Incline Dominions 6

[Sinilevä]

So, I have completed another game over the weekend. This time for Mekone and oh boy what a stark contrast to Xibalba. My units were actually able to kill shit and in fact were pretty good at it. Played again against six mighty agressive AI. Ulm was the one dominating the entire game. First they had a big war with Niefelheim, which Ulm won and absorbed Niefelheim. I invaded Ulm and captured a couple of provinces, but was backstabbed by Ermor, so had divert all the attention there and made a non-agression packt with Ulm. While I was fighting Ermor Ulm bloated even more and absorbed a good chunk of Hinnom. For some reason Hinnom is always weak in my games, I think I will play them next. Then Ulm bullied Xibalba back into their caves and annihilated them. I was still fighting with Ermor when Ulm already occupied half of the map. At the end Ulm declared war on Ermor which was the end of Ermor. I won this game, but only because two of the thrones were in sea provinces and AI didn't try hard enough to get to those, even though Ulm troops had artifacts that allowed them to travel under water, those artifacts weren't powerfull enough, so they couldn't take too many troops, while I have crafted several Sea King's Goblets and was able to send my main armies under the sea. If it was a conquest game I could have easily lost. Look at those Ulm doom stacks vs my exhausted armies. Could be of course that many troops are low level crap:

Spoiler

 

[Mortmal]

So, I have completed another game over the weekend. This time for Mekone and oh boy what a stark contrast to Xibalba. My units were actually able to kill shit and in fact were pretty good at it. Played again against six mighty agressive AI. Ulm was the one dominating the entire game. First they had a big war with Niefelheim, which Ulm won and absorbed Niefelheim. I invaded Ulm and captured a couple of provinces, but was backstabbed by Ermor, so had divert all the attention there and made a non-agression packt with Ulm. While I was fighting Ermor Ulm bloated even more and absorbed a good chunk of Hinnom. For some reason Hinnom is always weak in my games, I think I will play them next. Then Ulm bullied Xibalba back into their caves and annihilated them. I was still fighting with Ermor when Ulm already occupied half of the map. At the end Ulm declared war on Ermor which was the end of Ermor. I won this game, but only because two of the thrones were in sea provinces and AI didn't try hard enough to get to those, even though Ulm troops had artifacts that allowed them to travel under water, those artifacts weren't powerfull enough, so they couldn't take too many troops, while I have crafted several Sea King's Goblets and was able to send my main armies under the sea. If it was a conquest game I could have easily lost. Look at those Ulm doom stacks vs my exhausted armies. Could be of course that many troops are low level crap:

Spoiler

Mekone is the most powerful faction I've tried, and that holds true for every iteration, whether Mid Age or Late Age(specialy built in communions). It's straightforward and has easy expansion, giving you an edge. Mekone doesn't have any sacred units besides commanders, but that doesn't matter much. You'd need an extremely high bless to match the effectiveness of their basic giants, and pursuing such a bless would come at the cost of other important scales. Instead, you focus on full productivity and send out those giants. By mid-game, you'll have more than enough gems to equip your commanders, who are already strong chassis, and summon extra units to conquer the water, which is the only aspect that might slow you down.

 

[Nathir]

I give my god orders to advance and cast spells. And he stays back and casts fire flies. My melee troops advance forward, while slingers shoot from behind, and they all die. I need to figure out how to give proper orders...

Also the bless effects that you select for your god only affect sacred units if i understand correctly? But how? What is the condition? It doesn't happen every fight automatically, right?

 

[Berekän]

I give my god orders to advance and cast spells. And he stays back and casts fire flies. My melee troops advance forward, while slingers shoot from behind, and they all die. I need to figure out how to give proper orders...

Also the bless effects that you select for your god only affect sacred units if i understand correctly? But how? What is the condition? It doesn't happen every fight automatically, right?

You need to have a commander with priest spells cast blessing/divine blessing on your sacred units, after which they'll get the benefits of your bless, so never send your sacreds without a priest/prophet in the army.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I give my god orders to advance and cast spells. And he stays back and casts fire flies. My melee troops advance forward, while slingers shoot from behind, and they all die. I need to figure out how to give proper orders...

You'll want to give him multiple orders. The AI is actually fairly smart about casting spells on it's own; it'll take into account friendly fire, but not hold back from using a fireball to kill 30 enemies because it'll free 3 of your own. But with as many spells as are in the game and ways to use them, you're better off telling him to cast a specific buff or summon or whatever you actually want him to do. If you just want him to get closer before throwing fire at enemies, try telling him to attack for one or two turns, or positioning him (and the rest of the army) further forward in the formation.

But how? What is the condition? It doesn't happen every fight automatically, right?

Aside from some special exceptions (your god is always blessed within his own domain, and there's equipment to autobless the wearer) you need a priest of some kind in the battle to cast the bless spell on the sacred units. A level 3 priest, like your prophet, can also cast Divine Blessing to do this, which is battlefield wide.

 

[Nathir]

Oh... well that's good to know

Also, what does "become prophet" do? And is it useful?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Oh... well that's good to know

Also, what does "become prophet" do? And is it useful?

Basically, it gives whatever commander uses it level 3 holy (or +1 holy if they're already at that level) and gives them a special property that helps them spread your dominion near them faster, kind of like a mobile temple. You can only have one at a time, but it's quite useful for leading an army of sacreds since they can quickly bless the entire army. Having level 3 holy also lets them claim thrones.

Generally people make their first commander their prophet and have it help expand by blessing your army and smiting enemies (another perk of level 3 holy access), but you could find other things to turn into a prophet, like a strong commander or hero you want to become sacred so you can make it a super combatant, or maybe even a stealthy unit you want to sneak around and spread your dominion easily.

 

[Johannes]

Another option (which is garbage for multiplayer but can be fun for single player) is to pick one of the skinny mage dudes at the bottom of the list, given him ~2 in basically everything, and use him for two things: Follow behind the army into controlled provinces and 'search for magic sites'. He'll find basically everything there is to find aside from really rare sites that require 3 or 4 in a single path. And the second thing, is research construction and have him sit around making equipment. Since he can find all kinds of gem sources, you'll have access to nearly every piece of equipment at each tier of construction, and can make some really powerful dudes by filling every equipment slot. This is an inefficient way to play, but I think it's a good way to naturally explore the myriad of mechanics in combat, from basic stuff like stat stacking, to weird oddball stuff like eye gouging swords and cursed objects or defensive swarms of animated clay birds. Giant nations can be good for this since slapping magic gear on a giant is more impactful than slapping it on a human.

That's a strong way to play to use a rainbow mage for sitesearching, forging and such. Getting a wide paths rainbow can also take several incarnate blesses by just getting 1 path high.

Just don't have it sitting around forging random crap if you care about efficiency, but make it forge mostly key stuff nobody else can make, and summon mages with (cross)paths you don't natively have to further increase diversity and inclusion.

 

[Andnjord]

Codex bros, I need some advice to kill a god.

Playing as EA Sauromatia, I need to kill a Irmisul (the nature tree pretender) with 490 hit points and regen bless from the AI pretenders mod pack. Would a Soul Slay communion with penetration boosters work? Should I use the trifecta of boosters (rune smasher, spell focus and the eye of the void) or can I cheapen out?

By the way, that’s the god of Niefelheim, a scales Niefelheim with regen and 200% heroism on its niefel giants. The war has been hell, only just now managed to wipe out their main army (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen 50 regenerating Niefel giants charging at you) but lost my other army trying to storm their capital due to Irmisul killing everything. Send help.

 

[Malakal]

Codex bros, I need some advice to kill a god.

Playing as EA Sauromatia, I need to kill a Irmisul (the nature tree pretender) with 490 hit points and regen bless from the AI pretenders mod pack. Would a Soul Slay communion with penetration boosters work? Should I use the trifecta of boosters (rune smasher, spell focus and the eye of the void) or can I cheapen out?

By the way, that’s the god of Niefelheim, a scales Niefelheim with regen and 200% heroism on its niefel giants. The war has been hell, only just now managed to wipe out their main army (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen 50 regenerating Niefel giants charging at you) but lost my other army trying to storm their capital due to Irmisul killing everything. Send help.

Instakill spells like soul slay work. Thugs with very heavy weapons like gate cleavers will work - you can make them +STR items too, no need for ATT because the tree won't dodge. For Sauro that will be banes I guess.

You can also use water elementals. Just make sure to not spam skeletons so they don't surround the tree and make it difficult to reach for actual damage dealers.

 

[Optimist]

If I read this correctly, you dominate military -wise, and just need to get rid of the god. Why not just preach him out?

 

[Malakal]

If I read this correctly, you dominate military -wise, and just need to get rid of the god. Why not just preach him out?

Takes a lot of time and temples to beat out a base 4 dom tree with 3 free dominion spread checks a turn from the tree 1 from the temple 1 from the prophet and every turn you waste is -6 cap gems and income lost.

 

[Andnjord]

If I read this correctly, you dominate military -wise, and just need to get rid of the god. Why not just preach him out?

Weeeeeeell.....

"As you stand atop the hill you can now clearly see it, towering above the now ruined city of Niefelheim. It is a monumental tree, larger even than the barbaric temples erected by the giants surrounding it. It's gnarly branches and roots are more like columns and ridges housing unspeakable horrors from the realm beyond and a grinning face can be seen as if carved in the bark and given ethereal life by foul magic. The rampaging skeletons summoned by your allies are trying to hack at it but its bark reforms too quickly and corrosive acid and darts are ravaging their ranks.

You project your mind through the Eye of the Void that was insterted instead of your left eye and can feel the rush of strenght from your communion slaves as they lend your their mystical energies. You project your mind further and finally you can see it, the soul of Irmisul the Leaflord, Master of Flowers and Spring in all of its grotesque splendour, its power seemingly too vast to comprehend, a lighthouse in the vortex that is the realm of souls. Back in your mortal body you lift one hand holding the Rune Smasher, the other clutching the spell focus tight and you utter one single sentence in the ancient tongue of the only one true God.

"Hopw Roewur Ne"

And just like, the soul of Irmisul the Leaflord, Master of Flowers and Spring instantly vanishes without a trace, the monumental tree it left behind suddenly turns to ash as without the magical power to sustain it its millennias of existence suddenly catch back up to him and claim their due.

Today a god has perished."




And you would trade all that cool factor for a bunch of indie priests chanting a little too loud on his porch instead!

But seriously, as Malakal said it would take ages to preach his dominions out and due to having been at war nonstop since turn 12 (first against Hellheim, then Niefelheim attacked midway through that, then shortly after Atlantis) I have very poor infrastructure such that my Dominion still only has a strenght of 7. It's been all hands on deck and Niefelheim still has a bunch of territories to spam troops with, so now that the cap rush has failed I'll take care of that first.

But really, the number one reason is just that it's more fun this way.

 

[Andnjord]

Meine liebe, it werks! Well kinda. I blew up my communion slaves before they got to soul slay the tree by not taking into account the extra soothsayers communion masters, but the pile of niefel giants they enslaved minded chopped it up pretty good.

I had grossly overestimated the amount of skelly spamers needed, otherwise I could have put those mages off the communion with no repercussions. Oh well, what’s the life of 16 mages compared to the sweet sweet smell victory.

 

[Malakal]

Meine liebe, it werks! Well kinda. I blew up my communion slaves before they got to soul slay the tree by not taking into account the extra soothsayers communion masters, but the pile of niefel giants they enslaved minded chopped it up pretty good.

I had grossly overestimated the amount of skelly spamers needed, otherwise I could have put those mages off the communion with no repercussions. Oh well, what’s the life of 16 mages compared to the sweet sweet smell victory.

I always kill my slaves and I'm supposed to be a good player...

 

[Andnjord]

Meine liebe, it werks! Well kinda. I blew up my communion slaves before they got to soul slay the tree by not taking into account the extra soothsayers communion masters, but the pile of niefel giants they enslaved minded chopped it up pretty good.

I had grossly overestimated the amount of skelly spamers needed, otherwise I could have put those mages off the communion with no repercussions. Oh well, what’s the life of 16 mages compared to the sweet sweet smell victory.

I always kill my slaves and I'm supposed to be a good player...

Fuck, I’ve just rewatched the replay and noticed that one of my Witch King scripted to cast Rigor Mortis from a previous battle had snuck his way into the fight. I had initially left him behind since I knew I didn’t need him but then forgot about his script and just used him to ferry some extra reinforcement when doing that turn the next day.

Probably still had too many masters, but that sure as hell made quick work of the slaves.

Oops…..

 

[Andnjord]

Oh hell yeah!

Spoiler

Motherfucker almost made it by routing off the battlefield, but one of the Enarie rolled a +28 on her penetration for enslave mind. That's four consecutive rolls of 6!

 

[Malakal]

Oh hell yeah!

Spoiler

Motherfucker almost made it by routing off the battlefield, but one of the Enarie rolled a +28 on her penetration for enslave mind. That's four consecutive rolls of 6!

I thought units reverted to base stats when enslave minded? While charm keeps what they had? Did they change that?

If not then you have a good body and ok magic if they did and you get what indie titans get its niiiiice.

 

[Andnjord]

Oh hell yeah!

Spoiler

Motherfucker almost made it by routing off the battlefield, but one of the Enarie rolled a +28 on her penetration for enslave mind. That's four consecutive rolls of 6!

I thought units reverted to base stats when enslave minded? While charm keeps what they had? Did they change that?

If not then you have a good body and ok magic if they did and you get what indie titans get its niiiiice.

I just gift of reasoned him and yeah....it reverted to its base stats, I didn't know that was a thing

Oh, and Charm is now a glamour spell, so it would have been difficult for me to do that (I could have spammed earth gnome if I had known that ahead of time).

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I'd seriously pay 100 bucks for a DLC that lets you directly control battles.

I'd day one purchase a Dominions clone with direct battle control without hesitation.

But nobody is making anything like it

You have direct battle control in Steel Breeze Empire. Is Steel Breeze a Dominions clone? What is the difference? Magic?

 

[Baron Tahn]

Ive been following the in progress match and this game seems awesome for me although I barely understand what is going on. Ive never played Dominions.

How much of a turbo autist do I need to be to play/get into this out of 10?

If it was a hybrid of two other games what would they be?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I have 4th edition, maybe this was answered somewhere earlier in the thread but skimming through I did not see it..

Is there any reason to upgrade from 4th to 6th? Is it worth the cost do to so?

 

[Hag]

Ive been following the in progress match and this game seems awesome for me although I barely understand what is going on. Ive never played Dominions.

How much of a turbo autist do I need to be to play/get into this out of 10?

If it was a hybrid of two other games what would they be?

I'd say 5/10. The game is not hard per se, however you need to play several games to get a grab of the breadth of content and how to leverage it. The best way to learn is simply to have a laidback game against weak AIs and try as much things as you can. As for comparison with other games it is hard to say, Dominions (as well as the other Illwinter game, Conquest of Elysium) has always be apart. Nothing really compare mechanically with its streamline administration and complex army scripting resolving in auto-battles, nor with the simply epic number of nations, units, spells and overall interation.

I have 4th edition, maybe this was answered somewhere earlier in the thread but skimming through I did not see it..

Is there any reason to upgrade from 4th to 6th? Is it worth the cost do to so?

If you enjoyed the 4th and want to play more, the 6th is very much worth it in my opinion, if only for the QoL changes and all the numerous additions. Depends on what you're looking for, the 4th is still a good game but when you try newer versions you can never go back.

 

[Malakal]

Ive been following the in progress match and this game seems awesome for me although I barely understand what is going on. Ive never played Dominions.

How much of a turbo autist do I need to be to play/get into this out of 10?

If it was a hybrid of two other games what would they be?

Game itself isnt hard but there is a gigantic amount of spells, abilities and interactions and mastering those take a lot of time. Easy to play hard to master I'd say.

I have 4th edition, maybe this was answered somewhere earlier in the thread but skimming through I did not see it..

Is there any reason to upgrade from 4th to 6th? Is it worth the cost do to so?

MP scene follows the current edition but for SP you can get away with buying the new one ever now and then like with CoE.

 

[Sinilevä]

I have 4th edition, maybe this was answered somewhere earlier in the thread but skimming through I did not see it..

Is there any reason to upgrade from 4th to 6th? Is it worth the cost do to so?

I was very reluctant to buy Dom 6 and was pretty negative about it in this thread. I eventually bought it though and have no regrets. The QoL improvements turned out to be worth the price for me.

As for comparison with other games it is hard to say, Dominions (as well as the other Illwinter game, Conquest of Elysium) has always be apart. Nothing really compare mechanically with its streamline administration and complex army scripting resolving in auto-battles, nor with the simply epic number of nations, units, spells and overall interation.

CoE feels like it was heavily influenced by HoMM, even though it's still pretty different, but Dominions is truly a unique game.