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Author Topic: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are over. ThtblovesDF wins!  (Read 35904 times)

ThtblovesDF

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #105 on: March 18, 2016, 04:45:14 pm »

Well, I feel slightly bad for being part of the vile opportunistic vermin. Maybe?

How do the various wars go? Did Shinuyama get bigger, again?
« Last Edit: March 18, 2016, 04:48:54 pm by ThtblovesDF »
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Culise

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #106 on: March 18, 2016, 07:55:30 pm »

I don't believe so, but I have a distinct feeling I'm about to get smaller.
*glances at the large number of armies growing on all my borders save west*
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chaoticag

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #107 on: March 19, 2016, 03:21:44 pm »

Looks like we're waiting on marignon. I'll add in a delay of 9 hours for now. Otherwise good job guys, we've not had a single stall all game long. Which is nice since the last game I played over at Desura had all of... 14 stalls by this point, most of it in the team I was in. That was not a fun experience.
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jking47

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #108 on: March 19, 2016, 07:53:00 pm »

For the record I would have gotten my turn in without the extension  :P Thanks for being courteous though I appreciate it. And from what I can tell we all fall into the opportunistic vermin camp haha.

Whew, well at least it looks like I will not be the first person out, so doing better than I expected. I am pretty scared going into the later game, I don't even know what I am doing early so now I am totally winging it.

I think you guys know a little bit more than me and ashpodel lol, no idea that they would be an early target because of their mechanics or anything like that. Well, its all practice for next time!
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EuchreJack

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #109 on: March 19, 2016, 09:18:20 pm »

For the record I would have gotten my turn in without the extension  :P Thanks for being courteous though I appreciate it. And from what I can tell we all fall into the opportunistic vermin camp haha.

Whew, well at least it looks like I will not be the first person out, so doing better than I expected. I am pretty scared going into the later game, I don't even know what I am doing early so now I am totally winging it.

I think you guys know a little bit more than me and ashpodel lol, no idea that they would be an early target because of their mechanics or anything like that. Well, its all practice for next time!

Late game knowledge must be hard-fought.  Unlike the early game (indies are indies, right?), the late game with human opponents has no substitute.

chaoticag

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #110 on: March 20, 2016, 03:33:12 am »

For the record I would have gotten my turn in without the extension  :P Thanks for being courteous though I appreciate it. And from what I can tell we all fall into the opportunistic vermin camp haha.

Whew, well at least it looks like I will not be the first person out, so doing better than I expected. I am pretty scared going into the later game, I don't even know what I am doing early so now I am totally winging it.

I think you guys know a little bit more than me and ashpodel lol, no idea that they would be an early target because of their mechanics or anything like that. Well, its all practice for next time!
It was cutting it close since it would have hosted around when I would have already been in deep sleep, so yeah. Besides, everyone was on point in terms of submitting turns, so it would have been a shame to have our first stall here.

As far as you're winging things go, I won't know until I get better battle reports, but looks like you're relying pretty heavily on your crossbows, so that's going well. You can do some more interesting things with that, but I'll leave you to figure it out. I personally think that Marignon has a solid army, if a little expensive.

Asphodel though... wow, that was a beat down. Safe to say that's likely over. I was hoping Vangelic would have been more active on here, so at least someone could have given them some advice on how to play them. Asphodel is unfortunately square in the advanced nations to play. Come to think of it, someone should put a tiering list for how hard a nation is to play.

But yeah, good luck to everyone.
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #111 on: March 20, 2016, 07:09:05 am »

Crossbow swarms are good, but vulnerable to archer decoys and completely nullified by Arrow Fend. Strong early on, increasingly lacklustre as counter measures are utilized and researched.

___

None of this is meant as a clear best to worst ranking. Dominions is more complex than that. Some nations have a higher skill floor to do ok with while others might have a lower skill ceiling but it's all so very dependent on map state and game phase we're on.

Ulm and Marignon are fairly easy to do ok with. Both have obvious, straightforward strengths. Pangaea is easy and Asphodel is basically dom killing D version of them, hard to say how much that swings things either way. Rest I'd rank as above simple, going from simplest to hardest C'tis->Shinuyama/Vanarus/Arcoscephale.

Never played and rarely fought against water nations so I can't really place Oceania.

C'tis and Arco have obvious focus points (death and astral respectively) but Arco is squishier and early-mid S is trickier to use devastatingly (for me at least) than early-mid D. Shinuyama and Vanarus have national rainbow mages and I've never been very good with those, give me a strong E or D focus any day. I reckon a good player with a plan could wipe the floor using either of them though.
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ThtblovesDF

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #112 on: March 20, 2016, 07:13:01 am »

Vangelic has stated in pm he prefers ingame communication, which i used with him, but there is the obvious downsides to that.

I'm durdling around, I'm aware I have no chance of winning this, but I can certainly have real influence on who wins.

First time as Oceania, btw - but they are fun, since they are basically just underwater Pangaea, which is the one other race I played in a MP, back in dom3.

« Last Edit: March 20, 2016, 07:22:27 am by ThtblovesDF »
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #113 on: March 20, 2016, 09:27:53 am »

Asphodel though... wow, that was a beat down. Safe to say that's likely over.

Haha no. They still have an army rampaging around despite having a distinct lack of forts. Until their gold reserves run out or they get dom killed that's going to be a pain in my side for a long time.

Pangaea is easy and Asphodel is basically dom killing D version of them, hard to say how much that swings things either way.

Well after 20~ turns their capital is down to almost 15k population, and the rest of their former lands seem to have even less than that. I think it's safe to say that the dom-kill means that Asphodel is on a timer as far as expansion goes. If they want to keep on using their living troops and mages they have to keep expanding and conquering new lands before their gold runs out. Admittedly they could survive on their summoned mages alone, but that takes a lot of gems which they lack the income for. So... Yeah. I'd definitely rank them as a much harder nation as Pan, given all of the extra stuff that you have to balance and worry about.

Give me a strong E or D focus any day.

I certainly can't disagree with that. Give me a fort-mage with useful paths like E2 or D2 and I'm pretty much happy. Anything above that is usually a bonus.
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ThtblovesDF

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #114 on: March 20, 2016, 02:54:32 pm »

So c'tis and Shinuyama are at war, but both have armys with 3 digits of troops just chilling far off the frontline?
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #115 on: March 20, 2016, 03:10:57 pm »

Fighting a three front war does that to you, don't know what C'tis' excuse is. Could be those raiders I had jumping about. Either way, having undefended borders is risky. C'tis is (barely) on the winning side of an early major war. That makes him dangerous, but also puts him in danger. He's going to want to watch his back. Not that all defence is necessarily a big expensive garrison.

Especially if those garrisons are upkeep free longdead horsemen :(
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #116 on: March 20, 2016, 03:23:07 pm »

They look like City Guards and Heavy Infantry to me. If there's any undead horsemen loitering about, I definitely can't see them. I'm guessing that he has the City Guards as a defense against sudden invasions (because they count as extra people when defending forts) and the Heavy Infantry are being churned out to head to the front. Or I could be completely wrong and they're actually gearing up for something else. Who knows?
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Delta Foxtrot

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #117 on: March 20, 2016, 03:31:57 pm »

If you like using resource heavy troops it's a decent idea to pump them out every turn simply because you can't mass them as needed like you can lighter troops. It's why I have a nice bunch of samurai ogres doodling about. At 30r a pop I can't exactly replace them if they decide to drop dead en masse.
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USEC_OFFICER

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #118 on: March 20, 2016, 03:47:48 pm »

City Guard are only 10r and Heavy Infantry are 15r. I'm 95% certain that they don't count as resource intensive. You'd definitely need a couple of turns to pump a ton of them out but... Eh. What do I know. I'm MA Ulm. Resources are no problem for me.
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Hatman

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Re: Dominions 4 Round 20 Back to Vanilla. The Games are on!
« Reply #119 on: March 20, 2016, 06:06:26 pm »

Some of those heavy troops are because the game decided to rudely vomit dozens of indy vampires on my nice tidy border. As opposed, I guess, to my untidy moving border with Shinuyama. But city guards are great for holding forts, yes. They're also resource cheap, which can be an incentive to pick heavier troops over them to spend gold better elsewhere - also the only real reason to buy falchioneers over elite warriors given a choice.

Longdead horsemen are a very efficient summon, patroller, raider et cetera. I have them because they are versatile, cheap and readily available. The opportunity cost at this stage in the game is low.

Regarding assessment of nations:
Vanarus has more focused summons to compliment it's national rainbows, and can make demons and thunderspam. It has simple tools on top of it's rainbow tools, excellent research and can do very well with high S or N on its' god. It's a fairly powerful nation, which should scale well with finesse, but almost always goes without some of its' summons. It is super thirsty for gold, especially if you use the forest wizards, but can use and find most gems, and develop large summoned armies overnight as a result.

Marignon will set you on fire, then shoot you. Later they will use extensive astral magic. Their national angels are hard to kill and remedy their otherwise lackluster path diversity, but ever air and earth spell marignon gets to cast needs to count. They are regarded as the worst luck nation in the game on count of their small range of paths - they flatly will never use nature, water and in most cases death, but with good mages who can lead 50 men each, they can overcome poor diversity by great volume of magic.

Asphodel surprised me. Usually freespawn and D magic beats crossbows and MR-Negates weapons and spells put the hurt on the Ulmish, but they just folded. I'd have loved their cap, and my high MR lizards could likely have taken it, but geography failed me.

Oceania are Pangaea with water instead of earth, an underwater start instead of the best berserker if not best unit in the game, no maenads, and far less unrest. Still strong, not rushable, but likely a downgrade. They have a favourite school of research to stick with, which helps.

Ulm has most of the best elemental spells in the game, a solid troopline, and poor ability to use or withstand sorcery. Everyone knows their strengths and weaknesses, most can guess their scales, and they make an excellent introduction to the power of cross-path magic.

Arco will mind hunt everyone they end up fighting. Don't leave the house without astral magicians. Elephants without any means of flight will become useless sooner rather than later. They do crosspaths about as well as ulm, but the healers and mind hunters are their most unique power and they will wield them gleefully. They might be the only nation that wants to fight vanarus in the lategame. Arco will have an awake pretender, also to go with the healers.

Shinuyama scales with mountains. Their best raiders come from the mountains even without forts, and they need temples and labs in those mountains to spam shaman. The bakemono sorcerer looks great, but is ancient, limiting his power in battle, and slow to recruit mages for nearly 400 gold are somewhat painful. Uba's are pretty amazing, though. WN is a good crosspath, WD is a good crosspath, d2 is great, w2 is w4 if it has to be. That's scratching the iceberg, and unless I win this war against them I'll not crack it open.

C'tis is enchantment five's greatest hits, with some extras. Your magicians are good, you have an assassin who makes skeletons in battle, your basic troops have MR 12, your dominion makes you rich and others poor/hagridden, but knowing exactly what to research before your first war is likely your single biggest strength here.
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