My first Dominions II Demo game - long

[DominionsFan]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I wasn't aware that Ctis had strong sacred creatures so I wouldn't have thought death 9 would be a powerful option. All your sacred creatures who you are giving fear to are archery bait and given how commen indie archers are . . . Life after death would be cute for turning all your living into dead so versus the ai why not. Part of the fun of playing the AI is designing a heavily thematic race. However Ctis doesn't strike me as the ideal race to do this with - but then I'm new to Dom II so who knows what I've missed.

Niefelheim Jhotun with Death 9 - so your terrifying giants come back round again - would be cute. Especially if Death 9 has signifcant other advantages which I simply don't know for sure at this point. I do seem to remember that a number of undead summon rituals used to be boosted by high death.

Forgive me for doubting you DominonsFan but I wonder if this is a trick question designed to see if I'm an idiot - if it is serious you will have to spell out your idea's more as its a subject I'm interested in and if you got some good idea's going . . . spill it out man.

Ctis is going to be my next race choice as I've always had a soft spot for it and the Tombs theme looks really entertaining. However the high demands of family life make the process of learning slower than I might like.

cheers

Keir

No, I am really a noob, and you looked like an experienced player.

Okay, now can someone please help me? How can I bless my units? Or it is working automatically? (Bless effects via the starting magic)

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Pocus:
priests can cast bless / divine blessing, does it answers your question?

Note that if you are trying to bless unholy undeads (like Tomb Wyrms), you need to use Blessing of the Grave, Royal Blessing, or whatever the Ermorian Versions are. For this you need an unholy priest, such as a Tomb Priest, Tomb King, or Bishop or Archbishop of Eldregate.

[DominionsFan]

Ok so I must recruit priests, and they will cast bless on my troops? Than, depends the magic school and power, the units will have additional bonuses?

Like +9 death will give life after death for the troops? Also all troops will have that bonus or only sacred units will have it?

I am confused.

[ November 01, 2003, 14:21: Message edited by: DominionsFAN ]

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
Ok so I must recruit priests, and they will cast bless on my troops? Than, depends the magic school and power, the units will have additional bonuses?

Like +9 death will give life after death for the troops? Also all troops will have that bonus or only sacred units will have it?

I am confused.

Only sacred units can be blessed.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
You had posted nothing new.
It is too easy to beat the crap out of the AI.
Even I can do it against impossible AIs, and I am very very very new.

You did notice that he is an experienced Dom player and had indeps set at 5? Is that your experience as "too easy to beat" and "I am very new"? Or are you running Impossible AI on Indep of 2?

[Keir Maxwell]

Apologies for being so suspicious DomFan. I figured that if you find the AI crap even at imnpossible you would know alot about the game. I didn't exactly beat the crap out of the AI in my game - I had a good game.

As Gandalf points out game settings have a major effect on difficulty and so picking a mid range independant strength works well as the computer AI's still get good expansion but your expansion is slowed. The other issue is density of AI's. I played with 7+ me on Aran which is moderately dense - add in another 5 impossible AI's and the difficulty level takes a big hike up. Ohh and of course then theres the luck of how it goes.

Anyway to your question. Here's an my first look at something like you suggest.

"Terror of the Tomb"
Ctis tomb option
Prince of Death, death 9
Order +3, Prod -3, Heat +2, Death -3, Luck +1, Magic +3.
40 admin castle, Dom 6

I would note I have never played Ermor so I don't really know how to run undead nations. The Tombs option of Ctis really appeals so its time I left the comfort zone and tried again - my previous Ctis undead nations attempts were not successes in test beddding.

The above race attempts to keep your idea of death 9 but leaves the earth out as too big an ask, no use to your Sauromancers, and nor much to the unholy priests.

Death 9 is actually fairly cheap for the Prince of Death - 168 pts.

I'm not sure about the scales but the "logic" is something like this:
- need gold, rather not have many random events so order +3
- No big resource cost so prod -3
- max death because thats what the race is sorta about
- luck +1 because a bad start can be a disaster
- magic +3 for fast start to research
- middling Dominion at 6 so the magic +3 doesn't prove to much a problem for undead and the death doesn't make to many enemies
- Castle for extra admin and so that there's a little supply for using sacred troops - could go for the Mausoleim instead.

Death 9 gives the Prince of Fear fear(19) plus the fear bonus for holy/unholy - my guess is +1 at 4 and +1 more per furthur level. Death 9 also allows you to buy a few sacred troops early on and maximum use of them.

Looking at magic the earliest death spell I found that increased with magic level is Terror - the one you start with! The you have Arouse Hunger at alteration 4, Pale Riders enchantment 5 and followed by a whole raft of good pumpy spells at lvl 6 and higher.

Whats makes the race worth furthur effort to me is that it does have a fast start philosophy - scare them all away! Its a matter of testing the race and then adjusting to tighten the focus on getting out there early and putting the fright on people - fundamentally a very interesting idea regardless of wether or not it will work in a competitive mp environment.

don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

[Pocus]

priests can cast bless / divine blessing, does it answers your question?