Dominions 4 Teasers

[K]

I guess my Lanka questions would be: any changes to units? Any new units or old units removed? Same national spells? Any new Blood spells/items? Same special Lanka reanimated undead?

Here's a guide for quick reference that I wrote if you need to check mage paths.

Any changes to Blood are good too.

[Korwin]

For some reason, my lich died in his own dominion (was up to 5 candles), and I still had to "Call God" to get him back...he'd died several times before and it wasn't an issue. Bug?

Did he die in an assasination?


Question:
What "recruit outside of the fort" units did the old nations get?
(I heard Flagelants for MA Marignon)

[Username17]

Some of your commanders, the best ones, are "slow build", and take two turns to come into play.

When do I pay for slow build units, and how many turns do they take up my commander and/or holy unit recruitment slots?

-Username17

[Korwin]

Well as it turns out the way slowrecruit works for troops has either changed, or I remembered it wrong. We can only recruit a single Sirrush every TWO turns!

Second part seems clear from that quote.

[Username17]

Well as it turns out the way slowrecruit works for troops has either changed, or I remembered it wrong. We can only recruit a single Sirrush every TWO turns!

Second part seems clear from that quote.

That's not clear at all. Do I pay the 200 gold on the turn 2 turns before it shows up or the turn 1 turn before it shows up?

It's in the queue for 2 turns, and it's a sacred troop. Which of those turns (if any) is the number of other sacred troops I can recruit reduced by 1?

-Username17

[Doom]

I guess my Lanka questions would be: any changes to units? Any new units or old units removed? Same national spells? Any new Blood spells/items? Same special Lanka reanimated undead?

Here's a guide for quick reference that I wrote if you need to check mage paths.

Any changes to Blood are good too.

Changes to units means I'd have to know the old units by heart...sorry, that's beyond me.

Which Lanka, EA, MA, LA? I can look at all available spells in game...that's nice.

Totally new Blood spells/items. There's an Imp item that summons an imp for your mage (a la contract from below, if I recall correctly, and that item might be gone) and adds to research...it's cheap and easy to make, albeit cursed. There's also a Blood spell to remove afflictions on caster (B2, not as hard as I thought), and a B5 ritual to extend the range of Blood spells. Looking at all the blood spells, nothing strikes me as new...there's a level 9 Kokytos spell that is basically "target dies", but that might always have been there and I just never bothered with it.

There are more blood sites, or at least I'm finding more, without searching. I get quite the virgin stockpile in games where I don't have access to blood (truth be told, I should be able to sell virgins for gold, at least as much as gems).

I'll be researching more blood.

The undead enhancement item isn't great. Reanimation WITH the item gets you 12 longdead (instead of the 10 the spell says). Reanimation without the item gets 10. I used the same guy for both castings.

Many of the londead are identical for both castings.

For slow build guys, you pay the gold up front on turn 1....it sure looks like you lose the holy point both turns while it's building, though. So one gold price, 2 holy points, double resources, two turns to build.

[K]

I guess my Lanka questions would be: any changes to units? Any new units or old units removed? Same national spells? Any new Blood spells/items? Same special Lanka reanimated undead?

Here's a guide for quick reference that I wrote if you need to check mage paths.

Any changes to Blood are good too.

Changes to units means I'd have to know the old units by heart...sorry, that's beyond me.

Which Lanka, EA, MA, LA? I can look at all available spells in game...that's nice.

Well, Lanka is specifically a monkey faction from EA that has monkeys and demons. Bandar Log is MA and just monkeys and Patala is LA and monkeys and naga.

So if there are demons and monkeys in MA and LA, that's news I'd be interested in. If it's just the non-demon monkey factions from Dom3, less so.

The guide I posted should tell you if any units were added or subtracted from EA Lanka or their magic changed, but I'm mostly wondering if any Recruit Anywhere units were added or any magic was changed.

[Doom]

Bandar Log is still monkeys. They've got mounted elephants and tigers, though...tigers look pretty good. There's also a "reincarnation" ability, I think it works sort of like immortality, just the killed units come back as smaller monkeys or something. Recruit Anywhere will take a bit, have to get another castle to see that.

Chrissake, I can only look at all spells once I've researched something in that spell line, so that'll take a bit, too.

For what it's worth LA Ulm takes recruit anywhere seriously--I can get their priest sorcerers anywhere with a temple/lab, no fortress required.

Another thing is mercs are handled a bit better. If you hire a merc, and the hire zone is captured, the merc stays neutral. You can still "teleport" mercs across the map by not rehiring one turn and hiring the next.

[K]

Yeh, it's EA Lanka I'm most interested in. Bamdar Log doesn't seem to have any changes. Reincarnation, elephants, and tigers are all the same.

Chrissake, I can only look at all spells once I've researched something in that spell line, so that'll take a bit, too.

You can look at magic just by checking the Magic tab on the main screen, then the Research tab on the left of the next screen, and then the name of the magic next to the research sliders. This will tell you all the potential spells in that list for that nation regardless of actual magic on commanders. National spells are in blue letters. You see the full list, unlike the list of castable magic when you choose a ritual from a caster or script a spell to cast in battle.

Alchemy is a command from a mage in a province with a lab, but there are apparently some alchemy rituals as well in Alteration that are new.

For what it's worth LA Ulm takes recruit anywhere seriously--I can get their priest sorcerers anywhere with a temple/lab, no fortress required.

That IS news. What is the magic on those guys?

Basically, any "can recruit without a Fortress" national unit is big news.

[K]

From Sombre's thread....



Already being called the "icecream scooper."





Magic attacks, stealthy. Pretty neat.



Appearing in large numbers in everyone's playthroughs. Looks like the new backbone unit like Vine Ogres in Dom2.



Amphibious, stealthy, no Enc trampler with a special swallow attack and elemental damage. Basically, amphibious stealth elephants that desperately need an armor buff. Cost 8 Water gems.

I see raider mages loving these.

[Doom]

I found alchemy, and I'll take another look at Lanka national spells.

The eyescooper is fun, but you can't kill anyone with it. I had a hero with it the whole game, barbarian lord, not one kill. Still got bonus strength, though, whoopy.

And yeah, ogres are so easy to cast and you get so many of them that if you have earth gems, it makes much sense to cast them.

Nothing in Lanka looks like a new national. Lanka gets a Nation spell levels 1-7 of Blood Research, and 2 at level 8 , none at level 9.

For what it's worth, I just cast succubus...can't find the cat charm on the magic item list, tho.

The LA Ulm "anywhere" units are two (dammit, game hates alt-tab): illuminated one (astral 1), and Member of the Second Tier (ast 2, blood 1, possibly more)...the latter is pretty good. Sorry, I was wrong about priests...if alt tab didn't cause lockups, it'd be easier on me.

Forge bonus is no longer percentage, just gem reduction (eg, FB 1 reduces gem cost by 1). I found a site that reduces Evocation by 20%, so that part is still the same.

[K]

There seems to be a new cat charm that grants darkvision and stealth as a base trait.

Add that to the several items that I saw that increase stealth, and it looks like stealth is a whole thing now.

[Doom]

Yeah, there's a fistful of stealth items....the Eye of Innocence adds like 50 to stealth (if you don't mind losing an eye...), and there are a few others.

I've never seen much reason to put much into stealth units. You pay 30 gold, and if you lose em, you lose em. Bury them in magic items, and if you lose 'em, the opponent might get magic items, and you definitely lose a lot of stuff. There's nothing to gain from stealth that can match more than a handful of gems.

[K]

Yeah, there's a fistful of stealth items....the Eye of Innocence adds like 50 to stealth (if you don't mind losing an eye...), and there are a few others.

I've never seen much reason to put much into stealth units. You pay 30 gold, and if you lose em, you lose em. Bury them in magic items, and if you lose 'em, the opponent might get magic items, and you definitely lose a lot of stuff. There's nothing to gain from stealth that can match more than a handful of gems.

Well, the various graphs are now tied to having a spy in the enemy capital, and I'm not even sure how you would do that without a ton of stealth if someone was trying to keep you out.

Also, I can't tell you how many times I wanted to do assassinations and seductions, but felt that there was no viable way to get a unit in.

On another subject, the only new Blood spell is one to cure afflictions?

[Doom]

No, there's a blood spell to extend the range of blood spells--all spells have a range to them now, even "teleport" is only good for 5 spaces (unless, of course you use an item or spell to extend the range).

I'd love to have a stealthy assassin...but you gotta pump up the assassin with items to give it an excellent chance of winning. Every item to increase stealth is an item to decrease assassination ability.

I guess it just depends on how they've changed the stealth rules. It used to be, there really wasn't much that could hide from 40 cavalry more than a few turns, but it's quite possible the rules are very different (much like how the dwarven hammer works is different).

It's been so many years. But Bloodletting (sucks blood from the battlefield, heals mage) and Purify Blood (allies immune to poison for battle) seem new, as does Reinvigoration and a spell that drives all demons beserk.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I might try a more assassin-centric game next time I play a versus game. Spamming summoned skeletons or flame bolts shouldn't cost too many items. What'd really be cool would be if Machaka's Spider Warriors can follow their boss into assassination attempts. Not sure if it'd be balanced, though.

Does MA Machaka have an interesting and competitive option besides Flame Arrows? Fever Fetishes are probably off the table now...

[K]

Purify Blood is new. The others are old.

Unless "drives all demons berserk" is not Blood Lust.

[K]

I saw an item called a Flame in a Box that gave one temporary Fire gem, so people will at least be able to have roving Fire Arrow armies.

[Username17]

Run Dominions in Windowed mode. Go to the properties of your Dominions shortcut, and change to run as normal window. It stops all the alt-tab bullshit forever.

-Username17

[Doom]

Kewl, that fixes that issue. But now I can't set monthly rituals, "shift M" just takes me to the messages.

What say you, whose kung fu is so vastly greater than my own?

In other news, I was just about to hit Con 8 and look at artifacts, when I *double* tinkerbelled the other two AI players in the same damn turn.

Playing again as T'ien Chi, cranking up the difficulty, but not expecting much.

The random events mess with dominion a lot now, you can get wild swings in Luck and Heat just 'cuz.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Kewl, that fixes that issue. But now I can't set monthly rituals, "shift M" just takes me to the messages.

What say you, whose kung fu is so vastly greater than my own?

The capslock bug can be addressed by quitting and restarting the game, I think it's caused by switching out of the game window.

[K]

In other news, I was just about to hit Con 8 and look at artifacts, when I *double* tinkerbelled the other two AI players in the same damn turn.

If you really want to look at the artifacts, pick a nation with good diversity like Bogarus or Tien Chi, add only one other hotseat player of some other nation, max scales for Magic and Luck, set auto-recruit for mages, and hit end turn 10, set the mages to research Construction, then hit end turn 50 times.

Should take no more than four minutes to set up if you don't accidentally Domkill the hotseat player.

[Doom]

Yeah, alt-tabbing lets the shifts work again...you don't have to quit out.

I'm building another cube army. Eventually, I'll try a gift of reason on one, then use an item that increases a creature's size by 4...past that is profit, I'm sure.

Edit: bah, no Reason on mindless creatures.

In related news, you can't summon cubes underwater (even though they are amphibious). Crocodiles, incidentally, are not amphibious.

You can cast Fire Ants underwater, however. They drown.

[Doom]

I'm definitely thinking tinkerbelling is a bigger factor in Throne games. Thrones spew out multiple dominion (just got one that gives 5 a turn). Just one of those near a capitol will cause issues if it's not owned by the god in the capitol.

[K]

Unless Domspread equations have been changed, my experience with blood sacrificing nations says that some extra Temple checks from Thrones aren't going to be increasing any Domkills.