/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

WALL OF TEXT- I READ IT ALL BUT DEAR GOD MAN SUMMARIZE NEXT TIME

CAPS LOCK FOR MAXIMUM YARG

And you know it's a good day when you take 63 units and plow through a doom stack of 140, another stack of 80 and a third stack of 50. 8 Cavalry units out flanking and killing their commander routes them more badly than in total war games.

Or just be an Human no Gods, fuck magic, knight nation and die horribly.

Daily reminder that ermor did nothing wrong

And join the steam group

srifenbyxp wrote:WALL OF TEXT- I READ IT ALL BUT DEAR GOD MAN SUMMARIZE NEXT TIME

That was me trying to sumarize.

I didn't even get started on Ulm Lavamancy or optimal research rotation, nor did I touch on thugs, magical communions, magic site searching, breaking into underwater, castles, and magic scripting.

Let me try to summarize even more, though I think I can only get myself down to a fence of text. Dom 4 is largely a game about playing with high end complicated ideas and using them to break the shit out of everyone's expectations.

Ulm Lavamancy: Ulm gets earth and fire on its mages. That means in combat they get lava spells. Lava spells make up for earth being weak damage wise in evocation and fire having shitty armor penetration, allowing you to shoot globs of death that deal high damage armor bypass damage.

Optimal research rotations: Always remember you are researching to get something. Ulm plays a construction game with its smiths, but construction rarely is good to rush because you don't have anything fancy to put it on. Look at your elements, look at the units you can summon with them and the spells you can cast, and go for research paths that give you immediate benefit from that. Ulm likes to use earth alteration and enchantment to buff defenses and fire to buff attack, wants to summon something fat, wants some lite evocation for early expansion, and then once it gets something fat to summon wants to summon a bunch of it to equip with the swankiest magic items.

Thugs: A unit that, while not able to kill armies, can distrupt a battle so much it isn't funny. Generally are more about soaking attacks than killing quickly because units repeatedly attack their target, so a thug that is nearly impossible to kill ends up being like a tar pit. A good early game thug option is to get some form of easy magical creature summon with tons of protection and HP, and giving it two vine shields and having it charge the enemy.

Magical communions: Astral mages can link together using two 1 thamaturgy spells. The communion master's magical paths are all improved based on the number of mages in the communion acting as slaves. You need a number of slaves equal to 2^n, or two to the power of N, where N is the amount of magic you want boosted. For example 8 mages slaving boosts ALL masters in the communion by 3 in their magical paths. Slaves can't cast spells, and they work together to share fatigue from casting.

Magic site searching: Magical sites are vital because gems determine your end game power. Mages can find new sites that generate magical gems by searching, and each site has a magical path level that determiens the type and power of a mage needed to find it. Mages can be part of your expansion parties but you don't want to stop expansion to site search. Have groups of mages search areas you conquer to find magical sites related to your empire's elements. Areas filled with your dominion that don't have scales you selected for a long time often have magical sites. Sites with negative effects are already active before finding them, and often the negative effect can be increasing death scales or changing heat scales.

Breaking into underwater: Get a pretender able to summon a water mage, or who can summon someone who can lead parties underwater a well as troops who can go underwater or you are dead fucked. Death mages can be sufficient to break into underwater.

Castles: Don't build castles next to each other stupid!

Magical scripting: Never just send mages into battle to cast random spells or they often just buff themselves endlessly. But don't order them to just throw fire all day. Often times the best idea is to buff themselves once or twice and then have them cast the spells you need. Mages are what win high end battles, so knowing when to have them autopilot fireflies and when to have them cast a high end earth buff is key. Remember that they sometimes need gems to cast the spell at all, and high fatigue cost spells often will require gems from mages who are only just able to cast them to reduce the cost of fatigue.

srifenbyxp wrote: And you know it's a good day when you take 63 units and plow through a doom stack of 140, another stack of 80 and a third stack of 50. 8 Cavalry units out flanking and killing their commander routes them more badly than in total war games.

This generally only works vs AI. Versus players you will need more than 8 to break into a flank. Magically enhanced super cavalry can be funny though, like turning your knights to pure iron and making them so big they just trample over everything using earth and nature magic. A flying unit isn't often enough because good players will have their mages not be at the rear of combat. Of course if you spot them there... well... too bad so sad right?

When I went to show my friend the game so I played a random small map.

I was locked in by rivers and the only direction I could go was guarded by a bunch of amazon archers and pegasus riders. Not only was it the first time I ever saw the starting army get repelled by a unit adjacent to your capital, but I was FORCED to go that way by the map. Fuckin' thanks, RNG.

An0n3 wrote:When I went to show my friend the game so I played a random small map.

I was locked in by rivers and the only direction I could go was guarded by a bunch of amazon archers and pegasus riders. Not only was it the first time I ever saw the starting army get repelled by a unit adjacent to your capital, but I was FORCED to go that way by the map. Fuckin' thanks, RNG.

Great. Now you know how everyone who isn't Abyssia feels. Most people can't just face check a province month 1.

Seriously? I thought everyone could do that just fine. When I played as Ulm and Jotenheim I was able to do the same shit.

I bet if I had actually adjusted my orders rather than just tell them "AYY GO WIN" and throwing them at a unit to demonstrate movement and combat I could've had better results.

An0n3 wrote:Seriously? I thought everyone could do that just fine.

Most nations wait the first turn to expand their initial army into a full expansion party with a few recruitments and to make sure they are not hitting a stack of 80 barbarians. Abyssia is special early game because heat in MA fucks most indies besides heavy infantry.

dezzmont wrote:Ulm Lavamancy: Ulm gets earth and fire on its mages. That means in combat they get lava spells. Lava spells make up for earth being weak damage wise in evocation and fire having shitty armor penetration, allowing you to shoot globs of death that deal high damage armor bypass damage.

All of this is wrong. Fire magic is good at penetrating armor, literally every fire evocation in the game has armor piercing. Neither magma bolts nor magma eruption have armor piercing, and are actually much worse against heavy armor than fire spells are.

so i got this shit, its not that complicated 4 a guy like myself. it is pretty in depth tho and it will take a long time 2 get good at.

i wish there was a way to build walls around a large group of territory so i could just station an army outside the walls and not at each individual place i fuck up.

Preamble wrote:

dezzmont wrote:Ulm Lavamancy: Ulm gets earth and fire on its mages. That means in combat they get lava spells. Lava spells make up for earth being weak damage wise in evocation and fire having shitty armor penetration, allowing you to shoot globs of death that deal high damage armor bypass damage.

All of this is wrong. Fire magic is good at penetrating armor, literally every fire evocation in the game has armor piercing. Neither magma bolts nor magma eruption have armor piercing, and are actually much worse against heavy armor than fire spells are.

I don't think you know how armor penetrating works. Every fire spell has armor penetration, but until you get ridiculously powerful fire's strength is so low it still has almost no chance to penetrate armor unless it is a really lame single target precision roll spell like flame bolt. Flame bolt is pretty ok if you are throwing down with a thug that needs to die yesterday and your mage has good precision, but is absolutely garbage at dealing with heavy infantry.

Magma bolts is a damage 25 attack that ignores shields, which make up a large part of most unit's defense than their armor. Not as much, but it still results in a higher chance to beat the opponent's protection than a str 10 attack that halves armor. For a damage 16 fireball for example to hurt a heavy infantry with a shield hit is looking down beating a final protection value of 15. So it hurts them more often than it doesn't, but not by much. Something pathetic like Fireflies has almost no chance of hurting even lightly armored enemies. At least it isn't like Dom 3 where unless you had ridiculous luck or precision with the mage the shield would automatically make the fire spell do nothing.

A Magma Bolt is damage 25. It ignores the shield, so it needs to beat a measly 15. Meaning generally that attack will absolutely flatten knights.

Once you get to magma eruption it gets sillier. Know why? Because you are right, Magma Eruption lacks armor-piercing. Instead, it has armor IGNORE. 23 damage, AOE 5, straight to the face like you were naked. That will kill anything that is not immune to fire will be dead, regardless of their armor.

Magma. Don't mess with it. Getting hit will kill you without fire protection, pretty much end of story.

Alright, I guess I should figure out races I like playing besides Ulm, since someone else also likes Ulm.

My current alternate is Shinuyama because I am sslightly familiar with them, but they're kinda dumb. I like archers and tanking. Suggestions?

If you want to pew pew try Caelum.

Flying archers + abundant air magic = sick noscopes

i like these aztec niggerts because they sacrifice virgins and my god creates wack abominations pretty cool game but i want to unlock the orgy spell.

Mictlan?

They're fucking robust, yo. Get a pretender that has a good bless, get a Priest King, and spam the FUCK out of Eagle Warriors.

AYYYYYYYYY it's a horde of fucking flying magical assholes with your choice of ridiculous buffs!

Praise Mictlan 4 bless

Hooold the fucking phone.

I'm reading http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/28362785 and I heard Iron Skeletons and Exploding Skeletons in LAgartha.

Please tell me MAgartha also has these.

**EDIT**
They don't
Fuck

MAgartha is apparently alright now can't find the specific buff but eh. Mostly seems to center around sacred statue/undead summons being worthwhile now from advice I have read.

MAgartha can also break into underwater from turn one which is a huge deal, especially because many players have hydrophobia when it comes to nation selection. Depending on the set up it may legitimately be just a bunch of provinces free no one will ever contest.

Go with some magical scales because the nation's biggest weakness is its really shitty research mages. They have some other unique benefits as well such as mage commanders, as the earth reader may be a shitty combat caster at earth 1 and not worth boosting but he can also lead 40 units, and their main work mage is the golem crafter who can be earth blessed which is absurd as a mage and who have great sub-paths that grant access to magma erruption which is possibly one of the strongest evocations in the game, and an early game rust mist, and have great summons. Just note that summoning for Agartha, while extremely strong, requires a lot of micro because they spam summon really small numbers of statues at a time and need to make a lot. So you need a fuckton of golem crafters.

Avoid wet ones and pale ones as infantry, save for using wet ones as non-capitol water troops. Defenders of the halls are the only worthwhile basic troops that are actually pale ones. Shard guards are amazing for early expansion even without a bless as well.

Yeah agarthan water supremacy is nice. Thrones have made dedicated water nations pretty bad, being amphibious is still great though and you and dive in and out of the dip at your leisure.

Incomptinence wrote:Yeah agarthan water supremacy is nice. Thrones have made dedicated water nations pretty bad, being amphibious is still great though and you and dive in and out of the dip at your leisure.

Thrones don't punish dedicated water nations as much as you think, espeically because on most maps there are underwater thrones. Thrones are also not really a way to win by themselves, they are how you hasten your existing win condition. Any water nation worth playing also has a strong land game potential. The reason many people shy away from water nations is that the creators tend to overprice the benefits of water.

EA R'lyeh and Pelagia are extremely bad, Pelagia unplayably so where as R'lyeh works as a sort of handicap nation, which is why I play it EA. EA Atlantis and Oceana actually have giant tier units and can make impressive thugs.

MA, water nations start to even out some. R'lyeh at middle age is actually a full blown nation, and Oceania is actually better than it was in MA, though it is still somewhat below "mid tier." Pelagia remains unplayable. And late age everyone who lived in the sea comes out to be a full hybrid land nation beause late age is about maximizing the complexity of each nation and making it a mash up of other concepts. LA really only serves to make most water nations part of a new and improved kick ass Atlantis and make R'yleh suck ass, but the distinction of what a water nation is also fades away and over half the nations are full hybrids now, and magical paths are so diverse pretty much everyone can dive a few months into the game.

We should use this for the next game we play. It looks awesome. http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4 ... ominions-4

Okay today at 10pm gmt I'm hosting a game of dom4.

Be there or be square. It's also fuckin either ea or ma, fuck la it's gay.

Late age is good for high end games between expert players who want a really long style game with lots of paranoia and politics.

And I will be there AND square thank you very much. Because it is dominions 4, and math is radical!

I still have fucking no idea what I am doing in multiplayer. My strategy is totally to play the guys with the coolest dudes and fuck around having cool dudes until someone kills me.

I am considering learning T'ien' C''h'i' as my alternate for when SOMEONE plays Ulm but apparently they're for experts because they're unspecialized and therefore I have to know what I'm doing (which I don't). This consideration is mostly so I can continue making Chang Ling jokes. OR I could keep playing Shinuyama and bitch about them being terrible I guess?

Also fffffuck me Caelum needs a lot of resources.

i dunno if it got changed but caelum was always universally shit afaik
they cost a lot because they're flying units but they're weak af and just generally useless.

Balut wrote:I still have fucking no idea what I am doing in multiplayer. My strategy is totally to play the guys with the coolest dudes and fuck around having cool dudes until someone kills me.

I am considering learning T'ien' C''h'i' as my alternate for when SOMEONE plays Ulm but apparently they're for experts because they're unspecialized and therefore I have to know what I'm doing (which I don't). This consideration is mostly so I can continue making Chang Ling jokes. OR I could keep playing Shinuyama and bitch about them being terrible I guess?

Also fffffuck me Caelum needs a lot of resources.

You are doing well by picking the coolest dudes.

Now look at those dudes stats. Look at what stats they have that are good. Then look at your mages and their elements. Look over what spells they can potentially cast using domtool, and then shove those spells that help your units onto them.

Man is a great nation for beginners because their strategy is simple.

Get a mobile pretender, dormant. Boost order. Grab air 4 on the pretender. Grab fire 4 on the pretender. Get 4 alteration, get 4 enchantment. Spam fire arrows and air guide and mass longbowmen like mad. Have fun.

I'm so scared of my pretender getting his shit wrecked though. That kills each of your magic paths by one right.

Well, I guess I could grab a lich or some bullshit.

I'm up for a multiplayer game with you nerds, i've lost enough sleep playing this game might as well lose more. Also is the wish spell worth it? I'm assuming it is, I'd like to wish for a sandwhich or that big shiny hat that charms everything. That or restore my mummified hero to actual people again.

it has a chance to fuck up and give you a big bad fucking chaos spawn

Sounds like fun, what's a chaos spawn, I'm sure my over powered god Atatatatatatatata The AllFather along with his geni and super magician sidekick with rank 7 Natures/8 Earth can take it on with an army of 360 black ulm knights.

>he thinks he can defeat kurgi, the eater of heroes and dreams

Gunna have to pass on Dom 4 tonight. I got wrangled into running D&D in an hour.

I'm streaming Elite:Dangerous. You guys missed Texas Dracula.

WOT ABOUT TODAY EH?

Hahahaha this nationgen mod is the best.

BERSERKER SAMURAI. ROBOSPIDER HALFLING CAVALRY. SHORTBOW HALFLINGS WITH SHIELDED-UP GIANTS WITH THROWING AXES. WARRIOR-GEARED, HORSE-RIDING VANIR MAGES WITH INVULN 20.

Someone tell me about MA Asphodel. Ermor Except Vines sounds hype as fuck.

Well I bought the game legitly- maybe we should try and resurrect the /tg/ meta gaming night and i'll make a event about every <day> at <time> we'd get together and play for 1 or 2 hours. Anon can stream how he get's his lava peoples shit get kicked in. Although I read the back story for lava people, cross breading humans and lava people like in adventure time? Sounds like /d/ to me and I approve.

/tg/ meta gaming night I COMMAND YOU

Yeah sure I will play any time.

I'm not sure I can stream this game. Twitch.tv will probably take down my stream when it sees I'm broadcasting people getting FUCKED WITH LAVA DICKS.
Suck it.

>mfw anon's all talk but as soon as he gets out of his tank he becomes still as stone

Daily reminder I taught everyone, if not everything they know, how to learn to play this fucking game.

You taught me what the buttons do.

I actually had to unlearn a bunch of the strategies you tried to teach me. I learned the most of how to play this game by reading forum posts in various locations, googling the different dominions, fighting practice games against the AI, and browsing the mod inspector.

I am probably not that good still, but I'm at least competent and have started playing with some of the more advanced strategies and mechanics.

Interesting. We will see how you do next time we play. If I recall nothing I have told you is controversial, but I may be misremembering. The only tactics that I remember telling you that go against the Dom 4 grain were good in 3 (Like rainbows, I remember mentioning you could make a rainbow) or how to use national non-mage assassins, which are generally not seen as great but you really were into at the time. But I may have herfed the fuck out and said something stupid. Who knows.

Actually playing as glorious nippon, des fish people got Shark-men units.

Blitz today?

Surewhynot?

The man faction I think it is? Is it common for these people to ZERG RUSH light and medium infantry with a mix of war elephants? Because the game I'm playing I took a force of 400-something and took down roughly 1,100 men by mainly outflanking/tengus attack archers/AOE Magic from God/ and blessed units with HP regen+2Att+2Def. Granted I did Indirect attacks before hand to soften them up but these dudes literally keep coming at me in groups of 70-190 after the completed sieged. Yeah I can repel them and I got a 1.5k extra income but god dam, I knew I made a mistake playing a 12 man game with all Mighty AIs.

every time i play this i get too cocky and get slaughtered by zellion and zellion only

Its ok maccus you just didnt script your troops othetwise they would have stomped me