PurpleXVI posted:From what I'm hearing, most people's focus when they want to get the appropriate paths on a mage is gear. Empowering seems pretty rare. Is there any case where empowering is a superior choice? Or is it always less economical(both because it costs more and because while the gear can be recycled if the owner dies, it's otherwise a lost pile of gems with an empowered caster)? You usually want to use as much forged equipment as you can, yes. Empowering is for when you run out of items to make or slots to fill because it is way more expensive and non-transferrable as you said. EDIT: sometimes you summon a wizard who has paths and transfer the swag to him. This is common for water boosting.
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May 2, 2017 20:24
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PurpleXVI posted:From what I'm hearing, most people's focus when they want to get the appropriate paths on a mage is gear. Empowering seems pretty rare. Is there any case where empowering is a superior choice? Or is it always less economical(both because it costs more and because while the gear can be recycled if the owner dies, it's otherwise a lost pile of gems with an empowered caster)? Breaking into blood is probably the most cost effective rationale for empowering. With other paths one level largely won't do diddily
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May 2, 2017 20:28
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Empowering seems to be for when you have no other way to get a mage with the paths you want, yeah. If you can gear up or summon what you need that's always going to be more economical.
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May 2, 2017 20:31
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Empowering is also useful for a forger/ritual caster who you're not going to risk in combat, to hit path levels that let you forge important stuff or cast an important global. For example air is notoriously hard because the air boosters require fairly high paths in air so empowering one guy up to a point where he can forge air boosters is a thing.
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May 2, 2017 20:37
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It tends to depend on the type of magic, what the booster's path requirements are, what paths your nation has, and what the relevant battlefield spells need. While many of the schools tend to have one available at a low path requirement, many of the ones that also have a second low path one require cross paths for that second booster. Earth, Nature, Astral all follow this pattern. Both of Water's boosters are single path and also have easy path requirements, while Death also has two solo path ones, but they get one easy one and one hard one (D2 and D5). As for the others... Air in particular is generally going to need empowerment if you're not playing Caelum or a derivative, because its very first booster needs A4 to forge - which is also what you need for Storm, or one higher for Fog Warriors. If you don't happen to have F/D mages, in which case your first booster is incredibly easy to forge at F1/D1, Fire is another one that doesn't have a booster until F4. Blood's boosters are also all relatively high path requirements, but if you're going in hard in Blood then some empowerment is barely noticeable.
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May 2, 2017 20:50
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PurpleXVI posted:From what I'm hearing, most people's focus when they want to get the appropriate paths on a mage is gear. Empowering seems pretty rare. Is there any case where empowering is a superior choice? Or is it always less economical(both because it costs more and because while the gear can be recycled if the owner dies, it's otherwise a lost pile of gems with an empowered caster)? Empowering is incredibly expensive compared to gear, and there are options to reduce the cost of forging boosters even more. We're talking 50 gems per level, compared to 15 or 30 for a booster. For 50 gems you can summon something more powerful and transfer over the boosters you used get it, then go cast a spell that's even stronger. There are times when it's the only way to get where you need to go, but they're rare. About the only path you can consider empowering to be a worthwhile investment in is blood, but only because you can fuel a blood economy with territory alone, independently of magic sites. Even then, why empower a 10 hp mage when you can summon a demon or a vampire lord?
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May 2, 2017 20:53
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I've found it's quite worthwhile to boost up a mage in Astral and Blood to cast Astral Corruption (alongside the boosters of course). It helps that Astral gems can be alchemised from anything for 2:1. I'd also consider death and blood if I had no other way to start the vampire train rolling. So basically, I'd only empower someone if I drat well expected to win the game as the direct result of it.
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May 2, 2017 21:27
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wiegieman posted:We're talking 50 gems per level No. It's 50 gems to break into a path for level 1. Subsequently it's 15 times the level in gems. So going from level 1 to level 2 is 30, level 3 costs 45, level 4 costs 60, level 5 costs 75, level 6 costs 90, level 7 costs 105, level 8 costs 120, and level 9 costs 135 gems. Most of the time you are either breaking into a path for 50 gems which is super super expensive, or you're pushing someone up from maybe 3 to 4 or something so you can forge the right path booster or cast the right ritual. The super high levels are generally really rare because no mage starts at level 7 or whatever, and if you have someone whose native path is 7 you can get them to 9 with boosters for far less gems. For example in a recent endgame I pushed an S5 guy to S6 for 90 astral gems, so that with boosters he could cast the S9 spell Wish. It was the only way, because someone else had already forged the only unique astral boosters in the game. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:39 on May 2, 2017 |
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May 2, 2017 21:37
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I just empowered an E1 guy to E2 which lets him make earth boots and wearing those boots lets him make dwarven hammers. Situations like are worth empowering or if you have a huge glut of gems that you can't really use due to low/no paths.
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May 2, 2017 21:45
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If you give a booster to someone who doesn't have any of that school of magic, do they get an effective level of 1 or can they still not cast spells with it?
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May 2, 2017 21:46
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You need at least level 1 innately.
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May 2, 2017 21:48
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Empowering a dude to get to the point you can start building air boosters is a fun game.
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May 2, 2017 21:50
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goatface posted:Empowering a dude to get to the point you can start building air boosters is a fun game. I have never crafted an air booster and I don't think there's much reason to. A3 is all you need to claw up to fog warriors on the battle field. Air gems should be thrown into combat to churn out storms and elementals.
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May 2, 2017 21:56
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Sometimes you really want to try out some national summons.
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May 2, 2017 23:08
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Alright, it's time. I actually have owned this game for a while but the interface is so clunky I haven't gotten into it. How should I set up my first game, having no experience in the series?
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May 3, 2017 00:54
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Leperflesh posted:No. It's 50 gems to break into a path for level 1. Subsequently it's 15 times the level in gems. So going from level 1 to level 2 is 30, level 3 costs 45, level 4 costs 60, level 5 costs 75, level 6 costs 90, level 7 costs 105, level 8 costs 120, and level 9 costs 135 gems. That's what I mean - nobody empowers a mage to go up from 1 or 2, they can just recruit a higher level one. Outside of that it's around 50 gems or higher, and if you're empowering up to 7 you're throwing around gems that are expensive even by endgame money terms.
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May 3, 2017 01:06
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Flavius Belisarius posted:Alright, it's time. I actually have owned this game for a while but the interface is so clunky I haven't gotten into it. jBrereton fucked around with this message at 01:20 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 01:17
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The description to Late Age makes it seem like it would be simpler. More troops and less magic. Any truth to that?
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May 3, 2017 01:22
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Not really, late age is probably the worst for learning. Full of blood magic, lots of dudes with crosspaths to exploit etc. In comparison the earlier mages are a lot simpler, find the best evocation for their big path and cast it a bunch.
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May 3, 2017 01:42
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I don't know if 'simpler' is exactly the word I'd use. I guess the problem space is slightly shallower, because you've got less magery going on, but much wider, because now you're having to deal with a bunch of dudes in formations and the UI for commanding armies is...generally accepted as one of the game's weaker points. Again, I haven't even touched the game since Dom3, but I suspect there's specific nations with specific strategies that are easier ways to learn the basics of the game than others. Maybe running a bless nation? That way you've just got one big hammer and all the world is nails, and it teaches you the basics of formations and scripting since you'll need to manage blessing everyone at the start of the fight. E: Yeah, I'd forgotten about how complex magic gets later on. EA or MA is probably better. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 01:48 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 01:45
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If you want to learn Dominions, or at least just get a handle on the interface, play tri-bless Mictlan vs AI and steamroll the world.
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May 3, 2017 02:13
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Counterpoint: Don't actually do that, because I wouldn't inflict the requirement of learning blood sac mechanics on a brand new player. Suppose you could use MA Mictlan, but Eagle Warriors require a little more finesse than just spamming Jags from everything. Easiest way to learn the basics of the game and interface would be MA Ulm, since you just crush everything under the tread of your national troops and don't have to pay the slightest attention to bless strategies.
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May 3, 2017 02:42
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I think that's what I'm looking for in my first game. I'll check it out, thanks.
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May 3, 2017 03:41
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Did someone say you can set a mage to cast the same ritual every turn? How??
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May 3, 2017 03:56
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wiegieman posted:Empowering is incredibly expensive compared to gear, and there are options to reduce the cost of forging boosters even more. We're talking 50 gems per level, compared to 15 or 30 for a booster. For 50 gems you can summon something more powerful and transfer over the boosters you used get it, then go cast a spell that's even stronger. There are times when it's the only way to get where you need to go, but they're rare. 15 - 30 is actually on the high end for boosters, nature, earth, astral, and death all have boosters that only cost 10. Water in notable for having a a booster has a low path requirement and only cost 5 making it incredibly easy to break into.
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May 3, 2017 05:06
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I ride bikes all day posted:Did someone say you can set a mage to cast the same ritual every turn? How?? Shift + M
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May 3, 2017 05:41
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Flavius Belisarius posted:I think that's what I'm looking for in my first game. I'll check it out, thanks. Just make sure that you don't get MA Ermor in the game and you should be fine.
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May 3, 2017 06:11
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Dirk the Average posted:Shift + M 
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May 3, 2017 07:21
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Is there a guide somewhere for the best strats to craft boosters/summon dudes to get higher levels in a path? I'm messing around in Dom 4 SP and seem to have forgotten everything I might have learned in Dom 3. Also confirming that playing a water nation is kinda poo poo. I love them, but getting stuck in situations like EA Ryleh where you have awesome mages and poo poo tons of chaff that can't leave the water makes actually winning the game a chore.
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May 3, 2017 08:14
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Water nations as a whole could almost be described as one of those cool things in Dominions that exists primarily for fluff reasons but doesn't interact with the gameplay well. I had a big stream-of-consciousness (ha) rant about how to fix water nations, but it just boils down to (ha) 'you can't, easily'. The closest thing I could think of would be if you could mod some underwater commanders to innately grant amulet of the fish effects to units under their command (which I'm also not sure if that's even possible, since I don't think you have access to that much control in Dominions modding), but even that doesn't rectify the relative dearth of water nations or units or sites or spells, or how annoying it is to assault the water from the land.
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May 3, 2017 11:08
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AmishSpecialForces posted:Is there a guide somewhere for the best strats to craft boosters/summon dudes to get higher levels in a path?
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May 3, 2017 14:12
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Water nations as a whole could almost be described as one of those cool things in Dominions that exists primarily for fluff reasons but doesn't interact with the gameplay well. There are some higher-end commanders and summons that autocast spells like that to units under their command, aren't there? It would just be a matter of putting appropriate #copystats entries on existing UW commanders, I'd think.
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May 3, 2017 15:30
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If you want to really blow your mind, hit ? while playing the game. It gives a list of all keyboard shortcuts, including monthly forging, quick transferring blood slaves to one commander with a single click and transferring all blood slaves to the lab with a single button. Super convenient.
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May 3, 2017 16:08
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Dirk the Average posted:If you want to really blow your mind, hit ? while playing the game. It gives a list of all keyboard shortcuts, including monthly forging, quick transferring blood slaves to one commander with a single click and transferring all blood slaves to the lab with a single button. Super convenient. Hey TheDemon, please petition this to be the title of the Dom4 thread or at least the first sentence. Thanks.
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May 3, 2017 16:12
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Hiveminded posted:There are some higher-end commanders and summons that autocast spells like that to units under their command, aren't there? It would just be a matter of putting appropriate #copystats entries on existing UW commanders, I'd think. There is no #airbreathing command, and no commanders give it, either. I'm pretty sure #req_targmnr only applies to commanders, too, so you can't say cast a global which uses a #transform shape to give triton units a little water bubble and make them amphibious while it's up (I will experiment with this later though)
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May 3, 2017 16:55
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jBrereton posted:No. This would be the best global ever.
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May 3, 2017 17:39
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twig1919 posted:This would be the best global ever. There is already the reverse global which allows everyone to go into the water.
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May 3, 2017 17:41
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Hunt11 posted:There is already the reverse global which allows everyone to go into the water. Which you'd never ever rely on because if the water nation dispels that global or it gets replaced, whoops every airbreather currently underwater dies. Don't bother with modding in the opposite global because it'd be equally dumb.
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May 3, 2017 17:42
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Leperflesh posted:Which you'd never ever rely on because if the water nation dispels that global or it gets replaced, whoops every airbreather currently underwater dies.
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May 3, 2017 17:53
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jBrereton posted:No. Erm, yes there are. Or at least there is at minimum one unit that gives air breathing to troops accompanying him. I seem to recall there were a couple of pretenders and/or summons that did that but it's been a while (I played exactly one game since Dom 4 came out) so I wouldn't swear to it but I just fired up my copy of Dom 4 to check out some pretender chassis and at the very least the Titan of the Sea has the ability, (barring the ability being patched out later for some reason) so it should be possible to work with copystat? The problem with copystat - as I understand it - is that there are some abilities of the copystated unit that you can't get rid of with clearspec but the chassis doesn't have too many extraordinary abilities anyway, so I think that shouldn't be too much of a problem here. Disclaimer: I never did any dominions modding more complicated than combining different mods into one for specific MP games but I did hang out a bit with guys who were into modding & did some playtesting and balance feedback for them, so I did learn how to understand the coding a bit so I could look onder the hood of the mods and picked up some pointers along the way. And even that was only for Dom 3. So don't take my word for gospel. Edited for lack of reading comprehension: While the above is true, it wasn't the question. Getting into the sea, while annoying is possible in a variety of ways. (Both natively and to mod it) Getting out of the water if you're not natively capable of it far less so. (Only for commanders with one specific item) Amhazair fucked around with this message at 18:58 on May 3, 2017 |
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May 3, 2017 18:26
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