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ousire posted:The way I had read into Ermor's lore was that they had learned death magic to try and bring This is actually what I'd thought as well, which makes me think that it might have been the lore behind the dom3 version.
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Aug 11, 2015 14:24
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Yeah during MA Abysia does an Ermor and starts conquering the world around it with the power of the Demonbred and Humanbred bolstering the failing power of the Abysian people and they found colonies and basically do a decent impression of the Sassanid Empire while also invading Ashdod and probably giving C'tis a good eyeball. Things don't go quite as badly for them as they do for Ermor but it doesn't exactly go well. It goes much better for their surviving colony of Tur, which I will eventually get to 
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Aug 11, 2015 14:26
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I hope Abysia gets a revamp in a future patch. They have such cool lore potential, but in the game all of that potential manifests itself in the guise of a lovely, wet fart. e: lovely, wet, hot fart.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:15
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The Avvite great bows were able to single out and kill the salamanders and dragons from beyond the range of their fire magic, much like in game and in real life.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:17
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Yeah it's extremely good how Abysia is really powerful and wrecks their neighbors in the fluff while generally being near bottom tier in the actual game. I don't know, they seemed pretty strong in that game that you won while playing Abysia.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:52
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Neruz posted:Yeah during MA Abysia does an Ermor and starts conquering the world around it with the power of the Demonbred and Humanbred bolstering the failing power of the Abysian people and they found colonies and basically do a decent impression of the Sassanid Empire while also invading Ashdod and probably giving C'tis a good eyeball. Things don't go quite as badly for them as they do for Ermor but it doesn't exactly go well. It goes much better for their surviving colony of Tur, which I will eventually get to I always though Abysia's sthick was "Lol we Satan now"
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Aug 11, 2015 16:07
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Yeah remember that a lot of this is different than the dom3 lore. Ermor fucks everything up in similar but not identical ways in dom3 since Death doesn't actually get unleashed properly until LA there. Also back in 3 Death was VERY strongly hinted to in fact be Zombie Jesus. The water nations are funny because despite the names R'lyeh is as much stuff stolen from D&D as Lovecraft references, if anything Atlantis is much more Lovecraft. Yes even the Eskimos (there were definitely a cult of Inuit that worshipped Cthulhu mentioned in a story but I don't remember the deets). Feinne fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 16:15
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Rotekian posted:I don't know, they seemed pretty strong in that game that you won while playing Abysia. I sandbagged till the end and won with blood. No one attacked me for the first 50ish turns and I was allowed to just quietly stab people who were already in wars in the butt and take resources from them while peacefully researching and getting blood. This is true for each game I won with Abysia in EA, MA and LA
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Aug 11, 2015 16:19
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Yeah just because Warlocks are able to make everything terrible if you let Abysia live way longer than they should doesn't stop Abysia being pretty bad. An important dominions skill is knowing when different nations are at their peaks of power and therefore how safe you are to engage at any given time. And for Abysia, that time is 'before they poo poo horrors all over you'. If you let an Abysia get to the point where they can send horrors you're in the bad place. The bloodbowl thread would describe it as gently caress City and I think that's pretty appropriate for fighting horror spam.
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Aug 11, 2015 16:26
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Nuclearmonkee posted:I sandbagged till the end and won with blood. No one attacked me for the first 50ish turns and I was allowed to just quietly stab people who were already in wars in the butt and take resources from them while peacefully researching and getting blood. I have fond memories of Headtrauma. Mictlan and Abysia, blood bros until the end. Horror bombing and Operation gently caress THE OCEAN reigned supreme. Sadly, you grabbed the last throne on the turn I was teleporting my armies to finally attack you 
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Aug 11, 2015 17:00
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Turn 9: Another successful expansion, with only one ancient one lost:  This also brings me into close contact with two new players, which could cause problems soon.  I’m advancing my expansion army into the centre of the map, in hope of getting to claim the sweet mine there, with potential for further glorious gem income. In particular I’ve now met an awake expander, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, a devourer of souls. He’s clearly done a better job of expanding than I have, which is a huge problem.  The GREAT part about this particular guy is that he instantly kills whatever he bites.  I’d rather have him attack someone else, anyone else. I need to start up a fortress relatively soon, so I’m saving up my income from this turn, asides from the already training Kohen Gadol. I add a few zealots to the mix as well, just so I can have something to move around next turn. Hopefully I can fortify the gem income location and have a good location to attack from in a few “short” turns with the gold I’m saving up from this turn. I send my various scouts out to check on nearby lands - including areas near Goran, another neighbour.  I jam my finger on N a bunch, and then end my pitiful turn. I have a bad feeling about this. I’m behind on expansion and need to start eating up opponents quickly. This is highly unlikely to happen.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:31
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In regards to what the best strategy is, Blood and Blood sac are obviously a step above everything else that isn't Earth/Rain of Stones abuse. Nations that can spam lightless lanterns while doing other good things also have a nice edge. The biggest balance issue right now is probably Blood Sac being nation-specific since everyone needs a way to push dom and not everyone has it. Most blood nations should be rushed down by coalitions of non-blood nations at some point during the early or midgame, depending on nation composition. Blood is strong but has a few dead zones where if a player is jamming blood they will have big holes in their defense and have to spend a lot of resources to fight a defensive war - meaning 2-3 players jumping on one guy will usually succeed without much hubbub. Many of the "best" late game blood nations are absolutely awful in the early game - Nuclearmonkee has a weird habit of winning games where he is playing a terrible, useless nation and for some reason nobody attacks him till year 4 when he's already won the game. I think he's won games as all three Abyssias now without having fought a war in years 1-3 in ANY of them. I've also seen him do this as Marignon which is even more egregious. This is because goons are huge loving idiots who do not listen to very, very basic strategic advice such as "don't make peace with abyssia in year 1-3 you dumb idiot they are defenseless but will kill you in 20 turns if you don't fight them now and take all their poo poo for free." In an answer to the earlier question of who the top players are it's definitely Nuclearmonkee/Hatwer (Have Some Flowers! on the forums) (in some combination of #1 and #2) with me probably being #3??? It's possible to streak for a while and win a lot of games in a row but eventually people will get sick of that poo poo and band together to knock you out early and you'll plummet down below 50% no matter how good you are. I've won 3 straight games since coming back from Modpud-induced retirement and am close to winning my 4th but after that I'm sure I'll barely make it out of year 1 for a while. I Love You! fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 20:45
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Turn 10: Excellent, another successful expansion!   Hoburgs are tiny hobbit like creatures. Great defense though! They were led by this enterprising fellow:  Plus I found a shortsword left behind by his corpse. I’m likely never going to use it.  Well ok maybe I will… though the x3 vs larger beings is a bit of a problem, considering nothing’s larger than my troops in general. I also received some gems due to an event:  And my marshmaster found a site which produces nature gems!  The mine I just took also gives me 150 gold per turn, nothing to sneeze at.  I immediately start building a castle in this province. If I can keep it I suspect the tiny hoburgs will form an excellent addition to my nation.  I also realize I’ve been completely ignoring mercenaries for quite some time:  Regardless my recruitment in the capital is now a bit…. anemic.  On a completely different note I’ve been keeping track of IRC logs in a google doc - that way I’m far less likely to forget what pacts I have with which players. I’ve already begun talking to a few neighbours, and hopefully I can get more talking going soon. I’ve continued scouting - including finding another nation’s capital! Boingladesh. Jesus that’s a terrible name.  And another location shows a new player discovered!  So the map kind of looks like this:  I move around my various land based scouts, send my newly recruited Kohen to my east to look for sites next turn, and hit the end turn button, again.  A very expensive site searcher.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:49
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lol remember that post that demonstated how a blood nation with level 2 blood research can kill huge armies using like 6 mages? That was a good post lol just kill them
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Aug 11, 2015 20:50
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Here is a cool post where I break down some of the top goon players and why they are good! Dominions is a super stupid game but is really cool because there are a lot of viable playstyles that can take you to the top! Nuclearmonkee is excellent because he just knows more about the game and its interactions than anyone else re: in-combat application of spells and abilities. He makes very few incorrect decisions and is fantastic at having answers online before his opponents even present him with tricky situations. On top of that, he is incredible at expanding, even with garbage troops, and he will always have fantastic income and many forts. Attacking into Nuclearmonkee is a miserable experience and that contributes greatly to his ability to convince players to essentially fold the game to him from the outset - even though there's no way to beat an untouched lategame Marignon, lots of players choose to just let it happen and automatically lose the game rather than have to personally deal with his excellent scripting, spell selection, and tactical decisions. To beat Nuclearmonkee people need to work in concert early, dedicating sizeable numbers of mans and mages in order to deal with the endless waves of varied bullshit he is able to throw at you. If you are not working together to beat him before he hits the lategame, you are going to lose to him. He is an extremely well-rounded player and if he has a weakness, it is his tendency to commit hard to one big thing, leaving himself weak for a short while and relying on his reputation to shield him. Hatwer never makes a bad decision, because he tests everything and perfects his orders in order to minimize losses and always come out on top in a given fight. He is the #1 micromanager on the forums, making sure every single mage and troop is doing something useful while building incremental advantages over a long game. He rarely walks into a trap and sets more and better traps than just about everyone else. Despite this he is probably strongest on the offense because Hatwer is exceptional at managing his domain and having everyone in the right place at the right time, meaning it's very had to counterattack into him or outflank/outplay his attacking forces. Hatwer is nearly impossible to beat in a big fight - don't match deathballs against him, ever. In fact, don't make a deathball when fighting against him, period - he will trap it, horror bomb it, beat it in a straight fight, or neutralize it with magic and disperse it every time. There is nothing he enjoys more than punishing people for making deathballs, and since he tests everything over and over before committing, you are not going to outplay him often enough to come out ahead. If he has a weakness, it is that he doesn't diplomance as hard as some players, and can be overly cautious when he isn't sure about possible outcomes, which can sometimes allow a player across the world to get ahead. To beat Hatwer, you probably want to avoid him as much as possible and take some big risks early - if you can get far enough ahead, you might have a chance to brute force him later since he is unlikely to be taking similar risks. TRIGGER WARNING: Someone else might want to continue this trend of player profiles and could maybe do a better job writing one for me than myself but I'm gonna toot my own horn much like Baudin's PD do ILoveU is me but I'm going to talk in the third person because this is really fun. Definitely a less refined player than the previous two, ILoveU wins primarily by abusing bullshit. Whether it's jamming globals or combinations of spells that people do not often see, ILoveU is never, ever going to commit to a fair fight. He tends to favor hyperaggressive expansion strategies like Nuclearmonkee, and will take sizeable risks early to gain a lead, especially if he thinks it will be difficult for opponents to identify the lead until it is too late. He never gives up a lead once he has it because he does not play fair. Not as skilled in tactics as Monkee or Hatwer, ILoveU religiously avoids actual battles, instead sending out endless small raiding forces and counterattacks while wasting as much time as possible and teching for unanswerable or unexpected answers to invading armies. Most of his gameplay involves specific timing windows for globals and aggressively pushing dominion while slowly bleeding his opponents out by a thousand small cuts. He is also likely to be using spells or units you haven't seen much of in the past, which can cause a lot of problems if you were relying on standard answers to standard problems. His primary weakness lies in his weaker micromanagement skills and reliance on timing windows and early risks - if you can hit him at the same time he's doing something risky, he might not have answers to whatever you are bringing to the table yet. The best way to beat ILoveU is to force him into a large battle early, before whatever dumb abuse he's working on comes online and where he cannot yet simply counterattack with small raiding parties in response. I Love You! fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 21:21
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RE: Lore Neruz's lore posts are super-interesting. But he's making the classic mistake of assuming that every nation's history lines up chronologically across eras. Illwinter has said that there would need to be at least five eras if you wanted to have everybody fitting chronologically. EA Arcoscephale, EA Ur, and EA Hinnom, and probably EA C'tis 'take place' waaaaay before EA Ermor is doing its thing. Late Republican Rome maps to LA Gath and MA/LA Arcos, though it's hard to tell because they never interact with Ermor's history. Other nations like Abyssia, Pangaea, Agartha, and TNN/Fomoria/*heims are totally divorced from what's happening in Ermor-land. Berytos does kind of glom onto the very tail end of Hinnom, which means that the Berytos which gets smashed by Ermor and removed from the face of the earth would actually be the 'MA Berytos'. Then in MA you have things like Scelaria and Pythium coexisting with Agartha, Man, and Marignon. LA has pretty much the same problems with Ctis and Gath effectively being 1000 years before Ulm and Bogarus. Speleothing fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 21:48
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Feinne posted:Yeah remember that a lot of this is different than the dom3 lore. Ermor fucks everything up in similar but not identical ways in dom3 since Death doesn't actually get unleashed properly until LA there. the romans just unleash death twice now I Love You! posted:In an answer to the earlier question of who the top players are it's definitely Nuclearmonkee/Hatwer (Have Some Flowers! on the forums) (in some combination of #1 and #2) with me probably being #3??? It's possible to streak for a while and win a lot of games in a row but eventually people will get sick of that poo poo and band together to knock you out early and you'll plummet down below 50% no matter how good you are. I've won 3 straight games since coming back from Modpud-induced retirement and am close to winning my 4th but after that I'm sure I'll barely make it out of year 1 for a while. wow, what happened to the days when you said samog was one of the best dominions players
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Aug 11, 2015 22:47
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Speleothing posted:RE: Lore Hence why I keep saying that the links are tenuous and distant at best; the comparisons to real-world civilizations are mostly to help give you an idea of the sort of overall 'theme' a given nation is going for.
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Aug 11, 2015 23:02
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I Love You! posted:TRIGGER WARNING: Someone else might want to continue this trend of player profiles and could maybe do a better job writing one for me than myself but I'm gonna toot my own horn much like Baudin's PD do Well, I certainly can add my one profile to the pile. Libluini is literally the worst. Instead of using strategy, you can assume he enters every game with a gimmick pretender and a convoluted, overly complex plan. He will then quite often change gimmick and plan mid-game because there's always a chance it didn't work out as planned, could actually never work due to misunderstood spells/gamemechanics/typos in the plan itself or because he forgot. Libluini tends to mindlessly assemble mages and troops into gigantic deathballs, always trying to get the one final invincible deathball. He will continue to do this until someone like Hatwer comes along and destroys his giant loving armies often enough to force him to innovate. Generally speaking though, deatballs are generally a means to an end for him: Holding out for long enough his As a fair warning: The only thing known to rise Libluini from the dream-like haze he is making his turns in is an early-game invasion. If you do that, he'll try to make your life a living hell until you at the very least have no chance at winning anymore. If you try diplomacy however, you'll find out he's willing to ally up to the point of default and to his own detriment. Until you overdo it and his mood changes, of course.
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Aug 11, 2015 23:04
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Thanks ILV! Very interesting posts that are much appreciated.
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Aug 11, 2015 23:09
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Samog posted:the romans just unleash death twice now The links between samog and good play are distant and tenuous at best.
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Aug 11, 2015 23:28
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Decrepus posted:The links between samog and good anything are distant and tenuous at best. ftfy
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Aug 11, 2015 23:36
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heLLO? AM I BEIGN FLAMED
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Aug 11, 2015 23:38
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All I can say is that as someone who hasn't played his first game yet, I think the most fun thing available would be to play as the RNG for other players and decide who gets what events, gem sites, etc.
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Aug 11, 2015 23:39
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TravelLog posted:All I can say is that as someone who hasn't played his first game yet, I think the most fun thing available would be to play as the RNG for other players and decide who gets what events, gem sites, etc. You should enter the
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Aug 11, 2015 23:57
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fool_of_sound posted:You should enter the Don't do this it's a trap. I don't even have to look at the dom4 modding manual to know that anything they added or 'improved' just resulted in it being even more arcane.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:05
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Feinne posted:Don't do this it's a trap. It's actually not too bad for the most part. The biggest difficulties I have are with spell modding, which does utterly unpredictable things for no apparent reason, and requires you to fiddle around a lot to get all but the simplest effects to work.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:06
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I Love You! posted:In an answer to the earlier question of who the top players are it's definitely Nuclearmonkee/Hatwer (Have Some Flowers! on the forums) (in some combination of #1 and #2) with me probably being #3??? It's possible to streak for a while and win a lot of games in a row but eventually people will get sick of that poo poo and band together to knock you out early and you'll plummet down below 50% no matter how good you are. I've won 3 straight games since coming back from Modpud-induced retirement and am close to winning my 4th but after that I'm sure I'll barely make it out of year 1 for a while. Please tell us about how Modpud forced you into retirement.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:04
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Gridlocked posted:Please tell us about how Modpud forced you into retirement. It was her feminine wiles.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:06
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Speleothing posted:RE: Lore Oh so EA, MA and LA are relative to their nation not to a collective time zone?
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Aug 12, 2015 01:07
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Gridlocked posted:Please tell us about how Modpud forced you into retirement. 80s-style coke party gone wrong
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Aug 12, 2015 01:09
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Gridlocked posted:Oh so EA, MA and LA are relative to their nation not to a collective time zone? Only by lore standards. Gameplay wise, they're still divided by EA/MA/LA
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Aug 12, 2015 01:09
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Gridlocked posted:Oh so EA, MA and LA are relative to their nation not to a collective time zone? Pretty much; some nations have clear connections to other nations which put them in the same collective time zone but other nations are either disconnected entirely or have their own little time zone that they occupy with a few other nations. Arco is an example of a nation that isn't really directly connected to any other nations beyond the fact that it's physically east of Ermor and south of C'tis on little peninsula. What exact time periods of Arco match up to what periods of other nations is pretty much unknown.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:14
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I Love You! posted:Here is a cool post where I break down some of the top goon players and why they are good! Dominions is a super stupid game but is really cool because there are a lot of viable playstyles that can take you to the top! So who to I cry at in IRC to teach me how to not be poo poo and lose to Indies?
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Aug 12, 2015 01:26
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Gridlocked posted:So who to I cry at in IRC to teach me how to not be poo poo and lose to Indies? Monkee or Hatwer, mostly what they'll tell you to do though is go start up a singleplayer game and experiment with attacking different indies. They can also probably tell you the correct positioning for common types of indies in order to ensure first strike which helps a lot.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:28
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la arco has some interactions with bandar log and gath
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Aug 12, 2015 01:34
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Yeah it has a very distant connection to Bandar Log with one of its heroes, what's the connection to Gath though? e: Oh right the Iassacharites of Gath may learned their stuff from the Priestesses of Arco. Though the text specifically notes that it is unclear if this is actually the case or not.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:45
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Does't Arco fight someone between MA and LA? Ragha maybe?
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Aug 12, 2015 01:56
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Absum posted:Does't Arco fight someone between MA and LA? Ragha maybe? Actually that's Machaka, not Arco. I have no idea what the connection between Arco and Bandar Log is; I can't see anything in the nation or unit descriptions. Neruz fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 02:02
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So let's talk about Baudin's biggest immediate threat: Boing and his nation Boingladaesh.fool_of_sound posted:
Capital Only Mage: Camazotz  Presumably taken for their Blood/Death and Blood/Earth crosspath (both useful, for different reasons), the Camazotz are somewhat weak for a capital mage. Still, they make useful blood hunters, and can potentially summon both Vampire Lords (useful for leading the hordes of undead Boing will inevitably be wielding), and Demon Knights (ever useful and powerful summons). Anywhere Mages: High Seraph and Mystic  The High Seraph is ludicrously powerful for a recruit anywhere. Air 3 means that he can cast Storm without boosters, and can twice as much damage as the average Air mage in an Air strategy. Unfortunately, they're slow to recruit and expensive, so boing probably won't make many of them immeditately.  The Mystics are fantastic mages. Excellent, efficient researchers and useful both as Communion masters and slaves (Nuclearmonkee will explain communions is a bit). Boing will probably build swarms of these to get him into full offensive modebefore switching to High Seraphs. Other Commanders: Apu, High Priest of C'tis, and Bakemono Scout   The Apu is a flying commander. He does flying commander things like lead raiding parties. His only interesting feature is that, when he dies, he is turned into a Mallqui, which loses the ability to fly but is a better general. Unfortunately the Mallqi also costs more upkeep.  Boing took the High Priest of C'tis because it is one of the few cheap, recruit anywhere Holy 2s, which Boing desperately wants because his priests can summon free undead every turn, and Holy 2s can summon the much more powerful Longdead Horsemen, rather than just the purely chaff Longdead.  The Bakemono scount can be recruited outside of forts, always useful in a scout. It's otherwise unremarkable. Capital Only Troop: Ancestor Vessels  I love these guys. Powerful even without a bless (important, since Boing didn't take one) thanks to their Howling Bows, which inflict a fear attack with ever shot. They're also pretty potent in terms of mundane offense as well, like upgraded Barbarian Heavy Horsemen from JonJoe's nation. Anywhere Troops: Skinshifters, Airya Archers, Illithids, War Elephants, Crossbowmen, Hastatus   Skinshifters are elite troops who regenerate 10% of their HP ever turn. This wouldn't be all that useful if not for their ability to turn into a nasty werewolf the first time they're killed. They're tanky and very powerful, though not as powerful as Boing though, cause he got his first stack of them this game wiped by indie cavalry.  Flying archers are useful as skirmishers since it's very difficult to approach them. Except to see raiding parties of these at some point.  A piece of stolen intellectual property in a snazzy robe, the Illithids are for the most part pretty poor soldiers except for their ability to Mind Blast, which has 100% accuracy and paralyzes enemies hit for several turns. They're hard to mass, but a decent team of them can turn the tide on most battles.  A lot of nations have access to elephants; they're ostensibly very useful for expansion, though only a handful of players seem to be able to use them successfully. They have Trample and Size 6, which means they can potentially make a lot of attacks every round. Boing commited the sin of choosing the Machakan elephant over the one ridden by monkeys because the Machakan one has one higher Morale.  We've talked about these guys before. Stable ranged combatant. Cheap and always useful.  We've seen units similar to these; they're cheap blockers and arrow catchers with big shields National Gimmick: Reanimation This is the single biggest threat in Boing's nation: his priests can spend their turns summoning free undead units: Ghouls or Longdead, or for H2+ priests, Longdead Horsemen. Ghouls aren't really worth talking about because they kill your population when you summon them. I think they have a paralyze attack though, so maybe they'll see some use? Longdead are your basic skeletons: poo poo trash, useful only in that they're free and come in large numbers, often large enough to defeat otherwise superior armies. They can win basically any battle that doesn't contain on of their counters, of which there are a decent amount. Longdead Horsemen are better; not fantastic, but reasonable fighters and useful on the alpha strike; Boing will probably make a lot of these.
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Aug 12, 2015 02:02
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