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First for why did you let it die ;_;

Atlantis is the best late age nation btw.

>>553091306
They sadly have the most useless non-cap mage tho on land

Any new games hosting?

My favorite school is astral magic.

>>553093058
Mind blank

Has anyone used the horror parasite spell to agr effectiveness in mp?

>>553091207
the land lies fallow in anticipation of crannog ys

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Post noobtraps

>>553099834
Chariots

>>553104604
I agree, especially after the new mount system

>>553104604
kek

>>553099834
sloops

>>553099834
2path sitesearching rainbow gods. Its something I see new players do a lot (and something I did a lot as a new player), which sounds good but really is a mistake on a lot of nations.

>>553112704
true, 3 path site searching rainbow gods (no astral) is where its at

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2000+ units on the battlefield, hundreds of casualties, but only 12 dead Agarthans. Truly, the AI is a chess master

Ritual of Rebirth

>>553131912
Well of Misery

>>553058653
>Pot calling the kettle black
>Suit yourself
wrong, i'm neither a faggot nor triggered, unlike you

>So they get access to your bless. They are pseudo-sacred.
wtf. if not for the late research and extreme casting requirements, they'd be hilariously op and mary sue

>>553055191
being able to turn a small army into something that deals damage close to what horrors do, is pretty good in some of the more difficult situations one can encounter. thugs and scs will mostly melt before them. an sc with 35 protection and 40 protection barrier artifact will be ripped to shreds, except if it has other kinds of defenses like astral shield and awe. same with a monolith or a bronze colossus
people can have trouble with thugs like a golem, and even go to the trouble of specialized, bespoke anti-thugs equipped with smashers. why are smashers considered strong against golems? because they deal 20 armor negating damage against inanimates. this buff means all the units that can receive the buff basically have something similar to smashers, except it works against everything, and it's on a bunch of troops, not just on commanders equipped with crafted items

with that armor negating buff, the horror will be you

the only balancing aspects are the extremely steep casting requirements and late research needed. various tricks and approaches for casting it might be worthy considerations for it

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>>553138610
>wrong, i'm neither a faggot nor triggered, unlike you
pic related

>the only balancing aspects are the extremely steep casting requirements and late research needed. various tricks and approaches for casting it might be worthy considerations for it
You aren't going to have many of the spawns
so it will mostly be serpents of sotek that are recieving the buff and dishing out the damage
IMO there is tons of counterplay to them, considering their low prot, tiny hp pool, and so on

>being able to turn a small army into something that deals damage close to what horrors do, is pretty good in some of the more difficult situations one can encounter. thugs and scs will mostly melt before them. an sc with 35 protection and 40 protection barrier artifact will be ripped to shreds, except if it has other kinds of defenses like astral shield and awe. same with a monolith or a bronze colossus
regeneration
defense skill
fire shield

>>553138610
>wtf. if not for the late research and extreme casting requirements, they'd be hilariously op and mary sue
pic for reference

Are you familiar with Hellenika's U nation?
they have a similar end game spell that blesses some non-sacred units

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>>>553055191
>but as Itza you would not invest into a bless
what makes you say that?

>>553140752
forgot pic lol

>>553140752
Tell me more

>>553140467
your image applies to you, not to me, triggered faggot. >>553040450 >>553044290 >>553044541
did your mother have very low prices when she was selling herself?

>>553140752
it's in combination with the armor negating buff that the sacred aspect becomes op and mary sue. basically sacred horrors with armor negating attacks that can be controlled

>>553141307
that doesn't seem like a real unit, it seems too weak. shouldn't the vengeful bite have something special to it? is it a kind of property on the weapon that does not make the asterix show up? or does it need to be buffed to do anything special?

from >>552970020
>spawn of sotek at 66 blood slaves for 13
why discuss the serpents of sotek when the discussion was about the spawn of sotek?

>>553104604
Aren't Hinnom's chariots descent?

>>553151404
not him, but the hinnom war cart mount has 5 body protection, which is low

>>553150947
>your image applies to you, not to me, triggered faggot
lol your seething brings me joy

>>553150947
>it's in combination with the armor negating buff that the sacred aspect becomes op and mary sue. basically sacred horrors with armor negating attacks that can be controlled
what makes them horrors other than that they have armor negating attacks? why call them horrors if what you mean is armor negating

>>553151119
>shouldn't the vengeful bite have something special to it?
It is partial life draining and armor piercing, which don't show up as an asterisk

>why discuss the serpents of sotek when the discussion was about the spawn of sotek?
The discussion has increased in scope

one anon said that the spawns of sotek are overcosted
I pointed out the spells that buff them (and the serpents of sotek)
another anon said those spells are too strong
I pointed out that, due to the overcosting, spawns of sotek will be relatively rare and most of the time serpents are the only unit that will be receiving the buffs
then you asked why I mentioned serpents

>>553146776
>Tell me more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BiepFExJiM

>>553152371
>lol your seething
you are describing yourself yet again, triggered faggot

>what makes them horrors other than that they have armor negating attacks? why call them horrors if what you mean is armor negating
as i discussed previously, armor negating on troops is very rare and very powerful >>553044472 >>553138610 . while not all horrors have armor negating attacks, many do, and it's one reason why horrors often rip even sc pretenders to shreds in battles or assassination attempts. is there any troop outside horrors, tzitzimitls and some poison damage troops that have armor negating attacks?
are you just being a faggot troll?

>I pointed out that, due to the overcosting, spawns of sotek will be relatively rare
unless they or the snakes are freespawning or something like it in addition to the rituals for summoning them, that is a completely demented and idiotic line of reasoning that you have. if the spawns of sotek are not overcosted in some situations, like a plan that involves the op buffs like armor negating and bless on not sacred, there can be plenty of them since the player will prioritize them. especially as a blood summon with reasonable mage turn efficiency, the player will not run out of gems. the tzitzimitl are in a similar ballpark, armor negating and sacred, but the tzitzimitl has terrible mage turn efficiency, only 1 per cast, on a caponly mage. consider also the difference between blood 4 and blood 9 summoning of storm demons, the main difference is mage turn efficiency. conversely, if the spawns of sotek are not worth summoning, and they don't spawn outside of manual summoning rituals, they won't be relatively rare, but won't show up at all, since people won't bother summoning them. do they freespawn?

>>553152371
>It is partial life draining and armor piercing, which don't show up as an asterisk
not even any poison damage when their description has this?
>venomous hate

>>553151404
nobody knows, because no Hinnom player has ever recruited national units that aren't named Rephaite Warriors

>>553160205
Once upon a time, that was not the case.

https://lparchive.org/Dominions-3-(by-Lilli-et-al)/Update%20104/

That LP is not recommended, unless you want to descend into insanity.

>>553161594
>My scout in Lanka was found and brutally murdered when he completely lost his head and flung poo with his left hand instead of his right - an unforgivable faux pas in Lankan society. I send a replacement as I'd like to know what Lanka has in his capital.

>>553154717
>you are describing yourself yet again, triggered faggot
your butthurt is unfathomable

>why horrors often rip even sc pretenders to shreds in battles or assassination attempts. is there any troop outside horrors, tzitzimitls and some poison damage troops that have armor negating attacks?
spring hawks?
warrior illusions?
basilisks?
cockatrices?
Olms?
a bunch of heroes and pretenders?
gnomes and vaetti hags?
Necrodai?
Master of the Dead?

>unless they or the snakes are freespawning or something like it in addition to the rituals for summoning them, that is a completely demented and idiotic line of reasoning that you have. if the spawns of sotek are not overcosted in some situations, like a plan that involves the op buffs like armor negating and bless on not sacred, there can be plenty of them since the player will prioritize them. especially as a blood summon with reasonable mage turn efficiency, the player will not run out of gems. the tzitzimitl are in a similar ballpark, armor negating and sacred, but the tzitzimitl has terrible mage turn efficiency, only 1 per cast, on a caponly mage. consider also the difference between blood 4 and blood 9 summoning of storm demons, the main difference is mage turn efficiency. conversely, if the spawns of sotek are not worth summoning, and they don't spawn outside of manual summoning rituals, they won't be relatively rare, but won't show up at all, since people won't bother summoning them. do they freespawn?
oh, i'm sorry
you are literally retarded
or a troll
nice job troll. had me going

>>553154937
>not even any poison damage when their description has this?
>>venomous hate
obviously, the hate is what is venomous
it is social commentary
the whole nation is a cautionary tale
"Ere, the ligger began to hate"

>>553164906
>your butthurt is unfathomable
you're still describing yourself, not me

>spring hawks?
elemental damage
>warrior illusions?
mr negates, mindless immune
>basilisks?
mr negates, mindless immune
>cockatrices?
some kind of mr roll i believe
>Olms?
mr negates, mindless immune
>a bunch of heroes and pretenders?
heroes and pretenders aren't troops, they're commanders
>gnomes and vaetti hags?
those are commanders, not troops
>Necrodai?
that is a commander, not troops
>Master of the Dead?
that is a commander, not a troop

how utterly retarded are you? spring hawks would rarely ever do anything to a bronze colossus

>oh, i'm sorry
>you are literally retarded
>or a troll
>nice job troll. had me going
again, you're describing yourself, not me, utterly retarded, triggered faggot

>obviously, the hate is what is venomous
>it is social commentary
>the whole nation is a cautionary tale
>"Ere, the ligger began to hate"

>poisonous snakes
will you fix your mod, completely retarded troll?

>>553161594
Cool UI

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>>553167675
>how utterly retarded are you? spring hawks would rarely ever do anything to a bronze colossus
>again, you're describing yourself, not me, utterly retarded, triggered faggot
>will you fix your mod, completely retarded troll?
obviously, not butthurt at all

>>553167675
polypal spawn

>>553169827
yet you're still describing yourself, not me, completely retarded, triggered faggot
also, you didn't address anything

>>553169975
that's actually true. 1 capped damage, but the damage is still armor negating. they'd in theory deal more damage to scs with 35 protection than giboleths with their 6 damage armor piercing tentacles, which seems wrong. it would probably make sense for illwinter to change that mechanism

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>>553172321

>>553172321
>>it would probably make sense for illwinter to change that mechanism
>he thinks anything illwinter does makes sense
sub-zero IQ retard confirmed

How do you hold territory in this game? I can't keep up with the wack-a-mole style army movements of being surrounded by enemies.

Defense costs an arm and a leg and seems to be worthless.

Or am I thinking too much like other games. Are borders not really a thing,a and it's supposed to be just bastions of fortresses build on high-value land?

>>553173928
Put an army where you don't want an enemy army to be. Send raiders to do the same to the enemy so they have to make the same decisions you do.

>>553173928
Against AI or humans? The AI is scared of PD and pumping it up can corral them. For humans the best defense is a good offensive. Send out multiple raiding parties so they keep losing territory and have to divert their attention into cleaning them up, and use big armies to take on their armies and forts. Use scouts and diplomacy to keep tabs on your neighbors so you can focus on your next target. Fort any provinces that are really important to you, like chokepoints or those that have good sites, but you want to get out plenty of them. Always fort Thorns.

>>553173192
>>553173382
you're describing yourself again, completely retarded, triggered faggot. and you still didn't address anything

>>553173928
in addition to what others said, there is also magic phase movement to consider. magic phase movement comes before regular movement. you can read about some of the details in the manual. if you for instance equip a thug properly that can do cloud trapeze or teleport, and the enemy does not reinforce well enough somehow, you might be able to intercept the raiders before they escape or attack somewhere else

>>553173928
Forts are the best way to hold onto land

>>553175652
tzitzimitl has a fatigue based ranged, ignores shield, armor negating weapon

That seems way better than a melee armor negating attack (which can still be def negated). If it is ok on the tzimtzitl then it should be fine on the sneks

Not to mention they have that attack innately and they don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to buff the sneks with it (*cough* bloodslaves *cough*.) The sneks don't have flying (and therefore can't just bounce around everywhere on the strategic map.)

you seem autistically fixated on the AN and how convention breaking it is to put it on a buff. But that is kind of the point of mods? To do new shit that isn't in the base game? But go off king
You are just exposing yourself as a retard

>>553179048
Don't forts steal resources from each other?
I was told a while ago to allow 2 provinces between each fort.

>>553179903
They do but it's usually not a big deal unless it is your capital and it's taking away from your cap units

>>553179903
They take a percentage of res from that prov. If multiple forts are taking res but the total percentage is under 100%, all good. If they pass 100%, they all get reduced res.

Is it possible to go over 90 bless points?

Do Vanir even have pointed ears? I guess I just always took for granted that everyone calls them elves.

>>553184082
I don't think its stated anywhere that they do. I like to believe they do, because its fun.

>Phlegra and Vanheim at war
>Both dm me telling me the other is the threat
Who do I believe?

>>553179085
you are being completely obvious troll, since i already mentioned the tzitzimitl. and you are again describing yourself, not me, completely retarded, triggered faggot. and you still didn't address anything

>>553197102
Isn't vanheim inherently scarier

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What do I do with tarts? I have a necromancer corpse stitching their afflictions away, do I Divine Name/Gift of Reason them and equip thug gear? Are some of these chassis better to promote than others?

>>553200412
Unless it's OneAge that would be MA Vanheim, and MA Vanheim is a joke in vanilla and mostly still a joke in sloops.

>>553204070
>Divine Name/Gift of Reason them
yes

>Are some of these chassis better to promote than others?
https://larzm42.github.io/dom6inspector/?page=spell&nation=0&showids=1&showmoddinginfo=1&showkeys=1&unitq=Tart&spellq=Tart

>>553204070
>>553206319
Yes but before doing so make sure they aren't feeble minded

>>553204070
Yep. Check them in mod inspector to see the differences.
The sickle guy is usually the best - 3/2/2 random paths with 180 HP and full slots. But if you can remove the afflictions, they're all worth the 25 gems to make them a commander, maybe except the manticores.
The manticores are fine to just use as troops - they only get misc slots anyway and they're a 300HP undead with good combat stats regardless - just DN/GoR the others.
The snakes and the chains guy don't get leg slots, but that's not an issue.

>>553209256
GoR still the only way to heal them?

>>553216797
Yeah, you could use chalice until dom 4

>>553207194
good general advice, but won't corpse stitching fix that eventually?

>>553221124
How do you get it without la Agartha

>>553221452
I would have sworn that one or more of the pretender chassies gets it but I can not find any that do in vanilla. The necromancer and one of the adventurers gets the ability, so if you can enslave them you can get the ability. Otherwise, I don't know.

Is 20 too old to start becoming a Dominions player?

>>553221452
there are indie necromancers you can find with it

>>553222461
I think there are two death 2 sites "Litter Skull" and "Death Mound Downs" and a nature 1 site "Poison Glades" that lets you recruit them.

>>553222223
This game is pretty simple compared to most strategy games, it just has a lot of options

>>553198810
>and you still didn't address anything
I pointed out the tzitzimitl are much more than just Armor Negating. They are shield and defense skill negating as well

Therefore it is perfectly reasonable for a new modded unit to be merely Armor Negating

kindly, kill you self

>>553222223
Dominions is just a digital board game with wargame mechanics, everyone can play if they want to

>>553226089
idk bro
I was part of a USxEuro military exercise that used modded dominions to wargame

The older brass really struggled with some of the mechanics

>>553225494
no you
>>553198810

>>553216797
Gift of Reason/Divine Name is to make them a commander. You heal them through corpse stitcher or mending bones bless

>>553221452
Igor Korhelm's tome was stealth patched months ago to give corpse stitcher 3 (without listing it in the item description, Illfraud moment).
I'd say that if you don't have the tome, lucky necromancers or are LA Agartha the tarts are not a worthwhile return on investment. You've got to cure the feebleminds somehow to get a good mass of them, and you need a lot of them because individuals are unreliable due to going crazy 25% of the time. Doing the mending bones shroud meme isn't worth as having cursed paper armor precludes using them as heavy thugs which is half the point.
>>553209256
>The snakes and the chains guy don't get leg slots, but that's not an issue
That is actually a big deal, boots of quickness are a huge boost in mapmove and killing power unless you're only using them as fluffed army thugs.

>>553226367
>I was part of a USxEuro military exercise that used modded dominions to wargame
strange if true, doesn't seem like the best fit, dominions is probably more abstract war, strategy and diplomacy, with a whole bunch of mechanics with fantasy flavour

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>>553222223
ezpz game, I'm 30 and I enjoy playing it
If you're new, start with something simple and learn from there
Early Age Mekone, Middle Age Ulm, and Late Age Andramania are all very good picks
Early Age Ermor, C'tis, and Arcoscephale are solid
Early Age Abysia, Hinnom, and Muspelheim are also great but they have blood access and that's something nobody new should touch
If you're not new and are just asking in general because you wanna recommend it to someone, just have them play one of those nations and help them along

>>553226089
Perun??

>>553226952
>strange if true, doesn't seem like the best fit, dominions is probably more abstract war, strategy and diplomacy, with a whole bunch of mechanics with fantasy flavour
>diplomacy
malakal was not part of this exercise so far as I know

>>553228414
so why pick dominions?

>>553232038
it was cheap to license

>>553232231
nice fiction

>>553232815
a dominions military exercise just flew over my house

>>553234328
>>553232815

How the fuck are underwater forts supposed to work just swim over the walls lmao

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>>553241716

>>553241716
its magic i aint gotta explain shit

>>553241716
Life under the waves corresponds in many ways to on land, airbreather

>>553241716
Life underneath the waves corresponds in many ways to that on dry land.

Life after Death

>>553241716
>Magic traps are suspended in the water above the fort, and can only be controlled from within.
>Swimming all the way up and down is exhausting and leaves you open on t he descent.
>Being on the ground makes it easier to keep formation.
>Mages can't cast spells while focusing on swimming.

>>553241716
>why didn't they just fly eagles to Mordor?

>>553241716
the best explanation may be that the fortress is either carved into the ground, or has a full dome, and the graphical representation ingame is basically wrong

elf fatigue

I can use astral magic irl.

>>553258841
Mind Hunt me then, nerd
Do it pussy

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>>553257154
>tfw we can't control this part of the ocean ocean as far as the eye reaches because there's three toads under a rock 70 miles below us

>>553258841
How to fix my luck?

>>553262994
that's true, an argument could be made that shallow sea provinces should be split into neritic (sea above continental shelf) province and benthic (sea bed) province, and deep sea provinces split into photic (shallow enough where light can reach) province, aphotic (so deep that light cannot reach) province, and abyssal benthic province, or something like that. and amphibian walkers can only enter the benthic provinces
and that cave provinces cannot exist under deep sea provinces

though that's way too granular and not mythical enough, almost certainly wouldn't fit the gameplay, and be too much work for possibly negative gain for the game. still fun to theorize about

>>553265631
that's glamour now, not astral

>>553226367
Who played who

>>553269832
I'm working on a game similar to Dominions but with heavier emphasis on some realism (hex based maps, strong terraforming magic, water bodies behave more or less realistically if you change terrain elevation, forests can wither if you take away the rivers or make mountains to stop rain...) and that's pretty much what I'm planning to do with the sea. Roughly like land and the caves below, the sea surface and the depths are two different layers, with abyssal depths being essentially a variant deep sea terrain with some extra rules, like limitations to who can stay at the bottom and the possibility of hosting true gigantic creatures.
I don't really see it working in Dominions, though. Once you start trying to execute something like this it influences lots of other stuff. They'd have to make a hell of a rework in Dominions to fit in something like that

>>553271713
Shadow Empire?

>>553271713
But how fun is the combat and the world? CoE goes a lot harder into terrain manipulation and other 'worlds' hence I ask the question

>>553258841
can you wish for armageddon? kthx

Nether Bolts

Recruiting game?

>>553288490
Sure, what settings does everyone want?

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Surprised any of my shackled mages lived.

>>553290693
What did your god do?

Man
(Warrior Illusion)x5 is surprisingly effective on an assassin

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>>553091306
We must build additional tents for the tent owners.

>>553091306
They were my first win in Dom 4 which I loved

>>553291908
sadly

>>553291824
Buffed regen on a Tyrant, fought some mammoths (I think his fear made a difference), then routed like a bitch.

>>553293586
Can you put any gear on him worth using?

>>553290693
Well this went pretty much as expected. My pretender who was supposed to buff Weapons of Sharpness on the bane and 4 mammoths guarding him died in a magic phase attack from C'tis because I set him to retreat, but he was going to the wrong province anyway. I don't think it would have mattered, I needed like 10+ GSS users to defeat this, but the dragon was my only earth mage, so making them was difficult.
I'll probably go AI in a couple turns after spending my remaining gems.

>>553294580
Weren't you complaining about Phlaegra? To my understanding "the threat" is Eriu or maybe Ermor if there is one.

>>553295409
I only know that Phlegra had like 40+ provinces for a while even outside my initial territory, don't know much about Eriu. And yeah Ermor with BV is always a threat

>>553297015
I'm not that threatening.

>>553294013
Just a ring of tamed lightning

>>553294580
I think you have some options to deal with my Tyrants as Caelum, but in many ways Phelgra is the worst matchup possible as Caelum lacks counter thug/SC tech on the whole. Later on Caelum will get access to duskdaggers, but without that they can be easily prot tanked. The mammoths were even more powerful that I remember from my experience with Caelum, and in hindsight I probably should have rushed alt 5 for curse of stones to deal with them. Round 1 curse of stones will shutdown a large amount of quickened mammoths.

>>553302386
Shit, for some reason I thought curse of stones was alt 5 instead of alt 4 ... yeah I really screwed the pooch this game. Should have waited until I had a small communion for curse of stones, then went for it.

Getting up my quake casters pretty slowly this run. Sadly it takes luck to roll E3, which makes it harder to get my guys up to power, but yah know. My strat is pretty self explanatory, I guess.

Is there an ettiquette to starting a war, or is sudden ambushes/truce breaks fair game?

Gnight /domg/

>>553305006
If you don't make a NAP, it's fair game

>>553305006
As long as you don't declare anything formal, it's fine to engage immediately

>>553305006
Yes. By that I mean no. By that I mean you better yah know, expect consequences for backstabbings.

>>553308391
Nobody trusts a backstabber long term, but dominions rewards that behavior.

>>553271713
Show proof

>>553305006
if it works its worth it

Claim Life

fire storm

When can I start playing multiplayer games

>>553324728
When you can expand and use point buffs ok

I don't feel like doing my turn today

>>553325301
what graph is this

>>553326507
research

>>553326507
>>553327426
Dreamstones?

>>553329260
Most likely, they beat out quills and imps in 6

>>553290693
>>553294580
Cant believe i got you with that! Death magic really has it all! Now if only my croco-lion-pharaoh wasn’t so stumpy he might’ve made it in time to actually duel your dragon, but I’ll take it.
We did it Phlegra! We killed the snow dominion user

>>553302386
ma caelum has surprisingly poor magic diversity, at least until any national summons come online. 2 paths that are reliable, 2 paths that are about 25% chance each on a somewhat expensive mage, and one path that is 20% on the only priest the nation has
is a dormant sitesearching rainbow pretender, with a slant towards astral and death, workable for ma caelum?

>>553342003
Sitesearcher pretender is never viable. You want diversity, kill a player who's searched those paths.

>>553342176
Really? Then again, I won games using a Acashic Knowledge so maybe I'm lucky

>>553342176
I think you can run an awake researcher that has the midgame plan of breaking into a few offpaths via site searching, its what I do as TNN. Rainbow pretenders need to have a purpose besides site searching, I agree on that. Sometimes that purpose is just getting as many bless points for an imprisoned bless though, and when they awake they cast 2-3 spells then start site searching.

>>553342972
I honestly wonder if I can go full rainbow if I have full confidence in my troops without needing a bless like Ulm or Na'ba

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>>553272312
"WIP wizard wars". It's years away from showing up somewhere online, even as a beta.

>>553272397
It's a bit more about macro strategy than Dominions. Logistics and logistic trains are a thing, so properly placed fort can actually stop an invasion because if the enemy simply walks by, you could sally out and fuck up their wagons.
There's also two different types of troops, regulars and skirmishers. Regulars only do "proper" battles, which do have a lot of similarities to Dominions but aren't made by hundreds of single soldiers forming a huge ball. Instead, troops are (freely, so you can mix and match according to your needs) organized in formations and have some more tactical options. Think a mix of Dominions and Total War battles. In general I aim to add some more micro and meaningful tactical decisions to troops, while removing a significant amount of micro from mages by making magic rarer but much more meaningful. No need to script 15 mages with "buff 3 squares of troops with +3 armor". My current design is both less micro intensive and more tactical and intuitive than Dominions', but it's still far from finished so we'll see.
An army containing both regular troops and skirmishers will have the skirmishers join battle normally, although they can be deployed around the battlefield or hidden in some terrain features inside and they have some other differences.
Skirmishers can also harass, which is a sort of ambushing mini-battle where they try to ambush just a few units in an enemy army. Those who take part can only take a couple shots at each other plus possibly some melee if they're fast enough, before the attackers retreat. So a huge ball of heavy infantry can get whittled down by light archer cavalry or by elves in a forest little by little without ever actually starting a proper battle.

>>553325301
I thought I was behind on research, huh. Well that's reassuring, but I have no real plans behind it besides quake spam, marble warriors + maws, construction stuff and globals to get more gems and income/resources, and maybe forging bonus. I only have 1 quake mage out, so that's why I'm kinda panicking (should be 1 in 20 I thought it was 1 in 10, whoops), but yah know I got maws of the earth coming as a close second, gotta hit marble warriors, but I can't sweep the expected numbers of 600+ normal troops that people probably can throw, I'd just get fatigued down. Don't mind my troop numbers and province count, I'm max scales ulm expansion with minimal gains from a person who went AI, if you're shocked, IDK what to tell you. Scelaria is not shocking either, they're the average of EA and MA Ermor, so yah know, always a threat.

The hexes are also rather small, so armies have an "area of influence". Once they overlap, they can join battle. The more they overlap, the more likely. So you don't need to land exactly on an enemy's hex to start a battle, which would be awkward.
It also means that you can do what the Romans liked to do: small forts with a bunch of skirmishing cavalry all over the place. Put one in a plain, and anyone coming close (within that cavalry's movement range) is going to get harassed to hell and back. So maybe you want to go around. Or make some forest or hills grow to limit their range. Or bring your own harassers to force them into a proper battle where they can get cut down.
A few hundred skirmishing elves in a forest? It's probably going to be easier to burn the whole thing down, although of course they'll probably be trying to do the opposite.

>the world
Dominions cancer nations are great concept, poor execution. MA Ermor or R'lyeh mostly wins by ruining the world. I have a sort of minor nations for that. Some are NPC only and appear in the map as independent settlements (think indies, but you can conquer their cities to recruit their troops). Others are playable, but follow completely different rules. The closest thing to MA Ermor is the necromancer cult, which gives you a bunch of stealthy necromancers. So you're building hideouts, following armies to steal corpses after battles, researching magic, raiding undefended towns, poisoning rivers, and slowly building large hordes before you unleash it all. You win if you manage to get enough % of the world population killed. Bit inspired by the protestant faction in the boardgame Virgin Queen.
Also there's things like dungeons where you can send in heroes to find magic relics, monstrosities that can come out of the depths, etc.
My goal is that it feels alive.

>>553312190
My current "manual" on game mechanics is about 30.000 words long so far. I can program but I'm searching for an efficient, toaster friendly engine.

>>553342972
Sure. You can. Awake researchers are perfectly viable - but you should build it as an awake researcher, not as a 'site searcher'. At best, it should be a small, nice bonus.

>>553345873
Will it still be 'hands off' like Dominions is? I'm more fond of the autobattler aspect of Dominions and CoE than anything else

>>553346112
this sounds sick af

>>553225494
Holy shit, you're such a stupid faggot, never post here again and kill yourself immediately.

>>553345873
I was bored and remade the vicky 2 paradox pop/goods system for fun in C#, but it lags like crazy when you scale it up. I have no idea what wizardry they pulled with that one, but probably just efficient number change calculations. I'm working on my projects too, but those are probably unseen for a while too, mainly a tactics game I made that I might convert to PC.

>>553346076
can you summon golems and other thugs? do not answer here, just food for thought. ma ulm should be in a great position to equip thugs

>>553346359
Yes, PBEM and multiplayer focused with automated, set-it-up-and-see-how-it-goes battles.
I'm just banking on being a better programmer than Illwinter to make a bit, just a bit better AI that can take a minimally more complex battle plan and make it work. For example, you can make a pikemen formation and place it in the middle of the field, pretty much just the same way you would in Dominions. But you also get a few more buttons that you can click to encourage certain behavior. Like "stay out of trouble, target weak and routing troops" for light cavalry, or "try to run around the enemy to reach their rear", or "hold the line", or "hold the flank".
Plus a metric boatload of quality-of-life features to make scripting and planning a lot easier. My goal is that you can spend much less time than in Dominions getting your army to do exactly what you want, but that you have a lot more power to decide exactly what you want to happen. I think I've hit the key, although of course I'll need lots of finetuning once I've got it programmed and working.
My general idea is that if you think "I should probably do X for a tactical advantage", you're probably right. You should be able to win a battle even if you don't know the mechanics, simply by applying sound tactical thinking.
Also, I really don't like having to spend an hour just scripting a communion for a large battle, so I'm aiming to limit but strengthen magic, which reduces micro significantly. Your pretender design changes what magic your mages can do, and is also the source of power, so you only have X "mana points" per turn. Adding more mages to a battle lets you get magic out quicker, but it doesn't increase how much magic you can do in total. Except for things like a summoned fae mage, who draws magic from a different source so they bring their own little pool. So you do can scale up a bit, but generally it's more about taking important decisions. For example, most battle buffs are battlefield wide.

Would Marverni even want an Unaging bless? Their Druid Elders seem pretty likely to get an n1 which removes the old age issue instantly.

>>553346112
>I can program but I'm searching for an efficient, toaster friendly engine.
I cannot recommend /vg/agdg/, that place and its Discord is a hellscape.
How much do you know of programming, and which programming languages? Do you know C++?
Here is a list to consider:
>Unity
>Unreal (turn off lots of settings to make it more toaster-friendly)
>Godot
>Gamemaker
>Defold
>SDL3 (engine development)
>SFML (engine development)
>Monogame (Stardew Valley)

>>553347726
what's the overall theme gonna be like? Lands of Achra is coming out soon and has a rather interesting direction despite it being from an amateur solo dev

>>553200412
Depends on how competent they are and their tendy build, but yah. I took a deliberately non-threatening tendy expecting to leech off someone in a coalition later.

>>553347982
Paths is excellent, I am buying it on release no questions asked. Only problem is paths is a bit easy, but not too easy.

>>553347874
I'm maki

>>553347726
>I'm just banking on being a better programmer than Illwinter to make a bit, just a bit better AI that can take a minimally more complex battle plan and make it work.
But that can end up being costly regarding computation if you aren't careful with both programming and game design. Just recently, Illwinter got a negative review complaining about turn lengths when AI was set to higher difficulty levels, since the AI ends up with much larger armies at those levels.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199117867878/recommended/2511500/

>>553348264
I'm making my own engine to do basic stuff like pathfinding off the roguelike guide for roguelikes on rogue basin, but IDK how to do anything computationally well enough for the type shenanigans I want with a billion moving parts. I tested a prototype pathing demo, and it handles up to 1000 moving parts reasonably well, so it'll work with my tactics game, a dominions style game, or a roguelike, but I'm still iffy on anything more complex than that, which was my plan (space 4x with realistic galactic sector sizes). On the good news, map generation supports really large map sizes with little slowdown, lol, it's filling it with moving parts that's the problem. I'll publish the engine eventually, but for now I'm still working on streamlining it and making it easier to use with things like custom pathing or battle instructions. Sad thing is, I don't know what is causing the slowdown, and I still need to go through and check, which I'm doing in a rebuild over time.

>>553348865
Better than that, custom AI scripting system, which I have planned, but not implemented until I fix performance issues. I am definitely a worse programmer, but I know what we want.

>>553348987
One thing I learned though is a full map search algorithm might be better than a direct search for unit's that need to move, which I *believe* might be the bottleneck, and I've been doing direct searches, like go through all the list of all actors and then do movement for each vs check each map square if something needs to happen if yes do that. I'll maybe test that, and maybe add support for both solutions, but programming nerdery ramble is over. I'm gonna get coding.

>>553347726
Some people prefer Total War: Warhammer 3 over regulae Total War, since the mechanics can get way more varied and complex due to the fantasy aspects and magic. Will you turn down the fantasy aspects a bit regarding mechanics? Might be good, I don't know.

>>553346503
Thanks anon

>>553346679
>>553347874
Yeah, that's the tricky part. I learnt C and Java in my times but lately I only use Python and excel macros at work, so I've got some tools but not really the best set up for a project like this. I don't want to get stuck making my own engine because I know I'd never finish... I'm checking out Godot, but I have some concerns about its ability to deal with lots of elements. While I do want to simplify troop management and scripting through formations, I do want to represent each soldier individually, so I need it to be able to handle thousands of troops rolling dice at each other without making turn changes take forever.
I'm not afraid of learning another language if needed to optimize, though.

>>553347982
I've studied Classic Philology in the uni, so that's my specialty. The core will be Mediterranean Bronze Age, both pre- and post-collapse and both historically and mythologically, but also in a "fantasized" way like Dominions does. For example, I've got a concept for snake people Tartessos. With some guests from elsewhere in the world, and also some stuff more out of typical fantasy, like more fae-like Tolkien elves who can't touch ANY metal so they're limited to bone, stone and wood weapons, and essentially falling behind in development despite their superhuman abilities. Possibly some factions getting a dark ages vibe or even up to 1.200 AC. The most advanced I have planned is 1.400s Spain, with some cannons and muskets, but I'm not sure if I'll go ahead or cut back a couple centuries and go no gunpowder.

>>553348865
Definitely. I'm not even sure I'll bother writing advanced AI for singleplayer, though.

>>553349553
Not sure I understand what you mean, can you reword the question or give me an example of what kind of mechanics you're thinking about?

>>553347726
Will the micro increase as more territory is gotten? You discuss ways to decrease micro at all stages, but have you considered ways of decreasing micro by limiting player choice in some ways as the player gains more territory and more to manage?

>>553347221
Yeah, I think this game will be decided by who had easy first wars. I thought I had an easy-ish first war lined up, but I dropped the ball moderately in a few ways which Caelum took advantage of: not bringing a small curse of stones communion to shutdown mammoths, having the wrong Tyrant scripts, making predictable attacks when I didn't have wide ranging pressure, and then me staling. But I'm in a solid shape, and should be working on a few different things.

Btw regarding your private message, that was my implicit understanding of the situation too.

>>553349690
>>553349553
The thing is that a lot of Warhammer 3 is rather crap since it gets way beyond the scope of what you want to focus on i.e. killing dudes in sick fantasy battles and only exists to bloat the snooze worthy strategic map

>>553348987
>but IDK how to do anything computationally well enough for the type shenanigans I want with a billion moving parts.
I am very sorry, but you might be in deep water. Even seasoned, very intelligent engineers can screw themselves up royally when it comes to algorithms and data structures if they don't have university education (or studied it themselves) on this subject or they aren't very careful. Read this and consider that a few lines of innocent looking code can cause a compiler to spend almost a minute trying to compile it and then give up.
https://danielchasehooper.com/posts/why-swift-is-slow/
A language cannot be changed easily while the implementation of a game can, of course, but it still shows how difficult it can be.

>>553348987
If you want to learn more, there are university and online courses, and books and educational material, on the subject of time complexity and related topics. But it is a deep and difficult subject, and primarily relevant for professional software developers working with certain subjects.

>>553349870
That's one of the biggest challenges. Micro MUST increase as you grow, because you will have a larger border and more neighbors, so you must have either more options, or more of the same options you already had but in larger amounts. It is unavoidable.
My solution so far is to focus "decision centers". Land is land. Most hexes will be "useless" by themselves. Instead, your focus goes on cities, forts, and some specific mapsites that you'll probably want to fortify. A variety of tools and UI stuff also makes it easier.
The heavy focus on terrain, which I think is incredibly underutilized in Dominions, also helps a lot. Smart use of bottlenecks, even making your own by raising mountains, can help.
There's something like dominion, and you can dedicate mana to "defend" the terrain inside, resisting terraforming. Of course you could get tricked through a battle with the goal to make you waste points while someone grabs the chance to wreck some mountains, but generally you can keep your core lands relatively safe and to your taste.
These mechanics encourage you to dedicate some of your extra power into things that are light on micro. It's a sort of power tax. You can still use your "parked" power when you really need to, but generally you will want to use those options so you'll have less moving pieces by default.
You also don't need to react to everything. You aren't really conquering land or provinces, but centers of power (cities, a mine, a magic site...). People can't just walk an army past your fort like in Dominions because you'll eat their supply line. You can sit a bunch of elves in a forest to be a pain to everyone through the harassing system and disrupt supply without risking them in battle.
So in general yes, by necessity, but the mechanics keep things in check and encourage focusing on the important stuff. My goal is that you spend less time clicking things than in Dominions, but more time thinking about the game between turns.

>>553352102
My question is how you'll make the crux of logistic based strategy games (i.e. roads/rails/star lanes) fun? Maybe make them the focus of the setting, sort of like the Ways from Wheel of Time? A fantasy world that's fuck huge to the point that controlling enchanted highways/roads could be a compelling theme.

>>553350098
I generally agree here. Total War peaked with Rome and then again with Medieval 2 but in a different way, and it's gone downhill since.
The TW: Warhammer games fall in the same trap Dominions does: you can no longer win through sound strategical thinking, because mechanics mastery is too important. Some of the optimal strategies in TW: Warhammer look fucking retarded in the battlefield because stacking auras and shit is more important than proper troop placement. Or how in Dominions heavy cavalry will wreck spearmen.
Again, my goal is that you can show the game to a seasoned player of strategy games what they can take a good decision even if they have never played my game before and don't know the mechanics. The mechanics are there to represent reality, and even the most fantastical reality has to be consistent and make sense.
I actually started this game a few years ago as a mod for Dominions to fix some shit that drove me nuts, but it grew in scope and complexity until I decided that it'd be better to go ahead and just make my own thing.

>>553349690
>I'm checking out Godot, but I have some concerns about its ability to deal with lots of elements.
There is a showcase list here, https://godotengine.org/showcase/ , if one of those games have lots of good reception on Steam, and has thousands of units, maybe that could be an indication. You could in theory also do stuff like keeping units as data, like an array, maybe even in C++, and maybe have a single node for all units in a battle, instead of having a node or more for each unit. I don't know much about rendering, though, so some of that might be a bad idea.

>>553349690
>Not sure I understand what you mean, can you reword the question or give me an example of what kind of mechanics you're thinking about?
Some people familiar with both regular non-fantasy Total War, and Total War: Warhammer, said that they considered the latter more interesting, since the former tends to be limited to variants of infantry, archers, cavalry, and little more. Complex fantasy mechanics allow much more, like flying units and teleportation, and are more interesting to some players. But you do allow fantasy mechanics. Maybe I got focused on you writing about less need of having to understand mechanics in order to play well.

>>553349913
apologies about the confusion, i'm not a player in the game :s

>>553352748
I haven't solved that yet. It needs some more iteration.
My current execution is that troops can "passively" pillage a certain a mount of supplies out of the land around them (depending on the type of troop, the terrain, etc.). Skirmishers are generally able to take care of themselves in their preferred terrain, at least for a while. Forest skirmishers in forests can pretty much ignore the supply system, while desert skirmishers will hold out for a while, but will need to retreat to a supplying location at some point.
Different nations will also operate a bit differently. And armies of skeletons are generally trash, but have the very powerful advantage that they don't need any supply, so they can just walk into your land whenever and wreck your shit.
In general, supply is highly automated and simple. Every supply point (settlement, fort, etc.) generates X supplies each turn based on the surrounding terrain, can accumulate up to Y supplies, and has a reach of z hexes. Supplies move automatically and instantly between supply points within range.
Supply wagons are a recruitable and movable thing that behaves like an army on the map. They're supply points and can hoard supply to use later, but they don't generate supply on their own.
So essentially, as you advance an army you need to have a few of these supply armies to maintain an uninterrupted line to a supply source. I mentioned above that armies have an area of influence. This disrupts supply - but a defensive army's area takes precedence, so you just need to keep some troops behind to protect them. There's some dice rolling involved so you might still only get part of your supplies through if there's enemies around.
Generally you don't even have to think about it. It's important when you're heading into enemy lands, or when you're risking getting cut off.

>>553354323
What will be the 'unique' thing gameplay wise that will distinguish it from other fantasy strat games?

>>553352748
>>553354323
cont.
There's some basic infrastructure but it's very light. Mostly forts, which double as resource extraction points by harvesting stuff in their area of influence (unless enemies get in there and occupy the resource).
Roads are as simple as drawing a line from A to B and waiting for it to be built. The time it takes, etc. will depend on the location, closeness to settlements and forts you control, terrain type, other roads, etc., but that'll all be automated calculations in the background. Roads allow troops to move much faster, and also extend supply ranges.
There's also a couple options here. For example, the not!Roman faction can create Roman style roads, which weren't just roads but complex logistical and defense tools with little forts every x distance. These roads would also operate as very weak forts for the purpose of harassing, so they'll have a chance to catch skirmishers hiding around, and they'll launch small skirmish attacks against armies nearby. It simply costs more money to build and maintain. You can click on it and move a slider around to dedicate more money. More money = it's more effective, but that's as far as the micro goes.

But as you see, the execution is mostly automated stuff. You just have to consider WHERE to place stuff and throw a few troops on top for safety. Troops assigned to a supply wagon (imagine the wagon is like a commander in Dominions) will automatically and abstractly patrol the supply range of the wagon, so they'll face enemy skirmishers or help counter an enemy army's area of influence and you're good to go.
In general, it's the kind of system you don't really need to engage with until shit hits the fan.

Some kind of magic gateway will definitely be there. I've got a page on the Ways from WoT, too, which will be something that can randomly exist in a map as a sort of game-by-game magic site.

>>553352840
>Or how in Dominions heavy cavalry will wreck spearmen.
It can be difficult to make realistic simulations. Even assuming perfect logic, no bugs, perfect software architecture, and such, there are limits to the computational complexity and the complexity of the logic. Making pikemen strong against cavalry should be possible, but there can easily be other difficulties that might not be viable to fix.
Sometimes, a simpler simulation can end up being more realistic in its final results than some more complex simulation.
For instance, if there are two simulations S1 and S2, and S1 is turn-based and S2 is realtime, if archers do not lead their shots in either, S1 archers would hit their targets more often than S2 archers, despite S2 being more complex, and that might make S1 more realistic in practice. In that situation, one solution might be to make S2 archers lead their shots, though that increases complexity.
Another example is greater and more granular simulation of physics in Age of Empires 4 than Age of Empires 2, also for building placement, which ended up making it sometimes more difficult for players to place walls such that they always close off bases in Age of Empires 4. And it also messed with straight line of fire cannon shots in hilly terrain (unless they changed that). They also made ships shoot from both sides, which is more realistic/granular and less abstract, but made the ships speedy and rotate quickly, leading pro-players to "spin to win" their ships.

>>553354323
>Supply wagons are a recruitable and movable thing that behaves like an army on the map. They're supply points and can hoard supply to use later, but they don't generate supply on their own.
It sounds really interesting. It would probably require at least some game design iteration to make it work out in practice and make it fun, but I can see some potential.
It sounds similar to the effect of raiding in Dominions with burning down temples and taking provinces. It is funny, maybe no one uses the plunder and raid game mechanics in Dominions, but taking provinces and burning down temples with small stealthy squads or thugs, in practice counts as effective raiding.

Age of Empires series has raiding in the form of sending smaller squads, often cavalry, out to kill enemy villagers or make them flee into buildings, costing lost time due to the villagers being idle.

>>553352872
That's all sadly beyond my programming skill. I'll have to see how to solve it when I get there. In my semicode it works kinda like the arrays. Lots of things happening "at once" phase by phase, so I'm not constantly checking a unit after another. Assuming a battle where every unit has a single attack per turn, all attacks happen at once. Then I load the attack values array to calculate the attacks individually. Then I apply the results, etc.
I'll have to see when I actually program it and can test it, though.

>>553353465
One of my grievances with Dominions is that it doesn't make the fantastical stuff justice. As some anon wrote a couple threads back, who doesn't remember the myth about Zeus going to battle and getting crippled forever by a militiaman with a spear? Magical stuff will be powerful. In fact, a problem I'm working on right now is how to have a dragon be a major fucking problem without also having a super combatant meta that renders armies and army tactics irrelevant.
My inspiration is Smaug. A dragon can wreck an army. Normal weapons simply can't get through the skin. But a bit of the right kind of magic applied at the right moment, or a hero wielding the right weapon, can kill it. That's what I'm aiming for.
In the same way, I'll be having less spells than Dominions, but some much more powerful stuff. It's less about throwing masses of stuff, like a shitload of mages spamming buffs, and more about choosing the right mage and the right buff.
Battle mechanics will be highly complex, but intuitive. Units generally hold shields on their left hand. Arrows coming from their right are more effective. Mythological beasts in armies are fucking dangerous or have special traits that allow them to do shit that normal troops can't. Your enemy is trusting a barrier of mountains to hold his flank? What about an army of giant spiders to easily get through the mountains?
It's going to be plenty complex and fantasy. Just without sacrificing common sense.

>>553357002
CoE does a decent job at making super units really strong

>>553354813
Verisimilitude.
Most strategy games either completely disregard logistics or are mainly about logistics. Of the first, you usually can simply dodge a fortified area and go wreck the valuable place behind. That the defender could sally out to leave you stranded without supplies (forcing you to choose between wasting time pillaging or beelining towards your target with a hungry army) is not a factor.
I'd even say that most games focus on some gimmick and build the game around it, to the sacrifice of what makes sense. War is a lot about location, movement, placement, but most games rather focus on whatever they chose. Stacking auras, summoning strong creatures, casting spells, whatever. I want to make a game that actually makes you think about real strategy enhanced by the fantastical stuff, not about how to ignore strategy with fantastical stuff. The whole harassing system plays strongly here: you place troops somewhere and they do their job. In most games your options are not fighting at all, or risking it all. But that's not how war works. Large pitched battles are risky and therefore rare. I miss the struggle that leads to these pitched battles, the skirmishing and harassing, the soft denial of terrain through the threat of endless attrition. It's not all about doomstacking and going for one big battle. Sometimes all you need is the right tool in the right place. My game is about that.

A different answer could be a heavy focus on terrain, distance, and limited but effective map manipulation.
Also, most of these games are clunky as shit, look like crap, and have no quality of life features. I want playing the game to feel comfy, not like a fight against the UI.

>>553355729
I know, but it drives me nuts. I hate it when I have a sound plan and it doesn't work because of a quirk of the game. I explore this kind of problem in my notes and have different ideas for implementations, but I'll have to see when I get there

>>553356560
Glad to hear that. What you describe is exactly what I want to implement.
It'll definitely need a lot of iteration and fine tuning. A lot of the game is built around these areas of influence: armies have them, forts have them, supply wagons have them, skirmishers have them... In order for the player to be able to take strategic decisions, I need the game to be able to display the area of influence of a group of skirmishers, and dynamically adjust it as you move the map around to show you how far the skirmishers can reach if you'd move them to this or that hex, so that you can know whether you can hide these guys in that hillfort and still have them reach all of this plain all the way to that forest over there, to make sure that the elves in there won't be able to come into the plains to mess with your supply.
Will take lots of optimizing. Plus the whole balancing element of movement and influence ranges themselves.
I've been working on the whole thing for a few years already so it's not just a rough sketch, but there's lots of work to do. I think it could be worth it, though.

>>553358907
I mean in the game sense. Like is it going to be hero focused or more army focused in combat? Is magic going to be essential in battle or more a supportive role?

>>553360576
Basic commanders are generally "free". When you make an army, or a formation of whatever within an army, it gets a free commander of the appropriate type for your faction. So generally commanders as in Dominions aren't really a thing you need to bother with.
Heroes exist, kinda like in the old HoMM games. These can play their own game, doing things like dungeon delving at certain magic sites, but are generally a side thing. You can also place them into armies. As individual heroes (their own one-man formation), as a regular guy within a formation, or as a formation leader (replacing the default commander). They're generally a vehicle for magic items, although some will be more powerful than others. But they're definitely not as important as in HoMM or Warcraft 3. Think maybe rather Starcraft 1. Heroes are noticeable (specially in the later game when they're loaded with magic items) but they're generally the cherry on top, or a force multiplier at best. My goal is that it feel like having Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli at Helm's Deep. A hell of a boon, but ultimately not a replacement for an army.
The presence of heroes inspires troops, though, specially in the formation they're leading. In-formation heroes will most likely only be particularly noticeable monsters.
Magic is both supportive and essential in battle. Since I want to reduce micro, I want you to be fine with just one or a few mages casting a handful of spells per battle. Some spells can be cast remotely into battle from somewhere far away. But each spell is a lot stronger. Most buffs will be either range:self or battlefield wide. With that I also aim to reduce the importance of mage AI. The key is that magic alone will rarely win a battle. It can significantly raise an army, but you will need an army. The strongest, craziest spells will have long casting times, possibly requiring a ritual that take half as much time as a large battle.

>>553357002
>My inspiration is Smaug. A dragon can wreck an army. Normal weapons simply can't get through the skin. But a bit of the right kind of magic applied at the right moment, or a hero wielding the right weapon, can kill it. That's what I'm aiming for.
That reminds me of Age of Wonders 1, where air elementals have physical immunity, while being very weak.
https://aow.heavengames.com/units/unitstats_other_neutral_wr/
That means that they could take out whole enemy armies without any risk, as long as the enemy did not have a proper source of magic or damage to handle units with physical immunity. It meant that all armies needed enough of those counter-units to not fall over and die.
In Dominions, one could probably model it decently with invulnerability 40.
Age of Wonders 2 might not have had that, and Age of Wonders 3 went away from it, and screwed up their game design in several ways.

>>553362664
I guess my last overall question is what is the pre game 'customization'? I liked Eador quite a bit because it's generally about power leveling your hero with every map but having research and a few items/bonuses carrying over from before. Dominions is about capping thrones and having unique pretender builds/blesses while having a fixed nation. Total War is very limited in that regards besides picking a leader but has a gigantic map to make up for it

>>553362664
cont.
Magic in general is a bit more sword and sorcery than in Dominions. Not by much, but a bit. It's expensive, requires long rituals, it isn't completely safe and it corrupts and changes the world around the caster. I don't really plan to have fire mages throwing fire darts in battle. The closest thing will be turning arrows into fire arrows. No mages casting fireball, but a costly ritual can make fireballs rain from the heavens.

>>553362712
That's exactly the general route I'm aiming for. It opens up a whole new can of worms (so does everyone have access to every tool? How is it limited? Do we go overpowered thing vs overpowered thing and let them figure it out? Should there be some way to get your hands quickly on counters you don't have, but at a higher cost? Or maybe better leave that to player commerce and diplomacy?) but that's roughly where I think it should go.
So getting a dragon will be quite hard. But if you do, it'll be a hell of a power boost. But also something the enemy will know about, and ultimately it just takes an asshole with a dragonlance to wreck it, so if you're going to battle maybe you should bring something to take care of that guy, or some supporting magic.
I want it to feel like a power projection tool. The British in the 18th century threatened everyone with their fleet all over the world, but they were very careful about actually using it - because every time you use it, you risk losing it. A crazy storm, a military blunder, a revolt popping up elsewhere once people know that your fleet is halfway across the world... It's an immensely powerful asset, but you still have to be careful with it, because people will plan how to kill it as soon as they know you have it. And of course scrying magic is a thing.

>>553358907
>Large pitched battles are risky and therefore rare. I miss the struggle that leads to these pitched battles, the skirmishing and harassing, the soft denial of terrain through the threat of endless attrition. It's not all about doomstacking and going for one big battle. Sometimes all you need is the right tool in the right place. My game is about that.
Reminds me of how Napoleon got advantage over his opponents in several campaigns by pillaging the countryside for supplies, making his armies faster and more agile than many European opponents. And how he was later defeated when invading Russia through Russian evacuation of supplies and villages, thus decreasing gains from pillaging, all while his supplies were harassed by Don Cossacks.

>Inadequate supplies played a key role in the losses suffered by the army as well. Davidov and other Russian campaign participants record wholesale surrenders of starving members of the Grande Armée even before the onset of the frosts.[74] Caulaincourt describes men swarming over and cutting up horses that slipped and fell, even before the horse had been killed.[75] Other accounts describe eating the flesh of horses still walking, too cold to react in pain; drinking blood and preparing black pudding was popular.[76] The French were simply unable to feed their army. Starvation led to a general loss of cohesion and discipline.[77] Constant harassment of the French Army by Cossacks added to the losses during the retreat.[74]
>Though starvation caused horrendous casualties in Napoleon's army, losses arose from other sources as well. The main body of Napoleon's Grande Armée diminished by a third in just the first eight weeks of the campaign, before any major battle was fought. This loss in strength was in part due to diseases such as diphtheria, dysentery and typhus and the need for garrison supply centres.[78][74][79] There are eyewitness reports of cannibalism in November 1812.[80]

Many other examples the world over.

>>553360012
The scope makes me a bit wary.
If you can iterate and arrive at something small, but fun, challenging and playable, that is a very large step forward, and you can then iterate and always go reverse gear if the fun and challenge is lost for whatever reasons. If you can get something fun, it will also be easier to get other people onboard, in case you would like that.

I know the amount drawn from provinces depends on the admin value, thus forts can effectively share a province so long as the admin value doesn't exceed 100, but do forts also draw from other forted provinces directly? Like if I build one in my cap circle will that be stealing from my cap?

>>553365447
Slightly but not that much

>>553365593
So it would draw less than the # admin implies?

>>553365940
Yes

"Forts cannot draw resources from adjacent provinces that also contain forts"
according to the dom 6 manual

>>553363957
The general premise is that wizards are stealing divine power and trying to achieve godhood, and are essentially tearing reality apart (and the more magic is cast, the more unstable and corrupted the whole world becomes. Monstrosities appear, things from beyond the stars, gates to hell, widespread undeath, some god might send a divine host to wreck shit, etc.).

You get a "pretender" like in Dominions, leading a nation. And there's a good bunch and in different "ages": since the world is getting messed up, time and place are a bit out of whack, bringing nations together across time and space. Essentially why you can have ancient not!Romans fighting not!Inuits and not!early imperial Spain. Think of it as having the One Age mod in Dominions.
Each nation has a different lineup in each age. Their mages are very limited, but get enhanced by the pretenders.
Magic works a bit differently. The pretender taps into the power of some gods of fire and brings lots of fire power, so now the nation's mages gain lots of fire magic. But whether they can use that magic offensively, to buff, to support, to summon... is determined by the magic traditions of the national mages (evocation, alteration, etc.). The combination of elements and traditions leads to the different spells. So two nations with fire paths will be able to bring different spells to battle, and you can use your pretender and summons to add variety here.

You also get some metamagic options and further to customize your wizard (which can also be a Dominions-like mythological being). And since you're stealing power from some god, there's some customization options for whatever part of the divine you're stealing from, with a little "build your own god" system based on ancient divine epithets (the titles that Dominions attaches to your pretender's name based on his abilities).
It's a big WIP, though

>>553369981
Thanks for the explanation anon

>>553364603
Bingo. It's a major element of warfare but almost no games care about it, and those that do go full autism about it. Even War In The East, which doesn't actually demand more of you than fixing the damn railway, is still a lot clunkier and much more awkward than it fucking needs to be.

>>553365154
It sounds complex, but the way I picture it is actually quite simple and playable. It's the good old "you can't draw supply through hexes neighboring enemy troops" that you find sometimes in old wargames, just that a bunch of cavalry can disturb supply all over a large portion of terrain, as long as it's flat. I just don't want the player to have to start counting points to determine reach, so I need a quick visualization.
I do have a big tendency to inflate the scope. This whole thing has already gone through several loops of scope creep and cutting off the fat, though, and it does look quite cohesive and doable. Will of course need a bit more once I get to the programming part and see things actually implemented

Do non mages need reinvig much?
Want to play with some 'big' sacreds that have a lot of HP, and can't decide between Reinvig x2 or unbreaking to prevent afflictions.
Mages aren't sacred, so it'd literally just be for the units.

>>553370803
I do like the concept of mages being more like embedded officers/specialists/special equipment rather than simply artillery pieces/buff dispensers so that is neat

>>553371227
Not really unless they have an absurd amount of armor like blind guards and pillars

>>553371670
In a way, yeah.
Magic is complicated and a huge WIP, but roughly speaking the pretender wizard will have magic paths similar to Dominions (fire x, water y, etc.), and what your recruitable mages have is instead stuff like Evocation 2, Alteration 3...
They'll also have maybe Death 1 if that's their "default" magic, but generally they'll use the pretender's paths and the pretender's mana pool. So more mages will give you more flexibility and you might want to bring a few along for redundancy, but there isn't really a reason to bring 30 mages into one battle.
Except for summoned casters. If you summon some fae lord or whatever, they'll be pulling magic from a different source so they'll come with their own magic set up and mana pool. This way the leading players can get a bit stronger in the later game, when they'll be having to face multiple players at once.
I'm also considering some sort of "stealing from the gods works thanks to these magic crystals and there's one in each capital, so if you take someone's capital you increase your mana pool" but I'm not sure if it's the right direction to go. Too early to say

>>553373187
That kinda sounds more like Black Company, which is super neat. Granted, the Fallen are all on a separate level from normie mages are all essentially very crazy and very OP liches

>>553371227
it can definitely be helpful to those fighting in melee, even when they only have average encumbrance, but only if battles are not over quickly. the more durable the sacreds, the better it probably is. regular troops probably are fine with 1 or 2 reinvigoration. it's also great on thugs and scs
it's also helpful against curse of stones, rigor mortis, swamp or temperature scale penalties, etc.

>>553370803
It's way easier to scope games once a game developer has released at least 2 or 3 tiny games that are fun to play. Board games can also work.
I wonder if you could use something like Tabletop Simulator to test out the game first, or some other very easy engine. Maybe just Godot, and postpone everything that is complex or that might require algorithms.

Just got this game and I'm kinda confused on what I'm supposed to do with research.
What should I research?

>>553379714
Depends on your nation and paths. What nation are you playing?

>>553379793
Abysia, is there anyway to figure out though If I try a new faction? Also any tips on getting more gems I feel like I never have enough, also don't understand this communion thing

>>553379714
Depends on goals short term and long term, and situation. What are you playing?

>>553382402
Oh, yah, you want blood, and a bunch of fire magic. Generally, you need to specify era, but for Abysia the more that changes the more that stays the same.

>>553382402
For your first question, yes, the way you know what it is for a new faction is by slowly learning how all of the magic paths work. As you are new, that will take a while. Thankfully, you picked a nation which is fairly easy to learn, and I've played a lot of Abysia.

Outside of the warlocks, Abysia's core paths are Fire and a little bit of earth. Theres really two things you want for them. Firstly, get to Evocation 3, which gets you fireball, a good early game spell. From there, go up to conjuration 3, which gets you the spell Phoenix Power, allowing your F2 mages to boost themselves to F3. From there, your first level 5 spell, which is an important threshold for most nations, is going to be Falling Fires, a very powerful evocation that all of your fire mages can cast, at Evo 5.

In general, knowing what to research is about recognizing what paths your nation has, and what spells are good for those paths and your national setup. For Abysia in the early game, this is mostly fire to help win army battles, and then rotating into focusing more heavily on astral and especially blood in the mid to late game. For blood magic, just research the blood school, but I wouldn't start doing this until you have blood searching parties. Communions are complex for new players and not essential to Abysia, I'd ignore them for now. Just try to get to conj 3 evo 5 and watch your mages spam falling fires for a bit.

Past these sorts of essential spells, which almost every path has an example of, you want to look at what your mid-late game strategies need, which will generally involve the paths you took on your pretender as well.

>>553386886
That is a nice way to go about it

>>553386886
Not this poster, but something Abyssia is also good at is spamming fire elementals. So if you just want to keep going after getting phoenix power in Conj3 and hitting Conj5, you can spam fire elementals like noone else. You start with an incredible fire gem income (6/turn?) right at the start so as a new player by the time the war comes you'll have a stockpile of 100+ with no idea what to use them on.
I'm telling, Conj5 fire elementals.

I said quakers, I didn't say everything, yah know.

>>553388815
Yes, this is also very good, though not as good as it was in 5. Other good spells are Heat from Hell, which is sadly Ench 6, Inner Furnace, Inner Furnace, which is abysia specific and ench 5, and crucially your big battlefield wipe, firestorm, at Evo 7. For late game, check out Second Sun at Evo 8 as well, or Eternal Pyre at Ench 6 for even more fire income.

>>553355729
Doesn't seem too hard to implement anti-charge spearmen unless spaghetti code gets in the way. Just give them a bonus like flails and morningstars get vs shields, make it an attack and damage bonus vs anything tagged as mounted, flying or trampling.

>>553392617
Are there any games that actually does spears being good against cav besides a damage multiplier?

>>553395342
Older total war games. Personally I think the best way to do it is to tie the damage into the velocity of the attacker.

>>553395342
>>553395829
Even Total Warhammer has them negate the charge bonus of oncoming cav on top of giving them extra attack and damage, but they don't cause impact damage to the cav despite there already being a "thorns" effect.

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New player here, how should I build a godly snake? Either for Abysia or for the Yomi kings. It's all very complicated.

>>553398634
You can literally just buff prot for him and he'll slowly kill everything in expansion

>>553398634
All in Earth

>>553398634
niether of those are nations I would really want a godsnake on. Regardless, take like 4 earth and take him awake, research up to personal ironskin, and done.

>>553398634
Hard Skin to make him foolproof, but Yomi and Abysia expand best using blesses for their Dai Oni and sacreds respectively, unless it's LA Aby with their comparatively weak sacreds.

>>553395829
Nothing beats watching a charge get obliterated by phalanx pikemen in RTW
Even if they just lightly brushed against them not even at the pointy part the entire unit would melt.
>>553398634
Do not be alarmed if an Air nation gives their flying sacreds Charged Body and kamikazi's a dozen into your pretender
fuck Nazca

>>553404860
>charged body
Are there any good nations with the ability to critical mass such sacreds

>>553405807
EA T'ien and Sauro

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i can't wait for lands of achra tho

Can you get good at multiplayer, by playing singleplayer against the hardest difficulty ai and theorycrafting, or will theorycrafting only really work when faced with breathing opponents who know what they're doing?

>>553411098
of all the inconsequential MP, Dominions' is the most
it's so inconsequential that your biggest gripes will be when other players quit too early

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Are there any other nations that have direct references to the pretender's acts prior to the ascension war? The Angakok mentions the once-Kings of the Deep making a pact with the awakening god and their new culture emerging around it, which seems unique as far as I can remember.

>>553409736
Same.

>>553411541
Usually not nations, but a lot of the pretender descriptions do. It seems the record of the prior ascension wars focused more on the pretenders rather than their mortal servants, which makes sense given that it seems all nations survived the ascension war.

>>553411541
would be cool if there was more of that and some nations had forced conditions on their pretenders to keep it slightly thematic
like for LAtlantis, pretenders without a D path cost X more but start with D1

>>553411098
Your average /domg/ veteran is smarter than the AI. You can't shitpost, trade, or do diplomacy with the computer, so you do miss out.

>>553411541
The Pale Ones obviously

Are there any mods I can use to make the ai play better, or be better?

>>553413684
Theres a mod somewhere that replaces the randomgen gods that the AI usually uses with prebuilt ones.

>>553413939
could you provide the link, kindly?

>>553414017
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3148797231
Sadly this isn't all "really good blesses" and is more of a mixed bag, but its still more interesting than what the AI does.

Vortex of Returning

>mages can return themselves for two pearls or an entire army for four pearls while on the battlefield
>while not on the battlefield they need a lab, an entire month and extra pearls for an inferior version that only activates when he's harmed
Uh, illfraud?

>>553426113
The adrenaline makes them lock in and perform beyond their limits. Izi explanation

>>553426113
Its because in dominions logic a permenant enchantment of returning when injured is worth more than just returning. Personally I wish you could cast ritual of returning (the battlefield spell) outside of combat though.

Atlantis is the best faction.

>>553426113
Different spells, one is immediate action, the other is sustained enchantment. Preparing dinner vs preparing rations that will be edible in 5 years time.

>>553434961
I'd say EA is a little eh

>>553426113
Returning has a chance of killing you

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Is there any good way to kill statues besides shatter thugs? Horror marking seems like a pussy strat that I'm not sure actually works.

>>553450579
You can also gear up a couple expendable thugs with smashers, which is admittedly just a variant on the shatter strat. Or if all else fails, unga bunga big club smash puny statue.

>>553451049
Yeah, statues have 0 def right?

>>553452409
Yeah

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wow
that is exceptionally unlucky
first round of combat expansion party into shit ass lion tribe

>>553456969
Is this Warhammer?

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>>553456969

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Every time I see this thing it's looks scarier. Best way to kill this if you are not an astral nation?

I'm surprised that Slaanesh hasn't forged gear for this thing.

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>>553459069
Life for life? Or just astral duel

>>553459069
Damn thats one nasty thug. Paths are nothing great, though, throw a few GSS thugs at it.

>>553460293
Unless you are throwing like 20 thugs I dunno if that would work if you don't have a good chasis, it looks like it has Displaced body and should also have mirror image, then you add the awe+fear, so it's like trying to hit a 27 def mirror imaged dude after you pass the awe check while your moral is going down the drain, also it has Luck and it hits like a truck.

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>>553459562
>just astral duel
>If you are not an Astral nation

Pic related is also relevant.

>>553459069
>no fire res
Just fireball it to death.

>>553463519
Doesn't it still make you feebleminded?

>>553465798
usually mute but yeah

>>553459069
Yeah most others have keyed onto the lack of FR which is the simplest way to target this, albeit its also the threat vector that's most easily remedied. Firebrands, fire bolas, and maces of eruption are all great kit. Others have said fireball but I find incinerate to be a far better anti-thug fire spell.

Regarding the inevitable version that is kitted with 15 FR, you have some of the more standard anti-thug stuff. Cleansing water can be nice, doubly so if you aren't running demons/undead yourself. Smite demon and smites are a possibility, but you'll need a little volume to get through the MR.

Killing it permanently would require soul slay, enslave mind, charm, hellbind heart and soul transaction.

>>553470610
So blood magic is our best bet?

>>553459069
Eye catcher :)

>>553472725
That's a solid answer, in fact I have an eyecatcher on my hall of fame Tyrant. But that slanneshi is immortal WITH recuperation, so blindness won't last long. Their statline is also strong enough to possibly be a lineholder even with both eyes lost, which is quite impressive. The eyecatcher is a solid way to secure an individual kill with counter-thugs, all things considered.

>>553471589
Blood magic is the best answer to thugs/SCs, I won't say too much more only because I'm fairly confident anything I say here will be used against me. I have had to tank Life for a Life as Phlegra before and that isn't much fun, but is surprisingly doable mostly because Life for a Life is relatively hard to output at volume without obvious preparation. Also dominion immortality doesn't work on other planes, so you can always throw that dude into inferno.

>>553475163
You could just horror mark it to shit

>>553476594
True, but that's an eventually process

Thug spam is the strongest strategy.

>>553481518
>Mind Hunts you
Better follow every thug around with a stealthy S2

>>553409736
Me too, Anon. Seeing that game listed on Steam was mondo cool.

>>553482729
That's what stealth is for

>>553495574
you'd stealth your way to a gay bar faggot

>>553481518
Yet elves hardly win anymore

>>553481518
I'm glad to see giant thugs being back in meta since Dom 3

>>553472725
Don't eye catchers need to hit ?

>>553510494
harassment penalty means you can't avoid getting hit in this game. just bring chaff

>>553510709
It has unsurroundable + awe + fear, it one of the few units that is good at mitigating really well the harassments penalty.

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>>553510983
unsurroundable is just +x to def but doesn't count as def. skelechads don't care about the rest

every lock has a key my friend

>>553510709
>>553510983
Ordinarily the def would be high enough to tank with, but due to combat caster it nerfs its def too low with fatigue.
This changes with the right items, but we're talking a naked thug right now.

Gnight/domg/

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EA good 'cause you cast spell without ridiculous amount of prep and thing go boom and you send big dude and he clonk

>>553517392
EA bad because half the provs have worthless sub-5k pop and everyone is impoverished, and you have to hellbless because half the lobby is also hellblessed and will rush you by t12

>>553517392
EA is good for just elf and giant shenanigans desu

>>553519779
Just rush them first lmao
>>553520707
Most whimsical Domignoes age, very comfy

>>553517392
Cute fairy
Now where's the 2hu mod!?!?

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>>553526503
Gone, reduced to atoms...

master_of_magic machaka stop staling

I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna blind expand turn 1 with my Myrmecoleon!

>>553481518
Idk about that but it definitely is one of the most fun.

>>553481518
Well, until your thug teams keep getting hit with manifestation or disease demons where your perfectly capable thugs sit and fatigue themselves out casting shit like earth grip. Its few much a fuel / air mixture situation, and many types of disruption will unbalance that equation, like killing your regen or quickness caster. I'm still pissed my E5 EA Ulm antlered-shaman lost to an ashen angel despite having access to petrify.

>>553520707
Exterminate this man

>>553528413
The game was going too well, pretty much two turns a day for the first five turns or something? Had to have someone start chain-staling. I predoct the first person going AI in two turns as well.

>>553543607
Mr. Electric take him to the principal's office and have him EXPELLED

What nation is the best for thug spamming for each age?

Illwinter be stupid and Helheim SHITTE

>>553549059
>EA
Yomi
>MA
Phlegra
>LA
Phlegra again

>>553549770
How do I build Yomi thugs then?

>>553550475
full negative scales in turmoil, sloth, heat, death, and optionally misf and drain (stopping at misf 1 and not dumping drain is usually a good idea)
pack a defensive incarnate bless that will allow them to survive most indies until the indies rout for fear, and ideally recuperation as well
for expansion they won't even need gear, after expansion the usual SC kits

>>553411541
cute freg

>>553550886
Thanks for the tip anon

Is astral magic the best school?

>>553561829
astral when glamour walks in:

>>553561894
*Teleports behind you*
*Antimagic*
*Soul Slay*
Heh, nothing personnel, g-lame-our

Army of the Dead

>joined new game
>one player already taking entire 24hrs for first turn

this is gonna be a long one isn't it...
is this one of those bullying situations where everyone agrees to dogpile them?

>>553571776
>long one
Buddy the game takes 9 weeks to play a single MP
Who cares!

>>553571776
Just kill him last so he doesn't start going slower out of spite

>>553571776
By default, if I don't get attacked first or have an ideal target I just go for whoever is regularly taking longer to do their turn. Whoever wins, I'll be free of their bullshit

>>553511439
No, it is the number of attacks per round before harassment penalty gets applied

How do I find a beginner game?

>>553589248
welcome
we are all /domg/ veterans here
you will fit right in

is there a good resource to learn about this game that isn't a youtube video with a disgusting european with a poor microphone speaking?

>>553549770
The Phlegras and Yomi are far more into SC territory than just straight thugs. Any of the elvish nations have great thugs, as well as all of the Ulms, although EA is by far the most thuggish. I've seen thug MA Mari paladin builds, and lategame focused LA Mari angel builds. All of the Pans can thug well. LA Patala can be surprisingly thuggish too.

Beyond raiding thugs, the big difference is what your high commitment forces look like. As Phlegra mine will rapidly turn into a fluffer crew for Tyrants with a bunch of expendable meat. With EA Ulm I'd have more thugs than troops. Is the OP looking to build forces that are more akin to a squad of heavy thugs/SCs, or are they looking to primarily raid with thugs while rolling somewhat traditional main armies?

>>553590887
no
play some singleplayer
then play some multiplayer
then whine about some bullshiiiiiiiiit
then learn how to counter it
repeat

I'm a retard who lost a single player game as EA Abyssia. My dominion was sputtering out near the end of the game, despite me building temples and sending priests to preach everywhere. That, combined with 200 birds a day from Caelum, left me very stretched thin until cataclysm won it for Pyrene who was last man on a throne on a shitty island.

Where did I fuck up? My dominion couldn't seem to recover at all outside of my core underground holding.

>>553598525
Abyssia can blood sac(?) but also it doesn't matter, dominion is only really important for the +/-1 morale swing and pretender/prophet stats
Abyssia in general is kind of a snowball nation, you want to hit the ground running with either an expander god or bless on the sacreds and transition into blood quickly with a lot of land from expansion

You should have tried to start a snowball with high retention expansion parties and just one after the other roll it into the nearest/weakest neighbor while setting up a blood economy to switch into SCs like demon lords + vampires

Personally I like kind of a hybrid bless for sacreds/casters but really your mages don't need much to be extremely useful anyway

>>553590887
I learned a lot of good fundamentals and a winning mindset from reading the many AARs that were posted here around Dom6's release. This thread is very dead now by comparison, but I bet you could get a similar learning experience by reading among the dozens of Lucid tournament writeups on his discord.
I also regularly keyword search that 'cord for specific mechanics and matchups tested by players much more tryhard and experienced than me, so it remains a good trickle-down resource for basically anyone.

>>553599463
I see, thank you.

>>553599916
Got any AARs that doesn't require joining a discord?

>>553599463
I disagree with this take significantly, towards the later game Dominion can become incredibly important as certain dominion based globals hit the field. Heck, there are a decent number of nations, like the Abysia's, who somewhat rely on blood saccing to secure victory.

There are phases and nations of the game where the morale effects are the primary impacts, yes, but there are also enough national dominion effects to be meaningful early too.

>>553603221
>Got any AARs that doesn't require joining a discord
No unfortunately. I guess you could try trawling through /vg/ archives for the ones posted here, but 4chan archives have been getting really spotty and unreliable lately.
The age of forums has died to the discords of the present, like it or not. I say adapt to it and at least lurk the decent ones for info.

Well of Misery