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Is there a good place to read up on Pretender creation? I am still confused about builds. Like why do I want a SC pretender as opposed to a rainbow one? How do I tell exactly which nations match up better with a certain type of pretender build? I am really new and would like some theorycrafting.
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Apr 13, 2014 22:26
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In a general sense, a well-designed pretender must always be laser-focused on a specific goal or set of goals. Casting This Ritual in the endgame, This Global before turn 24, and forging This Item and This Other Item. Propping up the early game so you can consistently get 15 provs in year 1. Giving your sacreds Regeneration through N9 bless, so your sacred troops are viable expanders and your A2 sacred thugs can use the Mistform+Regen combo in the midgame. The more you know about what spells and items you want to make (and especially about boosters, since that can change the paths you take depending on the necessary timing), and the better estimation you have of your national troops and commanders, the better your pretender design will be.
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Apr 13, 2014 22:33
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MrBims posted:The moment I see you throwing a heavy S1 around, like your pretender, I'm going to recheck all my provinces for astral indies (there are two reasonably common ones), and if I come up empty, I might consider empowering just to duel you, if I think it might end up the least expensive way to destroy you. Unless I am missing something here along as your pretender is in your cap during the late game then they should be safe from assassination attempts due to redundancy. Yes they can be hit, but you should have some type of shilled spell on your capital if possible and more importantly enough research mages to give you a heads up that somebody is trying to kill your pretender. Also at that point your pretender through item forging, researching and site searching should have created enough redundancy that it doesn't matter as much if they die. Chairman Pow! posted:Is there a good place to read up on Pretender creation? I am still confused about builds. Like why do I want a SC pretender as opposed to a rainbow one? How do I tell exactly which nations match up better with a certain type of pretender build? I am really new and would like some theorycrafting. It's more figuring out what a nation needs help with and building the pretender around that. So for example if playing as EA Mictlain then the idea is to build a pretender who through high magic paths gives your sacred units a nice bless whilst trying to minimise the number of negative scales you need to take to afford said mega bless. Hunt11 fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 22:47
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jBrereton posted:You're risking them getting dropped on by a teleporting astral mage and killed if you don't have any Astral-using pals to come with. That's the risk. Some nations have a much more credible teleport threat than others. Bandar Log and Rlyeh can wreck your day. Nations with a lot of S1, like Ermor or whoever, not so much, since you'll see them coming a mile away. Don't they need to first know where your pretender is for that to work? When I said "sneaking around" I meant actual sneaking. MrBims posted:The moment you start thinking, "Well, there's not much chance of so-and-so happening, so I should be good," you are setting yourself up for failure. Winning in Dominions isn't about having a plan that might kind of work maybe and sticking with it, it is about throwing wrenches in everyone elses' plans. Everything has a counter, so you need to be positioning yourself to make sure the enemy has as few avenues of approach as possible to work with. The winning strategies are usually ones where players took advantage of the unique situations that arose in their games, not ones where they had a turn-one plan that they brute forced through the whole game with. That's the exact oppossite of what I usually hear about this game: TheDemon posted:In a general sense, a well-designed pretender must always be laser-focused on a specific goal or set of goals.
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Apr 14, 2014 00:14
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Jabarto posted:Don't they need to first know where your pretender is for that to work? When I said "sneaking around" I meant actual sneaking.
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Apr 14, 2014 00:16
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jBrereton posted:With actual sneaking then whatever, but I'd still think about what you're using that S1/2 for, since it's quite a big vulnerability to have for the sake of some Pearls you'll have trouble getting much out of. That's fair. Generally I was thinking about things like shrouds and antimagic amulets for thugs, and just opening up more magic sites/gems, but I guess there is a cost-benefit analysis that needs to be done.
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Apr 14, 2014 00:18
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Eschatos posted:Magic duel is decided by comparing S skill + d6, lower result dies. And yes, it's a pretty huge concern if your opponent has astral mages or finds astral indies. Think of it like this: All your opponent has to do to kill your god is drop a few hundred gold and a dozen pearls. Yes you won't see them in every battle, but you will see them in the battle you needed to win. In a tie they both die. 
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Apr 14, 2014 01:31
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jBrereton posted:What do these things actually entail? I'll just explain the ones that aren't obvious: --Additional Natural Attacks --Gives an additional claw attack to almost all units with one. Also adds an additional attack of similiar attack types, e.g. talons, crusher's, and finally missing attack types from certain units, e.g. wolf claws, bear bite. --Armor Revamp --Changes armor and shield Prot, Def, and Enc values. Partially converted from Dominions 3 CBM 1.94 --Axe Changes --This portion of the mod makes axes length two, a few other axe tweaks, and fixes all relevent ambidexerous values. --Blunt Weapon Secondary Effect --This portion of the mod adds a new weapon effect, Blunt Force Trauma, which is then added to most blunt melee weapons. Blunt Force Trauma is a strength based fatigue effect less effective on bigger targets. --Boulder Improvement --This portion of the mod makes boulders aoe 1, with a secondary aoe 5 debree effect, fixes range and damage, and adds charge. --Bows Improvement --Improves the magical bows to be useful. --Charge Bonus Addition --Gives various weapons charge bonus damage. --Item Viability Enhancement --Various changes to magic items to increase viability, mainly construction level, gem cost, and paths required. --Light Lance Replacement --Gives Light and Regular Lances to various monsters that should be wielding them. --Luck Enhancement --Improves luck-related items to be more useful (mainly by giving them twist fate, too) --Shrink and Enlarge Swap --Turns spells that shrink units into buffs for your units and spells that grow units into debuffs for your opponent's units. --Spell Viability Enhancement --Various changes to spells to be more viable, mainly research level, gem cost, and paths required. --War Horn Addition --This portion of the mod creates a new weapon, the "War Horn", which is given to all horn blowing units. 1 ammo aoe 1 fear 2 effect.
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Apr 14, 2014 04:21
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Jon Joe posted:I'll just explain the ones that aren't obvious: I took a look at this and really like your ideas, but I want to note that the new Blunt Force Trauma effect overwrites the abilities of some items (e.g, the False Fetters effect on the Star of Thralldom).
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Apr 14, 2014 04:24
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Jabarto posted:I took a look at this and really like your ideas, but I want to note that the new Blunt Force Trauma effect overwrites the abilities of some items (e.g, the False Fetters effect on the Star of Thralldom). Edit: You're right. Weird, I thought they could have both an auto-effect and on-hit effect. Oh well, I think I'm going to pull the games for now until I can clean some things up in the mod and release 0.03. Emmideer fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 04:32
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Jon Joe posted:Edit: You're right. Weird, I thought they could have both an auto-effect and on-hit effect. Oh well, I think I'm going to pull the games for now until I can clean some things up in the mod and release 0.03. You have to chain the effects. Make a new weapon named "Blunt Force Trauma and False Fetters" that's the same as Blunt Force Trauma except for having #secondaryeffectalways False Fetters.
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Apr 14, 2014 04:51
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MrBims posted:We talked about it in the irc, but for anyone still ooh-ing and awe-ing over the Carp, it is actually a pretty big trap. Gentleman is playing a modded game where the pretender is slightly better, but the stock values are simply unfeasible without some heavy gearing - 5 defense skill means regular 10 attack skill dudes have an 82% chance of hitting you, and length 0 weapons means your attacks will constantly be repelled. The low astral requires you pump points into it so you don't die to magic duel, increasing the cost of the pretender immensely. I'm all for trail blazing new strategies or using less-than-optimal units, but the Carp is pretty near the bottom of the pretender list where cost efficiency and benefits are concerned. What if someone had the idea of using a Pretender with high Astral score in the first place? I don't think it can be said then that "increases thes cost of the pretender inmensely", you would spend the points in Astral in any case! But it's true that Pretenders with lots of hp and low defense are kind of a trap for new players. They seem a tank at first with 300 hp, then die against a mid sized normal army.
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Apr 14, 2014 10:23
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Turin Turambar posted:What if someone had the idea of using a Pretender with high Astral score in the first place? I don't think it can be said then that "increases thes cost of the pretender inmensely", you would spend the points in Astral in any case! But it's true that Pretenders with lots of hp and low defense are kind of a trap for new players. They seem a tank at first with 300 hp, then die against a mid sized normal army. Also with 0 prot and high hp.
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Apr 14, 2014 11:31
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BTW, I was starting reading the Dom 3 AAR from the let's play archive, and in the unit assessment, I think the author totally misjudged the Agema companions. quote:Backing up a notch, the Agema Companion is a unit that I'm not quite sure I know how to use properly. It's an expensive unit with a huge, huge movement and a lance. Lances are a bit special - you get a large damage bonus on the first attack, but not after that. If I have a situation where I need to soften up a front line I might get these guys, but they'll probably die shortly after and I'm just not excited by that. I'm probably underestimating them, however. I think that somehow, he read the hp, attack, protections, strength stats, but somehow his eyes glossed over defense 18? Because a lance+shield cavalry with defense 18, prot 14, morale 14 seems very decent to me. I never played Late Arco, but you could make the classical anvil + hammer tactic together with the Hoplites. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 11:32
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How long is the battlefield between the deployment zones? If its 20, these guys could reach the frontline on turn 1, and might inflict some damage to his chaff before he has a chance to properly buff them. Alternatively if his battle-line is thin enough they might try to get in an attack on rearmost units. It's just a shame that there is no charge and withdraw script in Dominions, it would make cavalry a lot more useful. Charge, pull back, charge again.
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Apr 14, 2014 14:38
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Turin Turambar posted:What if someone had the idea of using a Pretender with high Astral score in the first place? I don't think it can be said then that "increases thes cost of the pretender inmensely", you would spend the points in Astral in any case! But it's true that Pretenders with lots of hp and low defense are kind of a trap for new players. They seem a tank at first with 300 hp, then die against a mid sized normal army. The point is that native S1 is hugely different from a pretender that starts with some other school-1 that you are not planning to use. Leaving them at S1 is a big enough vulnerability that you are limited in what you can do with them. The Karp looks like a potential SC, but unless you pump astral, there's a giant flashing weakpoint that would put Achilles to shame. A similar chassis that starts with S0 has no such problem.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:42
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dis astranagant posted:If your pretender is never leaving the lab or if it is a flimsy human that can be easily killed a million other ways then astral on your pretender doesn't matter much. If your pretender is a big fat combat chassis you've opened up a huge way to easily kill him off by giving him astral magic. A way that can only be mitigated by empowering him in astral or not making that mistake in the first place. Leave it at one and accept the first MD as a cost of doing business. I did this in a game I took allfather (because he is cool ok. i know he's not good) and he was somehow never MD'd  Turin Turambar posted:BTW, I was starting reading the Dom 3 AAR from the let's play archive, and in the unit assessment, I think the author totally misjudged the Agema companions. They are extremely res intensive to use in anything but limited amounts. I had prod3 and don't think I ever fielded more than a handful of them at any one point. Once you get to the point that you can afford to mass them, you've probably moved onto the point where a huge blob of slingers/peltasts with maybe a phalangite line in front of a death dealing communion is inevitably a better bet. With the amount of friendly fire going around it's a lot better if the thing getting friendly fired is cheap and easily replaced. Nuclearmonkee fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 15:56
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I Greyhound posted:The point is that native S1 is hugely different from a pretender that starts with some other school-1 that you are not planning to use. Leaving them at S1 is a big enough vulnerability that you are limited in what you can do with them. The Karp looks like a potential SC, but unless you pump astral, there's a giant flashing weakpoint that would put Achilles to shame. A similar chassis that starts with S0 has no such problem. The carp is also nothing like a potential SC. 8 base defence is just horrible, and it's one of the hardest attributes to buff without massive fatigue penalties. If you want an SC for TC, you get a Devi of Darkness, because Blood and Earth are great self-buffing/self-repair paths, she has 13 base defence, Fear 10, plenty of health, good precision, and four hands. You could also go for a Nataraja, but I don't rate him as much. Always feels like he underperforms due to the lack of Air magic for Air Shield given his lovely natural Protection, and really does need more Astral to not die. For Not Japan, you'd probably go for the W Dragon?
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Apr 14, 2014 16:37
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Defense on a super combatant is not an important attribute, since every consecutive attack carries a -2 defense penalty, so unless you are fighting giants you are going to get hit anyway.
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Apr 14, 2014 19:38
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Diabl0658 posted:Defense on a super combatant is not an important attribute, since every consecutive attack carries a -2 defense penalty, so unless you are fighting giants you are going to get hit anyway.
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Apr 14, 2014 21:05
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Where is my thug item that makes everyone near me Grow.
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Apr 15, 2014 00:06
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Diabl0658 posted:Defense on a super combatant is not an important attribute, since every consecutive attack carries a -2 defense penalty, so unless you are fighting giants you are going to get hit anyway. The key to SCs and Thugs in dom4 seems to be ensuring that they never get hit by anything; pumping def, awe and fear seem to be the most important things for keeping an SC alive with HP and regen the second most important. e: Oh and MR, MR is also important. Neruz fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Apr 15, 2014 |
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Apr 15, 2014 01:38
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Diabl0658 posted:Defense on a super combatant is not an important attribute, since every consecutive attack carries a -2 defense penalty, so unless you are fighting giants you are going to get hit anyway. It still matters a lot, you just can't rely on it by itself. If you have a Vine Shield or a Shield of Gleaming Gold (and you really should) you can drastically reduce the number of enemies that can attack at once, which is enough to keep the penalties from overwhelming you. That said, I usually use the Chainmail of Displacement on a Vanadrott or Tuatha for my thugs/SC's, so 25-30 defense + Glamour probably isn't the norm.
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Apr 15, 2014 01:44
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Jabarto posted:It still matters a lot, you just can't rely on it by itself. If you have a Vine Shield or a Shield of Gleaming Gold (and you really should) you can drastically reduce the number of enemies that can attack at once, which is enough to keep the penalties from overwhelming you. That said, I usually use the Chainmail of Displacement on a Vanadrott or Tuatha for my thugs/SC's, so 25-30 defense + Glamour probably isn't the norm. It's ok if augmented by other things as mentioned and can come in very handy against other thugs. High defense is a stat you want on troops mostly. High defense on a guy whos job is to wade into pd and kill them while surrounded isn't terribly useful. 22 def on a centaur that you have 2 to a square and are deploying in a group is a different story though. Since there are more, the attacks are going to be distributed and it is harder to overwhelm.
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Apr 15, 2014 02:06
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Nuclearmonkee posted:It's ok if augmented by other things as mentioned and can come in very handy against other thugs. High defense is a stat you want on troops mostly. High defense on a guy whos job is to wade into pd and kill them while surrounded isn't terribly useful. 22 def on a centaur that you have 2 to a square and are deploying in a group is a different story though. Since there are more, the attacks are going to be distributed and it is harder to overwhelm. Like I said, it needs to be paired with things that reduce the number of incoming attacks and layered with other defenses, but I've had far more success with, say, 25 defense and 8 prot thugs than with 25 prot and 8 defense thugs.
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Apr 15, 2014 02:16
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Jabarto posted:Like I said, it needs to be paired with things that reduce the number of incoming attacks and layered with other defenses, but I've had far more success with, say, 25 defense and 8 prot thugs than with 25 prot and 8 defense thugs. Considering the vast number of ways there are to penetrate or ignore prot outright it's kind of a crappy stat all things considered :T Having some prot is useful, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of point in stacking it.
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Apr 15, 2014 02:21
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I'm about to start a new mplayer game as Sceleria and there don't seem to be any online writeups that I can find, not surprising considering they're a new nation to dom4. Their magic paths look deceptively good (S and D with the ability to communion for W and A buffs) but besides that they don't seem to really have anything that great. I imagine I'll be trying to get a gem economy rolling asap so I can supplement my troops with banes and skelly chaff. 1. I assume I'll be casting lots of wailing winds. Is stygian rains any good? The text makes it seem like the effect is applied to both armies, so I guess it's a situational thing? 2. For pretender design, I'm split between magic diversity (E especially) and getting extra levels in D + S to guarantee that I can easily forge the big items and get endgame stuff like tarts rolling. 3. In the realm of bad theorycraft that I'm going to test in splayer shortly: I'm tempted to try an N9 regen bless that leads into me casting soul drain + astral tempest with my sacred mage communions. I could also just sacrifice 4 communion slaves to have one of my StR's cast the combo, and this seems like it would be pretty effective. 4. For scales - their mages actually seem to be relatively cheap, but 9 research on my mass-produced mage makes me think that M3 would be a good idea. Has anyone run this nation in mplayer yet/have any thoughts on what worked and what didn't?
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Apr 15, 2014 02:26
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TheresNoThyme posted:I'm about to start a new mplayer game as Sceleria and there don't seem to be any online writeups that I can find, not surprising considering they're a new nation to dom4.
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Apr 15, 2014 02:30
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jBrereton posted:Sceleria is Dominions 3's MA Ermor (LA Ermor is the new MA Ermor, LA Lemuria is a thing from Dom 2 brought back for Dom 3), so look for them that way. Ahhh, thanks. I'll try some more searches with that in mind. Still curious if anyone has any thoughts on them though
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Apr 15, 2014 02:32
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Neruz posted:Considering the vast number of ways there are to penetrate or ignore prot outright it's kind of a crappy stat all things considered :T Defense is good against thug hunters since they will tend to have AN equipment, alternatively a high base prot will help? I forget if AN ignores base prot, I think it does?
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Apr 15, 2014 02:35
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TheresNoThyme posted:Ahhh, thanks. I'll try some more searches with that in mind. Still curious if anyone has any thoughts on them though Probably a bunch of different ways to run them, though.
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Apr 15, 2014 02:43
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The -2 penalty to def doesn't apply near as often as you would think. Stacking def is legit.
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Apr 15, 2014 02:43
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I posted a Sceleria write-up in this thread a few months ago. Click the question-mark under my name and it should pop up. Edit: actually, looking over my post history, I've done it a few times. Speleothing fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Apr 15, 2014 |
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Apr 15, 2014 02:52
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I was wondering, does Air Shield work against projectile spells like Vine Arrow or Fire Bolt?
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Apr 15, 2014 03:31
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Jabarto posted:I was wondering, does Air Shield work against projectile spells like Vine Arrow or Fire Bolt?
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Apr 15, 2014 03:34
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How about Berytos? First time using them and they look to be fun if I can get blood hunts going. I've maxed out production, order and one or two in growth with one in bad luck. I was thinking dormant blood fountain with Dom 8, Blood 9 and Fire 3 so that when my fountain awakens he can continuously summon their national demon summon. I have the blood one mages blood hunt and have the sacred Brides spread out in forts summoning more national summons. Expansion is handled in stages. Early elephant rush and prophetization of my first general. I get my second fort up ASAP and then build Brides in my cap along with Colosi. Human troops supplement. Sound about right?
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Apr 15, 2014 03:52
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Is Patrol Bonus always in effect regardless of the units orders, or does the unit need to be using the Patrol command to benefit from the bonus?
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Apr 15, 2014 04:04
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Shachar posted:Is Patrol Bonus always in effect regardless of the units orders, or does the unit need to be using the Patrol command to benefit from the bonus?
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Apr 15, 2014 04:22
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Excelsiortothemax posted:How about Berytos? First time using them and they look to be fun if I can get blood hunts going. I would recommend an awake SC for Berytos, their sacreds aren't very good and their other troops are garbage until you get flaming arrows.
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Apr 15, 2014 05:48
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Eschatos posted:I would recommend an awake SC for Berytos, their sacreds aren't very good and their other troops are garbage until you get flaming arrows. So troop spam and thug out the demons later on then?
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Apr 15, 2014 05:58
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