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Asehujiko posted:MA Phaeacia, Dark Ships which is a Mekone+Berytos merger with an island start Island start!?
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Feb 27, 2018 19:45
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The Orichalcum guards seem ok, I gave them a major water/earth bless with defense skill/reinvigoration, and 12 of them killled a province with 128 troops including 4 dark vines, 50 vampires and 5 mages while only taking 3 losses. Probably still weak against a player though who can use AN spells to bypass their high protection and defence scores.
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Feb 27, 2018 20:10
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Applebee123 posted:The Orichalcum guards seem ok, I gave them a major water/earth bless with defense skill/reinvigoration, and 12 of them killled a province with 128 troops including 4 dark vines, 50 vampires and 5 mages while only taking 3 losses. That seems much better than "ok" to me! quote:Probably still weak against a player though who can use AN spells to bypass their high protection and defence scores. Well, yes  , if you counter the good combat units with AN spells, then basically there aren't any good units in the game! From ~3000 units in the game, a very small percentage has both good combat stats, good MR, and good price.
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Feb 27, 2018 20:19
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So let's see what's new. Have a go. Discuss.  **Syncretism** for LA Arco. It means they don't destroy enemy temples when they conquer a province, the capture it. Very nice ability. Phaecia has an extra site if they start in an island (and the game will attempt to put them in one).  Additionally the site can appear in new provinces naturally, and then they can recruit their sacreds too there. Keledone, magical singing statues   Ladon  Hound of Twilight  Hesperides  Kuon (7 gems for these 2 doggies)   Khalkotauros  Heroes (spoilers?)     He summons monthly these guys:  Cyclops shamans instead can call to these lil critters  Items -Phlegra has a E3 crown at constr 0 which gives them Communion Master at the cost of -2 MR -Golden apple (consumable item!). I think it comes with the Ladon by event  Spells (extra magic and extra heretic for Heliodromus, effect is 12 months)  H1 Spell for Mekone. Gives someone a +5att+5def, Halt Heretic aura 7 effect, for 12 months. 
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Feb 27, 2018 20:22
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Island starts were a mistake. But since the mistake has been made, here's a sampling of island starts to critique:     
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Feb 27, 2018 22:11
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Phaeacia will spawn fine without starting on an island, and with less stupid starting income (and they can still buy their sacreds without an orichalcum mine) so my personal suggestion is "Don't do it".
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Feb 27, 2018 22:21
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New version is up. Let me know if anything is unexpectedly broken.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:09
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I'm not feeling Phlegra. They have their innate communion gimmick to build your strategy around, the cute (and nutritive!) mouflons as, and... dunno what else. I'm not liking the Gigante warriors a lot.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:24
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What exactly does the game define as an Island?
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Feb 27, 2018 23:29
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Speleothing posted:What exactly does the game define as an Island? A land province surrounded by water. As in, all the provinces is connected to, are water provinces.  (well, a crappy example as here the random map generator failed and somehow it didn't put a connection between the island and the eastern province).
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Feb 27, 2018 23:35
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Is there any way to make Corbeau's map generator create starts for 32 nations, or to change the number of provinces per nation? I like silly large maps.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:18
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Turin Turambar posted:A land province surrounded by water. As in, all the provinces is connected to, are water provinces. You can also be connected by river to a land province and it counts. 
jBrereton fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Feb 28, 2018 |
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Feb 28, 2018 01:15
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The tyrant sprite is dumb.
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Feb 28, 2018 02:11
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So I already know everyone's opinion of MA Ermor already in the thread, and the common solution to fighting against them is "Don't play in a game with Ermor". But that ship has sailed and I'm in a small game with some friends. Someone is playing Ermor and we're already fighting. I'm not doing too bad yet. I managed to hold off an attack on one of my forts with a small handful of guards and priests. But he did end up killing my SC Wurm that had previously lasted long enough in a fight that both sides retreated, I don't know what changed that he suddenly couldn't do it again, I think I was in one candle of enemy dominion this time. Anyway I'm looking for some tips on early fighting Ermor, like early spells or summons that might be good, potential magic items, etc. I'm playing C'tis, I have an SC Wurm (currently dead) and I've been trying to call him back. Since it's early I only have a few research improvements in Alteration and Enchantment. I have a a ton of gold so I've been putting up some walls and temples the best I can. But I feel like I can't produce enough troops or enough priests fast enough. Once my god comes back he can probably do decently enough keeping territory from him but I don't think he can fight skeletons forever as he doesn't seem to regenerate fast enough. Does hitting his open territories with temples hurt Ermor a lot? I know he doesn't really use gold so he can just pump it into temples.
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Feb 28, 2018 20:43
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DarkAvenger211 posted:So I already know everyone's opinion of MA Ermor already in the thread, and the common solution to fighting against them is "Don't play in a game with Ermor". But that ship has sailed and I'm in a small game with some friends. Someone is playing Ermor and we're already fighting. I'm not doing too bad yet. I managed to hold off an attack on one of my forts with a small handful of guards and priests. But he did end up killing my SC Wurm that had previously lasted long enough in a fight that both sides retreated, I don't know what changed that he suddenly couldn't do it again, I think I was in one candle of enemy dominion this time. Haven't played 5 yet but previously the ultimate answer to Ermor hordes was rain of stones. Also assassins - empoisoners with chaff producing accessories can take on quite a few commanders. Otherwise, tons of H1s and D1s to spam banishment and dust to dust.
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Feb 28, 2018 21:12
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You may want to look into these spells:  Some nations also have special weapons or summons that are good against undead... however Ctis isn't included between them. Still, if you plan to do thugs, you may want to look into equip them with fire brands, or some special items like Flambeau, Herald Lance, Just Man's Cross or Holy Scourge. edit: But more seriously, just spam your 80g H2 priest. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Feb 28, 2018 |
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Feb 28, 2018 22:08
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DarkAvenger211 posted:Does hitting his open territories with temples hurt Ermor a lot? I know he doesn't really use gold so he can just pump it into temples. How much spare gold he has depends on how much territory he has outside of his dominion. His core territories won't be producing much wealth at all (because everyone's dead), so depending on the situation any infrastructure you destroy could actually be quite hard to replace.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:55
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You still absolutely want to make enchantment 5 your focus as c'tis is a nation in which all of their really good poo poo is at exactly enchantment 5. You should be able to match ermor in numbers in a defensive war since you are making marshmasters from every fort you have (you should be doing this) If you need a "Right Now" solution, hierodules are very cheap h1 priests you can pump out quickly. Empoisoners can use dust 2 dust to kill all ermor commanders and has no defensive roll. At Thaum 1 it's a great deal. At construction 4 you can get skull staffs, which boost death magic, specifically, empoisoner death magic. This lets them cast horde of skeletons, which makes them probably the most dangerous assassin in the game.
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Mar 1, 2018 00:27
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if you expect an empoisoner to last for 10 assassinations sure make them skull staves, better to just give them a couple gems each and not spend the mage turns forging stuff. a mage can eat a gem to cast a spell at +1 effective level so you can still horde of skeletons with empoisoner, which still kills most everything but doesn't give your enemy a free booster if you die
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Mar 1, 2018 00:54
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Turin Turambar posted:So let's see what's new. Have a go. Discuss. Thanks for the write up!
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Mar 1, 2018 02:29
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Eschatos posted:Haven't played 5 yet but previously the ultimate answer to Ermor hordes was rain of stones As MA C'tis you have a ton of ways to fight MA Ermor though so that's nice. Early on you can spam 1 comrec H1s basically for free. Early-midgame you can do a fine line in dust to dust (and you will have massively better research output than MA Ermor which will increase even more over time). Do not cast Maggots, that spell is a joke. With Empoisoners either Dust to Dust, HoS with a gem, or Swarm. If you have a lot of priests and some downtime, bringing back the wyrm which you probably lost by sending it out of your dominion where it isn't blessed anymore, and not casting enough buffs, which you should be casting, to cast Earthquake is Somewhat useful vs longdead hordes. It does rely on Ermor being quite bad and not varying its attacks up though or making very predictable ones, because their lictors will absolutely destroy a setup designed for longdeads, ie tons of H1 and medium amounts of blocking chaff, and usually vice versa (a bunch of expensive-ish Marshmasters will tear lictors a new arsehole with dust to dust/cleansing waters but enough skeletons will probably get through if it's like mid hundreds to thousands of them). Fighting on their capital if they took cold 3 is going to be an insanely poo poo time for you, since your mages will have like 15 casting encumbrance, without even considering the no supplies at all on a low morale faction, so have fun with that when the time comes I guess (and don't let them play Ermor again).
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Mar 1, 2018 03:03
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Ah great. Thanks for the tips. It's pretty fun to mow down hordes of skeletons at least. When given the chance, am I better off spamming H1 priests, or H2? I'm assuming I just want more H1 but I know some of the spells get better with higher casting skills
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Mar 1, 2018 05:09
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DarkAvenger211 posted:Ah great. Thanks for the tips. It's pretty fun to mow down hordes of skeletons at least. Banishment is one of those scaling spells, and it scales to a pretty insane degree. Range, AoE and damage all scale with increased Holy levels. So yeah, I would definitely lean hard on H2 priests rather than cheaping out and going for H1. edit: that said, in unforted temple provinces you're going to be making H1s twice as fast, so there might be some circumstances that would encourage you to make H1s. Defeatist Elitist fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 05:21
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it depends on your banish also, since some of them scale to an insane degree where as others scale to a less insane degree.
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Mar 1, 2018 05:34
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violent sex idiot posted:it depends on your banish also, since some of them scale to an insane degree where as others scale to a less insane degree. Yeah, it seems like it would be earth or water, and if you've got the water banish, it's AoE in particular becomes absurd really fast.
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Mar 1, 2018 05:53
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Pretty sure it's Word of Stone
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Mar 1, 2018 16:59
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Hello and welcome once again to THE PANKOR SYSTEM. This is your friendly neighbourhood moon skeletons, slowly starving to death on the arid and lifeless husk of a dessicated space rock. Yes although some petulent fool burnt out our eyes, a god don't need no eyes to see. We're reading these maps in braille, baby.  Of course I realised after taking the screenshots that it shows all my armies and super secret skeletons plans, but I couldn't be arsed to do it again. Anyway T'ien Ch'i has killed Shinuyama, Marignon is camping on the cap of Asphodel, Arco is doing their damndest to kill of Ulm still and for some ungodly reason Agartha is sitting on Ys's underwater capital. Oh, and Nazca are still alive. Somehow. Provinces:  Man has been easily overtaken by TC, although he still has the second largest number of provinces. Abysia appear to be in a slow decline and very close to death Forts:  Winner: Income  Winner: Man! Although TC is closing in pretty sharpish. I don't know what the hell happened to Vanheim but that's a hilarious swoop. Gems:  Winner: Man, closely followed by TC. Research:  A tie between Man and R'yleh, with Abysia in a shameful third place position. Dominion:  Man, followed by your faithful correspondent. Although I'm not sure if it counts if you've got a population density of one skeleton per 20,000 hectares of regolith. Army Size:  Skeletons, obviously. Where are we getting all these bones from when we're sat in space on a lifeless hunk of rock? Hoo boy, you don't wanna know*. To give some scale to this graph, if you compare the last two segements I lost about 200 skeletons this turn as a light probe into TC. Other interesting things: Bandar just lost 2/3rds of their army. Nobody seems to be fighting Man or TC as they haven't lost anything in ages. R'lyeh has a surprisingly low number of freespawn. *PS: It involves a colony of hoburgs and some mercenary nature mages that just love casting mass regeneration. In conclusion: Kill T'ien Ch'i and Man, send moon skeletons money so we can buy better bone generating slaves. RockyB fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 21:16
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Double post because Decrepus asked me for a special graph to celebrate Marignon holding off Asphodel and Bandar Log:
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Mar 1, 2018 22:07
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Are there any lets plays from the new civs yet?
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Mar 1, 2018 23:13
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Was there ever a link posted for that beautiful moon map. I wanna play it.
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Mar 2, 2018 00:05
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MA Rlyeh doesn't get freespawn. I have to buy troop Vanheim died because he's in the tribal age and I am armed with space age weapons.
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Mar 2, 2018 03:18
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I love the map and number of players in that game, it looks mad.
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Mar 2, 2018 08:20
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violent sex idiot posted:if you expect an empoisoner to last for 10 assassinations sure make them skull staves, better to just give them a couple gems each and not spend the mage turns forging stuff. a mage can eat a gem to cast a spell at +1 effective level so you can still horde of skeletons with empoisoner, which still kills most everything but doesn't give your enemy a free booster if you die i VOMIT when i think of going back to restock gems.
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Mar 2, 2018 08:23
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2001 a Grognard Odyssey This was my first multiplayer game in Dominions 5, and my first time playing Tien Chi. This was a really intense match, veering from textbook plays and growing power to increasingly unconventional moves and gambles as victory became nigh impossible right up until I sneaked a win. I really wanted to try out Tien Chi as I was very excited about the new bless system, and Tien Chi has some excellent sacred troops and versatile sacred summons that I could build around.  This is our workhorse, the Warrior of the Five Elements. Originally 25g when I started, but one of the guys who makes Dominions lost a game to Tien Chi so obviously they must have been undercosted. Anyway, our big draw here is the multiple attacks. Haste was the obvious choice here since it would double this to a fearsome four attacks per unit, and at size two that gives each square of Wot5E a total of 12 attacks, more than enough to mince virtually any opposition. They are a little fragile, especially during autumn when they halve in hp, so to protect my investment I pick up twist fate. This is a slightly controversial choice as it's obviously much weaker than the standard Luck bless. My reasoning is that Luck would be prohibitively expensive since I would need to invest in the generally rubbish luck scale, and a Wot5E would only need to tank one attack before they effortlessly slaughtered whatever had the temerity to challenge them. Overall I'm happy with how they worked out defensively, and my biggest regret with this build is that I didn't pick up an extra two points of astral for Magic Weapons and casting wish (since it turns out the Celestial Carp is too full of himself to wear a Star Shine Skullcap since it’s not a crown or laurel). The Wot5E pretty much clear out the nearby indies with nearly no losses, but I found myself in a slightly unfortunate position for a rush build, with three awkward oceans around me and limited expansion options. So with an extra couple of forts built and churning out troops and mages, I needed to think about picking out the first victim. The north had a narrow border with Abyssia. My sacreds did have Fire Resistance, but they had some fairly beefy sacreds and an awake dragon pretender, so I decided to leave them alone for now. Therodos was in the Oceans to the West, and I could have used my god's gift of water breathing to lead a strike team of sacreds, but the ghost's ethereal nature meant that I would be trading unfavourably and I would be risking my God, whose survival was vital to bestow my blesses. Rus was to the South, and they were being played by Jsoh, who generally favours aggressive blesses and I know from experience to be quite good at Dominions. My Eastern neighbour was Ermor, who have relatively inefficient sacreds but could become a late-game powerhouse, so they were my logical target. Therodos at this time requested access accross my land to conquer an indy ocean. I planned to take this myself later, and wasn't happy about giving it up. Since I hadn't taken Magic Weapons I didn't want to risk fighting Therodos's ethereal troops until I had access to some decent evocations. I sold them passage and prepared for war with Ermor, including the summoning of my flying dog sacred to do some good old fashioned raiding.  I adore the flying sacred doggos Hostilities broke out efficiently, with a medium sized army of Ermor forces being broken by my own forces. Rather than consolidating and recovering his forces, Ermor tries to press into my empire with an incomplete and shattered army. I was expecting this, and they get ambushed and completely wiped out by my incoming reserve army while my main army intercepts a new force coming out of their capital. After grabbing a few more provinces and bringing in a strike team of my flying summoned sacreds, my three armies converge on the capital and take it over with minor losses. I starburst out and take over the rest of the empire, picking up some very tasty provinces with recruitable jade and crystal sorceresses which I immediately start recruiting. During this time Rl'yeh has managed to take a level 2 throne between myself and Ermor, plus a fort just below that. That was obviously unacceptable, so a new contingent of sacreds and troops from my cap converge on the throne and the fort, wiping out the defenders there while preventing them escaping to the fort. All the Rl'yeh troops were concentrated on the throne to protect it, so the fort was cracked instantly afterwards. Rl'yeh was pretty unhappy about this state of affairs, but they had no amphibious troops remaining so had no real recourse. I started dispersing the Crystal Sorceresses I had around my empire since Rl'yeh would eventually gain Mind Hunt capabilities, and I reasoned I could look forwards to that soon.  So at this time I had built up a pretty large army of sacred, including a lot of fliers, as well as some quite capable mages with Acid Shower, Howl and Wooden Warriors at hand. I had seen Maverni wiping out army after army trying to attack Abyssia, so they looked a juicy target. I prepared to launch a full scale attack, when some scout reports changed my plans entirely. Rus had been attacking Agartha, and had conquered nearly their entire empire, eventually sieging their cap. Human players sometimes get into a trap where they desperately protect their mages at all costs. Mages are valuable, but they are still just another tool that should get thrown into fights as soon as your research makes them useful. So when Agartha goes ai, the computer throws pretty much everything they have at the sieging force and shatter Rus's attack.  Weakness is the greatest sin in Dominions, so my armies do a complete 180 and march towards Rus's capitol. My flying strike forces clear out some provinces for safety, and I throw my army at the Capitol. Like I said, Jsoh is good at this game, so he throws his pretender and most of his mages and even his luck event generating units in as defence. His Howl is met by my Howl, so the outskirts of the battle become a wolf thunderdome, and our units and mages start exchanging blows. This was absolutely a reasonably bit gamble on my part, but I come out ahead and even manage to take out his pretender. I crack his cap a few turns later before clearing out a big chunk of his regular empire.  Therodos takes this opportunity to take over Agartha's territory (and suffers significant losses against the ai's willingness to throw infinite mages at a problem). I start to get fairly concerned about their size at this time, but I'd researched acid storm - a real board wiper that will clear out the ghosts. (note: I think this spell is bugged at the moment, it should cause armour to fall off, but that doesn't seem to happen. The ghosts are all prot 0 with no armour, so that wasn’t a problem for me). I start to think about winning at this time - there's a few very tempting thrones nearby - the throne of creation just north of Abyssia and in Marverni’s hands was the big one, but there was also a few level 1 thrones dotted in Maverni territory. I launch a multi-pronged attack on Marveni and wipe out a few armies. Marverni responds by teleporting Arch Druids set to Earthquake at my armies. Not a bad plan, but I had mages set up to cast Mass Protection in my armies by this time, which took all my troops out of the danger zone for Earthquake. I grab the Throne of Creation and build a fort there, and take the level 1 throne nearby. I've got Mother Oak cast at this point, and I leverage that into Gift of Health and Faeries Queens thanks to a ring of wizardry that I invested in. I'm planning to take the throne of the sun with my army at Rus, when Tir na nog conquers it from under me. I check my scout report on the battle, and I realise that they have burn through all their gems taking it, as well as losing a chunk of troops. They will never be this vulnerable again, and I absolutely have to get that throne to win. So I commit to a colossal dick move and attack the army (and also commit a small army to cut of their retreat). The result is absolutely brutal. To say that Tir na Nog takes it poorly would be an understatement. They start wind trapezing thugs into my territory and start spamming seeking arrow at my armies. The seeking arrows of course disperse harmlessly amongst my Gift of Healthed commanders (I think they take out a scout of two). I'm not about to tell someone they’re wasting dozens of air gems a turn just to brag, so I keep soaking them. The thugs are actually exceptionally tough, with sky high defence, glamour, ice swords and vine shields. Fortunately, I've been summoning national fireball throwing sacreds which bypass all this protection. These perfectly counter the thugs and I wind up with so much thug equipment that it's one of the things that leads to me winning. In one turn I calculate that Tir na Nog loses over 100 gems in equipment and arrows to literally no effect, other than giving me enough kit to create my own thugs later. Unfortunately, Therodos is blatantly snowballing at this stage, and it's clear that they're not going to be stopped without collective action. I "surrender" to Tir na Nog, paying them the princely sum of 600g and 15 air gems and conceding them the throne of the Sun. I reason that they will be much more capable of defending it from Therodos than me since they have magic weapons on their sacred.  Around this time I manage to botch my scripting and lose the army on the throne of creation to a horde of pigs. That was my biggest mistake in the game, since I had easily the right tools in place to kill it easily, but just forgot to change up my spells and orders, so my troops got the wrong blesses, and were in the wrong places, while pigs were eating their bosses faces. The replacement army gets pulled back when Maverni lands an unbelievably lucky Mind Hunt past about a dozen scouts onto a fully loaded Faery Queen. I pull my forces back after this since Therodos is obviously about to go loud and has grabbed an immense number of provinces, including most of Rl’yeh who seemed to be taken completely by surprise that someone with a massive amphibious army on their border would attack them despite warning from their friendly neighbour Tien Chi. Anyway, I send them a Direct Message linking to the Wikipedia article on Cassandra.  Things go quickly here. Therodos casts Vengeful Water and Lord of the Hunt, and pushes their Dominion extremely aggressively. Vengeful Water isn’t what it once was, but it starts to eat away at commanders, and the Lord of the Hunt snipes my Prophet and a Bishop Fish riding a magic carpet. Raiding bands of Ghosts start taking coastal provinces wherever Therodoses dominion touches. Maverni and Tir na Nog are still convinced that Therodos is harmless despite this, so I grab Eyes of God off of Maverni to rub the graphs in their faces until they get the message. The game is basically lost at this point. Therodos is essentially untouchable underwater, and he’s secured about 7 points of thrones underwater which I entirely write off ever grabbing. I play my last big card, and throw out an Arcane Nexus and power towards Wish. I’m pretty sure Maverni tried to dispel it out of spite, but I overcast it by quite a lot. While I’m waiting for Wish, I start mass producing Golems, and load them up with Tir Na Nog’s thug equipment. An early skirmish results in one dead golem, so I throw an armour of knights onto them to compensate for their low protection. Once I reach Alt 9, I start Wishing for gems, and churn out as many Mechanical Men, Celestial Servants, Heavenly Fires, Bottles of Water, and assorted boosters as I can. Along with roving Acid Storming Celestial Masters and a Fire Storming flame spirit I actually manage to stem the losses and save my rear end, but I’ve lost a huge chunk of my empire. The highlight of this game is definitely the next bit, the battle for the throne of creation. Nearing the end of his Maverni campaign, Therodos is about to crack open the throne of creation. This would seal the victory for him, so to prevent that I gear up a Golem to cast Solar Brilliance, and a Celestial Master to cast Acid Storm to clear out Therodos. Between them they kill the few hundred ghosts while they try to ineffectually stab the iron skinned Celestial Master. Maverni clears his saviours off his throne the next turn as expected, but I start moving my old reserve army up. By this stage I had a Golem for Mind Hunt protection (and thugging or Will of Fates), plus ablative shielding of a dozen scouts, and mages to cast Army of Lead, Howl and Fog Warriors. Plus the magical summons I’d been channelling Wish into. Unsurprisingly this clears out Maverni who goes ai, but Tir Na Nog then rolls in and starts sieging me with a fairly decent Thunder Spam army. Tir had managed to do some damage to me previously with Banshee assassins, so I prepared for him to repeat the experience. I teleported geared up Golem thugs into the Fortress and gave everyone a Bottle of Living Water plus a full set of sacred body guards. To be even safer, I stuffed the province with hidden scouts to dilute the number of targets, and cast three Call of the Winds on the province to render it basically immune to sieging. I think something like eight to ten banshees tried to assassinate me that turn. The only survivors were those that were lucky enough to target scouts, the rest being swiftly beaten to death. That would have been bad enough for Tir, but Abyssia, so had spent the last 20 turns reduced to their capitol nearby attacked them with every sacred, summon and mage they had and wiped the floor with the exhausted elf army. Unfortunately, they were unable to damage the walls of the fort, and unfortunately Tir na Nog was in no mood to warn them about what was inside, so a very sorry pair of Demon Bred assassins came face to face with some very angry golems. I grab the throne with a bird I propheted (and loaded with living water and defenders) and sit there feeling fairly fat and sassy. Rather than sit around, Abyssia does a tour of their cap before returning home. An ai Maverni army pulls in to siege, and I basically let them sit there as an ablative shield against the coming horrors… Tir na Nog’s ai throws their throne defenders from the throne of the sun at Rus, where I had an full buff mix army with an acid storm caster. They wipe out against it, leaving the throne open for capture. Unfortunately by this time the early effects of the cataclysm have started – basically the entire world falls under the effects of Astral Corruption, so anyone spending gems on rituals or forging items has a chance to be attacked by a horror. Since my pretender is casting a 100 gem ritual every single turn, he promptly gets eaten. My bless is entirely dependent on my pretender being alive, so I have to take a major gamble when I attack the throne of the sun, and set every single mage-priest I have to recalling my god. The numbers seem to add up to him being recalled in a single turn, but this is Dominions where chaos and bad coding rule, so I cross my fingers. I’m successful, so my attack on the throne of the sun is successful. I manage to take a one point throne form ai Maverni as well, but I don’t have any way to take it just yet. Therodos isn’t sitting still of course. His infinite armies are sweeping the world clean. I’m able to keep things under control with Acid Storm and Fire Storm casters wiping out literally hundreds of ghosts each turn, occasionally jumping on a sieging army on a throne to prevent it getting taken. Even with these losses the ghosts Therodos’s army graph keeps going up. He must be gaining nearly a thousand troops a turn. Therodos responds to Acid Storm by kitting out fully armed thugs – usually wraith lords but he’s also summons the queens of water and kits them out. I put together a couple of Mind Hunters to kill these when I can – with full penetration boosters, and have to sacrifice the occasional acid storm caster to kill off any ghosts that try to help the Wraith Lords crack open my forts. I see him starting to recruit Crystal Sorceresses from my old province, so I teleport a Golem onto that to prevent a counter to my Mind Hunts/ Then the Doom Horrors arrive. First up us Scabiel lands on one of Therodoses underwater thrones.  Scabiel is weakest of the Doomhorrors, which is not to understate his abilities since he can still eliminate an unprepared army. Which is exactly what he does. Scabiel eats the throne, the fort and the defending ghosts (but leaves the temple oddly). He then starts wandering towards another of Therodoses throne. When a throne gets eaten, you don’t just lose its points, the total required for ascention goes down proportionally. This is what I’m counting on, that enough of all the other thrones get eaten that my meagre count can put me over the edge. Unfortunately for my plan, this big boy decides to drop down onto my Level 2 throne.  This is… slightly more serious than Scabiel. I’ve been preparing for the last 20 turns for this though, and I had a plan. To start out, I’m going to try and gamble on an easy win. An S4 crystal sorceress (usually set to Mind Hunt thugs), is just going to try and Enslave Mind every single turn. Even with a Rune Smasher and Focus, each cast has less than 2% chance of working. I’ll never give up the chance for an easy win, but the rest of my forces are built around killing the git. Our main attack spell is going to be Frozen Heart. This fabulous spell does straight 10 damage, ignoring the 25 protection. I’d been moving Jade Sorceresses into all my throne provinces for precisely this. Eight casts of that and I’ve won, right? Unfortunately Agon has damage reversal +2, so everyone dealing damage against him has to roll against their Magic Resistance otherwise they take the damage instead. Depending on how the calculations work exactly, Jade Sorceresses would take the damage roughly half the time. So I’ve got to boost my Magic Resistance, for which I have Army of Lead at the ready. This is probably the best spell in the game, it gives every unit 20 protection (mostly useless here) and +2 magic resistance. I also have a Golem marching in to cast Will of the Fate, with will give all my forces Luck, meaning that any lethal blow will have a 75% chance to just straight up miss. These are going to take a few turns to get cast, so to keep Agon distracted I have about 17 D1 mages set to cast Ancestors Wrath, which summons 20 1hp ghosts onto the field (helpfully immune to fear), followed by disintegrate after Army of Lead is likely to be cast, and have a few of my Jade Sorceresses cast Swarm for a big bunch of insects. Luck and Lead will apply to this chaff as well, making then extremely difficult to chew through. I spread my mages evenly throughout the deployment square since Agon is a teleporter with AOE attacks, and end my turn.  These are some expensive losses, but there was no getting around it. The plan goes mostly according to plan, except that Agon’s first move was to teleport next to the Enslave Mind caster and eat her. After that he was stuck chewing through endless ghosts and beetles while mages killed themselves trying to cast Frozen Heart and Disintegrate on him. Frozen heart damage kills him eventually. I make my last big gamble of the game, and teleport my god to the Throne of the Sun to claim it, and forge an amulet of the doppelganger to give my flying prophet stealth, to sneak him out of my besieged fort to the level one throne I had. Together these take me to 9 points, with 10 required to win. All I would require would be for the horrors to eat one other throne, with Scabiel walking unhindered towards one, but a few turns away. But I couldn’t be sure what was happening elsewhere… And it turns out, Hruvur – Abomination of Desolation, had been busy, and was sitting on one of Therodoses thrones. The throne gets eaten, and I get pushed over the top to godhood.  Thanks buddy. Let’s have a look at what the graphs looks like when you win a losing game. Provinces:  So throughout the game Maverni has been convinced that I’m the largest player, which I legitimately was at a very brief point. I’ve shared the graphs with Maverni, they can see on the map that Therodos is huge. And they’re completely conquered by Therodos in the end. Did Maverni think I’m Therodos? I cannot for the life of me understand what they are smoking. Look at this goddamn graph.  Forts  Therodos threw their income into Forts and Temples to boost their freespawn. It made their empire utterly unconquerable, and powered their army engine. It was an excellent strategy. Income  Therodos absolutely tanked their scales, so even at their largest expanse they weren’t outspending Tir na Nogs scales. Gems  Keeping a good gem income is vital for victory, so I site searched aggressively with my multipath mages. Eventually I lose those to Therodos who overtakes me. While my wish engine is up I’m gaining about 100 gems a turn not including those going towards the wish, but that doesn’t get shown on the graph. Sadly that only lasts a few turns thanks to Cataclysm. Research  Keeping ahead in research is very important in Dominions, and Rus and Me were neck and neck until I killed him. Tien Chi has some of the most versatile mages in the game, so I was able to leverage my research lead to counter every threat that came my way and bolster my already excellent troops into battlefield sweepers. Dominion  Without Cataclysm Therodos might have won a Dominion victory all on the strength of their dominion. Most of us took quite weak dominion values, so their high strength and temple spam as particularily dangerous to us. It boosted their freespawn and combed very well with vengeful water and lord of the hunt. Altogether an excellent strategy from Therodos. Army Size  This graph terrified me the whole game. The freespawn just kept churning out more and more ghosts while everyone else was stalling. If Therodos had been able to take advantage of any defensive army buff spell they would have been absolutely unstoppable. If I had been in their position I probably would have started empowering a wraith lord or lich in nature or earth for exactly that. Points  Whole lot of drama hidden in this graph. Thrones were bitterly fought over, except for the underwater ones that could never be pulled away from Therodos except by the horrors. Bug Squash fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 14:29
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Wow drat fine job bug squash!
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Mar 3, 2018 20:56
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That was a great read. Therodos is an absolute monster in the lmao game, too, though he just went AI for some reason. He was definitely winning.to the point where I want to play on a no-water map next time.
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Mar 3, 2018 21:17
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Ynglaur posted:That was a great read. Therodos is an absolute monster in the lmao game, too, though he just went AI for some reason. He was definitely winning.to the point where I want to play on a no-water map next time. 2001 was a great game, and I used basically the same strategies for both games. My main problem is getting bored by the endgame and just logging in to shuffle freespawn around and not bothering with anything much more complex. I think I just kind of burnt out on Dom5 there so I'm taking a break and staying off too many games in the future. 2001 was absolutely the coolest thing though, Bug Squash was shouting from the rafters in Discord 'Therodos is coming! Therodos is coming!' and everyone was blind to it. I would have won if I'd have done my research better and gotten queens of water ready for the invasion of Rlyeh. As it stands I wasted most of the endgame sieging down his forts without anything competent enough to actually fight his priest spam (grandmothers and about 12 telestatic animates on his cap).
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Mar 3, 2018 21:42
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If it makes you feel better about lmao the AI curbstomped 32 Niefels with rigor mortis. They couldn't kill them but won via turn limit.
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Mar 3, 2018 21:45
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What do I do as Nazca? Do I go for their super expensive caster palanquins? If so, do I buy them for $850 or do I get the cheaper, slow to recruit component mages and then merge those? If I do go with these, do I use them as artillery on the battlefield or park them somewhere summoning ghosts? If I don't focus on the palanquins, what unit do I go for? Would it be worth turning the H3 mage-priests into half-strength palanquins just to summon ghosts? And what kind of god? Scales build to afford the palanquins? Re-invigoration bless to deal with the fatigue of something casting twice as fast? Get the sacred lancers some extra alpha strike with weapon blesses? Design a bless for the ghosts instead?
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Mar 4, 2018 01:04
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Thunder weapons quickness (luck optional) on an awake pretender. at least dom5 but more if you can. research Conjuration 3 and make incas and condor warriors from your capital and aim to cast summon condors with your pretender every turn of the game. once you have 40ish condors you can instantly siege nearly any playrrs forts and your dudes stun lock everything that isnt immune to shock damage so nothing can really fight you well
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Mar 4, 2018 01:17
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