/domg/ Dominions General

I remember last time I experienced. I read in the manual that a weapon reach could add up to an unit size to compensate in case the opponent is bigger.
When I experimented and managed to get a giant's eye by having my humans poking him with spears, it was hilarious. This is the kind of stuff that I love.

It would be easier to talk about borders if I knew where you are located C'tis. I don't see you anywhere yet.

Advice on fort building?
If you are self sufficient as far as troop selection goes, mostly provinces with lots of connections connections to resources heavy provinces (if you need resources)?
I heard "plain"-type provinces can also earn you quite a lot with a fort.
If you lack something like crossbows I guess that's also worth consideration, but would you drop those even on the more expensive versions (like the 14 resources ones)?

Do you ever build the more expensive forts?

>Advice on fort building?
Chokepoints, 2 provinces apart from another fort.

>Do you ever build the more expensive forts?
I do, but then again.
>only play solo
>on the smallest map

where last bread tia

as many as possible

but yeah, you can max resources by putting forts next to or on top of high res provinces and you want to fort up indy troops that you plan on dumping res into.

some nations like xib, sauro, mictlan, any freespawn nation, etc can just kinda ball up their forts if they don't need to cover specific provinces.

>Do you ever build the more expensive forts?

If you really need the resources for troops from better admin or are constantly hounded by enemy.

Is there any sense in Abysia building palisades?

No because they catch fire. Duh

Multiplayer is way better though, and doesn't have the problems that most multiplayer games do.

>Burden of Time
>The seal is broken and the mountain has become a clusterfuck
>two nations go AI within two turns

So, who's gonna cast Utterdark?

The difference between cheap forts and expensive forts is just one mage recruitment turn, so there's generally no reason not to if it's in a safe area and you're not in a desperate fight for your life where that one mage will make or break the war effort. The income difference will pay for itself and strong forts can be very difficult to crack, especially in provinces with lower supply.

I'm not that other guy, but I'm really curious on what problems do other multiplayer games have that dominions doesn't.

You have to play at the same time that other people are playing, and act quickly and in a lot of them you even have to talk to other people.

Bad advice. With the extra gold you are paying you could get 1/4 or 1/3 of a new fort, and why on earth would you decide you don't want ONE MORE MAGE?

And people stale all the time or go AI. Geez it's like I'm really playing AoE online!

1) you will lose to nick/malakal if you are new
2) you literally have to talk to other people unless you dont like winning
But yes, I love about dominions that I can think as slowly as I want and redo turns several times. This game is so based for slow thinkers like me

It's a choice between forts that stand up to prolonged sieges and forts that are basically nothing but recruitment centers. Also if you're a nation with high resource troops or if you have good scales you will get a long term benefit which costs only one turn.
Think of it as the equivalent of building roads: it's not really necessary to win, and it's not useful in the short term but the long term strategic benefits are big enough to make it worth considering if you're running a surplus.

Yes, if you are super autistic you can do the math and work out the overall cost of a wasted turn, but honestly, if you're in a position where a single mage will decide the course of the game, this is the least of your worries.

It's not one mage but like 10. Or do you only buile one fort in all your games? 10 more mages can literally make you win a fight. If you are losing it wont matter, but if you are either in an okay position or winning, there is no reason for wanting to have 10 less mages.

If you are in a really position, for example if you own 3 provinces and your cap and a throne and you want to stay in the game for longer or keep the throne to avoid a throne rush, I could see expensive forts being useful. But again, only in a situation where you are so fuckes that extra mages wont make a difference.

This, desu.
If you are in a situation where 5 mages more wont make a difference, then you are really fucked.

I'm trying to shill this game, but nobody wants to play it with me because it's expensive as fuck.

How do you set up pirated multiplayer? I heard that it's possible if you somehow use "hotseat" multiplayer over the internet.

There's no current pirate version. There's never been a functional crack, the "Pirate version" was a legit copy someone bought and shared.

This said, if you set up your Dom4 userdata folder on Dropbox and get it syncing and whatnot, you can send people your copy of the game, and "hotseat multiplayer" that way.

A strong fort can buy several turns of siege time before it gets stormed. That means mage recruitment across all of your forts which can potentially teleport in for a crucial battle. It's really a decision to make on a case-by-case basis. I only buy expensive forts when I'm already ahead and I want some insurance on my lead, and only where they will make a real difference - no point in building one far away from a the border, if it gets besieged you're probably already fucked.

Disabling cheat detection lets you use the same CD-key multiple times iirc, I used this back in Dom 3 when I was a broke student. The real problem is that the pirated version has no updates, so it won't work with current copies of the game.

It's a debated topic around here and I think the ultimate advice is It depends, as usual.

Without going into the nittygriddy of specific nation needs, there are some basic points to a fort that applies to all nations
1. choke points - consider this for enemies that try to invade your lands and cannot gain income from them because there is a fort standing in the way
2. defense - cheaper forts have smaller defense which leads to a smaller "cushion" of defenders before enemies can storm your fort. A bigger cushion of defense allows for more breathing space to put troops in before the enemy starts snowballing on there.
3. recruitment - an extra fort is where you can recruit more troops. a staple need for every nation no matter who you are (this is definitely the most important point, ignore the 3rd placement as precedence)
4. protecting high value provinces - thrones, provinces with alot of sites, certain recruitment (amazons, druids, etc).
5. income collection - if your provinces are not connected to a fort you will not receive income (I'm pretty sure). Simple, but very necessary for your nation at all time.
6. Income increase - administration, which comes from your fort, adds to more income. That's why forts are some of the best income investments rather than armies that sit there and eat up your upkeep.

I'm no expert, but those points seems to be pretty universal with all nations. Now there are some nations that ALWAYS builds fort over soldiers or visa versa, but that kind of decision is up to you.

>I heard that it's possible if you somehow use "hotseat" multiplayer over the internet.
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=541732921

dude, slow the fucking down
I can barely make my turns in time

what about permanently make the turns take longer huh

Skeleton War, attempt number 7, soon.

No.

IT DEPENDS.

>cheap palisades/forts or more expensive forts
less money required AND the fort comes up sooner( you can recruit mages from it sooner and it's one less turn worrying about it getting attacked during construction) VS more defense in case of siege so you have more time to react.
my quickhand rule would be to build the cheapest if it's in a safe spot, build an expensive one on thrones or far away important provinces that would take me many turns to react and defend, build the cheapest that isn't a palisade ( way too shitty) otherwise.
note that expensive forts get a part of their gold cost back in admin bonuses revenue.

>I heard "plain"-type provinces can also earn you quite a lot with a fort.
fort's admin value increase the income of that province, so province with lot of population are a good place for fort.
i haven't done the math ( look up the manual if you want to) but it's a minor effect and i suppose it's not worth upgrading the fort to gain gold; i just look at it as a "you get a bit of the cost of fort and upgrades back after several turns".

>fort placement
it depends.
for nations that are not looking to keep repeat recruitment of resource heavy troops for 10 turns in a row it's ok to build clustered forts, that's for sure.
forts on thrones are necessary, high income, good gem gain provinces, chokepoints, provinces with many connections, hyperlink provinces ( pr.s. that connect to far away pr.s,) are also good targets for thrones.
i think you need to consider highly how many turns it would take you to defend/react for a war from/start a war from a certain forted/unforted province when placing them, with that in mind having forts on borders might be either really good or really bad depending on your and enemy nations.

>doesn't have the problems that most multiplayer games do
So there's no ERP in Dominions? Fuck that.

I said problems.

According to some, it's a problem.

What about hate mail, though?

I haven't encountered it.

So there's no shit talk?

Only a bit of friendly banter on occasion.

There's both shittalk and ERP, but you have to join elite prestige club games for it.

Someone post the Caelum C'tis diplomacy.

If the single player turns didnt start taking increasingly long amounts of time to process I think I'd play it more.

...

What.
WHAT.

We postin autism now?

i have some

As expected from Dominions. Even the trash talk is top tier.

>He-Bo and his sons REMOVE ELF...
holy shit

I've seen the Caelum one before, but these are new to me.

Where's the option on the poll to extend skeleton wars for a couple months?

That would be...

...spooky.

llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=ElfingAround

Shilling for this game. Every unit has stealthy 65 and glamour. Including indies, so every expansion is blind expansion!

Also for this game which is just an absolutely normal EA game
llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=FastTurnsAtSnerdrynHigh

>Mictlan and Xibalba already taken

Sorry friendo, but I only play AMERICAN nations

>24
...do you have a Bandit Keith folder?

>not having a Bandit Keith folder
Do you even America?

Fuck off el*

I'll send you an in-game message this turn, my man.

>still no ermor

I fucked up my last game a EA Niefelheim and I'd like to try again.

So as far as research goes I'll be mostly following this and after I hit those goals try to get good spells for communions.

So basically:
>expand using small bands of giants
>sitesearch like crazy
>rush revenants and start summoning them
>try to overrun some player as soon as I run out of indies
>set up some basic bloodhunting in a way that won't hurt my income too much, in preparation for turbo communions
>try to grab Mother Oak if you have no competition for it
>get skratti thugs online and start summoning brood of gram
>get some Niefel Jarl SCs
>once you are comfortable with research start summoning draug
>stop recruiting Niefel Giants inf favour of more casters? (you should be reaching bankrupcy otherwise)
>hopefully summons/skratti thugs/turbo communions/Jarls/leftover Giants/Draug can deal with anything
>eventually add blood summons/spells to the mix
Did I forget anything obvious?

Also a bunch of things I wasn't sure about.
>Transformation
Some people recommended it for me, but it seemed to be in direct competition with Brood of Gram. Also you have way too much Gygjas at this point.
>research
Had trouble to find the sweet spot at which you stop summoning Revenants and mass deploy your Gygjas. Wasn't sure about the setups either (smaller grooups with only Skratti slaves and bigger ones with something like 8?) or what to cast.
>Forts
I had 4 forts early, but I ran mage recruitment at like half the capacity. I guess you can manage with fewer (2-3) and just cap additional forts from other players?
>Pretender
Wasn't quite sure about that full double bless, but I guess it's you best bet, even when your income will suck. Previous build had only one growth scale and 2 magic scales. I think I may drop the magic scales and get growth to 3 for much needed income and bloodhunting. It seemed like I hit most research goes very quickly and just ended up researching a lot of luxury stuff.

your wish is my command

Which double bless did you take?

N9E9

>Transformation
Don't use it. It competes with brood, yes, and more importantly items. Nature gems are likely going to be the limiting factor in terms of how many skratti thugs you can use
>Had trouble to find the sweet spot at which you stop summoning Revenants and mass deploy your Gygjas. Wasn't sure about the setups either (smaller grooups with only Skratti slaves and bigger ones with something like 8?) or what to cast.
2 Skratti slaves can support 10 gygja masters, more if you use enlarge and/or shrouds
>I guess you can manage with fewer (2-3) and just cap additional forts from other players?
Nah. Gold cap is a real thing, but running out of gold at only 3 forts is weird, especially for a nation with such a strong early game and lossless expansion
>I think I may drop the magic scales and get growth to 3 for much needed income and bloodhunting
Growth 3 is the first scale you take, so yes, that's a good swap

I assume E9N9. It's a good bless for niefel.

Is N9B9 any good on them? Reinvigoration on commanders can come from items.

Not really. Your sacreds are too expensive, and their individual HP is high enough that evo isn't a great answer to them anyways.

The strength bonus is normally a big part of the B bless for human sized dudes, but giants already one shot humans while having very low attack density

E9 is special in that the added prot and reduced crit makes the difference between giants taking attrition and having no losses at all or winning v losing the fight.

The reinvigoration is definitely a thing for your sacreds not building up crits against them during long fights and thug/SCing, and your sacreds are required to last for a while in a fight given their low attack density and reliance on their aura. Ex is almost as big as N9.

>Nature gems are likely going to be the limiting factor in terms of how many skratti thugs you can use
That's true. I ran much less Skratti then I would have liked.
>Nah. Gold cap is a real thing, but running out of gold at only 3 forts is weird, especially for a nation with such a strong early game and lossless expansion
No, I had 4 forts. At the beginning/occasionally later on I had all of them recruiting mages, but at times 1-2 of them were not getting any mages.
I think I wasn't agressive/decisive enough early on (I usually play lategame nations) which caused a cycle of stagnation.

It's not just the reinvigorations.
The extra armor makes niefel giants super effective early one, since nothing will be able to hurt them, sparing them from afflictions/actual losses.
Jotun Wolfs can really use that extra armor and so can Skratti.
Reinvigoration make Skratti perfect communion slaves, coupled with their high regen.

>I think I wasn't agressive/decisive enough early on (I usually play lategame nations) which caused a cycle of stagnation.
Passive play is a pretty big problem for some reason. I think it's partially the roleplay element of the game, and partly risk aversion since while you're losing relative to other players, it's harder to see that than to see losses. Not saying this is a thing for you, just in general I've noticed that people in every community tend to be suboptimally passive.

>Reinvigoration make Skratti perfect communion slaves, coupled with their high regen.
Reinvig actually doesn't matter for skratti batteries. They're designed to be stable when they lose HP.

Also is Sloth 3 doable?
Sloth 2 worked fine and I rarely recruited them at full capacity anyway.

It's map dependent. On the hex maps you can take sloth 3 very safely, on Leaking Lands for instance you can't since your cap is probably going to have only 3 connections.

>Reinvig actually doesn't matter for skratti batteries. They're designed to be stable when they lose HP.
I have no experience with them practically, but it feel like an additional safety net from having them get killed by your mages going full retard.

The point of a turbocom is that they last 5ever. Your mages each deal a point of damage when they cast, and you regen as much as you have masters. They're actually much safer than regular communions. They only really mess up when one of the slaves gets sniped.

I don't feel like I can find the points for it, unless I take something like Drain 1.

Yeah, it's hard.

>drain
>on a nation that already suffers from bad research
Take order 0, cold 3 and magic 0

How does sub-cold 3 work with Niefel's cold dom spread thing?

It suffers from bad research because it's gold capped. Drain is a 6.7% research dip, and 5% income is more versatile in its usefulness.

Cold 2 is a 5% income drop 3/4 of the year, Order reduction is a 5% income drop year round.

Take your bad advice and go.

Huh, I tend to run turmoil 3 magic 3 on niefelheim. Makes revenants better, and is the ideal scales for hidden in snow - the best water dump Niefel is likely to have unless theres an Oceania wanting to trade water for nature 1 for 1.

Totally viable if you also run Luck 3 somehow.

Drain is a HUGE drop in revenants research, and taking cold 2 on a nation with ice protection 2, and ice power, is terminal retardation.

>he fights inside his Dominion with a double bless

>abysia went AI in DSDS2
wew lad

The revenant thing is a good point, though. Not sure how that research hit compares to the income reduction, though, since nief is always so starved for gold

I tested sloth 3 and it work fine, even if you have a cap with only 3 connections.
I really would like to take S2 on that pretender, but it means dropping your dom to 4, which I kinda dislike. So it's either dom 5 or S2.

Why do your god look like an oversized sex toy?

You should buy better sex toys.

Thoughts on moving to a tiny map and starting with these players? llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=ElfingAround

I'm okay with it.

A wizard's staff has a knob on the end. That's a rock, not a cock

>170202657

wtf what a piece of shit

I know it's dumb, but I just like watching the AI, is there any mod or debug mode that will just let me change the seasons and look around at all the battles and standing armies as a spectator instead of being an actual player?

Can't you spectate in Dominions 4? I used to do it in Red Alert to get asleep.

wont let me start game without human player.

Mod in a map and a nation that starts with Eyes of God?