[Dom4] Clusterfuck

[Zinegata]

I haven't spotted any specials either aside from the Ichyfish people

[Username17]

I haven't spotted any specials either aside from the Ichyfish people

Are we counting Amazons? I haven't explored much of the map, but I've found several pockets of them.

-Username17

[K]

I haven't spotted any specials either aside from the Ichyfish people

Are we counting Amazons? I haven't explored much of the map, but I've found several pockets of them.

-Username17

Sure. Amazons, lizards, druids, land Ichys.... I'd be happy with some goddamn tribesmen archers. All I've found is some cav and a lot of militia. One barbarian province.

It feels like a LA map.

[Username17]

Don't worry, when Tien Chi inevitably collapses, the Deer Tribesmen are on your side.

-Username17

[name_here]

I swept at least one tribal province.

[Username17]

Kailasa has been utterly defeated in battle. It is the end for them.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Kailasa has been utterly defeated in battle. It is the end for them.

Indeed.

They say you learn more from your failures than your successes, so I guess I must have learnt a lot this game. Here's a few of the lesson's I'll take away:

[*] Games on small maps are very different to games on big maps.
[*] Starting an early war is not the same thing as winning an early war.
[*] Awe is not a good substitute for armor against Morale 16 sacreds.
[*] Dual bless does not mean bless rush if you only take Dominion 7 and have Cap Only sacreds.
[*] Mirror Image is not guaranteed to stop any number of hits above 1.
[*] Attacking a nation before scouting their capabilities is very risky.
[*] Knowing how the movement system works is important.

[K]

Kailasa has been utterly defeated in battle. It is the end for them.

Indeed.

They say you learn more from your failures than your successes, so I guess I must have learnt a lot this game. Here's a few of the lesson's I'll take away:

[*] Games on small maps are very different to games on big maps.
[*] Starting an early war is not the same thing as winning an early war.
[*] Awe is not a good substitute for armor against Morale 16 sacreds.
[*] Dual bless does not mean bless rush if you only take Dominion 7 and have Cap Only sacreds.
[*] Mirror Image is not guaranteed to stop any number of hits above 1.
[*] Attacking a nation before scouting their capabilities is very risky.
[*] Knowing how the movement system works is important.

I'd add:

-Wrap-around maps mean the game is less tactics and more diplomacy and gangbangs.

-Air/Death is not the ideal Bless for Kailasa. (I would have gone gone Water/Fire or Fire/Nature and leveraged your non-cap Sacreds.)

-Death scales are bad.

-Wooden Warriors would have helped a lot. A LOT.

[Red_Rob]

Wooden Warriors is Alt5, which is a fair way away when you are having to use your Cap mages for expansion.

I went Air/Death as I was interested to try out the Death blessing now it works with ranged weapons. Kailasa have one of the few Sacred archers, so as I've never played them before I thought I'd give it a whirl. In summary, it's nice, but a little underwhelming given what you pay for them. Fire/Nature using Yavanas rather than the archers probably would have worked out better.

[K]

Wooden Warriors is Alt5, which is a fair way away when you are having to use your Cap mages for expansion.

I went Air/Death as I was interested to try out the Death blessing now it works with ranged weapons. Kailasa have one of the few Sacred archers, so as I've never played them before I thought I'd give it a whirl. In summary, it's nice, but a little underwhelming given what you pay for them. Fire/Nature using Yavanas rather than the archers probably would have worked out better.

Well, this is kind of why super-early rushes get no respect. Hitting a 5 by turn 15 is tough, but it can be done if you want to hit your first enemy early with spells to actually win. Alt 5 would have been huge for you with the Earth spells and Wooden Warriors.

Also, your sacred Archers would have also gotten flaming arrows with Fire, so that would have been a pretty neat thing in addition to hitting more with melee attacks.

[Red_Rob]

I did look at a Fire/Air bless, but the Pretender just wasn't there. The Destroyer of Worlds is natively D2A1 which makes it the most efficient chassis for a double D/A bless. There just isn't anything comparable for F/A that I could find.

[K]

I did look at a Fire/Air bless, but the Pretender just wasn't there. The Destroyer of Worlds is natively D2A1 which makes it the most efficient chassis for a double D/A bless. There just isn't anything comparable for F/A that I could find.

I've decided that the Air Bless is a trap. Precision sounds great on archers, but it's not a sizable increase to damage for a cap-only sacred, and the Air Shield is also not that great.

Precision increases do a lot of damage on hundreds of archers, not tens.

Fire/Water/Earth/Nature are still the best Blesses, with Blood for a few nations.

[Username17]

The precision bonus is admittedly not that impressive. The Air Shield I've been pretty impressed by. Kailasa has been fighting Tien Chi - a nation of Composite Bowmen, and their naked Yavanas have been taking most of their losses in melee. The difference in archery effectiveness before and after the bless goes up on troops is really big.

Mostly, I think that Kailasa just isn't very good. They have really crippling leadership problems and their army isn't good enough to take on a decent army like Tien Chi's. Without the air shield, hordes of composite bowmen would slaughter their armies at a distance, and with the air shield, Tien Chi footmen can still close to short range and cut them to pieces.

Remember: it's a long walk to Gandharvas in Dominions 4. And until you get them, none of your soldiers have decent armor.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Mostly, I think that Kailasa just isn't very good.

Yaksha not being StR seems good. Possibly a Thug-Yaksha build with an awake Research pretender to rush Alteration and Construction could do something?

In other news, Kailasa is down but not out. Two invading armies were rebuffed this turn, including a Pretender who bit the dust. There's life in the monkeys yet!

[name_here]

Well, that was Ur's Pretender, so it means a lot less than usual. But yeah, that archery was a problem for me.

[K]

Mostly, I think that Kailasa just isn't very good.

Yaksha not being StR seems good. Possibly a Thug-Yaksha build with an awake Research pretender to rush Alteration and Construction could do something?

I think a rockin' economy and Magic 3 scales to buy mages is a way to go. Remember that a kickass research god is really only around four big mages or 8-9 small mages, so the ability to spit out Yaksha every turn and some monkey casters from a quick second castle or indie casters is going to catch up to a research god very quickly (though a research god is also a site-searcher god, so there is that).

Grab a sleeping Monolith for N9/E4 and you should be good to go. Early expansion with elephants.

But yes, Alternation and Construction ftw.

[Username17]

You are underestimating how terrible Kailasa's army is. They don't have elephants, they don't have armored archers. They have the Lanka monkey troop list with the Bandar Warrior swapped out for the Light Bandar Warrior and the Bandar Swordsman (still no helmet). And of course, all the demons and Kala-Mukhas swapped out for pantless magic beings who require magic leadership to go with their build-anywhere poorleaders with magic leadership and literal complete lack of non-capital priests. Ugh.

The Yavanas and Guhyakas are nice, but your leadership crisis is an actual crisis. Yakshas aren't slow to recruit, but they are also the only commanders in your empire who can lead your sacred troops without a morale penalty, and the only commanders in your empire you can lead more than 1 turn's worth of production of sacred troops and still have a map move of 2. Gurus are map move 1, and Yogis only have a magic leadership of 10. Neither are priests, and both are poorleaders.

Without an air bless you really don't have arrow catchers. Atavi Infantry and Bandar Warriors don't wear any armor and have bucklers. The 21 gold Bandar Swordsman is probably your best bet with his chest armor of 12 (no helmet) and a buckler.

As for Research, I'm going to say you should sprint for Thaumaturgy. It gives Mind Burn to your Gurus (who, sadly, are going to be bringing your Guhyakas into battle most of the time), and when you get to Thaum 3 you can start laying down Panics, which should make your Awe defenses better. I think conquest priority goes to Amazons, because then you can make external priests who could lead your troops.

In the really long run, you can summon Holy 3s for giant piles of Astral Pearls if you can get yourself to Astral 4 and Conjuration 7. You actually can do that with your Gurus if you have Construction 6, but that's a really long time to wait to start seizing thrones. Honestly, I think Kailasa wants a Great White Bull. A Dormant White Bull can get Dominion 7 N9E5 with Order 2, Sloth 3, Heat 3, Growth 3, Misfortune 1. That doesn't seem like the end of the world.

But I wouldn't have much confidence in it, because I don't think Kailasa is a very good faction.

-Username17

[K]

Bah, I forgot that Kailasa only gets Elephants through Conjuration national summons. I still have Patala on the brain.

That being said, Kailasa expands passing well with it's own troops because it's a late-game nation; it just doesn't do early war well because magic is supposed to cover all of your weaknesses. Wooden Warriors or Earth magic for armor, Construction items for Leadership and morale and thugs, and lots of spells for your high-end mages to cast like Communions for better Blessing.

The national arrow catcher of the monkey nations has always been markata. They take the hits so that real monkeys don't have to until you can afford to armor up some authentic arrow catchers. It costs gold, but they are very easy to mass. This lends itself to more defensive wars where your PD is supposed to get killed by arrows while you swing around with thugs and Blessed units.

I also think that Rain and Water Lenses are supposed to feature in your anti-arrow plans. I think Rain still borks accuracy by reducing the range of things, but that may have changed in Dom4.

That being said, I think the Kailasa claim to fame is thugs. I honestly believe that your front line of a big very early invasion army is supposed to be five Yaksha thugs rocking their own buffs like Stoneskin and Barkskin with slightly later research featuring Quickness or Astral Shield or Breath of Winter for more damage. You don't even need to dip into Con for a while since Enchanted Shields/Armor, Black Steel armor/shield, and weapons like Stingers are Con 0, AP, Length 4 weapons, but you'd want to get to Con2 for the Dwarven Hammers to make all that crap for cheap.

Bandar Warriors are like everything else in a monkey arsenal: great when you get some magic under your belt, but weak otherwise. They excel in the Early when you are tossing down Wooden Warriors to armor them and Strength of Giants to turn that weird rock attack into a Range 19, 16 point 2/turn rock attack that works really well against lightly armored EA crap.

The whole theme of "we're naked and have small amounts of natural armor" is basically designed for casting spells like Iron Bane and Destruction in combination with your Wooden Warriors troops or magic/spell armor thugs.

[Red_Rob]

So, Kailasa is now under siege in our capital. This looks like the end, however I have a stash of around 100 gems that I never found a use for.

During the early stages of the Last Kailasan War Fomoria voluntarily left my cap circle and asked for nothing in return. I'd like to return their earlier kindness, however giving them all my gems might be seen as game ruining kingmaking, which I wouldn't want be accused of.

What would people see as an acceptable tribute that wouldn't give Fomoria an unfair advantage? Half?

[K]

Considering that 30 gem events are in the game, I don't think that 100 gems are going to make or break anyone.

[Username17]

So, Kailasa is now under siege in our capital. This looks like the end, however I have a stash of around 100 gems that I never found a use for.

During the early stages of the Last Kailasan War Fomoria voluntarily left my cap circle and asked for nothing in return. I'd like to return their earlier kindness, however giving them all my gems might be seen as game ruining kingmaking, which I wouldn't want be accused of.

What would people see as an acceptable tribute that wouldn't give Fomoria an unfair advantage? Half?

Wait, you're concerned about throwing the game now? You suicide bombered your entire empire to make me lose on turn five. 100 gems is fine and dandy, but it's only worth about 2000 gold. I've lost more than that just in troops fighting off your dumb bullshit, over and above the lost territory and time and research.

You've already shat all over this fucking game. Go nuts. Spoiler the fuck out of things. Fomoria is already much larger than they would have been if you hadn't been such an asshole, why not go all the way? Honestly, I don't think it really makes much difference. They have the Throne of Knowledge instead of not having it because of your hijinx. That frankly matters more than 100 gems more or less.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Wait, you're concerned about throwing the game now? You suicide bombered your entire empire to make me lose on turn five. 100 gems is fine and dandy, but it's only worth about 2000 gold. I've lost more than that just in troops fighting off your dumb bullshit, over and above the lost territory and time and research.

Look Frank, I don't care whether you felt that me attacking you made me a big meany head or whatever - this is a multiplayer wargame and people get knocked out sometimes. If my plan had worked perfectly you would still have been out of the game because I would have conquered your capital early and profited from it. So complaints that I ruined the game because I made you specifically lose territory or troops really don't hold any water.

Secondly, my hesitance was because there is a difference between knocking one player out of an MP game and giving one player an unnassailable lead in an MP game. I don't have qualms about the first, that's how the game is played. The second can spoil things for everyone.

[K]

If anyone wants to do any diplomacy with me, you'll need to do it in-game. This forum bugs me right now.

[Username17]

Secondly, my hesitance was because there is a difference between knocking one player out of an MP game and giving one player an unnassailable lead in an MP game. I don't have qualms about the first, that's how the game is played. The second can spoil things for everyone.

There are 91 provinces in this game world. There were 7 players. The average provinces per player was 13. You made the game zero sum between you and a single other player on turn 5. Unsurprisingly, between the two of us, we now own a total of 7 provinces. That means that the other players get to split 84, bringing their average to 16.8.

But, obviously, the extra provinces gainable by each player are not even. Lanka and Ulm were not positioned as well to expand into the territories you forced to be left unconquered as Ur and Fomoria. So your little tantrum gave more provinces to all five other players, but it gave them out in an unfair manner. Ur got more of the 19 provinces you left open, and Ulm got less.

Giving someone a hundred gems for no damn reason is kind of dick move. But it's only worth about 8 turns of having three extra provinces over another player. Since you already did much more than that by ceding more territory to some players than others fifteen turns ago, who gives a fuck what you do now?

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

who gives a fuck what you do now?

This is the question I was asking. Do people mind if I give Fomoria some gems or not?