Making Hard Choices
 

I have in front of me the hardest choice any one in dominions can make. What nation to play? I've got a game with ME Agatha, and one with ME (CBM) T'ien C'hi, but now I'm about to start a new game with Shatner in order to test out our ME Jomon Mod.

I am leaning to Shinuyama, but we might have one player that really wants to play that side, so I'm stuck.
I know I don't want to play a blood nation, and I'm not to keen on Sneaking (besides laying out a spy network), I don't want a water nation. I like ranged units, and heavy shields, but Man has very limited magic selection. So, I'm a little stuck on where to go.

So, with the little information I've provided, I wanted to see if someone has some insight on how I should go. I should note that my experience with the game is limited.

Thanks for your help in this matter.

Legowarrior.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

man is an awesome missile nation, esp. if you help out with magic.

personally, i like limited magic, cus the less choices i have to make, the fewer mistakes i am likely to make. of course, that's probably a fairly uncommon viewpoint.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Marignon, Fiery Justice. Knights, crossbows, astral for utility magic/antiSC and fire for all your battlefield evocation needs.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Biggest problem with Man is their lack of real combat mages, I think. Yes, you can Thunderstrike with old, cap-only, map-move 1 Crones, but that`s about it. To do more, you need Storm, and it hurts your archers tremendously. Not to mention it`s almost impossible to get A4 Crone for boosters, so you have to take Air on your pretender.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

I haven't played as Eriu with the latest version of CBM but one thing I noticed from an MP game with CBM 1.92 Eriu is that they get the Bean Sidhe as recruit-anywhere instead of capital-only, AND the Bean Sidhe gets a 15% forge bonus. That makes the nation kind of Ulm-y since your primary research mage and support caster also has a forge bonus. Plus, glamour, thugs and air/nature magic galore. Ever since that discovery I've been pretty interested in testing them out... just some food for thought.

EDIT: Marignon is fun, potent, and full of burnination.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Pythium. Case-closed.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Yeah, the Pythium don't have all that much in the way of ranged units. I might try the Erui though. They lack awesome longbow men, but they do have Firbolg Slingers. Anyone have a guide for the Erui that is up to date?
That being said, the Marignon and man are great as well. Dang, this is hard.

The problem is that the Jomon has spoiled me. Decent to go ranged units, diverse magic and cool summons. The only thing it lacks is fast moving mages or heavy shields.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

How about T'ien Ch'i? They have cheapish composite longbows as well as expensive MM1 crosbows and even light & medium cavalry archers along with just about 27 different flavors of infantry. (None of them specatularly elite, but not bad either.) Moreover if you've played Jomon you should have a good idea on how to utilise their diverse but quite low-path mages.

Edit: Meh, I'm blind. You already played ME T'ien Ch'i. Disregard. :(

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Yeah, I love the T'ien Ch'i for the most part.

What are good ways to get into Astral? Any decent summons that would allow a non astral nation (but with an astral pretender if necessary) get some astral access?

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Not too many options unfortunately. With D magic you can get specters who have 2x 25% of having S. With D and E magic as well as a wasteland province you can cast Hidden in Sand. (excellent spell anyways) wich has a chance of giving you 0, 1 or 2 Dust priests who each have 33% chance of having 2S. And... that's about it really. (There's Golems and Ether Lords too, but they're massively expensive for 'just' breaking into S magic, and they both require S magic to cast.) S is one of the harder paths to break into.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Meh, don't like MA TC. They aren't bad or anything, but EA TC and LA TC are so much more awesome that I always feel gimped with MA TC.

As for getting astral, the only definitely works thing is summoning Spectres. And that's way too expensive and produces a too crappy mage to do a lot of. If you take Magic 3 scales and luck, a S3 stealthy mage may join you. If you also take Order and Heat and have good earth income, Hidden in Sand is worth repeated castings. A strong blood nation also has a shot at one ice devil and one arch devil with astral, but they're uniques.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

As much as I like Eriu (and the current CBM version is very fun), if you aren't that interested in the stealth aspect of the game they might not be a good choice. Actually no stealth or blood rules out all my favorite nations. ;)

What about Machaka? While it's not my style of play I think they're an interesting nation and have gotten some CBM boosts.


Spectres, golems, hidden in sand. Pretty sure that's it (aside from tarts of course). I'm still hoping for CBM to add some more options for breaking into astral.

Edit: Lol. Lots of responses to breaking into S. Forgot about ether lords.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

I can do stealth, I just don't have much practice with it yet. I've always had a preference for Heavy Infantry backed up with ranged weapons.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

I was trying out Eriu in SP for an ME MP game (which I ended up ceding to someone else who really wanted to play a water nation). I think Baalz's guide to Eriu is still quite applicable, esp. in regards to the thugging of Sidhe Lords (And Tuatha are even better for thugging, with Air, Nature, and Earth). Their bog standard weapon (Golden Lance) also has false fetters as an effect (not sure if added in CBM or not), which also makes them surprisingly good anti-thugs out of the can. Plus the Tuatha can all cast thunderstrike out of the can (Sidhe Lords with Storm can too, since you aren't as reliant on missiles), and have great strategic mobility (cloud trapeze+mm3+forest survival).

What has me stumped though is how you diversify them, with W/N/E/A. It's a great spread of magics for the midgame, but it doesn't seem to lend itself to breaking into either death or astral (death seems best, since you have such good nature access already). The answer normally would be a rainbow pretender, but you're pressed for points if you go with the E9N4 bless for Sidhe/Tuatha (which is just tremendously good for them). Also, Fir Bolg are awesome, and the army buffs you can put on them are even more awesome (Earth, Air, Nature, hello!). The answer would be drown them in thugged out Sidhe Lords/Tuatha, and pummel them with Fir Bolg backed with major army buffs and thunderstrikes before Tarts and Zmeys and the like come online in numbers, I guess.

Just random musings of mine.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Plan A: Take 2 death on your pretender. Summon Lamia Queens. Now you have good D access. Forge Jade Mask for bonus points.
Plan B: Get underwater. Summon Ancient Krakens, give them Fish Amulets, conquer the world in the name of tentacles. :D For bonus points, use B-random landlubbing krackens to bloodhunt.
Plan C: Summon Shishis, Awaken Asynjas. Airdropping thugs+stealthy glamoured airdropping SCs FTW!

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Don't forget that Lizard Shaman provinces are pretty common, even in MA. It's not a guarantee and they're only 1S, but they can start site-searching at least.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Piggy backing on my last question, what's the best way to get access to any paths, starting only with your pretender? What I mean is, how do I get access to air magic or nature magic if I don't have national access to it? Death is pretty easy, as long as you have 3 death, you can summon spell casters. Earth magic has the Troll king, which for 2 earth and earth boots is a done deal.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Check the booster guide on the wiki. I think it's pretty complete, with the exception of the EDM additions in CBM. Summon Treant can give you the N/W and N/E crosspaths starting with just N, Great Krakens can give you W/B and a chance at E/N also, both of these in Enchantment. Asynja and Ember Lords can also get you crosspaths, but at Conjuration 8 and 9, you might has well get Tartarians for all your diversity needs.

On Eriu, you have 2 heroes with death. Unfortunately you have a ton of heros including a multi-hero, so even at luck 3, you might never get them in good time. If you do have the good luck to get those heroes though, you can use spectres to get astral and the E/D crosspath, then use the E/D crosspath to cast Hidden in Sand for all your fire/death/astral needs. Sadly, you can't get S3 with this, so no astral rings unless you get artifacts, which isn't going to happen with your craptastic research.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Sometimes, finding a suitable wasteland can be problematic.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

For archers, Shinuyama is obviously a great choice (4 types of national archers, all recruitable in every province, and easy access to flaming arrows)... However, the "no troops have shields" does put a damper on the whole thing, and they have no natural access to Astral and Air at all (although you do have national air summons that have points in air though if you have a pretender with it).

I wonder if Patala might be a good idea? They got mind-blowingly good capital mages (especially for late age), archers with longbows and decently durable troops. No fire, air or death access, though... And the best non-capital mages you have are 2 Astral 1 Nature. Could be a good pick to learn and practice using communions though (I'm currently doing that in a single player game).

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Patala is pretty much the ideal target for a missile nation. No access to air magic, no shield bigger than a buckler, and only troops with heavy armor worth recruiting are your cap only sacreds which happen to be cold blooded. And you can forget recruiting those if you don't take high production, which is such a waste considering how awful the rest of their heavy troops are. Basically there are only 2 national non sacreds worth recruiting: the light bandar apes, and the markata, and both only get good once you get buff and support spells, and both have easy counters. The longbows have poor precision and double the price of other archers, and elephants are entirely hit and miss, especially without good high morale troops to hold them like Arco has.

Patala is like a weak EA nation that somehow made it into the LA. You are so capital dependent you are done if someone locks it down, since your best noncap mages that can keep up with your armies are just S1. And those Nagarishis look a lot better than they actually are. No good crosspath spells once rust mist stops being great, so all those different scattered paths don't actually make them much better in battle than a mage half their price with most their magic in just one path. Patala's got pretty much one thing going for it, and one end game strategy. They have heroes with blood, and good blood summons, including the Dakini which can blood hunt.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

I don't mean to put a stopper on peoples fun, but the player who was contesting Legowarrior's spot as Shinuyama has decided to go as Machaka instead. If Legowarrior wants it, he is now free to play as Shinuyama and bakemono it up.

EDIT: And while I'm posting here, I should say the game (here and here) has room for another one to three players. Just saying...

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Heh, I do suggest someone take Eriu. Looking at that nation list, there aren't any other thug or stealth nations which are always good to shake things up.

So here's my CBM Eriu guide.

Eriu has the best E/N bless chasis in the game in the Lord of the Forest. They are a bulldozer with E9N6, and following Baalz's guide works quite well. However, I find they can do almost as well without sacrificing diversity. I like the Archdruid, sleeping, dom 7 and +3 scales. He doesn't have feet, which is incredibly annoying on a rainbow, and doesn't have the 3 miscellaneous slots of the archmage, but the free nature gem he generates mostly makes up for that. Luck 3 since you have awesome heroes, Heat 3 gives you points and makes Hidden in Sand more efficient, and your research is bad enough that you really must take Magic 1. Your troops have modest resource cost, and you have cheap spammable forts everywhere, so you can get away with sloth 3.

Your basic expansion army is a single tuatha, 1 indy commander, and a dozen or so troops with shields. Your own longspears would work if you find nothing better. Place the long spears forward set to guard commander, which is the indy commander placed in the back corner. Script the tuatha to cast bless, air shield, attack closest, placed on the opposite side from the indy commander, behind the longspears. Basically, the idea is that without buffs, the tuatha lives and dies by its glamour, so you need something to draw off missile fire, which is the job of the shields and indy commander. Once the AI locks onto the shields, I find all missile fire will be directed on them, while your tuatha slaughters the melee fighters, then moves on to the archers. Without an E9 bless, the tuatha aren't fatigue neutral. For stronger indies, you may need to combine more than one expansion group. To be honest, this is a bit more luck based than I like. If a really lucky hit strips the tuatha's glamour early, it will go down fast, and that's a pretty serious setback. But think of it like Bogus hitting your capital early or your lab burning down. 9 times out of 10, you shouldn't have any problems as long as you look before you attack.

Initial research goals are alt 3, conj 3, and evo 2, mix and match based on your exact circumstances. This gives you summon earthpower, which solves the fatigue problem for E2 tuatha, summon Cu Sidhe, bark/stone/ironskin, mistform, and resist lightning + shockwave. At this point your guys are ready for serious thugging. You are relatively strongest in this period, consider attacking someone. Exploit your stealth for a devastating alpha strike.

Eriu battlemagic isn't the greatest. Storm plus thunder strike from every Tuatha and Sidhe lord can get the job done though. Indy shamans can be very useful here, since they are more cost effective researchers than your nationals, and in battle, they can spam soothing song to reinvigorate your battle casters. But for all those nations much better than you at battlemagic, you have an answer in 2 national mist spells. One's research 0, and the other is Enchantment 5, and both can be cast by Tuatha. On top of storm, precision is seriously down the drain, and the more advanced version will keep spawning chaff as well. It's pretty much the answer to big communions, as well as archer heavy armies.

Fit construction magic in as best you can. Obviously, your thugs get much better with equipment, especially those not fatigue neutral. The Bean Sidhe now has a minor forge bonus, which can be applied to girdles of might and rainbow armor. As mentioned, recruit shamans to boost up your rather anemic research. Some 4 gem owl quills early might not be a bad investment. If the map lacks reasonable access to wastelands, consider taking cold 3, and massing 8 gem bottles of living water.

As for diversification, that's why I take the archdruid over the more powerful Lord of the Forest. It can forge both fire boosters, and summon Lammia Queens for death access even without your death heroes. It can cast Hidden in Sand, and your scales, while not ideal for hidden in sand which is made more efficient by Order/Heat/Magic, are still reasonable. Bid high for any astral mercenaries. You don't need tons of astral, but you have to have some for luck and anti-magic pendants. The Lammia Queens also get you blood, so you can potentially have all magic for the endgame.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

Edit: Oops, missed the Archdruid's paths, F4A2E4D2N4.

Re: Making Hard Choices
 

The thread is slightly dated, (as it doesn't include the new 'EDM' summons, but those are usually not your best bet for diversication anyway) but most of your diversification questions can still be answered here.