Dominions 4 Teasers

[Shatner]

So long as it's how to play as MA Ulm and not how to beat MA Ulm, I'd be all for it .

I've expressed interest or concern in a couple of nations during the Dom4 beta so I'm trying to play those nations in my opening rounds of MP games. Put my money where my mouth is. I was worried early on because Dom3 MA Ulm is notoriously weak, or at least so strategically narrow as to be weak in the face of flexible opposition, and Dom4 MA Ulm looked like the same damn thing. There was some discussion about it and a whole lot of not much happened, so I'm going to try it out in an MP environment and hope to find my earlier concerns proven wrong.

In fairness, Dom4 MA Ulm might not need a whole lot of explicit improvements to still overshadow Dom3 MA Ulm. With the extensive changes to a lot of underlying game mechanics, the lack of nerfs that Dom4 Ulm got might be enough to help its relative competitiveness.

[Zinegata]

In a nutshell...

MA Ulm, I think, needs to be an evocation 6 nation at the earliest opportunity; spamming Magma spells and Iron Blizzard to support its well-armored troops.

I think for too long people have been making Ulm a forging nation, when in reality it's not actually a good way to go until you can also summon up some real thugs.

Hence, the initial early push to Construction 6 (the primary forging research target) actually weakens Ulm; when it should instead be doing Evoc (plus Conj 3 for Earthpower), then get a combination of summons/forging.

[Shatner]

Yeah, Dom4 Ulm actually got worse at forging than Dom3 Ulm with the changes to forge discounts (a change I'm not opposed to outside of my inordinate fondness for MA Ulm). That said, the one thing Dom4 Ulm can forge better are 5 gem items, most relevantly Owl Quills and Lightless Lanterns.

Do you think rushing Construction to enable a massive research boom is worth it?

[Zinegata]

Yeah, Dom4 Ulm actually got worse at forging than Dom3 Ulm with the changes to forge discounts (a change I'm not opposed to outside of my inordinate fondness for MA Ulm). That said, the one thing Dom4 Ulm can forge better are 5 gem items, most relevantly Owl Quills and Lightless Lanterns.

Do you think rushing Construction to enable a massive research boom is worth it?

I think it would depend more on your early site-search income; you're not guaranteed to get enough Air to be forging Owl Quills every turn and the same can be said for Lightless Lanterns.

If you luck out on Air Sites then sure, Owl Quill away (it's basically an extra mage recruitment for the purposes of research every turn). However, I would not make it a point to start beelining for Construction 2 immediately; I'd go for Evocation first - and do a quick stop for Con 2 if it turns out I have Air gems.

(Evocation 3 in paticular seems to be a particularly good early target - it gives you Magma Bolts and Iron Darts. If you're still not losing a war and have air gems, THEN switch to Con2 for Owl Quills. By this point you should easily clear Con 2 anyway)

Lightless Lanterns I would reserve for much later; for when you have thugs that can actually use your gear.

Edit: Also, I'd note that I'd probably not even get an Air-random Smith early in the game, because I would devote my capital production entirely to Priest-Smiths. The strength of Iron Blizzard later in the game is pretty impressive and you can't get more Priest Smiths outside of your capital (not to mention it reduces early maintenance costs and thus improves your cashflow)

[name_here]

Apparently the repel changes really helped out MA Ulm, since they've got a heavily armored pike unit.

Rushing Construction 6 for research is definitely a questionably wise move that takes a while to pay off. If you get lucky with your start it might be worthwhile, but most of the time you'll probably want battle magic before then.

[Shatner]

Edit: Also, I'd note that I'd probably not even get an Air-random Smith early in the game, because I would devote my capital production entirely to Priest-Smiths. The strength of Iron Blizzard later in the game is pretty impressive and you can't get more Priest Smiths outside of your capital (not to mention it reduces early maintenance costs and thus improves your cashflow)

That all sounds reasonable, although I find the early, heavy Priest Smith recruitment surprising. The importance of Master Smith randoms is so great I find it hard to recruit anything else from my capital until I've got a second fort up and running. Plus, the upkeep savings from recruiting a Priest Smith over a Master Smith (3 1/6gp) takes just over 12 turns to equal the difference in recruitment costs; you won't be seeing the savings for at least a full year.

[Zinegata]

Apparently the repel changes really helped out MA Ulm, since they've got a heavily armored pike unit.

Yes, and they have less encumberance so they aren't committing mass suicide just by fighting. Essentially, the 18-Prot pikemen now shrug off most arrow fire (and Crossbows are relatively rare in MA, and one of the few Xbowmen of the age are actually Ulmish) and do pretty damn good in melee due to repel.

You'll still want shields for decoy / arrow-catching and the Maul/Axe dudes for kneecapping giants, but the pikemen finally give Ulm a good all-around option (until evocation spam arises and you need to switch to cheap chaff, in which case you might even go war dogs just to have bodies to spend).

That all sounds reasonable, although I find the early, heavy Priest Smith recruitment surprising. The importance of Master Smith randoms is so great I find it hard to recruit anything else from my capital until I've got a second fort up and running. Plus, the upkeep savings from recruiting a Priest Smith over a Master Smith (3 1/6gp) takes just over 12 turns to equal the difference in recruitment costs; you won't be seeing the savings for at least a full year.

Well, first of all consider Iron Blizzard. Each Priest-Smith fires off 30 armor-piercing shots every turn, that does 10 damage (x2 against magic creatures). This makes one smith basically the equivalent of 60 crossbowmen, since unlike crossbowmen you're firing every turn. True, regular Smiths can still magma blast, but due to high fatigue you'll do maybe 3-4 of them only; compared to the Iron Blizzard dude who's doing it all battle long (especially with earthpower)

Secondly, think about what the With-Random Smiths are actually good for - they give you basic site-searching, forging, and alternate battle magic (but still earth-centric, like Rain of Stones); and you only get a few of them for every dozen.

In the early game, the only role they can actually perform is site-searching, because you won't be having stuff to forge (except maybe Owl Quills) and the alternate spells aren't up yet. And it will be pretty weak (and in many ways inefficient) site-searching because you're only getting 1 path searching for Air, 2 at most for Fire, and 1 for Astral.

That's why I think a "smoother" curve for MA Ulm is to start getting Smiths only with your second fort onwards; and to put magic paths on your Pretender for early Year 2 site-searching if that's so critical to your strategy. Having a Pretender with multiple (possibly high paths) is probably more efficient and effective.

Once you have Evoc 6, those 12 extra Priest-Smiths you recruited will then help you by firing 360 armor-piercing shots per round of combat; which won't have any really good counters save Arrow Fend (but that just mitigates the carnage, not stop it). I really think you have a good shot of winning a war outright with these guys on your side.

[Username17]

You'll still want shields for decoy / arrow-catching and the Maul/Axe dudes for kneecapping giants, but the pikemen finally give Ulm a good all-around option (until evocation spam arises and you need to switch to cheap chaff, in which case you might even go war dogs just to have bodies to spend).

I did some tests early on, and plain Jotun Hirdmen absolutely tore Ulmish axemen to pieces. It wasn't even close. The Pikemen did kind of OK, but the Axemen just got murdered. I'm not actually certain that the axemen have a purpose, although I could imagine them pulling their weight against expensive and unshielded sacred giants.

As for research goals, I think the plan is: Construction 2, Conjuration 3, Evocation 6. With pretty much no deviations from that order. After that, not sure. Thaumaturgy, Alteration, and Enchantment all have good arguments. I'd probably go Enchantment 4 for the turn 2 Flaming Arrows. You'll probably have enough guys with a fire random to do that at that point. You need Owl Quills and you're going to get them first. And that implies to me that you want a dormant Air god.

You have a lot of good options for an Air God. Allfather, Father of Winters, Tiwaz of War, Keeper of the Bridge, Asynja, it's all fairly reasonable. You're mostly getting your god for some magic diversity, it's not like you give a tinker's damn what your bless effects are like. You need something mobile and not imprisoned because you need to be able to claim thrones. But you don't really need it to capture provinces because early expansion can be done with pikemen.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

As for research goals, I think the plan is: Construction 2, Conjuration 3, Evocation 6. With pretty much no deviations from that order.

Ergh, I would say Evoc3 should go ahead of Conj3. You don't really have anything to cast to support your Earthpower with by going Conj first (unless you're going for Ogre spam).

For me the order is Evoc3, Conj3, Evoc6. Con 2 gets included at any time depending on when you start getting Air income.

After that, not sure. Thaumaturgy, Alteration, and Enchantment all have good arguments. I'd probably go Enchantment 4 for the turn 2 Flaming Arrows. You'll probably have enough guys with a fire random to do that at that point. You need Owl Quills and you're going to get them first. And that implies to me that you want a dormant Air god.

Alteration I think is the next best one. You can Wind Guide your evocations and there are a lot of decent Earth spells in Alteration.

Do Flaming Arrows work with Iron Blizzard? I don't think MA Ulm really has the archery to justify Flaming Arrows othewise.

[Username17]

You are definitely, no questions, going to do Ogre Spam. Your earth gems don't really do anything before Ogres, and you want those Ogres on the table as fast as possible. Equipping Black Lords with swords of sharpness and shit is basically a trap. Don't even bother.

Construction isn't just for the Owl Quills. The Owl Quills are what makes it important, but the very instant you get an Earth 3 Smith, you want to throw down on a hammer. When your god wakes up, you want to have a suit of armor waiting for him or her. Construction 2 is definitely first.

Conjuration 3 is next because Earthpower is required before your casters will ever mean dick in combat. Magma bolts by themselves aren't very impressive - you'd rather bring that many gold worth of independent archers to a fight. And also because you need the damn ogres very early in the game to shore up your troop numbers and reinforce the front.

Flaming Arrows isn't higher priority than magma eruption. But you're going to end up fielding a lot of independent archers. You have good enough heavy infantry out of your castles, but you'll have money left over because of the high resource costs, meaning that your out-of-town provinces are only going to be called upon for cavalry and archers.

-Username17

[Korwin]

Ogres where nerfed, still worth it?

[Username17]

Ogres where nerfed, still worth it?

Not for everyone. But Ulm needs the bulk. You have a lot of Earth gems and nothing to do with them. Converting them at really any rate at all into soldiers is totally worth it.

By the way, I've looked into it a bit more, and I deeply disagree with the idea of buying more than a single Priest Smith before year 2. They are poor leaders, above and beyond the costing more up front and not getting any randoms.

-Username17

[K]

Mmmm. Trying to Wish for a Horror causes a Doom Horror to attack you and no Horror unit for you.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Was that a wish for 'a horror' or for a specific horror unit name?

[K]

Was that a wish for 'a horror' or for a specific horror unit name?

Specific name.

[name_here]

IIRC, in Dom3, wishing for a Doom Horror gave like a 33% chance of ending up in control of the resulting unit. I assume the same still applies.

So it's only really worth trying if your opponent is leaning too heavily on an SC prophet/disciple/pretender and you wish for the Eater Of Gods.

[K]

I tried for a Gore Tide Horror and got a face full of Doom Horror (three times).

[Username17]

In Dominions 3, the "wishing for horrors fucks you" thing was handled by a piece of code in the Wish spell that singled out all the horrors you'd want to wish for. Except that IIRC it missed one, and there was one horror you could actually wish for if you cared. Which you didn't, because it wasn't one of the really awesome ones and you might as well just wish for a Vastness at that point.

In Dominions 4, there's an actual "this unit is a horror" tag, so I assume that wishing for any Horrors, even the bullshit ones, would trigger the jimmy kick.

By the way, with some more Ulm tests, I'm pretty unimpressed with Iron Blizzard. It's a decent counter to magic beings, but it's short range and doesn't hit as hard as crossbows. It's nicely accurate, and the darts clump nicely, but it's not exactly a withering barrage of doom. All told, I'm pretty firmly of the opinion that the Priest Smith sucks. It's bad at forging, bad at leading troops, takes a year to break even against the Master Smith, and isn't even as good at researching because of the lack of randoms. You'll build them, but not in any quantity until you have two or three other castles spewing out Master Smiths.

-Username17

[K]

Do buffs not work underwater? I just had a battle where Wooden Warriors and Strength of Giants affected no units despite the spell hitting the whole squad.

[Username17]

Do buffs not work underwater? I just had a battle where Wooden Warriors and Strength of Giants affected no units despite the spell hitting the whole squad.

As far as I know, they do work under water.

By the way: MA Ulm against the computer is easy mode. You have money left over to put 10 PD in every province, which makes the computer less likely to invade you at the beginning of the game. The computer's ragtag armies can do basically fuckall to a line of black plate pikemen or Guardians backed up by some arbalesters. And the computer never puts together an army that you can't tear to shreds with magma eruption. Your thugs are never really that good, but you don't care because the computer can't do anything about your line troops.

I really don't even know what Ulm is supposed to do against a Human Controlled Mictlan fielding Eagle Warriors with a Fire or Death bless. Seems like that would tear their troops to pieces long before they get to Evocation 6. And there really isn't a second shoe to drop.

-Username17

[Shatner]

Do you find the arbalests worth it? That once-ever-three rounds firing rate is very underwhelming when their accuracy is just the standard 12 precision "human with a crossbow". If I had to choose between the two Ulm archers, I tend to choose sappers because crossbows and siege bonus (though costing x2 as much is annoying), but really that's a false choice because the real answer is "indie archers".

[Username17]

Do you find the arbalests worth it? That once-ever-three rounds firing rate is very underwhelming when their accuracy is just the standard 12 precision "human with a crossbow". If I had to choose between the two Ulm archers, I tend to choose sappers because crossbows and siege bonus (though costing x2 as much is annoying), but really that's a false choice because the real answer is "indie archers".

I do actually find the arbalests worth it. First of all, they hit really hard. 15 points of armor piercing piercing damage is a lot of damage. Often enough to cause serious injury or death. Secondly, they have really long range, which lets you set up at the far end of the screen if you want, and more importantly it lets you hit guys the enemy has set up in the back. Third, they are armored enough to ignore short bows almost completely, which means that having them around lets you recruit mad stacks of wolf tribe archers without losing them all the first time the enemy shows up with a "fire archers" order.

Fundamentally, as Ulm you can very quickly put together lines of pikemen that are wide enough to stop any army the computer is likely to send. So anything more you add to that needs to be shock or archery, which means you'll be making a lot of arbalests, black knights, and war dogs pretty soon.

Of course, all this is versus the computer. Against human opposition, I wouldn't expect anything less than an army of barbarians, heavy cavalry, and crossbowmen, and that is going to tear some pretty serious holes in your lines. Also, they are going to come against you with troops so elite that pikemen can't dent them. But against humans, I think the extra punch of the arbalest is if anything worth even more. Humans love elite troops where the computer lovers piles of crap, and 15 points armor piercing is the kind of damage that can seriously injure an armored giant or sacred horseman or whatever.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Third, they are armored enough to ignore short bows almost completely, which means that having them around lets you recruit mad stacks of wolf tribe archers without losing them all the first time the enemy shows up with a "fire archers" order.

Wolf tribe archers are undisciplined now, right? Does that equate to Fire Closest or Fire None for ranged troops?

[Username17]

Third, they are armored enough to ignore short bows almost completely, which means that having them around lets you recruit mad stacks of wolf tribe archers without losing them all the first time the enemy shows up with a "fire archers" order.

Wolf tribe archers are undisciplined now, right? Does that equate to Fire Closest or Fire None for ranged troops?

I believe it equates to no orders. Which for ranged troops mostly means that they will stand around and fire bows. But if enemies get too close, they may decide to charge into melee.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

Just be careful mixing undisciplined troops in the same squad as archers, I've had a couple incidents where an oni footsoldier led 30+ archers charging into melee