Dominions FOUR: Sequel to the Best Game Ever

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

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Kenlon posted:

LA Ermor is gone - Pythium is the only remnant of the Empire left. As it should be. (Lemuria doesn't count, since it's all ghosts. )

Isn't Bloody Mary technically an Ermor spin-off?

# ¿ Sep 12, 2013 13:30

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 15:26

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Geokinesis posted:

Ah thanks.

Doing this allows for each human nation to sort their pretender gods too right? (I haven't played Dom before so sorry if this is a silly question )

Yep!

This also allows you to give the AI Pretenders which make a reasonable amount of sense (on the first turn, you hit 'Become Computer Controlled').

# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 05:06

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Anticheese posted:

My experience with 10-Dom Lemuria was that ghosts actually get their rear end kicked by similar numbers of troops. It wasn't as easy as the tales of LA Ermor in D3 lead me to believe, and I only really won by one of the players being an idiot and thinking the other player had his throne appropriately defended while he shuffled his troops around.

I dunno, Lemuria's troops are all Ethereal, which is a huge advantage when going after ranged indies compared to LA Ermor where your freespawn could get hurt up at least an inconvenient amount early on by massed bows/xbows.

Lemuria is also slightly different to old LA, current MA Ermor, in that its best commanders are all available from the start. You had to go at least a bit down Conj and Ench to get the most out of Ermor commander-wise, whereas you can now deal a lot more with Evo or whatever.

e:^^

Lprsti99 posted:

So if I play king of bones I can expect everyone to gang up on me? Booooo

Don't worry, you can still probably convince at least one player to attack someone other than you on the grounds that they have better targets to go after, they don't want to get too many priests when their rivals might all be getting proper mages to attack them with and so on.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Sep 14, 2013

# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 23:00

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Speleothing posted:

Whoever kills Ermor is rewarded by being stabbed in the back. I'd better not be the one to kill Ermor.

Provided they have a decent way to use 15 death gems a turn, plus whatever else has been sitesearched in Ermorian territory, they might be OK, though.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 23:52

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

WYA posted:

How many thrones do you need to win?

Depends on what it's set as. Also depends on the 'strength' of the thrones, which is set pre-game.

For example, on a map with one three strength throne, two two-strength thrones and five one-strength thrones where you need seven points to be victorious, there are a number of ways to win.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2013 19:18

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Dirk the Average posted:

Why on earth did they make [Onmyo-ji] slow to recruit? Jomon is even described as having weak mages; I'm surprised they made the list of things strong enough to warrant being slow to recruit.

Because the system is completely arbitrary. S2?2+ is a very good combination. But Moon Priests (S2B2) and Abysian Warlocks (S2B3?1.1) aren't StR. N�rna, Starspawn Mages, Sibyls, and Staretsy (which remain hilariously overpowered for their cost), on the other hand...

# ¿ Sep 15, 2013 22:53

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Starting forts feeling obnoxiously hard to crack for anyone else?

No idea how Mictlan, for example, is going to deal with it.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 03:42

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Jon Joe posted:

Busting forts was always one of the toughest parts of dom3, and they made it tougher?

Yeah, the starting forts on land are 850 defence Castles with 1300 supplies everywhere now.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 05:07

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Ah, I was checking in MA and wrongly assuming it'd be universal.

Having looked, for EA, it's a total clusterfuck in that era. Yomi: 50(!!!) defence Palisade (with lovely admin of 24). Hinnom: 850 Castle. Formoria: 700 defence Fortress.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 05:33

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Does anyone know of a way to mod starting forts other than giving the nation in question a universal #fortera number?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 13:08

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

TheDemon posted:

Nope! I asked this one on another forum and got a dev response. Currently not possible.

Alright well I'm going out for a little while, but after I get back, I'll knock up and post some Fort Equality mods (already got EA and MA done before I realised what the time was), plus an All Era Fortresses mod which should go some way to allaying how loving awful the LA game is for attacking capitals. Couple of hours, maybe.

amuayse posted:

http://jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_modding.pdf
#animal
Indicates that the monster is an animal. Animals
are affected by the Animal Awe power. Animals
have a penalty when besieging castles, but
receive a morale bonus when led to combat by a
beast master.

How big is the penalty?

If it exists at all, which I don't think it does, the best way to test it out would be to make a Human vs Human game, and attack a nation with lovely PD but a high-defence capital (like Formoria, I guess) with Kailasa or some other nation which is mainly animals.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Sep 16, 2013

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 13:52

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Alright it looks like this modding thing is working. Now the only thing which is going to affect starting fort balance should be the start location of a nation (which I can't seem to be able to specifically mod, so ho hum), but all starting forts are thus:

EA Fort Equality:

Land: 35 (Mountain/Swamp/Wastes) or 40 (Other) Admin, 700 Defence Fortresses.
Water: 34 Admin, 150 Defence Kelp Fortresses.

MA Fort Equality:

Land: 40 (Mountain/Swamp/Wastes) or 45 (Other) Admin, 850 Defence Castles
Water: 39 Admin, 600 Defence Basalt Castles.

LA Fort Equality:

Land: 49 (Mountain/Swamp/Wastes) or 54 (Other) Admin, 1100 Defence Citadels
Water: 39 Admin, 600 Defence Basalt Castles.

And then All Era Fortresses, same as EA, but for all nations (which maybe fucks water nations over a little in terms of defence, but benefits them in terms of build time and cost for additional forts).

Is there are a good place to put this mod, other than the Desura forums?

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Sep 16, 2013

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 16:06

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Kenlon posted:

Nature isn't quite that badly off:
Evo 4: Breath of the Dragon is decent, for it's large AOE and low fatigue.
Thaum 3: Panic isn't half bad either.

You also get a whole stack of buff spells for your troops, including things like Relief.

Mainly, though, you get your Yogini/N2 Warrior Priestesses/N2 Mo5Es helpfully casting Bezerkers in your archer mob and ruining literally loving everything always all the time forever why god why

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 17:09

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

drat those are some good Awe rolls.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 22:01

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

regularizer posted:

Is the price going to go up once it's out of beta?

No idea, preorderers got a discount. Doubt it, though, and certainly doubt we'll see a return to the old Shrapnel price of ~�50, plus another few if you want to download it after more than about ten minutes.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 02:44

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Blisster posted:

So what do you guys think of Ur?

Really nicely balanced nation, unlike the bullshit fest that is Berytos.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 19:57

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

WYA posted:

What is wrong with Barytos?

They have access to almost every kind of Titanic pretender you'd like to choose to make up the two and a half deficiencies they have in terms of magic (nature, death and Astral, ish), and they can get 676 gold on turn one on their capital with full income scales, due to their 25% coastal income bonus.

Mage-wise, they have access to almost everything you'd want. Cheap researchers in Berytan Sages, light water/air at a low price in Mage Pilots, heavier StR stuff in Storm Callers (A2W2 100%FAWS), a sacred Blood hunter with a 25% shot at B2, and cap-only Brides-in-Waiting which are F2A2E1B2H2 110%FAEB, plus summonable Hinnomite Melqarts at Blood 6.

Troop-wise, their sacreds are pretty low-encumbrance for a giantesque unit (enc 5), and they're cheap enough in terms of both gold and res that they're very usable. If you're not up for size three foot troops, they also have decent lance-armed cavalry, a range of perfectly good chaff infantry (MM2 archers, spearmen and swordsmen are available), and War Elephants.

They also start in a middle-era Castle, with increased defence and administration as a result.

They're total bullshit in almost every respect.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 20:30

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

nothing to seehere posted:

I still weep for old Marveni druids. Making them StR makes sense, but why make them cap-only aswell?

And still no blood on their mages, nor cap-freedom for their Boar Warriors :negative:

I don't know why they didn't change it so that Gutuater couldn't blood sac, but had a decent chance at some blood access. Even a 25%, Jesus Christ I do not want to be harrying the general public with indie scouts or commanders to trawl for those elusive B0 blood slaves now that we can't set taxes to zero.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 20:47

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Lord Windy posted:

Ok, the obvious answer to this question is going to be 'play the game more rear end in a top hat' but I wanted to see if an idea is too overpowered.

The premise for the nation is it is an Air nation with a little fire and astral. It is also similar to LA/MA Ermor in the sense that is summons it's commanders are summoned and you do not recruit your chaff/units. You do get your chaff for free, but you have to summon it, either through a commander who can summon or an item similar to the devil summoning contracts. You get less, but they are better quality and can fly. The nation also doesn't Dom-kill.

Now here is the part that I can't decide is overpowered or not.

Since Caelum is already the nation of powerful air mages who fly (at least in EA, they get worse as time goes on), I don't want to tread on their feet. Instead I was looking at mages with 3 air base and a chance of 4 10% of the time and give them something else.

This is an either or scenario.

1. Their expensive mages (30 gems to summon) all come into battle with auto-storm similar to the staff and all of their commanders and chaff can fly in storms.

2. They have an expensive commander (between 20 and 30 gems to summon) doubles as a gemgem (generates 1 air gem a turn). I prefer people to objects for gemgems as you can rescue the items if you know your castle is going to get stormed but your commanders are stuck there.

Pick number 1.

Gemgens are very tricky to balance, and I think Dom4 did a wise thing in mainly confining it to free gems in battle. Option 1 effectively does that by giving you a free cast of Storm, cutting down on your gem expenditure, without allowing for that thing where a nation spirals totally out of control past a certain point.

Anyone who hasn't read that LP by Lilli et al should, it got me so intrigued about Dominions that I bought it despite it being extremely expensive at the time. Doubt I'm the only one, either.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Sep 18, 2013

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 08:14

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Lord Windy posted:

I don't think I'll go the Gem-Gem path. I'll give some later summons/heroes the temporary gems instead.

So I'll give them Storm Immune, flying and some commanders that auto-cast storm. Their mages also won't be slow to recruit. To compensate for that advantage they won't have great magic access and need gems to get their mages. I'm thinking max 4 air, 3 astral and 2 fire.

Well which era are you talking about here?

Those are some pretty nice paths if it's MA. Even in EA, I'd be extremely chipper to get an A4 mage which wasn't StR.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 12:20

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Lord Windy posted:

Either EA or MA. If I like doing this enough, I might do a set of 3 era for the guys.

It was also going to be A3 with a chance of A4, the free storm means it can get up to A4 without any issue anyway.

Right, which is why having them at A4 is pretty overpowered, especially if they aren't StR.

Summon Storm Power is only 150RPs in. Storm, at Evo 5? Bit more pricey.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 12:48

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

amuayse posted:

EA Atlantis hurts to play because "lol wut's armor".

Mmmmm. I actually really like EA Atlantis.

Very decent set of mages and priests, handily bitey set of Shambler units to really lay the hurt into any other factions, and plenty of magic/poisonous weapons.

MA Atlantis: loving garbage, though.

On Pelagia: very decent underwater triton troops with up to 3 attacks, and their ambibious soldiers are actually pretty good. They get, in effect, underwater cavalry, but they aren't sacred (their sacreds are their Pearl Guards, basically triton phalanx types).

In the base game, Oceania is lumbered with a totally worthless Kelp Palisade as its 'home fort', so that might go some way to reducing their power. They also still can't really expand on land, although that's been somewhat reduced by the addition of Icthytaurs (ambibious minotaurs).

UW factions are still pretty much gubbed in terms of a mass air breathing item, which makes playing Dreamlands very, very grating past a certain point.

amuayse posted:

What I wonder the most is why would you ever want to buy a shambler?

Same reason you'd buy Lizardmen, except moreso (in terms of Shamblers/Warriors of the Deep, skeptical about the less cool sort other than as a way to get a province underwater For Reasons).

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Sep 18, 2013

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 18:27

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Double post because this forum isn't Desura, whoops.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 18:30

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

To be fair, I've only ever really messed about with them; due to largely playing AI, not had to deal with the MR issues too much, but now you point it out, it certainly is A Thing.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 19:38

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

TheDemon posted:

I can't in good conscience recommend Triton Riders when Oceania gets Ictycentaurs for 2/3 the price aka the best underwater recruit in the game.

This is a fair point.

Also yeah, I guess non-Dreamlands Dreamlands R'lyeh is just MA R'lyeh with a few different national heroes? Not dipped my toes into the Disciple game waters yet.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 19:54

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

amuayse posted:

The right thing to do in this instance is to give him the new unique armour set, since his unit description claimed he just showed up with whatever was at home.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 18:40

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Prostrat is clearly an F9D9N5B9 bless with the Teotl of War (possibly requires imprisonment and T3S3C2D3M3D3 scales, but is still Dom 10!).

Undying and second shape - if you finish a battle with -hp on your Jags' first form, it basically pops them into their second form , and they're fine.

One thing about undying units - absolutely do not let a diseased blessed guy (prophet/one of those blessed all the time gear upgrades) who is on -hp enter a battle unless they're undead. They can keep on truckin' in the overworld until they hit their Undying limit, but if they can't get back to positive HP during a battle, they die early.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2013 12:09

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Lilli posted:

Undying lets your units drop to -undying value before they actually die. The reason this would be so great with jags (and second shape in general) is that it gives you multiple extra batches of HP. In your first form you get an extra 8 hp or whatever from undying, you pop, change shapes into the jaguar form and get another extra 8 hp. This is my assumption anyways, I haven't actually tested it with jaguars or not to see if the negative hp value just ends up transferring to the second form or not.

OK, let me lay it out for you:

In-battle:

- First form lasts until the end of negative HP, so 12HP, plus whatever Nature bless HP they have, plus Undying HP.
- Second form starts with normal Jag HP, plus your bless, and also has Undying.

End of battle:

- Units on Undying HP in the first (non-Jaguar) form will pop into the second form at the end of the battle, and will survive onto the strategic map.
- Units on Undying HP in the second (Jaguar) form will die off and not survive onto the strategic map.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2013 21:16

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

tooterfish posted:

If a unit survives battle, it's generally gets its HP healed right?

Right, except if it's diseased or Never Heals and isn't a magic being in a province with a lab.

quote:

So a blessed undead going into undying HP and surviving will be at full strength after?

Should do, unless it Never Heals. Honestly haven't used any blessed undead stuff with a D blessing and remembered to check, but can do some testing.

*edit after testing*

OK it looks like even normally never-healing Undead are actually repaired to full health if they survive a battle on negative HP while blessed with D4+

Vaguely exploitable on units like Knights of the Sepulchre, given they only have 6hp and are allegedly never-healing, since a D9 bless will effectively give them full post-battle regen and up to 166% additional health, so long as they end between -1 and -10hp.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Sep 20, 2013

# ¿ Sep 20, 2013 21:36

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

The Moon Monster posted:

I just picked up Dom4 from Desura and I have no idea where to find my CD key. Can someone give me a hint

Right-click on it in the Play tab of your Desura client. View CD Key is about in the middle of the list of options.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2013 00:14

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

I believe you need to get the client. If you're worrying about it, think a less intrusive Origin. Same deal of basically turning it on to play a game, then turning it off (unlike Steam, which I tend to leave on, don't know about anyone else).

Literally lies and foreign propaganda, listen to other people.

jBrereton fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Sep 21, 2013

# ¿ Sep 21, 2013 00:31

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Muspelheim looks fantastic, great work, guys.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2013 22:22

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

gently caress me those Cattleplebs are certainly a thing.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 00:56

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Was than an AG Divine Throne or something?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 12:31

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

loving nice. Any way I can help?

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 14:22

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

NinjaDebugger posted:

Yes. Compile a list of every single god chassis, their name, and their creature number, and throw them all in a doc. Doesn't even have to be particularly organized, and it will make the modding go much faster.

I'm totally doing this, it's just taking a while. So much content :arghfist:

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 18:30

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Slaan posted:

Several gods are gemgens, at least in AwesomeGods, too. There are ones that give Death, Nature and Air. And I think the Fountain of Blood also gives slaves in AG?

Even in CBM, IIRC. 3 in CBM, 6 in AG, I think.

Here's your list of Pretenders for AG.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 20:49

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

I dunno, 12 Jaguar Warriors would probably've done the same, assuming they had a bless that was befitting of their Being Jags?

(also looks like a morale type failure on Marverni's part, but then their leaders in that battle are total garbage; remember those Barbarian Chiefs have -1 inspiration, as well as an unimpressive squad cap).

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 22:18

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

Wolfsbane posted:

Yeah, they're fairly similar to jags, but their second form doesn't stick around (hence they all died) and causes fear (which I'm starting to think may be a little OP).

They have a N9 bless because I haven't given the nation any good way to access F9 or W9.

Well, they basically fought the perfect enemy, in that case. Indie crap led by independent commanders (nothing special) and Barbarian Chiefs really should get forced off by that kind of unit.

Now if the Marverni player/AI pseudo-player had thought to bring some Carnute units along, probably would've been a different story, assuming they survived the first blow.

So long as it's Fear (1) rather than (5) or whatever, should be fine-ish? Lemuria gets fear-causing Standards as freespawn, after all. Only problem is a very specific amazing synergy with Thrones that cause Blessed units to have Awe, at which point they presumably become The Best Guhyaka.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 22:55

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 15:26

jBrereton: May 30, 2013; Grimey Drawer

NinjaDebugger posted:

Why thank you, sir. This will make things go much more quickly, especially if it gets updated once the final game drops.

Yeah, I'm expecting a couple more Pretender Gods, like the very plausible reintroduction of the Mother of Tuathas, for starters.

quote:

I wonder if/when the Mod Viewer will be updated. Anybody know who made that?

I believe it was momfreeek.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2013 07:16

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