MA Pythium starts with an income of 5 Astral Pearls per a turn. That's kind of amazing. You can forge a Ring of Wizardry by the end of year 2 if you can rush for Construction 6. I dislike their national troops but now I am kind of tempted to play them.
Edit: Do multiple items of the same kind stack? e.g. will a Water 1 mage with a pair of water bracelets (+1W, misc) get boosted to Water 3?
No, items don't stack like that. And wow, I didn't realize their astral income was so crazy.
so I tried to play caelum, something about eagle kings perked my interest, and jesus christ, they are hard as FUCK to play. I need to figure out the nuances more of magic and economy I think instead of just playing as yomi and going OLOLOLO ONI~~CHAN GUNNA EAT YOU
seriously the balance in this game seems all over the place, but in a good way. I just need to figure out how the fuck to actually play because right now I get my ass stomped consistently (when playing something not based on huge fuckoff demon armies)
I am also down with playing multiplayer, I can host if need be as my pc usually runs 24/7 so I don't forsee a problem with that, and I know how to do things like port forwarding!
I should note I only own dominions 3, so yeah. gunna be that if a multiplayer game gets set up and I host.
so I tried to play caelum, something about eagle kings perked my interest, and jesus christ, they are hard as FUCK to play. I need to figure out the nuances more of magic and economy I think instead of just playing as yomi and going OLOLOLO ONI~~CHAN GUNNA EAT YOU
seriously the balance in this game seems all over the place, but in a good way. I just need to figure out how the fuck to actually play because right now I get my ass stomped consistently (when playing something not based on huge fuckoff demon armies)
I am also down with playing multiplayer, I can host if need be as my pc usually runs 24/7 so I don't forsee a problem with that, and I know how to do things like port forwarding!
I should note I only own dominions 3, so yeah. gunna be that if a multiplayer game gets set up and I host.
Caelum is tricky. Most of their troops are pretty mediocre, but you have to play to their strengths. Their thugging/raiding potential is nuts, largely due to the Eagle Kings. A guaranteed 4A1E1W flying sacred with full slots, awe 3, and shock resistance? On a nation full of flying troops? Once you get some research and some items up, their options open up in a big way. Consider getting a minor earth bless to help out with the 5 encumbrance - though that's not 100% mandatory, as you have lots of boot options since you don't need flying boots. An unkitted Eagle King with just a tad of research (like mirror image and shockwave) can handle moderate amounts of PD and weaker indies. Put just a couple items on them (like a horror helmet and boots of the messenger) and they become much more potent, and they only get stronger as your research increases. Obviously, it's important to start site searching early with your D1s. And of course, there's the obvious big army uses for Eagle Kings, i.e. Lightning Strike spam. But the real benefit to Caelum is being unpredictable. Your thugging Eagle Kings can be all over the map, all the time, and it's very hard to predict where they're going to be next. What's more, you never know if they're going to show up with an Eagle King thug or a full army. Their troops are fairly weak, yes, but they're much harder to deal with when you never know when and where they're going to show up, and when they can set up defensive movement traps all over the map (it's very important to have vision of enemy territory for this reason). So yeah, if you take a Caelum army up against a horde of palankashas or jaguar warriors or some other beefy sacred, you're going to get crushed. But they're quite potent if you play to their strengths.
Early on you can rely on elephants to eat up the indies as long as you support them with some Wingless. Caelum is very solid once you realize most of your troops are situational.
On an unrelated note, I can't seem to figure out how to properly use archers. They are devastating against lightly-armored targets, but 5 heavily-armored guys with shields will just laugh at an entire horde. If all it takes to neutralize your archers is a very small investment in shielded heavy infantry but archers only function in large numbers, when are you supposed to use them? When you know for a fact your opponent is massing low-protection monsters?
Grey Paladin on
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
Early on you can rely on elephants to eat up the indies as long as you support them with some Wingless. Caelum is very solid once you realize most of your troops are situational.
On an unrelated note, I can't seem to figure out how to properly use archers. They are devastating against lightly-armored targets, but 5 heavily-armored guys with shields will just laugh at an entire horde. If all it takes to neutralize your archers is a very small investment in shielded heavy infantry but archers only function in large numbers, when are you supposed to use them? When you know for a fact your opponent is massing low-protection monsters?
The obvious answer is flaming arrows, though I'd imagine you've already thought of that and/or don't have good access to it. If you're talking about archer screens (just a few of those shield user up front to catch arrows), I suggest a mage or two with some evocations to blow them up quickly so your archers get to work on the main mass of troops. Also, I find archers are much more effective if you don't get them a target. Just set them to fire and keep distance, target none. I get much better mileage out of them that way. Beyond that, armor-destroying spells will drastically increase your archers' effectiveness, as will spells to slow down the other army, giving your archers more time to shoot.
Are you play Dom3, by chance? In Dom3, shields either block the projectile and prevent all damage (and the shield parry value is doubled when blocking arrows), or the arrow gets through. In Dom4, the shield's protection is taken into account, and a high-damage shot (with, say, flaming arrows) can go through a shield.
I legitimately suck at this game, I think half of my problem is I don't know what I need to do to make a good pretender god, specifically for Caelum, but really for any race. I never know when I should pick a warrior centric god, or a passive one that just hangs out in my capital. I think I have the army building and conquering bit down, now I need to focus more on how to use magic and items and crap
so I tried to play caelum, something about eagle kings perked my interest, and jesus christ, they are hard as FUCK to play. I need to figure out the nuances more of magic and economy I think instead of just playing as yomi and going OLOLOLO ONI~~CHAN GUNNA EAT YOU
seriously the balance in this game seems all over the place, but in a good way. I just need to figure out how the fuck to actually play because right now I get my ass stomped consistently (when playing something not based on huge fuckoff demon armies)
I am also down with playing multiplayer, I can host if need be as my pc usually runs 24/7 so I don't forsee a problem with that, and I know how to do things like port forwarding!
I should note I only own dominions 3, so yeah. gunna be that if a multiplayer game gets set up and I host.
Caelum is tricky. Most of their troops are pretty mediocre, but you have to play to their strengths.
To ensure that nobody gets misled here, I'm going to rephrase this slightly.
Caelum's infantry line will lose to an opposing nation's infantry line in approximately 100% of cases. They could beat, like...EA Agartha's Pale Ones, probably. That's about it. Their encumbrance is terrible, their stats are average-to-subpar in every category, and they only fit two to a square compared to three for human-sized units. They are not good in a straight fight, at all. They can fly, so they make good raiders, but in a serious my-army-versus-your-army slog Caelum is pretty much 100% about mage support, in any era. Usually that takes the form of mass Thunderstrikes, but stuff like Fog Warriors in Alteration can be good as well. So don't skimp on the Eagle Kings/High Seraphs/Harab Elders when you go to war, and remember that Storm and Summon Storm Power let your lesser mages contribute as well (but keep in mind that that A4 is way better than A3 for Thunderstrike spam, since it roughly halves the high fatigue cost; you might even consider giving air boosters to A2 mages if you have air gems to throw around).
I legitimately suck at this game, I think half of my problem is I don't know what I need to do to make a good pretender god, specifically for Caelum, but really for any race. I never know when I should pick a warrior centric god, or a passive one that just hangs out in my capital. I think I have the army building and conquering bit down, now I need to focus more on how to use magic and items and crap
There are tons of ways to design a pretender for any given nation, but here are a few things to keep in mind. Does your nation have trouble expanding early and/or trouble getting easy access to SC chassis? If so, you might consider an SC pretender (awake, obviously, if you need him to expand). Do you have strong sacreds and/or sacred mages? If so, consider a bless. Note that, even with the bless-centric nations (Mictlan, Niefelheim, Lanka, etc.), you don't necessarily have to go F9W9S9 to make good use of them. In my opinion, you should think very hard before you get more than one major bless. As for scales, Order 3 is almost a given right now. Taking a couple points of misfortune synergizes well with that. Growth 3 is also very good income in the long term, if you can afford the points. Most nations don't need production, and many can get away with sloth. Temperature scales can be a good way to get some points. Drain is easier to deal with in Dom4 since research values are higher in general. Finally, look at your magic. If there's a particularly useful school that your nation doesn't have easy access to, consider getting it on your pretender. Astral is the most common choice here, especially with rings of wizardry/sorcerery so much harder to get in Dom4.
so I tried to play caelum, something about eagle kings perked my interest, and jesus christ, they are hard as FUCK to play. I need to figure out the nuances more of magic and economy I think instead of just playing as yomi and going OLOLOLO ONI~~CHAN GUNNA EAT YOU
seriously the balance in this game seems all over the place, but in a good way. I just need to figure out how the fuck to actually play because right now I get my ass stomped consistently (when playing something not based on huge fuckoff demon armies)
I am also down with playing multiplayer, I can host if need be as my pc usually runs 24/7 so I don't forsee a problem with that, and I know how to do things like port forwarding!
I should note I only own dominions 3, so yeah. gunna be that if a multiplayer game gets set up and I host.
Caelum is tricky. Most of their troops are pretty mediocre, but you have to play to their strengths.
To ensure that nobody gets misled here, I'm going to rephrase this slightly.
Caelum's infantry line will lose to an opposing nation's infantry line in approximately 100% of cases. They could beat, like...EA Agartha's Pale Ones, probably. That's about it. Their encumbrance is terrible, their stats are average-to-subpar in every category, and they only fit two to a square compared to three for human-sized units. They are not good in a straight fight, at all. They can fly, so they make good raiders, but in a serious my-army-versus-your-army slog Caelum is pretty much 100% about mage support, in any era. Usually that takes the form of mass Thunderstrikes, but stuff like Fog Warriors in Alteration can be good as well. So don't skimp on the Eagle Kings/High Seraphs/Harab Elders when you go to war, and remember that Storm and Summon Storm Power let your lesser mages contribute as well (but keep in mind that that A4 is way better than A3 for Thunderstrike spam, since it roughly halves the high fatigue cost; you might even consider giving air boosters to A2 mages if you have air gems to throw around).
This is a much more detailed and useful illustration of what I was getting at with Caelum's infantry. Physically, they are absolutely subpar and will lose all the time. They actually illustrate a couple of points that I feel a lot of Dom newbies overlook: unit size and fatigue. If you look at the flashy stats (protection, attack, defense, health), Caelum's infantry doesn't seem that bad, but you take them into a fight, and they just perform much worse than you were expecting. A lot of this is due to size and fatigue. Only having two units per square instead of the usual three for human troops means that, in square vs. square terms, your infantry are taking 1.5 hits each, while their infantry are only taking .6 hits on average (in other words, you have two hits on three infantry, while they have three hits on two) when fighting normal sized humans. The difference is pretty huge. And fatigue is the other killer. High encumbrance means it adds up quickly, and by time you hit even 15-20 fatigue, the critical hits will just melt you.
Caelum's infantry has two advantages: flying and shock resistance. The shock resistance lets you cast lightning strike with impunity, obviously, but it really starts to shine once you can bring out wrathful skies and shimmering fields for all your big fights - though obviously, this happens much later in the game. Caelum absolutely has to use their mages effectively to win any serious fight. Do not be afraid to take a lot of your researchers into the field once you get your important spells researched (thunder strike, storm, fog warriors, etc.). One lightning strike spammer is good. Three are better. Twenty are goddamn terrifying.
Early on you can rely on elephants to eat up the indies as long as you support them with some Wingless. Caelum is very solid once you realize most of your troops are situational.
On an unrelated note, I can't seem to figure out how to properly use archers. They are devastating against lightly-armored targets, but 5 heavily-armored guys with shields will just laugh at an entire horde. If all it takes to neutralize your archers is a very small investment in shielded heavy infantry but archers only function in large numbers, when are you supposed to use them? When you know for a fact your opponent is massing low-protection monsters?
The obvious answer is flaming arrows, though I'd imagine you've already thought of that and/or don't have good access to it. If you're talking about archer screens (just a few of those shield user up front to catch arrows), I suggest a mage or two with some evocations to blow them up quickly so your archers get to work on the main mass of troops. Also, I find archers are much more effective if you don't get them a target. Just set them to fire and keep distance, target none. I get much better mileage out of them that way. Beyond that, armor-destroying spells will drastically increase your archers' effectiveness, as will spells to slow down the other army, giving your archers more time to shoot.
Are you play Dom3, by chance? In Dom3, shields either block the projectile and prevent all damage (and the shield parry value is doubled when blocking arrows), or the arrow gets through. In Dom4, the shield's protection is taken into account, and a high-damage shot (with, say, flaming arrows) can go through a shield.
I'm playing Dom4. My excellent 12 damage longbowmen can't scratch most infantry with a shield and 12 or more protection without Flaming Arrows.
Grey Paladin on
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
Aside from the elemental royalty, are there any decent conjured SC chassises I can summon with access to Air 6, Water 6, Nature 5, and Earth 3?
Elemental royalty are the only ones that immediately jump to mind with those paths. If you can break into astral, you can get a golem, which is pretty good, properly kitted. If you can get into fire, you can get an iron dragon, which is also good, and doesn't need many items. Awaken Tarrasque with gift of reason isn't horrible, but not great either. And then there's always breaking into death to get Tartarians (though you probably didn't need to be reminded of that). It's a little overplayed, perhaps, but it's still strong.
I'm playing Dom4. My excellent 12 damage longbowmen can't scratch most infantry with a shield and 12 or more protection without Flaming Arrows.
In that case, sounds like you'll just have to supplement those archers with something else, be it flaming arrows or various armor-destroying spells (any of the acid spells are great for this, if you can access them). I haven't played with many archer-heavy builds yet, so I don't really know how effective piercing through shields is. It might just be something more or less reserved for the big crossbows or flaming arrows.
I legitimately suck at this game, I think half of my problem is I don't know what I need to do to make a good pretender god, specifically for Caelum, but really for any race. I never know when I should pick a warrior centric god, or a passive one that just hangs out in my capital. I think I have the army building and conquering bit down, now I need to focus more on how to use magic and items and crap
There are tons of ways to design a pretender for any given nation, but here are a few things to keep in mind. Does your nation have trouble expanding early and/or trouble getting easy access to SC chassis? If so, you might consider an SC pretender (awake, obviously, if you need him to expand). Do you have strong sacreds and/or sacred mages? If so, consider a bless. Note that, even with the bless-centric nations (Mictlan, Niefelheim, Lanka, etc.), you don't necessarily have to go F9W9S9 to make good use of them. In my opinion, you should think very hard before you get more than one major bless. As for scales, Order 3 is almost a given right now. Taking a couple points of misfortune synergizes well with that. Growth 3 is also very good income in the long term, if you can afford the points. Most nations don't need production, and many can get away with sloth. Temperature scales can be a good way to get some points. Drain is easier to deal with in Dom4 since research values are higher in general. Finally, look at your magic. If there's a particularly useful school that your nation doesn't have easy access to, consider getting it on your pretender. Astral is the most common choice here, especially with rings of wizardry/sorcerery so much harder to get in Dom4.
so I tried to play caelum, something about eagle kings perked my interest, and jesus christ, they are hard as FUCK to play. I need to figure out the nuances more of magic and economy I think instead of just playing as yomi and going OLOLOLO ONI~~CHAN GUNNA EAT YOU
seriously the balance in this game seems all over the place, but in a good way. I just need to figure out how the fuck to actually play because right now I get my ass stomped consistently (when playing something not based on huge fuckoff demon armies)
I am also down with playing multiplayer, I can host if need be as my pc usually runs 24/7 so I don't forsee a problem with that, and I know how to do things like port forwarding!
I should note I only own dominions 3, so yeah. gunna be that if a multiplayer game gets set up and I host.
Caelum is tricky. Most of their troops are pretty mediocre, but you have to play to their strengths.
To ensure that nobody gets misled here, I'm going to rephrase this slightly.
Caelum's infantry line will lose to an opposing nation's infantry line in approximately 100% of cases. They could beat, like...EA Agartha's Pale Ones, probably. That's about it. Their encumbrance is terrible, their stats are average-to-subpar in every category, and they only fit two to a square compared to three for human-sized units. They are not good in a straight fight, at all. They can fly, so they make good raiders, but in a serious my-army-versus-your-army slog Caelum is pretty much 100% about mage support, in any era. Usually that takes the form of mass Thunderstrikes, but stuff like Fog Warriors in Alteration can be good as well. So don't skimp on the Eagle Kings/High Seraphs/Harab Elders when you go to war, and remember that Storm and Summon Storm Power let your lesser mages contribute as well (but keep in mind that that A4 is way better than A3 for Thunderstrike spam, since it roughly halves the high fatigue cost; you might even consider giving air boosters to A2 mages if you have air gems to throw around).
Only having two units per square instead of the usual three for human troops means that, in square vs. square terms, your infantry are taking 1.5 hits each, while their infantry are only taking .6 hits on average (in other words, you have two hits on three infantry, while they have three hits on two) when fighting normal sized humans. The difference is pretty huge.
Another important mechanic to consider when fighting outnumbered: every time a unit is attacked, its defense is reduced by 2 for the rest of the round. This effectively reduces Caelum's attack and defense values below what they look like. This is also an important factor in SC design: defense alone will never keep a single unit safe against a whole army, making it important to layer on multiple levels of protection (defense and awe become exponentially better when combined with each other, for instance).
Guys, is there a decent summonable unit with trample from levels 1-4~ in either Construction, Blood or Death?
I'm playing Skaven (yes, yes, 'lol mods!'), and they desperately need a trampling line-breaker unit in the early stages of the game before they can get access to Darkness / Doomwheels. The mod creator gave them relatively early access to Rat Ogres through blood magic, but for whatever reason decided that such monstrosities should not have trample.
Guys, is there a decent summonable unit with trample from levels 1-4~ in either Construction, Blood or Death?
I'm playing Skaven (yes, yes, 'lol mods!'), and they desperately need a trampling line-breaker unit in the early stages of the game before they can get access to Darkness / Doomwheels. The mod creator gave them relatively early access to Rat Ogres through blood magic, but for whatever reason decided that such monstrosities should not have trample.
EDIT: Playing Dominions 3.
The only thing I can think of that sort of meets that criteria is Behemoth at enchantment 4, D3, 10 gems. It's not a horrible unit at 104 hp, though its defense and protection are low, and it has low movement points, which isn't exactly what you want in a trampler. The other issue is that enchantment 4 isn't usually a high priority research path unless you can make use of flaming arrows. So I don't know how useful it will end up being, but it's the only summonable trampler available at 4 or lower research other than air/earth elementals.
All in all, I'd imagine there are better ways to do what you're trying to do, but knowing nothing about that mod nation, I can't really say what those ways might be.
The more I read this thread the more I really want to try this game. How often does it go on sale?
Dominions 3 hardly ever went on sale, which is at least partly why it's such an obscure title.
It's on the cheap now on Steam. Dominions 4, which is probably the one you want at this point, probably won't be on sale anytime soon unfortunately. People have talking to the devs about this, and they just feel that increased sales aren't worth 'devaluing' the game.
All in all, I'd imagine there are better ways to do what you're trying to do, but knowing nothing about that mod nation, I can't really say what those ways might be.
Well, you've Skavenslaves, which you can buy either 1 at a time (lol no) or in packs of 3:
Ignore the fluff text that says you should use them as a screen against arrow. Never, ever do this.
I don't build these in any real quantities, at least not at the start of the game. There are a few mid-to-late game strategies where you can use them as fodder to go around with a thug and harass, but they're not a great conventional army choice.
You've got Clanrats that come in 2 varieties:
I use the cheap variety with the pointy sticks as my center-forward arrow sponge. They can take a charge pretty well too (assuming said charge isn't from cavalry). They can't fight back really well, but they're not supposed to be your damage dealers anyway.
Then you've got Stormvermin:
They suck and they are expensive. I do not use them.
You've got Plague Monks:
Not bad damage dealers and pretty cheap, but you've got better options than these guys, so I hardly ever use them.
You've got Censer Bearers:
These are recruit-anywhere Sacreds. Yup.
They are cheese as fuck, and I love them. They beg for an Astral Bless. The Censer is an AoE poison weapon that will cause a lot of friendly troop attrition, but you can fix that pretty quickly.
You've got two varieties of Gutter Runners:
They are both fantastic, and I use them in about equal quantities. Awesome flankers: the Night Runners net 'em, the Gutter Runners stab 'em. Once I get Darkness, these become the core of my army and I mostly forget about Clanrats.
Lastly, you've got Council Guard:
Capital-only sacreds that arguably suck even more than the Stormvermin. Avoid.
The problem I have that a trampling line-breaker would solve is the lack of armor. Censer Bearer, zero armor; Night Runner, leather armor, leather cap; Gutter Runner, scale armor but only a leather cap. The only guys with half-decent protection are the blocks of Clanrats. This works fine up until a really awkward point in the mid game when I'm fighting large numbers of core front-line troops: I just take a ton of casualties as my rats get swamped in rank after organized rank of goons that eventually rout the Clanrats. A trampler would break-up the ranks into more manageable chunks that my rats could kill without getting bogged down in.
Yeah, a trampler would work, but just having some units to hold the line would probably work just as well. If you have good earth and/or nature magic, various protection buffs could help out a lot. Though really, it looks like a nation that's going to have some attrition in any real fight. Darkness, as you pointed out, would be pretty huge though. Are those guys size 1? Because if so, :shock:
New Dom4 patch! Already uploaded to Desura, just waiting on approval. Changelog in spoiler.
GAME Many stat and sprite fixes
GAME New events and fixed events
GAME Smarter targeting for monthly site searching spells
GAME Map editor warns about capitals too close too each other
GAME Now ? (not g) must be used to view keyboard shortcuts
GAME Extra Cold/Heat spreading dominions limited by scale choice too
GAME Map fixes (missing connections and wrong terrains)
GAME Wrong water/land shape for PD fixed
GAME Mechanical Militia didn't work properly
GAME Water elementals in retinue can now become ice elementals
GAME Proofreading done
GAME Intrinsic resistances from magic doubled
GAME Illwinter ritual improved
GAME New longdead for Jotunheim
GAME Sauromatia starts with scout instead of soothsayer
GAME Gift of Health level 5 -> 6
GAME Forest Troll Court fix
GAME Everything should have descriptions now
GAME Icons for wraparound maps
GAME New ability Master Ritualist
GAME Demonbred got blood hunt bonus
GAME Centaur sage research bonus 4 -> 2
GAME Oracle of the Ancients got better
GAME Seeker of truths reduce unrest
GAME Army setup screen could not be scrolled by dragging scrollbar.
GAME Events requiring specific poptype can no longer occur in capitals
GAME --masterai added
GAME high level AIs could not be selected for network play
GAME Living Castle had no range
GAME Bless and banish fine tunings
GAME Lanka has improved blood hunting in turmoil
GAME Autocost calculation changed resulting in some mages with random paths beings cheaper
GAME Hypnotize on nagas
GAME Ghoul Commander better leader
GAME Prevent random events from creating out of range dominion values
GAME Raiding bug fixed
GAME Could target swallowed units
GAME Chaos Power beings take advantage of unrest too
GAME Improved shape changer info
GAME Gem generator info
GAME Disciples started with hostile dominion
GAME Pretender cost fixes
GAME Dagon for LA Mictlan
GAME Fenrer get Jotun wolf retinue.
GAME Minor repel mechanic changes
GAME C'tis miasma do not affect sacred troops or pretender
GAME Global random event chain fix
GAME --clustered for clustered start positions
GAME Wrong terrain for Contact Mountain Vila
GAME Some spell summoning air breathers could be cast under water
GAME Make pearls added to cheat detection
GAME Foreseeing of global event resulted in ... message
GAME Tool menu couldn't open user data directory with spaces in it
GAME Blood feast etc can heal lost eyes too
GAME Blood feast do not necessarily take all afflictions
GAME Unique commanders were not always unique
GAME Water grums didn't work
GAME Twist fate didn't work when troops were blessed by pretender
GAME Global solar eclipse implemented
GAME Horror seed produced a sprite instead of a horror
GAME Could cast astral harpoon as combat spell
GAME Trying to forge two artifacts could result in lost gems
GAME Maximum HP looked wrong when unit had undying
GAME Sound effect volume didn't affect battle sounds
GAME Could continue creating game even after failing to delete old game
GAME Wrong land for disease grinder message
GAME Wrong required dominions version for merrowmoor map
GAME New map command #saildist
MODDING Mod bug fix for newspell and newitem
MODDING Mods parsed one file at a time
MODDING Mod parse order changed
MODDING Always use 50-53 numbers for multi magic paths
MODDING #restrict -1 for last modified nation
MODDING Info on high numbered modded weapons didn't work
MODDING Nations 100+ didn't work
MODDING Game could hang if a nation had no legal god unit
MODDING High nametypes didn't work
MODDING #range050 didn't work
MODDING Six new weapon mod commands
MODDING New nation commands: #hatesterr, #coastcom?, #coastunit?, #likesterr
MODDING New monster and item command: #resources, #mastersmith, #masterrit
Also, I don't remember who suggested doing Choas + Luck scales, but you are a fucking genius. This has changed my entire world.
Free gems. Free commanders. Free gold. Free PD. Free everything. But OH NO SOMETIMES THERE ARE BABARIANS, lolz.
I think this is probably the best way to get a decent influx of the rarer magic gems (I'm looking at you, astral).
Just so you know, the big time Dom3/4 players have done a fair bit of testing on this and found that turmoil/luck is pretty much flat out inferior to order/misfortune. Obviously, there's a huge element of randomness to it, but the gold output of order/misfortune completely dwarfs that of turmoil/luck, even more so than in Dom3 because of the much larger event list (and relatively smaller number of gold events). I agree that it's a fun way to play, and if you're not min-maxing, it's plenty viable. But most of the people who know way more about this game than I do all agree that turmoil/luck is not competitive with order/misfortune. Which is unfortunate, because luck is lots of fun.
Also, I don't remember who suggested doing Choas + Luck scales, but you are a fucking genius. This has changed my entire world.
Free gems. Free commanders. Free gold. Free PD. Free everything. But OH NO SOMETIMES THERE ARE BABARIANS, lolz.
I think this is probably the best way to get a decent influx of the rarer magic gems (I'm looking at you, astral).
Just so you know, the big time Dom3/4 players have done a fair bit of testing on this and found that turmoil/luck is pretty much flat out inferior to order/misfortune. Obviously, there's a huge element of randomness to it, but the gold output of order/misfortune completely dwarfs that of turmoil/luck, even more so than in Dom3 because of the much larger event list (and relatively smaller number of gold events). I agree that it's a fun way to play, and if you're not min-maxing, it's plenty viable. But most of the people who know way more about this game than I do all agree that turmoil/luck is not competitive with order/misfortune. Which is unfortunate, because luck is lots of fun.
On Turn 4 I got 1,000 Gold, 30 Fire Gems and a Blacksteel plate.
On Turn 5 I got another 1,000 Gold.
Despite having 0 Earth Gem sites, I have like 50 in the bank.
I have recieved 3 free commanders just before the dormant pretenders woke-up. Not such a big deal money-wise, but Holy Goddamn 2 commanders in one turn early on is a big deal.
Obviously this isn't typical or whatever, but I'm laughing all the way to the bank right now.
I am consistently losing more forces to friendly fire than to the enemy. Archers are traitors that are only good when you don't need them.
Grey Paladin on
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
Also, I don't remember who suggested doing Choas + Luck scales, but you are a fucking genius. This has changed my entire world.
Free gems. Free commanders. Free gold. Free PD. Free everything. But OH NO SOMETIMES THERE ARE BABARIANS, lolz.
I think this is probably the best way to get a decent influx of the rarer magic gems (I'm looking at you, astral).
Just so you know, the big time Dom3/4 players have done a fair bit of testing on this and found that turmoil/luck is pretty much flat out inferior to order/misfortune. Obviously, there's a huge element of randomness to it, but the gold output of order/misfortune completely dwarfs that of turmoil/luck, even more so than in Dom3 because of the much larger event list (and relatively smaller number of gold events). I agree that it's a fun way to play, and if you're not min-maxing, it's plenty viable. But most of the people who know way more about this game than I do all agree that turmoil/luck is not competitive with order/misfortune. Which is unfortunate, because luck is lots of fun.
On Turn 4 I got 1,000 Gold, 30 Fire Gems and a Blacksteel plate.
On Turn 5 I got another 1,000 Gold.
Despite having 0 Earth Gem sites, I have like 50 in the bank.
I have recieved 3 free commanders just before the dormant pretenders woke-up. Not such a big deal money-wise, but Holy Goddamn 2 commanders in one turn early on is a big deal.
Obviously this isn't typical or whatever, but I'm laughing all the way to the bank right now.
When your income is 1200 and your upkeep is 1080 you'll wish you got decent income more often than once every 3-5 turns. There's also a limit to how many events you can get each turn, so luck doesn't scale very well with large empires. The early windfalls make it easy to afford year-1 fortresses and the like, but turmoil will get you eventually.
Luck is also not very good right now in Dominions 4 due to the best gold events being less common and an influx of weak new events diluting even the decent ones, but supposedly they're working on improving it.
Also, I don't remember who suggested doing Choas + Luck scales, but you are a fucking genius. This has changed my entire world.
Free gems. Free commanders. Free gold. Free PD. Free everything. But OH NO SOMETIMES THERE ARE BABARIANS, lolz.
I think this is probably the best way to get a decent influx of the rarer magic gems (I'm looking at you, astral).
Just so you know, the big time Dom3/4 players have done a fair bit of testing on this and found that turmoil/luck is pretty much flat out inferior to order/misfortune. Obviously, there's a huge element of randomness to it, but the gold output of order/misfortune completely dwarfs that of turmoil/luck, even more so than in Dom3 because of the much larger event list (and relatively smaller number of gold events). I agree that it's a fun way to play, and if you're not min-maxing, it's plenty viable. But most of the people who know way more about this game than I do all agree that turmoil/luck is not competitive with order/misfortune. Which is unfortunate, because luck is lots of fun.
On Turn 4 I got 1,000 Gold, 30 Fire Gems and a Blacksteel plate.
On Turn 5 I got another 1,000 Gold.
Despite having 0 Earth Gem sites, I have like 50 in the bank.
I have recieved 3 free commanders just before the dormant pretenders woke-up. Not such a big deal money-wise, but Holy Goddamn 2 commanders in one turn early on is a big deal.
Obviously this isn't typical or whatever, but I'm laughing all the way to the bank right now.
Those are some lucky events! Personally, I'm hoping that the chaos power being affected by unrest in the newest patch amounts to something worthwhile. Right now, chaos power is such a mess. Not only because order is so good, but also because, chances are, your enemies will be taking order, making your troops weaker when you're on the offensive. Really hampers their effectiveness. But yeah, I'd love to see turmoil/luck be competitive. Sure looks like it is for your game so far! :P
I am consistently losing more forces to friendly fire than to the enemy. Archers are traitors that are only good when you don't need them.
What race are you playing?
If you have death/fire, you can do the following pretty cheesy thing:
Put a big block of archers as your front-center troop. Put your mages just slightly behind them on either flank (so they don't get shot-up by enemy archers). Cast Flaming arrows, and then just start raising undead troops.
Enemy frontline troops will get bogged down in skeletons and massacred by flaming arrow fire, and then you just mop-up the remaining bad guys.
Yomi is really, really good at this.
The biggest drawback is that you'll have to endure archer casualties for the first few rounds of combat from enemy archer fire. Most of the time this isn't such a big deal, though.
Playing around with some mid-late game spells I've never cast before.
"...Eater of the Dead? Pretty expensive, but I have the paths and gems for it. Sure, why not."
This is the most hilarious, awesome thing. There is no way it is worth the gems you have to spend, but oh my God.
I took it thugging with a kitted-out Banelord for kicks, by accident they ran into a large army escorting an enemy pretender. EotD just goops it's way into the middle of the army, squishing guys and horses, and starts getting mobbed.
"Uh oh, that was a lot of damage he took. Let's pause and survey the damage."
it had over 500 hit points.
I just laughed while they killed the God and other army.
Anyone know how big it gets before it goes renegade?
Playing around with some mid-late game spells I've never cast before.
"...Eater of the Dead? Pretty expensive, but I have the paths and gems for it. Sure, why not."
This is the most hilarious, awesome thing. There is no way it is worth the gems you have to spend, but oh my God.
I took it thugging with a kitted-out Banelord for kicks, by accident they ran into a large army escorting an enemy pretender. EotD just goops it's way into the middle of the army, squishing guys and horses, and starts getting mobbed.
"Uh oh, that was a lot of damage he took. Let's pause and survey the damage."
it had over 500 hit points.
I just laughed while they killed the God and other army.
Anyone know how big it gets before it goes renegade?
I don't know how long before it goes renegade, but I'm going to find out, because that sounds awesome. I've played probably hundreds of hours of this game (including Dom3), and there's still so much I've never even touched.
Well, I won my first game ever of Dom 3 (most of the time I just start a new game after I stomped all land nations because fuck having to deal with water nation BS after I've pretty clearly effectively won the game).
Thugging with this thing:
Is now going to be my staple strategy. It is hilarious.
By the time it gets out of control, it has well over 1,000 hit points and crazy battlefield-killing power. It wanders around as an Independent, just blowing-up everything and spreading disease everywhere.
And because it no longer counts as the same monster, even though the Eater of the Dead is a unique summon, you can call-up a new one!
So you just thug around with them deep into enemy territory and when they lose control the enemy is fucked, because this giant horrible monster is rampaging through their provinces and ruining everything.
Y'know, I realize that she's apparently not all that she used to be, but the Vampire Queen is a damn solid Imprisoned pick to set-up as a mid game thug. She's flat-out better than any reasonably priced summonable chassis like the Bane Lord (flies, is Immortal, regenerates, pumps herself up with life draining attacks) and can just zip around the map harassing people. The vampire freespawn are 'meh', mostly because you hardly ever get any, but her chief purpose seems to be working as a re-spawning pain in the economy for your enemies.
Y'know, I realize that she's apparently not all that she used to be, but the Vampire Queen is a damn solid Imprisoned pick to set-up as a mid game thug. She's flat-out better than any reasonably priced summonable chassis like the Bane Lord (flies, is Immortal, regenerates, pumps herself up with life draining attacks) and can just zip around the map harassing people. The vampire freespawn are 'meh', mostly because you hardly ever get any, but her chief purpose seems to be working as a re-spawning pain in the economy for your enemies.
Yeah, the vamp queen is pretty great. I think vampires don't get as much love as they deserve. They're pretty shitty in small numbers, true, but once you hit a sort of critical mass with them, they can be quite a nuisance. Not a super strong army, really, but they're immortal. If you have enough of them, invading you is such a pain.
0
Options
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
edited October 2013
So, inspired (or reminded) by this thread, I dug out my Dom3 disk and re-installed.
How do you get those pretty, hand-drawn world maps? Is it a mod? All I've got are the bad, old graphics. I patched up to 3.29.
e: ah, hmm. perhaps the ugly is just a feature of random maps. I think I remember that.
Dominions 4 is now released! As far as gameplay goes, this doesn't change much from the latest beta, but you can now download the manual here. Let's hope it's as awesome as the Dom3 manual was.
Dominions 4 is now released! As far as gameplay goes, this doesn't change much from the latest beta, but you can now download the manual here. Let's hope it's as awesome as the Dom3 manual was.
That's awesome. Reading through the manual now.
I haven't really been following the chatter about Dom4, but have there been any mentions about it showing up on Steam?
Dominions 4 is now released! As far as gameplay goes, this doesn't change much from the latest beta, but you can now download the manual here. Let's hope it's as awesome as the Dom3 manual was.
That's awesome. Reading through the manual now.
I haven't really been following the chatter about Dom4, but have there been any mentions about it showing up on Steam?
Nothing definitive. The devs want to get it on there, and they believe they can give Steam keys to Desura customers if it happens. That's about it.
I sure hope so. It's the kind of game that I've always thought was somewhat hobbled in its success by being basically unknown, and high retail price. Now, with a lower initial price, and exposure on Desura, getting on Steam would be fantastic for the game getting sold in greater quantities.
I sure hope so. It's the kind of game that I've always thought was somewhat hobbled in its success by being basically unknown, and high retail price. Now, with a lower initial price, and exposure on Desura, getting on Steam would be fantastic for the game getting sold in greater quantities.
I hope so, for selfish reasons: I want some of the established LP folk on YouTube to do Dominions. I'm always interested to see what strategies other people bring to the table.
Posts
No, items don't stack like that. And wow, I didn't realize their astral income was so crazy.
seriously the balance in this game seems all over the place, but in a good way. I just need to figure out how the fuck to actually play because right now I get my ass stomped consistently (when playing something not based on huge fuckoff demon armies)
I am also down with playing multiplayer, I can host if need be as my pc usually runs 24/7 so I don't forsee a problem with that, and I know how to do things like port forwarding!
I should note I only own dominions 3, so yeah. gunna be that if a multiplayer game gets set up and I host.
Caelum is tricky. Most of their troops are pretty mediocre, but you have to play to their strengths. Their thugging/raiding potential is nuts, largely due to the Eagle Kings. A guaranteed 4A1E1W flying sacred with full slots, awe 3, and shock resistance? On a nation full of flying troops? Once you get some research and some items up, their options open up in a big way. Consider getting a minor earth bless to help out with the 5 encumbrance - though that's not 100% mandatory, as you have lots of boot options since you don't need flying boots. An unkitted Eagle King with just a tad of research (like mirror image and shockwave) can handle moderate amounts of PD and weaker indies. Put just a couple items on them (like a horror helmet and boots of the messenger) and they become much more potent, and they only get stronger as your research increases. Obviously, it's important to start site searching early with your D1s. And of course, there's the obvious big army uses for Eagle Kings, i.e. Lightning Strike spam. But the real benefit to Caelum is being unpredictable. Your thugging Eagle Kings can be all over the map, all the time, and it's very hard to predict where they're going to be next. What's more, you never know if they're going to show up with an Eagle King thug or a full army. Their troops are fairly weak, yes, but they're much harder to deal with when you never know when and where they're going to show up, and when they can set up defensive movement traps all over the map (it's very important to have vision of enemy territory for this reason). So yeah, if you take a Caelum army up against a horde of palankashas or jaguar warriors or some other beefy sacred, you're going to get crushed. But they're quite potent if you play to their strengths.
On an unrelated note, I can't seem to figure out how to properly use archers. They are devastating against lightly-armored targets, but 5 heavily-armored guys with shields will just laugh at an entire horde. If all it takes to neutralize your archers is a very small investment in shielded heavy infantry but archers only function in large numbers, when are you supposed to use them? When you know for a fact your opponent is massing low-protection monsters?
The obvious answer is flaming arrows, though I'd imagine you've already thought of that and/or don't have good access to it. If you're talking about archer screens (just a few of those shield user up front to catch arrows), I suggest a mage or two with some evocations to blow them up quickly so your archers get to work on the main mass of troops. Also, I find archers are much more effective if you don't get them a target. Just set them to fire and keep distance, target none. I get much better mileage out of them that way. Beyond that, armor-destroying spells will drastically increase your archers' effectiveness, as will spells to slow down the other army, giving your archers more time to shoot.
Are you play Dom3, by chance? In Dom3, shields either block the projectile and prevent all damage (and the shield parry value is doubled when blocking arrows), or the arrow gets through. In Dom4, the shield's protection is taken into account, and a high-damage shot (with, say, flaming arrows) can go through a shield.
To ensure that nobody gets misled here, I'm going to rephrase this slightly.
Caelum's infantry line will lose to an opposing nation's infantry line in approximately 100% of cases. They could beat, like...EA Agartha's Pale Ones, probably. That's about it. Their encumbrance is terrible, their stats are average-to-subpar in every category, and they only fit two to a square compared to three for human-sized units. They are not good in a straight fight, at all. They can fly, so they make good raiders, but in a serious my-army-versus-your-army slog Caelum is pretty much 100% about mage support, in any era. Usually that takes the form of mass Thunderstrikes, but stuff like Fog Warriors in Alteration can be good as well. So don't skimp on the Eagle Kings/High Seraphs/Harab Elders when you go to war, and remember that Storm and Summon Storm Power let your lesser mages contribute as well (but keep in mind that that A4 is way better than A3 for Thunderstrike spam, since it roughly halves the high fatigue cost; you might even consider giving air boosters to A2 mages if you have air gems to throw around).
There are tons of ways to design a pretender for any given nation, but here are a few things to keep in mind. Does your nation have trouble expanding early and/or trouble getting easy access to SC chassis? If so, you might consider an SC pretender (awake, obviously, if you need him to expand). Do you have strong sacreds and/or sacred mages? If so, consider a bless. Note that, even with the bless-centric nations (Mictlan, Niefelheim, Lanka, etc.), you don't necessarily have to go F9W9S9 to make good use of them. In my opinion, you should think very hard before you get more than one major bless. As for scales, Order 3 is almost a given right now. Taking a couple points of misfortune synergizes well with that. Growth 3 is also very good income in the long term, if you can afford the points. Most nations don't need production, and many can get away with sloth. Temperature scales can be a good way to get some points. Drain is easier to deal with in Dom4 since research values are higher in general. Finally, look at your magic. If there's a particularly useful school that your nation doesn't have easy access to, consider getting it on your pretender. Astral is the most common choice here, especially with rings of wizardry/sorcerery so much harder to get in Dom4.
This is a much more detailed and useful illustration of what I was getting at with Caelum's infantry. Physically, they are absolutely subpar and will lose all the time. They actually illustrate a couple of points that I feel a lot of Dom newbies overlook: unit size and fatigue. If you look at the flashy stats (protection, attack, defense, health), Caelum's infantry doesn't seem that bad, but you take them into a fight, and they just perform much worse than you were expecting. A lot of this is due to size and fatigue. Only having two units per square instead of the usual three for human troops means that, in square vs. square terms, your infantry are taking 1.5 hits each, while their infantry are only taking .6 hits on average (in other words, you have two hits on three infantry, while they have three hits on two) when fighting normal sized humans. The difference is pretty huge. And fatigue is the other killer. High encumbrance means it adds up quickly, and by time you hit even 15-20 fatigue, the critical hits will just melt you.
Caelum's infantry has two advantages: flying and shock resistance. The shock resistance lets you cast lightning strike with impunity, obviously, but it really starts to shine once you can bring out wrathful skies and shimmering fields for all your big fights - though obviously, this happens much later in the game. Caelum absolutely has to use their mages effectively to win any serious fight. Do not be afraid to take a lot of your researchers into the field once you get your important spells researched (thunder strike, storm, fog warriors, etc.). One lightning strike spammer is good. Three are better. Twenty are goddamn terrifying.
I'm playing Dom4. My excellent 12 damage longbowmen can't scratch most infantry with a shield and 12 or more protection without Flaming Arrows.
Elemental royalty are the only ones that immediately jump to mind with those paths. If you can break into astral, you can get a golem, which is pretty good, properly kitted. If you can get into fire, you can get an iron dragon, which is also good, and doesn't need many items. Awaken Tarrasque with gift of reason isn't horrible, but not great either. And then there's always breaking into death to get Tartarians (though you probably didn't need to be reminded of that). It's a little overplayed, perhaps, but it's still strong.
Also, for anyone working on gearing up thugs/SCs, here's some useful info: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Super_combatant
In that case, sounds like you'll just have to supplement those archers with something else, be it flaming arrows or various armor-destroying spells (any of the acid spells are great for this, if you can access them). I haven't played with many archer-heavy builds yet, so I don't really know how effective piercing through shields is. It might just be something more or less reserved for the big crossbows or flaming arrows.
I'm playing Skaven (yes, yes, 'lol mods!'), and they desperately need a trampling line-breaker unit in the early stages of the game before they can get access to Darkness / Doomwheels. The mod creator gave them relatively early access to Rat Ogres through blood magic, but for whatever reason decided that such monstrosities should not have trample.
EDIT: Playing Dominions 3.
The only thing I can think of that sort of meets that criteria is Behemoth at enchantment 4, D3, 10 gems. It's not a horrible unit at 104 hp, though its defense and protection are low, and it has low movement points, which isn't exactly what you want in a trampler. The other issue is that enchantment 4 isn't usually a high priority research path unless you can make use of flaming arrows. So I don't know how useful it will end up being, but it's the only summonable trampler available at 4 or lower research other than air/earth elementals.
All in all, I'd imagine there are better ways to do what you're trying to do, but knowing nothing about that mod nation, I can't really say what those ways might be.
Dominions 3 hardly ever went on sale, which is at least partly why it's such an obscure title.
It's on the cheap now on Steam. Dominions 4, which is probably the one you want at this point, probably won't be on sale anytime soon unfortunately. People have talking to the devs about this, and they just feel that increased sales aren't worth 'devaluing' the game.
*shrug*
Well, you've Skavenslaves, which you can buy either 1 at a time (lol no) or in packs of 3:
Ignore the fluff text that says you should use them as a screen against arrow. Never, ever do this.
I don't build these in any real quantities, at least not at the start of the game. There are a few mid-to-late game strategies where you can use them as fodder to go around with a thug and harass, but they're not a great conventional army choice.
You've got Clanrats that come in 2 varieties:
I use the cheap variety with the pointy sticks as my center-forward arrow sponge. They can take a charge pretty well too (assuming said charge isn't from cavalry). They can't fight back really well, but they're not supposed to be your damage dealers anyway.
Then you've got Stormvermin:
They suck and they are expensive. I do not use them.
You've got Plague Monks:
Not bad damage dealers and pretty cheap, but you've got better options than these guys, so I hardly ever use them.
You've got Censer Bearers:
These are recruit-anywhere Sacreds. Yup.
They are cheese as fuck, and I love them. They beg for an Astral Bless. The Censer is an AoE poison weapon that will cause a lot of friendly troop attrition, but you can fix that pretty quickly.
You've got two varieties of Gutter Runners:
They are both fantastic, and I use them in about equal quantities. Awesome flankers: the Night Runners net 'em, the Gutter Runners stab 'em. Once I get Darkness, these become the core of my army and I mostly forget about Clanrats.
Lastly, you've got Council Guard:
Capital-only sacreds that arguably suck even more than the Stormvermin. Avoid.
The problem I have that a trampling line-breaker would solve is the lack of armor. Censer Bearer, zero armor; Night Runner, leather armor, leather cap; Gutter Runner, scale armor but only a leather cap. The only guys with half-decent protection are the blocks of Clanrats. This works fine up until a really awkward point in the mid game when I'm fighting large numbers of core front-line troops: I just take a ton of casualties as my rats get swamped in rank after organized rank of goons that eventually rout the Clanrats. A trampler would break-up the ranks into more manageable chunks that my rats could kill without getting bogged down in.
GAME New events and fixed events
GAME Smarter targeting for monthly site searching spells
GAME Map editor warns about capitals too close too each other
GAME Now ? (not g) must be used to view keyboard shortcuts
GAME Extra Cold/Heat spreading dominions limited by scale choice too
GAME Map fixes (missing connections and wrong terrains)
GAME Wrong water/land shape for PD fixed
GAME Mechanical Militia didn't work properly
GAME Water elementals in retinue can now become ice elementals
GAME Proofreading done
GAME Intrinsic resistances from magic doubled
GAME Illwinter ritual improved
GAME New longdead for Jotunheim
GAME Sauromatia starts with scout instead of soothsayer
GAME Gift of Health level 5 -> 6
GAME Forest Troll Court fix
GAME Everything should have descriptions now
GAME Icons for wraparound maps
GAME New ability Master Ritualist
GAME Demonbred got blood hunt bonus
GAME Centaur sage research bonus 4 -> 2
GAME Oracle of the Ancients got better
GAME Seeker of truths reduce unrest
GAME Army setup screen could not be scrolled by dragging scrollbar.
GAME Events requiring specific poptype can no longer occur in capitals
GAME --masterai added
GAME high level AIs could not be selected for network play
GAME Living Castle had no range
GAME Bless and banish fine tunings
GAME Lanka has improved blood hunting in turmoil
GAME Autocost calculation changed resulting in some mages with random paths beings cheaper
GAME Hypnotize on nagas
GAME Ghoul Commander better leader
GAME Prevent random events from creating out of range dominion values
GAME Raiding bug fixed
GAME Could target swallowed units
GAME Chaos Power beings take advantage of unrest too
GAME Improved shape changer info
GAME Gem generator info
GAME Disciples started with hostile dominion
GAME Pretender cost fixes
GAME Dagon for LA Mictlan
GAME Fenrer get Jotun wolf retinue.
GAME Minor repel mechanic changes
GAME C'tis miasma do not affect sacred troops or pretender
GAME Global random event chain fix
GAME --clustered for clustered start positions
GAME Wrong terrain for Contact Mountain Vila
GAME Some spell summoning air breathers could be cast under water
GAME Make pearls added to cheat detection
GAME Foreseeing of global event resulted in ... message
GAME Tool menu couldn't open user data directory with spaces in it
GAME Blood feast etc can heal lost eyes too
GAME Blood feast do not necessarily take all afflictions
GAME Unique commanders were not always unique
GAME Water grums didn't work
GAME Twist fate didn't work when troops were blessed by pretender
GAME Global solar eclipse implemented
GAME Horror seed produced a sprite instead of a horror
GAME Could cast astral harpoon as combat spell
GAME Trying to forge two artifacts could result in lost gems
GAME Maximum HP looked wrong when unit had undying
GAME Sound effect volume didn't affect battle sounds
GAME Could continue creating game even after failing to delete old game
GAME Wrong land for disease grinder message
GAME Wrong required dominions version for merrowmoor map
GAME New map command #saildist
MODDING Mod bug fix for newspell and newitem
MODDING Mods parsed one file at a time
MODDING Mod parse order changed
MODDING Always use 50-53 numbers for multi magic paths
MODDING #restrict -1 for last modified nation
MODDING Info on high numbered modded weapons didn't work
MODDING Nations 100+ didn't work
MODDING Game could hang if a nation had no legal god unit
MODDING High nametypes didn't work
MODDING #range050 didn't work
MODDING Six new weapon mod commands
MODDING New nation commands: #hatesterr, #coastcom?, #coastunit?, #likesterr
MODDING New monster and item command: #resources, #mastersmith, #masterrit
WINDOWS --shiftbug (use to workaround shift bug)
@Albino Bunny Do you have a Desura account?
Free gems. Free commanders. Free gold. Free PD. Free everything. But OH NO SOMETIMES THERE ARE BABARIANS, lolz.
I think this is probably the best way to get a decent influx of the rarer magic gems (I'm looking at you, astral).
Just so you know, the big time Dom3/4 players have done a fair bit of testing on this and found that turmoil/luck is pretty much flat out inferior to order/misfortune. Obviously, there's a huge element of randomness to it, but the gold output of order/misfortune completely dwarfs that of turmoil/luck, even more so than in Dom3 because of the much larger event list (and relatively smaller number of gold events). I agree that it's a fun way to play, and if you're not min-maxing, it's plenty viable. But most of the people who know way more about this game than I do all agree that turmoil/luck is not competitive with order/misfortune. Which is unfortunate, because luck is lots of fun.
On Turn 4 I got 1,000 Gold, 30 Fire Gems and a Blacksteel plate.
On Turn 5 I got another 1,000 Gold.
Despite having 0 Earth Gem sites, I have like 50 in the bank.
I have recieved 3 free commanders just before the dormant pretenders woke-up. Not such a big deal money-wise, but Holy Goddamn 2 commanders in one turn early on is a big deal.
Obviously this isn't typical or whatever, but I'm laughing all the way to the bank right now.
When your income is 1200 and your upkeep is 1080 you'll wish you got decent income more often than once every 3-5 turns. There's also a limit to how many events you can get each turn, so luck doesn't scale very well with large empires. The early windfalls make it easy to afford year-1 fortresses and the like, but turmoil will get you eventually.
Luck is also not very good right now in Dominions 4 due to the best gold events being less common and an influx of weak new events diluting even the decent ones, but supposedly they're working on improving it.
Those are some lucky events! Personally, I'm hoping that the chaos power being affected by unrest in the newest patch amounts to something worthwhile. Right now, chaos power is such a mess. Not only because order is so good, but also because, chances are, your enemies will be taking order, making your troops weaker when you're on the offensive. Really hampers their effectiveness. But yeah, I'd love to see turmoil/luck be competitive. Sure looks like it is for your game so far! :P
What race are you playing?
If you have death/fire, you can do the following pretty cheesy thing:
Put a big block of archers as your front-center troop. Put your mages just slightly behind them on either flank (so they don't get shot-up by enemy archers). Cast Flaming arrows, and then just start raising undead troops.
Enemy frontline troops will get bogged down in skeletons and massacred by flaming arrow fire, and then you just mop-up the remaining bad guys.
Yomi is really, really good at this.
The biggest drawback is that you'll have to endure archer casualties for the first few rounds of combat from enemy archer fire. Most of the time this isn't such a big deal, though.
"...Eater of the Dead? Pretty expensive, but I have the paths and gems for it. Sure, why not."
This is the most hilarious, awesome thing. There is no way it is worth the gems you have to spend, but oh my God.
I took it thugging with a kitted-out Banelord for kicks, by accident they ran into a large army escorting an enemy pretender. EotD just goops it's way into the middle of the army, squishing guys and horses, and starts getting mobbed.
"Uh oh, that was a lot of damage he took. Let's pause and survey the damage."
it had over 500 hit points.
I just laughed while they killed the God and other army.
Anyone know how big it gets before it goes renegade?
I don't know how long before it goes renegade, but I'm going to find out, because that sounds awesome. I've played probably hundreds of hours of this game (including Dom3), and there's still so much I've never even touched.
Well, I won my first game ever of Dom 3 (most of the time I just start a new game after I stomped all land nations because fuck having to deal with water nation BS after I've pretty clearly effectively won the game).
Thugging with this thing:
Is now going to be my staple strategy. It is hilarious.
By the time it gets out of control, it has well over 1,000 hit points and crazy battlefield-killing power. It wanders around as an Independent, just blowing-up everything and spreading disease everywhere.
And because it no longer counts as the same monster, even though the Eater of the Dead is a unique summon, you can call-up a new one!
So you just thug around with them deep into enemy territory and when they lose control the enemy is fucked, because this giant horrible monster is rampaging through their provinces and ruining everything.
Y'know, I realize that she's apparently not all that she used to be, but the Vampire Queen is a damn solid Imprisoned pick to set-up as a mid game thug. She's flat-out better than any reasonably priced summonable chassis like the Bane Lord (flies, is Immortal, regenerates, pumps herself up with life draining attacks) and can just zip around the map harassing people. The vampire freespawn are 'meh', mostly because you hardly ever get any, but her chief purpose seems to be working as a re-spawning pain in the economy for your enemies.
Yeah, the vamp queen is pretty great. I think vampires don't get as much love as they deserve. They're pretty shitty in small numbers, true, but once you hit a sort of critical mass with them, they can be quite a nuisance. Not a super strong army, really, but they're immortal. If you have enough of them, invading you is such a pain.
How do you get those pretty, hand-drawn world maps? Is it a mod? All I've got are the bad, old graphics. I patched up to 3.29.
e: ah, hmm. perhaps the ugly is just a feature of random maps. I think I remember that.
This is where you want to go for dom3 maps. You just drop the chosen .map and .tga into your dominions 3 map folder.
That's awesome. Reading through the manual now.
I haven't really been following the chatter about Dom4, but have there been any mentions about it showing up on Steam?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Nothing definitive. The devs want to get it on there, and they believe they can give Steam keys to Desura customers if it happens. That's about it.
I hope so, for selfish reasons: I want some of the established LP folk on YouTube to do Dominions. I'm always interested to see what strategies other people bring to the table.