Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read

[Ballbarian]

Nice Korvin.
Following is a rough description of my first game playing Yomi (Single Player):

I trained my first Oni King on the 2nd turn and made him my prophet. After building a reasonable army of bakemono archers and bandit infantry with small flanking groups of poison spitting, flame throwing Kuro-Oni, this initial force cleared indy provinces easily and the prophetized Oni King reinforced the ranks by reanimating armored souless as they advanced. As the gold income began to rise, more Oni-Kings followed and were equipped with horror helmets and bracers of protection (since early on that was all I could afford). I had them cast 1 or 2 buffing spells and sent them into the fray. AI troops rout quickly when the kings enter the battle.

I initially have used the old sorcerers for research and forging simple items with multiple castings of reanimation at times when I needed to quickly amass a wall of fodder for absorbing arrows. Mixing small squads of the cold Ao-Oni in with the front lines was quite effective in adding some serious punch against some of the heavy armored enemies. The undead fodder also helped to absorb banishment bombardments.

The game is still in progress and not a sure win by a long shot. Research is very slow and I now border 5 AI's, one of which I have nearly defeated (Ermor).

I can see where it would be a rough pick for competitive multiplayer. I bet however that someone will come up with a healthy strategy to make it shine.

I like most of your suggestions, but I would prefer to see the small Ko-Oni retain their small stature, but reduced in price. As it is I train stealthy prot 11 bandits for 9gp instead of the 12gp banishable prot 3 Ko-Oni. I guess the "end of weakness" spell may make them more appealing, but I still lack about 290 research points before I can try it out.

[Nerfix]

Skelespamming with Hennyas could distract the banishers. Could.

That said, I also found Yomi unappealing.

[BigJMoney]

I haven't looked as in-depth into them as you have, but I have played against them a couple of times, now. I would say that increasing the MR of their corporeal form is a good idea, as long as they don't increase the MR of their ghost form. They certainly should not be banished quite as easily as undead, as long as there is still some kind of balance between the two forms. Ie. the corporeal form is best destroyed by missile fire and melee and the ghost form is best destroyed by magic. It means the player fighting Oni Kings has to be more flexible.

As for having no heavy infantry, that's not a huge deal. You can always buy indies for the missile screen if you really want it. From what I can see, there isn't an easy way for an enemy player to figure out how to specifically target your most vulnerable with missile fire.

As for poor research, I thought that was supposed to be counter-balanced somehow in their theme. At least, that's the way their description makes it look. Kind of like how Ulm in Dom2 got less magic than anyone else, but supposedly had things to make up for it (wait a minute....)

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Mortibus]

Nice job Corvin.

Now stop being so lazy and do your R'lyeh analysis!

[Corwin]

Mortibus said:
Nice job Corvin.

Now stop being so lazy and do your R'lyeh analysis!

Heh. Thanks Mortibus.

This analysis and the replies took me quite a few hours today. I think it will be a while before I'll be ready to do another race detailed analysis - I would like to have some time to actually play the game as well.

[Corwin]

BigJMoney said:
I haven't looked as in-depth into them as you have, but I have played against them a couple of times, now. I would say that increasing the MR of their corporeal form is a good idea, as long as they don't increase the MR of their ghost form. They certainly should not be banished quite as easily as undead, as long as there is still some kind of balance between the two forms. Ie. the corporeal form is best destroyed by missile fire and melee and the ghost form is best destroyed by magic. It means the player fighting Oni Kings has to be more flexible. "

=$= Big J Money =$=

Well currently ghost form is twice as easily to kill by banishment as a normal form, which is quite easy to kill in the first place. That is due to the fact that banishment is AN attack, and corporate form having the same MR as the normal form but two times less hitpoints, which were low to begin with. So its 7 hitpoints for ghost form of for 30gp demon, and 12 hp form for 65 gp demon. And 5hp for 12 gp one.

So increasing MR by four for normal demonic forms while making ghost form hp equal to normal form would be acceptable solution. Although I think ghost form would still need some MR increase, maybe not by 4 but by 2. I like your suggestion about these two forms having different MR and requiring different means to kill though.


One of the main idea behind these double forms theme of On nation is to give demon troops the chance to survive the battle in ghost form. "Almost immortality", as their description tells us. However currently despite their "immortality" demon armies often suffer high casaulties in any battle when it comes to melee, much more so when few enemy lvl 1 priests are involved. And if dozen of indep lvl 1 priests are involved? Which you can bet your *** will be in MP with ANY nation vs Oni player?

You can forget about medium or large demon armies than, unless you have huge numerical advantage over enemy, because you would fare much better with indep early era troops for the same price.

BigJMoney said:

As for having no heavy infantry, that's not a huge deal. You can always buy indies for the missile screen if you really want it. From what I can see, there isn't an easy way for an enemy player to figure out how to specifically target your most vulnerable with missile fire.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Two points.
1. After few turns of battle, during which you can and should try to distract enemy fire to decoy troops or high armored troops, as you rightfully mentioned, it usually comes to the melee, since all of your demon troops are clearly melee oriented units, even those who have some form of limited ranged weapon. And enemy archers are quite happy to shoot into melle. They hit their own units on regularly, but they hit you more often. However enemy units normally have much higher protection than 3 or 4, so they suffer much less from missile fire.

2. However where low prot reeeaaaly bites you in the *** is not missile fire but melee itself. Becuase, BigJmMoney, you are right, you can use some tricks and decoys to avoid the worst of incoming missile fire, at least for the first few rounds. However at some point you have to engage the enemy with your melee demonic troops, who are all melee types. (otherwise what was the point of having them around? )

And at that point, how long your do you think prot 3 and 4 troops with 9 and 14 hitpoints AND low defense would last? One round? Two rounds?

What about your elite 65 gp units (the best national unit you can buy as Oni) with "great" protection of 6 and mighty 24 hitpoints? What's the point of having 65 gp melee unit which can not normally last longer than few rounds in melee with very average enemy troops, before being reduced to the "I-can-not-hurt-you-because-you-do-not-believe-in-ghosts!!! " form, which in turn is promptly banished by nearby lowly drunk village priest??? That's some mighty demon, all right... >