Tuatha Race

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:

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Originally posted by Jasper:
I'm not concentrating solely on the Sidhe, as longbows can be usefull for expansion too.
[. . .]
I effectively decided not to use the Cu.

Funny thing is I've decide the best usage for my starting Longbows is to but them out the front in the first battle and save myself 5gps a turn.

Perhaps I should give longbow based expansion a go but they just combo so badly with the Sidhe. I want to start building Sidhe early to get enough for later. A large part of my plan is not to lose Sidhe but rather to steadily build an uber army or two.

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Build two armies. One province a turn isn't enough.

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.)

Currently I have some axemen/longspears in front, Daoine throwing javelins (they will automatically close after that) and longbows behind that. Although there might be some friendly fire to the infantry, the Daoine are unlikely to take much if any; and they're positioned to move into close combat if the infantry rout. That way most of my losses come from the cheap units, and the Daoine keep racking up exp from javelin kills.

Its important only to take the provinces that matter - you can even stealth past a blocking province to take a gold rich province with a Daoine and Cu Sidhe force.

I am hoping that the Cu Sidhe are the key to accelerating early expansion as they are thematically suberb, oustandingly fast on the battle board, really easy to build, have a good defense when blessed, and good offense - especially with quickness. I definitly don't want any Longbow near my Cu Sidhe.

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.

On the other hand, I don't have a water blessing either (Nature 9 White Bull, worked great until he tried to take a province by himself the same turn 15 Jotuns had the same idea. Even a 200 hp, regenerating, size 6 trampler has a bit of trouble trampling 15 Jotuns to death by himself.)

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 (I don't think you can squeeze much more out of that) or (b) missiles. On the other hand 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.

Of course the nature blessing is kind of wasted against Jotunheim, but against anything else I think it'll work well.

Air wouldn't be bad either - maybe I'll try the Mother of Tuathas. (Although I heard someone else post that she wasn't stealthy - is this a bug? Allfather gets the full set of Van abilities including sailing...)

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).

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Ahhhh. I did have Quickness, but had the dragon operating alone, taking on moderate to weak provinces. The Blue dragon seems much less suited to this than the Red Dragon. The Green Dragon seems even better due to Regeneration, although it requires more research and I haven't tried it with Tuatha. I'm not sure whether or not Nature 9 bless would be effective on Sidhe...

Berserk is not going to work well as the key with the Sidhe (or Van) is not to get hit. Once you get hit and lose your glamour they generally die fast - especially with a lowered defense.

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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".

10 Daoine and a Champion beat about 15 Jotuns with only 3 losses (some were militia though). I think one of the Jotuns might have made it off the field. Although I'm not sure how many actually went berserk - but Jotuns are the worst case for a nature blessing anyway, since they will usually kill even armored units in one hit. I've never lost a Daoine to indies with nature 9, or even gotten an affliction yet.

I think you underestimate the survivability of the Sidhe.

Its a real shame you can't set a target for "attack one turn" or you could go quickness, change shape, attack one turn rearmost, fire, fire, and fry the rear zones without danger of friendly fire. As it is 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?


A couple more comments about the Tuatha theme:

Daoine Sidhe have great precision and above average strength. Javelins in general are pretty effective in Dom II, but Sidhe javelins are really impressive. I've killed Jotuns with them. Also, Sidhe Champions, Lords and Tuathas are really impressive with magic bows because of their high precision - and they can cast both Eagle Eyes and Aim (which stack!). Not so coincidentally, some of the best bows are Air.


Last of the Tuatha shouldn't get Brangwen the Blind One - she's an Avalon witch. Aren't there any Tuatha heroes for them to get instead?

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Funny thing is I've decide the best usage for my starting Longbows is to but them out the front in the first battle and save myself 5gps a turn.

I haven't found them to be so bad, but then I'm not using Cu.

I am hoping that the Cu Sidhe are the key to accelerating early expansion as they are thematically suberb, oustandingly fast on the battle board, really easy to build, have a good defense when blessed, and good offense - especially with quickness. I definitly don't want any Longbow near my Cu Sidhe.

I find them to be too fragile, and I quickly get up to maximum Daoine recruitment anyway.

[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

If you'd like a good indy expansion not based on the Tuatha you can use the standard Man approach.

It might be something you use in tandem with your Tuatha ideas.

1 Sacrificial Lamb Axeman, Tower Guard, etc. Place just 1 and have him hold and attack. He will only be hit by minimum missle fire, more often than not this little guy survives.

20-40 Longbows middle front, about 2 spaces away from your initial lamb. They will mow and rout things before they get to them, even HI and HC. And even if they do get close, they become even more deadly.

Keep extra Axemen, Towerguard at the very back on Hold and attack with your commander. They are just extra in case your Lamb gets killed.

You can make one of these armies every 3 turns and they can take out most indies, no problem and your quick expansion doesn't have to use any precious Tuatha that will get mowed down by your Longbowmen.

Just an Idea.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
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 thought Water 9 gave 150% quickness?

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?

I get dragons to breath simply by placing them along ways back with fire orders. The breath attacks are weak however, as their range is short and they often miss. I've played around with this, and all it seems to do is give any archers more chances to shoot at you.

I prefer to close to melee, as then you get first strike, are far less likely to miss, and the fear +5 kicks in.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Jasper:
]I thought Water 9 gave 150% quickness?

Which seems to work out as two spell actions a turn but, I think, only 1 extra attack every two rounds per attack you have. The Last part is very hard to be sure of.

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

I get a Mix of 1 and 2 spell actions per round, randomly for each commander.