The new general "Dominions 5" Thread

[Aeson]

Yeah, be careful with the scale power tags - [Scale] Power X gives a bonus of X*[scale value in province] to Strength, Attack, Defense, and Combat Speed, so it can make the unit's power very swingy depending on whether or not it's in favorable scales.

[lord_khaine]

In this case its heat power 2, so it should not be a surprise if a given unit turns into a monster in the nations native H3 domain.

[deuterio12]

Yeah, but it works both ways, get them in a cold province and suddenly they're a lot weaker. It's the Niefelheim/Caelum paradigm, some units get really powerful in the right weather but crumble like wet paper if they find themselves in a province with the opposite temperature. Really good for defense, but not so hot (pun intended) for offense.

Plus there's always ranged attacks which fully ignore defense by default not to menion lowl level spells like earth meld and whatnot.

[lord_khaine]

Initial Cinnabar

Spoiler

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*Minor fluff mixup with veteran trainer.
*The site spells require death magic instead of fire.
* Legendary Charizard can indeed expand on its own.
* 5 Rapidash takes out 35 barbarians. No casulties.
*Everything with Fireblast need some sort of nerfing. AOE 3, AP shots are just to good.

And i dont think its nearly as bad as Nieffle/Caelum.
In part because to start with most people take H3 out of habbit.

[deuterio12]

With a neutral nation, it's actually more efficient to take Cold 3 if you're going to dump weather scales, since each match always start in spring and so it'll help keep things fresh during the summer that comes right after, allowing to squeeze a bit extra gold in the critical early game.

But ok the rapidash riders ended too strong so some nerfing is in order:
-Rapidash Rider now has Heat Power 1 instead of 2.
-Rapidash Rider's defense reduced to 18 (19 for commander) in neutral weather.
-Fire Blast reduced to Aoe 1 and has a -3 attack penalty.
-Site paths should be fixed now.
-Fixed Ace trainer typos.

version 0.65 up.

[lord_khaine]

Ill try and press a new test run in.
To see if rappiddash still stomps the opposition like before :)

[tyckspoon]

Legendary Charizard died when I tried to blind expand into a province that turned out to be full of Lamias and also had Howl active as a pre-battle-start spell and was in neutral heat scales (he actually got swarmed under by wolves, which I'm kind of surprised by with the heat aura). Totally worthless, buff plz Put an end to that particular test run pretty fast. Next time I might lean harder into the Air option instead of Fire; Thunder Weapons Fireblasts seems like it could provide some hilarity, or just doing like Farshot and stacking a ton of Precision on your fire-archer lines of Charmanders.

It does seem to me that all the pokemon nations kind of feel very similar with just a different elemental skin on? Like practically everything has a ranged attack and they're mostly in cheap swarms, so the default strategy for almost all nations is just absolutely burying enemies under volume of fire, you really want Wind Guide/Flaming Arrows, and the ones that can do that easily just kind of Pokemon better than the ones that cant?

(At least moderate exceptions, and possibly indications that this is more perception than reality: Pewter has pretty awesome heavy thugs/super combatants/monster forces with Onyx and Golem, both the recruit versions and shiny commanders. Celadon's Kabutops are absolutely terrifying heavy infantry/hellbless sacreds, and are much easier and more reliable to make a focus of strategy now that you can park them in a training site for XP - basically time-delay recruiting from the base Kabuto instead of needing to break underwater and get 1/turn if you're lucky enough to find a province with enough rec points.)

Is it intended/desired that your Pretender be the one casting the special recruit site rituals? If not, you may want to reduce the path requirements; 5 is a pretty high ask for recruitable mages, especially in paths where the boosters themselves are hard to make (Air/Fire suffer worst). If yes, this strongly discourages using immobiles, as you effectively lock yourself out of using these spells and recruiting their associated mon.

[lord_khaine]

Legendary Charizard died when I tried to blind expand into a province that turned out to be full of Lamias and also had Howl active as a pre-battle-start spell and was in neutral heat scales (he actually got swarmed under by wolves, which I'm kind of surprised by with the heat aura). Totally worthless, buff plz Put an end to that particular test run pretty fast. Next time I might lean harder into the Air option instead of Fire; Thunder Weapons Fireblasts seems like it could provide some hilarity, or just doing like Farshot and stacking a ton of Precision on your fire-archer lines of Charmander

Hah.. yeah.. i also lost my Charizard to a heavy cavalry group.
But at the same time it not an earth serpent. You likely should not expand blindly with it.
Of course not certain if it can expand after the fireblast nerf.

Also not certain that Far Shot or Thunder Weapons work on ranged natural attacks?

It does seem to me that all the pokemon nations kind of feel very similar with just a different elemental skin on? Like practically everything has a ranged attack and they're mostly in cheap swarms, so the default strategy for almost all nations is just absolutely burying enemies under volume of fire, you really want Wind Guide/Flaming Arrows, and the ones that can do that easily just kind of Pokemon better than the ones that cant?

Yeah. Its perhaps not entirely removed from the truth either.
I have taken Order 3 on all nations so far. Well and likely you want Arrow fend more than anything else.

Is it intended/desired that your Pretender be the one casting the special recruit site rituals? If not, you may want to reduce the path requirements; 5 is a pretty high ask for recruitable mages, especially in paths where the boosters themselves are hard to make (Air/Fire suffer worst). If yes, this strongly discourages using immobiles, as you effectively lock yourself out of using these spells and recruiting their associated mon.

Well its not impossibly hard?
You need a level 4 mage and a booster. A lot of the nations can random a level 4 mage in their prime element.

[tyckspoon]

Hah.. yeah.. i also lost my Charizard to a heavy cavalry group.
But at the same time it not an earth serpent. You likely should not expand blindly with it.
Of course not certain if it can expand after the fireblast nerf.

Also not certain that Far Shot or Thunder Weapons work on ranged natural attacks?

Charizard should do fine if you give it a couple turns for the Heat scales to spread/start moving in Summer, it would just require waiting a couple turns - that Heat Power would do a lot for its survivability, especially combined with the high Berserk value (and/or go full Fire and take Awe bless, maybe.) Similar to how if you want to expand with a lot of the Titans you'll do best if you wait a couple of turns and make them a basic armor to help fix up their generally kinda crappy Prot. Might be easier to take one of the Great Veterans and let their retinues do the work, tho, at least for softer target provinces. (I had taken Fire Weapons, because the idea of Flaming Fire attacks amused me.)

There's a specific tag that flags a weapon as .. I want to say the term the game uses is 'intrinsic' and disqualifies it from benefiting from those effects. Mind Blast is the most common example of it. Lore-wise the Pokemon ranged attacks are 'natural' weapons, but mechanically I think they're just weapons right now and should benefit from weapon blesses just like bows do.. admittedly I'm not 100% sure on how that interacts with Area effects instead of single-target projectiles.

[lord_khaine]

Charizard should do fine if you give it a couple turns for the Heat scales to spread/start moving in Summer, it would just require waiting a couple turns - that Heat Power would do a lot for its survivability, especially combined with the high Berserk value (and/or go full Fire and take Awe bless, maybe.) Similar to how if you want to expand with a lot of the Titans you'll do best if you wait a couple of turns and make them a basic armor to help fix up their generally kinda crappy Prot. Might be easier to take one of the Great Veterans and let their retinues do the work, tho, at least for softer target provinces. (I had taken Fire Weapons, because the idea of Flaming Fire attacks amused me.)

Charizard can indeed still clear provinces without cavalry, even without any sort of combat bless.
Though Heat Power doesnt really do anything for its survival.
The knights still trashes stuff inside heat dominion.
But otherwise the nation kinda feels screwed against anything with noticeable Fire resistance. Like Abysians or Garnet Amazons.

[deuterio12]

It does seem to me that all the pokemon nations kind of feel very similar with just a different elemental skin on? Like practically everything has a ranged attack and they're mostly in cheap swarms, so the default strategy for almost all nations is just absolutely burying enemies under volume of fire, you really want Wind Guide/Flaming Arrows, and the ones that can do that easily just kind of Pokemon better than the ones that cant?

(At least moderate exceptions, and possibly indications that this is more perception than reality: Pewter has pretty awesome heavy thugs/super combatants/monster forces with Onyx and Golem, both the recruit versions and shiny commanders. Celadon's Kabutops are absolutely terrifying heavy infantry/hellbless sacreds, and are much easier and more reliable to make a focus of strategy now that you can park them in a training site for XP - basically time-delay recruiting from the base Kabuto instead of needing to break underwater and get 1/turn if you're lucky enough to find a province with enough rec points.)

The pokémon nations do all follow a basic structure, but still I did try to add significant differences:

-Pewter City indeed has the hardest stuff around.
-Cerulean has also quite a lot of sailing and amphibious stuff, allowing them to attack from unexpected angles in any map with a decent water presence.
-Vermillion has the whole Stormpower subtheme, also only pokémon nation so far with seducers.
-Celadon has poison auras on most their stuff and eventually mindless tough troops with parasects, plus the biggest commander variety.
-Most of Fuschia's city commanders are stealthy with a good selection of stealthy troops to boot meaning they can actively pursuit a stealth approach.
-Cinnabar is the nation most reliant in their element so far.

Then of course depending on which type of magic you have available would also change your strategies.

Is it intended/desired that your Pretender be the one casting the special recruit site rituals? If not, you may want to reduce the path requirements; 5 is a pretty high ask for recruitable mages, especially in paths where the boosters themselves are hard to make (Air/Fire suffer worst). If yes, this strongly discourages using immobiles, as you effectively lock yourself out of using these spells and recruiting their associated mon.

As lord_khaine pointed out, every nation can reliably reach level 4 in their main magic path through the cap ace mages, and from there you can always forge at least one booster to reach level 5 (earth boots for Pewter City lv 2, both ring of water lv 1 and sea robe lv 3 for Cerulean, winged helmet needs lv 4 for Vermillion, thistle mage lv 2 for Celadona nd Fusciha fire helmet also lv 4 for Cinnabar). You'll need to research construction, but you were probably planning to do it anyway. Or you can take a pretender with it and research rush the sites.

Yeah. Its perhaps not entirely removed from the truth either.
I have taken Order 3 on all nations so far. Well and likely you want Arrow fend more than anything else.

Well Order 3 is already a pretty popular option.

Charizard should do fine if you give it a couple turns for the Heat scales to spread/start moving in Summer, it would just require waiting a couple turns - that Heat Power would do a lot for its survivability, especially combined with the high Berserk value (and/or go full Fire and take Awe bless, maybe.) Similar to how if you want to expand with a lot of the Titans you'll do best if you wait a couple of turns and make them a basic armor to help fix up their generally kinda crappy Prot. Might be easier to take one of the Great Veterans and let their retinues do the work, tho, at least for softer target provinces. (I had taken Fire Weapons, because the idea of Flaming Fire attacks amused me.)

There's a specific tag that flags a weapon as .. I want to say the term the game uses is 'intrinsic' and disqualifies it from benefiting from those effects. Mind Blast is the most common example of it. Lore-wise the Pokemon ranged attacks are 'natural' weapons, but mechanically I think they're just weapons right now and should benefit from weapon blesses just like bows do.. admittedly I'm not 100% sure on how that interacts with Area effects instead of single-target projectiles.

All pokémon weapons have the #bonus tag. The basic function is prevent multi-weapon fighting penalties. I believe they benefit from blesses just fine, but didn't really remember to test it yet.

Charizard can indeed still clear provinces without cavalry, even without any sort of combat bless.
Though Heat Power doesnt really do anything for its survival.
The knights still trashes stuff inside heat dominion.
But otherwise the nation kinda feels screwed against anything with noticeable Fire resistance. Like Abysians or Garnet Amazons.

Sooo, bigger price tag for the rapidash riders? 100 gold? 120?

As for fire resistance, welp sadly Gen 1 fire pokémon aren't really known for their variety. That's why I added the scientists so they can fall back on communions should the enemy start spamming fire resistance spells.

Still an idea I had just now, how aboult a second charmander-charmeleon-charizard line, "war charmander", not sacred, no fire anything besides fire resistance, and instead just hit hard with Scratch/Slash/Fury Swipes plus neutral dragon rage along slightly better base stats. Fluffwise they contain their heat to power up physically. Maybe even do a third armored line. How does that sound?

[tyckspoon]

Loaded up Vermilion for a look.

- Magneton Emperor is a quite effective expander.
- I forgot he's weak to fire. Trying to take on an AI Cinnabar expansion army with him was.. a poor decision (he got bogged down trying to trample Rapidash that he couldn't really hit because of their high defense, and then passed out burning and bleeding to death from heat auras. Oops.)
- Which reminds me, AI may actually be able to use pokemon halfway effectively, because in this particular case recruiting just swarms of whatever is cheapest actually is a somewhat reasonable play.

- The Pikachu corps is quite effective. Thundershock as a 'use in melee' weapon may be more effective than intended - my combat logs for it don't show it rolling to hit, so it kind of looks like anybody in contact with a Pikachu is just getting auto-smacked with an Armor Negating, potentially stunning shot (which is pretty much what you'd expect for a point-blank ranged attack with how those work in Dominions. It's kind of like having Thunder Weapons on them, except the damage isn't capped.) Combine with the raw numbers of Pikachu you can generate or the increased durability of Heavy Pikachu and getting entangled with these guys is almost certainly going to come out worse for your troops, particularly if you can't match the attack density of a square full of 6 chus. Have not tried to make much use of Runners or Fliers yet, they don't seem too well suited to expansion (could probably mix in a few Runners on the traditional flank-and-attack-rear plan, tho.)

- Magnemites are looking kind of awesome as crowd-control fire support, with both Thundershock and a super high precision disable with Supersonic. Put a line of these behind your Heavy Pikachu or let them fire a couple turns before letting Lucha pikas loose to dismantle your enemies. I honestly almost think evolving them is a downgrade when they lose Supersonic, although much like with the Pikachus getting a point-blank Tri Attack in the face is going to be quite painful. Good prot, but having next to no HP is going to make them quite likely to die and/or get afflicted into nothing when they do come into melee.

[deuterio12]

Loaded up Vermilion for a look.

- Magneton Emperor is a quite effective expander.
- I forgot he's weak to fire. Trying to take on an AI Cinnabar expansion army with him was.. a poor decision (he got bogged down trying to trample Rapidash that he couldn't really hit because of their high defense, and then passed out burning and bleeding to death from heat auras. Oops.)
- Which reminds me, AI may actually be able to use pokemon halfway effectively, because in this particular case recruiting just swarms of whatever is cheapest actually is a somewhat reasonable play.

I'll take that as a compliment.

- The Pikachu corps is quite effective. Thundershock as a 'use in melee' weapon may be more effective than intended - my combat logs for it don't show it rolling to hit, so it kind of looks like anybody in contact with a Pikachu is just getting auto-smacked with an Armor Negating, potentially stunning shot (which is pretty much what you'd expect for a point-blank ranged attack with how those work in Dominions. It's kind of like having Thunder Weapons on them, except the damage isn't capped.) Combine with the raw numbers of Pikachu you can generate or the increased durability of Heavy Pikachu and getting entangled with these guys is almost certainly going to come out worse for your troops, particularly if you can't match the attack density of a square full of 6 chus. Have not tried to make much use of Runners or Fliers yet, they don't seem too well suited to expansion (could probably mix in a few Runners on the traditional flank-and-attack-rear plan, tho.)

Yeah, the fliers and runners are meant as more specialized troops for specific scenarios.

Made the thunder attacks range 050 which means they have a 50% chance of being used in melee instead of all the time.

As for rolling to hit, I believe that's because it's still considered a ranged attack and those rolls usually don't show up. Plus at point-blank, it's basically impossible to miss.

- Magnemites are looking kind of awesome as crowd-control fire support, with both Thundershock and a super high precision disable with Supersonic. Put a line of these behind your Heavy Pikachu or let them fire a couple turns before letting Lucha pikas loose to dismantle your enemies. I honestly almost think evolving them is a downgrade when they lose Supersonic, although much like with the Pikachus getting a point-blank Tri Attack in the face is going to be quite painful. Good prot, but having next to no HP is going to make them quite likely to die and/or get afflicted into nothing when they do come into melee.

Added supersonic to the Magnetons too.

Version 0.66 up

Spoiler: Changelog

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-Thunder attacks changed from being useable all the time in melee to only 50% chance of being useable in melee.
-All Magnetons have supersonic now.
-Added Duel Charizard, Duel Charmeleon (cap only) and Duel Charizard (cap only, limited to 2/month) to Cinnabar city, all of those lose all fire-related abilities besides fire protection and are no longer sacred but get a neutral 10 range armor negating Dragon Rage attack that only deals 4 damage (no added Str) plus slightly better base stats and aren't coldblooded. Meant as a tool against fire-resistant enemies.
-Rapidash Riders got a 50% gold increase. That leaves the basic Rapidash Rider at 105 gold, which is just 10 gold cheaper than a Morvarc'h Knight, which are sacred and have a bunch of extra abilities and can sail to boot.

[lord_khaine]

Looked at version .66

Spoiler

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*I like the new Duel line. It helps a lot that the nation has something that can fight in the cold.
*Rappiddash knights still trash indies. But at least they are expensive now.
*Not certain if Double Kick is perhaps a little OP. 2 str 13 AP hits becomes straight up disgusting with fire power.
*Not certain if Charizard is a bit to expensive to be worth using. Yes its a flying blender. But its also fragile. Kinda dislike Fire Power values above 1 on anything besides gods.
*Its kinda a shame that Charizard Champion is mostly useable as a flying spellcaster. Its just not survivable.
Even its main defensive buff, mistform, kinda becomes trash when fighting other pokemon nations.
*Ninetails also seems a little pricy.

I have also been thinking about the general balance of the pokemon nations.
And how they were mean to measure up with regular nations.
At the moment their attack density is insane.
But i was wondering if giving them all bad formation fighter across the board would solve that.

[deuterio12]

-Nice that the duel line is liked!
-All Fire Power reduced to 1 to make things less swingy.
-If possible I want to avoid Cinnabar City just becoming "charizard spam: the nation", so it's intended that you can't just break a solid enemy formation with just them. Plus a flying fire/air caster has merit on its own. Still a few charizards that can properly trash things would be nice, so added a national item, Charizard Charcoal, that adds +10 HP, Ironskin, +5 Def, +5 MR for 10 fire gems at Construction 2 and can only be equiped by Charizards. For the record, it's indeed possible to make custom items that only a select units can equip, so there's a lot of potential there.
-Ninetales cost reduced to 60 HP/recruitment.
-Added Bad Formation Fighter (aka -1) to all pokémon except the god versions, it's an interesting idea that also matches the fluff.
-Between pokémon having bad formation and reduced fire power, double kick should be nerfed indirectly, so hopefully it should be finer now.

Thanks once more!

Pokemon 0.67

[lord_khaine]

If possible I want to avoid Cinnabar City just becoming "charizard spam: the nation", so it's intended that you can't just break a solid enemy formation with just them. Plus a flying fire/air caster has merit on its own. Still a few charizards that can properly trash things would be nice, so added a national item, Charizard Charcoal, that adds +10 HP, Ironskin, +5 Def, +5 MR for 10 fire gems at Construction 2 and can only be equiped by Charizards. For the record, it's indeed possible to make custom items that only a select units can equip, so there's a lot of potential there.

Yeah the potential is staggering there.
Its of course a lot of work to add national items like this.
But if for example shiny pokemon were given a head slot, and perhaps 1-2 more misc slots.
Then they could be turned into light SC's in a balanced fashion.
Maybe make the con 2 item just give Stoneskin?
And then create a con 4 ironscale version? Maybe make it cursed, and represent hammering shards of fire/earth gems into every single scale to harden them?
Make the HP/reinvigoration item a seperate slot? Charizard gym weights.

Else. I will try and take a look at Pewter city again.
And see how they measure up with bad formation fighter to balance their attack density.

[deuterio12]

-Ok, expanded pokémon item slots accross the board to 1 head, 3 misc.
-Charizard Charcoal now just adds Stoneskin and +3 MR, cursed, cost reduced to 5 gems. Mega Charizard Charcoal at Con 4 grants IronSkin and +5 MR for 10 gems. Fluffs updated. Added Charizard Berry for +HP and Def, including Mega version with bigger bonus for more gems and higher research level, also cursed. Couldn't get a proper pic for training weights.

Pokemon 0.68

Let me know how Petwer City goes after all these updates!

[lord_khaine]

Hmm.. the problem is then of course. That you cant upgrade from the stoneskin to the ironskin version.
Perhaps its only the final version that should stick. Ill try and think about that some more.

Pewter

Spoiler

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Is perhaps a little to effective at crushing indies.
Expansion were 19 provinces without an awake expander.
And while testing different types of pokemon.

-Maybe Rhyhorn rider shouldnt have pierce/slash resistance. In return they could get another couple hp. And a 10 gold discount.
-try and cut a point of prot from geodude? and a single hp.
- maybe change Rhyhorn to just crush resistance? it seems more like a rino than a rock monster. Perhaps cut it 5 gold
-Kabuto and Omanyte meanwhile seems kinda useless. Maybe a 5-10 gold discount on them?
- is it intentional that the site spells both require highlands instead of mountains?

[deuterio12]

-Reduced Geodude HP and protection by 1.
-Rhyhorn loses slash and pierce resistance and gains blunt resistance, -5 costs.
-Rhyhorn rider loses both resistances and gains +2 HP, -10 costs.
-Kabuto and Omanyte discounted 10 gold each.
-About highlands, theyr're technically using the mountain code. I believe it's more than what we used to know as mountains in Dominions 4 are called highlands in Dominions 5. There's still border mountains and seemingly "normal" mountains, but thing is, those aren't generated in a random map, they need to be manually added in, and are more rare overall, so that's why I left it as using highlands for now. There is code for border mountains (which can be combined with highlands), but not code for "normal" mountains it seems.

Pokemon 0.681

[lord_khaine]

Ill try and find time to test if Pewter still steamroll things with these changes.
In the previous try, a sufficiently large group of Rhyhorn did more or less kill all sorts of things without attrition.

Perhaps the evolved Rhyhorn will also need some sort of buff.
I just recall it having some sort of obscene damage output from first glance.
Oh yes it has 3 attacks, 25+ damage with a possible +4 berserker.
Where the horn alone can get another +10, for something along the line of 30 piercing damage.

And at the same time Rhydon is super tough, with 24 prot after they berserk.
I think initially the horn charge is to mean. If they are reduced to 2 attacks, berserker drops to 2,
and they get the Rhyhorn defensive changes. Then they actually still compare favorably with unblessed anakites.
In part from having 5 more defence. Thats about the same as a Sheshai Anakite with Barkskin.

[tyckspoon]

Question about the poke-training buildings- can you have more than one in a fort, if they're of different tiers? Will casting another one just over-write the earlier one? Wondering if you can upgrade as you get the research, or if, say, you're stuck with a Kindergarten in your capital if you put one up early to help kickstart production of evolved mon.

[lord_khaine]

You can just cast the newer one.
It seems to just take the highest training site. But im 100 % certain.
But do look forward to someone elses input on Pewter and Charizard Town.

[tyckspoon]

-Reduced Geodude HP and protection by 1.
-Rhyhorn loses slash and pierce resistance and gains blunt resistance, -5 costs.
-Rhyhorn rider loses both resistances and gains +2 HP, -10 costs.
-Kabuto and Omanyte discounted 10 gold each.
-About highlands, theyr're technically using the mountain code. I believe it's more than what we used to know as mountains in Dominions 4 are called highlands in Dominions 5. There's still border mountains and seemingly "normal" mountains, but thing is, those aren't generated in a random map, they need to be manually added in, and are more rare overall, so that's why I left it as using highlands for now. There is code for border mountains (which can be combined with highlands), but not code for "normal" mountains it seems.

I might bring Kabuto cost back up just a bit; Kabuto itself is mediocre at best, but Kabutops are pretty nuts and just recruiting tons of Kabuto and parking them in a training center is a very cost (but not time.. although compared to needing to break into underwater, build a fort, and recruit probably 1/turn there if you can get a place with enough recruit points, it's still competitive) efficient means of getting them. Consider if you could, say, recruit a regular Jaguar and if you kept it alive for five turns it turns into an Ozelotl (Mictlan jaguar-bat demon summons.) What would you consider a fair cost for those demon seeds?

[lord_khaine]

Alright, thats of course true.
I newer got a UW fort build in my first test game, because i ended it after discovering that there wasnt any highlands in the area.
Only mountains and caves.

And you do of course need to park them a bit longer. But i get your point. Perhaps they are an investment into breaking into UW.
Tried the new patch. Things look much more reasonable now. And will likely be further balanced by human opponents being able to pick out blunt weapons to hurt the rock pokemon.
Still not entirely certain how balanced the option of pokemon schooling a bunch of gravelers into stage 2 is though.
Its strong. Just hard to estimate how strong.
Or for that matter how effective the site creation spells are.

[deuterio12]

Ill try and find time to test if Pewter still steamroll things with these changes.
In the previous try, a sufficiently large group of Rhyhorn did more or less kill all sorts of things without attrition.

Perhaps the evolved Rhyhorn will also need some sort of buff.
I just recall it having some sort of obscene damage output from first glance.
Oh yes it has 3 attacks, 25+ damage with a possible +4 berserker.
Where the horn alone can get another +10, for something along the line of 30 piercing damage.

And at the same time Rhydon is super tough, with 24 prot after they berserk.
I think initially the horn charge is to mean. If they are reduced to 2 attacks, berserker drops to 2,
and they get the Rhyhorn defensive changes. Then they actually still compare favorably with unblessed anakites.
In part from having 5 more defence. Thats about the same as a Sheshai Anakite with Barkskin.

I think the problem with the rhyhorn and rhydon is more tat they're a bit too tough. Dropped their protection and Berseker a bit and now they seem to suffer significant attrition.

Question about the poke-training buildings- can you have more than one in a fort, if they're of different tiers? Will casting another one just over-write the earlier one? Wondering if you can upgrade as you get the research, or if, say, you're stuck with a Kindergarten in your capital if you put one up early to help kickstart production of evolved mon.

Yes, you can have multiple training sites in the same province as long as they're different ones.

I might bring Kabuto cost back up just a bit; Kabuto itself is mediocre at best, but Kabutops are pretty nuts and just recruiting tons of Kabuto and parking them in a training center is a very cost (but not time.. although compared to needing to break into underwater, build a fort, and recruit probably 1/turn there if you can get a place with enough recruit points, it's still competitive) efficient means of getting them. Consider if you could, say, recruit a regular Jaguar and if you kept it alive for five turns it turns into an Ozelotl (Mictlan jaguar-bat demon summons.) What would you consider a fair cost for those demon seeds?

Bumped up Kabuto's cost a bit.

Alright, thats of course true.
I newer got a UW fort build in my first test game, because i ended it after discovering that there wasnt any highlands in the area.
Only mountains and caves.

About that, seems like the border mountains code allows for "normal" mountains after all.

Changes:
-Rhyhorn protection reduced to 16 from 18, berserk 2 to berserk 1.
-Rhydon protection reduced to 17 from 20, berserk 4 to berserk 2.
-Rhyhorn riders berserk dropped from 2 to 1.
-Graveler protection dropped from 18 to 16, Golem protection from 20 to 17 (champion from 22 to 19).
-Kabuto's cost bumped a bit to 25 gold.
-Sites that required highlands can now be cast in all mountains too.

Pokemon 0.682 up

[lord_khaine]

I think the problem with the rhyhorn and rhydon is more tat they're a bit too tough. Dropped their protection and Berseker a bit and now they seem to suffer significant attrition.

I still cant help but think that when something hits harder than a angry Anakite on its charge, then perhaps its offensive potential should be considered a little closer.

edit.
I also though of a custom item for Onyx/Golem.
Lave Blood Argumentation. cursed, and gives fire shield. Likely con 4 as the shield. 5 fire/10 earth.
In case it should be possible to thug golems. I tried a bit. But its kinda hard to make them killy enough.

[deuterio12]

I still cant help but think that when something hits harder than a angry Anakite on its charge, then perhaps its offensive potential should be considered a little closer.

Anakite:
22 Str
13 attack
Dawn Sword (+1 attack, 9 base damage, magic)
Gore (-1 attack, 0 base damage)

So the Anakim attack is +14 sword 31 damage magic and +12 gore for 20 damage

Rhydon:
21(23) Str
10(12) attack
(Berserk 2)
Horn Attack (3 base damage)
Stomp (4 base damage)
Horn Drill (5 base damage)

The Rhydon in turn is either +10 horn attack 24 damage, +10 stomp 25 damage and +10 Horn Drill 26 damage.
Or if berserk, +12 for 24 damage, +12 for 27 damage and +12 for 28 damage.

Now at first glance yes the Rhydon appears to be hitting harder. However the Anakim:
-Has better acuraccy with his sword even compared to the Berserk Rhydon. A single good sword slash at +14 that actually hits and evades a shield block is better than three hits at +10 missing or being softened by shields (even basic ones reduce damage by a whooping 16). Even if the Rhydon gets Berserk, it's still only at +12 which is nice but still lower than the average 14 defense of shield troops.
-The sword is magic, always handy against any surprise etherealness or mistform.
-The Anakim himself isn't considered a great unit just for his great offense, but also for great durability. He has 53 HP vs the Rhydon's 34, 14 MR against the Rhydon's 12, 16 defense with shield vs the Rhydon's 7 defense (5 while Berserk). Only in base protection does the Rhydon pulls ahead by 1 point while berserk.

Then there's also the critical point: You can recruit Anakims from turn 1. You can't recruit Rhydons starting from turn 1. You'll need to spend gems and research for setting up training places or the direct summoning rituals. So I would say it's not really fair to compare an unit that can be pumped out all game long against an unit that demands setup before you can unleash them.

I also though of a custom item for Onyx/Golem.
Lave Blood Argumentation. cursed, and gives fire shield. Likely con 4 as the shield. 5 fire/10 earth.
In case it should be possible to thug golems. I tried a bit. But its kinda hard to make them killy enough.

Hmmm, that sounds like a good idea, will work on it.

[lord_khaine]

Then there's also the critical point: You can recruit Anakims from turn 1. You can't recruit Rhydons starting from turn 1. You'll need to spend gems and research for setting up training places or the direct summoning rituals. So I would say it's not really fair to compare an unit that can be pumped out all game long against an unit that demands setup before you can unleash them.

Well.. in return Anakims are cap only.
And can be argumented further by a bless. But alright what unit are Rhydorns means to be compared to instead?
Heavy cavalry? Could you run a test of for example.. 1200 gold of Rhydorns against 1200 gold of heavy knights.
Or 1200 gold of lets say.. Chud Warriors? If both groups doesnt get crushed, then ill agree that Rhydorns are likely fine.

Though on the subject of graveler. Then i think they grow a little to OP with their new AOE rock attack
They are to easily massed up.

Hmmm, that sounds like a good idea, will work on it.

And thank you. I mostly tried doing a little golem thug testing.
And found that even with a hard skin/heat aura bless, they lose to deer tribe warriors and barbarians.
They could of course get to replace their healm slot with boots. But i fear being able to trample stuff would make them to op.

Well.. perhaps thats an idea for another Golem-only (and expensive) item? Death Ball data disk. Teachers your Golem to Roll over people.
Perhaps some of the stronger pokemon attacks would be granted by items? That would lock them behind a research gate.

[deuterio12]

Well.. in return Anakims are cap only.
And can be argumented further by a bless. But alright what unit are Rhydorns means to be compared to instead?
Heavy cavalry? Could you run a test of for example.. 1200 gold of Rhydorns against 1200 gold of heavy knights.
Or 1200 gold of lets say.. Chud Warriors? If both groups doesnt get crushed, then ill agree that Rhydorns are likely fine.

Coded me some free summoning spells, can't forget to remove them for the next release. Now chuds cost 20 gold and Rhydons cost 180, so that's roughly 60 chuds vs 6.7 rhydorns, let's round it up to 7.



The chuds tanked the massed Rhydon charge like bosses and procceeded to kill them good. One of them actually bled to death, I think that's why it's not scored as a kill for the chuds.

And now for the knights, 1200 budget allows for 20 of those.



Now they got their asses beaten, but more because of their crappy morale and fighting in enemy dominion so they ended up breaking a bit too fast, and still took out 4 rhydons and weakened a fifth enough for the warrior chief to finish it off. I would say quite a noble performance all in all.

Though on the subject of graveler. Then i think they grow a little to OP with their new AOE rock attack
They are to easily massed up.

Fair enough, removed it.

And thank you. I mostly tried doing a little golem thug testing.
And found that even with a hard skin/heat aura bless, they lose to deer tribe warriors and barbarians.
They could of course get to replace their healm slot with boots. But i fear being able to trample stuff would make them to op.

Well.. perhaps thats an idea for another Golem-only (and expensive) item? Death Ball data disk. Teachers your Golem to Roll over people.
Perhaps some of the stronger pokemon attacks would be granted by items? That would lock them behind a research gate.

Now that you mention it, I had been wondering about TM items that grant new attacks. And Rollout is a classic rock move.

Earthquake item for rock's pokemon?

[lord_khaine]

Coded me some free summoning spells, can't forget to remove them for the next release. Now chuds cost 20 gold and Rhydons cost 180, so that's roughly 60 chuds vs 6.7 rhydorns, let's round it up to 7.

The chuds tanked the massed Rhydon charge like bosses and procceeded to kill them good. One of them actually bled to death, I think that's why it's not scored as a kill for the chuds.

And now for the knights, 1200 budget allows for 20 of those.

Now they got their asses beaten, but more because of their crappy morale and fighting in enemy dominion so they ended up breaking a bit too fast, and still took out 4 rhydons and weakened a fifth enough for the warrior chief to finish it off. I would say quite a noble performance all in all.

Alright im convinced. They are nasty but not unbeatable. Even at the favorable Rhydon price.

Now that you mention it, I had been wondering about TM items that grant new attacks. And Rollout is a classic rock move.

Earthquake item for rock's pokemon?

Earthquake is like the one move thats better left for them to cast as a spell?
Like Golems cant spam it like its going out of style.

But perhaps TM's should be head slot?
That way a Pokemon cant stack attacks.

Because i were also thinking Golems needed some sort of.. Earth Brand Style attack.
Something hitting a square for either 10 AP Blunt, or 18-19 Blunt.
Normally it has the problem that its defence gets harrashed down, and then suddenly everyone can repel its attacks.
But a Con 4 item would let it handle that by the time regular thugs get AOE attacks.