/domg/ Dominions General

Ancient clown edition

Dominions is a fantasy turn-based war game created by two dudes. One of them is a teacher.

The game combines a simple presentation with an extremely wide array of strategic options, including over 2800 units, 800 spells and 300 magic items. Turns are resolved simultaneously, with players planning battles rather than directly controlling them.

It has simplistic graphics but is easily moddable and extremely deep.

Basically, it's an autist’s wet dream of a war game.

>Steamgroup
Join the steamgroup for multiplayer
steamcommunity.com/groups/vanheimageofvidya

>Group chatroom
steam://friends/joinchat/103582791434709795

>Our work-in-progress wiki
dom4.wikia.com/wiki/Dominions_4_Wiki

>Our pastebin
pastebin.com/uTZnjYwm (embed) (embed) (embed) (embed)

>Dom4 Manual
jaffa.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_dom4.pdf

>Dom4 Inspector
This is a community resource that has every unit, spell, and item in the game in an accessible database.
larzm42.github.io/dom4inspector/

>Play by email guide:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=202096551

>Debug Mod:
For testing battle formations and spells
dom4archive.kermodebear.org/www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/debug-mod.html

>Where do I get it?
It is available on Gamersgate and Steam. Desura is kill.

>THE BASICS
>Read the manual
>Read the wiki
>Read the pastebin
>Watch some LPs by Sy, Maerlande, or Nuklearmonkee
>Jump into MP feet first
>Die and join the ranks of brave skeletons

Submit completed games here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/1jHX_ZoJi6zIvDq6ANdp-W1Y89W5_fmShuDyHmAj5qC4/viewform

Results Here:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dlrvyEqLFYIaXRc49TheMmfdoP8jEh1m5rZJHJAzDWQ/edit?usp=sharing

Previous thread

First for Aboleth Traps

Once again you fucks let it die.

ERMOR GAME

I let it die, and I'm about to stale in all my games.

And there's nothing you can do to stop me.

There's a guy in the only game I'm still in that always takes his turn within the last 30 minutes (on a 48hr turn timer). Every time I hope he misses and stales, the fucker.

>Last thread people discussing whether Yomi was underpowered or not
>People who says its fine but don't say why

Okay then, sell me on this nation
How does it compare to similar nations like Niefl and Lanka?
How is it supposed to be played?

A brief look into the inspector tells me it should go awake full scales pretender since it doesn't have any decent sacred troops
Then supporting with evocations & skeletons using its many fire, earth, and death mages

Skelly spam backed by a hundred flaming-arrows undisciplined goburins

Dai Oni lite SCs

Skellyspam

Flaming Arrows

Yomi has a strangely high winrate on s1w's charts, though the leading theory I've heard on that is that it may be a nation that attracts more experienced players

At a glance, I see:
-cap-only thug/SC-capable Dai Oni. It's not flawless but they never are.
-Relatively cheap heavily armoured skelespammers
-(somewhat expensive) flaming arrows with very cheap archers.
-Ability to convert gems into flying sacreds, even if they're not that particularly strong.
-Potential access to things like fog warriors and rain of stones, with boosters.

They look pretty diverse actually, I think the bigger problem is that they're EXPENSIVE. Not the best, not the worst. I'd say they're an average nation.

Forgot to note Bane Fire, which they again can access at the probably steep cost of a booster per mage.

Shikomi too

>tfw someone gets Buer the same turn I get Pazuzu
>I already had 40 air gems saved up

It feels like winning, but the game keeps going.

I've got this weird problem where my turns are coming in and being received normally but the llamaserver page isn't updating. It still says that we're on turn 15 for me even though we're playing beyond that with no problems. It isn't a big deal but I can't see who still has to send their turns in.

Had the same problem, I just mashed F5 for a bit and it fixed itself.

i keeping looking at CoE and keep thinking it looks awesome, but domg always says it shit. why exactly is that? all i've heard is that "it had potential" or something

Imagine if every province you owned in Dominions was attacked by indies of varying strength every turn, PD doesn't exist, it sometimes takes multiple turns to move to adjacent provinces, mage scripting is massively reduced, and you can't set your own formations at all ever. That's early game CoE and it gets worse as it gets better.

Also you have shit for income and your mages only show up as recruit options like 10% of the time at best, and if you don't have the money to recruit them then, you're out of luck for now.

I'm doing it again today. Eat my shorts.

gauls

we apologize but the romans told us to attack you and we will pretty much do anything if you say our name three times

trade and taint when?

Ulm my darling, Ulm my darling, Ulm my darling kill the swine.

>imma move my armies down and away from nicknight on Vanheim
>when I've ALREADY been elf'd once

What could possibly go wrong?

Basically your only control in combat is what to put in your army. There's no scripting like dominions - the most you can do is tell each mage to not cast a single type of spell (they'll decide themselves which to cast out of the 2-3 spells you didn't prevent them from casting)

It's really slow too. It takes multiple turns to get enough resources to recruit/summon anything early on, and see what said about movement and dealing with indies.

The reason why people say it has potential is that there are a bunch of things which would be really cool if the base gameplay was more fun. Hopefully some will make their way into dominions.

>Ys AI'd
Just know Ys that regardless of what happens you're the real winner in my eyes.
RIP UWbowl champion.

I play Yomi a lot. A big part of it is that, like MA C'tis, they get a lot of synergistic spells from 1 school (ench). Flaming arrows + horde of skellies + 7 gold shortbows can come online for the first war, unless you get rushed hard. And if you get rushed hard, oni's are actually fantastic troops in T3 and easily massable on demand, giving you a strong defense. Later on, you get ROS, which allows you to make up armies entirely composed of Dai Oni supercasters (who are immune to ROS), some supporting oni generals (almost immune) and some large, high health evo bait to draw gifts/nasty bows set to fire largest/other stuff away from your casters. These armies can be rescripted on the fly to do different roles (ie you can rescript some to thug rather than skellyspamming, or to throw down evos) if needed.
Please stop the Dai Oni lite SC's meme there is literally no better recruit-able thug/sc chassis.

I'd argue Fomorian Kings are better. Yes, in a straight up fight Dai Oni's have superior pathing, but the Kings are all A2 - and being able to choose your battles through ritual movement is a very valuable tool to have.

>Going full scales
>On a nation with 2 strong recruitable sacred thugs
>And nearly all of its national summons also being sacred

Right after EA Rus and MA Ur

Kings are also better because there's no 'triple damage to kings' items

That's fair enough, actually. Ritual movement is pretty badass.
I've been playing around with the idea of an E6S6 fat guy titan (can't be fucked to look up the name) imprisoned with good scales. Nice little bless for your Dai Oni's, you can easily nab EBDW and Stellar focus, and you can also make use of teleporting golems later on.
Sadly no N9 means those golems aren't really going to be all that amazing as thugs though.

Though I just had an interesting idea; Stygian paths is magic movement, right? That could be an interesting spell, although right up at Thaum 8 it isn't nearly as practical as cloud trapeze or teleport.

Never really understood this. Yes, there's a wider variety of items that can fuck up a Dai Oni - but an anti-SC thug is going to kill a Fomorian King just as well - they simply use a duskdagger instead of a herald lance.

If anything the King is more vulnerable, as its not at least protected by Phoenix Pyre.

The existence of holy scourge doesn't make Tart SC's a joke.
I actually find that herald lance/demon bane has some problems against Dai Oni SC's. You want to fly in and get a first strike that instantly kills it, before it can complete its buff cycle (ESPECIALLY phoenix pyre). Funnily enough, one of the weaker and more often overlooked attributes of the dai oni can mess with this plan; the screen of d6 wolves summoned at start of battle can often distract the attacker and protect your oni for the first round allowing him to get phoenix pyre off.

>what is "attack largest"

Like, don't get me wrong I think arguing that the demonbane/herald lance etc as arguments for Dai Oni are silly, when duskdaggers do the same to Kings/Jarls - except better since they don't need to worry about potential turn0 phoenix pyre.

Melqarts don't deserve the title SC - ever. They lack the paths for it. They are notable however for being a recruitable thug on a nation with healers.

>duskdagger
The difference is that you can drop 5 gems on Holy Scourge or Demon Bane, give it to a human, and have him do very good damage per round.

An anti-SC thug is much more expensive than a random mounted commander with a cheap sword.

Theoretically, anyway. The math seems to check out, but I've never seen it done in practice, just heard about it.

Alternately, go heavy into Alt. Basically every level of it makes your Dai Oni better in combat, and you pick up Maws of the Earth eventually too. Armor of Achilles/Destruction/Iron Bane are amusing. It's slower to get off the ground than diving into Enchantment, but it's also viable. And it's not like you have to specialize, going 4 -> 5 in a school is the same cost as going 0 -> 4 in a different one so diversity is easy to do.

Casting Phoenix Pyre on this thread

Alt is always the second thing I go for, but yeah you could go for it first thing (especially if you went for a N9 bless rather than a boring traditional Ex). I love maws of the earth and, by extension, blood stones. I was fortunate enough to get a blood throne in my current yomi game and being able to earth power into maws into skelespam is lovely in the midgame. Massive AOE, high AP damage with no elemental type is fucking bliss.
Literally the only thing that makes me happier than maws is ironskinned fire elementals.

Sniffle Jarls

>he thinks nimble charles is as good as pie oni
listen here you little shit. phoenix pyre + summon earthpower + ironskin + soul vortex + innate fear + ethereal wounded shape
VS
quicken self + 20 extra HP (actually dai oni have 3 extra hp total because of wounded shape, but if you will regen slightly more hp) + cold aura + holy avenger (lmao).

only good thing about niffle jarl SC's is that you have solid sacred troops so your N9Ewhatever bless gets some extra use. Not that dai oni care because they still SC better even with just an Ewhatever bless.

>no soul vortex on niefel jarl
>holy avenger as a buff
I'd agree with you, but your analysis is shit.

That did it. Thanks.

Posting once again:

I am looking for a sub for two games

FourthTurning (Xibalba)
DriftKing (Niefelheim)

Both of these nations are in top notch shape, so it is not like the usual situation where you inherit a crumbling wreck of an empire. I simply don't have the time needed due to RL concerns.

Those wolves also make pretty good batteries for a soul vortex casting Dai Oni.

gibe muspelheim
the game needs more shit-eating giants and underpowered fire nations

>Abysia mixed with Niefelheim
Sounds both boring and weak.
Well, if an earlier-than-early age was ever added, Muspelheim would be a reasonable candidate.

You should probably note DriftKing is a newbie game. I doubt he's gonna let an experienced player in.

underpowered and uninteresting factions are the domain of true understanders, you just wouldn't get it

...

>more norse nations

no

How the hell do I play Man and Eriu?

You basically play Eriu like you would play TNN except you're even more shit at everything and can't actually win a game ever

Is it that bad? I just want to elf niggas man.

Eriu is LITERALLY just TNN with worse everything. They play exactly the same, just more shit.

They don't get anything new, they just get worse.

If you want MA elfing, Vanheim is your best choice.

Eriu really doesn't have anything going for them but thugs.

What can you expect if you play with/against MA Vanheim anyway?

EA Vanheim with Valkyries instead of Vanhere

All dai oni can cast it without needing a gem, but yeah that was intellectually dishonest of me.
the lmao is there for a reason.

Quickness is super good and the cold aura is underrated, since the cold aura on nipple jarls is fucking big

Elf thugs everywhere, as usual for an elf nation.

Non-sacred rec-anywhere vanhere when they actually need to fight.

Primarily air magic (tstrike, air elementals, storm) with some earth buffs on the side and maybe a bit of blood too.

>the lmao is there for a reason.
I'd add liquid body to niefel jarls if you want a more serious buff list. Dai Oni could take temper flesh too.

Quickness isn't quite as good when you have encumbrance, since it doubles the reinvig you need to stay neutral.

Cold aura is indeed very nice, but it's nothing compared to free extra lives from phoenix pyre.

>They don't get anything new
spies tho

>13:22 GMT on Thursday February 2nd Hosting delayed by 12 hours.
>05:28 GMT on Friday February 3rd Hosting delayed by 7 hours.
>14:13 GMT on Saturday February 4th Hosting delayed by 1 hours.
>06:44 GMT on Sunday February 5th Hosting delayed by 12 hours.

The Superbowl is today so everyone should get an extension.

Man I watched the superbowl a couple years ago and it was shit. Yanks be talking hot mess about soccer or whatever but at least the players in a soccer match actually move for more than two seconds at a time.

Play your turns niggers.

>And whoever was last and didn't take a double turn - pic related.

What tactic do you prefer, to feast on smaller players so that you may challenge the bigger player(s) in the endgame, or to try and take chunks from the big player before he can reach endgame status?

This is assuming you are a mid to top-3 player, but not the biggest fish in the pond

To live in peace :^)
>acro
>be expanding normally
>ur takes one province
>gets really close to my capital and stops
>"Fuck off monkeys"
>"no :^)"
>Conquer monkey men
the end. This is how most of my games turn out to play desu

Anyone wanna sub warhammer fantasy orcs in mod nation game? Turn 61 good change to test their toys and such

depends on nation and how much of a power gap there is between the rest of the game outside of the top 3

How do you play MA Vanarus? I mean they seem to have solid infantry, but their mages are all over the place.

F I R E B I R D S

>don't even have the paths to summon them

It's easy, you stomp early on and maybe rush a neighbour.
Then you lose to a nation with superior mages.

Its fairly simple and self explanatory.

Sages cast thunder strike since they get A2 7/12 and A3 1/12. They are your main battle mages.

Remaining mages are used mainly for research but you also get plenty of AE for RoS and EF for magma eruption (with shoes).

Your troops are excellent and just need to be massed.

Sy sounds like his hymen is fully intact.

This sounds rude as fuck.

i want to have sweet sweet anal sex with Sy.

>you'll never tear a Bride-in-Waiting's hymen

Good, virgins are pretty shit at sex desu, only good for blood spells.

This.

That's a non-sequitur my main man. One's proficiency at an activity can not be gauged without having actually carried out that activity. All those poor, innocent, and pure teenage girls you drugged up and sacrificed to Satan might have been sex machines.

>not appreciating an eager student
pleb

>tfw still have the sprites and shit sitting around from my half-assed Dominions 4 Nation mod

>could probably shoehorn it into a functioning Class for Conquest of Elysium 4

What do?

hoburg nation when

>implying there hasn't been a hoburg nation as the default mod to be used as an example of how to mod since forever

Senpai, I recall you posting this 2 or more years ago. Just finish it already.

O fuk are these guys back

Don't settle for CoE4-shit. Then you'll feel maybe accomplished but nobody cares about CoE4 so it won't mean anything. At least maybe I'll play it if it's for Doms4.

> One's proficiency at an activity can not be gauged without having actually carried out that activity.

One's skill in a proficiency cannot increase without actually practicing that proficiency. You can't be great at something without actually doing it.

>All those poor, innocent, and pure teenage girls you drugged up and sacrificed to Satan might have been sex machines.

I'm sure they would have been with a proper instructor and given enough time. But who got time for that? They had their chance, they wasted it, now they're being used as bait for horrors while their slutty sisters lay in my bed.

/dfg/ is still probably angry with me for not finishing the mod I made with lamias and harpies too. I really should crank something out before this hard drive dies.

Well CoE4 is fairly simple and doesn't require a lot of effort since I already have the guys statted out and everything. It'd be as easy as making a Cabalist class and having you start as one of the red robed guys with a mastery ritual to upgrade to the red breasted robe guys.

The main time consumer in working on this mod is sprite work. Granted I'm lazy, and I just modify existing sprites, but I had some big plans about Sacred Anakhite Priests that surrendered to the Liabecians centuries beforehand and now perform Blood Sacrifices for the God of Liabec.

A CoE version would be much simpler and wouldn't require as many unique units.

The sprites is usually the most time consuming part, why dont you just finish it out if you have that much done?

mod nations have no legitimacy and anything that isnt the vanilla game is impure and defiled worse than the raptors

Only the worst sort of bastard would care this much about legitimacy

Mod nations are fun

Hey, I play Dominions 4 for the tightly balanced tournament environment, none of this "mod nation" doohickery that'll just throw out the supreme balance Dominions 4 is famous for, as ingeniously developed by Illfraud(TM)(R)(C)(patent pending)(OC, DS).

As I mentioned in the post directly above, you are correct. Spriting is the main time consumer. #2 time consumer is actually ironing out a playstyle that is OP within the context of other nations. That is easier said than done considering Liabec are some fusion of Hinnom, Mictlan, and R'lyeh but different than all three in some ways.

For example, the spellbook already has Astral/Blood rituals that are generally horror related spells. Considering I wanted to make a Astral/Blood nation I decided this was a good place to work out their bread and butter abilities.

The idea is to give them fairly average infantry units for their time period and encouraging them to rely on horrors. When those Thrall Brand guys die they horror mark the unit that killed them. The more slaves the enemy army kills the easier it is to summon a bunch of horrors and watch them eviscerate the enemy. In my mind the erratic behavior of horrors more than makes up for their power.

Thing is, a nation should never be a gimmick. Liabec needs powerful units that can make up for their lack of heavy armor. Demonic hybrids are an Abysian thing so I'd rather not steal those. Sharing Void Summoning with R'lyeh is a little too easy. I thought about creating tiny Gore Tide Horrors that can be summoned like Elementals (I will recolor small water elementals) using slaves instead of gems.

So basically to answer your question it's because I want the Nation to have an identity and a place in the game instead of just being something I half assed and then shat out.

>#2 time consumer is actually ironing out a playstyle that is OP within the context of other nations.

I forgot a "not" that was supposed to go between "is" and "OP." Whoops.

What about half horror hybrids? No one has done that so far. Or guy that turn into horrors when killed or something.

Or a spell that turns guys into horrors if they get hit with it.

>What about half horror hybrids?

My first thought is "Do horrors reproduce?" That's an interesting thought though, especially combined with that second sentence. How about a Brand Thrall that has been tied more closely to Horrors than his peers? Think of him like a Horror Bomb. He looks like every other slave but when he dies, instead of the enemy being horror marked, he changes into a lesser horror as his second form.

That sounds like fun. The horror would need to despawn after the battle but it sounds like fun.

tyty, I didn't think anyone was even still playing besides Lukas

Horror Seed sends a horror that can infect people with parasitic horrors and turn them into horrors so its probably not that far fetched.