oh, and one thing was bugging me
who was it who kept spamming Leprosy at me? I think I took 100+ D gems worth of casts, 1000-ish troops affected in total…
… and yet I had Gift of Health up, was using Mass Regen casters in all my battles, and also had the Chalice. I don’t think a single one of my troops died to Leprosy!
Congrats psyanojim!
I couldn’t convince TNN/Sauro/Berytos to ally with me against each other or anyone else. Nor was I in the best position to be an ally of any of the land races since I had safety underwater while also having excellent land capabilities. I attacked Berytos since I felt I would do best against him, which I did, but then Pelagia came and after I saw what he had I saw I had no hope. My prediction of Pelagia winning did indeed come true! Guys, you are supposed to eat sushi, not cradle and cuddle it ;) Well done.
Thanks :)
The biggest advantage I had against Oceania was that they were my favourite nation (havent tried them since all the latest patches though) - so I knew their strengths and weaknesses too well, especially a bless-rush build which was also my favourite. I knew if I could isolate those Aphroi raiding groups I could cut them up easily, and the teleporting mage-thug Pearl Kings were the perfect answer. I also knew that Oceania had no defence against Mind Hunts.
I also saw you’d taken Drain 3, and figured I could just magically overwhelm you in a large underwater battle with Pelagias cheaper mages, especially since you’d focused on land combat. We only had one large underwater battle, but it went pretty much as expected :)
That was another surprising thing about Pelagia - their Astral strength.
I looked at their ‘cultivate pearl’ ability (1:1 water->astral gem conversion) when I chose them and thought - that sounds useless.
Yet it turned out to be critical for the amount of Astral magic I was using for teleports, mind hunts, gear and gateways.
I don’t recall you trying too hard for an alliance with TNN. We didn’t have too many connection points. I did try to get you involved when pelagia and were doing our initial contact dance, but I’d been destroyed by psyanojim early in a couple of games recently and really wanted the opportunity to hang around in this game, and the NAP/alliance against Arco seemed like the best way to accomplish that goal.
Congrats Psyanojim! I ended up being less engaged in those last couple of turns than I should’ve been, and I’m sorry about that. Once I hit the wall of TNN’s fog warriors, I knew it was over. I had originally hoped to snag enough thrones on land to equal Pelagia (the agreement he alluded to) and then try to hold him off on land long enough to grab the winning throne. It was a long shot to begin with.
The Berytos-Oceania alliance meant going to war against TNN I think, and I wasn’t particularly interested at the time in rushing another player. It would have also given Oceania another landhold, and another place to surround me.
Thanks!
The alliance with Sauro was a profitable one, we both did very well out of it, and expanded at the same pace initially. Unfortunately Sauro fell behind just as we were running out of enemies to fight!
I think Pelagias superior mobility had a lot to do with that, and being forced on land to rely on Vine Ogres had one happy consequence - those things were excellent at smashing down forts quickly! So the Pearl Kings swarmed the lands, the Vine Ogre armies smashed the forts. It seemed that I was able to swarm over Berytos and Agartha quickly with this combo while Sauro got bogged down, especially with those super-high def Berytos forts.
Guess I need to write some kind of AAR soon, never know where to start with those!
Yeah, I definitely got bogged down. I also wasn’t prepared to face late game battlefield magic, and my mid-game armies just melted. I should probably put together an AAR of some sort too. I have to try to remember what I was thinking at the beginning though…
Dominions 4 is going for £6.75 at Gamersgate at the moment. I’m tempted to get it with a view to hopefully joining in here but… am I too late to the party?
I picked up a copy. Maybe we can get a n00b game going of everyone who waited until 2016 to buy this.
Hell no, there is usually a game going and no reason a couple of new players is not a good reason to kick one off. Good timing actually as a game just finished a week or so ago.
Excellent! I’ll pick up a copy later and get the manual downloaded and printed off.
Noobs unite!
I played Dom 1-3 MP, but got tired of the end game micromanagement, especially the time commitment, so I have not picked up Dom 4. Figured I’d wait for a sale like this. On release I saw that it made some improvements in micromanagement, but it’s still there. Have they improved this through patches? How much micro are the end game turns and how long do they take?
I picked this up last night and started a game just to see what it was like, without reading a thing. I need to read a thing.
The music was lovely, and some of the sprites are pretty too.
I think the micro is always going to be there, especially when it comes to determining spell usage. Dom 4 puts a big focus back on national armies too, I know I’m fielding larger armies than I did in Dom 3, so there is that component to manage also. But then, maybe army size is by virtue from the nations I have played of late.
As for length of game turns, hard to say because in mp, I end up being defeated towards the end.
That reminds me, I have an AAR to write. Been waiting for the forum update, then been in France for a few weeks, now where did I put my notes?
I think I vaguely remember what I was going to write, Shark Tribe Tritons rule, something like that?
Thanks. Love Dominions, just debating if I have the time and patience for it, even for $9.
Does anyone have any handy links to recommended/essential guides or videos for this, other than the manual?
Not really a guide, but an essential part of every players toolkit