Dominions 4 Teasers

K · Post by K » Sun Oct 13, 2013 8:31 am

Bah, I apparently don't know how Patala works any more.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 8:54 am

K wrote:Bah, I apparently don't know how Patala works any more.

The late game seems pretty similar to me. Build Nagarishis, drop space rocks on fools. Early expansion I think involves a lot of Bandar, which possibly means taking a point of Productivity. The old Earth 9, Nature 4 bless is not a thing that Patala wants anymore.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Sun Oct 13, 2013 11:50 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
K wrote:Bah, I apparently don't know how Patala works any more.
The late game seems pretty similar to me. Build Nagarishis, drop space rocks on fools. Early expansion I think involves a lot of Bandar, which possibly means taking a point of Productivity. The old Earth 9, Nature 4 bless is not a thing that Patala wants anymore.

-Username17

Early expansion seems to be heavy on elephants now because Bandar Sticks and Stones seems to have lost all effectiveness. Literally, I was getting 3-5 volleys of 40 Bandar not doing any damage at all to a stack of packed indie troops.

Not being able to tell Markata to eat hot lances also screws up the old tactics for negating Cav. Undisciplined sucks for Markata because they want to toss stones or shoot small bow arrows and not run forward to soak lances.

Lines seems to reduce archery superiority dramatically, so the stacks of archers I was imagining with the forest recruit is not looking promising.

No Bless seems to work for Naga and their two ranged attacks don't seem to work or miss often. I guess that's good because I won't have the gems for Ghandarvas and a combined Bless strategy no longer looks good.

Racing to Falling Foo seems a reasonable course. Racing to any big magic seems to be the only tactic.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 12:40 pm

Short Bows are almost wholly meaningless in the Late Era, so I wouldn't expect too much out of the Vanara. The Bandar Light Warriors seem useless to me. The Bandar Warriors both seem pretty good. Bandar with Iron Cudgels do 23 damage and will stay culturally relevant pretty much indefinitely.

-Username17

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 9:28 pm

So in reviewing some battles as testing for the upcoming game, I noticed that apparently hits on limbs don't seem to be able to do more than 50% of the target's hp in one hit. I'm seeing results like "arm hit for 23 damage" and the target takes 5 instead and a Lost Arm result. Has it always been like that? The manual states 40% of all hits are limb hits, which would mean high damage units are wasting a chunk of their damage almost half the time.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Sun Oct 13, 2013 11:53 pm

There is also some stuff in the manual about attack size + weapon length vs defender size concerning where you can hit them. If a size-2 human is holding a short sword, they physically cannot hit the head or body of a size-6 titan; they can only hit the feet. Which I guess means that size-6 monsters can expect a lot of limps in their future.

K · Post by K » Mon Oct 14, 2013 2:28 am

Shatner wrote:There is also some stuff in the manual about attack size + weapon length vs defender size concerning where you can hit them. If a size-2 human is holding a short sword, they physically cannot hit the head or body of a size-6 titan; they can only hit the feet. Which I guess means that size-6 monsters can expect a lot of limps in their future.

On the bright side, this means less Eye Loss hits on Cyclops.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:10 am

Red_Rob wrote:So in reviewing some battles as testing for the upcoming game, I noticed that apparently hits on limbs don't seem to be able to do more than 50% of the target's hp in one hit. I'm seeing results like "arm hit for 23 damage" and the target takes 5 instead and a Lost Arm result. Has it always been like that? The manual states 40% of all hits are limb hits, which would mean high damage units are wasting a chunk of their damage almost half the time.

Hits with slashing weapons will sever a limb and be capped at 50% of the unit's base hit points if they do at least 50% of the target's base hit points. This is great news for heavy infantry with broadswords, and terrible news for niefel giants.

It means that if you're doing a real fuck tonne of damage, you're better off with bludgeoning weapons. Jotunheim really wishes that it had invented hammers. But it also means that Barbarians are right on the border, so depending on what you're fighting there are valid reasons to get the barbarians with mauls or the barbarians with greatswords.

-Username17

Shiritai · Post by **Shiritai** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:26 pm

Huh. So an otherwise lethal slashing hit will only have a 10% chance of killing a unit on the first hit (10% chance of a hit to the head = headloss)? Or would hits to the torso do the trick as well?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:32 pm

Deadly slashing hits to the torso are also deadly.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Mon Oct 14, 2013 7:45 pm

4.01 is up. Seems we are also in "Full" version now.

K · Post by K » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:25 pm

Bizarre. I just had two of my fleeing elephants killing each other as they routed.

Is that new?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:46 am

K wrote:Bizarre. I just had two of my fleeing elephants killing each other as they routed.

Is that new?

That's been going on since Dominions 2 if not before. Retreating trampling creatures trample things they run away into. And if they run into something their size or bigger, they fight for a round and then try to run away the next turn. Because of the varied movement on retreating units, sometimes tramplers in a pack will bump into each other, at which point they fight because they are the same size.

You most often see this behavior with troglodyte uprisings. While they are running away, sometimes some Troglodytes will get torn to shreds by their peers for not moving fast enough.

-Username17

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Tue Oct 15, 2013 6:59 am

Yeah, I've definitely seen this behaviour in Dom3 with trampling creatures.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 2:02 am

For all the modders, sprite resources are available here.

K · Post by K » Wed Oct 16, 2013 4:40 am

Gah, I finally figured out what Naga's Hypnotism attack does: it enrages enemies so that they attack the nearest thing. Damn surprising to watch a pile of Shamblers tear into each other and suddenly halve their numbers.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 6:14 am

Turkey Lasers and Bouda Hyena Vision for Mictlan and EA Machaka respectively do the same thing. Naga Hypnotism is kind of bullshit range, and if you don't put them on Fire orders they won't use it. But it's hard core.

-Username17

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 12:48 pm

So llamabeast announced he was totally going to reuse 80% or more of the novel-length cbm code in making a new cbm for Dominions 4. You know, despite the fact that that is obviously a terrible idea.

Apparently, he just doesn't see how he could go on without relying on literally tens of thousands of copypastaed words of mod built for a different game with a different play style and combat engine. This is a train wreck.

-Username17

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 1:53 pm

K · Post by K » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:28 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:So llamabeast announced he was totally going to reuse 80% or more of the novel-length cbm code in making a new cbm for Dominions 4. You know, despite the fact that that is obviously a terrible idea.

Apparently, he just doesn't see how he could go on without relying on literally tens of thousands of copypastaed words of mod built for a different game with a different play style and combat engine. This is a train wreck.

-Username17

Considering that he's built a whole community based around sucking his dick, I am not surprised.

I'm a bit curious about the 20% he is cutting. I know that JK capitulating on gem-gens means that CBM doesn't need to "fix" that, but I wonder what else llamabeast feels is working perfectly in Dominions 4.

Still, considering that the balance point on things as basic as fucking spears has changed dramatically, I don't see how he thinks the same mod will have the same effect (assuming he ever honestly thought that all of those changes had some effect).

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:46 pm

I thought we had established previously that he made changes for literally no reason except changing things, to the point where when Dom3 was patched to alter productivity to match what CBM had done previously he changed productivity again.

K · Post by K » Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:17 am

name_here wrote:I thought we had established previously that he made changes for literally no reason except changing things, to the point where when Dom3 was patched to alter productivity to match what CBM had done previously he changed productivity again.

I guess I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to irrational behavior.

K · Post by K » Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:22 am

So I noticed some things:

1. Winning a deathmatch can be a little painful now that you get a different item with each win. I got two in a quick succession and found myself with the boots (awesome!) and the trident (crap!).

2. Thrones don't take up a slot in a province.

3. The faux-Pretenders that guard high-end Thrones can't be seduced, but the mages can.

With mages also apparently more common in indies, it makes seduction nations a little more diverse.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 2:34 am

Copying something from this Dom3mods thread: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/ind ... =1666&st=0

avoraciopoctules wrote:I tried making a few mod nations in Dom3. There was a LA Caelum spinoff centered on exiled Caelian seraphs learning glamour and taking over part of Bogarus, a demon cult based on some of the more militant Buddhist traditions (unarmored kung fu guys were hard to balance), some Chinese earth elementalists transparently ripped off from Avatar, and Chaff Kingdoms, which let you recruit Mictlan slaves as soldiers and elephants as commanders.

Some got further than others, but my favorite nation overall was a Late Age Helheim successor state where some humans discovered Gnipahalan and started worshipping a God of the underworld.

- Low mapmove troops, with the flavor that they wanted to keep a line of supply wagons open so they could send the bodies of the fallen back through Gnipahalan. I wanted to mod something that eliminated corpses in the same province as national troops, but never figured it out before I got distracted by something else. National Stygian Warrior sacreds who immersed themselves in an Underworld river for high natural protection and magic resistance.
- 4 basic mages. Embalmers with Water/Fire called the Purifiers (intended as acid blasters, but also okay military leaders), armored Death warrior mages called Gatekeepers (intended as thugs, and maybe defensive units with patrol and castle defense bonuses), Ferrymen with Water/Death and sailing, but low carrying capacity, and finally Suicide Kings, the expensive cap-only mages who imitate the Hangadrotts but aren't as magically or physically powerful.
- National summons included failed Stygian Warriors called the Drowned who were basically mindless wights with bad gear, and undead vanir from Helheim.
- I toyed with the idea of Hangadrotts as heroes, and national starting sites that let Death mages enter to create units. A national start where you had that one site where a death mage could summon Banes as soldiers might be pretty neat, especially if Gatekeepers made getting them relatively inexpensive.

If I see any programs that streamline modding, I'll probably give it another shot. I still have the old sprites.

I'm feeling increasingly tempted to revisit this. I was just thinking about the possibility of adding national versions of ashen angel or lammashta summons. How does their friendly fire work? Is it horror-mark-based? If you have them as permanent units, will they desert like Grigorius?

K · Post by K » Thu Oct 17, 2013 6:48 am

Do ashen angels or lammashtas have anything unique that requires that you clone them instead of making new units with the modding commands that use the same sprites?

Making new units and not cloning avoids any issues with units that use Horror mechanics (and I don't know if ashen angels or lammashtas use them).