Dominions 4 Teasers

[Ikeren]

Also, somewhere along the line were "what to do with each gem" posts, but I forget where. Anyone got a link? Frank wrote them, they were excellent.

[GreatGreyShrike]

They were split into several pages when posted originally, but got reposted in this thread

They are for Dominions 3 and are therefore quite dated. Parts of them are just factually wrong now due to changes in the game since Dom3, and the value judgements in terms of what's worth making are similarly quite dated. Supercombatant strategies took a huge beating going into Dom4, and also the game no longer has gemgens like Clams and the like which radically adjusts gem availability and costs for a lot of different things. For one example of how the game has changed, Frank's description of Fire starts with: "OK first off: you basically cannot summon fire mages with fire gems.". Of course, the addition of Flame Spirits at F3 for 30 F gems changed that state of affairs.

In general, a lot of them are still interesting and useful, but I wouldn't recommend them for a source of information about Dominions 4.

[Red_Rob]

Option 1; Imprisoned E9/N9/Dom7 Great Mother with -2 scales.
Summon Jotun Wolves + Gloso

Scales: Order 3, Sloth 3 (the sacred Garmharmdig are only 9 resources), Cold 3, Growth 1, Misfortune1?

I don't really see that E9 is the best choice here. Your bless will mostly be used on Garmhirding and Jotun wolves and neither of those really need the reinvig. None of your mages are sacred, so outside of Shrouds you aren't getting much use out of it as a mage bless. I'd be tempted to go with a W9N9 dormant Dom6 Son of Fenrer with same scales.

Jotun Wolves with a W9 bless are terrifyingly quick, and with 2 attacks, Fear and Berserk they take buffs very well.

Option 2; Imprisoned E4/N4/Dom8 great mother with +8 scales;
Order 3, Production 3 (Jotun Hirdman are 41 resources), Cold 3, Growth 2, Misfortune1, Magic 3...actually have points leftover to boost E or N to 5.

Option 3; Imprisoned A4/E4/N4 Dom7 Keeper of the Bridge with Order 3, Production 3 (Jotun Hirdman are 41 resources), Cold 3, Growth 2, Misfortune1, Magic 3 --- would provide me with Earth and Air magic, leaving me only without access to fire.

For me the Jotuin Hirdsman are a little too offensively anemic to focus on. One attack per square with 11 att just doesn't really cut it. Id likely go for an early game focused on N9 Garmhirdings for expansion, then move to communions with chaff blockers and as many Jotun wolves as you can summon on the flanks. Late game you have Blood for all those shenanigans, B/N for Rain of Toads, B/W for Frost Fiends and B/S for Horrors. With N9 you can also pull off Turbo-Communions with Skratti - just 2 Skratti Communion Slaves in Werewolf form with a N9 Shroud, their natural regen and a casting of Personal Regeneration from a master will be regenning around 18hp each turn. This means they can support 10+ masters casting each round without dying, so say hello to infinite skelespam & evocations.

[Ikeren]

E9 puts Garmhirding protection from 12--->16, which makes them super hard to kill, doesn't it? Plus gets me access to earth, which I'm under the impression is a suite I generally don't want to be without, for buffs and forging and summons?

[Red_Rob]

Pushing prot from 12 > 16 doesn't help as much as you would think. Against regular spear armed infantry the regen from N9 was probably going to give you enough time to kill them anyway, whereas against anything that actually kills giants (barbarians, dualwielders) the damage is still likely to stack up too quickly due the enemy having 3 times as many bodies against you. The damage range where the additional protection helps you survive where you wouldn't previously is actually thinner than it looks.

The +4Def from the Water bless is likely to avoid around as much damage as the additional protection from the E bless, whilst the additional AP helps minimise time spent being peppered with crossbows. The additional attacks also help increase your killing power, and are deadly on your Jotun Wolves. Admittedly the W bless is more about the wolves than the Garmhirdings, but it should be decent on both. Give both blesses a try in a quick test game, see which suits you best. Alternatively you could always go straight N9 and dump the additional points into scales.

With regards to E diversity, taking an imprisoned E9 Pretender isn't really going to help on that score. Waiting 3 years for them to arrive, then having them slowly site search a few provinces isn't going to get you an earth income you can do anything with. A better option is summoning a few Spectres at Conj6 - these are a decent unit anyway and have two chances at E through randoms. Once you have searched up an E income you can empower to E2 or trade for earth boots to get E2, and E3 in battles through Summon Earthpower. If you are desperate for more E you can empower an E spectre in Blood to get Blood Stones, and then even summon a Troll King if you have the gems.

[Shatner]

Also of note: the "natural protection v. armor protection" equation is unkind to a major E-bless.

To elaborate, if you have something with naturally high protection (for example's sake, let's say prot 15) and you put armor on it (prot 20 armor), the result is not 15 + 20 = 35, it's more something in the mid-to-upper 20s because the devs made it so those don't stack linearly.

Unlike in Dom3, in Dom4 the E-bless is treated as a bonus to the natural protection of the subject and so, in the likely event that they're wearing armor, the net effect is reduced somewhat.

Incidentally, this drop off in net protection also applies to casting Barkskin/Stoneskin/Ironskin on a unit since the ensuing protection is treated as "natural" and may suffer diminished returns once their worn armor is taken into account.

[Ikeren]

Perfect, really appreciate the thoughts.

I've played test games with both and am really not noticing much of a difference in survivability of the Garmharmdig, and they do kill faster.

Follow up question; in both my test games, I seem to end up with a lot of money, even putting down forts with temples and labs every time there is a 2 province gap, and constantly buying mages and jotun hirdmen from the non-cap forts. Why am I building up cash so much more with this nation than others, and any suggestions for indie troops? Maybe take a little less sloth so I can produce more...?

[GreatGreyShrike]

I wouldn't worry overmuch about trying to have a 2-province gap between forts. There's a lot to be said in favour of a clump of adjacent forts that can all reinforce each other in case of attacks or sieges - and it only impairs your recruitment of arrowfodder and evocation bait a little bit.

If you have important cap-only sacreds then letting your capitol ring not have any forts in it makes some sense, but otherwise... A fort's main job is to make mages, because mages win Dominions. Worrying about optimal arrow-catching-chump production is a waste of your time. Build more forts!

[Ikeren]

Alright, me continuing to think about this and plan;

Jotun Skratti; 255gp, recruit anywhere, STR; W2, B2, +100% pick of W/B/N/D.

In terms of the water suite;

Out of battle summons; easy access to Vile Water (Gelatinous Cubes), Sea Trolls and Sea Kings, Naiad and Naiad Warriors, Stream of Hades (Jotun W2/D1 + Water Bracelet + Sea Ropes), Hidden in Snow, and can even get Queens of Elemental Water.

In battle summons; water elementals and shark attacks.

Buffs; Wave Warriors, Quickening (does that stack with bless?) and Warriors of Neifelheim, Frost Fend

Offensive spells; Frozen Heart, Cold Blast, Falling Frosts, Rain, Cleansing Water...is Quagmire something I want as Jotunheim? Grip of Winter,

Province Attacks; Murdering Winter (with Boosters), Wolven Winter,

And in terms of using Skratti as basic thugs; Shroud of the Battle Saint, Ice Brand, Liquid Body.

Items; Water Lense for Temp Water Gems, Bottle of Living Water for free water elementals, are Ice Pebble Staffs to make commanders into numbness spammers worth something?


S1-N1-D1 Seithkona;
Astral; power of the spheres makes them S2-N2-D2 for 1s gem.
Communion fodder.
Basic astral buffs; luck, Body ethereal, cheat fate
Basic nature buffs; protect, enlarge, wooden warriors
Offensive; netherbolts without power of the spheres. Shadowbolts and blasts with,

Crafting: Black Bows of Bewolf, Ethercrossbows, Banefire Crossbows, Totem Shields, Ivy Crowns, Shrouds, Boots of Messenger, lots of trinkets (bags of wine, lucky pendants, antimagic pendants, barkskin, horn of valor)


Norna; S3, Starshine Skullcap to S4, gives full access to astral (especially with power of the sphere and light of the northern star)

Ether Gate, always seemed overpriced as as summon to me. Telestic Animation.

Astral buffs; Doom, Will of the Fates, Astral Healing, Antimagic,

Astral attacks; Baleful Star, Mindhunt (great, if they don't have astral), Vengeance of the Dead, Imprint Souls

Astral battle attacks; Astral Guyser, Magic Duel, Stellar Cascades (with Light of the Northern Star; the Seithkona can spam Sellar Cascades), Nether Darts...Astral Tempest is not particularly good for me? Solar Brilliance and Unravelling.

Astral crafting; 1 starfire staff for rituals, starshine caps, otherwise most of it can be done by the S1 dudes.


Nature Norna; Access to N2 + Thistle Maces + Moonvine Bracelets means easy N4 access.

Summons; Brood of Garm for awesome sacred wolves; Troll Tribes for 33% E1? Ivy Kings get me to N5, which means Faerie Court and Bootstrapping air.

Buffs; Wooden Warriors, Army of Giants, Mass Protection, Haste, Relief, Serpants Blessing, Mass Regeneration.

Province attacks; Call of the Wild sucks balls, Good access to winged monkeys which I've never used, vermin feast seems to have odd utility, Beckoning from Ivykings with boosters.

Battlefield magic; Maggots good counter for undead? Howl? Storm of Thorns eventually, Ravenous Swarm for undead? Growing Fury - most of my units beserk already.

Item crafting; Boosters (Thistle Mace, Moonvine Bracelet), Vine Shields, Cauldron's of Broth, Ring of Regen, Amulet of Resilience, but otherwise N1 guys can mostly make stuff.


D3 Norna; Easy Access to D4 with Skull Staff; there is no longer an easy way from D4 to D5, is there?

summons; Glosos are sacred trample boars, which is cool, bane lords for basic thugging, Spectres have two seperate 25% chances of Earth access. E1/S1 Spectres could possibly be boosted to E2/S2 (Trade for Earth Boots, Skullshine Skullcap) for Crystal Coins. Mound fiends are good. Behemoths, Pale Riders,

buffs; Skeletal Legion; Darkness if I get darkvision.

ranged attack spells; Arouse Hunger, Carrion Reanimation

battlefield combat spells; Shadow Bolt, Shadowblast, is Riggermortis + relief going to work in my favour? Life after death

item creation; Skull staffs for boosting, horror helmets, skull mentors.


Blood; Easy Access to Blood 3/W2, or B2/W2/N1/D1, or W3/B2
Some of the Norna get B1

B3-W2 + Water Boosters gets me Ice Devils

No easy way to climb the blood tree without an empower. Empowering a B3/W2 to B4 lets you go Blood Thorn, Brazen Vessel, Armor of Souls. Empowering a B2/W2/N1 to B3 lets you go Armor of Twisting Thorns first. Saves 15 gems, spends 10 for an unremovable armor.

With 3 blood boosters hanging around, access to Dark Vines, Rain of Toads, Infernal Disease, Call Horror, Illwinter, Infernal Disease, Ritual of 5 gates, Blood Rain, Dream Horror's, Plagues of Locusts, Improved Crossbreding, Rush of Strength, Heliophagus (and associate magic diversity), Forces of Ice.

That being said, I don't think I'm a LA Blood Power, so I'm not rushing blood or doing a blood focused strategy. Most of the LA nations are in the game (15), so I doubt I'd get to anything first.


Anyways, things I'm particularly missing? Things that are particularly excellent combos? things that work poorly?

[GreatGreyShrike]

Quagmire is not terribly helpful for your nation. It makes the battlefield count as a swamp, which pretty much hurts you as much as your opponent.

Ice pebble staff is probably the sort of thing you have to have a planned use for - destroying particularly hard to kill sacreds or thugs or whatever. It's not a generically good item IMO, and in a lot of fights it does basically nothing - or at least nowhere near as much as the water gems could if they were elementals or something. If someone attacks you with a pretender god vulnerable to it or something, though, it'll put in great work. Highly situational.

Howl is really good in pretty much every battle you can arrange it for, it's pretty much always worth it's cost at the very least. Ravenous Swarm is a spell that is good against small numbers of super elite undead (like if someone is thugging Bane Lords or something) - it hits one square a turn for big damage. If the enemy is fielding 1000 longdead it does nothing. Wither Bones is good for clearing out larger numbers of undead, as is Cleansing Water, especially in big communions with relief going off to allow you to really spam them out (they scale quite well with bonus magic levels).

Nether Darts is really really good, and casting psychic death from behind a wall of summoned skeletons ("The Sceleria Strategy") is super strong. You should consider communioning up with skeleton summons + relief against armies that can't kill things that fast - if you can make skeletons faster than the enemy can kill them, you will *eventually* win.

Rigor Mortis + Relief is probably really good if you're fighting a fairly conventional army and spamming skeletons at them. If you're fighting someone who is going for evocations and other big spells, Rigour Mortis often doesn't have time to take effect before the battle is pretty much won or lost. It's often helpful though.

Remember in your Nature climbing calculations you have access to the Armor of Twisting Thorns (which you mentioned in Blood), so you get some of the best ritual access with all the Nature boosters in the game accessible to you. climbing to high Nature magic and putting down big Nature magic globals is a good use of your time if you can arrange it - Mother Oak -> Gift of Health etc. is all really good. You don't care that much about the Armor being unremovable when it goes on a ritualist who is going to hide in a lab and never come out lest your Gift of Health die with them - but realistically there is a really high chance you get to be in a game with Pangaea in it so basically you probably get no Nature Globals ever, Pangaea gets them instead. If Pangaea dies somehow early on or is really bad at the game, definitely go for the Nature Globals because you are probably the best nature power in the game after that.

If you really want to murder an entire battlefield, you might consider some of the big Blood stuff being glued into a communion. The most straightforward thing to do is to have some guy joining your communion that is doing Astral/Death/Nature as a Sabbath Master, and then Reinvigorate every turn in order to remove all fatigue from all slaves - as a personal spell, all your slaves get the fatigue removal every time it's cast. So you can cast a LOT of really big spells, or have a fairly topheavy communion.

Another possible thing to go for in this theme is the Bloodletting communion. You want to cast Antimagic *first*, and then spam bloodletting a bunch of times out of several different communion masters. If your guys and theirs are similar MR before the Antimagic goes down and you have an Antimagic up and they don't they will have a very very bad day. Of course, if you both have antimagic up, it does basically nothing, so it's best as a surprise.

[Ikeren]

Okay; and I haven't looked at most of the other LA nations, so I will now.

Quick look at my total magic diversity; So I've got easy access to S3, D3, W3, B3, N2 --- 4 x 3 and a 2, 14 pts total.

LA Man; Good player, prefers scales and not bless; A3, E2, S2, F1, D1, human sized troops. 9 pts total.

From pretender; F4+, A3+, E2+, Prod 1+, Growth 1+

LA Ulm; S3, E2, B2, D2, A1, F1, N1 (including Vampire Counts, since apparently that's what LA Ulm looks like). Human troops and some undead. 12 pts total.

From Pretender; B4+, D4+, Dom7+, Growth 1+

LA Marignon; F3, B3, A2, W2, S2, E1. Human troops, flagellents --- wonder if they'll go bless or not. 13 pts total

From Pretender; F4+, S4+, B4+

LA Mictlin; W4, N3, B3, S2, F2, D1. Everything is sacred, and interesting summons. Classically gets dual blessed Jaguar Warriors? 15 pts total

From pretender; N6+, Growth3+, Female

LA Agartha; E3, D3, F2, W2, S1, is a new player, Infantry and Cave Knights. 11 pts total.

From pretender; D4+, Dom5+, Order3+, [Cold Scales Probably +1 or +3]

Lots of Research on Turn 1 from awake pretender.

LA Abysia; B4, S3, F3, D2, E1. Heavy Infantry. 13 pts total.

From Pretender; D4+, Order 2+, Undead Female

Less research than Agartha on Turn 1 from Awake Pretender.

LA Caelum; A3, D3, E2, W1, F1, Astral and Death Summons with huge diversity, Flying Infantry and Mammoths. 10 pts total

From Pretender; S4+, Female

LA Pangaea; N3, E2, A1, W1, S1, conveniently a new player, 1/10th access to D1/B1, but not much to recruit (smallest national list?) so probably get them. 8/10 pts total. Berserker Minotaurs and Satyr Hoplites.

From Pretender: W4+, D3+, N3+

LA Midgard; A3, E2, D2, B2, S2, N1, newish player; considering a bless, 12 pts. Skinshrifters and einhere

From Pretender; E4+, Growth 3+

Bless; Morale +1, Precision +2, Missle Range +25%, Reinvigoration +2, HP +3. That's A4, E4, N4.

LA Bogarus; S3, F2, A2, B2, D1, E1, interesting summons, atrocious army outside the calvary and archers. 11 pts

From Pretender; D4+, Dom9+, Order0+

Expanded turn 1; pretender, or natural army?

LA Gath; F2, E2, S2, B2, D2, N2, Sacred Giants nad recruit anywhere sacred zealots, probably going for a bless. 12 pts.

From Pretender: F4+, Growth1+

LA Ragha; F3, D3, A3, B2, W2, S2, Sacred Gryphons and other flying units, Calvary, Elephants, Caelums summon, also, is this just "good caelum"? 15 pts.

From Pretender; W9+, E3+

LA Xizbala; W4, E3, D2, N2, A1, Nature and Air fancy summons, fliers and swamp survival. 12 pts

From Pretender; E7+, N4+, Growth 0+

Less research than Agartha on Turn 1 from Awake Pretender. Same as Abyisa.

LA Atlantis; W4, D3, S2, E1, A1, F1, amphibious units. 12 pts.

From Pretender; N9+, S4+, Order 2+, Magic 1+

Nations have 8-15 pts of magic diversity, with 1-3 picks of a path at 3-4 power (except me, I get 4) and then a few other paths at 1-2.

Agartha (S1), Caelum (S4+ on pretender), Pangaea (S1), Xizbala are the easiest to Mind Hunt.

[GreatGreyShrike]

Man is basically a lot of really elite troops, and a bunch of casters that are strong and cost-efficient but extremely monodimensional. Man basically makes a really good army and puts a big communion of old men behind it - but they often have no plan B if that doesn't work for whatever reason.

Ulm is a crazy nation. Stealthy S1 that don't need a fort for recruitment give them amazing communion options. Vampires are a pyramid scheme which gets out of hand really quite fast. And they have a lot of stealthy crossbow guys for the early game. Basically manditory to take an awake D/B pretender (fountain of blood or Vamp Queen - probably VQ).

Marignon can go for a bless or go for scales. They have crossbows and fire magic early on, and later on transition into a blood nation. They're pretty weak though, and a lot of their stuff is sort of overcosted and not that good.

Mictlan classically relies heavily on blessed sacreds early on and rushes people, and then snowballs into a blood nation. They also have a sideline in going underwater. They can potentially do a little communioning too. Strong and versatile.

Agartha - Good army, mage corps does extremely well midgame with both classical skeleton spamming and evocations in a wide variety. A large variety of magic paths and options, lots of ways to take the nation.

Abyssia - You are missing their warlocks for scoring! They go up to B4 and S3 and get E1! These guys are a decent blood power and one of the best factions at spamming out horror remote attacks, but still pretty monodimensional over all. Their death magic they get as their special LA thing is small and insultingly useless.

Caelum - Flying Earth mages is a good thing to be but only E2 on 1/5 cap-only STR means it's hard to rely on it. Still can do Caelum Stuff that is good (lightning) and summon undead.

Pangaea - Decently strong army, good researcher and communionist in the Centaur Sage guys, good big Nature/Earth casters. Strong.

Midgard - Army seems underwhelming except for sacreds, which are cap-only. Mage corps seems awkward to use but potentially very good at blowing things up. Weird path setup.

Bogarus - Amazing lategame but garbage early game. Turbo speed researcher and really awesome assortment of puny human mages.

Gath - Communions are good, sacreds are good, giants are good in general.

Ragha is not just Good Caelum, it is Good Caelum + Good Abysia. One of the many issues with fighting Ragha is that all their stuff is amazing and you can take the nation literally any direction and have that be totally valid and supported. All their units are amazing. They have amazing expansion. Their casters are build-anywhere and amazing battlemages and have good access to multiple different paths at high levels. Their sacreds are really cool and you can justify taking a bless for them if you wanted.

Xibalba - Stealthy fliers with good stats for cheap, Zotz are really strong. Worthwhile mages recruitable from forest/cave without a fort. Decent mages and some blood access. Can go underwater. Strong.

Atlantis - Wants to go underwater ASAP. Very good underwater. Very based on cold weather. Very good troops.

[Ikeren]

Appreciate the thoughts, as always.

Assessing pretenders;

Man; The Everburning One, God of the Wind and the Hoe, Feeder on Impurity, King of the Soil. Rainbow; Fire, Air, Nature? Earth

Ulm; King of this World, Prince of Disease, Prince of Blood, Master of Death and Rebirth, Prince of the Harvest. Death, Blood, and maybe Nature but probably not?

Marignon; Master of Heavenly Fires, Lord of Arcane Mysteries, He Who Stole the Fire, God of Suffering. Fire, Astral, maybe death but probably not?

Mictlan; King of Cosanants, The Womb, The Goddess of Horses, Queen of the Blessed Lands ; Did Mictlan repeatedly generate pretenders until they got nothing but generic stuff?

Agartha; Master of Order, Gatherer of the Dead, The Eternal Judge, Patron of Arbitrators. Death, Order?

Abysia; The Shadow, the Night Hag, Guardian of Law. Death + Order?

Caelum; The Face Painted with Bells, Lady of the Obscure. Uhh, I got nothing.

Pangaea; Opener of the Wells, Friend of the Dead, Princess of Fishermen, Mother of Fishes. Water + Death

Midgard; Master of Young and Growing Things; Lord of the Rock. Earth and Nature?

Bogarus; Prince of Majesty, the One Always at the Shoulder, He who is at the center, Guide of souls. I got nothing.

Gath; Nourisher of the Fields, Eater of Filth. Nature and Death?

Ragha; Master of the Oceans, The Lord of Knowing Water, King of Forgiving. Water for sure

Xibalba; King of Forest, Maker of Mountains, the Unsleeping God. Earth + Nature.

Atlantis; First Born of Gaia, Dispenser of Fate, Carpenter of the Insides, Divine Scribe, Great Defender. Uh, Nature?

Mine, tragically, King of Primeval Depths, God of the Frozen Marches, He Who Felled the First Tree, King of the Spring, which screams water/nature.



My starting position is quite closer to 4 thrones, which is cool. We're at ~15 provinces/person (225/15). It's all level 1 thrones. Most interesting ones to me are;

Zeal; +1 morale on bless
Storms; Lightning Resistance 5 on bless
Might; +2 strength on bless
Stability; +1 magic resistance on bless
Bones; +3 undying on bless
War; +1 morale/+1 attack on bless
Night; +50% darkvision on bless, and darkens the world
Beasts; animal awe on bless
Thorns; Poison resist 10 on bless
Flames; Fire resist 5 on bless
Spring; Air access
Summer; Fire access
Autumn; Earth access

Least interesting;
High throne (dom check)
Ice (resist)
Winter (mages I already get)
Law (order already maxed)
Brass (gold and gems, sure)
Pestilence (death for death income)
Lower throne (5 blood gems...actually, that might be awesome)

[GreatGreyShrike]

You don't really have to guess for most of the pretender titles, there's lookup tables people have made: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/ind ... topic=2610

Man: Fire>=4, Air >=3, Production >= 1, Growth >= 1, Earth >=2

Ulm: Dominion>= 7, Death >= 4, Blood >= 4, Growth >=1,

Marignon: Fire >=4 Astral >=4, Blood >=4

Mictlan: The king of Consonants thing is not actually a title but a joke put by the player, based on the normal type of Mictlan names. Nature >=6, Growth >=3, Female,

Agartha: Dominion >=5, Order >=3, Death >=4,

Abysia: Death >=4, Undead Female, Order >=2

Caelum: Astral >=4, Female

Pangaea: Water >=4, Death >=3, Nature >=3,

Midgard: Growth >=3, Earth >=4

Bogarus: Dominion 9, Male, Death >=4, Order >=0

Gath: Growth >=1, Fire >=4

Ragha: Water >=9, Earth >=3

Xibalba: Nature >=4, Growth >= 0, Earth >=7,

Atlantis: Nature >=9, Astral >=4, Order >= 2, Magic >= 1,

Utgard: Water >= 9, Nature >=4, Cold >=3, Order >=3, Male, Growth >=1

[Ikeren]

Huh, I should have figured. I appreciate it. Also, hope I don't spawn near you, because you know way more about this game than I do.

[Ikeren]

Okay, playing on reddit is super odd, apparently a decent number of people are exchanging starting locations via PM so people have a better map of the world.

Graphs are also on. I strongly suspect this means people won't scout, which means I'm going to scout a lot to try to get an advantage. But what's with this weirdness?

[GreatGreyShrike]

I have *no clue* about the exchanging starting position stuff, that seems super strange to me and I have never seen it happen before. I have played in a couple games organized through reddit before, and those never had it happen. It's not a reddit thing, it's just that at least one person is fucking weird. I don't even know, I find it super weird too.

Not sure anyone's taken the person offering up on it yet. Might just be one person being weird in isolation.

[Ikeren]

I got 2 private messages, and one was Midgard in public in the discord chat.

[K]

I'd beeline for Growing Fury. Garmhirdings will make a fine expansion force, but you won't be able to win many wars with the unit limitations of cap-only troops.

This means compensating for the weaknesses of your other giants, mainly their merely indie-level Attack on most units. After Growing Fury, some Construction for thugs and Water Lenses, and finally Alteration for Quickening.

On the matter of thugs, making giant assassins with Black Hearts is an excellent use of blood slaves. You giant scout seems made for that, either as fully-kitted killers with lots of items or as cheap toss-offs with only a Black Heart. I'd probably go with toss-offs to overwhelm enemy commanders in armies with numbers since enemy mages will be deadly at a certain point in the game.

Also, don't forget that Raise Dead will raise up giant soulless sometimes. There has to be dead bodies on the field for the spell to work, but once you get them, giant soulless are 45 HP and hit for 31. Add a little Darkness or Solar Eclipse to offset the terrible Attack, and it's synergy for the win.

It's probably not worth waiting to Prophet a Mound King or something for the free giant Longdead or soulless, but undead and demon priests are something to consider.

Creating a dedicated Bloodletting caster is as easy as casting Twiceborn. Bloodletting won't affect undead, so you just need enough chaff to hold off enemy troops while your casters drop Bloodletting after Bloodletting.

[Ikeren]

2 questions;

With N2 (and rarely N3), I'd need a thistle mace to cast Growing Fury on the N2 guys, right? It'd be 3 gems (1 for spell, 2 to boost 2 levels) and you can only use 1 gem/level/spell, right?

Black Hearts are a neat idea, and I didn't know about the giant soulless.

Am I reading the description of Bloodletting right? Only deals 1 damage? Any of my B3 Jotuns' could cast it with an extra gem, or booster, but that's a thing that would work mostly against Humans and not against things with higher HP like Agartha?

[GreatGreyShrike]

Yes. You can also only boost one spell level by using gems as far as I know.

You can hook mages into communions though - all communions and sabbaths are just one communion/sabbath per side per battle...

Bloodletting is mostly great against enemies with similar or lower HP as your guys. Note that pretty much all die rolls in Dominions are exploding, so 1 armor negating damage will be 1+exploding die roll, which will be opposed by the enemy's 0+exploding die roll. So it will sometimes do zero damage even on a failed save because they rolled better than you by more than 1, but on the other hand sometimes you randomly instant-kill a human when your die roll explodes and theirs doesn't; getting damage between 6-10 happens fairly frequently off of a Bloodletting cast.

[Ikeren]

Oh, nice, okay. Didn't realize even things like that had the exploding die on them.

Are the communion and sabbath split or merged? Like, if I have 4 S2 mages cast Communion Slave, are they in a communion seperate from the Sabbath Master? Or does the Sabbath Master join the communion.

[K]

Oh, nice, okay. Didn't realize even things like that had the exploding die on them.

Are the communion and sabbath split or merged? Like, if I have 4 S2 mages cast Communion Slave, are they in a communion seperate from the Sabbath Master? Or does the Sabbath Master join the communion.

Same Communion.

For Growing Fury, you can just have a N2 Norna with a Thistle Mace for +1 N with two Seithkonas and pop off a Growing Fury with only one gem after they have Communioned up.

Armor of Twisting Thorns for the +1 Nature is also easy, as is making a Moonvine Bracelet. With those three relatively cheap items, walking in with a single caster at N5 is just a thing you can do. Carrying a Clam so that you can just cast Power of the Spheres for free is a thing you can do if you don't mind the fatigue because you are in a Communion and/or plan to use Reinvigoration.

Also, remember that Bloodletting does lifedrain damage, so the main caster is almost certainly going to be at 0 Fatigue after casting in a large battle. Unfortunately, Communion slaves don't get that reduction, and Reinvigoration is needed to remove slave fatigue (The regenning Skratti idea is also not bad, but that means walking around with slaves as well to join the Communion).

[Ikeren]

Adjacent to my capital is a Throne;

Sorcerer; B3, D1, lots of blood slaves, 4 death gems
Circle Master; 2/2, 5 death gems, 8 blood slaves
2* Conjurer; 1/1, few death gems, lots of blood slaves

3 Mounter Commanders

11 Heavy Calvary
14 Light Calvary
19 Militia
12 Heavy Infantry


Is there a test mode where I can test some armies against that? I imagine when I attack it I'm probably well off having 25 spearmen huskarls in front to absorb the calvary charge as opposed to my more expensive sacreds.

And all in all, my start position is a little rough. 6 adjacent provinces, but only 2 are easily takable for various reasons. Bogarus turn 1 expanded, and Agartha, Abysia, and Xizbala researched turn 1. Abysia and Xizbala had the exact same research, which wasn't much, and it tells me that Xizbala took Drain 2 (their starting mage researches 9, Abysia's 7, but they came out with the same research), and Bogarus spent a lot of gold on Hector's Heavy Horsemen.

[K]

No real way to test battles except by creating a small world with two players.