Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read

[Boron]

Corwin said:
I agree with you and Kristoffer Boron, price balance is indeed a possible solution. I mean - "There are many ways to skin the cat". Troops can be made better, or can be made cheaper, or both. Decreasing price of 30gp demons to 15gp, and 50-65gp to 25-30gp might do the trick. But I would still like to see ghost form made more durable, with same hitpoints as a normal form. This does not increase fighting power of Oni much, since ghost form are hopelessly weak due to only having illusionary weapons. But this would fit nicely into concept of "near immortality", alowing more demons to survive IF the battle is won.


I don't like the idea of oni ghost forms fleeing the battle, I would prefer them to stay and either fight or die. But giving them a bit more hitpoints and higher MR, so they would not be killed in mass with single banishment, would be good.



About Ku-Onis - as partly agree with you. Like yourself, I also like their swarm tactic, both from the tematic point of view and game-wise. But the problem is that their size one makes then the worst troops if you are facing priests, and in MP as an Oni player, you pretty much always do.

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Here is some primitive math - up to 30 (6x5) Ku-Oni are affected by casting of lvl 1 banishment each turn. That's 2 times more units than size 2 Ao-Oni (25gp demon).

Now Ku-Oni MR of 13 vs 14 for AO-Oni. According to the probabilities table on page 5 of the manual, that makes them about 25% more vulnerable for banishments.

Now Ku-Oni have 9hp vs 14 hp for Ao-Oni. That's 55%+ more hitpoints for AO-Oni.

So here we have it. In terms of actually killing units (reducing their hitpoints) banishment is (2 times x 1.25 x 1.55) = 4.75 times more deadly for Ku -Oni than for Ao-Oni.

That's A LOT.

Considering that the the AO-Oni only cost 25 gp vs 12 gp for Ku-Oni, and considering that the banishment is the main weakness of Oni in MP, there is no point of buying Ku-Oni instead of Ao-Oni even with the current pricing.

That does not even include the fact that AO-Oni are much better fighters than Ku-Oni, that the AO-Oni have secondary weapons which Ku-Oni do not have, that they move much faster on the battlefield (10 instead of 7 movement), that they have morale 14 instead of morale 9, so they are much less likely to rout, while costing the same 1 res, and even have 1 slightly better protection.

Now considering all these facts, and considering the fact that the only thing Ku-Oni have over Ao-Oni is size 1 instead of size 2, (which, as i mentioned, also makes twice as vulnerable as Ao-Oni for banishment unit-wise), I don't see any reason why would somebody want to buy Ku-Oni instead of Ao-Oni, when facing human opponent.

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The math may be slightly off, but not by much I think.


That is not to say that AO-Oni and better demons should be left as it is price-wise. My point is simply that none of the demons are price efficient at this point, including least epensive Ku-Oni. And that Ku-Oni IMHO are the worst cost/efficient demon unit when it comes to banishment in MP, as I tried to show in my calculations.



Anyway, as I said, IMHO serious price reduction, perhaps making all demonic units twice least expensive, may do the trick, together with better survivability of ghost form due to same HP as normal form and better MR for ghost form.

The banishment will still present huge problem for Oni players, but maybe it will be enough to make some demon troops worth building in MP games, as an opposite to using bakamoo archers and indeps.

Your calculation is informative . You have left out some important facts though:
Range of banishment!
20+

Your shortbows have 30 range.
So place your ko oni on the edge of the battlefield with hold and attack x orders.
Just before your archers to protect them from fast enemy troops.
Then their slow 7 movement is a further advantage.
For several turns they will stay out of banishment range!
The enemy priests will do nothing then if they are normal priests or if they are priest mages they will cast other spells and fatigue.

Then there are skelspamming Hanyas. The skellis have movement in the range of 6-9 movepoints iirc. For the first 2 turns the skellis will already move while the ku oni still stay idle.

So the skellis provide alternative targets for the enemy.

So imho banishment is not a too big issue for Yomo.

But you are nontheless correct i think. The size of the Ku-Oni is more often a problem than an advantage because of other spells.

Mainly Bladewind and Magma eruption devastate the poor Ku-Oni really well.

And if we check early era this is extremely problematic because many early era nations can do bladewind and/or magma eruption:

-Arco:
Not guaranteed, but with randoms every 4th mage engineer gets earth 2 and some mystics should also get lucky with randoms and be able to cast blade wind or magma eruption.

-Maverni:
Every Druid can bladewind (and most can eagle eye, and every Druid can GfH)

-Ulm:
Almost every of their mages can bladewind.

-Pan:
Every 2nd Pan can bladewind.

-Argatha:
Every Oracle can bladewind, the oracle of subterran fires can do magma eruption too.
Every 4th earth reader can bladewind too.

-Vanheim:
Every dwarfen smith can bladewind, every 4th magma eruption.

-Helheim:
Every swartalf can bladewind, every 4th magma eruption.

-Kailasa:
Yaksha can bladewind (and eagle eye).

(-Yomi:
Dai Oni can bladewind/magma eruption too.)

-Atlantis:
Basalt kings can bladewind/magma eruption too, and rarely a mage of the deep too.


So 9 other early era nations can easily bladewind/magma eruption. These spells are ultimate doom for all of Yomis small size 1/2 troops.


But vs. most of the above listed nations Yomo can counter with Dai Oni casting earthquake or rain of stones.
And they also can counter reasonable well vs. bladewind with end of weakness.

But the earthquake/rain of stones counter is hard to pull of imho. And it is somewhat in vain vs. nations with cheap non-capitol only mages which are uber like helheim/vanheim svartalfs/dwarfes.

[Corwin]

I've sent you a message about your proposed anti-banishment battle tactic and positioning, I see potential problem with it. But let's continue this discussion in PM.

For here let me just say that even if it will be relatively effective, what prevents your opponent from countering it by simply scripting his priests to "attack/attack/banishments/banishment/banishment/cast spells", while positioning them behind his advancing melee troops of course? This way your are back at the same tight spot, with additional disadvantage that now your whole army is compressed not far away from edge of the map, so stray arrows/spell can hurt your mages and commanders, including those that you normally leave as far from melee as possible, and if your lose the battle the enemy may kill a lot of your fatiqued mages, because they are right in front of them.


As for other spells that you have mentioned such as bladewind and magma eruption - I agree with your reasoning and your observations.



In any case, we can discuss battle tactic in PMs.

[BigJMoney]

Boron said:
Your shortbows have 30 range.
So place your ko oni on the edge of the battlefield with hold and attack x orders.
Just before your archers to protect them from fast enemy troops.

Tactics like those simply don't work in Dominions. Weapon ranges are the one minor disappointment in the Dominions games to me. I've found that a weapon with a longer range than another weapon doesn't mean very much. I've set up longbows verus shortbows, and there are no tactics. Even with longbows at the very edge of the map, shortbows can still move forward and attack in the first round. That's no even one round worth of delay! The way APs work in Dominions, it's possible to move your AP (or maybe it's AP-1) and still make a full attack/spell. I've always thought this should be changed for spell-casters and ranged troops, myself, but I've never gotten around to mentioning it because I'm probably the only person who cares. Of course, you'd also have to discriminate thrown ranged weapons from "devoted" ranged weapons like bows and crossbows, because I think javelins and slings should be able to be thrown while on the run. Oh yeah, and I suppose mounted archers should be able to attack on the move as well.

Sorry, starting to go OT here. Also, you guys talking about Maverni, please be careful because it's now OT as well.

=$=

[PDF]

Nerfix,
Yes what I meant it that a bless strategy was useless for Maverni, but the way I wrote it wasn't that clear, sorry !
Abour tribe matching (Ambibates vs Carnutes) : well, Ambibates costs 5 gold less, have 1 morale less (at 11 only, which is not good), 1 att and 4 Def more than Carnutes - here you're right, they're much better- but Carnutes have berserk, which is nice imho, and Wood surv.

That's not a so huge difference, at least when confronted to Onis or Seal Guards, both dies in doves !
And in practice I mix both - but in my thread I've summarized

So I agree to say there's 3 usable units, Eponi Kn, Carnutes and Ambibates. Yet all are weak in EA...

As for research I agree : the only good thing Maverni has is superb mages (that are also priests).

[Nerfix]

Funny, I just fought against Agartha and their Seal Guards, which weren't that large in numbers I admit, died in droves again my Ambitates...

Onis might be a different beast, but I'd just Curse and Horror Mark them.

EDIT: If morale is bringing you problems, mix Ambis with Standards. I use Carnutes only when I must quickly bring reinforcements over forest provinces.

For erly expansions I used their Javelineers. Sure they die a lot, but are also easily replaced.

[Cainehill]

Boron said:
But you are nontheless correct i think. The size of the Ku-Oni is more often a problem than an advantage because of other spells.

Mainly Bladewind and Magma eruption devastate the poor Ku-Oni really well.

But Bladewind (and Rain of Stones) shouldn't have much of an effect on the ethereal form, at least if the manual is correct : both spells damage is Mundane, meaning that it isn't considered magical for purposes of hitting.

But one thing I really dislike is that it seems that Yomi/Shinumaya have national spells that they simply can't use via their national mages. (Even LE Jomon has a very difficult time using some of them, considering that Contact Dai Tengu is A2E1, meaning that essentially 1 in 25 Master Shugenja can cast it.) Not only that, Shinuyama having _no_ air mages and no air income means that even with a pretender setup for casting it, it's extremely difficult for them to come up with the air gems to cast it (since the only one who can finding air sites would be the pretender, who probably starts slumbering or imprisoned).

Shades of the one Marignon theme in Dom2 being absolutely unable to use their starting national spells.