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Aww yeah the disciples LP is finally starting. Team Hellen is Other People Pretender Overview I am playing on a team with two probably familiar faces: Lotham and Jack2142 of newbad fame. Together we are on team Hellen is Other People, which is a team based around the theme of Fake Ancient Greek nations. It's not the strongest team altogether, but two of the three nations in it are very strong and the last one is at least usable after heavy buffs from the balance mod this game is running: "JBBM". Lotham is playing Pangaea, everyone's favourite* nation of goats and their friends and Jack2142 is playing Mekone, which is like Sparta except with angry god-hating giants. I, meanwhile, am reprising my role as Arcoscephale. Now since this is a disciples game, one of the three nations gets to be the pretender and decides the scales and bless, and the other two are disciples and their "pretender" only chooses paths and chassis. The pretender is limited to domstrength 3 and 4 chassis and the disciples are limited to domstrength 1 and 2 chassis. The Disciples Meta, as I understand it, is that the pretender takes a real silly bless on an awake statue or titan and then the disciples take big monsters. The problem with that though is that Mekone has no sacred troops and Arcoscephale's sacred troops aren't the greatest, so a really silly bless would be largely wasted. I was tempted by going scales on a dormant pretender with a minor bless, but soon discovered that that was a really bad idea: A dormant pretender means dormant disciples too and that means a lot of lost expansion. In disciples games, wars tend to start much earlier, so putting yourself at an early disadvantage is suicide against a decent team. Eventually what I ended up was, uh, this:  Definitely-Not-Athena is that greatest of rarities: A Titan pretender who is actually capable of careful expansion. She has real equipment, a fear aura and a bird that she uses as a weapon. The Owl is notable because it is length 5 and thus can repel basically anything in the game. She also has earth, so can boost her mediocre starting protection with levels in that. Air and Earth also have some pretty decent early research buffs that can further bolster her survivability. The bless isn't that much to speak of, especially early on, but I think it's pretty good if we can survive the earlygame. Fire and Shock Resistance is very very useful to have, especially in the Early Age that is just dripping with strong air nations. Magic Weapons makes me and Pangaea's sacreds scale much better into the lategame, since they can get through mistform, etherealness and invulnerability. Some Magic Resistance might have been a better choice, but I went with Magic Weapons anyways, once again because it's strong against powerful air nation tools like Air Elementals and Fog Warriors. Wind Walker is a bit of an experiment, and lets sacred units move faster. This is useful even for Mekone's priest mages and pretty good for me and Pangaea. I could have gone with 15 more shock resistance and a point of precision or something for the ability to shrug off a direct Thunderstrike, but I figured that would be overkill and that more strategic mobility is always good. These paths also turn out to make Crazy Bird Lady a very useful caster of big spells and forger of big items. She can get up to Earth six, Astral six and Air six with relatively easy to forge boosters and can climb to Earth eight, Astral seven and Air nine with some much more expensive ones. She can forge all of those booster all by herself, even. Even just the easy boosters and those paths give access to some great globals like Riches from Beneath, Eyes of God and Dark Skies as well as the Earth/Astral/Air gem generating globals. For scales I take the SA meta of Heat 3 for snow ignoring and get Production 1 and Magic 1 with my leftover points. Magic 1 is a good rp breakpoint in JBBM and Production 1 helps with money and expansion. No Turmoil means no Maenads for Pangaea, but also more money and somewhat less unrest problems for Mekone, so I went with it anyways. I personally like dumping Misfortune even in JBBM, but my teammates weren't so sure about that, so I relented and went neutral Luck. Jack2142 and Lotham, meanwhile, both took Drakons as their disciples. A bit of a boring choice, but also a pretty effective one as long as they don't end up bumping into any Niefelheim expansion parties or similar. Lotham's Drakon is called Disciple of Samogvasti, Vanquisher of the Enemies of Crazy Bird Lady and has E6N4 paths. Meanwhile, Jack2142's Drakon is named Sudden Vape Death Syndrome, He who Aided Crazy Bird Lady to Victory and sports fancy N5E5 paths. I sure hope those disciple titles prove accurate! I have a decent amount of saved turns for this game, plus a revised version of the old newbad EA Arco national overview, so I'll be posting those as they become relevant. Sadly the battle replays will likely be inaccurate by now, and my coverage isn't the best, but oh well that's the risk you take with this approach. Arcvasti fucked around with this message at 03:19 on May 21, 2020 |
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May 21, 2020 03:15
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 07:08 |
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The big JBBM nerfs to Xibalba is that all their blood spells are nerfed. In my personal experience the bat swarm thing works out to a buff most of the time, sometimes hilariously so, but doesn't make up for their magic being much worse.
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May 29, 2020 01:00
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Team Hellen is Other People Turn 7 Here's the first turn I had recorded. To start off, let's see how my team's "Take three awake expanders" strategy has worked out until now:  It's worked out... pretty well! I have ten provinces, Mekone has ten provinces and Pangaea has eleven provinces, which seems pretty respectable for turn seven. We have not yet failed a single expansion attempt. That said, there were a few setbacks.  Pangaea and Mekone both ended up with fine starts, but I... didn't. I started with three province connections: one leading to a Throne, one leading to 80 wolf tribe and one leading to heavy cavalry. Thankfully, I started with Enchantment 2 in random start research, allowing Crazy Bird Lady to immediately cast Flying Shield and lead my starting army to punch through the heavy cavalry. After that the wind walking Wind Riders have been able to make up for the lack of province connections with their 28 map move. If I hadn't taken an awake expander though, I think I would have been totally out of the running for the rest of the game.  The other setback is that we neighbour Team Elf. They seem relatively friendly, but border negotiations were still pretty tense because they're notorious early-game powerhouses. My bless is pretty much fine-tuned to counter mid-game Elf battlemagic, but if they invaded right now I could still be in a pinch, so I don't want to offend them. As you can see, Black Peaks has a gigantic gold mine on it, so I didn't want to give it up. The Elves wouldn't budge on Black Alps though, and I had to cede that to them. This means that the huge gold bonus from Black Peaks is being wasted because I don't have any connections, and the only connection is through the Throne next to my capital. As you can see from the overview image though, I'm planning to do just that this turn. Even without taking it, I can tell that it's the Throne of Winter. I'm also starting a fort on Black Peaks this turn, because it's really rich and in a nice location strategically.  It's an alright throne, I guess. The mages get me into death magic, the cold helps with the income penalties from Heat 3 and a gem is a gem. Unfortunately the Mages of Winter only have D1 and are slow to recruit, so no big death magic in my immediate future. How do I know that it's the Throne of Winter? Why, because it spawned a Frozen Lands on my capital really early on!  This is actually really good, because it counteracts my Heat 3 dominion and gives me some extra income from ideal temp scales. Plus a water gem! This would really have sucked if I were Abysia or something though.  I hit Alteration 2 this turn, enough for Crazy Bird Lady to Stoneskin and Mirror Image herself and become truly resilient, which will help her deal with the Throne of Winter. The events are minor bad events that rob me of like 60 gold. Annoying.  The first chunk of my Throne taking forces finally deals with those 80 bear tribe in my cap circle. Crazy Bird Lady is wearing a Blacksteel Plate to bolster her lacking body protection, making her pretty robust. A single hit of profuse bleeding will still instantly kill her though, so expansion is still somewhat risky.  Pangaea takes our first Throne! May we have many more Thrones in the future.  This is only a level 1 Throne sadly, but +2 strength is pretty ok at least.  Pangaea takes our second Throne! Drakons are extremely real.  This is kind of a nice throne. More nature gems is always a plus, and the animal awe could be useful against Lanka or Marverni I suppose.  Pangaea destroying some heavy cavalry like it isn't a big deal.  Mekone showing some indies who the real boss hoplites are.  Pinging the Throne of Winter, the defenders don't seem too too bad. Heavy cavalry isn't the best for me, but at least the mages aren't too bad: they have two D2 mages with some gems and that's about it.  Pinging with a Mystic was a bit risky, but I was desperate to get info on this Throne before I attacked and he was nearby. He even managed to retreat... back to Black Peaks, which has no lab. He's site searching there this turn, but he only has F1S1 so I don't expect him to find much.  My set-up for the Throne battle. It's only a level one Throne, so this should probably work. Probably. The mercenary archers I was on the fence about, but I did eventually decide to bring them. Hopefully the heavy cavalry won't kill them and hp rout my actually good units!  Research is going ok so far, considering how early it is. My next targets are Thaum 1 for communions, Conj 3 for baby elementals and earth/phoenix power and then Ench 4 for Strength of Giants and Flaming Arrows. Those buffs will make my cool Peltasts kick serious rear end. So ends turn seven! Things are going well so far, but the spectre of Elves and also Sauromatia and friends loom on the horizon. Will my Throne taking gambit succeed, or will I lose my pretender, hundreds of gold and my whole army? Tune in next time to find out!
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Jun 19, 2020 02:49
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Team Hellen Is Other People Turn 8 I didn't record turn 8. So you'll have to wait until next to to see the results of the battle for the Throne of Winter! There is some serious diplo stuff going down though.  In which we learn the elven bless, and also discover that Team Elf and Team Africa are fighting each other. I'm reluctant to take sides this early, before we're even done with expansion. Discord DMs posted:CrazyJazzyJ/Vanheim: Just fyi the reason we're so hostile with JonJoe is because he thought it would be a good idea to try and expand as close to our capitals as possible and try to build temples around us. I get the Team Africa bless from the elves, without committing to anything. Diplomacy! This new bless information is helpful, because all I had going for me beforehand was epithet analysis. Since this post is pretty short I'll just add on the epithet stuff: Team Ermor: -domscore >= 7 -astral >= 4 -fire >= 4 -earth >= 4 -order scales >= 2 Team Skyrim: -domscore >= 4 -female pretender -water >= 4 -nature >= 4 Team Africa: -domscore >= 6 -water >= 3 -earth >= 3 -astral >= 4 -drain >= 2 -order >= 1 Team Agartha: -domscore >= 4 -immobile -nature >= 4 -earth >= 4 Team Blood: -domscore >= 4 -astral >= 4 -luck == 3 -water >= 2 -I think also probably some fire?? .epithets doesn't list "X who stole the fire" so it must be a new one Team Elves: -domscore >= 6 -nature >= 4 -astral >= 4 -I think also probably some water?? once again "fountain of all waters" isn't listed -everlasting father sounds like either earth or astral with a male chassis, but also isn't listed Team Mesopotamia: -domscore >= 4 -"master of men's fates" sounds like astral, maybe with some order. Not listed though. -astral >= 4 -blood >= 1 Guesses about these epithets: -ermor has a statue of war or order probably, I'd guess with good scales, dormancy and twist fate -team skyrim almost certainly has the volla of the beautiful forest and could have gone quickness + regen -no idea what on earth machaka is trying to do. -agartha probably has a monolith or golden pillar, likely with fsr + regen or something similar -mictlan might have gone quickness + twist fate on an oracle, which would be concerning if true -elves might have either a fountain or a monolith and likely have twist fate. they might also have quickness -no idea what on earth ur is doing either Some of these guesses have been confirmed: I'm still not sure what machaka's bless is supposed to accomplish and elves definitely have twist fate, although they do lack quickness.
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Jun 19, 2020 21:25
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ousire posted:How good is province defense in Dominions 5? In previous LPs of 3 and 4, it seemed like PD generally ranged from "utterly worthless" to "mildly inconveniencing" and basically was just for dealing with unrest and random event attacks, and to make sure the enemy couldn't capture the province with, like, just a single scout. Some province defense commanders, like the Vanherse or the EA T'ien C'hi Noble, are actually pretty good at repelling low-effort stuff. In general, being able to repel low-effort stuff is good, so a couple bird cannnons can't take like eight provinces. Big province defense investments have the advantage of being essentially instant, you can move them from wherever to wherever instantly. This can be really good, like in the example here.
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Jun 20, 2020 04:14
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Team Hellen is Other People Turn 9 It's only been a few turns, but we've learned more about our neigbours: Fomoria seems to be to our south, and Skyrim to our west. Still plenty of indies around though, which makes me think that our neighbours really dropped the ball in expansion. We still haven't lost a single expansion party, by the way. Now that the elves are locked in vicious hellwar with Africa, and actually seem to be having trouble, I think our borders are pretty secure. Our other neighbours we still don't have much of a border with, thanks to an extremely convenient river between us and Sauromatia. It's frozen now, but it shouldn't freeze again after this.  Nothing much happens this turn. We unlock communions, which at this level of research aren't good for much besides telepunching[highly inaccurate] and horror marking[highly hilarious]. C'tis claims the Throne of War, which is an annoying one because it triggers a bunch of indie attack events.  While turn 8 was lost to the ages, I did find a version of it in my team's discord server, in the #wind-lord-deaths channel. The Wind Riders cleaned house, while the mercenaries did their job and died ablatively. It might not seem like my pretender did much, but her huge hp acted as an anchor to stop the dying archers from starting widespread routing. Afterwards, she's in position to claim it immediately, so she did. My Team is now in the lead, with a total of two(2) ascension points. The Throne of Winter I discussed already, but the gist of it is that it's a good Throne for a level one Throne, with our set-up. I'm going to stop showing expansion battles at this point unless something unusual happens, but one of Pan's expansion battles was actually kind of unusual.  They took a Jade Amazon province, which has scary dinosaur riding ladies, but gives you pretty good mages, especially if you lack nature or water magic. Me and Pan don't though, so this province won't be much use unless we remember to trade it to Mekone. Despite having a sizable force and also their disciple there, Pan took a beating. Dinosaurs don't mess around. This turn I send my Wind Riders to snatch some indie provinces in the south, and start another fort in The Dawn Land, on the coastal farm near my capital. Both it and the fort in progress on Black Peaks are within one non-old Mystic move of my capital, which is nice. The Black Peaks fort is almost done, so I send a mage that way to build a lab on it immediately. I also build a lab on the Throne of Winter to get started making it's W2D1 mages immediately, while also site searching it as hard as I can with the forces I have on it. Right now I just need to get some more infrastructure up, and then start site searching more. I have a max paths Mystic with S2 going around doing preliminary site-searching stuff, but I'll need to do better later on.
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Jun 23, 2020 06:28
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Tulip posted:Are Team Elf trying to do anything to reduce their image of weakness? They posted the real battle report of the disciple clash, which certainly made them look less weak then Jonjoe's "I killed their disciple haha" story initially suggested.
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Jun 23, 2020 20:08
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 07:08 |
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Loving the 12-turn NAP with the all-blood team that had an ultra-weak expansion. Also Buffaloes are like, actually good. They're the best of the 'homerealm animal summons' by far imo.
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Jan 29, 2021 05:55
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