No N on the pretender. Thats the reason I'm recruiting an Independent N Mage.
And now its turn 9 and while I am playing bogarus... my research is not that fast.
Long term I'll use one of the later game methods.
Dominion 3 Strategy & Questions
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DSMatticus
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Okay, so:
1) I have a game where I randomed into a rod of the phoenix, which gives you the active spell incinerate. How do magic items like that work? You just put them on any commander and they can use them? Do they still cost fatigue? If the commander equipped has the appropriate paths, does it make the spell more powerful/reduce the fatigue as normal?
2) Caelum's battle mages. In one of my games (Hi Drago), Caelum's battle mages are basically the only thing that have kept them alive. The lightning/shockwave/whatever spam when massed with enough casters has done a fantastic job. I've got another game (Hi Frank) with Caelum, and it occurred to me I didn't really learn anything from the Hinnom-Caelum war. I'm still rather unsure how to deal with the absolutely devastating battle mages that nations like Caelum can field. How do you do that? Not just Caelum, though some specific advice for countering lightning spam would be nice to finish up NewbieGame, but also dealing with battle mages in general.
1) I have a game where I randomed into a rod of the phoenix, which gives you the active spell incinerate. How do magic items like that work? You just put them on any commander and they can use them? Do they still cost fatigue? If the commander equipped has the appropriate paths, does it make the spell more powerful/reduce the fatigue as normal?
2) Caelum's battle mages. In one of my games (Hi Drago), Caelum's battle mages are basically the only thing that have kept them alive. The lightning/shockwave/whatever spam when massed with enough casters has done a fantastic job. I've got another game (Hi Frank) with Caelum, and it occurred to me I didn't really learn anything from the Hinnom-Caelum war. I'm still rather unsure how to deal with the absolutely devastating battle mages that nations like Caelum can field. How do you do that? Not just Caelum, though some specific advice for countering lightning spam would be nice to finish up NewbieGame, but also dealing with battle mages in general.
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Username17
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1) If you are carrying the magic item, you can cast the spell the item allows. All item spells cost a base of 5 fatigue, and unlike other spells it can be used twice a round under the auspices of Quickness. So you put the Rod of the Phoenix and Boots of Quickness on a regular Commander, and he will cast two incinerates a turn.
2) Massed battle mages are among the nastiest things in the game, being basically more terrifying than super combatants in the late game. One of their many strengths is that killing an individual witch hunter only costs your enemy like 150 gold, which they barely even feel. They can lay down a lot of pain on the science fiction future battle map, and they will.
Fortunately, they are not generally that tough individually. Unless the massed battlemages you are fighting happen to be Skrattir or Sea Kings, in which case that's a whole world of pain. So hitting a battlefield with an Earthquake or a Foul Vapors may well kill many or all of the battle mages in a battle. Also, if you can break through their line with skirmishers, a Theurg may be a thing of brutal killing efficiency - but he's still just an old man and he dies to a sword or a crossbow bolt like anyone else.
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2) Massed battle mages are among the nastiest things in the game, being basically more terrifying than super combatants in the late game. One of their many strengths is that killing an individual witch hunter only costs your enemy like 150 gold, which they barely even feel. They can lay down a lot of pain on the science fiction future battle map, and they will.
Fortunately, they are not generally that tough individually. Unless the massed battlemages you are fighting happen to be Skrattir or Sea Kings, in which case that's a whole world of pain. So hitting a battlefield with an Earthquake or a Foul Vapors may well kill many or all of the battle mages in a battle. Also, if you can break through their line with skirmishers, a Theurg may be a thing of brutal killing efficiency - but he's still just an old man and he dies to a sword or a crossbow bolt like anyone else.
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Flying troops set to "attack rear" can also kill a pile of mages if they aren't mixed in with regular troops. Expect heavy casualties if sending flyers against elemental mages as they have giant fuck-off close range spells, but it's still likely to be worth it. If you don't recruit or summon decent flyers, you can have Air mages cast flight spells on elite troops set to hold-attack rear
Item-based Quickness lets you cast two item-spells. Regular spell Quickness got that feature patched out of existence.FrankTrollman wrote:1) If you are carrying the magic item, you can cast the spell the item allows. All item spells cost a base of 5 fatigue, and unlike other spells it can be used twice a round under the auspices of Quickness. So you put the Rod of the Phoenix and Boots of Quickness on a regular Commander, and he will cast two incinerates a turn.
Last edited by K on Tue Apr 17, 2012 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chaff also works remarkably well. Just send in some cheap stuff that soaks up all that nasty evocation before your good troops actually show up in spell range. I mean, even the best Air casters are not going to get off more than 4-5 Thunderstrikes before crapping out and losing 200 slingers to that is more than worth killing 20 high-end Air mages.DSMatticus wrote:
2) Caelum's battle mages. In one of my games (Hi Drago), Caelum's battle mages are basically the only thing that have kept them alive. The lightning/shockwave/whatever spam when massed with enough casters has done a fantastic job. I've got another game (Hi Frank) with Caelum, and it occurred to me I didn't really learn anything from the Hinnom-Caelum war. I'm still rather unsure how to deal with the absolutely devastating battle mages that nations like Caelum can field. How do you do that? Not just Caelum, though some specific advice for countering lightning spam would be nice to finish up NewbieGame, but also dealing with battle mages in general.
Diversions also work well. Get flyers to jump to their back line or archers and watch as their evocations take out more of their troops than yours. Battlefield summons like Mist of Deception are also great for this.
Finally, destroying the whole battlefield is the winner for asymmetric force. Throw down a spell that ruins the whole battlefield and you don't really care about. There are lots of combos like Heat From Hell and Relief, using undead armies and Foul Vapors, or running in a single lightning-immune SC with a spell like Wrathful Skies hitting the battlefield every turn.
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DSMatticus
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Spoilered because this question is going to sound threatening to at least one person from each of the two games I'm in: if you're in a game with me, kindly not read. Also, assume I'm asking because of the other game.
As a land power, what's the best way to get underwater? Especially against say, a natively aquatic power who has had time to fort basically the entire aquatic world? There's been a massive, drawn out war on land that's left them totally unmolested. That kind of needs to stop soon, or they're going to start doing crazy shit.
My take on the question
Fighting underwater as a land nation is always a chore for me. It's fucking tedious, as you have to arm your thugs differently, summon specialised troops and mages, and/or recruit shitty underwater units.
Undead are easiest to mass. They are less effective fighters underwater, but will give you the numbers you need to crack a fort. Longdead, Soulless, Cavalry and most of the ethereal undead can be slightly improved in effectiveness with spells like Friendly Currents. Of the undead commanders, Mound Kings will help you slowly build a force of minor undead via reanimation or can raise a lot quickly if you have a surplus of death gems. Spectres sometimes come with Water access, even without it, they can use the majority their Death magic underwater.
Assuming you can get to Water 3, you can summon Sea Trolls, decent amphibious units, but fairly expensive in terms of gems and upkeep. The Sea King commander can utilize a lot of underwater magic with their own Water 3 access, this is improved upon by their inherent Water Gem Generation, which can help fund battle magic for an extended underwater campaign.
A scorched earth policy is often useful for me. Kill everything. Pillage, Tax at 200 and camp a Harbinger of Sorrows in all the underwater provinces you can. A land nation can't defend these territories with PD. Hiring UW units will eat up your gold and probably not deter an UW power greatly in any meaningful sense. Leaving behind an undead commander with an undead army is potentially an expensive investment. Defend useful territories that you are guaranteed to control, kill the rest. That way, when the UW nation inevitably takes the province back, their troops will probably start starving and their gold economy does not improve.
It is a grind. Someone else will probably be able to give you better advice than me.
Fighting underwater as a land nation is always a chore for me. It's fucking tedious, as you have to arm your thugs differently, summon specialised troops and mages, and/or recruit shitty underwater units.
Undead are easiest to mass. They are less effective fighters underwater, but will give you the numbers you need to crack a fort. Longdead, Soulless, Cavalry and most of the ethereal undead can be slightly improved in effectiveness with spells like Friendly Currents. Of the undead commanders, Mound Kings will help you slowly build a force of minor undead via reanimation or can raise a lot quickly if you have a surplus of death gems. Spectres sometimes come with Water access, even without it, they can use the majority their Death magic underwater.
Assuming you can get to Water 3, you can summon Sea Trolls, decent amphibious units, but fairly expensive in terms of gems and upkeep. The Sea King commander can utilize a lot of underwater magic with their own Water 3 access, this is improved upon by their inherent Water Gem Generation, which can help fund battle magic for an extended underwater campaign.
A scorched earth policy is often useful for me. Kill everything. Pillage, Tax at 200 and camp a Harbinger of Sorrows in all the underwater provinces you can. A land nation can't defend these territories with PD. Hiring UW units will eat up your gold and probably not deter an UW power greatly in any meaningful sense. Leaving behind an undead commander with an undead army is potentially an expensive investment. Defend useful territories that you are guaranteed to control, kill the rest. That way, when the UW nation inevitably takes the province back, their troops will probably start starving and their gold economy does not improve.
It is a grind. Someone else will probably be able to give you better advice than me.
Last edited by Winnah on Wed Apr 18, 2012 6:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Answer for DSM:
Don't bother. You're extremely unlikely to be able to get together a big enough pile of units together for long enough to crack open all of those forts, even if you didn't have to also somehow get it underwater. Try nuking him with ritual magic instead. If ritual magic is not an option for some inexplicable reason, try for undead or that one global who's name I forget that lets everyone breathe underwater.
FrankTrollman wrote:I think Grek already won the thread and we should pack it in.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
Also in answer to DSM.
It's going to suck.
SCs and Thugs with breathing items or native amphibian versions like most undead work reasonably well, but actually taking provinces with anything else is going to suck because any recruitable troops are going to suck and you probably can't out-mage your enemies because most magic doesn't work underwater. SCs and Thugs can also avoid the embarrassing issue of having a commander get killed and then killing all the units he was supporting with something like a Barrel of Air (especially embarrassing if the kill was from something like a Mind Hunt or Earth Attack).
I used Wraithlords in my last game and that worked pretty well, but each one was 100 gems to field and 8-9 mage-turns to equip. On the bright side, these units work especially well underwater because so many tactics and spells usually used to kill SCs don't work underwater.
Holding water provinces leaves your stuff unreasonably vulnerable to Scouts who retake provinces since they have no PD. On the bright side, the terrible movement restrictions of water means that you can chokepoint reasonably well with patrolling forces to catch those damned stealth units.
Cracking fortresses is not too bad. You buy up some units that can be gotten in large numbers from crap provinces like Shamblers or Mermen and then never send them into combat (keep them in back and on Guard Commander). Let the Thugs, SCs, and mages do the real fighting.
Movement magic becomes especially powerful underwater because the movement is so shitty (note how common Astral is on water nation mages).
At the end of the day, it's a huge grind to eat up sea provinces. There really is no cheap or elegant way to do it.
SCs and Thugs with breathing items or native amphibian versions like most undead work reasonably well, but actually taking provinces with anything else is going to suck because any recruitable troops are going to suck and you probably can't out-mage your enemies because most magic doesn't work underwater. SCs and Thugs can also avoid the embarrassing issue of having a commander get killed and then killing all the units he was supporting with something like a Barrel of Air (especially embarrassing if the kill was from something like a Mind Hunt or Earth Attack).
I used Wraithlords in my last game and that worked pretty well, but each one was 100 gems to field and 8-9 mage-turns to equip. On the bright side, these units work especially well underwater because so many tactics and spells usually used to kill SCs don't work underwater.
Holding water provinces leaves your stuff unreasonably vulnerable to Scouts who retake provinces since they have no PD. On the bright side, the terrible movement restrictions of water means that you can chokepoint reasonably well with patrolling forces to catch those damned stealth units.
Cracking fortresses is not too bad. You buy up some units that can be gotten in large numbers from crap provinces like Shamblers or Mermen and then never send them into combat (keep them in back and on Guard Commander). Let the Thugs, SCs, and mages do the real fighting.
Movement magic becomes especially powerful underwater because the movement is so shitty (note how common Astral is on water nation mages).
At the end of the day, it's a huge grind to eat up sea provinces. There really is no cheap or elegant way to do it.
What can you conjure underwater that you care about for moving out of the water?
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
Re: Cracking Forts
Don't forget that items exist which can help you with your fort-cracking crusade, particularly Gate Cleavers (worth 50 guys apiece) and Wallshakers (25 I think) which help to crack open forts in areas where you're short on manpower.
fectin->
Sea King (the Troll) mostly. One Water Queen can also walk on land while the others are given Amulet of the Fish. Any undead. Not much else though.
Don't forget that items exist which can help you with your fort-cracking crusade, particularly Gate Cleavers (worth 50 guys apiece) and Wallshakers (25 I think) which help to crack open forts in areas where you're short on manpower.
fectin->
Sea King (the Troll) mostly. One Water Queen can also walk on land while the others are given Amulet of the Fish. Any undead. Not much else though.
Last edited by Zinegata on Wed Apr 18, 2012 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Username17
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Add to that Living Statues, Clay Men, and Gargoyles. Basically, Enchantment has a bunch of second tier conjurations that you don't think about much outside of niche circumstances, but almost all Enchantment creations can be made under water. So if you're atlantis or Rlyeh, Enchantment is a really important path for you.Zinegata wrote:Sea King (the Troll) mostly. One Water Queen can also walk on land while the others are given Amulet of the Fish. Any undead. Not much else though.
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Nearly every game I play seems to have underwater conjugation sites.
I can't actually find much useful to do with them.
I can't actually find much useful to do with them.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
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Username17
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Do you mean "Conjuration"? If so the answer is mostly Shade Beasts and Spirit Mastery. Also, you should set up a clamming farm there on the backs of Naiads you summon for that purpose. And Sea Trolls. Streams of Hades and Summon Specter give you pretty good battle casters. Basically: if you have an underwater conjuration bonus magic site it is 100% for Death and Water gems. If you have an underwater enchantment site, it is mostly for Earth gems.fectin wrote:Nearly every game I play seems to have underwater conjugation sites.
I can't actually find much useful to do with them.
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Yes, I mean 'conjuration'. Autocorrect wins another round.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
Underwater site that assist with verb transformation does seem like an interesting thing.
Everything I learned about DnD, I learned from Frank Trollman.
Kaelik wrote:You are so full of Strawmen that I can only assume you actually shit actual straw.
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1. Grammar To inflect (a verb) in its forms for distinctions such as number, person, voice, mood, and tense.
2. To join together.
Remember, a "conjugal visit" is one where conjugation happens. Verbs are apparently plenty fun.
2. To join together.
Remember, a "conjugal visit" is one where conjugation happens. Verbs are apparently plenty fun.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
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DSMatticus
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Heavy cavalry are a bitch. I'm looking at a province with 50 heavy cavalry/heavy infantry. I am Ashdod. I believe all my neighbors have pretty much ceded the territory to me, but it's a really, really bad fight for my army. (Hello, everyone in NewDom3Game; yes, I'm talking about Borale.)
How can I do that fight and minimize my losses? Front-life chaff out the wazoo?
How can I do that fight and minimize my losses? Front-life chaff out the wazoo?
How is your magic? Evocation with enough casters or something to tire them out fast.
Do you have High Defense chaff?
Do you have High Defense chaff?
Red_Rob wrote: I mean, I'm pretty sure the Mayans had a prophecy about what would happen if Frank and PL ever agreed on something. PL will argue with Frank that the sky is blue or grass is green, so when they both separately piss on your idea that is definitely something to think about.
Cavalry can be chump-blocked by any random cheap dorks, since their biggest impact is their charge. Otherwise, yeah, magic them into the ground.DSMatticus wrote:Heavy cavalry are a bitch. I'm looking at a province with 50 heavy cavalry/heavy infantry. I am Ashdod. I believe all my neighbors have pretty much ceded the territory to me, but it's a really, really bad fight for my army. (Hello, everyone in NewDom3Game; yes, I'm talking about Borale.)
How can I do that fight and minimize my losses? Front-life chaff out the wazoo?
Everything I learned about DnD, I learned from Frank Trollman.
Kaelik wrote:You are so full of Strawmen that I can only assume you actually shit actual straw.
souran wrote:...uber, nerd-rage-inducing, minutia-devoted, pointless blithering shit.
Schwarzkopf wrote:The Den, your one-stop shop for in-depth analysis of Dungeons & Dragons and distressingly credible threats of oral rape.
DSM wrote:Apparently, The GM's Going To Punch You in Your Goddamned Face edition of D&D is getting more traction than I expected. Well, it beats playing 4th. Probably 5th, too.
Frank Trollman wrote:Giving someone a mouth full of cock is a standard action.
PoliteNewb wrote:If size means anything, it's what position you have to get in to give a BJ.
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DSMatticus
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Hm. That's actually a valid point; the slingers probably make better frontline chaff than human slaves, being able to volley slings in the interim. And I have slingers on my army right now, so no recruiting run. The only downside is, of course, that they're going to rout like a bunch of pansies immediately and scatter my slinger army everywhere.Ikeren wrote:In another Ashdod game, I did huge damage to ermorian Calvary using slingers in front of my sacred giants.
I think I'll try it.
If you have astral mages in a lab and low tier construction researched, a Crown of Command will give +25 magical leadership. Even to a commander normally unable to lead.
Put it on a priest capable of blessing, or on a mage-priest to improve thier magical leadership ability.
You could always utilise Awaken Sleeper if you have the nature, to summon a commander dedicated to porting around magical troops. As a bonus, that leadership should slightly improve over time with experience.
There are probably simpler methods of transporting them en-masse though.
Put it on a priest capable of blessing, or on a mage-priest to improve thier magical leadership ability.
You could always utilise Awaken Sleeper if you have the nature, to summon a commander dedicated to porting around magical troops. As a bonus, that leadership should slightly improve over time with experience.
There are probably simpler methods of transporting them en-masse though.