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Pikes, or a mix of 2 pikes to 1 other infantry, are usually best for expanding, now that the repel mechanic works. Recruit the standard infantry for the first few turns, until you have enough smiths that you can recruit 12+ per turn of the black plates.
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Oct 22, 2013 18:07
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I have, I'm still low on resources though, that could just be cause it's early and I don't have a bunch of smiths. Does the Extra encumbrance do a whole lot? Also does mixing units into squads do anything bad? Or is it just not really advised? *Aaand one more thing, does repel work against trample? DarkAvenger211 fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 22, 2013 18:19
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DarkAvenger211 posted:For anyone who's played MA Ulm, in general what's a good stock infantry to use? Also don't underestimate the dogs you can get for putting out a lot of damage with a low resource cost.
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Oct 22, 2013 18:36
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DarkAvenger211 posted:I have, I'm still low on resources though, that could just be cause it's early and I don't have a bunch of smiths. Does the Extra encumbrance do a whole lot? 1. Encumbrance can be a killer on troops. One of the reasons that Agartha is generally so bad is because their troops have such high Encumbrance. They fatigue out after just a few turns in combat. What is the point of putting on heavy army when you fall asleep after 5 swings, letting an unarmed peasant stab you in the eye? Generally encumbrance of 5 or so is about as high as you want, unless you have some way of reducing fatigue; on a thug or SC this is equipment, you may have a earth bless, the troops are undead, etc. 2. Mixing can be a good thing and a bad thing. Generally, you do this for three different reasons. -)You want to boost up the morale of a strong unit with weak morale. Example: Putting in a few high/average troops with elephants so they don't route after the first arrow volleys. -)To take advantage of unit size. You have 6 'spaces' for each unit in each square, and each size marker on a unit means they take up that much space. So you can have 6 size 1 markata in a square, 3 size 2 humans or 1 size 4 giant. So your awesome giant units will not be able to dish out as much damage as a line of humans with big weapons because they have 1 giant axe compared to 3 human polearms. But, if you can add in a size 2 independent or site-generated troop, then suddenly you have two weapons and two different hit boxes per square. Your line now does more damage, and your regeneration bless can be more effective as the giants each take only half the hits in a square. -)To take advantage of repel. If you have a pike in a square, then all the units in the square get the repel advantage of the pike even if they are not the specific target in the square. So a pike and 2 axemen get the range and the damage combined.*** ***Not sure if this is actually the case in Dom4. I don't have Dom4 and Repel didn't work in Dom3
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Oct 22, 2013 19:11
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If yo do include Pikes with your other infantry, do they automatically distribute themselves throughout the line, or do they clump up in the order they were recruited? The former seems more useful, but the latter seems more in keeping with the spirit of Dominions in rewarding micromanagement.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:40
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Order of recruitment. Fortunately, the repeat recruitment button simplifies things greatly compared to Dom3: you only need to click a bunch of dudes in order once.
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Oct 22, 2013 20:59
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Khisanth Magus posted:Use guys in black plate. You should have taken max prod scales and your priest smiths will provide even more resources. Your best stock infantry is pikemen, because they actually made weapon length matter in this go-round. Use the normal ones for expansion, the black plate ones vs enemies, unless you're up against blessed troops, which tend to have pretty crazy morale post-bless and will happily throw themselves on your pikes to get a shot at your face. Against those, you want to use the two handed flail guys. Much less weapon length, but they get two attacks a round, so you have a shot at killing them before they kill you.
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Oct 22, 2013 21:58
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quote:Although I don't believe it should make a difference, is your Mother of Monsters a Pretender or Disciple? How many candles do you have in that province? The monsters spawn outside of combat, unlike some of the titans. Disciple, sitting in my capitol, with 6 or 7 candles. Maybe I need more holy casters there.
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Oct 22, 2013 22:22
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Slaan posted:-)To take advantage of repel. If you have a pike in a square, then all the units in the square get the repel advantage of the pike even if they are not the specific target in the square. So a pike and 2 axemen get the range and the damage combined.*** Received wisdom is that Pikemen are amazing now, YMMV.
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Oct 22, 2013 22:36
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I tried a random disciple game with a random ai pretender. I eventually did spawn a single monster by the end of the first year, after getting some high level priests and pumping my capitol dominion up to 7. It was slow paced, but by the start of year 3 I had six spawn. Quite a bit more than I expected the way the first year went. I started a game with 2 max dominion with myself as pretender. Start of the second year, 1 freespawn. Start of the third year, 2 freespawn. I'm not certain, but it does look like it is tied to local or max dominion.
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Oct 23, 2013 00:52
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Good to know about the Chalice changes. Seems like nature gems got even more valuable due to GoH being the only Tart healer. Was wondering why it wasn't working in a SP test game. Following on to that, it doesn't seem like gift of reason affects Tarts anymore. Is there some spell that replaces it? I didn't see any, but I'm pretty good at missing the obvious.
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Oct 23, 2013 01:39
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There's an Astral version that works on undead and the other sorts that are excluded from regular GoR. Forget what it's called.
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Oct 23, 2013 01:41
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Thanks, I had assumed it was a death spell, and was kinda confused when I couldn't find it.
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Oct 23, 2013 01:45
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Speleothing posted:There's an Astral version that works on undead and the other sorts that are excluded from regular GoR. Forget what it's called. Divine Name, but it's not that Gift of Reason doesn't work on undead now. It does still. It's just that it doesn't work on Mindless creatures, such as gargoyles. Divine Name does, though. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 01:48
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Good luck getting the research to even be able to cast Tartarian Gate in Dom4. Level 7 in a school is now late game standard it seems.
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Oct 23, 2013 03:23
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I'm dicking around at a slow pace in SP, so I can hit the higher research levels to see what's new/different. SP seems to really just come down to making enough money to poo poo out PD everywhere. Assassinating AI commanders using either spells or actual assassins means their doomstacks hit your PD piecemeal. Not very strategic, but I'm enjoying learning all the new nations/units/spells etc.
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Oct 23, 2013 05:15
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LordSloth posted:I'm not certain, but it does look like [autospawning] is tied to local or max dominion.
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Oct 23, 2013 10:58
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Is there a list of path boosters somewhere for dom4 like there was for dom3?
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Oct 23, 2013 12:33
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Asehujiko posted:Is there a list of path boosters somewhere for dom4 like there was for dom3? Someone made a thread on the Desura forums that lists boosters. I can't say for sure whether it's perfectly accurate but it seems pretty good.
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Oct 23, 2013 12:57
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Seems like gods no longer make it into the hall of Fame. Which is nice, since it means more commanders will end up with Heroic Abilities.
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Oct 23, 2013 15:27
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I may have gotten in a bit over my head. Be kind... but do you guys recommend any totally noob LPs?
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Oct 23, 2013 18:55
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Honestly? Nope. Nothing I would recommend for a 'totally noob'. Mind you, there are a lot of good Dom3 LPs that you can learn from, but if you're just focused on the basics, there is little point running with an obsolete LP - slow to recruit, fixed taxation have changed the opening flow of the game significantly, and a lot of games you might see run with mods. No point in confusing yourself with old mechanics (pretender design and magic paths for instance). On the other hand, if you're willing to wait, I can recommend the ongoing Dominions 4 LP over on these forums. It has some good explanatory posts already, but it is also only two weeks old so what it currently covers is limited. But best of all, that means you can also get further clarification. Khisanth Magus' ongoing Dominions 4 LP While the beta has been open for a while before release, the wiki isn't that up to date, and the manual has some shortcomings in a few areas, so every mechanic isn't crystal clear yet, but those guys playing that game have a much better idea what's going on than I do, to be honest. I still expect a few amusing mistakes, especially given what I've heard about/seen art for. LordSloth fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 19:41
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I haven't played Dominions since 2010, and boy howdee do I still suck at it. Are there any good tactics guides for 4? I remember the Dom3 wiki was well put together and had a lot of nation specific advice. People suggest Tien Chi as a good newbie nation, so I figured I'd give it a shot to refresh my memory of the mechanics, and it just makes my head hurt. I don't know of I should get pikes or glaives, and wether or not it's worth the extra resources for better armor, it's all just a mess. It gets worth with summoned units, where I can't see their stats in advance, and gems are of such contextual value it's tough to judge if I want to make scorpion men or ogres out of them. How do I judge the comparative value of my units, short of making a spreadsheet of this highly complicated stat blocks?
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Oct 23, 2013 19:41
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Cheneybeast posted:People suggest Tien Chi as a good newbie nation, so I figured I'd give it a shot to refresh my memory of the mechanics, and it just makes my head hurt. I don't know of I should get pikes or glaives, and wether or not it's worth the extra resources for better armor, it's all just a mess. If the aim is to protect units from bowfire, just get a small team of Ministry Footmen with spears and shields, put them up front, and set them to Guard Commander, keeping the commander leading them far back and to the side of your other troops on 5x Hold -> Stay Behind troops. It's worth doing this with a handful of archers, too, to reduce the impact of Fire Archers orders on your large mob. Most skirmishers (which includes basically all tribal troops and woodsmen, plus a fair amount of national troops) can get dragged really badly with this order. On weapons selection: Glaives are among the best weapons in the game - they're pretty long and do a shitload of damage. Since you're likely to punch through just about any armour with 20 slashing/piercing damage, you're going to get extra damage on the stuff that penetrates, and you're likely to delimb any human sized troops that somehow survive. They're definitely your prime weapon against giant nations. If you can afford the rec and gold, get Ministry Guardsmen, who are lightly armoured glaive troops but keep MM2. You'll probably end up taking a handful of bow shots on them, and their extra point of base attack is always handy. I'm not a huge fan of pikes, but that might just be an instinctual thing due to Dominions 3. In Dominions 4, they're actually a strongish offensive tool because they deal more damage to armoured units due to their pierce attack type (giving them up to 19.2 damage on armour, assumed to round down to 19), and can't be repelled. On the other hand, their base damage isn't anything like as strong as Glaive-armed infantry, and their defence stat is a bit low. Spearmen are like the ultimate chaff, especially Ministry Footmen, which are even better arrow-soakers than the Footmen with the same mobility. Is this enough? Sometimes, I guess. The Imperial troops? Bleh, don't bother. Even with the changes to how movement works, MM2 is still more useful than MM1. On national summons: Celestial Servents - crap. Celestial Hounds - a bit crap. Celestial Soldiers - really good. Huli Jing - whatever. On other importantish summons: Ogres - bit unnecessary? You don't really need to bulk out your forces as TC. Bane Lords - still the shiznit when it comes to thugs. Summon Spring Hawks - a better way than ever to kill tricky targets relatively early on, because lightning-immunity is really hard to achieve.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:45
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de_dust posted:I may have gotten in a bit over my head. Be kind... but do you guys recommend any totally noob LPs? The two LPs on the LP Archive site are pretty good.
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Oct 23, 2013 20:48
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Pikes are great because you'll get 3 repel rolls against anything shorter than a spear. Every repel that lands forces the attacker to roll morale vs 10+(half what the repel beat hitting him by) and rolling several of those is bound to fail pretty often. A square of hypothetical 10 across the board pikemen repels a hypothetical 10 across the board dude with a length 3 or less weapon about 61% of the time. Attacker morale and defense can modify this quite a bit, as can defender attack. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 21:28
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dis astranagant posted:Pikes are great because you'll get 3 repel rolls against anything shorter than a spear. Every repel that lands forces the attacker to roll morale vs 10+(half what the repel beat hitting him by) and rolling several of those is bound to fail pretty often. jBrereton fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 22:08
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Is armor really not that big a deal? If so, would I be correct in favoring larger numbers of light infantry over smaller numbers of well equipped guys? I know shields can make a difference (tower shields can catch arrows all day, no prob) but how about helmets? Is a leather helmet noticeably worse than a metal helm?
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Oct 23, 2013 22:08
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jBrereton posted:On the other hand, there are no 10 across the board pikemen. Ulmish pikemen are either 6 (non-blacksteel) or 5 (blacksteel) defence, and even TC's relatively limber leather-armoured pikemen are defence 8 (actually the best in the game, for pikemen, shared with LA Ulmish/Marignonian Pikeneers), and those repel modifiers are reduced for those repelling subsequent times per turn. Yeah, but repelling 60% of the ~60% of attacks that actually hit tends to be at least as effective as tanking your encumbrance for a shield. In the case of that glaive dude you're taking far more attacks than the pikemen, since you don't get any chance at all to repel the every popular spears and only 2 against broadswords. Now I kinda want to make a nation with sacred pikemen to watch f9 be a defensive bless :v
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Oct 23, 2013 22:17
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It's only about a couple weeks old, but I kind of suggest Khisanth Magus' currently ongoing LP. The way it shows what is happening from all sides simultaneously is quite helpful, and it is for Dominions 4, not 3. Unfortunately, Turn 3 isn't quite full coverage of the entire game. Some fairly noobish advice: Speaking as someone messing around with EA Agartha, yes... armor isn't everything. Even a earth 9 bless doesn't help too much with their giant sacreds. On the other hand, Legions of Steel (construction 3, aoe) cast on your smaller guys does actually have a noticeable effect. If you have strong earth magic there are still some fairly accessible spells to enhance your protection (or ruin theirs) and curse of stones can even the fatigue situation considerably. Going further on a tangent, I'm beginning to hate cold-blooded on Agartha, it can backfire when you grab a heat throne as well as when you grab a cold throne. 1-2 heat, fine. 3? Expect some penalties. Zero? The same. Seasonal fluctuations? I'm really having trouble deciding where exactly to settle my heat scales since the default 'pref' is 0, not 1. So where was I? Oh yes, protection helps, but it won't carry the day on its own. From my own current level of lapsed competence and simple battle scripting, what will happen is an armor heavy force will be outnumbered. More attacks against you reducing your chance to block, fatigue reducing your ability to block, enough hits will get in to quickly negate the advantages of your armor. On the other hand, I'm having some luck with a relatively small heavy armor core and larger (attack closest) flanking elements of lighter infantry. I don't have the timing and spacing quite right, and Agarthan Pale Ones being incompetent fighters I can fold rather quickly, but... the point is that ultimately armor doesn't help you kill the enemy any quicker, and it widens the effectiveness gap between you and the enemy the longer the fight goes on. That armor core in a single/double line does make a significant difference in how long my forces can push outwards during the expansion phase, given my lack of archers, as well as providing a significant savings of gold. And that's where armor really shines - not in gaining you a large combat advantage - in just won't last when that fatigue piles up - but in gold savings. That armor comes at the expense of many other weapons, which can be significant with the STR changes and reduced fort choice. That said, when facing indies, once you've reached critical mass, armor helps you sustain that critical mass and invest in mages and forts instead.
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Oct 23, 2013 23:25
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Or you could just summon lots of magma children and ogres. 
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Oct 23, 2013 23:47
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I saw this in the comments for the RPS review of Dom4, and felt that it was a really nice sentiment that would be appreciated here:Mike2R posted:There’s something about the setting of Dominions that I love. There’s a common fantasy trope about living in the after days. You know the one; once upon a time powerful magic ruled the world and things that are unimaginable were common place, but those days are gone now, leaving behind only a few conveniently scattered swords of +5 fire attack or whatever. I’ve always felt a little disappointed that I had to read/watch/play in these after days. Why couldn’t I live in the time of unimaginable power? What was it like? And why did anyone need so many swords of +5 fire attack anyway?
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Oct 24, 2013 03:40
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So I was having a mediocre albeit fun game, when suddenly I get the notice that my god had been permanently vanquished and those all-seeing-eye icons popped up everywhere in my nation. What happened?
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Oct 24, 2013 11:44
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de_dust posted:So I was having a mediocre albeit fun game, when suddenly I get the notice that my god had been permanently vanquished and those all-seeing-eye icons popped up everywhere in my nation. What happened? Probably either you lost all your dominion (white candles, as opposed to enemy dominion or black candles) or someone claimed enough thrones to win the game.
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Oct 24, 2013 11:47
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de_dust posted:So I was having a mediocre albeit fun game, when suddenly I get the notice that my god had been permanently vanquished and those all-seeing-eye icons popped up everywhere in my nation. What happened? The eye icons appear when the game is over so you can check things. If I had to guess why you lost, you probably ran out of dominion. Your capital, your temples, your god, and your prophet all produce white candles, or dominion every turn. The chance of a candle appearing is based on the dominion score you chose for your god at the beginning of the game. To check the values for how much dominion you're spreading each turn and the chance to spread dominion, click on a temple that you own and it should give you a breakdown. Long story short, build lots of temples so that you don't get killed via dominion pushing. You can also set priests to preach to create dominion, but there's a limit to how high a priest can push the dominion of a province. Priests with the inquisitor ability are especially good at getting rid of enemy dominion, which appears as black candles. If you happened to be playing EA or LA Mictlan, those nations have dying dominion, which means that the only way for them to spread dominion is through blood sacrifice, which is like preaching but has no cap in a province, requires blood slaves, and spreads dominion beyond that province. It's not as strong as it was in Dominions 3, but it's still a powerful ability.
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Oct 24, 2013 11:51
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de_dust posted:So I was having a mediocre albeit fun game, when suddenly I get the notice that my god had been permanently vanquished and those all-seeing-eye icons popped up everywhere in my nation. What happened? de_dust, the pretenders have spoken, please being me your
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Oct 24, 2013 18:33
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Anyone know how to get rid of a horror infection?
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Oct 25, 2013 03:26
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Horror marks (from any source) are permanent and cannot be removed. A Horror seed (from the B ritual spell of that name) will remain until the infected unit is killed.
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Oct 25, 2013 03:51
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If this was an event hitting a province, then it might be a Dream Horror lurking there, whether from a random event or Send Dream Horror (another Blood spell). If that's what it is, you'll need to patrol the province to find the thing, then kill it.
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Oct 25, 2013 04:25
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I've been testing it out on the Battletest map with the debug mod. It takes some decent patrolling to find the greater horror, who's the infector. The people it infects become lesser horrors. Now if there was only a way to do a hot wire test.
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Oct 25, 2013 15:18
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