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fool_of_sound posted:Watch the first few episodes of this. It's how I learned the basic concepts and controls. Ignore his strategic musings, they are bad. Thank you, these are useful videos for showing me how to play the game...and from what I can gather the game is sort of the style of easy to learn, hard to master. Also thanks to Boing for that incredible amount of information!
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Dec 28, 2014 19:19
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Dirk the Average posted:Speaking of which, is Forge of the Ancients still a big deal in Dom4? With the reduced importance of thugs/SCs, it feels like it's not as strong. On the other hand, boosters are still incredibly important, gems are rarer, and some battlefield-wide items are amazing. No. Thugs are less important, artifacts are one forge per turn and hammer is a flat -2 gems instead of 25% so the stacking effect isn't as pronounced. Basically no one cares if you cast forge this go around where in dom3 it was usually a big deal.
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Dec 28, 2014 19:35
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Korwin posted:Luck has also Events which only fire with Order or Production scales where you get ~1000 Gold or an Fort. I read there is a nasty bad event with Drain -3, which is why if you are going to take Drain in first place, maybe stopping at Drain-2 is a good idea. I just transformed a Treelord into a Manticore. F yeah! So, what's the deal with mages ignoring sometimes the script if it has to use gems? It seems it tries to think if it's really needed or not to use that Master Enslave or Wind Guide or whatever, depending of the ratio of power between armies. As if, if the enemy is three times smaller than your army, don't bother casting it. If you have the "restrictive use of gems" on, then don't cast the gem spells is two times smaller. Am I in the good path? edit: Oh, and the other day I read that the taskmaster effect also affects animals. But in my game it doesn't seem to be the case. Was he full of bullshit? Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Dec 28, 2014 |
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Dec 28, 2014 19:36
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Turin Turambar posted:I knew there was at least one, thanks, I don't know why I couldn't find it yesterday. Summon Earthpower gives reinvigoration. Friendly Tumour posted:Please do not listen to this man, he doesn't know poo poo. You don't pair order with luck, ever. That is dumb as hell on its own right. And never, ever pick drain, especially as MA Ulm. Jesus christ man, you are literally a retard. Please stop giving advice to noobs. And everybody else while you're at it. There's nothing wrong with pairing order with luck. Sure, it's inefficient, but it's not terrible. As for drain, it's a perfectly valid choice to get more points as long as you're spending those points wisely. Drain is a lot less dangerous with the doubling of research in Dom4.
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Dec 28, 2014 19:50
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Turin Turambar posted:
yeah that, that leads to things like my ghost king refusing to cast rain of stones wrathful skies or whatever because it costs gems and his army is 1500 lovely useless ghost chaffs vs only a paltry 70 giant mages and 200 chaffs, so he does useless poo poo like raise dead
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Dec 28, 2014 19:54
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nah dude i dont need to use precious gems i got this *casts mistform* gently caress YOU
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Dec 28, 2014 19:56
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jsoh posted:yeah that, that leads to things like my ghost king refusing to cast rain of stones wrathful skies or whatever because it costs gems and his army is 1500 lovely useless ghost chaffs vs only a paltry 70 giant mages and 200 chaffs, so he does useless poo poo like raise dead Have any Dominions
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Dec 28, 2014 20:01
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Turin Turambar posted:edit: Oh, and the other day I read that the taskmaster effect also affects animals. But in my game it doesn't seem to be the case. Was he full of bullshit? There's a separate beastmaster trait, he probably got confused.
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Dec 28, 2014 20:30
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Drain is a very reasonable scale to take on MA Ulm, not sure what the problem would be with that. They have low MR, drain-immune researchers, and access to most of the more cost-efficient research-improving items through Air and Fire with innate 2-gem discounts and piss easy Dwarven Hammer access on top of that so you can keep a couple of people firing out +25-odd extra additional research every single turn forever even with a tiny gem income of one air gem and one fire gem at Constr-6. Nobody else in the game gets that. LA Man sort-of does, but it doesn't have the innate discounts, its mages that can always research are more expensive and also old-aged, and its gem income is lovely and weird because it gets Nature gems it can only use after a series of events fire the way you'd like. If your basic problem with Drain is "sometimes all your gems gently caress off from the treasury", then put them on your commanders, it's exactly that easy to deal with.
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Dec 28, 2014 21:09
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jBrereton posted:weird because it gets Nature gems it can only use after a series of events fire the way you'd like. What's this and/or is there a list of the story events somewhere?
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Dec 28, 2014 21:23
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:What's this and/or is there a list of the story events somewhere? Their magic will not synergise terribly well with the rest of the faction and communion-ing them with the rest of your mages will gently caress up everyone else because they won't have Nature magic, so it's not that constructive, but between the potential for N3 Mothers and N4+ Crones of Avalon, you have a kinda-decent shot at Nature globals for the era (you're probably about on par with any radge who picks Garbage Nation LA Pan), especially since you get 2 innate Nature income so you might well have enough saved up by the time they arrive to cast something important. e: that's been in Dom 4 from the start, it isn't a Story Event change, I have no idea if Story Events unlocks something cool like a whole cohort of those MA Unicorn Knights turning up led by a Knight-Commander - could mod it so that it could, but that's the kind of niche poo poo that I don't know anyone would be up for downloading, for a lot of work. jBrereton fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Dec 28, 2014 |
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Dec 28, 2014 21:35
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Wait... what does this message mean? Is the Throne bobby-trapped or what. And an extra, nice master slave capturing the back column of enemies, impeding the retreat of their former allies 
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Dec 28, 2014 21:56
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I really don't like MA Man.
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Dec 29, 2014 01:02
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Turin Turambar posted:Wait... what does this message mean? Is the Throne bobby-trapped or what. Yes it is, if you try to claim it you'll get seasonal attacks at the start of spring, summer, autumn and winter of various elementals and mages appropriate to the seasons. You can disarm it by having an Air mage check out the throne followed by Fire, Earth and then Water. However once you start the sequence with the Air mage you have until the start of next spring to finish the process or you will fail and the attacks will happen, so don't start it during winter or until you have all four mages available. If you have high dom score in the throne province then you might be able to claim the throne without the attacks occurring.
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Dec 29, 2014 03:57
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If you grab the zip file at http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/updated-event-list, there's a spreadsheet in it that has a list of all the events. You can find all the Throne of Elements event chain by searching for "[The Throne of Elements]" If you get the mages to check the runes, you get a bunch of elemental mages: Text: Four robed men have appeared in the province. They are masters of their respective orders, sworn to protect the Throne of Elements. You have proven worthy, and they will now serve your will. Code: code 243 Reward: code 0, nation -2, 1com Wind Master, 0x6A00 1, 1com Adept of Pyriphlegeton, 0x6A00 0, 1com Wizard, 0x6A00 3, 0x6A00 3, 1com Ice Druid, 0x6A00 2
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Dec 29, 2014 04:10
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Turin Turambar posted:Wait... what does this message mean? Is the Throne bobby-trapped or what. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ap9hQAaaKDqM5UCA4_Ig5pz9c-MaYzdpjpLSJUABxPo/edit#gid=938206197
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Dec 29, 2014 04:16
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Okay, what does MA Man need in improvement in your guys' opinion? The problem imho is that they have an overwhelming amount of nature and not enough air, which limits their effectiveness for much of the early and mid game. The inability to communion up sucks as well. I mean compare the Daughter of Avalon to stuff like ES Tien Chi Geomancers or NS C'tis Shamans, an N+N/A just kinda blows. The Mothers of Avalon are decent, but are still really pricey for what they offer path wise at N1H1+N/A+N/A+20%W/E for 185g. Their Crones have A2N3+A/N/E/W but are really old and are also StR and Cap-Only. The best mage is the Logrian Wiseman, since has E+F/A/W/N and can be recruited out of fort at 90g. Their troops are solid, but their knights are kinda crap for their cost and they don't have crossbows sadly.I never really recruited the Wardens because even though they're stealthy and have forest survival and all, they're only MM1 which is kinda pointless.
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Dec 29, 2014 06:22
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more crossbows
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Dec 29, 2014 06:26
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jBrereton posted:Drain is a very reasonable scale to take on MA Ulm, not sure what the problem would be with that. My understanding is that Drain in MA Ulm is a bit if a trap, because of the bad events associated with it + the lack of good (as in, increasing your very lackluster variety of paths good) events otherwise available in a Magic scale. That being said, it really depends on your playstyle, you may just take more paths on your pretender with the point savings, or say gently caress magic and go scales. That being said, scales Ulm requires a huge commitment towards reaching critical mass in a game more frequently determined by globals, and the projectile spam, while great, can be confounded with darkness, storm, air shield and the like later on.
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Dec 29, 2014 07:07
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So to deactivate the throne you even need to do it in a correct order, interesting. It was the final throne for me so I didn't see the effects :P. How are you supposed to do it? Putting mages on patrol on that province? building a lab and putting them in "research"? A math question, for stuff like that where the magic skill (with can be low numbers, normally 0 to 4), do they round up or down in the divisions? from the manual posted:-magical pen- I was trying to determine in what cases you suffer fatigue * 4 instead of fatigue *2.
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Dec 29, 2014 10:13
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Turin Turambar posted:So to deactivate the throne you even need to do it in a correct order, interesting. It was the final throne for me so I didn't see the effects :P. No, 3 new orders appear for anything standing on the throne; 'Investigate (Event)' 'Withdraw (Event)' and 'Magic (Event)'. Investigating tells you a bit about what you need to do, Withdrawing cancels the event (which in the case of this event triggers the attacks) and Magic does the thing, in this case unlocking each seal with the appropriate mage.
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Dec 29, 2014 10:19
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amuayse posted:Okay, what does MA Man need in improvement in your guys' opinion? jBrereton fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 13:47
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Yeah, being able to summon Tuatha and Fomorians would be nice.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:36
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BurntCornMuffin posted:My understanding is that Drain in MA Ulm is a bit if a trap, because of the bad events associated with it + the lack of good (as in, increasing your very lackluster variety of paths good) events otherwise available in a Magic scale. That being said, it really depends on your playstyle, you may just take more paths on your pretender with the point savings, or say gently caress magic and go scales. A big thing to keep in mind is that going from Magic 3 to Drain 2 doesn't mean you're abandoning magic entirely. MA Ulm's mechanic offsets some of the penalties of that 5-scale swing, and you can make up some of the lost research with their cheap forging of Quills and Lanterns later on. If those 5 scales are put into Prod and Growth and they allow you to capture more territory and win more wars early on, your research may ultimately be higher as a result. More territory means more money, more gems and more chances at awesome indy sites for things like Sages and other cool mages. Drain's impact on fatigue is something else to consider. I think that MA Ulm is typically the aggressor in the early/midgame because of its great infantry for the era, so you hopefully won't be fighting in your dominion much anyway. Later on when you are fighting defensively in your drain scales, a MA Ulm favorite like Earthquake is going to instantly fatigue you out regardless of Magic 3 vs Drain 2. And lastly, your earth mages that will be spamming Magma Eruption/Iron Blizzard are well-positioned to offset fatigue through Summon Earth Power and cheap Girdles. Skelly spammers and Thunderstrikers won't have those same luxuries. I will say that entertaining Drain 2 scales and working through those issues lets you have your cake and eat it too as MA Ulm. You can either hit the ground running with an awake dragon and good money/production scales, or you can get some great path diversity + perfect money scales on a dormant Titan.
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Dec 29, 2014 17:15
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amuayse posted:Yeah, being able to summon Tuatha and Fomorians would be nice.
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Dec 29, 2014 17:46
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I went Drain 2 as MA Ulm in La Momie and I somehow have the highest research without having spammed quills or lanterns or anything so I dunno. Not like I have more forts or anything either.
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Dec 29, 2014 17:55
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GenericOverusedName posted:I went Drain 2 as MA Ulm in La Momie and I somehow have the highest research without having spammed quills or lanterns or anything so I dunno. Either everyone has been in economy wrecking wars since forever are you are actually the best at Dominions. EDIT: drain3 ulm is fine. If you take it with mis then you will probably want to stash all of your gems on mans as suggested but all of the other side effects of drain don't matter much at all for you. Nuclearmonkee fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 18:08
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Do Ulm's drain immune mages actually profit from magic domain or are they similarly unaffected (research wise)?
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Dec 29, 2014 18:15
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amuayse posted:Yeah, being able to summon Tuatha and Fomorians would be nice. If the fix for a nation is "summon other better nation's unit to play with them", you aren't really fixing that first nation. If you wanna play with Tuatha or Fomorian you should play Fomoria or TNN. :P edit: that said their summons are meh. Surely there are a pair more of magical units that could be taken from Arthurian myths? amuayse posted:Okay, what does MA Man need in improvement in your guys' opinion? Well, buff a bit the knights if they are crap. I don't think crossbows are thematic for MA man, so buff Longbowman's precision to 13 (remember it counts double at that level). Make Warden MM2 if they are too slow. Mages should be buffed too, yeah, but I think it would have to be something subtle, like an extra +25% random of A/N to Daughtesr and +30% of W/E to the Wiseman. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 18:19
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Torrannor posted:Do Ulm's drain immune mages actually profit from magic domain or are they similarly unaffected (research wise)? Longbow prec is not the problem for Man. They're already decent and you have Wind Guide access on your fort mages. Fomoria and TNN aren't in MA, so having some of their units is fine; TNN basically turns into Eriu, Fomoria goes nowhere, so Fomoria is the obvious pick here. You get Barghests and Black Dogs from them, but they're not super interesting stats-wise or in terms of lore, and you need Darkness to get the most out of the units.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:34
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GenericOverusedName posted:I went Drain 2 as MA Ulm in La Momie and I somehow have the highest research without having spammed quills or lanterns or anything so I dunno. Everyone has been in wars while you sit in the corner. Considerable portions of my researchers have been pulled out of research duty to fight the skeleton hordes of Sceleria/Asphodel.
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Dec 29, 2014 19:29
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Next nation: EA Vanheim. It seems a simpler case than Bandar Log, that's for sure. Mostly air with some earth and lil' blood, no communions, no mage summons, troops that are good but with little variety. In fact it's almost funny how "straightforward" they are, I think you can notice how they are one of the first nations designed for the game (for Dominons 1?) together Helheim, while the newer nations have bigger rosters of troops, national spells and unique summons, and in general they are a bit more complicated. And Helheilm is mostly the same nation with death and the sacreds are "same as cavalry unit but sacred" and "Valkyrie you can also summon". Still thanks to the gimmicks of thug nation + glamour troops + sailing, it has an identity. Looking at their spell list... how is trade wind, is it worth it? and Raven feast? Anyone knows what's the threshold for efficiency for the two spells? I suppose Trade Wind is efficient above a certain level of income in a province, and Raven Feast, if it gives you an amount of gems proportional to the corpses in the province the same, it will be efficient when the number of corpses are above a certain amount. Also, how much people uses the Dwarven Smith in battle. Because the Earth 2 (3 with boots or the random path) should be nice to complement the lack of variety from your Air mages, but given they are StR capital-only and they compete for the recruit turn with the Vanadrott, and some of them will be always sitting in the capital forging, I doubt you are going to have a lot to spare. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 22:11
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Turin Turambar posted:Next nation: Vanheim.
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Dec 29, 2014 22:17
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Turin Turambar posted:Looking at their spell list... how is trade wind, is it worth it? and Raven feast? Anyone knows what's the threshold for efficiency for the two spells? I suppose Trade Wind is efficient above a certain level of income in a province, and Raven Feast, if it gives you an amount of gems proportional to the corpses in the province the same, it will be efficient when the number of corpses are above a certain amount. If you have a coastal cap with growth trade wind is maybe barely worth it? It's basically alchemizing air gems into gold over time which is marginally useful at best. Raven feast can convert A to D at a decent rate if there are hundreds of corpses but you have to be really paying attention and remember to cast it. quote:Also, how much people uses the Dwarven Smith in battle. Because the Earth 2 (3 with boots or the random path) should be nice to complement the lack of variety from your Air mages, but given they are StR capital-only and they compete for the recruit turn with the Vanadrott, and some of them will be always sitting in the capital forging, I doubt you are going to have a lot to spare. Dwarven smith is an excellent mage that you should use with care. Ideally by throwing down stuff like rain of stones, setting up earthquake traps or setting up other battlefield spells that you may want to cast. If you are deploying a stack of dorfs you are probably in a bad way or doing a defensive move that is within range of your cap. They are not easily replaced so throwing them away is ill advised. What Hatwer said for the rest. EA and MA can play very differently early on.
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Dec 29, 2014 22:26
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Have Some Flowers! posted:EA and MA play a bit differently based on their sacreds and the eras they're in. Which one are you focusing on? Wops, I forgot. EA Vanheim. In fact I'm going to try the map-scenario the game has, Dawn of Dominios, as I still haven't done it. I was thinking of using the big wolf Pretender with W9N4, it should complement Air, it's a decent bless and with Nature at least I have someone to forge the the vine shields :P. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 22:50
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raven feast will convert air to death at a 1:1 ratio with only 36 corpses, if you want to pretend you are spooky pelagia
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Dec 29, 2014 23:29
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Turin Turambar posted:Next nation: EA Vanheim. You could argue for a W9/N9 or W9/F9 double bless, but it's been shown to not be needed. Single blessed Vanhere are still usually better than other nation's double blessed sacreds. In terms of tools, you'll mostly use Vanhere but Huskarls and Hirdman aren't bad. Dwarves are mostly for forging/rituals/site searching... you may use them selectively in combat. Winged Shoes are good for moving them around quickly. Expect to empower a dwarf in Blood and in random paths they normally don't get, such as Astral and Nature. Of the national spells, Draugr are definitely worth summoning. Valkyries can be used, but at that point in the game you're often powering out Storm which hurts their ability to be useful. You do have communions. Blood communions are very strong, and even more painful to babysit than regular communions. You'll especially use these if you find indy sites with Lizard Shaman, Crystal Sorcs, Sages or Blood Zons for cheap slaves. You'll probably get at least one of these sites between your opening start and the neighbors you will trample. Later in the game, Blood Sacrifice and the likelihood of using a W9 bless make Vengeful Waters/Dark Skies eventual targets for you. Expect to never stop making W9 Vanhere, but you'll begin to lean on Blood more and more as the game goes on. Heliophagus, Arch Devils and Ice Devils will take care of your diversity issues. Storm Demons and Demon Knights will provide the meat of your armies. I would avoid building around Thugs. They'll encourage you to take a double bless and overly invest in commanders that experienced players can still easily kill. They are a tool in your kit though, if you find yourself way ahead of your opponents with tons of gems and bored dwarves.
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Dec 30, 2014 00:21
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EA Vanheim are basically god-mode so yeah you shouldn't have too many problems doing virtually whatever you want to do
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Dec 30, 2014 00:25
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Their weakness is that they have probably the worst research in the game, though. It helps a lot to find a decent indy mage province (something without Inept Researcher) that you can recruit and stick your 3-gem Owl Quills on, else you're paying 145ish gold for 7 RP Vanherses to hold them and that's just terrible.
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Dec 30, 2014 01:21
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| # ? May 27, 2024 23:53 |
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I like EA Vanheim. It's like playing the equivalent the Dominion's equivalent of the USA since they have the best force projection in the game. Their research sucks, so I usually play with Magic 3 and use hammers to forge quills and imp familiars. I usually hold off until I get way later (like const 6) to make thugs, and usually kit them with stuff like armor of knights, firebrand, vine shield (through indies), and girdle. The bless I get is usually an air or earth bless. Or just an N9 bless like a boring person. I really like transitioning into the late game by summoning tons of storm demons and corpse constructs supported by t-strikers and wrathful skies.
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Dec 30, 2014 02:25
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