[Dom3] ANOTHER newbie game - MA, [5/5] - In progress

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 9:57 pm

They're not S2, and as anyone can see from the graphs, I do not have a pile of forts.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:33 pm

Okay, now Ctis is sending his god, 2 geared Bane Lord, and some assassins after me. How go the other fronts?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 4:07 pm

I was wondering where he went. Apparently you mentioned astral mages and undead counters we could use, and then C'tis up and took his god elsewhere entirely.

But they go. I've been kind of hesitant with that god floating around, but I haven't really seen any resistance at all lately. Time to start taking some risks again.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:09 pm

I'm trying to get him with Dust to Dust spam but it's not working. His buff cycle takes so long my mages go offscript before he comes in range.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:17 pm

Orion wrote:I'm trying to get him with Dust to Dust spam but it's not working. His buff cycle takes so long my mages go offscript before he comes in range.

I had the exact same concern and you have now validated it. Mages are fucking stupid.

Spoiler, because I'd rather Drago not peek at this.

Try giving your mages a turn or two of attack closest orders. It sounds stupid as hell, and will be if he has any front line troops at all. But if it's just his solo pretender...

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:27 pm

I'll respect your privacy. I won't look at any spoilers you don't want me to until the end of the game.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 3:35 am

So tomorrow I'm moving my dominions computer. Can I get a 48 hour extension? I think I can get a turn in sometime Sunday, but let's not have it due until Monday plz.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:17 am

Done and done.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 12:14 pm

The armies of C'tis have officially gone on the offensive and breached the Mictlan border. A battle that went way, way, way less well than I was hoping due to dumb mages going off-script, probably because their targets were out of range, and the presence of Milogos the Flying Death Thing.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 8:28 am

Whoops, turns out i moved my god to the wrong place :S

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:17 am

Well, that went poorly, and then well.

1) The latest version of my turn did not actually get saved. Somehow, I must have exited dominions without saving. My mage scripts did not have the latest revisions. My casters didn't actually do the super mega death plan I had intended to enact.

2) My zanzummites went off script into raise skeletons spam, and filled the battlefield with skeletons. Seriously, oh my god. So many skeletons. Milogos proved relatively immune to their attacks, but could not cut through them fast enough. He auto-routed when the timer hit.

3) I believe routed units are placed in nearby provinces immediately. Fortunately, the order of the battle resolution was: I take the last remaining neighboring province with a thug. Milogos fights me, and routs, and with nowhere to route, is subsequently destroyed. C'tis breaks the siege on a province, opening up a near place to rout to.

At least, I'm pretty sure Milogos is dead. I can't see him in that one province he could have gone to, and he has a little memorial cross in the hall of fame that was not there before. That means deceased.

So, now his astral will be one lower. At the place where he can easily be magic dueled by pretty much anyone with a good chance of winning given a handful of mages. Not to mention, I am now rolling in counters and I apparently have skeleton spam to fall back on in the worst case scenario. Yeees. This is delicious. Mwahaha.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:39 am

Wow, death by skelely spam + no retreat. That's embarassing.

Well Milogos did his job: bought me time.

*smugface*

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jun 26, 2012 10:38 pm

Give gems, script spells, nope. Instead of obliterating everything in a few rounds, a dozen marshmasters drop foul vapors and pokemon ball out undead. I won, of course, basically without losses, because slow poison is a bad way to try and kill regenerating piles of hitpoints and I had more than enough to cut through, but it's annoying that the AI doesn't consider dozens of powerful casters a threat that warrants gem use.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 1:34 am

DSMatticus wrote:Give gems, script spells, nope. Instead of obliterating everything in a few rounds, a dozen marshmasters drop foul vapors and pokemon ball out undead. I won, of course, basically without losses, because slow poison is a bad way to try and kill regenerating piles of hitpoints and I had more than enough to cut through, but it's annoying that the AI doesn't consider dozens of powerful casters a threat that warrants gem use.

Conversely, I've been having a lot of trouble getting through that nonsense. Even banishment spam with poison-immune mages didn't work. I guess I need more regenerating fatigue-neutral thugs?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 3:19 am

Well, it was a combination of a lot of things.
1) It wasn't really my thugs, it was my army of sacred giant units, ahimans and sheshais. They each get two attacks, they regenerate, and are almost fatigue neutral. They can cut through a lot of animated undead, and they can do it fairly quickly if the front line is big enough for them to advance as they kill.
2) My actual thugs, which are not very numerous, are rocking out with charcoal shields that do fire damage to people who attack you. That's one of the perfect massed undead counters, because chaff undead hit your thug, do nothing, and then explode.
3) I had zanzummites of my own who spammed their own undead, some banishments and killing spells.
4) Some blades of the wind spam.

It was mostly just that I had enough giants that the front line of the battle was large, giving me more than enough attacks per combat turn to tear through the undead in a timely fashion.

The major annoyance I'm having with C'tis is that everything I deploy against them is getting diseased and accumulating afflictions. I haven't seen anymore thugs or SC's from them yet. Of course, the good news is my units have enough hitpoints that disease takes 3 years to kill them, and they regenerate in combat anyway. The afflictions are the major concern. I wish I was a faction that had a chance in hell of making the chalice.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:29 am

Can I get a six hour extension? It's kind of a busy day, and I'll be pushing the current deadline before I get a turn in. A few more hours is plenty, though.

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:36 am

Done.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:58 am

PHBTHGTH.

Was that thug not scripted to just "attack closest?" He seriously just fatigued himself out casting bullshit battle magic and then died. I must have forgot. AAAARGH. Oh well. They're cheap and abundant.

This game has been scripting mistake after scripting mistake.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:40 am

DSMatticus wrote:PHBTHGTH.

Was that thug not scripted to just "attack closest?" He seriously just fatigued himself out casting bullshit battle magic and then died. I must have forgot. AAAARGH. Oh well. They're cheap and abundant.

This game has been scripting mistake after scripting mistake.

Thank you for the shield

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 2:16 am

OK, note to self. Setting up a communion to cast some big spell is totally meaningless if it takes enough time that the enemy obliterates you with basic evocation spam while you're doing it.

That should've been obvious, but for some reason "spend 5 rounds doing this stuff!" felt like more time to get it all done as opposed to just watching my army burn.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 2:24 am

Archmage wrote:OK, note to self. Setting up a communion to cast some big spell is totally meaningless if it takes enough time that the enemy obliterates you with basic evocation spam while you're doing it.

That should've been obvious, but for some reason "spend 5 rounds doing this stuff!" felt like more time to get it all done as opposed to just watching my army burn.

What exactly were you trying to pull? I might be able to advise you on efficiency in this kinda thing. You can PM me if you want to keep it secret.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:55 pm

The plan was to buff an A2 caster up to A5 and lay down wrathful skies during a storm. What actually happened was my troops rushed in and half died to fire evocation spam by like turn 3.

It was probably a bad plan to begin with and I'm definitely seeing why troops start to become irrelevant at a late enough point in the game. Having no casters with paths greater than 2 is kind of troublesome. Then again, most of my trouble clearly comes from having C'tis north and south and being on shaky terms with Shinuyama.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:26 pm

So, like I mentioned in the Yet Another EA game, my power's out and not coming back anytime soon, looks like. Unless I'm way luckier than I think I am. I can't really look at the turn right now (dominions-less laptop + wi-fi), so I'd really like a rollback and an indefinite pause. But I think last i checked my situation was relatively stable, and if I'm not being attacked and no one's going to take advantage of me, I can eat a stale or two. I think.

It's up to you guys, it seems there were some big battles. If you're gonna continue on, I recommend finding an at least temporary sub for me. If it's only 1-2 stales and no one attacks or has attacked me during that time, I can handle them. (I'm looking at you C'tis, if you plan to take any of those forts back I gotta ask for a pause on the game.) And if my power's out for a really long time, and it turns into three+ stales... I also gotta ask for a pause.

My personal request: everyone agrees not to attack me/territories I've taken from C'tis, set it to a 48 hour host interval until my power's back, let me stale. If the third stale rolls around, decide what you wanna do.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:28 pm

DSM: As per your request, I have increased the interval to 72 hours. This should give you some time to sort things out. If you're still not up by then, let me know, and I'll extend more.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:31 pm

Archmage wrote:The plan was to buff an A2 caster up to A5 and lay down wrathful skies during a storm. What actually happened was my troops rushed in and half died to fire evocation spam by like turn 3.

It was probably a bad plan to begin with and I'm definitely seeing why troops start to become irrelevant at a late enough point in the game. Having no casters with paths greater than 2 is kind of troublesome. Then again, most of my trouble clearly comes from having C'tis north and south and being on shaky terms with Shinuyama.

It is troublesome, but not insurmountable. How many people did you have in that communion? Did you go for a standard or a reverse?