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Author Topic: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension  (Read 542397 times)

RexMundi

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1050 on: December 22, 2014, 05:18:10 pm »

1, not sure. manual tells order though, so look there. on steam just go to store page and find the manual button (i think)
2, Not sure on damage, but iirc if you can't trace to a fort you get no income at least
3, not that i know of, i always forget them too :<
4, umm, knew the answer if you asked a month ago, but can't recal exactly, i THINK there are some spells/rituals that might help, and imortality adds healing of things like that last i remember.
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E. Albright

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1051 on: December 22, 2014, 05:29:12 pm »

1. It's never explicitly stated when PD is increased (presumable it's at/before phase 1 of the turn sequence; that's page 73 in your manual if you weren't aware), but yes, it's before hostile movement. In fact, it's before magic-induced battles.

2. Starvation from lack of supplies takes a long time to kill off troops. I'd assume you actually cut them off and they had troops retreat; if there's no adjacent friendly province when you retreat, you die (even if you can fly or sail).

3. Cycle through all "active" commanders with "n" (next). Hotkey reference is "?" in-game, and there's a cheatsheet here.

4. Not many. Healing is hard. A very few nations (e.g., Arco) have recruitable healers; otherwise it's Ench-7 for Gift of Health, or Cons-8 to forge the Chalice (though if she's undead, the Chalice won't help). If she's immortal (or has recuperation, though I can't think of any female pretenders with recuperation off the top of my head), she'll eventually heal it on her own.

5. Um, that's extremely circumstantial. It entirely depends on what you have to work with, and what you're attacking.
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1052 on: December 22, 2014, 05:36:20 pm »

To add to the healing afflictions thing, there's also a blood ritual (blood feast, at blood 3) that'll do it, which is possibly a nief player's best shot.

Though, with limp, I'd honestly probably recommend just ignoring it. Iirc, a limp doesn't actually hurt your combat effectiveness terribly much. Especially compared to stuff like chest wound, which is basically a combat-character's death knell, unless they're fatigue-less critter.
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1053 on: December 22, 2014, 05:51:16 pm »

1.  Am I correct in noticing that province defense increases resolve BEFORE move orders?  Cause that seems a bit cruel.

Eh... Not really. PD isn't amazingly effective, so barring a small raiding party it doesn't make much of a difference. Well, unless you're willing to dump tons of gold into PD that is. Which is definitely not the best idea.

2.  If a province is cut off from the capital/main mass of a faction, does it suffer supply damage?  One time an AI force advanced into my territory, only for me to cut off their gains into a two province bubble.  In one turn, 30/50 of them died (without any fight I could see).  This is with 3 cold mind you, and the attackers were those bat people vulnerable to cold.

Supply is not affected by being connected to a castle/fort, though I believe that they can project supplies out in a bubble around them. Additionally starvation usually takes a couple of turns to kick in. So what most likely happened is that the AI was dumb and was rampaging its zotzes through a bunch of low supply provinces and ignored the fact that they were starving. Then a bunch of bats concidently bit the bullet after you cut off their gains.

Alternatively scouting reports are extremely variable, so unless you actually saw them fight it could have just been your scouts messing around with you.

Alternatively alternatively, zotzes can fly. So they could have shuffled guys out and around. Or something.

3.  Anyone know a mod, hotkey or option that makes stealthed scouts more visually obvious?  I keep forgetting to move them.  Warning on end turn sort of helps but not in finding the damn guys.

Use 'n' to cycle through commanders without orders, or something like that. Also mashing '?' on a screen usually produces a window that list all available hotkeys on that screen, so maybe you'll find exactly what you're looking for that way.

4.  I used my pretender to help expand rapidly... and now she has a limp.  Any way to deal with that?

The obvious ones are Gift of Health and the Chalice of something or other. Can't remember the name off the top of my head. But both require high nature magic, which may not be an option. Alternatively you can look for commanders with the HEALER tag, which heal a set amount of afflictions a month. But only certain nations get to recruit/summon commanders with that tag. So if you're one of the many nations without them, then your only option is to suck it up and just deal with it.

5.  This is less of a minor question, but if I wanted to make a "suicide squad" that could go up against a huge enemy force and still inflict reasonable casualties, how would I go about doing that?  I've heard talk in this thread of mages who curse the whole army before they die and such, but there don't seem to be many AoE spells and all of them are restricted to higher levels.

Well... Yeah. You've hit the nail on the head. The kind of spells you're looking for are all in the upper tiers, and generally are hard to cast. Unless you get freespawn from somewhere, my advice would be to look for something else to damage your enemies. Though with that being said... If you want a good suicide squad, you need two things: A way to damage the enemy, and a way to keep the suicide squad alive until they can do their job.

The most obvious/classic suicide squad would be Pan's Maenids backed up by Iron Bane and Rising Fury. Maenids are berserkers, so Rising Fury causes them to go instantly berserk and thus will never flee. So your commanders/mages can safely back out of battle after their job is done. Iron Bane causes all armour to rust, so they'll break in a single hit. Maenids have no armour themselves, but dual wield fists. So the idea is that they'll break the enemy's armour with one attack, and then bludgeon them to death afterwards.

Rain of Stones is another good suicide squad tactic, if hard to pull off cheaply for many nations. It attacks every single unit on the battlefield, so it can deal some good damage and kill squishy mages. Plus if you give the caster good armour they can usually survive, which means you can cast it again. Or retreat to harass the enemy another day. You might have to give the mage some chaff to live long enough to cast Rain of Stones, but still. It's a good tactic and something to dread when fighting enemies who can utilize it.

You could probably do something similar with undead, who never flee but need undead leadership to keep them together and have blind vision too. So something like solar eclipse + scores of undead could deal damage before being wiped out themselves.
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1054 on: December 22, 2014, 06:01:03 pm »

Its Great Mother, I think she may have lost some trample attempts.  Not sure.  In a way it makes her better, as she used to outpace the javelineers I sent to support her.  I had to awkwardly place her behind the lines and hope that she neither ran ahead of the frontliners, or got stuck behind them.  It doesn't really matter, I intended to phase her out from melee combat a while ago, a good opportunity never seemed to arise.

I think I've finally got the basics down and this game is a lot of fun.  So far I'm a little after the the early game should have ended, and I've almost killed a normal AI.  I didn't even want to, but they declared war before we even bordered each other and just kept attacking and attacking and attacking.  They would attack my elite prophet + sacred giant squad with roughly even numbers, or send 35 light infantry after a 29 defense province and ignore the fact that I had a small force of giants and my pretender god there.  This is probably why I have such a good impression of province defense; a lot of needless early game fighting that I win because my opponent apparently has rabies.

Most hilariously though, they kept trying to assassinate my heroes.  It was a good idea, and some of the attempts were kind of scary, except that they would only send one guy.  My single Herse building a fortress was the first attempt.  He cut the assassin in half with a single blow because he's a giant what did you expect.  Then one of my site hunter mages, who tangle vined the assassin and then used leeching touch to one shot him.

Most hilariously, they sent a single assassin after my regenerating pretender god with almost three hundred health.
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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1055 on: December 22, 2014, 06:04:55 pm »

Actually assassins are really scary... If equipped properly. Which is something the AI usually fails to do. Swarm, a skeleton amulet or some other way of summoning chaff is amazingly effective, since assassinations are always 1v1 and the target goes off script. Even a giant has trouble with dealing with multiple undead at once after all.
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1056 on: December 22, 2014, 06:05:47 pm »

It's only hilarious until you're up against something like C'tis or Sceleria, they send in a skelliespam assassin, and it works.

Well, it's still hilarious then, just not in the same way :P
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Shadowlord

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1057 on: December 22, 2014, 06:21:43 pm »

Assassins, fortunately, can only operate alone. Less fortunately for those facing them, they can be kitted out with items to boost their combat abilities, or magic resist, or to let them endlessly summon undead to swarm you with.

Also I prefer to keep PD levels in most provinces at at least 10, up to 19 depending on likelihood of enemy scouts/spies/assassins passing through or being in the province (more with effective PD troops, little or no PD if it buys crap or few PD). PD has no upkeep cost, either, which factors into it. You could also afford to blow more gold on it if you're a summon-heavy nation.

If you have excellent national PD it can't hurt to have a good number at your forts as additional defense and deterrent.

In 4x11, while Sceleria was sieging my capital, they broke off small groups of undead and made several attempts over 3 or 4 turns to take some adjacent provinces, only to be repelled every time by my PD. (But of course it's no obstacle to a huge army, but if you use your PD as chaff in a battle, and win, they come back for free after...)
« Last Edit: December 22, 2014, 06:25:11 pm by Shadowlord »
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EnigmaticHat

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1058 on: December 22, 2014, 07:14:40 pm »

The UI seems to be suggesting that you can get 5 bodyguard units if you set a squad to "follow commander".
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1059 on: December 22, 2014, 07:21:53 pm »

There's gear that lets your guy have 10 bodyguards, though something that can fight the target +5 guys can probably fight the target +10 guys. All those bodyguards might not show up either, there's an assassin ability that basically reduces the chance of bodyguards being present.

But yes, that's how you set bodyguards for your commanders. A bit too much micro for my tastes, but it can be worth it if your opponent can use assassins.
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RangerCado

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1060 on: December 22, 2014, 07:40:27 pm »

Most notable times to use Body Guards are against any nation that has hireable seducers or assassains in the first place, OR against nations who have several decent flying units.
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1061 on: December 22, 2014, 07:43:28 pm »

Worth noting that since a patch or two ago, seducers almost never assassinate. They either seduce or do nothing (with maybe a small chance of assassinating thrown in?). Makes seducers somewhat less useful as assassins, though I guess Pan will forever be a pain to siege out.
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RangerCado

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1062 on: December 22, 2014, 07:48:12 pm »

Worth noting that since a patch or two ago, seducers almost never assassinate. They either seduce or do nothing (with maybe a small chance of assassinating thrown in?). Makes seducers somewhat less useful as assassins, though I guess Pan will forever be a pain to siege out.
Well, theres always the choice to either seduce or kill. Some nations such as Man have only female mages and high resist commanders. Your not likely to try seducing such an army, and are more likely to try and assassinate the mages.
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Frumple

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1063 on: December 22, 2014, 08:05:25 pm »

Most notable times to use Body Guards are against any nation that has hireable seducers or assassains in the first place, OR against nations who have several decent flying units.
... or if one of the global assassination rituals goes up. By that point, a few summoned critters (or just particularly tough nationals) guarding your commanders can make the difference between your armies being left stranded and, well. Not. Also a possible salve against someone able and willing to spam earth attack at you.

Vengeful Waters is just one of the most beautiful things ever :3

Rest of 'em are pretty nasty, too. Usually pretty high up the research tiers, but still. S'kinda' struck me, watching folks talk about end-game stuff, that they don't come up in conversation very often. They definitely deserve some love. VW's the obvious one, but wild hunt, the... furies or whatever, etc., etc. They're all pretty nice, even late game.
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension
« Reply #1064 on: December 22, 2014, 09:11:50 pm »

Well, theres always the choice to either seduce or kill. Some nations such as Man have only female mages and high resist commanders. Your not likely to try seducing such an army, and are more likely to try and assassinate the mages.

How many nations can make that choice? Not many I think. Off the top of my head I can think of Abysia (recruitable assassins, blood summon succubi).

Doing *nothing* is a very real choice for seducers if the target can't be seduced, in case you're not aware of it.
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