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Lord Koth posted:...The actual problem with Gifts in that situation is that the Innate Caster will cheerfully target enemies next to them. And given the spell's poor precision, will eventually drop one on itself. I've found that Innate Casters with the E/S crosspath and midgame+ research are very chancy to field. I found that out last night in singleplayer when I attempted to attack a throne defended by a bunch of fliers
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Feb 3, 2024 22:07
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This is in fact exactly the problem I have discovered with Gifts from Heaven and my elephant idol pretender, Mr. Squeaky, who pasted himself twice over the course of a 8-player medium map SP campaign. I guess I could come up with a strategy that involves not having Evocation 5 or whatever it is that gives Gifts.
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Feb 3, 2024 23:28
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Or maybe find a way to boost your pretender's precision up really, really high.
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Feb 4, 2024 01:37
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Whats a good throne setup? I prefer having level 2 and 3 thrones mixed in for more fun, is there a good sort of ratio of thrones to points?
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Feb 4, 2024 06:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6cpG9MPWEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR6A35OJ1W8 Lucid did a 'tier list' about Monster Pretenders. He got a pair of things wrong imo (see my comments* below), but still is a decent overview of all the options. They are interesting to me because I think overall the Dom 2 Pretenders is where the biggest variety is, and bigger discrepancy of power. Immobiles are all similar in function, rainbows are almost all similar in function. Titans have some variance but not as much as the Dom2 tier. The sphynx class, as Lucid calls it, it's interesting.  They are fliers, and that's the issue. Because they have bigger mobility and I suspect Illwinter makes them pay premium for the flying ability. And that's the mistake imo, as Illwinter usually gives flying monsters worse stats, in this case less hp (around 125 or 130hp), less protection (they have feathers not scaly skin!), and only a bit of fear, and that's it. They don't have aoe or multiple attacks, they don't have regen, or awe, or trample. So you 'pay' for the extra mobility but what that mobility allows you is to fight in more battles, in more provinces... except that's only good if the monster is good at fighting , you know? So they end up being underwhelming. Ideally speaking, flying should cost more or less depending of the quality of the chassis, that's my point. There is an argument to do about monsters that we shouldn't classify them in two simple buckets: 'can expand solo' and 'garbage'. There are half a dozen Pretenders with ~120hp and Fear that almost can solo expand, but they don't have the protection and magic paths for it. I was thinking that in combination with your army they are able to enhance your expansion rate, because with good positioning they kill a few guys, absorb some dmg, and make the rest retreat with fear, making your expansion party lose almost nothing. So they are 'support expanders'. The issue is that 'enhancing your expansion rate' means... like 1/3? more, not the almost +100% you get with a great solo expander, which is even greater than it reads because as you know getting 4 extra provinces in the four first turns have multiplicative effects, and while those 'support expanders' are usually cheaper than the good solo expanders, they are not proportionally cheap enough. *Individual chassis comments: -I was going to say that the Dracolich surely, could punch above that ranking. big hp pool, recuperation, high fear, 0 fatigue... I even ran some tests. But no, I was wrong. not only barbs or cavalry can kill you, also any random n1 mage lol. One of them animated two full trees (forest province) and their 3-4 19 dmg blunt attacks killed me. -Demon Macaw is super bad, I tested it with some heavy blesses, and he still would die so many times. Not only against barbs and heavy cavalry, but also against normal archers with short bows? and also against skelly spam of a single death mage? etc -The First Spawn: this is one of the cases where judging it as 'monsters are expanders' feels wrong. It cost almost like a rainbow mage, and it has three paths unlike normal monsters (which usually have 1 or 2 native mpaths, allowing to obtain more bless points and some magic diversity). So it's more correct to think about it like a rainbow that also can help a combat a fair bit to your expansion armies. It bothers me more the fact it is aquatic, heh, as it means only one usable slot. -God Spider: I just tested and it can expand, if you are choosy with what provinces you use it against, leaving the easy provinces for him and the hard provinces for you real army. it isn't mindless expansion, but he can get 7 provinces on it own, which isn't bad. you cast skeletal body at first, then mirror image a few turns later when you have Alt 2. I wouldn't take it with a random nation but with the 20 point discount for Machaka, he is viable -Great Stag seems even worse than White Stag to me, because a few sacred animals as retinue isn't worth 40 points (the cost difference). it isn't a reliable amount, 2d6 means sometimes you will have just 2 or 3 deers. -The Phoenix: obviously there is no way to expand with it. but is it decent enough as just a high level mage you will use in mid game, taking it Dormant? it is just 110 points, like a human mage pretender. Except he has 3x more hp, and flying, and dominion immortality (1 turn). However, as trade off, you don't have the full slots and much less magic diversity and less bless points. I actually think is still not enough, he should have a bit of a boost in something. -The snake Omr: in addition to the good points mentioned by Lcuid, having an amphibious Pretender is always nice imo, he can get your 3-4 water provinces in expansion that otherwise you wouldn't be able to get
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Feb 4, 2024 11:13
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Bremen posted:Or maybe find a way to boost your pretender's precision up really, really high. Does not help. Gifts have the inaccurate tag, which makes them land in the vicinity of the tile that you perfectly targeted with precision.
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Feb 4, 2024 11:32
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Turin Turambar posted:The sphynx class, as Lucid calls it, it's interesting. I think analogizing them to generic Titans is on the right track. Same idea, except with more scales and without a titans Const scalability. quote:-Great Stag seems even worse than White Stag to me, because a few sacred animals as retinue isn't worth 40 points (the cost difference). it isn't a reliable amount, 2d6 means sometimes you will have just 2 or 3 deers. I experimented with a Charged Bodies bless for great stag, using the sacred stags as cruise missiles. It was amusing, but ultimately lacked the power to expand against strength five Indies. And yeah the unreliability is an issue. I've hated it since it was introduced. Fixed, Dom or terrain scaling (ie more in forests) is how retinues should work. The new storm daddy fire serpent seems like it might be able to expand, but is ultimately let down by ethereal being insufficient and fire shield not actually blocking attacks.
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Feb 4, 2024 14:27
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:
quote:The new storm daddy fire serpent seems like it might be able to expand, but is ultimately let down by ethereal being insufficient and fire shield not actually blocking attacks. I also have tried it, but with the bigger indie armies in Dom6, the etherealness isn't as efficient of protective layer as it seems at first.
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Feb 4, 2024 14:52
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I think the problem with titans is that they're supposed to be really good when kitted out but they tend not to have enough at a baseline to really be worth it. I did like the better gods mod's idea to just give them all awe, reinvig and culturally-relevant retinues. Dracolich baseline is okay, a couple of blesses makes it a blind expander, you can still do it without a relevant bless, but you just have to know that barbs and lots o heavy cav aren't a good idea.
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Feb 4, 2024 16:00
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in my pubbie game ive blitzed bandar and took like 14 provinces in 4 turns but now my NAP pal marignon who i'd been trying to get to join in has joined in but by backstabbing me, who could have forseen this! im Ys though so i'm just gonna melt into the sea, throw the monkeys a "sorry, lets be friends?" message and then do the same blitz into my erstwhile ally's coastline next turn. he can hopefully only expand into my land territory, aka bandar log's lands and cap circle while theres a stretch of about 8 provinces i can attack into along his coast. Ys are sick early game because you can create a sacred squad per turn that can clear almost any amount of PD or neutrals and they have great mapmove, glamour and are amphibious. their mounts also have high prot which covers a big weakness a lot of cav have now i'd like to get better at making proper mage research farms and knowing what spells to take, it seems like you can communion up the little lovely research mages but i have no idea what Ys is supposed to be targetting magic-wise
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Feb 4, 2024 16:05
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I've never played in a pubbie game so I just get curb-stomped a lot by goons who are good at Dominions. Now I kind of want to play with randoms once just to see if I'm actually terrible at this game. (lol we all know the answer)
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Feb 4, 2024 17:06
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I haven't done huge volumes of testing but in my experience dracolich set to Fire is very efficient at clearing reasonable numbers of barbs since its breath weapon can hit a bunch of them with fear.
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Feb 4, 2024 17:21
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as per the above video, a golden lion with regen and fire shield is super sick, i just tested it and it can solo clear barbarian thrones only thing i'd add is recuperation but its kinda expensive as it is Communist Thoughts fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Feb 4, 2024 |
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Feb 4, 2024 17:36
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To see Ys referred to as "good" warms my heart, considering how absolutely trash they were in Dom5.
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Feb 4, 2024 19:28
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Communist Thoughts posted:i'd like to get better at making proper mage research farms and knowing what spells to take, it seems like you can communion up the little lovely research mages but i have no idea what Ys is supposed to be targetting magic-wise The kernou druids you can hire from coastal forts can do gifts communions (gifts from heaven, evo 5), which can lay waste to armies. Do note that it's not a spell you want to ever cast when you have your own expensive sacreds on the field (there will be so much friendly fire), to use it you put a squad of ~4-8 druids behind disposable cheap troops, communion up, cast summon earthpower. A small amount of mages and some chaff can kill much more troops than their own cost this way. This can be a very nasty surprise you can spring on someone if they form up a large army to beat you. To add other paths to communions, note that the const 5 item matrix of meteoric iron gives communion master, allowing you to cast the big combat glamour spells. For non-combat stuff, conjuration 4 lets you summon Morvarchs, the steeds that your knights ride on, as a sacred summoned monster, 10 per 12 gems. On land they have fire breath, but are kind of squishy unless you took a hefty defensive bless or cast ironskin on them or something.
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Feb 4, 2024 19:49
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Ynglaur posted:I've never played in a pubbie game so I just get curb-stomped a lot by goons who are good at Dominions. Now I kind of want to play with randoms once just to see if I'm actually terrible at this game. (lol we all know the answer) I have mentioned this a few times, but it turned out I knew someone with the game who had a friend group that would play by email, and when he learned I had the game he invited me to play with them (this was Dom4). I mostly played Dom3/Dom4, exclusively with goons. I would say I was an average player, I knew most of the mechanics but did not really have a long term plan for anything. They had been playing the game since Dom3, just as long as I had, but they were all equally bad at them game, so there was never a need to evolve better strategies. They had their own meta that worked against each other, but they never used much magic or late game stuff, just armies of E9 blessed troops bouncing off of each other for 60 turns. They loved PD and protection, they pretty much only used E9 pretenders for the protection bless no matter what nation they chose, and had no idea how mechanics like attack and defense worked. After 3 or 4 games that I pretty comfortably won, even if it was all 4-5 of them vs me. They politely kicked me out of the gaming circle after those 3 or 4 games so they could win vs each other, which seems fair enough. I probably still have the turns in my email somewhere, it would be a fun 10 years delayed LP, but I am wayyyy to busy/lazy for that. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Feb 4, 2024 |
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Feb 4, 2024 19:56
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You are receiving this broadcast as a dream...We are transmitting from the year one nine... nine nine ...You are receiving this broadcast in order t
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Communist Thoughts posted:
Honestly, this is more an EA generally and mounted elf problem specifically, rather than an all-encompassing one for all ages. By MA, heavy cav (including indie) equivalents often have Destriers (Prot 20) if they're still using horses, or stuff like Machaka's Prot 14-16 spider varieties or Pythium's serpents (prot 19). Some are even higher, like Man's armored unicorns (prot 21) or Ulm's Black Destriers (Prot 22). I suppose light cav still have the issue, but that's mostly an indie issue now in MA, with the one main exception being TC. The one big exception is chariots. I do not know what illwinter was thinking regarding those, but 20 HP with Prot 6 on something that's going to be eating a decent proportion of the hits seems an incredibly dubious investment without taking extreme care with usage. Torrannor posted:To see Ys referred to as "good" warms my heart, considering how absolutely trash they were in Dom5. Eh, I'd generally have rated Ys as "alright" in Dom5. Morvarchs have always been great overall, the one big issue with the nation is that they're sitting in a very vicious age for UW combat, so "alright" had a tendency to turn into dead if someone like Pelagia or R'lyeh really wanted and focused on that and weren't interrupted. If you didn't have to worry about other UW nations then Ys tended to do quite well - particularly as Morvarchs are better on land than UW anyways. The main changes in 6 to Ys are simply that their Air paths on elves got shifted to glamour, and Morvarchs are relatively more affordable due to the general increase in resources/gold. I don't think the UW calculus has hugely shifted though.
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Feb 4, 2024 20:08
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Lord Koth posted:Honestly, this is more an EA generally and mounted elf problem specifically, rather than an all-encompassing one for all ages. By MA, heavy cav (including indie) equivalents often have Destriers (Prot 20) if they're still using horses, or stuff like Machaka's Prot 14-16 spider varieties or Pythium's serpents (prot 19). Some are even higher, like Man's armored unicorns (prot 21) or Ulm's Black Destriers (Prot 22). I suppose light cav still have the issue, but that's mostly an indie issue now in MA, with the one main exception being TC. Morvachs as a summon is also nice, to give you another way to get reasonable sacred units for your killy bless. Overall I think Ys is in the same spot it always was, which is "decent initial gameplan but very brittle". The nation can do some really nasty stuff but the second they get significantly challenged UW or lose their sacred stack, it's probably over for them. It's still too early to know for sure exactly where the nations rank overall, but Ys is still pretty clearly too flawed to be in the top tier(s). I'd still love to see Morgen Princesses at 2 CP recruitment and Morgen Champions as UW-recruit-anyfort, just to smooth out their massive demands on capital time.
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Feb 5, 2024 07:30
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Replaced the gif in the OP for a newer gif, this time from Dominions 6
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Feb 5, 2024 14:51
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ChickenWing posted:I still think fondly about doing this to you Thankfully I've grown older and wiser and am now more liable to laugh it off and congratulate you! While still secretly seething with rage, maybe.
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Feb 5, 2024 15:54
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With armies receiving some love, are there now nations that can lean heavily on archery? I've always liked that aesthetically, but it used to be looked down upon as a strat in Dom5, and not without reason.
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Feb 5, 2024 16:48
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Griddle of Love posted:With armies receiving some love, are there now nations that can lean heavily on archery? I've always liked that aesthetically, but it used to be looked down upon as a strat in Dom5, and not without reason. Man can buff longbowmen as a mid-game approach, their thing is starting off with really stout sacred unicorn cav and then transitioning into various units that take buffs well, but overall, bows are ineffective against shielded units and remain so. There are a number of sacred archers but it's very expensive to get damage buffs on them.
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Feb 5, 2024 16:53
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i'm getting some weird behaviour with NAPs and need some advice on how they actually work so i had an NAP with marignon in my game and last turn they broke it and declared war, they didn't attack me though this turn they...declared war again and still havent attacked me. i went to counter attack them and got the warning at the end of the turn that apparently I still have diplomatic ties with them is this meant to be the case? its the turn after they declared war. do i need to declare war back and wait a turn before attacking? is the message that i've got diplomatic ties with them a bug and my attacks would go through normally? its pretty annoying cause i've got squads ready to go into 5 of their undefended provinces and i dont wanna give the game away and have them all retreat automatically Communist Thoughts fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Feb 5, 2024 17:59
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Declaring war gives a 3 turn warning before hostilities can actually begin so you can’t just use a NAP to do a sneak attack. Look at the list of pretenders for the current status.
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Feb 5, 2024 19:48
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There is now more projectile buffing spell (poison arrow of various size, smaller, easier to cast flaming arrow). I think something like MA Shinuyama with Dai Bakemono archer and bakemono archer might be better archery nation. They have easy access to all the paths needed for archery related buff. Dai Bakemono archer is heavy infantry themselves so your blockers don't even move at all, easier to script for range.
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Feb 5, 2024 20:07
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is machaka pygmy arrow spam still a fun gimmick or?
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Feb 6, 2024 07:39
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Yes. There are more archer buffs available, tho it takes longer to get the full-battlefield versions
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Feb 6, 2024 15:18
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For Flaming Arrows specifically, Marignon probably still remains the most obvious and best choice. That you can put out guaranteed casters of any of the Flaming Arrows line in a single turn from any fort for a relatively cheap cost is just a huge advantage. Shinuyama's only possible caster is a monstrous 545gp Slow to recruit - which is alright for the final version, and probably tolerable for the midgrade one, but there's no way you can reasonably use that to spam the early access AoE1 version. Machaka can put out casters more reasonably, but there it's always a gamble as they don't actually have a guaranteed F2 - it's either a 33% chance (cap only) or a 25% one depending on just what mage they're getting. Caveat being that they actually can make the cheap fire booster, but that's a long way away itself. Pygmy spam (or other former size 1s) has also been ever so slightly nerfed compared to human-sized troops, as it's now 5 to a square rather than 6, while human-sized have stayed the same at 3 to a square. Expanding to the new Poison Arrows line, Machaka does have good access to that as well, actually having out of the box access to an N2 (who can random higher), so they do have the option to use either though poison is notably easier. Shinuyama continues having difficulty though, given they're now relying on a 25% random to cast even the early version. You'll have them, but whether you have them where you need them is an open question.
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Feb 6, 2024 18:20
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Can you buff archers with more than one effect? Like fire and venom arrows at the same time?
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Feb 6, 2024 18:35
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That's how disconnected I am that my first guess for archery would have been Caelum. Is that not a thing anymore? Think that was the go-to back in Dom 2.
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Feb 6, 2024 18:39
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FishMcCool posted:That's how disconnected I am that my first guess for archery would have been Caelum. Is that not a thing anymore? Think that was the go-to back in Dom 2. Caelum has no cheap, plentiful early access to fire magic for the flaming arrows buffs.
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Feb 6, 2024 18:54
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Ignoring the whole, "they need midgame summons to cast it at all" thing, Caelum's also got Frost Bows on some of their archers, and both arrow damage buff lines specify that they don't effect magic weapons. In regards to stacking the effects, it actually does work. So nations with access to reasonable archers plus decent Nature and Fire paths can do some cool things later on.
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Feb 6, 2024 19:30
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Melee units can get so many stacked buffs, it would be so unfair if the archers can't do it.
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Feb 6, 2024 19:40
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Melee units are actually in a funny place, because you now need to pay some attention to what they're wielding. Weapons of Sharpness not only got a similar treatment as the arrow spells in having versions with different AoEs, it also now only effects piercing and slashing weapons (which, fair). There's now a new line for blunt weapons (and slashing too, so for those it can be stacked), that instead stuns on hit. I'm assuming the effects get stuck on everything regardless, so those weapons with multiple damage types just apply whichever one is relevant to the type picked per attack. So uh, make sure you're casting the melee weapon buff that actually properly works on your troops.
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Feb 6, 2024 20:01
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MA Tien Chi seems like it would be a decent archer buff vehicle, they have good foot archers and some horse archer units that aren't as accurate but can be decent in melee, great flankers
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Feb 6, 2024 20:39
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LA Man for sure. You can field a 3-line army where literally every unit has bows. A first rank of heavy infantry crossbowmen with shields, a second rank of sacreds with crossbows and greatswords, and a third rank of Longbowmen. Only 10% of magister arcanes have F1, but you'll be spamming them like crazy so you have decent odds of mustering enough for flaming arrows. (Power of the Spheres, Phoenix Power gets them to F3, so not too hard to get off a flaming arrows after that even without items.) Most are A2 and 10% are A3 so you should be able to do the air buffs without too much trouble. An archer-oriented bless can also be leveraged by their sacred commanders, or putting a sacred cloth and a golden arbalest on the prec13 Royal Foresters. Too bad Bow of War is Const 7, kinda hard to get to. Last time I used a Vitriol Weapons bless since that benefitted by the melee and ranged attacks of the sacreds, though i'm not sure it was worth it. Both the attacks already hit hard enough and have AP so Vitriol represented a modest damage increase at best. Magic Weapons is probably sufficient to get magic attacks. On the plus side, virtually nothing resists acid. TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Feb 6, 2024 |
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Feb 6, 2024 22:25
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Do any spells turn normal weapons into "magic" weapons for purposes of hitting ethereal targets? I can't seem to find any.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:46
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I was just wondering, but my friends and I moving from Dom5 to Dom6 are finding early expansion indies to be a lot tougher than we remember. This is on the same default indie strength we had before. Is there something going on there? Are indies explicitly buffed, or is it a consequence of some other rule change (like how morale is calculated)?
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Feb 6, 2024 22:49
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Dolash posted:I was just wondering, but my friends and I moving from Dom5 to Dom6 are finding early expansion indies to be a lot tougher than we remember. This is on the same default indie strength we had before. Is there something going on there? Are indies explicitly buffed, or is it a consequence of some other rule change (like how morale is calculated)? I don't think the rules are different, but populations are generally larger resulting in more defenders. Note that your starting army is also larger, although this may not, uh, be helpful for all nations. TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Feb 6, 2024 |
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Feb 6, 2024 22:53
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:16 |
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Dolash posted:I was just wondering, but my friends and I moving from Dom5 to Dom6 are finding early expansion indies to be a lot tougher than we remember. This is on the same default indie strength we had before. Is there something going on there? Are indies explicitly buffed, or is it a consequence of some other rule change (like how morale is calculated)? It's mostly just that there are a LOT more indies per province overall. Which means not only are there more incoming attacks, but you also have to kill more to get a rout and have to deal with more fatigue buildup. Lucid touched on it in his monster videos, but super killy but not terribly tanky expander PGs definitely took a hit this version, simply because on average they have to kill a lot more people before the enemy runs this this time around, which means they're building up more damage themselves. This applies to a fair amount of minimum size expansion parties too.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:53
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