|
So Caelum is pretty poo poo huh? That's a shame because I like them thematically, I suppose my next choice would be Agartha or Ulm, both of those are pretty cool as well as Helheim. Basically all the cold nations seem really cool. I'll have to not get attached to certain pretenders for their look and go by stats, but I'll sign up for that newbie game so I can be easy fodder and hopefully learn a little doing so!
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 13:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 15:49 |
|
|
Helheim is excellent, Ulm varies between good (LA Ulm), alright, ish (EA Ulm), and terribad other than at indie bashing (MA Ulm). Agartha is probably the worst nation in every single age it inhabits 
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 13:53
|
|
|
I have a certain amount of irrational affection for LA Ulm, but 'good' is a bit of a stretch. edit: I hate admitting it but EA Ulm is probably the way better nation.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 13:54
|
|
|
I finally got enough extra cash to upgrade to 4. Everything looks 100x better than 3 UI wise.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 13:58
|
|
|
LA Ulm gets cheapo stealthy crossbowmen, strong path access to everything other than N, so long as you get a pretender who can cast Sanguine Heritage, and recruit-everywhere national mages, plus access to the AP 2x Magic Being Damage ExHx dart attacks from MA. I dunno. I likes 'em!
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 14:02
|
|
|
I unironically think Caelum is one of the best nations in MA. Its definitely a nation that requires a lot more effort to succeed, but they are good once you get going.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 14:02
|
|
|
jBrereton posted:Helheim is excellent, Ulm varies between good (LA Ulm), alright, ish (EA Ulm), and terribad other than at indie bashing (MA Ulm). Agartha is probably the worst nation in every single age it inhabits As someone playing Helheim right now out of nostalgia i can only say i wish i wasnt playing Helheim.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 14:15
|
|
|
brainwrinkle posted:The most difficult part of playing Dominions 3/4 is getting motivated to do your turns when you're losing. Playing bad nations because you like their flavor makes this happen more often. My main motivation when I'm losing is always: Play as annoying as possible, plant forts on every province and if you're down to one last army in some random province, try to bash as many enemy provinces as possible before your dwindling numbers and rising enemy PD / armies finally catch up to you. Stuff that makes at least a last impression before you're pulled under.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 14:35
|
|
|
jBrereton posted:Helheim is excellent, Ulm varies between good (LA Ulm), alright, ish (EA Ulm), and terribad other than at indie bashing (MA Ulm). Agartha is probably the worst nation in every single age it inhabits LA Agartha can do some fun things with some planning. Ktonians are cap-only now, but they get bonus resources from Reanimators. Slow-moving, nearsighted legions of doom will be a Thing. MA now has access to Rhuax and Barathrus Pacts, which are good summons. Plus the whole Golem Cult dominion effect. Edit: For Caelum-chat, Corpse Constructs are super cheap (with the Staff bonus), shock & cold resistant, high HP, high Morale chaff. They can take a while to amass, but when you've got A1D1 mages and plenty of high A&W Evos to fling around, might as well set some dudes to monthly summoning. Speleothing fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Sep 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 15:05
|
|
|
What magic school has the spells that allow you to attack underwater with your army? I'm in a 1 v 1 against a aquatic nation and I just need to finish them off. I completely took over the map aside from a small island I can't get to. I need a way to travel over water so I can take out his ocean based Providences. VVVV DrManiac fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Sep 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 16:24
|
|
|
Just finished a test game with Shinuyama. Those Bakemono Sorcerers can manufacture more arms than BAE Systems when you get to Construction 6 My only regret is that I never got to use this guy in battle (and leaving renaming off, so I couldn't call him Rustle Brands):  @DrManiac - do you mean UW Evo, or like 'getting there in the first place'?
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 16:56
|
|
|
I actually thought LA Agartha previously was pretty solid (although this may have been under CBM, can't remember). The other ages were definitely lackluster. Also LA Ulm could really be a superpower if you can get their blood developed and turn into a vampire nation. I could see them being better now with ranged weapons piercing shields (rangers are a solid unit). I've been really trying to get the Carrion Woods version of MA Pan to work, but am at a loss. Their mages suck outside of the Pans, and you need a bunch of magic on pretender and scales for freespawn. Any advice?
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 17:18
|
|
|
DrManiac posted:What magic school has the spells that allow you to attack underwater with your army? I'm in a 1 v 1 against a aquatic nation and I just need to finish them off. I don't have a useful save available to me at the moment, (and I don't know what nation you're using) so I'm just going to offer a few general ideas. Hrmm... if you're just facing an AI opponent, undead commanders and troops are often poor amphibians and very accessible. There's also usually a coastal province with Icithyds (spelling?) which certainly won't win you any real battles, but may provide chaff for any supercombatants/thugs you do send down. Water breathing items you can forge primarily require air. There are a few that require gems of multiple types, and a few that require water gems. Water skill is fairly easy to boost into higher levels. The individual (see thug) water breathing items are fairly pretty low requirement in gems, paths, and research, but there are a few items that will grant breathing to small armies. There is one water global that should grant everybody waterbreathing, but I doubt that's accessible to you.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 17:37
|
|
|
DrManiac posted:What magic school has the spells that allow you to attack underwater with your army? I'm in a 1 v 1 against a aquatic nation and I just need to finish them off. Research some construction. With W1 you can forge some items which grant water breathing. With W3 you can forge a Sea King Goblet which grants water breathing 50. If you have death and conjuration you can summon up some poor amphibians (Bane Lord, Harvester of Sorrows, Wraith Lord etc) and kit them out to easily clear water provinces. Alternatively you can just spam temples and domkill them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 17:44
|
|
|
alansmithee posted:I actually thought LA Agartha previously was pretty solid (although this may have been under CBM, can't remember). The other ages were definitely lackluster. Also LA Ulm could really be a superpower if you can get their blood developed and turn into a vampire nation. I could see them being better now with ranged weapons piercing shields (rangers are a solid unit). I'm playing them in testrandom; took a sleeping titan of war and wisdom with a4 e4 s5 5dom t3 g3 l3 m3. Went turmoil cause your pop dies anyways and then growth and magic to get more and better manikin. It's turn 32 now and my cap still has 14k pop, so I suppose order is not totally out of the question. You don't need a high dominion as your temples are only 100 gold and you need them to get more undead. Don't take a lot if any sloth, you'll need to hire plenty of troops early on and they continue being decent later on. Seven or so of the female centaurs with a harpy can take most indies, don't use the berserking ones. Alteration and enchantment will be your most useful research paths I think. Get a good mother oak up, you want those nature gems to get carrion lords.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 18:48
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:So Caelum is pretty poo poo huh? That's a shame because I like them thematically, I suppose my next choice would be Agartha or Ulm, both of those are pretty cool as well as Helheim. Basically all the cold nations seem really cool. I'll have to not get attached to certain pretenders for their look and go by stats, but I'll sign up for that newbie game so I can be easy fodder and hopefully learn a little doing so! As Lilli said, Caelum's actually really, really good. EA and MA at least. In Dom3 it was somewhat hampered by its main form of attack being pretty easy to become immune to, which combined with their single focus giving them a relatively weak endgame, but given the new resistance mechanics and there being a way to win besides "annihilate everyone else" they're doing better, to say the least. Also, looking for a better nation and thinking about Agartha... Ooh boy. I think MA Agartha is/was in the running for worst nation in the game? Helheim's good but the slow-to-recruit change (and particularly it being applied to their main research mage in addition to their actual best unit) has brought them down a peg from Dom3. Not sure about Ulm, but I've heard people describing issues with how they're the non-magic nation in a game where magic is what wins, so. At the least, if you play them, don't fall into the trap of going Construction first; despite what you might think it doesn't help them. But, yeah. Again, as Lilli said, Caelum's not an easy nation to use and probably doesn't make a good starter nation either, since they play a bit differently from the other nations and will probably teach you bad habits. Go with... Hm, crud, I don't know what the good newbie nations are. Not a water nation though, those play differently as well. Freespawn-popkill nations (MA Ermor, LA R'lyeh, Asphodel, I think Lemuria) aren't good choices either. I guess someone with a strong focus on at least one path for learning battlemagic (Abysia with Fire, for example) wouldn't be a bad start, since battlemagic is a thing you /need/ to learn. The *heims aren't actually bad either, for learning about things like gearing thugs and raiding, but I don't know if they're the best first choice. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Sep 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 20:19
|
|
|
I'd argue that Tien'Chi in either EA or MA is a great first choice of nation. You've got broad path access on your cap only mages, cheap researchers, and a broad selection of decent troops to play around with. You've even got decent sacreds in EA if you want to mess around with a bless. If you want to learn how blood works, Mictlan is an excellent choice, as blessed jags will carry your early game, and Mictlan priests with dowsing rods make for fantastic hunters once you start dabbling in more blood spells.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 20:25
|
|
|
I have actually been messing about with Abysia EA and MA. I like MA because they get humanbred which are decently cheap and effective and with order 3 I can't even spend my money fast enough (the main costs are buildings which are on average 3-400g more than normal). But the guys on IRC tell me that abysia infantry is infact quite poo poo. They cost tons of resources and they have very poor strategic speed which is a handicap against human opponents, and their holy unit costs something ridiculous like 41 resources so they're hard to spam for a bless strategy. Abysia in MA (where they have the good infantry) also have all their mages start old, so once the time spell hits they are all dead. Unless I could transition abysia somehow into a completely demon based mage economy they just aren't viable late game. I've toyed around with Ulm who have glamour on everything which seems strong, but that could just be against independents. I think the place where I am weakest right now is not knowing item construction and mage paths. So I'll have to look into that to really plan out a strategy for where I want to go magic wise. I'm probably going to try out more of the barbarian nations with a heavy magic focus or just go for the undead hordes of Ermor Edit: How do people prioritise mages? I really, really hate pulling them off research to go to war because while 3 mages spamming fireballs is great, I just want to race down the research paths for the good stuff.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 20:58
|
|
|
Scelaria is probably going to serve you better than Ermor. Any era of Arcos is probably good for beginners, also.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 21:01
|
|
|
3.99h is on the way once it goes through desura's approval process http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/version-399h
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 21:06
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:Abysia in MA (where they have the good infantry) also have all their mages start old, so once the time spell hits they are all dead. Unless I could transition abysia somehow into a completely demon based mage economy they just aren't viable late game. Don't even need BoT for that. Warlocks are so old they may as well start diseased.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 21:17
|
|
|
Nuclearmonkee posted:Don't even need BoT for that. Warlocks are so old they may as well start diseased. It's worse for Anathemant Dragons.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 21:29
|
|
|
3.99 h is out and you can download it now!
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 22:31
|
|
|
Nuclearmonkee posted:Don't even need BoT for that. Warlocks are so old they may as well start diseased. Speaking of, did they fix aging for Atlanteans? The whole goddamn lore of the race is based on Atlanteans not "aging" but "continuously growing" (same with Aboleths, iirc) so they should at least be immune to aging if not get like neg-age.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 22:32
|
|
|
Niefelheim is a really powerful and easy to play nation which has a lot of flexibility: 1. You can bless Jotun Giants and have them kill everything by walking toward it 2. You can recruit some skinshifters and kill everything by maiming it It is this vast array of strategies that makes it a strong nation.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 22:33
|
|
|
Jotun Giants are the size 4 giants, you mean niefel giants right? Also, dont forget as a blood nation Abysia can forge boots of youth and cast blood feast to stave off aging afflictions on important mages. That and take growth scales. Ive played MA abysia and aging isnt as huge an issue as it seems.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 22:37
|
|
|
TheDemon posted:3.99h is on the way once it goes through desura's approval process I'm downloading it now. I love awkward races like agartha, atlantis, fomoria, even though I'm not any good. It's already come up previously, but... The rescaling of research and slow to recruit makes low cost sacred mage-priests like Earth readers a lot more efficent with some magic scales in terms of gold and time compared to some of the high end mages, but I'm absolutely horrified to realize that the lowly Earth Reader (1E, 1 random) is 1). Their only non-capital mage in early age. 2). Their only non-STR mage in the early age. 3). You need a fortress, temple, and lab (minimum 1500 gold) to recruit more of them. I'm a bit horrified, all things considered. I didn't realize things were quite this bad. Even though LA Atlantis is in much the same boat, I wasn't nearly as shocked. In fact, Angakoks might actually be a better buy than the oracles despite coming two eras later. Hidden in sand is moderately accessible at 6 and boosts my access to death, but are there any better options for summonable mage-commanders? LordSloth fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Sep 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 22:41
|
|
|
LordSloth posted:I'm a bit horrified, all things considered. I didn't realize things were quite this bad. Even though LA Atlantis is in much the same boat, I wasn't nearly as shocked. In fact, Angakoks might actually be a better buy than the oracles despite coming two eras later. I always thought that was sort of how it was supposed to be - EA tends to have absurdly powerful cap-only mages, while LA has more institutionalized magic, so that your line mages tend to be great and your cap only mages are better, but not overwhelmingly so (or if they're better mages, they tend to not have really special things like flight, awe, being a giant, etc.).
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 23:17
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:Edit: How do people prioritise mages? I really, really hate pulling them off research to go to war because while 3 mages spamming fireballs is great, I just want to race down the research paths for the good stuff.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2013 23:31
|
|
|
Dirk the Average posted:I always thought that was sort of how it was supposed to be - EA tends to have absurdly powerful cap-only mages, while LA has more institutionalized magic, so that your line mages tend to be great and your cap only mages are better, but not overwhelmingly so (or if they're better mages, they tend to not have really special things like flight, awe, being a giant, etc.). Well... EA Agartha 1 earth, 1 random. That's the only non-capitol mage. Looking at the recruit screen and seeing just 1E is at first a bit horrifying. Then you look a little closer. Ulm has better recruit-anywhere mages. Ulm. MA Agartha has 1 earth no random earth readers - and the 1F1W2E Golem Crafters. Between EA Atlantis (no cold-blooded, darkvision, elemental resists) and the other 'giant' races, I'm not sure why I'd want to play Agartha. If I wanted recruit anywhere sacred giants, Fomoria has unmarked. That said, the King of the Deep is significantly more expensive. My whole Dom3 plans for Agartha revolved around those E3 mages. I know I can an Earth reader to an effective e3 with little effort, but I was just shocked by the E1 w/o seeing the random at first glance. Still, that's just a whole lot less mage power with less alternative than I'm used to. I might join that newbie game since I'm so out of practice and see what I can pull off with Agartha as a handicap. LordSloth fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Sep 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 00:03
|
|
|
Demiurge4 posted:So Caelum is pretty poo poo huh? That's a shame because I like them thematically, I suppose my next choice would be Agartha or Ulm, both of those are pretty cool as well as Helheim. Basically all the cold nations seem really cool. I'll have to not get attached to certain pretenders for their look and go by stats, but I'll sign up for that newbie game so I can be easy fodder and hopefully learn a little doing so! Another problem with Caelum is they're almost hard countered by thugs/SCs with shock resist gear. Which your enemies are almost sure to build.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 00:17
|
|
|
Regarding LA Ulm, what's the best use of the vampires from Sanguine Heritage? Do you use them as commanders, thugs, communion mages?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 00:47
|
|
|
The Moon Monster posted:Another problem with Caelum is they're almost hard countered by thugs/SCs with shock resist gear. Which your enemies are almost sure to build. This is no longer even remotely true. Gear that used to give 100% shock resist now gives 15, and lightning spells can easily blow through that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 00:59
|
|
|
how does the new resistance interact with stamina damage from spells? if you have 15 resistance and get hit by a 10 damage lightning attack, is the fatigue damage negated as well?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 01:06
|
|
|
NinjaDebugger posted:This is no longer even remotely true. Gear that used to give 100% shock resist now gives 15, and lightning spells can easily blow through that. But my thunderstrike will only hit for 20 instead of 35  The resist changes greatly help A nations since lightning is AN and can do a shitload of damage per spell.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 01:10
|
|
|
Flavahbeast posted:how does the new resistance interact with stamina damage from spells? if you have 15 resistance and get hit by a 10 damage lightning attack, is the fatigue damage negated as well? The fatigue part is also elemental and reduced separately. For instance lightning bolt is 12+ 1/level damage to the target followed by 10+ 2/level stun to the square. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Sep 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 01:19
|
|
|
NinjaDebugger posted:This is no longer even remotely true. Gear that used to give 100% shock resist now gives 15, and lightning spells can easily blow through that. Oh good. They're making a lot of interesting balance changes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 02:04
|
|
|
TheDemon posted:3.99h is on the way once it goes through desura's approval process "GAME Horror seed produced a sprite instead of a horror" Well, that still would have been better than it was in Dom3!
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 03:29
|
|
|
Sailing is pretty cool you guys.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 03:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 15:49 |
|
|
AfroSquirrel posted:"GAME Horror seed produced a sprite instead of a horror" What did it do in dom3? It never seemed to do anything worthwhile when I tried it. edit: "Note: This spell is currently bugged and the only effect is that a horror will emerge when the effected unit dies." Whelp. Pomp fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Sep 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2013 04:07
|
|