Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

I would like to share some of my observations on the new Dom3 nation of Oni Kings in the Early Era.


First of all - the disclaimer: I've played Oni Kings in 2 of my large SP games vs mighy AIs, which are finished now (I won). I am also currently playing it in my 3rd SP game.

Therefore I don't have any MP experience with Oni Kings yet. However, I do have a lot of experience with Dominions competitive MP in general, having played it for more than 2 years, perhaps 60+ games total. That gives me some ability to have certain ideas on how good or how bad the nation would fare in competitive MP games.

Nevertheless, even with this understanding it's not the same as actually playing the nation in MP, and I fully admit and understand that. Therefore below are my current observations and thoughts. I'll reserve the final judgement until I'll give it a spin in MP.


So here are my feelings so far about this interesting new nation:


I really like the idea behind this nation. It certainly has a unique personality and flavor. Unfortunately I am far from sure how well it will fare in MP in its current state. In fact I strongly suspect that it'll not fare very well against other nations played by competent players.


Here are the reasons for my feelings how this nation may not be well suited for MP in its current state, based upon my observations so far:



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List of Oni Kings weaknesses:


1. Very low protection on ALL (!) demonic regular units. We are talking about protection 3, 4 and 6, with prot 6 for the best and most expensive 50gp and 65 gp troops. Combined with average defense, and low hps (9) for cheaper troops, and only 24hp for their best 50-65gp troops means that demons (in their normal form) are extremely fragile to both melee and archer attacks. (Which was clearly design and balancing decision, which I have no problem with for the most part)


2. (This is a huge deal breaker) Both spiritual and regular forms of demons can be banished relatively easily by cheap lvl 1 priests. >;( And unlike Ermor with its free or cheap undead hordes, demons are quite expensive to buy, so their loss really hurts. What makes things even worse, 12 gp demons (the only relatively cheap demons available to Oni player) are size 1! That means lvl 1 priest with the single cast of banishment can affect 5x6 = 30 demons in any of their two forms! Each unit has only 9hp or 5hp for ghost form, in addition to only slightly above average MR. (13MR). That makes attacking armies with more than few priests to be VERY cost ineffective for Oni, and if its more than several priests, its almost suicidal using demonic troops (which are main Oni troop type). Larger demons fare slightly better due to larger size, slightly higher MR and more hitpoints, but still suffer a lot from banishment, since their both primarily and secondary forms can be banished relatively easy by lvl 1 indep priests. I am not even talking about priests with level higher than 1, which many nations have, which makes banishment both larger in AoE and makes it even harderer to resist . Also demons have no easy way to make their demonic armies less banishable.


3. No sacred regular troops at all. Only two sacred commanders, with only one of them being cost effective option - the most expensive capital only 500gp Oni King. Few summoned sacred low level demons, but nothing to write home about. Therefore bless strategy - not very powerful, at least in the early/medium game before Oni Kings units have buffs they need to make them worth producing in significant numbers.


4. No heavy infantry at all and very mediocre human medium infantry. No cavalry, no units with any type of shields to withstand missile fire. basically Oni armies are extremely weak against any type of archers.


5. Quite average archers, worse than some of the common indep archers for the same price. Their only advantage is low resource cost, but as I said common indep tribe archers have better stats for the same cost in money and resources.


6. Below average researchers .


7. Relatively limited magic path selection Only 3 schools of magic. (Death, Fire and Earth only, nothing else other than sometimes air one, which is not very useful).


8. Small selection of pretenders, no unique *and* interesting pretenders.


9. No priest other than movement 1 lvl 1 priest, which is actually inferior to indep priest. (Most useless of Oni unit IMHO, in most situations -10 gp on its price is not worth having 1mp unit where almost all other Oni units are 2 mps)


10. Most of national summons are not very interesting, considering their price and also the amount of units they bring. Many summons, including the best ones, are impossible to cast not only by national mages, but even by mages summoned by national mages). So unless you design your pretender specifically to be able to cast these spells, you can pretty much forget about many of them, including those actually worth casting.

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Now after reading this whole list you may come to conclusion that Oni Kings is a totally hopeless and weak nation. That would not be true. So to be totally fair, let me list their strengths as well, based upon my observations so far.





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List of Oni Kings strengths:


1. The Oni King unit (of course!). It's a good commander, no doubts about that. That's IMO the main strength of this nation in MP.

Basically its strategic role is quite similar to Niefel Jarls. It costs the same 500gp. It has about 30% less HPs than Niefel Jarl (Oni King only has 50hps). It makes it significantly less powerful in the early game, especially considering the fact that high bless strategy is *much* more beneficial to Niefelheim than to Oni Kings, therefore Oni King player is much less likely to go with the high bless strategy then Niefel player, which indirectly makes Jarls even better comparable to Oni Kings.

However in the late game (assuming Oni player have managed to survive to see it), and with good research Oni King can be more powerful than Niefel Jarl. Invulnerability plus Soul Vortex is a powerful combo. Fire magic and (rarely) air magic also add diversity. So basically in the late game Oni King can be a very powerful unit.

At the same time late game nations have a lot of different means to deal with SCs, and SCs overall are significantly less powerful in Dom3 than in Dom2 due to multiply balancing changes. Which, together with the fact that Oni Kings are capital only units, significantly reduces the value of Oni Kings in MP games during its later stages of the game, where Oni Kings finally have buffs they need to be really effective.

This being said, Oni Kings units are still the major strength of the Oni Kings nation. In fact they are their main strength, because frankly it doesn't have that many others.



2. Many demon units are only res 1. That allows to produce a lot of them quickly, which can be quite useful if your castle is in danger of being assaulted by enemy. Mortal archers cost only 4 res as well. All this allows Oni player to raise army quickly and to experiment with sloth scale, if he chooses to. Demons are non sacred and cost a lot though, other than wimpy 12 gps ones.


3. Demons troops need to be killed twice, after death they revert to very weak but ethereal form. If this form is not destroyed by the time the battle ends AND the battle is won, the demon will reform in its normal form.

It may sounds great on paper, and it works well enough against AI because AI rarely brings enough priests to battle. In MP is not that big of a bonus, since lvl 1 priests can banish BOTH demon primary form and its spiritual form, making them doubly effective against Oni. Also it makes recruiting the only inexpensive demons (12 gp one) almost meaningless against any human player due to their size 1 and low MR. Finally all demon secondary forms only have phantasmal weapons, which require MR checks on each successful hit, and they all have low hps and prot 0.

Overall, being able to survive immediate death even for a little while is still an advantage of the nation, not to mention it adds unique flavor to the nation.


4. Battle mages are decent. Only level 1 and 2 mages, except Oni King themselves, which are rare and much better to be used in their SC role most of the time. However Earth, Death and Fire are good magic schools for battlefield, and so Oni Kings do have relatively good battle mages.


5. Oni have 2 good battlefield-wide spells. Both require level 6 research in two different schools. One gives demon troops prot 10 (which demon units desperately need, because most of them have crappy prot 3 and 4. The side effect is additional damage from fire, but most of the time its worth it). The other spell grants demons berserk ability. Both spells are must have for any serious battles). Although these spells do nothing to alienate the main Oni critical weakness - banishment by lvl 1 priests, they do help to balance odds somewhat when battling other nations national armies.


6. Few low level human troops and human commander have stealth attribute.

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So here is is.



As you of course realize by now, I think Oni Kings really need some boost to make them stand up to other nations in MP. I have created few suggestions of mine that IMHO would help to even the odds. They are by no means the only possible solutions, but I do think that implementing them, or something along their lines, would be a good step to improve the overall balance of this interesting new nation.


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NOTE: When I was creating this list of suggestions I've tried to be VERY careful not to go too far, making Oni too powerful and/or unbalanced. Basically, I've tried my best to preserve the balance as well as unique feeling of the nation, not to make it more powerful than other nations.


1. Add 4 MR to all demon troops. Or if it's too much - consider Oni national demons as having +4MR when it comes to checks against banishment. After all, demons are supposed to be significantly more difficult to banish than undeads. But as it turns out, their current 13 MR, 14 MR and 15 MR is absolutely not enough. Either that, or banishment should only affect undeads and not demons.

Unlike free or very cheap undead hordes, demons armies are VERY expensive, money wise. Yes, their spiritual forms is a interesting bonus unique to Oni nation, but it mostly delays enemy melee units (unless they have magic weapons), but does not affect the outcome of the battle that much. Demon troops are still weaker that most of national armies with similar cost, due to their high cost and extremely low protection, even with their bonus of spiritual form.

With this in mind, giving Oni's national armies such a critical weakness by allowing few lvl 1 priest easily annihilate huge (and very expensive) demon armies is too much. In the current state of the game, all human player have to do is to field some medium-quality melee screen troops and some archers, with 5 or 10 cheap lvl 1 priests, and arrange them in defensive position with "hold than attack" orders to melee. That's all.


Archers and melee units, backed by barrage of banishments would quickly revert half of the demons to their weak ethereal form, by the time demon melee troops advance to engage in melee. After round or two in melee, most of the demon melee troops will be in their ghost form due to their protection 3 or 4 and relatively low hps, and many weaker ones will be destroyed completely. At that point melee combat becomes much less casualties-intensive for both sides, due to oni ghost being ethereal (difficult to hit with normal weapons), and their own weapons being phantasmal (only hit when MR check is failed)

Than these ghost forms, who have even lower hps than original forms (twice as low), are very quickly banished by the same lvl 1 indep priests.


This setup can and does annihilate huge Oni armies with the armies of almost any nation plus bunch of 50gp priests, which all together would cost the fraction of what Oni player would have to pay to recruit such an army. I am not even talking about nations which have cheap priests with levels higher than 1. That makes recruiting demonic armies (which is what Oni Kings theme is all about) to be very cost-ineffective in MP, forcing player to recruit mostly archers and bland human medium/light infantry in its castles, both being same or worse than common indep troops. Not very exciting.


2. Make the cheapest 12 gp demon troops (Ko-Oni) size 2 instead of their current size 1. Yes, it would make them less powerful in melee, because they won't not benefit as much from the reduced defense of their enemies when they swarm them. But considering that it makes then TWICE as weak against banishment as normal sized one, combined with the fact that they have lowest MR of all demons(13MR) and very low hps, them being small actually makes them much weaker in MP instead of benefiting them.


3. Make ghost forms of oni have the same HPs as a normal form, instead of having 50% of HPs . The demons do not have that many hps to begin with. (HP9 and HP14 for low land and medium level troops, so their ghost forms currently have meager HP5 and HP7). Their ghosts have 0 protection. Ghost forms will not be able to deal much damage anyway, but at least they would stick around a bit longer if they would have full HP of the demon instead of only half.


4. Raise protection on best oni troops (50gp and 65gp "Oni" and "Koni Oni") from prot 6 to prot 11-12 by giving them at least *some* armor. 65 gp mostly melee-oriented units should be able to last longer than 1-2 rounds in melee, or not to be killed by few arrows. And once in ghost form they die almost as easily as 5 times cheaper lesser demon due to low hp and 0 protection. That doesn't sound right, their ghost form should also be significantly more difficult to kill than ghost form of weakest demon, to justify their high cost)

Protection 11-12 and size 3 would still leave them very vulnerable to both missile fire and melee attacks, but it would make to survive slightly longer. Make them more resource intensive to compensate for their better armor. Currently Sloth 3 is almost no brainer for Oni Kings player.


5. Make low level Oni national summons to summon multiply demons with appropriately increased costs, instead of summoning them one by one. Research is hard for Oni as it is, and it does not make any sense for the player to spend valuable mages time to summon 1 cheap and weak demon per turn for 1 gem for example. Considering their stats, to make any difference on the battlefield these summoned demons need to be used in large numbers. But by the time Oni mages are able to gather enough of them, there are much better summons available. So they need to come at groups of 5-15 with the gem price being multiplied as well. As of now many of Oni's national summons simply not worth it.


6. Make "End of Culture" and "End of Weakness" Oni's spells Thaumaturgy 4 and Alteration 4 instead of Thaumaturgy 6 and Alteration 6 as it is now. Level 6 is very high for the slow pace of Dom3 research in general, especially so for Oni with their relatively weak reseachers. At the same time in the late game Oni have powerful Oni King unit to work as SC and to help them in their battles. They also will have access to better summoned troops and good battle spells for their strong mages. Where Oni really need help is more in the early to mid game, where they are having hard time against other nations.


7. Give Oni demon troops with ranged attack prec 11 instead of their terrible prec 9 . Currently with -2 prec on javelin for example, which makes their effective prec 7, your demons who has this type of attack can hit anybody except the enemy they are shooting at, even at point blank! In fact, they are more dangerous to your own troops, since your troops have very low protection to begin with, and high level demons are strong. What the point of giving them missile attack for additional cost, if this attack is quite useless?

The flame attack, for units that have it, while slightly more accurate, is still not very effective.

As I said, "friendly" fire is especially deadly to your own demonic troops, so precision is really needed for you to not be afraid to use your own troops ranged attack.

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Sorry for the very long post. I've tried to give detailed explanations to the reasoning behind both my observations and my suggestions. Please feel free to post your own comments and observations on the subject of this thread if you like.



I would be very excited to hear one of the developers thoughts on this topic.

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Very nice write up. I haven't played with this nation, but I enjoyed reading your analysis.

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

You found Oni Kings good SC's?! How did you get around them fatiguing themselves out after three spells?

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Thank you Maltrease. I am glad you liked it.

As I said, they are only good SC in the late game KissBlade. Fatique is indeed a problem in the early game. First you need to get rid of their terrible high encumbarance armor and replace it with better one, with 2 or better enc. Than give them some fatique reducing items, and reseach spell soul vortex for them, as well as basic conjuration Earth Power spell (which you'll get anyway because you need Dark Knowledge for important death gems searches) With this setup against non-undead troops they can be quite efficient fatique-wise.

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

They were the first nation i played as..

Didnt finish the game was just really unimpressed with them Expensive Units who died very easily.

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Nice Korvin. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Following is a rough description of my first game playing Yomi (Single Player):

I trained my first Oni King on the 2nd turn and made him my prophet. After building a reasonable army of bakemono archers and bandit infantry with small flanking groups of poison spitting, flame throwing Kuro-Oni, this initial force cleared indy provinces easily and the prophetized Oni King reinforced the ranks by reanimating armored souless as they advanced. As the gold income began to rise, more Oni-Kings followed and were equipped with horror helmets and bracers of protection (since early on that was all I could afford). I had them cast 1 or 2 buffing spells and sent them into the fray. AI troops rout quickly when the kings enter the battle.

I initially have used the old sorcerers for research and forging simple items with multiple castings of reanimation at times when I needed to quickly amass a wall of fodder for absorbing arrows. Mixing small squads of the cold Ao-Oni in with the front lines was quite effective in adding some serious punch against some of the heavy armored enemies. The undead fodder also helped to absorb banishment bombardments.

The game is still in progress and not a sure win by a long shot. Research is very slow and I now border 5 AI's, one of which I have nearly defeated (Ermor).

I can see where it would be a rough pick for competitive multiplayer. I bet however that someone will come up with a healthy strategy to make it shine.

I like most of your suggestions, but I would prefer to see the small Ko-Oni retain their small stature, but reduced in price. As it is I train stealthy prot 11 bandits for 9gp instead of the 12gp banishable prot 3 Ko-Oni. I guess the "end of weakness" spell may make them more appealing, but I still lack about 290 research points before I can try it out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Skelespamming with Hennyas could distract the banishers. Could.

That said, I also found Yomi unappealing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

I haven't looked as in-depth into them as you have, but I have played against them a couple of times, now. I would say that increasing the MR of their corporeal form is a good idea, as long as they don't increase the MR of their ghost form. They certainly should not be banished quite as easily as undead, as long as there is still some kind of balance between the two forms. Ie. the corporeal form is best destroyed by missile fire and melee and the ghost form is best destroyed by magic. It means the player fighting Oni Kings has to be more flexible.

As for having no heavy infantry, that's not a huge deal. You can always buy indies for the missile screen if you really want it. From what I can see, there isn't an easy way for an enemy player to figure out how to specifically target your most vulnerable with missile fire.

As for poor research, I thought that was supposed to be counter-balanced somehow in their theme. At least, that's the way their description makes it look. Kind of like how Ulm in Dom2 got less magic than anyone else, but supposedly had things to make up for it (wait a minute....)

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Nice job Corvin.

Now stop being so lazy and do your R'lyeh analysis!

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Well currently ghost form is twice as easily to kill by banishment as a normal form, which is quite easy to kill in the first place. That is due to the fact that banishment is AN attack, and corporate form having the same MR as the normal form but two times less hitpoints, which were low to begin with. So its 7 hitpoints for ghost form of for 30gp demon, and 12 hp form for 65 gp demon. And 5hp for 12 gp one.

So increasing MR by four for normal demonic forms while making ghost form hp equal to normal form would be acceptable solution. Although I think ghost form would still need some MR increase, maybe not by 4 but by 2. I like your suggestion about these two forms having different MR and requiring different means to kill though.


One of the main idea behind these double forms theme of On nation is to give demon troops the chance to survive the battle in ghost form. "Almost immortality", as their description tells us. However currently despite their "immortality" demon armies often suffer high casaulties in any battle when it comes to melee, much more so when few enemy lvl 1 priests are involved. And if dozen of indep lvl 1 priests are involved? Which you can bet your *** will be in MP with ANY nation vs Oni player?

You can forget about medium or large demon armies than, unless you have huge numerical advantage over enemy, because you would fare much better with indep early era troops for the same price.

Two points.
1. After few turns of battle, during which you can and should try to distract enemy fire to decoy troops or high armored troops, as you rightfully mentioned, it usually comes to the melee, since all of your demon troops are clearly melee oriented units, even those who have some form of limited ranged weapon. And enemy archers are quite happy to shoot into melle. They hit their own units on regularly, but they hit you more often. However enemy units normally have much higher protection than 3 or 4, so they suffer much less from missile fire.

2. However where low prot reeeaaaly bites you in the *** is not missile fire but melee itself. Becuase, BigJmMoney, you are right, you can use some tricks and decoys to avoid the worst of incoming missile fire, at least for the first few rounds. However at some point you have to engage the enemy with your melee demonic troops, who are all melee types. (otherwise what was the point of having them around? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

And at that point, how long your do you think prot 3 and 4 troops with 9 and 14 hitpoints AND low defense would last? One round? Two rounds?

What about your elite 65 gp units (the best national unit you can buy as Oni) with "great" protection of 6 and mighty 24 hitpoints? What's the point of having 65 gp melee unit which can not normally last longer than few rounds in melee with very average enemy troops, before being reduced to the "I-can-not-hurt-you-because-you-do-not-believe-in-ghosts!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif" form, which in turn is promptly banished by nearby lowly drunk village priest??? That's some mighty demon, all right... >;)

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Actually, this isn't low protection: It's Early Age, where armor is generally less strong - and quite some troops have to go without, even.

Note - there are no crossbows or longbows as well, therefore vulnerability to archers is limited.

You may have a point here, but lets compare that to the blood summons:
lowly Imps have MR13
Demon Knights have MR15
Devils, Frost Finds have MR17


Not all nations are created equal.
Not every nation must have sacred troops to make a (plain) bless strategy viable. On the other hand, a simple N4 bless is tremendous useful with the Dai-Oni. Maybe add E4 to help with their encumbrance problem.

What are the buffs you think they need? A N4E4 bless and a fire shield will make them quite useful even in the early game IMHO, and isn't hard to get at all. And what do you mean by "producing in significant numbers" .. being captiol-only and costing 500g per units, you're not going to hire dozends of them anyway during the first 30 turns anyway.

There's no heavy infantry in the Early Age. At least, it shouldn't. I'm pretty sure the prot-15 indies do show up sometimes, but that's a bug I guess. According to the manual, EA 'heavy inf' is the prot-10 spearwielding type. Most troops are in the prot6-9 range. Considering this, the bandits and even the prot-6 Oni don't look that bad.

The indie tribe archers are just too good (better than any national archers) and hopefully will get nerfed or made more expensive in a future patch.
And Yomi has 2 types of archers: The bandits are quite ressource-intensive, but among the best archers in the EA.

Yomi starts in mountainious area anyway. No use for a move-2 human priest, at least without mountain survival. Then the Demon Priests are only 80% as expensive, have 1 lower enc and 1 more MR than indie priests. And they have a 10% chance to get 1 magic level and become ultra-cheap researchers/forgers. And if that's not enough incentive to buy them - buy indie priests.

Kappa - castable (only by Nushi, but useless anyway)
Karasu T. - NOT castable (to mage-time intensive for pretender)
Konoha Ts. - castable (sorcerer)
Dai Tengu - castable (seldomly, 1:10 Dai-Oni, pretty expensive)

.. all tengu can fly during storms, AFAIK, .. so much for the archer problem ..

Ghost General - castable (Dai-Oni, surely worth it)
A.o.Tigers - castable (Nushi, animals...)
Nushi - .. needs pretender, but is worth it as it opens up 'nature' and 'water'.

And concerning the 'general summons' .. I think Yomi is not meant to have all those available, unless you spend the design points to make them available via your pretender. Which ones are you missing in particular - Air, Nature, Death, Earth and Water ARE accessible to Yomi (slim chance on Air, I must admit). If you want Fire, you'll have to use your pretender.

Mainly, I have come to the conclusion that you're looking at Yomi from a skewed MP perspective:
You seem to be looking through Yomis units list and comparing it to the list of 'basic strategies' - to find that a good part of them will not work (easily) with Yomi.
Be more creative - not all nations are created equal. Not every nation must have the full range of pretender-build options. Not every nation must work with the F9W9-nobrainer-bless.

But lemme see what you've found for your:

Actually, most stats are slightly inferior to the Niefel, apart from Prot (at the price of higher enc) and Att (mostly from fire magic). Especially 'Prec 9' and the high encumbrance make Dai-Oni unsuitable as spellcasters unless you slap a lighter armor on them. Again, a 'possible' strength that is not easy to use - other than buying a Niefel Jarl and set him to 'attack nearest'. Maybe a price reduction would be in order?

As I said - is everyone obliged to go with a high bless strategy? Several low level blesses work way better on the Dai-Oni and have the added advantage to open up more magical possiblities for/with the pretender.


Again - how many buffs do you think they would need? Fire shield and some low-level blesses can do the trick quite nicely, later then add Soul Vortex and some (cheap) items and everything seems ok to me.


And I think they perhaps simply need to be played slightly different to be competitive. Maybe by someone who's a stronger player than me, btw. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Bloods summons have 13,15,17. Why not use that for that Oni as well? Or why not use 17 or 18 for all Oni, at least in ghost form? Why should a small demons ghost be easier to banish than a big ones?
On the other hand, +4 is way to much - Dai Oni only have 18, and some pretenders do not have more to start with.


Big is beautiful? I would rather say: make them harder to banish, and give them higher Def, and maybe lower their price... .

Agreed. Where's the fun in having a 2nd form, if you won't even see it because its gone on the next hit as well?

They don't use armors, says the 'background story', and they don't use shields as well.
But they have powerful, if short-ranged missile weapons as well - don't underestimate those. Sadly, they (as all Oni) have poor precision - I wonder why.
Considerung that they are 350 year old demons who do not much more than come to blows with each other, I would like to see their Att/Def/Prec stats rised significantly, and their resistances upped to full 100%.

As shortbows have only DAM 10, Prot 11-12 would make them pretty much impervious to missile damage ..
Even with Prot-6 only, they do not take that much damage from shortbows anyway. And once they're ethereal, 75% of the arrows miss ...
I'm more concerned with the low melee stats, which make the get hit way to often ...

No need to do that - the game does that on its own if you slap armor on them. Armor would mean more encumbrance and less Def as well, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want that.


"Yomi, Oni Kings" does not summon any "Oni national summons", therefore I do not really know what you're talking about ... . If it's the different Tengu (no plural "s") - that spell already does summon 5 of them, the Dai Tengu even comes with 25 warriors. And Kappa and Karasu are useless or non-castable respectivly, anyway.

Agreed. To research both pathes to level 6 takes to long, especially as you'll want Conjuration, Construction and Evocation, too ... .


Agreed.
I've modded all the less-than-10 prec weapons and troops to have at least 10 prec test-wise, and 'friendly fire incidences' dropped by 1 order of magnitude... .



All in all - I think some of your claims, remarks and suggestions are quite valid.
Other seem to stem from a tendency to 'use' Yomi like any other, more 'standard' nation, which clearly can't and IMHO isn't intended to work.

I think, Yomi like e.g. Early Pangaea needs some creative and out-of-beaten-pathes thinking to be played successfully in either SP or MP. What IMHO isn't a bad thing - there must be something in the game to keep the Gandalfs and QMs occupied http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

I forgot: why is a 115 gold researcher with 5 research points 'poor'?

Which national mages from the early age are more cost-effective?
I have looked at some nation and havn't found any ?!?

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

It's a pity there isn't Stone Warriors at Alteration 4. Iron Warriors at Alteration 5 makes the targets vulnerable to lightning, but Stone Skin's cold vulnerability would be negated by Ao-Onis resistance.

Still, alteration seems like the way to go for the Oni. I think Immolation could be a very interesting spell for them.

Kappa could be useful in late game. They have protection 15 and an armor-piercing attack. I'm not sure how much fatique they get from fighting on dry land, though.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

The Dai Oni kings are perfect raiders in earlygame if you do a e9 bless.
With the e9 bless + summon ep they get 8 reinvigoration. So you can use them unequipped and they still make terrific thugs.
With equipment they are SCs.

Imho they are fine, you just have to rely on your mages. Your troops are not important, but the archers for 8 gold are useful.
Hanyas can cast flaming arrows for them.

Yomo is imho a good nation, but hard to play. But they have extremely interesting options available with the dai oni, which are imho more flexible than niefel jarls.

You said dai oni have less hp then the niefels, that is only half true, you have to count their ghost form hp as hp too. And their ghost form is an extremely useful feature:
A niefel jarl dies from 1 sucessful GfH hit, whereas for a dai oni you need 2 such hits.

And they have the most flexible buffs i think, both atlantis and niefelheim are a bit more limited there.

Summon EP, Invulnerability, Soul vortex, Fire shield, Phönix Pyre, every 4th mirror image.

They also can do terrific battle magic: Earthquake and RoS.


Their troops are a weakness, but at least the archers are useful enough. The Dai Oni are their main strength.
Imho they are balanced and one of the better early era nations. The only problem is that you are almost forced to play them with an e9 strat imho.

Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Wow, that's a long reply. I'll try to address your points one by one. Sorry if I'll happen to miss some.




You are right, the early era troops certainly have lower protection than Middle and Late Era. And it is true that some troops do not wear any armor at all. Nevertheless, if you look at the demon armies, most of them would have to be to be consisted of tier 1 and tier 2 demons. That means their armor is between 3 and 4. The best demon troops (tier3) armor is prot 6, and they are very expensive, and fielding large armies of them is not really effective from cost-benefit point of view.

Now if you look across all nations in Early Era, you will find that having average protection of between 3 and 4 is definitely below the average in the armor department, even in Early Era. Also some nations have troops without armor, but very few nations have troops whose BEST armor is 6.
(other than Oni's single human infantry unit, but we are talking about demonic armies here. If you going to use humans and not use demons with Oni, that certainly not what Oni nation is supposed to be about, I think we can safely assure that we agree on that one.


I hope from the above post the fact that Oni demonic troops have very low armor even for the Early Era is pretty clear. But if even that doesn't convince you, let me ask you this:

Why do you think IllWinter called the best Oni specific battle spell, the one that raise demons protection from to 10, "End Of Weakness?" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif


You are mistaken here. The way Dominion combat mechanic works, for protection 3 demons simple shortbows are more dangerous than crossbows. The fact that crossbow is AP only add 1.5 point (rounded) to the attack against armor 3 unit. Basically demons do not have armor to speak of to penetrate.

Also composite bows damage, which several nations have in early age, has been made equal to longbow damage in Dom2, equal 12. So you can say that there are indeed longbows in Early Era. They are just called Composite Bows.

Finally no demon troops have any type of shields. That also increase their vulnerability to missile fire.


So let me ask you this - have you tried firing bunch of simple no-thrill indep shortbow archers into demon army, tier 1, 2 or 3 - doesn't matter? If you didn't, please try it, and then come back and tell me about their "limited vulnerability" to archers.



You are correct, but there is a big difference between old blood summons and Yomi. The difference is that Oni nation is ALL about demons. So any human players knows very well that Oni do not have any non-demonic national troops other than archers and single weak human infantry. Any blood nation can use some demonic troops, but its up to them where, how and how much use them. So their opponents have no choice but be on their toes and not specialize in anti-demon warfare too much, because they can be always hited by some national troops for example. With Oni, especially in the early-mid game - it's all about demons. Unless of course you are going to play using archers and indep melee units, which, needless to say, defeats the whole purpose of having demonic nation.

This is subtle but very significant difference.



You misunderstand me, and you repeat the same argument down the road. I never said that all nations should be equal, or that they all should have sacred troops. But as you can see, this part of my original post was where I simply list all Yomi weaknesses based upon my observations so far.

Did I say - let's correct or change all of them? Of course not. Nation without weaknesses is boring and unbalanced. However not having any national sacred troops IS weakness, because not all but many other nations have them, and if some Oni units would be sacred it would of course make the nation stronger.

So my statement stands.


(Just to make it absolutely clear - I am not suggesting to give Oni sacred units. Every nation is different. However, it's perfectly valid to compare Oni with other nations, which I do in my post. "Weakness" is a relative term after all.)


What are the buffs you think they need? A N4E4 bless and a fire shield will make them quite useful even in the early game IMHO, and isn't hard to get at all.


[/quote]

Soul Vortex and Invulnerability are the most useful spells for Oni Kings. Fire Shield should not be casted at all in the early game, before you can give your Oni decent armor and some fatigue reducing items, at the very least.

N4E4 is indeed good bless for Oni, here I agree with you. In my 3rd game with Oni I am playing N4E4W4.

In 30 turns and with good scales you can actually hire more than a dozen on Oni easily if you wanted to. However you really shouldn't. Onis are not very cost efficient before their have their buffs and before you give them equipment, all of which takes time a lot of time to research and produce. So in the beginning of the game it doesn't make sense for the Oni player to hire a lot of Onis, simply because there are many better uses for their money. As I said elsewhere, Dai Oni start to shine mostly in midgame and endgame, but not in the beginning.



Not true about "no heavy infantry".

Not true. From the top of my head - just look at S&A, or even better - Sauromatia.

What??? Why do you think so? Because they have semi-decent melee stats and melee weapon? If you play you cards right, your archers should never get into melee in the first place. Their role is to shoot, and leave combat to troops that can do it better. If you mean stealth, than yes, it is useful, and I listed this in my list of Oni's strengths. But best EA archers? You got to be kidding me, or you didn't look closely at other nations archers.


Correct. But the whole map is not covered by mountains. Unless you are playing on Himalaya map. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Please tell me, why do you care about 1 enc on the lvl 1 priest ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif Or 1 MR. In 99%+ of your battles none of this matters even slightly.


I do, a lot. Extra movement makes a big difference, trust me. Trying to keep up with MP armies using 1 MP priests can be somewhat tiring for the poor priest...


That's exactly what I said.



Well, I do like to think that I am somewhat capable of thinking outside of the box, on my good days at least. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


What you said is all good and true, but these are just general statements. You do not post any example of possible innovative strategies here that you are refering to. In fact you humbly mention that "it might take better player than you".

Perhaps. But if you don't know any specific tactic that have not been mentioned so far by the people on this thread, how can you or me logically know that they do exist? Arguments like "such strategy must exist because Dominion is extremely complex and infinitely intricate game, where all nations are balanced by definition" will not impress me, to tell you the truth.

(I am being slightly sarcastic here, but please take no offense. I do not mean to flame you, or pick a fight. I am just saying that IMHO when you say things like this and talk about creative and innovative strategies, instead of "no brainer W9F9 bless", or "my screwed MP perspective" et cetera, et cetera, you should really put some specific stuff and examples there, not just general statements, if your want your arguments to be convincing.).

The strength of the Dai-Oni is not so much in stats but in magic paths. That's why, as I said, it is worse than Jarl in early game, but better in end game, when you have reseached spells that allow you to reilize Dai Oni magic potential.


Read my statements above. You are implying things I never said or meant.

I agree with you about Dai-Oni and low level bless though.


Read above.

Already replied to that above.


Well the exact numbers are debatable of course. +3 or +4 seems right to me. But I would prefer to give Oni +4 against Banishments only, not other type of spells. That would keep them balanced, because 18MR is a lot, you are right.


All these is possible changes. The main thing is that current situation when they are easily banished by droves by lvl 1 priests is not right. I am glad that you seem to agree with me here, as well as pretty much everybody who have posted on this thread, as far as I can tell.


Very true.

Oni General,( who BTW happens to use the same graphic) do use very heavy armor, as well as Dai-Oni. Background story could be slightly abjusted. It wont ruin the feeling of the nation or anything.
In fact, for the heavily armored Demon Commanders, who clearly understand the value of good armor in battle, to order their best and most valuable crack troops to use some armor which would increase their chances of surviving the battle to spread even more chaos and mayhem, is perfectly reasonable.

See, here is a simple but quite workable example of your new background story. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



I don't. Read the part of my original post about their shooting.

LOL. Now you are starting do suggest significantly more dramatic changes than I did. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Not so. I think you are forgetting about open dice rolls. Prot 11 units with no shield will suffer from damage 10 missile fire.

Sure they do, a lot. If you haven't tried it, do some experiments with Kuro-Oni and archers.

As for low melee stats - defense and protection to some degree can be mutually interchangeable, as far as unit health concerned. You can raise either one stat or another, both situation will result in unit surviving longer in the melee.


I am talking about Oni and Kuro-Oni troops here, not commanders.

"Yomi, Oni Kings" does not summon any "Oni national summons", therefore I do not really know what you're talking about ... . If it's the different Tengu (no plural "s") - that spell already does summon 5 of them, the Dai Tengu even comes with 25 warriors. And Kappa and Karasu are useless or non-castable respectivly, anyway.


I know. My point was that other summmons should also bring more than a single low level demon, while costing proportially more of course


Very true.

Yeah, I would suspect they would.

Thank you. I can say the same about yours.

Perhaps. I do not agree with you, but you may be right. To prove your point you will have to come up with specific strategiesand examples of how Yomi should really be played, according to you. Even better would be if you try it yourself and see if they work or not, before we discuss them here. I am genially interested in learning new interesting and innovative strategies about Oni. And in my games I always try to experiment and play with different stuff when I am learning new nation, and even after I've learned it well.



[/quote]

Anyway, thanks for your time and efforts, and for your input, they are appreciated.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

You make some very good points Boron. I completely agree, Dai Oni are more flexable (and potentially more powerful) than Niefel Jarls. That's why I like them more, and as I said earlier, in the end game with good buffs and items they make better SCs than Jarls.

I haven't tried E9 bless with Oni. I suspect you are rigth, and it might work reasonably well. However I would expect your Dai Oni to suffer and collect afflictions quickly, if you use them butt naked from the very begining.

Still it maybe worth it because of faster expansion. It's hard to know for sure before you actually try it. An interesting idea in any case. Personally if I would be trying something along these lines, I would probably throw N4 into the mix, to make my Dai Oni last longer without becoming walking wreck due to injuries. And at the very least I would get them before sending them on their own or with only missile support against tough indeps.

Overall I think your and mine perception of Oni are not too far from each other. I agree than Dai Oni are great, and the archers are cheap and low resources. But all my suggestions, as you can see, were centered on Oni demon troops, which, as pretty much all people here seem to agree, including yourself, are very weak and need some boost, or there is not much point of using them at all in MP.

And playing Oni Kings nation while only using single demon king SC and bunch or human archers/infantry, without using any of 6 demon troops, just doesn't seems as a elegant solution to me from the design/balance point of view, if you know what I mean. I think Oni overall balance and diversity would increase a lot, if the actual demon troops would be made efficient in MP by few tweaks. My suggestions are an attempt to do just that.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Hmm, long post now. I'll only make a short answer. Arralen has given some input and I agree at least to a degree.

MR will not be upped. The demons of Yomi are not of infernal nature as much as evil and uncivilized spirits of the wild. They do come from hell, but are quite comfortable living in the mountaineous and volcanic regions of this world. Giving them more MR would not fit. Making them more resistant to banishment is not a good solution either. Excorcism is quite prevalent in the east. Perhaps more so than in western tradition. So increasing banishment resistance (wich by the way is not a vialble option game-mechanic-wise) does not fit my conceptions.

Raising Ghost MR on the other hand is not a bad idea.
It might be combined with another idea that was discussed in the beta: oni flee when turned into a ghost. This would decrease casualties.

I'm not opposed to sacred armed oni warriors, but I haven't any ideas formed atm. I would probably make them summonables.

I prefer lower costs to higher stats. There are rarely swarms of oni atm.

EDIT: hmm, so much for a short answer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Heh. Thanks Mortibus. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

This analysis and the replies took me quite a few hours today. I think it will be a while before I'll be ready to do another race detailed analysis - I would like to have some time to actually play the game as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Thanks for dropping by Kristoffer, and thanks for your comments.

I undesrtand your reasoning behind not wanting to raise MR for thematic reasons. I actually think it's great that you care much about flvor and cultural/historical background of the game.

So I'll drop this particular suggestion.

Regarding lowering cost and raising MR on ghosts form - that would work as well and I think would be quite good solution. I think the cost would have to be lowered quite a bit though, because currently demons are very not cost effective, as pretty much everybody on this board seem to agree. If they would be twice less expensive, with tier 2 Aka-Oni demons costing 15 gp instead of 30, than it probably it would go long way toward make them somewhat useful in MP, despite the remaining crutial weakness to Banishment. But perhaps you would think that it would be too much?


And what about rising hp of oni's ghost forms to be the same as their normal form instead of being at 50%? Currently ghost of powerful demon Kuro Oni has only 7 hp more as ghost of wimpy Ko-Oni. That doesn't feel right to me - ghosts of powerful demons should be quite more difficult to Excorcise than the lowest ones, don't you think?

Again thanks a lot for your reply and your considerations.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

I have to disagree with leaving the demon army so vulnerable to exorcism both on thematic and game grounds. On game ground the decision is easy - when a half dozen cheap priests, available to anybody, can cripple any demon army you don't have a good game balance. There's a rough balance between Ermor and cheap priests - so if demon armies are to be playable they have to be almost as easy to produce as an undead horde, and that's far, far, from the case

Second, I think having a small band of village priests obliterate a demon army completely fails to capture the spirit of exorcism. Exorcism is almost always portrayed as a complex, extended one-on-one struggle between priest and demon. It's never simple or easy and often it's epic - both in Western and Eastern culture. You can make a whole movie about a single exorcism/possession - again, in both cultures. This contrasts with priestly powers over the dead which in almost every culture are portrayed as extensive and easy to use. A priest *is* supposed to be able to banish a graveyard of undead - actually, it's his main job in most cultures.

It completely fails to capture the horror and terror of monsters from hell when Pastor Bob can get up from dinner, send several packing to the nether plane with a few scripture citations, and be back before his roast beef gets cold.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

The bandit archers are among the better archers since EA is all about battle of the archers and their better armor allows better durability. Also my strat with Yomi just tends to be using tons of indies and splurging most of my gold on mercs. I find Yomi's actual recruitables largely useless =). (I actually tend to bulk on bakemono archers in beginning simply to spam my opponent with them) Though they do have very nice magic IMO.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

I haven't played with Ko-Oni so I can't comment on the "balance" side of things. However, I really liked Kristoffer's comment about making the Oni retreat when in ghost form and making them more difficult to banish in ghost form.

"We have driven the demons back today... but they will return soon."

So in a sense you have all these priest which are able to easily temporarly banish the demon army and drive them off the battle field but to actual "kill" them takes a lot more effort. That sounds really fun and full of flavor to me and invites specific strategies to actually kill the oni ghost instead of automatically having the priest do both jobs.

It also sounds interesting that in ghost form all the oni want to flee, since of course they don't want to be permantly killed and now they are are at their vulnerable stage.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Priests are not so easy to get in dom3 as in dom2!
500 gold per temple for indy priests.
So only if you have national priest mages like dryads or arco priestesses a nation will have many priests in early game at least because it takes time to build new castles.

If you build only temples you are vulnerable to raiding then. And the yomo player could also do skelspam, then those skellis will have to be banished as well.

And magic resistence is ok for the dai oni demons anyways imho. 13-15, that is not bad!

But all in all i am not a too big fan of most of the demons neither!
Hm yes that is indeed problematic.

The problem is that imho most of the demon troops cost too much.
The Ko-Oni is useful imho, 12 cost is much too but he is easy to amass with his 1 resource cost and he has imho more combat power than the bakemono sho.
Once you can cast end of weakness they should be even more useful.

The other 4 demon troops are all too expensive though imho. I would also suggest they need price balancing.

Yomo is complicated with troops, i would only use 3 troop types:
Bandit archers when i have money shortages, otherwise pump bakemono archers. And in special cases a horde of ku onis.

The ku onis have various advantages imho:
need not eat, still ok price, size 1, so ultraswarming, 2nd form, so they need to be killed twice and 1 resource cost.

If your enemy does not have either really good spammable battle magic (blade wind and magma eruption mainly) or has SCs with fireshield the ku onis are decent.
They can swarm and they have only 1 encumberance.
So once you have a horde of them they become a problem.
They still die en masse, but that is not the problem because you can replace them much faster than your enemy.
They are like lobo guards. Only an average unit, but because they are so mass produceable they overwhelm the enemy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Maybe they should only cost 10 gold though. But the other Yomo demon troops cost way too much and the non-demon non-missile troops of dai oni are nearly useless as well.

Price balances should do the trick though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

I agree with you and Kristoffer Boron, price balance is indeed a possible solution. I mean - "There are many ways to skin the cat". Troops can be made better, or can be made cheaper, or both. Decreasing price of 30gp demons to 15gp, and 50-65gp to 25-30gp might do the trick. But I would still like to see ghost form made more durable, with same hitpoints as a normal form. This does not increase fighting power of Oni much, since ghost form are hopelessly weak due to only having illusionary weapons. But this would fit nicely into concept of "near immortality", alowing more demons to survive IF the battle is won.


I don't like the idea of oni ghost forms fleeing the battle, I would prefer them to stay and either fight or die. But giving them a bit more hitpoints and higher MR, so they would not be killed in mass with single banishment, would be good.



About Ku-Onis - as partly agree with you. Like yourself, I also like their swarm tactic, both from the tematic point of view and game-wise. But the problem is that their size one makes then the worst troops if you are facing priests, and in MP as an Oni player, you pretty much always do.

************************************************** *****
Here is some primitive math - up to 30 (6x5) Ku-Oni are affected by casting of lvl 1 banishment each turn. That's 2 times more units than size 2 Ao-Oni (25gp demon).

Now Ku-Oni MR of 13 vs 14 for AO-Oni. According to the probabilities table on page 5 of the manual, that makes them about 25% more vulnerable for banishments.

Now Ku-Oni have 9hp vs 14 hp for Ao-Oni. That's 55%+ more hitpoints for AO-Oni.

So here we have it. In terms of actually killing units (reducing their hitpoints) banishment is (2 times x 1.25 x 1.55) = 4.75 times more deadly for Ku -Oni than for Ao-Oni.

That's A LOT.

Considering that the the AO-Oni only cost 25 gp vs 12 gp for Ku-Oni, and considering that the banishment is the main weakness of Oni in MP, there is no point of buying Ku-Oni instead of Ao-Oni even with the current pricing.

That does not even include the fact that AO-Oni are much better fighters than Ku-Oni, that the AO-Oni have secondary weapons which Ku-Oni do not have, that they move much faster on the battlefield (10 instead of 7 movement), that they have morale 14 instead of morale 9, so they are much less likely to rout, while costing the same 1 res, and even have 1 slightly better protection.

Now considering all these facts, and considering the fact that the only thing Ku-Oni have over Ao-Oni is size 1 instead of size 2, (which, as i mentioned, also makes twice as vulnerable as Ao-Oni for banishment unit-wise), I don't see any reason why would somebody want to buy Ku-Oni instead of Ao-Oni, when facing human opponent.

************************************************** *******
The math may be slightly off, but not by much I think.


That is not to say that AO-Oni and better demons should be left as it is price-wise. My point is simply that none of the demons are price efficient at this point, including least epensive Ku-Oni. And that Ku-Oni IMHO are the worst cost/efficient demon unit when it comes to banishment in MP, as I tried to show in my calculations.



Anyway, as I said, IMHO serious price reduction, perhaps making all demonic units twice least expensive, may do the trick, together with better survivability of ghost form due to same HP as normal form and better MR for ghost form.

The banishment will still present huge problem for Oni players, but maybe it will be enough to make some demon troops worth building in MP games, as an opposite to using bakamoo archers and indeps.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

heh actually the idea of them fleeing does make sense thematically for oni's, I like it a lot =).

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Thematically - yes, I agree, it's nice. Cowardly demons, thinking of their own survival, hiding in the dark corners of the world before reforming into new bodies, et cetera... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But from the gameplay point of view, it will make Oni even weaker that they are, considering how easely their normal form are killed. At least now spirit form can distract opponents for a while, before it is killed. I would much rather lose banch of demons but increase my chances of wining the battle, than have demons flee once in ghost form, and lose the battle AND most of the army.


IMHO the last thing Oni need is a change to make their demonic troops weaker.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read
 

Just a few inputs:

* In the SP vs. AI games I've played as Yomi, I tended to do quite well. I don't remember ever actually losing an Oni King.

* I tended to use Oni Kings as thugs without really needing to cast spells, and seeming very effective with only a magic trinket or two, and/or casting a spell or two to help them out. I didn't try to use them as SC's, but instead would but one or two together and support them with some non-demon fodder. I felt nearly undefeatable against the AI.

* Another advantage of the ghost form is that it makes afflictions vanish! So not only was I never losing my Oni Kings, but they were never getting permanently crippled either.

* Using combined arms rather than all-demon armies seemed effective. I didn't try to make a huge army of smaller demons, but would have a few specialized squads of them.

* The Oni King seems to me like an extremely powerful unit to have recruitable from turn 1, even if it is capitol-only. Having them seems like it goes a long way to needing to have weaknesses in other areas.

PvK

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

The Oni King is powerful, but then so is the Niefel Jarl, the Basalt King, the Triton King, and Agarthan Oracles. The early age nations are full of powerful commanders that sit in the 400 to 500 gold range.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Haha are you serious? That's pretty cool. Oh yeah to balance out the Oni Kings, yomi troops suck (except from bandit archers which are serviceable with bakemono archers till you get indies that is) Oni's are poor researchers and also their magic isn't very versatile for early age.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

About vanishing afflictions - it is correct. However the process is not 100% certain - some afflictions vanish, some not. I haven't looked into it in detailes, but it looked to me like about roughly 50% of afflictions are gone when unit switches to ghost form.

However I would call it a rather interesting feature that add flavor and not a bonus. There are several problems if someone would try to use it as a tactic.

First - it is pretty much impossible to take advantage of it with any type of certainty and without huge risks. You see, if opposition was strong enough to managed to reduce your mighy Dai Oni into the little zero protection ghost, it means your Dai Oni is almost finished. All chances are that at that point your Dai Oni will be gone for good during next round or two.

Second - while being reduced from 50 hp to zero, there is a very good chances that your Dai Oni will add new affliction or two to the collection he has already.

All and all, I would call it curious and interesting feature, but not something that makes demons stronger as a nation.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Oh I agree, I just found it a nice little flavor. =)

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Your calculation is informative http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. You have left out some important facts though:
Range of banishment!
20+

Your shortbows have 30 range.
So place your ko oni on the edge of the battlefield with hold and attack x orders.
Just before your archers to protect them from fast enemy troops.
Then their slow 7 movement is a further advantage.
For several turns they will stay out of banishment range!
The enemy priests will do nothing then if they are normal priests or if they are priest mages they will cast other spells and fatigue.

Then there are skelspamming Hanyas. The skellis have movement in the range of 6-9 movepoints iirc. For the first 2 turns the skellis will already move while the ku oni still stay idle.

So the skellis provide alternative targets for the enemy.

So imho banishment is not a too big issue for Yomo.

But you are nontheless correct i think. The size of the Ku-Oni is more often a problem than an advantage because of other spells.

Mainly Bladewind and Magma eruption devastate the poor Ku-Oni really well.

And if we check early era this is extremely problematic because many early era nations can do bladewind and/or magma eruption:

-Arco:
Not guaranteed, but with randoms every 4th mage engineer gets earth 2 and some mystics should also get lucky with randoms and be able to cast blade wind or magma eruption.

-Maverni:
Every Druid can bladewind (and most can eagle eye, and every Druid can GfH)

-Ulm:
Almost every of their mages can bladewind.

-Pan:
Every 2nd Pan can bladewind.

-Argatha:
Every Oracle can bladewind, the oracle of subterran fires can do magma eruption too.
Every 4th earth reader can bladewind too.

-Vanheim:
Every dwarfen smith can bladewind, every 4th magma eruption.

-Helheim:
Every swartalf can bladewind, every 4th magma eruption.

-Kailasa:
Yaksha can bladewind (and eagle eye).

(-Yomi:
Dai Oni can bladewind/magma eruption too.)

-Atlantis:
Basalt kings can bladewind/magma eruption too, and rarely a mage of the deep too.


So 9 other early era nations can easily bladewind/magma eruption. These spells are ultimate doom for all of Yomis small size 1/2 troops.


But vs. most of the above listed nations Yomo can counter with Dai Oni casting earthquake or rain of stones.
And they also can counter reasonable well vs. bladewind with end of weakness.

But the earthquake/rain of stones counter is hard to pull of imho. And it is somewhat in vain vs. nations with cheap non-capitol only mages which are uber like helheim/vanheim svartalfs/dwarfes.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

I've sent you a message about your proposed anti-banishment battle tactic and positioning, I see potential problem with it. But let's continue this discussion in PM.

For here let me just say that even if it will be relatively effective, what prevents your opponent from countering it by simply scripting his priests to "attack/attack/banishments/banishment/banishment/cast spells", while positioning them behind his advancing melee troops of course? This way your are back at the same tight spot, with additional disadvantage that now your whole army is compressed not far away from edge of the map, so stray arrows/spell can hurt your mages and commanders, including those that you normally leave as far from melee as possible, and if your lose the battle the enemy may kill a lot of your fatiqued mages, because they are right in front of them.


As for other spells that you have mentioned such as bladewind and magma eruption - I agree with your reasoning and your observations.



In any case, we can discuss battle tactic in PMs.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Well, I don't agree to most of the "buff Yomi demons" wishlist...
A nation should not have all units made equally worthwhile, it should have strong, good units, and worse ones.
Yomi has great big units, it does not seem unlogical that their "small" units be subpar. Personnally I've got Yomi as enemies in 2 pbem games, with me playing Kaisala in one game and Marveni in the second, each time they blew me up !
Granted it was true because I didn't develop effective Banishment strategies soon enough, but Yomi does not seem hopeless at all...
OTOH if there is a nation that really should be strengthened, it's Maverni, not Yomi http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ...

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

What is wrong with maverni?

Imho maverni is balanced, they have very good mages with the druid, good researchers with the gutuater, a potential communion mage with the stargazer.
The canute and ambibate noble warriors are awesome, eponi knights are rather useful too.
In short, imho they are a well balanced and fun to play early era nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Marverni is brutal with Communion + Summon Earthpower + Bladewind. Later on they get Gifts from Heavens. And if your enemy is sending those DIEEEEEEE!!!!-Onis or other big monsters, why don't you just send some Stargazers with Astral pearls to meet them and spam Horror Mark? Thaum 1 is one of my first goals as Marverni to get a communion chugging.

Their units are also very solid.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Maverni has great mages, but the only worthwhile troops are Eponi Knights and Carnute Nobles (the ones that get berserk).
The sacred warriors aren't worth a bless strategy and are awfully expensve (35 gp!!) for their stats.

At start you can't expand without significant losses before you can use Protection and BE. Then problem is that before you reach magic level 4 in several path you are clearly outclassed by nearly any other EA nations, particularly the non-human ones with big nasty troops such as Yomi, Agartha, Abysia or Niefelheim.

Compare costs and stats of a Boar Warrior vs a Agarthan Seal Guard : a SG costs roughly 2 BW (gold and res), it's laughable.

And you don't even get cool national summons ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Edit : and no sneaky troops neither ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

If you have time, be sure to put this up on the Wiki:

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominions_3:_The_Awakening

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Here's a hint from inexperienced Dominions player: you can mix various units in same squad. So you can mix both BIG and little units in same squad. This should more less average the size of your units, making them indirectly less vulnerable to area effect spells like Banish. Essentially, it should make your little units effectively occupy more space.

Not tested.

By the way: there should be a formation option allowing you to affect spacing/spread of units, so you can simply order little units to loose formation, sacrificing gang-up potential for improved AoE resistance. Would add yet another tactical layer to the game, I can't see how it could harm the game.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

The effort involved in programming it, and the bugs that would stem from it. (I can already see one of the "ancient" dom2 bugs returning due to "loose formation".
And a game that is even more confusing for newbs.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, loose formations could be cool, but don't think that there's no potential adverse effects.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

About mixing units : yes it's a good tactics, mix small & big, undead & non-undead, so small vulnerable undead couls be spread out and Banishments will be less effective.

About "loose" formations : many improvements (new formations, better "front-lining"..) were requested by players, but we didn't get anything... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Hey Corwin, lemme throw a couple ideas your way.

#1) About the Demons being reliant upon humans for success. I don't think this is as bad as it initially seems. For one thing, demons making deals with humans is thematic, so it shouldn't be a thematic concern. For another thing, you don't have to be too discriminant as to what indies you have on your team, so long as they are human and un-banishable (although heavy inf. is a suggestion). For a third reason, it's not unfair because, as has been said before, each nation plays differently. If it falls that Oni-Kings needs to be a Nation that hires indies to be successful, then that's just part of that Nation's style. If you think about Ashen Empire and how they really, REALLY benefit from hiring a few indie slave armies to protect/fight against priest armies, then it's a similar situation. Demons simply have a weakness, and it needs to be worked around. Saying that one should be able to play without any humans in the army is like saying an undead theme (Ashen Empire) should be able to play with 100% undead in the army -- they technically can, but it's not wise. Haha, you end up being like a prejudice demon lord who refuses to work with mortals and then gets trounced by more cunning enemies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

#2) About the whole retreating when turned into ghosts. I think this could go either way, gameplay-wise. You've listed the major downside already. You lose the battle. However, that's not really that bad considering your losing the battle when all the other nations would have as well! Think about the benefit, though. The survivability of the Onis goes up substatially, and a whole new game dynamic becomes apparent for Oni-Kings: they are very difficult to wipe out. I would say to make this work well though, Yomi would have to all flee to the same province and regroup; you might call them "masters of retreating" or something. Imagine losing a battle, but getting 66%-75% of your demonic army back at the end of the fight, one province back. That would frustrate the heck out of MP opponents. So, what we're really looking at is a trade-off. The ability to hold out longer during a battle versus decreasing casualties. In a strategy game, I would opt for the latter. In the end, most strategy games boil down to numbers of troops. Also consider that the ability to hold out longer during a losing battle is not desirable anyway. I can see Yomi being very a desirable nation if they have the ability to trade losses with other nations and always end out on top. Of course, for this to work, the fleeing ghosts would have to be able to survive their flight, but I think that's very realistic considering they'd be fleeing as individuals, while their former squad would remain to hold the line. Heck, it would also just look freakin cool in the battle simulator!

Anyway, those were just little considerations. Hopefully I just presented a different way to look at it.

=$=

PS -- Imagine adding the unflinching undead to an Oni army like that. The Undead would never flee, and every single demon soldier would get the chance to escape. Lot of potential.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Why are you even trying a bless strategy othern than E4 with Marverni? Not all nations can do well for it, and other nations have better choices for it.

The Carnute Nobles have far suckier stats than their Ambitate colleagues and their only saving grace is the Berzerk that fires only every now and then.

Perhaps your problems with significant losses have come from using inferior units (Carnutes) while far better choices are around (Ambitates)?

Yomi and Agartha are vulnerable to missiles (You get javelins, which are good, especially against Agartha), Agartha and Niefelheim are vulnerable to being ganged on. Admitedly Yomi can bring archers and some of the Niefels get the frost aura but there are no foolproof plans.

Another noteworthy thing is that Yomi and especially Niefelheim and Agartha have worse research capability than Marverni. This can be further boosted by taking Magic scale, and since you can't pull a good bless strat with Marverni, why bother putting too much magic for your pretender?

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Then everyone would use loose formation.

Also as for Marveni expansion problems, you get slings and javelins early game to mix with your heavies. Use them.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Tactics like those simply don't work in Dominions. Weapon ranges are the one minor disappointment in the Dominions games to me. I've found that a weapon with a longer range than another weapon doesn't mean very much. I've set up longbows verus shortbows, and there are no tactics. Even with longbows at the very edge of the map, shortbows can still move forward and attack in the first round. That's no even one round worth of delay! The way APs work in Dominions, it's possible to move your AP (or maybe it's AP-1) and still make a full attack/spell. I've always thought this should be changed for spell-casters and ranged troops, myself, but I've never gotten around to mentioning it because I'm probably the only person who cares. Of course, you'd also have to discriminate thrown ranged weapons from "devoted" ranged weapons like bows and crossbows, because I think javelins and slings should be able to be thrown while on the run. Oh yeah, and I suppose mounted archers should be able to attack on the move as well.

Sorry, starting to go OT here. Also, you guys talking about Maverni, please be careful because it's now OT as well.

=$=

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Ashen Empire is way different than Yomi, the two should not be compared since they are of different age, Ashen Empire's UD are harder to banish, free and come in hordes. Not to mention offensive dominion and worthless provinces for people to conquer.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Nerfix,
Yes what I meant it that a bless strategy was useless for Maverni, but the way I wrote it wasn't that clear, sorry !
Abour tribe matching (Ambibates vs Carnutes) : well, Ambibates costs 5 gold less, have 1 morale less (at 11 only, which is not good), 1 att and 4 Def more than Carnutes - here you're right, they're much better- but Carnutes have berserk, which is nice imho, and Wood surv.

That's not a so huge difference, at least when confronted to Onis or Seal Guards, both dies in doves !
And in practice I mix both - but in my thread I've summarized http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

So I agree to say there's 3 usable units, Eponi Kn, Carnutes and Ambibates. Yet all are weak in EA...

As for research I agree : the only good thing Maverni has is superb mages (that are also priests). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Funny, I just fought against Agartha and their Seal Guards, which weren't that large in numbers I admit, died in droves again my Ambitates...

Onis might be a different beast, but I'd just Curse and Horror Mark them.

EDIT: If morale is bringing you problems, mix Ambis with Standards. I use Carnutes only when I must quickly bring reinforcements over forest provinces.

For erly expansions I used their Javelineers. Sure they die a lot, but are also easily replaced.

Re: Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please r
 

Nerfix,
In the game I'm referring to, I was already weakened by a "meeting engagement" against Onis I wasn't preparred to, and in the big battle vs Agartha my opponent had *large* numbers of SG with E9 bless, with a Troglodites front rank, vs my army of mainly Eponis and Carnutes, which were (for some..) Ethereal and Protected. All this was totally ineffective due to their large strength and magic glaive...
Maybe also the Knight size was a drawback as I couldn't field enough units vs each Agarthan.
And without effective combat spells my mages didn't do much neither, and their small Elementals didn't dent the opposition.

Thanks for the tips anyway, I'll try another time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif