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Wow, that earth rune is really making things convenient for you.
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Feb 4, 2021 22:58
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my dad posted:Usefulness of attack rear on thugs depends on the enemy mage corps and the disposability of the thug. There are some extremely powerful close range spells that almost never get cast.. unless someone is dumb enough to drop into the middle of a large pack of mages. I learned this in my first game, where I sent a golem with winged boots and like four artifacts to attack Sauromatia, where they promptly got killed to death by Star Fires. It also comes up a lot with the Birinj/Bronze Colossus diving into a big pile of Shatter/Star Fires casters.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:00
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The grand plan is revealed.... the sextuple claim caper...Arcvasti posted:I learned this in my first game, where I sent a golem with winged boots and like four artifacts to attack Sauromatia, where they promptly got killed to death by Star Fires. That's perfect.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:01
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My very outdated understanding of the terms (as in, from Dom3) is that a Supercombatant is supposed to be an ur-threat, capable of killing basically infinity dudes if they don't hit either an SC or a very tailored hit squad, while a Thug is a disposable 1 man raiding party who may be able to clear out disproportionate crap in a battle but really is not going to hold up to more than either a medium army without mages or a small army with bad mage support. I get why SCs are not that anymore - a bunch of stuff changed and notably its not really possible to build up the sort of omnidirectional superdefense with 100% resistance to nearly everything. What's the deal with thugs at this point?
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Feb 4, 2021 23:19
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Unironically the most important lesson of good thug use is knowing when not to use them.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:22
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my dad posted:Usefulness of attack rear on thugs depends on the enemy mage corps and the disposability of the thug. There are some extremely powerful close range spells that almost never get cast.. unless someone is dumb enough to drop into the middle of a large pack of mages. And there are also a whole bunch of powerful spells that mages like to cast at close range that have a large AoE, which is oh so exploitable if enemy mages are not safely inside a cube of troops, so that your unit landing next to them triggers massive friendly fire. This is best exploited with like 20 cheap birds instead of an actual geared thug, though. Tulip posted:My very outdated understanding of the terms (as in, from Dom3) is that a Supercombatant is supposed to be an ur-threat, capable of killing basically infinity dudes if they don't hit either an SC or a very tailored hit squad, while a Thug is a disposable 1 man raiding party who may be able to clear out disproportionate crap in a battle but really is not going to hold up to more than either a medium army without mages or a small army with bad mage support. There are cheap, easily available spells that counter almost any thug. Like having two blood mages casting bleed twice. Thugs can still be useful, especially if they are very mobile, but only if they are so cheap that being counterable by an investment of 120g and 4 blood slaves doesn't make the exchange really unfavorable.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:40
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my dad posted:Unironically the most important lesson of good thug use is knowing when not to use them. i.e. never. Always thug. ALWAYS THUG.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:49
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Can you make a thug on game start for expansion needs, so you don't need a bunch of troops or an awake pretender?
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Feb 4, 2021 23:53
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Neophyte posted:Can you make a thug on game start for expansion needs, so you don't need a bunch of troops or an awake pretender? Yomi, for example, can do this with Dai Oni, though the sort of bless they'd need for this kinda encourages you to also have an awake pretender. The goon JonJoe and I like to use something we call a "sergeant". A tanky commander leading a small squad of elite bodyguards from the front. The idea is to let your commander contribute to the fight instead of staying behind your troops (doesn't matter when you have 50 troops and 1 commander, but matters A LOT when you can only recruit something like 4 troops and 1 commander), but making sure the commander is more durable than your troops, so you don't get commander sniped in a situation where you'd otherwise win the battle if you just lost one of your units instead. The prime example would be MA Ulm's Black Lords. If you forge them a blacksteel sword (no research required, only 2 gems between Ulm's blacksteel discount and the master smith's forge bonus) to replace their lovely default weapon, they'll have +4 defense compared to base stats and a decent amount of magical weapon damage. Alone, they can't kill indies fast enough before getting overwhelmed, but when leading a squad Black Knights from the front, they can easily survive first contact with the enemy, and fully contribute to the fight alonside the rest of your troops. And once you're done using them that way, you can just use them as regular army commanders instead of doubling down on their half-thug role.
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Feb 5, 2021 00:17
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my dad posted:Yomi, for example, can do this with Dai Oni, though the sort of bless they'd need for this kinda encourages you to also have an awake pretender. I actually did that in this game, with decent success(only one failed expansion) and no bless at all(luck doesn't work on dai oni). The key is getting alt2 immediately so your dai oni can stoneskin. With my great sage pretender that was a breeze. I'm not really sure that it's actually worth it since dai oni are so pricey, but it's definitely possible, especially in JBBM where your starting army is insanely good.
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Feb 5, 2021 00:23
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Quadruple water throne claim is some inspired tactics, Turtle.my dad posted:Yomi, for example, can do this with Dai Oni, though the sort of bless they'd need for this kinda encourages you to also have an awake pretender. I used an Oni Shugo with Fear and Awe as an awake expander (after some research) and to make Dai Oni able to take on indies. Kinda falls apart vs players though
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Feb 5, 2021 01:25
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Neophyte posted:Can you make a thug on game start for expansion needs, so you don't need a bunch of troops or an awake pretender? you can't. thugs are a holdover from like dom3, when they apparently made sense due to a bunch of mechanics working differently. those mechanics shifted but people still try to make them work. outside of like, a very few nations, thugs are basically a waste of time and resources. they can be fun but they're not good.
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Feb 5, 2021 03:33
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Technowolf posted:Quadruple water throne claim is some inspired tactics, Turtle. Secretly I'm hoping it fails so we get to see more ridiculous endgame battlemagic.
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Feb 5, 2021 03:42
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FilthIncarnate posted:you can't. Thugs, heavy duty chassis with a few pieces of gear, can still be used effectively as raiders against light PD. Super combatants, big chassis with lots of high-end gear designed to take on entire armies and win, are a lot less effective since they changed how elemental resistances work (from a percentage reduction to a flat reduction), but can still be used with the right chassis, the right gear, and the right research and can no longer solo late game armies with mage support.
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Feb 5, 2021 05:40
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There are a few setups you can do to basically make some wizard unkillable vs a late game army but they mostly involve something with 25+ magic resist, loads of max health, and high elemental resists casting soul drain, which is very hard to cast and late research in exchange for a battlefield effect that does life-draining damage to something like half the units on the battlefield every round
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Feb 5, 2021 07:45
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Thanks all, I guess the "sergeant" strat with a tanky commander and elite troop is probably the most practical for early thug-like expansion. Too bad, I liked the idea of just getting a Very Special Boy or two lumbering around the cap circle on auto, swatting militia and barbs so you could concentrate on learning how to unleash horrors from beyond to
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Feb 5, 2021 09:32
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A game I've won was won in large part due to effective thug use. I had a number of very tough, cheap thug chasis (it was a natgen game that game me a sacred version of Jomon's crab generals, and my blessing was Larger) that could outlast and rout armadas of several hundred quickluck sacred summons with the help of a 10 gem lycanthrope amulet, a 5 gem hat, and a sacrificial 60 gold astral mage to cast body ethereal. Oh, and a global enchantment called Gift of Health that boosts your max HP by 10% per candle in your dominion. (Gift of Health is very good) The trick that let me actually do this is that I had scales and a shitton of castles so I could first mass magic duel enemy armies with my cheap astral mages, leaving only the sacreds, priests, and the non-astral mages alive (which is to say, the ones who couldn't just one-shot my thug from a mile away) in the army. The thugs in the game above could have been easily killed by many, many, many, many, many things... None of which were present in the battles. Not because my enemy was incompetent (though some mistakes were made) but because I used other tools to provide an environment where these counters can't appear. Some of the thugs still died, mind you, but even with 50% of them succeeding, it was very, very much a trade in my favor, with sacreds fleeing into my provinces and dying. Even when the thug dies, there's a solid chance of an enemy cap only slow to recruit holy 3 picking up the cursed lycanthrope amulet and becoming completely useless (happened twice). And in the end, the thugs' job wasn't to completely defeat my enemy, it was to buy me time to research Will of the Fates, which would let me fight the enemy effectively with my actual armies. I don't share the OP's dislike of thugs and supercombatants, but I've seen them wastefully and atrociously poorly used enough by this point to understand where it's coming from. It's better to just pretend they don't exist than to waste resources on an attempt to make a bad one work.
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Feb 5, 2021 11:36
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In one of his recent youtube LPs Mu really made his Phlegran Tyrants do some heavy lifting (pun intended, it's worth watching just for the naming gimmik).
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Feb 5, 2021 12:28
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Thugs are cool, actually.
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Feb 5, 2021 14:27
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Kurvi Tasch posted:In one of his recent youtube LPs Mu really made his Phlegran Tyrants do some heavy lifting (pun intended, it's worth watching just for the naming gimmik). Yeah, Phlegran Tyrants are one of the few vanilla chassis that can be SCs/heavy thugs.
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Feb 5, 2021 15:46
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Thugs are cool as long as they're rooting around in enemy nation innards away from the main doomstacks. Their lunch should only be PD. As soon as they hit a competent response (Scripted mage, counterthugs, one plucky lad that exploding die stabs the thug in the brain) they're game over. At best they retreat with a few afflictions and don't route into an enemy province. Correct me if I'm wrong but in Dom3 forts were not required for collecting taxes right? If that's the case then thugs pulled double duty back then because it would deny gold and give it to you, and then you could pump taxes to 200 so that when the provs were taken back they had an angry populace. WRT Eyes of God: 1) It can be useful if you're willing to deep search everyone's province, say for something like a discount site and point that out to the world. 2) Showing graphs paints the leader of the pack with a target on their back, unless they can diplo dance away a dogpile. 3) Try not to cast it with your pretender if they need eyes, although the counterspell is funny as gently caress.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:00
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If you can cast Eyes of God you don't need really need eyes to fight anyway.
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Feb 5, 2021 19:16
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t48 a busy turn right off the bat we've got a couple of dire portents:  looks like ermor got the eternal pyre. this is earth blood deep well except for fire gems; it is therefore less good. ermor announced under questioning a few turns ago that his intent for all the fire gems is: lots of alchemy, which is casting a spell to convert gems to gold, using his pretender chassis's alchemy bonus to reap extra gold. he seems to feel this is a strong strategy, in the same vein as our ebdw/riches from beneath gold/gem bonanza. i'm not sure if that's the case or not but hopefully we will kill him (or at least stunt his growth) before we have a chance to find out.  and pan stole back moak, from marv, who stole it earlier. hilarious, what a spiteful waste of gems  we've scried the last indie water throne. looks very killable. on the war front:  looks like ermor tried to break out of one of his forts and failed. let's watch  ermor's attacking crew, idk what's up here  ubar's camels  he casts body ethereal on himself and i guess his bodyguards too  then they're murdered by falcons  unclear to me what the plan there was. oh well  that happened right here for the record nearby:  ubar is besieging another fort. the scouting report only shows ghuls but that's deceptive, because of glamour  see. looks like ubar killed some fort pd. let's watch  looks like ubar's decided to use his mages as mages, and not as thugs. wise, imo  they cast scorching wind, idk  this random guy has 54 fatigue damage i guess. this would matter maybe on like a bigger tougher unit but this literally a little pd guy so  nevermind the loving cap-only shaytans fly into melee.  the same quote unquote "kit" as previous. this guy has two afflictions, he's seen some poo poo  but ghuls can kill pd so it goes fine in the end  meanwhile we conquered ulm's old cap, losslessly it seems. let's watch  us. the mightiest brick wall ever assembled  them. a curious and very specific crew. some sort of trap i bet  four of these ladies  this guy's got gems  they communion up asap, communion's led by deathgem elder in front and crystal chick behind  ofc the same turn we cast celestial music and arrowfend  our boys. pretty good.  this is what arrowfend does btw, it gives this to all your guys  we cast howl too, while their communion seems to go offscript, idk what's up then deathgem elder casts this:  ahhh okay. so that's the plan. wailing winds is really very powerful. causes morale checks every turn for my poor boys  but with celestial music my guys are faster than horses and we just sprint up and start stabbing. note the pentagrams on the top of the screen, which designate battlefield-wide spells; the green one is my howl cast and the purple his wailing winds  your winds can wail....in hell.....is what our guy says to him, perhaps, as we murder the deathgem elder. killing him takes down the spell, as you can see by the lack of the purple pentagram above  with my boys protected from arrows by their bless and the arrow fend, we clean up everything else easily  my howl caster hurt himself casting howl tho  he's got ptsd. alas  anyway. a flawless victory, mostly, and now we know he's got wailing winds  anyway stack #3 cracked that other fort and we'll storm this turn and uh wait hold on  that looks like, like, a lot of loving mages. ermor's plotting a counterpunch, clearly. we'll have to be careful  anyway good news about our discount scripting: we saved all these gems. back in the treasury they go, for now  we had like fifty earth gems on these guys, jeez  we finally got conj8, and you know what that means  hell yeah  with a blood stone and earth boots, any e3 yaksha can cast this, and all e4s can cast it with just the boots  let's begin, shall we?  note the max range from the earth rune prov. we're moving yakshas here for this reason. three attacks on that throne this turn  because you have to have vision on a prov to earth attack there, we'll scry this throne to the west in anticipation of next turn  three months oughta do it, i think  i don't want to go crazy with the blood stones but  okay we paid a pretty penny for this guy but we wanted to steal him maybe, let's take a look  poo poo, he's d1, and twiceborn requires d2. oh well  we can still use him, whatever  oh and our ladies are fine. we're gonna scoot them over to another ermor lake  anyway we're sending three more yakshas wearing gofast boots to the earth rune prov. they'll go about the business of winning us the game talking in joule chat: [11:09 PM] &rcvasti: oh huh, turtle's got EBDW up [11:09 PM] &rcvasti: I'd imagine this means they're gonna start sprinting for a win [11:10 PM] the spook king: turtle has had EBDW for like 15 turns [11:11 PM] chifley: a long-distance sprint then [11:17 PM] &rcvasti: oh was riches from beneath the one that went up this turn then? [11:18 PM] &rcvasti: given kailasa's paths I'd probably expect earthquake spam and mass flight to be their ace in the hole [11:19 PM] the spook king: that one has also been up for a while [11:19 PM] the spook king: what went up this turn was i cast the eyes of god [11:19 PM] &rcvasti: oh right you were posting graphs [11:20 PM] &rcvasti: well this has been today's daily dose of kailasa alarmism then [11:21 PM] the spook king: everyone probably should be alarmed about kailasa! [11:41 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: oh, yeah, noted powerhouse nation kailasa [11:41 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: feared by all [11:42 PM] &rcvasti: even a weak as heck nation can be scary if their graph goes up high enough [11:42 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: what graph, who cares [11:42 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: they're naked boys in loincloths, who cares if there's a lot of them [11:43 PM] &rcvasti: oh yeah I guess there's also earth attack spam to consider [11:43 PM] &rcvasti: anyways, the moral of this story is attack a monkey today [11:43 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: befriend a monkey, imo [11:43 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: they're cute pets [11:44 PM] &rcvasti: not the lankan monkies though, I've got them in hand I think [11:44 PM] &rcvasti: their god died storming a research fort [11:44 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: lanka is the powerful monkey nation [11:44 PM] turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢: makes u think [12:02 AM] the spook king: them being naked and in loincloths matters less when you can turn them into an army of gold [1:15 AM] Lotham: Since I'm being invaded for being virtuous i see no reason to attack kailasa, sorry. [1:19 AM] PurpleDCLXVI: Who's invading you? [1:23 AM] &rcvasti: marverni, I think [1:26 AM] PurpleDCLXVI: Do they have a cool pig hellbless? [1:26 AM] &rcvasti: no idea [1:26 AM] &rcvasti: my scout province got taken ages ago [1:46 AM] Lotham: not really [1:46 AM] Lotham: it's actually kind of lame [1:46 AM] Lotham: just larger not the BV or anything cool [1:50 AM] PurpleDCLXVI: boo [7:28 AM] Tekk: their god died storming a research fort @&rcvasti bleh, my God is enjoying his regular holidays in the underworld..... [7:28 AM] Tekk: And not sure about your definition of "in hand" [1:52 PM] &rcvasti: a demon monkey in the hand is worth two in the bush [2:37 PM] PurpleDCLXVI: Say, Agartha. [2:37 PM] PurpleDCLXVI: I'm sure those large numbers of troops on my borders are in no way related to any potential invasion plans, right. [2:41 PM] Tekk: a demon monkey in the hand is worth two in the bush @&rcvasti Hah not touching that.. 2:42 PM] Tekk: !deets [2:42 PM] BOT samog: Details joule (snek.earth:31776): turn 48, 41h 6m remaining / Ermor (6): @the spook king ✓ Ulm (7): Defeated X Marverni (8): @election robot, with a phd X Sauromatia (9): @Lotham ✓ T'ien Ch'i (10): Defeated ✓ Abysia (13): @PurpleDCLXVI ✓ Pangaea (16): @gnomegusta X Agartha (17): @Tagichatn X Kailasa (25): @turtle-king of ſomeÞing awful🐢 ✓ Lanka (26): @Tekk X Yomi (27): @&rcvasti X Ubar (33): @vampire viscount fucko Owner @TechnoWereWolf Description EA JBBM game. Lake refried shrimp. No underwaters or popkills. Pronounced the Australian way. [2:57 PM] PurpleDCLXVI: FYI Agartha if you're planning to attack me, be warned that I will make your life miserable by giving a bunch of poo poo away to much more competent players. [2:59 PM] &rcvasti: I would simply defeat agartha in combat, personally talking to ramc: 2:52 PM] filthincarnate: check the joule chat [2:52 PM] filthincarnate: and also the game turned [2:53 PM] filthincarnate: i haven't seen the ulm figth yet but the battle report is funny [6:17 PM] Ramc: tried the spooky winds huh [6:17 PM] filthincarnate: unfortunately my guys under celestial music are......combat speed 28 [6:17 PM] filthincarnate: for reference a fast horse is 26 [6:17 PM] filthincarnate: so [6:17 PM] filthincarnate: we just punched 'em [6:17 PM] Ramc: spooked two wizards [6:18 PM] filthincarnate: oh poo poo [6:18 PM] filthincarnate: which two [6:18 PM] Ramc: a yogi and a yaksha but because it was a storm the 'retreat' was into the same prov so they are ok [6:19 PM] filthincarnate: whew [6:19 PM] filthincarnate: i'll screenshot [6:20 PM] Ramc: immortalize the cowrds [6:24 PM] filthincarnate:  [6:24 PM] Ramc: call them out!!! [6:25 PM] filthincarnate: no.....call them in [6:25 PM] Ramc: rename them [6:25 PM] filthincarnate: wow [6:25 PM] filthincarnate: to what [6:25 PM] Ramc: up to you I guess, up to your theme [6:25 PM] Ramc: will it be PUNITIVE?? [6:25 PM] Ramc: or... aspirational [6:26 PM] filthincarnate: seems harsh [6:26 PM] filthincarnate: what if instead i just won the game instead of loving around [6:26 PM] filthincarnate: did we decide i was summoning a devata [6:27 PM] Ramc: i am going to say 'yes' to summoning at least 1 of anything [6:27 PM] filthincarnate: [6:27 PM] filthincarnate: for the fans? [6:27 PM] Ramc: yes [6:27 PM] filthincarnate: the pro to the devata is: [6:27 PM] filthincarnate: it instacasts mass flight [6:27 PM] filthincarnate: the con is: [6:27 PM] Ramc: thats good [6:27 PM] filthincarnate: it's s2 so it can still get magic duel'd [6:28 PM] filthincarnate: as opposed to a faery court, which jbrere suggests because that can't get magic duel'd [6:28 PM] Ramc: good idea [6:29 PM] Ramc: but yes. One at least to show off [6:29 PM] Ramc: and if it dies to magic duel? [6:29 PM] filthincarnate: fiiiine. [6:29 PM] filthincarnate: fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. [6:29 PM] Ramc: object lesson for the fans [6:29 PM] filthincarnate: fine [6:39 PM] filthincarnate: there [6:39 PM] filthincarnate: i hope you're happy  ramc points out that the wailing winds trap did successfully spook two wizards but they ended up just retreating into the fort we conquered so, nbd  and fine ramc wants you to see this, so, okay  bater's summoning him  mercwise i want to take all of ermor's poo poo without risking anything valuable soooooo we'll rebid on the ones we want  right now all the global slots are full, so if someone tries to cast another it will try to bump a random global out. both ours are mincast so that's potentially bad, we need to be ready to recast in other news:  agartha's getting his poo poo ran  agartha's poo poo, soon to be ran  pan, have we seen his poo poo yet? i guess not. one second  these guys have niche uses but pan shouldn't have summoned them  these fuckers are perhaps the best sacred in the game  some dork  minotaurs suck sorry  huh this guy is horrormarked.  he must be getting these guys from a site. wish i had the site but oh well  interesting bless. huh.  pan has white centaurs, he loving wins  it's a slaughter  piloted correctly ea pan is bar none the most overpowered faction in the game so we should be thankful this guy is not piloting well  pan and sauro continue their eternal hellwar. yawn  that's the turn. they're onto us now but it might be too late to keep us from winning, as long as we're careful and have our eye on the ball random events:  climate change.....  the beast itself talking to abysia: 12:22 AM] filthincarnate: agartha is currently getting his poo poo run by pan [12:22 AM] filthincarnate: he is super bad [12:23 AM] PurpleXVI: Well he's apparently good enough to spare like 400 dudes to stand around my borders, and even in the hands of someone super bad I feel like I might have trouble dealing with 400 agarthans just suddenly rumbling through in a big ol' swarm. [12:23 AM] filthincarnate: ****i posted screenshots of agartha getting their poo poo ran**** [12:23 AM] filthincarnate: agarthans can literally not fight their way out of apaper bag [12:24 AM] filthincarnate: the strength of agartha is its magic which this guy can't use well [12:24 AM] filthincarnate: a token force of your dudes should murder infinite agarthans [12:24 AM] filthincarnate: however: i feel you [12:24 AM] filthincarnate: best of luck talking to ramc: [12:31 AM] filthincarnate: there's been some news. [12:31 AM] filthincarnate: abysia might be abandoning the fight [12:31 AM] Ramc: vs ermor? [12:32 AM] filthincarnate: ya apparently agartha's marching a stack of trash at him [12:32 AM] filthincarnate: there'sa fun pan/agartha fight [12:32 AM] filthincarnate: in the battle reports [12:33 AM] filthincarnate: gives you an idea of who we're dealing with [12:33 AM] filthincarnate: anyway that would mean i could snipe that throne on the abysia/ermor border i think [12:33 AM] filthincarnate: with relative ease [12:34 AM] filthincarnate: i'll move some mercs that direction, see if we can't open up that corner of the empire to exploitation [12:37 AM] Ramc: i saw that fight [12:37 AM] Ramc: sad [12:38 AM] filthincarnate: pan....a low-tier nation 12:38 AM] Ramc: weak like a babe
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Feb 8, 2021 02:03
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classic weak underdog nation Early Era Pan
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Feb 8, 2021 02:22
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Agartha was great for giving me an excuse to not fight Ermor so that Ermor could, instead, bribe me with large amounts of gold to not get involved.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:10
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Ramc posted:classic weak underdog nation Early Era Pan I don't follow. I know nothing of Dominions. Explain Pan.
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Feb 8, 2021 07:17
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Bloodly posted:I don't follow. I know nothing of Dominions. Explain Pan. Early era Pan is actually extremely strong. Most of their units gets stealth so they can sneak around, even into enemy territory. Stealth is hugely powerful since you never know if they have huge armies ready to attack you from their border or even from inside your own provinces. Some of them can cause unrest and reduce income or dryads can try to seduce enemy commanders. If the seduction fails, they'll assassinate them and usually succeed if they're properly set up. They get cheap temples and labs in forests plus being able to build useful units without a fort. They have also have high nature mages that aren't restricted to their capital and nature is a powerful magic path. I've barely played them thought so I'm sure a better player could elaborate further. edit: they also get free naked ladies
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Feb 8, 2021 07:59
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Don't forget that Pan also gets acceptable blood magic, the best god pantheon bar none, every single one of their troops is amazing(even the minotaur has a niche in certain match-ups) and basically everything has high mobility, mr and hp. This last bit is a big deal: Some nations have to potter around with frail, slow and cowardly old mages, instead of a beefcake stapled to a pretty pony who can pole vault over earthquakes and gallop faster then the wind to drop magic on folks.
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Feb 8, 2021 08:19
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their sacreds really are very good. a tough, berserking, wrecking ball of a cavalry unit they are cap only, because if they were recruit anywhere there wouldn't be a MA or LA.
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Feb 8, 2021 11:56
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Bloodly posted:I don't follow. I know nothing of Dominions. Explain Pan. sure, okay. so ramc and i go into this subject in much more detail in an episode of our much-beloved, long-running dominions podcast, "The Ruby Discourse", which you can find: https://illwiki.com/dom5/ruby-discourse there, if you like, the episode in question is called "Stages", iirc, it's been a little while. but basically when you're handicapping a nation, in dominions, you're trying to understand its strengths and weaknesses during the three stages of the game: Early, Middle, and Late. each dominions nation can be understood as a set of tools, and different tools are useful/relevant at different stages of the game. the Early stage (which is, loosely, the window between the game's start and when you or one of your neighbors gets serious battlemagic online) is about troops. the Middle stage (the window between getting serious battlemagic online and when serious battlemagic stops being as relevant) is about battlemagic. and lategame dominions is about scale. so once you understand what's useful and when, you can easily look at like ea tir na nog and handicap them. ea tnn has a solid troop lineup and their primary paths are air and nature, with minimal access to other magic. air and nature are both very powerful in the midgame but have minimal lategame applications, because they don't scale well. so tir na nog is fairly strong in the early game and has several power spikes in the midgame as various good spells come online, but will struggle in lategame unless you somehow acquire major sources of other types of magic. so if you're playing tir na nog your goal should be to win the game in the midgame, before lategame comes online and you get creamed. depending on throne settings and geography this is either possible or not. anyway Very Strong Nations, like, for example, ea vanheim, have easily accessible tools for each stage of the game. Vanheim has only three tools, really: very strong troops, air magic, blood magic. fortunately each of these carries you through a stage of the game, and you can win with them very straightforwardly by just painting by numbers: use your murdersacreds, then transition to air magic, then set up a blood economy. it's a simple formula but it works so often that many communities restrict the use of ea vanheim because of how strong it is. okay so ea pan's tools are: Very Strong Troops, perhaps the strongest in the game, nature magic, blood magic, hordes of freespawn, and also a recruit-everywhere sacred seducing mage called the dryad that, properly used, makes waging an offensive war on them impossible. the meta's "solution" for many overpowered nations is usually for everyone else in the game to dogpile them at a key moment. trying to dogpile a competently piloted ea pan, however, often results in: pan just killing everyone, at once. Ramc can explain more about this if he likes but yes pan is good. it's not idiot-proof, as we've seen; like you do have to understand something about the game for it to be totally unstoppable, but if competently piloted it does kill everyone and everything.
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Feb 8, 2021 20:00
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is that helpful
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Feb 8, 2021 20:25
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PurpleXVI posted:Agartha was great for giving me an excuse to not fight Ermor so that Ermor could, instead, bribe me with large amounts of gold to not get involved. We did come to an arrangement, around the time that everyone else attacked me. I figured that was my best bet for turning a potentially 3 front war into 2 fronts, which was the only way I was going to be able to come out ahead after this pile-on. From a few turns ago: [5:51 PM] weedzmin: the ubar attack was definitely very halfhearted, I figure turtle talked them into it as a distraction [5:51 PM] weedzmin: they've been having some sort of negotiations [5:52 PM] PurpleXVI: I'll say it was extremely funny to watch Ubar lose so much poo poo. [5:52 PM] weedzmin: always fun to log in and see that you've been attacked in 20 places, especially when you won most of them [5:53 PM] PurpleXVI: Yeah, I imagine the first login must've been a butt-clencher. [5:53 PM] PurpleXVI: And then "oh, OH." [5:53 PM] weedzmin: mostly just confusion [5:53 PM] weedzmin: as in, every unit involved in this is a seducer/corrupter, why aren't they doing that instead [5:54 PM] PurpleXVI: 20 corruption attempts on a stack of your wizzads would have been pretty funny. [5:57 PM] weedzmin: would've been a lot more effective at least [6:05 PM] weedzmin: anyways i am going to move most of the stuff on the border fort elsewhere and would greatly appreciate it if you found something to do besides attack me [6:05 PM] weedzmin: for instance, i have heard agartha is fighting with pangaea at the moment [6:06 PM] PurpleXVI: Well, I will consider your request, on account of my great levels of virtue. [6:07 PM] weedzmin: could your virtue perhaps be guaranteed with a purchase of gems, or items of some sort [6:09 PM] PurpleXVI: See that's what I'm mentally juggling right now. On the one hand, you're under siege by like three other nations, which would seem to be a GREAT time to score that border throne, especially as thrones are apparently how you win the game or something. On the OTHER hand, I really do love bribes and I feel like I need to sustain an appropriate brand. Plus if you DO lose the war and I don't score any of your stuff, it'll put the Ubar/Monkey alliance ahead of me in terms of game-winning. [6:11 PM] weedzmin: the monkeys are most likely ahead of me in most respects, I will know better after casting the eyes of god [6:12 PM] weedzmin: if i do get completely owned you'll be the only one really in position to grab that particular throne anyway [6:12 PM] weedzmin: I'm just asking for a 1 year buffer before that [6:12 PM] PurpleXVI: That is a tempting argument. [6:12 PM] PurpleXVI: So sell me on what your bribe is. [6:13 PM] weedzmin: well I have at the moment one (1) skull of fire, and have just now found enough death sites to actually make more [6:13 PM] weedzmin: as i understand it you cannot make these yourself but it will make your fireballs bigger etc [6:13 PM] weedzmin: or i could just send some gems [6:14 PM] PurpleXVI: Actually I'm in that sort of funny position where I'd appreciate gold even more than gems. Alternately, fire gems which I can turn into gold. [6:14 PM] PurpleXVI: If I'm not gonna be attacking you, I need to think up some other dumb thing to spend my resources on. [6:15 PM] weedzmin: well I do have the chicken titan pretender, whom I am told is exceptionally skilled at converting magic gems into gold [6:16 PM] weedzmin: my game plan was to cast the eternal pyre in a few turns and turn a lot of that into extra gold [6:17 PM] PurpleXVI: Hmmmm, so you're saying I should put off killing you now... for gold later... some sort of... investment? [6:17 PM] PurpleXVI: Will it make number go up. [6:17 PM] weedzmin: paid in installments, even [6:17 PM] weedzmin: guaranteed returns [6:18 PM] weedzmin: I don't know what that'll come out to because the alchemy math is complicated but with the alchemy bonus it should be at least 45 gold per gem [6:19 PM] PurpleXVI: Hmmmm. I'm sure I will in no way end up regretting this. So, a one-year-NAP? [6:19 PM] weedzmin: you could also send me some sum of gems and i could convert them immediately, if that's preferable [6:19 PM] weedzmin: a one year NAP indeed [6:20 PM] PurpleXVI: My fire gems are sadly spoken for, for nefarious purposes. [6:22 PM] weedzmin: if that's what you want [6:23 PM] weedzmin: should be able to cast the pyre next turn unless I get global cockblocked, which is certainly possible, and then I'll send half the income from that to you as gold [6:28 PM] PurpleXVI: Have fun with one secure flank! Normally alchemy doesn't give you enough gold to be worth it, but the bonus on my pretender gives him twice as much gold as if an average wizard had cast it, which quickly turns into a whole lot. More than enough to offset the gold loss from having a bunch of provinces and a major fort like Ulm taken. Spoilers for the next turn: 
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Feb 8, 2021 21:13
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I have tried multiple games to use freespawn Pan and have been disappointed every time. Pangaea, at least the version in the mod the Ruby Discord uses, is much better played as either a full hellbless nation (quickness/regen/blood bond) or full scales and just pump out a zillion centaurs and satyrs.
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Feb 8, 2021 21:16
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FilthIncarnate posted:a recruit-everywhere sacred seducing mage called the dryad that, properly used, makes waging an offensive war on them impossible. 
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Feb 8, 2021 21:25
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FilthIncarnate posted:is that helpful yeah that was you say 'makes u think' a lot but i'm very dumb so all my thoughts are bad, thank you for doing those thoughts for me
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Feb 8, 2021 21:26
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It's also worth noting that in the mod this is using, JBBM, EA Pan is brutally but fairly nerfed. Non-complete list of nerfs, just off the top of my head: -Fort/Lab discount removed -Blood spell costs largely doubled -Swarm/Creeping Doom are a lot less strong, which makes dryad assassins somewhat worse and removes some classic nature battlemagic -Dryads are now 3 rec points instead of 2 -Centaurs all lose a bunch of hp and are more expensive rec-point wise -Satyr Revellers are more expensive -Some of the strong greek pantheon pretenders like the bronze colossus or the drakon are nerfed or even outright removed It's still probably a good nation, but it has fallen a long ways.
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Feb 8, 2021 21:42
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Reading all the diplomacy back and forth is really interesting - is it common for a nation to get dogpiled if the rest of the players think they're surging ahead?
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Feb 8, 2021 22:41
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GrayDorian posted:Reading all the diplomacy back and forth is really interesting - is it common for a nation to get dogpiled if the rest of the players think they're surging ahead? It is common for a nation to get dogpiled if the rest of the players think they're surging ahead, yes.
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Feb 8, 2021 22:43
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t49 you guys know the drill by this point  that little cloak and dagger dude? he indicates assassination battles, in the same way the little crossed swords indicate regular battles. let's take a look at how our earth attacks went  hee hee hee  one  two  three, boom, hat trick. there are gonna be a lot of these battles and they'll be very repetitive, so let's look at one right now for illustration purposes.  this is our earth elemental  a handsome gentleman, still a spring in his step at 919 years old. size 6 and trample.  the other side. a mermage and some hapless bodyguards  a pretty good aquatic infantry unit, debuffed due to darkness. earth elementals have spirit sight so they don't care about that.  the debuff  this mage rocks btw. water/fire is a powerful crosspath. if he summons water elementals at us he might survive this.  but the battle is joined and instead of water elementals he casts some dumb poo poo  his brave bodyguards charge our elemental head-on. look at his ferocious lil' face, awww  they get some initial hits on him, pretty good  but he's a raw projection of elemental power, and they are just some wet dudes with tridents  you can't see it but he just squished the last bodyguard  the mage spams water strike, i don't think he hits a single time. i guess he thinks he'll need his water gems in the future  and he's squished, his gems along with him. there's not a lot a size 6 earth elemental won't murder in single combat  we're gonna spam earth attack until we kill all the commanders of the throne defenders for all four indie uw thrones. moving on to the next  currently we have 4 e4 random yakshas at the rune of earth  and 3 yakshas at ulm's old cap with stack #1, one e4 random and two e3s with bloodstones to get them to e4 before boots  so we have seven earth attacks in range of these two provinces atm. sending 5 at the new one and 2 at the one we've already hit. ideally it's overkill; we don't know how many commanders any of these provinces have so the plan is just to kill until the earth elementals can't find anyone to assassinate anymore.  our mercs are rolling up more territory, heading northeast toward ulm's other throne.  looks like we bumped something. let's take a look.  louis, of the lions  his spearmen. these are very quality infantry. mercs are great  these are the amphibious troops ermor has been using all game. they're not great, due mostly to being naked. these guys are veterans so they have better stats than normal but they're still not great  the chieftan  they're gonna get slaughtered  picture worth a thousand words  they just get slaughtered, as i said  anyway, moving on  our new ghost mercs also killed some pd. we'll watch them fight one time  the ghostly crew  the leader. he's got a little chill aura, which works better in cold provs and worse in hot ones  ditto with these guys. spooky  see the little sparkles? that's their ghostly chill  ghosts have a life drain attack, meaning that when they hurt you they heal themselves  it works pretty good in other news:  looks like stack #3 captured that one fort. let's take a look  a secondary brick wall  the fort defenders  my mages don't even consider this worth spending gems for so none of our real script goes off, we just roll up and murder them, whatever  oh they routed the markata. poor little guys  base morale 7, so, i get it. war wasn't as fun as you thought it would be eh guys  great, we'll vacate this fort and return our magic gems/items to the treasury. we're rolling back more and more stuff  oh hey we summoned this guy. he'll have exactly two jobs i think  first he goes to earthruneprov  we're gonna scry the next two indie uw thrones, our earth attack train is moving very quickly now  we'll need three more rings of waterbreathing to win the game so we're gonna make those rn  and we're summoning a fourth siddha anyway we're looking at the spell lists and trying to reverse-engineer where exactly ermor is or might be in terms of his research  wailing winds is evo6, so he's got at least that  ench6 is eternal pyre, so he's got that at least also  ermor's amassing quite the doomstack and he's probably teching like mad to fight us. so, of course, we will make sure to avoid giving him the fight he wants. talking to ramc: [3:46 PM] filthincarnate: ermor's making a fun doomstack [5:38 PM] Ramc: in 140? [6:30 PM] filthincarnate: uhhh idk [6:30 PM] filthincarnate: the one two provs north of ulm [6:31 PM] filthincarnate: full of gladiators or whatever [6:36 PM] filthincarnate: my expectation is: [6:36 PM] filthincarnate: because arcvasti correctly guessed my battlemagic strat ermor is teching desperately toward hardcounters for mass flight/earthquake and earth attakc [6:36 PM] filthincarnate: and the second they're online he's gonna roll that stack at me [6:38 PM] Ramc: simply counter his counters [6:38 PM] Ramc: destroying him instantly [6:41 PM] filthincarnate: idk how to do that exactly [6:41 PM] filthincarnate: mass flight is an earthquake hardcounter [6:41 PM] filthincarnate: oh i realized devatas are also h3 so i actually have a use for him [6:41 PM] filthincarnate: i'll send him to the firesnake throne and have him cast mass flight t1, and then he can claim talking to ubar: [4:44 PM] filthincarnate: how's the war going [4:45 PM] filthincarnate: i think abysia flaked, which, whatever, in the end; ermor is generating an enormous doomstack to fight me but i'm not super worried [4:45 PM] filthincarnate: would you object if i took 117 and 136 this turn? [7:04 PM] YNRN: I'd like 117 for myself but 136 is fair game [7:04 PM] YNRN: Other than that I'm just sort of dancing around ermor's troops until I get enough forces to fight their stacks [8:17 PM] filthincarnate: hmmm okay [8:18 PM] filthincarnate: would you mind if i took 117 and walked some guys through it this turn and you can take it after? [8:18 PM] filthincarnate: it's an avenue for a crew of sacreds of mine in 99 [8:19 PM] filthincarnate: i'll leave 1 pd if you like [8:19 PM] filthincarnate: i'm trying to pick up abysia's slack on the eastern flank here a little bit [8:23 PM] YNRN: I guess that's fine then [8:23 PM] filthincarnate: boom [8:23 PM] filthincarnate: another blockbuster hollywood deal [8:23 PM] filthincarnate: ermor's making a doomstack to fight me [8:23 PM] filthincarnate: but: i'm not super worried [8:24 PM] YNRN: It doesn't look like they really have much stuff from where I'm standing yeah [8:24 PM] filthincarnate: oh let me get a screenshot for ya [8:26 PM] filthincarnate:  [8:26 PM] filthincarnate: there we are, forgive my bad cropping [8:26 PM] filthincarnate: that's the stack [8:26 PM] filthincarnate: it's in 140 [8:27 PM] filthincarnate: it's basically all of his troops and mages, afaict [8:28 PM] filthincarnate: i'm expecting it to roll at ulm as soon as he hits some research targets [8:28 PM] YNRN: From what I see he's got another 160 guys hanging out in various places on my side of the world [8:29 PM] YNRN: 60 in ermor, 40 in 219, 60 in 222 [8:29 PM] filthincarnate: mmm [8:29 PM] filthincarnate: yeah he was extremely unprepared for this war [8:29 PM] YNRN: Oh and 30 merrows but, lol [8:29 PM] filthincarnate: you wanna get lanka involved in like 189, 204 or so [8:30 PM] filthincarnate: yeah i killed Many Merrow PD [8:30 PM] filthincarnate: he didn't want to lose his uw provs [8:30 PM] filthincarnate: however: i have water mages so [8:30 PM] filthincarnate: he's launching his Strat now, which is: eternal pyre + his god, which has alchemy 100, making fire gems----> gold [8:31 PM] filthincarnate: however we've hobbled his income so it's not going great [8:31 PM] YNRN: I guess I don't have a problem with lankan involvement really in those couple provs [8:31 PM] filthincarnate: boom [8:31 PM] filthincarnate: i'll reach out. talking to lanka: 8:31 PM] filthincarnate: yo lanka [8:31 PM] filthincarnate: abysia seems to have flaked [8:31 PM] filthincarnate: you want to chew on ermor's coastline? [8:31 PM] filthincarnate: 189, 204, etc [8:32 PM] filthincarnate: ubar says he's busy elsewhere so you're not competing with anyone for them [8:32 PM] filthincarnate: and ermor is currently desperately assembling a doomstack to fight me on the other side of his empire so you should have minimal problems [8:34 PM] filthincarnate: anyway lmk :slight_smile: [9:59 AM] Tekk: I only have skeletons in teh water [10:00 AM] Tekk: Yomi has pushed back Sauro and is running about with a doomstack - will probably have to kill it at some point [10:00 AM] Tekk: or lose to it again [1:49 PM] filthincarnate: yeah sauro is hellwarring with marv [1:49 PM] filthincarnate: and they're all running doomstacks around, and then running away, unwilling to engage [1:49 PM] filthincarnate: an enormous game of footsie [1:50 PM] Tekk: The massive battles is the only bit I play for :slight_smile: [1:50 PM] filthincarnate: a wise philosophy [1:50 PM] filthincarnate: anyway i think your skeles could take some free provs pretty easy [1:51 PM] filthincarnate: is my suggestion [1:51 PM] Tekk: Wil take a look next turn - atm Naba has them I think [1:51 PM] filthincarnate: just bring 'em out, take some stuff, go back under [1:51 PM] filthincarnate: he doesn't [1:51 PM] filthincarnate: also it's ubar in ea [1:51 PM] filthincarnate: but take a look lmk [1:51 PM] Tekk: 204 & 189? [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: yeah [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: and anything else adjacent you might want to snake [1:52 PM] Tekk: hitting 204 then jumping over to the lake south [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: boom [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: wisdom [1:52 PM] Tekk: got another 100 or so skellies on the way [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: yeah that's wise i think [1:52 PM] Tekk: But if he brings a real army i'll be in trouble [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: he won't [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: he has one real army [1:52 PM] filthincarnate: it's in [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: 140 [1:53 PM] Tekk: My forces are back at the cap recovering from the Yomi battering [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: ya ofc [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: just take poo poo and move on [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: ermor's overwhelmed he can't stop you [1:53 PM] Tekk: he has 60 horsies in 222 [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: free provs get you gold which lets you make more dudes for the fights you want [1:53 PM] Tekk: but they are probably goign to break the siege in 236 [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: yeah they're going to fight ubar thp [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: ya [1:53 PM] filthincarnate: exactly  ^ stack of horsies circled, lanka's projected path in arrows  i need to scry some out-of-the-way targets so i'm making this to pass around between w1 mages to boost them to the w2 needed for scrying pool random events:  alas  "gems", in the plural, and yet they only gave us the one?  nevermind there they are  that's the turn. endgame is coming sooner than i expected tbqh. we'll have to smash and grab two thrones at once soon
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Feb 8, 2021 23:29
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are we close to the end of the page these turns are gonna have lots of images from here on out
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Feb 9, 2021 04:12
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