Yomi - Oni Kings analysis. Developers please read

[Nerfix]

Well, that was bad luck. And admitedly E9 can be nasty on the SG's, though something like W9 would be worse since it would nullify their weak Def and give them and extra attack.

Seriously, against Agartans the high Def of the Ambitates really shows. You do need to have an amount advantage vs the Seal Guards though, I admit it, but I think that Ambitate Nobles are far easier to mass than Seal Guards.

Troglos are hard to deal with, but I'd use Javelineers in large numbers for them....if they are pelted with missiles and then dig too deep into block of infantry they'll get ganged and die. Remember that a troglo costs 50 gold and a javelineer costs 10. You can get 50 javelineers for the price of 10 troglogs. Troglos are great, but they need to be used in a "critical mass" so to say or they will get beaten. Javelineers are suprisingly good against the soft Agartans...

Troglo Lords and Ancient Lords are worse, but then again you have great acces to Horror Mark and Curse and a bit later on Paralyze. If you hit Evoc 5 and Alt 1 you could use a N1 Druid with either EP, 3 Earth or Communion backing for more precise Gifts from Heavens strikes.

In time of serious troubles I could even consider using Cave Drakes to suck in blows...

My typical research pattern goes Thaum 1 - Evoc 5 - Alt 1 - Conj 3 for:
- Horror Mark, Communion, Curse
- Bladewind, Gifts from Heaven
- Eagle Eyes
- Summon Earthpower

If I was in imminent threat of big creatures I could aim for Paralyze first.

That's what I'd do. Your Mileage May Vary as usual. And it might be that Marverni has harder time vs Yomi or such, just like in later era there are such pair. Imagine Marignon vs Abysia...!

[B0rsuk]

Using Carnutes against Agarthans sounds like trying to beat Agarthans at their own game. Of course high strength helps to punch through armor, and with berserk on it could be even worse, because in this particular case (C. Nobles) it substracts 2 from defence. You're basically trying to say 'Carnute Nobles are bigger, stronger and tougher than Agarthans'
I'd rather try Ambibate Nobles who have +6 defence compared to berserked Carnute Nobles, and a bit more attack, too.

B0rsuk, who never played full version of Dominions 3.

[curtadams]

I'd don't like "protecting" Oni demons by having them run away on their first death. First, if the causative priests aren't dead, the demons will just get blasted on the next enounter. Second, until high-morale summons dominate the game - which should be fairly late in Dom3 - battles are mostly decided by who breaks first. If only some break, it's just harder on the troops remaining.

[Archonsod]

I've never had a problem with the Oni Kings. Usually, keeping a mass of Dai Oni together throwing fireballs & poison at approaching troops keeps them out of combat (the enemy tend to retreat before they reach the demons).
Priests could be problematic, but again you can mix in non demonic troops (such as a bunch of bandits scripted to fire at the rear, hopefully killing the priest quite quickly).
One possibility would be to use stealth armies of bandits scripted to loose off a few volleys towards the enemies' rear and retreat. You could then ambush priest heavy armies and try to remove the priests, before delivering the killing blow with the demons.

[Corwin]

Also even if you have many demons in your army, chances are that you also have a lot of bakamoo and bandit archers as well. If demons flee, your archers as well as other non-demon troops are doomed. And purely demonic armies are simply not very flexible, even with the significantly decreased cost of demons.

[DominionsFan]

Nerfix said:
Another noteworthy thing is that Yomi and especially Niefelheim and Agartha have worse research capability than Marverni. This can be further boosted by taking Magic scale, and since you can't pull a good bless strat with Marverni, why bother putting too much magic for your pretender?

Eh yeah Niefel's biggest problem is the research [especially if you would like to get blood slaves], but nothing can be perfect.

[KissBlade]

Archonsod said:
I've never had a problem with the Oni Kings. Usually, keeping a mass of Dai Oni together throwing fireballs & poison at approaching troops keeps them out of combat (the enemy tend to retreat before they reach the demons).
Priests could be problematic, but again you can mix in non demonic troops (such as a bunch of bandits scripted to fire at the rear, hopefully killing the priest quite quickly).
One possibility would be to use stealth armies of bandits scripted to loose off a few volleys towards the enemies' rear and retreat. You could then ambush priest heavy armies and try to remove the priests, before delivering the killing blow with the demons.

A nice trick you described. Which suggests to me that you've never actually even bothered attempting it since there's no such thing as "fire rear".

[Cainehill]

Eh, may I point out that there definately _IS_ such a thing as fire rear? Albeit it seems that only commander archers get that option.

[Archonsod]

Commander archers get fire rear. Normal archers don't, but can fire archers which appears to default to fire rear if there are no archers present (and is equal to fire rear if there are, since the AI never alters it's deployment).

Never tried it with Yomi, like I said, I've never had any problems with a Dai Oni army.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

After reading the analysis, I thought I'd try these Yomi in Early Era. I must admit, I kind of like them.

Since the troops for Yomi is so cheap on resources, Sloth 3 + Order 3 seemed a good choice. Having heard of their poor research skills, I took Magic 3 to compensate, and also a single luck for more gold. A bit of heat for points, and 3 earth, air and astral for various protection raising troop buffs completed my (sleeping, I think) pretender.

In the beginning, I found the little devils mixed with the little archers quite efficient. The death generals can lead an impressive number of these, and the classic "stay back+fire(none) + guard commander was as effective as ever for most indies. For archers, I placed the archers all the way to the front, placed the meeleers right beside them with attack and this work pretty well too.

For research I went for the obvious F3 Flame arrows, which turns those little archers into killing machines, and for all those easy-to-get mass buffs (legions of steel, strength of giants, wind guide) My plan was to use my pretender for anti-magic besides the wind guide, but I never found any astral gems, so that plan didn't work out very well. Still, the massed (60-80 seemed to work well) squads of flaming archers were extremely effective. At one point I had a fire immune Dai Oni SC in the front working with those archers... that work extremely well. He'd go in, smack a few enemies, and then watch them all die in a hail of flaming arrows.

I found death summons quite effective... reanimating, skelespamming, behemoths.. that kind of stuff. That also served to dilute those banishment, which are definitely the weak side for early Yomi. Small squads of crushers and behemoths made for some good shock troops, though the attrition rate was higher than I'd liked.

Things to improve: The luck scale was definitely a bad thing. I found that the game still had the "lucky" events "56 useless light infantry" and the (since I had no bless worth mentioning) equally useless flagellants. I used a lot of indie commanders to scoop these up and use for arrow wards and sacrifices, mixing them in with devils for better morale. The astral was a mistake... I'm not yet quite sure how to deal with the priests. And I should, as always, create more SC, though I still think that those are quite silly

Please note that I quite suck in this game, so probably, the above guide is what *not* to do .o)

P.S: Completely offtopic... but why the spell check button? Doesn't every browser under the sun a spell check built in for forms? (But I suppose it doesn't hurt)