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| The Thread of Many Questions | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 2 2013, 05:52 AM (51,366 Views) | |
| KoboldLord | Nov 17 2016, 06:20 PM Post #511 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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This isn't the answer you wanted, but the most practical answer is that you don't win mercs off the AI. Higher-level AIs aren't any smarter than low-level AIs, they just get large multipliers to gold and production. They can typically max out recruitment at every province they own, and still have plenty of extra left over that they cannot actually spend except by throwing it at mercs. This is also why they end up with so many trashy indies mixed into their armies; they do favor their national troops but with basically infinite gold they will still have some left over after maxing out all their forts. The algorithm for determining AI bids is deliberately wasteful and random specifically so you cannot game the system to figure out what the AI is going to bid, and AIs will randomly bid vastly larger sums than the base price of the mercs. Human players will bid relatively sensible amounts for useful mercs, but the AI knows no such restraint. Incidentally, if a merc is at all desirable for the current phase of the game, a 2x bid is unlikely to win against attentive human players either. Prize mage mercs like Gote or Obscuro will often go for 5x or more their base price, and even solid troop mercs will sometimes go for more than 3x their base price during early expansion to a nation with good early gold income. |
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| DeFlow | Nov 18 2016, 11:12 AM Post #512 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Thanks Kobold. Yep, still one of my major letdowns about the game is that the AI is so crappy. |
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| ChessPieceFace | Nov 18 2016, 04:34 PM Post #513 |
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Trust me. I'm a lawyer.
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I recently came into a high income of fire gems (snagged a throne)... as Eriu with a pretender that does not have fire. I have decent access to earth and huge access to nature in addition to everything you would normally expect from the nation. Anyone have a better idea as to how to take advantage of the situation than trading the gems to someone else for something I can use? Is there any way to break into fire from air/nature/earth if you already have the fire income? Apologies if the question has been handled elsewhere. |
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| Itwastuesday | Nov 18 2016, 05:27 PM Post #514 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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If you can make an elemental staff with your A/E you only need to empower something twice to fire to be able to summon flame spirits which then can possibly summon the kings with a flame hat and the staff. Without staff, likely 3 empowerments. |
| Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. | |
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| KoboldLord | Nov 18 2016, 05:38 PM Post #515 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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There is nothing especially convenient for breaking into fire from air, earth, or nature, and it isn't the most useful element to splash either. If you've broken into death already, you can get useful fire randoms from Hidden in Sand. If you're looking to break into death, you can get there with Forest Troll Tribe. But these are rather long-term plan sorts of things, and you probably want to benefit from those fire gems now, not in two years. You will probably want to trade or empower. While it is possible to break into deep fire with multiple empowerments or exotic boosters, this is another long-term plan and you are probably better served by something that gives immediate returns. As Eriu, your best bet is probably just to pick a cheap mage to empower once and have them spend the rest of the game stamping out lightless lanterns for your researchers or fire brands for your ponies. |
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| ChessPieceFace | Nov 18 2016, 07:08 PM Post #516 |
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Trust me. I'm a lawyer.
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Thanks for the quick and detailed responses. It's good to know I haven't missed a slick summons or something that would let me do it. The dream of course is to have a couple casters who can cast flaming arrows in important battles but absent some indie fire mages who have yet to present themselves that's probably not happening. |
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| Dayyalu | Dec 4 2016, 04:16 PM Post #517 |
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Tartarian
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If I wanted to cripple as fast as possible (both in turns and overall game time sense) a UW cap as a aboveland D\N power what could be the best option? Even if it's suboptimal for the overall growth of my nation? Amulets? Rush Bane Venom Charm, put up some Shades and send them in? Can't think of anything else, as the good options are air or fire. |
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| KoboldLord | Dec 4 2016, 05:31 PM Post #518 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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If you can hold a land province in the UW nation's cap circle indefinitely, the bane venom charms are the most gem-efficient way to do it. They would need to kill your black servants at max range with mages on the very first turn of battle or you just have them walk back in on the next turn, every turn. The bane venom effect happens between moving scouts and getting patrolled out. If you have gems to piss away, remote unrest spells will keep him from doing literally anything at all. I've managed to lock down a capital with four Blights per turn, but you'll want to keep a mage scrying the target province to make sure you keep unrest up. There's substantial diminishing returns once you approach 100, and it's really hard to keep unrest above 100 even if your target isn't trying very hard to lower it. Your choice of unrest spell depends mostly on what kind of gem you have an excess of, because you'll need a lot of them. |
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| DeFlow | Dec 5 2016, 09:58 AM Post #519 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Let's say I'm playing MA C'tis and I'm up to Ench 5, Conj 4 & Const 4 (and some other schools at 1/2). My mainstay mages (Marshmasters), have W1D2N2 with possibility for extra paths. First of all, I currently script my battles as follows: mages casting horde of skeletons x5, one mage adding a foul vapours in there. Some mages equipped with a skull staff, amulet of reinvigoration and/or an amulet of the dead. The rest of my army is closely behind these mages, so that the skellyspam will reach the opponent first, with my mundane troops supporting. Any ideas if I can do something more effective with my current resourceS? Secondly, what would be good next research targets? |
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| Red_Rob | Dec 5 2016, 12:43 PM Post #520 |
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Dreamer of Dreams
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Well, firstly the Amulet of the Dead only gives a bonus to the creation of permanent undead, it gives no bonus to in-battle summons if that is what you are aiming for. The only way to enhance in-battle summons is increasing your path level through Skull Staffs, which is pretty expensive. For items possibly look at Boots of the Messenger, it gives 3 reinvig for 5 gems instead of the Amulet of Resilience at 5 for 10. A little more efficient and you can spread them around more. If you need some shock troops you can do worse than the spell Pale Riders. It gives a nice chunk of Undead Horsemen that can do some damage on the flanks with their lances. Spending 30 Death gems on a horde of 60 quasi-knights can give you a pretty nice shock force in a pinch, however you need to be aware their low hp means attrition is pretty severe. With your current setup you might want to look at trying to also cast Quagmire. It gives penalties to all units without Swamp Survival, including additional encumbrance. This will mean enemy troops and mages tire faster against your skellispam, gaining increasing combat penalties as they do so. As it requires W4 and 1 gem it can be cast by a W3 mage with an extra gem. Also don't forget your Lizard Shamans can do a nice S/N communion to get off things like Antimagic (boosts your undead units MR to help against Banishment spam), Howl or Mass Protecion. Alternatively you can set up a decent Light of the North Star > Stellar Cascades battery. For research I think heading up to Ench6 gives a lot of goodies. The stars are Rigor Mortis & Relief. Rigor Mortic piles the fatigue on all non-undead at a frightening rate. This will hit your own mages, but with your reinvig items and the fact your undead troops can ignore it means it is a lot worse for your enemies. Relief on the other hand grants battlefield-wide reinvig to all your units. At N5 but only 1 gem it can be cast by a N3 mage with a Thistle Mace and 2 gems. Relief is particularly great combo'd with Rigor Mortis as your enemies will all be tiring and piling on the combat penalties whilst your mages and troops remain relatively fresh. Alternatively heading up to Evo5 gets you Shadowblast. This is a large aoe attack that deals 20+ AN damage and paralyses targets (MR Resists both effects) that only requires D2 but costs a gem to cast. Often a good start to a battle is a line of mages with a few Death gems each raining Shadowblasts onto the enemy line. Undead are immune to the spell and so friendly fire isn't a concern. Conjuration 6 gets you Ghosts and Spectres. Spectral Mages are nice thugs with a Frost Brand & Vine Shield that can give you some magic diversity with their possible Earth randoms. Ghosts are nice spread amongst your undead hordes using their Fear aura to make sure enemies break early. At some point you want Alt6 for Darkness. This will massively buff your undead troops against any enemies without Darkvision. Once you have this up even the most elite troops will struggle to do serious damage against your legions. |
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| DeFlow | Dec 5 2016, 12:50 PM Post #521 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Thanks for this super extensive answer Red_Rob. =] |
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| Red_Rob | Dec 5 2016, 01:44 PM Post #522 |
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Dreamer of Dreams
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Oh, something I just noticed from your setup description. If you actually are starting your mages in front of the rest of your army, don't do that. Initial targeting for units is chosen at the start of the battle, so any enemy archers on Fire Closest will lock onto your mages and keep shooting them, ignoring the skellispam until they kill their target. Make sure to have a couple of small units of troops set out front to attract arrow fire. |
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The Dom 5 Mod Catalog - Every mod for Dom5 with pictures! Dom5 Modding Starter Pack Everything you need to start modding My Mods: Dominions: Enhanced! A compilation mod including Magic Enhanced, Pretenders Enhanced, Sites Enhanced, Fantastic Mercenaries, Better Arena, Worthy Heroes, EA Fennoscandia, EA Juhera, MA Iram, MA Shambhala, LA Iram and LA Rotterland Magic Enhanced v2 Over 900 new spells + items, National spells for every nation, plus nation and spell tweaks Pretenders Enhanced! Reworks Pretenders to make more viable options, plus adds over 100 new Pretenders Extra Pretenders Over 100 new Pretenders EA Fennoscandia A nation based on Sami and Finnish folklore Fantastic Mercenaries Adds 57 new mercenary bands including Vanir, Abysians and more | |
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| ChessPieceFace | Dec 11 2016, 07:16 PM Post #523 |
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Trust me. I'm a lawyer.
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I found and claimed the throne of spring underwater. Built a lab but can't build mages of spring. Is that aspect of the throne just lost because it spawned underwater? Thanks in advance. |
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| KoboldLord | Dec 11 2016, 07:29 PM Post #524 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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That's correct. It isn't a special case for that throne; any time you have a magic site that allows you to hire a unit that would die as soon as it was hired, it simply won't let you throw away your money trying to hire that unit. |
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| ChessPieceFace | Jan 4 2017, 02:21 PM Post #525 |
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Trust me. I'm a lawyer.
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Anyone know anything about a random event where you uncover a sealed tomb from imperial Ermor and need a grand thaumaturge to unseal it. Playing as Sceleria. Second step of the event is your grand thaumaturge can unseal the tomb but it will take time and may be dangerous. Web searching reveals that a similar event may happen to C'tis. Thanks in advance. |
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