Tuatha Race

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Funny thing is I've decide the best usage for my starting Longbows is to but them out the front in the first battle and save myself 5gps a turn.

I haven't found them to be so bad, but then I'm not using Cu.

I am hoping that the Cu Sidhe are the key to accelerating early expansion as they are thematically suberb, oustandingly fast on the battle board, really easy to build, have a good defense when blessed, and good offense - especially with quickness. I definitly don't want any Longbow near my Cu Sidhe.

I find them to be too fragile, and I quickly get up to maximum Daoine recruitment anyway.

[Keir Maxwell]

Very interesting post Chris.

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Perhaps I should give longbow based expansion a go . . .

Build two armies. One province a turn isn't enough. [/qb]

Sure - Two Sidhe based armies! I have been giving bow a bit of a try and I've found some useful exceptions (shortbow + Niefel giant seems a very important combo due to adding siege capability to giants) but I still don't like bow. The arrows move so slow that watching replaying is sad and I'm not at all happy with the modelling of bows capabilities - long range relative to frontage of armies, exagerated abilty to shoot overhead, overly generous targeting and poor accuracy combines to make bow really odd in dominions. Add in friendly fire and I'd rather avoid bow if it doesn't hurt me badly to do so.

Anyway, Man national longbows have better precision than indies; I haven't had that much trouble with friendly fire yet. (Of course I paired them with some HI mercs and used them early, before I could afford a substantial force of Daoine Sidhe.)

I'm guessing this is the big difference in our experiance - having mercenaries soak up friendly fire never hurts to bad. I'm playing all my race tests without mercenaries just to get a feel of what they are like by themselves.

Currently I have some axemen/longspears in front, Daoine throwing javelins (they will automatically close after that)

Very nice. I do similar with Mictlan but being Mictlan it doesn't work quite so well. If only Tien Ch'i HC had less ammo they could do the same.

I haven't used the Cu yet - it seems to me that they would be most effective massed, which seems like it would require a Sidhe Lord or Tuatha prophet for Divine Blessing. Since I decided to make my initial Castellan my initial prophet (I like this more in Dom II because it takes longer to save up for that high level priest you might have wanted to prophetize in Dom I - especially if you also want mercs or troops for early expansion) and he hasn't died yet, Priest 4 isn't yet an option.

I find myself using the starting Castallen as well. I haven't had probelms with getting things blessed, and sermon of courage is enough, due to all the priesting getting quickness as a bless effect of water9.

I'm not so interested in the Cu Sidhe later as then I'd rather build Daoine Sidhe - its early when I can't build as many Daoine Sidhe that I slip Cu Sidhe into the queue. I'm happy using any of these sacred troops in small/tiny units if I've only got a few and I'm in a hurry.

I wouldn't expect water to do the Sidhe much good - their defense is already so high that they're only going to get hit by (a) people who get a really lucky attack roll

My understanding of the maths is that something with a attack of 10-12 is going to find the Daoine Sidhe, at 15-16 def, very hittable while at 19-20 they are extremely hard to hit. You are aiming for a difference of 8 or better to reduce their chance of hitting and as Daoine Sidhe are small they don't get ganged up on badly making them really rather special - same with Ctis Dancers. I like Quickness to - especially on mages/Archer lords.

they have decent prot, so with a nature blessing, a lot of missiles will just make them mad (and with regen, are unlikely to cause afflictions or bring them down by accumulating damage). But then, I'm not a fan of defense in general - too easy to negate it with a good roll, and beating defense by 1 gets you a hit for full damage.

I remember your objections As I'm a fan of the Van I'm not entirely convinced.

Air wouldn't be bad either -

I tried Air9 and was seriously underimpressed. I was left wondering wether the Air shields worked vs friendly fire as I killed my Sidhe faster than the opposition. May just have been bad luck.

Earth could be interesting too - reinvig for all your mages (except bards), and +4 prot for the Sidhe if you take it to 9. Wouldn't do the Cu much good though. Earth is also a good choice for combat gods (IMO) for invulnerability (and depending on your targets, blade wind).

Earth is almost always good in my testing of bless races. Once you take Earth Nature looks more appealling as the Sidhe's prot is high enough that berserk is, IMO, more useful. I have come around to the Earth Mother being the next option to try for the Van but I don't like how often I turn to her.

Berserking lowers their defense to about 16 - still a tough target for most units - and raises their prot to, IIRC, 17. Add regeneration to that and I haven't seen them "die fast".

They start with def 15 and drop from there, prot 13 and the berserk takes it to 16 - very borderline. Regeneration of 1hp a turn is not going to keep them alive.

I've never lost a Daoine to indies with nature 9, or even gotten an affliction yet.

I have experimented a fair bit with Sidhe (with a variety of blessings) and found that quickened Sidhe can charge Knights and beat them, they slaughter Jotun, and I certainly don't lose them in droves. When one does get hit it generally dies then or soon after due to having lost its glamour - but most never get hit. As alot of them die in one hit it strikes me that nature is not an a great choice especially as your mages are sacred and while they fight well you may have other plans than a berserk charge in response to slight provocation.

Earth and Water, both good for your sacred mages, are, for me, more appealling than Nature. Nature just doesn't seem overly suited to the Sidhe. Remember water gives your Sidhe Champions and Lords quickness and, as you point out, they get eagle eye and aim and . . . and . . . and . . .

So water providing double speed shooting and casting for insanely accurate Sidhe is my pick so far with earth the big one to explore more.

I can't get the Blue Dragon to use its breath weapon - just seems to ignore the fire order. What am I doing wrong?

Maybe it can't use fire order because it is in close combat?

Damn - didn't think that a dragon wouldn't be able to breath fire because its in combat. so how do you use the breath?

cheers

Keir

If you'd like a good indy expansion not based on the Tuatha you can use the standard Man approach.

It might be something you use in tandem with your Tuatha ideas.

1 Sacrificial Lamb Axeman, Tower Guard, etc. Place just 1 and have him hold and attack. He will only be hit by minimum missle fire, more often than not this little guy survives.

20-40 Longbows middle front, about 2 spaces away from your initial lamb. They will mow and rout things before they get to them, even HI and HC. And even if they do get close, they become even more deadly.

Keep extra Axemen, Towerguard at the very back on Hold and attack with your commander. They are just extra in case your Lamb gets killed.

You can make one of these armies every 3 turns and they can take out most indies, no problem and your quick expansion doesn't have to use any precious Tuatha that will get mowed down by your Longbowmen.

Just an Idea.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
So water providing double speed shooting and casting for insanely accurate Sidhe is my pick so far with earth the big one to explore more.

I thought Water 9 gave 150% quickness?

Damn - didn't think that a dragon wouldn't be able to breath fire because its in combat. so how do you use the breath?

I get dragons to breath simply by placing them along ways back with fire orders. The breath attacks are weak however, as their range is short and they often miss. I've played around with this, and all it seems to do is give any archers more chances to shoot at you.

I prefer to close to melee, as then you get first strike, are far less likely to miss, and the fear +5 kicks in.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Jasper:
]I thought Water 9 gave 150% quickness?

Which seems to work out as two spell actions a turn but, I think, only 1 extra attack every two rounds per attack you have. The Last part is very hard to be sure of.

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

I get a Mix of 1 and 2 spell actions per round, randomly for each commander.

[Pocus]

Does a translation of Sidhe, Daoine, Cu Sidhe exists? Or are they proper name? Feel free to translate me all the lexica used in the race

[Jasper]

I'm pretty sure they're proper names from Celtic Myth, I believe taking place in what is today Ireland. In the same vein as Firbolg or Fomori, if you're familiar with them. A loose and possibly modern "translation" would be Fey or Faerie. In many game related material about Faeries I've read (e.g. for Ars Magica), Fey Nobles are often called Sidhe, and supposedly descended from the Tuatha de Danaan.

Hero Kings like Nauda of the Silver Arm were of the Tuatha de Danaan. Other main characters include The Dagda, Breas the Beautifull, Balor of the Evil Eye, The Morrigan, etc.

For a brief but entertainingly illustrated read, check out the "Book of Conquests" by Jim Fitzpatrick. Out of print, but the first (of two) volumes is still readily available Last I looked. It's not quite the real stuff, but IIRC he does list his sources.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Does a translation of Sidhe, Daoine, Cu Sidhe exists? Or are they proper name? Feel free to translate me all the lexica used in the race

Check out the pronounciation thread for some clarifications.

[Jasper]

One of the minor thematic things that's always bothered me about Dominions is that while it seems to get things right with the Tuatha and Firbolg, this jarringly clashes with the Pixie-like Faerie Queen -- which seems staight out of a Victorian child's tale. Yuck!

If you're listening Kristoffer O., what were you smoking when (presumably) you came up with that one?

On the other hand, I'm quite happy with the theme of everything else that comes to mind.