Dominions FOUR: Sequel to the Best Game Ever

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dominions FOUR: Sequel to the Best Game Ever

Neruz: Jul 23, 2012; A paragon of manliness

Having Fire resist 5 or Cold resist 5 makes you immune to the negative effects of the appropriate scale. Nations with a preference stronger than 1 in either direction typically have all or most dudes with the appropriate resist. Being 3 or more temperature steps past your 'comfort zone' provides a morale penalty. Not sure exactly how many steps it is but I've definitely seen morale penalties for heat preference nations fighting in cold 3 scales.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 09:06

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# ? May 25, 2024 23:53

Junkfist: Oct 7, 2004; FRIEND?

How does fortress resource allocation work with blue/orange lines by rivers/mountains? Do they not transfer over from regions even when the rivers ice over or the mountain passes are clear?

# ? Feb 5, 2014 10:18

Neruz: Jul 23, 2012; A paragon of manliness

Junkfist posted:

How does fortress resource allocation work with blue/orange lines by rivers/mountains? Do they not transfer over from regions even when the rivers ice over or the mountain passes are clear?

They transfer when the paths are clear. I'm not 100% certain they transfer during seasonal changes (mountain passes are set to be passable during summer if their temp is neutral for example) but any connections that are 'solidified' from temp scales (the arrow between them is solid instead of fading out in the middle) will send resources.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 10:26

Captain Diarrhoea: Apr 16, 2011

I've got a (SP lol) grip on expanding and fighting with troops and mages but I seem to be just crap at judging early expansion with an awake pretender. I most recently tried landgrabbing with a dragon and managed to wrack up two afflictions against pretty weak indies before dying to a group of Asphodel (total brain fart, forgot they fatigue) though I did take a big chunk of the small map.

Any tips for using a pretender to expand early? I wasn't sure how to script him to get the most from his breath and my only rule of thumb was to avoid heavy cav. In fact I'm pretty unsure of SCs in general, I've sometimes geared up beefy monstahs and they've done OK but generally die unexpectedly to things I didn't realise were a big threat.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 12:38

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

At minimum you want an SC pretender script to contain a general attack order (the second half of the orders box).

For dragons specifically, I position 3 squares from the back corner and script (Hold), (Fire), (Fire), (Fire), Attack Archers. In theory that should fire at advancing light infantry.

It also helps the Dragon specifically to have Awe from taking a dominion strength of 9 or 10. The Dragon is one of few SCs who can maybe sometimes almost barely get away without this; an awake Wyrm for example absolutely must take Awe.

Other than that, using an SC pretender is all about memorizing indep types and taking care that you remain in neutral or friendly dominion most of the time. Expansion in general is about memorizing indep types though.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 13:22

Victor Vermis: Dec 21, 2004; WOKE UP IN THE DESERT AGAIN

Captain Diarrhoea posted:

I've got a (SP lol) grip on expanding and fighting with troops and mages but I seem to be just crap at judging early expansion with an awake pretender. I most recently tried landgrabbing with a dragon and managed to wrack up two afflictions against pretty weak indies before dying to a group of Asphodel (total brain fart, forgot they fatigue) though I did take a big chunk of the small map.

Any tips for using a pretender to expand early? I wasn't sure how to script him to get the most from his breath and my only rule of thumb was to avoid heavy cav. In fact I'm pretty unsure of SCs in general, I've sometimes geared up beefy monstahs and they've done OK but generally die unexpectedly to things I didn't realise were a big threat.

Don't bother using a dragon to expand if you haven't put at least 9 Dom into it. This gives Awe 1.

With 10 Dom, it bumps that up to Awe 3 and I'd consider Dom10 mandatory, but Awe 1 is probably sufficient if you're extra careful about where you send it.

Always make sure you have at least 1 candle in a province before you send a dragon at it. Neutral Dominion isn't so bad provided you have Awe, some experience stars (which notably give bonus to defense skill), and avoid really troublesome indies such as undead (they don't retreat easily).

I've found scripting straight Hold & Fire to be the most effective (ie safest) way to clear indies. The dragon will plod forward and pretty reliably use a breath attack as soon as enemies are within range. By walking forward instead of flying in, you can obliterate units piecemeal. Cav will arrive first and retreat before spearmen arrive, spearmen will take losses and retreat before heavy infantry arrive, and everyone else will usually run away once those units route.

I'd argue against using any "attack" orders because even with "attack rear" (which might fail and drop you down between cav/inf/heavy inf) you're guaranteeing that archers will be firing accurately and every melee unit on the field will get a chance to take a shot at you. If your dragon decides to bite/tailwhip the first few rounds instead of breath'ing everyone, you could get into trouble.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 13:24

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

Dragons have the morale to fly where you tell them and I've literally never had one ignore attack archers. I use it a lot too as I often script holdx2 attack archers with a dragon.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 14:02

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

Victor Vermis posted:

Don't bother using a dragon to expand if you haven't put at least 9 Dom into it. This gives Awe 1.

With 10 Dom, it bumps that up to Awe 3 and I'd consider Dom10 mandatory, but Awe 1 is probably sufficient if you're extra careful about where you send it.

Always make sure you have at least 1 candle in a province before you send a dragon at it. Neutral Dominion isn't so bad provided you have Awe, some experience stars (which notably give bonus to defense skill), and avoid really troublesome indies such as undead (they don't retreat easily).

I've found scripting straight Hold & Fire to be the most effective (ie safest) way to clear indies. The dragon will plod forward and pretty reliably use a breath attack as soon as enemies are within range. By walking forward instead of flying in, you can obliterate units piecemeal. Cav will arrive first and retreat before spearmen arrive, spearmen will take losses and retreat before heavy infantry arrive, and everyone else will usually run away once those units route.

I'd argue against using any "attack" orders because even with "attack rear" (which might fail and drop you down between cav/inf/heavy inf) you're guaranteeing that archers will be firing accurately and every melee unit on the field will get a chance to take a shot at you. If your dragon decides to bite/tailwhip the first few rounds instead of breath'ing everyone, you could get into trouble.

All of this seems way too cautious for a dragon IMO. In Dominions 3 it was standard practice to use dragons without Awe, and they've only gotten stronger since then. That said I always used them with Dom9, but Dom10 is probably overkill.

The thing about dominion is you auto-spread a candle ~~before fighting battles,~~ from a pretender so unless there's hostile domspread neutral dominion will always become friendly and allow you to heal fully at the end of turn. And there aren't any stat penalties for neutral dom either. What's crucial about using a pretender in hostile dominion is your max hitpoints and therefore your regen (if you have it) and your affliction threshold is determined by those max hitpoints. Your actual hitpoints are determined by where you were last turn and can exceed the so-called "max" hitpoints, so it's standard practice to bounce between friendly and mildly hostile dominion if necessary. More than 3 hostile candles is usually bad news though.

You would only not script an "Attack" order as a 6th order if you were insane. Dragons have magic and if they aren't meleed they'll start casting and then you'll have a dead dragon.

TheDemon fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Feb 5, 2014

# ? Feb 5, 2014 14:13

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

TheDemon posted:

The thing about dominion is you auto-spread a candle before fighting battles

Is that a fact? I thought dominion spread came after battles, as the last part of the turn, which is part of the reason the Agartha vs. Bandar Log LP thing ended very, very quickly as Agartha's immortal pretender got TPed on and Magic Duelled in a dominion-neutral province on the turn it would've turned in their favour.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 14:24

TheDemon: Dec 11, 2006; _{...on the plus side I'm feeling much more angry now than I expected so this totally helps me get in character.}

No, I think you're right, thinking about it. Doesn't really change the logic though, because you're still fighting at your full hitpoints & full stats in neutral dominion.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 14:40

Turin Turambar: Jun 5, 2011

TheresNoThyme posted:

Abysia can blood sac so they have that option to patch up the domspread inside their own turf.

The problem with high dominion is that abysia is really starved for pretender points. They really need order (your non-cap mages are expensive for what they do and require temple+lab), growth (bloodhunting on a gold starved nation and the nice interaction with your old mages) and production (no low resource units). Going high dominion probably isn't possible unless you take an immobile/dormant pretender, but that causes its own problems for the nation's poor magic diversity.

What are you planning to use the death magic for? If it's just smoulderghosts, they aren't that great in my experience and a pretender has better things to do than summon them. Abysia needs blood summons and blood will eventually break you into death with vampires/unique commanders, so there's not really a great reason to take it early unless you're building a site searcher or have a specific item/spell in mind.

It's a pity that Abysia have the bonus of ignoring the Death scales penalty income, because Death it doesn't go well the with Blood magic right? You want growth.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:11

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

Turin Turambar posted:

It's a pity that Abysia have the bonus of ignoring the Death scales penalty income, because Death it doesn't go well the with Blood magic right? You want growth.

Blood works fine with death. It just gives you extra pressure to expand and you will deplete 4-5k blood hunting provs very quickly. With Aby though death scales do hilarious things to your mages every winter.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:13

TheresNoThyme: Nov 23, 2012

Turin Turambar posted:

It's a pity that Abysia have the bonus of ignoring the Death scales penalty income, because Death it doesn't go well the with Blood magic right? You want growth.

Yea, growth is good for blood. Also, Abysia has a ton of old age mages who will roll for disease every winter (I believe that's how the mechanic works) and disease chances go up with points in death scales.

edit: beaten

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:25

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Turin Turambar posted:

It's a pity that Abysia have the bonus of ignoring the Death scales penalty income, because Death it doesn't go well the with Blood magic right? You want growth.

If you fight and just keep fighting, fight mercilessly and try to end the game before people crush your troops and then mages then Death/Blood vaguely works. Plus there's always Blood Fecundity if you empower an N2 mage into Blood (eventually you may want to do this to keep your capital income up and capital mages healthier), which can change D1 into G1 for quite a long time if you put a bunch of slaves into it.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:28

TheresNoThyme: Nov 23, 2012

One thing I will say is that I don't think Abysia is the best nation for early all-out aggression, which is also why I don't recommend death scales. Your sacreds are good but not really the best (and you're screwed if you try to invade someone with cold scales), fire magic kinda sucks until you get your research going, and trying to do sieges or even raiding with a bunch of high resource, effectively move-1 armies is a giant pain. The only rush strat I liked in SP was a rush for conj-3 phoenix power + fire elementals where you just throw your fire gems at someone until they fall over, but fire elementals are still terrible in the winter/cold dominions.

TheresNoThyme fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Feb 5, 2014

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:38

Turin Turambar: Jun 5, 2011

Nuclearmonkee posted:

Blood works fine with death. It just gives you extra pressure to expand and you will deplete 4-5k blood hunting provs very quickly. With Aby though death scales do hilarious things to your mages every winter.

It was a trap question, in truth I'm playing already an Abysia game with some death scales. I'm doing it well, after the first two years I'm the number 1 on provinces and have 3 armies attacking 3 different enemies. Hell, the only flaw is me using my Pretender, I cleared 10 provinces in the first ten turns with him and a twenty guys squad, so I kind of got overconfident and attacked an indie province without noticing it had higher quality troops than usual, including a squad of heavy cavalry that killed the Pretender. And at that moment I didn't have any priest to start the recalling. And because men never learn from their mistakes, I got him later in another fight that left him with the affliction that makes more afflictions over time.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:45

Turin Turambar: Jun 5, 2011

Neruz posted:

Having Fire resist 5 or Cold resist 5 makes you immune to the negative effects of the appropriate scale. Nations with a preference stronger than 1 in either direction typically have all or most dudes with the appropriate resist. Being 3 or more temperature steps past your 'comfort zone' provides a morale penalty. Not sure exactly how many steps it is but I've definitely seen morale penalties for heat preference nations fighting in cold 3 scales.

Maybe this is what it referred to. It isn't in the manual, I believe.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 15:54

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

TheresNoThyme posted:

One thing I will say is that I don't think Abysia is the best nation for early all-out aggression

Well they're certainly not the best nation for the late-game, given their non-capital research is expensive and not terribly good, while their Humanbred nationals are actually pretty viable troops (OK they aren't Fir Bolg but then what is). I'd avoid their sacreds (Size 3, Cap-only, Defence 2, and less Protection than a parrying Humanbred for 41 resources, get the gently caress outta here), I guess some people might like them, though.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 16:24

Donkringel: Apr 22, 2008

What size1 troops are good to use? Well, good for the size 1 category? I have a fondness for creating battlegroup "Acceptable Losses" whenever I find a size 1 recruitable site.

I can usually get 500 markata rolling, but since I have learned how to script better I really want to see some bakamono archers massed (or is it dai oni? Tiny goblin archers) and then cast wind guide and fire arrows. I just wanted to check to see if there are any other tiny units I should check out.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 17:35

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

Donkringel posted:

What size1 troops are good to use? Well, good for the size 1 category? I have a fondness for creating battlegroup "Acceptable Losses" whenever I find a size 1 recruitable site.

I can usually get 500 markata rolling, but since I have learned how to script better I really want to see some bakamono archers massed (or is it dai oni? Tiny goblin archers) and then cast wind guide and fire arrows. I just wanted to check to see if there are any other tiny units I should check out.

Hoburgs are great, particularly the crossbows.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 17:38

dis astranagant: Dec 14, 2006

Shade beasts are great but you'll never get enough of them.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 17:57

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Donkringel posted:

What size1 troops are good to use? Well, good for the size 1 category? I have a fondness for creating battlegroup "Acceptable Losses" whenever I find a size 1 recruitable site.

I can usually get 500 markata rolling, but since I have learned how to script better I really want to see some bakamono archers massed (or is it dai oni? Tiny goblin archers) and then cast wind guide and fire arrows. I just wanted to check to see if there are any other tiny units I should check out.

Pretty sure Bakemono being size 1 was some Dom 3 CBM bullshit. Machaka's pygmy archers are size 1, though, and very Flaming Arrows-able. Jotunheim's Vaetti are Size 1 and actually pretty reasonable troops (they're not even Undisciplined, so you can do all kinds of scripting stuff with them, and they tend to be Morale 10 because Jotunheim's worthwhile non-stealthy leaders are Good commanders).

# ? Feb 5, 2014 17:59

Donkringel: Apr 22, 2008

Nuclearmonkee posted:

Hoburgs are great, particularly the crossbows.

There is Hoburg crossbowmen!? Random site or is there an easier way to get them?

# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:13

goatface: Dec 5, 2007; I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.; Grimey Drawer

You need to find their territory. Then they recruit like any other indy.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:24

Neruz: Jul 23, 2012; A paragon of manliness

Donkringel posted:

There is Hoburg crossbowmen!? Random site or is there an easier way to get them?

Some Hoburg provinces have them as recruitable; look for Hoburg crossbows in the indie pd.

Hoburg crossbows are one of the best ranged units in the game; cheap to recruit, 6 to a square and crossbows (which are awesome).

# ? Feb 5, 2014 19:25

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

Hoburg Holdfast (level 0, rarity 2, nature) allows recruitment of Hoburg Crossbows. I think that's about it, according to the extracted site data. I'm sure there are some Hoburg indie provinces that allow recruitment as well.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:52

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

amuayse posted:

Hoburg Holdfast (level 0, rarity 2, nature) allows recruitment of Hoburg Crossbows. I think that's about it, according to the extracted site data. I'm sure there are some Hoburg indie provinces that allow recruitment as well.

Yep, MA and onwards. Typically guarded by Burgomeister Guards and Hog Knights.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 20:55

Sovietski: Jun 19, 2011; Cocktail King since 1922

Lipton Iced Soup posted:

What would a good pretender look like for MA Abysia? I'm not all that sure what I should be looking for in terms of magic ability. For instance I'm not sure how much death magic is healthy for an Abysian pretender without gimping him in other fields while also trying to get Order 3 and Productivity 3.

I love a good dragon, you don't even need to throw extra magic on them for them to be able to magic search the sites of their path. A swamp or frost dragon would obviously make a better choice than the traditional burninator since you've already got plenty of that. I'm quite partial to ol' swampy since he can make himself a ring of regeneration which should be mandatory for any big lizard. Awe is an expensive proposition with Abysia but Dragons make a great early expander anyways while your war machine spins up for the first dozen turns.

And Thyme is right, you'll eventually get to death through blood, but drat I love ethereal units in the early game.

Sovietski fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 5, 2014

# ? Feb 5, 2014 22:54

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Turin Turambar posted:

It's a pity that Abysia have the bonus of ignoring the Death scales penalty income, because Death it doesn't go well the with Blood magic right? You want growth.

The line about they ignoring income penalty is bullshit anyway. Just misleading flavor text to trick you into ruining your nation. Abysia still takes the income penalty by picking up the Death scale and still loses the income by the pop dying just like everyone else. The only thing they benefit from is that they don't take a supply penalty... :what:

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:33

Inexplicable Humblebrag: Sep 20, 2003

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:36

Torrannor: Apr 27, 2013; ---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

That is... that is just great. Oh Dom4, never change.

How many more easter eggs are hidden in this game?

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:47

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

But no magic paths

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:54

Nuclearmonkee: Jun 10, 2009

amuayse posted:

But no magic paths

Still a flying assassin with a great stealth score. Slap on a skull talisman/water bottle and maybe a stealth booster and she should be able to beat just about anything you'd find in your average research stack.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:56

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

Oh well, it's not everyday you befriend a blood sucking baby eating witch.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:57

Exrandu: Jan 31, 2014; "Things need not have happened to be true."

Penguingo posted:

Beautiful. I just started playing this game and stuff like this is why I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

# ? Feb 5, 2014 23:57

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

I guess it could also work on the Great Eagles if you GoR one of them (A3 Conj6 Summon Great Eagles). It would turn into a Niefel Jarl.

# ? Feb 6, 2014 00:20

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

amuayse posted:

I guess it could also work on the Great Eagles if you GoR one of them (A3 Conj6 Summon Great Eagles). It would turn into a Niefel Jarl.

Changing this next patch.

# ? Feb 6, 2014 00:33

ClothHat: Mar 2, 2005; ASK ME ABOUT MY LOVE OF THE LUMPEN-GOBLITARIAT
protip: trust no links I post

Penguingo posted:

Ha, I got this same event in one of the multiplayer games on my third turn. I saw the shapechange ability and figured I needed to force it to get hit to change into the vampire witch form. I put the dog in the frontlines so it could get hit and the witch sprite lasted about 1 frame before a barbarians sword cut it in half.

# ? Feb 6, 2014 02:15

RoboChrist 9000: Dec 14, 2006; Mater Dolorosa

amuayse posted:

Hoburg Holdfast (level 0, rarity 2, nature) allows recruitment of Hoburg Crossbows. I think that's about it, according to the extracted site data. I'm sure there are some Hoburg indie provinces that allow recruitment as well.

Where's the extracted site data? Been looking for a site list.

# ? Feb 6, 2014 03:29

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# ? May 25, 2024 23:53

amuayse: Jul 20, 2013; by exmarx

^^^^
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=1799

# ? Feb 6, 2014 03:31

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