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The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Since the last one fell off the map then i guess its time to make a new thread about my favorite niche game.
And to kick it off i give you the tale of my own last game.
The Rise and Fall of Fantasy Japan Jomon
Spoiler: Year 1
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Journal of Vizir BigHat, Chief Advisor of the Shogun.
Month 1-3
The Time of Changes is upon us! The Highest One, the Pankrator, has stopped responding to its priests.
And the most ancient one, slumbering beneath the dungeons of Castle Jomon has off, breaking several walls, countless expensive works of art, as well as both the Shogun and several of my esteeem collegues who were to slow to get out of the way.
Ahem.. so unfortunate..
A random Samurai has declared himself prophet, and are even now gathering the remnants of the Imperial Cavalery to sally out and claim the land surrounding us for our new lord, the Supreme Being.
Whereever it is now. It seemed to head towards the ocean, perhaps its thristy?
Month 4-6
Our new lord and savior have been confirmed to vanish down Lucky Lake, only to emerge a few months later, having done stars know what down there. All the same, the peasants are impressed, and its almost embarresing how little our regular army have done by comparison.
Though the cavalery have finally reached critical mass, and should make it possible to split off from the archers in a few months.
Month 7-9
Contact has been made with Ragda to the east and Marignon to the north. Ragda were very reasonable in explaning their desire for a border between us, not wanting people who could build a fort in the lake bordering their capital, to actually be able to do so. And so we peacefully split the provinces between us.
Marignon meanwhile responded to the suggestion of letting the river between us act like a natural border, by sailing across the river and taking the southern part of it. Some people would take that as a sign of agression. But im certain its just because they want to get to know us better.
So for that same reason The Supreme Being has crawled up from the western Ocean to impresse all the peasants of a rather major town just 2 months travel from Marignons capital..
Month 10-12
The negotiation with Marignon was tense, and war came on the table a few times. But in the end the argument that none of us can afford a war won though. And so we will concede the town that Supreme Being awed in return for the province north of Jomon.
Besides that things are progressing well. A Monk of the 5 paths have made contact with the sons of the Dragon King, dwelling in the grand western lake. They to have been awed by the majesty of the worlds largest phallos symbol, and so are going to join us. With that we now have 2 military centers. The cluster of dragon palaces hidden in the lake, and the double fort of North Jomon and South Jomon.
For the cavalery unit has proved their worth, lead by General Manti they have now a string of victories with minimal casulties. And so focus will move on to train a major force of them, when it comes to taking the 2 thrones located north and south of Jomon.
Eastward the prophet has subdued a tribe of predatory lizards, as well as a clan of Zhh.. zoors..? zons..? bat people. Their magical traditions will be studied, and potentially their shamans will be allowed to serve the supreme being.
Spoiler: Year 2
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Month 13
A new year dawns. The dawn of the dragon. 23 provinces have been converted to follow the Supreme being, and the first Riujin joins. Though the initial focus now needs to be avoiding attention from the fearful nations surrounding us.
Marignon to the north might be a blasted hellscape, but their fanatics simply refuses to die to anything besides direct decapitation, and spilling their blood invokes blood vengeance.
Midgard to the south west meanwhile has their vanir knights empowered by all paths of magic. Leaving them almost impossible to see or hit.
Ragda to the east though, is the most scary of them all, having ogre sized knights mounted atop dragon sized griffons.
Thankfully none of them seems to considder us a threat, and so seems receptive to the idea of simply leaving us for later.
Month 14
Luck has at last smiled upon the nation of Jomon, the imperial site searcher found found a single spot blessed with every element of the ring. Along with the curiously frozen flames a junior astrolog found in the eastern swarm, then our national gem income has more than doubled in a single day.
Meanwhile mounted samurai are getting into position to sweep clean the throne of death to the south west of Jomon. We really want the throne of Gaia to compliment it, but the titan of Marignon is getting dangerously close to that throne, perhaps diplomacy will be in order. We know they badly want the throne of law that lies in the lake beneath their own capital.
Month 15
Scouts bring trouble of war brewing to the north, semingly between the hellish blessed fanatics of Man and the giant berserkers of Utgard. Its a mess we are going to stay clear off.
And thankfully, it seems the Supreme One is at last returning from its little trip. Hopefully it has had enough to eat for now, because its presence beneath Castle Jomon will likely do a lot to deter invaders.
Thats especially important now as the dual Cavalry commanders Manti and Coran, along with Windsong the dragon, are circling the throne of dead, preparing for a pincer attack that should eleminate that stain on our nation.
Month 16-17
Crushing Victory, the hordes of the unclean dead were utterly decimated, and a mere 4 samurai horsemen died honorably in the process. This is a massive succes by any standard, and not just the moral one we usually have to use until our sages figure out how to make our warriors emply the arcane techology known as a –shield- in combat. Unfortunately the throne ended up only containing the unholy Lower Throne, a source of magic utterly forbidden in Jomon by penalty of death. We are not even certain its worth building a fort around it.
Oh well. On to the next one up north. Hopefully its going to be a little more useful.
Month 16
Glory to the brave warriors of Jomon! Losing a mere 4 men to the greater glory of the nation, they killed 4 times their own number. With only minimal support from a pair of wandering priests.
… just a shame it ended up hardly being worth it. The throne in question, the lower throne, is a horrible thing, mostly suited for the sort of unholy magic Jomon would newer sully its hands with publicly.
At least the throne to the north still have a chance of being something more useful to our cause.
More Ryujin are being lured up from the deep, by the promise of glory, and a chance to impress young jomonese girls.
Month 17-20
Another glorious victory.. or something. The hordes of vinemen guarding the throne were almost effordlessly squashed by a combination of Samurai cavalry and a unit of sharkmen. The only casulty of note being an unfortunate dragon who bravely charged the rear without the support of its lazy brethren.
Just sadly, it turned out to be the almost insignificant throne of storms. Ya! More air gems? What are we going to do with the stuff? Feed the Supreme Being in hope it will stop snacking on valuable furniture or priceless clay art? Hmm….
On a side note, the chief shugenja reports that our magical research is progressing almost after scedule, as we have just figured out home to summon swarmps of nasty bugs. He insists this will be of massive tactical advantage in the fight against just about everyone else who surrounds him. Well.. he is a dangerous madman who put honey in his tea, so i just smile and nod in hope it means he will go away faster.
Month 21-22
Unexpectedly, a gift fit for the emperor we no longer have arrived from the nation of Caelum. A massive amount of gems and gold, apperently send to empty their treasury before barbarian invaders can plunder it. Its quite unexpected, as we had not even heard the nation of Caelum were in trouble..
Alright back after shouting a bit at the scouts. Now its time to make plans for the future. Step one is to secure the lakes previously in Caelums control. A flight of Ryujin can only almost cross the 6 or so provinces they need to pass in order to reach those lakes.
Sight… i guess i need to ask the master Shugenja for help again…
Month 23
It has been explained to me that the solution is to fit each Ryujin with a pair of shoes?
Sight.. sometimes i wonder why i even bother asking. But the shoes looks fancy so the dragons love them.
Go figure. I will turn my attention towards the logistics of the trip, as well as of liberating the Caelum lakes.
Its important to ensure enough magical supplies are packed. And most embaresing, a minor mistake was made in not packing enough nature gems, so the trip is delayed a month.
To make matters worse, the proud nation of Jomon has been ranked as a minor power?!
The insult almost make me crack my favorite cup. Fortunately a solution is at hand, in the shape of the ninja clans we have recently recruited.
Month 25
It took a little bit of preparation to get the dragons launched, in the end new boots was enough to send 6 of them ˝ across the world into a pond formerly owned by Caelum. Turns out there is a reason for why Ryujin are rulers of the Jomon see. 3 dragons was all it took for each section of the lake.
Now that they are there they might as well get into position to grab a bit of land. At the moment the world is partly distracted by the massive war between Mictlan, Atlantis and Agartha. We will use this oppotunity to grow stronger. And perhaps also to do something about Mictlan and their tasteless use of blood magic.
Month 26
The honerless landgrab continues. It does not sit well with the samura, but thankfully we can explain it away as seasonal dragon migration, while packs of Ryujin takes over former Caelum provinces.
Midgar and Marignon is quite occupied with sieging down the citadels, but thats fine. They can have those. Meanwhile the dragons are constructing a spring palace down the lake.
Spoiler: Year 3
Show
Month 27
Report has reached of Atlantis falling to the combined efford of Ragda and Mictlan? The rapport were a little unreliable. But what is known is that this is a unpreceded opportunity. With another water power down the number of people who can oppose the Ryujin in the sea has shrunked down to Mictlan, kind off?
And so another flight of dragons are send to take over the now vacated lake.
Meanwhile we prepare for the potential war against Mictlan. They are far, far to dangerous. Someone need to stop them before their use of forbidden blood magic escalates. Prefebly someone else. Like Ragda or Mictlan. Two nations with an uncomfortable degree of power.
Hmm.. the idea situation is a war between those power that weaken all, while we gently invite Agartha into the proud Jomonese Nation.
Month 30
Wind of Spring Dawns New
Your last sunset nears
-Cencored- Flying Felines
Not one of my better pieces, but i think it gets the idea across.
It has been send to the nation of Mictlan. They are to big a risk in the long run with their potential for blood magic. Since Ragda moves in now, then its the perfect time to strike as well.
If we end Mictlan Ragda can be given credit for the deed.
The army moves into position as i write this. A large force of cavalry to the east, supported by archers. A large force of sharkmen to the west. Supported by fish men.
Those are the feint. 20 Ryujin gathers in their lake, preparing for a massive strike against around 10 different provinces.
Month 31
When it rain in this cursed land, it rains toads.. typical!
Just as i challenged Mictlan, Marignon challenges me. Its the M&M gang..
I have already yelled for the head Shugenja. We have 3 months to figure out what we can do against Marignons cursed flagellants and their hellish bless.
Month 34
I made a gross miscalculation, and it might end up costing us all the gains made so far. The war against Mictlan progressed well enough, with lightning raids from the sacred water dragons taking large swathes of land. But when challenged by Mictlan, i foolishly though that a quick initial strike would scare them off.
Just sadly failing to take into account the large number of hellblessed zealots they have roaming the land.
And so the number of dragons were insufficient, and lead to large loses that will take at least a couple months to recover from.
Now im forced to make peace with Mictlan to focus on this new threat, since a massive Marignon army moves towards my capital. God has been petitioned to move out and stare at them a bit, and the Head Shugenja has promised to cook up a little surprise for them as well. So far his attempts at making acid elementals have failed though, and the latest batch also looks more like jelly than water.
And in the end, i start to fear all of this isnt enough. We got barrels of unholy blood from the cursed throne we took. Initially to keep it out of the hands of everyone else. But now, ancestors have mercy, i think it has become nececary to put it to use. Somehow. However you actually do so. Dam thing did not come with a manual..
Month 36
War, war newer changes.
The raiding has been fierce, its a problem when 10 unarmored fanatics and a single preacher can sail over and beat down reguar province milita. So far its been hard to find a counter for that, besides increasing province spendings.
The living acid blobs worked moderatly well, but ran into the problem so many other things face, that spilling the blood of Marignon fanatics invokes a blood curse that kills most normal men. The first major army that Marignon send were in part only turned back by the grace of god, whom valiantly ate some fifty fanatics or so before the rest eventually broke.
Though now that the field is littered with the dead, a new plan has taken form. From the Ravens feasting on those, dead gems have been harvested. And a expert on the unclean death magic has been recruited to do something with it that i hope will be a bigger surprise, than flying acid blobs.
On another note, bathing the head Shugenja in unholy blood did not seem to turn him (more) crazy, and actually improved slightly on the smell. He seems to have gotten an affinity for it now. But it will be a long while before he can do anything useful. So it wont make a difference in this war.
Though it is one where we need to act fast. Marignon has broken the ultimate taboo, and invoked the horror! Of the astral plane. The Supreme being has already been marked by them. This can of course now only end with the utter destruction of their nation.
Month 38
Oh Supreme Being.. and all the Ancestors.. directing this war is giving me migraine..
But i cant leave the task to the generals, who dont know anything about magic. Or to the Head Shugenja who is a raving madman, lately he has taken to dying his beard pink. I dont dare to ask why..
Though the plan for the Great Jomon offensive is finally done. The center will be held by the Supreme Being and a assorted bunch of rabble. As well as our new acid elementals. They are painstakingly slow, but that problem has been solved by catapults and a bit of air magic.
East our subjogated tribes of lizard warriors will handle the brunt of the fighting, protected by both their own shamans and a few astrologers.
And west a small elite force of Shark men and Ryujin, again supported by an astrologer to ward against evil magic, has just emerged from the sea to take a province. But this time, instead of falling back, they are going to drive deeper into Marignons domain, and link up with the Sea King we have bribed in the northenwest lakes of Marignom.
Month 40.
Setback upon setback. The western force got ambushed by a massive Marignon army, after a sudden attack of astral horrors had baited their gems out. The loss of our troops were bad enough, but the loss of 8 Riujin were far, far worse.
The Eastern force meanwhile, managed to get baited into attacking the titan of Marignon, Jorgen Muppet, and suffered horrible casualties before withdrawing back to our keep.
Now, while under siege by a fallen angel with a redicoulus name, then the time has come for a final gamble.
An elite Squad of air dragons have been armed with massive greatswords, and launches themselves against the mad titan, while the remnants of the East and central army makes a push forward into Marignon.
Month 45.
5 months of intense raiding back and forth has followed. The attack on Jorgen the Titan failed, in part due to the entire team getting stunned by a storm spool. A new force should have been prepared, but they got tied up fending of raids from Marignons fallen angels.
Now Marignon made their own move, and placed the capital under siege. Thanks to Cliffscale the Ryujins heroic sacrifice i know their rather simple plan. Charge in around 500 flaggelants under the protection of Mistform.
Its also a plan thats immensely hard to counter though, as this combined with their blessing makes them more or less impossible to kill. So this will be the last entry unless a solution is found.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Sounds like you got a little adventurous with ryujin, lost a pile raiding, and then got turned on. Poison cloud and sleep cloud might have handled the flagellants, at least with some blockers to slow them down. Lucky militia or earth elementals or whatever. Maybe you should have left the thrones alone and gone for a player? All your neighbors were kind of scary though.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Well.. no.. its actually not even the case that i got turned on.
Spoiler: Map of Jomon
Show
The Ryujin performance were god-like.
I think i lost around 1 out of 8 in the initial strike against Mictlan, so that war were going well.
But i made a fatal flaw when i launched them into Marignon's domain, and forgot that
a) he had Drain 3, so they spellcasting were nerfed.
b) had his realm overrun by rowing bands of hell blessed flaggelans.
(Marignon's bless were Awe, regeneration, Undying 10 and Blood Vengeance)
So a single Ryujin were not enough to take Marignons provinces.
And yeah sending a lot of troops to support a Ryujin attack would perhaps have helped earlier.
But the border between our realms were patroled by his titan
Spoiler: Jorgen Muppet
Show
So the first army i send after him ran into this ugly guy, and got more or less decimated.
I tried sending 3 Ryujin with greatswords after him, but they failed.
And before i could gather a stronger force to try again, then i were suddenly under attack myself, by Fallen Angels.
So a lot of Dragons suddenly have their hands full kicking those off my land.
Going for the scattered thrones were not an issue though. We had 24 throne points, and 18 is required to win.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Best of luck. I have a soft spot for Jomon, they are less evil than most LA nations.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
As the mictlan, I have comments, but I think I'll hold them until the game is actually over, as I think I'd give stuff away that are still in progress.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Best of luck. I have a soft spot for Jomon, they are less evil than most LA nations.
Yeah. They dont use blood magic.
Or eat you. The worst they do in general is to tax you if your a peasant.
I mean you could be drafted to the army. But militia is so crappy that its a waste of gold :P
And thank you. Sadly i am likely out of the running for winning this game.
At this stage its more a degree of spite that makes me try and see just how long i can hold out.
And just how much damage i can do.
Quote:
As the mictlan, I have comments, but I think I'll hold them until the game is actually over, as I think I'd give stuff away that are still in progress.
I am curious about those.
Since it kinda have to be a secret weapon not yet blown.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Congratulations to lord_khaine for making the meme build of dragon fleet Jomon get so far, which usually remains only in theory as they get crushed early on due to some of the crappiest land troops around.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lord_khaine
Well. Vengeance)
So a single Ryujin were not enough to take Marignons provinces.
And yeah sending a lot of troops to support a Ryujin attack would perhaps have helped earlier.
But the border between our realms were patroled by his titan
Spoiler: Jorgen Muppet
Show
So the first army i send after him ran into this ugly guy, and got more or less decimated.
I tried sending 3 Ryujin with greatswords after him, but they failed.
And before i could gather a stronger force to try again, then i were suddenly under attack myself, by Fallen Angels.
.
Target defense skill: 28. Base Ryujin attack: 12. You either needed to send enough after him that harassment penalties made him hittable or go for magic attacks. Water elemental or Frozen Heart spam would do the job in sufficient numbers.
Edit: didn't notice the general element resists. Frozen Heart would still do it, but it's be very inefficient trying to wear through the regen as well.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Congratulations to lord_khaine for making the meme build of dragon fleet Jomon get so far, which usually remains only in theory as they get crushed early on due to some of the crappiest land troops around.
Thanks a lot :smallbiggrin:
And yeah, for a few short months i lived the Jomon dream.
It even lasted a little bit into the war. Just sucked being up against one of the worst counters.
Where drain 3 made spellcasters suck. And horror attacks made sending small groups of dragons anywhere risky.
By the time i had learned to deal with those it were to late.
Quote:
Target defense skill: 28. Base Ryujin attack: 12. You either needed to send enough after him that harassment penalties made him hittable or go for magic attacks. Water elemental or Frozen Heart spam would do the job in sufficient numbers.
Edit: didn't notice the general element resists. Frozen Heart would still do it, but it's be very inefficient trying to wear through the regen as well.
Well the difference isnt that big.
Base Ryujin 12
greatsword of sharpness +4
Quicken self +2
Ring of the warrior +5
Thats a starting value of 23. And adding to that each Ryujin has 4 attacks each.
Of course, i decided to go for overkill, and added a stonebird. Thats 10 additional attacks.
Just unfortunately, it didnt work, they all got stunned during round 2 by the storm spool. And killed by the fire shield.
Frozen heart or water elementals were also unlikely to do anything. He were regenerating 20%, so likely the blood vengeance would have done more damage to the mages.
Perhaps an absurdly high number of water elementals would have done it as well against version 1.0. But they would have had to do a lot of damage to burn though the regen.
And a magic weapon were needed because he had a minion who cast Body Etheral on him.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
general question: is the ai any better at building thugs/scs than it was in dom4 (i.e. terrible and inept)
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Dont know..
Its why i began playing human opponents.
Even if they suck as well! Im looking at you Marignon!
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
It's really not. The AI is getting a lot better at handling armies with minimal magic support than it used to be (the endless militia waves of Dom 3 are a thing of the past), but it's still pretty terrible once the magic system gets brought in, especially items.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Anyone like any mods? I am getting into Dominions Enhanced. I also am considering a build your own nation game for next game I play, based on an idea from someone on a discord server (Bloax). It would probably be months out yet though.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
Anyone like any mods? I am getting into Dominions Enhanced. I also am considering a build your own nation game for next game I play, based on an idea from someone on a discord server (Bloax). It would probably be months out yet though.
Recently installed Dominions Enhanced, been playing pilot single-player games with the added nations.
Edit: Most of the nations have some interesting aspects, but they're not really grabbing me more or less than the base nations. Enjoying messing around with the Pretenders Enhanced titans, tho. Makes most of the Titan class more viable, and almost all the Monsters have changes to make them at least somewhat viable expanders - improved base Protection generally across the board, a second or third attack so they can clear mobs faster, Awe and/or Fear, and they almost all have Recuperation as baseline.
I haven't run most of the games up to highest levels yet, so can't render an opinion on the higher-level spell additions. On the low level spells, I think the big standout is having a smaller area/non-gem using version of Fire Arrows, so you can set up effective archer swarms much sooner and with less required specialist mages. I don't play underwater nations much, but if you enjoy them you'll probably appreciate all the new underwater combat spells giving your mages something else to do other than wait until Water Elementals happen.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I like all the options DE adds to water. Summer rain to help with fatigue, water weird for body guarding, creeping ichor to assassinate... it's nice.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I'm actually writing a pair of mods, one set up for balancing pretenders around a 190pt Kerberus as minimally as possible(Make fewer changes, make sure changes that are made are obvious whenever possible, and make thematic sense), and one around balancing the nations some, again with the same design philosophy of minimal changes. Ah, also a note that we're trying to do more buffs than nerfs, as nerfs feel bad, but people are almost always happy to have buffs.
Some broad strokes on what we've done regarding Pretenders: Titans are generally cheaper, and if represented on their model have bad gear. Death related titans often have invuln.
Messengers have affliction resistance, monsters have recup, immobiles are all 100 points with innate domspread, most mages are 0 points.
Nation changes are usually minor mage changes, but we have a couple species wide changes(Abysians can get 5 years older before they're old, Caelians get a couple stat buffs across the board, as dom5 was not kind to them now that flying lance chargers don't always hit first.)
We've set up a discord for talking about it, if people are interested? We're about to start a 6 player FFA.
I found that a lot of mods add what I consider to be "too much", where I start wondering about everything they're doing.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Yeah i took at look at Dominions enhanced.
But though it went a little to far overboard with the spells it added.
The more you give to a single path, the more you erase the differences between each path.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
My personal peeve with DE is more with all the national spells it adds so basically every nation is abusing their own special snowflake magic instead of most everybody sharing the same pool of spells for most stuff which to me is one of the main charms of dominions, most everybody having an idential spell library with only a few national spells here and there. Figuring out what will work best for each scenario. Instead DE is all "lol just go with those custom tailored spells for your nation."
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I do like the idea of having a small handful of unique summons and spells.
But while the conjuration spells could and should be better than default conjuration summons,
Then i do agree on that combat spells most of the time should only be situational useful.
With of course noteable exceptions like the Marveni Tatoo ones.
Or i guess the Xibalba soul ones are also an example of national spells done right.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
lord_khaine
I do like the idea of having a small handful of unique summons and spells.
But while the conjuration spells could and should be better than default conjuration summons,
Then i do agree on that combat spells most of the time should only be situational useful.
With of course noteable exceptions like the Marveni Tatoo ones.
Or i guess the Xibalba soul ones are also an example of national spells done right.
I think the Caelian national paralyze spell is a good example of what NOT to do, as a note, for most circumstances.
It makes a crosspath (Air/Death) that previously blew to get at 1/1, suddenly a very powerful combat path. I'm ok with the devs doing that, but unless the nation has problems utilizing their mages at all, I could never justify modding something in so incredibly gamechanging.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Hmm.. yeah.. im alright with some path combinations not being good for combat casting.
Its not like there isnt plenty of other tasks for a low level mage. Like forging, researching or site searching.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I'm working on an ambitious mod to make 3 eras of pokemon. I mostly have the planning for the first era done, but I think I want a chaff pokemon. Should I just use rattata, or is there another choice?
Other pokemon are the 3 original starters, pikachu, geodude or sandslash, and maybe dratini. Or dratini might be summon and pretender spawn only, not sure.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Like nations themed around pokemon?
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Exactly. The first nation will have all the recruitable commanders as humans and all the units as pokemon. Events and XP shape will let top level pokemon become mages. Later eras will play with that approach somewhat.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
I'm working on an ambitious mod to make 3 eras of pokemon. I mostly have the planning for the first era done, but I think I want a chaff pokemon. Should I just use rattata, or is there another choice?
Other pokemon are the 3 original starters, pikachu, geodude or sandslash, and maybe dratini. Or dratini might be summon and pretender spawn only, not sure.
Caterpie, weedle, and the rest of the grubs come to mind as chaff units.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Knaight
Caterpie, weedle, and the rest of the grubs come to mind as chaff units.
Those could work too. It would be amusing to have your chaff turn into kakuna between fights. I would give them map move to represent being carried so it's not the worst thing but would still cause issues. I am worried that getting the fliers for final step of evolution is too good for chaff.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
Those could work too. It would be amusing to have your chaff turn into kakuna between fights. I would give them map move to represent being carried so it's not the worst thing but would still cause issues. I am worried that getting the fliers for final step of evolution is too good for chaff.
Nazca and Xibalba already have swarms and swarms of crappy flyers to use as chaff, Pangaea has harpies; it's generally not considered the strong point of those nations. I wouldn't expect it to be a problem, especially since the life of chaff swarms tends to be short, brutal, and not rich in XP - unless you use a really low requirement for the xpshapes you probably aren't gonna get a lot of your front line blockers surviving to third stage. (Maybe more possible if you have a capsite that can be entered for XP training? PokeArena, have a recruitable commander Trainer that can enter with his troops for XP? Basically cloning the function from the similar magic site.) Might be something to consider if your third-stage 'chaff' evolutions are also available as relatively massable summons, tho - a national summon spell that creates a swarm of Beedrill or Butterfree could mean you'd need to be more careful what you did with their stats. (recent patch made sleep aura a moddable function, so you could have Butterfree with 'Sleep Powder'..) Heck, you could actually just sprite-swap Zotz and call them Zubats.
For recruitable chaff, just about any of the first-route trash pokemon should work ok. I'd pick based on the stats you want them to have; something that is intended to swarm around and die in droves with generally crappy stats would call for a different 'mon than something that should be mainly capable of standing in a line and absorbing arrows while the mages warm up.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Pidgeys and Sparrows for cheap flying chaff.
Zubats should have mind-blasts to represent Supersonic.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
Pidgeys and Sparrows for cheap flying chaff.
Zubats should have mind-blasts to represent Supersonic.
Pikachu should be the cheapest most disposable chaff just so we can watch armies of them die.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Pikachu freespawn so it's not optional to have hordes of them die. They'll be all over your provinces whetever you like it or not.
Plus summon horde of pikachus national spell that the AI always prioritizes.
Also mandatory to include the generation I pokemon death fainting cries in battle.
Legendaries can be the high level unique summons.
You could actually make multiple factions with pokemon, each based in an element/gym/city from the game plus even a Team Rocket nation with stealthy unrest generating trainers!
So like Petwer Town faction that gets a bunch of rock pokemons and Brock as a national hero.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
It would be interesting to have enough nations to have an all pokemon game. I do not have the time or ambition for that, but once the first mod is released it could serve as a base for more. I expect I am a couple months out at least, depends how quickly the Dominions game I am waiting on gets started. At least the sprite work is pretty easy.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
It would be interesting to have enough nations to have an all pokemon game. I do not have the time or ambition for that, but once the first mod is released it could serve as a base for more. I expect I am a couple months out at least, depends how quickly the Dominions game I am waiting on gets started. At least the sprite work is pretty easy.
I can help with the unit work if you want, I'm very familiar with monster, site, and nation modifications, although less so with sprites and spells.
I am SUPER in for like, type or gym themed nations, with the different ages as different pokemon games.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I want to figure out the event scripting to turn units into commanders at a specific site, and spells that make sites. After that I could send you the (very) rough draft so you can start diversifying the pokemon list and making many nations. I'm a little surprised by how much enthusiasm there is for this idea, we might get a non-standard game out of it!
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
It would be interesting to have enough nations to have an all pokemon game. I do not have the time or ambition for that, but once the first mod is released it could serve as a base for more. I expect I am a couple months out at least, depends how quickly the Dominions game I am waiting on gets started. At least the sprite work is pretty easy.
Which program are you using for making/editing sprites? Any nice guides online?
Asking because I would really love to do some sprites myself and tried using multiple tools but just can't seem to get the hang of it.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I use paint.net. I find it easier to understand than gimp and unlike paint3D it can make tga files as required. For the pokemon mod I have been taking existing sprites and rescaling them to the right size and format. Otherwise I usually take an existing dominions sprite and fiddle with details.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42737
Is one Sprite guide
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
I want to figure out the event scripting to turn units into commanders at a specific site, and spells that make sites. After that I could send you the (very) rough draft so you can start diversifying the pokemon list and making many nations. I'm a little surprised by how much enthusiasm there is for this idea, we might get a non-standard game out of it!
Look, you said the word Pokemon.
I've got a discord for doing dominions modding projects, do you want to join? That way we could coordinate easier with real-time text. We should do a centralized file to edit too so we make sure we don't duplicate work.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
I use paint.net. I find it easier to understand than gimp and unlike paint3D it can make tga files as required. For the pokemon mod I have been taking existing sprites and rescaling them to the right size and format. Otherwise I usually take an existing dominions sprite and fiddle with details.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42737
Is one Sprite guide
Thanks, trying it out and indeed seems much simpler to use than gimp so far!
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I got the events working, so the remaining work is just making units and writing descriptions. Hopefully I can have an alpha test ready in another week or two, depending on if my next dominins game starts soon.
We can also argue about balance: right now the magic looks like EA Tien Chi but better. The five elements (earth water air fire wod/nature), you get a pokemon that casts one each at 3 (maybe only air 2). Humans have one path at 2 and another at 1, random so they could also have a 3. Cap only humans will have same magic but either +1 master ritualist or +1 master smith. Broader but less deep than most EA nations. Thoughts?
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
I got the events working, so the remaining work is just making units and writing descriptions. Hopefully I can have an alpha test ready in another week or two, depending on if my next dominins game starts soon.
We can also argue about balance: right now the magic looks like EA Tien Chi but better. The five elements (earth water air fire wod/nature), you get a pokemon that casts one each at 3 (maybe only air 2). Humans have one path at 2 and another at 1, random so they could also have a 3. Cap only humans will have same magic but either +1 master ritualist or +1 master smith. Broader but less deep than most EA nations. Thoughts?
Having a path at level 3 recruitable is generally what I'd consider quite good access to that path - it will let you cast or bootstrap up to almost everything relevant in that path, as well as being able to site search without fear of missing sites and having to search again later with a higher path or use searching spells. It's a bit weaker without certain crosspaths (ie, Fire + Death so you can make Flaming Skulls - without that your 'easiest' Flame booster item requires already having a very high path mage + a ton of gems, and Air just doesn't have easy boosters at all) but if you have a nation that has reliable, native level 3 mages without requiring communions or randoms I'd consider that quite powerful.
Master Ritualist and Master Smith can have negative values - if you're wanting certain things to be mainly battlefield mages you can use that to restrict them. You could also give Pokemon restricted equipment slots - rings/misc + crown-only head slot is pretty common on monster Pretenders, for example, and would lock out most boosting gear (also strongly restricting trying to turn them into thugs or super combatants, which may or may not be desirable.)
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
I got the events working, so the remaining work is just making units and writing descriptions. Hopefully I can have an alpha test ready in another week or two, depending on if my next dominins game starts soon.
We can also argue about balance: right now the magic looks like EA Tien Chi but better. The five elements (earth water air fire wod/nature), you get a pokemon that casts one each at 3 (maybe only air 2). Humans have one path at 2 and another at 1, random so they could also have a 3. Cap only humans will have same magic but either +1 master ritualist or +1 master smith. Broader but less deep than most EA nations. Thoughts?
Well that depends on how far into the 'theme' you want to go and how much you're willing to change.
They've got 3 types of leadership already - normal, magic, undead. Add 2 more and turn them into Elemental leadership.
If you want to go full Pokemon theme then everybody should have access to every Pokemon but each square has different ones and some are available only through rare sites, but the elements all take different leadership so they'll be much more/less effective under certain trainers.
As for magic, you should have 'levels' of trainers/pokemon and as they get higher level they cost much more but have much more magic. Like a level 1 trainer should only have 1 level of 1 magic, a level 50 trainer should have L2/L3 in multiple paths.
Higher level pokemon can only be summoned by trainers entering sites requiring higher level magic of that path.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I like the idea of using negative master smith and master ritualist so the humans and pokemon both have a role. Terrain recruit for pokemon is very thematic but difficult to balance. I have some leveling included but it is not nearly as emphasized as in pokemon games.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
I like the idea of using negative master smith and master ritualist so the humans and pokemon both have a role. Terrain recruit for pokemon is very thematic but difficult to balance. I have some leveling included but it is not nearly as emphasized as in pokemon games.
Not leveling as in they actually need experience.
But like a Pikachu square for instance could have like 5 different 'levels' of it.
Level 1 Pikachu costs 5g and has no magic
Level 10 Pikachu costs 20g, has better stats, but still no magic
Level 20 Pikachu costs 75g and has L1 magic
Level 50 Pikachu costs 200g and has L2 magic
Level 100 Raichu costs 400g and has much higher stats across the board and L3 magic.
Just an example.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I really like the idea of Trainers having no more than 1-2 in any path, but having master ritualist/forger if they should have more.
That way they're your best out of combat support, but are generally kind of garbage in combat. And it should only be the like, Master Trainers that have 2 in any path. Maybe basic level trainers with 1 in one path, Intermediate Trainers with 1 in 1 path, but Master Ritualist 1/Master Forger 1, and Masters maybe go 2/1 for pathing.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
I kinda like the idea of making it part of a nation pack.
It would likely make for some more interesting choices as well, if this does not need to balance against a regular Dom 5 nation.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
I really like the idea of Trainers having no more than 1-2 in any path, but having master ritualist/forger if they should have more.
That way they're your best out of combat support, but are generally kind of garbage in combat.
X2 isn't "generally kind of garbage in combat," it's usually the mainstay of your battlemage corps for most paths, because it's generally readily available, relatively inexpensive, and good enough to cast most of its path's core battle magic - a lot of which often benefits more from having a lot of casters than from having a few very powerful casters. Most of the battle magic that an X2 cannot or should not cast is stuff that isn't likely to be cast more than once or twice in a battle anyways - battlefield enchants, wide-area buffs, major summons like Living [Element] that require quite a bit of investment to cast with anything other than your nation's biggest recruitable mages and are almost guaranteed to put them to sleep for the rest of the battle, et cetera.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aeson
X2 isn't "generally kind of garbage in combat," it's usually the mainstay of your battlemage corps for most paths, because it's generally readily available, relatively inexpensive, and good enough to cast most of its path's core battle magic - a lot of which often benefits more from having a lot of casters than from having a few very powerful casters. Most of the battle magic that an X2 cannot or should not cast is stuff that isn't likely to be cast more than once or twice in a battle anyways - battlefield enchants, wide-area buffs, major summons like Living [Element] that require quite a bit of investment to cast with anything other than your nation's biggest recruitable mages and are almost guaranteed to put them to sleep for the rest of the battle, et cetera.
Well yes, but X2Y1 for your high end expensive STR mage is kind of garbage in combat, but having X3Y2 for forging/rituals is quite good, particularly if you have a few variations on it.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
Well yes, but X2Y1 for your high end expensive STR mage is kind of garbage in combat, but having X3Y2 for forging/rituals is quite good, particularly if you have a few variations on it.
I'd debate the "expensive" part; STR X2Y1 with Master Smith/Ritualist 1 is basically the same as Vanheim's Dwarven Smiths, and they're only 140 gold. Not at all bad, especially considering you're only paying the recruitment costs every other turn, or maybe twice every three turns if you have a fort with three commander points.
It's also still worth it if it's your only good way to get a useful path combination into battle, though unless they're recruit-anyfort/anywhere it'd probably have to be for something that you don't need a lot of casters for.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aeson
X2 isn't "generally kind of garbage in combat," it's usually the mainstay of your battlemage corps for most paths, because it's generally readily available, relatively inexpensive, and good enough to cast most of its path's core battle magic - a lot of which often benefits more from having a lot of casters than from having a few very powerful casters. Most of the battle magic that an X2 cannot or should not cast is stuff that isn't likely to be cast more than once or twice in a battle anyways - battlefield enchants, wide-area buffs, major summons like Living [Element] that require quite a bit of investment to cast with anything other than your nation's biggest recruitable mages and are almost guaranteed to put them to sleep for the rest of the battle, et cetera.
120% true. I once won a MP game with a mod nation that had only either astral 2/death 1, or death 2/nature 1, or Nature 2/astral 1 mages with a 10% chance for +1 in either of their paths, anything more powerful only by spending gems, and said basic mages carried me to victory once I got some research going by spamming cheap astral/nature/death spells (stellar cascades, mind burn, skelly spam, nether bolts, that death blast, swarm, protection, breath of the dragon, etc) and the occasional communion.
This is also one of the reasons I suggested a pokemon nation for each gym/element/city, because otherwise you have an excuse to cram every magic path at decent level and that's pretty brutal. Tien Chi is held back by only really having lv1 magic on most paths outside their cap mages, but a nation that can reliably spam any type of mage at level 2 for combat would be extremely powerful unless the troops are complete garbage or something.
So if you're cramming every type of magic in the same nation, recruit-anywhere mages should only get lv1 magic outside of rare randoms.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
On the other hand, look at arcosephale. They have recruit everywhere mystics with guaranteed S and some shots at SWEF. The proposed pokemon are X3 but take 60 XP to get there (pikachu A2 for 40 XP) and the humans are X2Y1 with a 20% chance of them lining up for X3. Most importantly they get no blood, astral, or death. Earth is also strong but the lack of any armor makes Legions of steel useless.
I think we'll have to see the nation as a whole to evaluate it. They do have pretty good fort recruit mages and potential thug chassis but with some caveats. Maybe the diversity is too much but I don't want to make several nations right now.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Glimbur
On the other hand, look at arcosephale. They have recruit everywhere mystics with guaranteed S and some shots at SWEF. The proposed pokemon are X3 but take 60 XP to get there (pikachu A2 for 40 XP) and the humans are X2Y1 with a 20% chance of them lining up for X3. Most importantly they get no blood, astral, or death. Earth is also strong but the lack of any armor makes Legions of steel useless.
I think we'll have to see the nation as a whole to evaluate it. They do have pretty good fort recruit mages and potential thug chassis but with some caveats. Maybe the diversity is too much but I don't want to make several nations right now.
Arco is precisely a fine example of "excellent mages, crapish troops". Mystics are a serious candidate for best non-cap mages in the whole game. But they're significantly held back by so-so national troops and no thug chassis either.
Even if they get no blood/astral/death, something like MA Ulm shows that simple E2/something 1 mages can be pretty brutal. Summon Earth power and then go to town with magma spells, Strength of Giants, Blade Wind, Marble Warriors, Rain of Stones, Earth Meld, Maws of the Earth, etc. Lack of Legions of Steel is hardly a problem. Lots of A2 mages spamming lighting wins games. Fire 2 goes to town with Phoenix power then fire elemental spam or plain blasting. W2 is for quickening and ice strike and fighting underwater. I'm hardly taking in account any crosspaths here.
And you don't need to make multiple nations at once, just pick your favorite element/city/gym and start there.
Or if you really insist in 20% of non-cap mages to get level 3 magic in one of 5 paths of your choice, then at least add the terrain limitations mentioned before (with the cap able to recruit any).
Forests-Nature.
Coast-Water.
Mountains-earth.
Wasteland-fire.
Plains-Air.
There, at least that way you can't just spam the right element to hard counter your current opponent.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
Arco is precisely a fine example of "excellent mages, crapish troops". Mystics are a serious candidate for best non-cap mages in the whole game. But they're significantly held back by so-so national troops and no thug chassis either.
A note that I strongly disagree on this. Mystics are fairly meh in Dom5(They're significantly stronger in dom4, and ludicrously stronger in dom3), being strongly outperformed by mages like Guru for Astral, and most X2Y1 mages being flat better than them in my opinion, such as Witch Hunters, Caelian Seraphs, and the aforementioned Ulm Smiths.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
On average, 25% of Mystics are S2, 12.5% are F2, 12.5% are W2, 12.5% are E2, and the remaining 37.5% have no paths above 1. Mystics are good mostly because Communions are good; if you for some reason aren't using Communions, or if we're dealing with a hypothetical Mystic-like mage who had the same randoms but who traded guaranteed S1 away for a guaranteed level of A/N/D, cost reduction, or some ability that isn't a guaranteed path-level, they'd be a lot worse because their path combinations are unreliable and a lot of them aren't natively strong enough in any path or combination of paths to make good battle mages without some form of gem investment.
Also, I agree with Manticoran - in general, I would much rather have an X2Y1 mage with guaranteed paths than Mystics upon which to base my battle mage corps. Mystics aren't particularly powerful Communion Masters, the variability of their paths often means that the ones that become Communion Slaves tend to be exhausted rapidly, and Communions can be somewhat iffy for X2/X3 battle magic, especially if you're relatively unlucky and don't get any Mystics with more than 1 level in whatever path you're looking to cast from, because X2/X3 battle magic tends to want many casters, and a Communion with many masters and few slaves exhausts its slaves rapidly while a more balanced Communion requires a lot more mages to get the same number of active casters. A guaranteed specific X2Y1 combination might be more predictable, but it's easier to plan around and doesn't cost you a decent chunk of your mage corps in Communion Slaves.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aeson
On average, 25% of Mystics are S2, 12.5% are F2, 12.5% are W2, 12.5% are E2, and the remaining 37.5% have no paths above 1. Mystics are good mostly because Communions are good; if you for some reason aren't using Communions, or if we're dealing with a hypothetical Mystic-like mage who had the same randoms but who traded guaranteed S1 away for a guaranteed level of A/N/D, cost reduction, or some ability that isn't a guaranteed path-level, they'd be a lot worse because their path combinations are unreliable and a lot of them aren't natively strong enough in any path or combination of paths to make good battle mages without some form of gem investment.
Also, I agree with Manticoran - in general, I would much rather have an X2Y1 mage with guaranteed paths than Mystics upon which to base my battle mage corps. Mystics aren't particularly powerful Communion Masters, the variability of their paths often means that the ones that become Communion Slaves tend to be exhausted rapidly, and Communions can be somewhat iffy for X2/X3 battle magic, especially if you're relatively unlucky and don't get any Mystics with more than 1 level in whatever path you're looking to cast from, because X2/X3 battle magic tends to want many casters, and a Communion with many masters and few slaves exhausts its slaves rapidly while a more balanced Communion requires a lot more mages to get the same number of active casters. A guaranteed specific X2Y1 combination might be more predictable, but it's easier to plan around and doesn't cost you a decent chunk of your mage corps in Communion Slaves.
An additional note that relying on communions also has a serious time cost in combat, as your opponent starts throwing kill spells potentially immediately, so there's a greater chance with matrixing everyone up that some critical part of your communion gets gibbed by a random fireball or crossbow bolt before they do their thing.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
A note that I strongly disagree on this. Mystics are fairly meh in Dom5(They're significantly stronger in dom4, and ludicrously stronger in dom3), being strongly outperformed by mages like Guru for Astral, and most X2Y1 mages being flat better than them in my opinion, such as Witch Hunters, Caelian Seraphs, and the aforementioned Ulm Smiths.
Hmmm, fair enough in the mystics bit, weakened communions over each game edition don't do them any favors.
Still X2Y1 mages in five different flavors is ridiculously good, since even a single flavor can be the magic backbone of a nation like the Master Smith does for MA Ulm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
An additional note that relying on communions also has a serious time cost in combat, as your opponent starts throwing kill spells potentially immediately, so there's a greater chance with matrixing everyone up that some critical part of your communion gets gibbed by a random fireball or crossbow bolt before they do their thing.
By what insanity would you position your communion corps in crossbow/fireball range with no troops for bait/screening?
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
By what insanity would you position your communion corps in crossbow/fireball range with no troops for bait/screening?
Bait doesn't always work. Even when it does, arrows, crossbows, and many spells aren't perfectly accurate; some spells are additionally deadly over large areas, e.g. Shimmering Fields, or a Shadow Blast cast by a particularly high-level death mage. Bad luck can be just as crippling to a Communion as poor screening.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
Hmmm, fair enough in the mystics bit, weakened communions over each game edition don't do them any favors.
Still X2Y1 mages in five different flavors is ridiculously good, since even a single flavor can be the magic backbone of a nation like the Master Smith does for MA Ulm.
By what insanity would you position your communion corps in crossbow/fireball range with no troops for bait/screening?
First yeah, that's why I was recommending they be expensive and str at the x2y1 level. If your x2y1 mage is 250 gold or more, not sacred, and str, it's going to be hard to mass them to be combat mages. You'll use them for forging and rituals and some battlefield magic, but not like evocation spam unless you're desperate.
And yeah you wouldn't, but sometimes you have units with 4 precision throwing fireballs 6 squares or more off target, or fliers coming in and chewing through your guard units, or... Or... Basically you can do all the things that protect against it but it's still added risk compared to not having to cast communion.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
First yeah, that's why I was recommending they be expensive and str at the x2y1 level. If your x2y1 mage is 250 gold or more, not sacred, and str, it's going to be hard to mass them to be combat mages. You'll use them for forging and rituals and some battlefield magic, but not like evocation spam unless you're desperate.
That sounds better, in particular since the nation should be about pokemon, not spamming cheap efficient humie mages. Those should be non-spammable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aeson
Bait doesn't always work. Even when it does, arrows, crossbows, and many spells aren't perfectly accurate; some spells are additionally deadly over large areas, e.g. Shimmering Fields, or a Shadow Blast cast by a particularly high-level death mage. Bad luck can be just as crippling to a Communion as poor screening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Manticoran
And yeah you wouldn't, but sometimes you have units with 4 precision throwing fireballs 6 squares or more off target, or fliers coming in and chewing through your guard units, or... Or... Basically you can do all the things that protect against it but it's still added risk compared to not having to cast communion.
And why would non-communion mages be any safer?
Bad luck and flier swarms will be just as deadly for a non-communion mage force.
If anything, it's easier to protect a communion because the slaves can go anywhere that there's less chance of them dying while masters can enjoy greater range whereas most non-communion mages need to go where their spells will make an impact which usually means closer to the action. Plus since slaves share master buffs, you can have a dedicated master buffing the crap out of the slaves until they're all regenerating ironmen with personal anti-arrow fields.
Sure the non-communion mages may get one non-buffed spell off before they get murdered by bad luck or an air force, but the impact will be so little compared to properly buffed mages that statistically it's worth the 1-2 rounds worth of buffing more often than not.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
deuterio12
And why would non-communion mages be any safer?
Bad luck and flier swarms will be just as deadly for a non-communion mage force.
Say I want to cast Fog Warriors. I need an A5 caster. How do I get that?
- A5 either natively* or with booster gems/items/empowerment/non-Communion spells.
- A4 Master with two Slaves
- A3 Master with four Slaves
- A2 Master with eight Slaves
- A1 Master with sixteen Slaves
(Note that I'm assuming that the casting mage is the level listed including any setup like booster items, combat pathboost spells, and gemboost.)
There is only one unit on the field whose death can prevent me from casting Fog Warriors if I'm using an A5 mage to cast it; there are seventeen units on the field, any one of whose deaths can prevent me from casting Fog Warriors when I cast Fog Warriors using an A1 master and sixteen slaves. Which is more likely? That a stray fireball hits my one of one A5 casters, or that a stray fireball hits one of sixteen Communion Slaves or the A1 master?
It's a lot easier to disrupt a big spell being cast by a Communion than it is to disrupt the same spell cast by a single powerful caster; the Communion is a lot harder to protect, and - especially in the extreme case - has an enormous opportunity cost in all those Communion Slaves who aren't really doing anything except boosting the masters and acting as fatigue sinks and all the stuff you may need to commit to protecting them. You can put more mages into the Communion to build in some redundancy and offset its vulnerability to some extent, of course, but that requires even more mages, and, well, it's not like you can't do that with the individual powerful caster, either, if you're willing to invest the gems or get lucky with your recruits. There's also that the less setup you need to do before casting the spell you really want, the less time there is for bad luck to strike and prevent you from doing it - if I have to spend three spells setting up to cast Fog Warriors (Communion Master => Storm => Summon Air Power => Fog Warriors), that's a lot more time in which a stray fireball could hit one of the members of the Communion than if all I have to do is have my A5 cast Fog Warriors on Round 1.
*It's possible to recruit such a mage, though I think that the best chance might be with EA Caelum, about 1 in 40 of whose Eagle Kings are natively A5. Fomoria (1 in 90 Fomorian Kings), Vanheim (1 in 160 Vanadrottir), Eriu (1 in 160 Tuatha), Tir'na'Nog (1 in 160 Tuatha Sorceresses), MA Caelum (1 in 160 High Seraphs), MA Ys (1 in 160 Morgen Sorceresses), and MA Phaecia (1 in 160 Prince Consorts) can theoretically manage it, as well. Might be some others I've missed that can do it, but probably not many.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
There's also that the less setup you need to do before casting the spell you really want, the less time there is for bad luck to strike and prevent you from doing it - if I have to spend three spells setting up to cast Fog Warriors (Communion Master => Storm => Summon Air Power => Fog Warriors), that's a lot more time in which a stray fireball could hit one of the members of the Communion than if all I have to do is have my A5 cast Fog Warriors on Round 1.
Thats a false comparison though, when one part have to add Storm and Summon air power.
And it could be turned around. Since Storm -> Air Power -> Fog Warriors are slower than Communion master -> Fog Warrior.
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Re: The new general "Dominions 5" Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aeson
You can put more mages into the Communion to build in some redundancy and offset its vulnerability to some extent, of course, but that requires even more mages, and, well, it's not like you can't do that with the individual powerful caster, either, if you're willing to invest the gems or get lucky with your recruits.
Except that it's always possible to simply build more forts and labs for spamming extra communion slaves, whereas there's no reliable way to increase gem income and no way at all to increase recruitment rate of cap-only super mages.
If you luck out with an A5 mage, then sure it's superior to communion, but, well, only a few nations can do it and most will need some insane luck to pull it off to pull even one of said A5 mages, but a lot more nations can set up multiple fog warriors communions, and covering multiple armies to boot.
And as Lord Khaine pointed out, it's also faster going from big communion-»fog warrior than it is storm-»air power-»fog warriors.
With a crystal/slave matrix a communion can pull it turn 1, and it's actually competitive with building Air boosters if you have a base A3 mage (50 gems either way), actually cheaper with communion items if you have a dwarven hammer and also more versatile (since the slaves can still support other masters while a lone big air mage will spend the rest of the battle recovering from fatigue).