[Dom4] WhoIsLeft - Game (w)On

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

Moderator: Moderators

User avatar
Avoraciopoctules
Overlord
Posts: 8624
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:48 pm
Location: Oakland, CA

Post by Avoraciopoctules »

I'm glad to see my pretender living up to its name, even when I couldn't be bothered scripting half my mages. Making life miserable for anybody who tried invading my poisonous fartswamp was a major strategic initiative for C'tis.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

Ouch, even though I saw that turn one Earthquake coming it still hurts to lose half your mage corp in the battle in one fell swoop. Good job I held a bunch of mages back and only sent enough to win the battle. Still, by my count I killed around 7000 gold and about 200 gems worth that turn and only took half that or less in losses.

I was confused at first about the undead that kept popping up when I killed enemies in one province until I realised it must be C'tis Haunted Forest. I'd assumed that wouldn't activate if there were no C'tis units in the battle but I guess they just raise as independents and attack both sides. A fun spell.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

1/4th my mage corp. But yeah, I didn't have this one planned out nearly as well as I should have and got way over-extended on the C`tis front.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

One of the reasons I love T'ien Ch'i is they have such a wide toolbox. Their mages are so diverse that with the right research and boosters they can deal with almost any situation you come up against.

So say you go up against a regenerating horde of well equipped sacred Anakite Giants backed by Earthquake casters:
Image

That calls for a Mass Flight / Ironbane / Mass Regeneration combo which leads to the expensive giants getting mobbed with no armor and swiftly taken down:
Image

Whereas when you are facing MA Ermor's trademark endless hordes of Undead:
Image

Then you can bring enough Rain of Stones and Earthquake casters to give them a seriously bad day, leaving a handful of stragglers that your Ethereal / Regenerating / Armored line troops can easily mop up:
Image
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

Yep, this is the point at which I concede this is ridiculously one sided and go AI. I don't think I know what I'm doing enough to offer any resistance, and you can clearly see me coming from a mile away.
name_here
Prince
Posts: 3346
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:55 pm

Post by name_here »

That... would probably have gone better for me if I'd remembered to re-script my mages.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

So, Ashdod in Review:

My early war with Arco was unfortunate, but necessary given position. I wouldn't have had a game to play, and if anyone is equipped to win an early war, it's probably Ashdod. It still slowed down expansion and total province capture, of course.

My mid-game war with C`tis was a fiasco out of frustration for the disease dominion and totally ineffective. I did lots of raiding but I don't think I won a single major engagement (I thought if I could grab C`tis thrones + the 2 underwater ones, I'd have 8 points), and it left me over-extended and easy pickings for Tien Chi.

My mid-end game war with Tien Chi was marred by the fact that I suck at the mid-end game, and whoever is playing Tien Chi at the moment doesn't.
Last edited by Ikeren on Sun Apr 05, 2015 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

I hear you about the disease dominion - it really means that any push into C'tis territory has to be decisive as you are basically throwing away the troops you send. My alchemists are currently working overtime to try to keep my mage corp from rotting away.

If you're interested I could give you a few pointers about things I noticed in the game.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
User avatar
Avoraciopoctules
Overlord
Posts: 8624
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:48 pm
Location: Oakland, CA

Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Hey, you don't have to invade C'tis. There's plenty of thrones elsewhere in the world, and AI Abysia's pretty weak right now. Unless you think I'm up to something, of course. Then maybe invading the poisonous fartswamp is a very good idea :cool: . Either way, I'm in this till the end. Thanks for the chance to finally experiment with worms that walk.

If T'ien Ch'i does want to discuss peace, I may be willing to trade items/gems.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

I'm afraid with Ermor having 6 Throne Points the time for peace is over. Now there is only Death or Glory.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
User avatar
Avoraciopoctules
Overlord
Posts: 8624
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:48 pm
Location: Oakland, CA

Post by Avoraciopoctules »

All right, then look forward to a slightly different flavor of skeletal menace incoming. Thanks for the time you've given us up till now.
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

AI Abysia didn't hold a single throne.

Also,
If you're interested I could give you a few pointers about things I noticed in the game.
Happily. I'm pretty well aware I'm mostly incompetent. In case you missed it, I botched fatigue math in the other game and got a thugged out fireking killed by a handful of cavemen and PD.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

Ikeren wrote:In case you missed it, I botched fatigue math in the other game and got a thugged out fireking killed by a handful of cavemen and PD.
Yeah, I did a similar thing with a kitted out ArchDevil. Attacked an army alone, cast Phoenix Power > Fire Storm, watched as a bunch of knights charged up the battlefield and skewered him. Nowadays I always try to setup a casting of Living Fire beforehand to provide a screen of Fire resistant bodies whilst the Fire Storm does the damage. Usually a caster able to pull off Fire Storm can get Living Fire off for under 100 fatigue, leaving them able to cast Fire Storm the turn after.

Regarding this game, the main thing that I noticed you can easily improve is in gearing your SC's. Your standard kit for your Ditanu seemed to include a Robe of Shadows and a Lucky Coin. Firstly every source I could find suggested that Ditanu are naturally Ethereal - this means that a Robe of Shadows does nothing for them. In fact it removes their natural Dawn Armor and replaces it with 0 Protection actually making it easier to take them down. I assaulted one fort with a Ditanu defender using a bunch of chaff, gambling that it would have a Robe on and enough hits would get through the Ethereal to beat its regeneration. What you want instead is an armor that gives the highest Protection you can get to combine with their Etherealness and make it almost impossible for normal troops to hurt them. In fact, as Ditanu are Undead they have 0 Encumbrance naturally and ignore fatigue from combat (but not spellcasting). Usually you want high Enc armors on Undead SC's as they can ignore the Enc penalty after their buff cycle. Armor of Knights, Elemental Armor, even something in Blacksteel would be a solid option here.

Secondly I wouldn't use a Lucky Coin on a SC or even really on most thugs. Luck is just not a great effect for SC's in Dom4. In Dom3 Luck had a 50% chance to negate every hit taken so it was great for high hp units that soaked a bunch of attacks. In Dom4 this was changed to a 75% chance to negate only hits that would kill the Lucky unit. This means that a high hp, regenerating, Ethereal unit like a Ditanu won't see any benefit from it until they are down to their last few hp. At that point needing a few more hits to take them down isn't going to slow down a force that already has enough firepower to get them to 1hp. Also I noticed you had a Lucky Coin and a Luck Amulet on the same guy - like Ethereal, Luck doesn't stack so that is just a waste of gems. I would go for a Vine Shield or a Shield of Gleaming Gold here as these both drastically cut down the number of melee attacks a unit will take. This when combined with natural Ethereal, a high Prot armor and regeneration from your bless would mean they would be basically unkillable by melee or ranged troops. With natural Magic Resistance 18 you can then add an Antimagic Amulet and they are going to be very difficult to take down without a large number of mages specifically scripted to the task. If you add some Flying boots you can be attacking the provinces behind advancing enemy armies, cutting lines of retreat and preventing reinforcements from moving up to replenish losses.

Regarding actual battle tactics I noticed you didn't really seem to find much use for your Astral mages. Mind burn x 5 is pretty much a waste against a nation like T'ien Ch'i that has plenty of human level troops to take the hits. I'd recommend looking at using Body Ethereal to make the core of your Sacred giants almost impervious in melee, or against groups of enemies try spamming Stellar Cascades. Stellar Cascades deals unresistable armor piercing fatigue damage over an area, which makes short work of most enemies if cast enough times. Fatigue 100 will neutralise anything, but even smaller amounts of fatigue causes penalties to attack and defense so fatiguing enemy units before combat will increase the survivability and killing power of your giants. If you have an S3 caster (or an S2 with a Skullcap) you can bust out Light of the Northern Star which will give +1S to all your S mages. This would take all your S2 Rephaite Sages to S3, allowing them to spam Astral Geyser which does AN damage over an area and can do some serious damage to the kind of infantry blocks Tien Chi likes to field.

I also found you didn't use many booster items on your mages which lead to less of the battle-altering spells that define the mid/late game. Giving a key mage some Earth boots or a Starshine Skullcap and combining with Power of the Spheres or Summon Earthpower can let even an E2 cast Earthquake or an S2 cast Astral Tempest. That can make just a regular castle defended by a few Rephaite sages into a hard slog to capture. Another good thing about booster items is you can shuffle them around as needed, deploying an E3 sage to defend a castle one turn and then switching them to another castle the next turn.

Finally I noticed several times I was facing sacred giants unblessed. Really when you are paying so many design points for a bless you want to ensure it is in place, particularly on such expensive units. Indie Priests are a good way for bless heavy nations to get the priests they need without investing in a full castle just to pump them out.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

Lots of great advice, thank you, I deeply appreciate it. I think I actually didn't notice the Ditanu were ethereal, which just goes to show --- I still am pretty newbie at this game. And I didn't realize luck had been nerfed so hardcore in Dom4. Lucky coin + luck amulet was probably just oversight.

I wasn't sure about body ethereal + melee for the Rapheite sages, I wasn't sure they'd be tough enough with it to avoid swiftly splattering. And yeah, I tend to use boosters minimally, thinking they're too valuable to risk. I'm sort of figuring out otherwise with mass-produced 6 gem earth boots for Ulm.

Useful information on Stellar Cascades and Astral Geyser and Astral Tempest. I wasn't sure fatigue damage really meant much, and I haven't even heard of Astral Tempest until now...I didn't have Evocation 8 in that game, I think. But good thing to think about, and I'll definitely use Astral Geyser more.

I don't recall sacred giants unblessed, but again, oversight/mis-scripting. I've been planting trees, and after the first few losses things became a little hurried in favour of trying to focus on the other game (which is also why I'm stepping out rather than fighting to the bitter end, as I'd usually prefer).
Last edited by Ikeren on Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

Ikeren wrote:I wasn't sure about body ethereal + melee for the Rapheite sages, I wasn't sure they'd be tough enough with it to avoid swiftly splattering.
Sorry, I wasn't really clear here. I was referring to starting your sacred Anakite giant troops next to your Rephaite Sages with "Hold and attack" orders. This will give you three turns of spellcasting before they set off, allowing each Sage to cast Body Ethereal on 3 Anakites. So with three S2 Sages you'd have 9 Anakites made Ethereal and ignoring 75% of nonmagical enemy attacks.
Ikeren wrote:Useful information on Stellar Cascades and Astral Geyser and Astral Tempest. I wasn't sure fatigue damage really meant much, and I haven't even heard of Astral Tempest until now...I didn't have Evocation 8 in that game, I think. But good thing to think about, and I'll definitely use Astral Geyser more.
Fatigue damage is underwhelming in small doses, but the killer is the hidden -1 Defense penalty per 10 Fatigue and -1 Attack penalty per 20 Fatigue. So if you look at a unit with 15 Defense and 80 Fatigue, it actually has 7 Defense. That can seriously reduce the survivability of troops once the fatigue starts racking up.

Astral Geyser and Astral Tempest look underwhelming because the damage is so low (2 AN damage), however because of the Dominions DRN this can be surprisingly effective. The fact that damage is actually a bell-curve centred on the listed figure means that you can be doing more than the listed damage around half the time.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

Right. I think I thought body ethereal was self only. That's a clever idea.

I really appreciate all the advice. I also totally was thinking that 10 gem brand was worth less than a 10 gem booster for some reason. I really need to throw boosters around a lot more.
name_here
Prince
Posts: 3346
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:55 pm

Post by name_here »

Whelp, that's game. Damnit, I was sure Belegor had the Throne Of Water; I was hoping to get my final two throne points by taking it. That's where that big fight Red_Rob posted pictures of came from. Let me show you part of why it went so badly:Image

Yes, I had all of my gigantic pile of mages nicely scripted up to fight enemy undead, when Tien'Chi wasn't using any. I did have a guy set up to cast Darkness, but I actually outright forgot to bring him. There was a partial rematch this turn, when I brought all my mages and a hastily-assembled force of a couple hundred undead back over, in which my mages actually cast Darkness and Bolt Of Unlife and particularly Bane Fire. My research was kind of scattershot, though, so I didn't have any actual countermeasures to Rain Of Stones.

You may be wondering what the fuck was up with me and Burden Of Time. First, I was legit terrified of Scleria's Grand Thautumags, because I knew how badly Wither Bones could fuck me up, and I was hoping that Burden Of Time would deal with that, because I'd forgotten how the affliction formula worked. Second, way back when I first cast it I said,
Incidentally, I would remind Ashdod and C'Tis that their population is noticably longer-lived than humans and especially Abysians, and furthermore that both T'ien Chi and Scleria are rather dependent on elderly mages.
Well, Avor listened when I said that, and he chipped in half the base cost of the next two castings.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Good game, everyone. I'd love to read AARs if people are willing to write 'em.
name_here
Prince
Posts: 3346
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:55 pm

Post by name_here »

Well, I started off playing Arco. Not much to say about that one, really; I took an awake Great Sage with lots of paths to research like nuts, built lots of guys with long spears and some elephants, and beat the hell out of indies, took a throne, researched up various paths that were not Evocation, and established a second fort. Then I recieved a message from Ikeren entitled "You are not lucky".

Now, as I've alluded to before, I have literally never beaten human-controlled Sacred Giants. In fact, back in Dom3 in a Den game I played Arco and started next to Niflehiem, so I knew perfectly well my spears weren't going to cut it. So I had everyone fall back into my forts, researched desperately, and finally sortied with a communion scripted to cast Gifts From Heaven. It worked, but I had too many masters and not enough slaves, so I fried a bunch of them. Then I immediately blitzed towards one of his armies in the field, hoping I could wipe out his supply of existing sacred giants and salvage something. That failed and I went AI.

As I noted when that happened, one of my big errors was not being prepared. I'd known that my Sacred Giant plan was a Gifts From Heaven communion from the very beginning. Furthermore, my "everyone else" plan for an early war primarily depended on having dudes with pikes and armor, and if I did use mages I'd probably use some breed of Evocation communion. My recollection is a bit vague, but I think that at the point when the war started, I'd done enough research that if I'd focused it properly I could have busted the communion out immediately, and I recruited very few new mystics before he reached my capital.

Then I got Ermor. When I got Ermor, it had literally no Archbishops, so I immediately focused on fixing that. It also had the Steel Ovens, so naturally I... completely failed to research Construction 4. For the entire game. Anyways, I was fighting Abysia at first, until K went AI and I simultaneously got invaded by Sceleria and desperately scrambled to get my guys back up north to deal with that. The initial invasion force consisted primarily of a ton of Shadow Vestals that rampaged around until I cut them off and destroyed them, helped substantially by Dust To Dust. Sceleria actually really scared me, because they had banishment spam, ready access to communions, death for Wither Bones (if you don't know your spells very well, it's a huge AoE anti-undead spell that ignores armor and MR), Astral for solar brilliance, and their own hordes of crappy undead who would be immune to any attempt to render the battlefield inhospitable for living troops. I got Burden Of Time on my way to get my own Wither Bones so I could clear out undead chaff too. I won some big fights, killed a lot of mages, and secured both thrones on my side of the mountain range, but the fort in the one pass intimidated me, I somehow found out the remaining throne in their territory was only worth one point, and I decided to strike for the throne south of Abysia. I actually didn't do that because I was racing T'ien Chi, I did it because I was hoping to win the game before someone pulled out Solar Brillance or some other hard counter to legions of longdead, because I outright did not have any plan whatsoever for dealing with that.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

My situation was this: I had a starting position in a corner that was also the land of Mordor. Seriously, a ring of mountains with only a couple of ways in or out (both of which got forted). Excellent, basically. Using Sceleria's patented single-bless rapid-expansion scheme, I secured a substantial area, made nice with my two neighbors (Tien Chi and Ermor), then took a little time to get my mage-factories up-and-running and sitesearching done.

When it was time for war, I chose Ermor as my target, because my diplomacy didn't require me to give them warning, and because they were already fighting K. Except, as noted by name_here, K folded at about the time I made my move, which freed up a lot of troops to counter my offensive.

Then I basically lost... a lot. For all the fear he apparently had of my big casters, they never did very well for me in battle – and because vagaries of their paths meant I basically had to give them booster items to get much use out of them, when they lost, I lost more than usual. Ermor took both my eastern Thrones, and I was never able to get sufficient upper-hand in our massive bonegrinder cascade to take either back.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

I'll post a more detailed summary later but for now I'd just like to refer to Frank's message when I subbed in for T'ien Ch'i:
FrankTrollman wrote:I don't think you're going to win, but stranger things have certainly happened.
:)
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
name_here
Prince
Posts: 3346
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:55 pm

Post by name_here »

angelfromanotherpin wrote: Then I basically lost... a lot. For all the fear he apparently had of my big casters, they never did very well for me in battle – and because vagaries of their paths meant I basically had to give them booster items to get much use out of them, when they lost, I lost more than usual. Ermor took both my eastern Thrones, and I was never able to get sufficient upper-hand in our massive bonegrinder cascade to take either back.
Huh, for some reason I thought your top casters came with D3 by default like my Dusk Elders. Still, you had astral on literally everyone; I'd have gone for a blob communion with a ton of your low-end guys as slaves and all your top mages as masters.

That is basically my solution to everything, I really need to work on diversifying my lategame strategies.

Also, side question: how badly did Burden Of Time mess you guys up? I stopped spamming it because it didn't really seem to be making much of a dent. Was that because your paths and scales left your mages fairly resistant to afflictions, or did you just leave the afflicted guys at home?
Last edited by name_here on Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
User avatar
angelfromanotherpin
Overlord
Posts: 9745
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

I was pretty well padded: Growth 3 scales, plus Death on my casters, plus some nice autodiseasehealer nuns in my forts. I think I only lost one actual guy, although some nontrivial afflictions certainly turned up. But it was also clear that was *not* sustainable for very long.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

T'ien Ch'i have recruitable Disease Healers, long lived mages and I had Growth scales so in the short term Burden of Time wasn't a killer. Left for too long it would have been a different story, but with the world coalition pooling dispel resources it wasn't too much of a worry.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
Ikeren
Knight-Baron
Posts: 849
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 8:07 pm

Post by Ikeren »

My "You aren't lucky" post was a specific reference to the conversation here:
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=417010#417010

I didn't notice the Burden of Time much (a few mages got diseased), I noticed C`tis' awful domain more.

And I already wrote my AAR, but I'm super enjoying reading these. Was it T`ien Chi that won, then?
Post Reply