Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Baudin posted:


Extra 60 gold per turn is a nice bonus on top of the 69 income the province itself provides.

I have some bad news for you Baudin.

(That's not how those work. The extra gold is calced into the province income. That is a 9 gold province (actually like 18 but shenanigans regarding admin values and fort nonsense) prior to the income from the silver mine.)

Neruz fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Aug 5, 2015

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Klaus88 posted:

I'd like to point out that casual racism is that norm rather then the exception for fantasy and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or a massive MRA neckbeard type. :negative:

Also it looks like only Jonjoe has any remote idea of what he is doing so far. :nallears:

To be fair; casual racism is a lot easier when the people you are being racist against are actually a different species with entirely different physical and mental traits :v:

That does not justify having Machakan Humans get -1 enc and +1 ap or Jomonese having -1 HP though. And that's not even getting into the fact that being female in this game apparently means -hp and str, +def. Or the fact that the stand-in nation for India are literal monkey people, though the Vanara being a legit piece of Indian mythology helps a bit.

Illwinter are just extremely white and male.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Decrepus posted:

He picks blood, he starts next to you, and there is nothing you can loving do about it.

Just sign an alliance with him and help him win the game: You'll have way more fun that way than if you try and fight his inevitable victory and he probably won't break the alliance.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Gridlocked posted:

Also is there a place I can find a coherent story of how the various ages fit together? Like I know a few basic things like the Roman dudes being taught necromancy by the Egyptian Snakes and then misusing it for EEEEVIIIL.

There is sort of a vague over-arching story for the ages which when combined with what little we know about the physical shape of the Dominions world (as seen in Dawn of Dominions) gives you an outline of the whole thing, but in general the story is fairly fuzzy and indistinct beyond a few key details and general themes like humans growing to dominate the world and magic fading as time passes.

The ages also very vaguely map to real-world history, but not cleanly as the Asian stand-in nations map to a completely different time period from the European stand-in nations and the American nations follow their own thing which is only very distantly related to real-world history and the UW nations are mostly just there, though that might change with the coming UW patch.

I can do you a big lorepost about what is known about some of the areas and what can be presumed based on the mythologies or nations that served as the inspiration for a given faction but each 'geographic group' of nations is mostly separate from each other with very little contact beyond mentions by specific heroes so making everything fit together is tricksy.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Aug 11, 2015

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Alrighty then.

I'll start with the 'European' nations; these are the ones that most closely map to actual real-world history with several nations being obvious stand-ins for real-world nations that mostly sort of existed around similar times. They're also the ones with the most complex relationships and can mostly be defined by their connection to and interaction with Ermor.

This is because Ermor stands in for Rome and Rome obviously had something of a significant impact on European history. EA Ermor and its related nations mostly map to the period before or during rise of the Roman Empire (EA in general is sort of 3000+ BC to say ~100 AD); EA Marverni are the Druids\Celts, EA Ulm are the Germanic tribes (and also Conan the Barbarian, a lot of nations are both stand-ins for a real world nation and references to mythology or pop culture), EA Berytos stand-in for the Carthaginians and also connect with EA Hinnom. Hinnom is not really very connected to actual real-world history and is almost purely Jewish Mythology (specifically the Nephilim) but the Melqart connection with Berytos does sort of mirror the fact that the Carthaginian Empire had some fairly large immigrant Jewish communities, though I don't think they were flesh eating abominations who moved in and took over in reality. Hinnom thus sort of stands in for Assyria and other similar Semitic kingdoms in the Ancient Near East. EA Ur connects to Hinnom via Enkidu slaves and also very vaguely stands in for Sumeria or Akkadia (Babylon basically, that's why they can build Castles in EA and why their forts cost so much; they're building giant stuff like the Great Wall of Babylon) while mostly being based on the Epic of Gilgamesh Legend, despite not having Gilgamesh as a hero in a completely inexplicable missed opportunity.

Going back towards Europe we have EA Arcoscephale who are pretty obviously standing in for the Greek city states, although not the historical Greek city states but rather the sort of legendary Greek city states before Rome dominated the region. EA Pangaea are of course based on Greek mythology, specifically the various beastmen of said mythology. So they sort of both stand-in for the Greek city states together. EA C'tis stands in for Egypt, specifically Dynastic Egypt, sort of Old Kingdom to New Kingdom. Sauromatia is of course based around the Amazons 'myth' and thus stands in for Scythia or the Byzantines. Tir'Na'Nog and Fomoria are both elements of British\Irish\Gaelic mythologies and they stand in for England and Ireland respectively. Vanheim, Helheim and Niefelheim are all elements of Nordic mythologies and together they represent that general area of northern Europe, noting that Vanheim are pretty clearly going to be the Vikings.


Okay so now you know the relevant historical notes, what actually happens in the Dominions world? Note that while the general course of Dominions sort of maps to real world history the specifics are very, very different.

Prior to EA Ermor had gone to C'tis to learn the death magics of the Sauromancers. The Sauromancers being pretty chill and generally riding high on their power and awesomeness decided that teaching these frantic little Humans the secrets of Death magic would be a totally great idea that could not possibly backfire on them in any way, shape or form. Ermor has already built a massive empire, though they have not completely conquered the surrounding nations like Arco and Marverni they are powerful and on the rise. Right before EA starts a great Prophet Shrouded in White appeared and overthrew the Old Cult of Ermor (yes its Jesus). It's not clear what happened to the Prophet but hes dead by the time EA starts so he probably got killed by cultists or something, either way the Prophet prophesied that a God would awaken in Ermor and founded a new cult based around that. Said god is of course the Pretender that the player makes in EA. During this time all the various other nations have similar warnings about awakening gods in their own manners, presumably because the previous Pantokrator (we know there was one, and that's all we know) up and vanished.

In the transition from EA to MA a number of things happen, Ermor expands their empire and fully conquers both Marverni and Sauromatia though they fail to conquer Arcoscephale. Berytos is destroyed in conflict with Ermor and Ermor also makes significant inroads to TNN. Fomoria is defeated, presumably by TNN, before Ermor shows up and starts wrecking their poo poo. Ermor is invaded by and utterly trounces Agartha when they launch their War under the Sun (Agartha is one of the two nations that doesn't map to any real-world peoples at all along with Abysia, though Abysia has picked up some vaguely Iranian\Persian trappings), dealing such a critical blow to the Pale Ones that the species is now on the path to extinction. Ulm discovers the secret of Blacksteel and stops being Conan the Barbarian to instead become the Teutonic Order, because of course. Pangaean nature magic, with the help of a few radical extremist Pandemonics (themselves a radical extremist branch of the Panii of Pangea), decides to lose its poo poo at the deforestation and general loss of wildlands that comes with the expanding Ermorian Empire and splinters off to form Asphodel while the Panii all sit around and moan about how everything sucks more than it used to. The last Sidhe in TNN retreat from Ermor's advance and go to Ireland to found Eriu in the ruins of Fomoria, Ur just up and vanishes and C'tis undergoes a sudden climate change followed by a massive schism between the Herbivore and Predator Lizards. This could sort of vaguely allude to the rise of the Jews or the Upper\Lower kingdom split, but its pretty tenuous. Hinnom consumes itself in an orgy of fire and blood but not before a Melqart named Arba realized that the Cult of the Nephilim was going to doom them all and left to found Ashdod, the realm of the Anakim. Ashdod is also composed of 'Twin Cities' which could possibly be a Sodom and Gomorrah reference :shrug:.

But the big thing to happen between EA and MA is Ermor fucks up big. The Augurs have been getting these omens of doom and destruction and now fresh with all that shiny new knowledge about Death magic thanks to those idiot lizards the Augurs start enacting all kinds of batshit insane rituals of horror and destruction to bolster Ermor's armies and assist in the conquering of Marverni and Sauromatia. For some reason the Priests of Eldregate (as the priests who followed the Prophet Shrouded in White had come to be known due to their primary location in Eldregate, the capitol of Ermor) were totally cool with this and basically just sat around and partied while the Augurs unleashed more and more hideous magic.. Not everyone was blind to what was happening though and a number of Theurgs and Thaumaturgs foresaw the coming disaster and advised numerous generals, governors and consuls to revolt. This worked excellently and the uprising eventually primarily united behind a figure known as the Apostate Emperor, the Apostate Emperor marched upon Eldregate and forced the Augurs and Priests of Eldregate to work together. This turned out to be a bad idea as they basically unleashed Death itself upon the entire Empire. In a single moment Eldregate was destroyed and everyone nearby was killed stone dead. In the wake of the Catacylsm the realms that Ermor had previously controlled fragmented off into their own nations.

This whole sequence of events very broadly mirrors the fall of the Roman empire and the nations that arise from Ermor in MA represent that; Pythium stands in for the Eastern Roman Empire, Sceleria stands in for the Western Roman Empire. MA Ermor stands in for skeletons. Up in the lands that TNN had once inhabited that Ermor had conquered (England basically) the people gather together and form the nation of Man while in Marverni they form Marignon and stand-in for France.

Vanheim defeats Helheim and they mostly resolve their differences and join together into just Vanheim while the war between the Vanir and the Jotuns pretty much cools off as the Vanir and Jotuns slowly die out. Meanwhile Human refugees from Ulm and Ermor find the lost city of Agartha and the few remaining Pale Ones whom they promptly start worshiping as gods. Because why not.

At some point during all this the Seal under Agartha gets broken, the Seal was placed there by a previous Pantokrator and the Pale Ones were set as its guards before they sort of abandoned those duties and tried to invade the surface. The Seal imprisoned the undying bodies of three massive Titans, each of which contained the souls of a massive number of prior Pretenders who had fought the previous Pantokrator and failed. The previous Pantokrator stuffed all those God souls into those three Titan bodies and imprisoned them behind the Seal so breaking said Seal is not a great idea. Doing so releases all 3 God Vessels which promptly rampage randomly around the map under no-one's control until you kill them at which point a massive screaming cloud of insane God souls called a Legion of Gods pops out and wanders about wrecking your poo poo even harder until it's dealt with.

Given that, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Seal breaking is what the Catacylsm was and the Augurs of Ermor just hosed up incredibly and broke the seal while also drawing on the power of all those thousands of insane undead God souls to ruin everything.



That's enough for now, I might have a few things a bit off and I'll clarify parts later if you have any questions but I'm done typing words for the moment. I'll talk about what happens in the rest of the Dominions world in EA to MA as well as the LA stuff in future posts. Suffice to say people continue to be giant idiots and things mostly get worse for everyone.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Aug 11, 2015

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
I feel like the Dominions world would actually be a pretty great setting for a pen and paper RPG.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
MA Ermor's description explicitly says that whole thing about the Priests and the Augurs banding together to unleash Death on the Apostate Emperor when he marched on Eldregate. EA Ermor's description talks about how the Augurs got some prophecies of doom and went to seek out the secrets of Death magic from the Sauromancers in an attempt to figure out a way to avoid these prophecies (instead they created them :doh:)

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Oh don't worry I have plenty to say about goddamn motherfucking Sceleria and their brilliant idea :argh:

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
The Sobek\Predator Lizard genocide between MA and LA is one of the many unexplained mysteries of Dominions.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Ah good point, I should have checked the site names. I'm not super familiar with the Near East Semitic peoples that Hinnom\Ashdod\Gath stand in for so I'm not entirely sure what the connections are beyond that they are there.


Gath is an interesting example of being one of the few nations in LA that is not actively going to poo poo; things aren't super great but the people eating Giants are dying out while some of the lesser Giants have abandoned the old ways of the Melqarts and are leading the Humans into a brighter future. Gath also explicitly name drops several of the tribes of Israel. There's actually this really impressive analysis about Hinnom\Ashdod\Gath and their relation to Jewish mythology and history that some guy did on the internet that can be found here. If you're interested in Dominions lore I highly recommend it as it gives you a good idea as to the kind of relationship Dominions has with the real world stuff it is inspired by.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Time for more EA stuff; Abysia and Caelum!


Thanks to the Scorpion Men and their related summon spell we know that Abysia borders C'tis, in EA Abysia are slowly declining and the Abysians are but shadows of their former magmatic glory as Children of Rhaux. Abysia is ruled by the Anointed of Rhaux; large sacred Abysians who still retain relatively pure blood and they lead the Flame Cult that all Abysians cleave to. Prior to EA the Anointed set up the Order of the Anathemants to administer ceremonies, burn offerings and generally do all the boring menial tasks necessary to properly lead a nation. Shortly before EA starts a real great Abysian called Malphas shows up out of nowhere and somehow manages to convince the Anointed of Rhaux that he could found a new order of mages that would bring Abysia great power. He formed a new order of Warlocks in the caverns underneath the Smouldercone and promptly began experimenting in Blood Magic and crossbreeding (note that Warlocks do not in fact have the magic paths necessary to cast the Crossbreeding spell :stare: Illwinter.) Soon under Malphas's supervision Demon and Devils are being summoned from the Abyss and bred with Abysians to create hideous half-demon monstrosities and the Anointed are starting to go 'wait hang on maybe this was a bad idea?'

Malphas is of course secretly The Corruptor, a Demon Ambassador from the Abyss sent by the Heliophagi to destroy Abysia. Malphas is a giant dick and in a sense he succeeds as the Abysians will eventually be all but extinct, replaced by Malphas' Humanbred (Half-Human Half-Abysian.) By the time MA rolls around the Anointed of Rhaux and their Burning One servants are no more for the Flame has weakened. The Abysian people are mostly led by the Anathemant Dragons but the Warlock order founded by Malphas effectively operates beyond their power though they rarely dabble in politics and the Demonbred have become powerful slave-mages of the Anathemants. Malphas is mysteriously absent and no explanation for his vanishing is ever really given.

Caelum is an odd nation, they don't really map onto any real-world nation but since the Birdmans patch they have become heavily influenced by Zoroastrian mythology and that plus their interactions with Abysia during MA very very vaguely link Caelum to the Achaemenid Empire. Caelum is a nation composed of three tribes of winged people, the Kavi, the Airya and the Mairya. Each are characterized by different colored wings; the Kavi have grey wings and an affinity for storms and lightning, the Airya have white wings and an affinity for magic and ice and the Mairya have black wings and an affinity for stealth and iron. The three clans were ruled over by the benevolent Yazatas; the semi-divine ancestors of the Caelians and powerful angelic beings. But the Yazatas were opposed by the demonic Daevas, ancestors to the Mairya clan who led said clan astray and split the Caelians in a terrible war that threatened all of creation.

Near Caelum there was a place called the White Forest where the Purifying Flames of Catharsis, one of the three Elemental Lords of Fire were kept burning by Airya Seraphines; female fire priests of the Airya clan. During this era Fire was considered something of a fascination for the Caelians and a sort of tacitly approved cult formed around Catharsis, at the height of the war the Daevas struck a blow against the Caelians when they tainted the Purifying Flame by feeding it the bodies of the dead. This act of evil forever tainted Catharsis; destroying his pure cleansing fire that had once healed wounds and warmed houses and transforming it into sickly green Banefire that burns time and life itself, causing Catharsis to be reborn as Antrax, King of Banefires. With that act of heresy the previous Pantokrator popped a blood vessel and smote the majority of the Yazatas and Daevas from existence.

The surviving Yazatas and Daevas fled the physical world and hid in the Celestial Sphere (aka space) and the three Caelian tribes scattered, but after the Pantokrator vanished a small number of Yazatas reappeared from hiding atop a really tall mountain. Calling themselves 'Eagle Kings' they gathered the three tribes once more and began to plot their reconquest of the world. Between EA and MA the Caelians actually spread out all across the world founding many colonies including one all the way over near Mictlan (Aztecs), far to the west.

Then everything went to poo poo.

The Raptor Clan, formerly known as the Mairya Clan had been generally treated as second class citizens by the ruling Airya Clan ever since the whole Yazata\Daeva war and tensions in the Raptor Clan were rising. The Airya Seraphines were attempting a fairly long-term ritual to purify Antrax's fire and return him to being Catharsis once more, but the Harab Seraphs who ruled the Raptor Clan interfered with the ritual in their studies of forbidden death magic once more and caused the Seraphines to almost completely die out from a wasting disease (the effects of Banefire.) The Eagle Kings flipped their poo poo and civil war broke out, the Raptor Clan Civil War is actually a short event chain you can get when playing as EA Caelum, though it sadly isn't very interesting. The Raptor Clan lost the civil war and were banished and scattered across the world, but the last of the Eagle Kings disappeared shortly after (possibly died during the war) and they were replaced by the Airya Seraphs.

Contact was lost with the Caelian colonies and almost all of them died out, but the colony over near Mictlan survived. The civil war did not really reach as far as Mictlan and thus when it occurred contact was simply lost with Caelum. The Eagle Kings ruled over a number of primitive human tribes that called the land Nazca and with communications severed the Eagle Kings re-styled themselves as Nazcan Sun Kings or Incas, as the Sun Kings began to die out however drastic measures were taken. The Raven Clan had never rebelled in Nazca and their necromantic studies were never outlawed and thus the Raptor Clan found a solution to the decline of the Sun Kings in the form of mummification. When a Sun King died their bodies were carefully returned to Nazca to be mummified and preserved, allowing the Raptor Necromancers to revive them later if their advice was ever needed again. The result was that the Raptor Clan rapidly ascended in power to stand beside the Sun Kings, quite literally as chosen girls of the Raptor Clan known as Coyas or Moon Queens became the spouses of the Sun Kings. The Coyas soon became the most powerful mages in Nazca with the Sun Kings being the most powerful priests and by tradition should a Coya or Inca die their spouse will ritually commit suicide to be mummified together so they can spend eternity side by side in a Royal Mallqui mummy bundle.

By the time MA starts Nazca is effectively a Necrarchy; ruled by a silent council of mummies whose will is listened and interpreted by the Hurin Priests (Raven Clan Necromancers) who have mostly replaced the Seraphines as religious authorities. Because the Mallquis are older in death than they were in life and therefore wiser they command a much higher stipend for giving their advice and as a result most of the wealth and land in Nazca is owned by mummy bundles and a great quantity of the Nazcan population are indebted to a Mallqui. Indeed any Mallqui can summon an endless supply of Nazcan debtors to act as slave-soldiers. The Humans of Nazca are basically third class citizens and are not granted the benefit of ritual mummification upon their death. Nazca is effectively primarily populated and ruled by descendants of the Raptor Clan at this point, with only a handful of Sun Kings remaining and wielding very little actual political power due to the primary rule falling to the Silent Council whose will is interpreted by the Hurin Priests.


It is also worth adding that the Airya Clan are noted for their secret knowledge about how to craft and use magical ice in the place of metal or wood and that due to their basically angelic appearance it is not at all hard for female Caelians (Seraphines) to masquerade as real angels and throughout all the ages the Seraphines will sometimes go out and set up secret cults in human lands by pretending to be divine messengers. Nazca obviously stands in for the Incas in the same way that Mictlan and Xibalba stands in for the Aztecs. We'll get to those two later.



Next post will be about how monkey people standing in for India is probably not quite as racist as it sounds.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Aug 11, 2015

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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 :v:

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Speleothing posted:

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.

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.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Decrepus posted:

The links between samog and good anything are distant and tenuous at best.

ftfy

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

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.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

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.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Absum posted:

Does't Arco fight someone between MA and LA? Ragha maybe?

They invade Bandar Log which is north-west of C'tis, according to the description of their 2 Bandar heros.

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

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Note that the Devourer's bite instakill only works on things with souls; mindless things (skeletons, animated statues) are immune to its effect. This means that the Colossal Fetish (the only Mindless pretender) is the only pretender that can reliably beat up a Devourer in a fair fight.

Sadly the Fetish is otherwise a pretty crappy chassis and is only available to Machaka while the Devourer is only available to C'tis so I don't think that fight has ever actually happened.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Oh right those guys. I completely forgot those existed because they're so useless :v:


That would certainly seem to indicate that MA Arco and MA Bandar Log exist at the same time though, since Bandar Log is only Bandar Log in MA.

Samog posted:

also the arco sibyls learned their magic from sabba, probably

Or maybe the other way around, no-one is quite sure :v:

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Goons tend towards betrayal so goon coalitions almost inevitably fall apart without accomplishing anything as half the people in the coalition rush to stab everyone else in the coalition in the back.

It doesn't always go that way, but it usually does.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Sloppy Milkshake posted:

I have literally never once seen this happen in a game.

I've never not seen it happen, congrats we both have different samples I guess.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Absum posted:

e: Neruz doesn't play anymore, he doesn't like us anymore or something idk

Honestly I think my real problem is just that games take too loving long.


Desura community definitely used to have a ton of ludicrous rules like you had to give people multiple turn warnings before you attacked them and poo poo like that. If they're not doing that any more then I guess they've learned.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Aug 16, 2015

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
She did two kinds of blatant cheating that I am aware of; she was using the master password to look at other people's turns to see what they were doing and supposedly modify some of their orders at key moments such as right before a major battle with her forces, in addition she used this to find out how much gold other people were bidding on mercs and then either outbid them by 1 gold or modify their bid down if she couldn't afford the larger bid, which is why she always got every single good merc company without fail. She was also copying the game and playing it in singleplayer so she could find out where all the sites and valuable provinces were so she would know the optimal expansion paths and site searching locations.

Her only playing in games that she was hosting should probably have triggered more alarms sooner than it did.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Aug 17, 2015

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

I Love You! posted:

While it cannot be 100% confirmed she was Scumming maps for gems it is certain she was Scumming turns for mercs and player orders. She was probably doing it all though based on the numbers

She apparently straight out admitted it in IRC: I wasn't there at the time but people who were there like iloveu told everyone else about it later.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Flame112 posted:

Like iloveu, the guy you quoted, saying he didn't know if she cheated for magic sites.

I am good with names okay, someone said that she had admitted to scumming for high income provinces and magic sites :shrug:

More importantly; who cares. She's gone and it's over.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Baudin, the only person who thinks Air Gems are only good for Owl Quills :v:

(Air gems are probably the most useful gems in the entire game because they can be used to summon Air Elementals, amongst other things)

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Baudin posted:



I also found a gem deposit! I have no idea what this does, but it’s gotta be good (probably a single earth gem)

:eng101: Gem Deposits increase a province's income by 75 pounds of gold! So this is a pretty drat good find.

V. Illych L. posted:

uh isn't getting a W5 natural mage a big deal

isn't that, like, really good

Extremely, with water cloak and water ring that takes you to W7 which lets you cast The Best Global: Anger Waters. Also a ton of useful buffs.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

fool_of_sound posted:

Angry Waters is kinda bad now. You hardly ever get size 4+ elementals now and you only get like half as many attempts. It's pretty much only good for popping scouts.

Because making it effectively impossible for enemies to get reliable scouting information on you as well as forcing them to use real commanders instead of cheapo indie commanders if they want to reliably attack you is obviously bad :catstare:

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Even after the nerf Vengeful Waters is still one of the best globals in the game, both for how easy it is to cast and how good it is to have. Before the nerf it was just blatantly op, now it's merely amazing.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Troglodytes are really hard to use well; with good positioning they will stomp all over indies with ease but with poor positioning they will get utterly mangled and you will lose them all to a bunch of deer tribe.

On the Sappers; they're 20 gold for 8.21 siege strength for a 10:4.1 gold to siege strength ratio. Pale One Militias are a better ratio, being 7 gold for 3.44 siege strength which gives them a 10:4.9 ratio, plus Pale Ones don't eat which is super useful for sieging.
That said only one person can get militias, everyone else has to settle for one of the 10g pale ones who have a worse ratio than the Sappers at 10:3.44, though they still don't need to eat.

Thus ultimately Sappers are actually very cost efficient for sieging, though the fact that they need to eat is a definite downside and is why Pale Ones are so freaking good at sieging.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
The other reason Earthbound can get away with Enc 10 is that ranged attacks don't cost any encumbrance so they only start building up enc after having first spent a few turns shooting you full of bolts.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Caelians are better than they used to be; they're still lovely weak birdymans but they get huge charge bonuses on the first strike with their ice lances and their equipment has been tweaked so their enc isn't quite as horrible as it once was.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

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'.

e: Though on the other hand I just read the thing I linked to and there is some identification between the two. Never mind!

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

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
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.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Time to talk about China- I mean T'ien Ch'i!

Tien Chi is fairly disconnected from the other nations and can basically be described as Not-China. In EA Tien Chi is subtitled 'Spring and Autumn' and the entirety of EA Tien Chi is a reference to the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese History, which dates to around 771 - 476 BC. EA Tien Chi also draws heavily on earlier Chinese myth and legend and there are probably a ton of references that I am missing because I don't really know Chinese myth and legend all that well. EA TC has a few units of note; the first of these are the Masters of the Five Elements: mages with a base of 1 in all 4 elemental paths plus nature with a random +1 to one of those paths and 1 level in priest as well. These guys are a reference to the Wu Xing; effectively the Chinese version of the Elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire). The Wu Xing is also known as the Five Elements or Five Movements and is made up of Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood, in Dominions Metal gets replaced by Air because to western sensibilities 'metal' falls under the purview of 'earth' so having them be separate elements seems odd. The next guys are the Warriors of the Five Elements, also known as the Warriors of the Five Chainsaws. While exceptionally fragile, especially in Autumn as their HP fluctuates with the seasons and is lowest in the Autumn, and very vulnerable to arrows the Warriors of the Five Elements are often considered to be one of the stronger sacred units. It used to be popular to take a dual F9W9 bless on these guys as they have innately high defense and 2 attacks; F9W9 Wot5E's with good positioning will butcher their way through pretty much anything short of Burning Ones, Jags or Ponymans and they'll put a pretty solid dent in Jags and Ponymans. I'm not precisely sure what the Wot5E's are referencing, if anything, though I assume its some kind of Chinese warrior-sage.

The next guy of note is the Celestial Master, a dude with fire, air, water and astral paths as well as the occasional death, earth and nature path. These guys are a reference to the Way of the Celestial Masters, a Chinese Daoist movement founded in 142 CE. That's about all I know, there are also lesser Masters of the Way who I assume are a sort of general reference to wandering ascetic monks, Masters of the Way need not eat as they can survive on a diet of a few grains of rice per day and are noted for either wandering about gathering bits of lore or hiding in caves to meditate. There are also Masters of the Dead, which is a reference to Chinese ancestor worship, another subject where my knowledge extends little beyond "Yes that exists."

TC is also notable for having a good variety of basic infantry in all ages; in EA they also rock chariot-riding Nobles which can be very useful for expansion if used correctly.

Next, TC has a bunch of summons, some of which are only available to it in certain eras: In EA and MA they can summon Huli Jing commanders; stealthy n3 spies with either 0 or 4 extra bonus paths in air, water, earth, astral and nature. Huli Jings are a kind of fox spirit and as far as I can tell they're basically analogous to the Kitsune of Japanese myth, being multiple-tailed silvery foxes that can take the shape of a beautiful woman while playing tricks on people. They're rather expensive, but potentially worth it given the paths they can roll.

Next up are a pair of demons only available to EA TC; the Demon of Heavenly Rivers and the Demon of Heavenly Fires. River demons are basically sacred amphibious ogres with berserker and if for some reason you happen to have an N9 bless these guys can lay down some serious hurt and tank like motherfuckers, that said at 4 water gems apiece I think they're probably a little overpriced, especially as the bless that best suits them isn't very compatible with Wot5E's. Fire demons are flying dudes with fire power and a fairly decent ranged attack, they're a bit more fragile than River demons but they're a little cheaper and in my opinion more useful. I'm not precisely sure what these two Demons are referencing, but I'd assume they are both references to some specific kind of mythological Chinese being.

In passing; EA and LA TC can summon Ancestral Spirits, more of that ancestor worship stuff.

Also there are the summons that all eras of TC can get, sadly they're not very impressive. First up is the Celestial Servant; a big fat pig-man wearing a fez. (He's not actually wearing a fez but his sprite kind of looks like it does). For some reason this guy is wearing poofy Aladdin pants and a jacket about five sizes too small, he uses a rake as a weapon, eats a ton of food despite not needing to and is totally unarmored. His only redeeming feature is that he is really fat, but there are way better uses for 3 earth gems than summoning one of these guys. Celestial Servants are noted to be gardeners and servitors of the Celestial Sphere, I'm fairly sure that this is a reference to the Tai Di or Primordial Divinity; also known to westerners as the Celestial Bureaucracy. The next guy; the Celestial Soldier is from the same source and is a horse-headed guy with a glaive. Actually not bad units when paired with foot soldiers, but at 3 air gems each they too seem a little over-costed. Finally we have the Celestial Hound which most people will recognize as being those weird lion-faced dog statues that tend to show up outside Chinese temples, these guys are the only one of the 3 Celestial TC summons that I think is actually ever worth getting, not for combat because they're not very good at that but for patrolling as they are flying and have a +10 patrol bonus. Of course no era of TC has blood magic so they don't really need patrolling, but it's the thought that counts :v:

In MA TC progresses to the Imperial Bureaucracy and it is here that TC reaches pinnacle Not-Chinaness. MA TC is ruled by the (Jade) Emperor who lives in a big palace called the Celestial City and tended constantly by Imperial Alchemists who use their magic power and knowledge to keep the Emperor alive for as long as possible. The Emperor himself has dozens of concubines and hundreds of sons, thus all the ministers are perpetually terrified of the thought of the Emperor dying because 'Civil War' doesn't even begin to describe what would happen next. MA TC has the same Celestial Masters and Masters of the Five Elements as EA, though the Mot5E's have transformed into Imperial Alchemists, picking up an extra level of nature magic, a 50% alchemy bonus and the Disease Healer ability. MA TC also has access to a pair of spells that EA and LA do not; the first is the Thousand Year Ginseng; a simple little N1 spell that for 8 nature gems causes the caster to grow 5 years younger. This is a pretty loving useful spell and it of course references the popular alchemical uses of Ginseng in Chinese medicine. The other spell they picked up is the Living Mercury spell that is otherwise only available to EA and MA Agartha. This is a loving amazing spell holy poo poo Living Mercuries are excellent, though they don't fit quite as well into MA TC's army as they do into Agartha's they are still amazing summons.

All of this is of course referencing Chinese Alchemy, with MA TC itself referencing one of the Chinese dynasties. I'm not entirely sure which one, I think it might sort of be a conglomerate of all the various dynasties up until the Mongol invasion but I don't know enough to be able to pin down any of the specifics. MA TC picks up a ton of lesser mages including Ministers of Magic, Imperial Geomancers, Apothecaries and Alchemists of the Five Elements. They also get a bevy of other things like Imperial Consorts; wives of the emperor who act as spies, Ceremonial Masters who serve as basic priests and can sometimes prevent bad events by performing ceremonies according to a ritual calendar (I'm pretty sure the ritual calendar is another specific reference that I'm missing, it sounds familiar) and their upgraded version the Ministers of Rituals who are better priests and are able to actually create good events rather than simply avoid bad ones thanks to their rituals with the 'cultic calendar.' Finally they also pick up the Eunuch, a really strange unit that has an amazing patrol bonus of +15 and also a unique stat called Defence Organizer that allows it to add +1 free PD every turn it sits in a province up to a maximum of 19 PD. This ability is completely loving useless, but really neat in concept.

The sacreds of MA TC are the Red Guard; elite cavalry forces trained in the Celestial City that are all related by blood to the Emperor. They have the same fluctuating HP based on seasons that the Wot5E's had and they are actually pretty powerful sacreds capable of laying some serious smackdown with a W9 bless, though the HP thing weakens them considerably during Autumn. I'm not entirely sure what these guys are referencing; I'm fairly certain it's not Chairman Mao's Red Guard but beyond that I have no idea. MA TC has the widest range of infantry and is also one of the few nations in MA with access to crossbows, though their crossbows are very slow and cost far too many resources to be reasonably usable. Still it's the thought that counts!

LA Tien Chi is subtitled 'Barbarian Kings' and it is the Mongols (their advanced general unit is even called a Khan.) That's basically all you need to know about them; the Celestial Masters are still around, as are the Masters of the Way, but the Imperial Alchemists and the host of strange little extra units are all gone and replaced by the Ancestor Smiths, Ancestor Guides and Spirit Masters of the Barbarian Kings. LA TC is notable for having excellent cavalry that can be recruited with or without a fort in any province as well as a very interesting sacred in the form of Ancestor Vessels; men who have let themselves become possessed by the spirits of long-dead warriors. They are notable for wielding Howling Bows; composite bows that have an extra fear rider on their attacks, making massed Ancestor Vessels extremely good at routing enemy troops. They're also one of the few sacreds I would ever consider taking an Air bless on, as they benefit greatly from the extra precision and range on their bows. Ancestor Vessels are also solid heavy cavalry and are more than capable of loving up dudes in melee once they run out of arrows. The Ceremonial Masters are still around too, though because the Mongols burned the Celestial City no new ritual calendars are made so they can't prevent bad events anymore.


Finally, TC's heroes. TC has the same heroes in all ages; the Immortals. These guys are a straight reference to the Taoist Xian and specifically the Baxian or Eight Immortals. The three heroes are Ho Hsien-Ku, a lady who lived on a diet of mother of pearl and moonbeams until she turned ethereal and became immortal and now floats from mountaintop to mountaintop collecting magical herbs for healing. Next is Lu Tung-Pin, who became immortal when he was given a sip of wine by a mysterious old man. He then got high as balls, fell asleep and had some weird hallucinatory dreams. Upon waking he sequestered himself somewhere as a hermit until he had perfected the arts of swordmanship and internal alchemy and he dual wields a demon-slaying sword that was given to him by a Dragon and a fly whisk that he uses to irritate people. The final hero is Li T'ieh-Kuai, the Master With The Iron Crutch. He used to explore the Celestial Spheres by astral travel, one day he traveled further than normal and when he came back whoops his body had been found by some townspeople who thought he was dead and they had cremated it. Thus he was forced to instead enter the body of a freshly dead crippled old man and he now spends his time wandering about cursing and pestering people because he is crotchety, he also causes leprosy to just spontaneously appear in those nearby, causing the population of the province he is in to die over time. All 3 of these guys are explicit references to 3 of the 8 Immortals and when I say explicit I mean they have exactly the same names and unlike most heroes of other nations these guys are basically just copy-pasted from the mythology with no real changes or modifications.


And that's Tien Chi! Next time: Japa- I mean Jomon, and Racism! :barf:

I probably missed a few bits here and there, sadly TC doesn't really tie into the Dominions world at large and I just don't know enough about the specifics of Chinese mythology and history to be able to pin down exact references so if anyone has anything to add by all means do so.




e: Hey Baudin, you have Con2 and a bunch of Earth gems so that E3 guy should be making a couple of hammers for your quill forgers before he moves out.

Neruz fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Sep 7, 2015

  • Locked thread