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Are there any good starting out guides for this? I'm haven't played since Dominion 3 in years and barely remember everything and am completely over my head, even with some of the stuff in the OP.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:38
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Gorelab posted:Are there any good starting out guides for this? I'm haven't played since Dominion 3 in years and barely remember everything and am completely over my head, even with some of the stuff in the OP. I posted a link to some LP videos made for newbies a little bit ago. They helped me get started.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:45
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Torrannor posted:Gemgens were magic items that could be forged in Dominions 3 which produced one gem per turn. These evolved into an economy of their own, with people getting the majority of their gems from these gemgens in the late game. They were rightfully nerfed in Dom 4, a Clam of Pearls no longer produces one astral pearl per turn, but instead gives the mage wearing it two temporary astral pearls to be used in combat only. The "bad" thing about removing gemgens is that Illwinter didn't adjust many spell costs in accordance to the less site rarity and removal of gemgens in Dom4. It's one of the reasons why blood has become even more powerful.
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Jan 3, 2015 04:00
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Was messing around in a disciples game with a friend as Ulm and I ended up storming Vanarus's capital. Scripted my assault forces badly and they ended up getting chewed up at the gate by the Vanarus pretender, the Vallya of the Waters or something, one of the Aesir, but they took out most of Vanarus's mortal troops in the process. The Vallya sallied forth after my retreating infantry and was promptly swarmed by a pack of sappers who killed her in a second with their pickaxes and shot apart almost all of Vanarus's remaining troops before breaking and fleeing themselves. The last un-routed units on the field was my original Ulmic infantry commander that I started the game with, and a Vanarus jarl. My commander had battle fright from an earlier battle. He ran up through the gate, dodged all the tower defenses, strolled right up to the jarl and smacked him in the face with a hammer, single-handedly ending the siege. Game owns. (Poor guy died later on a clean-up operation, though.)  So I'm in the mood to hear more crazy Dom stories. Does anyone have a tale about a time they managed to use a mostly useless and highly niche spell to game-winning effect?
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Jan 3, 2015 06:37
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Mister Adequate posted:Is Gift of Reason at all useful? I can see it being good for letting you equip an already strong unit with powerful items, but I'm not nearly experienced enough to know a) whether that is true and b) which units would benefit most from it. EA Atlantis, currently. it's ok if you get something stupid from an event or land an enslave mind on a big mage
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Jan 3, 2015 11:07
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And in the "worthless items" category, today we have this level 8 bad dude Is there any super unit of size 1 which would be good enough to use in combat with this? Or is this just a "lore" item taken from a rpg campaign of the creators?
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Jan 3, 2015 13:53
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Cast one of the permanent size reduction spells on a pimp-rear end thug, I guess. 
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Jan 3, 2015 14:14
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Time to build an LA Tien'Chi guide around manipulating the odds to get shrunk by a lab experiment random event (this is a Thing), and giving a de-aged size 1 Ancestor Smith thug one of those and maybe 50+ more gems' worth of equipment to absolutely wreak havoc upon ~10PD provinces very consistently. No doubt will go down a storm on Desura so long as I give it an absurd title, like LA Tien'Chi: What's Old Is New or whatever.
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Jan 3, 2015 14:17
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Put that poo poo on a Hoburg, then give the Hoburg the Amulet of Giants and trample boots and your size 3 Hoburg can charge around trampling humans to death.
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Jan 3, 2015 14:24
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Neruz posted:Put that poo poo on a Hoburg, then give the Hoburg the Amulet of Giants and trample boots and your size 3 Hoburg can charge around trampling humans to death. I don't think the same effect (enlargement) can be applied twice.
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Jan 3, 2015 15:20
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Turin Turambar posted:And in the "worthless items" category, today we have this level 8 bad dude I made a markata scout thug with that once. He was p good until he got hit by a thing (I think it was a magic) and died instantly. RIP
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Jan 3, 2015 17:07
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Tomn posted:
Long ago, before we understood what Kitfox was, we played a disciples game in which I quickly beelined for my neighbor (Marig)'s capital as Vanarus. Our forces were Blood9 blessed and this combined with lots and lots of mans wreaked havoc on Kitfox's PD-based defenses. I had his base sieged and gobbled up all his territory, and settled in for a long winter. So imagine my surprise when the gates quickly fell and my ~200 strong army was prepared to storm the fort. Well this was the point where the Kitfox army streamed out the gates, and I got my first taste of his thugged out Virtue disciple with the N9E4 bless from his pretender. It started blasting endless waves of lightning everywhere and while I routed his army pretty quickly (killing his troops to a man in the process) it did a decent chunk of damage. Sadly it got away, but the next battle would surely seal the deal. I stormed the fort which at this point was guarded by his lonely Virtue. It was an absolute slaughter. The Virtue killed over a hundred mans that day and seemed well-night invincible. His close range lightning blasts pureed my high-prot glamoured troops like sheep hurled bodily into a jet engine. My armies were routed, decimated, my plans totally shot. Worst of all, I hadn't even given the goddamn angel a single loving wound. I finally settled on the only plan that might have some chance of success: I needed to kit out some thugs to survive the lightning blasts and ALSO have a way of busting through the Awe/Prot/Def/Regen of the Virtue and ALSO survive against the first wave of troops. It was early game and I had few options so I settled on 2 Chud Jarls (who only fit the bill if you squinted real hard) armed with Flesheater Axes so I could rip the idiot angels heart out and cause him to fatigue out. I equipped them with every last Morale boost I could find so they would successfully run past the first line of troops as well as attack through Awe, gave them the shittiest armour money could buy, and gave them lightning resist trinkets as well as whatever fire and ice gear I had lying around to hopefully survive the fuckers other attacks. I lost half of my standing army in the next battle. About a hundred barbarians and Hirdmen threw themselves into that loving blender. I lost my goddamn Yeti commander, apple of my eye and backup plan (he had one of those huge useless 2handers but if he'd hit the Virtue it would have creamed the SOB). And I lost one of the poor Chud Jarls to an unlikely lance point coupled with plenty of attrition and a lucky stray lightning bolt that hit through his resist. But the other Jarl tore that angel's loving heart out, and beat him to death while he lay there gasping. It cost him an arm and an eye, but by god I managed to siege down Kitfox in the 2nd year of a game and I don't think that's ever been possible since.
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Jan 3, 2015 17:58
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I Love You! posted:OK sure
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Jan 3, 2015 18:44
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Samog posted:it's ok if you get something stupid from an event or land an enslave mind on a big mage Also if you are R'lyeh and you get a vastness through the void gate, having a unit with a move of 10 can come in pretty handy, and it's a decent thug too.
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Jan 3, 2015 20:03
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Turin Turambar posted:And in the "worthless items" category, today we have this level 8 bad dude Maybe take a triple bless (Fire, Water, Earth), take a ponyman, shrink him and his obscene defense, then give it to him? Maybe together with some more items pushing his defense and attack even higher? The end effect should be truly horrible. (For everything that abomination ever meets in battle.)
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Jan 3, 2015 20:09
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Smerdyakov posted:Also if you are R'lyeh and you get a vastness through the void gate, having a unit with a move of 10 can come in pretty handy, and it's a decent thug too. i think anything that comes with paths is probably good to gift of reason
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Jan 3, 2015 20:43
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Mister Adequate posted:Is Gift of Reason at all useful? I can see it being good for letting you equip an already strong unit with powerful items, but I'm not nearly experienced enough to know a) whether that is true and b) which units would benefit most from it. EA Atlantis, currently. Can't believe that nobody mentioned Tartarians, you always want to cast Gift of Reason on those if you can get them.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:22
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That sort of late-late endgame just isn't happening for a lot of people.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:27
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Smerdyakov posted:Also if you are R'lyeh and you get a vastness through the void gate, having a unit with a move of 10 can come in pretty handy, and it's a decent thug too. I've never gotten anything good out of the void gate. Is it ever worth parking a mage on?
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Jan 3, 2015 21:39
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I Love You! posted:OK sure Never 4get curly, the only competent combat virtue in dom 4.  Demiurge4 posted:I've never gotten anything good out of the void gate. Is it ever worth parking a mage on? It's only one mage turn, and you have a chance of getting some super strong poo poo that you can divine name into awesome as hell thugs. And a bunch of really solid chaff for your armies of squidheads to hide behind. Kitfox88 fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 21:42
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How do you get different/better blesses? I'm just doing whatever starting one my priests can do.
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Jan 3, 2015 21:58
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Elukka posted:How do you get different/better blesses? I'm just doing whatever starting one my priests can do. your bless is determined by your pretender's magic paths, you can see what its effects will be when you assign paths during pretender creation. Whatever effects it grants are applied to sacred units when a priest casts the bless spell in battle or when your pretender is there.
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Jan 3, 2015 22:01
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Torrannor posted:Can't believe that nobody mentioned Tartarians, you always want to cast Gift of Reason on those if you can get them. Tarts are fine for grabbing magic paths you really need if the game goes to turn 1 million but in about 98% of games they aren't really a consideration. Usually it's better to simply bootstrap blood than worry about a tart engine for powering out the lategame. Tart thugs are loving awful as a goal because by the time you could hope to get them online every single counter to them is also online and a billion times cheaper/easier. In dom4 I've never seen tarts be the difference maker in a game but I have seen getting them be a difference maker by putting the person bothering to do so behind. I Love You! fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 22:16
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Kitfox88 posted:Never 4get curly, the only competent combat virtue in dom 4. What's the best age to try out R'yleh and their void monsters and stuff, MA or LA?
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Jan 3, 2015 23:05
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Turin Turambar posted:What's the best age to try out R'yleh and their void monsters and stuff, MA or LA? LA R'lyeh can freespawn void monsters, but then you're LA R'lyeh. Also: Use the Starspawn Priest to enter the Void Gate. They're better at it/keep their sanity longer (Plus if you end up using them as researchers in the secondary forts, you'll have plenty to shuttle one over to the capital when the original gate delver inevitably falls into the void or is eaten by A Thing)
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Jan 3, 2015 23:20
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Turin Turambar posted:What's the best age to try out R'yleh and their void monsters and stuff, MA or LA?
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Jan 3, 2015 23:34
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I just tried LA R'lyeh for 40 minutes to gain a first impression. ...How are you supposed to win? I mean, I like the idea of a really different nation where your are a group of madmen, aliens and cultists directing a garbage army where is reunited every pariah and nuts of the planet, where your commanders sometimes prefer to look at the sky or preach or do whatever they want, where you receive freespawn but your own Dominion is killing everyone so you have to somewhat rush and make up with whatever you have, you are really the the crazy-apocalyptic impersonated. That's the idea. While flavorful... in practice, how the hell are you supposed to win? "You don't", I suppose.
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Jan 4, 2015 00:10
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Kitfox88 posted:Never 4get curly, the only competent combat virtue in dom 4. I'm still really curious about what the hell you can get from an ancient city and what factors impact success. My testing has been inconclusive thus far.
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Jan 4, 2015 00:22
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Gaghskull posted:I'm still really curious about what the hell you can get from an ancient city and what factors impact success. My testing has been inconclusive thus far. Things that come from (magic site) here http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/?page=unit&showids=1&showkeys=1&unitkey=voidsanity&unittype=5 and Vastness, I think. Of course some times they eat your mage, other times they are chaff, other times are immobile stuff (Thing from Beyond and Thing from many Eyes).
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Jan 4, 2015 00:48
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I Love You! posted:Kitfox Kitfox sounds like my kind of guy So does your bless improve as your Pretender's magic does? Like if I start at, say, N5 but get it up to N9 in-game, do I get the effects of the major bless and all from that point on?
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Jan 4, 2015 04:55
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Mister Adequate posted:So does your bless improve as your Pretender's magic does? Like if I start at, say, N5 but get it up to N9 in-game, do I get the effects of the major bless and all from that point on? No. Only starting paths matter.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:22
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fool_of_sound posted:No. Only starting paths matter. That's what I thought, but thank you for the confirmation.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:32
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Tomn posted:So I'm in the mood to hear more crazy Dom stories. Does anyone have a tale about a time they managed to use a mostly useless and highly niche spell to game-winning effect? This wasn't a game winner, but it was pretty loving cool. I subbed into a game. Was LA Pythium. This was in Dominions 3, when sacred hydras weren't recruit limited (except by holy) and so you could legit base a strategy around them. The former Pythium player had chosen to go with W9 A4 hydras (In Dom3, A4 was 20% air shield or something, useful because hydras are arrow vulnerable), on a Mother of Rivers. They, naturally, had picked a fight with LA C'tis, which went swimmingly as Hydras are the bees knees against skeleton spam (this is sarcasm. hydras are countered hard by skellyspam). Anyway, it was a mega bad losing war and I could barely stop it from spiraling out of control, and then another neighbor invaded (LA Arco, if I recall correctly) and that was pretty much game over. So Arco managed to siege my cap while my armies were off dodging skellyspammers, and it was looking bad because this was Dom3 and caps didn't come with 700 defense by default. He breaches the walls and all I have inside is my pretender, a handful of mages (Renatus mainly), and some summons I panic-summoned. My summons get butchered, but they plug the gate for a few rounds. My Renatus get to laying down some Animate Skeleton. The gate is temporarily clogged with skeletons. Mother of Rivers, bless her, goes off script. She casts Freezing Mists. Then she casts Freezing Mists again. And again. And again. And again. Nearly thirty squares at the castle gate are now covered in ice cold mist. And then... every round... there's this terrible popping noise and a score of red numbers float upwards. Then the next wave of enemies charge in and there's a popping noise again and some screams and red numbers. Then the next wave. Then the next. My skeletons, of course, are unaffected, this being Dom3 and undead being 100% immune to cold. When it was over, Arco had lost nearly 200 mans and Mother of Rivers was at the top of the Hall of Fame. Of course, eventually C'tis pushed me back to my cap himself and that was game over, but ever since then I give maximum respect to any pretender who can lay down a scaling AoE spell like Freezing Mists or Acid Rain.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:39
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Scaling AoE spells are a deceptively deadly secondary tool that bless pretenders can pull out for surprise buttkicking. It's easy to forget that having more paths on the spell than needed also increases your effective MR pen for any MR resists spells too which is why N9 Irminsul can lay down an 11 AoE Sleep Cloud that deals over a hundred fatigue damage and works on elves (amongst other things.) If you see a pretender wandering around with 9 in paths that can be applied to a scaling AoE spell watch the gently caress out, some scale harder than others and 'cloud' type spells can overlap which means that you can end up with some pretty impressive slaughter in choke points.
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Jan 4, 2015 05:45
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Turin Turambar posted:I just tried LA R'lyeh for 40 minutes to gain a first impression. I've had a late game R'lyeh with a land presence, full path access, excellent research and absurd globals up and I still wasn't having much fun playing them(Well, besides the 13 prophets site searching for holy, which gave me a bunch of sites I'd never seen before). Their freespawn is such utter garbage and you can't ignore them because they cost upkeep so you need to constantly shovel them into the grinder or watch your economy implode. These issues all pale in comparison to the fact that actually getting to the late game and being in a position where you can actually compete are incredibly unlikely when you're LA R'lyeh. Edit: Faerun is the worst.  Cynic Jester fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jan 4, 2015 |
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Jan 4, 2015 08:36
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LA Ry'leh can do some serious bullshit spamming insanity at enemy research centers fairly early in the game, creating hostile dom, summoning real nasty stuff, and generally being a huge dick with astral. I consider them quite solid personally though I have yet to really play them in a game. They have tons of chaff in addition to having strong chaff, can raise an army in seconds, and can turn enemy pretenders insane. What's not to like?
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Jan 4, 2015 13:04
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I Love You! posted:They have tons of chaff in addition to having strong chaff, can raise an army in seconds, and can turn enemy pretenders insane. What's not to like?
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Jan 4, 2015 13:38
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I Love You! posted:LA Ry'leh can do some serious bullshit spamming insanity at enemy research centers fairly early in the game With what, the Void Spectre? He is conjuration 6. I suppose with Growth 3 and Luck 3 you can somehow lengthen the period where you still have some economy to reach a decent power status by the time you are getting level 5-6 of magic research. Maybe with a risky low Dom score so that way you limit the problem to the initial area. But I would try to fix the nation lowering the dom kill by 30% (still noticeable in the log run), and dropping the maintenance cost of the freespawn.
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Jan 4, 2015 14:04
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Doesn't LA R'lyeh get huge freespawn in provinces that have been completely killed off?
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Jan 4, 2015 15:22
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You get even more dudes that require upkeep once the province provides no money? That sounds dumb enough to be true.
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Jan 4, 2015 15:27
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