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Dominions 5 Announced

Johannes

Arcane
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How do you guys feel about the replacement of spellsongs with the spellsinger trait?

In DOM4 I would stack my beans around my tuathan sorceresses and get them to sing soothing song like a poor man's communion. Now that I can't do that, I am not really sure what to do with my beans other than research/forging.

Any ideas on what to do with them now? Was my old strategy wasteful anyway? It just seems to me that the thing with beans is that their path distribution tends to be wide, flat, and not easily scaled up in a consistent manner. As far as I understand, there's a 1/4 chance that a bean will be recruited with A2, and thus be able to function as a thunderstriker with a winged helmet, and that just feels like too many moving parts/material investment to be worth it imo.

Is this a nerf, or was I just doing it wrong?
Sometimes it's a bonus, other times it's a malus. You get less spells fired right off the bat, but can sustain them for longer now. So longer battles favor you now - though only in comparison to playing Dom4, no guarantees that a drawn out battle will be more advantageous to you than to the nation youre fighting.

One potentially big positive I see is that in Magic3, you should be able to fire 2 consequent elementals without spending extra gems to fight fatigue. Though naturally those 2 elementals will come in slower sequence than a non-spellsinger caster would get them.

Using the spellsongs much was definitely a waste in Dom4, especially with expensive Bean Sidhes. 3/4 Beans have some path as 2, making them decent casters. A2 can cast TS or elemental with either Storm or with extra gem.
 

Harpsichord

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
1,822
A2 can cast TS or elemental with either Storm or with extra gem.
I didn't know you could use gems as disposable boosters in battle. I thought they just reduced fatigue and were necessary for certain spells.

Been playing this series since DOM3...

:negative:
 

pakoito

Arcane
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Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
Dominions 5.17
  • Setting to disable click sound
vCgEvvR.gif
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,941
A2 can cast TS or elemental with either Storm or with extra gem.
I didn't know you could use gems as disposable boosters in battle. I thought they just reduced fatigue and were necessary for certain spells.

Been playing this series since DOM3...

:negative:

With a game like this it can help to watch LPs and see what little things you can learn from them. I knew about this rom doing that and don't own any of the games yet.
 

Johannes

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It's been awhile. What do yall think about Dom5 compared to 4? Are the mechanics better/worse? How about the UI now? Is 5 a clearly better game or mostly more of the same.

I tried the game briefly when it came out but it didn't really click with me then.

On release I thought the new world map movement rules were really gay. What do you think about those?
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Messages
4,466
Location
Shaper Crypt
It's been awhile. What do yall think about Dom5 compared to 4? Are the mechanics better/worse? How about the UI now? Is 5 a clearly better game or mostly more of the same.

I tried the game briefly when it came out but it didn't really click with me then.

On release I thought the new world map movement rules were really gay. What do you think about those?

It's essentially more of the same with QoL improvements. After a while you don't even notice map movement changes.

Community is pretty much on the same level, a bit on the low. No mods have gained preminence.

The only point were it's essentially inferior to Dom4 is the goddamn music.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,504
If I'd be teaching, I'd show it my students as an example:

Dear students, years ago when I was learning software engineering by self-education, people were making games like these free of charge, because they wanted to make them and have fun. It's horrible stuff like this is sold for money. I expect when you'd make something for fun, you'd make it for free, or make it far better. Or both.

If I'd be an ashole, I'd suggest them to hurry up with proper user interface, and make stuff easier to manage. Senility would make it MUCH harder to create proper interface and quality of life improvement in version 11.7 (And no it's not date.)
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
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Shaper Crypt
Dear students, years ago when I was learning software engineering by self-education, people were making games like these free of charge, because they wanted to make them and have fun. It's horrible stuff like this is sold for money. I expect when you'd make something for fun, you'd make it for free, or make it far better. Or both.

Well, if Dominions is "horrible" I seriously wonder what you would consider good.

Also, the fucks did game for fun, they even flat-out admitted that they made a couple just for checking some ideas and threw it in the bin when it was even more unplayable than the Dominions standard (Trade&Taint). Conquest of Elysium is a goddamn mess, but it's essentially a roguelike strategy game with some insane gameplay choices.

But I guess your post is mostly butthurt because MUH INTERFACE MUH AI. Whatever.
 

coldcrow

Prophet
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Mar 6, 2009
Messages
1,650
My only wish is that they really got around to: either improve the AI to somewhat acceptable levels (pretender design, thug/SC design, mage/spell layouts) or give the players the tools to mod the AI. Then I wouldn't even need to play with insane guys like Isiloon, just Dominons, booze and me.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
The game plays very much different as far as balance goes tho. It feels like there is way more focus on bless and army management, also harder to execute good spell usage (and some paths are outright dumpstered).

Nice change of pace.
 

Martyr

Arcane
Joined
Jan 28, 2018
Messages
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Location
Bavaria
dafuq? people don't like the music in Dom5? I think it's fantastic. I even listen to it when I'm not gaming, or when I play something like Mount & Blade.
 

Johannes

Arcane
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Nov 20, 2010
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casting coach
The game plays very much different as far as balance goes tho. It feels like there is way more focus on bless and army management, also harder to execute good spell usage (and some paths are outright dumpstered).

Nice change of pace.
I figured that the best build for a ton of nations would be an imprisoned rainbow pretender with minor blesses from all paths, with nice scales. +Def/att/str/hp/reinvig, elemental resists, etc. that suit the nations sacreds. Especially now that elemental resists work as a reduction, you counter any evos pretty hard against your sacreds... Which just seems boring if it's done all the time. But are those that valuable ultimately, if many evocations are shit anyway, so it's not that important base to cover?
What kinds of builds see the most (succesful) play?


In a way the specifics shouldn't be that important, it still plays like a Dominions game... And Dominions changes a lot depending on the game settings and nation matchup anyway. But still it's hard to get to play a game that feels like an inferior version. Like sure, even if magic is relegated to a smaller role you still need it, but playing a game like that... Or a game where fast troops might waltz past each other on the strategic map... Is annoying to me.
 

Dayyālu

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
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Shaper Crypt
I figured that the best build for a ton of nations would be an imprisoned rainbow pretender with minor blesses from all paths, with nice scales. +Def/att/str/hp/reinvig, elemental resists, etc. that suit the nations sacreds. Especially now that elemental resists work as a reduction, you counter any evos pretty hard against your sacreds... Which just seems boring if it's done all the time.

Again, how many nations can spam (effective) sacreds to counter all possible magical openings? Not a majority. Cost effective sacreds are even lesser in number. "Optimal" blesses pretty much follow partially your prediction, the best scale blesses are imprisoned rainbows at large. I've seen a significant number of early expanders though, mostly to gain from the "major blesses need an awakened Pretender to function", but it's always a bet. SC gods are a rarity nowadays, at least in my experience, as the value of SC has gone seriously down since the Dom3 days.

Memeblesses are still a thing, but there's an incredibly small number of nations that can pull them off reliably.


But are those that valuable ultimately, if many evocations are shit anyway, so it's not that important base to cover?

Mage phalanxes still melt everything until battlefield cleanup spells. The age of RoS spam is looong over.


But still it's hard to get to play a game that feels like an inferior version.

Inferior in what? More nations variety and fixes in some clearly badly-planned nations (Yomi). SOME new nations are outright weird and badly planned tho (NAKED SPARTAN GIANTS). Quality of Life improvements in interface and commands. The Real Time change isn't as .... impactful as it seems, we're still playing on a pseudo-turn based system. Details changed, mostly, in spell balance and the like. I guess the loss of relevance of SC kept trucking on. The Bless system gives you far more variety than the standard N9E4 build of Dom4 times.


Like sure, even if magic is relegated to a smaller role you still need it, but playing a game like that... Or a game where fast troops might waltz past each other on the strategic map... Is annoying to me.

"Smaller role"? How? When? Because Evos are somewhat less likely to hit now the entirety of the Magic system has a "smaller role"? Troops waltz past each other? When? The maluses for movement through enemy territory makes that impossible bar for flyers, and flyers waltzed in as they liked even in past Dominions. I don't understand what your annoyances are about.
 

Johannes

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casting coach
I figured that the best build for a ton of nations would be an imprisoned rainbow pretender with minor blesses from all paths, with nice scales. +Def/att/str/hp/reinvig, elemental resists, etc. that suit the nations sacreds. Especially now that elemental resists work as a reduction, you counter any evos pretty hard against your sacreds... Which just seems boring if it's done all the time.

Again, how many nations can spam (effective) sacreds to counter all possible magical openings? Not a majority. Cost effective sacreds are even lesser in number. "Optimal" blesses pretty much follow partially your prediction, the best scale blesses are imprisoned rainbows at large. I've seen a significant number of early expanders though, mostly to gain from the "major blesses need an awakened Pretender to function", but it's always a bet. SC gods are a rarity nowadays, at least in my experience, as the value of SC has gone seriously down since the Dom3 days.
It's not that you can win the game just by spamming minor-blessed sacreds, at least with most nations. But that if you have decent sacreds at all, you'll probably want to take an imprisoned rainbow to supplement them. When you get everything in one cheap package (scales, bless, magic diversity) why choose a narrower approach? Boring.

Value of SCs going down is not actually true even if people keep saying it, not in Dom3->Dom4 transition anyway. What actually happened was that it became much more difficult to get a good chassis and items, as the recruitables became StR, Titan pretenders got nerfed (only in a Dom4 patch - when the game came out Titans were the gold standard), and gem frequence went down. And Dom3 CBM was SC central ofc. Weak thugs got more fragile though in a handful of respects, but bigass SCs not so much.
Maybe the elemental resist changes make them a llittle less useful now in 5, dunno, but still a small effect. But not much reason to take an SC god when it's ridiculously expensive.



But still it's hard to get to play a game that feels like an inferior version.

Inferior in what? More nations variety and fixes in some clearly badly-planned nations (Yomi). SOME new nations are outright weird and badly planned tho (NAKED SPARTAN GIANTS). Quality of Life improvements in interface and commands. The Real Time change isn't as .... impactful as it seems, we're still playing on a pseudo-turn based system. Details changed, mostly, in spell balance and the like. I guess the loss of relevance of SC kept trucking on. The Bless system gives you far more variety than the standard N9E4 build of Dom4 times.
Real-time change most of all seemed impactful to me in how you no longer had the defender have the starting turn advantage. Which is fine.

Never was a big fan of N9E4, not to the level it was hyped as standard...Even if you took it, you could still choose whether you wanted your guy awake, dormant or locked up. Now there's much less room to choose when imprison got an extra 100 points, and picking a different flavor of rainbow pretender paths/blesses is extremely samey just as well.


Like sure, even if magic is relegated to a smaller role you still need it, but playing a game like that... Or a game where fast troops might waltz past each other on the strategic map... Is annoying to me.

"Smaller role"? How? When? Because Evos are somewhat less likely to hit now the entirety of the Magic system has a "smaller role"? Troops waltz past each other? When? The maluses for movement through enemy territory makes that impossible bar for flyers, and flyers waltzed in as they liked even in past Dominions. I don't understand what your annoyances are about.
[/quote]Magic in smaller role was just in response to Malakal's post, I can't comment on it further. Troops moving past each other can definitely happen unless they changed something since first release.

If there's provinces A-B-C-D, connected to each other like that... I control A / B, you control C / D. I have a troop in A that's commanded to go to C, and you have a troop in D going to B. They will definitely move past each other to their intended targets, though they are basically moving along the same route. IIRC it could happen on a road even B->D and C->A, if the units are really superfast and there's a road, but not 100% sure anymore, might need a bless or a lone commander with item to achieve that - which would make it kinda ok as a fringe strat. How do all these weird border-skipping maneuvers interact with eachother? I do know a million fringe tidbits about these games but trying to learn these broke this camel's back.
But even if the cases described here are rare or near nonexistent, the new movement system is still really pointless addition - you just get more micro out of it to reach the best possible logistics, no real added strategy is gained from this shit. And map-movement winter is something I feel doesn't really add anything of value to the game but makes map-making take more time.
But maybe these are just minor annoyances and I should get over it. The prevalence of imprisoneds is kind of a bummer though, since you can't even mod the cost of awake/dormant/imprisoned.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
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Poland
Evos got weaker because of nerfs. Its hard as fuck now to pull off a thunder strike evo spam since storm needs forever to cast and you waste three turns of the script to set it up. Magma eruption got nerfed for some reason I cant understand. Water still has nothing good, fire is about as it was.
 

Johannes

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Nov 20, 2010
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casting coach
Evos got weaker because of nerfs. Its hard as fuck now to pull off a thunder strike evo spam since storm needs forever to cast and you waste three turns of the script to set it up. Magma eruption got nerfed for some reason I cant understand. Water still has nothing good, fire is about as it was.
Hmm, do I also remember correctly that you can't cast Storm fast enough to ground flyers? So SoS is the only way to do it. Though fliers are a bit less oppressive overall since they won't land instantly.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Nov 14, 2009
Messages
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Poland
Hmm, do I also remember correctly that you can't cast Storm fast enough to ground flyers? So SoS is the only way to do it. Though fliers are a bit less oppressive overall since they won't land instantly.

Dont know, seems to me like attack rear and flanking is more reliable now.

Could be because you can not assign unlimited guards any more. That really really fucks up protecting mages with how the battles work out now - wait and attack guys will move away while the fliers set up their 'jump'.

Also about evos -they seem to miss more now.
 
Joined
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Singleplayer Dominions would be improved a lot if there was a pile of interesting scenarios to play. Not just those mostly symmetric single-province starts on a random map. The start situations should look more Europa Universalis and less Civilization.
 

coldcrow

Prophet
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Mar 6, 2009
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Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I'd like to play an AI stomp game with my daughter.
She is really into dragon, so a disciple game with me as pretender and her as dragon disciple would be best.
Which settings/nations/builds do you recommend?
 

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