Dominions 4: Go home Girl God edition

This is the best game ever made.

These threads are the only reason I come on this godforsaken, piece of shit board anymore.

Buff Ctis
Buff death magic
These evocations suck, no buffs, and most battlefield enchantments are useless if you're not MA Ermor because they apply some kind of penalty to all non-undead.

Death isn't an evocation-based path.
You should know this already, unless you just started playing yesterday.

If death isn't an evo path, how come they have so many? Are all these spells useless by design?

The entire point is that you cripple your opponent and use undead to fuck him up if you have death magic. Use more mages, use more undead.

Death isn't considered an evo path because that's not what it's good for. If you really want to use it for evocations then Shadow Blast is your best bet.

I was going to make a thread but I'm glad you got it handled user, nice one.
Also I wouldn't mind another game later, I'm only in 4 of them now and despite losing like a fool in all of them this is some fun stuff.

I think Jap girls and some plastic Korean girls can look pretty cute, but I'm not in the market to create more Elliott Rogers supreme gentlemen. Pretty sure that they mostly look cute because they do makeup in such a way that it makes them appear to have more European facial characteristics, makeup really is kind of disingenuous in that way

I still enjoy the GSG and fighting game threads but since they talk about other games that I like.
I'm pretty much a newfag but I really don't enjoy the culture threads like the filename, LOL and waifu threads. Too much shit cluttering up the place in general, in my opinion.

I like death evos. If there were an item that have temp death gems like clam of pearls or fire jar than I would rate things like shadow blast pretty highly
Delivering Banefire is good but the D/F paths aren't the most common but man do I like those spells. The main power of D is in other things anyway, like skelespam, buffs, such as using drain life on a thug/SC like a fomorian king or a dai oni, but like you said; a lot of the spells are really put to best use by undead nations like rigor mortis, darkness, stuff like that.

*that gives temp death gems

I know, I love shadow blast, it's just unfortunately useless against the large portion of things it'd be used for (ie things that are too strong to just skelespam to death, or mage blob evoblast that kills your skelespammers by turn 3) because of the MRN property. The only exception being jags or maverni boars, but those both always take B9 if they're being fielded en masse.
All the unlife spells are useless, shadow bolt is useless, why even have such useless spells?
It's not that I want to use evocations. It's that I don't see what I'm meant to do otherwise vs any one of the six million nations that can and will nuke all your skeletons instantly, then slaughter your mages. Rigor mortis is horrible on Ctis. You can pair it with relief to keep your skelespammers kind of sort of awake while the enemy troops fatigue out, but it wont do anything early on when you're trying to stop everything from being roasted by firestorm, riddled by iron blizzard, smashed by magma eruption, or fried by tstrike. (tstrike isn't really that much of an issue since you can skelespam through that given it's not massed before turn 2 and it costs a lot of fatigue).

Having your only option being skelespam, and everything else being a multiplier on top of skelespam puts you in an awful position when it gets countered (which is very easy to do on almost every nation). I'm trying to figure out what else I can use to actually kill things. I tried lammashtas for a while but they represent a lot of new problems. Plague is great but it comes out at thaum7 which is just another deepschool of research when Ctis is already spread very far between research goals, not to mention it has little to no utility outside of Plague.

ugly people in general shouldnt exist

There will always be ugly people user, just like there will always be poor people.

I had read your filename before, but it still wasn't funny, and you're not funny. But I don't expect a Pythian to have good taste considering you hang out with flatulent snakes I'd be more surprised if your tongue hadn't fallen off from the smell.

Asian girls as you say tend to get plastic surgery to look more european anyway, and I admit that even those without it look pretty cute, but asian girls actually like being feminine and I'm pretty sure that plays a big part in it.

Ugly people can and should exist, they just shouldn't cosplay. They serve as a reminder of the rest of us who look down on ourselves to suck it up and do better.

I agree with you, I consider Death though to be more summon based than anything.

The best battle spell for death I've found is to be winds of fear or whatever its called, outside of Shadow Blast of course.

Especially on something like C'tis though you're really gimped I'd say make more wights or banes or something, but without even having a decent native army to back them up it's just not going to work out well and Wights at low levels are extremely expensive for what you get.

If there was one spell I'd upgrade It would be Vortex of Unlife. That would be a great spell especially for death communions, why you wouldn't even need to spam skeletons then You just kill your opponent and they start marching the other way forming a new line in between your army and theirs

We have checked with our scholars and they have agreed that the joke is indeed funny.

Bump
Also when you guys are waiting for turns we have an Holla Forums ss13 server if your interested, its more stable then the last one.

I dunno, I quit the 8/v/ server a long time ago, I got over trying to play Sec and actually do my job because that gets you lynched by roaming packs of assistants upset that the fact they stole insulated gloves is both illegal and suspicious looking.

New MA game get in while you can 8 players, 12 point throne, heroes mod as usual.

llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=InfiniteDeathloops

Or you could git gud. If you want to take a defeatist approach to playing, that's your problem. Next time you play, instead of turtling until your recruitable armies are entirely obsolete, you could try planning ahead and forging shit and summoning shit so that you're less vulnerable to the sort of shit that's kicking your ass.

Also, if you think plague is the only good thing in thau . . . you need to start learning how to play dominions. Just because you have high level death mages doesn't mean you should use nothing but death battle magic the entire fucking game. Use some rituals, goddamn. Or expand into other paths. Ctis has minor astral, nature, and water access, as well as the ability to get rather further into the first two. You also have a pretender that you can use to open up new late-game strats.

Joining as Ulm

Completely new to the game shitter here
I'm pretty much just throwing soldiers at AI until I lose
What's a good place to read up on stuff besides the manual?

The Manual is outdated but I'd recommend looking at some old Desura stuff, or just asking questions ITT.

also this is a tremendous help

larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/

Holy shit why haven't I heard about this before?

I'll join as the chinamen. Just need to make a pretender real quick.

Dunno user, it's usually in the OP.

halfchan

BESTOW A TORRENT UPON ME

Last torrent I saw was only for patch 4.22 which is outdated and you wont be able to play by email with us if that is the case.

The game is worth it to buy it, but check kat.cr for the torrent I mentioned and play around with it for awhile first before you commit. Unlike other indie games this is one that's been developed since 1999 by a couple of dudes, so I'd say if you really want to support good hobby gaming this should be an exception compared to the shit mounds of "indie" games being made these days.

I forgot to put it in the OP my bad

llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=InfiniteDeathloops

Reminder that this server is a thing and we need more bodies for the meat grin– game.

Bumping

I'm in enough games right now but I'll bump anyway

I didn't realize that blood vengeance was bullshit as it is. I lost like 15 mages and my god by casting spells at cat print pajama wearing mexicans. Guess the new strategy is cascade spam against them.

Thats the main snare that Blood Vengeance is good for.

Killing mages.

I mean I had figured as much but have yet to actually fight a mictlan in MP. Caught me off guard.

Well don't sweat it. You have the advantage troop wise even if he has a bunch of smelly jaguars and Throne monsters.

It's pretty natty. Trampling doesn't trigger BV though. Very useful to keep in mind. Hit them with fat/entangle and then trample their shit up.

Only need two more guys for infinite death loops (min) then we can start.

If we get more people wanting to join I can easily bump it up to 9-10 guys instead of our usual 8 way fight

Bumpido

Is anyone else going to join this?

Eventually we'll get a bigger group here on 8ch.

This is the perfect game for autists and people with a busy schedule who want to come home and click their turns in.

BTW how many starving legions are you going to send at me? I need blood, and the more well fed the better!

Faggot ass prot.
A real god wouldn't hide behind a skin of stone. Also thanks for killing of my diseased units. You missed a few though.

Poor Pythian logic.

A real god wouldn't lead his men to certain death, starving in fetid swamps. Your Hydras may be native to them, but your troops certainly are not :^)

Just bring it on, I want to see if you can actually break through.

Eh I don't think I will be, this whole match has been a piss poor show, Woman left as soon as I started warring with her.
Asco is all the way on the otherside of the map.
Same with Agartha.
Atlantis is STILL fucking taking forever to send in turns and isn't assisting with the war effort.

I doubt you will be able to push very far into my provinces however.

I've been fighting Agartha. and Atlantis has gotten better it's just Tienchi who takes their time to do their turns now.

Im surprised that Woman hasn't been defeated yet since they've been AI for like 20 turns now

Other than that Father Illearth can defeat all of your armies while my forces just sweep in and take your forts!

Yeah your not going to be able to take an army into my provinces, I'm sure you can figure out why.
Woman is a pain in the ass, the AI is holding a grudge they have been killing commanders with arrows from across the pond for the last 20 turns.

Or maybe I already have an army in your provinces :^)

How are your games going anons?
I'm having an alright time in the EA game, other than the 70ish pegasus riders flying around my land.

This LA game is my first time in multiplayer and I'm doing pretty decent so far.

The EA game is the first time I've had to struggle to survive so far, which is exciting for me and has made it a lot more enjoyable.

started in a shitty spot, and got ganged up on right away.

everything else is progressing in my favour, I just wish we got more guys for that disciple game. Next time though we'll have more I'm sure

The one halfchan game I was in from last year is finally ending as well, because everyone is dropping out and it's only turn 45 or something it's gone incredibly slow compared to our games.

How do their games manage to go slower when they have more active posters?
Do they just discuss the game not actually play it?

I'm in a cuckchan game that is going by pretty quickly. I think it just depends. They have more people per game, which means more stallers.

I haven't played Dom4 in a while, but I was reminded of something and want thoughts - are cavalry's exorbitant prices justified?

With lances the speed of cav allows them to do multiple hits with high penetration in a single tick.
Meaning they are the best at taking on large enemies with high prot.

Not all cavalry, but most cavalry come with decent protection and high defence, as well as usually a minimum of 3 attacks. So yes, they're usually worth it, especially when sacred. Although some troops don't benefit from buying cavalry over troops because they're just too costly. MA Ulm for example has heavy cavalry but they can buy great infantry in greater numbers.

#NotAllCavalry

They're your shock troopers who go ahead first (or around) and take out important targets.

thats how I use them atleast, unless Im playing a faction thats all calvary like the half men

For what purpose?

to piss you off personally

but you're Pythium

but yeah Tienchi if you're here, whats the deal man?

bump

What gives m8?

I was getting bored, and Pythium just couldn't entertain me. Pic related.

Hope you do better, you put up a fight last time.

Well shit.
At least now I'm much better prepared.

Yeah so am I.

I finally bought a copy to be able to play online, but I feel like my standard strategy of playing Abyssia and trying to rush fire storm ends up in failure.
How do I git gud ad Dominions?

gittin' gud at Dominions 4 is no easy task, user.
There are a lot of aspects to playing the game that a normal player just won't remember, won't know, or won't know how to leverage. Only way to not fail horribly is to fail horribly, a LOT, talk to other people, and watch veterans play. On Youtube I'd recommend NuclearMonkee's MA Maringon playthrough, because he demonstrates a lot of tips you may not think of by yourself.

Credentials: I've been playing the game for half a year and I'm not terrible at it.

Can someone summarize what's engaging and original about this game? My brother plays it but is too autismal to communicate the answer to that question.

...

Well I'm pretty sad.

Pythium I thought you'd stick around and had learned from your mistakes I was hoping you'd retreat and come back with some wine skins or something, not go AI.

and Agartha, you're that same guy that always seems to be losing which sucks, I dont want it to damper your spirit.

I bet you thought Cloud Trapeezing your god would make him join your armies there, which probably would had helped out a lot more, but what you did was initiate a magic fight which is a tactical battle that happens before all other battles except assassinations.

I'd also had hoped you'd had learned from our previous fights and bring more mages to the table. Oh well, not a big deal just figure it out for your other games!

Thing is with your god you could had easily done a tonne of damage to me if he sat behind an army and magic dueled the entire time, none of my mages would be able to resist him, well maybe one could but the odds were in your favour in that case.

Consider all of the finer points of Abyssia, first of all you're a race of lava people with high protection so you don't get hit so hard, and people fighting you are going to tire out easily because of your heat auras.

The high protection comes with a draw back of you cannot recruit so many guys at a time because of the resource cost.

there is a spell that can help this out however Riches from Beneath which will provide extra resources in your dominion, this is a spell under enchantment which also has other useful spells you might want like Heat From Hell which makes the entire battlefield swelter with heat further tiring your opponents.

When units gain fatigue and get tired, they lose attack and defense, and as a result become easier to hit, cannot fight as well and more vulnerable to critical hits.

as for getting gud here are some tips,all are equally important.

1. figure out your research goals early on
2. learn your nations weakness
3. learn how to expand with your nation

Learning how to expand is especially important, what I do when I expand is I always set a goal up for myself like 15 provinces by the end of year 1. This is easily doable without an awake pretender, and if I had an awake pretender I'd probably aim for 20 or more, though sometimes it doesn't work out that way if there is a lot of calvary provinces.

And some nations have a harder time expanding than others, like monkey factions they always seem to have a rough time from my experience, except for Lanka and Patala.

Realizing your weaknesses is also really important, in the case of Abyssia anyone you're going to fight has an easy way to reduce your effectiveness if they have water magic.

Rain is a Evocation 2 spell that any w1 mage can cast with 2 water gems; again to offset this
You'll have to figure it out yourself, but heres an easy tactic I can recommend.

Learn what type of unit their mages casting are, some are mounted and some are large monsters, if you can set an army to attack that particular type of unit it will make it easier to deal with them.

This applies in all battles though.

It's all about the mythology for me, since the game is just a clash of various myths from around the world.

The combat system is pretty in depth, and open ended, but what I like best is I can play by email and just come in from work and click in my turns.

If I was going to do that I would just make cauldrons, the problem with the attacks is that I figured Atlantis would attack your provinces while I distracted your army.
However he didn't do shit despite no fucking armies anywhere in your province.
I know because I had a scout in almost everyone of your provinces.

I was planning on using my leos to spam the fire ritual to kill your armies but that sounds like an enormous pain in the ass and I'm doing better in my other games.

I'm the admin so I will keep an eye on the game so don't worry about it not being ended in case of people losing interest or staling.

Oh ok, and I threatened Atlantis with some words since I knew he was already fighting Arco.

though I didn't expect it to carry out well.

And despite "no armies" remember I do have Vampires and rangers y'know?

I could make a pretty decent estimate of your army numbers given the score graph.
I was below you by a certain amount, given that I had roughly a 1000 troops and you were around 10% higher on the score board I figured around 100-200 troops not located on the border.

Indeed I had the bulk of my army over by Agartha and Atlantis

If Atlantis had completed his attack I would had just moved in and taken his capital.

But I was also expecting you to fight me at the same time and had been pumping out more mages and soldiers over there.

But then I got Illearth and I thought he would be a like a stopper on a bottle.

Yeah that fucking prot is insane, I had no Idea he was such a good chassis, the best chassis to me was always Hinnom lvl 9 blood summon since they are high spell casters and have invuln AND ethereal.

But goddamn, I figured at least the crossbows would work.

Could have sword I cloud trapeze'd some mages over.
Fuck.

So any idea when this is going to start?

We still need two more players, or maybe the person hosting this game will just choose a smaller map for the six of us.

Valanis really isn't that big, its roughly six sections, you have the middle island and ocean tiles, the underground caves, the right corner forest, the left mountains, southern left plains, and southern right hills.
Its perfect for 6 people imo.

Ha ha ha.
Good one.

At the time I was fighting the Japs but Arco had been unhappy with me for a while now cause I booted him off of a throne that was underwater.

If you cloud trapeze mages over they show up before the regular battle takes place and start a different battle. The resolve ritual magic turn step is resolved earlier than troops moving in.

You could try magma eruption, your StR mages have at least E2F1 and you can cast it with a lucky E3 random right out of the box, or just use earth boots/summon earthpower if you don't get the E3. Casting is possible with your servants of the oracle who get the F random which should be roughly 1/4 of them if the DRN doesn't get stuck in a rut as it often does. You do need both boots and summon earthpower though. That might work, but I bet he could just cast earthquake twice and kill ~60% of your dudes by turn 2. You might be able to work it with summoning lammashtas since they are immune to earthquakes and shit like that.

Summon Lammashtas might had worked out alright.

I do not think Magma Eruption would do much though, not only would this guy not burn because of Temper Flesh, but his 30+ buffed prot from his self buffing would had severely reduced the damage dealt.

Since he's also an Illearth and not an Earth Elemental he has base regen 15% so he's getting 20 hp back a turn.

also I wouldn't had risked the earth quakes, especially since he's cursed the fatigue + that would mean he gets critted a couple times and taken out.

Any earthquake I'd cast would kill any Blood Slaves I wanna use to reinvigorate myself immediately afterward as well, and Pythium's Legionaires still have really good defense thanks to their shields which would mean they'd have a better time resisting the effects of earthquake.

forgot this pic related

So what can he do against having rocks dropped on his head?
Because if he ends up on my doorstep that's pretty much the only thing my mages are good for other than skelespam.

Ah okay, I didn't know what the guy had on him.

If I were fighting that I would probably script horror mark 2x → retreat on a couple of forgiving fathers. I wouldn't need to fight it if the eater of dreams shows up and murders him. If his MR were lower or I had to kill him now I would get some +penetration items and spam cascades and soul slay and have my big mages summon skeletons.

Thanks, man. Watching a good player might be the smart thing to do.

Thanks as well. Dominions 4 seem great because there are a lot of variables to figure out, but then again, there is a lot you need to think through.