Dominions 4 - Season 3 - The Geriatric Wars

[Joined on the 4th of July]

raw's original post has been salvaged from the megathread; rejoice and recommence posting.

Turmoil 3 is a ladder.​

Recently I found myself out of turns to submit. To prevent the shakes from getting me, I have to meet my turns/day quota. Fortunately, Ilwinter, in their infinite wisdom, conceived Dominions 4 as a Turn Based game. What that means is that you, yes you, can enjoy a game of intrigue, risky magic and dumb bold move orders while you are already enjoying it elsewhere!

I have seen a couple of you yapping & wheezing for the next game. This game is now. Same deal as last game, except this one is gonna be MA for sake of completeness.

Be there or be dead. When you play a game with thrones you win or you die.

Suggested Mods:


Ladies and Gentletrannies, I present your enemies:

raw    Ashdod
Dayyalu Marignon
KoolNoodles    T'ien Ch'i
thesheeep    Pelagia
Muty    Nazca
Berekan    Ermor
Matalarata    Pythium
squeeeco    Agartha
pakoito    Eriu
Mraston    Vanheim
Captian Coxwaggle    Vanarus
Malakal    Abysia
Tripjack    R'lyeh
Joined on the 4th of July    C'tis

The Game: http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Decline3

By popular request, the picks (only initial, no Battlepicks^TM)

Spoiler

14 players, 28 nations.
Nations for player >> squeeeco << are:
1 Bandar Log
2 R'lyeh
3 Agartha

Nations for player >> Mraston << are:
1 Vanheim
2 Eriu
3 Atlantis

Nations for player >> Muty << are:
1 Ermor
2 Abysia
3 Marignon

Nations for player >> thesheeep << are:
1 Atlantis
2 Nazca
3 Pelagia

Nations for player >> raw << are:
1 Pelagia
2 Ashdod
3 Abysia

Nations for player >> Tripjack << are:
1 R'lyeh
2 Ermor
3 Asphodel

Nations for player >> Captian Coxwaggle << are:
1 Atlantis
2 Vanarus
3 C'Tis

Nations for player >> pakito << are:
1 Marignon
2 R'lyeh
3 Bandar Log

Nations for player >> KoolNoodles << are:
1 Pythium
2 Atlantis
3 T'ien Ch'i

Nations for player >> Malakal << are:
1 Ashdod
2 Oceania
3 Abysia

Nations for player >> Dayyalu << are:
1 Atlantis
2 Marignon
3 Vanheim

Nations for player >> Joined on the 4th of July << are:
1 C'Tis
2 Arcoscephale
3 Abysia

Nations for player >> Matalarata << are:
1 Pythium
2 Xibalba
3 Atlantis

Nations for player >> Berekan << are:
1 Agartha
2 T'ien Ch'i
3 Ermor

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Mostly accurate starting areas of the 14 nations. Ashdod and Marignon are now dead. And Eriu just went AI.

Spoiler

 

[sqeecoo]

Eriu went AI??

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

There was some kind of demoralizing defeat against Vanarus. I don't have the details.

 

[KoolNoodles]

R.I.P. Abysia, you fought well against some tough early odds. Also soon to R.I.P. Ermor, you just suck and nobody likes you.

 

[Berekän]

 

[thesheeep]

There was some kind of demoralizing defeat against Vanarus. I don't have the details.

Understandable
If he lost so much that "living on" would just mean watching everything crumble slowly.

 

[thesheeep]

Well, at least I know now why nobody every uses Gelatinous Cubes

Spoiler

Damn, those fuckers are slow. Most of my army routed before the cubes even met the enemy.
Good to know that the acid backlash also has to go through armor, though...

But hey, what's 160 water gems more or less, right? I'm swimming in them, after all...

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Gelatinous cubes are cool. I had about dozen of them and they died to diseases before seeing a single battle.

Somehow I assumed they'd be immune.

 

[thesheeep]

They are cool!

But pretty damn useless as an addition to a normal army.
Them alone, with some sneaky raiding commander would be interesting.
Imagine Gift Of Reason on one of them

 

[Malakal]

Cubes are awesome, try buffing them for better effect tho. Some armor goes a long way for them. Not very mage turn efficient but a great summon.

 

[thesheeep]

Name a good buff that works UW, and can be cast with W or S

 

[KoolNoodles]

Body ethereal, spam away.

 

[thesheeep]

Yes, that would probably have worked a bit better...

 

[Malakal]

Name a good buff that works UW, and can be cast with W or S

Antimagic, will of the fates, wave warriors, friendly currents, quickening. Warriors of Niefelheim. Granted the big buffs are in earth and air.

 

[thesheeep]

Antimagic, will of the fates, wave warriors, friendly currents, quickening. Warriors of Niefelheim. Granted the big buffs are in earth and air.

Antimagic and friendly currents I had. Didn't do much.
Wave warriors is high alt, which I did not go for (high thaum/ench instead). Will o.t. Fates is uncastable by my mages (not enough S and even higher Alt).
Quickening high alt again.
So to make them useful, I would have had to go with high alt, which I did not nearly have enough research for.
Oh, well. There is always a next game to make other mistakes

Though I have to say the enemy was not an army but an SC on ecstasy. (And Paralyze/Soul Slay did not come through).

 

[Grimwulf]

Wave warriors is high alt, which I did not go for (high thaum/ench instead).

Well, I would go for Alt if I ever was unlucky enough to play Pelagia. Pretty much for everything Malakal mentioned (Wave Warriors, Quickening, WotF, WoN) + Mass Protection and Fog Warriors.

Will o.t. Fates is uncastable by my mages (not enough S and even higher Alt).

Your mages can cast anything mentioned above. Through communion and boosters.

 

[Malakal]

Alt is the best spell school period, always get a lot of alt. And maybe blood, if you are a blood nation. Cant go wrong with alt tho.

 

[thesheeep]

Well, I would go for Alt if I ever was unlucky enough to play Pelagia. Pretty much for everything Malakal mentioned (Wave Warriors, Quickening, WotF, WoN) + Mass Protection and Fog Warriors.

In hindsight, yes.
My plan for the game was something different than how everything turned out, though. Mostly due to my f*cked up starting position and some other noob mistakes.
Biggest mistake was sticking to the original plan and not changing it

Your mages can cast anything mentioned above. Through communion and boosters.

Only in theory.
Boosters that I cannot create myself for the largest part, and someone never gave me my coins. Little to no access to E. Too little research to go for Constr. 6 soon enough.
And too few S mages for a communion. Remember that I had to transport all my mages over land to put into Rlyeh UW provinces. Which means Fish amulets for pretty much every single mage.
Possible, yes, but another giant boulder to move out of the way for things to work.

In hindisght, I would do a lot of things different.
But with the knowledge I had, I don't think I could've done much better.

But hey, it's not like Pelagia is dead. Just wait and see

 

[Grimwulf]

And too few S mages for a communion. Remember that I had to transport all my mages over land to put into Rlyeh UW provinces.

You are the second man I know who manages to play UW nation with astral access without researching Thaumaturgy. How can you even live without Teleport and Gateway? UW logistics are impossible without them.

 

[thesheeep]

I have high Thaum, mostly for SC counter spells. But again, Teleport is S3, Gateway S4. You can't do communion rituals (or can you?).

Also remember that each mage who wants to teleport has to have at least S3. EVERY single one of them. Which is a lot if you want communions.
The best I ever got with all my mages (and I recruited A LOT) were two or three S2 mages.
And I had no S boosters for reasons mentioned above.

Oh, and even if, all except the STR mage have abysmal leadership, so Gateway... Gateway what? 10 Mermen? 10 Cubes (Remember they can only be crafted on land for whatever reason despite being amphibious)?

 

[Grimwulf]

Trade for boosters, it's not that hard here on Codex. People are easy-going.

Oh, and even if, all except the STR mage have abysmal leadership, so Gateway... Gateway what? 10 Mermen?

Whip of Command or other +ldrshp equip. For boosting range of spell use Starfire Staff and/or Arcane Lens.

In Decline 2 I even empowered some of my indy S1 casters just for the sake of Gateways (S2 caster + Starshine Skullcap + Crystal Coin). Totally worth it, if you ask me.

 

[Trash Player]

Well, at least I know now why nobody every uses Gelatinous Cubes

Spoiler

Damn, those fuckers are slow. Most of my army routed before the cubes even met the enemy.
Good to know that the acid backlash also has to go through armor, though...

But hey, what's 160 water gems more or less, right? I'm swimming in them, after all...

A better way to spend W gems is forging. This tactic is available to R'lyeh too.
With a Water Lens, every Mermages, while UW, can go Summon Water Power>Summon Water Elemental(Conj5), and W-random ones can do that on land with a Water Bracelet(Const6). You have 0 gem-attrition this way.
Size 6 Water/Ice Elementals are in general better than the Cubes, but the killer is the logistics and attrition; you get a new Elemental every fight and the logistics is only limited by mages and labs, without the leadership issues at the very least.
You really should have picked something else other than vanilla MA Pelagia, MA Atlantis at least has fully amphibious mages.

 

[thesheeep]

Well, I wanted to see if they really are as bad as everyone says

And so far, I see little redeeming qualities.

 

[Matalarata]

What is this faggotry? What happened to delicious single threads of entropy?

someone

You could just ask.... Or you did and I am that someone?