Dai Onis are good yes, but with the addition of slow-to-recruit that really cut their potential

So was that game in dom5 or dom4? Because Yomi got a pretty big overhaul in between but I haven't got the chance to see them in action yet.
Well.. Dai Oni are a late game SC chassis. Not making them StR would leave them broken.
As it were, smacking a regen bless on them and hitting alt 3 is enough to expand into even barbarian hordes.
And their overhaul were actually relevant. Bakemono is nasty now with SoG.

Evolved glooms are meant to be significantly stronger than basic troops so that was more of a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. And numeric superiority becomes a lot more significant when facing ranged troops. Like facing illithids, you need extra bodies to soak their shots.
It is then still a massive advantage. Since it means you wont suffer attrition unless facing a force at least close to equal to yours.

Heh, castle assaults are the kind of scenario where I've seen plenty of veterans struggle, since most battles are in open fields then an actual terrain bottleneck screws the AI movement.

But main point is that plant pokemon burn good. Doubly because they don't really want to take cold domain but heat scales make them burn better.
They likely do. Problem is i cant use fire elementals against them.
Fire storm would likely roast them good. But thats kinda far ahead.
And i doubted i would be able to do enough damage with fireballs to hordes of that size.
Not with the number of mages i had available. Well not besides in a castle bottleneck.

Why buy magikarps when you can get them as freespawn plus extras as blockers?

And winning more matters quite a bit in FFA since taking down an opponent doesn't grant you victory. You need to take them out and have stuff left to take on the next. There is such thing as phyrric victories in dominions, so emerging with some extra Gyarados out of a war is quite the significant advantage.
Because it saves you a castle recruitment turn?
And i still doubt its extra enough to make a significant change in the grand sceme of things.
Especially considering both how unlikely it is, and how large a investment of time and effort it takes.

Well we're trying to figure out how broken they are and how much nerf they need. Plus even if they did knock you out but they also completely ditched their own research for over a year. And I also made the mistake decided to just sit and watch by the sidelines to see how you fared 1x1 when in any other game I would've backstabbed Celadon right away. Now I would like to see how they face against a magic force like a fully operational storm star.

Speaking of which crashing into Celadon's lands but no big battles yet. Should happen next turn. Arc Armageddon himself is at the vanguard having jumped out of the water right into a celadon fort two provinces away. Man I love how dom5 removed the limitation of non-flying troops only being able to attack adjacent provinces.
Well yes the research bit is something they can likely catch up on swiftly, now that they have 2 fresh forts, and a chance to take 3 more.
And it was not a mistake. It is as such the only relevant way to get good comparison data on how much stronger a Pokemon nation is compared to a average human nation (crushing it utterly).
Since a normal game swings a lot, its this one thats an outlier in its large skill disparity. Normally you should have had your hands full with your own neighboors.
Though i am curious now. If your storm star crushed Celadon, then its likely a sign of that being even more in need of a nerf :P

Else, as i recall, now its also two against one though, that does mean your not facing the full green hordes alone.
And i newer spotted your god, what was it, a Magnetron thingy? had guessed you went with an expander from how large you were.