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[Culise]

Claiming certain thrones can improve your bless. This is usually a bad thing because these thrones are useless for anything else so if you don't utilize sacreds then there is no point claiming them.

To be fair, though, I'd still rather have a useless throne than a detrimental throne.  Countries like Abysia, Mictlan, and C'tis loathe the Throne of Winter, while almost any nation that doesn't have a killing dominion will actively avoid claiming the Throne of Death. 

Oh, by the bye, I thought I'd link these for people.  New players might find them helpful, if they don't follow the official forums on Desura:
1. Dom4 Mod Inspector - a data inspection tool to review spells, units, and equipment available in Dominions 4.  Still being updated from Dominions 3, so it's not 100% accurate, but it's still highly useful. 

2. Random Events - a review of all random events in Dominions 4, including the scales that unlock them.  Useful for figuring out how to avoid things like that spontaneous rebellion, but long and somewhat spoilerriffic.  A brief observation for people who don't want to review the whole thing:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Of particular note are Drain 3, which unlocks an event that depletes all of your stored gems, and Misfortune 3, which unlocks around half a dozen new province attacks.  Death 3 kills people faster, but frankly, if you take Death 3, you don't really care about that in either case.

[nenjin]

I'm pretty sure that Mictlan doesn't really need good scales. You can only recruit so Jaguars a turn, and I'm pretty sure that their middle/late game is focused on blood sacrificing anyways. So all they really need is good growth and the high-magic paths for early expansion until they can get the slaves flowing.

Again, I'm not doing a super specific "zerg the AI with sacreds" build. My army is compromised mostly of Moon Warriors and Archers. While I'm sure I'm undertilizing my sacreds by not just having whole armies of Jaguar men, i"m playing the rest of the game as a result.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Double/triple/quadruple major bless is not the only way to play Mictlan, though it seems to be by far the most popular way. One reason I think Mictlan takes a bless so often is because it's one of those nations with "free" points. They can take sloth 1-3 quite willy nilly whereas some nations are more or less required to take at least a little production to get some troops out.
Consider that the default resources per turn for starter fort is 80. I'm playing Jomon currently and their archers cost 11g 25r. Excellent value for gold but try massing those guys early on even with production bonuses. Not going to happen. What do the jags cost instead, 5r or so? Pittance in comparison. Of course, jags are good units worth blessing so even without the free points they'd be looking to get some blessings.

Re: magic sites
Vast majority of sites are 1 or 2, leaning towards 1. So level 3 searcher, while definitely nice, is a bit overkill. If you get mages with 2 in something that's usually good enough. Even 1 is worth searching with if it's all you've got.

So now it's 50% off (12,50€):
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DOM4TA/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascension

Makes me wonder, why would I buy anything off-sale these days.

Because you want the company selling the game to get more money from it, mostly.

That's what giveaways are for

[E. Albright]

(movement stuff)

Movement in Dom4 considers not just the destination province for calculation terrain cost, but the origin province as well (i.e., you're assumed to start in the center of the province rather than its far edge). IIRC, the cost to move one is the average of the two.

(River stuff)

Rivers (blue inter-province connections) can be crossed if both destination and origin are Cold 1 or higher. This usually means all winter, but in particularly hot/cold dominions that's not true. Fliers and amphibious units can always cross them (though note that mixed groups of these can't; a flier leading amphibious troops can't cross an unfrozen river. This may or may not be Working As Designed.)

Mountain passes (red inter-province connections) can be crossed if both destination and origin are Heat 1 or higher. This usually means all summer, but in particularly hot/cold dominions that's not true. Fliers and mountain survival units can always cross them (IDK if the same cavaets about mixed groups apply here, but I'd not be surprised.)

Also, does the fort resource yoinking work across rivers as well?

It does. It doesn't work land-to-sea, or vice-versa, but no mere river or frozen pass will stop the taxman!

[E. Albright]

Double/triple/quadruple major bless is not the only way to play Mictlan, though it seems to be by far the most popular way. One reason I think Mictlan takes a bless so often is because it's one of those nations with "free" points. They can take sloth 1-3 quite willy nilly whereas some nations are more or less required to take at least a little production to get some troops out.

Honestly, no. It's the damned Jaguar Warriors. They're some of the absolute best sacreds in the game, and in both EA and LA they're recruit-anywhere. That they're a fairly low-resource certainly helps, but it's their recruit-anywhere availability coupled with ungodly strength that makes them such a favorite with ruinous scales and double/triple major blesses.

[nenjin]

Re: magic sites

Having played about 4 good, lengthy games in Dom 4 now, I feel like Magic Sites have actually gotten....worse? In the sense I see far fewer of the rarer ones that I used to. Which I assumed meant that the path requirements had been bumped on them. Or have they just simply reduced the # of truly interesting sites per game? I like that they come up with essentially 4 names for each basic gem site, but that was like one of the funnest parts of Dom 3 for me was hunting for new and not-yet-seen sites. So far, I've been a bit disappointed in Dom 4 at the same site frequency, 55%.

I guess Akashic Knowledge will eventually reveal all.

That they're a fairly low-resource certainly helps, but it's their recruit-anywhere availability coupled with ungodly strength that makes them such a favorite with ruinous scales and double/triple major blesses.

11 base strength is godly? The actual weapon damage IS pretty nice but their unblessed stat line is not anything to write home about. Maybe in Jaguar form but.....I've observed plenty of battles where a variety of enemies went toe to toe with them, and what won it was numbers. I guess I'll have to try an actual bless build to see how much face I roll with them.

For reference, I'm looking at a Jaguar Warrior right now who lost an arm and therefore can't wield his sword club. Because they're so lightly armored they end up crippled very easily, something Jaguar form doesn't solve.

[Frumple]

Iirc, it's 21 strength (and multiple attacks) in jaguar form (or was in D3, if my memory's not failing me. I really should go and check for D4...), which is pretty brutal for something as that's as cheap as those guys and rolling recruit-everywhere. They're a size larger in that form (which is somewhat of a disadvantage, in general), but still. Throw on quickness (The W9 bless) and something more explicitly damaging and you've got a furry shredder on crack. Gold for gold, the jags really are one of the best sacreds in the game just in raw stats, and the recruit-anywhere letting you mass ridiculous amounts of them is just icing.

And then the blood economy starts rolling in and oh gods, the everything.

As for afflictions, iirc form shifting like they do actually does have some sort of beneficial effect to it, if my memory's not failing me (though for the life of me I can't remember what, and could be mixing things up with some other piece of errata.). Plus... doesn't the jag form have regen? Which helps keep 'em from racking up, anyway. Could be mixing it up with the skinshifters (Which are very similar! Just non-sacred.) with the regen, though..

E: Woah, critical memory fail. They're base 13 str in jag form. Still have multiple attacks (good ol' bite/claw/claw). Base 18 HP, 5 prot. Fast, hit hard. Good defense, insofar as chaff clearing goes.

[Karlito]

Form shifting does have a small chance of curing afflictions.

[nenjin]

Explains why I've got an entire army of wounded Jaguar Warriors that just. Won't. DIE.

[E. Albright]

Oops, I suppose that was ambiguous. I meant "ungodly strength" in the sense that Jags are a powerful unit, not that they have a high Strength value. They're a ridiculous mix of power, survivability, and cheapness for a blessable chassis, especially in the eras where they're recruit-anywhere. There are better sacreds out there, but essentially none but Flagellants that you can see in the numbers you see Jags.

[E. Albright]

Re: magic sites

Having played about 4 good, lengthy games in Dom 4 now, I feel like Magic Sites have actually gotten....worse? In the sense I see far fewer of the rarer ones that I used to. Which I assumed meant that the path requirements had been bumped on them. Or have they just simply reduced the # of truly interesting sites per game? I like that they come up with essentially 4 names for each basic gem site, but that was like one of the funnest parts of Dom 3 for me was hunting for new and not-yet-seen sites. So far, I've been a bit disappointed in Dom 4 at the same site frequency, 55%.

What I've read is that Dom4 has a lot more cheap sites, and about 8% (IIRC) fewer sites overall than Dom3. So yeah, you'll see less magic gems at the same settings. FWIW, that's WAD, as part of the devs' effort to stretch the early and middle game where national units are more preeminent.

[SharpKris]

played with the pagen civ in the early ages... goddamm menads! they just take up all the supplies! anything you can actually do with them other the cannon fodder?

[Karlito]

Throw some buffs on them maybe? Strength of Giants, Haste, and Wooden Warriors are all spells that the Pans should be able to cast.

[Frumple]

Sieging! Iirc they're also fairly decent against some things (especially stuff susceptible to mobbing) with a few buffs thrown on 'em. I mean, they're chaff -- nearly as quintessential a Dominions chaff as Ermor freespawn -- but chaff has its uses, and Maenads 'zerk so most of the normal moral issues involved with them dying in droves are negated. Arrow catchers and meat walls can be pretty great.

You can also use 'em for patrolling if you're intending to branch into blood, throw a handful on mages as bodyguards if you're up against assassin-enabled enemies (or just to serve as spell catchers in combat)... all the normal sort of stuff you'd use plentiful freespawn on.

[nenjin]

To be fair though, Ermor's freespawn are indeed free. It gets obnoxious having to constantly ship units with leaders out because they're wrecking your economy.

Although meatwalls are quite nice.

Anyone played Carrion Woods yet? They're the next nation I was looking at.