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Istvun posted:I've looked at turning it back into a D&D setting and it would have been really good, but our group had to break up. I absolutely agree that the world of Dominions could be a really cool setting for an RPG, there's actually a whole lot of content and exploitable story hooks in this silly game! e: new page, great time for a new turn.
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May 21, 2017 23:39
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May 21, 2017 23:51
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Haha, the mind-controlled birdman in the back 
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May 21, 2017 23:54
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Turn 95 Turn 95 begins with little fanfare. No big messages, no big announcements, just a report of the regular spells we’ve been casting. We successfully planted some Horror Seeds in Bogarus’ province of Nom (the location of 2 of his Discount sites). We’ll fire some more that direction on the off-chance that we hit somebody important with a Seed. Our Research is almost completely maxed out, we are only like 189 points away from Conjuration 9, and we’ll hit Evocation 9 next turn as well. We built a new type of Golem this turn:  Mechwarrior, choose your loadout. This is a Devil generating Golem. The two items in his misc-slots are Soul Contracts:  This Golem should generate two free Devils each turn forever. I’ll probably slowly build 5-10 of these Golems, which will eventually constitute a mobile demon-generating army! I made a huge mistake last turn. As I was preparing to storm a bunch of Bogarussian forts I decided that Sabba should Wish for the Dimensional Rod. It is a Cursed (unremovable) and Tainted (slowly applies Horror Marks) item that also slowly drives the bearer Insane, so I didn’t so much want it for Sabba as I wanted to take it away from Bogarus. I gave Sabba a Skull Staff so that her hand item slots would be filled, hoping that the Dimensional Rod would then be Wished into the Lab. Didn’t work out that way:  poo poo! So, Sabba is doomed. She may not be doomed anytime in the next 20 turns, but ultimately she will be eaten by Horrors and/or driven so Insane that she’ll be useless. We need a new Wish caster, and ultimately a new Arcane Nexus caster. This turn Sabba is going to Wish for somebody that can do that for us. Take a look at our Blood hunting numbers for this turn:   We’ve actually done great! I was worried that Utterdark would -tank- our Blood hunting, but it doesn’t seem to have affected us all that much. This is really wonderful news, because Demons are all perfectly happy in Darkness, and Demons were the way in which we were already transitioning from a gold-based economy. Alright, there were a poo poo-load of battles this turn. I’m not even going to show every battle we were involved in, just some of the interesting ones. First, take a look at our beautiful army of Se’irim attacking Pangaea in Dead Marshes:  Shooting them only makes them angry.     I love running up the score board like that, even if its against a helpless enemy. Here’s our New Model Army of Golems and Vampires attacking Pangaea’s province of The Sinks:  I believe I've created a nearly invincible force here. The Golems generate 2 Imps each via their Lifelong Protection items every battle round:  Suddenly: Imps! The Imps -love- the Darkness. They’re Demons, so they’re unaffected by the -6 Attack, -6 Defense penalty. They were conceived of as mobile chaff, but under Darkness and against living beings they can actually do a little damage too!  Fly, my pretties!  Downright Apocalyptic. This is one of my favorite screen shots. Glorious! Here’s a battle that didn’t go quite as planned. We attacked Pangaea in Diluphe with a standard force of Vampires:  We handily kill all of Pan’s forces, routing them from the battlefield:  Run away! However, a couple of Hoburg Crossbows had been hit by Horror Seeds…   Uh oh The Horrors teleported across the battlefield at random, but seemed very happy to fly to the very back of our lines and pick off our commanders. The battle ended in victory, but only a single Vampire Lord remained on the field:  Horror Seed is a real wildcard! The next battle takes place on the other side of our empire, where we attacked Pan’s province of Stinging Swamp with our brand new cadre of Worm Mages:  Each Worm auto-summons 3 of these Large Beetles every battle round, they’re a wonderful chaff screen:  Eventually the Pangaean forces surround the Worms, kill the three Isacharrite Sybls who accompanied them, but are unable to break the Worms themselves. A slow battle of attrition leaves us victorious.  Wow, that was a lot of fighting! We’re not done, however, because we also stormed 4 of Bogarus’ forts this turn! First, we finally took a stab at storming the fort in The Cracked Earth. Here’s our standard Vampire force:  And Bogarus has his remaining defending mages, diseased bird-men, and, great, the Master Enslave Golem:  We're coming for you, Golem! Master Enslave goes off on round 1, but fizzles, dominating maybe 10 lesser Vampires:  It's really not so scary vs high MR units. With the big twist out of the way our forces slowly but surely press into the keep and slaughter all of the defenders, excepting the Golem who had Ritual of Returning active and teleported away after the first blow.   We stormed a fort in Wise Spring Grove:  Adios, enslaved Mammoths! And in Utevania:  And finally in Boggiton:  That was a fantastic sweep of forts, I am very pleased. It’s at this moment, though, that I realize what is probably the biggest problem for us with regards to Utterdark: we have no money to build Temples! Normally now is the time to throw up new Temples and pump some PD into our newly conquered provinces, but…that’s impossible. OK, well, that’s bad. We need to keep pumping our Dominion if we want to win this game. We can’t build Temples up... but we can tear other people’s Temples down! As long as we stay on the offense I think we’ll be alright, but this is definitely annoying. Speaking of annoying, take a look at how much damage The Wrath of God is doing to our empire now that we’ve lost the Gift of Health:   wolvesUgh! We seriously need a solution to this poo poo, it’s slowly wearing down our ability to harvest Blood Slaves. I have a plan, but it’ll take a turn or two to implement. So, here’s what we’re doing for next turn. We’re reinforcing the new sieges of Pangaean forts we started this turn, and we’re attacking some new provinces as well:   On the Bogarus front we are mainly consolidating our forces and waiting for our Dominion to push further. I want to keep a constant pressure on Bogarus while also rushing headlong for Pangaea’s Thrones. Right, Pangaea. So at this point in the game it seems pretty clear that Afrosquirrel, Pangaea’s player, is not coming back to the game. He’s chain-staled the past 3 or 4 turns, and hasn’t been on IRC in weeks. As of this writing I have tried to find somebody to take over the nation, but it turns out that the password that Afrosquirrel used to sign up for the game with does not match the actual password he used in game. Essentially, this means that nobody can access Pangaea but him, which means that nobody can take over the nation or even set it AI but him. This is kind of a worse-case scenario in Dominions games. An AI nation can, at the very least, go on offensives and actually DO things. A chain-staling nation sits passively as it is slowly picked apart. It makes me sad, but to be honest it is a fair demonstration of how much the meta-game affects the actual gameplay in a Dominions 4 multiplayer match. Since there isn’t a single thing we can do about this until Afrosquirrel reappears I am going to make a mad-rush for as much of his territory and Thrones as I can possibly get. Let’s hope that Bogarus, who shares another massive border with Pangaea, doesn’t get the same idea until it is too late. I am pretty sure that Ramc has already accepted defeat, and is just having fun coming up with ways to gently caress over the world. Hopefully that attitude works in our favor.
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May 22, 2017 00:13
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 Love It!
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May 22, 2017 00:13
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Is that loving loss? Jesus man, that is one amazing image.
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May 22, 2017 00:25
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So the final battle is likely to be Gath vs Caelum? Mind, what would happen if someone cast Second Sun at this point? Would that counter Utterdark? Sometimes Dominions seems to account for a lot of weird interactions, other times it doesn't.
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May 22, 2017 00:37
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The chyron is fantastic too. Lichard Stone
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May 22, 2017 00:40
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May 22, 2017 00:44
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Ramc posted:By the way spoiler I cast that with like a D8 or 9 caster with 999 death gems get used to the forever night. So how did Arcane Nexus only end up pulling 279?
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May 22, 2017 04:38
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I ride bikes all day posted:So how did Arcane Nexus only end up pulling 279? When the description for Arcane Nexus talks about how it pulls in 50% of all gems used per turn as Pearls: it is a lie.
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May 22, 2017 05:27
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How are u posted:When the description for Arcane Nexus talks about how it pulls in 50% of all gems used per turn as Pearls: it is a lie. Does it pull half of all used gems and then transmute those gems to pearls at a 2:1 ratio like alchemy would, then? E: some googling seems to indicate that this is the case, at least if you can trust the Google translation of some random Japanese Dom4 wiki. DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 22, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 05:30
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It's making me really happy that you're reaching critical mass with loving Gath's new and old enemies, but now I'm sad that you're going to have to fight the noble and fair bird people 
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May 22, 2017 05:47
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That comic reminds me so much of the Craft Sequence.
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May 22, 2017 06:59
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Jack2142 posted:That comic reminds me so much of the Craft Sequence. Probably because that's pretty much exactly something that would happen in one of those novels.
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May 22, 2017 07:29
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Could Sabba just Wish for another two-handed item?
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May 22, 2017 07:54
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Yes, she could. I'm not so sure but I think it'll even shove the dimensional rod in the lab.
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May 22, 2017 07:59
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I love this. I love this so much.
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May 22, 2017 07:59
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lmao
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May 22, 2017 09:44
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Does it pull half of all used gems and then transmute those gems to pearls at a 2:1 ratio like alchemy would, then? I love that some of the more arcane (compared to the standard arcane) mechanics are in a Japanese wiki. Illwinter is a Sweedish company. Makes me feel like I'm researching with a lightness lantern irl.
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May 22, 2017 18:48
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KirbyKhan posted:I love that some of the more arcane (compared to the standard arcane) mechanics are in a Japanese wiki. Illwinter is a Sweedish company. Makes me feel like I'm researching with a lightness lantern irl. So what you're saying is that your research will eventually lead to you being consumed by a monstrosity from beyond time and space?
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May 22, 2017 20:20
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KirbyKhan posted:I love that some of the more arcane (compared to the standard arcane) mechanics are in a Japanese wiki. Illwinter is a Sweedish company. Makes me feel like I'm researching with a lightness lantern irl. What happened to The Demon 
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May 22, 2017 20:31
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Turn 96 Turn 96 begins with hitting level 9 in both Conjuration and Evocation magic. We can now cast the highest level spells in those schools, but we probably won’t be doing that anytime in the immediate future.  Sabba Wishes:  Here’s what we got:  The Seraph, like its cousin the Chayot, is an obscenely strong super-unit. When you Wish for one, however, it appears merely as a Troop and not a Commander. We now need to cast Gift of Reason upon it: We’re going to take care of that loving Wrath of God yet, you’ll see friends. There were just a few battles to look at this turn. We stomp some Pangaea PD in The Curtain Wall:  Smash. And take Pan’s unforted province of Nashen, tearing down a Temple while we’re at it:  Grab. We stormed Bogarus’ fort in Zeburia. A couple of turns ago we saw that this fort contained a Fire Spirit with a Fire Storm trap ready and waiting:  Tricky tricky. Our Heliophagus gifts our army with Fire Fend:  Demons are just wonderfully useful. Not that it mattered, the Vampires fly over and murder the Fire Spirit before Fire Storm can even tick for damage. The battle is a massacre:   We pinged Pan’s forces in the fort in Chybia:  Dang that's a lot of centaur! That’s a fair number of Dryads, actually. We would definitely lose some Demons if we straight-up stormed the fort. We’ll move Vampires to Chybia and storm it more strategically in the turns to come. [Ed - Not that we give a poo poo] We see Caelum storming a Bogarussian fort. This battle is notable only because we get a glimpse at one of Caelum’s fully kitted Tartarians!  Libluini isequipping Tartarians as Super Combatants.  Glorious battle! Back in the Dominions 3 days Tartarians were King poo poo of the end-game. Beefy, magically diverse, and fully equipable, Tarts were the origin of the term Super Combatant. Over years they were nerfed to the point that they’re not really something that people gun for anymore, so it’s fun to see Caelum going a little old school with his end-game strategy. Look at the loving poo poo Wrath of God is doing to us without our protective Gift of Health!  Ugh!! I cannot wait to be rid of this pestilence! We’re just one more turn away from fixing our problem, can you guess how? We’re storming several Pangaean forts in the West, and we’re pinging several Pangaean forts in the East. If things go well, soon enough the terms “West” and “East” won’t apply any more, because we’ll connect our empire to form an unbroken ring round the top of the world! To do that we need stability, and to get stability we need to remove loving Wrath of God.  Pressing West.  And pressing East! We’re keeping up pressure on Bogarus, we won’t forget them. Our new medium-term goal regarding Bogarus is to take their capitol. If we can do that we’ll nullify their growing Vampire hordes by denying them a place to respawn. Fingers crossed we can pull it off.  The noose tightens.
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May 25, 2017 00:31
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Quick aside: I'm travelling this weekend so there will be no updates until mid-week next week at the earliest. LP isn't dead.
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May 25, 2017 00:35
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What makes the Seraph so brutal? Primarily it just looks very hard to hurt.
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May 25, 2017 00:43
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PurpleXVI posted:What makes the Seraph so brutal? Primarily it just looks very hard to hurt. We need to Gift of Reason it so we can unlock its "vast magical and priestly powers" !
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May 25, 2017 00:51
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I think the key is that they also deal return damage to the attacker. I'm sure, because of Dominions, that this specific ability works on globals where most similar ones don't, so the plan is to get struck by lighting and kill the Wrath of God caster with the feedback to bring it down. Or not, I've never actually played the game what the hell do I know, but that seems like a thing that would happen.
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May 25, 2017 00:52
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Wouldn't that also happen if he equipped lots of commanders with sacred shrouds? Does equipping Lightning Rod guarantee a Wrath of God proc on your commander?
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May 25, 2017 01:37
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Hey, so I'm the Raghahitler that AI'd. I picked ragha because they are a loving menace and I knew they would be a massive menace in a game like this. What I did not account for was how awful the game was going to be, it was a slog every turn and I was in 3 other games at the time. I ended up quitting dom for a while because of it actually. At some point you asked about my pretender, I don't recall why I gave him all those paths, but I think it was for casting globals/boosters and I tanked my scales if I recall.
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May 25, 2017 01:47
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yurtcradled posted:Wouldn't that also happen if he equipped lots of commanders with sacred shrouds? 1) yes, it would, and as far as I am aware there's no way that kind of strategy actually works. 2) that would be amazing and IMO needs to be included in Dominions 5.
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May 25, 2017 01:48
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I thought for sure you'd summon Stargazer to do your wishing.
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May 25, 2017 02:57
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Any chance some kind goon could talk about the specifics of some of the gear on the Tartarian? I'm curious what his kit is.
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May 25, 2017 03:03
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How are u posted:
Lame. With that many pearls, should have just Wished up Kurgi and hoped he stayed around long enough to empower him in Nature and then cast Transform, trying again if necessary. edit: TravelLog posted:Any chance some kind goon could talk about the specifics of some of the gear on the Tartarian? I'm curious what his kit is. The Vine Shield and Shadow Brand are relatively basic pieces of thug gear (though a Flame or Frost Brand would be more common), with the shield tying down all the stuff engaging it in melee, and the Brand giving it an AoE attack to clear out stuff faster. The Horror Helmet is just a helm that increases(or adds) the Fear value of the unit, making it more effective. The Armor of Knights is just a really cheap piece of armor with a really good Prot value along with having extremely low encumbrance. Honestly for a Tart there're much better choices, but again it's really cheap and easy to forge (path needed is E1, and only uses 5 gems). Boots of Flying do exactly what they say on the tin, and the amulet is an Antimagic one, boosting its magic resist higher. Finally, the ring is a Ring of Regeneration... and I'm not entirely sure it's actually doing jack poo poo, as Tartarians are undead, which I believe cannot benefit from most regen (including the ring). Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 03:21 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 03:14
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I can at least explain most of it. The trick to an SC is that they have to be able to solo an entire army with some mage support by themselves. So the main enemy right out of the gate is fatigue as once that hits a certain threshold then the SC will die. Common ways to get around it are to grant the unit endurance equal to its encumbrance but since it is undead then that does not matter as only spell casting causes fatigue for undead. The next matter is damage mitigation and the armor is not anything special, but it provides enough protection that most attacks will fail to do anything and it has some hp regen from one of the rings I think to keep on going (it could also be recuperation but I forget the exact symbol difference). The last part of the defense is immunities and ways to mitigate the number of enemies attacking it. Being undead makes it immune to poison and resistant to cold. The horror helmet grants fear which means that enemies are more likely to run from it, making it so that it does not have to hold out as long as it would without the helmet. The vine shield makes it so that any enemy that strikes the bearer is entangled, thus breaking up the sheer amount of attacks an SC has to take. The last part is the shadow brand which gives the sc an aoe attack of one square which makes it possible to actually kill large armies by itself. Also the boots give it flying which makes it more mobile around the battlefield.
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May 25, 2017 03:18
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Regen only fails on lifeless undead. You don't see supercombatants often anymore because of the difficulty of giving immunities and the issue of bleeding and more common wounds, both of which make it difficult to make your SC uncounterable anymore. Plus there are less gems (in games that aren't this one) and people have gotten better at synergistic endgame options across a wide variety of units / rituals / battlefield magic and you don't have to take every province to win anymore.
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May 25, 2017 04:29
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How are u posted:We need to Gift of Reason it so we can unlock its "vast magical and priestly powers" ! So, if you Gift of Reason a "normal" version of a commander unit, it automatically unlocks the exact same powers it would have as a commander? What if you Gift of Reason a non-commander unit, how does the game set its magic paths(if any) and ability to command other units? Is there just some default minimum, does it randomly roll them, etc.?
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May 25, 2017 13:55
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PurpleXVI posted:So, if you Gift of Reason a "normal" version of a commander unit, it automatically unlocks the exact same powers it would have as a commander? What if you Gift of Reason a non-commander unit, how does the game set its magic paths(if any) and ability to command other units? Is there just some default minimum, does it randomly roll them, etc.? Those values are required for every unit in the game, even ones that are just troops, in case they become commanders. And it may not surprise you, but I can't think of a single troop that has magic when empowered.
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May 25, 2017 14:20
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Istvun posted:Those values are required for every unit in the game, even ones that are just troops, in case they become commanders. And it may not surprise you, but I can't think of a single troop that has magic when empowered. There are a few troops that do, but IIRC those are all high-end summons.
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May 25, 2017 14:32
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Yeah, they're static values, and for most units they're still zilch. ...after spending a few minutes poring through the mod viewer, literally the only summonable units I could find that innately have magic paths but aren't commanders (aside the majority of Tartarian Titans, the famous example) are the angelic hosts that come with some of the mass angelic summons at the top of the conjurations tree; these units, like Ophan, are mostly just H2 and H3 holy priests, though a few also have a smattering of low magic paths. There are probably a couple more units in the world that have magic but don't arrive as commanders, but I'd be willing to bet those are either from uncommon magic sites or are national summons or some other such rare edge case. Joe Dirt the Line Chaff isn't secretly going to know any magic. Maybe Void Gate units like Vastness need to be commanderized? The mod viewer doesn't make that case very clear.
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May 25, 2017 15:20
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Shady Amish Terror posted:Yeah, they're static values, and for most units they're still zilch. I don't recall the name since its been a bit but yeah the orby collection critters from r'lyehs gate get magic when commanderized
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May 25, 2017 18:43
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