Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read

[Corwin]

Kristoffer O said:
Hmm, long post now. I'll only make a short answer. Arralen has given some input and I agree at least to a degree.

MR will not be upped. The demons of Yomi are not of infernal nature as much as evil and uncivilized spirits of the wild. They do come from hell, but are quite comfortable living in the mountaineous and volcanic regions of this world. Giving them more MR would not fit. Making them more resistant to banishment is not a good solution either. Excorcism is quite prevalent in the east. Perhaps more so than in western tradition. So increasing banishment resistance (wich by the way is not a vialble option game-mechanic-wise) does not fit my conceptions.

Raising Ghost MR on the other hand is not a bad idea.
It might be combined with another idea that was discussed in the beta: oni flee when turned into a ghost. This would decrease casualties.

I'm not opposed to sacred armed oni warriors, but I haven't any ideas formed atm. I would probably make them summonables.

I prefer lower costs to higher stats. There are rarely swarms of oni atm.

EDIT: hmm, so much for a short answer

Thanks for dropping by Kristoffer, and thanks for your comments.

I undesrtand your reasoning behind not wanting to raise MR for thematic reasons. I actually think it's great that you care much about flvor and cultural/historical background of the game.

So I'll drop this particular suggestion.

Regarding lowering cost and raising MR on ghosts form - that would work as well and I think would be quite good solution. I think the cost would have to be lowered quite a bit though, because currently demons are very not cost effective, as pretty much everybody on this board seem to agree. If they would be twice less expensive, with tier 2 Aka-Oni demons costing 15 gp instead of 30, than it probably it would go long way toward make them somewhat useful in MP, despite the remaining crutial weakness to Banishment. But perhaps you would think that it would be too much?


And what about rising hp of oni's ghost forms to be the same as their normal form instead of being at 50%? Currently ghost of powerful demon Kuro Oni has only 7 hp more as ghost of wimpy Ko-Oni. That doesn't feel right to me - ghosts of powerful demons should be quite more difficult to Excorcise than the lowest ones, don't you think?

Again thanks a lot for your reply and your considerations.

[curtadams]

I have to disagree with leaving the demon army so vulnerable to exorcism both on thematic and game grounds. On game ground the decision is easy - when a half dozen cheap priests, available to anybody, can cripple any demon army you don't have a good game balance. There's a rough balance between Ermor and cheap priests - so if demon armies are to be playable they have to be almost as easy to produce as an undead horde, and that's far, far, from the case

Second, I think having a small band of village priests obliterate a demon army completely fails to capture the spirit of exorcism. Exorcism is almost always portrayed as a complex, extended one-on-one struggle between priest and demon. It's never simple or easy and often it's epic - both in Western and Eastern culture. You can make a whole movie about a single exorcism/possession - again, in both cultures. This contrasts with priestly powers over the dead which in almost every culture are portrayed as extensive and easy to use. A priest *is* supposed to be able to banish a graveyard of undead - actually, it's his main job in most cultures.

It completely fails to capture the horror and terror of monsters from hell when Pastor Bob can get up from dinner, send several packing to the nether plane with a few scripture citations, and be back before his roast beef gets cold.

[KissBlade]

The bandit archers are among the better archers since EA is all about battle of the archers and their better armor allows better durability. Also my strat with Yomi just tends to be using tons of indies and splurging most of my gold on mercs. I find Yomi's actual recruitables largely useless =). (I actually tend to bulk on bakemono archers in beginning simply to spam my opponent with them) Though they do have very nice magic IMO.

[Maltrease]

I haven't played with Ko-Oni so I can't comment on the "balance" side of things. However, I really liked Kristoffer's comment about making the Oni retreat when in ghost form and making them more difficult to banish in ghost form.

"We have driven the demons back today... but they will return soon."

So in a sense you have all these priest which are able to easily temporarly banish the demon army and drive them off the battle field but to actual "kill" them takes a lot more effort. That sounds really fun and full of flavor to me and invites specific strategies to actually kill the oni ghost instead of automatically having the priest do both jobs.

It also sounds interesting that in ghost form all the oni want to flee, since of course they don't want to be permantly killed and now they are are at their vulnerable stage.

[PDF]

Maverni has great mages, but the only worthwhile troops are Eponi Knights and Carnute Nobles (the ones that get berserk).
The sacred warriors aren't worth a bless strategy and are awfully expensve (35 gp!!) for their stats.

At start you can't expand without significant losses before you can use Protection and BE. Then problem is that before you reach magic level 4 in several path you are clearly outclassed by nearly any other EA nations, particularly the non-human ones with big nasty troops such as Yomi, Agartha, Abysia or Niefelheim.

Compare costs and stats of a Boar Warrior vs a Agarthan Seal Guard : a SG costs roughly 2 BW (gold and res), it's laughable.

And you don't even get cool national summons !

Edit : and no sneaky troops neither !

[Unwise]

If you have time, be sure to put this up on the Wiki:

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominions_3:_The_Awakening

[B0rsuk]

Here's a hint from inexperienced Dominions player: you can mix various units in same squad. So you can mix both BIG and little units in same squad. This should more less average the size of your units, making them indirectly less vulnerable to area effect spells like Banish. Essentially, it should make your little units effectively occupy more space.

Not tested.

By the way: there should be a formation option allowing you to affect spacing/spread of units, so you can simply order little units to loose formation, sacrificing gang-up potential for improved AoE resistance. Would add yet another tactical layer to the game, I can't see how it could harm the game.

[Agrajag]

B0rsuk said:
I can't see how it could harm the game.

The effort involved in programming it, and the bugs that would stem from it. (I can already see one of the "ancient" dom2 bugs returning due to "loose formation".
And a game that is even more confusing for newbs.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, loose formations could be cool, but don't think that there's no potential adverse effects.

[PDF]

B0rsuk said:
Here's a hint from inexperienced Dominions player: you can mix various units in same squad. So you can mix both BIG and little units in same squad. This should more less average the size of your units, making them indirectly less vulnerable to area effect spells like Banish. Essentially, it should make your little units effectively occupy more space.

Not tested.

By the way: there should be a formation option allowing you to affect spacing/spread of units, so you can simply order little units to loose formation, sacrificing gang-up potential for improved AoE resistance. Would add yet another tactical layer to the game, I can't see how it could harm the game.

About mixing units : yes it's a good tactics, mix small & big, undead & non-undead, so small vulnerable undead couls be spread out and Banishments will be less effective.

About "loose" formations : many improvements (new formations, better "front-lining"..) were requested by players, but we didn't get anything... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

[KissBlade]

Then everyone would use loose formation.

Also as for Marveni expansion problems, you get slings and javelins early game to mix with your heavies. Use them.