Dominions 6

[Ratcatcher]

What strategic depth did we gain from separate mounts?

I'm still to play with a proper cavalry heavy faction BUTT:

-Mounts that lose their rider can still influence combat. Some are literally more powerful than the rider (Bandar's tigers, ****** spiders)
-A surviving mount makes rehiring a rider in the same province cheaper. Because you already have the mount. Exact mechanics of this currently unclear.
-Dimsounted riders keep fighting, you need to kill the knight after the horse, usually.
-Dismounted riders that survive combat can retreat and find new mounts automatically.
-Cavalry that retreats from combat with both rider and mount is almost guaranteed to make it back to a friendly province, this opens up possibilities. Maybe. Still need to test stuff.
-Spells can affect mounts and riders differently. Charm the rider and the beast remains, dominate the animal and you still have the (now ****** off) rider.

This simply from the top of my head. I'm pretty sure there's much more. Also diz:



This thing count has riding 4 mounts. Memetic potential over 9K. How kewl is that?

[Lich]

The increased simulation is nice but I'm unsure how significant this would be in battle. I wonder if they plan to add ways to change mounts or add mounts to unmounted units. Anyway, I'm going to get the game tomorrow.

[Ratcatcher]

The effect in battle is quite noticeable, I assure you. Cav is definitely stronger. Altho I'm not the most experienced of players or the most knoweledgeable about meta, maybe there are things I fail to notice. All the other old time Dom players I'm talking to are quite enthusiastic, in general. Ofc they grumble for this or that change but no one is arguing the general direction is good. The cav changes especially seem to be apreciated.

I'll try a MA Ulm tonite, that should be enough cavalry stress test proper, without any fancy bless, just high stats, heavy armor and a steel-hard ****.

[Decline]

-A surviving mount makes rehiring a rider in the same province cheaper. Because you already have the mount. Exact mechanics of this currently unclear.

From my MA Marignon game: When the KotCs were killed the horsies ran back to where they were recruited from, cutting cost for the KotC recruitment in half for every horse returned.

[Ratcatcher]

Yes, currently playing as chad Ulm, the same happened. Even with stronger indies, 1 guardian + 5 BK guards can still clear 75% of provinces. Cavalry def feel stronger, especially elite one.

Some horsies also have the 'gud boi' tag, which makes them find their way home 100% of times. Noice.

[Emphyrio]

What age do you nerds want to play?


I'm fine with any as long as you don't spam cancer nations

[Ratcatcher]

I'd frankly randomize both age and nation for the first game, helps getting out of your comfort zone and any preference I have is currently based on the old games. Altho I think MA is probably still the most unpredictable and probably less fun, if there's wide difference in skill between the players involved. LA should feel quite different, with all the nerfs to blood magic and the emphasis on scale troops. EA is the age I have less exp with.

I'm open to anything tho.

[Decline]

What age do you nerds want to play?


I'm fine with any as long as you don't spam cancer nations

LA

[Decline]

Another. I'm yet to find a single one I don't like and the only ones complaining are people not playing the game.

Cooomplainors gonna cooomplain on CooomplainHQ.org

The QoL changes in Dom6 alone are good enough that I will never go back to Dom5.

[Ratcatcher]

I agree, but if someone is unimpressed with the change, I won't flex the fact you can now drag-select multiple commanders/troops and deploy + script them without having to go back and forth between screens. Dominions UI could use a number of improvements. It's just because the underlying game is so ubelievably good (especially for such a small team, working other jobs as their main source of income) that Illwinter gets a pass.

What I can argue is the direction behind the changes and how deep they run. There's plenty of those, they are mostly for the better and to discuss and apreciate that we need time and experience.
Eg imho is the unit size rework is truly what makes this the best Dom ever. I'm still experimenting but you an do fancy stuff like deploy cav behind small troops and have them charge through your own formation or use N spells like summon swarm to fill the gaps in your formation and have more attack density. Big giants are now size 7, like the biggest elementals. Gone are the days in which you could easily trample Jotun Jarls.

More cav considerashuns, for those that asked me previously:

Sacred cav has changed in meta, due to the separation of rider and mount. Now you can give an increased STR bless and have it also influence the mount. Try it with Bandar tigers. On the other hand, if you 'Larger' as bless effect, only your mount will increase in size. This means investing in 'repel' blesses for heavy cav has been nerfed into oblivion.

[Emphyrio]

The only place where the UI is really bad is the top toolbar on the overworld view. Even on the largest font size the buttons are too small and clumped up together.

I am not seeing much difference in indie density, nor do my armies feel much larger than before. Indies might be a little harder because cav takes longer to kill and N mages can skelespam with bushes now. SP AI is still bad at expansion.

The super-expensive mages and 1000g, 5 month palisades are throwing me off the most. I didn't play Dom 5 mp so idk what the "meta" was, but the old dom 3 and 4 convential wisdom to recruit a mage every turn was something I usually found not worthwhile during year 0 expansion. I think it will be even moreso now. Fewer mages to manage should be a good thing.

Eg imho is the unit size rework is truly what makes this the best Dom ever. I'm still experimenting but you an do fancy stuff like deploy cav behind small troops and have them charge through your own formation

Is this something you've actually done? I don't see how the rule change makes that possible. How can a size 5 horse charge through a square of five size 2 midgets?

Big giants are now size 7, like the biggest elementals. Gone are the days in which you could easily trample Jotun Jarls.

inspector says that jotun jarls are size 6 and the biggest elementals are size 9.

[Ratcatcher]

The indy density is def there, I mostly played LA which is the one with the strongest indies overall, but I'd say the amount of provinces with over 100-120 troops has increased considerably. Additionally, more indy generals now have bodyguards and/or gems, which make assasination attempts or first attacks more dangerous. The same expansion group I used for all Dom5 just cannot do it all now, they fail after a couple fights and need to be reinforced. Not all nations feel it the same way tho so it rly depends on what you played as. MA Ulm can expand pretty much unchanged, just avoid barbarians and weird stuff. Where before a group of 5 BK + Lord could easily cut a swath of 5+ provinces, I now hardly manage to take 2. They def kill more stuff, point is there is much more stuff to kill. You end up with the same amount of provinces in the end of year one but instead of investing the increased gold amount into an additional fortress or two, you're encouraged to build more troops. Nations with great mobility like Xibalba I simply cannot get the same results, not even close. Bats are frail.

Plenty of nations do not want to recruit a conventional mage each turn year one. That's just a broad suggestion new players are given, the important thing is to ALWAYS recruit from your capital. If you're missing a single turn of recruitment, you must have very good reasons to do so. Eg, some nations want to put up a new fortress as soon as possible precisely because they tend to recruit different kind of commanders, not used for research, from their cap. Which ofc tanks their own research year one (again, one must have good reasons to do so). If missing a single commander or two can help you put up the ideal fortress one turn before, maybe think about doing that. It rly depends, as you can fathom...

[Emphyrio]

The indy density is def there, I mostly played LA which is the one with the strongest indies overall, but I'd say the amount of provinces with over 100-120 troops has increased considerably. Additionally, more indy generals now have bodyguards and/or gems, which make assasination attempts or first attacks more dangerous.

I experimented with MA Marignon. I assassinated 10 or 12 indie commanders (barbarian leader, horse commander, normal vertical sword guy) and none of them had bodyguards, except for the peasants in the tavern. My recollection from dom 5 is that indie mages in special provinces like amazons were usually the ones with gems and bodyguards.

I didn't see any provinces with over 100 troops except the thrones, but it was MA and I didn't have any big cities provinces near me either.

[Ratcatcher]

I experimented with MA Marignon. I assassinated 10 or 12 indie commanders (barbarian leader, horse commander, normal vertical sword guy) and none of them had bodyguards, except for the peasants in the tavern. My recollection from dom 5 is that indie mages in special provinces like amazons were usually the ones with gems and bodyguards.

Err... Either they changed something stealthily with today's patch or that's completely different from my experience. Empoisoners have D1 and a poison slings. They used to be absolute monsters in taking provinces. Now, I'd say there's about a 35% chance a regular indie commander comes on top, about 60% for a barbarian one to kill it and hell, even lowly priests can **** you. Because sometimes there are commoners on the map, the priest manages to banish 3+ longdeads and the rest of the people gank on the empoisoner. Are all MA assassinations maps in forests or smth?

Maybe the difference is the age or smth else but as far as I can tell, it's the assassination maps. Cramped spaces means the victim can close in much easier, other random targets on the map the AI stubbornly targets with spells or ranged. I'm pretty sure once you have some tools online it plays in favor of the assassin (imagine what you can do with a single bottle of living water) but atm I consider assassin expansion in LA too unreliable. Even experimenting with the new fear effects

[Emphyrio]

I experimented with MA Marignon. I assassinated 10 or 12 indie commanders (barbarian leader, horse commander, normal vertical sword guy) and none of them had bodyguards, except for the peasants in the tavern. My recollection from dom 5 is that indie mages in special provinces like amazons were usually the ones with gems and bodyguards.

Err... Either they changed something stealthily with today's patch or that's completely different from my experience. Empoisoners have D1 and a poison slings. They used to be absolute monsters in taking provinces. Now, I'd say there's about a 35% chance a regular indie commander comes on top, about 60% for a barbarian one to kill it and hell, even lowly priests can **** you. Because sometimes there are commoners on the map, the priest manages to banish 3+ longdeads and the rest of the people gank on the empoisoner. Are all MA assassinations maps in forests or smth?

Maybe the difference is the age or smth else but as far as I can tell, it's the assassination maps. Cramped spaces means the victim can close in much easier, other random targets on the map the AI stubbornly targets with spells or ranged. I'm pretty sure once you have some tools online it plays in favor of the assassin (imagine what you can do with a single bottle of living water) but atm I consider assassin expansion in LA too unreliable. Even experimenting with the new fear effects

Well, I didn't take zero losses. But MA Mari can recruit 3 assassins a turn. Most of my assassin attempts were in the tavern or against a sleeping guy. Two were outside. Assassin has a sword and poison dagger and decent stats so they did usually win. If I had given them fire swords, they would would have won every one of the fights I saw... dunno if worthwhile.

[Ratcatcher]

Mmh, I never tried it with Mari so I cannot really give any advice... Empoisoners are 1,5 per turn so the loss of one or, Pantokrator forbid, two from a single team can be catastrophic. A stack of 3 assassin, if successful, can reliably empty a province of commanders and take it in 2 turns. First turn you assassinate, second you repeat with 2 of the 3 assassins and attack the province with the 3rd. Or you can use a scout and have the third one also assassinate. I've yet to see a single non-throne province fielding more than 4 commanders. 5 attempts should be enough and 6 overkill, for it to be reliable.

Just try it a couple times, compare number of provinces and critical research you need by the end of year one, that's usually a good benchmark, by then you want at least some of your major tools online for your first wars. Try expanding with assassins and without and just see what works best. Do not believe in the meta. Ok, believe it when players with more exp (not necessarily me) give you advice but also remember the game is so vast and complex and we live in the age of monke sees monke does. Sometimes all it takes to surprise everyone is something no one else tried doing seriously before.

[Emphyrio]

Looks like Fraudwinter finally got around to implementing the AI No Foreign Recruit mod. Uruk (normal AI) managed to park an army of 200 enkidu on my cap for a few turns late year 1. Ironically my army that destroyed them was 50% indie tribal trash.

@Decline are you hosting or what?

[Wretch]

Dominions 5 had hotseat co op. Does this game? Anybody have any experience with it?

[Decline]

Looks like Fraudwinter finally got around to implementing the AI No Foreign Recruit mod. Uruk (normal AI) managed to park an army of 200 enkidu on my cap for a few turns late year 1. Ironically my army that destroyed them was 50% indie tribal trash.

@Decline are you hosting or what?

Game has been up in the Lobby since Jan 17.

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[Ratcatcher]

Just started a test game as Ragha. In my cap ring, there's a stack of 90+ tribals with 4 druids and 20 (twenty) dark vines.

Twenty.




Santa Maria Madre di Dio.


Edit: should we pick nations or randomize them? Have we chosen an era? No, we haven't yet. Plz, not EA, plz.

edit2: LA C'Tis. Interesting choice. Tentative dib for Ragha, if we end up selecting and not randomizing nations.

[Decline]

Edit: should we pick nations or randomize them? Have we chosen an era? No, we haven't yet. Plz, not EA, plz.

As I said I set the game to LA.
I am open to randoming.

Edit: I don't think randoming even works, as you can't start the game as long as there are open slots and you can't "fill" the slot as long as you do not have selected a nation. Illwinter Game Design.

Edit2: You can cheat the system by choosing a nation, creating/loading a pretender and then switching to random. No idea if you keep the Pretender.

Edit3: Tried it, hangs the Server.

[Ratcatcher]

Usually randomizing in MP means someone draws straws. Or uses fancy forum functions to throw dice. The lobby itself is a new thing, I personally never used it before. My last MP game was in the era of PBEM.

[Decline]

Usually randomizing in MP means someone draws straws. Or uses fancy forum functions to throw dice. The lobby itself is a new thing, I personally never used it before. My last MP game was in the era of PBEM.

Mine too, but I want to try this new lobby thingy.

[Irenaeus]

Uploaded my Pythium pretender

[Emphyrio]

Since Pythium is taken I will play Phlegra. They seem to have a lot more downsides than upsides, but we'll see...

[Ratcatcher]

Do I have time to test stuff? I have smth in mind but no actual Pretender created. Unfortunately today I have a bunch of fat kids to hunt...

[Decline]

Game 1 commencing.

Game 2 open: RPGHQ2 (standard password)

[Irenaeus]

No fog of war?

No renaming?

[Ratcatcher]

Mmh, just to let you know, since the mapgen is ****, it's better to generate a map before, then edit it so that you define all the possible starting provinces, mark those as no-throne and also mark as no-throne everything in the capring. It's also a good idea to remove all natural blockers, like rivers and mountains, from caprings. Else you'll get wildly different starting positions, some with few connections, some that need a number of turns to circumvent barriers and some slowed by the presence of a throne (which can easily become a tremendous advantage, depending on the nation, the player and the throne.)

Just writing a few misc stuff because at a glance I don't think you did so... Amirite? It's fine anyway, just sayin' for the sake of it.

edit: fog of war is in I think but the map is super small

edit2: no renaming kills the memetic potential of the game, I agree

[Decline]

Can you guys give rec. game settings in terms of 'menu->parameter=value'? That way it's easier to find. I guess for RPGHQ2 we do a screenshot of the settings so we don't forget them for the next games.

Regarding the maps, I think we will have premade available.