[Keir Maxwell]

Very interesting post Chris.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Air wouldn't be bad either -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cheers

Keir