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Sloppy Milkshake posted:edit: at this point you can already start to see some big differences between my draft and Baudin's. Even with a completely destroyed expansion army I've already gotten 50% more provinces. This kind of thing easily snowballs because I have an easier time replacing losses and creating new expansion armies. I've got two expansion armies still viable and i'm 99% sure that I ended up spitting another out pretty quickly. Learning to expand quickly and efficiently is a vital skill, because more land is more money and more gems, which is more power. to be fair, you would probably also have 50% more provinces than baudin with the exact same draft
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Aug 10, 2015 20:12
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Decrepus fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 00:19
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Hey man you're supposed to be judging but now you're going to win that's unfair.
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Aug 11, 2015 00:24
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Out of curiosity, who would you guys say is the best goon Dom player? What is their strategy/in-game personality like?
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Aug 11, 2015 01:16
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TravelLog posted:Out of curiosity, who would you guys say is the best goon Dom player? What is their strategy/in-game personality like? The best dom4 goon is the one that never plays. He's truly the best of us all.
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Aug 11, 2015 01:20
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Baudin posted:The best dom4 goon is the one that never plays. He's truly the best of us all. The best Dom4 strategy is to go AI as quickly as possible, and anyone who says otherwise is a drat liar.
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Aug 11, 2015 01:32
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TravelLog posted:Out of curiosity, who would you guys say is the best goon Dom player? What is their strategy/in-game personality like? That's a hard question. Nuclearmonkee is definitely a particularly strong player. In my experience, he tends to pretend he's weaker than he is to his dangerous neighbors while gobbing up his weaker ones. Once he hits his research goals, he starts goose stepping all over everyone who bought into him being a non-threat.
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Aug 11, 2015 01:43
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Meinberg posted:The best Dom4 strategy is to go AI as quickly as possible, and anyone who says otherwise is a drat liar. Ahhh the modpud strategy from the last Draft LP. Good plan.
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Aug 11, 2015 02:19
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fool_of_sound posted:That's a hard question. Nuclearmonkee is definitely a particularly strong player. In my experience, he tends to pretend he's weaker than he is to his dangerous neighbors while gobbing up his weaker ones. Once he hits his research goals, he starts goose stepping all over everyone who bought into him being a non-threat. Is there any particular civilization, magic, or pretender he prefers? I just got interested in the game from the Dominion LPs so I"m curious as to what is considered best of the best.
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Aug 11, 2015 02:39
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TravelLog posted:Is there any particular civilization, magic, or pretender he prefers? I just got interested in the game from the Dominion LPs so I"m curious as to what is considered best of the best. He picks blood, he starts next to you, and there is nothing you can loving do about it.
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Aug 11, 2015 02:47
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Aug 11, 2015 03:02
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Decrepus posted:He picks blood, he starts next to you, and there is nothing you can loving do about it. Just sign an alliance with him and help him win the game: You'll have way more fun that way than if you try and fight his inevitable victory and he probably won't break the alliance.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:07
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Also is there a place I can find a coherent story of how the various ages fit together? Like I know a few basic things like the Roman dudes being taught necromancy by the Egyptian Snakes and then misusing it for EEEEVIIIL.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:10
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Actually if he has blood he's probably playing someone easily rushable and you should do that. It might be hard cause he's very good at scripting and positioning but still. If he is one of the few blood nations that aren't rushable you can probably get allies cause everyone hates mictlan and bats (I'm gonna pretend vanheim doesnt have blood here because gently caress vanheim imo). e:The person playing the blood nation doesn't have to be Nuclearmonkee actually, you should just rush blood always and forever. Absum fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 03:11
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TravelLog posted:Is there any particular civilization, magic, or pretender he prefers? I just got interested in the game from the Dominion LPs so I"m curious as to what is considered best of the best. Most goons tend to bounce around different nations just for variety's sake. As for pretenders, the Earth Snake is the single most popular one; it's a very powerful awake expander, and is undercosted enough that you can take decent scales with it, or a major Earth bless if you want. Neruz posted:Just sign an alliance with him and help him win the game: You'll have way more fun that way than if you try and fight his inevitable victory and he probably won't break the alliance. Don't actually do this because it's lovely to all the other players.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:11
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Gridlocked posted:Also is there a place I can find a coherent story of how the various ages fit together? Like I know a few basic things like the Roman dudes being taught necromancy by the Egyptian Snakes and then misusing it for EEEEVIIIL. The manual has decent blurbs for each of the nations, and dev commentary on what inspired most of them. Other than that, you can poke through the Mod Inspector to read about hero units, which often have more backstory.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:13
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fool_of_sound posted:That's a hard question. Nuclearmonkee is definitely a particularly strong player. In my experience, he tends to pretend he's weaker than he is to his dangerous neighbors while gobbing up his weaker ones. Once he hits his research goals, he starts goose stepping all over everyone who bought into him being a non-threat. Always be sandbagging. There are a bunch of good players and each one of us loses at least as often as we win simply because dom4 is like that. I'm currently in five games, two of which are guaranteed losses, one very likely a loss, one still too early to tell and one possible win. I am having the most fun in one that I subbed into which is in the guaranteed loss category.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:14
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Gridlocked posted:Also is there a place I can find a coherent story of how the various ages fit together? Like I know a few basic things like the Roman dudes being taught necromancy by the Egyptian Snakes and then misusing it for EEEEVIIIL. There is sort of a vague over-arching story for the ages which when combined with what little we know about the physical shape of the Dominions world (as seen in Dawn of Dominions) gives you an outline of the whole thing, but in general the story is fairly fuzzy and indistinct beyond a few key details and general themes like humans growing to dominate the world and magic fading as time passes. The ages also very vaguely map to real-world history, but not cleanly as the Asian stand-in nations map to a completely different time period from the European stand-in nations and the American nations follow their own thing which is only very distantly related to real-world history and the UW nations are mostly just there, though that might change with the coming UW patch. I can do you a big lorepost about what is known about some of the areas and what can be presumed based on the mythologies or nations that served as the inspiration for a given faction but each 'geographic group' of nations is mostly separate from each other with very little contact beyond mentions by specific heroes so making everything fit together is tricksy. Neruz fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 03:51
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Baudin posted:The best dom4 goon is the one that never plays. He's truly the best of us all. thank's
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Aug 11, 2015 04:03
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Neruz posted:There is sort of a vague over-arching story for the ages which when combined with what little we know about the physical shape of the Dominions world (as seen in Dawn of Dominions) gives you an outline of the whole thing, but in general the story is fairly fuzzy and indistinct beyond a few key details and general themes like humans growing to dominate the world and magic fading as time passes. I like big posts. They are fun to read and look great on the LP Archives.
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Aug 11, 2015 05:23
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Alrighty then. I'll start with the 'European' nations; these are the ones that most closely map to actual real-world history with several nations being obvious stand-ins for real-world nations that mostly sort of existed around similar times. They're also the ones with the most complex relationships and can mostly be defined by their connection to and interaction with Ermor. This is because Ermor stands in for Rome and Rome obviously had something of a significant impact on European history. EA Ermor and its related nations mostly map to the period before or during rise of the Roman Empire (EA in general is sort of 3000+ BC to say ~100 AD); EA Marverni are the Druids\Celts, EA Ulm are the Germanic tribes (and also Conan the Barbarian, a lot of nations are both stand-ins for a real world nation and references to mythology or pop culture), EA Berytos stand-in for the Carthaginians and also connect with EA Hinnom. Hinnom is not really very connected to actual real-world history and is almost purely Jewish Mythology (specifically the Nephilim) but the Melqart connection with Berytos does sort of mirror the fact that the Carthaginian Empire had some fairly large immigrant Jewish communities, though I don't think they were flesh eating abominations who moved in and took over in reality. Hinnom thus sort of stands in for Assyria and other similar Semitic kingdoms in the Ancient Near East. EA Ur connects to Hinnom via Enkidu slaves and also very vaguely stands in for Sumeria or Akkadia (Babylon basically, that's why they can build Castles in EA and why their forts cost so much; they're building giant stuff like the Great Wall of Babylon) while mostly being based on the Epic of Gilgamesh Legend, despite not having Gilgamesh as a hero in a completely inexplicable missed opportunity. Going back towards Europe we have EA Arcoscephale who are pretty obviously standing in for the Greek city states, although not the historical Greek city states but rather the sort of legendary Greek city states before Rome dominated the region. EA Pangaea are of course based on Greek mythology, specifically the various beastmen of said mythology. So they sort of both stand-in for the Greek city states together. EA C'tis stands in for Egypt, specifically Dynastic Egypt, sort of Old Kingdom to New Kingdom. Sauromatia is of course based around the Amazons 'myth' and thus stands in for Scythia or the Byzantines. Tir'Na'Nog and Fomoria are both elements of British\Irish\Gaelic mythologies and they stand in for England and Ireland respectively. Vanheim, Helheim and Niefelheim are all elements of Nordic mythologies and together they represent that general area of northern Europe, noting that Vanheim are pretty clearly going to be the Vikings. Okay so now you know the relevant historical notes, what actually happens in the Dominions world? Note that while the general course of Dominions sort of maps to real world history the specifics are very, very different. Prior to EA Ermor had gone to C'tis to learn the death magics of the Sauromancers. The Sauromancers being pretty chill and generally riding high on their power and awesomeness decided that teaching these frantic little Humans the secrets of Death magic would be a totally great idea that could not possibly backfire on them in any way, shape or form. Ermor has already built a massive empire, though they have not completely conquered the surrounding nations like Arco and Marverni they are powerful and on the rise. Right before EA starts a great Prophet Shrouded in White appeared and overthrew the Old Cult of Ermor (yes its Jesus). It's not clear what happened to the Prophet but hes dead by the time EA starts so he probably got killed by cultists or something, either way the Prophet prophesied that a God would awaken in Ermor and founded a new cult based around that. Said god is of course the Pretender that the player makes in EA. During this time all the various other nations have similar warnings about awakening gods in their own manners, presumably because the previous Pantokrator (we know there was one, and that's all we know) up and vanished. In the transition from EA to MA a number of things happen, Ermor expands their empire and fully conquers both Marverni and Sauromatia though they fail to conquer Arcoscephale. Berytos is destroyed in conflict with Ermor and Ermor also makes significant inroads to TNN. Fomoria is defeated, presumably by TNN, before Ermor shows up and starts wrecking their poo poo. Ermor is invaded by and utterly trounces Agartha when they launch their War under the Sun (Agartha is one of the two nations that doesn't map to any real-world peoples at all along with Abysia, though Abysia has picked up some vaguely Iranian\Persian trappings), dealing such a critical blow to the Pale Ones that the species is now on the path to extinction. Ulm discovers the secret of Blacksteel and stops being Conan the Barbarian to instead become the Teutonic Order, because of course. Pangaean nature magic, with the help of a few radical extremist Pandemonics (themselves a radical extremist branch of the Panii of Pangea), decides to lose its poo poo at the deforestation and general loss of wildlands that comes with the expanding Ermorian Empire and splinters off to form Asphodel while the Panii all sit around and moan about how everything sucks more than it used to. The last Sidhe in TNN retreat from Ermor's advance and go to Ireland to found Eriu in the ruins of Fomoria, Ur just up and vanishes and C'tis undergoes a sudden climate change followed by a massive schism between the Herbivore and Predator Lizards. This could sort of vaguely allude to the rise of the Jews or the Upper\Lower kingdom split, but its pretty tenuous. Hinnom consumes itself in an orgy of fire and blood but not before a Melqart named Arba realized that the Cult of the Nephilim was going to doom them all and left to found Ashdod, the realm of the Anakim. Ashdod is also composed of 'Twin Cities' which could possibly be a Sodom and Gomorrah reference  .But the big thing to happen between EA and MA is Ermor fucks up big. The Augurs have been getting these omens of doom and destruction and now fresh with all that shiny new knowledge about Death magic thanks to those idiot lizards the Augurs start enacting all kinds of batshit insane rituals of horror and destruction to bolster Ermor's armies and assist in the conquering of Marverni and Sauromatia. For some reason the Priests of Eldregate (as the priests who followed the Prophet Shrouded in White had come to be known due to their primary location in Eldregate, the capitol of Ermor) were totally cool with this and basically just sat around and partied while the Augurs unleashed more and more hideous magic.. Not everyone was blind to what was happening though and a number of Theurgs and Thaumaturgs foresaw the coming disaster and advised numerous generals, governors and consuls to revolt. This worked excellently and the uprising eventually primarily united behind a figure known as the Apostate Emperor, the Apostate Emperor marched upon Eldregate and forced the Augurs and Priests of Eldregate to work together. This turned out to be a bad idea as they basically unleashed Death itself upon the entire Empire. In a single moment Eldregate was destroyed and everyone nearby was killed stone dead. In the wake of the Catacylsm the realms that Ermor had previously controlled fragmented off into their own nations. This whole sequence of events very broadly mirrors the fall of the Roman empire and the nations that arise from Ermor in MA represent that; Pythium stands in for the Eastern Roman Empire, Sceleria stands in for the Western Roman Empire. MA Ermor stands in for skeletons. Up in the lands that TNN had once inhabited that Ermor had conquered (England basically) the people gather together and form the nation of Man while in Marverni they form Marignon and stand-in for France. Vanheim defeats Helheim and they mostly resolve their differences and join together into just Vanheim while the war between the Vanir and the Jotuns pretty much cools off as the Vanir and Jotuns slowly die out. Meanwhile Human refugees from Ulm and Ermor find the lost city of Agartha and the few remaining Pale Ones whom they promptly start worshiping as gods. Because why not. At some point during all this the Seal under Agartha gets broken, the Seal was placed there by a previous Pantokrator and the Pale Ones were set as its guards before they sort of abandoned those duties and tried to invade the surface. The Seal imprisoned the undying bodies of three massive Titans, each of which contained the souls of a massive number of prior Pretenders who had fought the previous Pantokrator and failed. The previous Pantokrator stuffed all those God souls into those three Titan bodies and imprisoned them behind the Seal so breaking said Seal is not a great idea. Doing so releases all 3 God Vessels which promptly rampage randomly around the map under no-one's control until you kill them at which point a massive screaming cloud of insane God souls called a Legion of Gods pops out and wanders about wrecking your poo poo even harder until it's dealt with. Given that, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Seal breaking is what the Catacylsm was and the Augurs of Ermor just hosed up incredibly and broke the seal while also drawing on the power of all those thousands of insane undead God souls to ruin everything. That's enough for now, I might have a few things a bit off and I'll clarify parts later if you have any questions but I'm done typing words for the moment. I'll talk about what happens in the rest of the Dominions world in EA to MA as well as the LA stuff in future posts. Suffice to say people continue to be giant idiots and things mostly get worse for everyone. Neruz fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 06:48
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I love you.
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Aug 11, 2015 06:50
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the dominions lore is actually really cool and one of the drawing points of the game, which makes it more of a shame that other aspects of it are jank as gently caress
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Aug 11, 2015 07:14
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I feel like the Dominions world would actually be a pretty great setting for a pen and paper RPG.
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Aug 11, 2015 07:14
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The lore is one of the biggest callings of the game for me. The gameplay is so slow that i couldn't deal with it for long, but watching LPs is still a ton of fun. Ermor is one of my favorite nations just because so much of the game lore all ties back to "Ermor hosed up big time" and the more you read, the more you realize that they're basically the reason why everything starts going to poo poo in the middle and late eras. The way I had read into Ermor's lore was that they had learned death magic to try and bring
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Aug 11, 2015 07:19
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MA Ermor's description explicitly says that whole thing about the Priests and the Augurs banding together to unleash Death on the Apostate Emperor when he marched on Eldregate. EA Ermor's description talks about how the Augurs got some prophecies of doom and went to seek out the secrets of Death magic from the Sauromancers in an attempt to figure out a way to avoid these prophecies (instead they created them  )
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Aug 11, 2015 07:35
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The more I read about the setting the more I wish I could actually parse the UI. It's a glorious clusterfuck of a game but I just couldn't figure out how to do anything. Source: I tried playing it a few times against the AI but I just couldn't figure out what the hell I was doing and got domkilled in the first year. Not my proudest moment. 
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Aug 11, 2015 07:49
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Neruz posted:Ur just up and vanishes Actually the manual states that a MA version of Ur called Uruk is going to be added at some point in the future (dunno how true that is) and that they're gonna do the pangea thing and have the priests and old faith be weaker in the face of new civilization. Sceleria into Lemuria is a better representation of than EA Ermor into MA Ermor.
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Aug 11, 2015 07:51
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Oh don't worry I have plenty to say about goddamn motherfucking Sceleria and their brilliant idea 
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Aug 11, 2015 07:52
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Neruz posted:MA Ermor's description explicitly says that whole thing about the Priests and the Augurs banding together to unleash Death on the Apostate Emperor when he marched on Eldregate. EA Ermor's description talks about how the Augurs got some prophecies of doom and went to seek out the secrets of Death magic from the Sauromancers in an attempt to figure out a way to avoid these prophecies (instead they created them The Sauromancers come off as really chill dudes to me. In the EA they are all "We are Egyptian as gently caress." "Hey you wanna learn the death magic humans? Sure we are responsible with it so you surely are too." Then in MA they are all "Oh poo poo CLIMATE CHANGE" but luckily the crocodiles wake up and are all there to help. And continue to be Egyptian as gently caress; but now they are on the swampy banks of the Not-Nile cillin' with water magic. Then finally in LA they realize maybe they shouldn't have taught necromancy to humans because they are irresponsible. So they learn fire magics as the desert and tombs become more important. The crocodiles go away, but that's ok cause they were lovely units anyway and now they are the good guy necromancers to stop the bad guy necromancers. tl;dr C'tis is the Mediterranean-stand in good guys.
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Aug 11, 2015 07:54
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sobeks are actually cooler than the herbivore lizards and i want sobeks + the predator lizards to have their own nation in LA
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Aug 11, 2015 07:56
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Like Clockwork posted:The more I read about the setting the more I wish I could actually parse the UI. It's a glorious clusterfuck of a game but I just couldn't figure out how to do anything. it's not a good game, imo it would only be worth playing if you enjoy the diplomacy side of things. its made by two people as a labour of love and has slowly evolved into the twisted monstrosity it is over more than a decade and four iterations, to the point where they themselves dont understand how some of the game systems work and you end up with things like invisible nonexistent holy gems that are purely there because they couldnt work out any other way to include holy spells in the game (admittedly speculation on my part but it definitely seems like the most likely reason for them to be in the game code but not implementable at all). they dont care about balancing their game, dont understand how some of the game mechanics work (spells that enlarge your troops often being worse rather than better, for example, while shrinking your enemies is often a buff), and are mostly in it for the cool fun fluff. i still love it but im glad i havent played it in a long time Agent Kool-Aid posted:sobeks are actually cooler than the herbivore lizards and i want sobeks + the predator lizards to have their own nation in LA sobeks are hella tight and they should have had a rad revolution with the predator lizards and taken over. there's some cool references on their hero flavour text that hints at them having their own, separate religion to that of c'tis and also inheriting the then-abandoned ways of the sauromancers
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Aug 11, 2015 08:14
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The Sobek\Predator Lizard genocide between MA and LA is one of the many unexplained mysteries of Dominions.
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Aug 11, 2015 08:16
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Excellent effortpost there, Neruz. One minor quibble: Gomorrah is the capital of Hinnom. The Twin Cities are Ashdod (of course) and Ashkelon. Each of the Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath nations have a reference to a real and/or biblical place. Hinnom has Gomorrah as well as Mt. Hermon on the Lebanese/Syrian border. Ashdod has Ashkelon in Israel. Gath has, well, Gath.
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Aug 11, 2015 08:34
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I hate you guys so much. Now I want to play Dom4 again.
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Aug 11, 2015 08:43
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Ah good point, I should have checked the site names. I'm not super familiar with the Near East Semitic peoples that Hinnom\Ashdod\Gath stand in for so I'm not entirely sure what the connections are beyond that they are there. Gath is an interesting example of being one of the few nations in LA that is not actively going to poo poo; things aren't super great but the people eating Giants are dying out while some of the lesser Giants have abandoned the old ways of the Melqarts and are leading the Humans into a brighter future. Gath also explicitly name drops several of the tribes of Israel. There's actually this really impressive analysis about Hinnom\Ashdod\Gath and their relation to Jewish mythology and history that some guy did on the internet that can be found here. If you're interested in Dominions lore I highly recommend it as it gives you a good idea as to the kind of relationship Dominions has with the real world stuff it is inspired by.
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Aug 11, 2015 08:44
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willus posted:sobeks are hella tight and they should have had a rad revolution with the predator lizards and taken over. there's some cool references on their hero flavour text that hints at them having their own, separate religion to that of c'tis and also inheriting the then-abandoned ways of the sauromancers it would be entirely possible to come up w/ any explanation for how the nation came to be, because there's literally no reference to the predator lizards or the lack thereof in LA c'tis, which is odd. definitely possible that the sobeks hosed off and took the slave caste w/ them to be free since they're related.
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Aug 11, 2015 08:45
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Time for more EA stuff; Abysia and Caelum! Thanks to the Scorpion Men and their related summon spell we know that Abysia borders C'tis, in EA Abysia are slowly declining and the Abysians are but shadows of their former magmatic glory as Children of Rhaux. Abysia is ruled by the Anointed of Rhaux; large sacred Abysians who still retain relatively pure blood and they lead the Flame Cult that all Abysians cleave to. Prior to EA the Anointed set up the Order of the Anathemants to administer ceremonies, burn offerings and generally do all the boring menial tasks necessary to properly lead a nation. Shortly before EA starts a real great Abysian called Malphas shows up out of nowhere and somehow manages to convince the Anointed of Rhaux that he could found a new order of mages that would bring Abysia great power. He formed a new order of Warlocks in the caverns underneath the Smouldercone and promptly began experimenting in Blood Magic and crossbreeding (note that Warlocks do not in fact have the magic paths necessary to cast the Crossbreeding spell  Illwinter.) Soon under Malphas's supervision Demon and Devils are being summoned from the Abyss and bred with Abysians to create hideous half-demon monstrosities and the Anointed are starting to go 'wait hang on maybe this was a bad idea?'Malphas is of course secretly The Corruptor, a Demon Ambassador from the Abyss sent by the Heliophagi to destroy Abysia. Malphas is a giant dick and in a sense he succeeds as the Abysians will eventually be all but extinct, replaced by Malphas' Humanbred (Half-Human Half-Abysian.) By the time MA rolls around the Anointed of Rhaux and their Burning One servants are no more for the Flame has weakened. The Abysian people are mostly led by the Anathemant Dragons but the Warlock order founded by Malphas effectively operates beyond their power though they rarely dabble in politics and the Demonbred have become powerful slave-mages of the Anathemants. Malphas is mysteriously absent and no explanation for his vanishing is ever really given. Caelum is an odd nation, they don't really map onto any real-world nation but since the Birdmans patch they have become heavily influenced by Zoroastrian mythology and that plus their interactions with Abysia during MA very very vaguely link Caelum to the Achaemenid Empire. Caelum is a nation composed of three tribes of winged people, the Kavi, the Airya and the Mairya. Each are characterized by different colored wings; the Kavi have grey wings and an affinity for storms and lightning, the Airya have white wings and an affinity for magic and ice and the Mairya have black wings and an affinity for stealth and iron. The three clans were ruled over by the benevolent Yazatas; the semi-divine ancestors of the Caelians and powerful angelic beings. But the Yazatas were opposed by the demonic Daevas, ancestors to the Mairya clan who led said clan astray and split the Caelians in a terrible war that threatened all of creation. Near Caelum there was a place called the White Forest where the Purifying Flames of Catharsis, one of the three Elemental Lords of Fire were kept burning by Airya Seraphines; female fire priests of the Airya clan. During this era Fire was considered something of a fascination for the Caelians and a sort of tacitly approved cult formed around Catharsis, at the height of the war the Daevas struck a blow against the Caelians when they tainted the Purifying Flame by feeding it the bodies of the dead. This act of evil forever tainted Catharsis; destroying his pure cleansing fire that had once healed wounds and warmed houses and transforming it into sickly green Banefire that burns time and life itself, causing Catharsis to be reborn as Antrax, King of Banefires. With that act of heresy the previous Pantokrator popped a blood vessel and smote the majority of the Yazatas and Daevas from existence. The surviving Yazatas and Daevas fled the physical world and hid in the Celestial Sphere (aka space) and the three Caelian tribes scattered, but after the Pantokrator vanished a small number of Yazatas reappeared from hiding atop a really tall mountain. Calling themselves 'Eagle Kings' they gathered the three tribes once more and began to plot their reconquest of the world. Between EA and MA the Caelians actually spread out all across the world founding many colonies including one all the way over near Mictlan (Aztecs), far to the west. Then everything went to poo poo. The Raptor Clan, formerly known as the Mairya Clan had been generally treated as second class citizens by the ruling Airya Clan ever since the whole Yazata\Daeva war and tensions in the Raptor Clan were rising. The Airya Seraphines were attempting a fairly long-term ritual to purify Antrax's fire and return him to being Catharsis once more, but the Harab Seraphs who ruled the Raptor Clan interfered with the ritual in their studies of forbidden death magic once more and caused the Seraphines to almost completely die out from a wasting disease (the effects of Banefire.) The Eagle Kings flipped their poo poo and civil war broke out, the Raptor Clan Civil War is actually a short event chain you can get when playing as EA Caelum, though it sadly isn't very interesting. The Raptor Clan lost the civil war and were banished and scattered across the world, but the last of the Eagle Kings disappeared shortly after (possibly died during the war) and they were replaced by the Airya Seraphs. Contact was lost with the Caelian colonies and almost all of them died out, but the colony over near Mictlan survived. The civil war did not really reach as far as Mictlan and thus when it occurred contact was simply lost with Caelum. The Eagle Kings ruled over a number of primitive human tribes that called the land Nazca and with communications severed the Eagle Kings re-styled themselves as Nazcan Sun Kings or Incas, as the Sun Kings began to die out however drastic measures were taken. The Raven Clan had never rebelled in Nazca and their necromantic studies were never outlawed and thus the Raptor Clan found a solution to the decline of the Sun Kings in the form of mummification. When a Sun King died their bodies were carefully returned to Nazca to be mummified and preserved, allowing the Raptor Necromancers to revive them later if their advice was ever needed again. The result was that the Raptor Clan rapidly ascended in power to stand beside the Sun Kings, quite literally as chosen girls of the Raptor Clan known as Coyas or Moon Queens became the spouses of the Sun Kings. The Coyas soon became the most powerful mages in Nazca with the Sun Kings being the most powerful priests and by tradition should a Coya or Inca die their spouse will ritually commit suicide to be mummified together so they can spend eternity side by side in a Royal Mallqui mummy bundle. By the time MA starts Nazca is effectively a Necrarchy; ruled by a silent council of mummies whose will is listened and interpreted by the Hurin Priests (Raven Clan Necromancers) who have mostly replaced the Seraphines as religious authorities. Because the Mallquis are older in death than they were in life and therefore wiser they command a much higher stipend for giving their advice and as a result most of the wealth and land in Nazca is owned by mummy bundles and a great quantity of the Nazcan population are indebted to a Mallqui. Indeed any Mallqui can summon an endless supply of Nazcan debtors to act as slave-soldiers. The Humans of Nazca are basically third class citizens and are not granted the benefit of ritual mummification upon their death. Nazca is effectively primarily populated and ruled by descendants of the Raptor Clan at this point, with only a handful of Sun Kings remaining and wielding very little actual political power due to the primary rule falling to the Silent Council whose will is interpreted by the Hurin Priests. It is also worth adding that the Airya Clan are noted for their secret knowledge about how to craft and use magical ice in the place of metal or wood and that due to their basically angelic appearance it is not at all hard for female Caelians (Seraphines) to masquerade as real angels and throughout all the ages the Seraphines will sometimes go out and set up secret cults in human lands by pretending to be divine messengers. Nazca obviously stands in for the Incas in the same way that Mictlan and Xibalba stands in for the Aztecs. We'll get to those two later. Next post will be about how monkey people standing in for India is probably not quite as racist as it sounds. Neruz fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 14:18
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The Twin Cities of Ashdod used to be three cities, one for each grandson of the original founder. The third city was destroyed when Abysia attacked, though Ashdod did drive the Abysians off eventually.
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Aug 11, 2015 14:22
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Yeah it's extremely good how Abysia is really powerful and wrecks their neighbors in the fluff while generally being near bottom tier in the actual game.
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Aug 11, 2015 14:24
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