So since Dom 3 is being discussed

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 5:26 pm

Akula wrote:Someone seems to have cast a Blood/Nature attack spell on the Arco capital. At least that is what it looks like, they got the rain of toads message.

The Rain of Toads is a random event that can also be generated by a spell. It's Blood 4, requires Blood 3, Nature 1, and 10 Blood Slaves. It's not hard to cast, but I don't think anyone can cast it without equipment/empowerment unless someone has some Blood/Nature god I don't know about. Even my own Pandemoniacs, who probably have the easiest time delivering it, need some sort of Brazen Vessel, Ring of Sorcery, or Blood Thorn made for them before they can cast it.

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 5:36 pm

Yeah, many attack spells are also random events. If Frank had the ability and desire to cast it, he'd have waited until he could do it 4 times to stop capital-only production. I don't know for sure about rain of toads, but hurricanes are an example.

We've hit the point in the game where my lack of multiplayer experience means I have only a vauge idea of what I am doing, which probably won't work out too well for me.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:23 pm

name_here wrote: If Frank had the ability and desire to cast it, he'd have waited until he could do it 4 times to stop capital-only production..

Unless that's what I want you to think, and I'm playing the plausible deniability game. Cue spooky music.

Anyway, yeah a lot of attack spells duplicate "real" random bad events. Locusts, Toads, Hurricanes, Wolven Temperature Drops, Bad Omens, and even Monster Boars are all things that can happen just because of a bad luck of the draw. Or because someone cast the spell on you. I genuinely forget whether Blight creates the "real" bight or whether it has a special message.

But that gets to another issue: sometimes spells that are "anonymous" are not that anonymous. The aforementioned Monster Boar is a random event, but as a spell it only shows up on a few lists (Arco and Pangaea for this game). Ghost Riders is "anonymous", but it never shows up as a random event at all. Tupilak attacks may be anonymous, but they never show up as an event and they only show up on one spell list. If one hits you, you know that Atlantis sent it, because no other possibility exists - even though it is technically an anonymous event.

-Username17

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 7:16 pm

Here's another screenshot dump. Looks like I'll have a lot of captions to write when I finally get around to it.

Turns 21-27:

Turn 21

Turn 22

Turn 23

[screen 23b missing]

Turn 24

Turn 25

Turn 26

Turn 27

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 8:09 pm

Turn sent.

It seems Cthulhu formed a communion with entirely too many masters who were terrible shots, and microwaved 10 thatumags at once.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 8:12 pm

yeah.. whoops!

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 8:16 pm

name_here wrote: It seems Cthulhu formed a communion with entirely too many masters who were terrible shots, and microwaved 10 thatumags at once.

Ouch.

Yeah, a note on Communions: Every time you cast a spell, all the slaves in the communion suffer their share of the fatigue, but they also suffer their casting encumbrance. The spell fatigue gets divided and redivided by the bonus paths for being in the communion, but your casting encumbrance is just some number. If it's like 4 or 5 as it is for many human units, it only takes ~20 total spells before the slave passes out even without adding in the fatigue from the actual spells. And if fatigue hits 200, the unit starts dying.

So beware a large number of communion masters, regardless of how many slaves are involved. The slaves likely can't actually survive a full script from ten communion masters, even if the spells in the script are bullshit tiny spells like Paralyze.

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 8:20 pm

Yeah, I like to cast Earth Might with my masters for that reason. Actually, Cthulhu spammed a bunch of lighting bolts and thunder strikes with 6 masters, then ran out of script.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:39 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
name_here wrote: It seems Cthulhu formed a communion with entirely too many masters who were terrible shots, and microwaved 10 thatumags at once.
Ouch.

Yeah, a note on Communions: Every time you cast a spell, all the slaves in the communion suffer their share of the fatigue, but they also suffer their casting encumbrance. The spell fatigue gets divided and redivided by the bonus paths for being in the communion, but your casting encumbrance is just some number. If it's like 4 or 5 as it is for many human units, it only takes ~20 total spells before the slave passes out even without adding in the fatigue from the actual spells. And if fatigue hits 200, the unit starts dying.

So beware a large number of communion masters, regardless of how many slaves are involved. The slaves likely can't actually survive a full script from ten communion masters, even if the spells in the script are bullshit tiny spells like Paralyze.

-Username17

Yeah, I did some numbers and forgot about casting encumbrance.

Meh, they were expendable.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:42 pm

I'd tend to think that my losses were more expendable, we'll see.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:47 pm

Hey, it's my first game ever - I'm going to make mistakes. That's literally the first communion I have ever used in combat.. ever.

So they were expendable

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:02 am

So, how is the Ashdod-Man-Vanhiem war going overall? I can see that Angel is down to just his capital, but not too much more.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:07 am

name_here wrote:So, how is the Ashdod-Man-Vanhiem war going overall? I can see that Angel is down to just his capital, but not too much more.

Man is regrouping, Vanheim is getting pushed back, and Ashdod is reclaiming territory from Vanheim right now. Man and Vanheim have to step their games up so that they can actually take out those sacreds.

K · Post by K » Tue Nov 23, 2010 1:57 am

T30 in.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 5:56 am

Akula->

You would have saved yourself a lot of time if you had simply said "I am questioning the idea that Hammer == FOTA".

Because I would have answered "I am not saying Hammer == FOTA. I am saying that the gem savings you get from both paths are almost roughly equivalent, if you take the Hammer's earlier appearance into consideration"

Which you basically proved to be correct.

Now let's put aside gem savings for one moment:

-----

Your main point really is "But FOTA lets you craft neater stuff due to +1 paths". I don't disagree. I already agreed it was nice several posts ago.

+1 paths is nice, as is the larger discount (free slots though? Not really useful except for Death boosters).

But the MAIN reason why you get Forge of the Ancients is STILL the discounts.

So, really, our only point of disagreement is actually this:

Zine: FOTA is valuable mainly for the gem discounts!
Akula: FOTA is valuable mainly because it ups your paths so you can craft nicer stuff! That's why it's Construction 7 instead of Construction 2.

("Forge will save him about the same amount of gems he puts into it, but he probably got some useful artifacts and powerful boosters out of the deal along with plenty of thug gear. ")

In that case, okay, you have a point. Because going up in paths is indeed very expensive and the +1 paths unlocks stuff that you might normally be unable to get. And the only other booster I can think of that boosts all paths is Wish, and it's expensive and only applies to one guy.

So yes, you have a case for justifying FOTA as Construction 7 as opposed to Construction 2.

Now, let's go beyond FOTA and focus on the gem-savings.

--------

Gem savings is also in many ways equivalent to increasing gem income. If a Dwarven Hammer is saving you 3-4 gems a turn, that's almost the equivalent of having a couple of extra sites per turn.

Now, there are no other effects that give forge discounts (except sites and aforementioned FOTA). But there are effects that increase gem income. And most of them are higher level stuff that are global enchantments (like Mother Oak).

Which is again why I question stuff like Dwarven Hammers, Clams, and Bloodstones. Because they, in effect, augment the gem income of nations even with fairly low research levels.

If the economy was to be truly stable, then being able to augment your gem income without sites should be much easier for everyone. There should be an item that generates Fire Gems, Nature Gems, Death Gems too.

Otherwise, these outlier items shouldn't exist at all.

Now, if you can explain how the Dominion economy is actually balanced despite having Clams for Astral Pearls, but no Clams for Death Gems, then I'm all ears.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:59 am

Every time I click the button to read someone I have on ignore, I am sad. That was fucking retarded. Number of gems saved doesn't mean anything. The point is the number of gems and commander turns spent and what has been gotten for those gems and turns.

If for some reason you are saving a comparable amount of gems with hammers as you are with the forge, you're doing it by setting a much larger pile of turns and gems on fire to do so. And if you're getting items that are roughly equivalent, you're doing it by using more expensive commanders or turns of magic boosters to do so. Meaning that you're even farther behind.

It's not even vaguely comparable. The Forge is a single commander turn to cast instead of six to make, and it doubles the value of the gems you spend instead of increasing them by a third. It's totally off-the-charts crazy better in every single way.

TL;DR: You don't get a prize for having saved some number of gems or another. You have gems that you haven't spent yet and you have actual stuff of whatever you have spent gems on. That is it. Getting a bigger discount on buying some stuff is better even if the amount of gems you "saved" is the same. Because you have more gems left.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 7:09 am

Yes, yes. Frank talks shit about me. Whatever. Here, have your chocolate.

Particularly when we're over and done with the FOTA issue anyway. FOTA > Hammers. End of story.

Admittedly though, Frank's explanation of why FOTA is better is much better than Akula's due to highlighting the Turn-Commander variable.

Edit: I just saw Frank's comment on the other thread regarding chocolates and found that a funnier comeback.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 7:45 am

Turn 30 sent.

And yes, I have tried plans A & B vs supergiants, and need to find and try plan C.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:37 pm

Korwin:
I noticed an independent province on Vanheim's west. If you aren't in a position to take it back within the next couple turns, could I temporarily capture it with one or more golems (assuming that whatever is there isn't nasty enough to take the golems out)? I'd like to get some combat experience with my SCs once I kit them out a bit more, and I'll cede the province back you when you ask for its return.

Turn 31:
http://www.mediafire.com/?n1che3080dcmi1x

EDIT:
Never mind about the independent province, I see that Vanheim retook it.

Hey Frank, you seem to have lots of soldiers, could I pay you gems/gold/items to attack one of my provinces with 40-80 maenads a couple times after I finish kitting out my awesome border defense team?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:04 pm

Okay, I have a plan.

So many of my mages are going to die...

Still, it'll hopefully work out.

Also, it turns out that the interface can't handle more than 24 commanders in a province or so.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:17 pm

It turns out that the interface can't handle more than 24 commanders in a province or so.

There should be little white arrows on the side of your block of commanders that let you scroll up and down. They are kind of hard to see, so I'll try and upload a screenshot later today.

K · Post by K » Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:19 am

In on 31.

Come on God, time for your fat ass to show up.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:20 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:
It turns out that the interface can't handle more than 24 commanders in a province or so.
There should be little white arrows on the side of your block of commanders that let you scroll up and down. They are kind of hard to see, so I'll try and upload a screenshot later today.

And here it is:

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:45 am

Turn sent.

Yeah, my own pretender can show up anytime now and I wouldn't mind.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:55 am

Open offer for those that want to sell me research gear: Go!