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jBrereton posted:Yazad And The Plastic Population are much easier to mass, and are better defensively (Awe, stonger prot, better elemental resists, HATS). Bit of a fucker to lead, though, since they're magic beings, so it's like 5-10 per commander at most outside of your cap (although you could make a Crown of Command with your S2 indies to help with that at Construction 4). Call Celestial Yazad and Call Yata imo. The mages you get from these spells are extremely good and grand you full diversity once you summon a few. Not bad for a conj 6 summon.
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Mar 9, 2016 02:03
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Thanks for the advice, I'll try to mix and match a bit - and try to save gems for the inevitable Celestial Yazad and Yata summons, since those seem to be quite bonkers for their research level.
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Mar 9, 2016 09:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIBbhPveLhc I went and painstakingly added in a smite counter but the software was poo poo and wanted to watermark. What do people use for video editing that doesn't suck for adding text? Edit: On reflection much less impressive. I didn't realize he was a base 17 MR. Still funny. Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 10:23
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Etalommi posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIBbhPveLhc I just use MovieMaker to add text. It's the astonishingly not bad solution for cheapskates
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Mar 11, 2016 11:26
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I went to a small museum today. They had this jewel I think the title should be Ozelotls from Mictlan fighting Wingless from Caelum. (the painting was russian btw).
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Mar 11, 2016 20:24
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Archenteron posted:Well I'm going to do the pre-production/theorycraft stage of Maximum Hitlers What happened with this
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Mar 12, 2016 13:07
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I really want to play bats and frogs but once the early game is over your only recourse seems to be to wait until you have a blood economy going and then rely on summons because all of your troops are so easy to kill. Is there any early/midgame magic that they can rely on to help them fight and take forts in that timeframe or do you just have to raid and wait until your high level battlemagic is available? Especially LA Xilbaba seems really impotent, but I'm terrible.
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Mar 13, 2016 02:13
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Washout posted:I really want to play bats and frogs but once the early game is over your only recourse seems to be to wait until you have a blood economy going and then rely on summons because all of your troops are so easy to kill. Is there any early/midgame magic that they can rely on to help them fight and take forts in that timeframe or do you just have to raid and wait until your high level battlemagic is available? Especially LA Xilbaba seems really impotent, but I'm terrible. It really depends on who you're fighting. Evocation is always a great option for earthquake, shadow blast, and falling frost. Enchantment is also good for Camelot skeleton spam. I still would research Blood 4 relatively early though
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Mar 13, 2016 03:00
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I only really have experience with EA Xibalba, who are extremely good. They take empty provinces better than any other nation. This means when done correctly that your enemies have no gold and can't recruit replacement forces fast enough. That allows you to run high attrition fights or lean on a blood bless to exchange damage. They also get decent death access so they can spam undead chaff which can be effective in the mid game. Ultimately they still need blood eventually though. I'm playing a game (Seo) where I got attacked separately by 3 players (C'tis, Sauromatia and Helheim) and I just ended up come out ahead or even because I could take more provinces than they could. It is turn 47 and I'm just beginning to be overwhelmed, but that has more to do with the world dying from Burden of Time then anything those 3 have managed. Of course it also has to be pointed out that due to that 3 way battle I haven't been able to finish off any of them either and I haven't been efficient with my gems so I have stockpiles of 200ish of each gem. My research is pretty terrible due to starting blood in a Burden of Time scenario and so I'm probably going to be handing off the gems to NuclearMonkee.
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Mar 13, 2016 03:01
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Nuclearmonkee posted:What happened with this 
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Mar 17, 2016 16:13
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Rotekian posted:My research is pretty terrible due to starting blood in a Burden of Time scenario and so I'm probably going to be handing off the gems to NuclearMonkee. Why not your friend to the north, Fomoria?
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Mar 17, 2016 19:09
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Baudin posted:Why not your friend to the north, Fomoria? I am far more likely to use the gems to inflict maximum misery than you 
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Mar 17, 2016 20:50
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jBrereton posted:He sold our builds to the Big Strats industry, took the money, and ran Big Strats got cheated; we're all terrible players.
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Mar 17, 2016 21:55
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Speleothing posted:Big Strats got cheated; we're all terrible players. For my part, I think my draft theory-craft was elegant, if not really maximizing power. I'd like to think that ease of use is it's own worthwhile criteria in draft nation design.
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Mar 17, 2016 23:31
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How's about we just post what we chose? MA Really Good Excellent Nation That JB Made Heat Pref. Neutral God inc. Scales Dormant Dom 7 Hierosphynx F6A6, scales O2P3C3G3L1D1. Fire bless is generally nice for my sacreds, same goes for a bit of extra precision on the sacred mages. F6A6 allows for most of what those trees do, even on a Head/2 Misc pretender. Pretty great income and I have good research-efficient mages so a point of drain is not a big deal. Dom could be a bit low? But 7 is kinda-safe. Special choices: 1) LA Lemuria's National Spells They're really good! The immortal mages are a bit of a pricey boondoggle, but you can get an ethereal, fear-causing, amphibious, good troop leader for 5 gems at D1. That's extremely reasonable, especially when they can easily clear out most non-wolf/shark tribe indies in pairs pretty much unscathed. For 8 gems you can get a mobile priest with good normal leadership and undead leadership. Beats the poo poo out of Telestic Animation in terms of letting your mages build up the infrastructure of your empire if you're not mad keen on taking priests around everywhere. Additionally, the Holy battlefield spells are sick. Even in a very top-heavy communion, Hx priests can cast Apostasy pretty much forever if they don't do something else instead after 5 turns. Doesn't cost fatigue over normal spellcasting fatigue. Particularly great at picking off low-to-medium-high MR sacred leaders and snagging some indies you'd never, ever recruit but which are quite nice to just have, like the sacred Amazon tribal cavalry. Can seriously augment national magic diversity, because you get commanders as commanders. I guess you get some undead buffs too but mostly those are just a source of constant annoyance as your good mages with holy magic spend every loving turn buffing the 6 new skeletons with an assortment of MR-resistable goodies. 2) 2 Extra cap-only gems I feel like I had an alright spread of troops and mages just in the basic picks, and an extra 2 gems a turn is always nice. So my national income is E1A1S1D4N1, which is going to give me a nice cushion of non-Death gems for when I start casting non-national rituals. Commanders Cap only mage: MA Sceleria Thaumaturg (S1D1H2) OK so Thaumaturgs are really good mages early that slightly die on their arse later compared to my other nationals just in terms of battlefield usability/cheapness, including infrastructure requirements. Apostasy starts to fall off a bit, and then they start casting dumb poo poo like Horde of Skeletons instead at the end of battles pretty soon which is really extremely rude to their communion partners if they're built for an Apostasy or Terror communion type event. I don't want them everywhere since there are better mages to be everywhere. I certainly didn't want Grand Thaumaturgs since Thaumaturgs can do most of the same stuff after 50 rp into Thaumaturgy without being StR, pricey, and very old. A recruit-anywhere mage: LA Utgard Seithkona (S1D1N1) They're very very cheap at 85 gold for 11rp, good communion friendos with Thaumaturgs, and have solid undead/magic leadership plus a ton of good battlemagic, including the fearsome Nether Darts. Do not get Jarted by one. They're a tiny bit more expensive than a Thaumaturg per turn, but don't need a Temple, also they will be dying in droves in the midgame so fractions of a gold per turn matter a bit less. A different, other mage: LA TC Ancestor Smith (E2D1H1 100% ASDN) They can cast some neat battlemagic, they can sitesearch for a lot of stuff at once, they can forge 2-gem air quills with a Dwarven Hammer (and get up to E3 with boots so pretty much all of Earth is at your disposal), they can get to D2 for a Skull Staff and D3 for most if not all useful Death summons, overall good mage. Probably not as good as a Galderman but certainly less random in terms of what they can do for you. In an early war they will always-always be able to Earth Meld and cast troop buffs if for some reason I'm not going heavy on the Thaumaturgs and Apostasy. Some guy who's a commander and a PD commander: LA Patala Naga Chief In any cave, Patala gets these naked snake guys as recruitables, so I reckon they're kosher? They're good against lone, living thugs because they have all kinds of nasty poison garbage. Confusion aka Enrage is not that amazing for that, but against like low numbers of event-caused troops it's handy. They also have a tiny bit of magic leadership which is literally almost never going to be important to my nation normally but might be useful in extreme circumstances where I get some nice indies who cast spells to make a lot of them? Need a temple and they're not actually good at their job outside of defense so it's mainly going to be the indie commander/cheap summoned commander show. Some guy who's your priest and PD 20 priest: LA Bogarus Exarch H2 Very cheap source of H2, that's literally all this guy is. Sorry for your pride, Exarch. Nothing cool and fancy like an MA Man monk's stealth, but H2 for 70g. The scout literally everyone who plays Dominions will probably pick: Pan/Asphodel Black Harpy 25 gold flying scout with leadership, forest-recruitable. Not much more to say, other than "testing has showed them to be slightly disappointing as troop leaders unless you give them a skull talisman so they don't spack out and charge into things despite having stay behind troop orders". I guess I could make a couple a crown of command eventually (or give some centurions flying boots). Troops Cap-only: EA Caelum's Blizzard Warriors So they're not sacred or anything but Frost Bows are fun, they can fly with harpies, I'm going Cold-3 even though I'm picking H0 as the preference for 120 points so they get some extra protection in my dominion, and they can fly when-not-if someone casts Perpetual Storm. Starting Troop Picks: Comitatense (extremely sick LA Pythium troops with good armour, great arrow-catching shields and MM3) and LA Ulm's Rangers since they're very good crossbowmen with stealth. I'm guessing we'll see both of those again. Both are a little costly at 15/12g but they're pretty worth it and make expansion a piece of cake in MA. The roman dudes can be fatigued out pretty easily but eh. PD troops: EA Atlantis's Deep One Spearmen (the ones with a magic attack on a spear and then a length 0 non magic bite) are reasonably good PD, cheap to recruit, and are amphibious. I'm assuming there will be some underwater fights because those provinces are valuable. Deep One Spearmen also have immunity to hot and cold auras and 100% DV. The other guys are EA Kailasa's Guhyanka which I am much less confident about, but they're okay? Awe is sometimes convenient against low-morale event troops and they have a couple of attacks to buff. Wild card troop: EA Fomoria's Fomorian Militia. A siege troop, basically. More fun than a Wet One if maybe not as good. Can share spaces with roman guys I guess.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:43
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I will rush you and you will die.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:48
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jBrereton posted:Wild card troop: This makes me so happy.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:48
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I went with this: Marigverni Time of Fiery Druids cap only commander: grand master free mage #1 inquisitor free mage #2 druid basic commanders troop leader: marverni chieftain priest: friar scout: marverni scout cap only boar warriors troop #1 crossbowmen marverni noble warrior troop #2 knight of the chalice swordsman marverni bare chested warrior gems: 4 nature, 2 astral neutral temperature preferred start terrain: forest pretender chassis: irminsul ability choices : national spells of marverni gold mine and great iron mine
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Mar 18, 2016 01:58
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You forget that you are Nuclear "hitler" Monkee and that 3 people will kill you off with their busta rear end Einhere builds as soon as they work out who you are on IRC.
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Mar 18, 2016 01:58
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Real talk, the Batab combined with any Zotz warrior is just loving insane. Hell yeah I'll take easily massable flying stealthy stacks in every province with a forest or cave. Batabs themselves mean you can effectively spam scouts from every forest and cave, and the Zotz mean you can easily turn that scout production into Hellish Raider Stack production.
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Mar 18, 2016 02:06
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I claim 49% ownership of this union between Ermor troop and Zots which I pioneered (ORIGINAL IDEA DO NOT STEAL)
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Mar 18, 2016 02:09
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jBrereton posted:How's about we just post what we chose? Cap Only Mage: Bride In Waiting - E1A2F2B2H2 100%efab - really good path access. Just wish she came with D. Seithkona -For all the delicious spammable battlefield reasons that jBreton listed. Vanjarl 1506 - Slightly cheaper helheim van is still a good thug Batab 2674 - Recruit in forests, 40 leadership, flying, stealthy. Monk - Recruit anywhere, has research. Only 29 gold. Black Harpy - Pretty redundant with the Batab, but seriously what else are you going to pick since Spies are disallowed? Cap-Only Troop: White Centaur - Recuperation puts them slightly above Vanhere for me. It's nice to have a fat stack of dudes with Exp stars. Rec Anywhere Troops Jaguar Warrior 727 - Jag Jag Jag Jag Jag Jag Jag Jag Jag. Good even without a bless. Zotz Warrior 2738 - Flying batz aplhastrike deathball. Wasn't sure if I should go lances or club-swords. Went lances on a coin-toss. Fir Bolg 1787 - Really good at holding the line. Good stats overall, and I love javelins. Lion Warrior 2305 - Mapmove 3, low Rcost, and good stats. Aira Archer 2493 - Composite bows on a 10g7r flying dude with 12 precision. Mixes perfectly with flying commanders for defensive movement traps. Palisade/Fortress access instead of Fortress/Castle, and 3/4 price Temples and Labs Gotta Spam the poo poo outta those Jaguars & Monks Two Extra Unit Picks Master Smith - Forging things is really good for Van thugs. Also they go well with Evo research, just like my Seithkona. And are drain immune. Coral Queen - 160 leadership H3 recruitable anywhere. This was my most questionable pick, I think. Statue of the Bloody Mother: N9B9 murdermode I think I forgot to choose national gems when I submitted, but I'd like E2A2D1B1 Also, I thought hard about going half price temples + no pathloss on a Dragon, and combo-ing it with undead reanimation from my cheap-as-hell Monks.
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Mar 18, 2016 02:14
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Capital-Only Commander: Eagle King (1286) Free Pick Mage #1: Sidhe Lord (848) Free Pick Mage #2: Master Smith (325) Basic Commanders (Troop Leader, Priest, Scout): Illithid Lord (445), Monk (60), Black Harpy (430) Cap-Only Troop: Vanhere (1513) Troop #1: Savaran Guard (2585), Black Plate Infantry (78) Troop #2: Reveler (708), Spire Horn Warrior (2566), Illithid (331) National Ability #1: Jomon National Spells National Ability #2: MA Agartha National Spells Capital Gem Income: A3F3 Temp Pref: Heat 1 Start Terrain: Plains Pretender Chassis: Son of Fenrer (1229) Tactics and Strategy Notes: Jomon/Agartha Hybrid Flame-kids to counter other sacred strategies. Stealth and flying raider options. Strong air evocation access, and decent earth support as well. Not the strongest research nation, but important research goals are accessible at lower levels, with a some abilities open even at zero research. N9W9 bless is expensive, but is used to support statues and tengu with their preferred blesses respectively - and vanhere benefits from both pretty well especially in the context of initial expansion. Sidhe Lords have the potential to be potent raiders with the bless, cheaply forged earth/fire gear from the smiths and teaching sign. Jomon National Spells: Karusu Tengu are the most easily cast in early game. Leverage Kohono Tengu in mid/late game due to air boosters allowing better gem economy. Earth gems will be funneled into Tatsu or especially Yama-no-kami in late gem for storm-flying mages/leaders or top-tier rain of stones casters. No other national spells bring full range of options to the table. Fear-not sign provides great protection for a range of troops, flame kids, vanhere and revelers all being good targets. MA Agartha National Spells: Smiths can summon statues and flame kids. Eagle Kings can summon Living Mercury and Olms. Flame-kids render the nation hard to rush with success. Statues with a n9 and w9 bless round out good mid to late game troop options, especially when combined with living mercury for an additional offensive punch. Sidhe Lord: Boosts with teaching sign into very strong a3 recruit anywhere mage. Relatively durable, ability to summon air elementals and dark vision boost useability into late game. Boosting into a4 without assistance under Perpetual Storm for unmatched steathly raiding firepower. Can go Teaching Sign -> Mistform -> Personal Regeneration -> Bless (w9n9) for relatively strong thug chasis, provided some reinvigoration, which Mage Smiths can forge efficiently. Summons Karusu Tengu, provided source of nature gems. Master Smith: Source of fire/earth pathes for summoning flame kids and statues. Useful battlefield mages for earth spells and magma eruption. Forging bonus a major boon for earth boots on Eagle Kings (for RoS) and for thugging gear for Sidhe Lords. Research is slow, but the smith enables taking drain scales and research will generally take with lightless lanterns for the mid-late game research push. Resource bonus nice for recruiting Savaran Guard and Black Plate. Eagle King: Most efficient Kohono Tengu summoners. Storm flying, to support tengu raiding parties even under perpetual storm. Provides reliable source of rain of stones and fog warriors casters in the mid-late game. Summons Living Mercury and Olms to round out summoned troop options. Decent magic leadership. Vanhere: Best cap-only troop. N9 and W9 is a strong bless and offers decent survival boost combined with glamour. Primary purpose is still to aid initial expansion. Can be lead and buffed by Sidhe Lords to good effect even at 0 research. Reveler, Spire Horn Warrior, Illithid: Reveler is (arguably) the best cost-effective steathy troop in the game. A match for most sacreds on a per-gold basis. Good gold cost/hp ratio. Spire Horn warriors offer magic weapons, storm flying and cold/shock resist that round out a very useful unit. Good patroller and counter-part to Tengu allowing more disposible 10 gold troops to soak some of the incoming damage. Unit that can safely be sent to attack enemy armies on turn 1 and are less painful when friendly fire with thunderstrike occurs. Illithids are few in number for PD, but are helpful in stopping some raiding strategies. Can be mass-purchased in emergencies to stop rush attempts against certain sacreds like Zhayden or Vanhere. Magic leadership requirement is helped out by Illithid Lords and Eagle Kings. Savaran Guard, Black Plate Infantry: Savaran Guard provides high-protection and fire resistant counter to F9 blessed troops such as Jags or Eagle warriors. Zero-research counter to flame-kids, who are a general counter to most sacred strategies. Also functions as decoy for mind blasters set to fire on mounted troops (for targeting Sidhe Lords) as well as generally being good at expansion. Black Plate Infantry - high protection, passable morale and low gold cost. Basic arrow-catcher and blocker. Pairs well with Vanhere for initial expansion. Illithid Lord, Monk, Black Harpy: Illithid Lord provides magic leadership, high hp and protection. Will not rush into melee due to mind blast attack. Mind blast attack provides 1 gold cost X-factor against all province raiding, occasionally sniping commanders or shouting down thugs. Monks are a cheap stealthy bless source for vanhere that can be recruited anywhere to streamline expansion. Their divine research ability is not effected by drain, yet they benefit from research boosters - providing an optimal holder for lightless lanterns which can be forged at a discount by smiths. Black harpy is the best scout. Good initial prophet target.
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Mar 18, 2016 05:57
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How do you repeat orders? I'm trying shift-m but it won't work. Hmm that only repeats spells? You can't repeat construction?
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Mar 18, 2016 09:26
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shift-o repeats forging.
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Mar 18, 2016 09:53
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So far Xanrick is looking like the best drafter.
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Mar 18, 2016 13:43
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Is there a rationale behind taking illithid instead of great olms?
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Mar 18, 2016 18:00
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Azram Legion posted:Is there a rationale behind taking illithid instead of great olms? Recruit anywhere.
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Mar 18, 2016 19:05
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Etalommi posted:Recruit anywhere. The other reason is that Great Olms compete with any other cap-only troop draft pick. If it's permitted by the draft rules you could theoretically pick olms as a recruit anywhere troop, but then only be able to recruit them in cave provinces, access to which can be gamble. Taking illithids also removes any holy point recruitment limits that would exist for olms, not generally an issue as they are both quite expensive at 50 gold a pop. I'm fairly happy with my draft design, but I still think it would fold to a super-aggressive strategy like the zotz-raiding bomb that nuclearmonkee came up with, or at minimum be trapped in a capital province and forced to fight a protracted siege war using summoned troops. But then again, I doubt there are many, or really any good hard counters to that kind of raiding strategy without a decent amount of research that simply wouldn't be available in time. And in truth, I think the economic style national perks are really good, perhaps even broken, since they have immediate payoff from turn one onward and have a huge amount of influence for initial expansion, which is the best predictor of who the winner will be (disregarding diplomacy). The only reason they don't get picked more is that they are kind of boring.
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Mar 18, 2016 20:36
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Is there a mod that adds land breathing items for the UW nations? I really love them but boy are they terrible. Mostly I love ryleigh so yeah.. I found an underwater expanded mod but it's ancient, can't seem to find anything applicable to 4.2 Washout fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Mar 18, 2016 |
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Mar 18, 2016 21:41
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Washout posted:Is there a mod that adds land breathing items for the UW nations? I really love them but boy are they terrible. Mostly I love ryleigh so yeah.. jBrereton fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Mar 18, 2016 |
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Mar 18, 2016 22:07
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What if you put water-breathing items on UW-commanders, could that work to prevent reverse-drowning? With this game you never know, after all
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Mar 19, 2016 15:17
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Xanrick posted:The other reason is that Great Olms compete with any other cap-only troop draft pick. If it's permitted by the draft rules you could theoretically pick olms as a recruit anywhere troop, but then only be able to recruit them in cave provinces, access to which can be gamble. Taking illithids also removes any holy point recruitment limits that would exist for olms, not generally an issue as they are both quite expensive at 50 gold a pop. Yeah the only reason I went with Olms was because of the cave recruit and size 3 instead of 4 + sacred for half maintenance. Idea is to build out those huge zot swarms and build up an olm+deep one spear stack to roam around into places where the zotz dare not go. I find that you rarely want more than 30-40 mindblasters anyways so the reclimit of 8 or 9 is ok. I would either be dogpiled and die or have an insurmountable economic advantage by turn 20ish, though there are a couple of unit combos that would give me trouble.
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Mar 19, 2016 15:19
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Libluini posted:What if you put water-breathing items on UW-commanders, could that work to prevent reverse-drowning? 1) Amulet of the Fish, misc slot, W1A1 Constr-4. Not only does it need 750rp to forge, so it's probably about a year before you can get one if you research nothing else at all (at which point all the land will be taken and land-dwelling mages will probably have some battlemagic), but EA R'lyeh doesn't even have any W1A1 mages, and there's no Air sites in the deep ocean so your income is going to be quite poo poo. 2) Shambler Skin Suit, body slot (so no Aboleths allowed!), W1 Constr-2, and this is a pretty recent change to the item. If you don't have either of those on and for example teleport onto land with a Kraken, they will die. jBrereton fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Mar 19, 2016 |
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Mar 19, 2016 18:15
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robe of the sea also works
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Mar 19, 2016 20:14
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Oh right cool. Alright well then there's 50% more ways to get a commander out of the water than I thought.
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Mar 19, 2016 20:26
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you can also cast transform or twiceborn or life after death or ritual of rebirth
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Mar 19, 2016 20:40
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Transforming underwater just gives you a different aquatic creature doesn't it?
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Mar 19, 2016 20:44
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Aren't the N mages from uw nations mostly Capricorns who can already surface?
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Mar 19, 2016 20:44
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goatface posted:Transforming underwater just gives you a different aquatic creature doesn't it? sometimes. i think theres a couple amphibious ones but maybe not?
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Mar 19, 2016 20:47
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