ? Sep 16, 2013 16:33

Cheen: Apr 17, 2005

To all the new folks TenjouUtena was nice enough to host a newbie game! You can find the info here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3498140&perpage=40&pagenumber=37#post419506365

# ? Sep 16, 2013 16:56

Kenlon: Jun 27, 2003; Digitus Impudicus

TheDemon posted:

Nature: lol gently caress you nature nations

Nature isn't quite that badly off:
Evo 4: Breath of the Dragon is decent, for it's large AOE and low fatigue.
Thaum 3: Panic isn't half bad either.

You also get a whole stack of buff spells for your troops, including things like Relief.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:01

Nothingtoseehere: Nov 11, 2010

TheDemon posted:

For battle spells specifically, here's a list.

Path Combos: Evo: Freezing Mists, Acid Rain, Bane Fire, Magma Eruption, Rain of Stones, Nether Darts

You missed out Gifts from Heaven.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:05

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Kenlon posted:

Nature isn't quite that badly off:
Evo 4: Breath of the Dragon is decent, for it's large AOE and low fatigue.
Thaum 3: Panic isn't half bad either.

You also get a whole stack of buff spells for your troops, including things like Relief.

Mainly, though, you get your Yogini/N2 Warrior Priestesses/N2 Mo5Es helpfully casting Bezerkers in your archer mob and ruining literally loving everything always all the time forever why god why

# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:09

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

But then sometimes a Serpent Priest casts berserkers on your Hydra swarm, and they destroy everything. So it balances out.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 17:20

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Kenlon posted:

Nature isn't quite that badly off:
Evo 4: Breath of the Dragon is decent, for it's large AOE and low fatigue.
Thaum 3: Panic isn't half bad either.

You also get a whole stack of buff spells for your troops, including things like Relief.

Breath of the Dragon is ok, I personally prefer Poison Cloud, but the poison spells just don't have the punch other paths do and are far more situational. The mr-resist transform-into-things like frogs or whatever spells are actually good in Dom4 too, but high research and whatnot.

nothing to seehere posted:

You missed out Gifts from Heaven.

Oh yeah, that one too.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 18:56

builds character: Jan 16, 2008; Keep at it.

TheDemon posted:

Breath of the Dragon is ok, I personally prefer Poison Cloud, but the poison spells just don't have the punch other paths do and are far more situational. The mr-resist transform-into-things like frogs or whatever spells are actually good in Dom4 too, but high research and whatnot.

Oh yeah, that one too.

Nether darts?

# ? Sep 16, 2013 19:34

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

So, a lot of the nature buffs are self evident, but there's one spell I'm curious about:
Stream of Life. Is this any good (if you're not facing a solo supercombatant)?

Target dies or goes berserk, and only 20 fatigue. The wiki for Dom3 says the chance of death starts at 40% and goes up 5% per skill level.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 19:46

dis astranagant: Dec 14, 2006

Can't use it as a save or die because half the time they don't die and kick your rear end for it, can't really use it as a buff because half the time they drop dead. Useless. Bonus points for having larger versions of the same buffs available elsewhere.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 19:52

Diabl0658: Dec 10, 2008; These are the games we play.

Dont forget foul vapors, enchantment 5 n3w1. Conveniently enchantment also has spells for giving your troops poison resistance.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 20:29

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

builds character posted:

Nether darts?

TheDemon posted:

Path Combos: Evo: Freezing Mists, Acid Rain, Bane Fire, Magma Eruption, Rain of Stones, Nether Darts

One summon I find quite good in Dom4 are Ogres. They're size 3 and good hitpoints and their attack doesn't suck, AND the spell is extremely efficient.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 20:51

Dirk the Average: Feb 7, 2012; "This may have been a mistake."

How are u posted:

Sorry for spreading false information about animals and sieges, I thought it was true

To be fair, what you were saying is backed up by the manual. I also thought it was true, and am very glad it was brought up so that I could learn otherwise.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 21:22

ZLogic: Feb 14, 2006; THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD IS HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE

Get out of my swamp!

to my Dominions Four :ducksiren:

# ? Sep 16, 2013 21:58

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

drat those are some good Awe rolls.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 22:01

Dropbear: Jul 26, 2007; Bombs away!

Huh, looks like clamming is gone:

I came across some other "Gives temporary <path> pearls"-items as well. Seems interesting, at least those would kill the need to shuffle pearls to your casters all the time. There also seems to be a potion to cure disease from any commander, so it isn't a death sentence anymore (even without healers); crafting it does require greater magic items, nature 5 and 30 nature gems, though.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 22:28

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

Dropbear posted:

Huh, looks like clamming is gone:

I came across some other "Gives temporary <path> pearls"-items as well. Seems interesting, at least those would kill the need to shuffle pearls to your casters all the time. There also seems to be a potion to cure disease from any commander, so it isn't a death sentence anymore (even without healers); crafting it does require greater magic items, nature 5 and 30 nature gems, though.

That was actually they intended purpose of all the gemgens. It was to be an item that could keep your combat mages supplied, not something that you build into a giant wish fueling pyramid scheme.

# ? Sep 16, 2013 22:37

Victor Vermis: Dec 21, 2004; WOKE UP IN THE DESERT AGAIN

ZLogic posted:

Get out of my swamp!

to my Dominions Four

Poor girl had something like 150+ fatigue by the time she dropped. I assume that's from the whip vines? I pushed my luck by going for a 2nd province there- I definitely would've dipped out if I'd seen that big ugly ahead of time. C'est la vie, Pizza for Breakfast.

It looks like Niefelheim and C'tis are coming to pay their respects, how very ~~devilishly opportunistic~~ thoughtful of them.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 00:03

Diabl0658: Dec 10, 2008; These are the games we play.

You couldn't have seen it because it was sneaking around in pan form at the time you attacked.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 00:07

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

Don't forget, if you joined the newbie game EZDomEZGod, upload your pretender!

# ? Sep 17, 2013 01:38

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

Jon Joe posted:

Don't forget, if you joined the newbie game EZDomEZGod, upload your pretender!

And don't press the 'Start Game' button on the screen after you do so!

# ? Sep 17, 2013 01:53

regularizer: Mar 5, 2012

Is the price going to go up once it's out of beta?

# ? Sep 17, 2013 02:10

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# ? May 10, 2024 00:36

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

regularizer posted:

Is the price going to go up once it's out of beta?

No idea, preorderers got a discount. Doubt it, though, and certainly doubt we'll see a return to the old Shrapnel price of ~�50, plus another few if you want to download it after more than about ten minutes.

# ? Sep 17, 2013 02:44

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