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Ah, that's handy. Thanks.
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Feb 6, 2014 03:47
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TheresNoThyme posted:One thing I will say is that I don't think Abysia is the best nation for early all-out aggression, which is also why I don't recommend death scales. Your sacreds are good but not really the best (and you're screwed if you try to invade someone with cold scales), fire magic kinda sucks until you get your research going, and trying to do sieges or even raiding with a bunch of high resource, effectively move-1 armies is a giant pain. The only rush strat I liked in SP was a rush for conj-3 phoenix power + fire elementals where you just throw your fire gems at someone until they fall over, but fire elementals are still terrible in the winter/cold dominions. I pretty mcuh agree with you: Abysia really has to expand in a controlled way and use diplomacy as much as possible until the fire casters become relevant. I'm playing MA Abysia right now in Piano (turn 100, holla!) and I'd say that Abysia really has to expand/get forts early because your units are so resource intensive and they need strong research from the very beginning. Abysia's troops are good and that makes them convenient to use, but they're really nothing amazing compared to a lot of the other MA nations. Sure Abysia can demolish PD and AI chaff armies, but MA has a lot of nations with extremely hard-hitting/defensive line troops and Abysia's guys fatigue out pretty fast. In games with slugfests in the first 15-20 turns, Abysia has an early game disadvantage against many of the popular nations you're almost guaranteed to see in MP games like Eriu and Machaka, and generally they cannot go offensively at all against any nation with cold scales except for maybe Caelum, because Caelum sucks. Basically Abysia wants strong scales, solid dominion, and a pretender with diversified magic paths--I went with a sleeping immobile pretender to get some approximation of that. I don't see the awake SC/Dragon strategy as very complimentary, because: A) you have no trouble beating PD, B)if you script them correctly, your line troops are tough enough to kill an SC in the early game, C) There's a very poor risk-to-reward ratio for using your pretender in enemy dominion.
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Feb 6, 2014 04:07
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Smerdyakov posted:A) you have no trouble beating PD, Different strategic mindset. I'd counter that hyperaggression from a beefy pretender is great for abysia, who should be going for early game resources harder than most other nations except maybe Ulm. Those first 4-5 turns where your SC is busting up the locals in one direction while your army pushes in the other direction can lead to quite a nice income/resource snowball to slap your closest neighbor around with. Your strategy is no less sound, just a different approach. The beauty of dominions.
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Feb 6, 2014 09:23
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Decrepus posted:The line about they ignoring income penalty is bullshit anyway. Just misleading flavor text to trick you into ruining your nation. Abysia still takes the income penalty by picking up the Death scale and still loses the income by the pop dying just like everyone else. The only thing they benefit from is that they don't take a supply penalty... Really? drat you Illwinter, daaamn youuu!
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Feb 6, 2014 09:41
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Smerdyakov posted:I pretty mcuh agree with you: Abysia really has to expand in a controlled way and use diplomacy as much as possible until the fire casters become relevant. What are the 5-6 key Fire spells, in your mind?
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Feb 6, 2014 09:44
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Id probably say Falling Fires, Fire Elemental Summons, Flaming Arrows, Phoenix Pyre, and then maybe Incinerate? Thats without considering phoenix power however.
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Feb 6, 2014 09:55
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LordLeckie posted:Id probably say Falling Fires, Fire Elemental Summons, Flaming Arrows, Phoenix Pyre, and then maybe Incinerate? Thats without considering phoenix power however. For Abysia in particular it's more like 1. Firestorm 2. Firestorm 3. Firestorm 4. Firestorm 5. Firestorm
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Feb 6, 2014 14:57
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TheresNoThyme posted:For Abysia in particular it's more like Ill also accept this answer. Also possibly replace #4 with heat from hell or second sun.
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Feb 6, 2014 15:04
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drat the mages are all half blind, their fire spells miss a lot. A reason more to go up to Firestorm right? Meanwhile, I will try to craft a few eyes of aiming.
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Feb 6, 2014 15:37
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Sovietski posted:Different strategic mindset. I'd counter that hyperaggression from a beefy pretender is great for abysia, who should be going for early game resources harder than most other nations except maybe Ulm. Those first 4-5 turns where your SC is busting up the locals in one direction while your army pushes in the other direction can lead to quite a nice income/resource snowball to slap your closest neighbor around with. For sure! And I should clarify that it also depends a lot on map size/circumstances. If you're working with closer to 10 provinces per player, getting those provinces a few turns earlier doesn't really matter. But if it's 15+ per player, having an SC pretender that can add an additional indie province a turn for 5-10 turns is huge. TheresNoThyme posted:For Abysia in particular it's more like Because it spits hot fire! Firestorm is mandatory for any big battle, and I wish I'd taken death on my pretender because otherwise it's really hard to site search D and get the very efficient (5D5F) flaming skull booster, which basically makes it possible for you to cast firestorm with even your F2 guys when you need to. At certain points in the game, forging those/casting dark knowledge definitely will be the best use of your pretender. Plus smolderghosts. Falling fires is the standard spell but you need to bring a half dozen fire mages at minimum because they're extremely inaccurate. Heat from hell and inner furnace are pretty important too, because you need the enemy to fatigue out at approximately the same rate as your guys. Mass firecloud can turn a big battle because it's not very accuracy dependent and it can make all the difference in big battles with 300+ troops rubbing against each other ineffectually for 20 turns. Incinerate is also very good for punching through enemy fire-resist gear and taking down sacred units with big blesses. Flaming arrows can work for Abysia, but it's usually not worth the effort, especially because by the time you get there, your opponents will have either figured out their fire-resist strategy (or not) by that point, which means that it's often useless, one way or another. Plus, no matter how carefully you set up your formations, your indie archers will always eventually all catch on fire and die all at once. The truth is that when Abysia uses fire magic there's zero element of surprise so most people are prepared for it one way or another, which is why you can't afford to ignore blood and/or astral. Smerdyakov fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 16:16
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When in doubt and have a bunch of priest mages, take a level 6 earth and/or air bless.
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Feb 6, 2014 17:16
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This was a 3 PD province.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:17
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it's important to screen your crossbowmen with a melee troop
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Feb 7, 2014 01:18
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MrBims posted:This was a 3 PD province.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:24
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Flavahbeast posted:it's important to screen your crossbowmen with a melee troop It's LA Ulm, I think you mean more crossbowmen in a different location.
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Feb 7, 2014 01:26
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Just got this game and absolutely love it. I'm still trying to get the hang of magic, though, and I wanted to ask about Nature spells in particular. I like nature magic for that ritual that heals afflictions, the personal regeneration spell, and for crafting that shield that puts out attackers' eyes (seriously, that thing is absolutely brutal), but I don't know what actual spells I should be using. Is Storm of Thorns worth using if I'm rushing evocation spells anyway? How about that one that gives barkskin to units in a 5+ area? Those are the two that stand out to me as being useful and easy to cast.
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Feb 7, 2014 03:04
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Protection is one of the best spells for troop buffs. Ravenous Swarm is pretty funny against tarts and banes if they're the only opposition you're up against.
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Feb 7, 2014 03:51
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Nature has some great summons to work towards that can diversify you into Death and Air (Lamias and Faeries,) Dryads are a great ethereal line troop with strength stealing weapons, and Trolls (and their regeneration) are some of my favorite summonable line infantry. I love Nature's Globals too, Gift of Health and Haunted forest both in enchantment together... man that's obnoxious to fight against, especially if it's one of the Panic nations already flooding the forests with troops. I need to try a multiplayer Asphodel game soon... I know the freespawn won't work near as well and I'll actually have to use strategies and stuff but I just love chaff so goddamn much 
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Feb 7, 2014 06:24
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The thing about asphodel is that you NEED forests if you dont have a forest nearby then the game has declared that you get to eat poo poo in the early game and anyone fighting against you gets easy mode because all you get are fairly small numbers of mandragora and manikin humans so no minotaurs, sacred centaur vinebow archers, undead fear causing elephants or fast moving reanimated horses.
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Feb 7, 2014 08:11
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So, I'm trying out Middle Age Pythia for the first time and I have a quick question: How the hell am I supposed to use hydras? I put them way up in front and on one flank, but they still manage to slaughter my own troops every single time. They move to the center, get bogged down with some basic units and then my troops roll up after holding initially. They just get caught in the poison clouds for the rest of the battle and die horribly. I'm probably missing something simple like a poison resistance buff, but figured I'd ask. Edit: Yup. 
Safety Factor fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Feb 7, 2014 |
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Feb 7, 2014 10:09
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Safety Factor posted:So, I'm trying out Middle Age Pythia for the first time and I have a quick question: How the hell am I supposed to use hydras?
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Feb 7, 2014 15:09
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Yeah, don't mix them with your regular armies.
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Feb 7, 2014 15:51
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So the way to use them is to just send them off on their own and let them do their thing with no support of any kind? Not that they really need help from what I've seen. I'll keep that in mind. Edit: I happened to have a pretender with nature magic so I've been trying to run them with other units with a poison resist spell on them.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:05
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Try to put the Hydras in the top most flank with attack rear orders and the rest of squads in the bottom flank with attack closest orders. They should be able to fight in the same battle with minimal interference between them. Maybe.
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Feb 7, 2014 16:53
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Turin Turambar posted:Try to put the Hydras in the top most flank with attack rear orders and the rest of squads in the bottom flank with attack closest orders. They should be able to fight in the same battle with minimal interference between them. Maybe. Hydras are slow as gently caress so this won't work unless you make them fly.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:01
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When I played pythium I just used the hydras in the first few turns when you need to capture your cap circle but don't yet have the resources to spam your line soldiers (who do quite a decent job of wiping indies eventually). Hydras are cool units but that 250 gold will really eat into your upkeep and year 1 fortspam if you don't keep an eye on it. They're kinda like super elephants
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Feb 7, 2014 17:06
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TheresNoThyme posted:When I played pythium I just used the hydras in the first few turns when you need to capture your cap circle but don't yet have the resources to spam your line soldiers (who do quite a decent job of wiping indies eventually). I just started messing with pythium last night; the only effective use I found for them was one or two theurgs bottom corner spamming evo, hydras top right corner just set to poison, and then ramming all that at throne lvl 3 pd to weaken it. Everything else just ended up a disaster. For my regular army, i find that (fire and keep distance) for my light infantry works surprisingly well. One or two guys engage enemies to break their lines, his buddies huck javelins and then attack enmasse. I lose one or two troops each battle. Is this a valid strategy or was I just obscenely lucky?
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Feb 7, 2014 18:03
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Safety Factor posted:So the way to use them is to just send them off on their own and let them do their thing with no support of any kind? Not that they really need help from what I've seen. I'll keep that in mind. MA Pythium is not the best situated to use Hydras, since they don't get a lot of D or N like EA or MA, so you lack summons to pair up with them.
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Feb 7, 2014 18:20
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Donkringel posted:For my regular army, i find that (fire and keep distance) for my light infantry works surprisingly well. One or two guys engage enemies to break their lines, his buddies huck javelins and then attack enmasse. I lose one or two troops each battle. Is this a valid strategy or was I just obscenely lucky?
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Feb 7, 2014 22:29
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The right way to use hydras is to be playing Dom3; 1/turn recruitment is really bad for them for a variety of reasons.
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Feb 8, 2014 00:08
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(Posting to be verified for the MP server, please. Ta) //edit: thanks for the prompt verification // Coffeespoons fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Feb 8, 2014 |
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Feb 8, 2014 00:54
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Are there any VLPs of Dominions 4 that people would recommend? I've greatly enjoyed the SSLPs on this site but I'd love to see the game in motion to better appreciate what playing it is actually like before I take the plunge.
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Feb 8, 2014 06:29
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I know Maerlande did a tiny introductory video a bit back, you could ask around for twitch archives of streamed blitz games but otherwise im not sure sorry.
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Feb 8, 2014 06:37
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Flython posted:Are there any VLPs of Dominions 4 that people would recommend? I've greatly enjoyed the SSLPs on this site but I'd love to see the game in motion to better appreciate what playing it is actually like before I take the plunge. Like mentioned Maerlande did some videos for dom4. He is rather good MP player and talks mostly about stragedy. http://www.youtube.com/user/Maerlande2/videos There is Marcus Aurelius dude who did this sort of tutorial LP for dom4. He seems to avoid the common pitfalls of youtube LP's. No shrieking and no constant rape jokes. He's not the best player though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMIQfYIkrjA
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Feb 8, 2014 07:02
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I only have one Dominions 4 vid up, but you could take a look at my stream archive where I stream a few duel games. Dominions 3 plays the same way Dom4 does so most of the archived vids should be a fairly good demo.
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Feb 8, 2014 10:35
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WHY there is so much micro in Blood Hunting? God why. Do you have to take little sacks of gold, transferring them to scouts, and move the scouts to labs where they ferry back the bags to gain gold in the game? No? Is abstracted if the province is connected to a fort right? Do you have move one by one the magical gems? No, right? Then why I have to micromanage every individual slave blood >  .It's one thing having to search what individual provinces to blood hunt, being careful with the conditions (unrest, population) and having to send guys with the knowledge and equipment (with that they make a point that blood magic is different than any other magic school, more special, but it needs care); but it's another thing having so much micro to do. Once you do the blood hunt action the slaves should transfer automatically to the closest, connected lab. Maybe put an modified action like control+blood hunt if you don't want to send them back, because you plan to use them soon.
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Feb 8, 2014 11:11
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Im so glad that both LA and MA Ctis are right near one another in Grandpas closet, nigh identical flags, now they must fight to the death to see who is the TRUE CTIS.
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Feb 8, 2014 16:52
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How people take tri-blesses? It really tanks your scales. Is it worth it apart from using with Mictlan? In general, what are the nations with most Bless synergy?
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Feb 8, 2014 19:09
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Turin Turambar posted:How people take tri-blesses? It really tanks your scales. Is it worth it apart from using with Mictlan? Too easy. Just take sloth 3, misfortune, drain, death and order. Problem solved. All things are worth it if they give you the best chance to win. So... No, not usually. Try nations with good sacreds. Happy to help!
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Feb 8, 2014 20:00
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Turin Turambar posted:How people take tri-blesses? It really tanks your scales. Is it worth it apart from using with Mictlan? Personally I wouldn't take a triple 9-bless with any nation besides a Mictlan or maybe Lanka. Mictlan, especially MA Mictlan, can make it work because their recruit anywhere sacreds are very cheap for how good they are: other nations with recruit anywhere sacreds, like the flagellant nations, still rely on armored nonsacred troops and/or nonsacred mages to get anywhere, Mictlan doesn't. It's cheap low resource sacreds all the way down for Mictlan and then eventually 0 upkeep demons, you can afford to tank your scales in ways a lot of nations can't
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Feb 8, 2014 22:17
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