Jomon advice wanted - Page 2

Micah · #11 May 22nd, 2008, 06:01 PM

I think Jomon's summons tend to be sacreds, so they do get help from an E bless, but that's not a great reason for a huge one. If you're wanting to use Dai Oni they'd benefit from a couple of points of reinvig for sure.

And I reiterate my pretender suggestions, celestial general is crap. If you want to splash around in the kiddy pool of playing thematically be my guest, but it's frustrating to be asked for strategy advice and then have it dismissed for non-strategy-related reasons. And just to make it clear, this is NOT a minor point for Jomon. They are one of the worst nations in the game to attempt to play without an awake, functional SC pretender to get some resources into their cap and money into a second fort as soon as possible.

Pablomatic · #12 May 22nd, 2008, 07:40 PM

Hey Micah. Don't be frustrated. I didn't dismiss your strategies. Ok the Celestial General is crap. Fine. I really appreciate your advice, and I'll try it out.

Pablomatic · #13 May 22nd, 2008, 07:44 PM

Just seems like every nation should take a Ghost King, or a Cyclops, no matter what. Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but reading through the strategy guides, those seem to be the most common, with perhaps a vampire queen thrown in.

Guess I need to start powergaming if I want to try MP, or I won't last long.

Micah · #14 May 22nd, 2008, 08:05 PM

sorry if I was grumping at you.

You're pretty much right on the pretender choice though...there's a choice between GK, clops, PoD and Wyrm for early SCs (with a few nation specific choices such as the risen oracle, gorgon, and colossal fetish as well.)

The fear/awe combo is just too damn good to pass up, and the celestial general doesn't have fear (he isn't as bad as I thought though, since he IS armored at least, but his encumberance value is a problem for extended fights, which will happen due to the lack of fear...Actually, if you give him enough death magic to have a fear value he might be a viable option, though it'd be somewhat inefficient. Play with it if you'd like, it might provide a decent compromise for theme.) If you haven't tried it go ahead and give it a shot, you'll be amazed at how well they go together against indy chaff.

If you don't have an awake SC you need to have an imprisoned bless chassis (and good units to use it with, Jomon's don't qualify), which is also confined to a handful of different choices.

MaxWilson · #15 May 22nd, 2008, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Micah said:
If you don't have an awake SC you need to have an imprisoned bless chassis (and good units to use it with, Jomon's don't qualify), which is also confined to a handful of different choices.

Is that really true? Bless is just a way of boosting certain unit stats so you get more killing power for a given pound of gold. If you have good, solid national troops, they can expand quite well even if they're not sacred. Functionally-speaking, a dual F9W9 bless in the early game is just a way of killing indies faster and more efficiently. You can get the same effect on expansion in some cases by having a 50% larger army from good scales. This is especially true if your army has access to good missile weapons, which scale better than footmen in heavy plate. (LA Agartha is lots of fun with a good bless but in practice armies of crossbowmen with some light infantry guards expand better than uber-blessed Blindfighters.)

Consider how valuable mercs are for expansion, and then consider that most mercs are pretty average as national troops go--and they're almost never used with a bless.

-Max

Micah · #16 May 22nd, 2008, 09:18 PM

Max,

The problem is that production 3 will give you about 40 more resources in your cap. Taking a mountain province with an awake pretender will give you about 40 extra resources in your cap. And then the next province will add another 40, and so on. You also get more gold that way.

Sure, eventually your prod scale will spread out and give you more resources in the long-term, but by then you can have a second fort up. In the meantime you're forced to either attack with marginal forces that will take more casualties than you'd like in order to get resources, or wait longer to let your forces overpower the indies with little or no damage taken, losing expansion speed.

Going for a bless or an awake SC are almost always going to be the best options. Is there some exception? Of course. Perhaps "need to" was a bit strong, but the optimal strategy is generally going to be one of the two.

JimMorrison · #17 May 22nd, 2008, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Pablomatic said:
Another question.JimMorrison said he likes an earth bless for Jomon. I can't understand that. Since Jomon's mages aren't sacred, they get no benefit from the reenvig. Sure the pretender gets a benefit, but there's no other real use.

First I would like to point out that though the "cyclops" is a western name, Japanese folklore has mountain warrior spirits that could be adaptable, with a little imagination.

I tried the earth bless with Jomon because your sacreds start at 14 prot. Since you have samurai with No-Dachi and 16 prot, and other people have 20 prot heavy infantry, I went in the direction of having better tanking power. The difference between 18/20 prot seems small against conventional troops, but yours are better offensively, and get the reinvig for staying power, especially important against a cold/heat scale enemy.

As far as the mages not being sacred and not getting the reinvig, it seems that the Shroud of the Battle Saint is 0 Enc and only costs 5 pearls to make. That's a pretty cheap investment for 4 reinvig, and whatever else they might get (+2 morale for mages, yay!).

I am kind of new-ish, so I don't see quite the necessity of such strict adherence to a small list of pretender choices. Obviously, some of the pretenders are just shabby or in no way cost effective, but it all comes down to strategy, and if you think yours through well enough, just about any pretender should be capable. Just don't get too pissed off when someone's cyclops shows up at your capital on turn 5. >.>

MaxWilson · #18 May 23rd, 2008, 01:58 AM

Quote:

Micah said:
Max,

The problem is that production 3 will give you about 40 more resources in your cap. Taking a mountain province with an awake pretender will give you about 40 extra resources in your cap. And then the next province will add another 40, and so on. You also get more gold that way.

Sure, eventually your prod scale will spread out and give you more resources in the long-term, but by then you can have a second fort up. In the meantime you're forced to either attack with marginal forces that will take more casualties than you'd like in order to get resources, or wait longer to let your forces overpower the indies with little or no damage taken, losing expansion speed.

Going for a bless or an awake SC are almost always going to be the best options. Is there some exception? Of course. Perhaps "need to" was a bit strong, but the optimal strategy is generally going to be one of the two.

Ah. Is it true that a Prod scale doesn't affect the resources you get from neighbors until your dominion spreads to those neighbors? Makes sense, and I hadn't thought of that. That does tend to make Sloth more attractive, because it won't hurt you for a while, and the beginning is when your home fort is most important.

-Max

Pablomatic · #19 May 23rd, 2008, 11:53 AM

Thanks again to everyone who responded. I appreciate the advice, and it has helped me understand things better.

Of course Shrouds of the Battle Saint are perfect for mages. I balk at putting them on combatants, because they negate the units' inherent armor, but for mages they're perfect, and a good reason to go with an earth bless for nations that don't have holy mages.

I'm still going to keep trying to find a way to make the Celestial General viable. It's painful to spend all those points to get Dominion 10 for awe, so I'll work on something else.

JimMorrison wrote:
"I am kind of new-ish, so I don't see quite the necessity of such strict adherence to a small list of pretender choices. Obviously, some of the pretenders are just shabby or in no way cost effective, but it all comes down to strategy, and if you think yours through well enough, just about any pretender should be capable. Just don't get too pissed off when someone's cyclops shows up at your capital on turn 5."

This is how I *want* the game to be. The reason I don't play simpler but flashier games is that I want deep, subtle, and varied strategy choices, rather than rushes with one powerful unit. I want there to be a use for most or all units and spells in the game--otherwise why have them? Whether Dominions 3 is this type of game is debatable though I guess.

I've read some posts that claim MP boils down to a "rush for Tartarians." With everybody going for more or less the same spells and everybody having a Cyclops pretender or something similar, I'm not sure I'll enjoy MP as much as I had hoped. I'll try it out and see. I'd like to be the one who surprises my opponents with an effective ORIGINAL strategy. Is that a losing cause?

Also, nobody said anything about the two Jomon sacred samurais not working together, as implied in the unit description. I've never had a problem (that I discovered anyway) so I'll keep doing that.

johan osterman · #20 May 23rd, 2008, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Pablomatic said:
I've read some posts that claim MP boils down to a "rush for Tartarians." With everybody going for more or less the same spells and everybody having a Cyclops pretender or something similar, I'm not sure I'll enjoy MP as much as I had hoped. I'll try it out and see. I'd like to be the one who surprises my opponents with an effective ORIGINAL strategy. Is that a losing cause?

You are probably late to the party to be able to come up with an original overarching strategy at first try. I think you will have better luck with coming up with original and creative solutions to particular obstacles.