>>2146953
Necromancer and Demonologist remain my favorite classes, but Dwarven Queen lets me turtle like crazy and it’s comfy surviving the end of the world because of Inferno, not giving a shit behind 200 ballistas. Have yet to try the monkey factions or guildmaster.

>>2146960
I've randomed the Monkes a couple of times, but haven't last very long. They don't feel very good for me, but I'm probably missing something. I hate the dorfs but only because they are infuriating to play against. Little gross furry bugmen keep popping up in my mines and running around taking all my shit. Yet to try Necro and Demonologist, but only because I have a pretty good idea what they'll be like.

I think I like the factions that have free shit that runs around on its own. Casting Perpetual swarms in your forts as Cloud Lord felt great because it just covers the map in friendly air elementals that retake all your stuff from neutrals. Kobold dragons are cool as well for the same reason, but they don't feel as useful.

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>>2146972
Necromancer is the answer to dwarves. Immortal casters with decay, area damage and life drain spells? Yes please.

>>2146983
Vampires are nuts. I've only seen them as neutrals in forts, and every time I underestimate them.

>>2146972
the gorilla archers for monkes are really strong for early game expansion

>>2146953
Played it a year ago.
I think as those priestesses that try to summon their god. I did that and it was a complete shit show.
Summoned the god, went cocky and thought he is powerful enough to kill heaven. Went there with him straight away, ended up in the void. He got insane, but I managed to find a portal to hell, where he swiftly died. And since he was in his original spawning place when he died, he died for good.
Worst. Apocalypse. Ever.

>>2146953
Druid. Can easily turtle on Ancient Forests and then spam beholders.
I hate classes with summon fail chances so I skip them.

>>2147686
Reminds me, I need to try the Voice of El or whatever he's called. I had a good Enchanter game where they unleashed the apocalypse on the world. It was a lot of fun, but they seem insanely strong once they start getting biblical angels running around.

Firstly, this game is great.
Secondly, my god, are spellcasters and units with area of effect abilities utterly overpowered.
I like to play as the Baron and Senator but they are so utterly outclassed by the other factions.

>>2147730
Playing a bit of Baron recently. Try to use their unique recruits (tower guards are op). They also have an easy to get t2 monk (just make a monastery next to your castle and you will spam those guys).
Unfortunately , main strategy seems to be "get one castle at a time and turtle it" and it's a slog.

>>2146972
>They don't feel very good for me, but I'm probably missing something
You need more nagas.

>>2146953
I like the Illusionist and Enchanter best, but the Enchanter needs serious updating to compete with more recent factions. I also like the Scourge Lord but I don't play it as much.

>>2147734
Baron's knights and unicorn knights are good at taking out front lines and getting to the real problem causers, but naturally ranged units are better than non ranged units. Baron is more defensive and anti-defensive and it's probably better to win by taking all the enemy citadels with their crazy alchemic siege weapons. Ballista are also their answer to most strong things as they are mobile, powerful, long range, and can be used in sieges. You should also be able to occasionally convert humanoids with their priest mages.

>main strategy seems to be "get one castle at a time and turtle it"
More like capture everything and hold on to it. Waves of archers are also among the most powerful things in the game. Don't even bother putting guys in front of them, just make rows of archers.

>>2147730
You should try the guildmaster too.

I've been meaning to do a Senator run in Fallen Empire. I've heard you can do some cool stuff when you take the fallen capital. Just did a Druid run and managed to collect all the gods like pokemon and run around with a doomstack. Beholders were fun but I think they were causing a lot of friendly fire. I'd like to do a run conquering Inferno one of these days, too.

>>2147730
>Playing as Kobolds
>Army easily gets to over 1000
>My numbers will surely win me this battle
>Lose
>What the hell, how?
>Watch the battle
>Mage casts blizzard
>Every single kobold dies in a single cast
Not sure how you deal with that as some factions.

>>2147787
>Enchanter
I discovered the juggernaut spell too late in my playthrough. I reckon rushing that spell early would be so awesome. That thing fucking rocks and is so fun to watch rolling around the map with a horde of flagellants.

>>2147686
>Summoned the god, went cocky
Similar thing happened to me. I summoned Baal and read that he has some aura that hurts people around him so I figured he probably needs to fight on his own. Sent him off and he died to archers. So not sure how you're supposed to utilise Baal.

>>2147798
It's funny but merely okay. Nothing can destroy it early on but it's also just a bunch of guys who get killed all the time and a thing you have no control over. You also need to find a temple and I don't think there has even been a temple on my last few game maps.

>>2147796
Blue kobolds won't die to blizzard

>>2147811
Yeah I guess you just need to create a mixed kobold army to cover damage types.

>>2146960
>Necromancer and Demonologist remain my favorite classes
Arent those the 2 most broken classes. My personal favorite is "Voice of El" but i imagine it is really really shitty vs actual human players.

Is it there a way of enslaving doom horrors?

>>2147827
Not if they're charm immune, otherwise you should be able to enslave anything.

>>2146983
why does this look exactly like dominions

>>2147851
It's an older series also made by Illwinter who are lazy and reuse graphics for both games. https://www.illwinter.com/

Troll King has so much flavour. Smash through everyone in the early game, then when Mum arrives to help, you start swarming the map with roaming monsters. Feels great.

Whew, just tried senator and got raped. Did I just get unlucky? The only thing I can think to do is to turtle up and wait for spell casters but that seems like I'm only delaying the inevitable.
>gold income okayish but struggling to get iron
>barely manage to keep up with numbers
>necromancer fucks my shit up with magic and ethereal units
>troll king overruns me easily
>kobold king's already got hundreds of units
>my spell casters are the only ones putting out reliable damage but they hardly ever come up and I need to stop recruiting for a while so I can build up savings to afford them
>spend most of my time dodging enemy stacks to avoid game-ending catastrophic casualties on my one and only stack

>>2147876
>necromancer
>troll king
>kobold king
I think you might have just been unlucky. Those are some rough opponents depending on when you meet them.

There are too many gods in this game that just feel like high level spellcasters with double digit hp and the ability to ressurect. Most big monsters seem stronger than the average god just for having 200 hp and a d30 attack. There are a few that do have effects but most lack that feeling of having anything besides battle power.

>>2147703
sure angels and such are strong, problem is you unleash the apocalypse on everyone (including you) in the process

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>30ish turns into my Guildmaster game, a gate to hell opens up next to me
Time to sail away to an island and forget about this continent.

>>2147703
Yeah, but getting to that point is extremely hard. Probably impossible in a game against actual humans. You need 750 relics to get into that point, and 250 more if you want to reliably get angels to help you.

Anyone knows if illfraud changes something about high cultist "contact old ones" spell? I casted it 20 times and i'm only getting basalt kings and queens, not a single void lord or start spawn.

>>2148464
They are just rare and will probably turn on you anyway.

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>Build 5 units
>Take hobbit capital
It's just that simple. Regeneration is crazy strong.

>>2148633
Hoburgs are weak as shit without their constructs

>>2148645
They are, but you'd think the ballista towers would be enough, but they couldn't do over 50% of my troll king's health to finish him off, so he just kept coming back.

>>2148205
Yeah but with the blessing buffs you can make your troops absolutely disgusting to fight, and make your stupid freespawn actually scary.

>>2148673
I dunno dude, i expent 500 relics into the blessed buff, and i just got MR and morale, i never got the +2 str broken one. So that route is really RNG dependant.

>>2146972
Monkeys are funny. The lower two types, the little monkeys and the mid sized naked ones, count as animals so if you can get to primal plane or a white moose or the event, you can get them mid sized ones buffed up to nearly the big archer level.

>>2148681
It's true. Blessing luck is a bitch and a half when there's like three of them you really want. Sometimes you get morale. Sometimes you get +Armor +Str + MR + Awe

>>2148695
I haven't even seen the primal plane yet. I've been to Inferno, Void and Aztlan and they all seem so difficult to traverse that I don't see the point. Their defences are stronger than most AI armies you'll face before winning a game.

>>2148726
The easiest way to primal is through the celestial or whatever the angel plane is called. There's a portal to it usually around the top right, I believe. Once you get there, there's an angel fortress blocking the way in but you can wait until the water around it freezes or fly around it.

Their main point is just holding the units that are summoned to armies. If you kill the immortal ones there, they can't be summoned anymore but on the other hand you have to be able to kill them. Some of them have benefits though. Every plane is surrounded by the void so you can get anywhere from there. The Nexus between the elemental planes has a guaranteed level 3 library and special recruitment. Most planes have some sort of special recruitment or benefit for being there.

The biggest users would be Necromancers who use Hades to go fast, witches who can make use of the swamps to teleport to any plane that has them (you might have to visit one first but once you're there you can use the swamp vision spell to find swamps anywhere) as well as taking the forests and swamps in Aztlan, Primal, and Celestial for more resources. Scourge Lord has a hard time getting there but can get a ton of life force from the previously mentioned planes. The Witch is pretty decent in inferno too because she can just unleash poison things on most demons and has a strong charm for those things that can be charmed. Just needs a commander with fire resistance to traverse lava tiles.

Another fun thing to do is take a portal making unit and make a portal to a realm near an enemy area and let the plane empty itself into their territory.

>Their defences are stronger than most AI armies you'll face before winning a game
True but also just about every thing there can end up in an AI army, so that's more a matter of just winning quickly. But yes, for most games, there's no real point going to planes other than the Sky or Agartha for most classes.

>>2148734
>The easiest way to primal is through the celestial or whatever the angel plane is called
This can't be right, the only way to the celestial plane is through the gate that opens on elysium after all seals are broken, either that, or the portal that is on the primal plane. The easiest way to the primal plane is through the nexus since you can get there through any elemental plane gate.
>Most planes have some sort of special recruitment or benefit for being there.
The void is a death sentence to anything who is not a void lord or starspawn. Even more, greater horrors are among the most powerful creatures in the game, and the void is boiling with them.
>The Nexus between the elemental planes has a guaranteed level 3 library and special recruitment. Most planes have some sort of special recruitment or benefit for being there.
Yup, that is the biggest appeal, you can recruit ether warriors from there, and ether warriors are REALLY REALLY strong against anything.
>Another fun thing to do is take a portal making unit and make a portal to a realm near an enemy area and let the plane empty itself into their territory.
That is my favorite use case for the planes eitherway, just to nuke my enemies opening a portal to hell deep inside their lands.

>>2148739
>This can't be right, the only way to the celestial plane is through the gate that opens on elysium after all seals are broken, either that, or the portal that is on the primal plane.
Scrolls that warp you to celestial or infernal planes are rather common to come across. Infernal is more common because there's more types of them and can happen as an accidental effect, but if you're regularly getting or seeking magical items you can expect to get a Scroll of Heavenly Ascension at some point.

>The easiest way to the primal plane is through the nexus since you can get there through any elemental plane gate.
Getting to the elemental plane without needing there be a portal in the ocean is not particularly easy. The other routes are the void itself or some fortress that will let them pour out after you kill the defenders. Then you have to be able to survive the planes if it's not the water one. Meanwhile if and when you get to the celestial plane, you can more or less traverse it freely if you avoid getting too close to the wandering units and it's not one of the times the whole void invaded.

>The void is a death sentence to anything who is not a void lord or starspawn.
Eh, necromancers can recover sanity and the new guild master can make the ships that took people from terra to elysium to begin with and avoid void insanity, but it's not really a good idea anyway because even a fleet of them isn't that great. Horrors aren't really that bad, they're strong but I'd say they're mid tier if they aren't a doom horror, even the elder gods, if you have the means at all to deal with them anyway. But you're not in the void to fight them, you're in the void to luck out and land somewhere.

>>2148744
Don't you get teleported randomly each turn on the void?

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Finally, i murdered that annoying Bakemono.

>>2148751
Not every turn but very often. If you're lucky, you'll end up somewhere you can get back onto a plane.

Holyfuck the cultist is absurdly strong. I can just nuke anyone in any world with a greater horror using the star spawns.

>>2148789
>I can just nuke anyone in any world with a greater horror using the star spawns.
Yes but if they win, now you have to deal with them. Also if they get horror marked the the AI might drag even more into the world. It's still probably second only to the necro's ability to just swap people into Hades and let them die and pop up in any place something dies and spew death while being immortal. Yog-sothoth is pretty cool too, if you can summon it, being immune to non magical attacks. Along with the ability to teleport, it can take out large armies by itself unless they have many mages.

Having beat my first game with the Senator (after several losses to the local wildlife) I've decided that I like this game. My thoughts:
>Wizards seem incredibly dominant. My best armies were all propped up by pyromancers/any caster with AoE and enemy wizards with AoE would likewise destroy me easily. How the fuck do you counter them?
>There's not enough use of the other planes. I went into hades briefly with my Renatus but it didn't affect the campaign at all. Major letdown that they're not used more
>"Side" mechanics are an absolute delight. I loved having my Revellers turn ancient forests into friendly unit spawners and having naked chicks roam the map, dying to bandits, even though it didn't help at all. These little mechanics help so much
>Units immune to a particular damage type are the star of the show. Apart from winning fights logistically, "how the fuck do I kill this specifically?" Was the dominant question of the lategame

>>2148810
>Yog-sothoth is pretty cool too, if you can summon it
What's the ritual?

How do I Dryad Queen? Maybe I've been spoiled by trying Witch and Dwarf Queen first, but she feels more like a slot machine than a class. Whether I do well or not seems more depend on how lucky I get on spawn location, whether or not someone tries to molest me in the early game, what spells I start with (Summon Wolves has to be one of the worst spells in the game), how lucky I get with freespawns, and how lucky I get with summons over what decisions I make.

I can't wrap my head around the freespawns at all. I have a hamadryad parked at a grove of gaia for an entire year and get like 5 harpies. I park my queen there for a few months while waiting to cast Ritual of Grand Mastery and I get 10+ Saytrs? Is it entirely chance based?

>>2149132
Call Outer God, a level 3 ritual. I think only Basalt Kings/Queens can do it. You can summon Yog-sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Hastur, or a generic abomination.

>>2149220
>How do I Dryad Queen?
First, accept that she is trash. You need groves with leaders that cause free spawn and you need to capture castles and cities that let you upgrade your units with armor as well as mines for the iron. The units say what kind of units they will attract in their info menu I think, but you basically need the leader of the type to get those type of units. Minotaurs are good for getting to the back lines and attacking leaders. The dryad queen type units are good at charming things so use them to capture enemy leaders if you can. (you can use the rituals of any ritual leader you charm or confuse into joining you, but not if you enslave them)
What you summon is based on where you are, but most animals are fodder to give your leaders time to cast spells to charm, confuse, or sleep the enemy, or animate forest which is a great spell if you are in a forest.

>>2149329
>Call Outer God, a level 3 ritual. I think only Basalt Kings/Queens can do it. You can summon Yog-sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Hastur, or a generic abomination.
Oh, i have it, maybe i will keep my last opponent (illusionist) as a pet, while i invade hell and heaven with my eldritch gods.

I am badly losing a war with giant ants. There is just me and one other faction left alive, I have no idea where they are and I don't care. I'll be lucky not to get overwhelmed by these goddamn ants, they're proliferating so quickly. I've sent a small army on boats to try and find another continent to live on but to no avail. I've stopped taking neutral settlements (what few remain) because I know they'll immediately get claimed by bugs as soon as I turn my back. This game is great.

>>2149500
Being able to use them as your minions is my favorite part of Scourge Lord. Also the Sky and Agartha count as Elysium for the purposes of victory, so you can search out a citadel in one of those places.

>>2149500
I wish I had a screenshot of my witch antpocalypse game. I thought I made one, but I guess not. Every single tile was an ant except for the few I and the AI had armies on. The ants are unreal.

>>2149500
yeah, the ants breed like pajeets, once they hit critical mass, its pretty much joever unless you have a super combatant that can fast and systematically nuke enemy citadels.

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>>2149505
>>2149507
>>2149511
Look at these fuckers

>>2149515
Yeah that's critical mass. All you can do is have 1 army in your capital and 1 hunting down the remaining players. The problem with them is that they aren't strong enough to wipe out the other players so you can't just wall up and wait it out.

How do you guys use the mother of monsters for the witch? Group them all up? Have them defend settlements to build up a garrison? Send them out as single armies to patrol and raid? They seem very cool, but I feel like I'm not getting the most out of them.

>>2149519
Defend some key points, she is pretty garbage tbqh.

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>Running around the Senator's lands with a handful of trolls that are immune to physical damage from stygian bath
It's so fun. They can't do shit. I'm just ignoring the giant demonolgist armies marching towards my lands while I'm doing this though. Not really sure what to do about that as trolls.

>>2149775
I'm surprised the Black Sorc didn't disintegrate anyone. I love those units for that spell.
>Not really sure what to do about that as trolls.
Linnorms. They can breathe poison, which most demons aren't immune to. If your grandpa has Arcane Tempest or Deadly Fumes, or Slumbering Army you can get him some elemental resistances and let him at them with some fodder in front. Preferably Lake Troll Warriors, who have poison weapons. Since your citadels are probably in forests, planting Death Fungi around should help kill some who pass by hopefully.

Reminder that if you are not playing in a 2v2v2v2 team game, controlling two nations that can boost each other, common victory goal enabled, you are not playing CoE right.

>>2150184
What factions do you do pairs with?

>>2150951
Not him but you can’t go wrong with a nature faction unless you’re already one. Generally want to avoid competing for the same resources, but that’s pretty much it.

>>2149329
>First, accept that she is trash
Honestly, this is what I needed to hear the most. I can accept everything if it's already established that she's a shit class.

>>2151710
I thought she was shit when I played her, but I read somewhere that she's strong. I dunno though, she doesn't feel it.

>>2151710
>>2151729
>I read somewhere that she's strong. I dunno though, she doesn't feel it.
I read that she was strong when she was introduced in CoE4. Not so much in CoE5. A lot of discussions you might find on stuff will come up with CoE4.

>>2151710
>>2151729
>>2151965
Dryad Queen's pros:
>can roll a spell that can charm at least animals like Druid, making balling up during early game easier
>since her magic resource is herbs problems like ancient forests turn into benefits unless you roll one with shit like a Beholder, which isn't something other Nature classes would have easy time dealing with anyway
>freespawn
>can create groves for her best rituals from normal forest tiles if there are no ancient forests
>pretty strong endgame options but most are heavily geared towards Nature magic if casters
Cons:
>her advancement in power is gated far heavier than most classes including the Nature ones, you don't only need herbs to cast promotions, research spells you also need to cast upgrade rituals at ancient forests and then at resulting groves and then stay in those places to cast other costly rituals
>her freespawn still demands resources to be upgraded into something better, better freespawn is gated behind commanders you need to buy (some comms want iron too) AND you must park those commanders at your groves for freespawn to appear, freespawn is random
>she is very reliant on RNG in general since her best army maker rituals have like a dozen or more options for resulting summons which are even more divided into the numbers summoned if those are units, like from one spell you can get something like 3-12 White Centaurs (I dunno how many exactly) which are very good but 8 are certainly better than 3, some fucking animals, maybe some more animals, a magic caster like Pan or if you are super lucky (?) a Harpy Queen, who's not only a flying commander but also uses advanced Air magic which is nice for magic diversity
>then there's a fact RNG can fuck her over far harder than other Naturals, hot season event won't just destroy forests she gets most of her magic resources from but it can burn down her groves just as easily and unlike the Druid she does not have a ritual for regenerating those or ancient forests

>>2152117
>also, hope you've got Charm or really like the freespawn because the queen can't buy normal or faction troops, cities and citadels are mostly for spending dosh and iron for better freespawn upgrades

>>2151710
>>2152117
>>2151729
>>2151965
Dryad queen pros:
>Sexo.
Cons:
>Hairy pussy.

>>2152201
>Cons

>>2146953
What's a good begginer faction?

>>2152246
troll king. He just bonks midgets.

>>2152246
Whatever appeals to you most. Even the most complicated factions are like 1/10th the complexity of playing the simplest faction in Dominions.

>Pick baron as my first game because everything is inhuman
>Kill everything easily with my horses
>Manage to conquer 1/2 of map while the other half belong to kobold
>Decide to conquer kobold with my mass siege weapon because their water drake having stalemate with my horses
>Suddenly they have fuck ton of drake of difference color I never seen before, their kobold mage spamming blizzard and wipe off my cannon fodder
How do you even win this?

>>2152515
>Pick baron as my first game because everything is inhuman
Based.
>Suddenly they have fuck ton of drake of difference color I never seen before, their kobold mage spamming blizzard and wipe off my cannon fodder
There are many options, but none for baron. I suggest you rolling some azure mages and pray for them to have a frost element protection spell.

>>2152515
You can roll around with a fuckload of siege equipment and just try to avoid open battles. Hit them when they are in a fort or bait them into attacking you in one. Siege equipment and mages seems to be the only way to compete with the mage classes as a more mundane class. Strategically you just need to ignore their doomstacks though and take out their holdings to make them lose.

Any mod that actually improves the current AI? The AI is just extremely retarded.

>>2152651
What do you want to AI to do and how would one prevent you from save scumming around it?

>>2152701
>What do you want to AI to do and how would one prevent you from save scumming around it?
I want an actual smart AI that doesn't rely into cheating to make up for the deficient intelligence. Both in dominions and conquest of Elysium, the AI doesn't get smarter with the difficulty levels, but just get more resources and actions.

>>2152765
What do you consider smart? Running away from you all the time when you're stronger? Throwing their forces into your clever trap? Swapping you into hades when you least expect it? I'm not saying the AI is great, but I just wonder what you personally consider smart. Especially with CoE, people like to say "The AI spawned next to a manticore and immediately died, how stupid" or "the AI got wiped out because it sent enough forces to capture a town instead of keeping its forces at home and sending out a naked commander."

>the AI doesn't get smarter with the difficulty levels
For me, I feel games should have the same good AI at all difficulties and the difficulties are just handicaps for the player. No turning it to easy mode so the enemy stops using end level spells because you can't win. However good AI to me also means being able to play the game like it was meant to be played and not like some sweatlord I can go online and play if I want.

>>2153131
>What do you consider smart? Running away from you all the time when you're stronger? Throwing their forces into your clever trap?
Both of those things make sense, a lower level AI should fall into your traps and try to fight bad battles. Where an emperor level one should pick fights perfectly.
Also, being able to play coop with an AI that will not capture all my settlements becuase "why not?" would be great.
>However good AI to me also means being able to play the game like it was meant to be played and not like some sweatlord I can go online and play if I want.
You have like 10 levels of difficulty to pick, but all 10 levels feature the same braindead AI. It would be cool if from 1-8 it just becomes progressively better at playing the game like it was meant to be, while on level 9-10 it becomes an absolute sweatlord, because why not? i would love to play tryhard against an AI and have epic wars in all the available planes against it.
PS: God, i wish Dominions had good AI, it would be so cool.

Would love this game if it was some kind of RPG instead of a 4x strategy game.

>>2150184
>Not playing 1v1 against yourself to boost your skills

>>2153158
>i would love to play tryhard against an AI and have epic wars in all the available planes against it.
That's not gonna happen because it'd try to take you out asap.

Just started playing. I've never really played a game like this one before, but it's a lot of fun.
Are there recommended beginner classes? I've tried Pale Ones and Kobold King through random, and got demolished pretty quickly both times.

>>2153201
>beginner classes
That's probably a dumb question. I'll ask a different one: Which class do (You) have a lot of fun with?

>>2153201
Witch is a forgiving class to play. Fungus is an easy resource to collect, lots of good summons to summon, good mobility by teleporting between swamps, and your main commanders can be made nearly immortal. You get a subcommander called Manflayers that can summon minor undeads, giving you an extra option to beef up your armies in addition to your normal troops and fungus summons. Summoning some doppelgangers or hydras can make the early game a breeze, and the late game summons like ancient hydras, catoblepas, and wyrms can go toe-to-toe with most factions.

>>2153201
Dwarves are easy once you establish your second mine.

>>2153210
Things i didn't know :
The witch gets a lvl 2 dead path once resurected from a swamp. That's a potential 4 witch , 3 death with the proper boosting items
The cultist counters her hard. They have giant armies of poison immune units
End game , just have a line with wisps and summon old gods with 1 fungus

Anyone play Bakemono? They seem kind of boring. They have the Japanese flavour, but they don't look like they have any unique mechanics or anything interesting. It's just Japanese skinned demon summoning with goblin base units.

>>2153202
Druid for the Beholders
Warlock for the troop amd spell variety (though it's not an easy class)
Kobolds are fun. No big endgame units but I easily win with just sending endless waves of optimized wargroups.

But as others have said , troop quality wise Necro and Demon are top tier. I just burned out on Necro on CoE4 and i hate the fail chance of Demons summons

>>2153297
Their mages are mid but their armies are cheaper than demons.

>>2153298
I would say any gem faction isn't a good starting faction. They are kind of hard to get and awkward to build an economy off. I guess warlock can use all of them though.

What's the strategy for defending lots of little hamlets? Feels like whenever I leave, some enemies or even neutrals swoop in and take my shit.

>>2153303
The thing is that each starter plays differently.
Hydromancer , just go to the sea and start claiming things there until you can get warer trolls.
Air , create a line of t1 air elementals and go at it.
Fire and Earth , forget your dream elemental team and summon whatever elemental you can because their t1 have high attrition (unless you get a good starting location and can skip to t2)

>>2153304
If your faction has a stupid unit spawn, take advantage of that and spam the shit out of it. Things like thieves guilds for guildmaster, perpetual storms for cloud lord and warlock, ants for scourge lord, troll forests, etc. They won't beat enemies, but they'll wonder around and take your shit back.

For everyone else, you either need to have defensive armies garrisoned nearby to defeat them, or rapid response squads of cavalry or other fast units with 4 movement points to jump back on it as soon as they leave.

>>2153307
>warlock
Warlock has a stupid unit spawn?

>Have a good army
>Summon a bunch of units without paying much attention
>Go to fight a battle I can win
>Lose half my army
>What the fuck
>Watch it to see what happened
>One of the units I summoned was a basilisk
>Every turn it just shits on everything in front of it
There are so many units like this that I cannot work out how make army comps with. The Linnorm for troll kings as well with its poison aura. Some mage spells as well.

>>2153304
Small war party with a scout on the nearest castle. Some classes have better tools for this than others.

>>2153309
Don't the air warlocks get perpetual storm? That's my favourite stupid spawner. You just pop them down in all of your defended forts and the enemies can't stop them without taking your fort.

>>2153310
Lol , yeah , but the basilisk works good enough alone to leave it on a moderately important tile to defend by itself.

>Welcome to Elysium, we have cultist, necromancer, demon cultist, outer god worshiper, churchfag, nonhuman such as kobold, troll and goblin and gods with difference kind of flavor that want to invade and molest the local populace also did I mention about floating alien cube too
What an absolute shit hole.

>>2153375
Why do you think the guildmaster can build void boats to sale the fuck back home.

>>2153375
Hey, at least it's not firmly under Ba'al's control like Terra. Though I have no fucking clue what's the lore implications of him or at least his avatar being "imprisoned" (but summonable with enough sacrifices by a strong enough Priestess) in the Nexus.

>>2153385
Is Dominions set on Terra?

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I have just learnt of this game and have been watching all of CairnBuilder's videos on it. Very kino game. Can you conquer all the planes? I feel like finding a plane and colonising it would be massive buffs for a player.

>>2153391
I don't think there's any canon connection between CoE and Dominions though it doesn't stop anyone (me included) from thinking that they happen in the same megaverse. But if you want to know my expert opinion, of course Dominions ISN'T set on Terra unless the players wage war on a map called Terra. But even then I think it's just A Terra, not the CoE Terra.

>>2153395
You can but no big buff. It's just for the prestige. Maybe next game.

>>2153395
Yes, you can though it would take quite some time. In fact, in 4 where the planes were first introduced a class with easy access to another plane could teleport there, conquer a citadel and become pretty much undefeatable for another class unless the later lucked out by getting access to, say, a natural teleport spot to there or an artifact but even then, using living beings to attack Hades or non-fire immunes to go to the plane of fire is prettty much a doomed endeavor. 5 changed it so that only only the Elysium, Agartha and the new Sky plane count, though even with that I believe you can create such a situation if you are lucky and have the time (at least with the Sky, which is a bunch of hard-placed clouds, plus the drifting and dis-reappearing ones).

>>2153408
>Agartha
Hyperborea plane when

>>2153798
wakanda plane, when?

>>2153304
Kill everything in the area and everything that approaches the area. If there's an enemy spawner your faction can't delete in the area, just drop a few archers on each. Otherwise there shouldn't be anything around to take them if you leave.

>>2153294
>The witch gets a lvl 2 dead path once resurected from a swamp. That's a potential 4 witch , 3 death with the proper boosting items
Both the witchery and the necromancy paths have enough items to reach 5 or 6. It's unlikely but I've done it. There are hat, weapon, and armor items that give magic boosts in addition to the accessories. The witch accessories are common enough to get to 5 but one of them is a cursed item.

>>2153202
I enjoy witch because of dopplegangers turning enemies into tentacles, poison swamps being able to kill surrounding things(I managed to make one next to a dwarf hideout once), death fungus making impassable walls, and at least two summons that can outright just eat enemies. Also easy to go to different planes.
I like Illusionist because it's easy to warp anywhere and I like waves of creatures marching out of nowhere. I like Scourge Lord and Enchanter too for their strong units that can take out waves of lesser ones. I want to like Necro but there's too much troop management and necromantic abilities are common in other mages. Scourge lord is particularly good with its mass spells and blessings and easy to get soul slay.

>>2153310
You don't have to have units in front of it. I hate this about the witch too, however. Swamp ghosts love nothing more than facing each other and blasting their attacks. For mage spells, just build the army properly or use expendable units. That meteor rain spell is the worst though. I haven't met a thing that is both immune to the fire and the physical part of it, and it does so much damage that it will even kill elder gods that use it.

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>finally decide to try out warlock
>start game
>get ambushed walking out of my capital
>lose both commanders and die instantly

If you pick random society, is there a way to tell in-game which age you're in?
Also, which society do (You) like the most?

>>2153385
>him or at least his avatar being "imprisoned" (but summonable with enough sacrifices by a strong enough Priestess) in the Nexus.
Well it implied he stopped manifesting on Terra. I assume El's followers, with some help from the other gods, managed to drive him back before being chased from Terra. I wonder why the lore has the Baal corrupted angels being in inferno.

>>2153820
>is there a way to tell in-game which age you're in?
Anyone who can visit libraries can visit one and spend an ap to learn what age it is.

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Has anyone ever killed God here? (The archon). Also, what is the strongest being in Elysium? My bet is this bad boy, an abomination made of the souls of all the failed panto-wannabe

>>2153186
just gotta wait for Trade & Taint lil breh

>>2153842
Souped up elder beholders, demi lich, maybe Shiva.

Have you guys tried any fun mods recently? The mod that unlocks the secret classes is pretty neat.

>>2153879
>The mod that unlocks the secret classes is pretty neat.
qrd?

>>2153885
If you choose random AI, the AI can choose to be a goblin king, a beholder, or an archmage

>>2153860
>Souped up beholders
Do you mean "Eye of Tyrants"? I think the Legion of Gods still wins since it is nearly immune to elemental magic damage. Those boss beholders are without a doubt still the best caster super combatants in the game, since out of the box, they can cast 4 lvl 3 spells and 2 lvl 2 spells per turn.

>>2153837
>Well it implied he stopped manifesting on Terra
Really? Where? Priestess's description (when choosing the class) says he sent her to Elysium when he learned where VoE followers escaped too,

>>2153879
I still need to try the isekai mod

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>>2153905
In Ba'al's description. But since you mentioned the High Priestess's profile, there's also this

I've finally downloaded CoE2 from Illwinter site and holy shit, CoE3 was a much bigger visual and not just that upgrade compared to what Dominions titles get between versions.
>unit descriptions show much fewer stats than later CoE and Dominions and lack the flavor text (unless it's hidden behind some unknown button)
>the fucking pixels, it really is fucking pixelated like fuck
>Zeliard (not a Strategy) is from like 1989 and graphically looks way better then it from 1997 or that's the release date for the FIRST CoE (I did start in widescreen so maybe it would have looked better if smaller though I am pretty sure olde pixel games still look pretty nice even if they don't support the resolution)
>pick Elf King for the class, attack some small stack of goblins near me, Elf King starts the battle by casting an AoE spell and the game begins showing below the screen the damage if any it does to EVERY single unit one by one (just so you know he himself resisted but fucked his army way more than I believe those Goblins ever could)
>seems there's no moving across terrain in the battle and all armies start already facing each other (but there are backlines)
I pretty much described most of my experience with the game but I feel like I've played just enough. By the way when choosing a class they are divided into something like: warlord, mage, priest, nonhuman and monster. There are Dragon, Elf Queen, Elf King (some of his units are called Dark Elves so I figure the Queen's are not-Dark) and some Orc. Kinda interesting how more generic fantasy it is but I couldn't enjoy the difference since I didn't see any descriptions.

>>2153923
>From time to time... by his very presence

>>2153934
Yes, that's why you have a summoning ritual

>>2153893
>since it is nearly immune to elemental magic damage
Not a big deal, the worst spells are psychic or do magical blunt damage. Since its not mindless, it can be soul slayed like Ba'al or any other god.
>Do you mean "Eye of Tyrants"?
Yeah, Eye Tyrant

>>2153955
I mean, he was summoned in the beginning too since it mentions him changing the world like he does to Elysium once summoned. I should look at his description.

How would you design a proper Beholder class?

>>2154299
Starting Beholder is the same as the default.
Buyable Beholders are young or something and need training.
3rd Tier Beholder is even stronger than normal.
Ultimate summon is replaced with ultimate power-up turning 3rd Tier Beholder into the 4th Tier Beholder (there can be only one per player).
Banned from multiplayer by cowards.

>>2154299
It's the baron but you have to enslave all your units. Single leader unit type class like the baron or troll king, you absorb power from ancient forests and other magical sites while occupying them. You can upgrade them to automatically give you resource when not there. You can spawn single eyed creatures who fly around and scout. You can get spawns from basically anywhere but you have to spend time gathering them like the "gather slaves" of the priest kings. You can get mostly levy level people from smaller towns, basic troops from towers and castles, mages from cities and magic libraries, animals from the forest, the tribal warriors from their tribal towns, bandits from bandit hideouts, etc. All mages and command type troops are nameless and cannot command or visit libraries. Commanders are either ritual-less constructs or split off creatures that only have 2 level 2 magic schools or maybe 3 level 1 magic schools. As a trade off for not having an easy ability to get level 3 mages, it has a choice of several transformations after becoming a tyrant. They all give it an additional level 3. I'm not creative with names so it'd be something like
Dead eye - Lich-like with Unlife 3 and immortality
All-seeing eye - Void magic 3 and ability to scry a location, has twist fate and luck effects
Blind Eye - It has a false main eye resembling the spirit eye or eye of the night artifact, Dark magic 3 or a similar unique school for it, can see invisible and has non magical invulnerability.

>>2154299
Og poster here:

If we extrapolate from the description in CoE5 then we have two varieties: Ancient Forest and Mines.
Enslaved creatures point to dwarfs in mines and Fir Bolgs in forests. Cooying the enslave mechanic seems cheap to me. Maybe enchance the role to have dark/deep dwarves in mines as natural minions ( with subcomanders) and blood satyrs in forests. Naturaly , no recruit options in human settlements/castles.
For resource I am thinking a new one to indicate leyline energy.
I would love for the Beholder to start small and gain random paths on upgrade rituals but the engine doesn't support random magic paths. To work around that I am thinking of something similar to Warlock : 4 varieties (the players starts with a random one) each with their own magic paths. If we assume one for Mines (current default) and one for Forests (druid/witch) then we could also have a Necromancer (death/void/necromancy/etc) and an Enchanter (metal arcanas/priests buffs/etc).
Maybe a "hates other Beholders" tag to keep it interesting and rituals for scrying and evolving thd beholders. Starts with 2 level 1 paths , 3rd tier is the current default Beholder and then keep it as it is with needing magic libraries for further upgrades.

>>2154537
>I would love for the Beholder to start small and gain random paths on upgrade rituals but the engine doesn't support random magic paths. To work around that I am thinking of something similar to Warlock
Could do it like metal mages and have them randomly turn to one of the other types on upgrade. Could also just make a magic school that has various magic or use Destruction/Elemental/Wizardry which have a large variety of spells.

>Maybe a "hates other Beholders" tag to keep it interesting
When does it encounter other beholders? Can it make them? Having it for only enemies is redundant

>>2154693
Just random lvl 1 class recruit like the other classes. I suggested it as a wink to the DnD lore and to stop players from forming Beholder deathstacks.

Unless I have the mechanics wrong and you can merge your armies without issue. I remember Warlocks Giant units having the tag.

>>2155498
Unless illwinter stealth added it, hate:(group) of monsters is an unknown tag and or function. There's a great set of documentation available on the steam forums for modding as well as the modding manual from illwinter themselves, but sadly that specific function isn't possible. Now, you could hypothetically do some events that could simulate it, but I'm not strong in that particular area to suggest how.

>>2155498
They don't always kill units they hate, it's just a chance. I have no idea what would happen if a bunch of units that hate themselves were in a stack though, and I'm not sure it'd be possible even if you could. But if it were, I'm sure they'd end up killing themselves if possible.

On the other hand, illusionists can spawn stacks of illusion beholders already so it might not even be a problem to have beholder stacks. But it might be better if they were only lesser beings and true full beholders remained rare.

>>2155593
>but sadly that specific function isn't possible
Someone could ask for it on the Steam forum. They quite often add new modding commands in the patches.

>play high priestess
>lucky summon gets me three Lilots
>snowball thanks to troll nearby getting charmed
>decide to hold on and summon Baal
>hell portal event, go plug that shit and destroy it
>he gets killed by the first fucking wave
I would have been better spamming the regular summon spells by why does he not have Fire resist given he turned Terra into a desert or the Second Sun ritual?

Is it there a way of forcing a unit to cast a spell? fucking hell i lost a game because my commander just spammed terror instead of casting A SINGLE finger of death in over 20 turns.

>>2155759
Pick useful spells for him to cast.

>>2155759
They won't cast spells that can't affect any targets or reach anyone. Terror has a longer range than finger of death so don't select that one for them to use. You weren't fighting undead were you? And check how many rows you have in front before deciding on spells.

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>>2155826
just a giant crab, lol. Anyways, i keked at this description.

>>2155957
How'd you lose to a giant crab while spamming terror and survive for 20 turns? That's just pure unluck.

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>>2155957
Yet it also says this

>>2155991
Thats a man.

>>2154299
Returning to the beholder question, are there any artists willing to draw up some beholder or beholder kin sprites? The modding is the easy part, relatively speaking.

skhbvkhc

>>2157723
The sprites should be the easy part too. Just add a couple of different colored pixels and a line to old sprites like Illwinter themselves do.

>>2157839
There’s only one beholder sprite though? What if my photoshop skills are less than illfraud?

Just bought the game on sale, first reply determines what class I play
Note: my only knowledge of this game is a funny youtube video so go nuts

>>2158304
Baron, try to survive as medieval knight dudes against the onslaught of magical freakshit. And don't forget you can capture ancient forests to stop them from spawning wildlife and get you sick unicorn knights

Sounds good, I was actually just in the middle of a Karl Franz campaign so it seems appropriate

>First impression
Some of the sound effects in this game are amazing
I can't quite describe it, but there's a sound effect that sounds like a didgeridoo, and a sound effect that sounds like landing a special move in Tony Hawk

>>2158333
Well shit. I captured a lot of hamlets and mines, then tried to fight an elephant. The elephant completely fucked me up, then some other assholes went around me to capture the hamlets. I tried to fight them, and they just executed me on the spot.
Fun game, will try again tomorrow

>>2158456
Learning this game is basically save scumming to work out what you can and can't fight at the time.

Damn , latest Druid gamse I am up against a bazilion kobolds.
Just come 1v1 my Beholders , bro. I don't want to play kobold vs animals spam wars.

>>2158371
The necromancy raising sound and the summon/ritual use sound. I kind of hate the latter, it's such a loud sound it's always shocking. I like the awful explosion sound when one of the full screen circular explosion spells goes off. I have no idea what one sound is, but it happens when you do such things as make gold with an alchemist, I think. It sounds somewhere between rolling dice in a cup and filling that cup with water.

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back to the void with you

>>2159074
oh wow, senator?

Anyways, anyone knows if a mod that lets you keep playing even when every AI enemy has been beaten exists?

>>2159134
Yeah. Search the workshop for "bystander". It adds a passive AI that stops you from winning the game when all the AI players are gone.

>>2159134
yep first time trying senator
my last opponent is the hoburgs and im just oppressing them by taking all their resources to continue to the game while i wait for a scroll of heavenly ascension, ive also taken the academy so i got a shitton of level 3 spellcasters

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imagine being a sinner in hell working the mines and seeing this shit warp into existence

>>2159371
Then imagine one greater demon wiping the whole thing out. That is not a strong enough army to be fucking about in inferno.

>>2159371
In theory, you should be freeing them, so they'd be happy. They're just gonna be buried or shoved into ovens otherwise.

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>>2159375
i got an entire backline of casters + god emperor and the entire army gets 100 fire resistance and lucky at the beginning of each battle so ill come back with a report of my hell campaign

>>2159371
I can't tell what items you have on those shitty unexpected heros but consider putting strength increasing items on ranged units. >>2153297 Tengu are really good with this because they have a normal multi hit ranged wind attack.

>>2159382
I expect it will end when you have to traverse lava or encounter something with prebattle charm/fear

>>2159397
charm and fear are what i am most worried about but the massive amount of arms is to just populate the various holds i expect to conquer, im going to split the armies and try to exploit whatever weaknesses i find

Gonna do my first ever playthrough as Necromancer. Heard some good tips like chaining the apprentice to an army with a second commander to move him around when he becomes insane.
My question is, what is the best era for this class and what should I look out for in the early game? I guess a graveyard or fallen battlefield to get the dead risin early. Apart from this, any tips?

>>2159486
A Demonologist with 5 Ice Imps wrecked my entire 30 man army... :(

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lets see if this shit wipes me out

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thats one lord down

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>>2159873
Who would win:
>A fallen angel of destruction, one of the high lords of Hell. Present at creation and rose up along with Lucifer during his rebellion in heaven. An arch devil who's name is also synonymous with the realm of death and destruction. Along with his personal demonic bodyguards.
or
>Some pointy sticks launched by the force of rope under tension

>>2159486
>Heard some good tips like chaining the apprentice to an army with a second commander to move him around when he becomes insane.
You haven't been able to do this for ages. Insane commanders can't be added to armies, and while if they are in an army they will stay in it while insane, it will not show if they are insane and if you take them out you won't be able to put them back in until they recover. I wouldn't use the insane causing skills(raise dead and raise animals) unless there was at least 4 skull symbols worth of dead on the tile. You can turn necromancers to various types of undead to have them recover some sanity and if they do get to a really high insanity, they will automatically recover some so they won't be completely insane forever.

>what is the best era for this class
Does not matter
>what should I look out for in the early game? I guess a graveyard or fallen battlefield to get the dead risin early
Ancient forests sometimes have a lot of dead animals in them. Animal zombies aren't slow unlike humanoid zombies, in fact they are fast. You will needs certain sites for certain rituals, so look out for ruined castles, temples, and pyramids.
>Apart from this, any tips?
A lot of necro is upgrading your undead at a citadel, but it's mostly worth making banefire archers, just don't use up all your hands. Rather than using raise dead/animal try to get hands of glory and use minor summoning to get some decent undead units. You can find dead almost anywhere life has been and luring multiple enemy stacks to the same tile to kill them is a way to get lots of dead as well. Unless they have changed it, Old Battlefields have both dead AND are consumed in the ritual, so you can raise the dead there first and then use the ritual to get the ones the ritual gives. If you make an abomination, don't leave it sitting around anywhere you want to raise the dead later.

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>got a troll and a troll shaman from the confuse spell
The Raksharaja has been pretty fun so far. You get the necromancer aspect without the insanity, and the demonologist aspect without the risk of losing control. Only downside so far is some of the rituals are pretty expensive and the low-level rituals give you minimal numbers.

>>2146953
I bought it on the Steam sale and it's super fun.
I've played short games of Baron, Druid, Troll King, Necromancer, Demonologist, Dryad Queen, Monkey, Burgmeister, Warlock, Cloud Lord, Priest King, Voice of El, and I'm currently playing Witch (I may have misspelled some of those)
One thing I am finding is that summoning classes are much more fun than non-summoning classes, and the easier it is to get a summoning material the funner the class is to play
I mean I enjoyed how many different planes the Warlock could reach but gem management was a pain in the ass. Meanwhile Troll King is boring as hell until Mum shows up, and even still is rather dull afterwards
My favourites have probably been the hippie classes, especially Druid and Witch. I like how much you can completely take over the forests as Druid, and melting farms into swamps was fun as Witch
I'd have liked Necromancer and Demonologist but they're too easy

>>2159486
>best era
Probably Fallen Empire

>play quick small game without saving
>do silly stuff
>lose
>look at world
>It is top right half ants, bottom right half spiders, bottom left demons from a portal who are heading up wards
I really thought I was doing fine until I randomly tried digging and a bunch of troglodytes came out, but I wasn't gonna make it.

>>2161298
Additionally it was barbarian style fallen empire and the capital was right below my starting point along with about 3 ancient forests so my territory was wandering NPC central.

Do you prefer smaller or larger maps?

>>2162248
Considering what dog shit army movement is you have to avoid large maps.

>>2162248
I used to play on max size 100x100 maps but I do 85x85 nowadays.

>>2162267
Learn 2 teleport

>>2162248
Large maps often drag on past the point where I'm bored with the game, but it never feels like there's anything geographically interesting on small maps.

What do mausoleums do? They were just added.

>>2162905
spawn undead like a graveyard when not claimed, provides sacrifices/hands of glory, also can be used by a necromancer to become a lich.
basically temple+graveyard that also produces 2 sacrifices for for clases that use them.

>>2162915
Can you gravedig in them? Are gravediggers only usable on graveyards if not, or can they dig in old battlefields?

Any mods that turn down or disable the world-ending events? I got the hades one that spawned early on the other side of the map and the AI's refusing to deal with it. And now I've got the primal plane one in the same game and that's basically gg for me.

>>2162946
fun

Playing Guildmaster again. It turns out you don't even need spellcasters. Just a few dozen mercs lead by a few assasins.

>>2165157
all you need are engineers and their lightning ballistas

>>2146953

There should be skyports in the sky realm that can make airships that can move between clouds. .

>>2170610
Everything that lives in the clouds can fly. Why would they need ports to make airships?

>>2170612
Cloudfolk, the main population up there, cannot fly, they float and will fall to the ground if they walk off the cloud.

>>2170610
Mod the change you want to see

>>2170723
I don't think I could mod that. It'd require a thing that could fly but not get tired nor land on the ground. Maybe if it's possible for something to generate one of those temporary clouds as it moves and generate it such that it doesn't do so over existing clouds and only lasts for the turn it's made. I think stormclouds can move but they'd kill anything on them but I guess the boat could make them lightning immune. Then there would need to be a mechanic for falling overboard and not immediately running off. This sort of works for water and ice where they won't immediately run into water but can still end up pushed in there and drowning. I guess it could be solved just by being able to have cloud battle terrain and it not being destroyable like ice but it'd be better if the ship were able to sink and people were able to fall through holes in the cloud as long as they could not fly or float. There would also need to be a mechanic for units falling to the ground if they didn't fit on the ship and couldn't fly (things that fly can rest on boats even if they're full if they're normal size/size 1) but still being able to walk across them as a bridge like with normal ships. I suppose even if the ship has a cloud under it you could make it just not move if there's too many people in the army and handle falling if the boat moves away. So I'm not sure if you can generate and destroy terrain as you move, trigger things to fall during the turn if they didn't move but you moved instead(might be possible to force you to move but allies can stand on the same square and I'm not sure they can be moved. Maybe if falling is a plane warping action otherwise the ship would have to do something like a forced planeswap on units but exclude itself and its crew.) , or destroy cloud/have things fall from the sky during battle(although falling could just be reworded drowning).