Yomi eats nothing!

[vfb]

This is my guide for the Yomi nation. Like the other 'weak' nations, they can be a lot of fun.

Their strengths are:

- Cheap archers, with Flaming Arrows
- Good magic
- Cheap forts
- Decent forging for your thugs, and Fever Fetishes
- Dai Oni
- Demons

Yomi has no sacred recruitable troops, just summons and commanders. The Dai Oni can self-buff, so doesn't really need a strong bless. Later, it will be too busy with its other buffs to self-bless. Yomi priests are weak and few and far between. But, a minor Earth bless is nice for the Dai Oni for reinvigoration, before they get Soul Vortex.

Pretender

With no sacreds, Yomi needs an awake pretender for expansion. The Prince of Death is unavailable, so that pretty much leaves the Cyclops, Wyrm, and Dragons. Yomi has no astral mages, which is a big problem later on, so it's nice to get some astral on the pretender. That pretty much takes out the Dragons. An awake E5S5 Cyclops is strong enough to expand, can wear equipment, and later on in the game can summon Golems. S5 is not too terribly vulnerable to Magic Duel. If you're fighting Kailasa you might want to hide in a castle until the war is over, though. A Lord of Plenty would be really nice, but with initial gem income it takes a while to make enough armor for it to survive, and the whole point is to expand early.


Scales

Dom: 6 - Pretty scary because of weak priests, but the points just aren't available
Order: 3 - You need money for more troops
Sloth 3 - Low troop resource cost
Heat 3 - Hannya is cold-blooded, and many units and god have fire resist
Growth 1 - Sorcerers have old age
Magic 1 (Depend on magic)
Luck 0 (Nice heroes)


Prophet

Yay, a good point for Yomi! Recruit an Oni General the first turn, and make it your prophet. Demon priests can both preach or raise dead. Very useful! It's too bad Yomi H3 priests can't make longdead horse, they are limited to the usual ghouls, soulless, or longdead.

Strategy

If you hire demon armies in the early game, you can't use indy commanders to pull them out of your capitol. They need undead leadership. So you won't be able to recruit mages for research, but you really need to leverage your magic. Stick with the bakemono archers. At 8GP each, they are a good deal. Hire whatever indy forces you can with shields to protect your archers.

Early expansion relies on the Cyclops soloing, with the prophet and archers as another expansion force. The prophet should stop to raise soulless. Make a fire sword and a tower shield for the Cyclops. Recruit a Hannya early and have it search forest sites for nature income. You really need some N income to empower a Hannya to N2, for Dai Oni gear. Later, empower this Hannya in W too, unless you find a Jade Amazon indy province.

Any extra income can be used to hire a Dai Oni, who can also site search. But make sure to build another castle and lab in year 1, to hire more bakemono archers and Sorcerers. Take advantage of Yomi's cheap forts.

Mid game you can use flaming arrows behind skelly spam. Bakemono archers are cheap and have short bows. Make some golems for Mind Hunt defense and Antimagic. You should have two sick humans with Fever Fetishes with every army group.

Late game you can finally hire some Kuro-Oni troops, when you've got the buffs to help them survive. It's unlikely you'll be able to get the Chalice or Gift of Health up, making Tartarians a challenge. The best bet to get the Chalice is to Wish for it with your god. But Poison Golems are probably a better choice in any case.


Defending an early rush

If you see a rush coming, try to stop it with your god. Enchant-3 will give you skelly spam, and Enchant-4 gives you behemoths to defend against tramplers, so switch research goals immediately.


Research

Alt-1: Luck for your god
Const-2: Hammers, Fever Fetish, Horror Helm
Conj-3: Summon Earthpower, Summon Phoenix Power
Enchant-3: Skelly Spam, Fire Shield
Enchant-4: Flaming Arrows, Behemoth

You really need a second castle up in the first year, to get your research going. You can build an 800GP, 3 turn fort anywhere except farm and mountains.

With Summon Phoenix Power and 2 gems, a Hannya can cast Flaming Arrows for your archers. Behemoths are only needed if you're worried about tramplers.

Const-4: Skull Staff, Earth Boots, Dai Oni gear

The Skull Staff boosts your skelly spam, and you've got lots of D gems to spend. All Hannya can skelly spam, and so can Generals and Sorcerers with D2. If you are falling behind in the research race, skulls will of course help, but try to save death gems for summons later.

A Dai Oni with a Fire Sword, Vine Shield, some armor, Horror Helm, Luck Pendant, and a girdle is a great thug at this point. It should Summon Earthpower, Fire Shield, and maybe get blessed.

You should empower an A1 Dai Oni to A2, to make Winged Shoes, and later hire a Dai Tengu. This A2 Dai Oni should script Mistform in addition to the usual combat buffs.

More good stuff to research by the end of year 4:

Alt-3 (Body Ethereal)
Alt-4 (Destruction, Blight)
Evo-2
Alt-6 (Soul Vortex)
Thau-2 (Site Search)
Evo-5 (Shadow Blast - use Eagle eyes first)
Evo-6 (Bane fire)
Const-6 (Fire Skull, Lanterns, Standard of the Damned, Boots of Quickness)
Conj-4 (Ghost General)
Thau-5 (Raging Hearts)
Conj-5 (Nushi,Dai Tengu)

Make Const-7 a priority instead if you think you'll have trouble with Astral neighbors, so you can make Golems. Thau-3 for teleport is important too, and will also give Iron Will for you Dai Oni.

With Soul Vortex your Dai Onis can handle almost anything, except they do have a problem with lances. You can counter lances with Skelly spam, or mix 50/50 Yari Bakemono with Ko-Onis. Cast Destruction with a Sorceror and fire away with your flaming arrows.

Enchant-6 (Arrow Fend, Heat from Hell, Reanimate Archers)

Summons

Naked Banes and Shura are good for blocking a castle gate, while you lay down some Destruction plus Flaming Arrows. A single group of Kohonas is good for messing with attackers or defenders in a siege. Since Dai Onis are using all the gear you are making, full-kit Bane Lords don't work too well with Yomi.

Summon a Dai Tengu and a Nushi, for diversification. The Tengu troops are best used on Guard Commander in seiges, they are too fragile for fighting.

A Dai Oni can cast Weapons of Sharpness later for your Kuro-Oni too.

Spectres will free up your God from Astral duties, and immortal Wraith Lords are great for defending the home country.

You've got a decent shot at the King of Banefires. Poison Golems are your best SC in the late game, and can be easily summoned by Dai Onis.


Where are the Oni troops????

Once you get Alt-6, for End of Weakness, you could hire some Oni troops. Be sure to have an Antimagic caster too, to protect against banishments. Bring along your Dai Tengu if you need Arrow Fend, and pop up a Heat from Hell. Darkness would help too.

Usually Flaming arrows are just way cheaper than Oni fire, and they've got better range. So Onis really need to come late in the game, when their HP and resists will help. Kuro-Onis are really the best bet.


Troop analysis

Bakemono-sho: At least the Yari have half-decent repel. Mix these with some Ko-oni if you need to eat some lances.
Bakemono archer: The best Yomi unit! 8GP, cheapest move-2 short bows in the game. You've got Fever Fetishes and a great F2 caster to buff them with.
Yari Bandit: Grab some indies with shields instead
Short Bow Bandit: If you're short on gold, you might as well hire some of these instead of Bakemono archers. They do more damage than a Yari Bandit in melee, and have good armor but no shield.
Ko-oni: Useful for eating lance charges.
Ao-oni: Maybe if you need cold-resistant troops and aren't facing archers or priests. But Skelly spam is cold-resistant so maybe not.
Aka-oni: One Aka-oni or 3 Bakemono archers ... you're better off with the archers.
Oni: For 10 gold more, get a Kuro-Oni
Kuro-Oni: Somewhat useful in the later game, with enough buffs.

Commander analysis

Bandit Leader: Hire if you're too short on gold to grab a mage, and haven't found any indy scouts.
Demon General: For 1/2 the upkeep, get an Oni General instead. The only good reason to hire one of these is if you're pumping out 100 Bakemono archers in a castle and desperately need mundane leadership. Which is a situation that's actually not to hard to get into if all your other commanders die of Fever Fetish!
Sorcerer: Great mage! Decent cost. Good forging paths. E2s are good for Destruction, D2s for Skelly spam, EDA can make some useful items like anti-missile robes for your mages, EDF with some earth boots or a fire skull are great battle mages.
Demon Priest: Hire if you're too short on gold to grab a mage and you built a temple, you might get lucky
Oni General: Dai Oni are better thugs and will eat up all your gear, and you've got better mages. They aren't bad, but the other choices are generally better.
Hannya: Another great mage! Site search with these to find N sites, then start making fever fetishes. Watch out for the additional encumbrance in cold provinces. Skelly spam, or Eagle eyes and cast Shadow blast or Bane Fire.
Dai Oni: Diverse paths, so hire one early to site search. Give them any armor to get rid of the horrible encumbrance. You can forge almost anything early, so use this to provide the situational resists you need. Bless them and cast Summon Earthpower if you don't have Soul Vortex yet. Later you can script (Summon Earthpower, Invulnerability, Soul Vortex, Fire Shield). They are vulnerable to lances and priests, and when they turn into ghosts they lose nearly all their gear, making it quite unlikely they'll survive the battle.

Don't hire too many Dai Oni in the early going. They are most useful as raiders. Concentrate on more castles, more mages.

Later in the game use some of your Dai Oni as battle mages, rare ones can have (unboosted) 4F, 5D, or 4E.

If you're lucky enough to get Kurofumi as your hero, dedicate him to Blood Stone production.

One last note: End of Culture will instantly berserk all your demons. That includes your Hannya, Dai Oni, and probably your prophet. It's like Touch of Madness, except on a larger scale. Watch out!

Comments

Please provide feedback or criticism you might have. Thanks!

[Rathar]

I for one am glad you are back VFB! Looking forward to the next game I get to play with you, preferably one in which I start far far away from your nation!

Oh and the guide looks nifty too!

[Tifone]

Yomi eats salad, but with unbearable gluttony ^^

Nice, very complete guide.

One question -quite unrelated to Yomi, to say the truth... but as you mentioned that. How would you make a good use of Poison Golems, what gear and tactic would you suggest for them?

[vfb]

Don't spend too much on the gear, since Poison Golems don't have any way (Returning) of escaping teleporting assassins.

I'd give Poison Golems something like:

Fire Brand, or Frost if I have enough W income
Eye Shield, or Coin if I need another misc slot
Horror Helm, or Starshine Cap if I need MR
Jade Armor, or Rime Hauberk if I need CR
Winged Shoes
Luck Pendant
Antimagic Ammy, or Ring of Tamed Lightning if I need SR

If I've got it and don't have a better chassis, Virtue would be nice, as would Boots of the Planes. With Boots of the Planes, consider Bone Armor.

You can park your Poison Golem outside an enemy castle and they will kindly bring it inside the lab for repairs. You don't even have to ask nicely. <--- Ooops! Poison Golems don't have the 'Never Heals' tag. So there's no need to worry about healing it after combat by parking it in a lab.

Poison Golems are Reapers, so you need to keep them in enemy territory. Fortunately, Reaping happens after movement. If you need a path from your capitol, it's great to pick a province with a gold mine for them to use as a staging/deployment area. If you kill off 100% of the population, you can tax the gold mine at 200%.

[MaxWilson]

vfb! I haven't seen you in ages.

-Max

[Herode]

Great guide. And after having given some unsuccessful tries to the weak-but-fun Yomi, I can say this guide will just drive me to... another try ^^

[chrispedersen]

Thread necromancy...

After playing around with yomi abit, I feel they in no way deserve the weak sister (yomi eats nothing) moniker.

And, in fact, I believe them to be quite strong.

Under CBM, I'm enjoying a 10E4A6S Lord of plenty, with Dominion 6.
Personally, I don't believe that he needs to be awake.
O3S3H2D3L-2M1.

While I put a4 on the pretender build in order to have a robust middle game with wind guide and flaming arrows, I think the early emphasis has to be on on unit:

Ao-Oni's. For high defense targets, mix in oni's. Fighting niefle, you'll probably want his evil twin, Mr. Heat Oni. But Ao-Oni's ... rock.

Its not that they don't eat. Or that they have an associated cold attack that can leave SC's fatigued.

Quite frankly... upon death they become ethereal spirits.
Ethereal spirits which ignore causes a lot of regular weapons to miss.

And you can crank out 60-70 of these a turn, by turn 6-7.
In sp testing I was EASILY able to best my 15 territory benchmark for year 1, and have 2 castles built or under way.

I personally don't bother prophetizing the demon general, or oni general.

Build a ton of these Ao-onis.. and start clearing indies asap.
With your generals ability to use fright, (useful on elephants and barbarians) about the only territory to be careful on is amazons with their priestess (which will banish you).

With a Dai Oni able to do great site searching you have no real need for early thaumaturgy. If you are starting next to a capital rusher (niefle, TC) I'd strongly consider blight (alt 4)
which also gets you windguide, mistform, stoneskin etc.

Against a mictlan rush, use your AoE attacks with a screen of yaris or onis. The first with the repel, the second as they take two hits to kill.

Masses of archery against glamor based rushes.

Transition to an SC based approach in midgame. Dai Oni's can do many of the good SC tricks - from double bracers (boosting their protection sky high) to phoenix pyre, to soul vortex.

[vfb]

Ha ha, you almost got me.

I forgot it's April 1.