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The more I've played (single player, however) the less I'm liking a lot of these changes. No tax adjustment just seems to hammer blood nations-you get less money than previously (due to higher unrest), and you're also slowed by having fewer slaves so conversion to full blood econ takes longer. Also, I don't know if I'm a fan of the slower research. I think I understand the purpose of making national troops more relevant longer, but I think one of the weaker parts of the game is shuffling largely generic dudes around the map. I think if they wanted more of a focus on troops, more national spells (non-summons) with a focus on buffing would've been better. Of course, there's so many good buffs already so it could easily end up redundant... Along with that, slow to recruit seems largely arbitrary in it's application. And I'm not a fan of locking you entirely out of the recruitment slot-I'm unsure if it would be possible but if it only locked you out of recruiting other mages I think that would be a good change, and would allow for more national commanders to be used (which outside of some rare niche choices I don't think get bought whenever it's otherwise possible to recruit a mage). And I really, really wish they would've put in some other diplomacy options. The team options are cool, but just not enough. All that being said, I'm still trying to absorb all the new changes. There seems to be a bunch of new spells along with old spells changed, The new nations all seem pretty interesting. And as I've been messing around more, there's a lot of stuff with old nations that I'm finding has changed (poor MA C'tis losing leadership from all their troops  ). When the game's released, if possible I'd like to hop into a newbie-ish style game. Also, do people still do blitzes at all? I remember getting in some previously, would be nice to organize a 6-player (or more...) blitz game sometime.
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Oct 4, 2013 18:09
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alansmithee posted:The more I've played (single player, however) the less I'm liking a lot of these changes. No tax adjustment just seems to hammer blood nations-you get less money than previously (due to higher unrest), and you're also slowed by having fewer slaves so conversion to full blood econ takes longer. Good. Blood was absurdly good before, so slowing it down makes sense. It's still really good now since the slow research means only having to research one line is an even bigger advantage.
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Oct 4, 2013 18:30
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alansmithee posted:The more I've played (single player, however) the less I'm liking a lot of these changes. No tax adjustment just seems to hammer blood nations-you get less money than previously (due to higher unrest), and you're also slowed by having fewer slaves so conversion to full blood econ takes longer. I actually had a lot more money to gently caress around with. Before you would zero tax your blood provinces, and now you still get a decent chunk of money to counter the less slaves. The more slaves would be better of course but blood is still good.
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Oct 4, 2013 18:40
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rzal posted:Listened to this, this morning. I was hoping they'd say a bunch of nations names so I could know how to pronounce them. Then they didn't know how to pronounce Berytos. From what they said it sounded to me like they just want to make all units on a side act at once, rather than one at a time.
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Oct 4, 2013 20:04
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alansmithee: For what it's worth, order scales and PD multiples of 10 now reduces unrest. Not a huge deal, certainly, but it's there, and is a one-time investment compared to the ongoing loss of auto-taxing. If you're EA Mictlan, you have a pretty good chance of finding a 'friendly civilization' (jaguar tribe province, for example) with mildly reduced PD costs. So, this isn't enough to sustain blood hunting in a province, but if you're occasionally blood hunting, or blood hunting on the move, it can work. A small 10 point investment and a single order scale certainly helps with nationwide unrest issues. That, or the old-fashioned patrol kills that unrest immediately. LordSloth fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Oct 4, 2013 |
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Oct 4, 2013 21:18
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I find that keeping one cheap patrol army for every 3 provinces or so is enough to maintain a healthy income in a blood economy, though you will definitely still have some unrest. I also keep my hunters out of my wealthiest provinces if I can help it. Blood hunting is very flexible so you can adjust your structure as needed.
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Oct 4, 2013 22:07
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What should I be doing/recruiting/researching with Berytos at the very start of the game? All their mages look good for mid game for fast research/spamming low level evo/less spammable but better evo/those giant women with 5 paths but no real clear research goal for the first year beyond using my super fort income to bury the world in elephants.
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Oct 5, 2013 00:18
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This province better be worth it. 
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Oct 5, 2013 08:58
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Getting through that would be bad enough, but oh god the trumpeting! 
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Oct 5, 2013 09:23
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Slaan posted:Getting through that would be bad enough, but oh god the trumpeting! Oh man, master enslave on that province would be hilarious. That or the spell that turns everything into critters.
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Oct 5, 2013 09:31
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All of them are slowly starving to death so by the time you got master enslave there would be maybe 2-3 left.
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Oct 5, 2013 09:40
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Slaan posted:Getting through that would be bad enough, but oh god the trumpeting! Doctor Zero in BOATMURDERED posted:"What kind of emergencies?"
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Oct 5, 2013 09:53
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LordLeckie posted:All of them are slowly starving to death so by the time you got master enslave there would be maybe 2-3 left. A couple assassination spells to kill the commanders the turn you attack would also work.
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Oct 5, 2013 10:13
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Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask such a general question - I just picked up Dom4 and even with reading the wiki, I'm completely snowed under by the variety of civs/strategies/pretenders/blessings/paths. Any advice as to an "easier" or "simpler" approach to get into the game, either in terms of civilizations or pretender strategies? So far I've been kind of flailing around the EA nations, trying to build huge battlefield gods, and getting crushed by the normal AI, which from reading this thread I'm gathering should not be happening.
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Oct 5, 2013 10:59
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I Am Not An Expert, but I think it's a good idea to pick a nation with good national troops. I learned the game with MA Ulm, but you could also go with Marignon and Arcoscephale. Take a Pretender with good Production scales for max resources so you can make more pixelmens. I think Middle Age is also the most noob-friendly age, with Early being more focused on magic(requiring you to learn that) and Late having more blood. But generally, you can't go wrong against the AI if you just march a whole bunch of Black Plate Pikeneers against it.
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Oct 5, 2013 11:16
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Plan A: Go EA Niefelheim. Hit End Turn 30 times to build up gold. Buy a bunch of giants. Rampage! This is not an actual plan, do not do this. Plan B: Focus on one aspect of the game at a time. Learn how to use your units with armies that have good units first. Pretty much any giant nation, Ulm/Marignon, Ermor/Pythium, etc are all good. This will help you learn placing armies and the overmap, because the AI generally can't stand up to your armies. Then switch to a simple magical nation, which has heavy paths in one or two areas, especially Fire, Air or Earth. Shinuyama, Marverni and Marignon are good for this. This will let you learn battlefield magic. Then finally go for your mixed strength nations like Pythium, Tien Ch'i, the Monkeys, etc to pull it all together as well as learn communions, summons, thugs, etc.
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Oct 5, 2013 12:07
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Thanks! I like that approach - it's really fun trying to make the 'weirder' nations work and have zombies and cannibal giants rampaging around, but getting the basics down might help me survive the first year or two. I had one more question, actually - the most similar game I've played to Dom3/4 before is the Rome: Total War series. Is there as much differentiation in terms of rock/paper/scissors mechanics here? I.E. is there usually one or two all-around 'best' units for most civs, or do you need pikes to deal with cavalry, cavalry to deal with archers, etc? I guess it's harder to map on to some parts of this game, since I don't really know how "giant underwater tentacle thing" fits into that, but any help would be appreciated. This game is really awesome so far, though - the sheer depth of everything is absolutely amazing.
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Oct 5, 2013 13:43
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I don't recall any real blatant rock/paper/sciccors mechanics in dominions. Flails get a hidden +2 bonus to attack against shields. There are a lot of hard-counters in the spell department (like arrow fend against archers), but I can't think of any in the troop department. High damage units (greatsword humans, giants) are good against high protection. High encumberance units are sometimes good to counter with chaff, especially battle summon spam (swarm, raise skeletons). Dual wielders clear chaff and low protection HP sponges well. Shielded units are good against missiles. There usually are few units in a nation that are obviously best for expanding and thus most used, but it helps to pay attention to what units the enemy is wielding.
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Oct 5, 2013 14:39
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One of the best nations for a new player who wants to know about how troops work is Tien Chi, and specifically MA Tien Chi, just because you can really explore the differences that light and heavy armour make to tactical and strategic mobility, as well as unit survivability, and what various weapons are good for. So I'd give them a go, if I were you. One of the main things to learn about Dominions generally are the vagaries of the unit scripting system, and why, for example, having a couple of units start at the front of your formation and then dash towards the rear using Guard Commander is a really good way to break up enemy formations (especially archer formations) and lead them towards your troops.
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Oct 5, 2013 14:59
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Jines posted:Thanks! I like that approach - it's really fun trying to make the 'weirder' nations work and have zombies and cannibal giants rampaging around, but getting the basics down might help me survive the first year or two. I had one more question, actually - the most similar game I've played to Dom3/4 before is the Rome: Total War series. Is there as much differentiation in terms of rock/paper/scissors mechanics here? I.E. is there usually one or two all-around 'best' units for most civs, or do you need pikes to deal with cavalry, cavalry to deal with archers, etc? I guess it's harder to map on to some parts of this game, since I don't really know how "giant underwater tentacle thing" fits into that, but any help would be appreciated. This game is really awesome so far, though - the sheer depth of everything is absolutely amazing. There are often best troops for a nation. Like jaguar warriors for Mictlan or Palankasha for Lanka or archers for caelum. While the other stuff can still be useful, it's not the same Rock Paper Scissors on a troop level as it is with total war and some troops are so good/efficient vs what else so available that you might as well just keep cranking out jags forever.
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Oct 5, 2013 16:54
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Jines posted:and getting crushed by the normal AI, which from reading this thread I'm gathering should not be happening. Not sure how it is for other people, but that's always the case when I start playing a new strategy game. It just takes a bit of time and a lot of reading.
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Oct 5, 2013 17:39
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Werewhale posted:I Am Not An Expert, but I think it's a good idea to pick a nation with good national troops. I learned the game with MA Ulm, but you could also go with Marignon and Arcoscephale. Take a Pretender with good Production scales for max resources so you can make more pixelmens. I think Middle Age is also the most noob-friendly age, with Early being more focused on magic(requiring you to learn that) and Late having more blood. But generally, you can't go wrong against the AI if you just march a whole bunch of Black Plate Pikeneers against it. How do you pick a nation? I picked this up last night and it seems pretty cool and the learning curve isn't quite as steep as I expected, but every time I start a game it seems to assign me a random nation. Is that because I'm playing on a random map or something?
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Oct 5, 2013 19:23
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Photosynaesthesias posted:How do you pick a nation? I picked this up last night and it seems pretty cool and the learning curve isn't quite as steep as I expected, but every time I start a game it seems to assign me a random nation. Is that because I'm playing on a random map or something? When you create a new game, there should be a screen where you setup the type and number of nations. Click the word random on that screen to get the full list of nations. Its the "choose participants" screen. You can also set the level of AI and add more nations on this screen.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:34
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Photosynaesthesias posted:How do you pick a nation? I picked this up last night and it seems pretty cool and the learning curve isn't quite as steep as I expected, but every time I start a game it seems to assign me a random nation. Is that because I'm playing on a random map or something? When you're in the New Game set-up screen, after picking the map and the Era, it defaults to random. Just click under "Nation" and you can choose whichever one you'd like to play in that era. This is also where you set up teams and AI difficulties/personalities.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:35
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I've just been leaving nation selection on random, then trying to figure out what the hell from there. Gives an incentive to learn new strategies. Seemed to work okay for me in Civ 4. Some general guides would be nice, the few that are around tend to be very specific. I know it's a complicated game, but an experienced player could look at a nation and see that this mage can cast X, or bless Y would be good. Or even, "these guys suck! I'd better take a blood/death pretender and bootstrap myself into vampires!" Us new players have no bloody clue at all, it can sometimes leave us floundering!
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Oct 5, 2013 19:37
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 It's so obvious I have no idea how I was missing it, thanks guys.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:45
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tooterfish posted:I've just been leaving nation selection on random, then trying to figure out what the hell from there. The problem with random nation selection is that you really can't know what a nation needs from its god until you've looked at its units. What most of us do is have a saved game for each era where we have every nation active and set to human-controlled. That way we can just load up that game and take a peek at whichever nation we want. When you're setting up those games, just accept whatever random chassis is presented for each nation, and set "Starting Provinces" to 3 or 4 so you can get a look at any non-fort recruits each nation might get. As a general newbie tip, I always say that a dormant god with Dom7, positive income scales, and a x4y4 bless can never do you wrong. It might not be multiplayer-competitive, but you'll be able to get a handle on how the game works.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:45
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Slaan posted:Plan A: Go EA Niefelheim. Hit End Turn 30 times to build up gold. Buy a bunch of giants. Rampage! After you select your Early, Middle, Late Ages, click on "Random" in the first slot "nation" to assign that a nation. Click on random or <Add New Player> to adjust your AI opponents. Under player you can cycle through the difficulties. As the game and manual are not yet released (and the wiki still Dom3 centric, afaik), here's my procedure, roughly 5-30 minutes each.
If you start getting into really competitive mp, that's another thing entirely. Since up until this whole disiciple thing, only one person could win and a whole bunch of everybody else loses. But just go for a casual SP game for a quick build test (does this supercombatant fall flat on its face, can I actually sustain my early expansion), then jump into a more casual Play by email or blitz game if you feel like it. I'm mostly waiting for release and a manual before I jump into MP. This disciple thing sounds like great training wheels since I'm rather rusty and still figuring out everything new. LordSloth fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Oct 5, 2013 |
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Oct 5, 2013 19:50
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tooterfish posted:I've just been leaving nation selection on random, then trying to figure out what the hell from there. I'm also new, but I feel like you can't really have a general guide, because the differences between races is not limited to 'gets an improved horse guy in this age, oh and they get slightly more gold.' From what I've seen, you should not only have a good idea about how the race you're playing works, you should also have a plan for how you're going to get to endgame, and what that endgame will be. So, while in Civ you can get by just saying "I'm going to get nukes, and I'm going to nuke EEEEEEEEEVERYTHING AHAHAHAHAHA," (simplified, but it's not too off the mark, I think  ), in Dominions, you say "I want to get to Wish and start chain-casting it, but to do that I'm going to need to be able to mass produce Clams, and for that I need lots of water/nature mages and Construction, and to actually cast it I'll need a ton of Astral on my pretender, so I'll need these booster items, and..." (Dom 3 example). I'd say that unless you're going for such a super-specific strategy, if you're just learning, just get someone to tell you what x spell does, and if it's generally considered worth it, and then just try it.
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Oct 5, 2013 19:55
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Speleothing posted:The problem with random nation selection is that you really can't know what a nation needs from its god until you've looked at its units. What most of us do is have a saved game for each era where we have every nation active and set to human-controlled. That way we can just load up that game and take a peek at whichever nation we want. When you're setting up those games, just accept whatever random chassis is presented for each nation, and set "Starting Provinces" to 3 or 4 so you can get a look at any non-fort recruits each nation might get. I just stick to the nation selected for me and try to make it work. Edit: Tried forever to get Pan's songs to work, they look so good on paper! Just wouldn't happen on the battlefield though. tooterfish fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Oct 5, 2013 |
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Oct 5, 2013 19:58
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tooterfish posted:Oh, I restart once I've had a look at all that and tried to figure out what a workable strategy would be. Something that might help is to look up the old dominions 3 guides. The information will often be out of date, but it will at least give an idea of what the nation's theme or overarching goal is, and will give you some ideas to springboard off of and various useful spells to look into. The most important out of date things are the blesses recommended by the guides - earth and nature have both changed significantly (as have death, air, and to a lesser extent, blood, but those weren't as recommended in the past).
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Oct 5, 2013 20:08
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tooterfish posted:Edit: Tried forever to get Pan's songs to work, they look so good on paper! Just wouldn't happen on the battlefield though. yeah, don't even bother trying to script them - sometimes a dryad or pan will save themselves from indies with a clutch Tune of Fear but it's not something you can plan a strategy around, dryads and pans need gear and higher level buffs to be sent into melee or they'll just die
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Oct 5, 2013 20:46
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How to play Dominions 4 for newbies: Pick EA Ermor Train Hastati Train Princpe Train Tritari Train Equite Decimate your enemies (this means you should only kill 1/10 of them in this context).
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Oct 5, 2013 21:39
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Also, it's very important to keep your commanders out of harm's way. One unlucky arrow or sword hit can effectively destroy your starting army. Edit: 
Speleothing fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Oct 6, 2013 |
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Oct 6, 2013 01:54
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Speleothing posted:Edit: I like that take on a disease event. It might not (directly) kill your population but it sure as heck keeps them from getting much work done 
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Oct 6, 2013 07:17
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Here are some ideas about strategy: 1. Dom 10 SC pretender, rush nearest opponent. 2. Sacreds with 20-30 hp and15+str, w9 bless. 3. Sacreds with multiple attacks, f9 bless. 4. Ponymans, e4/6n9 bless. 5. Nation with good elemental mages, rush falling fire/frost/ blade wind/thunder strike, mass mages with a bit of chaff to guard and burn/freeze/shock everything. 6. Nation with astral mages, huge soul slay communions. 7. Blood nations - demon knights, devils or storm demons, astral corruption. 8. Tarts.
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Oct 6, 2013 17:22
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Lines of pikes coupled with crossbows work pretty well for expansion due to repel. Lines of elephants (necessary early on for Caelum due to their troops and weapons being kind of poo poo) also work pretty well if you have them, but it's also VERY expensive.
amuayse fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Oct 6, 2013 |
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Oct 6, 2013 18:59
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Is there a point to taking a magic path to 10? It took me this long to just notice it was doable.
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Oct 8, 2013 09:52
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Depends on the path, depends if it's on a pretender or not. It'll never not help with penetration and fatigue. But whether it's worth the cost is another thing.
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Oct 8, 2013 10:47
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9 is all you'd ever really need unless you really really really REALLY want master enslave to penetrate. 10 Points is just going to be too expensive and just isnt worth the hit to your scales/dominion/sleepyness LordLeckie fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 11:07
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