Completed Dominions 6: ProfessionalThroneSitters VI: FFA Edition (Dayyalu Wins!)

[TheDarkUrge]

Not sure who you mean by atlantaens though there's no atlantis... the frogs? That's xibalba.

Emphasis on the odd looking part since the frogs descend from Atlantians.

Oh neat, basically the only lore I know is about sceleria turning into lemuria on accident cause they were dumbasses lol

 

[Dayyālu]

Oh neat, basically the only lore I know is about sceleria turning into lemuria on accident cause they were dumbasses lol

Ichtywhatevers and tritons live UNDER ZE SEEEEA
Frog people from the Depths come out and start fucking around with people

GIANT METEORITE CRASHES IN THE OCEAN AND ITS A CITY FULL OF OF RAPE ILLITHIDS (MA)

Rape Illithids mindrape Frogs, Tritons and whatever
Frogs restart civilization another time, this time with human cultists just because
Bunch of frogs goes underground and take over Xibalba and become more froggy
Tritons do.... uh... whatever

RAPE ILLITHIDS MINDRAPE EVERYONE (LA)

Frogs restart civilization another time, this time with ice, bones and autism
Other frogs take over Mictlan and go deeply into blood
The Xibalban frogs kill themselves bar the white trash cave frogs that cooperate with the bats
Meanwhile tritons go deep into sister-fucking incest porn

Dominions lore is fun

 

[EnragedEggplant]

Frogs are not a threat, I assure you. The half a dozen of assassinated bird mages is just banter.

 

[Trash Player]

Let the blood flow!

 

[Dayyālu]

Frogs are not a threat, I assure you. The half a dozen of assassinated bird mages is just banter.

FROGS HAVE INVADED ME

THE PEACEFUL NIDINGS WILL NOT PARDON THIS AGGRESSION

Also, guys, my Seithberenders keep screaming about the comet. Maybe we should worry about that.

Spoiler

it's not flavour text, people. There are two variants of the event, the fun variant and the funnier variant. Let's hope we don't get the funnier variant on a place with big armies on it.

 

[EnragedEggplant]

FROGS HAVE INVADED ME

Excuse me, that was fish.


Took me a while to comprehend what was going on here. The casualties are the result of another assassin killing a mound king.

 

[Popot]

The comet has hit my throne, created a magic site and generated a lot of unrest. I hope it doesn't get worse.
Also Nidavangr holds 5 thrones.

 

[TheDarkUrge]

Looks like we better coalition nidavangr, those thrones are super close together so I believe Popot. We have to kill him before his prophet and god claim each one or he wins

 

[TheDarkUrge]

Here is the finale to the Bandar Abysia war. He got me good a couple times but I won the biggest one by spending 100 gems on fire drakes (and then fire elementals in the battle) hahaha

 

[Popot]

 

[Trash Player]

Yep. I think that is it for this thankfully short game.

 

[Popot]

ITZ OVER! NIDAVANGR WINS!

Too bad, I was having fun and I wanted to try out more things.

 

[Dayyālu]

Hey, I did manage to pull it off. I honestly wanted to fort all the Thrones and start a good war with Abysia to test the midgame plan and because smashing pixelmen is fun, but seriously fighting a 3vs1 would have been suicidal.

People jumping on me took me by surprise, but apparently took my enemies even more by surprise. My half-ready setup was enough. I'll write a postmortem later.

I.... honestly forgot the last time I won a Dominions game. Yay!

 

[Dayyālu]

Too bad, I was having fun and I wanted to try out more things.

Likewise, my midgame plan was just now entering into full force. Thank the RNG and Ind having far too many Thrones, and people (myself included) not realizing it sooner.

 

[Dayyālu]

So, let's start with the usual.

Map

Spoiler

With less players this was a smaller map than usual. It was quite noticeable that even without my Throne rush the midgame would have been dominated by me and Abysia going full medieval on each other. Noticeable how a single Throne province on the Abysia side was never conquered (too much required on the Bandar Log front, I presume) and that I failed to get one of my UW provinces despite trying all game to send a Ichtywhatever army there.

Now, graphs.

Spoiler

What's noticeable is that Abysia did have an earlygame advantage thanks to his Awake Dracolich Pretender, but it wasn't so decisive, particularly compared to my Pretender-less expansion. I essentially saved him from getting gangbanged and caught Ind flat-footed, but by midgame the research/gold/gem advantage was in discussion. However with Bandar Log and Nazca helping him, now THAT one was a fight I didn't want to see.

Pretender and nation.

Spoiler

I essentially went for "how much can I get out of Nidavangr with an Imprisoned Pretender. So I got the cheapest chassis I could find, went Imprisoned, built the best bless I could get with no Incarnate details, purposefully risking not getting -resist blesses. Undying+Enchanted blood makes Nidbathed with full Scar Souls inhumanly hard to kill, we're talking 15+10 x4 lives, each Niding has roughly 100 HP to tank stuff with. Blood surge kills chaff. Low-light vision was for Xibalba and Darkness play, never came into use. Scale build for the other details.

My plan was to expand, eat someone, and then in midgame deploy blood-sac to push Dominion, Mother Oak then Gift of Health then start spamming Golems and battlefield buffs galore. For lategame (we would never reach it) Well of Misery and Tartarians. Very standard in a sense, but I'm not very imaginative. Also spamming Corpse Constructs because you can.

About the nation.

Spoiler

Normally I would never have picked Nidavangr by myself, I don't like Northern nations and it's a nation born not of mythology or literary themes but essentially of Illwinter's PnP campaigns. It's not noble in theme as other nations, even if in a void, compared to most Fantasy setups, Nidavangr is a nice piece of worldbuilding. I got to play it in a previous Codex game thanks to Baron Tahn disappearing, and I liked it a lot.

Nidavangr has a lot of toys. It is deceptively simple, like, "look a barbarian nation with powerful sacreds!" but the entire troop line-up is useful (bar the Crow Archers, never found a use for those guys bar bait) and the mage corps adequate. Stop for a moment: Nidavangr has scrying (and you're rewarded to take high Dominion even if your cap will always have minimum 7), can Blood sacrifice to push Dominion and his main mages are amazingly mobile with the shape-change. Hell, you don't have cavarly but every Niding is insanely mobile bar the Bear warriors. Run through forest, run through mountains, run through snow.

Also your recruit-anywhere sthick gives you excellent recon (Crow Scouts). Your commanders have a stealthy general version and an elite +morale version, your Sacred commanders won't be recruited much but hell, forget having your initial parties sniped by bad luck when they have 6-7 lives. Bear Mother commanders make useful stuff of the excellent chaff that is Cub-Warriors. Mages are flexible if not great (N and W aren't wonderful combat paths) but the Crow Mages are amazing with their blend of A/D/S/B. You can sitesearch so fucking much and so quickly with Nidavangr. Also 300 G temples! Your troops go from infiltrators (Wolf warriors) that let you play as a poor man's elf if you want to, to high-damage units like Bear Warriors to anti-chaff like the two-sword maidens to the ultimate chaff that is the Cub Warrior (9g and 2res with decent morale!). Nidbathed are good troops and excellent at expansion, and their Scar Souls make them excellent tarpits.

You lack Fire and Glamour access, but that's it. Good nation.

Also, I won't lie, I won essentially out of RNG and sheer luck. Ind spawned with almost all Thrones required for a win and could have easily won if I attacked Abysia (he was in position to get the Seventh Throne point easily!) but my distaste for gangbangs so early and the fact I barely bordered him threw the game in another direction. The "oh fuck" moment when I realized the Throne points were there was a thing of wonder. Ind never told the others or asked for help, I guess he wanted this to be over fast, but I appreciate that.

weeee Dominions win so fucking rare weeeeee

EDIT: also this game flew blazing fast. Started recruiting 23/01 ended 19/02 on 32 turns, maybe we should host smaller games.

 

[Popot]

My pretender that never got the chance to see the sunlight:

Spoiler

The plan was to make the birds tougher and killier for easier expansion and to defend better against rushes until undead production was good; later to cast any global I could afford.
The big mistake was not realizing earlier that I had all the cave passages in my territory, thus making war with Xibalba inevitable. I should have gone underground as soon as possible.
Then the game ended.

 

[EnragedEggplant]

Congtaulations to Nidavangr!
As Xibalba, I was pretty much irrelevant in this game, but I did have a good time. MA Xibalba is definitely not on the list of strong nations (especially without the SCBM), but I love them in terms of flavour. Due to severe lack of free time before the game, I did not prepare well and didn't even test expansion strategies - I was just told by Malakal to make an awake expander. I made a white Dragon with an incarnate charged body bless and quite poor scales. The dragon took one lava-born province, became limp, and then died to bekrydes indies. However, the national troops (I was using sacred dart throwers and non-sacred spearfrogs for the most part) did a surprisingly good job against the indies. The assassins were quite fun to use, although I think this was a dubious use of commander points.
My cave system was placed right under Nazca, and all the exits led into the Nazcan territory, so peace was never an option. I knew that this wasn't a fight I'm going to win, but at least I went out with a croak.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

As Bandar Log, my expansion was needlessly slow (too conservative), then I totally messed up against Abysia, partly because I forgot to bring all troops to 1-2 battles, eventually losing to them. ah well.

 

[Trash Player]

Ind here. Fell for the Awake Asura trap due to the mod buffs.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Okay, I messed up really bad this time. Awake Asura with Stygian Skin + Enchanted Blood + Thundering Weapons plus extra E for buffs.
Thought I get a monster that both provide a relevant troop bless and scales better than most with this deal. Wrong.

Even with Skeletal Body up, he still fell to a combination of lance charges and board sword cuts. On turn 4.
The main party was thankfully strong enough to take some easy targets and bump one of Nidavangr's weakened party.
The Asura is called back on turn 9 due to the ease of recruiting H2 priests. Ended the 1st year with 11 provinces.

After the horror of seeing Nazca to the west, Abysia to the east and Nidavangr enveloping the south and north, I pretty realized it could be over very soon.
Bandar Log called for a coalition against Abysia that I immediately jumped in, hoping to divert attention and grow.
Unfortunately, after a few fruitful skirmishes on Abysia, just when I had a chance to contend, Dayyālu saw an opening and jumped on me.

My pitiful attempt at bluffing was not enough. I knew my only chance is to look stronger than I was and divert him to somebody else.
Admittedly, I took a throne that was on one side of our border and denied him from Abysia on the other. There was also a fort between us.
So, it was a very reasonable gamble for him. Either of one of us will look like a fool in hindsight and it is me.

It soon became evident there were enough points to win within our territories, so we had an exchange about it.
My apologies to TheDarkUrge and Popot but I reckoned ending this early rather than late helped against burnout in the community.
I stayed silent and played the game out. Taking a province from Nazca as a subtle hint even. Only Abysia noticed it but too late then. The rest is history.

 

[Trash Player]

My 5 cents on the mod:

It is a good start. I would honestly like to play with it more. Props to TheDarkUrge.

 

[Optimist]

Oh wow, that was fast :D

Congrats from the sidelines, Dayyālu ! Gloria victis too, though.

 

[Dayyālu]

It is a good start. I would honestly like to play with it more. Props to TheDarkUrge.

Yeah, it's a good mod. I like a lot of the small changes. Sensible stuff.

I'll maybe host a LA game (even if I won't participate in it) if there's interest.