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It bears mentioning that one of the very first things nerfed in Dominions 6 was the brand new spell Awaken Forest (Animate Tree's VERY big brother, way up at the top of the research tree). Which, uh, did exactly what it said on the tin and affected the entire battlefield. It has since been amended to merely 50%, because waking up every single piece of greenery in forest provinces on turn 1 was brutally oppressive. Particularly if, say, it woke up some trees next to the opponent's mages.
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Apr 15, 2024 00:15
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 12:06 |
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There actually is one indie troop type that's become a LOT more common in Dominions 6, is dirt cheap and massable, and actually good to recruit in basically all circumstances - Zotz. Turns out that being a super cheap flying troop is actually really good for expanding (or against players not guarding their back line) - this was extremely limited in 5, since they were only a possibility in the already rare cave province, but here they're generally all over the place underground. This also means that getting into death is really easy for anyone who can get into the cave layer, because indie Zotz can have a D1 mage available for recruitment. Outside that, you're basically just gambling on finding something that's both useful to your nation specifically AND in a province where you can actually recruit in decent quantities. Both of these are always chancy things in an actual game of Dominions. The various amazons all have a sacred troop, which can potentially be an interesting addition to your forces but it's very much dependent on whether you both have a good bless AND it's one that actually works with them. On the non-sacred side, Cynocephalians and LIzard Warriors are both hard hitting indies (that don't have barbarian issues), but both are relatively rare and - for cynos in particular - aren't exactly cheap or easy to mass either.
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Apr 15, 2024 06:10
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Redmark posted:I think of "N provinces by turn X" as a proxy for general expansion strength rather than an actual accounting. If your setup is capable of fast expansion, it could manifest as actual N provinces, or as taking a difficult province in an important location that otherwise must be skipped, or having a strong intact expansion group ready to invade someone else, or simply as stability (less likely to lose fights against indies). It's very much the latter. Actual unit stats and base mechanics haven't really changed much from 5, so significantly increased indie sizes have had notable knockon effects. Lower prot but killy expander PGs are a big one, as where previously they might break a province's defenders in short order, but with the larger numbers they don't actually break and instead just stab it to death. Similar issues with many varieties of minimum size expansion parties, where there's just too many indies to reliably clear as before. Mount changes have also hurt a number of armies, particularly in EA, because their elite mounted troops give the horses basically no armor and generally notably lower defensive stats, so you end up with them stabbed out from below the rider. Lesser issue in later ages, as most armies that care about cavalry start picking up very heavy barding, but even there some elites have been affected (TC and Jomon are notable ones here, as they're still not using much armor even in LA).
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Apr 20, 2024 01:00
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SIGSEGV posted:It's a shortcut to the other part of the sea that you can use because most (all?) your forces are amphibious with isn't necessarily the case with R'lyeh's troop selection. MA Rl'yeh's troop and commander pool is basically entirely amphibious, so this isn't it. Other than just providing a quicker path to Rl'yeh-controlled territory (which goes both ways), I'm not really seeing it. Actually, I'm somewhat surprised they're not planning to backstab Phaecia at the earliest opportunity here, because Ys really, really wants coastal provinces (which is entirely what Phaecia's peninsula is), their troops are better on land, and they're notably weaker than Rl'yeh underwater. edit: For those not aware of how Ys works, all their best sacreds and commanders (Morvarc'hs) ride mounts that have a different shape on land. UW they've only got a very poor tail flipper attack. On land, they've got a notably better hoof attack... and an armor piercing fire attack that hits an entire square of troops. Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 17:21
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PurpleXVI posted:This is why I prefer not to fight wars at all. Fighting wars means you risk resources to gain resources, simply getting paid off by other players or extorting them means you get resources for not risking resources. ...I have never, EVER seen Meteorite Guard called dogshit crap before. Good HP, high prot, relatively cheap slaves that come with a very high damage magical attack. And once they get rolling MA has the gold to actually make a bunch of Illithids to back up their frontline too.
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Apr 23, 2024 17:52
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Honestly the Prot issue for horses is mostly gone by MA. Most of the human nations are using Destriers (Prot 20) or better, Machaka's spiders naturally have high natural prot, and even Pythium's armoring its lizards. It's mainly EA mounted units that took a big hit, along with a few other national exceptions (TC in general and LA Jomon for instance). Unless you're a chariot. Illwinter apparently hates chariots, because in general none of the horses pulling them have even light armor regardless of age.
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Apr 30, 2024 03:40
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Sadly, R'lyeh clearly didn't take the right pretender or get the right luck yet to truly cheese the People's Arena. See, as mentioned the People's Arena bans spellcasting, and it does so by giving everyone a Slave Collar (inflicts Feebleminded, which locks out magic paths... and also gives -4 MR, more on that momentarily). Meet the Vastness, a very nasty monster R'lyeh can randomly get by delving in their Void Gate (and it's not unique, you can get more than one).  You might notice that there are no item slots listed there, not even miscellaneous slots. Which means the game can't give it a slave collar. Which means it will cheerfully wander into the People's Arena with its full magic paths, and shooting 4 mind blasts a turn against opponents who've had their MR nuked. Oh, and Damage Reversal, which is exactly what it sounds like and also rolls against MR. There's also a Pretender God version, the Uttervast, which is only available to the R'lyeh line of nations and is also missing all item slots.
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May 3, 2024 23:03
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Some quick notes: -Max damage before DRN rolls for the lance is 23 on the charge. 17 base, and max of +6 from the charge itself - weapons with mounted charge bonuses cap at half the rider's strength unless they've got the heavy keyword, which Golden Lances do not. As a piercing weapon it also naturally applies a -15% reduction in Prot values, so your armor's actually only giving ~13-14 prot vs. their attacks. -Aside from doubled attacks and movement, Quickness also gives +2 Atk/Def, so the horses are actually sitting at Def 15 when blessed - you'll still hit reasonably often but it's not extremely likely on any individual attack. Conversely, the Atk of the knights is actually higher than your baseline Def due to that, so they'll be hitting more often than not. Additionally - and actually kind of important - Orchalcum Guard being Size 4 (Size 4 is NOT good in Dom 6 unless you're a Formation Fighter) means that line vs. line fights are actually 2 Morvarc'h Knights vs. 2 Orichalcum Guards... which means 6 (12 due to Quickness) incoming attacks a round as opposed to 2 outgoing, meaning a whole hell of a lot of incoming DRN damage randomness alongside the harassment penalties. You'll hopefully have a longer line that wraps around, but that's really not good for the initial impact. -I haven't specifically checked glamoured, but the game absolutely tracks buffs on mounts separately from the riders for a bunch of spells, so I suspect they are in fact getting a separate glamour from the riders. Anyways the main tool of UW nations - particularly Ys - in this context is more bullying some coastal provinces out of a player or two under threat of just raiding them constantly if they refuse, rather than trying to beat their main land army in a straight up fight. So in that context, "I can put together a notably larger, similarly costed force that can likely beat theirs" isn't particularly relevant, as it's not something they're likely seeking anyways. Like, if they can straight out beat someone's main army then they might as well just cap them and take everything rather than simply settling for a few coastal provinces.
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May 5, 2024 20:56
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Mindopali posted:Hey folks, are cavern system"s new to dominion 6? I saw a few LP of 5 and don't remember caves. Yeah, different layers are new to Dominions 6. The cave layer is the most obvious one, but there's actually one more by default (that you'll only be able to access via one specific level 9 spell). I want to say people found that you can add more too, but haven't actually seen any mods or maps that have done so yet. VVV edit: mcclay posted:The Forgotten Realms mod has a surface map and 3 layers of Underdark Yeah, that'd be why then. I have seen that in the Workshop, but I checked it out in 5 and was really not a fan of how they loved tossing popkill all over the place, and so hadn't checked it out in 6 yet since I wasn't sure I wanted to. Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 00:08 on May 6, 2024 |
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May 5, 2024 23:14
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Akratic Method posted:I would love to know how often this mysterious extra layer ever matters. How many games aren't basically decided before players reach level 9 in whatever type of research and build up enough surplus forces to go through a portal to go start fighting over a whole new type of province? The third layer only consists of a single province, the Nexus. Basically the point of the spell is making a gate to that one province, but any gate made to it is both permanent and accessible to everyone. So the spell's usage is to drastically shorten move distances between two points (both in the direct movement sense, and in that map rituals can now track through the new pathway instead of whatever distance they'd normally have to go), but it also means that if someone else captures one of your gated provinces - or casts it themselves - they now have that shortened route to wherever your other gates are as well. And vice versa. In any normal game of Dominions you're generally correct in it just being an impractical tool, given just how late game and requiring of setup it is, but there have been hellgames run on gargantuan maps in the past that could have genuinely gotten great use out of the spell... as will similar ones in the future. The Nexus also has a guaranteed site that allows recruitment of Shadow Seers (ethereal S3 mages) and Grey Knights/Lords (ethereal heavy cavalry), but by the point of the game where you'd be able to reach it those are just an expensive flex.
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May 6, 2024 06:15
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PurpleXVI posted:Not sure if this is a joke or not, but, for instance, if you cast Well of Misery that nudges up Growth globally by +2(and by +5 in the source province), Stellar Focus raises Magic in its source provinces, lowers it across the world, Nature's Bounty raises Growth by Dominion points in every province the caster has Dominion over, etc. Honestly, a lot of the penalty scales don't really do anything at the lower extreme. None of Turmoil, Sloth or Drain are even on that chart, and Illwinter seemingly hasn't programmed any FUN (by which I mean random events needing a certain scale) for any scale above 3 - honestly somewhat of a shame, though obviously they might later or people could mod them in. Super high Heat/Cold and Death are mostly as expected, and anyone who gets down to Death 4/5 is doing it deliberately and thus probably won't care. Meanwhile, of the positive scales it's only Growth that doesn't really have a negative effect. Hell, it's actually a positive effect most of the time.
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May 8, 2024 23:16
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 12:06 |
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Voluntary choruses are literally just MA Man, as they're the only nation that actually get the spells. LA Man loses them. Precisely three other nations (both Marignons and MA Pythium) can access some angel summons that naturally have Chorus Master and Chorus Slave (which means they automatically have the relevant effect at the start of battle), but they don't actually have the spells. There are also no items that give an equipped commander Master/Slave for Choruses like there are for Communions or Sabbaths, so that's literally everything that exists for them in unmodded Dominions.
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May 10, 2024 02:22
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