Decline 23: NATIONGEN Edition

[coldcrow]

Extension until Monday 22:00 gmt please.

 

[Infinitum]

...well, at least it gives some time for diplomacy.

Speaking of blesses, and the game already having started, here's what I had planned for Ceassidigh:

Spoiler

Which of course looks "special" to say the least, until you realize you have these esteemed genlemen to take advantage of the bless:

Spoiler

And with a full set of connections the capital can just about squirt out 2/2 Swordmasters Paladins PER TURN. That's 2 amphibious sailing expansion parties with Giant movement. 30+ 49 provinces by the end of year one in my test games. Rush construction 4 with the lich and rustle some astral income and you can then create 3-pearl shrouds for the Assassins all game long to go along with the Mace of Eruption (later Fire Brand)/Vineshield 120 gold "Thugs". Course, that wasn't on Valanis so likely would've ended up in a 2-connection corner and ignomy but still. Oh, what could've been..

EDIT: Snuck another game in on Valanis for kicks. I misremembered the amount of provinces taken.

Spoiler

Stopped producing expansion parties turn 8 to get some sitesearchers in and played sloppy af; lost a good few afflicted parties the last turns. 4-5 palisades finished/under construction; could've done better there as well with the bank. Oh well.

 

[coldcrow]

hard skin + sytgian does not stack. these guys will have 10 natural protection vs. nonmagic attacks and x+5 vs everything else. It's better to have flesh + fortitude.

 

[Infinitum]

...Holy fuck you're right. Was Fortitude originally (and.. Dominion 4/Misfortune-3?), just recreated it from memory and didn't even notice. Huh. Could still expand pretty allright so could maybe go for Reinvig-3 or Fire/Lightning resist instead. Point still stands though; 120 gold hypermobile (arguable) SC chassises are Fun.

 

[Dayyālu]

Why Growth 3? You are already tanking all the scales and opening the worst of the random events (Misf2Drain3) you should have gone full meme build and took neutral growth, Turmoil3Luck3 and try to keep your economy working by a combo of massive early-expansion plus random events.

Sure, that build will melt the istant midgame starts, but it would have an impressive earlygame.

 

[Infinitum]

Luck-3 would've meant 3 death scales though. That's too rich for me. Also, due to the dark arts of compound interest growth quickly dwarfs the other income scales (growth-3 means a population growth of +15% by turn 24, 24% turn 36, 33% turn 48; I'm assuming base income keeps pace) so it blunts the shit scales somewhat. Also read somewhere that the random events pool had been diluted by enough insignificant events either way to nerf luck signifcantly from Dom 4, but haven't really tested.

Think I'll try a game with AI opponents and Reinvig-3; having out-of-the -box thugs who looks unkillable by PD and overpowered Assassins might keep the good times rolling into midgame.

 

[Grif]

Bad thing about randomgen nations? I don't recognise any of these bloody flags.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Let's see, provinces near my cap....

Income: 10/15/6/11....30! Watch out.

 

[Grif]

Man, I stale one turn and the next thing I see is someone taking my land.

 

[Dayyālu]

Man, I stale one turn and the next thing I see is someone taking my land.

I extended as far as I could.

Then I took a nap.

Not a NAP; a nap.

 

[Trash Player]

To be fair, I move to it the turn before stale, so...game on?

 

[KoolNoodles]

Hey I staled too, was too busy playing Battletech then I went to sleep.

Edit: Looking at the Btech thread reminds me why I don't bother with much of the rest of this forum. Back to the Dominions cocoon.

 

[coldcrow]

Indeed, I ventured out for a bit and tripped over shitfaces like Cael and Fenix. Stupidity knows no bounds and is the bane of mankind. The worst thing is, that there is some truth buried in their arguments, so I can't even disregard their bullshit completely.

 

[Dayyālu]

Edit: Looking at the Btech thread reminds me why I don't bother with much of the rest of this forum. Back to the Dominions cocoon.

RPGCodex MP SubForum: We're Literally Run By Stalinists but it's a Nice Place

(Seriously, would have dumped the place ages ago if not for the Playground. Hell, I joined the place 'cause nice LPs)

Also, map is horrible and I don't want to start wars but I guess someone will jump on me sooner or later

 

[KoolNoodles]

I will be your ally friend frenemy enemy doom. The Dominions way.

 

[Grif]

To be fair, I move to it the turn before stale, so...game on?

Game on indeed. Early wars are interesting.

 

[Infinitum]

Dayyālu Did you forget to send or something or did your 25-hour working hours schedule finally catch up to you? I'm anxious to know how badly things have turned out this time.

In the meantime, my safe space of fiddling up the brokenest Ceassidigh Bless conceivable is expanding nicely. Finally figured that with the low dom score required I might as well go for a rainbow chassis, and this one gives a stealthy sitesearcher once construction-4 nears completion. Sloth 2 since sloth 3 sometimes only allows production of 3 capital Giants once scales spreads sometimes. Reinvig-2 doesn't give neutral Encumbrance unfortunately, but with Vine Shields (and no helmet) it shouldn't matter at all and extra magic resistance is always nice. Invulnerability is pretty meh but I want to Shroud assassins eventually and will need some protection, and it does give a precious few extra points versus the chaff. Also branching off into death is always nice.

Will report back if I can beat my previous record on empty Valanis (shouldn't be hard since I can skimp some sitesearcher production hopefully). Speaking of, does sitesearching makes stealhy mages visible? Any non-sneaking/hiding order does, right?

Spoiler

 

[Dayyālu]

Dayyālu Did you forget to send or something or did your 25-hour working hours schedule finally catch up to you? I'm anxious to know how badly things have turned out this time.

Sorry for stealth extension. Finished Dec20 turn, then wanted a nap, then wasted time raging against Matalarata when I got up because I'm a sperg.

Turn will be provided as soon as I can get to my laptop in some dark forgotten alleyway.

 

[Isiloon]

I used assassins for expansion, which performed better than armies who didn't do a shabby job either.

Caessedigh mages look like they are born to be thugs - fire, nature + earth/death, sacred and on a fomorian chassis - what's not to love (the cost)

Problem with trash scales on a nation without blood magic is that you will have no late game - in vanilla dominions, most of the uber-bless worthy nations have blood magic so you can trash your scales and rely on blood magic + growth for late game.

 

[Grif]

Please extend timer to 48h now that its turn 15. Thsnks!

 

[Dayyālu]

Having costantly extended this game every turn because I don't like the nation after all, the defeat I got this turn gives me a convenient excuse to drop the game.

Going AI. Go on a conquering spree on your neighbours, Infinitum , maybe then they'll understand that they had a chance to stop you and they merely watched.

A buon intenditor, poche parole.

EDIT: Also, seriously, this was the shittiest batch of NationGen nations I've ever seen, on one of the worst maps that Dominions ever gave us.

What a shame.

 

[Grimwulf]

EDIT: Also, seriously, this was the shittiest batch of NationGen nations I've ever seen, on one of the worst maps that Dominions ever gave us.

Same here. Previous natgen Decline games were glorious, each and every one of them. Nations, maps, settings - every aspect.

This one is garbage, though. The only reason I'm not going AI either is to mock Isiloon who promised to kill me in 5-6 turn. That was 10 turns ago, so any moment now.

The CUNNING PLAN involves yuge PD's

Spoiler

... and begging Infinitum to help. Way to go, Isiloon. Way to go.

 

[Isiloon]

Yea I regret building that PD - tried to resubmit turn but it already processed.

You made the game shit for yourself Grimwulf . What happened with your PD trap, didn't see any posts about that, didn't see any posts about how I walked around your PD trap and you couldn't do anything except retreat to your capital and beg Infinitum for help after acting all tough in our 1v1 diplo

Of course now you have cornered yourself with your incompetent diplomacy and all you can do is grief

Literally you demanded someone with 3x your provinces give you a castle + another province, on turn 9 for a NaP - now you're all "huehue you can't get me" while you're running around in your cap circle

 

[Trash Player]

Giant and centaurs running amok? It is just Dominions.
Are the nations really that uninteresting this time? I see a lot of unbelievably good mages in this batch.

 

[Isiloon]

Grimwulf didn't exactly pick shitty sacreds, he got MA Machaka's sacred tarantula knights, with glamor. Probably couldn't expand because they cost a lot of $$$.

Give me lands or I will make it my mission to grief you, sulk along the way and then go AI

You could go AI and it won't make a difference, can't do diplomacy with either anyway.