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[E. Albright]

Give (a) black servant(s) or spectator(s) an item w/mountain survival or floating plus a BVC, while setting them at the back of the field on retreat, then have them repeatedly sneak into the province until it looks more manageable or the RNG decides it hates them (mountain survival is better under the circumstances).

(Or a Harvester of Sorrows with a BVC if you're far enough along with your research, hehehe...)

[Frumple]

"I'm not saying stealthy undead BVCs solve all problems... just a lot of them."

[Micro102]

So I started a game as LA Ulm, and am surrounded by heavy cavalry. Should I just spam the ever loving shit out of my pikemen? Normally spearmen are good against cavalry in strategy games, but I don't know if dominions works that way. Maybe the tower shield guys are better?

[dennislp3]

So I started a game as LA Ulm, and am surrounded by heavy cavalry. Should I just spam the ever loving shit out of my pikemen? Normally spearmen are good against cavalry in strategy games, but I don't know if dominions works that way. Maybe the tower shield guys are better?

Yes.

In Dominions there is no real magical "bonus vs cavalry" that most games sort of cram in to make spearmen make sense.

In Dominions it boils down to weapon length when dealing with cavalry. Being on a horse gives them +1 weapon length I believe and in a melee weapon length can make a huge difference as having a longer weapon (or stat at least) can prevent others from attacking. Cavalry are so strong partly because they have lots of armor (and other good stats) but also because their "weapon length" is almost ALWAYS longer than most infantry which means when infantry are fighting against them they get to attack far less than usual.

Spearmen/pikemen/etc. have a longer reach than most infantry which allows them to negate the weapon length difference and puts them on a more even playing field.

Even against spearmen they will generally still cause lots of damage but it helps a great deal. Also remember to keep your spearmen (or all infantry usually) in close formation so they can maximize space (3 human size (2) infantry can fit in 1 "square" while only 2 normal cavalry (size 3) can exist in one "square", a square being a total size of 6) which in turn means more attacks per round against the cavalry in question.

Another way to help prevent flanking is to make the spearmen target cavalry instead of "closest" or some other enemy

Same logic applies to giants.

[Micro102]

Ok, just tried a communion and some asshole cast teleport, which teleported all my slaves around the battlefield. If the enemy wasn't already routed I risk losing all my slaves. Is there no way to ban the use of this spell that they have no reason to use? It makes communions seem worthless.

[chaoticag]

That's the first time I've seen the AI cast teleport of it's own volition. Actually, come to think of it, how is your research? One way to stop an AI from casting something like teleport is to have it have some other go to spell that it can uselessly cast instead. My guess though? Everything might have been out of range of your communion master so he wanted to get closer.

[Micro102]

That's the first time I've seen the AI cast teleport of it's own volition. Actually, come to think of it, how is your research? One way to stop an AI from casting something like teleport is to have it have some other go to spell that it can uselessly cast instead. My guess though? Everything might have been out of range of your communion master so he wanted to get closer.

Yeah that's probably what happened, but they really need to address this "your mages may randomly cast a spell that will kill your own men for no benefit". Surely you should be able to tell your guys "don't cast this spell that will kill our mages".


Also, does anyone have a good counter to birds and horses? Since they don't seem to have morale checks anymore I find them running and flying past everything and straight to my commanders, usually killing a bunch of them. I've tried putting spearmen as bodyguards for every commander but it's just not enough at 5 spearman per commander. A small group of birds can kill a few mages.

And finally, can someone explain why my Vampire Queen will always stay after my army has routed and just repeatedly cast frighten and maybe an occasional reanimation until the enemy routes or she dies? (not complaining as this has won me a battle I should not have but it's odd)

[etgfrog]

Also, does anyone have a good counter to birds and horses? Since they don't seem to have morale checks anymore I find them running and flying past everything and straight to my commanders, usually killing a bunch of them. I've tried putting spearmen as bodyguards for every commander but it's just not enough at 5 spearman per commander. A small group of birds can kill a few mages.

Take part of your forces and put them far in the back, then hold and attack fliers or calvary.

[chaoticag]

Yeah that's probably what happened, but they really need to address this "your mages may randomly cast a spell that will kill your own men for no benefit". Surely you should be able to tell your guys "don't cast this spell that will kill our mages".

It's unfortunately a low priority fix because the best way to fix it from happening is to improve your playstyle. But at the same time your mages didn't expose themselves to any danger when that happened. Your mages won't to cast teleport if there's anything else he can do, but if you're still worried they would try...

Have one mage be in the communion who is there to buff the slaves. At a bare minimum this would be body ethereal and luck. You can also add on mind shield since of course you can, it's an astral communion. If anyone can drop ironskin as well that could be decent, yes, it makes them more vulnerable to lightning, but if they got hit in the first place they're already dead.

Now if you don't mind killing everyone you can have a lot more fun with communions but that's for another time.

[Micro102]

Take part of your forces and put them far in the back, then hold and attack fliers or calvary.

So are you saying that if I have a group of spearman behind the mages, the AI will cause fliers and cavalry to go past the mages and attack the spearmen?

Yeah that's probably what happened, but they really need to address this "your mages may randomly cast a spell that will kill your own men for no benefit". Surely you should be able to tell your guys "don't cast this spell that will kill our mages".

It's unfortunately a low priority fix because the best way to fix it from happening is to improve your playstyle. But at the same time your mages didn't expose themselves to any danger when that happened. Your mages won't to cast teleport if there's anything else he can do, but if you're still worried they would try...

Have one mage be in the communion who is there to buff the slaves. At a bare minimum this would be body ethereal and luck. You can also add on mind shield since of course you can, it's an astral communion. If anyone can drop ironskin as well that could be decent, yes, it makes them more vulnerable to lightning, but if they got hit in the first place they're already dead.

Now if you don't mind killing everyone you can have a lot more fun with communions but that's for another time.

I don't see how "playing better" is going to stop your mages from deciding they want to catch up with the retreating army, and teleporting themselves and a bunch of slaves behind the retreating units which will most likely kill them. A very easy fix would be to allow us to forbid certain spells for certain mages.

[chaoticag]

Your mages will stop because range 100 spells mean they will never have catch up to retreating army in their list of priorities. Mind burn and soul slay have a range of bigger than the current map.

[etgfrog]

So are you saying that if I have a group of spearman behind the mages, the AI will cause fliers and cavalry to go past the mages and attack the spearmen?

Yes, the AI actually uses attack rear for fliers and cavalry.

[E. Albright]

Take part of your forces and put them far in the back, then hold and attack fliers or calvary.

So are you saying that if I have a group of spearman behind the mages, the AI will cause fliers and cavalry to go past the mages and attack the spearmen?

Possibly. Otherwise, the reserve force will attack them, though. With cav rather than fliers, they may intercept them before they get to the rearguard.

[Endymion]

The best solution to the communion teleport problem is embracing the chaos. So you're going to want hell power, phoenix pyre, teleport, and reinvigorate spam. Then your entire communion can attract an ungodly number of horrors to the battlefield and any time one of them gets struck down they explode and teleport if they arn't fatigued out, thus the reinvig spam.

Admittedly that strategy was made for back in dom3 when you could abuse reverse communions because the slaves would still get combat turns.

On the topic of flankers, do they still have to pass a morale roll for every troop they pass on the way to attack rear?

[E. Albright]

Speculation is that precisely how that roll is handled changed in the transition from sequential to simultaneous, but in theory, yes.