Pretender design for Yomi
 

Yomi, the Oni Kings

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/neil_ja...rai-vs-Oni.jpg

I like to design a pretender for every nation. Yomi is probably not the best nation on early era but I like the nation theme. Recruitable samurai demons that are unfair rulers.

Pretender design (CBM):

Great Sage
Dom Str: 5
Order: 3
Luck: -2
(sinergy here is that i need money and without an awake monster pretender or strong troops order is a key. fewer provinces but more gold. besides you dont need strong dominion to give order to you capitol. the biggest income province)

Sloth: 3
Heat: 3
Growth: 2
(Sloth is probably obvious since your troops dont demand high resource cost. Heat and growth is a personal preference but not for any particular reason, maybe for the cold blooded hannyas)

Drain: 2
(The pretender is carriyng the bulk of the research task. and the added magic resistance makes the demon troops a little better vs banish)

(income is somewhat positive +3%, heat 3 is at tactical advantage because heat protection (thanks gregstrorm) and you dont feel badly because of the negative ones)

Magics:
F2 A4 W4 E4 S4 D2 N4 B3
(minor bless for the Dai Onis, can be tweaked. Main side is 43 rp from your pretender)

Opening turns:

Turn 1:
First thing your pretender researchs construction, recruit an Oni general and if you feel lucky try to get a merc (if allowed by house rules) rest of the money on bakemono archers (8 g, short bow, brilliant)

Turn 2:
The army you gathered either attacks the weakest province or if you grabbed a merc group you can attack a stronger, hopefully better province. Appoint your Oni general as a prophet. Recruit a Hannya and whatever looks good (more bakenonos maybe).

Turn 3:
Join your prophet (with troops) and the first army on your next attack. The Hannya should be going manually site searching now. Recruit a Sorcerer.

Turn 4:
The battle that you hopefully won left bodies. Now the trick with the oni general is that he can resurrect undead since hes a demon-priest. Have him reanimate soulles here and when the bodies run out go after the next battle site (free troops). If you got an air sorcerer have him site search too.

Following turns:
Your expansion will not be great but once you hit contruction 4 (soon enough like turn 9) you can forge skull mentors and further enhace your research.
The goal here is use the research advantage to cover for the weak army.
Depending on you see a war soon or not is what you need to do next.

If your opponent has not air magic well worth ench 5 for flaming arrows
Conj 3 + evoc and your hannyas can do summon fire power fire blast or fireball
Alt 1 gives you eagle eyes for those hannyas.
Alt 2 or 3 gives you some buffs in case you want to do early thugs with your Dai Onis. 500 gold but without equipment and with this blessing can be done. At const 4 you can even kit them.
Script: blessing, blessing, summon earth power, iron skin (or stone skin), attack closest.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eP-TQH6WbX...y+Huck+Gee.jpg

If you see peace maybe going to const 6 will be nice with lightless lanterns and owl quills.

Then on probably it is good to use your research advantage to a mass amy buff. unless you feel confident and go for the artifact race then your pretender has a job to do.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gvPwFuEXVp.../los+oniRB.jpg

(note: The build is slightly edited and made CBM so the first posts might not make sense. -1 drain +1 growth +1 heat and more magic, cbm favors this pretender it seems)

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

I have 2 main problems with your build:
1. heat2 gives you a huge income penalty(10%), a lot more than what growth1 gives you(3%) and even more than what each order level gives you(7%) so by taking order3heat3(as well as sloth3growth1) you're destroying most of what you would have gained from the order3. on most maps you'd be much better off with Heat0Death1 than with Heat2Growth1, on large and huge maps this will change a bit as Death becomes increasingly unattractive.
2. by going drain3 you're destroying any hopes for long term research goals. your pretender can't research forever, and those 33 RPs won't be very much once you finish year1. eventually you'll need to rely on national mages for research, and drain3 totally kills that. drain2(only -1 RP) is acceptable on same nations, with strong research mages and possibly a rainbow pretender, but drain3(-2 RP) is too big a hit for most nations(barring LA Man that ignores drain and perhaps EA Arco that ignores drain on their philosophers, Bogarus with their awesome research mages would be a stretch already).

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

well i just said its a personal preference about the scales, "sulphuric pools and volcanic eruptions". But thats because i see this game as a game and not a spreadsheet. I like to think that the sprites are actually demons and not just sprites.
But even then, you must protect your hannyas from cold. In winter the heat 0 you propose will be cold 1 and a penalty in fatigue for cold blooded mages.

About research your sorcerers cost 115 gold and have 2 misc slots so i dont see how you can destroy your hopes in research if you can forge all research items with those same 115 gold mages. A sorcerer with an owl quill and a lightless lantern gives 12 rp. Even better if one of those slots its a skull mentor.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

well, if you insist on "protecting your hannyas" and role playing a bit than take heat1(which would be 0 in winter and even late fall). almost a free scale for that matter, which gives you Growth0 or lowers Misfortune to 1.

as for research, all nations can forge research boosters, it's nothing unique to Yomi. Skull Mentors are not used often because death gems are too valuable. owl quills are not used often because air gems are not as handy for most nations and generally offer the worst RP/gem value. Lanterns are the most commonly used because fire gems are not that important, however it requires construction6, which isn't as easy to get with your Yomi unless your pretender is sitting in the lab rushing construction6 research with nothing else in between, which will cripple your already not very powerful early game. moreover, Yomi has great battle mages(Hannyas) and great recruitable SCs(Dai Onis) both of which benefit greatly from having access to various magic paths, so hurting your research is not a very bold move Imho. also, considering they're great battle mages, you'll use them in the field more than in the lab, which slows your research even more, it's not like you have very strong troops to rely on, you really need battle magic up ASAP...

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

I would suggest something like this (all written for CBM 1.6)

Awake Great Enchantress

Dom 6 (5 or 6 is the minimum I would consider taking in an MP game)

Order 3 (gold for your mages castles and temples)
Sloth 3 (all your troops are low resources and you need the points)
Heat 2 (your hamayas are cold blooded and you never want them fighting in cold domain + you need points)
Growth 0 (no point taking a growth scale you only have one old age mage who is inferior to the rest and you don't really blood hunt)
Misfortune 1 (perhaps I am being overcautious here but Yomi's pd is crap and the last time I took Mis 2 with Yomi I ended up with 2 bad events on turn 2 crippling my game)
Magic 1 (you want the research boost magic will give you but magic 3 is not worth it)

now paths are debatable but I would recommend you makes sure to get A2 E1 and W2 N1 to exploit yomis excellent summons (a A3E1N1 Dai tengu and a W3D1N2 Nushi)also I would recommend taking some astral for forging and end game stuff and at least N2 to forge thistle maces so your hannayas can site search.. (for reference the paths I took with this build were A4 W2 E4 S5 N3)

expansion

Turn 1

Set your pretender researching Enchantment Jack taxes up to 170% or whatever you feel comfortable with. Set your starting army to patrol. Prophetise your other bandit leader. Recruit mercs if you can get away with it.

Turn 2

Mix in Bakenomo Archers with Bandit archers and position them behind your melee troops put them under the command of your prophet bandit, Set your Oni General to stand just in front of your melee troops and cast spells. Attack the weakest province near you.If you managed to hire decent mercs send them against the next weakest province. recruit a hanya and as many Bakenomo archers as you can.

Turn 3

Sit back and admire the province you have taken with minimal losses. (and possibly the extra province your mercs have) order your army to attack a province that is connected to capital and adjacent to your newly conquered province. order your starting army to attack it and have your other bandit commander lead the archers you have recruited to attack it. Recruit another Hanya and have the first one start researching by now you should have enchantment 1 and script your Oni General to Raise Skeleton x5.

Turn 4

you should now have another province. Recruit some more archers and another Hanya. you should hit enchant 2.

Turn 5 and onwards

keep expanding at a steady rate with your main army while recruiting a new one consisting of as many Bakenomo archers as you can a few Kuro-Oni or Bandit Spearmen and an Oni general to act as arrow catcher. Continue recruiting Hannyas and researching till you hit Enchantment 3. Enchantment 3 gives you skelly spam which is a good counter to bless rushes and an early pretender SC so you want it asap.

other general tips

do not recruit a Dai Oni till you can equip and buff him properly. Find him some better armour and have him cast fire shield and Iron/stoneskin and he is a solid thug/sc.


Early Research goals in no particular order are

Enchant 5 (flaming arrows)
Cons 4 (Thug Gear,Skull Mentors)
Thaum 2 (remote site searching)
Conj 3 (remote death searching,Phoenix power,Summon earthpower)
Conj 4 (ghost general a great cheap thug for 6d gems yes please!)
Alt 3 (buffs for your Dai Onis)

Slightly Longer term reseach goals
Alt 6 (soul vortex)
Cons 6 (lightless lanterns)
Conj 5 (national summons for magic diversity)
Evo 5 (Shadow Blast Blade wind Falling fires)

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

right i noticed i made the build in vanilla. A similar in cbm makes the great sage to 44 rps.
magic 1 its ok because you get cheap mages. I would at least get N4 for regen. And I agree growth 0 is advisable I only get 1 because i like it.
In MP i wouldnt bother to get thaum 2 soon as i would site search manually and you can be surprised with your pants down.
Its advisable to raid activelly and more than your opponent because no easy way to counter enemy thugs or pretenders.
I didnt play Yomi in MP but i think that a group of bandits are capable of beating a moderate PD with minimal or no losses.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

the correct temperature scales to take are H3 or C3. (In this case H3 because of the Hannyas).

Temperature fluctuates, meaning H2 *averages* -10% income. Sometimes its H3 and sometimes its H1. But H3 can't fluctuate up, so it actually averages somewhere around -12.5%, so the last point is as free as you're going to get.

You might be able to convince me H/C 0 is worthwhile, but H2? Never. That's just stupid. Temperature is one of those scales that you always max in one direction or the other.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Good point and you can probably dump the extra points into better magic diversity.

Modded version of the pretender I suggested above Awake Great Enchantress O3S3H3G0Mis1M1 F1 A4 W3 E4 S5 D1 N4

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

if your nation has temperature preferences than I'll agree 100%. however in this case it doesn't, so taking an extreme temperature is a huge blow to your income, almost completely destroys what you gain from Order3 to begin with... I agree that Heat/Cold2 is dumb, if you go with 2 might as well go with 3, but going with 1(instead of 0) is sensible. I'd also agree that nations with only +1 preference(say Jotunheim, EA Mictlan, etc) should take it all the way to gain points, but with no preference at all, you get 40 DP almost for free, but taking max is hindering you too much.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

1pt is like 2pts, its 5% income lost per pt. The third point is cheap.

Now, i did say i could be convinced of H/C0, but H1 seems like a bad plan for the same reason as H2 is.

Anyway, if I was playing Yomi, i'd probably aim for the following scales: O3S3H3L3Mg1. I might consider Mg3 and death scales.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

H/C1 isn't like 2, it's part 5% income loss, part 0% income loss and part 10% income loss. a 5% income hit isn't so bad, especially is taking at least Growth1(Sorcerers have old age issues) instead of Death, and a few turns a year of 10% income loss are mitigated by the few turns of 0% income loss. so yes, it still hurts a bit, but it does offer some protection for your Hannyas and it frees up design points, so I'd say going with H1 instead of 0 is possible and not very wasteful.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Each point of Order gives 7% while each temperature scale gives -5%. Don't see why you shouldn't give some temperature scale up for order, especially since the income hit always fluctuates.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

You're definitely not going to get seasonal temperature shifts in all your provinces. Opening up some of my test games I'm only seeing a temperature shift from seasonal variation in something like 1/3 to 1/2 of provinces under dominion in early, mid, and late winter.

Assuming the ceiling eliminates 5% income penalty in 1/2 provinces 1/4 of the year. 5% / 8 = 0.625%
This means H3 or C3 is about 4.375% income hit over H2 or C2. So the ceiling helps but I don't think it helps as much as people think. However going H0 to H1 changes one of the seasonal shifts from a loss to a gain giving you an extra 2x0.625% or 1.25% from what it takes away so H0 to H1 is about a 3.75% income hit whereas H1 to H2 is just a straight up 5% hit. This means H3 is about a 13.125% income hit total. At least assuming I got that math right.

The main reasons you might want to take a temp scale closer to your ideal over order would be if you also had heavy luck scales and wanted more random events or wanted to avoid the encumbrance penalty from severe heat.

As for Yomi I would always take at least H1 if only to protect the Hannyas from the cold blooded penalty.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

When going heat3/cold3 you also have to consider the extra +2 encumbrance: is it going to hurt you or your opponent more? Nations relying on thugs or a few elite units will probably be hindered more then nations relying on hordes of cheep units. As Yomi, heat3 might give you a defensive advantage against some nations since you should be mostly unaffected. I'm still not sure if it's worth the income drop though.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Kadelake hit it. taking heat 3 should only be taken if you get fire resistant troop/mages. For ex: I think EA Ulm works well with cold 3 because they ignore the extra fatigue and probably their opponents dont.

An other point is the cold opponents of the early era. All nordic nations, plus caelum and ulm and probably the water nations. And their dominion is worse than winter. So if you build a fort in enemy dominion is worth making a temple and preach simply to be able to use battle magic.

But just to offset them is not worthwile to get some extra fatigue from extreme heat.

Still i now think heat 1 might be sufficient. im not sure.

EA Agartha feels the same and even more than yomi because you can use the Dai onis instead. But you can hardly replace your Agarthan oracles.

All in all the income hit is the least I think of in the heat-cold thing. If youre up to maximize gold then take 0. But im maximizing the pretenders research. And in my point of view and others is that its faster than taking a magic scale. tough more expensive in points. As you have to get negative scales and there is no way around it. Wich negative scales you choose is kind of a personal preference i think.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Dai Oni, Aka-Oni and Kuro-Oni (Hannya too) are all immune to the fatigue from heat 3, so it's not that bad a choice. As long as you don't mind the income hit, that is.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

They actually are yes. I think I will edit the first post to tune it up.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

And the Shura have encumbrance 0 so he doesn't care about heat either :)
Neither does archers.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

I've had great fun in SP(CBM)with the following build, probably wouldn't work in MP though.

Sleeping Master druid, dominion 3
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 3, Growth 1, Luck 0, Drain 2
F1 A1 W1 E9 S6 N6 D1 B1
This gives you a potent bless for the Dai Onis, which I probably over-kit. Construction 4 is a strong priority for Skull mentors, then buffing spells for Oni. Shrouds are enc 0 and a great way to avoid the unreliant self-bless. Both Bracers and Flame helmet are forgeble and gives cumulative bonuses to protection. Combine with brands and reinvig items for sturdy SCs. Buff with earth power, invulnerability, soul vortex and maybe fire shield and the dude kan take on entire armies.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Oh, and then i go for the "Strands of arcane power" with my Master druid, doable with a crystal coin from Con4. And you want the evos anyway.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

dominion 3 is awfully low, it's just screaming for a domkill.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

I see the idea to get your Dai Onis fighting fast. But S6 dont help them. As magic protection from the bless dont add it to units that already have magic protection 18 or higher.
Dom 3 is ok but you only have priests lvl 1.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Dom 3, especially with a sleeping pretender and poor priests is risky, even in SP. In MP it would be suicidal.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Yeah, dominion of 3 is a very, very bad idea. In MP this is suicide. You really need to strive for at least dom 6, and should try for more if your pretender isn't awake.

S bless is completely useless if Dai Oni. HOWEVER, it can be useful for Oni Generals, if you want to make good early use of them. and you should. My pretender for a normal game with yomi is looking something like awake sage, e4, n4, s6 (for diversity, path strength, and oni generals), and then as many magic picks as you can get while still having o3 and no misfortune. This gives your oni generals a little extra early game kick (and believe me, they are quite decent thugs early game, and can easily be used as SC killers). They'll be able to survive a lot of the smiting and banishing that your other demons will be struggling with, and make your early game a lot smoother. An e9, nx or fx bless could also work, and in a smaller game is definitely preferable to my above. Just so long as the pretender is awake, because you badly need a little bit of research for early threats from neighbors. Which should ideally come in the form of alteration 2+, evo 1, and if needed ench 3 for some skelly spam. With either of those blesses, both dai oni AND oni generals should be competetive for the first few years even with little to no gear.

With your pretender, clegg, I would drop growth to 0, raise dominion to 6, and do e9/s4/n4. That's good enough on the n and s, and sacking scales any more than that is starting to look pretty unattractive. And try oni generals, they are a lot better than you might think. I do agree that skull mentors are very important, yomi drastically needs extra research especially with drain scales. And the fact that their cap only mage has the same research as their cheap recruit everywhere sort.

I will stress that dai oni don't *need* a high level bless to be potent SCs, but it will make them a lot stronger early on if you go that route. But they're not really that well-built to be early SCs in the normal sense, due to the lack of a shield. They should always be supported in some fashion.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Not complaining, but I'm a little surprised that there's no Oni Pretender... If there was, it might be something we'd all ignore in favor of Great Sages, and the like, but for the roleplaying aspect, it would be nice.

Considering that Yomi is typically considered a weak Nation, this might be an opportunity for someone to come up with a powerful Pretender for them, that could actually serve to balance this Nation out.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

I have dom5 in a MP im now playing. I manage to have my dom in my provinces despite of pangaea spamming temples in my border (the looming hell).
MA Tienchi preaching with holy2 priests. So i could get dom1 for what I know.

Re: Pretender design for Yomi
 

Not bad...