Here's a question: Has anyone ever done a Mongol Hordes nation mod?
I'm looking at creating one that will exist in the Middle Era, fitting neatly with TC's MA to LA history wherein they get conquered by barbarian horsemen.
Mechanically, I'm looking at a nation with a lot of recruit-anywhere archer horse cavalry (mainly in plains) and possibly leaders so that it really feels like a "Horde" without very many forts. To balance this out this will be a Chaos Power nation so it isn't swimming in gold to recruit stuff.
The nation's magic will be Death (to tie in with the death suite TC gets in LA from the barbarian influences), elementals (Likely fire, air, Earth), and maybe nature or blood.
The nation's main weakness will be non-existent to bad forts (this is a Horde after all), a limited troop lineup (aside from the horsemen their other units will be crappy slave levies), and possibly difficulty in sieging.
What do folks think?
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Username17
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The problem with recruit outside of forts units is (at least for me), missing recources.Zinegata wrote: Mechanically, I'm looking at a nation with a lot of recruit-anywhere archer horse cavalry (mainly in plains) and possibly leaders so that it really feels like a "Horde" without very many forts. To balance this out this will be a Chaos Power nation so it isn't swimming in gold to recruit stuff.
One way around that would be commanders with an retinue.
Bad Forts sounds more like an strength than an weakness (build time).
Magic, dont know. How high, what combinations?
Yeah, but their Yuan-era China too. I'm aiming for a horse horde nation, without the option for imperial footmen and crossbowmen (their only foot troops will be slaves/conscripts for sieging).FrankTrollman wrote:LA Tien Chi already has Foreign Recruit on their Khans, Barbarian Horsemen, and Barbarian Heavy Horsemen. They can pretty much go as Mongol as their want.
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I do plan to steal stuff from LA TC though.
Not if you have Mictlan-level forts that are easy to take and provide very little admin boosts as to make recruiting almost indistinguishable from recruiting without a fort. There is some fort modding now anyway.Bad Forts sounds more like an strength than an weakness (build time).
Prolly Death 2/3 and a sprinkle of AEF. Perhaps blood too. Maybe they got their magic from Lanka or Sauromatian escapees.Magic, dont know. How high, what combinations?
Last edited by Zinegata on Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Themiskyra in the Middle Era is a mix of Sauromatian and Amazonian troops. It has build-anywhere medium and heavy cavalry. And... it doesn't really use them very much. Mostly it fields masses of archers, thin lines of spearwomen, and small elite strike forces of sacred cavalry. The Horse Tribes are always a modest addendum, mostly in their to threaten enemies who field super expensive elites or to draw fire away from the more expensive and strategically important sacred cavalry.
Cavalry with light lances, composite bows, and medium armor is actually a pretty good unit. Especially when you get it for friend prices at 20 gold rather than the 25 or 30 gold you'd have to pay if you were buying one of the many "crappy" cavalry options out there. But it's not an army in the Dominions 4 sense of the term. It's always an auxiliary force.
Fundamentally, if you did dangle an army of nothing but medium cavalry in front of players, they'd end up fielding an army of summoned monsters and (if necessary indie) archers with the national cavalry used as an auxiliary force. You know, exactly like Sauromatia already does.
The mass of archers fronted by a line of infantry is simply too effective at conquering independents with few losses to be replaced by anything that isn't small squads of super elites that take no losses at all. The reality is that even nations that don't have national archers at all (such as Abysia) rapidly fall into this pattern by conscripting Deer Tribals if nothing else.
The horde of Barbarian Cavalry just isn't an effective army. It doesn't put out enough arrows to really compete as archery, and it's too expensive on a per-unit basis to take the kinds of losses it will inevitably suffer if it has to take the entire brunt of the enemy army itself. Barbarian Cavalry is a great component of a shock force, and it throws up some decent arrows while it's waiting to be committed, but it's not really an expansion force and it's not really a main line and it's not really a firing line either.
TL;DR: if you gave a faction the components of a Mongol Horde, players still would not play it like a Mongol Horde. EA Sauromatia, MA Themiskyra, and LA Tien Chi all have the option on the table to field Mongol Horde armies, and players don't do that if they want to win. Because mixed armies are more effective, and if necessary players can field independents to mark off the check boxes of their mixed army no matter what their national troops do or do not include.
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Cavalry with light lances, composite bows, and medium armor is actually a pretty good unit. Especially when you get it for friend prices at 20 gold rather than the 25 or 30 gold you'd have to pay if you were buying one of the many "crappy" cavalry options out there. But it's not an army in the Dominions 4 sense of the term. It's always an auxiliary force.
Fundamentally, if you did dangle an army of nothing but medium cavalry in front of players, they'd end up fielding an army of summoned monsters and (if necessary indie) archers with the national cavalry used as an auxiliary force. You know, exactly like Sauromatia already does.
The mass of archers fronted by a line of infantry is simply too effective at conquering independents with few losses to be replaced by anything that isn't small squads of super elites that take no losses at all. The reality is that even nations that don't have national archers at all (such as Abysia) rapidly fall into this pattern by conscripting Deer Tribals if nothing else.
The horde of Barbarian Cavalry just isn't an effective army. It doesn't put out enough arrows to really compete as archery, and it's too expensive on a per-unit basis to take the kinds of losses it will inevitably suffer if it has to take the entire brunt of the enemy army itself. Barbarian Cavalry is a great component of a shock force, and it throws up some decent arrows while it's waiting to be committed, but it's not really an expansion force and it's not really a main line and it's not really a firing line either.
TL;DR: if you gave a faction the components of a Mongol Horde, players still would not play it like a Mongol Horde. EA Sauromatia, MA Themiskyra, and LA Tien Chi all have the option on the table to field Mongol Horde armies, and players don't do that if they want to win. Because mixed armies are more effective, and if necessary players can field independents to mark off the check boxes of their mixed army no matter what their national troops do or do not include.
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Commander + Retinues and/or Commander + Summon Ally might work?
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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Giving people retinues, special summons, and cheap recruits would all be ways to encourage people to field troops of the type that you were discounting. But unless you made the preferred unit so very much better than than other options as to be fairly ridiculous, you're still going to pack a mixed army by the time your army could even vaguely be expected to qualify as a "horde."
It's simply true that once you have enough men on the line and reinforcements for same, that more line troopers aren't going to increase the rate at which you can kill enemies. However good a deal Ogres or Spine Fiends are, there's absolute diminishing returns at the point of full coverage of the line. If you want to kill any more enemies, you're going to need archers or flyers no matter how shitty a deal those happen to be.
Now Barbarian Heavy Horsemen are a somewhat special case. Armed with lances, hooves, falchions, and composite bows, and armored in full scale, shields, and half helmets they are capable of being fielded as line troops or archers in addition to their obvious role as shock troops. They aren't ideal in either role: protection 15 and a regular shield on a size 3 line troop won't hold against many things that protection 17 and a tower shield on a size 2 would; and their Precision is 8. But they can do it. If Barbarian Heavy Horsemen were cheap enough, you could in fact use them in every role in the army: Skirmisher, Line, Shock Wedge, and Archer. I'm pretty sure that by the time they got down low enough in price to displace other units that people would consider them overpowered. And I think those people would be right.
Now there are a couple of ways that people field monotonous armies. The first is when troops are really expensive and you can't field many of them. No one thinks it's weird that you're fielding an army of only Helhirdings or just Niefel Giants. The armies have to be insanely large before they start to get even slightly dimishing returns. Thirty Niefel Giants is just really a lot of Niefel Giants. The second of course is special strategic movement modes. A stealthy, flying, amphibious, or sailing army obviously will not attempt to bring any troops that are not those things when relying on those special movement modes.
So if you had your hypothetical fantasy Mongols riding around on flying Pegasi, stealthy wolves, or amphibious Giant Frogs, you could plausibly imagine a scenario where the player would attempt to field an army of just cavalry. Independents could by and large not be expected to travel with the army when it invoked its special strategic movement abilities, so the player would be disincentivized to recruit them.
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It's simply true that once you have enough men on the line and reinforcements for same, that more line troopers aren't going to increase the rate at which you can kill enemies. However good a deal Ogres or Spine Fiends are, there's absolute diminishing returns at the point of full coverage of the line. If you want to kill any more enemies, you're going to need archers or flyers no matter how shitty a deal those happen to be.
Now Barbarian Heavy Horsemen are a somewhat special case. Armed with lances, hooves, falchions, and composite bows, and armored in full scale, shields, and half helmets they are capable of being fielded as line troops or archers in addition to their obvious role as shock troops. They aren't ideal in either role: protection 15 and a regular shield on a size 3 line troop won't hold against many things that protection 17 and a tower shield on a size 2 would; and their Precision is 8. But they can do it. If Barbarian Heavy Horsemen were cheap enough, you could in fact use them in every role in the army: Skirmisher, Line, Shock Wedge, and Archer. I'm pretty sure that by the time they got down low enough in price to displace other units that people would consider them overpowered. And I think those people would be right.
Now there are a couple of ways that people field monotonous armies. The first is when troops are really expensive and you can't field many of them. No one thinks it's weird that you're fielding an army of only Helhirdings or just Niefel Giants. The armies have to be insanely large before they start to get even slightly dimishing returns. Thirty Niefel Giants is just really a lot of Niefel Giants. The second of course is special strategic movement modes. A stealthy, flying, amphibious, or sailing army obviously will not attempt to bring any troops that are not those things when relying on those special movement modes.
So if you had your hypothetical fantasy Mongols riding around on flying Pegasi, stealthy wolves, or amphibious Giant Frogs, you could plausibly imagine a scenario where the player would attempt to field an army of just cavalry. Independents could by and large not be expected to travel with the army when it invoked its special strategic movement abilities, so the player would be disincentivized to recruit them.
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Mongol magic is ANDE. Not Fire.
When you say "Chaos power," I assume you mean that the cavalry will get chaos recruitment, not the actual chaos power stat.
I would say if you want people to build mostly cavalry, your cavalry does need to be more diverse. Put in some lightning resistant pegasus cavalry. Fill the shock troop and archer role with high-precision unarmored unicorn cavalry. Line troops are earth pony cataphractoi, and your capital-only mage is a slow-recruit S3H3 winged unicorn.
Mongol Goat-riders could have mountain survival, and wolf-riders probably want forest survival. Or you could be boring and put either or both of those on the horses. It would be cool if you mod the dominion to freespawn raiders, but I don't think you can.
When you say "Chaos power," I assume you mean that the cavalry will get chaos recruitment, not the actual chaos power stat.
I would say if you want people to build mostly cavalry, your cavalry does need to be more diverse. Put in some lightning resistant pegasus cavalry. Fill the shock troop and archer role with high-precision unarmored unicorn cavalry. Line troops are earth pony cataphractoi, and your capital-only mage is a slow-recruit S3H3 winged unicorn.
Mongol Goat-riders could have mountain survival, and wolf-riders probably want forest survival. Or you could be boring and put either or both of those on the horses. It would be cool if you mod the dominion to freespawn raiders, but I don't think you can.
Some interesting things you could do with a mostly fort-untethered nation, going nomadic horde:
1) Give many commanders tax collector so you can get money from provinces even if they can't trace a line back to a fort
2) Pillage bonuses would be thematic. I don't know if the pillage mechanic is actually functional to the point of being desirable (I've heard conflicting reports on the matter)
3) cheap temples and making most of their casters sacred with 90% magic paths would allow them to recruit mages without having to have expensive labs dotting the countryside
+ Mages will have to be sufficiently sucky or expensive or something to make up for being super easy to recruit
4) If you're wanting to go encourage turmoil scales, chaos-recruitment is a good idea, as are fortune tellers and good event generators
5) nothing that's cap-only will reinforce the decentralized nature of the faction
6) A recruitable (or easily summonable) source of supplies would be good
1) Give many commanders tax collector so you can get money from provinces even if they can't trace a line back to a fort
2) Pillage bonuses would be thematic. I don't know if the pillage mechanic is actually functional to the point of being desirable (I've heard conflicting reports on the matter)
3) cheap temples and making most of their casters sacred with 90% magic paths would allow them to recruit mages without having to have expensive labs dotting the countryside
+ Mages will have to be sufficiently sucky or expensive or something to make up for being super easy to recruit
4) If you're wanting to go encourage turmoil scales, chaos-recruitment is a good idea, as are fortune tellers and good event generators
5) nothing that's cap-only will reinforce the decentralized nature of the faction
6) A recruitable (or easily summonable) source of supplies would be good
Last edited by Shatner on Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Some interesting things you could do with a mostly fort-untethered nation, going nomadic horde:
1) Give many commanders tax collector so you can get money from provinces even if they can't trace a line back to a fort
2) Pillage bonuses would be thematic. I don't know if the pillage mechanic is actually functional to the point of being desirable (I've heard conflicting reports on the matter)
3) cheap temples and making most of their casters have 90% magic paths would allow them to recruit mages without having to have expensive labs dotting the countryside
+ Mages will have to be sufficiently sucky or expensive or something to make up for being super easy to recruit
4) If you're wanting to go encourage turmoil scales, chaos-recruitment is a good idea, as are fortune tellers and good event generators
5) nothing that's cap-only will reinforce the decentralized nature of the faction
6) A recruitable (or easily summonable) source of supplies would be good
1) Give many commanders tax collector so you can get money from provinces even if they can't trace a line back to a fort
2) Pillage bonuses would be thematic. I don't know if the pillage mechanic is actually functional to the point of being desirable (I've heard conflicting reports on the matter)
3) cheap temples and making most of their casters have 90% magic paths would allow them to recruit mages without having to have expensive labs dotting the countryside
+ Mages will have to be sufficiently sucky or expensive or something to make up for being super easy to recruit
4) If you're wanting to go encourage turmoil scales, chaos-recruitment is a good idea, as are fortune tellers and good event generators
5) nothing that's cap-only will reinforce the decentralized nature of the faction
6) A recruitable (or easily summonable) source of supplies would be good
Thanks for the feedback guys. For initial testing I am indeed looking at making the all-cavalry army viable; first by making everything sacred (will probably be broken, but we'll see) but maybe tone it down and just give them strat-move like Frank noted.
Also...
I was wondering though: There's this ability in the Blood Fountain Pretender which increases his effective blood hunt level. Can you put it in a unit without blood magic so you get bloodhunters without the ability to cast blood spells? I was thinking of pairing it with bloodsaccing.
Chaos recruitment is definitely in though; and the refunds will be much more considerable than what we see currently.
Also...
Yeah, should have been nature rather than fire. Was thinking of Flaming Arrows too much.Orion wrote:Mongol magic is ANDE. Not Fire.
I was wondering though: There's this ability in the Blood Fountain Pretender which increases his effective blood hunt level. Can you put it in a unit without blood magic so you get bloodhunters without the ability to cast blood spells? I was thinking of pairing it with bloodsaccing.
I mean both actually, although I may drop Chaos Power. A pillaging horde can increase unrest in adjacent provinces, and enough unrest actually counts as chaos scales for chaos power purposes.When you say "Chaos power," I assume you mean that the cavalry will get chaos recruitment, not the actual chaos power stat.
Chaos recruitment is definitely in though; and the refunds will be much more considerable than what we see currently.
Another option would be Cold/Heat Aura. Obviously, if your recruited troops are going to kill off any indies you happen to hire, you're not going to want to recruit indies.
FrankTrollman wrote:I think Grek already won the thread and we should pack it in.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
For a more moderate strat-move boost you could give them <terrain> survival and map-move three.
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.
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I haven't done experiments with dousing since Dominions 3. But last I checked, dousing bonuses only work if you have a blood magic of 1 or higher. You could do the experiment yourself by making a bunch of sanguine rods and giving them to Indy commanders and having them blood hunt. I don't think it works.
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So I just won my first MP game of Dominions! I was EA Tien'Chi, and my path to victory was pretty much turtle up then rush for a Throne grab. My Pretender was a 4E4A5S Celestial General who did nice SC duty with full gear. Due to geography and starting fairly near a rush nation (that put everyone else on guard) I was left pretty isolated at the start, and able to fort a few chokepoints to discourage attacks. With Tien'Chi's uber site searching ability I was able to crank up a decent gem income and find some nice discount and mage recruit sites that let me produce powerful forces quickly.
In the end some people left Throne provinces unforted so I just Cloud Trapezed, Teleported and Gatewayed enough forces onto them to snatch victory. Empowering my Prophet in Astral gave me two Teleporting Throne claimers, and none of the other players had scouted well enough to realise how many Thrones I was grabbing until it was too late. I made a show of pretending to invade some provinces so it wasn't too obvious I was just going for a Throne win, and quite a few of my neighbours had starting retaliating when I won. But in the end nothing matters except Thrones so I was happy for them to throw forces away attacking my recruitment centres once I had a plan to capture enough Thrones to win.
Forting Throne provinces is so important it isn't even funny. I've come to the conclusion you need a pretty high percentage of Throne points for victory to avoid a sudden win out of nowhere, for the simple reason that a Throne held by a weaker nation is easy prey for a larger nation. This means a game that comes down to two or three large nations facing off with a number of weaker nations clinging on can easily be decided by one large nation attacking a few weaker nations rather than having to go up against their larger rivals. A small nation in Dom4 with a Throne is a danger to every other nation as their Throne is easy pickings for a determined attacker and could hand victory away.
In the end some people left Throne provinces unforted so I just Cloud Trapezed, Teleported and Gatewayed enough forces onto them to snatch victory. Empowering my Prophet in Astral gave me two Teleporting Throne claimers, and none of the other players had scouted well enough to realise how many Thrones I was grabbing until it was too late. I made a show of pretending to invade some provinces so it wasn't too obvious I was just going for a Throne win, and quite a few of my neighbours had starting retaliating when I won. But in the end nothing matters except Thrones so I was happy for them to throw forces away attacking my recruitment centres once I had a plan to capture enough Thrones to win.
Forting Throne provinces is so important it isn't even funny. I've come to the conclusion you need a pretty high percentage of Throne points for victory to avoid a sudden win out of nowhere, for the simple reason that a Throne held by a weaker nation is easy prey for a larger nation. This means a game that comes down to two or three large nations facing off with a number of weaker nations clinging on can easily be decided by one large nation attacking a few weaker nations rather than having to go up against their larger rivals. A small nation in Dom4 with a Throne is a danger to every other nation as their Throne is easy pickings for a determined attacker and could hand victory away.
Simplified Tome Armor.
Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.
Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.
“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.
Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.
“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
There is some bug with mixed terrain, coastal mountain and/or forest.
Try another prov.
Try another prov.
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.
So I finally got dominions 4, and I gotta say I really love/hate this game. I love it because it makes me say "just one more turn", I hate it because I did that "just one more turn" thing for 11 hours straight and before I knew it it was six-thirty in the morning when I gotta be ay work in an hour. Totally worth it.
such game. much greatness.
such game. much greatness.
Last edited by Hicks on Mon Feb 24, 2014 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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One of us! One of us!Hicks wrote:So I finally got dominions 4...
Seriously though, Dominions is great. Probably my favourite game at the moment, I love how all the nations have such different playstyles.
Simplified Tome Armor.
Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.
Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.
“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.
Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.
“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
So, I just initiated a war with MA R'lyeh as MA Vanheim. Things have started as they usually do in a war with Vanheim (sneaking and cloud trapezing Vanjarl thugs taking a bunch of lightly defended provinces), but I'm wondering if I might have bitten off more than I can chew.
It seems that R'lyeh's strengths play right into Vanheim's weaknesses. My troops are mainly costly elites with an average MR, and every PD comes with a free Thug-ruining illithid Lord. I lucked out and found a province with recruitable Harab Seraphs and Raptors which meant I was able to airdrop 5 disposable chaff in to each province my Vanjarls were attacking to soak Mindblasts. This allowed me to take a large chunk of R'lyeh's land territory, but they still have a large land army to deal with and a load of underwater Forts.
I'm hoping I can swing the land war using massed Valkyries and spamming Antimagic, but What is the best way to attack R'lyeh underwater? From SP tests attacking R'lyeh forts with anything less than overwhelming numbers is just asking for your army to get chewed up and I don't have any reliable way to get underwater troops. I heard Storm Demons are good underwater, are there any other tricks to beating R'lyeh in it's own backyard?
I currently have an Enchantress site, a Lizard Shaman province and the Harab in addition to the standard Vanheim toolkit, so I can get access to most magic paths if I try hard enough. Is there any secret tech that I should be shooting for?
It seems that R'lyeh's strengths play right into Vanheim's weaknesses. My troops are mainly costly elites with an average MR, and every PD comes with a free Thug-ruining illithid Lord. I lucked out and found a province with recruitable Harab Seraphs and Raptors which meant I was able to airdrop 5 disposable chaff in to each province my Vanjarls were attacking to soak Mindblasts. This allowed me to take a large chunk of R'lyeh's land territory, but they still have a large land army to deal with and a load of underwater Forts.
I'm hoping I can swing the land war using massed Valkyries and spamming Antimagic, but What is the best way to attack R'lyeh underwater? From SP tests attacking R'lyeh forts with anything less than overwhelming numbers is just asking for your army to get chewed up and I don't have any reliable way to get underwater troops. I heard Storm Demons are good underwater, are there any other tricks to beating R'lyeh in it's own backyard?
I currently have an Enchantress site, a Lizard Shaman province and the Harab in addition to the standard Vanheim toolkit, so I can get access to most magic paths if I try hard enough. Is there any secret tech that I should be shooting for?
Simplified Tome Armor.
Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.
Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.
“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.
Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.
“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
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War underwater without level 3 water mages is bleak. The difference between being able to throw down Sharks and not being able to do that in major battles is pretty big. Sharks get muched up by mind blasts, but they also get preferentially targeted by mind blasts because of their high hit points and lots of small damage mind blasts calls in a lot of sharks.
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