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Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
Registered on the GGS, definitely want to get in on the 99 player royal rumble

steamid: http://steamcommunity.com/id/youkilledourgod

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Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
Kinda disappointed that there isn't a Hoburg nation. Modders, help us.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
Commenting on the randomnation game, I had a lot of success against Patadonia with my frozen heart machine guns, but they were totally ineffective against the undead chaff that Nuclearmonkee brought to the table later.

It seems like you have to walk a fine line between Cleansing Water and Frozen Heart/Falling Frost later on, or just err on the side of Summon Water Elementals if you aren't sure what the best option will be.

Also, I handed over too many Bottles of Living Water which just made a defense even harder to mount. Gotta be careful with those, for as good as they are.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

How are u posted:

Wait why do you have to be careful with bottles of living water?
Unlike other gem expenditures, items can be transferred to the enemy when you lose a fight. Summons and battle magic gem expenditures just disappear by comparison.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
Ice Eles do, yes.

Safest places to use bottles on offense are for thugging down undefended provinces that just have PD. That way there's less of a risk of a bottle falling into an enemy commander's hands. On defense, you could use them on commanders set to retreat. The elemental will keep fighting even if the bottle owner runs safely off so long as there is other magical leadership in the fight.

Otherwise you have to be confident enough in winning and/or accept the possibility that you may have just delivered some water gems and mage time directly to the enemy.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Jabarto posted:

What's so great about them? I never really thought about them before.
They're very tanky muscle with a ton of effective health (due to their many wounded shapes). This gives raiding thugs time to buff up while enemies chew on the ele.

They become as mobile as the commander they're on - the play really nicely on stealthers, assassins, flyers and amphibious troops for this reason. You can also shuttle a bunch from one front in a war to another just by tossing them in a lab and re-equipping them elsewhere.

They regenerate underwater. They're resistant to poison and heat (or cold if they're an Ice elemental), so you can use them with things like Foul Vapors, Fire Brands or Snake Bladders without worry.

They're just very solid all around.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Being next to Ermor is difficult. You really want to war with them ASAP and ideally not alone, but that may be the case. In a big game (8+ players), I think communication is key.

You want to make sure Ermor's neighbors know they'll have the opportunity to attack them. Obviously they want Ermor gone too, but (like you) they probably don't want to invest everything to do it. If they see you move first (or you convince them that Ermor moved on you), they'll be more likely to act.

Don't play the sympathy card with your direct neighbors. All they'll hear is "I'm weak, I'm busy, take my poo poo." Play the sympathy card with your neighbor's neighbors. You want them to attack your neighbor if they move on you. It's to their benefit, so it might work.

Your magnetic weakness becomes the value you offer to others further from you in this case.

I think you'll have more success if you present people with opportunities rather than obligations, risks and expenses.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
The problem with BoT is it's world-wide rather than only within the caster's dominion. You have to spend so much to mitigate even a small portion of its effect.

It has made me consider more gem-centric strategies though rather than focusing as much on raw income.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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ChickenWing posted:

Are there any bad habits that games against the AI will get me into? Anything the AI does strangely that you'll never see in a real game?
Basically the AI does everything wrong and it cheats units into play. It also encourages you to turtle up with massive amounts of PD which players can obsolete easily enough.

Really the only thing singleplayer games are good for are testing your initial expansion groups/scripts, and testing out some things to see how they work.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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ChickenWing posted:

Are formations besides the default useful at all? I seem to recall someone mentioning that they can be handy to reduce the effect of arrows and magic, but there's also a morale penalty involved that made me wonder.
The morale penalties aren't insignificant, but neither are the formation benefits. Formations are very useful - they make a big impact in fights, and it's all driven by the troops/strategy you have vs your opponent.

Skirmish is important against strong area magic. Line formations are pretty high value for a number of reasons like preventing flanks, wrapping around boxes, getting your own flanks in and maximizing your fighting troops vs the ones standing around.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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The Sharmat posted:

I don't suppose there are a number of games winding down soon? I seem to have picked an inopportune time to get back into this what with no games recruiting at the moment.
I do think we'll have some more games coming online this week! Seems like a few have just wrapped up or are in the process of wrapping up.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
Frozen Heart is awesome but has a few pitfalls. It's weak against the Undead, and Thugs with Frost Brands are going to shrug it off or require a ton of Frozen Heart to kill. Otherwise, it's an awesome way to get value out of your labrats.

Basic Water Elementals are good.

Water Bracelets can be made very affordably with Dwarven Hammers, bringing your 1W guys up to 2W for things like Cleansing Water and Rain, or over-gemming into W3 magic like bigger elementals and Falling Frost.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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To be a competitive top tier nation at this point with the game played in its vanilla format (unmodded, stuff not banned), a good nation needs to:

1) Be able to survive a W9 Dragon (probably with Awe) rush. Goons loving love these
2) Not be totally destroyed by Burden of Time, because someone will cast it even if it's just spitefully
3) Have options vs. giant piles of undead
4) Not get totally shut down by hostile dominion. Communion nations in particular really struggle to invade vs Vengeful Waters, for instance
5) Not be totally shut down by some of the fuckoff spells like Storm, Rain and Arrow Fend

I think the reason why people feel the game is 'often decided by turn 50' is because so many people go hard on blesses which later limit your ability to respond to problems and adapt. If "throw more sacreds at it" isn't the solution, you're done.

Big bless strats work best in small games where the problems you'll be facing are well known and defined. When you're in a FFA of 12-14 players (like many goon games), that falls apart. You knock out your neighbor with your uber bless and then lose to the first guy to use real battle magic that you couldn't prepare for.

Re: EA Ulm, the point about "the late game isn't an important factor" is a fair point, but it's not like EA Ulm has some super charged early game to compensate for it.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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TheDemon posted:

I'm scratching my head at some of those. You know EA Ulm is probably the second-best bottle forger in the game, right? Or that the best troop counter to devils and demon knights and angels are high-damage dual-wielders with decent morale? Or that the battlefield spells possible for EA Ulm without any pretender support include Mass Regeneration, Relief, and Rain of Stones? Or that Ulm has natural access to fear-stacking summons and morale-checking spells too? And that they are second only to their other eras in lantern forging, and with some RP available off-fort, even slightly penalized, that makes them one of the better research rushing nations?

I mean yeah, everyone gets wrecked by t-strike and storm demons. But it would be more accurate to list Length 4 Weapons as an EA Ulm hard counter, because it's actually true and it's available from turn 1. The magic > conan thing was old when it was first parroted. The fact is EA Ulm's troop lineup has some of the best combat stats and the best gold for stats in the entire game.
I think my issue with them is that their early game lasts a lot longer than other nations. In order to field some of those cool spells like Relief, Mass Regen and Grip of Winter, they really have to show up with typically some Conjuration (3/4) and Construction (4/6) researched to a sufficient point. Sometimes they need to even get lucky to get the right rolls on a Master Smith or Shaman. It's not uncommon, but I have been gilted by it before.

That's problematic when other nations are guaranteed to hit a huge power spike as soon as they hit a certain early research point. Meanwhile, you still have to go a long ways before you finish putting your elaborate research + forging + lucky paths puzzle together.

For instance, EA C'tis shows up on your doorstep with Hordes of Skeletons + Rigor Mortis capable mages at Enchantment 6. EA Caelum, Vanheim and Fomoria could all light you up with Storm, Storm Power and Thunderstrike immediately at Evoc5/Conj 2. Other nations could show up around then with Enchantment 4 and Conj 3 for Flaming Arrows.

Let's say you go for flaming arrows, yourself. Awesome! Your odds of getting a 2F warrior smith or shaman are 3.125%. That's tough to base a strategy around.

Do you really think their early game is so strong to justifiably offset how late they show up to the midgame party?

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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You still have to build a lab and a temple to recruit Shaman, which doesn't exactly make those non-fort mages as free and plentiful as you'd suggest. I've never seen anyone get excited about 135 gold for 7 research. EA Ulm also still needs to produce forts early on because they need access to Warrior Smith doublepaths which take time to recruit and luck into. I'm not saying Shaman aren't good (they're my favorite part of EA Ulm), but that's not a clean answer to the problem.

My comment was about their early game lasting longer because they need a combination of research down multiple paths, forged boosters and lucky paths to get access to the midgame magic that other nations can cast out of the box. EA Ulm should show up about 10+ turns behind those other nations in terms of actual casting ability because of the extra work they have to do down multiple paths.

Let's say I wanted to cast Relief to offset EA C'tis' Rigor Mortis. I would need to hit Const 4 (thistle branch), Conj 4 (strength of gaia) and Enchantment 6 vs. just his Enchantment 6. That's what, 4250 research vs his 2750?

Let's say I want to bring something really nasty to the table like Grip of Winter, which is great for EA Ulm because all your troops love it cold.

You would need Const 6 (water bracelet, your guys can't make a robe of the sea) and Enchantment 6 to make that happen, and you need to luck into a 2W Warrior Smith (3.125% chance per smith). That's for a similar shift in a fight that C'tis would have with just Rigor Mortis alone, 4250 research earlier and with less chance for lucky-paths failure. You'd also need to spend a mage turn forging the bracelet, and then get the 2W smith out there wherever he needs to be. EA C'tis could be at your door waiting for Enchantment 6 to hit before taking the next step.

Let's say I want to bring Flaming Arrows to the table. I only need to hit Enchantment 4 and Conj 3, sweet. Now I still have to get a 2F Warrior Smith to cast it, 3.125% chance per smith. poo poo.

Those are the kinds of realities I'm talking about. It's not that EA Ulm can't do all of those things - once they have put the puzzle together, they do have some pretty cool battlemagic stuff they can pull off like Relief + Grip of Winter + Rigor Mortis combos, Wind Guide + Flaming Arrows, Mass Regen and more. It just takes them a longer amount of time to get to what they need compared to their opponents.

Timing is super important in strategy games and it can make or break otherwise strong options.

Maybe you can base your PG around surviving in that midgame lull, but that's more of a concession than most others make because it would limit your ability to fight in multiple places at once.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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I Love You! posted:

vengefulwater.jpg
good to note that that the message log loses steam after too many conflicts and no longer successfully tracks assassination attempts. Also, independent uprisings such as Cult of Gaia attacks (which happen after assassinations) cannot be viewed at that point, either

the battle summaries show no results, and attempting to View Battle on one will crash Dom4

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Flavahbeast posted:

I've never used the black bow but I think it's fine. Ranged weapons are pretty unreliable, with only a couple equipped archers there's a good chance they'll expend all their ammunition or get overrun without hitting what you want them to hit, and feeblemind in particular is only a big deal if it hits an important commander that needs to cast spells or lead troops
It's fun to put on assassins that are gunning for a god. You aren't likely to kill it, but Feebleminding it is pretty brutal if they were going to rely on its paths for anything.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
This is a really difficult environment for making balance changes - there are so many variables that determine the results of a strategy in any given game.

Normally when you look at balance changes, you want hundreds (maybe thousands) of points of data to work from. You test in situations with the regular noise of the game, and you also test in situations that control as much as possible so you can focus on just the element being changed. That second one is nearly impossible in Dominions.

Games can take months to resolve. We don't have hundreds of points of data - as individuals we have a few dozen, maybe. And those are all muddied by stuff like people AI'ing out early, people being new to the game and feeding other players, and other goofiness.

On the flip side, there's also an element to Dominions that helps deal with the relative strength of strategies in most games, and that's diplomacy. Opportunism rules the day in goon games, but people also do work together to deal with larger problems out of necessity.

I'd probably focus changes more on things that are clearly unfun for 90% of players in games. Burden of Time is a good example of that. It actually serves a really important purpose in limiting late-game blood nations so I'd be hesitant to change it, but it also ruins a lot of games very quickly.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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I feel like Fire Storm and Pillar of Fire are very strong. Fire Storm can clear an entire battlefield of chaff and unprotected mages in just a few rounds. Some of the best answers to it (Army of Gold, Fire Fend) are deeper in research to reach.

Pillar of Fire is like a more spammable and accessible Thunder Strike that may be in reach of many of your research mages around the time when you're looking to kick them out of their labs.

It's not armor negating, but it is armor piercing at least and hits very hard with a fatigue component as well. Even with Rain going, it's still pretty effective.

Flaming Arrows is worth mentioning when you talk about Fire in the midgame, too.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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GenEAricgame has drawn to a close. Many people will remember this game as the one where Nuclearmonkee's EA Ryleh was traded Death Gems and blasted out an untouchable Burden of Time on turn 21. Most people gave up or quit soon after.

It was also the game where a dude got domkilled by ILoveYou's Arcoscephale on turn 9. ILU's opening Dompush was so strong that it lasted for 7 years after the point where he AI'd out.

Those of us who remained after BoT... had a pretty good game. We all got fat on the leftovers of the AI'd players - it was almost like a second opening expansion to the game. We then threw all manner of armies, mages, battle magic, remote attacks, harassment, globals and more at each other. In the end, while Nuclearmonkee was scripting his fights better and putting together better armies value-wise, my economy and research were too far along.

Here were the score graphs. They're slightly cropped because I cut it where the game was conceded rather than the pointless AI clean up after it.

Lessons learned:
  • EA Yomi doesn't really care about BoT, and should maybe push for it themselves at some points.
  • Don't count on flyers to bust up communions or take out key mages. Decoy squads and big walls of chaff can keep them from successfully passing their flight-morale checks to reach their targets.
  • 25 MR is not enough to save you from 20+ Mind Blasts a turn.
  • Fire Storm is truly disgusting. Even fighting against stuff like Rain and Army of Gold, you can see each major battle decided by Fire Storm on the Army Size graphs.
My build was an Imprisoned Monolith, 8dom, 6e 6s 5n 3 turmoil, 3 growth, 3 luck, 1 magic. I wanted an inexpensive bless to make my Oni Generals and Dai Oni stronger casters while also giving me access to some nice spells and boosters later on. Knowing now that the MR benefit of the astral bless doesn't help if your MR is 18+, I might tone that back a bit. It was still nice to have in the early game, though, and the high Astral levels came in handy later.

I rushed Enchantment, hard. All of your serious casters can throw Hordes of Skeletons, and many Dai Oni can throw Strength of Giants, Flaming Arrows, Rigor Mortis and Heat from Hell. Revenants and Pale Riders are good places to spend Death Gems early on, and Flight is also very fun on Oni Generals/Dai Oni that pop up with Air. I did okay until I hit Enchantment 5, and then I suddenly won a war and took a ton of territory from several neighbors.

Regarding the imprisoned build, EA Yomi is fairly strong in the first year due to demons having two forms, one of which is ethereal. Ao-Oni with Kuro-Oni are well suited to dealing with dragon rushes, and recruiting a Dai Oni at some point in the first year basically gives you an awake Titan to play with anyway.

The growth was taken in anticipation of someone throwing down Burden of Time. I'd probably cut that back in the future for more Magic scales. I did regret my Dom8 throughout the game and wish I had taken Dom9. Vengeful Waters taxed me well, and it kept me from being aggressive for long periods of time.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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ClothHat posted:

Right as I get close to cleaning up all these fuckers Ryleh attacks and I very stupidly tell Yomi right before I commit armies underwater which invites him Yomi to attack me across my huge southern front.
When I turned on you, it was mostly out of panic because I was scared about the throne count. I had no scouting (because of your Vengeful Waters) so I had to assume the worst.

I think I got pretty fortunate in terms of timing. You can spot the point on the graphs where I pull 90% of my mages from research and put them into battle. There are some big drops in army counts around then, and it's where my provinces and income start to go up.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Neruz posted:

Or the mod where all the sound effects are replaced by someone making similar sounds with their mouth.
I want this mod really bad

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Dadparty is over on Turn 16, with Burton of Tim the Fountain of Blood ascending on a throne win.

This game was silly. It was JonJoe's new balance mod with mostly lategame balance changes (Burden of Time and AC being pushed back), but the game settings were very against it ever seeing the late game. There were 9 level 1 thrones and only 4 points were required for victory - this wasn't disclosed to anyone until the game had already begun.

I was fortunate to have thrones:
  • One space from me
  • Two spaces from me
  • Three spaces from me
  • Five spaces from me
And I was able to take my initial expansion army straight to the throne 5 spaces from me and take it.

This was my build:

I was planning on going hard on Soul Contracts as soon as my god awoke and empowered with Fire. The growth was to sustain a blood economy later on.

However once the game began (and we saw that the throne victory condition was so low), I knew that my build was the wrong one. An awake dragon or even a strong bless would have been better. Even if the throne count would have been reasonable, the map would not have worked for what I wanted to do. Only one of my (noncap) provinces had more than 5,000 people, and my expansion paths were all snaking and away from each other because of all the mountains and poo poo that I was nestled in. I could not have kept a blood economy from being disrupted by raids and thugs since my territory was already like 11+ mapmoves across and Abysia has awful map movement.

Still, Level 1 Thrones are easy to claim and Abysia can StR H3's to claim them. My neighbors let me take all the the thrones without discussing it between them. I did have them pretty well defended, though, and the score graphs show that I was among the top in most categories (except research, because I was pumping out StR mages/h3's for the thrones).

There were many times where my neighbors had huge armies sitting next to the thrones I was on, so it probably could have been stopped if people were paying attention and working together.

Here are the score graphs for anyone who wants them: http://imgur.com/a/RDOuP

Moral of the story: games need to have good settings AND a good map to be worthwhile, but I'll take a turn 16 FFA win as EA Abysia in any event.

Have Some Flowers! fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 29, 2014

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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I did fail to take the throne closest to Flame earlier in the game, and he came in and picked it up a turn or two later - that hurt a bit. There were also 2 or 3 turns where Neruz, Kitfox and Flame were next to thrones where a fight could have happened, and I don't think I could have dealt with everyone even though I had the thrones pretty well defended.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Decrepus posted:

Basically if you have a life this game is probably not for you.
I disagree! This game is immensely more playable than an MMO that requires you to raid for 3 hours a night, 4 nights a week. I also find it way easier to play than a game like League where you have to sit totally invested in the game for 45 minutes at a time.

You can take your turns whenever you want, and you can take as long as you want to take them. I hop up to do chores, take a phone call, lets the dogs out, whatever.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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quote:

<Teens> that dudes got like, devatas and poo poo
<Teens> gently caress my luife
yesss

Seriously though, that's a big change in how the turn order/victory condition resolves. I am surprised it wasn't mentioned elsewhere, and that's a rough break for jsoh/samog

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Hey check your PMs, been asking you and your teammates who your Pretender is in the All Ages game! Shoot me a tell through homero/skybot on IRC with it if you can.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Jabarto posted:

I'd still be curious about multiplayer opinions on the issue, too.
Right now in large multiplayer games (giant ffas or disciples games), I feel like Dom9 or even 10 is the way to go. There's been sort of a dominion arms race where everyone keeps revving it up. In large FFA/Disciples games (that don't end early to a throne win), it's common for the games to go long and for people to reach hostile dominion globals (Vengeful Waters, Dark Skies). It is really difficult to fight against this if you need 10-15 more temples than the guy doing it. It is way easier for him to break your temples in this situation than vice versa.

The big thing I think people neglect is that it's not just your dominion vs the dompusher. If you're killing your neighbors and they can't devote resources to temples, the dompusher's candles are going to pool up over your neighbors and envelop you. Even if the temple scores are close, now your candles are having to deal with 2-3x as many. And that's in a -good- situation where you have a similar temple strength as he does.

High dominion also enables many strategies, like using Immortal units aggressively, or attacking under the cover of Gift of Health. It's important if your nation needs Heat Scales or Cold Scales in combat - taking cold blooded troops into frozen dom sucks, for instance. And of course Awe on your awake pretender is a nice bonus in early expansion and wars, too.

Dominion also gives you some basic scouting information which is really important for staying safe and avoiding surprises.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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GenericOverusedName posted:

I really want to get back into this game but I always feel like I am horrible poo poo at it and am tempted to go AI once the initial excitement of a new game and plan wears off and I start getting curb stomped.

I guess what I want is psychological advice? I feel like I am approaching this game the wrong way.
My suggestions would be:
  • Focus on the early game. The cool crazy stuff in the mid-late game doesn't happen if you don't survive and thrive early on
  • If someone rushes you early, contact their neighbors (not your neighbors, they'll pile on) to get help. No one wants to see someone get huge and fat for free, and armies in your territory means someone else has an opportunity to hit them back.
  • Stick around, fight to the bitter end. If you get a reputation for AI'ing out, people will gun for you early as easy money. You'll learn stuff doing more with less. Force someone to commit totally to killing you - you never know if they're being attacked from behind and can't reinforce their siege, giving you an opportunity to break out.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
The changes to Luck were big as well. More than Dom3, you really have to custom tailor SCs to what they're going to be up against.

You can still kit out Thugs/SCs that can roll through PD or troops-in-transit (i.e. without mages), but that's usually a big investment of gems for small amounts of payoff.

Most thugs will die to 1 or 2 properly scripted chump mages behind some chump PD. If they're overgeared, they may still die to 3-4 properly scripted chump mages behind some chump PD. The risk/reward just isn't there vs. a good player.

Raiding is important, but thugs and SCs aren't the only way to raid. As MA Shinuyama for instance, I could send two stealthy 2D Ubas and accomplish more than a Shura could with a Fire Brand, Vine Shield, Boots of Quickness, Ring of Regen and Amulet of Antimagic (55 gems). I'm also not risking handing all those nice things over to my enemy. Those are the exact same tools the enemy might use to carve through Shinuyama skelly spam, or to allow their casters to survive through Shinu Tengu flight-diving his casters at the start of a fight. Screw that.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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jBrereton posted:

To be fair that is an accurate representation of what can happen if everyone doesn't club together and beat the poo poo out of you as Lemuria, since there aren't that many N2+ mages around to make supply gear.
Just to clarify, it only takes N1 mages to make Endless Bags of Wine. N1 mages are pretty common as indys, too. I've also found that other players are more likely to trade nature gems rather than something like death gems (which could be used to BoT them).

It's just an additional tax for attacking the undead, and it forces you to divert some early research to Construction instead of more useful things.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
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Tetanus shot is over! Congratulations I Love You! on a pretty much unopposed win. It was technically a win by thrones on turn 61, but it was won far earlier than that via dominion push and using globals. Post mortem time!

This game should hopefully be a lesson to many re: the new meta of Dom4. Weakened SCs and Thugs mean it's much harder to raid hostile dominion. Burden of Time should happen and will happen in every game. Dom push and globals like Vengeful Waters and Dark Skies become much harder to break when you can't dive unforted temples easily.

In large FFAs and Disciples games (like the ones we all play in the SA community), games will probably go long. Running over your neighbors with a strong early game strategy won't win you the game if someone across the world got a decent start and has an actual endgame in mind. You need a complete plan to win a big game.

I played a heavy scales build. LA Pan does fine during expansion without a bless or awake PG. Knowing what I know now, I would have built my pretender to shore up more gaps in my late game rituals/forging. I had no problems winning fights throughout the game using communions and Pan troops.

My original plan was to attack Gath to my south, since I was rushing for Thunderstrike communions and giants are allergic to those. Unfortunately, Gath folded quickly to Utgard (played by TheDemon). My neighbor C'tis (played by Flame112) and I agreed that the longer we bordered a fed TheDemon, the less chance we had to win the game. We planned to attack together so that our forces reached him during the 3rd summer. Unfortunately, Midgard attacked C'tis before that and it left me in a 1v1.

The fights went well, but I had to move at a slow pace to win without taking large losses. That slow pace precluded me from playing a larger role in the game. With more territory (for gem income), I probably could have made some plays. As it was, I think I ended tied for 3rd with my ally-in-circumstance, Flame.

I feel I learned a lot about communions, their uses and their counters. Considering I started this game right after reading TheDemon's primer on communions, and then having to fight him all game with them, it was pretty much the best thing I could ask for.

Things I wish would were different:
  • Wraparound east-west. I was in the very Northeast of the map, the winner was in the very Southwest. It would take a scout 2 years to go from my capitol to his moving by the quickest route. The game ended without us ever fighting, and only just barely bordering. East-west wraparound would have been a big difference.
  • A better spread of province types. Poor Gath got literally surrounded by swamps. Some areas of the map had 0 forests. It was just very all-or-nothing around the map.
  • Dying players giving all their stuff to the regional powerhouses. I don't have a good argument against this, but I do know that if I see some of these players struggling in another game, I'll have no incentive to help them. Why not? Because if they die, I might get showered in more poo poo than Luck3 would get me in years! Good luck vs that bless rush, buddy. But write me into that juicy will of yours, would you?

Have Some Flowers! fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Jul 25, 2014

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

garth ferengi posted:

scoregraph and taunting
Hey that's awesome of you to do specifically what I asked you not to do when I shared the score graph with you, and it resulted in precisely what I thought it would!

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
How does a Scout with an Implementor Axe kill 1700 people in the span of one month? That's dedication.

I bet he chops out some supports from a bridge or something.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

Stevefin posted:

Even I know its a lie. I have yet to really win against my nearby AI spawns, let alone an AI game and even further so a human MP game. I have yet to really find a play I can push past finding the AI and making pretty borders
The strategies that win vs the AI are not strategies that you want to employ vs players, so the opportunity for learning isn't too great. If you wanted to beat the AI:
  • Expand slowly and safely
  • Don't ever attack an AI. They'll generally start neutral with you until an offensive action is made, or eventually they just snap and attack you. But this might not happen for years. This lets you focus on fighting just one or two AI at a time.
  • Use stacks of 40+ PD on borders with AI. They often cannot overcome this.
  • Move in giant deathballs that defeat anything in their path without losses and can siege down forts and take them.
Actual players will punish you easily for all of these approaches. There are some things you can practice vs the AI though.

The first year of expansion is important - you really want to know exactly what troops you need and where to place them vs the various flavors of independent provinces. Against Barbarians, where do you position to make sure your troops get the first hit? Against Horse Tribe, are you better off positioning forward to eat less arrows, or further back to keep your blessing priests further out of harms way? Where do you position to kill off war elephants before they get a turn trampling through your army?

You can also practice how Thug builds/kits and various Raiding Parties do against PD.

My biggest advice to newer players is just make an effort to learn. This game is not handed to you like most games these days... you have to go out and find answers. IRC is great place to swing by with questions as there are usually always several players who are happy to share something. Only a small portion of those IRC conversations filter through to the thread unfortunately. It's just not as interactive here.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

Benito Hitlerstalin posted:

How would I go about punishing a singe large army/deathball?
When you're on defense, your mages typically get to cast first. You can use combinations of spells like Gift of Flight/Mass Flight and Earthquake to kill huge amounts of troops before they get to respond. Spells like Earthquake, Foul Vapors, Bloodletting, Rain of Stones and others hit the whole battlefield.

You can use remote attacks like Murdering Winter or Rain of Toads against a doomstack and they become highly efficient. Combinations of assassinations and Mind Hunts, Manifestations, Disease Demons, Earth Attacks and other rituals can dismantle a deathball and setup a huge crippling loss where the army is left leaderless as its attacked. There was one game where there was a huge army of 200 sacred troops but they had no priests to bless them - they were all killed by assassins. The troops just hung out accomplishing nothing.

Alternatively you can start to move your raiders past the doomstack and capture 3-4x territories for every territory it takes. You can shove tons of chaff defenders into forts it sieges to make them take forever to make progress while you gobble everything else up.

A giant ball of troops and mages is usually the least efficient way to use them. Deathballs can be useful though when you're insulated from the other consequences (they can't raid, they don't have good battle magic or a lot of ritual attacks/assassins) and taking an objective like a capitol or a throne is of huge value for ending the war.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

Turin Turambar posted:

What's the best Pretender to try a SC strategy in the mid game with him? What chassis and items to go for?
By the time you reach the midgame, you want to be shaping fights with battlemagic. A dormant titan is often a great option for something like this. I would look at the titans and plan around that. Spells that make a big difference in the midgame are things like Rigor Mortis, Storm, Darkness, Relief, Heat from Hell, Grip of Winter, Foul Vapors, Earthquake, Curse of Stones. There are others, too, but those can win fights easily depending on what nation you are.


Yessod posted:

Any chance of screenshots of the positioning for these, particularly barbarians / war elephants? I'm able to do it some of the time, but end up predicting wrong from time to time. I'm sure it's also based on the speed of your own units, but I guess the issue is that I don't know how to translate that speed into how far they actually move on the map, other than that "bigger number goes farther"
Unfortunately it's entirely dependent on what nation you are and what troops and/or bless you're using. I like to position further back vs Elephants and Cavalry because it lets them zoom ahead of their friends, giving your troops time to deal with the faster units first and then the slower units separately.

You'll want to learn how to draw arrow fire to specific squads, and you can do something called a leash where you actually draw their archers forward to meet your melee troops because they're focused on troops that are falling back.

You'll also see some nations that like to pull all of the troops away from their commanders and then kill the leaders quickly, immediately ending the fight. There are many different ways to expand efficiently.

Have Some Flowers! fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Aug 14, 2014

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

Turin Turambar posted:

Now you mention it, it would be pretty useful if someone (not me, I'm really not a veteran) at least would make a TLDR summary of nations like "nations A, B, C and D are bless nations, nations E and F benefit a lot of an awake SC, F, G and H need order, I and J can play with turmoil, K and L are resource heavy, C, D and G benefit from extra magic scales" etc etc.
The challenge is that there's a lot of room for interpretation, and the details of the game settings make a huge difference. The number of players, map settings, nations involved and players involved can all make you adjust your build.

Any suggestions would be in the most general terms. I may still help with it but it would turn into a huge dumb discussion.

Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...

amuayse posted:

Drain 3 has some really poo poo events tied with it though.
You could potentially offset the "you lose all your gems" events by keeping them stored on safe commanders, or just spending them quickly as you get them.

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Have Some Flowers!
Aug 27, 2004
Hey, I've got Navigate...
You mix Wingless in with elephants to improve their morale. From the manual,

"Morale is a measure of how likely a squad is to keep fighting after taking casualties. Each unit has a morale value, but the morale value that is checked (for routing) is the morale level of the entire squad. Each squad has a morale level, which is the average of all the morale ratings of the members of the squad."

After a bless (+1 morale) and Sermon of Courage, their friendly faces will help keep your elephants motivated.

Have Some Flowers! fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Aug 24, 2014

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