Diabolic Marignon Pretender

[Spacepain]

I've felt like challenging myself and am working on creating a solid diabolic marignon dominion/pretender. Currently, I have:

Moloch
4 fire
4 death

Scales
Turmoil 1
Productivity 3
Heat 1
Growth 2
Fortune 1

Fort
Mausolem

Dominion
7

Points left over
5

So, I've come here with a few questions:

Are Goetic masters or they're lesser conterparts best for blood hunts?

Would Fortune 3 and Growth 0 or my Growth 2 Fortune 1 result in better income?

Any other comments, critisizm is welcome.

[quantum_mechani]

Spacepain said:
I've felt like challenging myself and am working on creating a solid diabolic marignon dominion/pretender. Currently, I have:

Moloch
4 fire
4 death

Scales
Turmoil 1
Productivity 3
Heat 1
Growth 2
Fortune 1

Fort
Mausolem

Dominion
7

Points left over
5

So, I've come here with a few questions:

Are Goetic masters or they're lesser conterparts best for blood hunts?

Would Fortune 3 and Growth 0 or my Growth 2 Fortune 1 result in better income?

Any other comments, critisizm is welcome.

Well pretender design is pretty drasticly different depending if you are using CB or not. Regardless though, I think you would be better off dropping the death and freeing up enough points for f9. And as to who to blood hunt, with SDRs diabolists are probably a little more gold efficient, but if you need to hunt before then, geotic masters are your first choice.

[Truper]

A lot depends on whether you're playing an unmodded game, or using the Conceptual Balance mods, or some other mods.

A search on the boards will locate the bloodhunting formula, but I'd personally be using Diabolists equipped with Sanguine Dousing Rods to do my hunting. Before I have the research to make rods, I might use a Goetic Master to get the blood flowing.

Depends. There's a lot of luck in fortune http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If you're playing an unmodded game, taking growth isn't worth the points, and you should probably consider taking death. If you're using the CB mod, growth is more viable, and would result in a higher guaranteed income, but I personally prefer taking Fortune 3 if I'm forced to take turmoil. I just think its fun.

I can't quite figure out what your pretender is intended to do. Having 4 fire is sensible, since you have a starting fire gem income of 4, but I don't know why you'd put death on a Moloch.

The only reason to play Diabolical Faith is to make use of blood. Many of the fun uses require something more than what the Goetic Masters can provide. If all you intend to do with blood is summon Devils, that's fine, but otherwise you might consider a blood pretender.

[Vicious Love]

Death? On Marignon's Pretender?

[Oversway]

Maybe he wants to summon a king of banefire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[OG_Gleep]

Or lots of archers.

[Spacepain]

\"A lot depends on whether you\'re playing an unmodded game, or using the Conceptual Balance mods, or some other mods.\"

Just normal, unmodded dominions 2.

\"Death? On Marignon\'s Pretender? \"

I\'ve been using the Death so I can summon bane commanders @ level 3 or 4 conjuration. They\'re much nicer commanders for demons than Goetic masters. Then, leading up to the banes you get fire drakes which are a very early way to spend fire gems and handy in expanding early.

Clearly there are better alternatives?

So, having read the little I have, something like a Baphomet 4f/4a/4b.

then -1t/3p/-1h/0/2f/1m for scales? -ish

Oooor for pretender Moloch f9...?

What sort of research should I be doing with a f9 pretender spell wise?

[Endoperez]

Unfortunately, that strategy doesn't work very well. Fire Drakes are grossly overpriced, for one. Death 1 would be enough to summon commanders for demons, in Enchantment (Revive King, and Create Revenant so that you don't have to use pretender to revive more kings).

Fire 9 is quite powerful even with Fire Darts. Look for spells with a + after area of effect and/or number of effects, and scaling damage isn't bad either. Falling Fires will be good, but even Fire Darts and Flare will devastate most enemies. The catch is that Fire 9 also gives your Flagellants two more damage sources (one for each attack of their flail); this damage is armor-piercing, and 8 points with minor variation, AND give them increased attack. Flagellants will die like flies, but will utterly devastate almost any creature, unit and/or pretender.

You seem to be taking production 3 - unfortunately, it isn't worth the points. You can do with even Sloth 1 (and other would probably urge you to take Sloth 3 and only use Flagellants), and increase Magic and/or Fortune to 3. Luck 3 is worth taking, if you go for luck, because it enables much better events.

Unfortunately, national units aren't too useful in the current game. Production isn't worth it, and luck isn't that great for planning, so most players prefer Order/Misfortune (as Order makes events more rare). I'd say it's worth using less optimized strategies, and I have enjoyed them for a long time.
If you want to rely heavily on your national units, you should probably go for few picks of Growth, for little more income. The population growth is also nice for a blood-hunting nation. If you can't afford Luck 3, and Production 2-3, Magic 1-3 with Moloch and Fire 9, feel free to take Fountain of Blood with two or three supporting paths. Death for the commanders, earth for Demon Knights, Nature for Crossbreeding (which is nice, benefits from luck, but isn't effective enough in competitive multiplayer according to the threads), maybe Water for Ice Devils (and Frost Fiends, but the latter probably aren't worth it in your warm lands - Ice Devils are top stuff though).

[Oversway]

You could skip death entirely and cast hordes from hell (even on your own province) - you'll get a flying devil commander, and some imps to boot.

[quantum_mechani]

Spacepain said:
Just normal, unmodded dominions 2.


In that case try this build:
Baphomet
9f9s
Order 3, sloth 3, heat 1, death 3, misfortune 2, magic 3 Dominion 9
Watchtower

[KissBlade]

Qm, you can't order in diabolic faith. =)

[quantum_mechani]

KissBlade said:
Qm, you can't order in diabolic faith. =)

Doh, got me, forgot he was playing DF. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

That's a big part of what makes DF not so good base game. No GK, no order.

[OG_Gleep]

Have you tried the cb mod?

*Edit*

[Spacepain]

/"Have you tried the cb mod?"/

I have not. The folks I play multiplayer with are ridiculously lazy. There is no way I could ever spur them to use a mod. They've yet to bother patching yet.

Quick recap to make sure I understand this: Economy simply doesn't matter. Use flagellants instead of pricier units. Focus on magic, and skip death. Either go f9 Moloch or f9/s9 Baphomet.

I'm liking the baphomet. However, why s9? Marignon has no casters that can reveal sites to provide you with real astral income. Unless you depend on randoming a Goetic Master with s1. Aschasic Record cost too much to be used effectively with a +1 astral income. Is there some spell that whips up an astral mage, that I can't think of?

[Saber Cherry]

Spectres, Lamia Queens, and one each of Ice Devils and Arch Devils have Astral. Unmodded Clams are the best source of pearls. I can't believe you play without any patches or mods! The patch is *essential*; it adds and fixes tons of stuff.

[Spacepain]

"Spectres, Lamia Queens, and one each of Ice Devils and Arch Devils have Astral. Unmodded Clams are the best source of pearls. I can't believe you play without any patches or mods! The patch is *essential*; it adds and fixes tons of stuff. "

Haha, well, its silly for me to play with the patch, if all my games must be done with people w/o the patch.

However, I just began wondering what exactly I should be summoning blood wise....

Marignon has harlequins, however, they would really need to be made in mass to be useful, me thinks. There's spine devils, and plain old devils too... What should I be looking to use for armies?

[quantum_mechani]

Spacepain said:
Haha, well, its silly for me to play with the patch, if all my games must be done with people w/o the patch.


hehe, playing without any patch... ditch Mari and beat them silly with VQs until they agree to patch. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Saber Cherry]

As Marignon, just make Soul Contracts and summon Arch Devils. Lifelong Protection is nice too.

[PDF]

Saber Cherry said:
As Marignon, just make Soul Contracts and summon Arch Devils. Lifelong Protection is nice too.



As any blood-nation, or even non-blood one, this is an obvious strategy ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[Vicious Love]

quantum_mechani said:
hehe, playing without any patch... ditch Mari and beat them silly with VQs until they agree to patch. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



I'm with QM. Also, find or summon a water mage and churn out as many clams as possible, alchemizing astral pearls into water gems when possible. And spend all your blood income on Soul Contracts, forged with Dwarven Hammers. That'll learn 'em to play unpatched.

[shovah]

agrees with others, play vrs them with a VQ and any nation with decent water magic (even mictain might be good, they also have the bonus of being able to churn out blood uniques with only a few boosters)

[Spacepain]

"agrees with others, play vrs them with a VQ and any nation with decent water magic (even mictain might be good, they also have the bonus of being able to churn out blood uniques with only a few boosters)"

Haha, well I play pythium a lot, too, I'll try that out on them one of these nights. (I'm guessing you use VQ to make SC for early expansion?)

--------------------------

On a more relevant note:

I've been implementing all the suggestsions here, and a few new questions have arised.

First off, higher level blood magic tends to have more than the 2blood most all goetic masters have. How should I go about producing stronger blood wizards? Empowerment is awfully expensive.

Secondly, does SDR effects stack if you place two on one wizard? Is it worth is to place two SDR on one wizard?

Third, in unpatched dominions 2, does the Astral 9 blessing work on sacred units? Or is it bugged? It certainly doesn't to seem to work, because my flagellants still constantly fall to the first arrow fired at them, despite the description that lucky blessing saves them from their first hit.

Fourth and finally, although flagellants make up almost near all of my armies, there is still the tiny sliver that is comprised of those super-duper demonic sorts. On that note, are mass harlquins, or MUCH fewer of their stronger & 5-6 times more expensive counter parts better. i.e. 30 Harlequins (30 blood slaves) or 4 devils (28 blood slaves?)

[shovah]

sdr dosnt stack, i dont think anything does. to get a stronger blood mage use your pretender or use boosters (in my test game with DF marignon i had a blood7 fire 4 goetic master).feel free to empower and level or 2 when possible and get your blood economy running fast (standard should be 3 diabolists with SDR's in a 5000+ population province with 0 taxes, try to repeat this set-up 3-4 times.
make soul contracts with you stronger mage(s) when possible as the 1 devil per turn is alot better when you have 5 of them (all traveling with your army to make up losses). i personally dont like harlequins unless you need to mass fodder quickly, 4 devils will probably be better in alot of cases due to higher stats and heat radiation.
casting the looming hell with alot of slaves gives you a nasty little global that can be very annoying to say the least and a very nasty tactic ive discovered is 10 (or more if you want) assasins with lifelong protections and possibly amulets of luck and robe of shadows if the enemy has lots of crossbows or something. while 1 lifelong protection is weak in battle, 10 of them produces a huge number of imps EVERY TURN, with each of them having 2 attacks per turn they are very good at engulfing your foe in a tide of red midgits. the assasins add mobility with their stealth and utility with assasinations but they are by no means neccisary, its perfectly possible to do this with any commander (the bonus of this way being that you have arrow catchers)

[Saber Cherry]

shovah said:
sdr dosnt stack, i dont think anything does.



Weapons and shields (and helmets, for 2-headed) stack for their stat bonuses, but not special bonuses (like resistance). I can't think of anything else that stacks with identical items.

[Alneyan]

Helmets should stack like armour/weapons (Wyrms, Ettins and perhaps a few others).

[Vicious Love]

Spacepain said:
Haha, well I play pythium a lot, too, I'll try that out on them one of these nights. (I'm guessing you use VQ to make SC for early expansion?)




Well, yeah. And late expansion. And pretty much anything else. Unpatched VQs are just plain deadly. A true VQ uber-SC requires either costly empowerment or the kind of points you can usually only spare while playing a dead Ermorian theme, but the results are dizzying. And she's immortal, to boot. And ethereal, so that immortality really counts for something, as your opponent can't just Wind Ride her into a province with hostile dominion.



First off, higher level blood magic tends to have more than the 2blood most all goetic masters have. How should I go about producing stronger blood wizards? Empowerment is awfully expensive.



Research Construction. Secure(either through empowerment, Pretender design, Blood boosting items, recruitment at a special site, or some combination of the above) at least one Blood-4 mage, and at least one Blood-X, Earth-Y mage(don't recall the numbers at the moment). If possible, complement them with a Blood-X, Nature-Y mage. Have them forge Brazen Vessels, Blood Thorns, Blood Stones, Armor of Souls, and that cursed Blood/Nature armor thing, whatever it's called. Allocate these items as necessary, and have a nice day.
For the really high-level juju, you might also want to secure a few Rings of Sorcery/Wizardry and Robes of the Magi.



Third, in unpatched dominions 2, does the Astral 9 blessing work on sacred units? Or is it bugged?



Pretty sure it works. You didn't empower your Pretender or something, did you? Your blessing is only affected by your starting path levels, boosters and empowerments don't count. Nor do afflictions or other path losses, thankfully.

[Spacepain]

/\"Pretty sure it works. You didn\'t empower your Pretender or something, did you? Your blessing is only affected by your starting path levels, boosters and empowerments don\'t count. Nor do afflictions or other path losses, thankfully.\"/

No, the pretender wasn\'t empowered. He started at fire9/astral9.

...hm.. what exactly does the Astral 9 blessing do then?

Furthermore, I\'ve been grappeling to find something to do with all that astral on my pretender. Astral corruption is certainly viable, and so is Arcane nexus, but those are both late game spell. Anything useful earlier in the game, other than Aschasic record, I could spend astral gems on?

[Oversway]

Alchemize them into water gems and build more clams http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[OG_Gleep]

Send your lazy friends over here to read up why the unmodded, and esp unpatched game is a poor choice for MP.

Also send em to the MP forums to see how many people use CB mod =)

I think your friends would like the changes to the scales, making every race have useful heroes (everyone likes that), and national units getting a price break across the board.

[Endoperez]

Reascension gets you B3F3 Fallen Angel. B3S1 (Blood 3 Astral 1).


Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry are awesome. They only require Astral 4 and 5, and with Starshine Skullcap or Crystal Coin even S3 is enough.


As for blessings, S9 gives the sacred units Twist Fate -effect, that is, the next time they would take damage, they won't. Flagellants are weak and die fast, so this effectively doubles the number of hits a Flagellant can take before death. It also helps to save the occassional mage from e.g. stray arrows.

[NTJedi]

Spacepain said:

Haha, well, its silly for me to play with the patch, if all my games must be done with people w/o the patch.




The CB Mod is not necessary since I know several relatives which won't use anything that's not official.
The official patch should be installed... primarily because it fixes bugs which is the stuff which crashes the game.

[Agrajag]

Didn't unpatched dominion allow item effects to stack?
I vaguely recall on of the patches fixing unwanted item stacking.

Or maybe it was just gem-generating items?

Damned useless memory!

[Manuk]

best improvement is in patch 2.14 with the added feature of fast forward battle replay (f key) and get ahead a turn (n key, and I use this one always).
Also some themes are not in the original version. maybe Golden era? I don´t remember but it´s more than one.

[shovah]

i dont think most items stack, and im near certain dwarven hammers dont unfortunately(have unpatched dom on my no net comp)

[Saber Cherry]

NTJedi said:
The CB Mod is not necessary since I know several relatives which won't use anything that's not official.



That's pretty wierd logic. Patches aren't necessary either. But both of them improve the game.

[OG_Gleep]

A lot of people don't get the concept of Mods.

[NTJedi]

Saber Cherry said:

NTJedi said:
The CB Mod is not necessary since I know several relatives which won't use anything that's not official.



That's pretty wierd logic. Patches aren't necessary either. But both of them improve the game.



Actually lots of gamers don't use Mods which aren't official. In fact the many gaming websites I visit only recognize the official patches not the Mods gamers have made.

[quantum_mechani]

NTJedi said:

Saber Cherry said:

NTJedi said:
The CB Mod is not necessary since I know several relatives which won't use anything that's not official.



That's pretty wierd logic. Patches aren't necessary either. But both of them improve the game.



Actually lots of gamers don't use Mods which aren't official. In fact the many gaming websites I visit only recognize the official patches not the Mods gamers have made.

A lot of people doing something doesn't make it logical... maybe more often the opposite in fact. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[NTJedi]

quantum_mechani said:

NTJedi said:


Actually lots of gamers don't use Mods which aren't official. In fact the many gaming websites I visit only recognize the official patches not the Mods gamers have made.

A lot of people doing something doesn't make it logical... maybe more often the opposite in fact. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



I agree the CB Mod is more balanced compared to using just the patch. I was just explaining one reason why many gamers don't use Mods.

[quantum_mechani]

NTJedi said:

quantum_mechani said:

NTJedi said:


Actually lots of gamers don't use Mods which aren't official. In fact the many gaming websites I visit only recognize the official patches not the Mods gamers have made.

A lot of people doing something doesn't make it logical... maybe more often the opposite in fact. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



I agree the CB Mod is more balanced compared to using just the patch. I was just explaining one reason why many gamers don't use Mods.

I understand, I just don't think that a lot of people doing it is an explanation for why it's done.

[DominionsFan]

Yes, some people just refuse to use any mods. It took 2 weeks for me to convice one of my friends to download and use the Total Realism mod for Rome: Total War. Finally he began to use it and he was like "WOW! THIS IS AMAZING!".
Personally I always try out all major mods for my favourite games, and I always keep + use the best ones.

[Agrajag]

Usually I don't go for mods, too.
I guess that's because most mods are utter crap, and I lack the ability to discern which are not. (until after installation, that is.)