Thanks to you both!
I don’t think it has regen. If you are looking at that green icon, that is a little guy swimming and not regen ;).
Right you are, I was wondering in the back of my mind if I got that one wrong with the icon changes.
Well, if he is going to look Dom4 resources, he could well go directly to the Inspector:
http://larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/
Go to items tab, order by boosters.
Thanks all for the excellent analysis/guidance. I have homework to do!
The longer casting time is screwing me. I was doing
-cast buff spell to not be sniped>
-cast power of the spheres>
-cast light of northern star> (long casting)
-cast BF wide spell> (long casting)
-cast BF wide spell 2> (long casting)
The problem is that by the time I casted the fifth spell, the battle was already decided. To do the same now you need two spell casters, I guess.
A primer for the new players
a) Read the manual. Use a tablet or a ebook reader and have it as your book to read this week.
b) Faster lookup of units, spells and items here http://larzm42.github.com/dom4inspector
c) Be aware that one of the "problems" for noobs is how front loaded is the game. Before the first turn there are already very important strategic choices to make, when you make your Pretender. You have to know about dominion spread, bless mechanics, scales, choose a pretender depending of the strengths of your nation, etc.But one you overcome that problem the game is much more clearer.
d) Keys to learn
? to list all the rest of key shortcuts, which are different depending on what screen you are in that moment.
r to recruit
t to setup army
c to see a battle report in the selected province
v to view the battle in the selected province
n is next commander, f is previous commander
m is the message (events) list
right click when you are positioning squads will select a squd
Primer:
1. You recruit commanders and normal units in your provinces with fort (recruit button, r)
1.1 There is a order to your units in the recruitment list: above you have commanders, the usually are ordered from left to right in this way: scouts, mundane military commanders, priests, mages, with the most powerful mages to the rightmost position.
1.2 Unit troops (the list below commanders) are similar: to the left side you have the weaker troops, and on the right side you have the better/more expensive troops, with the rightmost unit being your sacred unit (see below).
2. The normal troops form squads, which have to be under a commander control to move around, ala Heroes/King's Bounty. You have to transfer them manually from the general province pool of units to the squad (press t) after recruiting them.
3. Dominions score in the build Pretender at the start of a game is more important you may believe, raise it up to 5-6, at least.
4. How to build stuff:
4.1 Commanders can build new forts. Once the fort is built, commanders can upgrade it to better versions , which allow more recruitment of units per turn, and in some cases more commanders per turn (the latter is key).
4.2 Priests can build new temples, needed to recruit more priests and other "holy" units, and help to expand your religious-magical influence in the world (the yellowish border), called Dominion. Priests also has the option to preach in a province, which is like acting like a temple in the spread of the religion. Priests has a few spells, like Banishment (good against undead) and Blessing (essential to bless special holy troops).
4.3 Mages can build laboratories, needed to recruit more mages. If the mages are also holy units, they will also need a temple to be recruited (see point above).
5 Mages can go out to use the action "search magical sites" in each province, which they give you magical gems over time, the equivalent of mana in other fantasy 4x games.
5.1 Air mages (mages with a magical path of Air) will find air gems, Nature mages will find nature gems, etc. The higher their magical path (up to level 4), they can find rarer, more powerful magical sites.
5.2 Mages in labs can research more magic spells, cast magic rituals (need gems) which include summoning spells, and forge magical items (also need gems). They also cast spells on battle, of course.
6. That initial Dominion score, temples and priests help spread your Dominion, which have certain scores associated to it, the scales you choose at the start of the game. The idea is simple: if you are a god of Order and Luck, the lands under your Dominion gain more order and luck, you are a god of death and chaos, the lands will gain said features (like bonus gold, extra events, province's population dying, etc etc).
6.1. The dominion expand independently of military conquest, so sometimes your dominion will touch enemy provinces before your armies do, or the other way around, your lands can be invaded by enemy dominion.
7 Blessing is the most complex feature (inside of what we could call "basic features") you have to learn, and it's important because some nations use it as main strategy.
7.1Your Pretender God has magical scores, like Fire 9 Or Nature 4, you choose then when you create him. This means he can do Fire and Nature magic, and he is especially good with Fire spells, but also means the bless of your god will be related to fire (+attack) and nature (+hp).
7.2 Normally every Nation has most types of troops as normal soldiers, and in addition one type of elite troop which can be built in the capital, marked as "sacred" unit. Sacred units can be blessed in the middle of battle by your priests, your prophet or your own God (that is just another unit in the game) to gain the extra bonus described above, related to the magic your Pretender God knows.
8. To win a game, there are three main options:
8.1 Conquest all provinces. Because this is pretty slow you usually win with the next option...
8.2 Conquest enough Thrones (provinces with a small throne icon, you have to claim them with a commander with at least Holy 3 magic, or your Pretender god).
8.3 Extend your dominion to all enemy provinces.
9. Strategic map considerations:
9.1 Provinces with a grey flag are indie provinces, they have weaker defensive forces and aren't owned by any real player. Expand conquering them in the early game (note: careful with the provinces with indie heavy cavalry or barbarians).
9.2 Like in other 4x games, expansion in the early game is super important. The more provinces you conquer in the first two years, the less problems you will have later. Consider it a race to capture resources against all players.
9.3 Provinces have a native type of population, that sometimes allow recruiting them for your forces in this province. For example, some coast provinces allow to recruit Shamblers, and later these Shamblers can be used to recruit underwater provinces, otherwise inaccessible for land factions.
9.4 The slowest unit of a squad will determine the speed of the group , so take in consideration that, it can be the difference between moving 1 province per turn or 2 provinces per turn.
9.5 Temperatures (important usually in winter months, but some Dominion also transmit cold or heat) will freeze rivers allowing you to pass to provinces that otherwise wouldn't be accessible. Same with mountain passes, but they need heat.
9.6 Provinces have a supply score, that can be a number like 200. It means that (generally speaking) allow for armies of 200 units. If you make a stack of death with 400 units and move them to that province, they may starve and gains disease and afflictions. You may want to separate them in smaller armies over 2-3 provinces.
9.7 Recruit scouts regularly and move them individually to enemy provinces. Knowledge is the first step to victory and all that Sun Tzu shit.
9.8 Usually the most important number for a province is the population. More population usually means higher income, higher recruitment points in that province, higher blood income for blood nations, etc.
9.9 Take care of the unrest number, it will reduce your income and resources in that province, and if you reach 100 unrest, it will block you recruitment capabilities.A word of warning to new players -
Please don’t be scared off by the huge amount of information being thrown at you. Dominions is deep and dense. There is so much to learn, it can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be so. Dominions also has some of the best story-generating gameplay I can think of for a strategy game. You can certainly win against the AI whilst having a lot of fun, and not worrying about playing optimally.
In MP, you will lose playing the same way, but you can still have fun. Both of our currently forming games have pros playing in them. They are going to beat you, just like they are going to beat me. All I’m aiming to do is provide a better opponent for them than the AI would. I really struggled in my last game, but some clever defense got me a NAP and I think I may have lasted until the end of the game. I never got close to winning, but I had a story of my struggling nation winning a small victory against much greater powers.
Finally, it would be great if we could get some more “casual” players in MP. If anyone would be interested in playing a 1-1 game, or if some pro wants to take on a couple of non-pros, I’d be happy to participate. I’d offer advice if wanted, and be happy to receive advice as well. It could also be fun to play a coop game against some AI opponents. We wouldn’t learn as much as playing against a pro, but we could have fun learning a little bit more about this great game.
Some my most awesome games have ended in abject defeat, spending the last 10-15 turns fighting a retreat and desperate defense, throwing spanners into my opponent’s plans just to frustrate them and distract them when they had more important things to be doing than finishing off the straggler.
Then there was the time @wahoo’s / @DireAussie’s (sub) undead dragon and accompanying manikin army JUST WOULD NOT FUCKING DIE! :D
Throne generates death scales.
Move pretender there to claim, thinking death scales are due to throne.
Turns out there was a well of pestilence in the province. None of my other commanders moving through the province got diseased, but my pretender did.
#DominionsThings.
The madwoman!
The unscripted Touch of Madness to a pair of random Uruk soldiers saved the day, as I definitively retreated before the enemy did… except 2 guys in berserker mode, that gave enough time for the enemy to retreat also, and because it was a siege to the enemy, I was considered the winner.
Many pre-made pretenders across all ages:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dWXQ76j7Vq_VxUYngZ7sl9a4x7_bUWus?usp=sharing
From this Steam thread:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/722060/discussions/0/1489992713708551771/
FYI the Steam Discussions have been a good (if random) source of info on Dom 5.
I’m very much a boobie here but I’m getting past the graphics and into the game.
I caught myself thinking ‘it doesn’t look that bad’ earlier today. And really it doesn’t.
I’m playing one of the giant races (not niefelheim) and gradually winning a war against machaka.
They’re throwing tonnes of troops at me and losing. It’s fun.
I’ve always liked the unit artwork. And the random maps are getting better. The 3d stuff is still ugly.
The changes to tactical game have really impacted cavalry: they’re pretty f’ing impressive now. I saw a cavalry charge last night and it was awesome. A couple of changes in particular have made a huge difference. The first, the obvious one, is the change from turn-based rounds. This means that cavalry is rarely ‘stopped’ as it used to be (where one round could end with the cavalry charge stopped at the end of its movement points but not yet in range of a foe, but where it could be engaged by the foe before it got to move again). The second, and less obvious, is the greater likelihood of cavalry doing end runs and flanking the opposition (like it was always supposed to, but in practice, very rarely did).
Important tip : for those of you looking at ‘beast’-type pretenders note that the head slot on these often no longer takes helms (crowns and laurels only). Given that there’s at least 3 prominent boosters (off the top of my head) that aren’t crowns or laurels, this might throw you for a loop when you get to con4 or so and looking to boost. It’s also a significant change considering that many of these are SC chassis’s, and might now be considerably more vulnerable/less effective either without a helm, or in particular, without a special ‘frightening’ helm. I kinda sorta ‘get’ this change, but at the same time i don’t - we’re talking about gods and forges, not shopping at walmart: “I’m sorry, but we only have the winged helmet in small right now”…
Don’t fight the progress of the most recent Dominions studies: embrace this newfound, more accurate, knowledge.
Amen, brother.
I could use tips on how to a) zoom in closer on the battle field and b) learn more from the replays. I do push 3 (detailed log) and c (for some barely-visible damage numbers) but it all goes by fast and I dont see e.g. indications of active spell effects on the units or how much fatigue they are expending. for a) do I need to play in lower resolution?
Press f1 to have a list of units on the map and their status.
Click on a unit to see their details. In that panel, press v to see a battle log concerning to that unit.
You can scroll up/down the left top log with -/+. Or RePag/AvPag, not sure now.
Thanks, I’ve been doing that, but I’m not patient enough to click on many of the units in each battle. I’d like a way to see more information at once, but perhaps there isn’t one. Also, it seems that the unit by unit log that comes up on V is only the last few action so if I don’t get to it in time I won’t necessarily see what’s happening, and these unit logs don’t seem to indicate the effect of buff, or do they in a way that I have overlooked?