So @TurinTur, no reply to this? I’m really curious what basic ideas I don’t seem to know. You obviously know the game better than I do, and you watched the stream, so don’t leave me hanging!
-Tom
So @TurinTur, no reply to this? I’m really curious what basic ideas I don’t seem to know. You obviously know the game better than I do, and you watched the stream, so don’t leave me hanging!
-Tom
Generally a “+” in a spell description means it gets +1 stronger for more powerful caster magic levels in the spell’s primary magic path. So Blessing requires Holy lvl 1 to cast, and a Holy lvl 3 priest casts it, the extra +2 levels add to the range and AOE, so it would affect 7 squares up to range 17.
Thanks for the explanation, Sillhouette.
So the manual says certain detrimental effects can stack. Can buffs stack, too?
By the way, Tom, I thought your playthrough was great, and I learned a lot from it. You asked a lot of the same questions I find myself asking as I play.
That if you hold down ‘z’ for 3.5 seconds on the army screen your mages optimize their spells to do battle against the closest army that is NNW of your location. Come on Tom, everyone knows that!
Forget what I said, I was skipping around your video, and I thought I saw a group of sacred troops unblessed being eaten. I went to that part again, and they had their bless.
Although you could have taken a more appropriate bless for your nation. For example it’s normal to pick Regeneration for giants.
Against Ermor, use priests, lots of them. The problem is yours are expensive*, so try to find an indie province that lets you recruit cheap human indie priests, and recruit them en mass, they can cast Banishment against undead. I wouldn’t attack Ermor without 6-12 priests in my army.
Try to mix smaller units like the little goblins with your giants, to maximize the amount of attacks and repels per square. And instead of attacking directly with the Garmhirdings, put a squad of spearmen in the front holding the line, and the Garmhirdings on the side and a bit behind, so they will flank and start dealing damage without the enemy being totally focused on them.
Eventually you will want to forge several nature items that give supply as undead lands are dead have 0 supply.
edit:
*: well, Godes are 90 gold but they are H2, not H1, so they have a decent price. You can use them, in addition to indie priests.
edit:
Also, this
was a bad idea. Why start a war so early if there were still easier indie provinces to take and expand in?
Maybe you don’t know, but there is ‘hidden’ diplomacy system used by the AI. If you don’t attack them, they consider being a peace with you, until they decide to declare war and attack you in force. They even don’t consider attacking the same indie province and fighting for it as an act of war, so there was no need to attack them so early.
Or conversely, if you were going to attack them, do it rushing them, collect a big army (well, for the turn you are) and attack turn after turn until siege their capital, that will cut their recruitment. Don’t let them time to recover building forts.
BTW, ideally you want lone cheap commander building forts, don’t stop your main army for that.
Here
you should have advanced with your army led by your Pretender, letting the other commander building the fort behind.
Maybe you don’t know, but there is ‘hidden’ diplomacy system used by the AI. If you don’t attack them, they consider being a peace with you, until they decide to declare war and attack you in force. They even don’t consider attacking the same indie province and fighting for it as an act of war, so there was no need to attack them so early.
Wait, what? Where do you know this from? I never knew there was any sort of diplomatic state between AI nations other than just attacking the fuck out of each other. I’m assuming this isn’t indicated ingame anywhere, because I can’t imagine where I would see this info. Is it in any of the documentation? I’ve definitely missed that.
And thanks for the tips, and that’s all very helpful. I especially appreciate you pulling out specific moments from the video like that! But I don’t consider any of that “core basic ideas”. I’ve played a lot of Dominions and even thought I might not be very good at it, it’s a game I know well in terms of the fundamental gameplay. So if you think my playthrough was painful, I will bet you dollars to donuts I can find dozens more on YouTube that are even more painful!
-Tom
Wait, what? Where do you know this from?
Experience! After playing for 200 hours you start to notice some patterns of when the AI attacks you, and when it doesn’t. :)
I also remember attacking blindly to all the opponent nations in my first two or three game, because hey, the game is supposed to be a divine ‘last man standing’, everyone against everyone. That way I was in war against 3 or 4 opponents at the same time, and their attacks in every front, even if weak, would decimate me. It’s much easier fighting against 1 or 2 enemies at a time.
For example, in my last game (with MA Uruk) was with other five nations, only one enemy attacked me, declaring formally War in a message sent to me, and that was in turn 30 or so. Why? Because the AI, as humans, will try to only attack one enemy at a time, and if they already picked one enemy (another AI), then they will try to not declare war against more opponents, including you.
Something I see lots of people doing, it’s adding enemy nations on the screen and then just clicking Ok:
They let all enemies at ‘random’. If you click on it, you will see they have three more possible settings. It’s my experience the game is more enjoyable if you change all the AI to ‘Normal’. If you let them be ‘random’, they can be ‘normal’, ‘defensive’ or ‘aggressive’. You want to avoid random because ‘defensive’ are boring passive punching bags and I have the feeling that aggressive AI can harm themselves but declaring too many wars, so Normal is the best middle point for themselves, and also for a more enjoyable experience they give the player.
As I said before, forget about my comment of “core basic ideas”, that was when I believed you weren’t blessing your sacreds.
Aaaah, I was wondering what those HOMM4-like punching bags, as you put it, were! They were randomly assigned defensive AI! Thank you for the tip.
Dominions and understanding the early expansion (for new players)
Perhaps the biggest single mistake done by new players is expanding slowly. This is understandable as they don’t know the limits of their own units, they don’t know the enemy, they don’t know how to optimize movement actions (not like I’m an expert, I’m just good enough to know I’m not good). But at least, they should know they are playing in a race. Knowledge is the first step.
The race to take and grab lands in the early phase.
More provinces give you more income, more resources, that gives you more troops, more mages, more research points, more gems, etc. They give you the victory.
Now, it happens that taking lands from an opponent player is a long, arduous process. You attack them, they will defend with good troops, they will counter attack wherever they see weak provinces, you have to siege their forts slowly, you will suffer casualties and will have to replenish them…
If only there was a weaker enemy in the early game to take provinces from… oh wait, there is a weaker enemy. With lesser troops, no forts, and won’t counterattack even if you invade them. The indie provinces, the ones with a gray flag still not owned by a real opponent.
‘Doh’ you will say, of course I’m taking indie provinces.
Yes, but dear new player, you do it mostly one at a time. As I also did when I was one. Others opponents could take two provinces in one turn. These extra provinces will give him more income and resources the next turn, which means enough to recruit a new army in the capital and take not two but three provinces per turn. In the end you could end with 9 provinces and they with 20 provinces.
So the point I wanted to drill is that is a race to grab the resources that are the unowned provinces, even if it’s turn based in that regard it isn’t so different of a online match of a RTS game where the noob player goes slowly but secure, meanwhile the veteran expand in three directions and put in march three different remote bases to take three times more resources.
It’s a race as once they aren’t more unowned provinces, the real war will start.
When people play in MP, it’s normal to do expansion tests with the nation you are picking, this is playing several times the first 15 turns of random games with different expansion forces, different blesses and scales, until finding the optimal way to expand. While for SP you don’t need the same effort, the principle is the same in that sometimes splitting your army in two and taking two provinces, if you see a weak province, is very beneficial.
You have to find the optimal point not by adding units to your army, but by subtracting them. Yes, a 40 giant army can take most indie provinces without casualties. But can they do the same with 35? and 30? And 20? The point is to find the minimum amount of force needed for an army (which actually is going to depend a lot of the strength and type of every province, your sacreds, etc), and don’t use more than that, the extra units should form a second expansion force to take more provinces in a turn.
You should also know that taking a specific Pretender with a specific bless oriented to combat so he will be able to fight against indies by himself is a very used strategy, that way people can capture two provinces in the early game as a minimum, one with the Pretender and another with the normal army. This is so valuable that is generally accepted taking a pair of negative scales in exchange of the needed points.
In special, the monster Pretenders (usually the are big animals and start with Dominion score 2) are good expanders. Titans (default Dominion score 3) can be decent but they aren’t as good in fighting alone as you may believe, they are more for the late game when you can forge them magical items, and in addition they are more expensive in points than Monsters, reason of why veteran players don’t like them a lot.
Usually, look at the ones with the following abilities or the blesses that give the equivalent:
-Fear (units will retreat after fighting a few turns)
-Awe (units will sometimes not attack)
-Ethereal (50% of the attacks will miss)
-Regeneration (they recover 10% of their hp per round of combat, and Pretender can be big hp pool, recovering 20 hp per round, making them almost inmortals)
-Recuperation (they will recover from Afflictions, because in this damn game even a stupid puny swordman can do a critical hit and give a big injury to a huge dragon)
-Big defense and/ord Protection (for obvious reasons)
-Trample, to attack a full square of units in one round, instead of a single unit
-In addition taking a Pretender with good movement points or with amphibious ability (so he can take a few water provinces if you aren’t a UW nation) is considered also a nice extra point
The Earth Serpent for example is a good expander Pretender:
-It has 210 hp, and even more in provinces with your dominion.
-Very high protection (22) which will be even higher using its native Earth magic and/or Earth bless.
-Recuperation
-Fear
-Amphibious
The bless should complement the Pretender. For example the Great White Bull
has good hit points, recuperation and trample, but he is lacking any other ability we want, like regeneration, awe, ethereal or fear. Notice he starts with Nature magic, that means it should be possible to increase Nature score until he has regeneration.
Another thing that more veteran players do, it’s give priority to the capital ring, the ring of provinces surrounding your capital. New players usually expand more thoughtlessly (or at least I did it), taking the initial army and expanding, for example, to the West, taking province after province in that direction. Meanwhile, they accumulate new troops in the capital, and when they are big enough, they launch that new second expansion army to the East, three turns later.
It’s better to go around your capital and conquer the neighboring provinces, for three reasons:
For example, this Pretender should be able to expand easily:
First turn. This is pretty risky, blind expansion with Pretender, but the regen + fortitude bless give me confidence to do it (even then, it could have ended badly edit: note I’m stupid, if you are going expand, do it on the province with the yellow border like the one at NW, instead of going S):
Second turn, two expansion forces, the Pretender and the normal army
Third turn, the bull gives priority to the province with my Dominion (they win extra hp there), a third small squad goes from my capital to the destination point of the main army, that way I help them in that battle, and after conquering that province, I will transfer thew new units to the commander of the main force.
Fourth turn. I still give priority to the capital ring of provinces, and attention to the ‘triangle’ of arrows. I did the same operation as the previous turn, I recruited a third cheap commander and the maximum amount of troops to ferry them to Mire of Mystery, while the spare commander now empty of troops come back to the capital.
In the next (fifth) turn, the commander in the capital would take new troops and form a third expansion force directed to some weak province like Troll Woods, helped with mercenaries forces hired on spot in Linshire the previous turn. Don’t disregard mercenaries, their instant availability is useful in these early turns, and if no one bid for them are more or less cheap.
Meanwhile a new commander is recruited to give more sacred troops to the main army, as the commander there is the prophet and can bless them easily. Surely it would be like this: the main army moves from Mire of Mystery to Kishia, the reinforcements move from the capital to Mire of Mystery, and next turn (sixth) both forces would join attacking in Arcatus. That way you don’t waste a turn doing nothing, waiting for troops.
Now you have three expansion forces taking three provinces per turn. And a extra commander, use him to start building a second fort in the following turn. Now you have to know what indie to avoid because they are stronger than average (barbarian, heavy cavalry) and you are golden.
Tom and @TurinTur, I think the playthrough could actually have been painful (I didn’t feel that it was - I thought it was very entertaining) if Tom had stopped to do all the micro required to recruit all the indies to stop Ermor - recruit indie priests, script them, put them on the battlefield, etc. With a stream like this, it is essential to keep the game moving, and clicking on ten provinces each turn just to recruit single undies to put in the army would have slowed the progress and showed lots of static screens in between each turn. So I’m glad Tom didn’t optimize each turn, just for the sake of presentation.
Blind expanding into swamp provinces will ruin your day, though, keep that in mind. These guys will curse you Pretender all day long.
Oh yes, I was daring there. At least lizard shamans are usually in swamp provinces, so you can half guess where they are not. The normal thing is to wait to turn 2 to move. And that way your dominion will have expanded to more provinces.
How do you get Awe on a pretender in Dom 5? Is it still Dominion 9 or higher?
How do you get Awe on a pretender in Dom 5? Is it still Dominion 9 or higher?
No, now it’s a Fire bless.
I’m sure I’m expanding too slowly in my first game of Dominions 5, but I’m having fun. It’s one-on-one, with me as Early Age Machaka vs R’lyeh, on a small map. I was worried that I’d have an unfair advantage vs a race starting underwater, but we just clashed by attacking the same indie (land) province, so the game is on. I chose “Random” AI; next time I’ll choose Normal.
I have a total newb question, though. I understand that units lose HPs during battles and sometimes gain Afflictions, which often can’t be healed. But the HPs always seem to be fully healed after battle. Is that how it works? HP loss heals completely after battles; Afflictions linger?
HP loss heals completely after battles; Afflictions linger?
Correct. Except for some summoned ‘constructs’ which never heal at all without special items or spells. Mechanical Men, some golems, etc.
It’s one major difference that always get me confused when I come back from CoE!
@TurinTur: thank you for all those tips: I am definitely not ready for MP. Evaluating forces is hard enough for me, but to be able to factor in the optimal dominion effect… Pssht goes my brain.
I didn’t read through all of Turin’s post, but i’ll mention the counterpoint - early expansion is great IF you can do it. That kind of knowledge really only comes through experience - knowing what your troops are likely to survive and what they aren’t and there’s not a more fundamental divide in dominions play. In essence, it’s Sun Tzu 101 - know your enemy and know yourself.
In my present MP game, i launched on a bit of a gamble - with only 15 archers, a prophet, and a half dozen of my sacred ‘cavalry’ i attacked and won two provinces. True to turin’s post - aggressiveness is good. But I launched that attack based on the knowledge that my forces, and in particular, the sacred 6 cavalry were strong enough to win the battles i put them in. However, if i was wrong - i likely would have been set back so far as to have just left the game.
Part of what makes dominions a great game is that ‘feel’ you get as an experienced player. Yes…you might lose. A roll might go wrong. Shit might just go sideways. But…you have a feel the more you play this…yes. These troops will win this battle. These troops will take that province. And it’s why I started this current game and didnt expand in round two, but have been successful since. My latest battle was my ~ 24 troops against ~50…but ultimately it came down to those 6 sacreds…and sure enough, i’ve won again (and hi…niefelheim?) but now down to 22 troops (and 6 sacreds).
I think it was @tomchick that great choices make great fun. And dominons is a game about making those great choices…
, but we just clashed by attacking the same indie (land) province, so the game is on.
I believe the AI doesn’t consider this an automatic act of war. I had some times where the AI didn’t attack me after a fortuitous clash like this.
Just started watching your stream Tom. Firstly, I can appreciate the difficulty in trying to both play the game, explain what you are doing and communicating with an audience at the same time. These aren’t basics you’re missing, but some general thoughts I have.
With Pretender design, I reckon going cold 3 would have been a good idea. I always see that as extra points that can be spent elsewhere. Your economy won’t suffer too badly, particularly during the warmer months when lands under your dominion are more likely to drift back to the ideal cold 2. In fact, by staying at cold 2, I think you’d be more likely to fluctuate between cold 1 and cold 3 and it could well affect your income worse as a result.
The death pick up seemed a little odd - that is the pick up of withering weapons. Your sacreds are the giants and you won’t really be able to recruit many of those each turn for a start. Secondly, the giants hit hard enough already and should one hit kill most units, a decay chance in my opinion doesn’t add much. In saying that, the chill aura looks pretty good to flesh out your giants you’d use as thugs, but probably more useful if you were playing defensive. Although I wonder if Ermor would go cold anyway. Bandar I think prefers warm climates. Add to the death pick up, you’ve already got commanders that have death access (death 3) would a death 4 Pretender add much beyond the bless effect?
Based on those two points alone, I’d say investing more in scales would help more than bless effects. But that’s the beauty of Dominions that I appreciate the most is how there are a number of ways to play each nation. The vast array of combinations; spells, items, Pretenders, bless effects, there is so much going on and its impossible to know exactly what an enemy is doing. It reinforces the idea of how important scouting is in this game.
One thing I noted is spell casting and precision stat. Essentially, banishment was missing the skeleton warrior in the first battle. It wasn’t targeting the wolf, it was targeting the skeleton, but the spell kept missing.
For a Giant nation, they are the most valuable unit. I haven’t gotten too much further into the stream, but I’m getting worried at the giants on the front line being surrounded by smaller units that aren’t yours. Giants can take a few hits but will undoubtedly die to a swarming army. It’s the mechanics behind defensive skill and how multiple attacks on the same target take away that defense skill. As as example, I played as Jotunheim on a MP game a while ago and was fighting Pangean white centaurs blessed to have a high defence skill. They were nearly untouchable, but I had a horde of Vaetti (goblins) in front of the army. Part of the idea was to chip away at the defensive skill of the white centaurs, and the spears helped within the Dom 4 repel mechanics. With the Vaetti on the front line, my giants on the back were able to push through as the primary DPS guys and smash the white centaurs into the ground. It is a combined arms approach necessary with Dominions, and this combined arms is something I never really experience much in any other game. Death, or even wounding a giant has a solid economical impact given their cost.
I skipped ahead, and I’d say Ermor did just what I was concerned with above - swarmed you with numbers. I saw the big fight at The Mirks and shook my head. 2-3 Ermor troops per square bashing away at a single giant isn’t going to lead to good times. Bad luck Tom.