Dominions 4 Teasers

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Aug 13, 2014 11:07 pm

That's fantastic. Hope y'all weren't planning to cast any spells costing more than twenty gems for the rest of the game!

Also, for extra fun, IIRC that will trigger on other spells in the same turn (though I forget if it has precedence or is a unitID thing).

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 1:33 am

http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4 ... ng-nations

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:18 am

Hey, the Agartha bonus HP for constructs looks like it stacks with Gift of Health!

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:25 am

How effective would it be for Middle Era Caelum to focus capital recruitment on Ice Crafters and Wingless? The production bonus from the mages would let you produce enormous numbers of magic spear infantry with a charge bonus, and you could still get more powerful mages from your other forts.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 6:46 am

TL;DR: not particularly, but there are reasons you'd want to mass Ice Crafters in your capital as MA Caelum.

I'm not really sure why you'd want a bunch of Wingless. Other than a high morale (14), the Wingless are just your standard Airya Light Infantry... but without wings, which means they suffer more enemy fire reaching the enemy line, and are much worse getting them where you need them outside of battle. I mean, if they at least had helmets, then maybe, but MA Caelum has a slew of choices for "dude with a magical lance". And since lances are all about alpha-strikes, flying lancers are pretty excellent at providing that. I'd argue the size-3 fliers make up for the lower attacks-per-square density (two size-3 fliers vs three size-2 wingless) by instantly reaching and filling all available attack squares. 80 Airya Light Infantry cost the exact same amount of gold and resources as 80 Wingless, and the former is way more likely to end a battle on turn-1 than the latter.

Wingless, being size-2 and with their very high morale, are good at holding a line (assuming the enemy isn't using slings, because a blunt attack to an unprotected head will flat out murder them), but MA Caelum has better options for massing lance attacks.

You will need Ice Crafters to be able to build Caelum's heavy infantry (Storm Guard, Ice Clad, Temple Guard). And Ice Crafters can allow Caelum to dip into Sloth for points, which is nice. They open up some interesting options, which is especially nice given that they're the go-to lab rat for the nation and so you'll likely have lots of 'em.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 3:29 pm

Thanks, those are some good points. I need to remember that Exclusive doesn't always mean Better, and if I've got critical mass fliers may indeed be better. Wingless are nice if I want to throw down nature/earth area buffs with my current diversity titan, but that's just one army.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 12:23 am

Eye of the Void or Battlefield wide spells to deal with illuions. But then again, there are few things that can withstand getting hit in the face by a direct barrage of shimmering fields.
Also:
2014-09-01 18:05:11 +0200
New xibalba rituals: Theft of the Sun and more

Don't we have Darkness and Utterdark already? Maybe literally someone steals the sun with the spell, and he gains it as a magical item! Imagine the quest to kill him to restore the sun.

I'm guessing it's either a single-turn utterdark, or a targeted spell like Wolven Winter.

Our sun now bitches.

I'm picturing an Italian Job-style heist with the Zotz racing away with it in the back of their stolen truck while horrors give chase.

Also, Second Sun and Theft of the Sun interacts with each other now.
"The bat people stole the sun!"
"WE CAN REBUILD IT! WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!" - Anointed of Rhuax

K · Post by K » Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:17 am

Pretty exciting.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Sep 14, 2014 3:40 am

http://i.imgur.com/by2fyrm.jpg

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Sep 14, 2014 3:42 am

Where is that from? If it's not behind a SomethingAwful paywall, I want to check that out.

And of the flavors of zombie apocalypse, I prefer Asphodel. Still, MA Ermor does the numbers thing better.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Sep 14, 2014 4:22 am

Reposted from SA, sorry. It was in response to http://i.imgur.com/yYTBiNZ.jpg , which was a cap from a current game where someone is deploying Horde of Skeletons communions.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 10:24 am

So I'm in a LA game as Bogarus and I seem to have managed decent expansion. I'm currently pushing to Evo4 to get Astrapelagist Thunderstrike Communions online, but I'm wondering what should be my focus for gem expenditure. Bogarus has so many options it's difficult knowing what to aim towards!

Gamayun look quite tasty as basically a flying Astrapelagist with 0 upkeep for 25 gems, would aiming for these at Conj5 be worthwhile? The other summons don't seem amazing, although I could see using Zmey as a flying bodyguard/ raiding force with a Gamayun. The Vila and Leshy are pretty high research and seem useful rather than gamechanging, whilst the opinion on Desura of Firebirds and Sirin seems to be that they aren't worth summoning.

Bogarus has quite a few Blood mages, but I didn't take any on my Pretender which looks like it will scupper my chances of forging boosters. Without boosters I think I only get B2 natively, which seems too low to realistically get any of the high level Blood spells without a ton of empowering. Should I still be investing in Blood research and Occultists for Storm Demons and Devils?

On a side note Bogarus gets a fair selection of stealthy unrest increasing troops - Khlysts, Fivefold Angels and the summonable Likho. I can't see any cost effective way to really leverage this in MP but I'm open to suggestions.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 3:03 pm

You want a reason to summon firebirds?

A cap full of firebirds is basically a gem factory.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 3:09 pm

And just so we're clear, are all of those truly random events, or are any of those "random events" generated from rituals (e.g. wolven winter, blight, rain of frogs)?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 11:34 pm

I was told the majority were beneficial randoms from the firebirds. The best event in that game gave an item, ~5000 gold, and like 30 gems. But there were lots that brought in smaller gemcounts, and the strategy was compared to Dom3 clam factories.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:59 am

I could have sworn there was a relatively low cap on nation-wide random events. Maybe that was in Dom3 and got removed in Dom4.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:13 am

I think there is a cap of six or eight events in Dom4, but I think that only applies for normally generated events. Units that generate additional events, like Firebirds, can (I think) make more happen. There was a fair amount of discussion about this back when the game was in beta and Frank was arguing that Luck didn't scale as much as positive income scales, most notably Growth, and therefore there needed to be scaling events or scaling numbers of events. The response was... sorry, too busy, don't care.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 2:34 am

I just did a test and yes, with sufficient Firebirds, you can get more than 8 events and those extra events will be nice.

-- A Mod to test Firebirds

#modname "Firebird Test Mod"
#description "Makes Firebirds free to recruit, to do some event testing."

#selectnation 77
#addrecunit 1946
#end

The mod makes firebirds recruitable by LA Bogarus. Since they cost 0 gold and 1 resource, you can recruit about 80 a turn. I went with completely neutral scales (other than the Cold-2 that Bogarus defaults to), recruited 250 firebirds (so that I had collectively Bringer of Fortune +500) and cycled through a few turns. Each turn I'd get between 2 and 9 events, all of them good.

I have no idea what the critical mass is for the firebirds to reliably start producing good events, and I have no idea how long that'd need to go on before you broke even on the cost of summoning that many firebirds. However, the mechanics are in place for this to work so there is some number of firebirds and some number of turns after which they become profitable.

And given the way better scales unlock better events, more positive scales probably accelerate you to that payoff sooner.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 7:07 am

Shatner wrote:I have no idea what the critical mass is for the firebirds to reliably start producing good events, and I have no idea how long that'd need to go on before you broke even on the cost of summoning that many firebirds.

This is the big question, and as I didn't take Luck or Magic scales I don't think it will be worth it in my game.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 7:48 am

Stealthy unrest creators are generally not worth it on their own merits. The cost of creating them in the first place combined with the economic damage they do walking through your territory and upkeep costs of keeping them around is generally more than whatever damage they can do to the economy of your opponent.

Unrest can become worth it in two scenarios. The first is if you can bring unrest above 100% on a key province. Shutting down enemy production of Shadow Seers or whatever can be worth a lot of gold. The second is if you can convince your opponent to detail a bunch of forces to try to chase down your unrest factories. That can create strategic opportunities of dividing enemy forces and delaying offensives.

But from a raw numbers standpoint, Pangaean Revelers aren't really worth it, and by extension neither are other units that work the same way.

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:30 pm

In one of the SA Dom3 games, Man got some good use out of bards by driving unrest in an enemy capital over 200. However, that's trickier if you can't shut it off, and I think bards have a much better unrest-to-gold ratio.

GreatGreyShrike · Post by **GreatGreyShrike** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 7:00 pm

I think that's pretty much what Frank was saying about shutting down a key province - almost all nations have cap-only stuff that's worth shutting down, with relatively few exceptions, and building unrest with those sort of guys in a capital makes some sense. It's possibly more expensive/difficult than raising unrest via ritual magic though.

I've been experimenting in SP with MA Caelum. Some of their options I believe are new and seem a little interesting. They get a D1A1 thaum 6 spell that paralyzes for a mediocre time and summons some meaningless chaff - a neat new way to deal with thugs/SCs other than throwing more lightning/ice at it via High Seraphs, making those D randoms hurt a little less.

There's also a whole line of DF conjurations I don't remember being there in dom3 (can anyone back me up on this?). You might be able to crawl to them via Hidden in Snow (unfrozen mage) -> Hidden in Sand (dust priest) and some amount of boosters (con 4 or 6), but honestly I could see going for an imprisoned D?F?S? god on Caelum just to cast all the national spells they get easily...

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Sep 18, 2014 2:00 am

The last 2 patches focused on Caelum and Caelum derivatives. The DF summons are a relatively recent addition to Dom4. The current patch made a couple balance changes to stuff added in the previous one, so Jahis are no longer super mages.

If you want to try out zoroastrian demons, Ragha in the late age is a pretty great choice. Your elite heat-scale sorcerers have good picks to summon daevas , and if you throw a skull staff on the right daeva commander it can summon greater daevas.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 5:25 pm

I'm trying to get into Dominions as a total newbie. Can someone explain MA/LA Ermor to me, and maybe give some reading material on the game in general?

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Tue Sep 30, 2014 6:23 pm

First off, those aren't good nations to start out with because they invert and/or discard most of the conventions the other nations play by.

In both nations you don't recruit troops or commanders. Instead, your dominion is highly, HIGHLY lethal, and will kill a swath of the population every turn, and some number of those dead will rise up as undead to join your ranks. This generates you a bunch of mostly-crappy but totally free zombies and skeletons and what-not that have all the advantages and disadvantages of being undead (e.g. inexhaustible, unaffected by cold or poison, unaffected by darkness, highly susceptible to priests casting Banishment). You will get free commanders, but they'll be minor priests or generals who're primarily there to march your zombie hordes around the map. You are playing as an all-consume locust nation which must expand into the lands of the living to fuel your war machine of the dead.

All of your good commanders need to be summoned with death magic. As such, you are required by law to have an Awake pretender with mid-to-high skill in Death magic. While other nations build forts and spend gold to produce mages, you have mages summon more mages. Since death gems are harder to come by then gold, since you're spending mage-turns generating more mages, and since these summons are a bit more expensive than they should be, you'll have fewer mages than the other, conventional nations, putting you behind in both research and battlefield support.

Now, you ARE getting gold from your provinces, at least until the last of the population dies off, and you will be spending this gold on building forts, and temples because the undead that spawn for free is BETTER when it spawns in a province with a fort and/or temple, and because your main weapon is your Dominion which is spread by your temples.

Because your empire is a literal lifeless hellscape populated by beings that don't eat, require forged equipment, or need payment, there is no reason for you to waste design points on scales that increase gold income, resources, or population growth (your dominion will kill the population an order of magnitude faster than even Growth-3 can restore it). Therefore you're required by law to have Turmoil-3, Death-3, Cold-3, and Sloth-3. Since you're chronically behind in mage-count, Magic-3 helps keep your research from getting too behind. Furthermore, random events will be the only source of income (and a welcomed source of gems) once your provinces have all been emptied of tax payers, so Luck-3 is also always taken. This has the nice side effect of making invading you a logistical hurdle because there'll be little-to-no supplies for the invading army to eat, and the extreme cold can increase the fatigue enemy troops and mages incur in combat. As stated earlier, your Dominion is your main weapon, so having a really high starting Dominion (usually 9 or 10) is strongly encouraged.

You can expand pretty quickly; skeletons and ghosts take down most indies pretty well, and you'll never be short on reinforcements. Playing against the AI you'll dominate the map with breathless ease because the AI doesn't know how to keep its armies fed when invading you and doesn't know how to deal with gigantic armies of undead.

However, rival human players can and will exploit the wide number of undead-counters out there, can manage to keep their armies from starving to death while attacking you, and will almost certainly unify against you ASAP because your ever-spreading dominion is killing the world that they hope to conquer. Playing as either nation in MP is incredibly hard, bordering on suicide.

MA Ermor is all zombies and skeletons. LA Ermor is all ghosts. The ghosts are ethereal so 3 of every 4 non-magical attacks (i.e. most attacks in the game) will do nothing. Also, your ghosts are very effective against underwater indies and have no problem moving in and out of the water. However, their weapons are very, very shitty so they have a hard time actually killing stuff. Also, the Late Era has three nations with rank-and-file troops holding magical weapons (Atlantis, Caelum, Ragha) who murder ghosts with embarrassing ease. Atlantis will also follow you underwater, destroy you utterly, and do a happy dance when they steal your massive death income for their own use. If I had to play one, I'd stick with MA Ermor.

Edit: Also, remember that all those gems you're getting that you have no real use for (i.e. not death or astral gems) can be converted into astral gems, and astral gems can be converted into death gems. Fire and Earth gems can be fed to alchemy spells to produce more gold. None of these conversion rates are particularly good, but if you have a pile of fire gems doing literally nothing, than trading them at any price for something you CAN use is a net gain.