An issue with pillaging as regards Yomi is that money now for less money later isn't a terribly great deal when your troops have the highest upkeep in the game. Pillaging is kind of boning yourself much of the time.
Sorcerers anywhere is broken. You just Order 3 yourself, ignore your demon troops, and research blitz to Flaming Arrows for your Bandit and Bakemono Archers. It's effective, but it's not Yomi.
How about if Demon Priests and Demon Generals were recruit everywhere, while Bandits and Sorcerers could be recruited without a fort in wastes?
-Username17
Dominions 4 Teasers
Moderator: Moderators
I noticed that MA Man can recruit monks from any province with a temple. Monks are dinky little stealth H1s that can lead 10 troops and have the curious ability to provide "Divinely Inspired" research: they can produce 3 research points (unaffected by drain/magic scales) but you can only have a number of them researching in a province equal to the number of white candles in that province. They cost 25gp to recruit and Man has 200gp temples, making those little monks just about the cheapest damn researcher ever (10gp/year gets you 36rp/year). They actually are just about the most efficient researchers in the game for their cost, and in theory you could take Drain-2 or Drain-3 and not care with these little guys hitting the books unaffected by your scales. You take a high(ish) dom, build a couple of cheap temples in the wake of your initial expansion, and then churn out cheap-as-free researchers in the countryside who move to your labs to start praying your research worries away. Sort of like how EA Arco can get paid twice by getting points from Sloth and extra researchers from their super-cheap philosophers... only recruit-anywhere instead of Cap-only. Oh, and they can even lead my stealthy cap-only sacreds... that I might someday bother caring about... maybe. Great, right?
I tried a couple of test games and have determined... the monks are a cute little gimmick and that's about it. Even under ideal circumstances (10 candles in your lab province) you are getting 30rp/province. That 30rp is dirt cheap, super-efficient, and costing you almost nothing to setup (200gp in random province) but it is too little to make a meaningful difference in the velocity of your research. Monks are the mopeds of research: they might be efficient but they take forever to actually get you to your destination. If the Divine Inspiration ability were more generous (2x or 3x monks researching from the same number of candles, or if they were helped by magic scales) then this could be a big deal for Man. As is... nope. Just a inconsequential but interesting detail for the nation.
Were I to play MA Man for real I would certainly slap down a cheap temple or two in year-1. Every time I built a lab, I'd have my monk-provinces churn out enough bald pates to match the number of candles in those labs, and they would quietly pray away forever, adding a tiny trickle to my accumulation of arcane knowledge. But they're contribution would be almost negligible in the scheme of things; at least they'd water down the chance of a bad event, remote attack, or assassination from hitting anyone important in my labs. Oh, and if I were MA Man I'd love to find out I was adjacent to Ermor or Asphodel, because no one can spam H1s as quickly or cheaply as me...
I tried a couple of test games and have determined... the monks are a cute little gimmick and that's about it. Even under ideal circumstances (10 candles in your lab province) you are getting 30rp/province. That 30rp is dirt cheap, super-efficient, and costing you almost nothing to setup (200gp in random province) but it is too little to make a meaningful difference in the velocity of your research. Monks are the mopeds of research: they might be efficient but they take forever to actually get you to your destination. If the Divine Inspiration ability were more generous (2x or 3x monks researching from the same number of candles, or if they were helped by magic scales) then this could be a big deal for Man. As is... nope. Just a inconsequential but interesting detail for the nation.
Were I to play MA Man for real I would certainly slap down a cheap temple or two in year-1. Every time I built a lab, I'd have my monk-provinces churn out enough bald pates to match the number of candles in those labs, and they would quietly pray away forever, adding a tiny trickle to my accumulation of arcane knowledge. But they're contribution would be almost negligible in the scheme of things; at least they'd water down the chance of a bad event, remote attack, or assassination from hitting anyone important in my labs. Oh, and if I were MA Man I'd love to find out I was adjacent to Ermor or Asphodel, because no one can spam H1s as quickly or cheaply as me...
Last edited by Shatner on Fri Dec 27, 2013 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Upon further reflection, those monks should be looked on as a superior version of the indie scout than as an inferior version of some recruit-anywhere researcher (like T'ien Ch'i's Minister of Magic). The monks cost just as much as a scout to recruit but cost half the upkeep. They have the same skill at sneaking but can lead 10 troops, should that be something you wanted to do. If idle in your territory then they can spend their time doing a tiny amount of research, vs. the scout doing... nothing. If idle in enemy territory, they can stealth preach. While a stealthy H1 won't accomplish much against concentrations of black candles, the chance of them undermining enemy dominion is better than the "nothing" your scouts are doing. And there are several MA nations which make you want lots and lots of Sunday Schoolers there to spam banishment.
I withdrawal some of my previous criticism. They're useful little guys... not very much so, but they're cheap enough you don't care.
I withdrawal some of my previous criticism. They're useful little guys... not very much so, but they're cheap enough you don't care.
Last edited by Shatner on Fri Dec 27, 2013 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Avoraciopoctules
- Overlord
- Posts: 8624
- Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:48 pm
- Location: Oakland, CA
Anyone have tips for playing EA Ermor with a dormant pretender versus Arcoscephale? Arco is recruiting a bunch of light infantry, and is probably aiming for an evocation communion with mystics. They claim to have a dormant titan, which has titles suggesting water and death magic. Probably aiming for bane lord thugs in midgame.
Is fire priest spam enough to handle this?
Is fire priest spam enough to handle this?
Considering the very nice troops that Arco gets, the push for light infantry might mean that he's getting ready to Communion you with evocations and he needs some crap that he doesn't mind getting caught in the blowback. If that's the case, you investing in thugs with high elemental resistances could have hilarious results.
Otherwise, you doing research spam seems a pretty decent choice. Build an archer fortress and get some Flaming Arrows and you should be able to handle most things he can toss at you.
Also, keep your commanders surrounded by troops. Letting him gank some commanders with his flyers would be a noob mistake.
Otherwise, you doing research spam seems a pretty decent choice. Build an archer fortress and get some Flaming Arrows and you should be able to handle most things he can toss at you.
Also, keep your commanders surrounded by troops. Letting him gank some commanders with his flyers would be a noob mistake.
Last edited by K on Mon Dec 30, 2013 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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angelfromanotherpin
- Overlord
- Posts: 9745
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
So, I'm trying to mod a faction that should be able to cross rivers easily, but not be amphibious or sailors. So far, the best fit I've found is to give a lot of units the #float command. I know it gives them immunity to Earthquake and Earth Meld, and I'm basically okay with that. But does anyone know if there are any other, stranger effects that come along with #float?
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Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
It is not at all obvious what state the different factions are at in terms of power. Sure, we can assign a few factions to the upper or lower tier easily: Niefelheim is obviously in the upper tier because every single thing the faction makes is awesome, and Pelagia is obviously in the lower tier because they cannot make forces capable of conquering land thrones and thus can never win a multiplayer game. But most of the factions are less clear cut than that. So let's discuss which factions might be lower tier in each era.
The Early Era.
In the early era, crossbows are virtually unheard of, so troops with medium armor and no shields can actually be pretty survivable. On the flip side, a lot of your enemies are going to be bringing one flavor or another of giant to the battlefield, so high damage weaponry is virtually required on at least some of your troops.
EA Ulm
Low magic, their supposedly big capital mage doesn't even have a regular random and basically isn't worth recruiting. Their main mages are dependent on having a 50% random come up, which means actually getting any of their promised path combinations happens only once in 32 recruits - and they have two separate mages that they have to do that with. And one of them is on the wrong side of two flaws in the autocalc - the thing where mage priests cost too much and the thing where you only get rebates for the first level of inept researcher, leading the worse caster to actually cost 30 more gold than the better one. Ulm's troops are basically piles of barbarians and they have subhuman magic resistance on top of that.
But... are they actually bad? They have a long list of stealthy warriors that cover multiple tactical roles and access to both effective stealthy leaders and stealthy mages. They can build a lot of pretty useful troops in wilderness areas, and their late game magic diversity is potentially pretty impressive - they could plausibly have an Earth 3 caster as well as a level 2 caster in five other paths by the end of year 3. They can at least potentially have a stealthy force of archers backed up by a stealthy mage casting Flaming Arrows and headed up by stealthy shield bearers. That sounds like something you can do something with.
EA Marverni
You will never see the full range of their theoretical magic, which means that your early plans for late game magic are deeply hypothetical at best. Their main mage is capital only, slow to recruit, overpriced, and his primary claim to fame is that he has two separate randoms - meaning that on average you will get the one you want in 16 tries, and you won't be able to really depend on getting the one you want until more like 30 tries - which in turn is five actual game years and over ten thousand gold on initial hirings alone. It isn't going to happen. Your secondary mages are not very powerful or diverse and are overpriced for being mage priests. Your archers don't hit very hard as you get slingers and javelins - not exactly the stars of the ranged attack world. And you're still expected to pay 17 resources for a line soldier, which makes it difficult to field a big line.
But... are they actually bad? Marvernian soldiers may cost a lot of resources, but they don't cost a lot of gold. They pay only 11 gold for a modestly elite and well equipped swordsman who will absolutely shred most of the tribals of his era. Your archers may be slingers, but they only cost 8 gold and they come with a shield, meaning that they can play superior arrow catcher for whatever indie shortbowmen you do get. They can also field berserkers and standards if morale is an issue. And while their secondary mages are expensive and crappy, their tertiary mages cost only 45 gold and have astral magic. This means that once they start mad castling their gold to research output is actually fairly enviable and their mid game communions are potentially frightening indeed.
EA Caelum
The Eagle Kings are highly dependent on Eagle Kings. Those are, unfortunately, capital only and slow to recruit. Even with the Eagle Kings, your magic diversity is garbage tier: you get A4W1E1D1. Your build-anywhere mages can only come up with A2W1D1, which is an uninspiring level of magic diversity for independents. It's pretty sad when you or an opponent could literally just find a magic site that has more magic diversity than your entire faction. Just to add insult to injury: your national summons are in a magic type that your mages cannot even search for, let alone natively cast. Your actual army is composed of people who are genetically bad at fighting, which is also a problem. Caelumites are like humans, but eat more food, take up more space on the battlefield, and are not as strong or tough. Caelian Infantry costs 10 gold and 16 resources, but loses decisively to independent heavy infantry or even barbarians.
But... are they actually bad? Caelum's troops naturally fly and the self synergy of being able to put up storms while your main battle casters are Air 2 is obvious. While their infantry is trash, it is highly mobile and crappy infantry where you need it is obviously worth infinity times more than excellent infantry where you don't. They have flying shortbowmen and flying casters who can eventually cast Wind Guide and Arrow Fend, which is pretty exciting - especially in a battle where you get to pick the time and place. Also you get the Mammoth, which is an Elephant who is tougher than other Elephants. It doesn't really go with the mobility angle, but it does do decent expansion work in the early game when their strategic mobility advantages don't count for anything.
EA Agartha
Your magic diversity is E4F2W2D2, which sounds fairly decent. But it's really garbage tier in practice, because you're dependent on hiring three different expensive, capital-only, slow to recruit mage priests and getting the right randoms to come up in order to get it and you don't have any cross contamination between the paths. What good is it to have Death and Fire if you'll never be able to cast Banefire or forge a Flaming Skull because you don't have them on the same caster? Agarthans are inferior soldiers. They are bigger and stronger than humans, but between the fact that they are nearly blind and have terrible equipment, they regularly get swarmed and smacked down by even independent infantry units. While Agartha has elite troops and build-anywhere sacreds, these units cost 50 gold a piece and you're never going to be able to field many of them.
But... are they actually bad? Agartha got a big content drop in the last update, which gives them decent build-anywhere lab monkeys and mind blasters. They also have amazingly good national summons and start in caves allowing them to summon Cave Grubs as early as conjuration 1. They also have Troglodytes and very tough sacred Ancient Ones. While their basic troops are probably best thought of as siege engines more than actual soldiers, they have enough weird awesome crap that you might be able to make something out of that. A line of summoned lava children and umbrals backed up by sacred regenerating seal guards using mind blasters and independent shortbowmen for archery and troglodyte tramplers for shock is certainly a weird force, but it sounds a lot better than the pile of trash Agarthans that the faction looks like at first and second glance.
EA Vanheim
Your mages who aren't slow to recruit and capital only cap out at Air 2/ Blood 1. And they are expensive stealthy sailing mounted mage priest generals. Your basic blood mage costs 285 gold and only has Blood 1, making him basically too expensive to hunt blood slaves with. Your basic researcher costs 145 gold, requires a fort, a lab, and a temple, and only makes 7 research points. Your capital mages are both slow to recruit, and the Vanadrott is again saddled with a tiny amount of Blood that he's pretty much too expensive to even use for anything. Your Van leaders are so expensive for trying to do everything that aren't any good at doing simple basic things like research, site finding, and casting rituals. Your super secret capital unit is the Fey Boar who is basically a joke unit - 100 gold for a non-sacred fragile size-3 trampler whose claim to fame is that when it is inevitably killed it instead moves back to your capital where it continues to be a tremendous drain on your finances. You have one of the shortest army lists in the game, with only five soldiers that can be built outside the capital. None of your troops are archers, tramplers, possessed of heavy weapons, or heavily armored. And while every other era of Venheim/Helheim is justified primarily by having nearly invincible sacred cavalry that murders everything and excuses all shortcomings... EA Vanheim just doesn't.
But... is it actually bad? You may not have the sacred doom cavalry, but you do have build-anywhere glamour cav. That's pretty interesting. Indeed, what soldiers you have are actually pretty boss. 25 gold gets you an elite glamour infantryman, and 30 gold gets you a glamour infantryman with a defense of seventeen. The Dwarves may be capital-only and slow to recruit, but if you have even one of them you can make a Dwarven Hammer, and then your Vanherses can start cranking out Owl Quills for 3 gems a piece. It won't make your research good or even "not terrible," but it'll improve things a lot. And you don't need to find any magic sites at all to get this started - your starting gem production is perfectly geared to making an early hammer and then making owl quills for the rest of eternity.
EA Kailasa
Monkey troops are hit and miss at the best of times, and Kailasa has one of the shortest lists of monkey troops available. They don't get the elephants or the medium infantry, or the armorer archers. They have build-anywhere sacred troops, but their only priests are only H1 and capital-only besides. And just to rub it in, their sacreds require magical leadership and their casters who aren't capital-only have poor leadership. They can summon mage priests, but that requires a powerful astral mage and the best astral caster in faction is only a 2. Their sacred troops are very vulnerable to archery because they insist on protecting their groins with Awe rather than pants.
But... are they actually bad? Kailasa fields one of the only sacred archers in the game, and it has a precision 12 longbow. They also have two non-slow-to-recruit capital casters who both specialize in different kinds of magic from their build-anywhere casters. Their total magic diversity is E4W4S2N2, which is good magic diversity. And they can summon Air and Astral casters to make it even better. With an Air Bless under the belt, their build-anywhere sacreds are pretty resilient both in and out of melee. A Guhyaka may be size 3 and cost 30 gold, but he has 2 attacks and that's actually not bad at all.
EA Lanka
The other half of the monkey armies in the Early Era, they lack the Bandar Swordsman, the armored archers, and elephants of later eras. Also, while they have the monkey blood summons, they don't have the monkey astral summons. The big issue here is that the faction is a Turmoil faction. Your sacred troops and capital-casters have Chaos Power, which means that they shrivel up and suck if they are standing on Order lands. Order is very much better than non-order, so taking Turmoil is a bad choice most of the time. This means not only that factions who have to take Turmoil are at a disadvantage, but also that their neighbors are going to likely have Order (and likely have Order 3 at that), which will severely limit a Chaos Power faction's ability to invade their neighbors. Lankan elites are also Demons, which means that they are subject to banishment and all factions have halfway decent blasting spells to use against them from the beginning of the game.
But... are they actually bad? Lanka may be a turmoil faction that is supposed to cause unrest by hunting for blood slaves, but they do get a specific bonus for doing that. Further, their priests can raise hordes of monkey undead like they were Ashen Fields without the poploss. They have a deep list of national blood summons, and a lot of monsters in there are very powerful. Their sacred demon troops are brutally effective and synergize well with a lot of different blesses. Their build-anywhere Yogini is a great researcher, and the faction's overall magic diversity is strong. They also have access to numerous spells that create unrest causing events, allowing them to exploit Chaos Power even in enemy lands if they have a turn to prepare. If any faction has the tools to overcome the limitations of being a Turmoil faction, Lanka is the one.
EA Yomi
Yomi is another turmoil faction, with all the problems that entails. However, instead of having awesome sacred demons, they have non-sacred demons whole are merely kind of OK. The faction doesn't get access to parallel zombie and blood economies, they are just a regular faction with crippling economic problems. They are caught on the wrong side of the Inept Researcher bug, having multiple commanders with multiple levels of Inept Researcher even though the autocalc only gives you the rebate for the first level. The Dai Oni is stuck paying for 11 research points he doesn't actually have! The leadership situation in Yomi is extremely dire, with half of their soldiers requiring demon leadership, and all but one of their leaders who have any demon leadership being poor leaders who penalize the morale of their squads - which when combined with the fact that Yomi demons are already disorganized and generally cowardly is totally terrible. Half their forces are penalized severely for fighting in enemy dominion, and they are literally the worst dominion push faction in the entire game. They have terrible priests and no sacred troops to justify buying a decent dominion score for.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. Yomi are bad. Really, really bad.
EA Atlantis
Atlantis specializes in helmetless troops with no ranged weapons in an era where slings are plentiful. The deep ones have low magic resistance and low defense scores and no helmets, and I honestly don't understand how they are supposed to survive in any environment. Medium magic diversity of E4W4F2S1, but much of that comes from a slow to recruit capital-only mage who is crazy expensive. No national spells worth noting, and an egregiously terrible list of available pretenders.
But... are they actually bad? Atlantis starts in the water, and that means that they cannot be invaded effectively or at all by most of their potential opponents for a good portion of the game. They can build amphibious Holy 3 commanders who are really very tough, which lets them potentially seize a bunch of thrones quickly. Their Basalt Kings are potentially a pretty scary thug. While only one troop in the entire empire seems to think it is in any way important to wear a helmet in battle, that one unit is the Coral Guard and it's a heavily armed and armored elite shambler that you get for only 35 gold.
EA Rlyeh
Rlyeh's best mages can't leave the water without items their national casters can't even forge, and their best troops can't leave the water at all. What mages they have which can leave the water on their own lose magic paths for doing it, and they don't get any cost discount for this at all. Their soldiers are low morale or require magic leadership, and their amphibious leaders who provide morale bonuses don't have magic leadership and their amphibious leaders with magic leadership make the bad morale situation even worse for the slaves with their poor leadership trait. No one in Rlyeh seems to know what a shield is, and the faction's priests can't even move, let alone claim thrones.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. EA Rlyeh is actually bad. It is difficult to imagine them doing something that would result in them winning the game.
EA Pelagia
Pelagia is a nation of Tritons, and Tritons can't leave the water. There are only a couple of soldiers in their entire faction that are even capable of leaving the water, and they are weak and uninspiring. Their signature ability is to be able to convert water gems cheaply into Astral Pearls, but they have powerful water mages and don't have powerful astral mages, so I don't know why they would even want to do that. They can't build anything they care about in land forts, so even if they somehow got a beachhead onto the beach, they wouldn't be able to do anything with it.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. In terms of the bottom line of achieving victory, Pelagia is about the weakest faction in the game. They can't win the game.
EA Oceania
Oceania is a water faction, which means that they get shafted on good pretenders. Their army list is very short, having only five non-capital units in it. Their mages are weaker on land, but their cost is based on the higher levels in the water so your casters are on the wrong side of the autocalc's assumptions much of the time. Even the fact that the Capricorn has a fixed N4 and then a random that doesn't include Nature makes him cost more and not be as good as if he had something more normal like an N3/E1 and a random that included N as a possibility. Your priests are full aquatic, so you need to build amulets of the fish in order to be able to seize land thrones.
But... are they actually bad? Starting in the water is still a very good defensive advantage in the early game, and they can actually seize land thrones. Icthytaurs aren't great land troops, but they aren't terrible land troops either, and you can build them everywhere. Their troops are amphibious, and they have genuine medium magic diversity, whatever the cost.
The Middle Era.
Generally a fairly balanced mix of independents, meaning that you are likely to have to face every kind of unit from heavily armored cavalry to naked barbarians while expanding.
MA Ermor
Definitely a difficult faction to evaluate. The computer is uniquely incapable of dealing with the Ashen Fields. Raw unit numbers rise rapidly which makes the AI overestimate the difficulty of invading them, and the computer is just generally incapable of properly supplying their armies in a lifeless hellscape, causing their forces to starve and disperse shortly after invading an Ermorian nightmare world. But human players don't have these limitations. Ermor is rightfully hated by human players because they are bad for the local economy, and humans have no problems working out strategies to supply their forces or remurder large numbers of trash undead - which is pretty much what Ermor is going to field because the Ermorian player doesn't really get to choose their recruits.
But... are they actually bad? MA Ermor can expand quickly and they have a lot of gems to play around with. Ermor is not limited to rushing in like the tide and watching their forces get repelled again and again by men of faith and skill. They can have their pretender whip up some summoned backbones for the army or sprint for the Burden of Time - likely getting it in play before anyone has the means to dispel it.
MA Man
Man is a faction composed of mostly human troops with average equipment led by witches who are capital only, old, frail, slow to recruit, and have poor magic diversity. Man's magic is pretty bad and they fall on the wrong side of how the autocalc figures things so they pay a lot for what casters they do get. The soldiers of Man don't field any weapons or armor you wouldn't find on indie humans of the era, and nothing is really more than slightly elite.
But... are they actually bad? Many of their units are slightly elite, and often don't pay much if anything for it. Honestly, who really cares what your nominal spearmen do, when you have build-anywhere move 2 Longbowmen with a precision of 12 for only 12 gold? Man's expansion is fast, and they don't need to take a lot of losses doing it. If the Witches are overpriced and not all that good, well they also don't really need to recruit any of them for the first couple of years. Man has good knights and great archers, and that can be enough to conquer a lot of territory.
MA Ulm
Back in Dominions 2 and 3, Ulm was one of the worst factions. Terrible army, terrible casters, terrible faction. And they really haven't changed much on paper. They have magic diversity that is so bad that even if we counted their percentage randoms as full random picks, they'd still have garbage tier magic diversity. Really. It's that bad. There troops are mostly humans with normal morale and subhuman magic resistance who use normal infantry weapons and crawl slowly about the battlefield until they break the enemy (who then gets away because of the slowness) or they do (and then get slaughtered because of the slowness). There's very little depth to the army and even less depth to the mage core.
But... are they actually bad? While Ulm's units have changed little since Dominions 3, the rules have changed a lot. Pikes have gone from a low end weapon to a top tier weapon. The fact that they have access to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing weapons is now actually important. High encumbrance units just don't seem to die as badly in close combat - possibly because line formations end fights in less actual turns and possibly because the new hit location rules favor high protection more than low fatigue. But regardless of the 'why' the 'what' is that a line of Black Plate Pikeneers is a fearsome sight that can basically crush most opposition with few losses. The computer is wholly unable to contain the awesome that is the pike formation, and at least against the AI MA Ulm is pretty much the game on easy mode.
MA Machaka
Machaka has an army that is largely composed of what are essentially Lion Tribe indepedents. Their stuff is way too expensive for what it does, and what it does isn't usually all that impressive. Their low end combat caster is one the wrong end of the Inept Researcher bug, and their only really economical researcher is capital only. They have numerous fancy flavors of priest, and none of them are worth the truly spectacular amount of gold the game wants to charge you for them. Their giant spider riders cost a lot of money because they get a second life as a giant spider, but those giant spiders have animal level magic resistance and aren't worth much once enemies get the right kind of magic.
But... are they actually bad? The Machaka Hoplite may be the worst Hoplite, but the other Hoplites are pretty darn good. Being a faction that makes large numbers of shortbowmen isn't a bad thing if you happen to have ready access to fire mages powerful enough to open with a Flaming Arrows enchantment. Magic diversity in the faction is actually medium, and they have easy access to F3E3N3D2. Honestly, my gut still says this faction is unfinished and underpowered, but mostly because their stuff seems overpriced. Why are they paying 10 gold for what is basically an independent shortbowman? As a national troop, it seems like it should be getting a boost in eliteness or affordability or both.
MA Agartha
Agartha has no archers, and the closest thing they have is a javelinist who costs 50 gold and is capital only. Overall magic diversity is the upper end of garbage tier: E4D2F1W1, and half of that is only to be found on a slow to recruit, capital only caster. The faction is supposed to rely heavily on special conjured statues, but their Marble Oracles are so overpriced that it's hard to imagine how that's supposed to work.
But... are they actually bad? MA Agartha got a substantial boost in the last update. No longer are they bereft of units that hit hard in close combat, and Ancient Ones act as standard bearers. The army holds the line a lot better than it used to. While the Marble Oracle is still massively overpriced, Agartha has a lot of low level summoning options that are very good. Troglodytes, Attentive Statues, and Magma Children are all easy to acquire and quite good at doing jobs that Agarthans aren't good at themselves. I'm not sure, but the latest upgrade of MA Agartha might actually be enough to make it not weak.
MA Caelum
Caelians are just as worthless as soldiers in the middle era as they are in the early era, only now crossbows and longbows are more in style, making a pile of 10 gold shortbowmen even less exciting relatively speaking. Mammoths haven't gotten any better, and ice lances are just as inadequate as they were in ages past. Magic diversity is still poor.
But... are they bad? MA Caelum is probably the best Caelum. Magic diversity is poor, but it's not garbage tier anymore because the primary caster gets A4W3S1D1. And more importantly: that High Seraph can be built in any castle, meaning that MA Caelum can field a very large number of high end casters, even if they are slow to recruit. If any era of Caelum isn't terrible, this is that era.
MA Pelagia
With only a modest revamp of EA Pelagia, all the old complaints carry over in full. This faction cannot win the game. Full stop.
But... are they bad? Yes. MA Pelagia is the worst faction of the era. While many factions might have difficulty winning the game, Pelagia simply can't do it.
MA Oceania
Oceania goes to the middle era with pretty much everything they had in the early era plus a couple of expensive upgrade options. I'm not actually convinced that paying 15 gold to upgrade a 30 gold Icthycentaur to an Icthycentaur Cataphract is worth it, but at the limit of infinite play skill such an option can only help. But all the previous complaints pretty much still apply (except obviously for the thing where they only have 5 troops). Casters are still overpriced, troops are still a bit clumsy on land, forts on land still don't make good things.
But... is it actually bad? MA Oceania seems like a modest improvement on EA Oceania. Pretty much the same thing but with slightly more troop options. So however close EA Oceania is to being middle tier, MA Oceania is almost by definition somewhat closer.
The Late Era
The Late Era is full of crossbowmen and heavy cavalry. You will be asked to fight independents with heavy armor and to survive hails of armor piercing archery during basic expansion.
LA Arcocephale
Arco is basically Arco, but this time around your capital mage is overpriced, slow to recruit, and not good for much outside a smattering of magic diversity in sorcery paths. The Sibyl is certainly no replacement for the Oread, and yet there she is. The Sibyl is stuck paying through the nose for Nature and Holy paths that you don't give a crap about because the Priestess already has that covered and you're building her for the healing that the Sibyl doesn't even do. Slingers weren't that great in the Early Age, and in the Middle Era they were embarrassing. In the Late Age they are a joke.
But... are they bad? The promise of LA Arco is that they give you a better army in exchange for your weaker magic. And the barded war elephant goes a long long way towards making that a reality. Besides, the Mystic and the Arco Priestess are still good, and you still get them. Hoplites are still good, and you still get them.
LA Pythium
In Dominions 3, LA Pythium was an afterthought nation made in a late patch that never actually gelled. They technically had access to every kind of magic, but in practice they were basically hiring independent heretics that were too costly to justify using as your main mages. Plus, when it comes down to it having access to all the magic doesn't matter much if you can't use any of the magic particularly well. Moving into Dominions 4, the basic rubric is pretty similar - Pythium needs to get three different mages and get the right random flip on each one to unlock a level 2 in three different paths. Their best path goes all the way up to a three, if they get the right random on an overpriced capital-only mage priest. Their heretic mages have been hit with Inept Researcher, which means that they are on the wrong side of the Inept Researcher bug, paying for 1 to 3 points of research they don't actually get.
But... are they bad? Certainly the rules have changed in some pretty important ways. The mystery cultists no longer need forts to build. They may be poor researchers and overpriced, but you can churn them out anywhere with just a lab. And they aren't the only ones. You don't need a fort to build legionnaires. Legion troops are good troops, and you can make them wherever you want. And the new mechanics for poison resistance made hydra troops way better and less likely to kill your army on accident. And you do get sacred hydras, which are cheaper now in exchange for being limited recruitment.
LA Lemuria
While Lemuria has pretty much no problems with the computer as the AI is structurally incapable of dealing with a freespawn/poploss nation in any form, Lemuria isn't that difficult to take down for human opponents. Spirit troops aren't really very good, and basic disembodied spirits are pretty much just weak chaff. Lemuria needs magic, and you can't get the research you need to fight human opponents or the magical backup for your armies that would make said research actually useful by paying 50 gems for a Grand Lemur. That is simply not happening, especially not at the default magic site rate for the Late Era of 35.
But... are they bad? I'm pretty sure Lemuria is bad. They don't have a lot of options and it's too easy for human players to take them down by any of a number of means long before Lemuria can get their research act together to even pretend to have anything to do about it. This faction takes too long to develop. If there is a silver lining to this faction, it's that your immortal wraith thugs are, while overpriced, extraordinarily powerful. A Wraith Consul is a pretty good late game thug chassis and you start with the ability to cast it. Or you would if they didn't cost 25 gems that you can't afford because you need site searchers and researchers and the Consul is neither of those things.
LA Jomon
Life in the era of ubiquitous crossbows as a nation of shieldless medium infantry is necessarily going to be difficult. Jomon is supposed to make something of their ability to search at level 2 in 7 paths (AEWFNSH), but this relies on them getting double randoms to come up right, and their randoms are from five paths rather than four. It takes an average of 25 mage recruits to find someone who can properly search in one of your paths. And they cost 165 gold a piece, this is not a small investment. Their actual high end is the sea dragons, but in order to get that they need to conquer the seas. Did I mention their lack of amphibious troops? Well, they don't have amphibious troops, meaning that they might literally be waiting for a national hero to show up to lead their armies into the water. Needless to say, this can very plausibly not happen over the course of the entire game. Jomon soldiers cost a lot of resources (their archer costs 25) and none of them see fit to carry a shield. In an era when anyone who wants can field an army of crossbowmen, it's a big deal.
But... are they actually bad? Jomon clearly can't be played without Productivity 3, but they do get well armed longbowmen for only 11 gold. And their Ashigaru have a length 5 weapon and only cost 8 gold each. It's not like they can't expand, and samurai archers are much tougher than indie crossbowmen. Once you get some indies with shields as arrow catchers and indies with crossbows as a firing line, the Jomon soldiers can fill nice roles in a battle. And while it might take a lot of recruitments to get the whole breadth of Jomon magic, Jomon magic has a lot of breadth. E3N3F2A2W2S2H2 before you get into the water and uncover the sea dragons. That's excellent magic diversity once you get it all together. And your national casters can summon Dai Tengu who will bootstrap you to Air 3, and the Kami will bootstrap you to 3 in all the other paths if you summon enough of them. Given enough time to dick around, Jomon can have magic diversity that other factions can only dream of and an all-arms force of soldiers capable of winning major battles.
LA Agartha
LA Agartha was one of the best factions in Dominions 3. Unfortunately, they fell on the wrong side of some pretty major rules changes. The Dominions 3 faction was largely based around one caster: the Ktonian Necromancer. He was a powerful build-anywhere mage and also provided the three kinds of leadership that LA Agartha needs to move their armies around. Well... in Dominions 4 unit limits were given to leaders, meaning that a Ktonian Necromancer can only field two units before penalties start appearing. Remember: Agartha needs three different kinds of leadership because their armies are composed of magic beings, undead, and regular units in an all-arms force, so a two unit cap really hurts badly. But that hardly matters, because the Ktonian Necromancer has been made capital-only and slow-to-recruit, so they may as well not even exist in most instances and their inability to actually lead the armies of Agartha into battle anymore is irrelevant. Agartha is instead asked to use their lesser casters to lead their armies, and that is like watching the keystone cops in action. Their build-anywhere priest is supposed to bless their sacred troops i think, but he is way too expensive and can also only lead 5 of them at a time. Even simple expansion forces need like 3 leaders because of non-overlapping magisteria.
But... are they actually bad? Agartha's leadership situation is indeed terrible, but their troops are actually very good. Steel crossbows and men with kite shields are valid things to bring to a battle whether it's a simple expansion conflict or a major confrontation. Agartha also got a major content drop in the last update which among other things gave them a build-anywhere alchemist who is a master of acid evocations. This jumped the faction's magic diversity from poor to medium by itself, as well as substantially speeding Agarthan research.
LA Caelum
LA Caelum has poor magic diversity and their main caster is capital only and slow to recruit. It's kind of like if Early Era and Mid Era had a baby with all the problems of both. Caelumites are still bad soldiers, and now ubiquitous armor and crossbows make Caelum's archers feel small in the pants. Return of the raptors is simply a bad faction.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. Return of the Raptors is a bad faction. Even their new special troops just use regular steel armor and weapons. And not even especially good steel armor. The Iron Crows wear scale armor, which wasn't special or high tech in the Early Era. Getting it in the Late Era as your new innovation is simply insulting.
LA Bogarus
The armies of Bogarus are bad. The Peshti are basically just indie human infantry and the Voi are worse than that. Bogarus also has cavalry, but they aren't particularly exceptional. They can build cavalry in provinces without a fort, but it's not even mediocre cavalry, it's just plain bad. We're talking about cavalry that doesn't even have a lance and still costs 25 gold a unit bad. If you were really desperate to pay 25 gold for a precision 10 composite bowman, the Black Hood might matter, but that's obviously an extremely niche occurrence. The infantry archers of Bogarus bring shortbows and have a precision of 9. It's a joke in the era. It would be a joke in any era, and in the late era it is funnier than it would be in most others.
But... are they actually bad? Bogarus certainly isn't much of a military threat, but their magic is truly exceptional. The Startsy of course are well known as powerful mages, making 25 research and having significant magic diversity by themselves. But the Bogorussian mage corps is both broad and deep, delivering specialist battle mages in several flavors as well as a truly exceptional basic researcher (155 gold gets you 17 research points per turn), and dedicated blood hunters. It all adds up to only medium magic diversity (S3F2A2B2E1D1), but it's sorted and resorted in several ways that make it more useful than the raw numbers would indicate. And of course, it's backed up by a turbo research system which is pretty impressive.
LA Rlyeh
With the rise of the sleeping god, Rlyeh has become a popkill nation. Their dominion causes freespawn to arise, gives you free leaders from time to time, and drives leaders without void sanity insane. Unfortunately for Rlyeh, these freespawn leaders are insane and can't be counted on to act. Even worse, your freespawn are divided into mindless magic beings and low morale and decidedly not-mindless normal beings. This creates something of a leadership crisis as you need magic and normal leadership while your freespawn leaders don't reliably have sufficient amounts of both - and you have another leadership crisis coming where you are going to have to leave commanders behind because they need to shout at the stars or perform heretic preaching or some damn thing so I hope you brought extras on important invasions. Now when I said "freespawn" I meant that you didn't pay anything to have them show up, but they actually do cost upkeep - which is economically painful considering that your tax base is collapsing from the popkill. You can get them killed of course, but not all of the spawn are amphibious - some are restricted to the land or the water and then you're stuck with them. Your main mage is slow to recruit, capital only, and very expensive, and your second biggest mage doesn't have Void Sanity so you'll want to avoid him where possible. Your third biggest mage is an overpriced mage priest mini-thug, making him less than ideal for research or battle magic.
But... are they actually bad? Rlyeh's troops may be terrible and hard to herd around, but you don't actually pay anything to hire them. You can and do still use the gold economy to put together powerful mages, and they are really very powerful. You have access to void summons, which are random as heck but top out at giving you near doom horror levels of mythos monsters. Your dominion can be used as an effective weapon, as it kills population and drives commanders insane in other peoples' territories as well. Your madmen will declare themselves to be prophets from time to time, so you actually have a load of guys who can claim thrones, and there are only a couple of factions in the entire era who can even invade you in the early game (and since Atlantis and Mictlan are rightfully feared, there's no guaranty anyone else is going to support them in doing so). Your starspawn can pull a lot of teleportation shenanigans, and you can move very large armies very long distances in very short times in the late game. While your research may stumble and your logistics is an actual nightmare, it seems that the Dreamlands have several means at their disposal to actually win the game - at least potentially.
The Early Era.
In the early era, crossbows are virtually unheard of, so troops with medium armor and no shields can actually be pretty survivable. On the flip side, a lot of your enemies are going to be bringing one flavor or another of giant to the battlefield, so high damage weaponry is virtually required on at least some of your troops.
EA Ulm
Low magic, their supposedly big capital mage doesn't even have a regular random and basically isn't worth recruiting. Their main mages are dependent on having a 50% random come up, which means actually getting any of their promised path combinations happens only once in 32 recruits - and they have two separate mages that they have to do that with. And one of them is on the wrong side of two flaws in the autocalc - the thing where mage priests cost too much and the thing where you only get rebates for the first level of inept researcher, leading the worse caster to actually cost 30 more gold than the better one. Ulm's troops are basically piles of barbarians and they have subhuman magic resistance on top of that.
But... are they actually bad? They have a long list of stealthy warriors that cover multiple tactical roles and access to both effective stealthy leaders and stealthy mages. They can build a lot of pretty useful troops in wilderness areas, and their late game magic diversity is potentially pretty impressive - they could plausibly have an Earth 3 caster as well as a level 2 caster in five other paths by the end of year 3. They can at least potentially have a stealthy force of archers backed up by a stealthy mage casting Flaming Arrows and headed up by stealthy shield bearers. That sounds like something you can do something with.
EA Marverni
You will never see the full range of their theoretical magic, which means that your early plans for late game magic are deeply hypothetical at best. Their main mage is capital only, slow to recruit, overpriced, and his primary claim to fame is that he has two separate randoms - meaning that on average you will get the one you want in 16 tries, and you won't be able to really depend on getting the one you want until more like 30 tries - which in turn is five actual game years and over ten thousand gold on initial hirings alone. It isn't going to happen. Your secondary mages are not very powerful or diverse and are overpriced for being mage priests. Your archers don't hit very hard as you get slingers and javelins - not exactly the stars of the ranged attack world. And you're still expected to pay 17 resources for a line soldier, which makes it difficult to field a big line.
But... are they actually bad? Marvernian soldiers may cost a lot of resources, but they don't cost a lot of gold. They pay only 11 gold for a modestly elite and well equipped swordsman who will absolutely shred most of the tribals of his era. Your archers may be slingers, but they only cost 8 gold and they come with a shield, meaning that they can play superior arrow catcher for whatever indie shortbowmen you do get. They can also field berserkers and standards if morale is an issue. And while their secondary mages are expensive and crappy, their tertiary mages cost only 45 gold and have astral magic. This means that once they start mad castling their gold to research output is actually fairly enviable and their mid game communions are potentially frightening indeed.
EA Caelum
The Eagle Kings are highly dependent on Eagle Kings. Those are, unfortunately, capital only and slow to recruit. Even with the Eagle Kings, your magic diversity is garbage tier: you get A4W1E1D1. Your build-anywhere mages can only come up with A2W1D1, which is an uninspiring level of magic diversity for independents. It's pretty sad when you or an opponent could literally just find a magic site that has more magic diversity than your entire faction. Just to add insult to injury: your national summons are in a magic type that your mages cannot even search for, let alone natively cast. Your actual army is composed of people who are genetically bad at fighting, which is also a problem. Caelumites are like humans, but eat more food, take up more space on the battlefield, and are not as strong or tough. Caelian Infantry costs 10 gold and 16 resources, but loses decisively to independent heavy infantry or even barbarians.
But... are they actually bad? Caelum's troops naturally fly and the self synergy of being able to put up storms while your main battle casters are Air 2 is obvious. While their infantry is trash, it is highly mobile and crappy infantry where you need it is obviously worth infinity times more than excellent infantry where you don't. They have flying shortbowmen and flying casters who can eventually cast Wind Guide and Arrow Fend, which is pretty exciting - especially in a battle where you get to pick the time and place. Also you get the Mammoth, which is an Elephant who is tougher than other Elephants. It doesn't really go with the mobility angle, but it does do decent expansion work in the early game when their strategic mobility advantages don't count for anything.
EA Agartha
Your magic diversity is E4F2W2D2, which sounds fairly decent. But it's really garbage tier in practice, because you're dependent on hiring three different expensive, capital-only, slow to recruit mage priests and getting the right randoms to come up in order to get it and you don't have any cross contamination between the paths. What good is it to have Death and Fire if you'll never be able to cast Banefire or forge a Flaming Skull because you don't have them on the same caster? Agarthans are inferior soldiers. They are bigger and stronger than humans, but between the fact that they are nearly blind and have terrible equipment, they regularly get swarmed and smacked down by even independent infantry units. While Agartha has elite troops and build-anywhere sacreds, these units cost 50 gold a piece and you're never going to be able to field many of them.
But... are they actually bad? Agartha got a big content drop in the last update, which gives them decent build-anywhere lab monkeys and mind blasters. They also have amazingly good national summons and start in caves allowing them to summon Cave Grubs as early as conjuration 1. They also have Troglodytes and very tough sacred Ancient Ones. While their basic troops are probably best thought of as siege engines more than actual soldiers, they have enough weird awesome crap that you might be able to make something out of that. A line of summoned lava children and umbrals backed up by sacred regenerating seal guards using mind blasters and independent shortbowmen for archery and troglodyte tramplers for shock is certainly a weird force, but it sounds a lot better than the pile of trash Agarthans that the faction looks like at first and second glance.
EA Vanheim
Your mages who aren't slow to recruit and capital only cap out at Air 2/ Blood 1. And they are expensive stealthy sailing mounted mage priest generals. Your basic blood mage costs 285 gold and only has Blood 1, making him basically too expensive to hunt blood slaves with. Your basic researcher costs 145 gold, requires a fort, a lab, and a temple, and only makes 7 research points. Your capital mages are both slow to recruit, and the Vanadrott is again saddled with a tiny amount of Blood that he's pretty much too expensive to even use for anything. Your Van leaders are so expensive for trying to do everything that aren't any good at doing simple basic things like research, site finding, and casting rituals. Your super secret capital unit is the Fey Boar who is basically a joke unit - 100 gold for a non-sacred fragile size-3 trampler whose claim to fame is that when it is inevitably killed it instead moves back to your capital where it continues to be a tremendous drain on your finances. You have one of the shortest army lists in the game, with only five soldiers that can be built outside the capital. None of your troops are archers, tramplers, possessed of heavy weapons, or heavily armored. And while every other era of Venheim/Helheim is justified primarily by having nearly invincible sacred cavalry that murders everything and excuses all shortcomings... EA Vanheim just doesn't.
But... is it actually bad? You may not have the sacred doom cavalry, but you do have build-anywhere glamour cav. That's pretty interesting. Indeed, what soldiers you have are actually pretty boss. 25 gold gets you an elite glamour infantryman, and 30 gold gets you a glamour infantryman with a defense of seventeen. The Dwarves may be capital-only and slow to recruit, but if you have even one of them you can make a Dwarven Hammer, and then your Vanherses can start cranking out Owl Quills for 3 gems a piece. It won't make your research good or even "not terrible," but it'll improve things a lot. And you don't need to find any magic sites at all to get this started - your starting gem production is perfectly geared to making an early hammer and then making owl quills for the rest of eternity.
EA Kailasa
Monkey troops are hit and miss at the best of times, and Kailasa has one of the shortest lists of monkey troops available. They don't get the elephants or the medium infantry, or the armorer archers. They have build-anywhere sacred troops, but their only priests are only H1 and capital-only besides. And just to rub it in, their sacreds require magical leadership and their casters who aren't capital-only have poor leadership. They can summon mage priests, but that requires a powerful astral mage and the best astral caster in faction is only a 2. Their sacred troops are very vulnerable to archery because they insist on protecting their groins with Awe rather than pants.
But... are they actually bad? Kailasa fields one of the only sacred archers in the game, and it has a precision 12 longbow. They also have two non-slow-to-recruit capital casters who both specialize in different kinds of magic from their build-anywhere casters. Their total magic diversity is E4W4S2N2, which is good magic diversity. And they can summon Air and Astral casters to make it even better. With an Air Bless under the belt, their build-anywhere sacreds are pretty resilient both in and out of melee. A Guhyaka may be size 3 and cost 30 gold, but he has 2 attacks and that's actually not bad at all.
EA Lanka
The other half of the monkey armies in the Early Era, they lack the Bandar Swordsman, the armored archers, and elephants of later eras. Also, while they have the monkey blood summons, they don't have the monkey astral summons. The big issue here is that the faction is a Turmoil faction. Your sacred troops and capital-casters have Chaos Power, which means that they shrivel up and suck if they are standing on Order lands. Order is very much better than non-order, so taking Turmoil is a bad choice most of the time. This means not only that factions who have to take Turmoil are at a disadvantage, but also that their neighbors are going to likely have Order (and likely have Order 3 at that), which will severely limit a Chaos Power faction's ability to invade their neighbors. Lankan elites are also Demons, which means that they are subject to banishment and all factions have halfway decent blasting spells to use against them from the beginning of the game.
But... are they actually bad? Lanka may be a turmoil faction that is supposed to cause unrest by hunting for blood slaves, but they do get a specific bonus for doing that. Further, their priests can raise hordes of monkey undead like they were Ashen Fields without the poploss. They have a deep list of national blood summons, and a lot of monsters in there are very powerful. Their sacred demon troops are brutally effective and synergize well with a lot of different blesses. Their build-anywhere Yogini is a great researcher, and the faction's overall magic diversity is strong. They also have access to numerous spells that create unrest causing events, allowing them to exploit Chaos Power even in enemy lands if they have a turn to prepare. If any faction has the tools to overcome the limitations of being a Turmoil faction, Lanka is the one.
EA Yomi
Yomi is another turmoil faction, with all the problems that entails. However, instead of having awesome sacred demons, they have non-sacred demons whole are merely kind of OK. The faction doesn't get access to parallel zombie and blood economies, they are just a regular faction with crippling economic problems. They are caught on the wrong side of the Inept Researcher bug, having multiple commanders with multiple levels of Inept Researcher even though the autocalc only gives you the rebate for the first level. The Dai Oni is stuck paying for 11 research points he doesn't actually have! The leadership situation in Yomi is extremely dire, with half of their soldiers requiring demon leadership, and all but one of their leaders who have any demon leadership being poor leaders who penalize the morale of their squads - which when combined with the fact that Yomi demons are already disorganized and generally cowardly is totally terrible. Half their forces are penalized severely for fighting in enemy dominion, and they are literally the worst dominion push faction in the entire game. They have terrible priests and no sacred troops to justify buying a decent dominion score for.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. Yomi are bad. Really, really bad.
EA Atlantis
Atlantis specializes in helmetless troops with no ranged weapons in an era where slings are plentiful. The deep ones have low magic resistance and low defense scores and no helmets, and I honestly don't understand how they are supposed to survive in any environment. Medium magic diversity of E4W4F2S1, but much of that comes from a slow to recruit capital-only mage who is crazy expensive. No national spells worth noting, and an egregiously terrible list of available pretenders.
But... are they actually bad? Atlantis starts in the water, and that means that they cannot be invaded effectively or at all by most of their potential opponents for a good portion of the game. They can build amphibious Holy 3 commanders who are really very tough, which lets them potentially seize a bunch of thrones quickly. Their Basalt Kings are potentially a pretty scary thug. While only one troop in the entire empire seems to think it is in any way important to wear a helmet in battle, that one unit is the Coral Guard and it's a heavily armed and armored elite shambler that you get for only 35 gold.
EA Rlyeh
Rlyeh's best mages can't leave the water without items their national casters can't even forge, and their best troops can't leave the water at all. What mages they have which can leave the water on their own lose magic paths for doing it, and they don't get any cost discount for this at all. Their soldiers are low morale or require magic leadership, and their amphibious leaders who provide morale bonuses don't have magic leadership and their amphibious leaders with magic leadership make the bad morale situation even worse for the slaves with their poor leadership trait. No one in Rlyeh seems to know what a shield is, and the faction's priests can't even move, let alone claim thrones.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. EA Rlyeh is actually bad. It is difficult to imagine them doing something that would result in them winning the game.
EA Pelagia
Pelagia is a nation of Tritons, and Tritons can't leave the water. There are only a couple of soldiers in their entire faction that are even capable of leaving the water, and they are weak and uninspiring. Their signature ability is to be able to convert water gems cheaply into Astral Pearls, but they have powerful water mages and don't have powerful astral mages, so I don't know why they would even want to do that. They can't build anything they care about in land forts, so even if they somehow got a beachhead onto the beach, they wouldn't be able to do anything with it.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. In terms of the bottom line of achieving victory, Pelagia is about the weakest faction in the game. They can't win the game.
EA Oceania
Oceania is a water faction, which means that they get shafted on good pretenders. Their army list is very short, having only five non-capital units in it. Their mages are weaker on land, but their cost is based on the higher levels in the water so your casters are on the wrong side of the autocalc's assumptions much of the time. Even the fact that the Capricorn has a fixed N4 and then a random that doesn't include Nature makes him cost more and not be as good as if he had something more normal like an N3/E1 and a random that included N as a possibility. Your priests are full aquatic, so you need to build amulets of the fish in order to be able to seize land thrones.
But... are they actually bad? Starting in the water is still a very good defensive advantage in the early game, and they can actually seize land thrones. Icthytaurs aren't great land troops, but they aren't terrible land troops either, and you can build them everywhere. Their troops are amphibious, and they have genuine medium magic diversity, whatever the cost.
The Middle Era.
Generally a fairly balanced mix of independents, meaning that you are likely to have to face every kind of unit from heavily armored cavalry to naked barbarians while expanding.
MA Ermor
Definitely a difficult faction to evaluate. The computer is uniquely incapable of dealing with the Ashen Fields. Raw unit numbers rise rapidly which makes the AI overestimate the difficulty of invading them, and the computer is just generally incapable of properly supplying their armies in a lifeless hellscape, causing their forces to starve and disperse shortly after invading an Ermorian nightmare world. But human players don't have these limitations. Ermor is rightfully hated by human players because they are bad for the local economy, and humans have no problems working out strategies to supply their forces or remurder large numbers of trash undead - which is pretty much what Ermor is going to field because the Ermorian player doesn't really get to choose their recruits.
But... are they actually bad? MA Ermor can expand quickly and they have a lot of gems to play around with. Ermor is not limited to rushing in like the tide and watching their forces get repelled again and again by men of faith and skill. They can have their pretender whip up some summoned backbones for the army or sprint for the Burden of Time - likely getting it in play before anyone has the means to dispel it.
MA Man
Man is a faction composed of mostly human troops with average equipment led by witches who are capital only, old, frail, slow to recruit, and have poor magic diversity. Man's magic is pretty bad and they fall on the wrong side of how the autocalc figures things so they pay a lot for what casters they do get. The soldiers of Man don't field any weapons or armor you wouldn't find on indie humans of the era, and nothing is really more than slightly elite.
But... are they actually bad? Many of their units are slightly elite, and often don't pay much if anything for it. Honestly, who really cares what your nominal spearmen do, when you have build-anywhere move 2 Longbowmen with a precision of 12 for only 12 gold? Man's expansion is fast, and they don't need to take a lot of losses doing it. If the Witches are overpriced and not all that good, well they also don't really need to recruit any of them for the first couple of years. Man has good knights and great archers, and that can be enough to conquer a lot of territory.
MA Ulm
Back in Dominions 2 and 3, Ulm was one of the worst factions. Terrible army, terrible casters, terrible faction. And they really haven't changed much on paper. They have magic diversity that is so bad that even if we counted their percentage randoms as full random picks, they'd still have garbage tier magic diversity. Really. It's that bad. There troops are mostly humans with normal morale and subhuman magic resistance who use normal infantry weapons and crawl slowly about the battlefield until they break the enemy (who then gets away because of the slowness) or they do (and then get slaughtered because of the slowness). There's very little depth to the army and even less depth to the mage core.
But... are they actually bad? While Ulm's units have changed little since Dominions 3, the rules have changed a lot. Pikes have gone from a low end weapon to a top tier weapon. The fact that they have access to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing weapons is now actually important. High encumbrance units just don't seem to die as badly in close combat - possibly because line formations end fights in less actual turns and possibly because the new hit location rules favor high protection more than low fatigue. But regardless of the 'why' the 'what' is that a line of Black Plate Pikeneers is a fearsome sight that can basically crush most opposition with few losses. The computer is wholly unable to contain the awesome that is the pike formation, and at least against the AI MA Ulm is pretty much the game on easy mode.
MA Machaka
Machaka has an army that is largely composed of what are essentially Lion Tribe indepedents. Their stuff is way too expensive for what it does, and what it does isn't usually all that impressive. Their low end combat caster is one the wrong end of the Inept Researcher bug, and their only really economical researcher is capital only. They have numerous fancy flavors of priest, and none of them are worth the truly spectacular amount of gold the game wants to charge you for them. Their giant spider riders cost a lot of money because they get a second life as a giant spider, but those giant spiders have animal level magic resistance and aren't worth much once enemies get the right kind of magic.
But... are they actually bad? The Machaka Hoplite may be the worst Hoplite, but the other Hoplites are pretty darn good. Being a faction that makes large numbers of shortbowmen isn't a bad thing if you happen to have ready access to fire mages powerful enough to open with a Flaming Arrows enchantment. Magic diversity in the faction is actually medium, and they have easy access to F3E3N3D2. Honestly, my gut still says this faction is unfinished and underpowered, but mostly because their stuff seems overpriced. Why are they paying 10 gold for what is basically an independent shortbowman? As a national troop, it seems like it should be getting a boost in eliteness or affordability or both.
MA Agartha
Agartha has no archers, and the closest thing they have is a javelinist who costs 50 gold and is capital only. Overall magic diversity is the upper end of garbage tier: E4D2F1W1, and half of that is only to be found on a slow to recruit, capital only caster. The faction is supposed to rely heavily on special conjured statues, but their Marble Oracles are so overpriced that it's hard to imagine how that's supposed to work.
But... are they actually bad? MA Agartha got a substantial boost in the last update. No longer are they bereft of units that hit hard in close combat, and Ancient Ones act as standard bearers. The army holds the line a lot better than it used to. While the Marble Oracle is still massively overpriced, Agartha has a lot of low level summoning options that are very good. Troglodytes, Attentive Statues, and Magma Children are all easy to acquire and quite good at doing jobs that Agarthans aren't good at themselves. I'm not sure, but the latest upgrade of MA Agartha might actually be enough to make it not weak.
MA Caelum
Caelians are just as worthless as soldiers in the middle era as they are in the early era, only now crossbows and longbows are more in style, making a pile of 10 gold shortbowmen even less exciting relatively speaking. Mammoths haven't gotten any better, and ice lances are just as inadequate as they were in ages past. Magic diversity is still poor.
But... are they bad? MA Caelum is probably the best Caelum. Magic diversity is poor, but it's not garbage tier anymore because the primary caster gets A4W3S1D1. And more importantly: that High Seraph can be built in any castle, meaning that MA Caelum can field a very large number of high end casters, even if they are slow to recruit. If any era of Caelum isn't terrible, this is that era.
MA Pelagia
With only a modest revamp of EA Pelagia, all the old complaints carry over in full. This faction cannot win the game. Full stop.
But... are they bad? Yes. MA Pelagia is the worst faction of the era. While many factions might have difficulty winning the game, Pelagia simply can't do it.
MA Oceania
Oceania goes to the middle era with pretty much everything they had in the early era plus a couple of expensive upgrade options. I'm not actually convinced that paying 15 gold to upgrade a 30 gold Icthycentaur to an Icthycentaur Cataphract is worth it, but at the limit of infinite play skill such an option can only help. But all the previous complaints pretty much still apply (except obviously for the thing where they only have 5 troops). Casters are still overpriced, troops are still a bit clumsy on land, forts on land still don't make good things.
But... is it actually bad? MA Oceania seems like a modest improvement on EA Oceania. Pretty much the same thing but with slightly more troop options. So however close EA Oceania is to being middle tier, MA Oceania is almost by definition somewhat closer.
The Late Era
The Late Era is full of crossbowmen and heavy cavalry. You will be asked to fight independents with heavy armor and to survive hails of armor piercing archery during basic expansion.
LA Arcocephale
Arco is basically Arco, but this time around your capital mage is overpriced, slow to recruit, and not good for much outside a smattering of magic diversity in sorcery paths. The Sibyl is certainly no replacement for the Oread, and yet there she is. The Sibyl is stuck paying through the nose for Nature and Holy paths that you don't give a crap about because the Priestess already has that covered and you're building her for the healing that the Sibyl doesn't even do. Slingers weren't that great in the Early Age, and in the Middle Era they were embarrassing. In the Late Age they are a joke.
But... are they bad? The promise of LA Arco is that they give you a better army in exchange for your weaker magic. And the barded war elephant goes a long long way towards making that a reality. Besides, the Mystic and the Arco Priestess are still good, and you still get them. Hoplites are still good, and you still get them.
LA Pythium
In Dominions 3, LA Pythium was an afterthought nation made in a late patch that never actually gelled. They technically had access to every kind of magic, but in practice they were basically hiring independent heretics that were too costly to justify using as your main mages. Plus, when it comes down to it having access to all the magic doesn't matter much if you can't use any of the magic particularly well. Moving into Dominions 4, the basic rubric is pretty similar - Pythium needs to get three different mages and get the right random flip on each one to unlock a level 2 in three different paths. Their best path goes all the way up to a three, if they get the right random on an overpriced capital-only mage priest. Their heretic mages have been hit with Inept Researcher, which means that they are on the wrong side of the Inept Researcher bug, paying for 1 to 3 points of research they don't actually get.
But... are they bad? Certainly the rules have changed in some pretty important ways. The mystery cultists no longer need forts to build. They may be poor researchers and overpriced, but you can churn them out anywhere with just a lab. And they aren't the only ones. You don't need a fort to build legionnaires. Legion troops are good troops, and you can make them wherever you want. And the new mechanics for poison resistance made hydra troops way better and less likely to kill your army on accident. And you do get sacred hydras, which are cheaper now in exchange for being limited recruitment.
LA Lemuria
While Lemuria has pretty much no problems with the computer as the AI is structurally incapable of dealing with a freespawn/poploss nation in any form, Lemuria isn't that difficult to take down for human opponents. Spirit troops aren't really very good, and basic disembodied spirits are pretty much just weak chaff. Lemuria needs magic, and you can't get the research you need to fight human opponents or the magical backup for your armies that would make said research actually useful by paying 50 gems for a Grand Lemur. That is simply not happening, especially not at the default magic site rate for the Late Era of 35.
But... are they bad? I'm pretty sure Lemuria is bad. They don't have a lot of options and it's too easy for human players to take them down by any of a number of means long before Lemuria can get their research act together to even pretend to have anything to do about it. This faction takes too long to develop. If there is a silver lining to this faction, it's that your immortal wraith thugs are, while overpriced, extraordinarily powerful. A Wraith Consul is a pretty good late game thug chassis and you start with the ability to cast it. Or you would if they didn't cost 25 gems that you can't afford because you need site searchers and researchers and the Consul is neither of those things.
LA Jomon
Life in the era of ubiquitous crossbows as a nation of shieldless medium infantry is necessarily going to be difficult. Jomon is supposed to make something of their ability to search at level 2 in 7 paths (AEWFNSH), but this relies on them getting double randoms to come up right, and their randoms are from five paths rather than four. It takes an average of 25 mage recruits to find someone who can properly search in one of your paths. And they cost 165 gold a piece, this is not a small investment. Their actual high end is the sea dragons, but in order to get that they need to conquer the seas. Did I mention their lack of amphibious troops? Well, they don't have amphibious troops, meaning that they might literally be waiting for a national hero to show up to lead their armies into the water. Needless to say, this can very plausibly not happen over the course of the entire game. Jomon soldiers cost a lot of resources (their archer costs 25) and none of them see fit to carry a shield. In an era when anyone who wants can field an army of crossbowmen, it's a big deal.
But... are they actually bad? Jomon clearly can't be played without Productivity 3, but they do get well armed longbowmen for only 11 gold. And their Ashigaru have a length 5 weapon and only cost 8 gold each. It's not like they can't expand, and samurai archers are much tougher than indie crossbowmen. Once you get some indies with shields as arrow catchers and indies with crossbows as a firing line, the Jomon soldiers can fill nice roles in a battle. And while it might take a lot of recruitments to get the whole breadth of Jomon magic, Jomon magic has a lot of breadth. E3N3F2A2W2S2H2 before you get into the water and uncover the sea dragons. That's excellent magic diversity once you get it all together. And your national casters can summon Dai Tengu who will bootstrap you to Air 3, and the Kami will bootstrap you to 3 in all the other paths if you summon enough of them. Given enough time to dick around, Jomon can have magic diversity that other factions can only dream of and an all-arms force of soldiers capable of winning major battles.
LA Agartha
LA Agartha was one of the best factions in Dominions 3. Unfortunately, they fell on the wrong side of some pretty major rules changes. The Dominions 3 faction was largely based around one caster: the Ktonian Necromancer. He was a powerful build-anywhere mage and also provided the three kinds of leadership that LA Agartha needs to move their armies around. Well... in Dominions 4 unit limits were given to leaders, meaning that a Ktonian Necromancer can only field two units before penalties start appearing. Remember: Agartha needs three different kinds of leadership because their armies are composed of magic beings, undead, and regular units in an all-arms force, so a two unit cap really hurts badly. But that hardly matters, because the Ktonian Necromancer has been made capital-only and slow-to-recruit, so they may as well not even exist in most instances and their inability to actually lead the armies of Agartha into battle anymore is irrelevant. Agartha is instead asked to use their lesser casters to lead their armies, and that is like watching the keystone cops in action. Their build-anywhere priest is supposed to bless their sacred troops i think, but he is way too expensive and can also only lead 5 of them at a time. Even simple expansion forces need like 3 leaders because of non-overlapping magisteria.
But... are they actually bad? Agartha's leadership situation is indeed terrible, but their troops are actually very good. Steel crossbows and men with kite shields are valid things to bring to a battle whether it's a simple expansion conflict or a major confrontation. Agartha also got a major content drop in the last update which among other things gave them a build-anywhere alchemist who is a master of acid evocations. This jumped the faction's magic diversity from poor to medium by itself, as well as substantially speeding Agarthan research.
LA Caelum
LA Caelum has poor magic diversity and their main caster is capital only and slow to recruit. It's kind of like if Early Era and Mid Era had a baby with all the problems of both. Caelumites are still bad soldiers, and now ubiquitous armor and crossbows make Caelum's archers feel small in the pants. Return of the raptors is simply a bad faction.
But... are they actually bad? Yes. Return of the Raptors is a bad faction. Even their new special troops just use regular steel armor and weapons. And not even especially good steel armor. The Iron Crows wear scale armor, which wasn't special or high tech in the Early Era. Getting it in the Late Era as your new innovation is simply insulting.
LA Bogarus
The armies of Bogarus are bad. The Peshti are basically just indie human infantry and the Voi are worse than that. Bogarus also has cavalry, but they aren't particularly exceptional. They can build cavalry in provinces without a fort, but it's not even mediocre cavalry, it's just plain bad. We're talking about cavalry that doesn't even have a lance and still costs 25 gold a unit bad. If you were really desperate to pay 25 gold for a precision 10 composite bowman, the Black Hood might matter, but that's obviously an extremely niche occurrence. The infantry archers of Bogarus bring shortbows and have a precision of 9. It's a joke in the era. It would be a joke in any era, and in the late era it is funnier than it would be in most others.
But... are they actually bad? Bogarus certainly isn't much of a military threat, but their magic is truly exceptional. The Startsy of course are well known as powerful mages, making 25 research and having significant magic diversity by themselves. But the Bogorussian mage corps is both broad and deep, delivering specialist battle mages in several flavors as well as a truly exceptional basic researcher (155 gold gets you 17 research points per turn), and dedicated blood hunters. It all adds up to only medium magic diversity (S3F2A2B2E1D1), but it's sorted and resorted in several ways that make it more useful than the raw numbers would indicate. And of course, it's backed up by a turbo research system which is pretty impressive.
LA Rlyeh
With the rise of the sleeping god, Rlyeh has become a popkill nation. Their dominion causes freespawn to arise, gives you free leaders from time to time, and drives leaders without void sanity insane. Unfortunately for Rlyeh, these freespawn leaders are insane and can't be counted on to act. Even worse, your freespawn are divided into mindless magic beings and low morale and decidedly not-mindless normal beings. This creates something of a leadership crisis as you need magic and normal leadership while your freespawn leaders don't reliably have sufficient amounts of both - and you have another leadership crisis coming where you are going to have to leave commanders behind because they need to shout at the stars or perform heretic preaching or some damn thing so I hope you brought extras on important invasions. Now when I said "freespawn" I meant that you didn't pay anything to have them show up, but they actually do cost upkeep - which is economically painful considering that your tax base is collapsing from the popkill. You can get them killed of course, but not all of the spawn are amphibious - some are restricted to the land or the water and then you're stuck with them. Your main mage is slow to recruit, capital only, and very expensive, and your second biggest mage doesn't have Void Sanity so you'll want to avoid him where possible. Your third biggest mage is an overpriced mage priest mini-thug, making him less than ideal for research or battle magic.
But... are they actually bad? Rlyeh's troops may be terrible and hard to herd around, but you don't actually pay anything to hire them. You can and do still use the gold economy to put together powerful mages, and they are really very powerful. You have access to void summons, which are random as heck but top out at giving you near doom horror levels of mythos monsters. Your dominion can be used as an effective weapon, as it kills population and drives commanders insane in other peoples' territories as well. Your madmen will declare themselves to be prophets from time to time, so you actually have a load of guys who can claim thrones, and there are only a couple of factions in the entire era who can even invade you in the early game (and since Atlantis and Mictlan are rightfully feared, there's no guaranty anyone else is going to support them in doing so). Your starspawn can pull a lot of teleportation shenanigans, and you can move very large armies very long distances in very short times in the late game. While your research may stumble and your logistics is an actual nightmare, it seems that the Dreamlands have several means at their disposal to actually win the game - at least potentially.
Yeah, Lemuria is pretty bad.
First up, nearly all of their troops have MR negates attacks, severely hampering their offensive utility. And while they're ethereal, they don't have much else for survivability. So once magic weapons for basic troops come online they drop like flies. And that's the guys that they get in forts. Elsewhere you get dispossessed spirits, who have one hit point and paralyzing attacks. Which are melee-only, so they're keep the guys who could theoretically deal damage from closing. Now, Call Spirits can actually get you some alright troops, but not in very large quantities. I think in theory you're supposed to have the spirits tie up enemy troops while you use spells and effects that don't work on undead, but therin lies the second problem.
Lemuria's summoned guys are hideously expensive; their top mage costs 50 death gems and even their cheapest mage costs more than the capital income of 15 death gems a turn. They're good, but not so good that those prices are acceptable for your only source of research. The priests are similarly pricey, cutting into your capacity to both get your actually good troops and cast the holy battle magic that means your troops won't instantly dissolve under banishment spam.
The latest update significantly upped LA Agartha's battery of national summons, making Iron Corpses cheaper in both gems and mage turns, plus an expanded array of conjuration summons, including pretty sweet-looking shard wights.
First up, nearly all of their troops have MR negates attacks, severely hampering their offensive utility. And while they're ethereal, they don't have much else for survivability. So once magic weapons for basic troops come online they drop like flies. And that's the guys that they get in forts. Elsewhere you get dispossessed spirits, who have one hit point and paralyzing attacks. Which are melee-only, so they're keep the guys who could theoretically deal damage from closing. Now, Call Spirits can actually get you some alright troops, but not in very large quantities. I think in theory you're supposed to have the spirits tie up enemy troops while you use spells and effects that don't work on undead, but therin lies the second problem.
Lemuria's summoned guys are hideously expensive; their top mage costs 50 death gems and even their cheapest mage costs more than the capital income of 15 death gems a turn. They're good, but not so good that those prices are acceptable for your only source of research. The priests are similarly pricey, cutting into your capacity to both get your actually good troops and cast the holy battle magic that means your troops won't instantly dissolve under banishment spam.
The latest update significantly upped LA Agartha's battery of national summons, making Iron Corpses cheaper in both gems and mage turns, plus an expanded array of conjuration summons, including pretty sweet-looking shard wights.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
Weird event:
A law has been decreed against sodomy.
+5 unrest
+2 Order
The people apparently work a lot harder without rampant blowjobs and ass sex, but are obviously less happy about it.
A law has been decreed against sodomy.
+5 unrest
+2 Order
The people apparently work a lot harder without rampant blowjobs and ass sex, but are obviously less happy about it.
Last edited by K on Fri Jan 10, 2014 12:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Username17
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Yeah, some of the law decrees are kind of strange. There's one where a law against vagrancy goes into effect, lowering population and increasing productivity.
In general, the effects of the law events are very small. Remember that the order of operations is events, then dominion spread, then income. So it's entirely possible that the changes in scales and unrest from those events will literally be wiped out by dominion spread before they affect anything at all. I don't even know whether those are considered good or bad events.
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In general, the effects of the law events are very small. Remember that the order of operations is events, then dominion spread, then income. So it's entirely possible that the changes in scales and unrest from those events will literally be wiped out by dominion spread before they affect anything at all. I don't even know whether those are considered good or bad events.
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Ancient History
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Avoraciopoctules
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Avoraciopoctules
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Pretty nice looking 3 player blitz map, creation was streamed as part of a map making tutorial.
http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4 ... g-tutorial
http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4 ... g-tutorial
Unit-/NationGen for Dom4 is out:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/ind ... topic=1619
http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom4/unit ... _0.0.8.zip
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/ind ... topic=1619
http://koti.kapsi.fi/~elmokki/dom4/unit ... _0.0.8.zip
Red_Rob wrote: I mean, I'm pretty sure the Mayans had a prophecy about what would happen if Frank and PL ever agreed on something. PL will argue with Frank that the sky is blue or grass is green, so when they both separately piss on your idea that is definitely something to think about.
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I'm playing Late Age Caelum in a 6 nation game. We started things up pretty fast, so I spent the first year just recruiting Caelian Seraphs and Mammoths, plus researching Evocation for lightning spam. I've got a dormant E6N6 titan and good economic scales.
What should I actually be doing now? I should probably recruit some Harab Elders, but what are they good for? What's a good research target after lightning bolts?
What should I actually be doing now? I should probably recruit some Harab Elders, but what are they good for? What's a good research target after lightning bolts?
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The bad news is that LA Caelum pretty much sucks donkey balls. A weak and limited army that uses mostly EA equipment with poor and unsynnergistic magic diversity.Avoraciopoctules wrote:I'm playing Late Age Caelum in a 6 nation game. We started things up pretty fast, so I spent the first year just recruiting Caelian Seraphs and Mammoths, plus researching Evocation for lightning spam. I've got a dormant E6N6 titan and good economic scales.
What should I actually be doing now? I should probably recruit some Harab Elders, but what are they good for? What's a good research target after lightning bolts?
You're going to want to invest in Construction so that you can make research quills and Corpse Constructs. You can make Lightning Rods and Storm Spools, so I guess you do that. Your big mid game trick is to show up with a flying army and drop a second turn Earthquake that only hits enemy troops. This requires Construction 4 (Earth Boots), and Conjuration 3 (Summon Earth Power), and Evocation 5 (Earthquake). And only one in four of your capital-only, slow to recruit Harab Elders can actually fucking do it - so you might not actually be able to do it ever.
Having an army of Corpse Constructs is decent if you enjoy archery supremacy (which with your national troops you will not) because they take a long time to hack through. And it's decent against thugs and super combatants because they cause fatigue damage.
Your main late game stuff requires powerful astral casters which you notoriously don't actually have. You do happen to have a nature god, so you can produce a pretty decent Herd of Elephants for some reason. Since you're going in for Mammoths anyway, you might or might not want to do that.
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Avoraciopoctules
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Thanks Frank, that should be pretty helpful. Whether I win or lose, this game should be educational.
Last edited by Avoraciopoctules on Sun Jan 26, 2014 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Can I nominate LA Abysia as a nation that appears at a glance to be quite bad?
I mean, you get to pay 12 gold for a light infantryman wearing ring mail with racially inferior defense. You get some HP and strength, but seriously. You get to buy heavy infantry who are not cheaper, more armored, or less encumbered than human equivalents. Warbred are really good, but that's the only particularly good unit in your army.
You get to pay more gold than human nations do to build assassins who lack ranged weapons. Outside your capital, you have a cheap and good blood hunter who is also a good researcher. Everything else is awful. You can buy F1 Newts but you will never do that because F1 is terrible. Your Fireball spammer costs 210 gold and is old. Your mid-tier Blood mage can't summon devils without a fire booster.
All the excitement is supposed to come from your 5--count them--FIVE capital-only commanders. Your total magic diversity is B4S3F3D2E1. That sounds like a strong mage corps, but you're just on the wrong side of a LOT of breakpoints. Nobody can make earth boots, crystal coins, demon knights, or blood stones. Nobody can make devils without a fire booster. Your D2 skeleton spammer costs 310 gold. Getting most of your diversity requires you to build lots of Warlocks, who have virtually no good combat spells in the in the early game. And almost everyone is old, even one of your mage-priest-assassins.
But... are they bad? I imagine you can expand quickly and safely with warbred and/or guardians of the pyre. Hot terrain moves you army from "slightly more encumbered than equivalent humans" to "slightly less encumbered than equivalent humans." Your line troops are mostly immune to your evocations. You can ramp up your early-game research fast, because Warlocks have an absurd amount of research for a mage that builds in 1 turn. And you can transition to sustainable lategame research, because Newts are cheap. Once those warlocks get the research done, you can build a few fireballers who, while very expensive, can't hurt your own troops.
Abysia is not forgiving in pretender design. You essentially need Production scales so you can build troops at all, Growth scales to keep your mage corps alive, and Earth magic to get your engine going. But once you do get the pieces together, your options are impressive. You can build more and more powerful Blood casters than pretty much anyone. Once you can do Blood Stones and Skulls of Fire, you can make large numbers of devils or demon knights, send huge numbers of horrors, and bind the arch devils and father illearth.
Is it enough? I'm not sure. It still looks like you have an average year 1 followed by a pretty bad years 2-3, but in the year 4 world your prospects look good. I don't think I personally would ever play this faction, but that might not mean it's actually bad.
I mean, you get to pay 12 gold for a light infantryman wearing ring mail with racially inferior defense. You get some HP and strength, but seriously. You get to buy heavy infantry who are not cheaper, more armored, or less encumbered than human equivalents. Warbred are really good, but that's the only particularly good unit in your army.
You get to pay more gold than human nations do to build assassins who lack ranged weapons. Outside your capital, you have a cheap and good blood hunter who is also a good researcher. Everything else is awful. You can buy F1 Newts but you will never do that because F1 is terrible. Your Fireball spammer costs 210 gold and is old. Your mid-tier Blood mage can't summon devils without a fire booster.
All the excitement is supposed to come from your 5--count them--FIVE capital-only commanders. Your total magic diversity is B4S3F3D2E1. That sounds like a strong mage corps, but you're just on the wrong side of a LOT of breakpoints. Nobody can make earth boots, crystal coins, demon knights, or blood stones. Nobody can make devils without a fire booster. Your D2 skeleton spammer costs 310 gold. Getting most of your diversity requires you to build lots of Warlocks, who have virtually no good combat spells in the in the early game. And almost everyone is old, even one of your mage-priest-assassins.
But... are they bad? I imagine you can expand quickly and safely with warbred and/or guardians of the pyre. Hot terrain moves you army from "slightly more encumbered than equivalent humans" to "slightly less encumbered than equivalent humans." Your line troops are mostly immune to your evocations. You can ramp up your early-game research fast, because Warlocks have an absurd amount of research for a mage that builds in 1 turn. And you can transition to sustainable lategame research, because Newts are cheap. Once those warlocks get the research done, you can build a few fireballers who, while very expensive, can't hurt your own troops.
Abysia is not forgiving in pretender design. You essentially need Production scales so you can build troops at all, Growth scales to keep your mage corps alive, and Earth magic to get your engine going. But once you do get the pieces together, your options are impressive. You can build more and more powerful Blood casters than pretty much anyone. Once you can do Blood Stones and Skulls of Fire, you can make large numbers of devils or demon knights, send huge numbers of horrors, and bind the arch devils and father illearth.
Is it enough? I'm not sure. It still looks like you have an average year 1 followed by a pretty bad years 2-3, but in the year 4 world your prospects look good. I don't think I personally would ever play this faction, but that might not mean it's actually bad.
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The Eparch is also not Slow to Recruit.Swok wrote:At least all their cap only mages are not slow to recruit? Are there any other nations with a H3 that isn't slow to recruit? I know most of the human H3 are slow.
But basically, while I can totally see Abysia being labeled as a micromanagement hell that you wouldn't want to play, I don't buy the argument that they aren't good. The faction's units are expensive in money and in resources, which pretty much mandates heavy scales, and some of your niftier tricks only come online if you get access to Earth Boots, which you'll probably need an Earth god to make the first set of.
Your Newts and Sanguine Acolytes are straight up overpriced. You're paying 85 gold for a Research 7 dude. He's sacred, but considering that he's almost exactly twice as expensive as a normal research 7 basic labrat, it pretty much just works out to you being forced to pay out 400 gold for a temple and then an additional 40 gold per labrat over someone that gets a proper basic researcher like an Iron Crafter or Yogi. They are "better" than normal labrats in that they are level 1 priests and normal leaders. Also you get to pick whether you'd rather have the fire mage (who has slightly useful combat magic and leads 45 normal troops) or the blood mage (who is your basic blood hunter and also can lead small numbers of demons without penalty). Essentially you're paying for a regular commander and a basic labrat upfront and then getting the choice of how to use it (and it's sacred, so you only pay the upkeep for one of them). There's definite positive functionality there, but not enough that you don't feel kind of ripped off for. Certainly, Kailasa would give their right testicle to have their basic build-anywhere caster structured like that, and if you invest heavily in elite demons and magic beings, you'll be pretty happy too.
Your early game is clear. You build heavy infantry and armored ogres and put them in lines and expand well enough. Crossbows hurt. Cavalry hurts. But with some indie lance speed bumps and your own tower shield infantry you can expand plenty fast enough.
Your late game is also pretty clear, or at least pretty clearly good. You have a lot of options. You have pretty deep magic diversity, your magicians are acceptable leaders who can also lead magic beings and demons. You can build as many heavy armor troops as you feel like making who have good MR and lots of fire resistance and your national mages can put up the battlefield burning spells. You have heavy access to blood and astral, and you can flip the script and do a dominion push at any time because you have Holy 3 priests and the blood sacrifice power to go with a healthy blood income and normally functioning temples. Oh, and the Slayer Sanguine is kind of insane - there are very few assassination battles you can't win by summoning Imps on the first two turns.
The mid game is a little less clear. And I would submit that it relies heavily on indie archers and flaming arrows. Flaming arrows is extremely effective, and you have a build-anywhere sacred mage who can barely cast it who is also a decent troop leader. So you have a row of heavy armor troops who are nearly fire immune and behind that a blob of indie archers that get boosted with Flaming Arrows. That seems pretty good to me.
So the big disadvantage is that you have to pay for all your mages to be leaders and priests. But on the flip side, all of your mages are leaders and priests, which means that you actually don't pay a hefty price for having access to magical and demonic troops that use alternate leadership.
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