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Libluini posted:Ironically, you can prevent this poo poo with scripting. Scripts for firing allow archers to stop firing and start advancing until they can hit something else instead. (Of course they could still all miss and hit their own troops, but that's how the cooky crumbles sometimes.) Because PD scripts exist
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Aug 26, 2015 16:26
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ChickenWing posted:Because PD scripts exist No, that was my point...
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Aug 26, 2015 16:51
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how is that ironic
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Aug 26, 2015 18:33
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I Love You! posted:how is that ironic That post was hours ago, I forgot How about you mentally cross out "ironically" and replace if with "interestingly" instead? I think that would make more sense, anyway.
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Aug 26, 2015 19:01
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New patch owns, new god owns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UZF2hQeMOM
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Aug 28, 2015 02:19
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The irony is that with its pair of AoE 1 attacks, poison aura and good HP the Floating Mind is actually quite strong, it's just totally useless against Sea Trolls due to their high HP, regen and poison resist.
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Aug 28, 2015 02:25
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Neruz posted:The irony is that with its pair of AoE 1 attacks, poison aura and good HP the Floating Mind is actually quite strong, it's just totally useless against Sea Trolls due to their high HP, regen and poison resist. there was no irony intended to my post
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Aug 28, 2015 02:27
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I Love You! posted:New patch owns, new god owns Was expecting turn one drowning death of giant head but jelly god failing to harm trolls is also v good
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Aug 28, 2015 13:43
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Feinne posted:There IS however spitefully making sure some guy you don't like for some reason LOSES and taking that as a meta-victory. In the one game I played with goons, I got too about the middle of the game and realized Mictlan was headed towards victory with lots of blood magic and nobody opposing them directly. I planned to move through the ocean too reach them but it was gonna take forever, so I tried talking to my neighbors too go after Mictlan instead of me. Cause yeah I was a lovely player and going too lose but then they would lose too since nobody did anything to Mictlan. One of them agreed, and attacked me anyways. So we wasted our time killing each other instead of Mictlan. Then the second one saw that I was losing and decided to jump in and stomp on me so he could get some land. At that point I said gently caress it and sent my stuff to Mictlan before going AI because I sure as hell wasn't giving it to them. Unsurprisingly Mictlan won so I felt vindicated.
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Aug 29, 2015 06:06
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Every Mictlan is really brutal and people refusing to gently caress with them are signing their own death warrants.
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Aug 29, 2015 17:02
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Sorry about the delay - I was out camping this weekend and had an exam Thursday I was supposed to be prepping for (I didn't  )Turn 15:  More messages. My crusade to complete construction 4 is nearly finished - with construction 3 down I only have a few more turns until I can create earthboots, forge dwarven hammers, and make more quills for cheaper. This is probably not a good strategy, but I’m incapable of resisting. The tides of gem efficiency pull me ever tighter into it’s terrifyingly systematic grip.  Another throne has been claimed, tragically not by me (again).  I’ve retaken the province stolen by that hippie druid  Now to turn that army back around and reunite it with the other army which has done…  Well actually! Excellent.  It also seems like someone else is bedevilled by terrible vine men and ogres.  I’ve also found two new sites! Including one that gives me water gem access too!  Unfortunately it appears the first casualty will be the Mongler Horde - truly they got what they deserved. I’m moving in to grab whatever scraps I can, while my main group consolidates with my recent recruits. I’m rather unsure of where I should strike next - it’ll depend in large part on what I can find out about what others are up to.  Fun times await!
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Aug 31, 2015 03:18
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Neruz posted:Next post will be about how monkey people standing in for India is probably not quite as racist as it sounds. Any plan for more of these?
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Aug 31, 2015 03:23
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Oh hey I forgot completely, sure let's talk about Bandar Log. Bandar Log is one of the few nations that appears on the Dawn of Dominions map and thus we know where they are; north-west of C'tis and East of Caelum. Bandar Log has a connection to Arcoscephale via the Cerulean Warriors, the description of which mentions that Arco's armies marched all the way to Bandar Log (presumably during MA) and met the Bandar who lived there. They forged a kind of alliance and have been on good terms ever since. It's also worth noting that Machaka has a pair of Bandar heroes but they are mentioned as having come from the God Forest, not from Bandar Log. As Machaka is also nowhere near Bandar Log it seems likely that those heroes are not supposed to be related. So what is Bandar Log? Bandar Log is the land of the monkey people, it stands in for India and draws heavily from Indian religion and mythology, with an emphasis on Hinduism and Buddhism. In Bandar Log live 3 different kinds of monkey people; the Markata who are pretty much just straight up normal Monkeys, the Vanara who are similar to Chimpanzees and the Bandar who are basically smart Gorillas. Having the Indian stand-in be populated by monkey people may seem really racist on the surface, in in truth yeah it kind of is. But it's not quite as bad as you might think because the Vanara are an actual thing in Indian mythology. The name "Bandar Log" comes from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and is used to describe the monkeys in the Seeonee jungle. In Hindi, 'Bandar' translates to 'monkey' and 'log' translates to 'people', thus 'Bandar Log' means 'monkey people' and is apparently Hindi slang for 'a group of irresponsible chatterers.' I have absolutely no idea where 'Markata' comes from, it sounds Hindi but I have been unable to locate the term so I suspect Illwinter may have just made it up. But the Vanara are the major population of the jungles of Bandar Log and are broadly equivalent to Humans, they also have a long history in Hindu mythology. The term 'Vanara' basically translates to 'forest people' and they appear in the epic Ramayana as well as numerous other texts, the term 'Vanara' has come to mean 'monkey' over the years, though its actual origins are somewhat mysterious as unlike other Hindu mythological critters like Rakshasha the Vanara do not show up in earlier Vedic literature. In the myths where they do show up the Vanara are described as monkey like with their habits of jumping about as well as having fur all over their bodies and a monkey-like tail. The Vanaras were created by Brahma and the other gods to helm Rama in battle against Ravana and they were said to live in numerous forests and jungles with an emphasis on the region of Kishkindha; the Monkey Kingdom ruled by the Vanara King Sugriva. In Indian art the Vanara are typically depicted as light-furred chimpanzees with monkey tails and humanoid physiques. So that's why having monkey people standing in for India isn't quite as racist as it sounds. Dominions of course throws its own spin on the Vanara. in EA the land of Bandar Log is split between the nation of Kailasa and the nation of Lanka, although oddly Lanka does not show up on the Dawn of Dominions map. The description of Lanka mentions that it is a dark, forested island so presumably Lanka is somewhere just offshore to the east of C'tis and Bandar Log, which would also put it southish of Abysia and westish of Gath. The reason Bandar Log is split into these two warring nations in EA is because it has a lot of history that went down prior to EA. Inside Bandar Log is sacred Mount Kailasa and in ages past it was home to a race of semi-divine beings gifted with 'Celestial Splendor' called Yakshas. In Hindu mythology Yakshas are a kind of benevolent nature spirit, in Dominions they are tall, physically beautiful humans with awe. The Yakshas once served the Gods of the Celestial Sphere; a number of lesser divinities that ruled large parts of the world prior to EA. The Gods of the Celestial Sphere include male and female Devas, Rudras and Kinnaras, as well as Siddhas who are ascended mortals that achieved physical and mental perfection, all of which are mythic beings drawn from Hindu and Buddhist mythology which you can look up on google if you want to learn more. However, the Devas were not alone. On the island of Lanka there lived a race of demon ogres known as Rakshasa; another Hindu import. Dominions Rakshasa are very different from their mythic counterparts however, lacking both the catlike features and the reversed hands that characterize Rakshasa in Hindu mythology. That said, the catlike features are a relatively recent addition and older depictions of Rakshasa show them as just really, really ugly with fangs and other bestial characteristics. In Dominions, Rakshasas are massive demon gorillas led by the Danavas, basically the 'evil' counterparts to the Devas. At some point the Devas and the Danavas got into a great big ole fight that utterly tore up the world and seriously pissed off the Pantokrator at the time. Being a huge dick, like all Pantokrators are, he used his power to force the Devas to retreat to the Celestial Sphere while also hurling the Danavas and most of the Rakshasas down into the Nether Realms. The majority of the surviving Yakshas retreated to Mount Kailasa where they presumably spend most of their time meditating and going 'ommmmmm' But! Rakshasas are sneaky little buggers and not all of them were trapped in the Nether Realm, a few survived hidden deep within the jungles of Lanka and over time they took control of the monkey people who live in Lanka and founded the Lankan Demon Cult. Unlike the Yakshas who value the Vanara, the Rakshasas prefer the physical might of the Bandar and the Rakshasas even created half-Bandar half-Rakshasa offspring called Kala-Mukhas or Black Faces. The Rakshasas like to host big ole banquets in which they eat chosen Bandar, after which the remains of said Bandar are reanimated into skeletal undead servants led by Bapu the Apostate Raja and first of the undead apes. As of EA Kailasa and Lanka are in something of a cold war with the Rakshasas trying to reclaim their past power and open the gates of the Nether Realm to free their kings and greater kin, the greatest of the Rakshasa are known as Mandehas and they are basically gigantic winged demon gorillas who are utterly obsessed with eating the sun, so great is their power and so terrible their hunger that the sun is actually afraid of them and will not shine anywhere near a Mandeha (in battle they auto-cast Darkness). I suspect this obsession with eating the sun is probably what kicked off the Deva\Rakshasa war in the first place. The Yakshas on the other hand are gearing up for war again as they can feel the power of the Awakening God growing beneath Mount Kailasa now that the Pantokrator has gone. In the transition from EA to MA it can be presumed that Kailasa and Lanka duke it out and by the distinct lack of Lanka in MA we can conclude that the Rakshasas probably lost that fight and were wiped out in the material realm. After doing so the Yakshas decided they'd had enough and joined the Devas in the Celestial Sphere, leaving the monkey people to form their own nation called Bandar Log. In LA things get kind of interesting; as previously mentioned at some point Arco meets but does not invade Bandar Log but more importantly it turns out that underneath Bandar Log is a complex cave system in which one can find the Jeweled City of Patala, occupied by everyone's favorite snake-people; the Naga! The Naga are divine beings of the Underworld and its rivers and at some point during MA to LA they were all "Hey look at all these monkey people, we should totally hypnotize them with our snake eyes and serpentine dancing and take over.' So they did. Now, this next part is wild speculation but: The India stand-in is suddenly and relatively peacefully conquered by 'alien' newcomers who bedazzle, mesmerize and entrance the natives and claim the empire of Bandar Log as their own. These strange outlanders then rule the much more numerous natives, taking all the good stuff for themselves back to their Jeweled City while the native population is politely oppressed by their 'sacred' rulers. Sound familiar? I'm like 90% sure that the way the Nagas take over Bandar Log and Patala in general is a stealth reference to the British Raj. And that about covers Bandar Log lorewise; the monkeys actually have a surprisingly well described religion based around the Vanara who are born with white fur (seen as a sign of their sacredness), said Vanara are effectively monkey Buddhists and spend most of their time meditating on things, eventually they get so good at meditating that they can just float around in the air, which is neat. Bandar Log's various iterations are sadly very lacking in heroes and the written lore is rather short, so it's hard to know much more about it. That said in-game the monkey nations are generally considered to be kind of weak in the early game but potentially brutal in the lategame once they get their summoned monkey gods out as monkey gods mean serious business. The exception to this is Lanka, which is just hands down one of the strongest nations in the entire game. Patala is also hideously gimped by the fact that Nagas are Magic Creatures, yet Patala has no good source of magic creature leadership; Nagarajas only have a base magic leadership of 10! I've found that modding Patala to have better magic leadership actually helps them out a lot in test games as they can recruit sacred Nagas in Forest and Cave provinces. That said, LA is the age of the Crossbow and monkeys are really bad at shields so if you don't want your Nagas to just get pincushioned you need to invest in a major Air bless which is of questionable utility. On the other hand all Naga come with a pair of ranged attacks (a one shot hypnosis that causes the target to get the 'confused' debuff if it fails an MR check and a 5 shot poison spit that poisons dudes) so they do actually benefit from the minor +precision and +range aspects of the air bless, on the other hand I'm not convinced a major air bless is worth the points cost. Certainly however without the major air bless Naga are totally useless outside of their amphibiousness (which lets you nab sea provinces, very handy) because xbows will just annihilate them. Next up I guess we've got either loving ponymans or Tien Chi + Jomon, probably Tien Chi and Jomon since we just did a driveby on the India stand-in so might as well take a look at the China and Japan stand-ins. Just to note; there will be racism, hooooo boy will there be racism. I'm honestly not sure whether Jomon or Machaka is more racist, but that is for next time. Neruz fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 31, 2015 07:17
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small footnote that Neruz didn't mention, maybe because it was too obvious: The forested island of Lanka is, of course, a direct reference to Sri Lanka/Ceylon, at least namewise.
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Aug 31, 2015 13:25
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Two points: 1: I'm really not sold on the 'war between Kailasa and Lanka' bit. It's just as likely that the magical bloodlines faded away from Bandar and Lanka. 2. The Nagas use shape-changing to impersonate the Yavana, the ol 'finally-returned after centuries' trick. I'm not seeing the British influence.
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Aug 31, 2015 15:30
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Caustic Soda posted:small footnote that Neruz didn't mention, maybe because it was too obvious: The forested island of Lanka is, of course, a direct reference to Sri Lanka/Ceylon, at least namewise. Actually 'Lanka' is just Sanskrit for 'Island'. The Lanka that's associated with demons is an actual thing in Hindu myth, but nothing to do with Sri Lanka, which just means 'resplendent island'. e: Though on the other hand I just read the thing I linked to and there is some identification between the two. Never mind! Boing fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 31, 2015 16:08
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Neruz posted:I have absolutely no idea where 'Markata' comes from, it sounds Hindi but I have been unable to locate the term so I suspect Illwinter may have just made it up. Seems to be from Sanskrit मर्कट, which has been loaned in as the Swedish name for Guenon monkeys (Markattor).
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Aug 31, 2015 16:14
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Boing posted:Actually 'Lanka' is just Sanskrit for 'Island'. The Lanka that's associated with demons is an actual thing in Hindu myth, but nothing to do with Sri Lanka, which just means 'resplendent island'. Huh, I didn't know about the mythological Lanka part. Guess we both learned something, then 
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Aug 31, 2015 16:29
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Maybe a nation attacked Lanka and Lanka got mad and quit the material realm.
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Aug 31, 2015 17:37
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It seems like the Greek analogues meeting the Indian analogues and having some cross-cultural units is a reference to the Bactrian kingdom, as super cool kingdom left behind after Alexander the Great conquered northern India and then died. Read about that on wikipedia, or Greco-Buddhism, the reason why statues of Buddha even exist. Also, dudes who meditate out in the forest and levitate and poo poo isn't Buddhism, it's asceticism. (Edit: Asceticism that probably has more in common with cartoon snake charmers and fire spitters than any actual discipline.) MartianAgitator fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Aug 31, 2015 |
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Aug 31, 2015 18:42
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MartianAgitator posted:Also, dudes who meditate out in the forest and levitate and poo poo isn't Buddhism, it's asceticism. (Edit: Asceticism that probably has more in common with cartoon snake charmers and fire spitters than any actual discipline.) Hey now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Forest_Tradition The bandar log branch of the game pulls culture in from indonesia and "india". The confusing thing about the modern indian region is that northwest india has a lot in common with what we think of as being Middle eastern culture (even though there's some big differences between west asian arabs and central asian turks), southern india is probably what most of us think of when we hear the term 'india' and then north eastern india has a lot in common with indonesia, to the point where you might think you were in thailand/vietnam/cambodia when you're in that area of the country. There's a lot of cross pollination in terms of architecture, language and culture. And Thai has some very impressive and ancient culture. There's pyramids over there. http://traveltips.usatoday.com/pyramids-cambodia-54123.html And the 'Lanka' island might be, historically, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and/or Sulawesi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia#Hinduism_and_Buddhism_kingdoms_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muaro_Jambi_Temple_Compounds or possibly even a liberal interpretation of mythological leftovers from the old continent of Sahul http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2010/10/new-evidence-of-ancient-civilisation-in-png.html They mush a lot of stuff together and their timeline doesn't line up real nicely with real history. For instance, the atlantis civ (which is obviously has almost nothing to do with what might have been the actual civilization that was being referenced by Solon). The EA stuff always has this fuzzy boundary between things that people 6000 years ago were saying happened sometime in a distant past, and then rapidly compresses into more-or-less known periods of history from the roman era through, I guess, early middle ages? There's kind of an inquisition group in there, somewhere, right? So that'd be as far as 1360s?
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Aug 31, 2015 19:41
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Speleothing posted:2. The Nagas use shape-changing to impersonate the Yavana, the ol 'finally-returned after centuries' trick. I'm not seeing the British influence. While they can indeed shapechange into Yavana Patala's overview text explicitly says 'WIth mesmerizing stares and dancing serpentine bodies, they entranced the Bandar Log and claimed their empire as their own.' This combined with their hypnotize ability in-game tells me that the Yavana shapechanging is just a thing Nagas can do and the way they took over Bandar Log was a combination of actual mind control and the whole 'snakes can hypnotize small animals by swaying back and forth' piece of popular\urban knowledge. I don't think it's a huge reference to the British Raj; I just find the setup of the India stand-in suddenly getting 'peacefully' taken over by alien people who come from a city of riches and are themselves relatively low in number but they dominate the natives via a combination of charismatic force of will and loyalists to be just a little too close to reality to be coincidental. Hence why I said I think it's a stealth reference. That said, it's very much wild speculation on my part and it's possible the similarity is a coincidence; Illwinter are so good at hiding little stealth historic and mythic references in Dominions though that I personally believe the parallel was intentional. Boing posted:Actually 'Lanka' is just Sanskrit for 'Island'. The Lanka that's associated with demons is an actual thing in Hindu myth, but nothing to do with Sri Lanka, which just means 'resplendent island'. Yeah Lanka being an island off the coast of Bandar Log is definitely a reference to Sri-Lanka as well as the mythic Lanka. TheCosmicMuffet posted:They mush a lot of stuff together and their timeline doesn't line up real nicely with real history. For instance, the atlantis civ (which is obviously has almost nothing to do with what might have been the actual civilization that was being referenced by Solon). The EA stuff always has this fuzzy boundary between things that people 6000 years ago were saying happened sometime in a distant past, and then rapidly compresses into more-or-less known periods of history from the roman era through, I guess, early middle ages? There's kind of an inquisition group in there, somewhere, right? So that'd be as far as 1360s? There are a few inquisitions, Ulm appears to reference the Teutonic Order and the Templars with the Black Priesthood during MA and LA. MA and LA Marignon references the Spanish Inquisition, including a sneaky insult in that in LA the Inquisitors are summoning and binding demons, making them all hypocrites. LA Man also has a little inquisition going with the Magisters of Theology, I think that's just a general inquisition reference. I think there's a couple of other inquisitions referenced in the game as well; inquisitions are very popular in the Dominions world. The real world times that the ages map to are very, very fuzzy even if the ages themselves weren't 'compressed' to contain nations that were 'actually' separated by hundreds of years. Neruz fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Sep 1, 2015 |
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Sep 1, 2015 01:50
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Neruz posted:While they can indeed shapechange into Yavana Patala's overview text explicitly says 'WIth mesmerizing stares and dancing serpentine bodies, they entranced the Bandar Log and claimed their empire as their own.' This combined with their hypnotize ability in-game tells me that the Yavana shapechanging is just a thing Nagas can do and the way they took over Bandar Log was a combination of actual mind control and the whole 'snakes can hypnotize small animals by swaying back and forth' piece of popular\urban knowledge. I know at some point I read that it was also an overt reference to Kaa mesmerizing the Bandar-Logs in the Jungle Book.
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Sep 1, 2015 04:45
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:Hey now. Uhhh, okay. Occam's razor certainly won't let me believe that this in-game depiction of asceticism is inspired by an obscure-in-the-West Indonesian cult when the turbaned, mind-reading, yoga-pose floating swami is a real meme. (You know, the stereotype of ascetic that the historical Buddha specifically turned away from.) Are there any other Southeast Asian influences in the culture? If they have demons that look more SEA than Indian, post pics! SEA rakshasas are hella rad.
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Sep 1, 2015 10:44
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Well the 3 kinds of white monkey mage in ascending order of floatosity are the Yogi (does not float), the Guru (does float) and the Rishi (master of floating), according to Wikipedia the Yogi and Guru terms are used throughout a number of Indian religions including Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism with Yogi referring to any ascetic practitioner of meditation in those religions and Guru referring to a master, teacher or guide in one of the same. Rishi is apparently a Vedic term for an 'inspired' poet while post-Vedic it means a saint or prophet. There's also the priestly Brahmin caste which is a reference to the Vedic Hindu priest or teacher caste. I don't know if that helps or not, I'm not super familiar with the internal differences of India. Oh and one thing I forgot to mention; the White Ones (white furred Vanara) all have the Reincarnation stat which means that if they die there is a chance they will be reborn in your cap or a chance they will turn into a candle of dominion. The chance of either happening is reduced if the death is in combat so it mostly only applies to monkeys who die of old age, which is hard because monkeys have nature magic and thus long lifespans. Neruz fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Sep 1, 2015 |
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Sep 1, 2015 11:02
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Neruz posted:
Well, the titles are just titles. But the ascetic traditions that filtered to the West as images of men laying on beds of nails, walking on coals, eating fire, mortifying their flesh, and, of course, floating while cross-legged all come from disciplines that the historical Buddha (who doesn't actually have any evidence for existing, we say "historical" to separate him from other Buddhas; there are a few) tried for a while, then said, "Nah, this is lame. You don't gotta do this to go to Nirvana." ...Which isn't to say that kind of self-flagellation is completely separate from Buddhism. See Shaolin monks licking hot shovels and doing splits for hours and hours and whatnot. And there are probably Indian disciplines of asceticism that incorporate Buddhist philosophy into their mysticism, even after Buddha explicitly rejected their ascetic practices. I guess the point I wanted to make is that: 1) the aims of Indian ascetism, which is often lonely, mystical and aloof, don't commonly align with the aims of Buddhism, which is often communal, political, and congregational; and 2) Indian ascetics, as I understand them, would not usually identify themselves as Buddhists like most other Buddhists, and other Buddhists would not see them as being in the same tradition. The difference is greater than, say, the difference between most mainstream American Christians and Mormons, who sometimes have their Christian authenticity questioned while still engaging the laity in vastly the same manner. This seems like a dumb derail now so I'll let it go.
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Sep 1, 2015 18:23
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It's super-dumb, because even once you get rid of the self-flagellation, starvation, and beds of nails, sitting cross-legged and floating is (or was) considered super-buddhist in pop culture.
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Sep 1, 2015 19:26
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but what about velka
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Sep 1, 2015 21:52
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Let's talk about Pretender Design. It's one of the most opaque and intimidating prospects for new players, and it's very easy to get option paralysis. That said, it's not nearly as hard as it looks. I'll break it out step by step: ---Step 1: Do some research Use this neat little tool to take a look at your nation. Skim your troop and national spell choices, maybe ask some goons in IRC what the nation's major strengths are; they aren't always obvious. You don't need a ton of detail, just enough so that you don't feel lost when looking at the nation. ---Step 2: Analyze your expansion needs Having at least average expansion is extremely important in the vat majority of games, and it can be difficult to hit that goal without a proper early game strategy. First, you need to identify your expanders; the vast majority of troops aren't effective at expansion, being too expensive, too prone to losses, too weak without mage support, or just too useless. Look through all your recruitable troops, and take note of the following: Defensive: ------Protection 16+ ------Shield, preferably Tower Shield ------High length weapon: spear, pike ect. (hover over the weapon to see the Length) ------HP 30+ ------Defense 16+ ------Other defensive traits like Ethereal, Glamour, Regeneration, Awe, or Shapechange If your unit has at least three of these things, or two but does one or both very well (like MA Ulm Pikeneers with their Protection 18 and Length 6 Pikes), it's potentially a useful expander. Offensive: ------Multiple attacks, preferably with a decent accuracy (10+) and damage (15+) (hover over the Attack score to see accuracy with each attack, and over the weapons to see the damage; don't forget to add strength for melee attacks) ------Equipped with good ranged weapon, like Longbow or Crossbow, while costing ~10 gold and resources or less ------Fear or another dangerous aura, like Cold or Heat ------Trample If your unit has any one of these and at least one of the defensive traits, it's also potentially a useful expander. In both cases, you should be careful to take a look at the unit's price. Mundane expanders shouldn't probably cost more than ~25 gold each, sacreds shouldn't cost more than about ~50 gold, and fear monsters or tramplers shouldn't cost more than ~100. More than that and you'll have difficulty amassing useful armies fast enough for good expansion. In any case, you should always test expansion in single player when trying a strategy you haven't before. It'll save you a lost of frustration. If your best expander appears to be one of your sacreds, you should check out the Bless section next. If it's a mundane troop, skip down to the Caster section. If you don't have any particularly good exapanders, skip down to the Awake Expander section (though you might want to read over the mage analysis part of the Caster section anyway). ---Step 3: Bless Blesses are cool. Not only can you have some of the best expansion in the game with a good sacred backed by a good bless, but you can also use them to win your first war if you're pick the right opponent. Generally, when goons talk about a 'bless' they mean a major bless, the sort you get for giving your pretender a 9 in a magic path. There are also minor blesses (gained at level 4 in a path, and improving from there), but they're usually fairly incidental. I'll talk about them anyway, but when you are pursuing a bless strategy, you should always take a major bless. In general, most nations never want more than one major bless (and maybe a minor on the side); it's just too expensive to go double or even triple bless unless you are playing an extremely bless heavy nation which has a strategy that can scale well (like EA Mictlan). Blesses also makes your god a powerful caster, albeit a focused one; I'll talk about important things that unlocks as we go. The blesses, major and minor, are as follows: ------Fire: Minor bless grants a bonus to Attack, and major bless gives your sacreds flaming weapons, improving their attack power and letting them hit high armor magical enemies. Fire is a go-to bless; it works best on units with multiple attacks, but can do well with almost any sacred. If you don't have a specific reason to pick another bless, you should usually go Fire or Blood. Fire bless also gives access to Eternal Pyre and Lightless Lanterns; a large boon for later game research. ------Air: Minor bless grants a bonus to Precision, and major bless grants an 80% chance to ignore mundane projectiles. Air is a terrible bless, and you should never take it. Archer accuracy is less useful than simply raining down a million arrows, and it's easy to draw arrows away from your sacreds with a small squad of shield equipped troops off to the side. ------Water: Minor bless grants a bonus to Defense, and major bless grants your sacreds an extra turn every other round. Water is a powerful bless that most sacreds can use fairly well, but works best with units with already high Defense, or on units that Trample. Water bless also gives access to Vengeful Waters, which makes your lands difficult to scout and slightly more annoying to invade. ------Earth: Minor bless grants Revigoration, which restores a small amount of Fatigue every turn, and major bless grants +5 to Protection. Earth bless is a popular minor bless, since less fatigue means your troops are less vulnerable to critical hits, and in conjuction with a major earth bless is quiet powerful on high armor sacreds like knights; it boosts their protection so high that they become nigh untouchable to most mundane troops, and the revigoration helps offset their very high encumberance values. It also gives access to Earth Blood Deep Well, which helps you make better use of powerful Earth magic like Earthquake, Curse of Stone, and Rain of Stones. As an aside: do not take this bless for the purpose of buffing mage priests; the revigoration amounts aren't substantial enough to justify the cost unless other units are benefitting as well. -----Astral: Minor bless grants extra magic resistance, and major bless allows your sacreds to avoid the first attack that would have hit them. This is a terrible bless, not so much because the effects are useless; they're quiet decent in the late game, but because they do almost nothing to help you in the early game, when you really need your sacreds to shine. More useful than the Astral bless itself are the myriad powerful spells you unlock from high astral: Eyes of God, Stellar Focus, Arcane Nexus, and Wish. -----Death: Minor bless grants Undying (extra HP, but units who use that extra HP die at the end of battle), and major bless grants Death Weapons (small amount of armor piercing and magic resistance negates damage). Death bless is mediocre; the effets you get are useful enough to justify the bless, but substantially less powerful than basically anything but Air and Astral. On the other hand, it does unlock a lot of useful spells: Well of Misery, Utterdark, a slew of army sized undead summons, and the favorite 'gently caress you all' of Dominions, Burden of Time. -----Nature: Minor bless grants extra real HP, and major bless grants 10% Regeneration per round. This is the go-to bless for giants and other high-hp sacreds; the more HP a unit has, the more powerful the bless. It also has a less obvious use: if your nation has sacred astral or blood mages, a Nature bless allows you to turbocharge your communion, because each point of Regeneration on a communion or sabbath slave counts as 10 points of Revigoration. This bless is however obsoleted by access to a Nature/Astral or Nature/Blood mage. Nature has a ton of very useful spells unlocked by a god with this bless: Mother Oak, Call the Worm That Walks, Wild Hunt, Gift of Health, Enchanted Forests, and Gift of Nature's Bounty. ------Blood: Minor bless grants a bonus to strength, and major bless grants Blood Vengeance (a chance to reflect any damage take back on the attacker). The other go-to bless, Blood is a less powerful bless in the early game, but maintains a lot of usefulness into the mid and late games, since Blood Vengeance makes mass attack spells much more of a pain to use. Blood magic is trickier to use than other sorts of magic, but a Blood god can help you break into a lot of utilitarian blood magic if you're willing to invest the effort required, including several powerful magic items, powerful summoned demons, and expanded magic diversity through demon lords. Pick your major bless immediately, and try to figure out which chassis you want. You're looking for a god with a high score (preferably 3, but 2 will do) in the path you want. Minor bless can come late if you end up with enough points to spare. Remember: if you don't have a good reason to pick a different bless, go with Fire or Blood (with Fire being easier for newbies in general). ---Step 4: Caster While Bless pretenders are by necessity also spellcasters in their limited magic paths, pretenders who don't need to provide a bless can consider taking sub-9 paths of magic in multiple schools to open up magic flexibility or unlock powerful spells for your nation. Now do some more research: look at your national mages and check what paths you have a 100% chance of getting on any of your mages; these are your core paths, since you're likely to have the most gems in these paths (level matters here, but not a lot; ~50% of magic sites require level 1 or less, ~90% require 2 or less). Now see what your reasonable maximums are for each path (the highest you can get on up to a 1/4 on a cap only mage or up to 1/16 on a anywhere mage). Don't worry about cross-paths for now, I'll point out where they're important. Now, calculate your booster adjusted maxes (the most you can get in each path with non-artifact magic boosting items; note that I'm not including items that you're unlikely to get without a god's help) Always apply in order! Don't forget to apply the bonuses you qualify for to crosspath mages as well! ---Fire: If a single mage has both Fire 1 and Death 1, then +1. If a mage has Fire 4+, then +1. ---Air: If a mage has Air 4+, then +2. ---Water: If a mage has Water 1+, then +1. If a mage has Water 3+, then +1. ---Earth: If a mage has Earth 2+, then +1. If a single mage has both Earth 2+ and Blood 3+, then +1. ---Astral: If a mage has Astral 2+, then +1. If a single mage has both Earth 2+ and Astral 2+, then +1. ---Death: If a mage has Death 2+, then +1. If a mage has Death 5+, then +1. ---Nature: If a mage has Nature 2+, then +1. If a single mage has both Nature 2+ and Blood 3+, then +1. If a single mage has both Nature 3+ and Astral 1+, then +1. If a mage has Nature 6+, then +1. ---Blood: If a single mage has both Blood 3+ and Nature 2+, then +1. If a mage has Blood 4+, then +3. Now that you have your national maximums, lets see what powerful (and useful) rituals and magic items you have access to: (the kind of stuff you care about your god being able to cast) ---Fire: Eternal Pyre (6+) ---Air: Perpetual Storm (5+), Dark Skies (5+), Gale Gate (5+), Staff of Storms (5+), Robe of the Magi (6+ and Blood 6+) ---Water: Maelstrom (6+), Vengeful Water (7+), Streams from Hades (4+ and Death 1+; grants a base Death 3 caster), Contact Naiad (3+ and Nature 1+; grants a base Nature 3 caster) ---Earth: Earth Blood Deep Well (6+), Earth Attack (5+) ---Astral: Vengeance of the Dead (3+ and Death 1+), Crystal Shield (3+ and Earth 2+), Stellar Focus (5+), Eyes of God (5+), Banner of the North Star (5+), Wrath of God (5+ and Air 3+), Ring of Sorcery (7+; +1 to S, D, N, B), Arcane Nexus (8+), Ring of Wizardry (8+; +1 to all paths), Wish (9+) ---Death: Lichcraft (5+; grants a base Death 5 caster), Burden of Time (5+), Army of the Dead (5+), Foul Air (5+ and Air 1+), Legion of Wights (6+), Ghost Riders (6+), Well of Misery (6+), Tartarian Gate (7+), Utterdark (9+) ---Nature: Mother Oak (5+), Call the Worm that Walks (5+), Haunted Forest (5+ and Death 1+), Wild Hunt (6+), Gift of Health (6+), Enchanted Forests (7+), Gift of Nature's Bounty (7+) ---Blood: Send Horror (3+ and Astral 4+), Bind Arch Devil (4+ and Fire 2+; grants a base Fire 4 caster), Ritual of Five Gates (5+), Bind Heliophagus (5+), Three Red Seconds (5+), Infernal Crusade (5+ and Earth 2+), Infernal Tempest (5+ and Air 2+), Astral Corruption (6+ and Astral 6+), The Looming Hell (8+), Bind Demon Lord (8+) See what your nation can intrinsically cast; you want to avoid overlap while sticking mostly with paths you can expect to get a significant amount of gems in (anything your mages can readily sitesearch, plus astral). You can take paths outside of ones where you know you can expect gems, but that can be unreliable. Pick 2-3 paths for your god (remember to look over your available god chassis to see what naturally fits together), and remember that most gods can use most boosters too. Don't get too attached to your path scores until you've looked at scales, however. ---Step 5: Expander Are you a nation with default neutral or heat preference? If so, I have good news for you: you have access to the best expander in the game bar none: the Earth Snake. Take an Earth Snake with Earth 6 and Dominion 7, and you'll still have space for net four positive scales; a fantastic deal. Just be sure to always take Heat 1+ on your Earth Snake so that it doesn't die from being cold blooded. If you are a Cold nation, or for some reason are a heretic who refuses the majesty of the true pantokrator Erfsnek, here's what you need on an Expander: ---A Protection score of 21+, and preferably 25+. Remember that each point of Earth magic on your pretender improves Protection by 1. Invulnerability can also work as protection in a pinch, but is substantially less reliable. ------As an alternate to high protection, the Awe ability. If your pretender chassis doesn't naturally get Awe, you can give any pretender the ability by giving it a Dominion score of 9+. Note that Awe can be unreliable, and you should try to pick a chassis with decent protection or some other defensive ability as well. ---Fear, Trample, or lots of attacks (4+) or an AoE attack. Be sure to check all your chassis' attacks; it's not always obvious when some weapons grant multiple hits. And, obviously, your expander has to be Awake. No matter what Expander you choose, you should avoid using them to attack undead/statue provinces, and should be wary of attacking heavy cavalry, cataphracts, or knights; expanders can have trouble with them, and nothing is more disheartening than losing your only good expansion option on turn 3. ---Step 6: Scales Scales are a balancing act. The passive bonuses they provide can be very useful, and can make a lot of nations much less of a headache, but on the other hand they're unliekly to the the catalyst that lets you win the game: good expansion, victory in early wars, and powerful spells are what actually let you win. Take good scales when you can, but don't be afraid of negative scales if they help you unlock other useful things (or even other useful scales, like trading Sloth for Order). ---Order/Turmoil: For MA and LA nations that aren't popkill, Order is almost always a worthwhile investment. It gives less money that Growth in the long run, but being able to snowball off the additional funds in the early game can take you a long way. In EA, Order is less cut-and-dry good, since provinces give substantially less base money, while events give and equal amount. Most EA nations can probably get away with a Turmoil 3 build, though Order is still reasonable. ---Productivity/Sloth: Tally up how many Resources it costs to build ~300 gold of your expansion troop of choice. If the total is <~75, go ahead and take Sloth 3. If the total is <~100, you'll probably want Sloth 2. If it's <~135, Sloth 1. If it's <~180, Productivity 0. If it's <~250, take Productivity 1. If it's more than that, you can take Productivity 2, but troops costing that many resources aren't generally very useful expanders unless they are individually very powerful. If you're a nation that has powerful, high resource troops that are useful throughout the game (like MA Ulm), take Productivity 3. If you are playing on a map without preset capitals, you might consider taking 1 higher Productivity as insurance against starts with few connections, though this isn't necessary if your brace of troops costs >~50 resources. ---Heat/Cold: If your nation has a Heat/Cold preference of 1 or 2, it's worth it to take it one more point towards the closer extreme in exchange for an extra Order or Growth scale; because of the way seasons work, this ends up being a net positive. Arguably the same is true for neutral preference nations taking a Growth scale (but not Order scale) as well. The same is not true moving in the opposite direction: it's not worthwhile to trade a point of temperature for a money scale if your preference is Heat 3 or Cold 3. Don't forget to take Heat 1+ if you're using an Earth Snake or other cold blooded pretender! ---Growth/Death: Much like Order, Growth is a go-to scale for MA and LA nations that aren't popkill. The compound interest you get on your provinces is extremely useful and can net you and extreme amount of money in the late game. In EA, it can still be decent, but is substantially less powerful; you'd probably be better off with Magic scales instead. You shouldn't take Death unless you are playing an all-offense-all-the-time nation (or a popkill nation) that can make up for it's constant income loss with constant warfare. ---Luck/Misfortune: Luck is the subject of a lot of debate, but my personal advise is to take either Luck 1 or Misfortune 1; Luck 1 allows you to avoid a lot of the more nasty common events, while Misfortune 1 doesn't appreciably raise the rate to really nasty events, or unlock more of them. Misfortune 1 is particularly worthwhile when paired with Order 3, since the Order score cancels out the increase in event frequency caused by Misfortune. The only time it's clearly worthwhile to take a different score is when you take Turmoil 3, which should always be taken with Luck 3 to maximize positive event spam. ---Magic/Drain: Determine your main research mage: it should be a relatively cheap mage (high research to gold ratio) that preferably has potential as a combat mage. The lower the chosen mage's research score, the more worthwhile Magic scales are, while the higher it is, the more worthwhile Drain can be. If the mage has 7-9 research, consider a point or two in Magic if you can afford it. If the mage has 13-15 research, consider a point or two of Drain instead. If you are running Turmoil 3/Luck 3, strongly consider taking Magic 3, since it unlock a ton of very good events. You should probably avoid taking Drain 3 without Luck 1+, since doing so unlocks an event that can steal all your gems. ---Step 7: Toy around with it You aren't always going to be able to make a satisfactory pretender on your first attempt. Check out a couple different builds you could go with, and pick which one you prefer. Give it a test game and make some edits if you have the time. There are a lot of options to fiddle with, and the best way to familiarize yourself is to just use them. Some general advise: ---Titans (large humanoids that are right after the various sorts of immobile) are overpriced at the moment, and you should at least take a look at other options if they're available. ---Rainbows (tiny humans at the bottom of the list) are generally kinda bad, since it's expensive to get them up to a reasonable path and dominion core. They have uses, but in general they're never the best choice. ---You can dormant/imprison monsters as blessers or casters; for some nations this is the only way to get certain paths or path combinations. ---Pop into IRC and ask questions. Newbies who regularly ask how to play tend to enjoy the game more, and stick around.
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Sep 6, 2015 05:23
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The only caveats I'll add are 1. Test your pretenders. If you chose to rely on bless or troops, you need familiarity and a test game is easy to play around in. If you went SC, chances are whatever expansion pretender you've picked has some kind of flaw you didn't expect. Expansion is all about knowing your indep types. There are people who can consistently run good expansion in any nation, any age, any pretender choice, and they do this by having near-encyclopedic knowledge of how to interpret scouting reports and take on any independent type with anything. Once upon a time you could get away with a magicless Dom9 Wyrm as a default SC pretender (this was before the Wyrm was W1 E1). When Dom4 came out, people used dragons with low domstrength. I've successfully used a Death 5, Dom 9 Master Lich as an expander. If you understand what makes all of the above work, you're well on your way to understanding expansion pretenders. 2. N9 is definitely THE go-to bless, for a variety of reasons that don't have much to do with the expansion phase, but one really big one that does: against independents, you can literally win 80% of battles against indeps just by standing there and not dying. While the offensive blesses are attractive and if you plan a bless rush you better have at least a fire or blood minor, N9 is the most powerful bless in the game at every single stage of the game from early to late.
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Sep 6, 2015 07:11
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You forgot that minor air bless also increases mundane ranged attacks range by 5% per level (20% at air magic 4, 25% at air magic 5 etc). It's only relevant on the handful of sacreds that have ranged attacks and its still terrible but it's a thing. Minor air bless is also not a terrible idea on certain nations with good sacred mages for casting evocations; MA Ulm's Priest Smiths for example. Buuut still probably not the best use of a bless, major air bless is a complete wank. The Half Quickness from a Major Water Bless also increases AP by 50% as well as giving a double turn every second turn.
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Sep 6, 2015 07:48
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Does Dominions 4 allow you to override the fire/death weapon effects of the major blesses? I know back in 3 they were considered subpar blesses because they'd take precedence over other, much more useful late game buff spells.
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Sep 6, 2015 09:15
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Neruz posted:You forgot that minor air bless also increases mundane ranged attacks range by 5% per level (20% at air magic 4, 25% at air magic 5 etc). It's only relevant on the handful of sacreds that have ranged attacks and its still terrible but it's a thing. The range increase has it's uses if you're encountering archers and want to deal with them in the most direct manner possible. If a squad of archers has higher range and targets another archer squad, it will stand outside of the enemy archer squad's range and just pelt them with impunity. This is doubly useful if you combine a major bless with a minor air bless. From behaviour I've observed, even when scripted to attack your archers, enemy archers will at best waste a turn getting closer to your archers while arrows rain down on them, or at worst target something else and just get pasted by your sacreds. Even in the best case scenario, with about equal numbers the enemy archers will take so much more losses thanks to the initial salvo they'll break soon. Sacred archers also tend to have higher morale than other archers, which makes it possible to win counter-archery duels even in cases where the first salvo ends up ineffective.
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Sep 6, 2015 11:40
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TheDemon posted:2. N9 is definitely THE go-to bless, for a variety of reasons that don't have much to do with the expansion phase, but one really big one that does: against independents, you can literally win 80% of battles against indeps just by standing there and not dying. While the offensive blesses are attractive and if you plan a bless rush you better have at least a fire or blood minor, N9 is the most powerful bless in the game at every single stage of the game from early to late. My experiences and the experiences of most goons who've spoken at length about this disagree with you. N9 is only the go-to bless on troops that are already tanky; it's not very good at keeping 11 hp humans alive, even with the +2 hp/turn. e: I mean, Nature and Water are both decent blesses on almost everything, but there is a better choice for what I'd argue is most sacreds. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 15:53
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this community does kind of stand alone in considering the fire bless as one of the big four (fire, water, nature, blood). imo it's a little more focused than a nature bless but is more relevant than ever before with the vengeful water nerf and the introduction of 4 (!) new nations with flying sacreds who really want an f9 or b9 bless
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Sep 6, 2015 16:21
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Also go B9 for the kill you are self ability.
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Sep 6, 2015 17:25
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Decrepus posted:Also go B9 for the kill you are self ability. B9 + flagellants is the only strategy that matters.
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Sep 6, 2015 17:32
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fool_of_sound posted:My experiences and the experiences of most goons who've spoken at length about this disagree with you. N9 is only the go-to bless on troops that are already tanky; it's not very good at keeping 11 hp humans alive, even with the +2 hp/turn. There are more focused choices for most sacreds. But my view is that "good enough" is all you need for expansion, and once you're past that then what an offensive bless opens is rush options while what N9 opens is a huge slew of midgame and lategame power plays with mages, raiders, and globals. I mean, it depends on the nation, certainly. But there are more nations that can make use of N9 than there are that can use F9 effectively, even if the power nations right now are F9 nations.
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Sep 7, 2015 01:04
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N9 is a better bless if you are bad at positioning, but if you know how to position so as to always get first strike on indies F9 or B9 will give you better results.
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Sep 7, 2015 01:16
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Hitlerretardbetrayed
Decrepus fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Sep 7, 2015 |
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Sep 7, 2015 01:56
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