Lets Play : DOMINIONS 4

[Misery Esquire]

Dominions 4!



This being a god on their way to ascension (through mostly uncivil means) simulator is full of options, plans, diplomacy, scheming, powerful archmages and unwilling converts briefly independent provinces. In a turn based manner.

A game better experienced in multiplayer than against the oft confused, belligerent and defeated AI, we will have four narrators, apt as it is going to be a four player game, going head to head over who will be the Pantokrator, Overgod, Lordy Most High, and so on. Either by killing the competition, or securing enough Thrones of divine power.

The vast variety of nations will not be explored in this match, instead showing the four selected nations of the players ;

QWERTYSTOP

starring as

Shinuyama

Hicks

starring as

Caelum

Haunter (myself)

starring as
Ulm

And...

Folytopo

starring as

Pythium

I'll let the players all introduce their own nations, in their turn pages.

Most likely going to be giving a round of posts every 3-5 turns, the turns being on a 48 hours maximum timer, it may be a few days between (possibly) image-filled posts, but that's no reason not to discuss with the players what's going on.

[Vauron]

I'm curious, how much of a backlog will you be working with? Discussing your pretender choices and showing your capital's location can make a big difference in a game, as it can let the enemy prepare for what you are doing.

[Shovah]

Following this with great interest - long time Dominions fan/player, will give me something to read in between doing my turns. Can I ask what kind of experience you all have with the game so I know what to expect?

[Teron]

Is there a Dom4 community in the Playground no one told me about? If there's any chance of getting a newbie(-friendly) game going, I'd love to join.

Regarding Vauron's concern, the players can just spoiler their reports if they trust each other. They could also conduct diplomacy where the audience can see it, if they want.

[Misery Esquire]

I'm curious, how much of a backlog will you be working with? Discussing your pretender choices and showing your capital's location can make a big difference in a game, as it can let the enemy prepare for what you are doing.

I believe we're going to play out ~5 turns at a time, but it is possible that players will submit their turns with a backlog, or immediately. No particular ruling on it, aside from the assumption that none of us will cheat the game by reading each others spoilers. I don't believe we even have a set number of turns per post, so it may be that some players post more often.

Can I ask what kind of experience you all have with the game so I know what to expect?

Folytopo's had the most games in, Hicks is running a bunch at once, though I've been playing longer than he has by a bit, and QWERTY is fairly new.

I mostly look at a few nations at a time, as my interest is minimal outside of them other than to check what other nations have, so my overall experience is a touch questionable. I cannot speak for the others on their gameplay. (Aside from Hicks being rather obvious in his betrayals in games so far.)

[Hicks]

I'm an honest person, I can't help it....

[Folytopo]

Hello, I am folytopo and I am playing Pythium. Pythium is based around roman style infantry and powerful mages.
Before we go into any further details I should explain Dominions in general so that people new to the series can make sense of what is going on.

Spoiler: Introduction to Dom4

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In Dominions you play a god trying to become the supreme god. To start a game you select a nation then design a god to lead that nation. There is a point buy system in place for making gods. The first step in making a god is to pick the physical form for your god.



Those are the available chassis for Pythuim, the nation that I am playing. There are several types of god to choose from. The top left ones are immobile statues. They are good for getting a strong economy and bless and high dominion. Then there are the titans. They are strong in 2 or 3 magic paths, strong dominion and occasionally have special abilities like generating magic gems. Next there are the monsters like the bulls and the dragons. They have moderate dominion and generally mediocre magic but they are can destroy small armies on their own. Finally there are the human mages. They have weak dominion and are the most magically diverse. They are kinda bad in Dominions 4 and there are generally better alternatives. In this case we are going to take a Great White Bull as an example.



In addition to being a badass bull that dirt stomps people, he is magic. Taking magic on your god lets him cast spell but it also effects the bless. Certain units are sacred to your nation and they can be blessed by a priest. The blessing rubs some of the gods magic on your troops and makes them more powerful. In this case the bull gives the blessed units re-invigoration from the earth magic and extra health from the nature magic.

Next an aspiring god needs to decide what kind of effect their presence should have on the world. The number of candles represents the strength of the gods faith. Then there are the different scales. Scales effect the area that believes you. You scales increase the amount of money brought in and can bring good fortune. Scales can be both positive or negative. People will take negative scales so they can make their god stronger for example. In this case I have taken misfortune because I wanted more gold.

The final option is when the god will enter the game. If you have a peaceful god, it can wake up later in the game and get to making magical baubles. The Great White Bull is a beast though. So he should be taken awake so he can get to stepping on heathens faster.

After the game starts you will be looking at the strategic screen.
This is a picture of the strategic screen from a test game in progress.


1.The purple flags is the area that we control and the grey flags are independent territories. The blue flag is another players flag.
2. The top left is the information for the current province. The higher population is the more income a province produces. This province is a capital province so it has lots of population and income. Income is shared across your entire empire and is used to produce all nonmagical units and buildings. Resources in dominions represents the ability to produce manufactured goods. They are tied to each province and are not shared across your empire. Supplies is the number of units the territory can support. The wheat icon is the terrain type. This terrain type is farmland. Below that the candles represent your dominion which is your gods religion. I will cover what dominion is later on.
3. The left side are the different troops that are in the province. Mostly they are researching magic. One commander is taking troops and attacking an independent square this turn.
4. On the bottom right there are the buildings. There are Three types of buildings in Dominions. Forts, which let you recruit your national troops. Temples which spread your faith and let you recruit your priests and sacred units and labs which let you recruit mages and let you preform magic rituals.
5. The things next to the buildings are magic sites. You start with national sites in you capital and have to search for magic sites in the rest of your territory. Magic is very complex in dominions and we will ease people into it.
6. The province itself has an icon showing the number of troops.



This is a national recruitment screen. This is our capital so it has all the units we can recruit. Some units can only be recruited in the capital. If you want a full list of units that can be recruited use this tool. http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/



This is the velite. It is the basic unit of Pythium. 10 is the average stat for a human. Protection is armour, strength increases physical damage and the range of thrown weapons like his javelin. His armour is leather so his protection is low. The tower shield he carries lets him parry blows and is why his defense is so high.
Now lets look at units in combat.

Army Setup Screen

The army setup screen shows all the units that are on the province. It also lets you give orders to the units in that province for tactical battles. In Dominions you give your army a script to follow for the battle. For example you could tell your soldiers to hold and attack closest enemy. Or you could have them attack archers or attack rearmost enemy. You can also change their formation and position on the battlefield. When you are done giving your orders you can end your turn and if there is a battle it will move to the tactical screen.



This is the dominions tactical screen. In this battle I am against a small number of independent units. I have legionaries and velites. The enemy has light infantry and archers. The arrows cannot hurt the shielded units very effectively and the javelins and numbers of the soldiers overwhelm the enemy infantry.



The legionaries then attack the archers and win the battle.

That is a brief introduction to dominions. I will make another post explaining my nation and explaining magic soon.

[Qwertystop]

So, hello everyone. I'm playing Shinuyama here, and I'm this game's resident clueless newbie. I've played enough to know what most of the buttons do, and I've been given enough advice to have a general idea of the same for spells and my own units (not much for not-my units). Shinuyama is a mix of assorted monster-ish stuff of varying sizes (smaller-than-people to larger-than-people), plus some casters that are pretty good at fire. They also have a few summoning spells that only they can get, but that's for later.

Oh, and since magic was skipped over, I guess I'll give the summary of that.

Spoiler: MAGIC!

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There's two aspects to magic - Schools and Paths. The Schools are Conjuration, Alteration, Evocation, Construction, Enchantment, Thaumaturgy, Blood, and Divine. Each tends towards certain effects, with exceptions. In order, that's summoning, buffs and debuffs, blasting, magic item making plus a few specific golem-ish summons, a undead-making plus other buffs, a wide mix of I'm-not-sure, mostly summons of a demonic flavor, and ten very specific spells. Each school except Divine is unlocked slowly by keeping your mages in an area with a lab and having them research it. Divine is all known from the start.

Paths are Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Astral, Death, Nature, Blood, and Divine. All spells in the Blood school are of the Blood path and vice-versa (though some spells in the Blood school have a second path as well), and all spells in the Divine school are of the Divine path and vice-versa (nothing Divine has a second path). Where Schools are unlocked on a national level, Paths are on a per-mage level. For example, I'm playing Shinuyama. My basic mage type, the Uba, has Water 1, Death 1, Nature 1, and then +1 to either Water, Earth, Death, or Nature, chosen at random for each Uba I train. Some mages have no random paths, and some mages have random paths that aren't guaranteed - a common setup from what I've seen is a guaranteed +1 to one of four paths, and then a 10% chance of another +1 to one of the same four, which may or may not boost the same as the guaranteed-random.

Every spell has a School (and a level in that school) and one or more Paths (and levels in them). To cast a spell, you must have researched at least up to that level in the School, and the casting mage must have at enough ranks in each Path. Some spells also have a Gem cost. There are Gems for each Path (except Blood and Divine). By having your mages search, you can find magic sites in your provinces that produce gems. If a spell has a gem cost, the caster must have and use that many gems to cast the spell. Also, for in-combat spells, spending one gem of the right path lets a caster cast a spell of one rank higher in that path than they could normally cast.

An example: Geyser is Evocation 1, Water 1, Fire 1. It sprays a jet of hot water into a small area from a respectable distance. To cast it, the caster would need to have at least Water 1 and Fire 1, and their nation would need to have researched Evocation 1. If the caster has Water or Fire higher than 1, the range and damage of the spell would increase. The spell has no gem cost, but by spending gems, the caster could get less fatigue from casting the spell - meaning they can cast more before needing to rest.

Blood is weird - it doesn't use gems. Instead, you have to have your blood mages do a "blood hunt" - reducing your population in the area slightly and getting Blood Slaves, ritually purified for use as sacrifices. Mechanically, they're the same as gems, except that all Blood spells use at least one Blood Slave, and in combat, the blood slaves surround the caster they're assigned to (not that they're any good at all in combat), while gems would just be in their pockets or whatever.

There's also ritual spells. This takes the entire turn for the caster, always costs gems, and has some other effect - either a summon that can be assigned like normal troops instead of appearing mid-battle and disappearing after, or some sort of ranged effect (scrying, causing blizzards), or Global Enchantments (I can see everything everywhere without scouts/lightning automatically rains down on all my foes randomly/there's another Sun/the guy who cast that see-everything spell has his eyes set on fire/a GIGANTIC RAINBOW is now locked in place over my nation so I can collect the gold from both ends)

Spoiler: My first turn. Other players DO NOT LOOK

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So. Um.
Apparently the big thing Shinuyama gets is a lot of really cheap recruits anywhere with mountains, where most nations only get their nation-specific units where they have a fort. In addition to the one to the east, the similarly brown province to the north is also a mountain (just slightly offscreen). And then I also get my Sorcerers (more expensive casters) to cast Flaming Arrows every fight, which does what it says and works nicely since said massive mobs of cheap recruits have shortbows (and the fire does enough damage that the weakness of the actual archers isn't actually relevant). That'll take a while to research though. So this turn, I'm making my General a Prophet (this means they spread my Dominion just by being somewhere - you can only have one and you always should. It also gives them good Priest magic, which is mostly blessing your army and making them less likely to rout.) and having my Scout run south to that forest. I also started out with fifteen cheap goblin-things with clubs, and ten with shortbows (same guys I get in any mountains). First-turn recruitment is another two dozen of the shortbow guys.

Oh, and the other notable thing is that I have early access to amphibious units right from my capital. They're cheap, but without the abusability that you can get from using cheap archers as a carrier for Flaming Arrows (because they're underwater – neither bows nor fire work well ). However, that's still better access to the oceans than anyone else in the current game has early-on – most access is either expensive or requires magic or both, and when I get some territory there will hopefully be some better stuff to recruit. So I'll probably go in that direction after I've got a hold on my little island.

[Hicks]

Well, hello everyone. I suppose I'm playing the part of Caelum in our little Let's Play. I, along with Haunter, represent the 'middle' level of skill in this fight, with Qwerty as our resident newer player, and Foly as the person who has spent entirely too much time on this sort of thing.

My Nation, Caelum, is a group winged humanoids, living in a vaguely Zoroastrian Mageocracy high in the mountains. They take a high view of knowledge, and a dim view of the uncultured and corrupt due to the corruption of a major deity in their past.

Spoiler: Turn 1 things other players no peeking

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Well, that's my starting position. A bit hemmed in but easily defensible. A Throne directly next to my capital is a mixed blessing. It's nice to have solidly within my reach, but since they are more protected than the average square, it will take me longer to muster to troops to take it, limiting my early production a bit.



That is my troop lineup. Since nobody who doesn't already know this sort of thing will scroll through each one, I'll give the summary. My units are all fast, winged, and carry magical ice weapons. They're a bit brittle compared to normal human units, except for those with the special quality Ice Protection. This makes their armor, in cold weather, go from 'alright' to 'just a wee bit stupid'. My mage core consists of primarily air and water, which gives me a lot of utility and a bit of blasting power with air-based lightning evocations. Minor powers in astral and death give me more utility, and some odd unique summons for my nation which we'll get to as they arrive.



And this bad boy is my pretender, also referred to as god, also referred to as 'that's a scary dragon thing'. It carries the ability to shapeshift from that dragon shape, which is powerful physically and will help me expand early on before large armies are built, into a human warlock form more suitable for casting. Death and fire magic give me some versatility my other mages lack, and the crossing of these two paths gives me access to the daeva summons that form half of my nation's unique summons.

Overall, my battle plan is simple. Fight in the cold, to abuse my overly-protected flying spearmen. Abuse cheap and easily recruited archers. Summon unique national summons to give equipment to and use as thugs. And if worse comes to worst? Rain lightning on everything they love.

[Misery Esquire]

And my first turn ; no exposition of game mechanics for me.

Ulm is a nation of heavy armour, and Earth/Fire mages. Very heavy armour. The most available heavy armour in the Middle Era, infact, as almost all of my troops have it. Ulm also does not believe in fairies and enchanted kingdoms, preferring the Drain scale, in which things remain, relatively, mundane. To signify this preference the Ulmish Mage Smiths do not receive a research penalty in Drain, unlike other mages.

Vaguely Germanic in theme.

Spoiler: OTHER PLAYERS STAY OUT

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So! The tiny fort on the screen there is my starting position. My dominion (white candle) is on my fort, where it starts automatically, and the one additional in-dominion province you get at the start of the game was the water block to the north. The water block to the immediate Right of that has a black candle, meaning someone is on one of the other coasts nearby.

Important to keep in mind.

Looking at the map, I have two nearby thrones (the tiny orange blobs),and just beyond those are bridges separating the "continents". These are targets for me to try and hold.



These are the troop and commander options, for those unfamiliar with them ;

I have one of the few Spies in the game as scouts, allowing me to see the normally disabled Score Graphs if I manage to get them into enemy capitals.

Heavy armoured commanders are impressive looking, but only the Knight commander is likely to be built as the Mage Smiths have leadership capability and the foot-based commanders are not impressive for items.

Mage Smiths, and Priest Smiths will be making up my research mage line, AND my combat mage line. Mage Smiths are especially important as they provide additional resources to any fort they are currently in, which is good because Ulm is starved for resources until sufficient Smiths are around.

Leaving the Engineer, who makes Sieging much easier on our Ulmish nation as the armoured bodies are few in number by comparison to others, and the Lord Guardian who I will mention with his fellows below.

And now, the troops ;

Wardogs are weak compared to the line infantry, having less strength, and less armour, though amusingly at Protection 15 which is higher than most other nations infantry. Good at absorbing cavalry as so they do not hit my more important lines.

The two unarmoured fellows in blue are Crossbowmen, one having only a crossbow, and the second, in the second-to-last spot, having armour and a pickaxe, along with a Siege bonus.

Its hard to see, but each of the weapons have a Full Chain of Ulm and a Full Plate of Ulm version, both being impressively armoured compared to other nations, but the Full Plate versions are usually always chosen due to the few extra points of armour.

The Black Knights are impressive for their movement compared to other Ulmish troops, and have a fair amount of hitting power while maintaining the same armour class. Unfortunately, Black Knights are "merely good" cavalry compared to some other nations. On the other hand, those nations do not partake in this particular game. Black Knights will be meeting their counterpart of Serpent Cataphracts in Pythium.

Which leaves the Guardians, and Lord Guardian, who have the interesting ability of Bane of Heresy on their weapons, which Stuns enemy Sacred troopers.



I am going to be attempting to purchase some mercenaries with my leftover gold, both to expand faster, and to deny other nations their use.



Scout is going Left toward some Farmlands (good Income), and possibly checking the Throne on the way by. Warrior-prophet for some smiting action.

See you all in a few turns, with some more text about what's going on rather than what-I-have!

[Folytopo]

Spoiler: Pythium First Turn

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Pythium is a nation of Roman infantry and strong mages.

Lets quickly look at their unit roster.


These are the national recruits and my first turn recruitment.

Pythium has many types of legionaire. The equipment is slightly different and the level of training and cost is slightly different. Here are some examples.




Functionally they are pretty similar. They have strong defense and medicore to slightly above average attack. Most of them are heavily encumbered. This means they will tire out on the battlefield quickly and can be overwhelmed by enemy troops. When you get tired your stats go down and critical hits become more likely. In large battles we will have to rely on other parts of our nation to carry the day.

In my previous post there was a battle where the beat light infantry and archers. Here are some screenshots of them fighting heavy cavalry in one of my test games. They cannot do enough offensive damage to the cavalry even though they outnumber them 2 to 1. They eventually rout them but not before becoming very fatigue and damaged. The hearts on the unit profile represent afflictions like losing and arm or getting a limp.





Now there are some other interesting units pythium can recruit.



This unit is elite, defensively strong and hits hard but it is very expensive. You could have 5 hastatus for the gold cost and it is 2 1/2 legionaries worth of resources. They have high defense, low encumbrance and high protection which means normal units will have trouble hurting them. They problem is that he goes down to fireballs about as quickly as a legionnaire.



This unit has tons of special abilities. It is 50% resistan to piercing and blunt weapons, it causes fear, it regenerates, it has a poison cloud, it is undisciplined, which means it cannot be given complex orders. Only one can be recruited a turn. It is very expensive and the poison cloud it makes can(will) kill your own army. It is worth against enemy elite unites.



Pythium has a sacred unit. Sacred units can receive blessings from your priests to be stronger in battle. Unfortunately these guys are not good enough to justify giving your god magic.



Next are the gladiators. They are very cost effective and good on the attack but they will only fight for one battle. They are useful if something nasty is going to attack you early on and you need a do or die solution. Late game battles can be incredibly horrific in terms of casualties so only being around for one fight is not as bad as it sounds.

Okay we have looked at the units but the the units need people to lead them. All units need to be lead by a commander. Like this guy.



The leadership is how many units he can lead. Good leaders can lead more soldiers and increase the morale of troops.


Next here is a priest. The lit candle and the number shows his priest level. In this case he is a level one priest.


Next we the our basic mage. The star means he is a level one astral mage. Astral magic is the magic of the stars and also the magic of magic, it's pretty meta.


The next mage is the Theurg. He is a level 2 astral mage and can also use water and air magic.


Finally we have the Arch Theurg, he gets more air water and astral. The question mark means he gets an additional level of magic selected from fire,water,air and astral magic, with an equal odds of everything. Pythium's top level mages are very strong. Pythium's magic also revolves around the use the communion. Your mages Voltron and become stronger from joining together.. There are two parts to a communion. A slave and a master. The slave acts as a magic battery for the masters. Hopefully it will be showcased in this let's play. We will need to win large battles.

I have left out a few units but they are just changes in quality. Incase anyone wants to look at the stats use this website. http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/

Here is a picture of my position at the end of turn one.



Hope this will be enjoyable for everyone.

[Vauron]

Qwertystop, I'd like to make a correction. When dealing with a spell, only the 'primary' path matters for potency and fatigue cost. For instance, Acid Rain is a Water 3/Fire 1 spell. There is no difference as far as that spell is concerned between a W3/F9 mage and a W3/F1 mage. The primary path is the leftmost one.

[endoperez]

I'm an old fan of Dominions 3, but I haven't looked into D4 yet! This is going to be fun and also nostalgic.

Also, I guess all the comments any watchers will have about the actual game will be be inside spoilers too. Spoilers EVERYWHERE! No peeking until after it's all done!

Spoiler: Spoilers! No peeking!

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If anyone has trouble placing the nations on the map relative to each other, take a good hard look at Kinslayer's post. He posted a screenshot scaled far out from the "surface" of the world map. It's a tiny, tiny world that loops around itself at all sides. You can see Kinslayer's capital province, Ulm, both in the center of the screen, and in the far left. Any two parts that look identical ARE the same place, show multiple times. You can find Shinuyama's little island and the mountain of Caelum rather easily.

The nations are quite bunched up together - interesting times are sure to follow! We might see first contact during the first 5 turns, and maybe even a full-out war before turn 10. An awake monster of a pretender god is going to be rather useful, here...

[Qwertystop]

Right, I forgot to announce my Pretender:

Spoiler: PLAYERS KEEP OUT

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So, there you have it. Crossing Air and Earth magic gives him access to Contact Dai Tengu, a unique spell for the nation. It summons a Dai Tengu, an Air-Earth-Nature-Priest mage that also flies and throws lightning (not as a spell, just as a weapon - he has ten lightning bolts per battle and can throw them like javelins if he's not casting). He brings a retinue with him - ten Tengu Warriors and fifteen Karasu Tengu. They're basically the same thing, but as heavy and light infantry respectively instead of as mages. They still throw lightning. And yes, the Dai Tengu has enough Air and Earth to cast the spell himself. Not entirely sure what the Astral is for - I put this Pretender together guided by someone else, but I forget the reasoning there. I think it was just for the general Astral utility stuff, not specific cross-paths. I took one point in Drain because Drain reduces research on a per-mage basis, and Shinuyama's mages are the sort to have a few powerful ones researching, not massive groups of weak ones, so it doesn't affect me too much and I get points to put into other scales that way. The heat was similarly penalty-for-points, though there was a secondary advantage - my Sorcerers, who are my main battle-mages, are good in Fire. Other than that it's all just getting stuff - Productivity gives resources and offsets the income drop from the heat, Growth more than negates the heat's supply-drop and remaining income-drop, and Luck gives me lots of free stuff (more likely for random events to happen, more likely for those events to be good). I like playing with Luck. You end up with a treasury full of random magic items that, even if you wouldn't have spent the cost to make them, are still nice to have. Plus things you absolutely would have made and this way you get them free.

[Shovah]

I'm an old fan of Dominions 3, but I haven't looked into D4 yet! This is going to be fun and also nostalgic.

I definitely think you should give Dom4 a look - some nice changes and new nations to play around with. It seems to have grown on most of the people who didn't seem keen when it came out .


I do like where this is going though. If I was to make any suggestions, it would be for the players to talk a bit more about what they plan on doing for the sake of any viewers who aren't experienced with the game. What spells they'll be going for and why (short-term and long-term), and maybe a rough idea of what they have available to them with their national magic paths/combinations. "I have some air and water with heavy astral" won't mean as much to a non-player as "I can mind-link my mages to drop lightning from the sky and enslave the minds of my enemies, and my nation can summon angels with flaming swords to smite the unbelievers".

edit: Qwertystop, that's almost the exact same pretender I recently used with Shinuyama in a PBEM game - same magic, same chassis, similar scales. Great minds think alike .

[Qwertystop]

edit: Qwertystop, that's almost the exact same pretender I recently used with Shinuyama in a PBEM game - same magic, same chassis, similar scales. Great minds think alike .

Perhaps, but it wasn't my mind doing the thinking there - I don't have a clue. Can't keep track of all the spells and such enough to know what's better or worse.

[Folytopo]

I think Qwerty got help from one of the other vets on the mumble server. Not anybody in the game though. As far as describing the spells and their effects, I will be doing it on the second update as I set research goals.

[sum1won]

PTW, and to say hello to shovah.

Perhaps, but it wasn't my mind doing the thinking there - I don't have a clue. Can't keep track of all the spells and such enough to know what's better or worse.

Players who aren't qwertystop keep out:

Spoiler

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I'm not in the mumble server, but ... The ExS5 is a common way to get into Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry. Those are good diversity items. Unfortunantely, because they require S7 and S8, and you've got S5, you're starting at the bottom of the bootstrap ladder. So, that'll ultimately require 145 pearls and 10 earth gems to accomplish. (Or 139 pearls and 9 earth gems assuming a hammer). You might not get to this before the game ends. The bootstrap ladder goes Crystal coin, starshine helmet -> ring of sorcery, and then all three-> ring of wizardry.

A4E4 also gets you into staves of elemental mastery, which are also very helpful diversity items for Shinyu. You've also got excellent paths for making your god an army-killer, though watch out for mind duels.

[Folytopo]

Sorry for the delay, one of our players did not expand well at all. We are restarting the game to give him a chance at relevance.

[ufo]

That makes sense. In slow-paced games like these, it's no fun to sit around with a feeling of having fallen behind from the beginning. This is why I usually sit still on the first turn, though I dunno if this is actually a good strategy.

Though, I feel it should be mentioned, Dom4 is actually quite forgiving to having a bad start, at least in my experience. There's so many variables and such much going on in the lategame that there's often plenty of opportunity for comeuppance.

[Qwertystop]

That makes sense. In slow-paced games like these, it's no fun to sit around with a feeling of having fallen behind from the beginning. This is why I usually sit still on the first turn, though I dunno if this is actually a good strategy.

Though, I feel it should be mentioned, Dom4 is actually quite forgiving to having a bad start, at least in my experience. There's so many variables and such much going on in the lategame that there's often plenty of opportunity for comeuppance.

I think everyone sits still from the first turn - you need to pick a Prophet, and see what's around you. If your prophet is your general (typical), you send your scout out; if your prophet is your scout, you still keep the general back so he's not going in blind.


And while that might be true, the start in this case was failing to manage any expansion at all as of turn 5, and losing most (?) of the army.

[Vauron]

Ouch.

Yeah, don't expand on turn one is a good rule of thumb. Some nations have a strong enough starting army to get away with it, and a Supercombantant pretender can also do so if you know what kind of troops spawn where, but it is still risky.

[Qwertystop]

Ouch.

Yeah, don't expand on turn one is a good rule of thumb. Some nations have a strong enough starting army to get away with it, and a Supercombantant pretender can also do so if you know what kind of troops spawn where, but it is still risky.

In this case it's a case of me not having a clue of how good certain indie units are, due to having not run into them in early expansion in my previous four games ever. Specifically Amazons. Turns out this particular group of Amazons had a caster and a priestess. That was turn 2. Turn three was spent doing my best to recoup. Turn four was sending my refreshed army against them again - turns out I misremembered how many I got rid of, so I wiped again. Turn five was going to be sending the new new army in a different direction that I'd avoided because they were a larger group (forgetting that Militia plus light infantry are bad enough to cancel that out), but that's when the collective offer was made of resetting and I accepted.

EDIT: TURN 1 FOR NEW GAME

Spoiler: No Peeking

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New Start

Yep, one tile north of the old one. Plus the thrones are different - so now I'm blocked off from one of my two easy sources of mountains. Everything's pretty much the same, except I'm mixing in a few spear-weilding tiny goblin things in addition to the cheaper archers, to have more of a frontline. First expansion will be south while the scout goes north.

[Misery Esquire]

New game, new turns ;

Spoiler: OTHER PLAYERS STAY OUT

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The new start position relative to the world map. Looking fancy, right?

...Okay, honestly I preferred my original start location that had two nearby convenient farmlands that weren't inside my "capital ring" and the circle around the capital wasn't broken by a river. Still, a fairly good area.



A farmland is right next door, however. Quicker to take than before, but gives less resources in the fortress. On the other hand, my Mage Smiths provide plenty of Resources once I have enough of them.



Turn 2!

I bought some mercenary cavalry in turn one, which I celebrate here with a picture.



Move the army to take the farmlands, move the scout along. Going to look into what is north of the river, as there is a nice mountain region and a throne.



Army follows scout, scout follows plan.



The Thrones in this game. There used to be a glitch where they were all in order according to land tile, but that has been corrected. Not particularly interested in the Thrones for their blessing boosts, so favorite would be to have the Golden Throne.



Going to be aiming for Evocation mostly, after an accidental pair of turns on Alteration. Not a big slowdown since the number of researching mages is still growing steadily.



My Prophet gained the Heroic Quickness trait in the Hall Of Fame, granting more movement and action points. Not bad, but not really useful on a heavily armoured, slow, prophet who will be casting spells.



The army jumps north of the river, due to my accidentally missing a picture for the previous turn's map. Nothing unexpected happened, lost a black-plate infantry but still expanding steadily.



Showing the Evocation research here, at the level I am most interested in reaching ; Iron Blizzard, an amazing spell that turns a caster into the equivalent of 30 anti-magic crossbow shots a turn. Magma Eruption is a massive blast that will kill standard infantry dead, and as a bonus leaves Heat that will effect the Caelian armour as they require cold.



Its not really showing much, but the ability to purchase a fourth blackplate axeman per turn is provided purely by the resources granted from the Mage Smiths, and this will continue to grow with time.



My god(dess) ; she's not particularly impressive and I had not planned out her magic paths enough beforehand. Decided to settle with it as having a decent enough mix.

Should have left Dominion Score at 7 now that I think of it, but 8 will help push back against Caelum who will need their own dominion to fight me, if they're nearby.

One point of Heat that would normally be Cold for the same reason ; Cold is useful for getting across Rivers which are more common that the mountain passes that it blocks. But, Caelum needs Cold, so I deny them that. Order and Growth for money, Drain because it has no ill effect on Ulm as long as I have no misfortune, and Luck so that the events should be favourable.

Thatcher is an Iron Lady joke, and is not intended to express positive or negative opinion of the politician.

[Folytopo]

New game, new turns;

Spoiler: Turns

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Here is a quick update on the turn progress.



I started in a new province. Having only two provinces bordering your capital is suboptimal. Your forts can pull resources from surrounding provinces to their own province. My new capital has only two provinces to pull from. I was planning to use my troops to expand. The maximum number of troops that I can make from the fort after conquering surrounding provinces is reduced. As a general rule starting in an area where you have less directions to expand means that the odds of being cut off by your enemies increase. It also means that the odds of an independent province that has strong defenders being in your way increases. In this case I do not seem to have that problem.


This picture is of the first expansion battle. I am attacking independent heavy infantry. The mistake I made here is that I set my soldiers to hold and attack. The game has questionable AI behavior for javelins. If a unit has ranged weapons and is set to hold and attack it will use ranged weapons for two turns then attempt to close to melee range. My troops did not use there javelins and it meant the combat was a slog and I took attrition.




My next expansion was against horse tribe. They are mounted horse archers with lances. They can inflict losses because cavalry get bonus defensive stats and have strong offense on the charge. Because I was worried about attrition from expansion I bought mercenaries the previous turn. The crossbows and javelins finished off the enemies fairly effectively.



The next expansion was against deer tribe. They are unarmored and they have javelins and bows. My tower shields block their ranged attacks and the return javelins take out entire units of them.



Strategically, this is where I will build my fort. It will allow me to recruit deer tribe shamans which will allow me to access nature magic. Nature magic is useful for creating suply enhancing items. I will also be able to slot them into my communions, the big mage batteries, to allow them to cast battle changing spells.



These are the orders for next turn. I am expanding into a heavy cavalry province. If you read my last post, legionaries are not very good at hurting heavy Calvary. Hopefully the crossbows will help punch through the armour out. The reason why is explained below

Spoiler: Dom4 Mechanics Explained

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In, in order for an attack to resolve it has to get through 3 basic defenses. First their is a repel check. It is a fairly complicated mechanic. The short version is, long weapons have a chance to stop short weapons attacking. If the troops are more elite they can go through a repel. Then next check is a roll between attack and defense skills of the two individuals. All rolls are the stat+drn or dominions random number. A Drn is . For every attack an individual pixel person suffers during a turn their defense goes down by two. Meaning elite units can be overwhelmed. Finally there is the same style of roll for protection versus damage. There several modifiers to the roll like if it hits the head armour or the body armour or if the attack is piercing or not, or if a critical strike is rolled etc. Finally there are magic protections for units like if they are ethereal and hard to hit mundane attacks.

Many of our legionaries have short weapons meaning they get repelled. They have average or only slightly better than average attack, meaning that shielded or elite troops will not get hit much. Finally their swords do not do very much damage. This means in order to get a leg up on the competition I will need to use magic on the offensive.

So what is magic and how do we use it. Well let's look at one of our mages. Let's pick an arch theurg. They are some of the most powerful mages in the game. Alright lets have him cast some specific spells to help, and oh geez that is not very impressive.



Air shield and twist fate only affect the mage and are defensive buffs. Air shield blocks arrows so it is useful later. Fire flies shoots a bunch of roman candles at the enemy, and freezing touch is very close range for our squishy mage. He does have access to all the divine spells. Smite a single target spell that can smash on dude a turn. Not very impressive for a guy who costs as much as 30 normal soldiers. So how do we make our mages better?

In dominions to get your mages awesome spells to cast you have to research them in a lab. You mages have to be recruited and then sit around researching spells. This creates a trade off in pull your mages out of the lab now for more power on the battlefield versus unlocking power for later. The research screen looks like this.



Our first goals are evocation and thaumaturgy. Evocation is the magic destroying things with magic. Thaumaturgy is the magic of the mind. We are researching evocation to help with our offense problem. We are researching thaumaturgy to het the communion spell and the ability to fire peoples minds. The communion spell hooks our mages together. There are master, slave versions of the spell. The slave version turns the caster into a magic battery, the master version lets them use that stored magic power. Qwerty stop already mentioned that magic comes in paths. Like for example my theurgs are air one, water one, astral two. Some spells have a path requirement. Making a communion raises the paths of the mages involved depending on the number of communion slaves. So our battle plan is to get mages into a communion, then use strong offensive magic to destroy enemy armies.

[Qwertystop]

Oh, I forgot to take pictures for my last couple of turns. Here's a basic description, though:

Spoiler

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On account of my horrible luck previously, I played it safer. Specifically, after the standard turn-two expansion failed, I recruited a lot of something I can't remember the name of (looks trollish) and stalled another turn, expanding north successfully on turn 4. Turn 5 is expanding east from there. I think. I forget.

EDIT: Okay, now I have Turn 6 pictures.

Spoiler

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Moving to the mountains is my main force, led by my prophet. One squad of cheap archers, one of O-Bakemono (the troll guys). Moving up behind him is a random-event Adventurer (generic commander unit I got for free) who will build another fort in the mountains. Down in my capital I've got some mages. The Air guy, Obscuro, was a mercenary I hired to get a research boost. Gy, the nature one, was another random-event Adventurer, same event. Talion is the third from the set. Maemi and Imako are two Ubas, my normal mages, which I am stopping production of in favor of Sorcerers (take two turns, better magic). Shiro is another commander who will expand south when I build up enough of a force (the indies to the south are much larger groups than expected). I'm also planning to recruit some Kappa soon to take the water, specifically the inland sea between the three islands (the indies are not much good there).

Research is Evocation, for Flaming Arrows.

[Manticoran]

Oh, I forgot to take pictures for my last couple of turns. Here's a basic description, though:

Spoiler

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On account of my horrible luck previously, I played it safer. Specifically, after the standard turn-two expansion failed, I recruited a lot of something I can't remember the name of (looks trollish) and stalled another turn, expanding north successfully on turn 4. Turn 5 is expanding east from there. I think. I forget.

EDIT: Okay, now I have Turn 6 pictures.

Spoiler

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Moving to the mountains is my main force, led by my prophet. One squad of cheap archers, one of O-Bakemono (the troll guys). Moving up behind him is a random-event Adventurer (generic commander unit I got for free) who will build another fort in the mountains. Down in my capital I've got some mages. The Air guy, Obscuro, was a mercenary I hired to get a research boost. Gy, the nature one, was another random-event Adventurer, same event. Talion is the third from the set. Maemi and Imako are two Ubas, my normal mages, which I am stopping production of in favor of Sorcerers (take two turns, better magic). Shiro is another commander who will expand south when I build up enough of a force (the indies to the south are much larger groups than expected). I'm also planning to recruit some Kappa soon to take the water, specifically the inland sea between the three islands (the indies are not much good there).

Research is Evocation, for Flaming Arrows.

FOR QWERTY

Spoiler

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Pssst. Flaming Arrows is in Enchantment, which should yes probably be your focus.

[Qwertystop]

FOR QWERTY

Spoiler

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Pssst. Flaming Arrows is in Enchantment, which should yes probably be your focus.

Spoiler

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noooooooo.Wasted several turns.

[endoperez]

Just chiming in to say that this is looking great so far. It's nice that you allowed for the restart, too.

[Artanis]

I'm enjoying this so far. I've played just enough Dominions 4 to know where most of the buttons are, but so far I'm liking the game