[Corwin]

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

Corvin said:

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)

Arralen said:

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.

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?"

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

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.

2. (This is a huge deal breaker) Both spiritual and regular forms of demons can be banished relatively easily by cheap lvl 1 priests. .. 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,... Also demons have no easy way to make their demonic armies less banishable.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.)

..before Oni Kings units have buffs they need to make them worth producing in significant numbers.

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.


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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.

And what do you mean by "producing in significant numbers" .. being capitol-only and costing 500g per units, you're not going to hire dozends of them anyway during the first 30 turns anyway.

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.

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.

There's no heavy infantry in the Early Age. At least, it shouldn't.

Not true about "no heavy infantry".

5. Quite average archers, worse than some of the common indep archers for the same price.

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.

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

And Yomi has 2 types of archers: The bandits are quite resource-intensive, but among the best archers in the EA.

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.

. 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)

Yomi starts in mountainious area anyway.

Correct. But the whole map is not covered by mountains. Unless you are playing on Himalaya map.

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.

Please tell me, why do you care about 1 enc on the lvl 1 priest ? Or 1 MR. In 99%+ of your battles none of this matters even slightly.

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.

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...

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.

That's exactly what I said.

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.

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.

Well, I do like to think that I am somewhat capable of thinking outside of the box, on my good days at least.


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.).

But lemme see what you've found for your:

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).

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?

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.

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.

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 possibilities for/with the pretender.

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.

.. 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.

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.

Read above.

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.

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.

Already replied to that above.

Suggestions:

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.

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.

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.

2. Make the cheapest 12 gp demon troops (Ko-Oni) size 2 instead of their current size 1.

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

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.

3. Make ghost forms of oni have the same HPs as a normal form, instead of having 50% of HPs .

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?

Very true.

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.

They don't use armors, says the 'background story', and they don't use shields as well.

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.

But they have powerful, if short-ranged missile weapons as well - don't underestimate those.

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

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%.

LOL. Now you are starting do suggest significantly more dramatic changes than I did.

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.

As shortbows have only DAM 10, Prot 11-12 would make them pretty much impervious to missile damage ..

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

Even with Prot-6 only, they do not take that much damage from shortbows anyway.

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

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 ...

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.

Make them more resource intensive to compensate for their better armor. Currently Sloth 3 is almost no brainer for Oni Kings player.

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.

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

5. Make low level Oni national summons to summon multiply demons with appropriately increased costs, instead of summoning them one by one.

"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

6. Make "End of Culture" and "End of Weakness" Oni's spells Thaumaturgy 4 and Alteration 4

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

Very true.

7. Give Oni demon troops with ranged attack prec 11 instead of their terrible prec 9 .

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... .

Yeah, I would suspect they would.

All in all - I think some of your claims, remarks and suggestions are quite valid.

Thank you. I can say the same about yours.

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.

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.



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