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EA Yomi - Research is fun-damental; One idea on how to play Yomi
Topic Started: Jun 13 2016, 08:30 PM (5,016 Views)
Glimbur
Guy who should know better
Introduction and Summary

30 second summary:
Get an awake Great Sage with B3E2 and a bunch more magic (no more B though). Expand with Aka-oni and bandit archers as arrow sponges. Research mostly Alteration but some Construction for Owl Quills and Dai Oni gear; scatter in Conj for Earth Power and Evo if necessary. Win before late game.

Yomi is a pretty strange nation. You can recruit demons, but for such a demonic nation you have no blood magic. You have some sacred summons but no sacred troops. You have tolerable mages and one amazing mage/thug. You don’t have any shields.. Here are some things that I think are true in general, as well as some Yomi-specific things.

Pretender Design
There are six things you can try to do with a Pretender, and you can do some of each.
1) An early expansion pretender (Earth Snake) expands early. Typically they have nice innate abilities but poor slots, so by mid-late game they are less useful in combat.
2) A Titan pretender has lots of hp and good slots. They’re better in combat mid or late game, when you can put good items on them. With the right paths they can be fearsome, but every unit can be killed somehow. And they’re only one unit, so they can only be one place doing one thing at once.
3) You can build for scales. Which scales are good depends on your nation: someone with heavy infantry might want production, magic is nice especially if you have cheap research mages, and so on.
4) You can build a bless. Again, this is highly nation specific: giants often want N9E4-9 while Mictlan might be happier with FxWx or something similar.
5) You can build a Pretender to cast spells. This has overlap with building a bless, but you’ll have a specific spell in mind: Vampire Count for LA Ulm is a classic example. I’d file a ‘rainbow mage’ as I understand it under here too, though the focus there is more for variety of site searching than a specific spell. Maybe.
6) You can build a Pretender for special abilities. Could be stealth (for dom-killing), assassination, research bonus, free spawn, healer, or any of a number of abilities.

Yomi could take an expansion pretender, but your early game expansion can be pretty great (see below). You have pretty good thugs in Dai Oni, it’s not worth the opportunity cost to have another thug/sc in a titan chassis. Scales are ok, but since Turmoil is hilarious you don’t need to overspend here. Yomi doesn’t want a strong bless because Dai Oni are hardcore enough on their own, and Tengu are too much hassle to mass and frankly pretty fragile. What I would do with Yomi is take an Awake Great Sage with Dom 7, Turmoil 3, Heat 1, Growth 1, Luck 3, Magic 1, and Air 2 Water 1 Earth 4 Astral 2 Nature 2 Blood 3. That’s 48 research a turn before your magic scale, and access to a number of handy items we’ll cover in the item overview. Stick this guy in the lab and research unless there's an item only he can make that you need, or it's Throne time. Items include your first Thistle Mace, Boots of Flying, Blood Stone, and maybe a Dwarven Hammer.

Turmoil, Luck, and Magic work together to get you gold, gems, and items. I know a case can be made for Order to get more consistent income, but it’s so rare that you have an excuse to take Turmoil that I say go for it. Heat 1 is because we need the points and our Hanya would rather have heat than cold. You could drop a point of Dominion for a point of Productivity if you want more bandits for whatever reason, the income boost is minimal.

Aside: Blood is for Blood Stones. You’re a pretty good Earth nation, Blood Stones are a sweet earth booster/gem gen, and it’s good to have options. There are four good ways to get blood slaves:
Random events. With max luck and turmoil you’ll get some slaves.
Thrones. The Lower Throne, the Shattered Throne, and probably others just pour out blood slaves.
Trading. Spin the other players a sob story about how you wanted to try demons with your national spells but forgot to buy any blood magic. 50 slaves is 3 blood stones and a little extra. Or be more honest with them, just get those slaves at a reasonable cost.
Blood hunt with the Master of the Shadow Blossom (or a random mage with blood). Again, max luck and turmoil mean you should see heroes pretty regularly. Kurofumi has Blood 1, not great but enough.
Don’t blood hunt with your pretender early or mid game. That research is pretty great, and especially if you don’t want to hunt your capital it takes several turns to get enough slaves.

Unit Overview
Recruitable units
Bakemono (Club): These guys are pretty garbage. Low morale, low protection, so-so atk and def. Their only redeeming features are their low cost and their stealth.
Bakemono (Yari): Amazing what a difference a long stick makes. The Yari is length 5, which means you have a shot at repelling most things. Against trash units (like the club bakemono) they’ll do ok. And these guys are stealthy and recruitable in mountains.
Bakemono (short bow): If you think Flaming Arrows are a good idea, then these guys are a good way to deliver them. Cheaper and easier to mass than bandit archers, and stealthy so they can be a surprise.
Bandit (Yari): Like bakemono, except they wear actual armor. Short bows are the most common ranged weapon in EA, and their 9 piercing damage against effectively 10ish armor is not a bad risk to take. These guys should be the foundation of your Surprise Teams, and they’re ok frontliners too.
Bandit (bow): These guys are the little brother to samurai archers. Well armored and decent melee weapon for an archer, which means they are good arrow-catchers. We’ll talk more about them with the Aka-oni.
Ko-Oni: These guys are size 1, average stats, poor protection, and chaos power. Get them some buffs (End of Weakness, End of Culture, Strength of Giants, etc) and they can do ok. Having two lives is nice. They should also be pretty good for slowing down and mobbing down tramplers and giants. If you have to use them in order, don’t.
Ao-Oni: Melee range stun damage in the form of cold is sometimes useful. If you’re fighting non-frost giants or thugs with not enough cold resist, these guys can be handy. A little pricey for something with so little protection, but having two lives is still nice.
Aka-Oni: I can’t say enough good things about these guys. Having 3 ranged fire attacks for 25 gold is great. Chaos power kicks up the range and damage on them, they have some fire resist so friendly fire is less of a problem, and of course two lives. Throw 4-6 bandit archers front and center to fire closest, set 20ish of these guys off to one side so they will charge and throw fire, and watch the indies die. Players will find ways to deal with this, but massed fire is an option from turn 1.
Oni: 40 gold is pretty expensive for a unit that will melt to archers like this. You can use clever positioning like I just suggested, but javelins are not armor piercing like fire is. And being size 3 means only two to a square, which is rough for melee. I’d give these guys a miss unless you really need a bunch of 24 damage slashing melee. And you don’t.
Kuro-Oni: Like Oni, but 10 more gold for throwing fire, poison spit, and resistance to both. You can get two Aka-oni for the same price and get more fire. Pass.
Bakemono Chief: This guy looks like a wildly overpriced scout, but he has redeeming qualities. You can recruit him in any mountain, and having lots of scouts is great. He can lead up to 40 people, which is the basis of the Surprise Team. 6ish bandits or maybe 12ish yari bakemono can take down weak province defense. You can recruit the bandits in a fort and these guys in nearby mountains, saving fort commander turns for mages. Make your declaration of war memorable by taking 4-6 provinces at once.
Commanders
Bandit Leader: Better armor than the bakemono chief, but forts only. However, these guys have a Pillage bonus which means they can Raid. Raiding makes all kinds of unrest, which is just lovely for oni. Throw in an implementor axe and flying boots and you have a one-man +3 Chaos Power enabler.
Demon Priest: Cheaper than an indy H1 priest, chance of magic, a little undead/demon leadership. You won’t build many of these, but it’s a waste to have anyone else building temples so you’ll want a few.
Sorcerer: Your main lab rat as well as a decent battle mage. Earth 2 can Earth Power and buff or blade wind, Death 2 can shadow bolt/blast, Air 1 can make owl quills or take several boosters for a Rain of Stones, fire can make fire brands and cast magma spells. Lots to love here, though the old age is a bummer.
Hannya: One of your three guaranteed D2 casters, and cheaper than the oni mages. Fire 2 without being a Dai Oni. Also Nature 1, and nature items are great for thugs. Pricey but you’ll want some for all kinds of mage things.
Demon General: Look for a second at that leadership. These guys will be carrying your Oni armies around. The +morale is the real benefit, the D1 is kind of an afterthought.
Oni General: Look at this leadership too. These generals should not lead troops into battle, morale is good. D2 means they’re a skull staff away from Soul Vortex, and I’m sure there are other uses for them too. They feel like a little brother thug to the Dai Oni.
Dai Oni: So many uses for these guys. They cost more than a temple, but they’re solid thugs and good battlemages and even H1 demon priests. Once you have things for them to do and can afford them you’ll probably be repeat building them.

Summoned units
Kappa are tricky to summon. You’d have to have your pretender do it, or an indep or random mage. They’re certainly not worth pretender turns, and you have other ways to enter the water. Their only redeeming feature is their ability to break bones and cause a limp, which has limited use. Pass.
Karasu Tengu: if I could recruit these I’d take a bless strat. Good Atk and Def, ranged lightning attack, flight, all useful stuff. The problem is that summoning them is a N/A spell, and you don’t have any mages with N and A together. Not worth pretender turns.
Konoha Tengu is the Karasa Tengu but worse Atk and Def and better MR. At least you summon them with Air and Earth. Still, I don’t want to wait to Conj 3 to start getting troops for a bless strat. These guys are handy to guard Earthquake casters or for a flying surprise, but they aren’t a mainstay of your army.
Shikohme: Berserking sacred demons wielding two magic weapons. Shame they have mediocre protection, but they'll come in handy especially against, say, Theorodos. There are some thugs or SC's who use defenses that have trouble with magic weapons (mistform, invulnerability, body ethereal). These ladies are an especially good choice against them.
Gozo Mezu: Two solid heavy infantry demons with magic weapons for 7 D. Needs a D3 mage to cast, but they’re ok. At this point you probably have better things to do with your gems though, like making items for Dai Oni.
Summoned Commanders
Shura/Ghost General: Ethereal, fear aura, and a commander. These guys are your ticket underwater, and a couple of them can also take most land-based indy provinces. Avoid priests and anyone with magic weapons and a pack of 2-3 will do fine. They’re also decent generals that don’t need to eat, which is nice with a large army of ravenous Oni.
Dai Tengu: If you can afford him, get one. He costs like a troll king, but comes with a retinue like a troll king. A3N1E1 means he can summon Karasa Tengu, and also A3 is good. H2 means with an artifact he can take a throne, which is ok to have in your back pocket for a long game.
Nushi: Can bootstrap you to Naiads, which are not bad. But you need Const 6 for the water bracelet on your pretender and to be in a swamp. Also a lot of water gems. If you have all these things, they’re ok. Similar to naiads, they aren’t good combat mages due to homesickness. But boots of quickness are nice, and more nature in general is ok. Don’t go out of your way but if it’s easy these are not bad.



Magic Overview

Conjuration
You want Conj 3 pretty early for Summon Earth Power. Reinvig your Dai Oni, give any sorcerer an E gem and they can cast this for reinvig, it’s just a great spell. 3 is also Dark Knowledge, which is nice. Get up to Conj 4 reasonably quickly for Shuras. After that, nothing really special adn worth it. Elemental summoning is ok, and eventually you have a shot at Kings of Earth, Fire, and Banefire. But not a priority. Glointhedark made another helpful suggestion: put some trolls on Guard Commander (or another regenerating troop) around your Dai Oni who casts Soul Vortex. That's a ton of reinvig so you can spray Magma Eruption or skeletons or what have you. It sounds like good times.

Alteration
This is your favorite school. Every level has something to make Dai Oni sturdier, and there is a little direct damage in Combustion and Maws of the Earth. Soul Vortex and Phoenix Pyre are especially nice for Dai Oni, and End of Weakness is good for mobs of demons (especially with Iron Bane). Darkness is a good debuff; demons can see in the dark.

Evocation
Direct damage is nice, and you should spend some time here, but it’s tough to get too excited. Bane Fire Dart and Magma Bolts are pretty easy to cast and will do some damage, Fireball is also fine. The real prizes are Earthquake, Rain of Stones, and Firestorm. These are good for killing communions, and people in general. But those are pretty high level. Bane Fire is also worth remembering if you're fighting giants, it is a ton of damage in a small area.

Construction
You’ll want a lot of this too. We’ll cover items a bit later, but you can also use Corpse Constructs, Mechanical Men, and even Forge of the Ancients (though be careful as that will draw attention).

Enchantment
Fire shield and Strength of Giants are the real gems here; Dai Oni fight chaff ok with a fire shield and Strength of Giants makes Aka-oni throw fireballs harder. Terracotta army is an ok way to spend a lot of fire gems; they're amphibious but strangely their spears are iron. And you also pick up Flaming Arrows, which is a little tricky to cast without a Dai Oni but makes your bakemono archers pretty murderous. Enliven Gargoyles is ok and then you can skele-spam with Hanyas or Oni Generals. Not a bad option to have in your back pocket depending on who you are fighting. Riches from Beneath is probably not worth casting, but Earth Blood Deep Well is. Takes a lot of research to get this high though, put this on the back burner.

Thaumaturgy
Grab Thaum 1 very early for frighten. 3 and 4 have site searching spells. Apart from that… not so hot. Wither Bones is situationally useful, End of Culture is ok, and that’s about it. I would give higher levels here a miss.

Blood
A B3 pretender with a rainbow of paths can cast a lot of this, but do you really want to research a whole path just for one guy? Could grab Blood 1 for shadow imp so you can give him a bane venom charm, Blood 4 has blood lust and bind demon knight, but your lack of national access to blood means this isn’t worth your time.

Item Overview

Level 0
A skull talisman can make a Surprise Party or even a scout better. There’s some very basic gear you can make for a Dai Oni, black steel helmets are useful as is black steel plate. You probably don’t have the alteration or conjuration to make a Dai Oni useful this early though.

Level 2
In terms of Dai Oni gear, Horror helms are nice. MR and reinvig are also good especially since they are demons, so a Lodestone Amulet would not go amiss. Your pretender can make a Ring of Waterbreathing, which is useful for underwater thrones. Lightning rod helps with corpse constructs. A dwarven hammer is a good idea, but don’t make too many. We can argue about this in the thread.

Level 4
Lots of good thug gear here. Boots of the Messenger, Fire Brand, Girdle of Might, Implementor Axe, Winged Boots, Ring of Regen, Shademail Haubergeon, Vine Shield. Note all the boosters, some of which you need your pretender for: Earth Boots, Thistle Mace, Flame Helm (pricey though), Crystal Coin (so your pretender can Teleport). Storm Spool is like a ring of tamed lightning but better and it helps with corpse constructs, which is nice. Blood Stone is useful, especially for Maws of the Earth, Lightning Resistance, Earthquake, Rain of Stones and whatever else takes an earth gem to cast. Bane Venom Charms are extra useful for you because demons can't get diseased. They cause unrest, kill population, and so on. Consider bringing some to a siege especially.

Level 6
The best argument for construction 6 is Lightless Lanterns. Quite a bit of research to get here, but they’ll turbocharge your further research. Armor of Knights is just plain good protection, but Red Dragon Scale is lighter and Hydra Skin armor is regen on the armor slot. Boots of Youth and Elixers of Life make Burden of Time less burdensome. Gate Cleavers are good for sieging (try them on scouts). Shadow Brand, Carmine Cleaver, and Wraith Sword are possible Dai Oni weapons depending on what you are fighting. Wraith Crown is head-slot etherealness but expensive and hard to make. Skulls of Fire are boosters and much cheaper/easier than Flame Helmets.

Level 8
In general, artifacts are over-priced and not worth researching to level 8. Fever Fetish and Disease Grinder together are cute: refuel armies on the go with F and D gems (put the artifacts on 2 scouts). The boosters are sometimes worth it: Black Book of Secrets if you empower the right hero in Blood, Sceptre of Dark Regency if you have a D4 Dai Oni with Skull Face and Skull Staff (leads into Utterdark :)) and so on. But the Hammer of the Forge Lord is 45 gems and only twice as good as a Dwarf Hammer for 15 gems. The First Anvil opens some possibilities especially if you have Forge of the Ancients up also. All in all artifacts are a very late game move; I’d prioritize them after Earth Blood Deep Well.

Gearing a Dai Oni
Dai Oni have some natural protection, heavy armor, no helmet, a fear aura, and a decent pile of hp. Chaos Power means sometimes they will have lots of Str Atk and Def and sometimes less. You’ll want lighter armor (don’t be afraid to wear something skimpy and cast Stoneskin or Iron Skin) and a helmet (Horror helms are good, other helms to taste or as you can afford). A brand is good but with their fear Dai Oni are a little less worried about crowd control. Shields are helpful for survival but you can get away without them for just raiding. Reinvig with Earth Power and a bless when possible; flying enemies may require item-based reinvig. Resist elements your opponent is likely to use either with items or spells. Regen reduces affliction chance, and afflictions are a big problem for Dai Oni.

Early Game strategy

Appoint a prophet, leave your army behind and send your other bandit off to scout. Hire a bunch of bandits with polearms and maybe some bakemono with bows. Research construction, shooting for Owl Quills at Const 2.
Turn 2, expand with your prophet leading the army and set to cast smite. He'll also spread dominion, which might help future demon-based expansion armies.
Future armies will look like this, with bandit archers and aka oni led by a demon general. Put the archers in front to fire closest and the demons off to one side and a little back, with the bandit spearmen off on the other side to attack closest. Invade farmlands first.
Turn 3 continue invading and see if you can afford a second army yet (demon general, ~15 aka-oni, ~3 bandit archers).
Recruit more groups of bandit archers, Demon General, and Aka-Oni as you can afford. Slack a little on researchers because you have a great sage. Build at least one palisade in the first year. Don’t hire a Dai Oni before you have something good for him to do.
Hanya are expensive for their research, but they're how you get N magic which has all kinds of goodies. Build a couple, have them manually site search.
Sorcerers are your main researchers, and it's also not a bad move to have some site search.

Mid-late game thoughts and musings
Your first war is best if you can start it. Get some bandit squads to grab more territory, which will hurt their income and make them panic. Roll in some demon armies, and take full advantage of the facts that you can make palisades (which are cheap forts that are easy to put up) and you can build an army in one turn from a palisade (with a lab for the Demon General). Don't be afraid to fall back into your dominion if you need the Chaos Power boost, and remember that when territories change hands they get Unrest.
Dai Oni are great thugs and pretty good battle-mages. Build some Surprise Squads of bandits led by bakemono chiefs (recruited from mountains) so you can start a war by taking a lot of territory at once. Try to get to midgame levels of research pretty quickly, eat somebody, and get big fast. You don’t have a great endgame, so try to end the game before you get there.

Broad research plan
Const 2 for Owl Quills (unless you're worried about a war in year 1 or so)
Conj 3 for Dark Knowledge, Earth Power, Phoenix Power
then, depends what you need next and what paths your sorcerers have.
Alt ~4 is enough to make Dai Oni pretty good.
Evo 3 has fireball and magma bolts if you're being rushed.
Ench 3 has Fire Shield for fighting waves of chaff esp. using Dai Oni. And sets you up for skele-spam at higher research levels. One more level gets you Terra Cotta Warriors and Flaming Arrows, which combine nicely with recruit-anywhere stealthy archers and Dai Oni to rain a lot of fire down on people. Strength of Giants is nice to have too.

Help I have all these gems what do I do
Fire: make gear, get Terra Cotta warriors, use them in battles with Hanya or Dai Oni to cast more spells. Maybe someday King of Banefires or Lightless Lanterns.
Water: Trade? Find some indeps? Your pretender can use a few but unless you bootstrap up to Naiads you don't have much need for them.
Air: Owl quills. Maybe some Storm Spools and Corpse Constructs. Boots of flying. Nice low-encumbrance gear, but Owl Quills are good.
Earth: So many options here. Gear is very good including a Dwarf Hammer or two, Maws of the Earth is a pretty solid combat spell, any sorcerer can cast Earth Power with an earth gem, and you may eventually want some trolls, globals, or a King of Earth or two.
Nature: Rings of Regen, Boots of the Messenger, maybe Amulets of Resilience. If you have more nature gems that means you can afford to gear more Dai Oni.
Astral: Hire Dagan or someone else with S to cast Arcane Probing and to make some MR items. Your pretender is probably busy.
Death: If you have too many Death gems, what are you doing? Gear (go read that section there's a lot of Death items), Shuras, Shikome (depending), maybe some Enchantment-style undead, Shadow Blast from Hanyas, etc.
Blood: Make items. It's not worth researching Blood unless you're really far down other paths; Shadow Imps are good bane venom charm holders but the opportunity cost of anyone who has B summoning them rather than researching or casting something better is non-negligible.

Nation specific advice
Abysia
You’ll want Alteration, and fast. Strip that armor off of them with Destruction. Try Aka-Oni for their innate fire resist, but once you hit enough Enchantment for fire resist of your own switch to bandits or cold oni.

Giants
Be more careful with your Dai Oni. Part of their survivability is their pretty good protection, but giants can hit hard enough to punch through that. Aka-Oni are still solid, but if you can fight in chaos power consider Ko-Oni (especially if you have Strength of Giants and/or Destruction).

Fliers (Caeulm etc.)
Your Dai Oni won’t get to buff as much as they want. Wolves will often buy you one round, and remember that the defender always goes first. Aka-Oni are less good because they’ll be pulled into melee before they can throw all their fireballs. Bandits will help. Maws of the Earth is ineffective, so consider more Evocation so you can melt those bird-brains.
Someday I'll be good at this game. Maybe.

Steam name is [RANCH]Baked Potatoe

Skype name is lloyd.c.griscom
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Itwastuesday
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*Spicy* Crew
So, how do you win the game?

Why not go enc 4-5 for flaming arrows, horde of skeletons (the oni general is a good, sturdy skelespammer) and revenants for research boost, moundkings to lead troops?
Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
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Glimbur
Guy who should know better
You want to win quickly, and probably a little sneaky. For a thrones game, figure out which thrones are most practical to take and set up so you can claim a lot of them quickly. Winged Boots on your prophet and a Teleporting pretender are good ideas; you want to win before people can mobilize to stop you. In a conquest game, get big fast and bully your way to victory. It may be tricky to prevent a coalition against you, but you don't want the game to drag on so take risks.

Enchantment has some good things, but I'd rather spend my research and gems in other ways.

Early game you want Thaum 1, Const 2, and probably Conj 3 for Frighten, Owl Quills, and Dark Knowledge, respectively. So, more Ench means less Alt. I'd rather have Alt to make Dai Oni better; Fire Shield is good but you need them to be survivable first. Skelespam is not bad.

Fire Arrows is good because it lets you do a lot of AP damage at range, using troops. It's even better when you can recruit stealthy archers in any mountain. However, you can already do AP fire at range with the Aka-Oni, who also have two lives. So, I make this a lesser priority.

Mound Kings aren't great leaders, and oni have so-so morale. Revenants are the easiest way to summon a mage, but I'd rather spend my death gems on Shura and Horror Helms. Shura can take several underwater provinces with no losses, which is better than an equivalent cost of Mound King and longdead or soulless would do. Horror Helms are very fun for Dai Oni.

GlointheDark wrote me a novel in a PM, I'll try to capture the hightlights.

Quote:
 
Raiding is very good.  Use your starting army to Raid and any demons you send to attack that province that turn should get +3 Chaos Power.

Push Unrest and Turmoil onto people.  Cast Blight and Blood spells, as well as using goblins to create unrest.

Consider toxic scales like Order:0 Sloth:3 Heat:3 Death:3 Luck:-3 Magic:x.  They'll hurt other people more than you because:

1)Most of your units cost very few resources.

2)You don't want units to hang around anyway, so even if your goblins are starving it's ok.  And your oni don't need to eat.

3)Ko Oni are great in Turmoil or Unrest.  They can kill more than their gold cost in units.

4)You can recruit troops at mountains, which gives you shorter supply lines so you can project power better.

Freespawn are useful for this plan too: Dai Oni and Oni Generals spawn things every battle, but add on Acorns, Lifelong Protection, and Wraith Crowns.  You can reanimate dead if your army needs to pause for a turn.

There are cheap summons that help: Fire Ants, Corpsmen (?), Terra Cotta Warriors, ogres, maybe even flame jellyfish.

Toxic dominion gets you lots of points: The idol of man at A4E4N4Bx also lets you summon your great tengus.  Me, I'm partial to an awake Fountain of blood.  F4A4E4D4 B9 dom 7, with sloth, turmoil death and misfortune 3, and Magic 3.  You could go drain however if you worried about banish spam.

The reason I like it, is that his blood hunting causes unrest - which gives me cash back on my demon.  Use the little suckers to patrol when you don't want unrest.    So the idea is - earn money when you have no unrest.  Spent it when you have unrest and can earn cash back.  Its like a demonic mastercard.

Archers are annoying, but counter with more archers, Darkness, Staff of Storms, Mass Flight, Mist, or arrow block with oni (second form is ethereal).


It's a much more aggressive strategy than I have been recommending. It seems like it is difficult to push dominion as Yomi because you only recruit H1 priests and your H2 summon is pricey and up there in research. And mountains are nice but not as nice as advertised: you can recruit bakemono chiefs and 3 kinds of bakemono troops, but not any oni there without a fort. Seemed like a good thing to discuss anyway; I really like the idea about Raiding and I have incorporated the suggestion into my original post.
Someday I'll be good at this game. Maybe.

Steam name is [RANCH]Baked Potatoe

Skype name is lloyd.c.griscom
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dyslexicfaser
*Spicy* Crew
Glimbur,Jun 15 2016
12:50 AM
Horror Helms are very fun for Dai Oni.

I could have sworn Dai Oni had a heavy kabuto, but they're helmet-less! That's pretty interesting.

I have a hard time recommending Horror Helmets period since D gems are one of the most valuable types for items or summons, but they probably work on Dai Oni better than anyone.
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GlointheDark
*Spicy* Crew
dyslexicfaser,Jun 15 2016
02:53 AM
Glimbur,Jun 15 2016
12:50 AM
Horror Helms are very fun for Dai Oni.

I could have sworn Dai Oni had a heavy kabuto, but they're helmet-less! That's pretty interesting.

I have a hard time recommending Horror Helmets period since D gems are one of the most valuable types for items or summons, but they probably work on Dai Oni better than anyone.

No helmet? Let me show you what an eyecatcher with 28 str does...

The point is - there's a lot of ways to abuse a helmetless thug/sc.
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sum1won
Dom 5 Beta Team
Why would a helmet make any difference to an eyecatcher?
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Rejakor
*Spicy* Crew
I'm 99% sure an eyecatcher is just a regular attack with the Eyeloss special. If it always hits the head, that's weird, and also useful info.

This guide is like a guide to how to thug dai oni, but it doesn't tell you how much <stuff> the dai oni needs to take out varying levels of enemy <stuff>. It offers some advice on how to expand as yomi but the pretender build.. again possibly an okay build, but the advice is just 'use it to research forever'.

No mention of Shikome, how to win fights against things that kill demons (like shortbows, or competent melee units like steel maidens), what magic to use (other than 'research alt' and some random suggestions for what dai oni should cast - what about hannya, human sorcs, demon generals? Which of those should you build?), how to pick target for first war, how to defend, when to fall back on turmoil, what troop buffs to use, uses for gemtypes, what order to research things in.
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Glimbur
Guy who should know better
All good points. I've put in some revisions (can't believe I forgot the shikome). I want to do some testing with Dai Oni to see what's needed in gear and/or spells to take down indeps and PD. Not sure when I'll have time though.
Someday I'll be good at this game. Maybe.

Steam name is [RANCH]Baked Potatoe

Skype name is lloyd.c.griscom
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Sarfus
Tartarian
Quote:
 
The reason I like it, is that his blood hunting causes unrest - which gives me cash back on my demon.  Use the little suckers to patrol when you don't want unrest.    So the idea is - earn money when you have no unrest.  Spent it when you have unrest and can earn cash back.  Its like a demonic mastercard


I don't think that this is correct. Unless this has been patched since last time this was posted then unrest does not contribute to the discount given by turmoil recruitment.

---------------------

Regarding the OP. Personally, I think that taking an awake pretender that isn't an expander is a big risk. You'll be pushing out your horrible scales without the compensation of extra provinces. I don't find Yomi's natural expansion particularly stellar, so I don't see how you do this while keeping a competitive economy going. Considering the high costs and upkeep of Yomi's troops and mages and the defensive advantage they get from chaos power, I still think that taking an earth snake is the best bet. You get much more gold early on, recruit fewer expansion parties and put all of that excess into early infrastructure. That means more mages for your first war and a stronger dominion base from year 1 temples + snake.

Taking an awake research pretender suggests one thing to me. That your intention is to rush a research target that will give you effective battlefield power earlier than other nations. Following that logic I would say that your early research goals are too passive. I would ditch Frighten (it's not going to do much at all without a significant number of mages spamming it - and overall it's not that great spell), and probably Owl Quills (getting a research pretender to unlock a much weaker research booster early on seems kind of counter intuitive to me - how many gems + turns of owl quills does it take to make up the 150 RP spent? Maybe the maths works out, but with only +1 A income at the start I'm not sure it's a safe bet). Putting that 200 RP total into rushing Conj 3 and Ench 4 for Flaming Arrows (possibly with Alt 2 for Earth Meld to get you rush insurance if a neighbour is rocking W9 cavalry or something similar), probably followed by Ench 5 for skelly spam, would give you a much stronger toolkit for starting your first war.

Your post seems to imply that you're pushing for a much more unconventional strategy (possibly thugging dai oni early on - but without the decent gear you get at constr 4?). That's fine, and I'm sure there are other potential strategies than what I've outlined, but you need to hash out the details a bit more. You need to know, for instance, who/what your strategy can kill, what early counters might be available, how much it would cost and a reasonable time frame you can achieve it in.
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GlointheDark
*Spicy* Crew
I copied my post from a year ago to Gilmur in the hopes he'd consider some of the points in it. As sarfus mentioned you don not get get an unrest contribution to recruitment.

I also agree that earth snake is probably the best pretender choice.
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Rejakor
*Spicy* Crew
A rainbow can be valuable for Yomi because of their national summons, similarly to kickstart their gem income and forge certain boosters. You can get away with this because the demons are very powerful defensively, and can expand well against indies. Earth snake is just a valuable choice regardless as it's a very cheap expansion pretender and yomi can just process infinite gold into demons if given the chance, but the rainbow would indicate a heavier focus on research via sorcs and getting out unexpected paths via summons. This works because buffed Shikome are scary, and if you can develop all of yomi's strategies in the midgame - skelespam, shikome + buffs, meld, dai oni thugs, even perhaps flaming arrows or mass flight, it can give you a very diverse toolkit early enough that it all still matters, where yomi struggles to reach and utilize that otherwise. Summoned air casters notably change the field of play a lot for Yomi, helping remove the danger of arrows with Arrow Fend and get your oni stuck in with mass flight. If your oni actually get into melee they can be quite dangerous, especially in turmoil - a rainbow pretender makes it more likely you can remote unrest into place more frequently (more gems) and sooner (more paths with unrest causing remotes), too.

All of this goes for the snake too, though, as it can give you the gold to spam enough sorcs to make this happen, albeit without the summoned to augment existing paths.

The E snek can be taken at 6 or 7, too, which gives it the possibility of putting up EBDW, a valuable global for a nation that needs earth boosters for a lot of it's basic buff spells.
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Sarfus
Tartarian
That sounds reasonable to me, but I think I should perhaps clarify. My preferred build would be an A/E earth snake, which you can easily afford and still get decent scales. For instance you can get A3 E6 with Dom 5 Turmoil 3 Prod 0 Heat 1-3 Growth 3 Luck 3 Mg 1-3. It's whole purpose is to expand for year 1 then site search for A income and summon Dai Tengu. Depending on your research it can also be a big play maker. The splash of A is expensive, but the only things you are losing out on scales-wise are Production (for a steady flow of bandits + some income mitigation), the ability to drop heat a little while still pumping magic, or some extra dominion. Not bad, but not essential IMO. Getting A2 or A4 are also both plausible options.

The other summons you can all get naturally, except for Kappa and Nushi. I can readily dispense with those. Karasu Tengu are an edge case - you eventually get them with Dai Tengu anyway - but you get too few of them, and they are to fragile, for me to want to dedicate an important caster to them most of the time.

The extra gems from site searching in year 1 with a rainbow with broad paths would be nice, but I think I prefer the large number of mages you get with the early gold + early infrastructure on the snake, with the ability to site search and develop A magic still. I agree that the Dai Tengu are game changers.

Buffed Shikome sounds interesting. I don't think I've ever tried to mass them before.
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GlointheDark
*Spicy* Crew
I prefer an A4 E3 Dom 9! Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat1 Growth 1, Luck 3, Magic 3.

I like ravens feast used with Raiding...
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Sarfus
Tartarian
Hmm. My one reservation about my current build is the low dom actually. Do you find with dom 9 that you can get decent dom push?

I don't tend to see a lot of shifting in dominion borders ever since that old patch when they changed the formulas, but I've never really committed to it as a strategy.

Not sure what I'd cut to afford it though. I luurve E6, and I quite like bandits too. I'm sure skipping those is legit too, but I just like 'em.
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GlointheDark
*Spicy* Crew
Sarfus,Jun 21 2016
11:46 PM
Hmm. My one reservation about my current build is the low dom actually. Do you find with dom 9 that you can get decent dom push?

I don't tend to see a lot of shifting in dominion borders ever since that old patch when they changed the formulas, but I've never really committed to it as a strategy.

Not sure what I'd cut to afford it though. I luurve E6, and I quite like bandits too. I'm sure skipping those is legit too, but I just like 'em.

Yep, the combination of bad scales, magic 3 (helps with phantasmal weapons) and an awake pretender does wonders for spreading turmoil in the early game.

I do miss the bandits. But what I find is that as the front line moves away from the interior, I build demons on the edges and bandits in the interior and ferry forward.

If you wish to go a high risk route, you can take a
D9 A2 E4 S4 D4 B2 awake ghost king. Fragile, effective.

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