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Author Topic: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension  (Read 541744 times)

Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #375 on: January 13, 2014, 12:14:09 am »

Have to give remote attacking a shot, then... bit more before I can test it, but eh.

In other news, why in Zeus's name is the advanced orders stuff not just in the freaking menus!? I just now learned there's a monthly forging command. I knew about the monthly ritual for a while, but this... argh. Thug production just got ridiculously more streamlined :-\

Also managed to summon up a wraith lord for consul comparison purposes! And, uh. Well. The base stats, consuls actually have a bit of an edge (note: For 15 less death gems, and absolutely zero research), winning out on defense by about a point, and otherwise they're... basically identical. Consuls are a little faster in terms of AP. Same HP, consuls have slightly less prot, same attack, same morale, magic resistance... for what it's worth, WLs have about double the spellcasting fatigue, but eh. It is a trade of d3 for h3 (which is definitely a downgrade if you're comparing them side by side.) and no death curse, and they've got worse starting kit (especially the weapon), but in exchange they're sacreds who can self bless, from a nation that can very, very easily afford an incredible bless, and if you throw them in an army they can throw out some pretty sizable supporting buffs right off the bat. Consuls are also full amphibians, for what that's worth.

The rub, being, well. Wraith lord is conj 7. Lemur Consul is turn three, and potentially every two turns thereafter as a minimum. It... that's pretty incredible. Yes, I would like an end-game (mini)SC chassis on turn three. I would like that very much.

E: Does explain why they were walking indies so easily, though. They're basically forty death gems and several hundred points of research in a twenty five gem zero research package.
E2: Oh wow, the ermor equivalent (censors, I guess?) is kinda' utter trash in comparison. No fear, ethereal, worse stats in almost everything... a lot cheaper, at least, but I'd half bet on one consul over 6-7 censors >_>

Ermor in comparison... definitely a different beast. Amulets of the dead work on their reanimations, for one <_<
E3: Dusk elders are a hell of a lot better than the equivalent top-tier lemuria caster, though, whatever those things are called. ~Half the cost for roughly the same casting power and research, that's kinda' ridiculous. Admittedly, the grand-whatever's stats (and immortality) probably make it a considerably better battle caster, but... eesh.

Seems to be the general pattern, really, which is kinda' interesting. Ermor's got better research, better freespawn, Lemuria has more expensive but a lot better commanders in regards to everything else, but frankly pretty iffy freespawn (not that they particularly need it when they've basically got turn three wraith lords x:). Neat... contrast, I guess? Lemuria's doom consuls and whatnot make 'em feel more... flexible. Definitely a different feel to both empires, which is nice.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2014, 12:42:28 am by Frumple »
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E. Albright

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #376 on: January 13, 2014, 01:06:38 am »

Have to give remote attacking a shot, then... bit more before I can test it, but eh.

These also have spell ranges...
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Wiles

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #377 on: January 13, 2014, 12:28:04 pm »

In other news, why in Zeus's name is the advanced orders stuff not just in the freaking menus!? I just now learned there's a monthly forging command. I knew about the monthly ritual for a while, but this... argh. Thug production just got ridiculously more streamlined :-\

I had no idea. Is there a "cheat sheet" somewhere that has hotkeys and stuff like this? I've tried perusing the manual but this sort of thing seems buried in it.
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Bluerobin

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #378 on: January 13, 2014, 12:44:06 pm »

There's a quick reference keyboard shortcut thing on the Illwinter Dominions 4 page here: Google Docs LINK

They have keyboard shortcuts for way more things than I thought... Even game setup has shortcuts!
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nenjin

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #379 on: January 13, 2014, 12:54:58 pm »

In other news, why in Zeus's name is the advanced orders stuff not just in the freaking menus!? I just now learned there's a monthly forging command. I knew about the monthly ritual for a while, but this... argh. Thug production just got ridiculously more streamlined :-\

I had no idea. Is there a "cheat sheet" somewhere that has hotkeys and stuff like this? I've tried perusing the manual but this sort of thing seems buried in it.

? on almost any screen will show you the hotkeys.
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Wiles

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #380 on: January 13, 2014, 01:37:18 pm »

Thanks, that alleviates some of the turn to turn tedium. I wish they'd added multi-turn moves and the ability to queue up different items for forging though.
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #381 on: January 13, 2014, 06:01:07 pm »

I have this pretender concept to be ironed out...
Quote
"The Daimon is a captain from Marignon that led a doomed expedition into the jungles of Mictlan in search. In one final act of madness and hubris, he ritually sacrificed all the men under his command and feasted on their blood, forever altering his essential nature. Now he has returned to Marignon, donning a godly mantle, and intending to rule over Inquisition, Diabolists and Mictlanese alike. The Daimon is a capable blood mage, and chaos, horror and bloodshed follow in his wake, and unrest and murders will increase in whichever province he resides."
(as you might notice, it's is heavily influenced by Aguirre and Carvajal... maybe it would work better as a rand -or not rand- hero?)

I think that would work better as a hero. B2-3, whichever is good but not too good. Add in either F2-3 or W2-3 and make him generate unrest a bit. Fire crosspath is basic Marignon while water could be explained as our hero having picked it up while in Mictlan. Rain (ie. water) is one of their chief deity manifestations, right? Alternatively you could give him D2-3 as a result of him cheating death when he should have died in the new world. Gearwise I imagine he'd have basic conquistador stuff.
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #382 on: January 13, 2014, 07:03:13 pm »

Sounds kinda' like he might get either some altered mict battlebuddies (demon ghouls?) or a 1-2 /month freespawn thing. Maybe "condemned murderers" (or repented, with a fluff blurb about good ol' inquisitional torture with a side of diabolism), done up something like a villain with demon added and a little better stats?

E: Eesh. Boots of quickness on an already quick flying SC. It's, like. Why do we have teleportation and crap, again? Mah critters already move anywhere within six or so provinces.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2014, 04:30:47 am by Frumple »
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Karlito

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #383 on: January 14, 2014, 09:32:20 am »

Probably rhetorical, but the advantage is that magical movement, and battles that occur from it, are resolved before mundane movement.
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E. Albright

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #384 on: January 14, 2014, 01:22:55 pm »

...plus, they can bypass water, and are unaffected by Perpetual Storm.
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Karlito

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #385 on: January 23, 2014, 01:53:26 am »

I discovered just now that there's a massive paper manual available for less than $12. I'm kind of tempted to buy it, even though the Dom4 database combined with the pdf manual already provide everything and more that this could offer.
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #386 on: January 23, 2014, 05:43:56 am »

Then there's of course the fact that it will be ever so slightly out of date after the next few (content) patches. Of course the real blocker for me is the fact that it would go over 20$ with postage. And that's too much.
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Culise

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #387 on: January 23, 2014, 10:26:06 am »

Yeah.  It makes me wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper just to download the PDF, print it straight, and put it in a binder.  That way, you could swap out the pages that get changed as the patches continue, as well. 
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #388 on: January 25, 2014, 12:30:51 am »

Well. I have done a somewhat silly thing, and intend to share it. Rename it to a .dm at your leisure.

It's basically as the filename might suggest, though unfortunately I found out that gem cost is intrinsically tied to fatigue, and, well. It's a mod that turns every spell in the game mostly costless. No gems, no1 fatigue, on everything (well, except items I guess). It has barely been tested! I have no idea what it's going to do to the AI's spell selection stuff! But my rainbow pretender happily spat out a bunch of free (well, more along the lines of it cost 80 research but whatever) animals so it seems to be working.

I'd actually be really interested in an overarching balance shift that finagles things so the game is balanced around no gem cost spells*, so the magic really gets flying, but in the process of trying to just get this much I rapidly found that that would be an absolute pain in the arse, so... no. Not a project I'll be embarking on.

To think, I mostly just wanted to cut costs out of most of the lower level, non-global stuff. Y'know, encourage spell spitting even more. But even that would be a royal pain, so... have five minutes of work with libreoffice calc, a calculator, and notepad++. If anyone wants to have silliness without mucking about with debug or cheating or whatever.

*Messing with fatigue cost, likely upping mage costs so the primary resource bottleneck is caster time rather than gem cost, probably introducing pathless researchers all around, potentially rejiggering the sites and making forging costless as well... it'd be a hell of a project, and would probably require figuring out some way to decouple fatigue and gem costs :-\

E: Oooh. It does fun things to AI spell selection. Scout was in indie provice that enemy attacked. Indie provice had an A6 illusionist. Phantasmal army every. Single. Turn.

Poor abysia...
« Last Edit: January 25, 2014, 01:18:00 am by Frumple »
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #389 on: January 25, 2014, 02:35:20 am »

I like the idea but there needs to be some sort of limiter on the 5+ level evocation stuff. The battles would come down to which mage nukes which first..
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