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Castle Crushers being batshit insane is entirely intentional. Almost all the ritual costs are too low though due to me failing to understand how fatigue translated into gem cost on rituals. There's also a real issue with the scaling summons scaling waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast that I need to consider.
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Jan 2, 2014 21:37
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^^^ but why? That thing looks like it could annihilate entire armies without any support with virtually no work and no gem cost. Unless you're just loving around in debug mode, I guess. Some communion questions because gently caress Everything: 1. Does it matter the order I arrange my communion guys? I read about how slaves cannot act after a master has taken a turn (if the master cast a spell) but I think things maybe changed for dom5? Should I make sure my masters go last, or first, or does it matter? 2. Can only my master cast spells? Can my slaves still use the reverse communion bullshit or was that taken out? 3. Does it matter the order dudes join the communion? IF my cast order is like Comm Slave => Slave => Master => Slave => Master is that totes fine? 4. Is there a range on joining the communion or can dudes be all across the battlefield? I Love You! fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 21:39
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I Love You! posted:Some communion questions because gently caress Everything: 1 & 2. order no longer matters. Mages who have cast communion slave are now completely immobile and defenseless while a mage who has cast communion master is on the field; reverse communions are no longer a thing at all. 3. no it does not matter what order dudes join the communion. If your communion master joins 'late' in the turn order, you could probably get away with having your about-to-be-slaved mages cast for 1 round on their own and then cast communion slave second round, after the master cast CMaster on the first round but before he casts his first spell you expect to have him communioned for. 4. Battlefield wide, and sabbaths and communions are the same thing (i.e. there's only ever one communion on your side, and you can join it with communion/sabbath master/slave in whatever combination you need).
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Jan 2, 2014 22:03
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Superterranean posted:4. Battlefield wide, and sabbaths and communions are the same thing (i.e. there's only ever one communion on your side, and you can join it with communion/sabbath master/slave in whatever combination you need). If you Hell Power does everyone get horror marked?
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Jan 2, 2014 22:08
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Decrepus posted:If you Hell Power does everyone get horror marked? Yes 
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Jan 2, 2014 22:21
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Neruz posted:Castle Crushers being batshit insane is entirely intentional. Almost all the ritual costs are too low though due to me failing to understand how fatigue translated into gem cost on rituals. The question I was trying to bring up, is what is your end goal in balancing? Do you want the nation to be fair in a competitive game? If that's the case, you are going to have to give up/heavily tone down most of the unique aspects of the nation, which I feel would be a shame. It is a very nicely crafted, creative, thematically coherent nation - it is just so far up the power-scale that it can't be compared to existing vanilla nations. If it were me, I'd just leave it as powerful as it is now, outside of some summon cost adjustments, and spend a little time polishing it. It is probably going to be a lot easier to make your next mod more balanced (and please do make more mods! I really like your ideas and the breadth of changes in this one, no matter the balance) after you've learned from this one. Although, you/others could also keep future nations balanced around this one if you wanted, creating some kind of super-powered dom4 mode with nice sprites and tons of options. I'd play that. (Gryphon *s have a messed up second sprite by the way, that makes the background white instead of transparent. It makes it look even crazier when 30 of them are trampling infantry)
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Jan 2, 2014 22:23
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I want to be 100% certain that I can't bring the faction down to at least the top end of the 'balance scale' so to speak before I give up on that goal, we'll see.
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Jan 2, 2014 22:27
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Neruz posted:I want to be 100% certain that I can't bring the faction down to at least the top end of the 'balance scale' so to speak before I give up on that goal, we'll see. In that case you might need to look at the things you "intended to be ridiculous". Because when you design a faction in any game to have something that is dramatically stronger than competing things, they need to be severely deficient in other areas to make up for it and you don't seem like that's your goal, since you've got the mindset that since these are half-stone dwarf men they have to be stronger with higher stats than human counterparts. And things like the Ursa Lords are so far outside the realm of what the game intends that it seems like there is no way to balance them without cutting them entirely - even at exorbitant cost it seems like you just stacked all the cool abilities onto a single unit at once just to see how awesome it could be, which is fun but also doesn't fit into a game with checks and balances. To put it in perspective, there is literally no situation where I would not be hiring as many Ursa Lords as I could no matter how much you charged for them. I would build my entire strategy around converting gems into money to maximize my Ursa Lord production. I haven't messed with your mod yet but you seem to have approached the faction as a whole without looking at the individual pieces and comparing them to other existing nations and designing them with pros/cons in mind, which is fine if you're building a SP mod but doesn't really work for MP. Sort of like Ermor I Love You! fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 23:08
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Neruz posted:I want to be 100% certain that I can't bring the faction down to at least the top end of the 'balance scale' so to speak before I give up on that goal, we'll see. Some things to consider - maybe make their armor not quite as good, but give them some decent natural protection. After all, if you're already made of stone, why bother wearing super heavy armor on top of it? As a bonus it makes them somewhat resistant to armor destruction spells. For line troops, I'd more or less take the human statline, give some natural protection, make the armor a bit crappier (combined prot should be a few points higher than average), increase health a smidge (2-4 points), drop defense a bit (slow reflexes because stone), add a point or two of morale and magic resist, and drop AP by a bit (again slow because stone). You end up with dudes who are significantly tougher than humans, resistant to armor destruction, but easier to hit (making them weaker against two handers that do more damage and are harder to hit with) and are slower so that you can hold a line well, but can't really outflank an enemy with any reasonable speed. You end up with slow and sturdy troops that are hard to break, but have a significant vulnerability against big weapons that hit for a lot of damage, which is a good thing. You can make several different varieties of dwarves with different weapons for different situations, but I'd be hesitant to give them any sort of super weapon or armor on anything that isn't some limited recruitment unit
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Jan 2, 2014 23:21
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-Troika- posted:How should I counter Ulm's heavy metal legions as LA Atlantis? I'm considering Numbness spam to hold them in place while my troops chop them to bits. Use Freezing Mists on anything that isn't a Ghoul Guardian and shield decoy those arrows with whatever you have that can hold a shield. Possibly indeps or mercs. e: this is easiest in a castle storm scenario also, you can basically hold a gate forever with a decent freezing mists caster. however early game I would not recommend getting sieged.
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Jan 2, 2014 23:46
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Neruz posted:I want to be 100% certain that I can't bring the faction down to at least the top end of the 'balance scale' so to speak before I give up on that goal, we'll see. quote:I am new to Dominions, I do not know how to properly balance things, that's exactly why I posted the mod here. Seriously, just play the game. You're not going to be able to effectively balance numbers in a game you're foreign to. I have maybe five full SP games under my belt and I can already see a lot of what's broken and what's not about the mod (a lot of 4x experience too, though, which probably helps out a lot). I Love You!'s post is really spot on, and if your viewpoint on balance clashes with mentality like his I'd really try to take a step back and understand his post. Alternative: just team up with someone who enjoys balancing mechanics and put your trust in that person, because you did a great job with the flavor/thematics of the mod. In other news, I'm really enjoying MA Eriu. Are there other nations with strong bless potential and side-strategies? Cloud Trapezing a bunch of Sidhe Lordes into my enemy's territory is hilarious fun.
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Jan 3, 2014 00:39
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Riftling posted:In other news, I'm really enjoying MA Eriu. Are there other nations with strong bless potential and side-strategies? Cloud Trapezing a bunch of Sidhe Lordes into my enemy's territory is hilarious fun. Vanheim (all eras) & Helheim do the same bless -> CT pony thing, Hinnom & Ashdod with S3/S2+cap teleport thugs, Niefel/Jotunheim/Utgard with Skratti. Kailasa/Bandar Log can bless -> summoned thugs. There's quite a few, but usually what you're looking for are recruitable thug chassis first, blessable troops second.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:05
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Riftling posted:In other news, I'm really enjoying MA Eriu. Are there other nations with strong bless potential and side-strategies? Cloud Trapezing a bunch of Sidhe Lordes into my enemy's territory is hilarious fun.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:06
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Wtf is a ponyman I didn't sign up for any brony bullshit
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Jan 3, 2014 01:23
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Cheneybeast posted:Wtf is a ponyman I didn't sign up for any bronie bullshit Any Van type commander, or Sidhe Lord/Ri/Tuatha. Basically Cloud-Trapeze-capable self-blesser.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:24
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-Troika- posted:How should I counter Ulm's heavy metal legions as LA Atlantis? I'm considering Numbness spam to hold them in place while my troops chop them to bits. Ah i just had this fun position myself, only within the opening 6-7 turns so i more or less couldnt do anything.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:34
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jBrereton posted:Guy on a horse.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:49
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I'm about to play Early Agartha and was looking for pretender build suggestions. I was thinking about an awake Annunaki of the Underworld (for expansion with shade beasts) with 8 Dom, 3 Order and Death boosted to 6 (for easy Utterdark access). Anyone got some better ideas?
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Jan 3, 2014 01:57
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Neruz posted:Castle Crushers being batshit insane is entirely intentional. Almost all the ritual costs are too low though due to me failing to understand how fatigue translated into gem cost on rituals. The Castle Crusher has a rather gaping Achilles heel in Opposition, given its low MR. I actually sorta like the idea of a terrifying SC with a glaring weakness. Looking at the description of the Castle Crusher, though, brings something to light. It's an awesome unit, but it's not very... Dominions-like. Dominions's universe is a dystopian hell -- whispering fountains of magic demand (and receive) child sacrifices to maintain their power; goatmen play music that turns women into naked, shrieking animals; any powerful magic item is inevitably tainted with the influence of lurking horrors. Everything in Dominions is both awesome and awful, if not just plain awful. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's nothing innately horrifying about the Castle Crusher, nothing that makes my skin crawl (like having an actual brain inside that's wracked with endless pain due to being surrounded by little magically-controlled robotic pokers that torture it into making the Castle Crusher perform the right actions), so it doesn't feel right in the world of Dominions. That might be just what you're going for -- a nation that despite being run by religious zealots hasn't descended into total tap-dancing fuckitall evil in its quest for world domination -- but it does stand apart from all the vanilla nations. Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 02:00
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Pittsburgh Lambic posted:I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's nothing innately horrifying about the Castle Crusher, nothing that makes my skin crawl (like having an actual brain inside that's wracked with endless pain due to being surrounded by little magically-controlled robotic pokers that torture it into making the Castle Crusher perform the right actions), so it doesn't feel right in the world of Dominions. That might be just what you're going for -- a nation that despite being run by religious zealots hasn't descended into total tap-dancing fuckitall evil in its quest for world domination -- but it does stand apart from all the vanilla nations. His nation is both Awesome and Fearsome.
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Jan 3, 2014 02:33
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Is it ever justifiable to build a fort next to your starting castle? And if so, is there any good way to mitigate the effects of their clashing admins? I guess I'm having some trouble because I don't fully understand the admin mechanic and how much it can backfire. Here's my situation: I'm playing around with ea abysia and using assassinations to clear indy provinces during the first few turns. Even when maxing out on troop production I find that I'm easily floating 600 gold around turn 4. It's rare that I can safely expand to a province outside my starting circle by that time, and of course in my test games the next two provinces I capture are 2000/3000 population, which could still be usable as mage factories but wouldn't be any good for blood hunting, which is another goal of my early expansion. This has me looking at the nice 7k pop province next to my capitol and thinking it might be a good idea to just zerg out a turn 4 palisades/laboratory there.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:16
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If you have really low resource troops that are really good (Jags) or desperately need recruitment slots for cap-only mages or mages in general, then you might do that.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:21
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TheresNoThyme posted:Is it ever justifiable to build a fort next to your starting castle? quote:And if so, is there any good way to mitigate the effects of their clashing admins? jBrereton fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 04:22
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Okay thanks, Abysia is obviously very resource intensive so I kind of figured they weren't a good fit for that strategy. It is really tempting to try and supercharge my blood economy with early double lock production though.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:31
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Neruz, for your dwarf nation you may want to consider insane costs to incentivize gem burning for gold. Weak to middling mages with a lot of thug/minor sc recruitables that are in the range of 1k to 1.2k. Maybe throw in a glaring weakness per unit. Alternatively, make those recruitables have insanely high resource costs (200 to 300) so you can only recruit from provinces with mine magic sites. This makes use of Dom mechanics that are in the game but never used. It would be new and fresh. Also very unwieldy which would serve as further balance.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:38
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The main reason to plunk a fort down inside the cap circle is tempo. Give up a little cap res for a faster 2nd fort. Depending on nation this can be absolutely critical; nations like Mictlan, Bogarus, Berytos, most archer nations or nations where your cap commander recruitment must be used but not in a multipurpose way or nations where you have a crucial noncap sacred. In Dom3 with an awake SC you could often start fort #2 on turn 3, thanks to an lengthy overtax. Turn 4 or 5 is still viable in Dom4, and there is nothing wrong with sacrificing min-maxing your resources in favor of accelerating a turn or two. Personally, the #1 consideration I give to where to build forts is where do I have a commander free when the gold is available. Sometimes I plan this ahead so the free commanders are in strategic spots, but not always. Even when it's planned, even on res-heavy nations like Abysia I still place forts based on map control, enhancing my map movement, defending important locations (like special recruits), or improving gold income before considering resources. tl;dr res isn't that important e: it is however more important on nations like aby, ulm, man, marignon etc or nations where your best cap guy costs a lot of res like hinnom, niefel TheDemon fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 04:43
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You should only be allowed to recruit dwarves in mountain territory.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:54
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TheresNoThyme posted:Okay thanks, Abysia is obviously very resource intensive so I kind of figured they weren't a good fit for that strategy. It is really tempting to try and supercharge my blood economy with early double lock production though. Warlocks are cap only, though, so most you can do is start charging up research with your anathemants. HAving more fire evokers earlier isn't the worst strategy, though.
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Jan 3, 2014 04:59
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sullat posted:Warlocks are cap only, though, so most you can do is start charging up research with your anathemants. HAving more fire evokers earlier isn't the worst strategy, though. Ugh, thanks, so at best it would just give me a place where I could organize some initial bloodhunting + a faster research producer. Thanks to everyone for the info, but it does sound like I just need to focus on having a couple 2-distance options available asap and then expanding in a way that will improve my odds + map control. Last question: is there any key indicator I should look for when trying to find a good pop province for early blood hunting? For instance does the game engine code for things like wastelands usually being low population, or is that determined by the map file? I know candles give this information away once my dom spreads and sometimes it seems like stronger neutrals indicate a bigger population (but not always?). Anything else? TheresNoThyme fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 05:22
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There are two specific tags that are sometimes applied to a province to give it either a very high pop or a very low pop. Neither of these are ideal for Blood hunting, since a 10k+ pop will be important for gold income, and a <1k pop will usually have its hunts fail. But otherwise you've pretty much nailed it. Wastelands & mountains are typically low-pop. Farmlands high-pop. Forests & plains are more likely to in the ideal 5-7k range. But that may just be confirmation bias. Handmade maps will often have "cities" drawn onto the high-pop provinces.
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Jan 3, 2014 06:07
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If memory serves the magic number is 5,000 for blood hunting. Under that and the chance to fail increases dramatically but you don't get bonuses over that. Blood hunting pisses people off and reduces gold income so you want to be as close to 5,000 as possible so you don't lose as much cash munnies.
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Jan 3, 2014 07:59
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Cheneybeast posted:Wtf is a ponyman I didn't sign up for any brony bullshit Magical guy with glamour riding on a pony, generally they got lots of battle magic.
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Jan 3, 2014 08:52
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ToxicSlurpee posted:If memory serves the magic number is 5,000 for blood hunting. Under that and the chance to fail increases dramatically but you don't get bonuses over that. Blood hunting pisses people off and reduces gold income so you want to be as close to 5,000 as possible so you don't lose as much cash munnies. The actual reason for being over 5k is that the formula for hunt failure includes a population check, and the math on that check turns it to 100% success at exactly 5000 pop. There are other checks that can still cause hunts to fail, but insufficient population ceases to be a reason at exactly 5000. Edit: Building on my earlier post, the high-pop tag is literally that it is a "Large" province, and so the high-pop provs are often drawn larger by the map generator.
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Jan 3, 2014 17:45
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Do slaves still always get exactly a +2 boost to paths?
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Jan 3, 2014 20:14
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Slaves get nothing. They are nothing more than immobile meat sacks for fatigue soaking.
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Jan 3, 2014 20:20
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Speleothing posted:The actual reason for being over 5k is that the formula for hunt failure includes a population check, and the math on that check turns it to 100% success at exactly 5000 pop. There are other checks that can still cause hunts to fail, but insufficient population ceases to be a reason at exactly 5000.
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Jan 3, 2014 20:58
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Is there a decent strategy for early expansion for nations with poor infantry that don't pick up an awake SC pretender? I'm toying around with MA Marignon right now, and it's painful watching my expansion wave inevitably get cleared out by indies. Is it okay to wait a few turns producing more units before sending them out, or is there a better way I'm not seeing?
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Jan 3, 2014 21:01
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Riftling posted:Is there a decent strategy for early expansion for nations with poor infantry that don't pick up an awake SC pretender? I'm toying around with MA Marignon right now, and it's painful watching my expansion wave inevitably get cleared out by indies. Is it okay to wait a few turns producing more units before sending them out, or is there a better way I'm not seeing? MA Marginon has recruit-anywhere-with-a-temple sacreds and priests. You can try major blesses with them, they will die in droves but they are 10 gold. Spend resources on people who can take an arrow preferably.
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Jan 3, 2014 21:11
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Riftling posted:Is there a decent strategy for early expansion for nations with poor infantry that don't pick up an awake SC pretender? I'm toying around with MA Marignon right now, and it's painful watching my expansion wave inevitably get cleared out by indies. Is it okay to wait a few turns producing more units before sending them out, or is there a better way I'm not seeing? Assuming you take Prod 3 (take Prod 3 as MA Marignon), you should be able to get 5 Men at Arms for turn two to act as arrow bait. Put them up front, set them on Guard Commander to your prophet way at the back, with nothing in the way, and drag those indie archers right into your pikemen. Also set your crossbowmen to Fire Archers so they don't shoot the poo poo out of your pikemen when they career into the melee bit of whoever you're attacking. And make sure to attack mountains if possible, as those tend to have the easiest indies compared to how many resources they provide (Forests can be a pain in the arse, if you're looking at a start next to a few, then attack with retreat orders on your scout, put them in the back row, it's a good way to get close to 100% accurate intelligence on what's in that province for turn 2).
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Jan 3, 2014 21:13
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Decrepus posted:MA Marginon has recruit-anywhere-with-a-temple sacreds and priests. You can try major blesses with them, they will die in droves but they are 10 gold. Spend resources on people who can take an arrow preferably. I was using dual bless flaggs in Insanegoons, and let me tell you, they're not worth it generally since they need lots of investment to be able to kill anything and survive the first hit (unless you're going for B9 and fighting an evo army). Generally anything flagg can do, a pikeman/crossbowman can do better. On the other hand, friars (stealth priests) are worth recruiting, and A9/E9 are very good on Marignon's mages since they're all holy.
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Jan 3, 2014 21:25
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