Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Tip #1: The Dai-Oni enters every battle with three wolves. They don't do much, but they do draw arrows and are nice to have in arena deathmatches. It seems like the Oni General gets the same benefit.

Tip #2: Blessing may be precision 100, but can miss even if you're soloing a province (thanks to the wolves, I suppose). Consider scripting redundant blesses if you happen to have a nice one. A low level regeneration bless can reduce the number of afflictions you get in addition to the hitpoint bonuses.

Tip #3: Oni generals and Dai-Onis show 20 protection, but wear no helmet. A right click reveals a basic protection of 7 and 10, respectively. Not horrible, but if you want to make the best of an Oni thug, don't forget the headgear. Or, if you have a random earth magic on your general, cast iron skin.

Tip #4: If your Oni does get a head wound, don't despair. Muted, they're still a decent thug. Battle Fright may bring their morale back down to 13, but a basic bless (no magic paths) will boost it back to 15.

Now to the real truth of the matter... Got any advice for me? I'm just starting out with them.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Alteration is your best friend ever, as far as paths. For Dai Oni especially.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Consider an A9 bless. It will couteract Iron skin buff. And if you get into war with a major air user (caelum) it will help. Your pretender will be able to actually do something with those air gems you get. And the air shield is nice vs bows of botulf and allows you to use 2handed weapons without fear of flaming arrows.
The nature 4 bless is also very nice.

order3/sloth 3 seems to be a no-brainer with the low production cost of the Oni's.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Tip #5: Dai Oni can reanimate dead. Specifically, Ghouls and Soulless. If you've got a crippled Dai Oni, he can spend time bringing you some spare troops to flush out the ranks of your undead leadership - especially since it's difficult to afford many of the oni.

Your Demon Priests cannot reanimate, but your Oni Generals and Hannya can if you make them your prophets. If you make them (or Dai Onis) prophets (H3), you can reanimate more of the above and longdead warriors.

Soulless require corpses, Ghouls consume population, and longdead neither.

Tip #6: Twice born will not work on Hannya or Oni, since they're demonic. As of 3.08, it is not worth casting Twice Born on a diseased Sorcerer as they will be reborn with one hitpoint. But, if you want to save a particular demon general or sorcerer... just be aware that twice born keeps magic and experience, but loses all abilities other than heroic ones, in favor of the wight mage's chassis. Generally not worth casting with yomi, though there are specific applications for undead mages, you'll just be vulnerable to banishment.

Tip #7:
Ritual of Rebirth does not work on lifeless or undead, but does work on demons (just tested). Use this on a former prophet to get multiple level three/four priests for reanimation purposes.
http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/dom3spells.html
Edit: Also, a reborn oni loses the research penalty, and their sacred status, though they retain their priest magics.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

I really don't recommend the A9 bless in any case, but for Yomi it seems a particularly poor choice. I have yet to ever have a Dai Oni die or be crippled from an arrow, and if lighting is a big issue for your SCs, you are much better off trading for lightning res items or switching tactics than paying the ungodly amount of points for A9. Actually, about the only Yomi blesses I think I'd consider very seriously are earth and perhaps nature 4.

Tips that come to mind:

*Don't underestimate Hannyas, they are extremely potent and versatile mages for 200 gold. Early on on use skelly spam or eagle eyes + fireball, later add phionix power, falling fires and shadow blast to your options.

*Be sure to abuse your stealthy 8 gold shortbows to the max, including of course flaming arrows. Don't even think about the other bakemono in 99% of cases.

*Careful buying demon troops, in general error on the side of buying better mages, fewer demons.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Agree.

Note that Yomi's paths cover forging lots of the elemental resistance items for your Dai Onis: copper plate replaces your too-heavy samurai armor and gives you 100% SR. Hannya's can forge Brimstone Boots to boost your PR to 100% and give you 50% CR (plus fatigue recovery). Charcoal shield or fire helmet or burning pearl boost you to 100% FR.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

I like to use armies of the little cold/numbness guys. They're pretty cheap, and with their stats, cold damage, and second forms, they make an excellent core of foot-soldiers, much better than heavy infantry, for example. Once I've got a good core of them, Yomi has plenty to suppliment them-and you'll definitely want to-but I think a good core is essential for Yomi. With the numbness caused by their clubs, they not only break up formation, they'll also slow units long enough for your smallest demons to flank them, and your largest demons to either missle them to death, or tear them apart with SCs.

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Hannyas are powerful mages but never forget they're cold blooded. Using Hannyas as battle mages in cold provinces can lead to painful results for them :hurt:

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

Yeah, I'd go for high Heat with Yomi-if Niefelheim attacks, it nerfs them, and if you get attacked by Abyssia, you can spam those little cold guys I mentioned. Which gives me an idea...suppose (Muspelheim) Surt became a new hero for Abyssia, now that we've got 6 hero-slots? It kinda-sorta makes a little bit of sense...

Re: Tips for Yomi, Oni Kings
 

The only tactic that I've found to be effective is using Flaming Arrows in every combat and keeping a few Fever Fetishes with your army.

Every other possible tactic tends to end in failure for this nation. They seem designed for SCing, but even when you finally get them casting Soul Vortex they tend to not last that long.

Their low armor on all their troops tends to mean that you either race to Wooden Warriors and just live with the fact that you can't fight without mages or you end up dead very fast. Unlike other nations with low armor, you don't have Bless troops that can be juiced up help you survive until WW/MP or one of the "Army of" spells..

On the plus side, Hannya are recruitable anywhere and with Phoenix Power they can spam Falling Fires.

I also tend to do a lot of item crafting with them for things like those Incinerate rods, the banners that cast Drain Life, and standards(since you don't have a good morale solution without H2s or beserkers). Low research on your Oni and being a death power means that you are required to make Skull Mentors.