Results 721 to 750 of 959
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2018-04-21, 03:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
1 hag is 40 gold for 5 research.
1 Gygja is 225 gold for 15 research.
You only need 120 gold worth of hags to match the Gygja's research ability.
And even if Gygjas were more cost efficient, they're still cap only. It's insane to expect to have anything resembling a proper research force with only your cap mages. Not to mention blood hunting potential. A blood 1 hag is just as good as finding slaves as a blood 1 Gygja. Ditto for item forging and battle buffing. Hags can build plenty of cheap trinkets and provide solid support in battle.
Also, if recruitment locations rather than gold are the limiter on your mage recruitment, then Skrattir are arguably more fort+lab-turn-efficient researchers than Vaetti Hags are, even in Magic-3 - 15+M additional research every other turn is a higher rate of increase than 5+M every turn, though there is some degree of advantage in getting some of the research output slightly sooner, and obviously gold being less of a limit on recruitment than recruitment locations tends to be a rather temporary state of affairs. Gold-efficiency isn't the only efficiency that matters; time-efficiency can be at least as important, and big mages can often get the research ball rolling faster than little mages, even if the little mages are a lot more gold-efficient per point of research generated.
Oh, and as regards battlefield support, I'd take Gygjas and Skrattir over Vaetti Hags any day of the week if I had enough research for it to make sense. X1 mages aren't exactly worthless on the battlefield even without gems or boosters, but most of them aren't great, either, and N1s liked to cast Touch of Madness on other casters rather too much for my comfort in Dominions 4.
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2018-04-21, 04:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Indeed not all X1 mages are equal, but Astral 1 do happen to be pretty much the best, Blood 1 is a close second and a lot of D1 mages can mess stuff up too.
I'm not saying they should've recruited only hags, but if Jotun was so strapped for gold, then hags was the way to go for magic support while developing infrastructure and troops. Instead they went "Well I can't recruit my most expensive national mages outside my cap, better to not recruit any extra national mages at all" it seems. A mage force of only Gygjas and Skratti is simply unsustainable if the game doesn't end right away in particular as their huge upkeep piles up, hags would've greatly helped round it up for a balanced and versatile mage corps.
Caelum for example had a good spread between high seraphs for the big spells, caelum serahps for smaller spell spam, and the cheap ice crafter for research duty.
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2018-04-21, 08:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Location
- Midwest, not Middle East
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I actually had too much gold in the mid and late game, so I put down extra forts, labs, and temples and sent some to Jotunheim. Maybe I should have sent more, or funded Van or Ulm so they could delay Agartha better. Money (and gems) in storage are not helping you win wars.
I picked the W1 mages over the A1 mages for early research because they also provide resources. I was trying to use more Iceclad so they could actually survive a battle. But, recpoints got in the way. W1 means Frozen Heart later on, while A1 means more lightning once you have storm and storm piwhave er which is earlier.
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2018-04-21, 05:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I agree that S1 is pretty good for battle magic, at if you can bring enough of it, but B1 is garbage for battle magic - Summon Imps and Leech are the only halfway decent general-purpose spells that they can do, but every casting costs a slave, the spells (particularly Leech, considering how late it becomes available) aren't that great for the cost (even though Blood Slaves tend to be the gems with the lowest unit value), and Summon Imps puts the caster to sleep for a while. The only thing that makes B1 Hags all that worthwhile on the battlefield is that you can use them in place of S1 Hags for Communion slaves, but Hag slaves - especially the B1s - are probably going to be taking a lot of fatigue when the masters cast spells, because the masters are probably going to be Gygjas or Skrattir casting big W, D, N, and S battle magic. Granted, Gygjas and Skrattir are both guaranteed to have B and a B Hag could be used as a master, so if necessary they can spend blood slaves to mitigate the fatigue issues that Hags can have as communion slaves, and a Gygja can cast Personal Regeneration or Relief to help keep the slaves alive.
As far as the battlefield utility of D1 Hags goes, I only agree because Hags' low cost and the fact that about half of them are either D1 or S1 means that you can probably mass up enough of them to apply a lot of fatigue fairly quickly with Stellar Cascades and Ghost Grip spam. Most of the rest of what a D1 Hag can do is either done better by Gygjas (skelespam, fear, anti-undead magic) or is only situationally useful (Weaken, Spirit Curse, Decay, anti-undead magic).
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2018-04-21, 06:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Location
- Midwest, not Middle East
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I would save the B hags for blood hunting. S for communions or light of the Northern Star to enable better spells. N for swarm I guess. D for frighten spam. They were better when you could get 1/turn from a forest with jist a lab.
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2018-04-21, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I would, too, but this
Indeed not all X1 mages are equal, but Astral 1 do happen to be pretty much the best, Blood 1 is a close second and a lot of D1 mages can mess stuff up too.
Oh, and as regards battlefield support, I'd take Gygjas and Skrattir over Vaetti Hags any day of the week if I had enough research for it to make sense. X1 mages aren't exactly worthless on the battlefield even without gems or boosters, but most of them aren't great, either, and N1s liked to cast Touch of Madness on other casters rather too much for my comfort in Dominions 4.
D for frighten spam.
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2018-04-21, 10:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Leech is crazy good, easily one of the top blasting spells in Dominions. 25 armor negating no-save damage to a full square will ruin the day of most units, including fancy sacreds. It's a great counter for thugs too and a bunch of B1 hags can tear out holes in an army if not outright wipe it out if they lack the numbers (each hag will kill 3 human-sized per round). Being able to be used for communions is also good, and Blood also has the reinv spell so a B1 hag can spam imps all battle long with enough blood slaves. Never underestimate the power of drowning your enemy in imps.
Plus I must say you're seriously underestimating the power of blood battle magic. Your mages being able to reset fatigue is awesome, then you have crazy versatility. Damage, buffs, fears, summons, you have a bit of everything in just one school. Chaining enough bloodlettings will wipe out most armies, in particular effective with Jotun whose own giant mages can tank the damage better.
Besides Frighten and Ghost Grip D1 hags can also help with skelly spam. Sure they'll only get 1 zombie or skeleton per turn, but when you have several hags it build ups. Or they can counter elite undead with Dust to Dust if the need arises.
And a key strategic advance for getting a sizeable force of hags is having astral counters. Skrattis never get astral, so half your gygjas suddenly become "insert astral duel here" if you don't have astral hags around. Then when you run out of Astral gygjas you're just mind hunt fodder (Ys was about to get able to get that to stop Jotunheim's underwater assault). Or if your enemy also only has a few expensive mages with low astral, you can use your own hags to astral duel them! Why yes I'll trade my 40 gold hag I got from a forest for your fancy 4 recruitment point 300+gold cap only mage.
Plus hags are stealthy too, so you can have astral hags sneak with an army to bait mind hunts.Last edited by deuterio12; 2018-04-21 at 10:19 PM.
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2018-04-21, 10:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2018-04-21, 11:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Leech only comes online at Blood 7, burns a Blood Slave every time it's cast, and is only AoE1. It's pretty good at erasing a tile of units, but that's nothing special for a spell that requires seven levels of research and a gem per cast, even if it only takes a level 1 caster to do it and only needs the least valuable gem type.
Blood also has the reinv spell so a B1 hag can spam imps all battle long with enough blood slaves. Never underestimate the power of drowning your enemy in imps.
Being able to be used for communions is also good
Also, Blood battlemagic has a much higher logistical footprint than basically any other path's battle magic, unless you lean really heavily on elementals or something like that.
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2018-04-22, 12:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2011
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Frozen Heart demands 6 levels of research, deals less damage, only affects one unit, can be stopped by cold resistance yet it's considered a great spell. Leech is one research level higher yes but deals over twice as much damage, to potentially multiple targets, slightly better range, and doesn't care about any resistance.
Luckily the AI is smart enough to spam summons and reinvigoration. It's one of the reasons skelly spam is so effective.
Using your cap-only mages as communion slaves is the opposite of convenient, in particular when again they can be easily sniped by astral duel.
Besides plenty of spells benefit from being cast at higher levels, including better magic penetration. A master gygja throwing shadow blasts with 8 hags boosting her up is truly a thing to fear. But good luck being able to afford 8 gygja slaves to skyrocket magic level.
And again blood has the awesome reinvigoration spell. Meaning that you only need 1 master spamming it every round and your slaves will always get their fatigue cleaned away. No communion can run as long as blood communion.
True, and that's why Blood it's not completely broken by being able to do virtually everything by just researching in one school. But you wanted scouts to carry gems for your armies anyway mid-late game, and each can carry up to 30 slaves, so it isn't that higher.
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2018-04-22, 02:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
In non-path 1 battle mage news, we'll be taking Pythium, Emerald Empire.
Former Owner of GiTP's fanciest Bloodbowl Team: The Fancy Lads
The League's Self-Proclaimed Perennial Favorites and Season III Champions!
Current Owner and Manager of Rampant Professionalism
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2018-04-22, 03:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Frozen Heart demands 6 levels of research, deals less damage, only affects one unit, can be stopped by cold resistance yet it's considered a great spell.
Leech is one research level higher yes but deals over twice as much damage, to potentially multiple targets, slightly better range, and doesn't care about any resistance.
And again blood has the awesome reinvigoration spell. Meaning that you only need 1 master spamming it every round and your slaves will always get their fatigue cleaned away. No communion can run as long as blood communion.
Besides plenty of spells benefit from being cast at higher levels, including better magic penetration. A master gygja throwing shadow blasts with 8 hags boosting her up is truly a thing to fear.
Using your cap-only mages as communion slaves is the opposite of convenient, in particular when again they can be easily sniped by astral duel.
S1 Hags don't need to spend a gem to join a communion; B1 hags do. S1 Hags enter a communion at much lower fatigue than B1 Hags. S1 Hags have no particular noncombat role for which they are uniquely suitable; B1 Hags are by far Jotunheim's most economical blood hunters.
I'd also say that there's more S than B battlemagic that I'd actually want to cast with a communion - there are a number of pretty great S battlefield enchants, whereas B only has "boost Strength of friendly demons," "mass poison resistance," "reduce everyone's morale," and "boost Strength of friendly units." If I need to kill something big and powerful, a Communion of a given size can support more Soul Slay, Paralyze, Mind Burn, Opposition, or Enslave Mind casters than it can support anything to do with Blood, though if I have the research and caster for it the "go to Hell" spells are probably better. Given the choice, I'd generally sooner use a communion for S battle magic than B battle magic, and that again favors using S1 Hags over B1 Hags for communion slaves.
Unless I desperately need a few more communion slaves or unless I'm at a point in the game where it really doesn't matter, I'd far sooner use S1 Hags than B1 Hags as communion slaves.
Now, if I don't have my choice of battle magic because I decided I wanted to get to the good Blood rituals quickly and the game hasn't been going on long enough for me to diversify my research, or because I don't have an available caster who can do anything else, then sure, Blood battle magic will do - some magic support, after all, is generally better than no magic support - but it's far from my first choice in battle magic.
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2018-04-22, 01:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Question: How would one best use an awake mage pretender early game? Just kickstart your research with it , then have it conjure (or if it's not a statue, possibly help expand with a line of infantry in front and some basic evocation spells)? The earth serpent was nice and easy to use because it was just "make it go bite stuff and grab free provinces".
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2018-04-22, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2012
- Location
- California
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
It depends on what paths you put on it and what your plan is.
For a mage pretender you basically have 4 things you might want to do:
1) Research - usually you only want your pretender to do this from the start if you have a SPECIFIC spell or thug item you want to rush for that would immediately affect the game - usually a summon spell that you can start casting with your other mages
2) Site searching - a mage with good rainbow paths searching in the early game can give you a very large stockpile of gems for the mid game and very good income
3) Conjuring - usually not ideal unless you have a bonus or you're conjuring something your normal mages can't summon, as most spells are not affected by how strong in paths the caster is, its better to have your pretender do something else and normal mages conjuring
4) Forging - same as conjuring above, unless you are making something specific that your normal mages can't make you usually want to avoid it
Me personally I would usually be site searching rather than researching as most pretenders don't really give that much research compared to normal mages, and if you have a good rainbow path you can find a LOT of sites with a single search.
Artist of my Avatar: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rakrakrak-272771299ALL HAIL THE GREAT RAK!!
I use the same name in every game I ever play or forum I join (except the pretender on PSN that forced me to be RealOlinser). If you see an Olinser in a game or on a website, there's a high chance it's me, feel free to shoot me a message.
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2018-04-22, 03:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Okay, cool. I've been trying to figure out what the advantage of rainbow mages - seemed like they would basically just be another mage since they have a bunch of paths, but not too many points in them. But if you have them awake and just run around searching for magic sites, you'll have a bunch more gems to work with because you can rely on them to catch pretty much every site. Plus, they can construct a bunch of items from paths you'd otherwise be missing. Sort of a mid-game focused choice?
And then if you focus instead on going heavy into one or two paths, you probably awaken later instead so the powerful spells are already researched.
Seems like the inanimate are mainly for scales pretenders then, right?
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2018-04-22, 03:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Not entirely necessarily--the high starting dominion makes buying very high dominion easier, which can be useful for a number of nations that really want to push theirs.
Coach and Owner of Hellbug's Heroes, Sneak Kings, Sultans of Slaughter, and Commercial Cast-Offs. Season II and III runner-up. Season IV league champion. Season VII division champion.
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2018-04-22, 04:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
It turns out the old order never unpicked Atlantis - Terror of the Deep, and Bane of your Beaches
Last edited by lord_khaine; 2018-04-23 at 12:41 AM.
thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-04-22, 08:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
For Rainbow Mages - generally site searching is where they're most efficient, and research is what you do if site searching is particularly dangerous right now.
I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2018-04-23, 12:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Team rebellion's final nation will be Abysia, Blood and Fire.
Coach and Owner of Hellbug's Heroes, Sneak Kings, Sultans of Slaughter, and Commercial Cast-Offs. Season II and III runner-up. Season IV league champion. Season VII division champion.
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2018-04-24, 01:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Team The Old Guard's last pick will be Nazca - Pretty Ghost Angels for Everyone
With this the teams are set.
!!Let the battle for Dominion begin!!thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-04-24, 02:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2012
- Location
- California
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
OK the game is created and ready for inputs. Just to make sure there are no last minute changes here are the settings of the game, they can still be changed before we start:
Game Name: GITP4v4Rematch
Map: Broken Triangles
Era: Middle
Max Players: 8
Score Graphs: Off
Random Starting Research: Off
Research: Standard
Global Enchantment Slots: 5
Special Site Frequency: Default
Money/Resource/Supplies multiple: 100
Random Event Frequency: Rare
Story Events: None
Human AI Level: Impossible
# of Starting Provinces: 1
Artifact Forging Limit: 1/turn
Clustered Starts: On
Mods used: None
Renaming: On
Victory Conditions: Thrones of Ascension
Required points: 16 out of 20
Level 1 Thrones: 8
Level 2 Thrones: 3
Level 3 Thrones: 2
Artist of my Avatar: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rakrakrak-272771299ALL HAIL THE GREAT RAK!!
I use the same name in every game I ever play or forum I join (except the pretender on PSN that forced me to be RealOlinser). If you see an Olinser in a game or on a website, there's a high chance it's me, feel free to shoot me a message.
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2018-04-24, 02:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2012
- Location
- California
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Also remember once everybody has submitted I'll need to know what nation on your team is the pretender before we start so I can flag it (and we'll provide you ours at the same time).
Artist of my Avatar: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rakrakrak-272771299ALL HAIL THE GREAT RAK!!
I use the same name in every game I ever play or forum I join (except the pretender on PSN that forced me to be RealOlinser). If you see an Olinser in a game or on a website, there's a high chance it's me, feel free to shoot me a message.
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2018-04-24, 10:45 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Does anyone have the Broken Triangles map? The link on llama is broken.
Coach and Owner of Hellbug's Heroes, Sneak Kings, Sultans of Slaughter, and Commercial Cast-Offs. Season II and III runner-up. Season IV league champion. Season VII division champion.
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2018-04-24, 11:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
I managed to download it fine earlier today.
If you PM me a mail adress i will send you a suspect zip file :Pthnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-04-25, 04:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
People are being a little inactive at the moment..
Do we really need to raise the air tax another 10%, to see some action???thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-04-25, 05:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Former Owner of GiTP's fanciest Bloodbowl Team: The Fancy Lads
The League's Self-Proclaimed Perennial Favorites and Season III Champions!
Current Owner and Manager of Rampant Professionalism
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2018-04-25, 11:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
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2018-04-25, 01:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2012
- Location
- California
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Artist of my Avatar: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rakrakrak-272771299ALL HAIL THE GREAT RAK!!
I use the same name in every game I ever play or forum I join (except the pretender on PSN that forced me to be RealOlinser). If you see an Olinser in a game or on a website, there's a high chance it's me, feel free to shoot me a message.
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2018-04-25, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
We are furiously plotting your cosmic downfallslightly inactive, yes.
In all seriousness, we've been talking about a few different disciple and pretender options is all. Maybe we should just set a deadline for submissions, like Thursday night or Friday?
Though.. a more fair person might say its hard to blame you, when we took so long picking nations.thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-04-25, 07:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2012
- Location
- California
- Gender
Re: Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you
Yeah I kind of figure a good target would be Friday for everybody to have their submissions in, then the turn can go out and we can make sure there are no start position shenanigans that require a restart and we'll proceed from there.
Artist of my Avatar: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rakrakrak-272771299ALL HAIL THE GREAT RAK!!
I use the same name in every game I ever play or forum I join (except the pretender on PSN that forced me to be RealOlinser). If you see an Olinser in a game or on a website, there's a high chance it's me, feel free to shoot me a message.