BYOB project:play dominions 4

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Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

Dominions 4 is a really good game but it's also got a bad interface and there's so much poo poo in it that it's really hard to even know where to start.

Today I start the three step plan

Step 1)Get you jabronis playing short games against the AI to figure out the interface and basic strategies and pretender design. Estimated time - 1 week

Step 2)Get you nerds playing games against real people with slightly more advanced longterm gameplans. Have the first game ready for signups by September 26th Estimated time - 1 to 3 months per game

Step 3)Get you cool dudes trying out more complicated stuff like full battlemagic strategies, or blood magic economies. Estimated time - Holy poo poo there's a lot of cool stuff to try, probably forever.

But Pomp why should I want to play this game? The graphics look like butt. Not even a cute butt!

Shamelessy copypasted from the games op

TheDemon posted:

What is Dominions?

Dominions is the best game ever because it is a cross between an old-school 4x and a fantasy adventure game, with lore based on real-world mythology, that has delivered literal years of multiplayer entertainment. Expect a game that takes cues from Master of Magic, space 4Xs like Master of Orion 2 and Stars!, or a tabletop RPG. Don't expect Fantasy Rome: Total War.

The breadth and depth of play in Dominions is insane. There are over 50 nations with a roster of Pretender gods to pick from. You customize your pretender by buying advantages and disadvantages. Once play begins there are 1000 unit types, 600 spells to research, and 700 magical sites to uncover. You can choose between 300 pieces of equipment to gear out heroes who can take down armies single-handedly. Eventually, you can cast game-altering global enchantments that cook the world, heal lost limbs, or blot out the sun.

That's breadth. Dominions has depth. You can sneak or teleport into lightly defended territories, burn the temple, destroy their roads, funnel their taxes to your own forts, and disappear. You can set up a self-fueling Wish chain where you wish for more wishes. You can wipe out your enemies not with armies but with faith, fueled by sacrificing hundreds of virgin maidens upon your altars. You can crack open the gates to Tartarus and summon dozens of insane dead pretenders to serve in conquering the world. You can order a sudden teleport attack on all your rivals' capitals simultaneously, cleaving the gates in one turn with teleported siege equipment and blitzing the garrison before they can react. These are all actual, game-winning endgame strategies.

Another huge asset in Dominions's longevity is its moddability. Unit and spell stats can be customized simply by pointing the game to a text file. Mods load automatically when you load a game that uses them. Maps are just an image file and accompanying text file listing province connections.

Dominions "depth" at work

Remember - it's not about whether you win or lose, it's how many people you dragged down with you.

Up next - Pretender design, basic strategies, and what everything means.

Pomp fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Sep 26, 2015

# ? Sep 17, 2015 04:52

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# ? May 13, 2024 00:28

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

Have Some Flowers! posted:

Hello new players! We're here to help - hop on IRC and ask questions, and ask them here too.

Big things to focus on as a new player:

1) Learn how to recruit troops and 'expand' by taking over independent provinces near your starting spot. A good player can pull upwards of 25+ provinces in the first year against the AI, but aiming for 15 is a good starting point.

2) Learn how to research magic, and how to script your mages to cast certain spells in battle. Flaming Arrows (a Fire spell at Enchantment 4) is a good target to go for if you have ranged troops. Thunder Strike (Evocation 4) is great if you have strong air mages. Horde of Skeletons (Enchantment 5) is really good if you have death mages. Those are some good examples, but you can really just pick an interesting spell and shoot for it.

3) I'd recommend picking some of the more simple nations. EA Vanheim, MA Vanheim and LA Midgard are all very simple and very strong nations to get started with.

4) Avoid Dominions 3 Let's Plays at first - they will make you interested in strategies that don't necessarily work anymore in Dom4. Focus on expanding well and learning how to script your troops and mages.

5) Once you're comfortable with expanding in your first year, hop in a newbie game! Everyone else is terrible, too.

6) Bookmark this website and use it: http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/. It helps you lookup magic, items and units quickly.

For now we're sticking to Early Ages to cut down on the amount of stuff.

Resources

Gold, resources and gems/blood slaves

Gold)You get gold put into your treasury every turn, you can horde it. Everything but magic costs gold.

Resources)Every province has a resource supply every turn. This does not build up, you either spend it or you don't. Used exclusively to buy units.

Gems/blood slaves)These fuel any spell more powerful than flinging rocks around. You get gems by having your mages search for magic sites that will deposit a set amount of gems in your coffers. You get blood slaves by having blood mages search out for suitable slaves, but instead of going into your coffers automatically they will go into the inventory of whatever mage enslaved them unless there is a laboratory in the province. Blood magic nations are an administrative nightmare, and they aren't recommended for players who aren't up to that task.

Basic early/mid game strategies

These come in a lot of flavors, but we're gonna look at three easy ones right now

1)Lots of cost efficient dudes who are good at killing lots of dudes, buffed up my magic. Recommended nations - Ulm, Abysia

2)A few really big, really expensive dudes who are good at killing lots of dudes, buffed up by holy blessings. Recommended nations - Neifelheim.

3)

Recommended nations - Caelum, Ulm, Machaka (pictured)

Pretender design

Wow, that's a lot of options. Let me make it simple for you. Here are the things you typically try to use your god for

1)Expansion pretenders - a god who can take on entire provinces by itself. Recommended - Earth snake, Virtue, any dragon.

2)Bless - Load the gently caress up on one or two magic paths so you can bless your lucky sacred units, making them extremely hard to deal with without a clear plan. Recommended- Cheap rear end wizards, immobile statues

3)Scales - Give yourself a lot of resources so you can pump out more dudes. You should probably try to take some of these no matter what.

4)Rainbow - take a bit of every magic path. I'm not actually sure what this is good for besides forging magic items (I'm not actually very knowledgeable about this game) Recommended - cheap rear end wizards, immobile statues.

Manage all this poo poo by just clicking the sprite on the top right, and picking a dude. Decrease scales or magic paths by right clicking. The dormant and imprisoned options are obviously not recommended if you plan to use your pretender for expansion. There's a good more in depth look here that I recommend

Putting everything together

Recommendations for strategy 1 - any expansion pretender+scales

Recommendation for strategy 2 - this is gonna be a bit wordier

Libluini posted:

If you're playing already it's probably too late, since you need very specific scales and blesses to make them work. Most of it isn't a secret: If you want to use your giant sacreds, you need a major nature bless to give them regeneration and a minor earth bless so they won't tire out as fast.

You also need to squeeze out a lot of gold and ressources in scales to actually recruit enough of them to matter and counter-intuitively not recruit them at first. Instead you have to follow a rigid plan of pumping out at least three expansion armies before you switch to Gygjas for research at the end of year 1. The first army will practically be javelinists and spear-giants, the second will be javelinists and skinshifters and hopefully the third jarl will march forward with your sacreds (and javelinists as "archers").

In my second test game, I ended taking the tree as a pretender, 9 nature and 6 earth as magic and middling dom scores with order 3, productivity 2, cold 3, growth 1, fortune 0 and drain 2. This pretender is essentially just one giant, tree-sized battery to supply your sacreds with the juice they need. The drain-scales can be sustained because Gygjas are really good researchers and growth 1 can be dropped for prod 3 if you're really sure about your endgame (I'm not, so I went the-better-make-sure-your-population-can-support-this-poo poo-route.)

Tl;dr:

1. Make a pretender with the blesses and scales you need to make this work
2. Follow this plan as rigidly as possible
3. Good luck

You'll need a prophet and priests in order to bless, scripted to actually cast bless.

Recommendations for strategy 3 - Rush research for enchantment 4 to get the Fire Arrows spell, have Fire 4 mages around to actually cast the spell. Pretender design here will vary from nation to nation, but for Caelum you'll most likely need to have F4 on your (most likely Virtue) pretender in order to cast Fire Arrows.

Now you're playing the game

Whelp.

Turin Turambar posted:

A primer about the game

1 You recruit commanders and normal units in your province with fort (recruit button)
2 The normal troops form squads, which have to be under a commander control to move around, ala Heroes/King's Bounty. You have to transfer them manually.
3 Dominions score in the build Pretender at the start of a game is more important you may believe, raise it up to 7, at least.
4 How to build stuff:
-Commanders can build new forts.
-Priests can build new temples, needed to recruit more priests and other "holy" units, and help to expand your religious-magical influence in the world (the white candles). Priests also has the option to preach in a province, which is like acting like a temple in the spread of the religion. Priests has a few spells, like Banish (good against undead) and Blessing (essential to bless special holy troops).
-Mages can build laboratories, needed to recruit more mages.
-Mages can go out to use the action "search magical sites", which they give you magical gems over time, the equivalent of mana in other fantasy 4x games.
-Mages in labs can research more magic spells, cast magic rituals (need gems) which include summoning spells, and forge magical items (also need gems). They also cast spells on battle, of course.
5 That initial Dominion score, temples and priests help spread your Dominion, which have certain scores associated to it, the scales you choose at the start of the game. The idea is simple: if you are a god of Order and luck, the lands under your Dominion gain more order and luck, you are a god of death and chaos, the lands will gain said features (like bonus gold, extra events, province's population dying, etc etc).
6 Blessing is the most complex but still inside of what we could call "basic features", and it's important because some nations use it as main strategy.
Your Pretender God has magical scores, like Fire 9 Or Nature 4, you choose then when you create him. This means he can do Fire and Nature magic, and he is especially good with Fire spells, but also means the bless of your god will be related to fire (+attack) and nature (+hp). Normally every Nation has most types of troops as normal soldiers, and in addition one elite troop which can be built in the capital, marked as "sacred" unit. Sacred units can be blessed in the middle of balttle by your priests, your prophet or your own God (that is just another unit in the game) to gain the extra bonus described above, related to the magic your Pretender God knows.

Your four important buttons here are Recruit Units, Army Setup, Mercenaries and Research. I'm actually gonna mostly leave this part to you. Just click around and figure poo poo out. Right click anything for a description of what it is or what it does, including stats. Click on the words under your commanders on the left to get more than just move options.

Up next - I answer a bunch of basic questions here for a week, and point you to the main thread for ones I don't know (anything beyond how to play the game most likely).

Pomp fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Sep 17, 2015

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 04:52

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

mods please give this the Salt tag

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 04:54

dumb crambo: Can't post for 3 years!

uhh buy it for me

# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:20

Damp Star Baby: Staying Legend. CA Exempt DEATH

1 to 3 months?! holy christ good luck intrepid yobbers :patriot:

I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create. - William Blake

# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:31

cuntman.net

the byob boot camp

# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:33

Ayatollah Hermione: by Cyrano4747

i only like to play yahtzee can we play that instead

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:37

dogdisaster: by Lowtax

thanks i was wondering how to play this

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:37

Bo-Pepper: Want some rye?
Course ya do!

i cannot justify spending $35 at this time on a game that may or may not bring me enjoyment though i will play blood bowl with any who wishes

# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:39

SurfinArbiter: Y
o
u

f
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m
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heh

im gana wait for the epic strats before i start playing

# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:40

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

Damp Star Baby posted:

1 to 3 months?! holy christ good luck intrepid yobbers

1 turn a day can take awhile

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:47

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

back in my day we learned dominions 2 iwth no tutorials and we likedit

TheDemon posted:

Terminology
- EA, MA and LA stand for Early Age, Middle Age, and Late Age respectively.
- SC is a supercombatant, a unit with equipment and buffs designed to take on entire armies and win.
- Thug is a cheaper unit designed to solo province defense and add firepower to armies.
- We use shorthand to refer to magic paths. For example, D2S1A1 would refer to 2 levels of Death, 1 level of Astral and 1 level of Air magic. The letters are:
code:
A - Air
W - Water
E - Earth
F - Fire
D - Death
S - Astral
N - Nature
B - Blood
- Note that Air got dibs on "A" first, so Astral had to settle for "S".
- CBM is the Conceptual Balance Mod, a mod for Dominions 3 that dramatically changes the game. Some of the changes are obvious but many are subtle changes only a veteran would spot. The Shrapnel Forums and Dom3mods communities use it almost all the time, while the Goons here use it occasionally. If you're new the differences aren't significant enough to worry about.
- AE and AG are AwesomeEndgame and AwesomeGods respectively, two very popular goon-made mods that make endgame summons and pretender gods more powerful.
- FF and OPM are Forbidden Friendship and Other Peoples' Mods, combination mods that combine CBM with AE and AG.
- DE is Dominions Enhanced, an incomplete total conversion mod that mixes up how the game plays.
- None of these mods work in Dom4 yet, but it's a very good bet that they'll be ported over.

Pomp fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Sep 17, 2015

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 05:50

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

MA/LA ermor is extremely good and cool but will be banned because they ruin newbie games btw (EA Ermor is a pretty normal nation inspired for rome)

Ermor is a nation of undead. You do not recruit units, instead you get free legions of skeletons, zombies and ghouls every turn. Your religious influence actual kills population, which makes his you a unique issue.

Left alone, Ermor is guaranteed a win, but Dom isn't a 1v1 game so they're rarely left alone. The thing is that whoever goes through the trouble of killing you gets no real reward. The population is dead, and will never come back, and now they've got a bunch of priests for banishing undead and no undead to banish. A game with ermor end it tends to go

1)Everyone tries to convince eachother to kill ermor
2)Whoever did it gets killed

Ermor prostrats

Blot out the sun and cast the world into a perpetual shadow full of spooks and monsters

Curse far away provinces with black death, to spite them for being outside your influence

Grind the bones of every unit on the battlefield into dust

Have your undead mages drain the life from everything living around him

Summon a bunch of ancient dead titans from tartarus

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 06:04

drilldo squirt: a beautiful, soft meat sack

Ermor sucks balls and I hate them, moving all those skeletons around sucks balls.

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 06:56

Scaly Haylie

i didn't read the whole spiel but this game sounds very wizards.

# ? Sep 17, 2015 15:32

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

Lizard Wizard posted:

i didn't read the whole spiel but this game sounds very wizards.

there are lizard wizards in it

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 17:36

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

the kinds of wizards you can be

A normal wizard

A lich

A ghost king

A really old lich who fell apart into an immobile pile of bones who I guess just shouts orders atop himself

Lizards

Aztec priests

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 18:04

mags: I am a congenital optimist.

uh be a lich like is this even a question

paul_soccer12 posted:

everyone in the idf must die

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 18:06

Nosfereefer: IF YOU FIND THIS POSTER OUTSIDE BYOB, PLEASE RETURN THEM. WE ARE VERY WORRIED AND WE MISS THEM

this sounds way too complicated for my idiot brain welp

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 19:21

Nosfereefer: IF YOU FIND THIS POSTER OUTSIDE BYOB, PLEASE RETURN THEM. WE ARE VERY WORRIED AND WE MISS THEM

my dumb garbage good for nothing piece of poo poo brain

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 19:22

Piso Mojado

does it run on linux?

# ? Sep 17, 2015 20:57

Scaly Haylie

Pomp posted:

there are lizard wizards in it

HOLY poo poo THAT IS EXACTLY MY FETISH

# ? Sep 17, 2015 21:26

mags: I am a congenital optimist.

apparently

paul_soccer12 posted:

everyone in the idf must die

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 21:31

Awesome!: Ready for adventure!

1-3 months for a game is terrifying

# ? Sep 17, 2015 22:54

SurfinArbiter: Y
o
u

f
o
u
n
d

m
e

heh

Awesome! posted:

1-3 months for a game is terrifying

"oh man im loving this relaxing evening, every thing is gr-poo poo I FORGOT ABOUT MY TURN"

plot twist is that he forgot about it for 2 years.

# ? Sep 17, 2015 23:20

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

Awesome! posted:

1-3 months for a game is terrifying

It's like 5-30 minutes a day, and things can be paused if someone's gonna be gone for a little while :shrug:

I remember doing PBEM games of solium infernum, those were a real nightmare.

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 23:25

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

Piso Mojado posted:

does it run on linux?

yes

CAT BRUSH posted:

uh be a lich like is this even a question

It's still competing for things like being a fountain of blood, most ancient pantheons, and this guy

Pomp fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Sep 17, 2015

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# ? Sep 17, 2015 23:34

Darkman Fanpage

giant spiders

# ? Sep 18, 2015 03:19

BeanBandit: Beanbandit?
Son of a bitch!

sure let me just quit my job

# ? Sep 18, 2015 03:54

DemonToadGoat

I'll pomp it up wit you

I'll play KALISSA, RISE OF THE APE KEGS

# ? Sep 18, 2015 04:58

Full-Bodied Flavor

ill play

# ? Sep 18, 2015 05:15

drilldo squirt: a beautiful, soft meat sack

When are we playing?

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# ? Sep 18, 2015 06:25

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

drilldo squirt posted:

When are we playing?

I'm gonna get a game read for signups next week to give people time to fart around in an AI game for a bit and get used to things

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# ? Sep 18, 2015 11:24

Sloppy Milkshake: I MAKE YOU HUMBLE

if you're new probably always use an awake monster god. earth snake, big pig, snake/dog are all good picks

# ? Sep 21, 2015 11:35

DemonToadGoat

hey its next week, are we playing?

# ? Sep 23, 2015 00:44

Afro Doug

my question is that how similar is it to mahjong. my next question is that will there be any older sexy asian broads playing it

# ? Sep 23, 2015 01:16

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

I submitted the new have request to the goon game service

# ? Sep 23, 2015 01:30

FilthIncarnate: Weird owl has life all figured out

I am not good at this (or any) game but I will also play.

# ? Sep 23, 2015 16:32

problematic hug

has an age been decided for the multiplayer game? it would help me narrow the races i look at

# ? Sep 24, 2015 09:18

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# ? May 13, 2024 00:28

Pomp: by Fluffdaddy

early ages

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# ? Sep 24, 2015 09:30

The Something Awful Forums > Main > BYOB: BYOB BYOB BOYB BBOY YOBB YBOB BBYO?? > BYOB project:play dominions 4

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