Okay, let me pitch Dominions 5 to you

[shadowwalker64]

I would not mind Biddyn as for a map and select Ulm as my nation.

Ermor is almost self-regulating given that everyone has an incentive to work together to kill them early anyway; I wouldn't mind having him in a game.

[lord_khaine]

Alright, arbitrary cutoff date reached! So we have the following folks for an FFA game:

houlio
Olinser
The Hellbug
shadowwalker64
Thrantar
Manticoran

Anyway, since my current game AI game is over then im in as well.
How about Peliwur for the map? its decently sized with space for a single water nation at most.

Quoting myself from an earlier post.

And i will go as Ermor
Unless there are votes against the nation being allowed.

[Nadevoc]

Yeah, my bad! I thought I was missing someone.

Sounds like folks are cool with Ermor. I'll take Pangaea.

[houlio]

I don’t mind Ermor, and Biddyn seems fine to me. EDIT: Oh, wait, we have 7 people now. Biddyn looks a too small for that. I wouldn't mind Peliwyr/Joloubards.

I’ll be running with Bandar Log.

[lord_khaine]

Is it by the way still in time to change my nation pick?
After having tried Ermor in a test game my conclusion are they are powerful. But really, really boring to play.
If possible i think i will go with Nazca instead.

[The Hellbug]

Yeah, for some reason I thought were 6 instead of 7. Biddyn's too small for seven, but I think Peliwyr is quite a bit on the big side. We should probably be aiming for about 110 land so...Joloubards is my choice?

Edit: Also, honestly, we should be doing nation selection after map selection.

[Olinser]

Yeah, for some reason I thought were 6 instead of 7. Biddyn's too small for seven, but I think Peliwyr is quite a bit on the big side. We should probably be aiming for about 110 land so...Joloubards is my choice?

Edit: Also, honestly, we should be doing nation selection after map selection.

Joloubards isn't bad - MadCountPlayground on llamaserver is also an option.

And of course we could always just do RNG map.

[houlio]

So if we are going to look at stuff votes-wise, I'm seeing the following:
1~2 - Peliwyr
2~3 - Joloubards
1 - MadCountPlayground
1 - RNG

Just to get a sense of where we are at right now knowing we're looking at a 7 player game.

Also @lord_khaine, I assume it's totally fine to switch. It seems like we've mostly just decided on not doing a formal draft for nations. I assume if anyone has objections they can speak up about it.

[Olinser]

So if we are going to look at stuff votes-wise, I'm seeing the following:
1~2 - Peliwyr
2~3 - Joloubards
1 - MadCountPlayground
1 - RNG

Just to get a sense of where we are at right now knowing we're looking at a 7 player game.

Also @lord_khaine, I assume it's totally fine to switch. It seems like we've mostly just decided on not doing a formal draft for nations. I assume if anyone has objections they can speak up about it.

Yes, the purpose of posting was just to 'claim' the race, it doesn't necessarily lock you in.

Since its FFA its not like you really have to worry about counters.

[lord_khaine]

Since its FFA its not like you really have to worry about counters.

Well i was mostly thinking about all the people no doubt immensely sad to suddenly not have Ermor in the game after all.

[The Hellbug]

I mean, I was kind of going to appreciate having someone everyone hated more than my Asphodel.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah.. i know.. im sorry.
I just gave it a 12-13 turn playtest and though. This is getting boring already. Most of what i do is just shuffle skeletons around and throw them at stuff.

[The Hellbug]

Yeah, it's a logistical nightmare. I won't say Asphodel is too much better on that front, except that you mostly care about forests.

[deuterio12]

Yeah.. i know.. im sorry.
I just gave it a 12-13 turn playtest and though. This is getting boring already. Most of what i do is just shuffle skeletons around and throw them at stuff.

You should be able to recruit indie priests that will be able to animate more undead or throw undead buffs in battle to spice things up.

A popular Ermor strategy in Dominions 4 was sinking all gold scales to buy an uber bless since Ermor has two good sacreds. Lictors are your slow tough hard hitting, you can get them either by H3 priest summoning or some spells. With Black Laurel you can pop 1 lictor per death gem. Knights of the Holy Sephulcre have a chance of spawning in every templed fort and are your fast hard hitting. So you could field a significant army of sacreds on crack for some good combat fun.

But in Dominions 5 Ermor has less bless points to play around and the big blesses only work with an awake pretender so not sure how effective it would be anymore.

[The Hellbug]

You also can't reanimate with indy priests anymore--only priests with the 'reanimator priest' ability can do so.

[deuterio12]

You also can't reanimate with indy priests anymore--only priests with the 'reanimator priest' ability can do so.

Just went and re-checked it, MA Ermor can still recruit reanimator indie priests. Other nations that could no longer can yes, but if you check the nation's descrption, MA Ermor explicitly says "All priests can reanimate the undead" while somebody like Lanka says "National priests can reanimate the undead".

Lemuria says all priests can call shadows and spirits.

[Aeson]

But in Dominions 5 Ermor has less bless points to play around and the big blesses only work with an awake pretender so not sure how effective it would be anymore.

An awake Demilich could take something like D7 + X7Y6 and have enough points left over to get Dom-9 without touching the Luck and Magic scales, or it could take Dom-6ish and three scales selected from Luck and Magic. Probably not as good as e.g. N9D9B9 in Dominions 4, but still enough for a pretty heavyweight bless. I'd think bless Ermor could still be pretty effective.

You also can't reanimate with indy priests anymore--only priests with the 'reanimator priest' ability can do so.

The Ashen Empire has a national characteristic which gives indy priests the Reanimator Priest ability.

[deuterio12]

An awake Demilich could take something like D7 + X7Y6 and have enough points left over to get Dom-9 without touching the Luck and Magic scales, or it could take Dom-6ish and three scales selected from Luck and Magic. Probably not as good as e.g. N9D9B9 in Dominions 4, but still enough for a pretty heavyweight bless. I'd think bless Ermor could still be pretty effective.

In my test game turns out that MA Ermor can afford the legendary Etherealness Bless out of the gate with pretty high dominion and Luck 3, that should have some potential.

I would say Luck-scales are non-negotiable since they're pretty much your only source of gold and you want as much gems as possible too.

[Thrantar]

My vote remains on Biddyn.

[Aeson]

In my test game turns out that MA Ermor can afford the legendary Etherealness Bless out of the gate with pretty high dominion and Luck 3, that should have some potential.

While I have not tried it, I have a suspicion that Ethereal is not actually a very good bless for the Ashen Empire when playing against humans. Ethereal is a good ability in large part because it's hard to counter without adequate numbers of mages and decent battle magic, but Banishment is available from the start of the game and works as well against ethereal undead as against corporeal undead, priests are relatively easy to mass, and anyone who thinks that they might be fighting an early war against Ermor is fairly likely to start massing priests whether or not they know Ermor has an ethereal bless. Also, Final Rest looks like it could be devastating to small numbers of elite undead despite being MR negates easily, though how much of an issue that is depends on what else Ermor brought and whether or not the targeting algorithm would on average prioritize 20HP 14MR Lictors over, say, 15HP 5MR Soulless.

I would say Luck-scales are non-negotiable since they're pretty much your only source of gold and you want as much gems as possible too.

Luck's too unreliable to plan around, especially in the early stages of the game, and Ermor doesn't need much gold once it has a certain number of forts and temples up. Getting an extra castle up because of +gold events is nice; failing to build a castle you were counting on having because you didn't get as many +gold events as you expected is a problem. Similarly with gems.

Positive Luck scales improve the long-term average, but they don't get rid of bad events entirely and they don't guarantee anything particularly useful any time soon. They're a bonus, and if your gameplan won't work without them then I'd suggest that your gameplan is in need of revision.

[deuterio12]

While I have not tried it, I have a suspicion that Ethereal is not actually a very good bless for the Ashen Empire when playing against humans. Ethereal is a good ability in large part because it's hard to counter without adequate numbers of mages and decent battle magic, but Banishment is available from the start of the game and works as well against ethereal undead as against corporeal undead, priests are relatively easy to mass, and anyone who thinks that they might be fighting an early war against Ermor is fairly likely to start massing priests whether or not they know Ermor has an ethereal bless. Also, Final Rest looks like it could be devastating to small numbers of elite undead despite being MR negates easily, though how much of an issue that is depends on what else Ermor brought and whether or not the targeting algorithm would on average prioritize 20HP 14MR Lictors over, say, 15HP 5MR Soulless.

Basic Banishment is overrated, I've steamrolled MA Man with MA Ermor despite they bringing dozens of their foreign recruit discount priests. And those priests can actually research, anybody else trying to mass basic priests early game is commiting suicide by crippling their research corps.

Plus one of the nice things about MA Ermor is that their own priests can increase their undead's spell resistance. And MA Ermor can't recruit mages so their templed forts will be busy spamming more indie priests than anybody else.

Maybe the new custom banishments may give the living some hope, but if all it took was basic priests to stop the Ashen Ermor tide, they wouldn't be rightfully feared.

Luck's too unreliable to plan around, especially in the early stages of the game, and Ermor doesn't need much gold once it has a certain number of forts and temples up. Getting an extra castle up because of +gold events is nice; failing to build a castle you were counting on having because you didn't get as many +gold events as you expected is a problem. Similarly with gems.

Positive Luck scales improve the long-term average, but they don't get rid of bad events entirely and they don't guarantee anything particularly useful any time soon. They're a bonus, and if your gameplan won't work without them then I'd suggest that your gameplan is in need of revision.

What's your plan B for setting up forts and temples then? Order/Production/Growth are all virtually useless with Ermor's population dying super fast, even their cap starts almost depleted. And if you're sinking Order for Turnoil, you may as well grab Luck for the chance of those giant piles of treasure.

[shadowwalker64]

Luck's too unreliable to plan around, especially in the early stages of the game, and Ermor doesn't need much gold once it has a certain number of forts and temples up. Getting an extra castle up because of +gold events is nice; failing to build a castle you were counting on having because you didn't get as many +gold events as you expected is a problem. Similarly with gems.

Positive Luck scales improve the long-term average, but they don't get rid of bad events entirely and they don't guarantee anything particularly useful any time soon. They're a bonus, and if your gameplan won't work without them then I'd suggest that your gameplan is in need of revision.

Quite sure I've seen calculations floating around somewhere that T3L3 gives more gold (on average) than O3 or P3 alone, and that's not even counting the gems that you'd get. As you say, it's nothing to be relied upon, but the extra income is very welcome and pays for a temple every few turns (perhaps more; in my EA Yomi AI build I'm still able to afford temples in almost every province with money to spare for labs, but that nation still has pop to rely on).

I would have thought maxing Luck would have been standard for Ermor; for reducing the likelihood of bad events if not for anything else. The high magic scale that you're likely running would mean that there's a higher chance of the high-gem/magic item events anyway. You aren't even scared of the more crippling popkill events that you mainly want to dodge as any nation anyway, given that your population is already dead XP


With regards to map choice, I'm happy to go with whatever the majority is: so long as there's only space for 1 water nation I'm happy.

[deuterio12]

Quite sure I've seen calculations floating around somewhere that T3L3 gives more gold (on average) than O3 or P3 alone, and that's not even counting the gems that you'd get. As you say, it's nothing to be relied upon, but the extra income is very welcome and pays for a temple every few turns (perhaps more; in my EA Yomi AI build I'm still able to afford temples in almost every province with money to spare for labs, but that nation still has pop to rely on).

Indeed, T3L3 can be quite profitable and if your nation has any other bonus for Turnoil (Yomi, Lanka), then it is a no-brainer, in particular since if you're going turnoil 3 you really want to dodge as many bad events as possible.

[The Hellbug]

BTW, been tooling around with Asphodel--I think I'll retract that choice until I know what the map actually is. There are some maps that love to give them crappy starting locations.

[Aeson]

What's your plan B for setting up forts and temples then? Order/Production/Growth are all virtually useless with Ermor's population dying super fast, even their cap starts almost depleted. And if you're sinking Order for Turnoil, you may as well grab Luck for the chance of those giant piles of treasure.

Have you ever actually tried Luck-0 Ashen Empire? Its gold economy, especially during the expansion phase and maybe out to the end of year two, is not that bad considering that all it really wants to spend it on are forts, temples, and maybe indie priests and mages. If you stagnate you might be in trouble, but that's true of any nation.

Also, if you're going to spend precious early-game gems and mage-turns on summoning Lictors, you'd probably be better served by spending design points on something that makes your Lictors better early on than on things that might help you out later, because making the Lictors better helps your expansion and your early wars better than Magic will when you're cutting mage corps expansion and early research to summon Lictors, and Luck probably won't do too much for you for the first year or two of the game.

MA Ermor can't recruit mages so their templed forts will be busy spamming more indie priests than anybody else.

MA Ermor can recruit indie mages about as readily as it can recruit indie priests. The only difference is that the most common indie mages are garbage whereas the most common indie priests are no worse than any other H1.

Quite sure I've seen calculations floating around somewhere that T3L3 gives more gold (on average) than O3 or P3 alone, and that's not even counting the gems that you'd get.

This is irrelevant - MA Ermor isn't going to take Order-3 or Production-3, and even if it did it wouldn't gain much of anything by doing so. What matters for MA Ermor is how much better T3L3 is than T3L0, especially early in the game when setting up your core castles and temples, and, frankly, my experience is that T3L3 is not much better than T3L0 during the critical early setup stage. Yes, sometimes L3 will give you an extra couple hundred or a thousand gold that you wouldn't have had otherwise, but it doesn't do so reliably enough to plan your early game around it. Luck-3 is more useful the longer the game goes on, but if Ermor's getting even 100 gold/turn in the later stages of the game it has about as much gold as it needs.

I would have thought maxing Luck would have been standard for Ermor; for reducing the likelihood of bad events if not for anything else

As far as protection against negative events goes, gemloss events are rare and minor outside of drain scales, uprisings and barbarian invasions are usually no more than mildly inconvenient, and building destruction is typically no worse than irritating. +Gem events, particularly in combination with a Magic scale, are a much stronger reason to take Luck scales as Ermor, but once again it's mostly a long-term thing, especially as a lot of the gem events are individually useless.

Basic Banishment is overrated, I've steamrolled MA Man with MA Ermor despite they bringing dozens of their foreign recruit discount priests. And those priests can actually research, anybody else trying to mass basic priests early game is commiting suicide by crippling their research corps.

The best research corps in the game is useless if the player who has it is defeated before they can effectively deploy its products, and failing to counter an enemy at least well enough to more or less hold the line is more deadly than slowing or stopping the expansion of the research corps to deploy battle magic when it's needed. Additionally, deploying battle magic of any kind - priestly or otherwise - comes at a cost to the research corps, because the mages of the research corps can only serve as battle mages in unfortified lab provinces or if they're defending a castle against assault, and as a result there is very little overlap between the battle mage corps and the research mage corps at any given point in time. Basic priests tend to be a relatively inexpensive and efficient way to expand the battle mage corps early on in the event of war with a nation fielding undead hordes.

Also, this is not an all-or-nothing scenario. Mage recruitment is not mutually exclusive with priest recruitment over any timespan greater than one turn, and even then they're only mutually exclusive if you're short of commander points in suitable recruitment locations or if you're short of gold. Recruitment of commanders and troops for armies, mages for the research corps, mages and priests for site-searching and construction and ritual magic, and mages and priests for battlefield support is a balance, and tipping too far in one direction can be just as fatal as tipping too far in any other direction. Refusing to adjust the balance when necessary is as suicidal as over-emphasizing any one area.

[lord_khaine]

Oh gods i cant find the Joloubards map. Why the heck does that thing not have a search function. Or at least the maps in alphabetic order..?

[Olinser]

Oh gods i cant find the Joloubards map. Why the heck does that thing not have a search function. Or at least the maps in alphabetic order..?

It does have a search.

Click in the map list, then push 'J'. Joloubards is the first one that comes up. You can do this with anything to find the map you're looking for as long as you know the name - just keep pushing the first letter of the name and it will cycle through all maps starting with that letter until you find the one you're looking for.

[lord_khaine]

Ah alright thank you.

The map does not look so interesting again.

My vote for Peliwyr remains then.

[lord_khaine]

Anyway, if noone else changes their vote from Joloubard to Peliwyr then i guess it is Joloubard that wins.
How many are missing picking a nation. Should we set a deadline for that as well?

[Olinser]

Anyway, if noone else changes their vote from Joloubard to Peliwyr then i guess it is Joloubard that wins.
How many are missing picking a nation. Should we set a deadline for that as well?

I haven't really decided yet I'll just send it in when we create the game and post when I figure it out.

I can go ahead and create the game, though, so people can lock in their stuff, if yall want, I have some time today.