Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

Yeah, I rigorously tested this and I can confirm that PotS and Teaching Sign do not stack.

Test 1:
Order of commanders
4 communion slaves
1 N1 monk with slave matrix
1 master with crystal matrix

Script
Slaves cast communion slave, monk casts teaching sign, master casts PotS.

Result
Monk gains +1 N and H from Teaching sign before PotS is cast. After PotS is cast, all other slaves gain +1 to all paths, monk remains unchanged.



Test 2:
Order of commanders
4 communion slaves
1 N1 monk with crystal matrix
1 master with crystal matrix

Script
Slaves cast communion slave, monk casts teaching sign, master casts PotS.

Result
Monk gains +1 N and H from Teaching sign before PotS is cast, as do all the slaves. After PotS is cast, master gains +1 in all paths but none of the slaves do.

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

So, Teaching sign only effected the slaves?

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

In test 2 (which is the one I believe you are referring to), teaching sign effected the monk (who was 1 of 2 masters in the communion) and all the slaves, giving them all +1 in all paths. The other master in the communion then cast power of the spheres. While all the slaves + the master (but no the monk) had the little sparkle/cloud graphic you get from being effected by power of the spheres, none of the slaves received a path boost from it (though the master did).

This means that teaching sign and power of the spheres are considered identical effects and therefore don't stack.

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

Right now I'm trying a lady of Fortune with 4 Water, 4 Astral, 5 Domain, 3 Order, 3 Production, 2 Misfortune, 1 Magic.

The idea is that Water and Astral are to two types of mana you don't start with, so hopefully, she can find some, and with 25 troops and some armor take a sea province early in the game. The scales are good, so I can build a lot of troops, and with hopefully early misfortune won't be an issue with my mages.

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

They're a little worse in general, for a couple reasons.
The most obvious one is that their price tag is higher (and in pearls, the most valuable of gems). The first piece of gear they'll respectively want is also in favour of the Shura: Shuras call for a Golden Shield which is 5 gems+5 gems, while Kenzokus want a Horror Helm, which is 10 of a single type. Finally, Shuras have a cold aura, cold+poison immunity and can swim, while Kenzokus only have a crummy standard which doesn't help them hurt or scare away anyone.

Still I mean they're not *bad*, not at all. Just comparatively weaker. And they can't be banished or dust to dusted, nor targeted with anti-undead weapons, so there's that. On the other hand, they can be Controlled or Opposed. So if you're attacking a nation with ubiquitous D, go Kenzokus ; and Shuras will work longer on nations with high S.

But besides that consideration, and until your opponent starts gearing up anti-thugs equipped with undead-killing weapons, I'd probably just stick with Shuras if I had a choice in the matter.

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

The lantern shield is also 5+5 in CBM, adds fear, and is awesome. You can get the F/D crosspath with Oni Generals which aren't a terrible summon themselves. That said, you really need luck with astral income to afford any real number of astral summons.

The Shura annoys me. It's awesome, but that cold aura calls for taking cold scales, which cripple your Ryujin. Why are Ryujin cold blooded anyway? The other dragons, including the Tatsu aren't.

Come to think of it, how do you use Ryujin? There are so many contradictions. It has ridiculous mobility in dragon form, reasonable stats, and sacred, which says raiding thug, but they can't bless themselves and nothing else can and keep up. They can still thug even without a bless, but with only 1 slot in dragon form plus the cold blooded problem, it's really lackluster and easily killed for a 500 gold commander. Even the obvious buff for them, Breath of Winter, is useless since the same cold scales to empower it will kill the Ryujin. The only synergy I've been able to come up with is summoning a Dai Tengu and some additional tengu, giving it a crystal shield so it can cast divine bless and storm, and bring along Ryujin in dragon form so you have an entire flying army of storm immune casters, but even that sacrifices some of the Ryujin's mobility.

Now, if they have a priest level (their description says they spread their father's dominion which suggests some priestly power) and/or aren't cold blooded at least in dragon form, they'd be awesome, but as it is, my underwater forts tend to not recruit any commanders most turns.

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm doing some research with LA Jomon to help with MA Jomon a bit.
I'm going with a Lady of Fortune, Dormant
4 Fire, 4 Water, 4 Astral and 2 Death. (This gives me 3 weak blesses, and some death access for Shura).
Dominion 7, Order 2, Productivity 2, Misfortune 1.

What do you think?

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

As a general rule you should only ever take Magic 3, Magic 1, or Drain 2, regardless of nation (unless it's for a game with crazy settings). This is because any other choice for the Magic scale is either just an awful idea (Drain 3) or is purely wasting design points and/or research potential (Magic 0, Magic 2, Drain 1) due to the way the Magic scale settings are spaced out with regard to gaining or losing RP's.

I have not seen, or will I ever see, a good build for any nation that involves either Magic 0, Magic 2 or Drain 1 (not unless some major gameplay changes get patched/modded in). There might be a decent design involving Drain 3 for one of the nations that can ignore the RP lost with Drain, but even that is unlikely unless it's a small game, and not unless you like possibly losing sack loads of gems to the Magic Fading event (this event alone can often be enough to avoid taking Drain scales).

So while I won't comment on your build for Jomon, I will say that by taking Magic 0, you are instantly making your design a poor one, and the very first thing to do when designing a Pretender for Jomon should be to take (at least) Magic 1 and proceed from there (as is the case for 95% of nations)

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

I can understand that if you are going to take Drain 1, you might as well take the battlefield hit and take Drain 2 since it won't make your research any worse and it gives you +40 for your pretender to use elsewhere.

Likewise, I can see that taking Magic 2 makes spells marginally easier to cast than Magic 1, but is not worth 40 design points.

I'm a bit surprised to see Magic 0 on your list and I can't immediately come up with a straightforward reason why you think this would be prohibited.

On the other hand, I've read enough of your posts to be confident that you have a good reason for excluding what seems to me to be the balanced magic 0 option. Would you mind explaining?

Re: Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92
 

The vast majority of non-cap Mages in the game have base research of between 3-5RP. And since (in a normal game) these are the guys or gals who are likely to be doing the main bulk of your research over the course of a game, then it makes sense to make them more efficient and more cost effective. So when you consider the difference in RP you get with Magic 0 and Magic 1 for these typical mages...

(Magic 0 -- Magic 1 = +%increase)
3RP -- 4RP = +33%
4RP -- 5RP = +25%
5RP -- 6RP = +20%

...then for just 40 design points you are substantially increasing your RP output. And IMO no other use of design points gets you anywhere near as much bang for your buck as what you get by going from Magic 0 to Magic 1. Magic wins more games than anything else does, and Magic 0 - Magic 1 is the best value for money scale purchase IMO. This really is a case of 1+1 equalling 2.

And so given that, you need to have an insanely good reason for going with Magic 0 over Magic 1, as just about anything and everything else should be sacrificed to find the 40 points needed to tip the Magic scale one nudge in the positive direction.