Dominions 4 Teasers

[K]

What's the easiest way to check turn number? I know that turns start on Spring of Year 1, but it seems like there must be an easier way than by counting and getting an estimate within three turns.

[Red_Rob]

So I noticed some things:

1. Winning a deathmatch can be a little painful now that you get a different item with each win. I got two in a quick succession and found myself with the boots (awesome!) and the trident (crap!).

Apparently mousing over the Deathmatch order tells you the prize? I haven't tested this.

What's the easiest way to check turn number?

I was wondering this myself...

[Username17]

The game always starts in Spring, so the fact that the turns are named "Spring (1), Late Spring (2), Early Summer (3), Summer (4), Late Summer (5), Early Fall (6), Fall (7), Late Fall (8), Early Winter (9), Winter (10), Late Winter (11), Early Spring (0)" in that order does give you the exact turn number if you want. Add 12 for every year past the first, and you're done. It's kind of annoying that they don't give you a number in any easily accessible place that I can see.

-Username17

[K]

The game always starts in Spring, so the fact that the turns are named "Spring (1), Late Spring (2), Early Summer (3), Summer (4), Late Summer (5), Early Fall (6), Fall (7), Late Fall (8), Early Winter (9), Winter (10), Late Winter (11), Early Spring (0)" in that order does give you the exact turn number if you want. Add 12 for every year past the first, and you're done. It's kind of annoying that they don't give you a number in any easily accessible place that I can see.

-Username17

I hate when the solution to my problems are "make a chart, dummie."

[Avoraciopoctules]

How valuable is the ability to trade mage turns for free wights/shades?

I'm thinking about making a nation that starts with two sites where death mages can enter to generate undead minions. Should I cut gem income to compensate?

[Shatner]

If we're talking cheaping, D1 lab rats, then the cost is almost nothing and additional costs can be invented. If death access is on something expensive that has better shit to do, then you won't need to do anything because that nation probably won't use it until they can summon D1s to do it for them.

That said, wights are pretty bad ass. Shades... not so much.

Edit: Also, think about other free-spawn nations and what their roster looks like. What you're suggesting is a very, very limited version of that freespawn mechanic unless those sites generate a whole lot of undead/turn.

[name_here]

I think Shades are basically just extra-durable chaff; they're ethereal but their attacks are MR resist. Whether summoning some amount even literally for free is better than 1 gem per turn is seriously an open question.

Wights, meanwhile, rock faces; they're undead, armored, and come with free Bane Blades. Tying up a powerful death caster to make a couple of them a turn is something players might actually want to do.

[K]

Shades live in that half-way space where they get much better with some buffing. Toss down a serious buff like Marble Warriors and they turn into a real blocking force.

Wights are just badass out of the box. Thirty of them is an authentic late-game army, and I'd be very careful about any easy scheme to summon them.

[Avoraciopoctules]

This is the magic/site balance I've got right now.

Code: Select all

#newsite
#name "The Stygian Gate"
#path 5
#level 0
#rarity 5
#gems 5 1 --death income
#homemon "Stygian Warrior"
#homecom "Gatekeeper"
#summon "Wight"
#summon "Shade"
#end

#newsite
#name "The Stone Cave"
#path 5
#level 0
#rarity 5
#gems 5 1
#summon "Wight"
#summon "Shade"
#end

-- Gatekeeper Magic
#holy
#magicskill 5 1 --Death 1
#magicskill 8 2 --Holy 2
#custommagic 4096 20 -- 20% D

-- Purifier Magic
#magicskill 0 1 --Fire 1
#magicskill 2 2 --Water 2
#custommagic 4736 20 -- 20% F/W/D

-- Ferrier Magic
#magicskill 5 2 --Death 2
#magicskill 2 1 --Water 1
#custommagic 4608 20 -- 20% W/D

-- Suicide King Magic
#magicskill 5 3 --Death 3
#custommagic 6784 100 -- 100% F/W/D/S
#researchbonus 8

[K]

Is anyone else annoyed that it takes 11-12 turns to build castles now?

I've been running into a lot of games where I have a lot of gold and I'm waiting around for castles to come online.

[Shatner]

This is the magic/site balance I've got right now.

Code: Select all

#newsite
#name "The Stygian Gate"
#path 5
#level 0
#rarity 5
#gems 5 1 --death income
#homemon "Stygian Warrior"
#homecom "Gatekeeper"
#summon "Wight"
#summon "Shade"
#end

#newsite
#name "The Stone Cave"
#path 5
#level 0
#rarity 5
#gems 5 1
#summon "Wight"
#summon "Shade"
#end

-- Gatekeeper Magic
#holy
#magicskill 5 1 --Death 1
#magicskill 8 2 --Holy 2
#custommagic 4096 20 -- 20% D

-- Purifier Magic
#magicskill 0 1 --Fire 1
#magicskill 2 2 --Water 2
#custommagic 4736 20 -- 20% F/W/D

-- Ferrier Magic
#magicskill 5 2 --Death 2
#magicskill 2 1 --Water 1
#custommagic 4608 20 -- 20% W/D

-- Suicide King Magic
#magicskill 5 3 --Death 3
#custommagic 6784 100 -- 100% F/W/D/S
#researchbonus 8

Question: when there are multiple sites with the same requirement (e.g. must be a death mage), does one mage using the "visit site" action count as visiting both, or just a specified one? Also, if the latter, can two mages enter each of these respective sites at the same time (i.e. each is taking the "visit site" action, one for the first site and one for the second)?

Having one D1H2 spawning 1 Wight and 1 Shade from the capital for nothing other than the price of their upkeep is pretty darn good. Not world-shattering or anything, but a definite perk. The fact that you can spawn 2 wights and 2 shadows with one or two of those cheap(ish) mage-priests is even better. It's certainly the sort of thing you can balance around, but wights (absent banishment spam or other undead-specific counter spells) kick all sorts of ass pretty much through the entire game, so this nation ought to be sending out 10 wight/10 shadow expansion parties every five turns until they run out of indies to eat (sprinkle in some additional chaff for lances or crossbows as needed). And after the initial expansion, those elite squads can be consolidated and be pretty nasty for anyone unprepared to deal with a squadron of wights.

[Avoraciopoctules]

@Shatner, according to the modding manual, one visiting mage should trigger both monster spawns. And I started a quick test game where I succeeded in using two Gatekeepers, one on each site.

Here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/2yi0u ... hadows.zip

I just put together the first dom4 build that doesn't have any obvious errors that aren't sprite-based. Don't try the national spells yet, I think they're gonna be half-written until the next build.

[Username17]

If a site makes more than one creature, one mage entering it will create all the creatures whether it's 3 of one thing or one of four different things or whatever.
If two sites are in one province, a commander only enters one of them.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

Here's another Orphas build with more national spells. Should be 10 if my calculations are right, but I won't be able to test everything out until I get access to my Dom4 computer later. Hope it works.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/406cf ... spells.zip

I hope the Thrown Sutra unit works like I think it will. Anyone have suggestions for a different melee weapon? Magic Sword is kind of bland.

What about the charnel economy? I figure this could make for pretty interesting strategy, but it also risks tedious micro. Should Consign bodies have a cost?

[Avoraciopoctules]

The mod actually runs now, and I added a warning about how Lammashta summons still shank their friends when they enter combat.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/9kopw ... s_0.07.zip

[Avoraciopoctules]

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/ind ... ry22073107

Orphas is now on Dom3Mods

[Red_Rob]

So looking at the new combat mechanics I've come to the following conclusions:

1) Physical attacks generally do more damage than they did before. Every damage type got a way to do more damage, either through raw damage increase or reducing enemy protection. This helps low damage units more than high damage units, as if you were going to kill the target anyway the extra damage is kind of moot.

2) The limb hit rules mean that some of the time your attacks will have their damage capped depending on the targets hit points. I'm not entirely sure how this works as it isn't explained in the manual, but I'm pretty sure it happens with all attacks. I seem to remember seeing a javelin hit someone in the arm for 20-odd damage and just do 5 and an arm loss. This really helps low hp units like humans when fighting high damage enemies, although against low damage enemies it does mean more chance of a limb loss affliction.

3) The head hit rules and the new critical hit rules mean that units can more easily be killed by a lucky hit that drops their Protection or doubles the damage that gets through. This hurts high hp targets more than low hp ones.

So my assessment is that Giants and other high hp, high damage units got it in the rear and human infantry were the big winners.

[Dominicius]

So I've been messing around with Early Age C'tis and Neteret of Many Names. Inspiring Research is an interesting ability and I was wondering how to make best use of it with a maxed out Magic Scale. Obvious path is a lot of cheap mages but not sure if C'tis is the right civilization to make use of this.

Also I'm trying to figure out what kind of soldiers I should be recruiting 80% of the time.

[Zinegata]

I wrote up a proposal on forts:

http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4 ... l-proposal

Because I think the way forts work now is rather perverse and the ugrades are generally never built.

[Ikeren]

I bought a copy. It really doesn't feel like a new game, just an upgrade/expansion/reskin thus far.

[Red_Rob]

It definitely feels like that at first. Once you get into it though, all the small changes under the hood become more apparent. They changed the movement system, the economics (removing tax slider), the combat system, the recruitment mechanics, the magic site balance, the unrest mechanics, added 3-4 new nations and a host of units, new spells, new map features, a new victory condition and new creature abilities.

It's definitely more evolution than revolution, but for a 2 man team working on a series already popular with the fanbase I don't think it's too conservative.

[Username17]

I've been fiddling around with Shinuyama just a bit, trying to get a handle on them. Seems like the undisciplined Bakemono soldiers are pretty much useless. And I can't readily imagine wanting to pay 80 gold for a Bakemono shaman. Seems like the entire army is Dai Bakemono, Bakemono Archers, O-bakemono, Kappa, Bakemono Sorcerers, and Uba. I can maybe see making a stealth force out of bandits.

-Username17

[koz]

Does anyone have any advice for playing LA Ulm? More specifically, some advice on early expansion and early research would be very much appreciated.

[Username17]

Does anyone have any advice for playing LA Ulm? More specifically, some advice on early expansion and early research would be very much appreciated.

Well, you are required by law to have a Blood/Death god who is either Awake or Dormant. That in turn would seem to suggest Vampire Queen, but it doesn't because she is overpriced by a hundred or more design points.

Your basic expansion units are Pikemen and Rangers. Those can handle anything, taking significant losses to Crossbowmen and modest losses to Heavy Cav. There are things you can do to minimize losses to crossbows, mostly involving screen forces of a few skirmishers who are either stationary (because they are rangers) or actually pull back (because they are morningstar infantry on guard commander). The Pikemen are always in line formation, and should be on hold and attack when your rangers significantly outshoot the enemy and regular attack when they don't.

Early research goals may vary. Generally I would say grab Evocation 1 so that your bullshit astral casters (which is almost all of your casters) can do something useful in battle. You can't search for Death well, but you are eventually going to be rolling in Death casters, so grabbing Conjuration 3 and spamming Dark Knowledge is reasonable.

Your first goal of substance is Construction 4. That is where the Sanguine Rod lives, and that is when your Members of the Second Tier stop being so bad at their job. In the long run you'll want a bunch of blood magic, but that can really wait, because almost all of your early blood slaves can go to Sanguine Heritage.

-Username17

[K]

Does anyone have any advice for playing LA Ulm? More specifically, some advice on early expansion and early research would be very much appreciated.

Pikes, production, and a blood/death/fire god to Blood hunt and summon your base vampires. Use villains to rain arrows onto the front line on any weakly armored enemy, but you want Fire Arrows ASAP using items made by your god.

Go for Alternation for Earth debuffs, Construction for the Earth spell that increases armor, and Enchantment for Strength of Giants, early Thaum for Communions, and Conjuration for Earth Power.

Then race for Construction 7 because Weapons of Sharpness is FTW.

Middle game is vampire fun that you want to armor buff using casters with Blood Stones.