Dominions 4

Games
1181

The Glory of the Gods map SUCKS for multiplayer. The province richness distribution is uneven, the terrain assignment is fucking horrible (tons and tons of multiadverse terrain like forest/mountain/swamp/farm and other WTF combos), so unless EA Ulm or fliers, you never move more than one province at a time. The western continent is more or less completely cut off from the rest of the world unless you’re pushing cold dominion and if you start in the southern part of that, you’re more or less screwed by the poor income and horrible logistics unless you have a sailing nation. By the time you fight your way far enough north that you can get to the larger eastern continent, someone else will have won the game.

Seriously, that map is a bloody abomination, even if it has nice looking graphics. This is speaking from experience in a disciple MP game where my team started from that continent and despite all of the deck stacked against us, we fought our way to second place and virtually annihilated the initially strongest team, only to be defeated by a throne victory because another team had wiped out three other teams and controlled two thirds of the map by itself.

1182

This will be a single player game. As undead, I think I can walk across the sea to the other continent.

1183

Ah, ok, then enjoy yourself. A word of advice: Set independents strength to 6 or 7 if your AI enemies are higher level, otherwise they will walk all over you.

1184

How much high do you consider it “higher level”?
And isn’t the point of putting the AI in a higher difficulty level to help them so that way it’s a challenge? Modifying the independent strength to avoid that seems a bit counter-productive, if you don’t want them to walk all over you don’t raise their skill that much?

1185

I’d say that if he cranks the AI up to Master or Impossible, he’s going to go splat immediately. I have played Dominions since the first game and I still need to pull out all the stops with the impossible AI unless the map favors me. The three highest level AIs get enough gold, resource and gem bonuses that they will always outbid the player for mercenaries and hire much more troops, so they will simply expand like a metastasized cancer if the indie strength is too low.

Higher level AIs will be somewhat slowed down by strength 7 independents (I use those by default), enough to make a meaningful difference. And by that I mean that the player will have a fighting chance if he knows what he’s doing, because the AI will still outpace him in expansion. I used to play SP or co-op with an equally experienced friend against Impossible AI only. When that got boosted up and Master level added, we had to downgrade the opposition to Master. It’s hard going until you hit high enough research, then even the hard AIs will fall. The problem is getting there in enough shape to be able to use the research.

Playing Ermor in the Middle Era mitigates that somewhat, since the AI does not know how to deal with popkill nations properly. That’s assuming some AI nation doesn’t just go over him like a steamroller before he gets his act in gear, though.

1186

Ashen Empire plays very differently from a normal nation. You have no recruitable troops, so your primary use for money is temples forts & labs (with the emphasis on temples, usually. So you might as well take death 3 and put the points to use elsewhere. I never really played that style, but it might be fun to also go turmoil/luck (make sure you set the game to random events common). You almost certainly want a pretender with 10 dominion. All that death and decay is your buddy and everyone else’s misery.

1187

I agree, but why a new player like him would use Master AI? :P

1188

I am using the normal AI since I am a new player. Anyway, my big concern is how to make money because as the provinces die, so does my income. I did try it at 3 growth which could not compensate for the natural death effect. I did end up going with 1 level of famine. My long term plan for money is gem alchemy. I also have 3 luck in my dominion. That may help with the random cash rewards you sometimes get. Oh my base dominion was only 6. Ill see how it works out, although this is a huge map. Maybe it wont.

1189

With MA Ermor your troops are reanimated or summoned, not recruited with gold. And the priests and generals and mages are also summoned (with gems). With Luck 3 you should have some bursts of money enough to build a pair of forts and some temples.

1190

Yeah, MA Ermor is Chaos3,Sloth3,Death3,Cold3,Luck3,Drain2,Dom10 and make an awesome Pretender.

A fun SP challenge is to play MA Ermor as a disciple. I allow myself to design the teams Pretender.

1191

I ran into a problem yesterday. I made too many commanders at one place and now I can’t see them all. Is there a way to scroll or go to another page of commanders when this happens? My only solution was to start moving my commanders to a new location so I could see the ones I was interested in.

1192
  • +, I think. And change the size of the icons with < >.
1193

It’s easy to miss, but there is also an arrow that appears to allow scrolling:

1194

Wow, never did notice that little arrow before. Thanks!

I normally use the < to make them smaller, but even had that max out once and still needed to scroll.

1195

Yeah, the plus and minus keys scroll up and down on the commander list. The battle log too when viewing battles.

1196

I am so looking forward to the new patch. No water update yet, but those guys are boring anyway.

1197

New MP game brewing in the MP Stabby Stabby thread. Register your interest there!

1198

Perhaps a little late to say given its been out for a while but…

I’m really liking the Thrones system and how otherwise big maps can be “shrunk” into races. I played the heck out of Dom3 SP, transitioned to Dom4 and didn’t play it that much due to burning out from too much Dom3. Now I’ve rediscovered my love for this brilliant game and how Thrones tighten an otherwise long and sometimes pointless (when its all over bar the fat lady singing) end game.

Dominions is easily my most played game.

1199

So, give or take something coming up, the new patch should ship in 2 weeks. I’m curious how the new pretender costs are going to line up.

1200

With the mp game, I got again in the mood of more Dominions, but of course the turns advance slowly and in the early game they are very short. So I thought of playing too a sp game in between turns. Looking at ages and nations, I choose LA, because it’s where I played less, and Bogarus because Russian stuff is alien to me, and they have lots of cool toys.

Usually I write for myself a summary of the nation, in special to have a guide for their magic, but in Bogarus case I surprised myself writing more and more, in part because they have tons of mages, in part because I was doubting what strategy to use. So I decided to expand and reformat what I had written and post it here.

Bogarus

Units

-Voi Spearman, Axeman, Archer.
Militia. They are cheap. The spearman is somewhat well equipped (he has a spear, shield and javelins) for being that price but the three of them have low morale (8)and low move (mm1). Archers maybe can be amassed at that price and used with Flaming Arrows/Wind Guide, but short bows are too low-tech in Late Age.

-Peshti Axeman, Spearman, City Guard.
Regular soldiers. Still not good. They have or mm1 (axeman, city guard) with encumbrance 7 or mm2 with low protection for the age (Spearman with prot11, just 3 more than the Voi version). The city guard has a nice defense of 14 and a broad sword but he pays for it with 20r, which seems a bit expensive. To be sure I compare him with another LA unit, for example like the Tower Guard from Man (both are mm1 infantry with castle defense 1 and similar prices), and yes, the Man unit for just 2g/2r more has better morale, better attack, defense and precision, less encumbrance, same kite shield + broad sword as the City guard but also adding a freaking crossbow. Ouch.

-Khlyst.
The Khlyst is one of those holy recruit-any-fort cheap units that in exchange are very crappy. I suppose someone can try doing a very gimmick bless strategy with them but… yeah I don’t see it. Their actual but still gimmicky use is using their stealth and unrest properties as disruptions in enemy territory. You even have two stealthy commanders with the same unrest attribute to lead them.

-Grid Druzhina, Malaia Druzhina.
The last two units, we could put them the tag of medium and heavy cavalry.
The Grid are horse archers (composite bows, but it doesn’t matter a lot with their Precision 8) with broad swords, the Malaia is the typical more expensive heavy cavalry with good stats and lance + shield + broad sword.

-Black Hood, Styag.
More cavalry, these ones can be recruited outside forts. I’m starting to think Bogarus is a horse-heavy nation. Black Hoods are like slightly cheaper and crappier Grid Druzhinas, they have 2 more precision but clearly worse at melee (-1hp, -3prot, -1morale, -1att, -2def, maces instead broad swords), so I suppose they are more to supplement your forces here and there. Styag is a lance version with standard and better armor, so he can be a good addition to your forces.

And that’s it, Bogarus doesn’t have an efficient middle quality infantry to use as core of your army nor the typical elite cap-only unit, usually holy, that other nations have. In exchange the relatively good unit it has (Malaia Druzhina) can be recruited in all the forts, but at 45g/42r (and the infantry at costs like 10g/18r or 11g/20r, they lean on resources) I’m going to need something like O2P1 scales to produce them without problems, and given their quality you need them in numbers.

I don’t really see in what unit I should focus, at least for expansion. I thought maybe Grid Druzhinas, they can peper the enemies with arrows and then charge with their swords and they have def 14 thanks to being mounted units, but their lack of shields and their averageish prot (for the Age) of 13, and their normal morale of 11 makes it me believe they will have heavy casualties against crossbows and they can route in pitched battles.

Commanders

-Scout. Normal scout.

-Voivode. Normal infantry commander. 60 ldr.
-Knyaz. Normal cavalry commander, 80 ldr.
-Veliki Knayz. Good cavalry commander. 120 ldr + inspirational.

Ahh, so Bogarus have crappy troops but good leaders. Other nations start with a 40ldr commander and ends with a 80ldr commander. We start at 60 and end in a really good leader. I can see now our armies holding up in big battles with +3 leadership, +4 with standard, maybe more with items.

-Skopets.
The boss of Khlyst troops. Same deal as them, it’s stealthy + unrest, and it can lead up 40 of them. As a bonus he is also a priest, so he can preach in enemy territory and bless with own Khlysts in case they are discovered without the problem of not having a priest at hand because the usual priests aren’t stealthy.

-Exarch, Eparch.
Your holy 2, holy 3 priests. Another good point of the nation, they have good priests. Eparchs are cap only but it isn’t like you are going to need a dozen of them.

Mages

Here the we discover the deal with Bogarus. Crappy army, but good leaders, priests… and mages. In this case, very good magic diversity. They have lots of mages!

-Occultist. S1D1B1 100g.
Cheap communion slave meat? He also is a blood hunter once he has a dowsing rod. D1 isn’t very useful, but the combination of crosspaths is always good because it gives you access to better stuff. For example in combat he can use Nether bold/Darts (S1D1) which is pretty good for being level 1 combat spells. He can also summon groups of Bone Fiends (D1B1).

-Kalendologist. S2 105g.
Your cheap Astral guy. He can use Stellar Cascades against troops, Solar Rays against undead, Paralyze against dangerous beasts like elephants and Mind Burn against thugs. He can spam Horror Mark if you go for a Horror strategy in the late game.
Of course they can reach Astral 5 with the starshine skullcap they forge, more Power of the Spheres and Light of the Northern Star and then cast bigger stuff.

-Atrapelagist. A2S1 125g.
Your Air mage. A2 means Lightning Bolt (and Wind Guide for your army), but with Astral he can communion up and throw some Thunder strikes. If you take a Pretender with Air you could be able to throw Storm and then Thunder strike directly.

-Alchemist. F1E1S1, 135g.
Not a powerful combat mage at first look (though he can use Magma Bolts), but again the three paths means bigger variety of some niche spells and items he can cast and forge. Particularly at forging, he can forge 56 different items, including Fire Brand, Helmet of Heroes, Lightless Lantern, Crystal and Slave Matrix.
Give him Earth Boots (empower just one to E2, he can make them for the rest and forge a dwarven hammer for himself), a Starshine cap and a Skull of Fire (your other mages can make them) and the number of items he can make with F2E2S2 is hilarious.

-Master of Names. S2+100% (F1A1B1) 155g.
17 RP for 155g non-STR, non-Cap only, non-old* mage? Yes. Yes I will take it. Your main researcher.
*:actually he starts only 2 years away from being old :(. Still a good deal.

-Fivefold Angel. B2H2 225g.
A weird (and creepy!) unit. He is like a Skopets (stealth commander with unrest) but better, as he’s also a spy, a better leader (80 ldr), better priest and provokes more unrest. Additionally he is your Blood 2 mage.
Stuff he can do: Black Heart for himself and turn into a blood mage-assassin, Boots of Youth for the old mages, Blood Feast to heal his starting afflictions, Agony, Harm and Hellbind Heart to attack, summon fiends and spine devils and boost them with Blood Lust.

-Starets. F2A1S2B1+100% (A1S1D1B1) +10% (F1A1S1B1) 255 g.
Your STR, cap only mage. But 6 paths and a great researcher! Shamefully he is pretty old, but there are some ways to get around that.
He can cast: Sulphur Haze, Hellfire, Bind Firey Imps, Fire3 spells with Phoenix Power, Flaming Arrows with Skull of Fire.
The main variations are
F2A2S2B1 : Bind Storm Demons (blood b.)
F2A1S3B1 : Astral Fires
F2A1S2B2 : Bind Devil, Bind ArchDevil (2 blood b.)
F2A1S2B1D1 : Nether Bolt, Nether Darts, Bane Fire Dart, Corpse man Construction, Ether Gate (2 astral b.), Vengeance of the Dead (1 astral b.), Blood Rite (1 astral b., 1 death b.)

Btw, except your Fivefold Angels, none of the mages are sacred, same with the military commanders except the Skopets. It’s important because you can’t use Air bless to improve the mage’s precision nor give them reinvigoration with Earth and you will pay full cost of maintenance of your many mages, unlike sacred mages.

Summons
All their national spells are conjurations. Let’s see:

-Simargl. Conj2 , 1 Air gem.
A cheap patroller. 5 air gems means a patrol equivalent to 55 soldiers. Interesting, given you can do blood with Bogarus and you need the patrols to reduce unrest.

-Firebird. Conj 3, 2 fire gems.
Flying unit with +2% to positive events. I wouldn’t bother using it in combat, but I would have five of them in my capital just for the +10% chance of good events each turn for just 10 fire gems.

-Sloth of Beards. Con3, 10 nature gems.
A sink for the nature gems, as you don’t have a lot of use for them at first.

-Sirin. Conj3, 8 astral gems.
Flying seducer. No idea of how effective it is, I don’t have lots of experience with the mechanics of dream seduction. In any case for 8 gems you have a flying mm3 scout which is nice.