Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you

[Knaight]

Well turn is out now, if you can put it in that should cover it till you get back, otherwise we'll need to push it back.

Turn is in. I think we're good.

[lord_khaine]

That might be the answer, after a fashion - story event chains remain active when the province changes hands, but I seem to recall that the province history (i) shows only those events that occurred in the province while it was under your rule, or at least under your observation (e.g. with a Spy). Not positive since I don't think I've ever bothered to cast it, but maybe Acashic Record cast on the capital of the former owner(s) of the province or The Eyes of God global enchantment would reveal event history under their rule.

Alright i figured it out. I had to patrol the province first to actually find the location of the spot i wanted to examine.
Then i could examine it and find out it was a kraken lair.
And then i could water magic it for kraken eggs.

[Spacewolf]

So I've been keeping an eye on this game for awhile I doubt I'll get it just yet but from some of the lets plays I've watched it seems Glamour is a pretty damn powerful ability. Does it have any good counters? Also have any of our players chosen a faction that uses alot of Glamour?

[The Hellbug]

So I've been keeping an eye on this game for awhile I doubt I'll get it just yet but from some of the lets plays I've watched it seems Glamour is a pretty damn powerful ability. Does it have any good counters? Also have any of our players chosen a faction that uses alot of Glamour?

Arrows are a good counter to glamour (well, more the units that have it). Almost all units that have glamour are some flavor of elves, whose durability comes from the glamour and exceptionally high defense skill, meaning they have a very high chance of deflecting attacks entirely. However, this only applies to melee attacks. Therefore, the easiest way to bring down glamoured units is to rain projectiles on them.

This is complicated somewhat by magic that can be employed by most of the glamoured casters (lots of elves have air paths, and arrow fend and mistform exist), but that's the easy answer.

[Aeson]

Damage magic - especially AoE damage magic - is also pretty good at removing glamour, most of it ignores Arrow Fend and pops Mistform, and depending on what paths you have and what your research priorities are it'll probably be available reasonably early, though getting enough mages to deploy it can be a bit more problematic. You might have some issues with targeting, depending on what's accompanying the glamoured units; damage spells tend to be targeted on squares where their expected damage is high, so a mass of e.g. Serf Warriors (up to 30 HP/tile) in the center is generally more likely to attract your mages' Fireballs, Falling Fires/Frosts, Storms of Thorns, Lightning/Thunder Bolts, Orb Lightnings, etc than the Mounted Hirdmen (up to 26 HP/tile) on the flanks.

(lots of elves have air paths, and arrow fend and mistform exist)

Also Storm (50% of nonmagical missiles disappear, precision is halved), which A nations tend to want to put up so that they can Summon Storm Power even if arrows aren't an issue, and Mist (precision halved).

[The Hellbug]

The other thing to mention is that most of the glamoured units you'll be dealing with are commanders, frequently geared and buffed up to carve through normal troops. As such, many magical options exist for dealing with them and other thugs (a magic problem frequently demands a magic solution). Save or die magic comes to mind, because eventually their spell resistance will fail. Frozen heart is frequently a good way to deal with these kinds of folks later on if they don't have cold immunity. Most things that counter thugs in general counter glamoured thugs (with the exception of things like eyebiters, which require you to hit them).

[Ionbound]

There's also the issues with archers. With the move to real time, they still are firing at where the enemies are rather than where they're going to be.

[lord_khaine]

Anyone think the issue with Arrows will be patched somehow? Or will this just be the version with less useful archers?

[The Hellbug]

There's also the issues with archers. With the move to real time, they still are firing at where the enemies are rather than where they're going to be.

I hadn't actually realized this particular quality of the new battle system. Whoops!

[Olinser]

Anyone think the issue with Arrows will be patched somehow? Or will this just be the version with less useful archers?

Given how TOO useful archers were in Dom 4 at some stages of the game, I'm guessing they're just going to be less useful.

[Ionbound]

Except archers went from amazing to almost entirely pointless. Archers literally can't hit anything unless it's already in melee at which point the risk of friendly fire is too high for them to be worth it.

[Olinser]

Except archers went from amazing to almost entirely pointless. Archers literally can't hit anything unless it's already in melee at which point the risk of friendly fire is too high for them to be worth it.

/shrug, just a classic balance overcorrection. The problem with archers is that they were WAY too cheap for the amount of free damage they were getting out in the early game, so they nerfed them against small groups of units. Against larger groups or enemy archers/casters that are stationary they'll still generally hit something and do damage with most of their shots, they're just not nearly as all-purpose as they used to be.

I wouldn't really expect them to patch it. They're still somewhat useful in some armies, they're just not the OMG EVERYBODY MUST USE that they were.

[Aeson]

Except archers went from amazing to almost entirely pointless. Archers literally can't hit anything unless it's already in melee at which point the risk of friendly fire is too high for them to be worth it.

Archers can usually hit infantry in box formation pretty well even before the lines have closed, and removing glamour is well worth a bit of friendly fire if you're facing any significant number of the units that have it or if you run into a bunch of Vanherse/Vanjarl thugs or something like that, especially if it's early enough that you lack other counters.

Furthermore, once armies grow beyond a certain size, more melee infantry/cavalry doesn't really help that much. Not all of your armies are going to be huge, but for those that are, four lines of swordsmen and six lines of archers is probably better than ten lines of swordsmen.

Also, while there are certainly times when a tool in your tool box is inappropriate, it is a mistake to completely disregard a tool in a nation's toolbox just because it can cause a bit of friendly fire damage. Saying, for example, that EA Ermor or MA Marignon should never use things like Fireball, Falling Fires, and Living Fire because their troops aren't fire resistant and so may take a lot of friendly fire damage is plain wrong. It's not a tool appropriate to every problem, but fire is a big part of their national magic (especially for MA Marignon) and ignoring most of what it can do can be rather limiting, especially on a nation like Marignon whose non-Fire options are rather limited.

[Knaight]

Except archers went from amazing to almost entirely pointless. Archers literally can't hit anything unless it's already in melee at which point the risk of friendly fire is too high for them to be worth it.

On the other hand that leaves open basically every case where you have archers and well armored troops, and your opponent has poorly armored troops. Glamour units frequently fit this pattern.

Other notes - no need to delay anything, I'm back earlier than expected and the turn still hasn't cleared.

[Olinser]

On the other hand that leaves open basically every case where you have archers and well armored troops, and your opponent has poorly armored troops. Glamour units frequently fit this pattern.

Other notes - no need to delay anything, I'm back earlier than expected and the turn still hasn't cleared.

Heh heh heh. 'Turn still hasn't cleared'.

You make it sound like you're a debt collector and somebody gave you a bad check.

You gonna go break Vanheim's legs if he doesn't pay up on time?

[deuterio12]

Hmm, that sounds like a great idea for a random event. "Your commander failed to pay some shark loan, a debt collector came and broke his legs (gains crippled affliction)".

[Knaight]

Heh heh heh. 'Turn still hasn't cleared'.

You make it sound like you're a debt collector and somebody gave you a bad check.

You gonna go break Vanheim's legs if he doesn't pay up on time?

I mean, if Vanheim starts stale turning routinely they're going to be an easy target for everyone near them. There's some metaphorical leg breaking to be done there.

Hmm, that sounds like a great idea for a random event. "Your commander failed to pay some shark loan, a debt collector came and broke his legs (gains crippled affliction)".

A kappa loan shark collection crew would be a really fun mercenary group. Just putting that out there.

[Olinser]

So not right now obviously, but later on in a couple weeks, would anybody be interested in starting a large 2 team vs game? Where rather than a FFA or a bunch of small teams its just straight 1 team vs 1 team?

[deuterio12]

I would. Once had an undead vs living 2 team game, great fun with an epic end where as I stormed MA Marignon's cap with MA Ermor, they had just casted the Purgatory spell that deals damage to all unliving in the world so all my stuff was half-burned yet still managed to win, including killing the mage that had casted the global.

[lord_khaine]

It does sound kinda fun.

Also, i saw a stream where someone somehow managed to copy/past commander orders. How do you do that?

[Olinser]

It does sound kinda fun.

Also, i saw a stream where someone somehow managed to copy/past commander orders. How do you do that?

What do you mean by copy/paste? Do you mean he copied them from one game to another on the 2h file he sent in? That wouldn't be too hard, he'd just need to open the 2h file in an appropriate text editor, know which section was commander orders, and copy the relevant area.

Or did you mean actually inside the game itself?

[The Hellbug]

In game, if you hover your mouse over a commander's orders, press control+a number. Then, you can hover your mouse over a different commander's orders and press that number to put them there--super useful for scripting mages.

[deuterio12]

It does sound kinda fun.

Also, i saw a stream where someone somehow managed to copy/past commander orders. How do you do that?

Ctrl+(1-9) while hovering the mouse over the order you want to copy, then press the same number again over another commander to paste the orders.

[Olinser]

In game, if you hover your mouse over a commander's orders, press control+a number. Then, you can hover your mouse over a different commander's orders and press that number to put them there--super useful for scripting mages.

Oh he meant combat orders, for some reason I thought he meant copying overland orders. In retrospect I guess that doesn't make much sense to think that.

Yeah you copy them by hovering and storing them like a control group in an RTS with CTRL-# and then copying it with just #.

You can also duplicate an order with 'x' I believe, though I'm away from my comp so I can't check the key for certain.

[Knaight]

In game, if you hover your mouse over a commander's orders, press control+a number. Then, you can hover your mouse over a different commander's orders and press that number to put them there--super useful for scripting mages.

It's even better now that you can make small tweaks (swapping out one spell) without completely rewriting the orders from the beginning.

[lord_khaine]

Thanks a lot for the replies on order copying. It will make it a lot faster to order combat mages.

[deuterio12]

Nadevoc, your PM box is full. You need to delete older messages or you won't be able to send/receive any new ones.

[Olinser]

Nadevoc, your PM box is full. You need to delete older messages or you won't be able to send/receive any new ones.

Obviously a clever and carefully calculated ploy to pretend to be out of contact while he lays his plans. You'd best be careful, this is clearly a nefarious plot by Earth Wurm Jymm to overthrow Invincible Stone Fortress Pedra Z and reign forever as the one true God!!!

[Nadevoc]

Indeed. Jymm did not slither free from the bowels of the earth just to talk up someone else. Jymm will claim the thrones for himself.

This is not at all just me being lazy about deleting things because email inboxes are so huge that I can still keep emails from a decade ago in

[Olinser]

It does sound kinda fun.

Also, i saw a stream where someone somehow managed to copy/past commander orders. How do you do that?

OK so that's one tentative, anybody else interested in playing a large team game in a few weeks, where there's actually only 2 teams and 2 pretenders, and everybody is on one side or the other? Obviously we wouldn't start for a few weeks at least, but given it took a good couple weeks to get organized for this first game I'm leaning forward :P

Alternately I was kind of considering doing almost like a mini-campaign, where we have constant participants for 3 games for 'history', going Early Age, Middle Age, Late Age consecutively, where we do something like everybody starts in a free for all in the first game, but then the Early Age ends when half the players are knocked out, and we start a Middle Age game where the remaining players are the Pretenders and the knockouts are their Disciples, and that goes until there are only 2 Pretenders left, then we go to Late Age and the last 2 Pretenders have everybody else as their Disciples for one final battle?