Dominions 4 Teasers

K · Post by K » Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:00 am

1. Lanka always wanted indie priests because Dom3 let them only summon ghouls and you could use them to take or protect fortreses(as non-mindless units, they defend as normal unlike the other reanimated).

2. Holy units owned by Lanka can lead undead units, so Kala-mukha that come with H2's and are recruit everywhere with castle, lab and temple are often used for that. They also serve as a primary Blesser.

Remember that Undead and Magic Leadership is hidden in the Leadership tab.

Remember that Lanka can use Blood Sabbath to up Holy skill, so two B1 with an H2 Kala0mukha is the ideal 3 with some slave usage.

Hell Power is also a crazy way to get more Holy when you need it,

3. Interesting, but I'm not sure that Order 3 is still not the best longterm solution. Switching to non-demon sacreds is pretty much needed once people get their act together and get some Holy indies moving in your direction.

The fact that you can recruit archers in all forests anda decent researchers in castles + labs also makes gold a lot more attractive than slaves.

4. N9 has always been the core Bless for Lanka. Water was the second favored one in Dom3, but in Dom4 Blood9 is looking really nice paired with N9.

5. Scales has always been Order because your units are expensive as shit and you want to make temples for indie priests.

Also, you convert pretty quickly away from Demons because people just send priests after you. It should be a little more manageable with lines now, but high Holy smackdowns are terrible.

6. Luck events have gotten a lot more impressive, but for a nation with shit heroes and blood hunting Luck never seems to pay enough.

7. Remote search has always been a gamble. You hope to get one of those pimp sites that let you summon new kinds of mages or grant a lot of gems, but mostly you get tears.

8. Lanka demons always needed to be paired with Yogini for the buffs and the supply.

9. Wrath of Pazuzu is a new spell in Blood that causes unrest and it's only B1A3. Costs 15 slaves instead of Rain of Toad's 10.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:55 am

Events now happen after movement battles instead of before, which is going to make strategies involving using rituals to create unrest producing events before major attacks be somewhat telegraphed.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:05 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Events now happen after movement battles instead of before, which is going to make strategies involving using rituals to create unrest producing events before major attacks be somewhat telegraphed.

-Username17

Sigh.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:42 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Events now happen after movement battles instead of before, which is going to make strategies involving using rituals to create unrest producing events before major attacks be somewhat telegraphed.

-Username17

Oh... I wonder what the rationale behind that decision is? Is there some event-like spell that can summon you reinforcements or something that they're wanting to allow you to cast while you invade? Or is this some odd enabler of scorched earth, where you evacuate a province as the enemy moves in and you, guessing they're moving in, drop lots of plague spells on it to disease their army? Yeah, I'm not really seeing it...

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:46 pm

Probably it's so you can't spell-assassinate the opposing side's commanders right before your army arrives.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:56 pm

K wrote:7. Remote search has always been a gamble. You hope to get one of those pimp sites that let you summon new kinds of mages or grant a lot of gems, but mostly you get tears.

I understand and agree with you in principle, but I think things may have tipped the other way with the transition from Dom3 to Dom4. The reasons for that are
1) Site Searching spells are harder to research and more expensive to cast.
2) The composition of magic sites in Dom4 seems to have been changed to heavily skew in favor of tiny sites that an X1 or X2 mage could manually site search for.

The majority of your site searching will be with the paths your nation provides, so you by definition have casters with those paths. You will get more gems for less cost, while leaving almost no path-appropriate sites undiscovered, by getting 3 or 4 mages to walk around with tricorders than by peering into crystal balls.

In Dom3 there seemed to be roughly a 1-in-5 chance that your Master Smith (for example) would overlook some juicy earth site, and at 2 gems a pop, it was worth the mage-turns and gems to go hunting for something awesome; even if you just got a higher gem income, as opposed to something pimp like a site that lets you recruit gnomes or something, you'd recupe your costs in a year or so. In Dom4 that ratio seems more like 1-in-15 or 1-in-20 and the cost (in terms of research and gems) is 50% to 100% higher than before. While there are some rare and powerful sites that WOULD make it all worth while, you're betting against terrible odds and with a much worse cost-benefit ratio. After my battery of test games, manual searching now trumps remote searching for me.

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 11:26 pm

Shatner wrote:After my battery of test games, manual searching now trumps remote searching for me.

Well, this is pretty much working as intended by the designers...

From that thread:

Kristoffer Osterman wrote:In dom3 no one searched, since thau 2 was easy to get. So manual searching was not viable at all.
Now you have to search manually for a while. You have to chose between research and searching, while in dom3 you never chose search.
The reason is a more varied gameplay, perhaps more micro, but it gives a strategic choice to the players (how high on the priority list is site searching spells, and how high is finding sites manually).

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 3:09 am

Ergh, what? Manual site searching was superior even in Dominions 3 in most cases; especially given that there are lots of multi-path mages and people often took multi-path Pretenders.

Yeah, sure, you won't get the higher level sites - but getting a spread of four or more magic types searched for only two commander turns (one to move, one to search) as opposed to ritual remote site-searching (two provinces for two commander- turns that only reveals one type of magic site, and costing gems) was better.

Remote searching may need to be higher level, this is true, but that's only because remote searching is usually done after manual searching - usually targeted at specific provinces with hints that they may be hiding another site (e.g. provinces with weird scales).

Early remote-site searching was frankly just a trap option in Dom 3. Making it harder to remote-site search in Dom 4 doesn't actually change much besides making it even less likely you'll ever even remote site-search.

K · Post by K » Wed Oct 02, 2013 5:28 am

Shatner wrote: 2) The composition of magic sites in Dom4 seems to have been changed to heavily skew in favor of tiny sites that an X1 or X2 mage could manually site search for.

I've suspected that the sites have skewed lower.

That being said, it's the still the gamble. You probably blow enough gems for 1-2 summoned mages and basically only need one big site or mage site to make it worth it. Even finding a few small sites a dozen turns early can make the actual investment small.

Mage turns are basically the same because having mages wandering around is a lot of wasted mage time, especially when you count the time to get your mages back to a lab to get to researching again.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:21 pm

Sites definitely do skew lower in Dominions 4. Both in that there are a lot more of them that you can find at 1 or 2, and also in that there are a lot more of them that only make 1 gem.

The return on casting site searching spells is simply objectively lower than it was.

-Username17

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:58 pm

The latest patch has made it so the F9 and D9 blesses (flaming weapons and death weapons) are applied to all non-bonus weapons, ranged and melee, used by sacreds. This means that F9D9 Kailasa can recruit flaming-death archers, or that F9 Mictlan can hand a W1 priest a bow of war and (with quicken self) shoot 26 flaming arrows/round.

Also, Agarthan flaming/death boulders.

K · Post by K » Thu Oct 03, 2013 12:09 am

Shatner wrote:The latest patch has made it so the F9 and D9 blesses (flaming weapons and death weapons) are applied to all non-bonus weapons, ranged and melee, used by sacreds. This means that F9D9 Kailasa can recruit flaming-death archers, or that F9 Mictlan can hand a W1 priest a bow of war and (with quicken self) shoot 26 flaming arrows/round.

Also, Agarthan flaming/death boulders.

I don't often say this, but "da' fuck?!?!?!"

That's a huge change for the few nations with sacred missile guys.

Now I need to get home and play test a Fire/Death bless on standard melee troops.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:21 am

It's a huge change for all the guys with sacreds who carry javelins too.

The sacred archers are:
Yavana Archer (EA Kailasa)
Gibodai (EA Rlyeh)
Warden (LA Man)
Ancestor Vessel (LA Tien Chi)
Pegasus Rider (Independent Crystal Amazons)

Sacred Javelinists are:
White Centaur (EA/MA Pangaea)
Black Centaur (MA Ashpodel)
Ancient Stone Hurler (EA Agartha)
Ancient Stone Hurler with armor (EA Agartha)
Ancient Stone Hurler with metal armor (MA Agartha)
Tuatha Warrior (EA Tir na nOg)
Fomorian Giant (EA Fomoria)
Asara (EA Lanka)
Daoine Sidhe (EA Eriu)
Sun Warrior (All Eras, Mictlan)
Van (MA/LA Vanheim)
Naga (LA Patala)
Naga Warrior (LA Patala)

And then of course, summoning demons of the celestial fire just got more interesting. But yeah, flaming mind blasts, what does that even do?

-Username17

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 11:54 am

How do flaming and death weapon interact?
And do they still overwrite magic effects on forged weapons?
(or whatever they did in Dom3...)

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:04 am

The Three Moves Ahead Podcast talked with some Ilwinter guys about Dominions 4. It's worth a listen.

http://threemovesahead.libsyn.com/episo ... ng-new-god

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 5:33 am

Korwin wrote:How do flaming and death weapon interact?
And do they still overwrite magic effects on forged weapons?
(or whatever they did in Dom3...)

Seems like currently you get Flaming Weapons or Death Weapons and not both. No idea if that's a bug or not.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:04 am

I'm almost curious to try an air bless for Agartha and see whether the precision is a notable improvement for hurlers and oracles. Kailasa also has numerous sacred evokes to go with their sacred archers.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:18 am

Ouch, I lost to the AI. Man and Asphodel are a surprisingly nasty tag-team. Next game, I'm definitely doing a map with more choke points.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Oct 06, 2013 6:17 pm

I made an all-units map that lets you see all the units from Grigor the Griori troll out to the incomplete Hoburg units at 2492. Anyone who wants it can send me their email.

-Username17

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sun Oct 06, 2013 10:32 pm

I don't quite get it, is that a save game with one of every unit already recruited?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 07, 2013 5:39 am

Red_Rob wrote:I don't quite get it, is that a save game with one of every unit already recruited?

It's a special map where you start a game as early era Ulm with no more than one opponent and the victory set to "conquer all". And you start with an extra province that has all the units in the game as commanders in order of their unit number and named their unit number.

-Username17

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Mon Oct 07, 2013 8:11 pm

It includes the unit numbers? Ooh, that sounds useful. PM sent.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Tue Oct 08, 2013 8:36 pm

New release date: Thursday, October 10th (two days out). Even if the game is left in essentially the same state it is in now, I'll be happy because I'll finally be able to get my hands on the manual. But let's hope for a decent body of fixes and tweaks to have made it in by then.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 1:56 am

Shatner wrote:But let's hope for a decent body of fixes and tweaks to have made it in by then.

I kinda doubt it.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:29 pm

Manual now available.