Dominions 4 Play By Email - Game Complete!

[KoolNoodles]

Wow dude, what happened? If it makes you feel any better, there is a 5 Thousand strong army of undead on my border.

 

[Dayyālu]

The AI went full derp on me. If you lacked scouts here, it was literally painful to see.

SCs self buff. Casting Grip of Winter to cut down with fatigue his numerous mages. Warriors of Niel to avoid that fate for my own mages and SCs.

Infantry charges. The first defenders are quickly dealt with, and the SCs fly to the back of the Caelian army to harass their mages.

To my endless terror and amusement, my infantry refuses to budge from the entrance, despite having surrounded the Bane Lord. With terror, I see the Earthbound slowly cutting down my unsupported Golems. With mounting terror, I realize that my infantry will not move until they kill the target they selected, "Attack rear" instructions be damned.

Golems die. Earthbound charge my infantry. Earthbound gets killed. But that Thug is still there. When he is reduced at 1 hit point, my main infantry block breaks, the Thug takes position at the castle's gate and cuts down everything afterwards. Notice how he got propelled to the second place in the Hall of Fame?

This one will probably gift the game to you, as I lost roughly 200 gems and 200 of my infantry (I can recruit 40 of them par turn) against a dead player.

The horror, the endless horror....

EDIT 2: Children, never mistake Warriors of Muspelheim with Warriors of Nielfeheim and with Frost Fend. I misclicked, got confused and was too lazy to check, so my Golems had fire resistance up. Grip of Winter fatigued them to death, and Earthbounds got critical hit after critical hit.

I can only say a thing. I'm dumb.

 

[hoverdog]

God fucking dammit, I can't even play an honest-to-god intro level SP game, as I'm stumped with the leader/nation combo and I'm rerolling games continuously.

 

[Azira]

Sorry, don't think I'm really available for an MP game just yet. Still doddering around like an infant in SP, and between work and two children, I'd just run the risk of leaving you hanging time and again.

 

[Kane]

Double-post master reporting.

Azira
Berekän
hoverdog
mysterious_friend_of_hoverdog

The game is here: http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=IHNIWID
MA Aran, all settings are llama defaults, except for research (standard) and Worthy Heroes 1.21 mod.

I've set 6 players max. Now yer actions are:
1. Create a Pretender God in Game Tools. Don't forget we play MA.
2. Go to Game Tools - User Data Directory. In opend window choose Savedgames - Newlords. There you will find Pretender file. If you've got a shitton of Pretenders already, be sure to find the right one (check the manual on how to do that, or just delete Pretenders you won't use).
3. Once you find the file, send it to
pretenders@llamaserver.net
Type in the topic:
IHNIWID
4. Create a new folder in savedgames. Name it "IHNIWID".
5. Once all players gather, and the game starts, llamaserver will send you turn file. Download it to "IHNIWID" folder.
6. Start the game, choose "Play Existing Game", there "IHNIWID". Make yer turn, bash dat ESC button, and choose "Save and Quit".
7. In yer "IHNIWID" folder you'll find a .2h file. Send it to
turns@llamaserver.net
8. Once all player send their turns, the server will host dat shit. Then you'll receive new turn file. Return to 6 and repeat until you win.

Can you make your own thread for that?

 

[Kane]

Wow dude, what happened? If it makes you feel any better, there is a 5 Thousand strong army of undead on my border.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Wow dude, what happened? If it makes you feel any better, there is a 5 Thousand strong army of undead on my border.

I assume you're headed south.

 

[Grimwulf]

Can you make your own thread for that?

Can I? How many Dom4 threads are allowed on Codex strategy discussion? I'm just helping out new guy(s) with llama, not even sure this party will ever start. Screw it.

Berekän
hoverdog

I suggest we organize in my LP thread. If we gather enough players, I'll post a new thread, err, somewhere (on playground, most likely).

 

[Kane]

How many Dom4 threads are allowed on Codex strategy discussion?

Suprisingly, as many as you want. I'd love to join but I don't want to commit over the holidays.

@Noodles: everywhere is south from where I am.

 

[Dayyālu]

I'd like to ask for a 72 hour extension for the whole of December. I have a ton of work to do, and today I almost staled.

If you prefer 48, I'll manage.

 

[KoolNoodles]

That is ok to me.

 

[Mraston]

Sure thang!

Longer turns will allow me more time to watch my empire crumble around me! Merry Christmas!

 

[Kane]

 

[KoolNoodles]

You need any other spell casters, and you would win some battles, lol. Wtf are you doing with all those death gems? Summon some spectres, summon some mound fiends. Cast Darkness, Bone Grinding, Life after Death, etc.

Unless your research sucks, then.....

 

[Kane]

You need any other spell casters, and you would win some battles, lol. Wtf are you doing with all those death gems? Summon some spectres, summon some mound fiends. Cast Darkness, Bone Grinding, Life after Death, etc.

Unless your research sucks, then.....

I do exactly that. That army I send vs Abysia just had none.

It"s still not adding up at all though. Even with Well up I can barely produce enough death gems to get out a single pimped mound fiend every 2-3 turns, thanks the horrible Alchemy costs. Then there is the fact that I have exactly two units at my disposal: Mound Fiend/Grand Lemur and zero damage chaff in 6 different bitmaps. 3 if you add the freespawn priests. None of these deal any damage, so I am 100% reliant on spells. Awesome. Because the only spells of note I can cast are D. And research as Lemuria is super shit.

I get the concept of Lemuria, I really do. You have a gigantic but ultimately useless damage sponge and you torpedo your enemy from behind that with loads and loads of awesome death magicery. But where are all these mages? They don't exist! I can barely maintain 1 MF per 1000 useless buggers and that's simply not cutting it late game. Lemuria is critically lacking progression, 88 turns later and it still feels like I just started out. There needs to be some proper conjuration that's worth its cost in death gems besides MF, something that deals some fukken damage when it touches you would be a nice start.

Lemuria fucking sucks as zerg nation, if I were to play it again I'd go for dom-kill turtle. Aggressively put up temples and forts everywhere, push out that dom to force the enemy to come to you and defensive battles in your dom all the way. Too bad you don't really have the right kind of units to make that work either.

 

[Dayyālu]

It"s still not adding up at all though.

To an external observer ( I live on the other side of the world, after all) the problem with Lemuria is not only "tactical", it is strategical. You failed to attack Ragha when he was at his weakest. Well, maybe you were not ready... maybe. About Alchemy, without offense, it boggles my mind. You have access to at least other two players with good gem economies and excellent forging capabilities, and instead of trading and optimizing you Alchemized gems. That's insane. Ragha itself can guarantee that I am honest in trading, but you never requested anything: why wasting gems in empowering/Alchemizing (if it was not the life giving break in Air) instead of trading?

You need any other spell casters, and you would win some battles, lol. Wtf are you doing with all those death gems? Summon some spectres, summon some mound fiends. Cast Darkness, Bone Grinding, Life after Death, etc.

Grip of Winter+ Rigor Mortis could work wonders. Fatigue kills everyhting, sooner or later, and W is quite easy to break in.

Break into some conjurations like N and even at low levels you have damage dealers that Ragha and Abysia would find difficult to counter, and you can ignore safely (poison, mostly).

Plus, I don't know, you should the be ultimate Skellispamming nation after Ermor. If C'tis with his suicidal God gave me some headache with 7-8 Sauromancers, I can only imagine what a Lemuria army can do.

But I don't know. Never played Lemuria, even in SP.

 

[Kane]

To an external observer ( I live on the other side of the world, after all) the problem with Lemuria is not only "tactical", it is strategical. You failed to attack Ragha when he was at his weakest.

I didn't. I made some critical mistakes early game that delayed me enough that I wasn't able to his then northernmost castle before his fire arrows popped out. Maybe I should've committed back then and sieged it anyway. This was probably the most important decision of the game.

and instead of trading and optimizing you Alchemized gems

You know full well that what I need you don't want to give or you don't have.

Grip of Winter+ Rigor Mortis could work wonders.

Rigor and Grip are Ench6. I have it now obviously, but back when it was relevant it was still a long way off. It's not that I can't win, but I need a large manpower advantage with at least magical parity. And where is that going to come from?

X is quite easy to break in

Not as Lemuria it isn't. You have to realize that everything Lemuria has is tremendously overpriced. Magic diversity? It's shit. You have death, some astral and you won't get anywhere with water or air. My terrible pretender choice doesn't exactly help either. Picking a good pretender with the right paths is absolutely crucial for Lemuria, but hindsight is 20/20.

Skellispamming

Nope. Not possible. Lemuria is incredibly one-dimensional.

Essentially what I need is more of something lesser instead of less of something greater and definitely none of nothing.

 

[Malakal]

D has the best spells tho, rigor mortis, wailing winds, shadow blast for battlefield spells, legion of wights/tartarian gate for summons. And if you got a well of misery up you can afford whole armies of wights.

The trick to Lemuria is research and I hear you need to find indie mages to stay competitive there - even inept researchers are decent in M3 you need to have as Lemuria.

Finally there is utterdark as the global winning spell you could use. But its high in research so obviously relies on getting some.

Still Lemuria is indeed shit.

 

[Kane]

D has the best spells tho, rigor mortis, wailing winds, shadow blast for battlefield spells, legion of wights/tartarian gate for summons. And if you got a well of misery up you can afford whole armies of wights.

I wouldn't bother with Wights. And if you think with Well up you can afford "armies" of them: yes and no. Wights alone will not win you the game. You have several strategies you can pursue as Lemuria, but each of them cost ridiculous amounts of gems, both in planning/setup and maintenance, so realistically you have to decide on 1 or 2 of them. You simply cannot kit out combatants, and summon tartarians and have SOTD and "legions of weights" and Skellispam, and and and.

The trick to Lemuria is research and I hear you need to find indie mages to stay competitive there - even inept researchers are decent in M3 you need to have as Lemuria.

The trick is going ench3 asap for Revenants, who cost 10D vs. 15D for Acolytes for the same R and then turtling hard while investing every. single. D. into revenants to keep up with research (realize that most everyone else keeps recruiting their R by turn 1) until Alteration 6 or so and then march out with chaff and invulnerable soul vortexing GLs. This all assumes your enemy is incompetent and doesn't just exploits your narrow focus. It's not exactly hard to read Lemuria.

Finally there is utterdark as the global winning spell you could use. But its high in research so obviously relies on getting some.

Unlike BoT, Utterdark will indeed win you the game. Get there or die trying.

 

[Norfleet]

Heh, I like the tag on Hoverdog's server. No Fun Allowed indeed. I haven't been involved in Dominions in a very long time now, although I definitely made an impact on pretty much everything that changed from 2 to 3. What's 4 like? I hear something about a horrid DRM infestation.

 

[Dayyālu]

Heh, I like the tag on Hoverdog's server. No Fun Allowed indeed. I haven't been involved in Dominions in a very long time now, although I definitely made an impact on pretty much everything that changed from 2 to 3. What's 4 like? I hear something about a horrid DRM infestation.

Better cheat prevention? Reforms against Death Gem inflation?

Spoiler

You'll have to admit, that thread was comedy gold.

4 is Dominions, more refined and less unnerving to play. Less microing (always a lot, of course), more focus on national troops, SCs are far harder to produce and easier to counter. Plus dozen of smaller things, probably Grimwulf or Johannes can explain the minutiae better than me. I found it far more enjoyable, even for my simpleton SP tastes.

DRM is a variant of the old "checks if pirated key, degrades game" up on Dom3. Never found too many complaining about Illwinter, bar the crybabies on SA (mmuhhhh balance) or random pirates. A developer that keeps patching up stuff and adding nations is worthy of appreciation.

 

[Malakal]

Heh, I like the tag on Hoverdog's server. No Fun Allowed indeed. I haven't been involved in Dominions in a very long time now, although I definitely made an impact on pretty much everything that changed from 2 to 3. What's 4 like? I hear something about a horrid DRM infestation.

True unkillable SCs are out, gem economy is out, you rely way more on national troops. Late game strats nerfed all over, tarts nerfed, blood remains strong.

New fun nations added. Summons not rebalanced to accommodate for new gem incomes - less gem armies.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Glad to hear all your mages are besieging my castle, then.

 

[Kane]

Glad to hear all your mages are besieging my castle, then.

>> And then you will go to Ragha and tell him that all the mages are besieging his castle. And he will ask "All?" And you will answer "All." and he will understand.

 

[Dayyālu]

>> And then you will go to Ragha and tell him that all the mages are besieging his castle. And he will ask "All?" And you will answer "All." and he will understand.

Spoiler

I can only say that maybe, maybe my main army could have weathered that. Scratch that, the Raghan God would be thrice dead if I he attacked me with those unequipped SCs (Did I not kill that Ice Devil six turns ago?). The main army of Lemuria, on the other hand...

Well, I hope that someone will upload some screenshots or a video. That was almost as painful to see as my debacle on the last Caelian fortress.

It seems that this game is going to end in a victory for Ragha, despite him being ganged up by everyone else. BUUUUUT....

AT LAST! What we do? We play it standard? We send human-sized combatants? We send our Gods and close the game here before we reach turn 238? After turns of insane late game fighting the Arena has its charm....