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 Hello, lady goons and gentle goons. I'm But first, have some exciting, fun filled screenshots of actual in game combat.        Yes kids, it really is just this exciting. And here's a very representative example of the campaign map!  Or organizing your army!  Which you could use to do things like this:  The Game I'm not going to rewrite a description for Dominions 4 because it has been done many times before by people far better at writing than I. If you want more information, check out the Dominions 4 Megathread or This particular game is special because it's not vanilla dominions. Similar to Chickenwing's LP, this game is played with 100% custom nations, scavenged from the best (and ocasionally less best) bits and pieces of the various vanilla nations from all ages. If you read his LP you'll notice that I've recycled a large quantity of content. This is because I'm terribly lazy. I've been told that someone else (Foolofsound) will be posting a rundown of each other player as I come across them. I'll steal his writeups and place them in the LP once he's posted them, because why get two people to do what one person volunteered to do? Down that path lies more effort than I care to undertake. I'll also link to the updates as I go. If I forget please remind me (on IRC, where goons are even now asking me where the LP is for the past 3 days). Of note, since this has a bunch of others playing Notable Posts: fool_of_sound's Pretender Design Workshop Discussion of EA/MA/LA Magic Discussion 1 and Magic Discussion 2, followed by Fluff Magic Power Rankings A Brief Dom4 History Lesson by Neruz and Abysia and Caelum Historical Overview, followed by Bandar Log Talks and Tien Chi Discussion I Love You! Libels Nuclearmonkee and Hatwer, and Provides Accurate Self Representation Pretender Design By Fool of Sound Also to quote fool_of_sound's post: A Thread Contest! We in the world of goon Dominions 4 have no taste, and love memes. If you submit hilarious memes based on this particular game of Dominions 4, you could win your very own Steam copy of the game! You submissions will be judged by a profession panel (Samog) at the end of the LP, and I'm going to try to harass some of the other regulars into submitting second and third prizes as well. Baudin Updates: Turn 2 Turn 3 Turn 4 Turn 5 Turn 6 Turn 7 Turn 8 Turn 9 Turn 10 Turn 11 Turn 12 Turn 13 Turn 14 Turn 15 Turn 16 Turn 17 Turn 18 Turn 19 Turn 20 Turn 21 Turn 22 Turn 23 Turn 24 Turn 25 Turn 26 Turn 27 Turn 28 Turn 29 Turn 30 Turn 31 Sloppy Milkshake Updates: Turn 3 Turn 5 Turn 6 Turn 7 Turn 8 Turn 11 Turn 14 Ramc's the True Champion of this Thread: His Skulls Include the Following EARULES or THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBLESS EARULES, PART TWO: I VAN SO FAR AWAY Ramc's Guide to Winning Dom4 Happy Newbie DOMINONS_FOUR PART ONE: THE INQUISITION. WHAT A SHOW! DOMINIONS_FOUR PART TWO: NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION HUMANITY: WHAT… IS MAN? Corn Update: Brain Reaped Again Corn Update: Anime Belongs in the Trash CORN PART ONE: ONE A-MAIZE-ING GAME Corn part 2: Insert Corny Joke Here Baudin fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Dec 14, 2016 |
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Aug 4, 2015 01:26
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THE DRAFT Rules: A copy of our drafting document Each player got to draft a Cap-only mage, two recruit-anywhere mages, one cap-only troop, six recruit-anywhere troops - four of which were selected two at a time, a commander, a scout, a priest, a race's starting gem income, and a unique national feature (read: gimmick), from any nation in any age. Arising from this comes the most overpowered bullshit strategies that one can possibly mash into a nation, or terrible gimmicks that will never work but were created to assuage some unknown emptiness inside the drafter. My draft was as follows: Cap-only mage: Kohen Gadol  I’m going to put it out there right now - my “strategy” for this draft is terrible - it’s giant jews for the most part. That guy you just saw? Giant jew. Most of the rest of my picks? Also jews, or giants, or both. I’m Asides from the terrible racism and gimmicky status this cap only mage has two really nice things going for him - one he’s got three ranks in holy magic which allows him to bless all the sacreds on the field with one spell which is pretty baller, and he also can claim Thrones of Ascension, which is kind of important because they’re how you win the game and only priests with three ranks of holy magic (which are rare - most nations rely on their prophet, of which you can only have one) and pretenders can do so. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of him later. Also of importance is the random chance for Astral, Fire and Earth - I’m guessing the earth and astral paths will be more important but I could be wrong. Next up are my recruit anywhere mages, which also leads me to my gimmick. Also how completely idiotic I am. Recruit-anywhere mages: Magister Arcane, Master Smith, Marshmaster and Acha I spent my gimmick getting 4 mages instead of 2. Two of these mages encourage me taking drain scales, the other two not so much. This is not ideal.   Unfortunately neither of these units are giants or jews, immediately ruining my planned gimmick, in my defense though by the time I got around to my last mage picks I was experiencing a bit of anguish at the thought of only seeing giants, so I decided to mix things up a bit. The Magister Arcane and Master Smith are pretty amazing since they ignore drain for research. I also like the synergy these units have - the master smith can forge boots that boost earth paths which I can use to forge hammers that reduce gem costs to create items, including quills which require the a2 provided by the magister. Then I can also use the increased earth boost on the magister arcanes to cast Rain of Stones to destroy everything on a battlefield. Rain of Stones (RoS) traps are very good, or so I hear, I’ve never managed to use them in game before. Fallen victim to them, definitely. Used them? Not so much. I’m more likely to hire a ton of master smiths for one simple reason - they provide 10 resources, resources I’m desperately going to need. These two are my “extra” mages. I’m less confident about these choices overall.   The Marshmaster is actually a great mage - he’s expensive, cold blooded and fragile but he has great paths, can get further boosts to his death paths via a cold-blooded only item which is quite expensive to make and can summon tons of undead chaff as well. He also gets a much needed supply boost to my units due to the nature paths he has. The Acha on the other hand I will probably only make a handful of. The main reason I’ve drafted these suckers is for the healer trait, which (god willing) we’ll see some use of in the late game. Or not, who knows. Cap-only troop: Anahim Anakite  These things are big, expensive, and probably a very bad idea. I’m unlikely to make a lot of them since they’re so drat expensive to build and cap only, however they are sacred which means they have less upkeep, and their exorbitant resource cost should be slightly mitigated by the master smiths toiling away in the capital, churning out research and various useful items. I’m rather curious to see how well my initial expansion goes if I hire a few of these guys just to start with... Recruit-anywhere troop: Levite Zealot and Ancient One   These two are my first choices for recruit anywhere troops. The Levites are jews, the Ancient Ones are giants. Seems clear enough! They both somewhat fit into my theme of giant jews, and also happen to both be recruit anywhere sacreds. This is important since whatever bless strategy I come up with (and it will be terrible) will form a major portion of my overall strategy. The zealots are rather cheap and feature decent defense, I’ll likely end up mixing them into any sacred armies I build as cheaper fodder. Asides from the rather steep cost and higher hitpoints the major interesting features of the Ancient One is the need not eat and siege bonus traits - I might need these to siege down forts faster than I would otherwise. Now for the other troop picks:     I picked these in pairs - the two guards were chosen first, then the horn blowers and archers. The important thing to notice if you paid any attention to the rules is the second batch are what form my province defense and starting army. I did not pay much attention to that particular rule, and so have units that are commonly acknowledged as bad for both starting army and province defense duty. Regardless, These are from two of the three jewish factions - EA Hinnom and MA Ashdod, with the Tower Guard coming from LA Man. The Gileadite Archers are a token/joke pick, I’m unlikely to use them often due to their high cost, poor map move speed and abysmal precision. The Tower guard though have shields to block incoming arrows, decent defense and precision meaning they won’t get hit as often and will hit more often, and should do a bit better. I guess I’ll see what happens in game though. The other notable thing about these picks is how the Horn Blowers increase morale in whichever group they’re in by 1 (which does not stack with other horn blowers), and they also get a +5 siege bonus, meaning they count as 5 extra troops in the case of a siege. This could be interesting with the Ancient Ones. The commander/scout/priest/simple troops were all picked at once and I was pretty much last, and so was left with some pretty garbage choices. Commander: Rephaite Commander  This guy is just a generic gigantic commander, nothing too special unfortunately. I hope to not use him too much, to be honest. He does have decent leadership and good hitpoints though! Scout: Caelian Scout  This sucker flies, which is pretty drat useful for quickly discovering where other players are on the map and for getting great vision of the map later on in the game when I’m inevitably left with 4 provinces barely alive so the LP can continue while you watch me death spiral while I show how other players are doing. Priest: Jotun Gode  Nothing special, except that he's a giant and so has decent HP like the rest of my troops. Notably he’s not jewish, which is crazy. Pretender God: Mother of Monsters  Memorable quotes from IRC: (11:48:04 AM) Corbeau: it's literally cheaper to lich it (11:48:12 AM) Corbeau: or blood fountain it (11:51:44 AM) Corbeau: I don't get why you're bothering with the minor death bless (6:33:44 PM) Absum: Design points: -18 (6:33:58 PM) Absum: your god has issue - Not pictured here: the +20 design bonus we all received for having our chassis of choice made favoured for each nation (6:37:40 PM) iloveu: oh my god your nation is historically terrible (6:40:07 PM) iloveu: marshmasters are your best thing im pretty stoked about that (6:40:30 PM) iloveu: because you probably wont use them much since they require the opposite research of the rest of your mages (6:40:32 PM) iloveu: owns owns onws (6:45:03 PM) samog: please also mention that ancient ones are obese pale worm men (1:21:00 PM) samog: when does baudin realize that dawn guard are actually good (1:21:05 PM) Baudin: never Rephalim is a nation formed from the magic drained lands inhabited primarily by giants. At the dawn of time a bad picker decided to choose only the most gigantic useless jewish giants in the game to form his perfect armies, and did so with the additional delusion of never needing to worry about magic ever again. Thus he looked to the descendants of the Nephilim, kings over the Avvim, Rephaites and Gath. Truly, a wise decision which will not be punished repeatedly. Other Nation Overviews: New Alfheim Mongler Horde Pax (by the Drafter) Boingladesh Baudin fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 01:26
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Turn 1: I log in to see this:   Something about why we're fighting to the deaths of many fake pixel men. Here's the world map of what we're fighting over:  I zoom in to my starting province to see what I can expand into, and turn on the money/resource view so I can get an idea of how rich whichever provinces I’ve expanded dominion into are.  Ok, so far so good. It looks like I’m near mountainous provinces, with three nearby thrones. This seems like a good start, with the potential for me to not get completely destroyed in short order. Then again, I’m notoriously bad and picked purely for a gimmick build that isn’t very good. Lets see who my competition is!  Clearly someone is very, very lazy when it comes to picking a pretender name. That’s 10 pretenders, and not a ton of land to go around. Some poking around on IRC reveals that it’s notorious good poster fleurs. I might have to find him and destroy him first. My first move is to send out my flying scout - I chose a flier purely to show off whats going on for the LP, and not because it lets me quickly figure out where other people are in the early game. I’m willing to bet that someone else is near these mountains, maybe even two or three others, so I send out my flier to check out a nearby province and hopefully get some good dirt on other goons.  Oh and since I’m an idiot my starting army looks like this:  To supplement this terrible start I’ve decided to recruit my levite zealots, the cheapest sacreds I could get. I’ve also made the starting commander my prophet so I can be sure they’ll get blessed. My first commander to be recruited is a marshmaster - another non giant unit that I’ll be using to scour the map for gems that might come in handy later.  As you can see there’s not a lot to do on the first turn, generally I can be done in a few minutes if I know the nation I’m playing. Which technically I should for this game since I picked all these units myself (two weeks ago  )At this point I almost end my turn before I check one last thing - Mercenaries. I usually don’t check for them on the first turn because I go through them too fast. I hope no one else notices they’re available and put a few extra gold in my bid. Assuming I win the bidding process done when the turn ends I’ll have the mercenary band for 3 turns which will make expansion a bit easier, especially since my starting army consists primarily of horn blowers and terrible giant archers. And the horn blowers are in my pick purely to provide some extra morale and siege bonuses, not to expand with.  Unfortunately this means I’ll be recruiting a smith instead of the marsh master since they’re a bit cheaper. Tragic I know.  Out of habit I hit the “N” button a few times to scan for inactive commanders, and of course since I only have two at the start it does nothing. Good enough, lets see if I win the bidding war before fighting commences! END TURN! Baudin fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Aug 4, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 01:27
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this is the draft that dominions deserves
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Aug 4, 2015 01:49
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this lp is extremely good, draft owns and god bless
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Aug 4, 2015 01:55
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Absum posted:god bless
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Aug 4, 2015 02:21
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I am extremely cool with casual racism
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Aug 4, 2015 02:30
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Dragas posted:I am extremely cool with casual racism dominions 4 is the game 4 you
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Aug 4, 2015 02:31
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Dragas posted:I am extremely cool with casual racism I recommend the Japanese goblins, or Indian monkeymen.
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Aug 4, 2015 02:33
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dom4 is made by a bunch of sheltered scandinavian dudes and pretty much any fun gleaned from it is in spite of their involvement because they are somehow one of the most scattered, unreliable dev teams i have ever seen for a game in my life. they don't even understand how some of the systems in the game work anymore.
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Aug 4, 2015 02:36
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wtf is that draft lol is there a list of the whole thing somewhere
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Aug 4, 2015 02:51
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TheDemon posted:wtf is that draft lol It's pretty bad, here's a copy of the google doc we used. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKNFyiUZlunhN10_gabcLBo1DMiHYlJ1lvzgE6lmhEk/edit
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Aug 4, 2015 02:53
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TheDemon posted:wtf is that draft lol Plug it into the inspector. They're all MA.
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Aug 4, 2015 02:54
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Baudin posted:It's pretty bad, here's a copy of the google doc we used. set it to link = read access plz. what to see what was available when the stuff was picked
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Aug 4, 2015 03:05
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You seem to have somehow drafted a nation that is like Gath but worse. Meditate on this. I mean maybe there is some change between dom3 and dom4 (I've been too busy to pick up the latter) that makes Gath not the worst but I'm going to assume Gath is still hot garbage.
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Aug 4, 2015 03:05
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Feinne posted:You seem to have somehow drafted a nation that is like Gath but worse. Meditate on this. Yup, it's bad. I don't plan on winning this thing.
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Aug 4, 2015 03:09
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the balance is still all over the loving place but a big thing in the change from 3 to 4 is that supercombatants aren't popular anymore
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Aug 4, 2015 03:13
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Agent Kool-Aid posted:the balance is still all over the loving place but a big thing in the change from 3 to 4 is that supercombatants aren't popular anymore and gemgens are gone. And I think Throne victory is new?
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Aug 4, 2015 03:15
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Throne Victory is basically the Victory Points option from Dom3, except better presented and set to default. Very few people played Dom3 with gemgens in multiplayer. Research slowing significantly at level 5+, Disciples mode, and the difficulty in building SCs due to resistance changes & bleeding (& partially due to lack of SC-providing mods, which is probably a good thing) are to me, some of the large changes.
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Aug 4, 2015 03:20
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Like until I can see what all else everyone else has I can't be sure you didn't just literally miss every single other cap-only H3 mage priest but Kohen Gadol are just so bad.
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Aug 4, 2015 03:35
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Feinne posted:Like until I can see what all else everyone else has I can't be sure you didn't just literally miss every single other cap-only H3 mage priest but Kohen Gadol are just so bad. No you're right he literally only made bad decisions this is pretty exceptional
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Aug 4, 2015 03:50
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I have read the draft document. No one, not one person, drafted Longbows. At least xbows were drafted by some. Seriously, a single good (read:cheap) missile unit would have fit Baudin's lineup like a glove. Flaming Arrows is synergistic research, too. I guess there's always indeps... e: The Zero Income, Zero Prod build is also awful for this lineup. Without some prod, or all those res-heavy units will never appears. Without decent income you will never be able to make any giants at all. e2: WHITE ONES are a better Levite Zealot in pretty much every relevant way except the shield and the gcost, but since you're holy limited anyway and getting N9 bless... TheDemon fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Aug 4, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 05:51
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So if SCs are out in Doms 4 - what's the new end game all about? Are Wish Engines still a thing? e: Will definitely be following this - I love a good Dominions LP even though they almost never get completed PotatoManJack fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Aug 4, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 06:31
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Turn 2: I check the message screen - all notices of other players picking their prophets:  Of note three players didn’t pick prophets. And this is mine:  I didn’t come up with that name, but it’s pretty much perfect. Actually how did that name come up? (ed: foolofsound is a tricky man. Thanks for letting me have a non-generic prophet name!) Unfortunately I failed to win the bidding war on the mercenaries - this could prove to be a major problem.  Oh well, maybe another crew will show up soon? I’m not sure if my army will be good enough to expand, but I guess it’s worth trying. After some thought I decide to send all my troops out and not keep back a standard bearer - I’m unlikely to win otherwise.  I need more resources for my highly expensive troops, and I’d like a good expansion path. I’d also love to support this meagre army on its’ next move, assuming it survives  Next turn I should be able to expand up into the woods to my west, assuming everything goes well. On that note I start up my recruitment:  I’m desperate for troops - the main issue with getting giants is you just don’t get a lot of them. I’m not even trying to get anakims yet - they’re too resource and gold costly for me to even recruit one a turn right now. Maybe once a few provinces nearby start feeding my capital their precious resources I’ll be able to though. I’m picking up a few ancient ones since I’m more resource starved then anything else - they’re slightly cheaper resource wise than the zealots, and have more hps to regenerate and activate blood vengeance. I check my research and set my freshly recruited mage to research this turn. I’m going for at least an early level of alteration so I can support my troops with Earth Might, a decent boost to strength (I think? I honestly should be more familiar with the magic of this game, but asides from thunderstrike spam it’s a bit over my head)  And here’s Earth Might.  I’m likely to continue getting levels in alteration - there are some decent spells in there I think. I then check on my scout to see what he’s revealed:  Diddly squat. Too bad, it would have been nice to start up diplomacy early on. I send him up north to see what else is near the mountains. With that I think my second turn is ready to be sent in.
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Aug 4, 2015 07:18
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I don't think that I had fully grasped the implications of this draft. Should be an amusing read.
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Aug 4, 2015 07:46
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Agent Kool-Aid posted:dom4 is made by a bunch of sheltered scandinavian dudes and pretty much any fun gleaned from it is in spite of their involvement because they are somehow one of the most scattered, unreliable dev teams i have ever seen for a game in my life. they don't even understand how some of the systems in the game work anymore. "There are no changes to the basic morale system that I'm aware of. It is opaque enough that I don't remember how it works anymore. JK likewise. Since we don't understand it anymore we have no intention to make changes in it."
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Aug 4, 2015 07:55
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I forgot to take pictures and stuff for the first two turns but here's the notes from them: turn 1: I blind expand with my piggod into a nearby forest for increased resources. This is slightly risky because there could be dumb bullshit in there, but mighty pig berserks and tramples so it's probably fine. Just to be safe I send a couple greek shield mans to draw fire/charges. I set my scout to retreat on his first turn and slam him into the other forest prov. Rename my storm commander to Samog as is right and proper, then prophet him. Recruit a bunch of crossbows and batman wizard. My start is really good actually: I have five connections, two of which are high resource forests. I'm near a coast though, so I'll need to expand out quickly. Future me: I forgot to check mercs like an idiot which sucks, because there was a crossbow company. turn 2: Piggod murders a bunch of tribals, but his hoplites died. The other forest prov is the same poo poo but more dudes, so I'm setting pig to search for magic sites and recruiting some chaff. I think this might have been a bad move, but I don't want to lose my god on the second turn. I send out Samog with a bunch of crossbows and hoplites to murder some horse archers. This should be easy, pony bows are garbage. I also notice there is a heavy cav site to my south which is normally bad, but it looks like there are only two there? Scouts lie all the time, so I'm bashing one into that prov to find out for sure. Another batman and more crossbows. I threw in a non-sacred elf for good measure. location spoiler: i'm pretty close to baudin's northeast Sloppy Milkshake fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Aug 4, 2015 |
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Aug 4, 2015 08:03
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PotatoManJack posted:So if SCs are out in Doms 4 - what's the new end game all about? Are Wish Engines still a thing? I'd assume it's about troops supported by battle-magic and beardy summons. Or you don't get to the endgame because you're next to Mictlan, which seems even more likely now given they decided to add in Mayan and Incan themed Mictlan-likes.
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Aug 4, 2015 08:47
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Feinne posted:I'd assume it's about troops supported by battle-magic and beardy summons. That but also with a hefty reliance on globals. It's hard to invade someone when all your mages get sniped by vengeful waters the first turn you hit >5 enemy domcandles. Note also that domspread has changed, so it's not possible to spam temples to get your domspread % over 100 anymore, meaning that pushing away poision dom is hard. Also horrors.
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Aug 4, 2015 13:55
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TheDemon posted:wtf is that draft lol It is a beautiful draft of good things. BIG GOOD. BIG STRONG. Stuff like longbows are a less useful draft choice due to the heavy prevalence of zotz spam, though if you couple it with something to sandwich the longbows in, they can kill swarms of zotz quite easily. It's just problematic in that first year.
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Aug 4, 2015 14:27
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Nuclearmonkee posted:It is a beautiful draft of good things. BIG GOOD. BIG STRONG. You forget how important the Jewish heritage is.
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Aug 4, 2015 14:54
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Baudin posted:
Just thought I'd point out that you only need A1 for quills. As that is one of a Master Smith's randoms, they are perfectly capable of forging them on their own - for 1 air gem each once you get a hammer. Admittedly not as reliable, since it's only a 5% chance per smith, but if you're massing them odds are you'll get some reasonably early. Almost certainly before you get access to boots or hammers, unless you're heavily rushing Construction, and at 5 air gems base it's not like you'll particularly want to make many quills before then anyways. Not building them until you can get them for 1 gem apiece is even in character.  Not that Magister Arcane aren't good of course, but you certainly don't need them for that or Rain of Stones, given aforementioned Master Smiths with A can also get off turn 1 Rain of Stones with a pair of boots, leaving no time for defensive spells by the enemy if you're using them for traps. Just slap armor and helmets on them(easy considering the good ones for this sort of thing require E alone), and have them lurk in provinces.
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Aug 4, 2015 19:39
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Hi, I'm foolofsound. I'm the guy who's running the draft because I like be shouted at on IRC. I'm watching the game through use of the master password, and will be doing yearly state of the world updates until OP inevitably gets killed by someone who drafted well, and will also be doing selection and mechanics chat for stuff Baudin doesn't cover. Today we're going to be talking about pretender design, and how to guess at what your opponent might have chosen. For this game, we have the special advantage of knowing which chassis all other players picked, but in most games you just have to make an educated guess. The most obvious aspect to pretender construction is the chassis, the form that your god takes. Chassis does several important things: it determines starting paths, starting domscore, and of course, your god's stats and special abilities. The two former are particularly important, since purchasing new paths is expensive, and each point in a path or in domscore costs an exponential amount based on how many points you have already put into that score. To illustrate this, let's look at a pretender trying to reach 9 in the Fire path (9 being a highly desirable number for reasons I'll get into later). A pretender with a starting score of 3 in Fire would spend 168 points to reach Fire 9, while a pretender with a starting score of 1 would spend 288 points to reach the same level, and a pretender lacking the path altogether would pay not only the 288 point, but also a premium based on chassis. Starting domscore is also an important consideration: a pretender with a starting score of 1 would spend 147 points to reach a 'safe' dominion level, while a pretender with a 2 would spend 105, one with 3 would spend 70, and one with 4 (the highest) would only spend 42. Stats are primarily of importance to gods who expect to see early game combat, and a handful of chassis have unique and interesting abilities that I'm not going to go into unless they come up, but both are also lesser considerations. Pretenders can also purchase Scales, independent of their chassis. Scales provide either positive or negative effects in the player's controlled territory, with positive effects costing points, and negative effects refunding them. Pretenders start with 500 design points, and can gain an extra 150 be choosing to be Dormant (unavailable until the end of year 1), or 250 points by being Imprisoned (unavailable until the end of year 3). This choice is usually dictated by the strategy for the build, detailed below. There are a couple of different major strategies you can use with your pretender construction: ---Expander: Gods constructed as expanders are made to gain an early game advantage, and to be sacrificed if need be. They are always taken Awake. They need to be strong enough to clear independent defenses alone, and can also be used to stop early game rushes. They are not usually useful for rushes themselves, since all pretender are weakened inside of enemy dominions, are generally become easy prey if leading an invasion. They're quite powerful on the defense though, since friendly dominion empowers them. Many expanders take a DomScore of 9, since such a high score grants the Awe ability; an aura of protection against melee attacks. Others have sufficient armor to simply ignore most enemies. In either case, Expanders almost inevitably have Trample (able to charge over small units, damaging each one), Fear (forces morale checks every turn to keep fighting), or both, in order to break enemies before the god becomes exhausted. Expanders tend to be weak spellcasters, and only have mediocre Scales; most of their points have to be spent to keep them alive. Periodically, they will be taken with more powerful magic, but bad scales instead. Earth magic is popular on expanders, since each point in Earth improves the god's natural armor. ---Blesser: Each god provides a Bless effect; a special buff that can be used by units with the Sacred ability. Each Path has two separate buffs; a weaker one that appears at 4 levels in a path, then improves with additional points, and a more powerful non-scaling bless that appears at 9 levels in a path. It's generally these latter effects that Bless gods are after, since a number of them are very powerful. Most Bless gods are taken Imprisoned, to free up more points for their expensive path purchases. They are generally taken with one powerful bless effect and beneficial scales, or two powerful bless effects and negative scales. Only certain nations can take full advantage of blesses, so gods of this sort are often highly telegraphed. Fire, Water, Nature, Blood, and (to a lesser extent) Earth magic are the most common blesses. Death is taken occasionally, and Air and Astral blesses are rarely purchased. ---Scales: The single most important thing Scales affect is income. All nations appreciate additional income, and some all but require it. More rarely they are used to increase the number of resources generated (the cap on per-province recruitment), faster research, or protection from bad events (and a better chance at good ones). It's uncommon for a god to be used for nothing but scales, but it does happen periodically. Scale heavy gods are often combined with global casters or single blessers. ---Global Caster: Global spells are powerful, game-wide effects, and many of them feature into winning strategies. The generally have high path requirements, though, and for many nations, their god is their only shot at getting many of them. Because of the high path cost, this strategy often coincides with a Blesser, but can be applied to any god. It's occasionally used as a primary strategy, on nations with both powerful expansion and weak bless potential. At the beginning of each game, each pretender receives a random number of epitaphs based on paths, scales, domscore, and occasionally other things. These are always available to all players, and can be indicative of strategy with some understanding of the nation the god is attached to. Let's take a look at Baudin's opponents:  Sea Mother and Princess of Water are clearly indicative of Water magic, while Queen of Animals indicates Nature. Patron of Herbalists can mean Nature magic, Growth scales (income increases over time), or both. Since this is a draft game, and we know his chassis:  This doesn't come as much of a surprise. The Volla was traditionally a fairly good choice, but with a pretender rebalance a few months back, humanoid pretenders are considered a bit overcosted and are less popular. The Volla does generate free gems though, which is nice. Because of the specifics of his nation (that I'll go into in a future post), we can assume he's invested heavily in Luck scales and potentially Turmoil scales (to spam positive events). The epitaphs could either mean a Water/Nature bless (a powerful, but expensive bless; probably not worth it on his nation), or else a global caster, since Nature has several powerful globals, and Water has one very useful defensive global that is generally fought over. If this is the case, we can probably assume his pretender is Dormant (if a caster), or Imprisoned (if a blesser).  These are some pretty useful epitaphs. God of Metal means Earth magic, Vessel of Might means high DomScore, God of Order means Order scales (better income), and Teacher of Philosophy means probably Magic or Sloth scales (better research, or worse resources). The high DomScore epitaphs almost always mean an awake Expander, which Earth magic is pretty common on as well. I'm going to guess at Sloth from Teacher of Philosophy, since DomScore 9 is expensive, and he probably didn't have enough points for both Order and Magic scales. As for his chassis:  Yup, awake expander. The Devourer isn't the most popular Expander, but it's still a pretty good choice. It's bite attack is an irresistable instakill on anything, which means it will win a fight with nearly any other expander it runs into. Both Death and Earth magic are useful on expanders too. We can probably assume Boing is going to have a pretty strong start.  He Who Seals the Gates of Death and God of Darkness are both Death magic titles, with He Who Seals being restricted to high Death magic, I believe. God of Famine means Death scales (income is reduced over time), an uncommon choice, but one that can be helpful with specific strategies. He may have a Death bless (not common, but not terrible), but most likely plan to use his god to rush the powerful Death globals, two of which can be game winning strategies on their own. I expect that his god is Dormant.  Yeah, that's a global caster, and probably also a defensive battlemage (defense goes hand-in-hand with Death globals). His god is Immortal, which means that whenever he is killed inside his own territory, he instantly resurrects at his capital without penalty.  He Who is at the Center is another high DomScore epitaph, and I think the others are all Earth magic. I'm less certain on that though. So another awake expander, but that's really all we know.  Oh look it's Pigod. Pigod is one of the most popular Awake expanders because he both Tramples and has Berserk, which means he powers up the first time he takes damage, and will never retreat from battle. He's risks injury, but can capture provinces that no other expander can hope to. He's got useful paths too, if SpookyDanger decided to go for globals (not always a good plan on a suicidal boar).  Princess of the Afterlife and Gatherer of the Dead mean Death magic, of course, while Lady of Celestial Bodies means Astral magic. Probably not an expander or a blesser (since those paths aren't conducive to those strategies), so globals and scales is most likely.  Despite being a monster, the Sphinx is actually a pretty poor expander, since she lacks a decent Protection score or any sort of other defense. Flying+Fear can clear weaker provinces, but it's more likely that she was taken Dormant for use in globals.  Uh. Uh huh. God of War means Fire magic or Turmoil scales, King of Flowers and Spring is Nature magic, and Patron of Suicides is Blood magic. And considering that literally every unit in Kitfox' nation is Sacred, it's a pretty safe assumption that Kitfox has gone for the legendary TriBless. His troops have increased accuracy, increased damage, increased HP, flaming weapons, regeneration, and reflect damage taken on their attackers. This, on the other hand, means he's taken trash scales, and is going to rely on a powerful early game to win.  Irminsul is a fantastic pretender. He's immobile, but he's got a high Nature score for the powerful Nature bless, and enough HP in his own dominion to effectively defend the capital single handedly with a simple regeneration spell. He's almost certainly Imprisoned though, which means that he won't show up in person for a while.  Unmoving Master means another immobile pretender, Tamer of Demons means Blood magic, and Armorer and Lord of Soil mean Earth magic; a powerful combination for several reasons. Based on his nation, I'm willing to bet that Xanrick went for a Blood bless and high Scales.  Yeah, that's probably all right. The head will probably help Xanrick bootstrap into Blood magic later in the game, and is able to summon powerful demons on his own, including the excellent Demon Knights. It's not as useful as Irminsul on the defense, but it's still going to be a challenge to take the capital.  Great. Literally all of those epitaphs mean high DomScore. I'm going to go ahead and spoil here: JonJoe took a joke-y gimmicky custom pretender made for Kitfox88 that only has once viable build: DomScore 10, all scales max positive, no magic, Imprisoned, Immobile. It's safe to assume that's what he took.  Another not very useful collection of titles. All of those mean Astral magic, meaning that Fleur's god is probably a Wish Engine in the later game, or possibly a Master Enslave caster (a spell that has a chance of converting every enemy unit to your side). It's probably dormant at minimum  Yeah, because of Fleurs' nation gimmick, I know exactly what he's going to do with this. Basically, he can resurrect his god quickly and without the usual penalties, and thus is going to use a teleporting Astral 9 Oracle to be an absolute fucker as soon as he hits high research, defeating entire armies with a single spell. So yeah, looks like OP's got his work cut out for him. If anyone has mechanics questions, I'm sure a lot of us would be happy to answer them. I'm also announcing a  Thread ContestWe in the world of goon Dominions 4 have no taste, and love memes. If you submit hilarious memes based on this particular game of Dominions 4, you could win your very own Steam copy of the game! You submissions will be judged by a profession panel (Samog) at the end of the LP, and I'm going to try to harass some of the other regulars into submitting second and third prizes as well.
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Aug 4, 2015 19:47
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imo decrepus, as the world's foremost dominions meme expert, should also be a judge
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Aug 4, 2015 19:55
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Samog posted:imo decrepus, as the world's foremost dominions meme expert, should also be a judge ok
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Aug 4, 2015 19:55
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Wait so that one guys pretender is just a statue of Hitler?
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Aug 4, 2015 21:01
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CongoJack posted:Wait so that one guys pretender is just a statue of Hitler? ya
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Aug 4, 2015 21:05
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We have s second prize for the meme contest:
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Aug 5, 2015 03:13
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hmm i don't know much about pro memeing but i really want that goddamn mug. i'm also near certain that piggod doesn't have dom9 or 10
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Aug 5, 2015 04:39
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Turn 3: IRC Quote of the Turn: (9:10:08 AM) Nuclearmonkee: everyone will find everyone within a couple turns in a draft game (9:10:11 AM) Nuclearmonkee: cause everyone has good expansion Time to check on my first battle!  Flawless Victory. Awesome, now to watch the battle!  I also got a great event for my capital, +15 defence which will stack for a total of 40. This results in the following total defensive army:  It also gives me better unrest control and patrol strength in case someone tries scouting me or unrest crops up. I push up the province defence (PD) to 1 in my newly gained province, and move on to attacking the next province in my capital’s circle of provinces.   I’m sending in my support army with the marshmaster leading a few sacred troops - I’d really like the marshmaster to survive so I send him to the back with orders to stay behind the troops. I’ll use independant commanders for moving reinforcements forward in the future so I take a closer look at my new province and notice it has a Great Silver Mine. Awesome!  Extra 60 gold per turn is a nice bonus on top of the 69 income the province itself provides. I recruit a indie commander and look to my home province to see what I should recruit. After considering my options for a bit I decide to start on producing Ahiman Anakites - they’re extremely powerful in the expansion phase and my starting army might be enough to take a few more provinces, which could leave me in a good position to start another expansion army and go in a different direction. Or support my existing army. Or something.  That’s a pretty meagre looking reinforcement queue. But also a powerful one. I hope. I hit “N” and realize I have yet to deal with my poor scout - most importantly I notice there’s a small red and black candle which means someone else is nearby to the northwest of my capital. Time to swoop over and see!  And with that another turn is done. Baudin fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Aug 5, 2015 |
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Aug 5, 2015 04:41
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