Dominions 4 Teasers

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Dec 13, 2013 5:39 pm

I'm thinking about trying a gimmicky EA Pangaea that uses Crossbreeding to bolster its maenad freespawn. Are there any good blood spells for Pangaea besides Rain of Toads?

I'll probably be playing against an underwater nation and have a decent chance of fighting at least one army supported by fire evokers. Probably going to be a smaller map, with 4-5 players.
EDIT: Atlantis and Abysia confirmed, probably going to see Hinnom or Berytos as well, some kind of sacred jewish giant units.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Dec 13, 2013 5:58 pm

Demon Knights are amazing. Like, really amazing. Unfortunately, you need to build boosters before you can make them, but fortunately you wanted to build those boosters anyway. Dark Vines are pretty decent and also can be built by any Pandemoniac or Pan with a blood random.

I haven't experimented with Blood Fecundity, but it seems worthless.

Late in the game you can and will build Heliophagi no matter what your god is. Blood 9 is probably not something you will bother researching at any point.

-Username17

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:05 pm

Thank you, that's helpful. I only summoned Heliophagi once in Dom3, if the game goes far enough I'll be sure to check them out. Are they better as diversification mages or combat units? Can I justify my purchase if they just do ritual magic and forging?

Demon Knight and Dark Vines sound like a pretty nice combo. Can the vines fight without penalty in darkness? It sounds like I might want to plan for at least one mage who can accompany the main demon army and cast darkness.

If I want to go heavy on demons, is a bless worth it, or should I go heavy on scales to offset hunting costs?

K · Post by K » Fri Dec 13, 2013 7:40 pm

Dark Vines got a boost in Dom4 because they kept the old big bag of HPs (cast the regen spells!), but they also gained blunt and piercing resistance.

With research costs in Dom4, I wouldn't make any plans involving getting Blood researched enough for anything above 6.

For a demon-blood strat, I'd probably invest in an SC blood god who does a little fire and water. The Ice Devils and Arch Devils are too much diversity to ignore in a blood strategy and contracts are nice.

Cross-breeding exists to provide fodder for enemy spells and sieges and to provide meat for the sci-fi future where you can toss down Army of Gold or something and stuff like Mass Regen and turn them into large masses of real troops.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 10:44 pm

The Dom3Wiki is back up! Just as I'm starting a new EA game as Tien'Chi too.

K · Post by K » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:07 am

Did anyone notice that MA Ctis is kind of badass now?

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:13 am

K wrote:Did anyone notice that MA Ctis is kind of badass now?

No I hadn't. Do tell...

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:47 am

MA C'Tis' Marshmasters can be recruited anywhere with a fort and are not slow to recruit. MA C'Tis is very much going to be a research powerhouse with lots of good combat mages.

Also, the sacreds, while situational, are actually stuff you may want to actually get because they're decent elite troops.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:34 am

So, I'm pretty sure since everyone is moving to Dom4 that Dom3 is gone, so I need to buy Dom4, anyone have any comments on which is the best place to buy it? IE, Desura/Steam/Gamers.

Like, is any of them a less obnoxious DRM then Steam?

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:39 am

On Desura you can download the game without the Desura-Client...
so no DRM there

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:41 am

Desura offers a standalone installer with no DRM other than the product key. You don't even have to download the Desura client, you can do it all through your browser. Plus your Desura key activates on Steam!

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Dec 23, 2013 6:35 am

So, Lanka: Call me crazy, but starting with an awake Nyorai seems to do nicely with Turmoil/Luck. And the Nyorai in turn has enough research to give you Blood 2 quickly, letting you bloodhunt from the get-go and convert the slaves into sacred demon ogre troops that cost no maintenance.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Dec 23, 2013 11:19 am

More on Lanka. After trying out the Nyorai, I tried out that Goddess of luck with a W9E4 bless instead of F4E9. Those demon ogres become really nasty, especially the Blood 1 Raksharajas who now get four attacks.

K · Post by K » Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:33 pm

I've been looking into Lanka a lot lately, and there has been enough changes to basically make all tactics from Dom3 to be mostly useless.

That being said, W9 is a real powerhouse. N9 tends to be the bare minimum because your troops healing 4 HP a turn and getting fewer afflictions is huge. E9 is even better now because it's a flat Protection bonus to everyone and not just armored guys like in Dom3. Heck, even A9 has some use now because adding precision to your mages is huge. Blood9 is crazy good because turning enemy Banishment spam into dead enemy priests and mages is wild and +Str is nice.

A lot of other tactics have opened up. With several really good Pretenders opened up, it's no longer a stupid idea to start with an Awake SC or special ability god. Luck goddesses and demon goddesses are viable choices, as well as Fountains of Blood.

I'm going to be looking over all the new options. The extra slaves in Turmoil and Chaos Power mechanics change a lot of things. For example, I'm now looking at recruiting barbarians for their ability to Raid enemy provinces ahead of my demon troops in order to raise the unrest, and that's fucking insane.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:38 pm

Zinegata wrote:Those demon ogres become really nasty, especially the Blood 1 Raksharajas who now get four attacks.

I assume you mean Rakshasa? The Raksharaja is the Cap-only commander. Does going Blood so early hamper your expansion at all? What about your ability to defend against an early rush?

K wrote: For example, I'm now looking at recruiting barbarians for their ability to Raid enemy provinces ahead of my demon troops in order to raise the unrest, and that's fucking insane.

I heard there are some problems with raiding not being worth the time it takes. Is that only for the gold or is it true of unrest too now Order reduces it every turn? Is there any way to see how much unrest you're creating?

K · Post by K » Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:38 pm

Red_Rob wrote:
K wrote: For example, I'm now looking at recruiting barbarians for their ability to Raid enemy provinces ahead of my demon troops in order to raise the unrest, and that's fucking insane.
I heard there are some problems with raiding not being worth the time it takes. Is that only for the gold or is it true of unrest too now Order reduces it every turn? Is there any way to see how much unrest you're creating?

Raiding is powerful because it's a pillage action at a nearby enemy province. Your units don't move into the province or fight the defenders.

This means that it becomes a cheap way to project unrest into provinces that you intend to take. The gain of gold is just a bonus for Lanka because the unrest is adding to Chaos Power.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Dec 24, 2013 7:18 am

Fortune Bringer is a flat chance of an extra positive event each turn. So in the first 20 turns you have a Nyorai awake, you will on average get 3 extra positive events centered in whatever provinces your pretender happens to be in. In the first 20 turns, a Devi of Fortunes is worth 5 positive events. Note that those events are pulled off the normal positive event chart, so they could include scale changes that are then reverted to normal during the dominion push phase of the same turn and thus have literally no observable effect. Or they could be a pile of gold and a magic booster.

Frankly, it's hard to argue with just taking a Great White Bull. But K's point about Blood Vengeance when your sacreds are demons is well taken. Blood Vengeance's big trick is that it makes enemy evokers explode, so if the enemies are able to turn their priests into evokers against you, Blood Vengeance shines much brighter than it does if your sacreds are just normal troops.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Wed Dec 25, 2013 12:04 am

Do slashing weapons sometimes cap damage at half total HPs when they sever a limb or something? Do crushing do that?

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 1:04 am

Any hit on a limb caps damage at 50% of total hp. That's why you see so many arrows hitting for 5 even when the damage readout says they did more. Slashing weapons mean that when you hit the 50% cap on a limb you do an automatic arm loss / crippled critical, I believe in addition to the chance of a regular critical. So the slashing thing is pretty much just an advantage.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 4:16 pm

In Dominions 4, the trauma of limb removal is apparently always non fatal XD.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 6:32 pm

On the other thread there was talk about how Yomi doesn't work. Certainly, I can't get it to work. People who claim to be able to get it to work describe things that seem like they obviously wouldn't work against even vaguely real opposition.

They have a lot of weaknesses, but I'm not sure what could be done to make them "not terrible." The biggest weakness to me isn't the part where most of their troops are way overpriced, it's the part where their leadership situation is completely fucked. They can't lead their national troops with indie commanders and have to shill out for actual mages in castles to lead armies, and their decent mages are also terrible at leading troops which when combined with undisciplined and low morale soldiers makes their demons into a fucking joke.

My thought is they might be fixable by making Demon Generals and maybe Sorcerers build-anywhere. That would make them into a research powerhouse that would have a lot of good leaders because all they'd need to do is plop down a lab and start the Demon Generals flowing. Thematically, Ko-Oni should be build anywhere as well, but I think the core issue is that it just uses up too many castle turns to make the Demon Generals you need to actually lead troops.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 7:44 pm

What about summonable commanders? Is that a viable strategy at any point?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 9:20 pm

Ancient History wrote:What about summonable commanders? Is that a viable strategy at any point?

Yomi gets a couple of interesting commanders from a magic diversity standpoint. Especially the Dai Tengu, who is your nation's primary air caster. But fundamentally, you need troops leaders early, and the Demon General is the only guy in your whole empire who can do that worth a damn. And he costs 125 gold and requires a province with a palisades and a lab (a 1100 gold investment). It's really costly for a faction that relies on Chaos Power.

-Username17

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Wed Dec 25, 2013 11:27 pm

I'm not entirely sure how this'd work mechanically, but what would be real neat for Chaos-Power Yomi is if they could be the war profit/locust faction. At least half of the problems with Yomi derive from the fact that they're an expensive faction that wants you to take scales that penalize your income (turmoil + sloth). After some whining, the devs made Chaos Power work off of Turmoil Scales OR Unrest, so you could plunder and raid and fight enough to make your demons effective in enemy, Order-3 lands. That right there, fighting and plundering for personal gain, ought to be the Yomi M.O..

Imagine if Yomi had some sort of mechanism by which war lowered their upkeep or costs. Something like a plunder ability whereby if a unit has had a fight in the last 2-3 turns, their upkeep is halved or nullified. Add in Chaos Recruitment to reduce the price and then you could churn out a pile of cheapo demons and not give a damn if they get butchered or not because they cost you nothing while they were terrorizing the enemy, and you were also making money from their conquests/raiding/pillaging. In this example, Yomi would be gain an economic advantage from ruining their opponents' economies. The fact that doing so also raises unrest, which lets your demons fight better, is just one big synergy sandwhich.

Another, alternate idea, would be if the Yomi demons auto-pillaged provinces along with whatever the hell they were doing. Add in some national advantage where they make more money from raiding/pillaging and you'd have the demons raising a ruckus (and money to sustain their costs) in exchange for making you really, really wanting to put those demons in someone else's territory. Think of it as a passive ability which raises unrest (and kills off a small amount of population) but increases income. We've already got nations with troops/commanders who eat population or raise unrest... why not troops that auto-pillage?

I also second Frank's suggestions about improving Yomi's leadership possibilities. It's a real pity that your morale bonus is tied to your mundane leadership, because you really want certain commanders to be very effective at leading and motivating fantastic troops. If it is too much work for the Devs to change the leadership rules, they should add an ability called "Banner of the Damned" which increases the morale of undead/demons led by that commander (like how Pans give a bonus to the morale of animals they lead). Then you can have a sorcerer give -1 morale to all the humans he's leading, but have Banner of the Damned +3, so that he offers a fat morale boost to all the undead/demons he's leading, making him the equivalent of a 80 leadership commander for the right kind of troops.

K · Post by K » Thu Dec 26, 2013 2:12 am

Previously, Yomi was supposed to be an SC nation. You'd take some Dai Oni and walk around with Fire Shield and Soul Vortex and Invulnerability and some basic MR boosters and maybe a Nature Bless and just SC armies. The problem is that actually getting to that point was really hard because your non-Demon troops are not great and your demons were vulnerable to people just recruiting some cheap indie priests to slam those demons who were also not that great. Your best option was to walk around with an Awake Green Dragon and pray that no one noticed that you kind of sucked until you could make SCs.

Now, the tactic that people are supposed to use in Dom4 seems to be capitalizing on the length 5 Yari in the hands of your troops. Repel bonuses are nice and recruiting Bakemono from any mountain and eventually getting stuff like Weapons of Sharpness and pretending that you don't do demons seems to be your claim to fame. Lead them with Demon Generals rocking the Nature morale booster and Earth magic and you have some decent massed troops.

Actually doing demons as anything more than disposable shields or using Turmoil just seems dumb.