Drain Life

[Boron]

Some Devil Armies are also good . If you generate Devils from Soul Contracts they are anyways extremly cheap but also by normal summoning via lvl3/lvl9 blood spell you get Devils quite cheap . They are immune to Firemagic , so no Flames . And they are extremly good and tough troops also , so the Ghost Riders can't do much harm to them .

Another good counter would be mechanical men armies with good mages like Tartarians or a Wrather .
50 Mech Men + Wrathful Skies can most likely survive even 10 Ghost Rider castings at once .

Getting 10+ Ghost Rider casters takes a while also . Most nations have to use Demilichs for that , so you need probably enchantment 8 + Conjuration 9 for mass Ghost Riders . That probably takes until turn 40-50 and by that time you will have various counters vs. Ghost Riders already . If you are realy nasty you can charm/enslave mind the Ghost Rider commanders . Especially a Nation like Ryleh could do that rather cheap , just Starspawns with rune smasher + spell focus casting enslave mind . They have good chances to succeed then .

The only thing at which Ghost Riders is really good is taking out SCs .

In a current game my enemy did 3 Ghost Riders on my ID with 40 Fiends . He killed 11 Fiends before all Ghost Riders were destroyed .
11 Fiends cost 40 Blood , a loss of 40 Blood vs. 15 Deathgems on my enemies side , i think that's fair .

Also note that Zen did only change the requirements for Ghost Riders from Death 4 to Death 6 but he changed nothing with the costs . So Zen doesn't think also that Ghost Riders are that powerful . Banelords on the other hand got a cost increase of 50% e.g.

[Tuidjy]

Ghost Riders are overrated. In my current game, I am overruning C'tis, and he
most certainly has access to Ghost Riders. He used quite a few in the first
turns of the invasion, but what he got was three attacks on one man province
defenses, one or two attacks against SCs that slaughtered the riders, and a few
attacks against mage squads that wiped out the wraith lords, and then mopped up
the riders.

In that game I am using ONE army of troops. It is made out of more than
a hundred range units, and a mass of banes, wraiths and heavy Abysian infantry.
Their commander has the Gatestone, generates fire gems, and cast 'Flame arrows'
and his 'assistant' SC wears the boots of the planes. It is a great reaction
force, because it can jump around, and be gone even before ghost riders hit.
Not that it always does, of course. It has withstood up to five simultaneous
'ghost rides' with only a few casualties.

The problem many people seems to have is that it is insane to rely on vanilla
troops by turn 40. Anything put together with a ounce of thought will wipe out
melee troops. Get rid of Ghost Riders, Wrathful skies, False Horrors and
Super combatants, and I will still be wiping out your groundpounders every time
they are outside of a castle/dome.

Those who whine about a specific aspect of the game have simply not felt the
sting of other strategies. If they get their way and see their peeve du jour
castrated, they will get slapped with something else, and they will keep
whinning until Dominions II looks and plays like a turnbased Rome: Total War.

[Scott Hebert]

I am not concerned with 'whines du jour'. I am concerned with the fact that Dominions II is a deformed environment.

"The problem many people seems to have is that it is insane to rely on vanilla
troops by turn 40. "

There is absolutely no reason this must be true. It currently is, but to act as if this is an axiom, and not merely the current state of the game, is erroneous.

For me, national troops should not overpower summoned troops. Neither should summoned troops overpower national troops. Until this is true, Dominions will not be a very fun game, for me.

[Huzurdaddi]

Scott Hebert said:
For me, national troops should not overpower summoned troops. Neither should summoned troops overpower national troops. Until this is true, Dominions will not be a very fun game, for me.

In dominions there is only one real investment: research. And research only benifits summons thus it makes sense that over time summons should beat out national troops.

Now the question in my mind is: how badly should summons beat national troops? Currently national troops get pretty spanked.

At least that is how I think of it.

[Saber Cherry]

Huzurdaddi said:
In dominions there is only one real investment: research. And research only benifits summons (snip)

Castles, temples, troop experience, province defense, site-searching, scout-placement, and resource-intensive units are very real investments. It can take a long, long time to build a full army of high-resource units; if they are obselete by the time you build enough for them to be a threat, then they are pointless.

Fortunately, research does not only benefit summons, it just leads to very potent (and sometimes underpriced) summons. There are also spells such as Army of Lead, Mass Protection, Antimagic, and Flaming Arrows that selectively boost recruitable units (who generally have lower MR and zero natural protection, compared to summons); spells such as Wither Bones, Curse, and Paralyze that selectively damage supercombattants or and summons; and so forth.

There are also spells that selectively help summons and supercombattants, and a lot of spells the equally hurt or help both recruits and summons. I'm not trying to start an argument or attack you, but what you just said is a widespread fallacy people have about Dominions, and I want to lay it to rest so it won't cause problems. Let's say... "Research is the only investment with progress bars and sliders" and "Some paths of research lead to powerful summons," which are both true

Now the question in my mind is: how badly should summons beat national troops? Currently national troops get pretty spanked.

But I certainly agree with that. A summon that had to be researched before being used should have advantages over troops available on day one, just as high-resource troops like heavy cavalry should have advantages over light cavalry. Assuming 15g per gem equivalence, and examining (say) Legion of Wights:

In melee combat, a wight is roughly equivalent to 15 chainmail indy heavy infantry, according to my simulation (which does not factor the cold aura).

A Legion of Wights costs 30 gems (or 450 gold).
300 indy chainmail infantry cost 3000 gold.

Wights cost 0 upkeep.
Infantry costs 200 upkeep.

Unlimited hordes of Wights can be made at a lab in a turn (assuming unlimited gems and mages).
A castle pulling 150 resources needs 20 turns to pump out one set of infantry, over which time they pull 2000 gold in salary.

Wights eat 0 food (0 leaders with 0 winebags).
Infantry eat 200 food (8 leaders with 8 winebags, or 40 gems).

Wights need 20 undead leadership (Mound King, 3 gems, 1 turn).
Infantry need 300 leadership (12 indy leaders, 12 turns, 360 gold, 168 resources, 12 food, 24 upkeep)

Wights don't rout.
Infantry do.

Wights have high MR.
Infantry have low MR.

Wights are immune to cold (murdering winter) and poison.
Infantry have no natural immunities.

Wights have 3 strat moves.
Infantry have 1.

Wights have magical weapons that can hit ethereals and cause decay, to which they are immune.
Infantry... don't, can't, and aren't.

Wights get no fatigue, and thus can fight forever, against undead hordes, or dragonflies, or other cheap chaff.
Infantry have encumbrance, stop fighting effectively after about 7 rounds, and fall asleep after 17 rounds... unless their are fatigue spells, heat and cold auras, abnormal province temperatures, or so forth.

Wights can be killed by Dust to Dust and Holy Pyre.
Infantry can be killed by Falling Frost and Foul Vapors.

Wights are vulnerable to Purgatory (Fire 6, Level 7, 60 gems, Dominion only, unlikely to kill a Wight even when hit).
Infantry are vulnerable to Burden of Time (Death 5, Level 5, 70 gems, worldwide, assured kill when hit).

... and the list goes on.


Considering that other spells can be used to selectively help or hurt either one one (though IMO they favor wights), we'll pretend that sort of balances out.

But regardless, as Huzurdaddi said, recruitables get pretty badly spanked. By a huge factor in most categories, and I tried to make the catagories fair. Is that a good thing? I'd prefer to have SOME category when recruitables have SOME clear advantage... but you can't even say availability from turn one is a clear advantage. I might get 300 HI before 1 legion of wights, but I can easily get 4 legions of wights before 4 armies of 300 HI (depending on game settings).

Anyway - I don't like that. I think a lot of summons have costs off by more than a factor of 2, and some might be too strong to have a reasonable price (Devils, IMO, are too strong for cheap low-level summons, and I think the 'too strong' and 'too cheap' parts both need slight changes).

[Boron]

Wights are not a really good example .
By the time you can summon them with the lvl 9 spell most of your opponents should be able to get wither bones casters .
Wither bones kills the wights really so quickly that it is not funny . Especially when cast by lamia queens or Sauromancers .The former is available to almost any nation . Eagle Eyes , Wither Bones x4 , and 1 Relief casting Lamia or Ivy King and your Wights are gone really fast .

Mech Men and the like otoh are very vulnerable to spells that target MR like nether darts etc. .

Imo the only really a bit overpowered summons are the blood summons . FoDs and Devils are uber . And the Devil is strangely the cheapest summon also . Vs the Devil only Air and Cold spells work but holy pyre and the other fire spells don't . Really problematic it gets with soul contract generated devils and with wished blood .
I think there is nothing more cost effective you can do in dominions than clamhoard and then wish for blood . Then you get decent Thugs with the devil leaders from horde to hell , good defense troops with vampires and vampire lords and good + cheap troops with the devil .

With national troops imo unfortunately the supply system is a bit broken . In SP i always play with 500% or 1000% supply multiplikator and 200% resource multiplikator .
The resources are the second unfair thing , ulm and other resource intensive nations have big problems getting lots of troops .
But some national troops that require few resources are really good also , especially the centaur warriors from pangenea and all kinds of missile units with flaming weapons .

Basically Dominions is quite balanced but because of the too serious supply + resource restrictions only resourcecheap nationals are worth being recruited . Zens spell mod does it just right , ghost riders need 6 death instead of 4 to be cast , same for wrathful skies .
If you add a supply x300-500% multiplicator then everything is fine and most national troops are worth being used also .

I always play SP with 15 or 16 impossible AIs , 200% resource multiplicator and 1000% supply multiplicator on a rather small map like karan . It is fun and very often i lose to the ai hordes .
Even with caelum and either doing false horror spamming or thunderstrike squads i got overwhelmed until turn 40 by 3 attacking AIs .

[Saber Cherry]

Boron said:
With national troops imo unfortunately the supply system is a bit broken . In SP i always play with 500% or 1000% supply multiplikator and 200% resource multiplikator.

(snip)

If you add a supply x300-500% multiplicator then everything is fine and most national troops are worth being used also.

Interesting, I'll try that. There are some units that I simply never use (mainly, heavy cavalry sorts) because of resource limitations.

I sort of like starving AI troops because it feels so good to beat a huge army with a little army, but then it probably gives false feedback and reinforces weak tactics

[Saber Cherry]

Tuidjy said:
Ghost Riders are overrated. In my current game, I am overruning C'tis, and he
most certainly has access to Ghost Riders. He used quite a few in the first
turns of the invasion, but what he got was three attacks on one man province
defenses, one or two attacks against SCs that slaughtered the riders, and a few
attacks against mage squads that wiped out the wraith lords, and then mopped up
the riders.

That example...

In that game I am using ONE army of troops. It is made out of more than
a hundred range units, and a mass of banes, wraiths and heavy Abysian infantry.
Their commander has the Gatestone, generates fire gems, and cast 'Flame arrows'
and his 'assistant' SC wears the boots of the planes. It is a great reaction
force, because it can jump around, and be gone even before ghost riders hit.
Not that it always does, of course. It has withstood up to five simultaneous
'ghost rides' with only a few casualties.

...and that example...

...are both irrelevant. Are B-52s weak and ineffective because they didn't win the Vietnam War? No. Sniper rifles, because blind people can't use them? No. Example of devastating weapons used ineffectively do not indicate that they are ineffective or overrated. Perhaps your opponent should invest in scouts?

The problem many people seems to have is that it is insane to rely on vanilla
troops by turn 40.

Yes, I do have a problem with that. It's a fundamental game flaw, IMO, and I'm trying to reduce it, so that the game can be less "Tech Race" like Age of Empires and more "Strategy and Tactics" like real history (prior to WW2). Good fantasy novels also have limits on power. How interesting would the Lord of the Rings be if Sauron skipped the "Build up an army of Orcs" part, since he had level 9 research (and thus, relying on them was insane), and just destroyed the world with long-range magical bombing?

Anything put together with a ounce of thought will wipe out
melee troops. Get rid of Ghost Riders, Wrathful skies, False Horrors and
Super combatants, and I will still be wiping out your groundpounders every time
they are outside of a castle/dome.

If it only takes an ounce of thought to render half of the game irrelevant, even with the most overpowered and commonly-abused spells removed, that's not a good thing. That's a bad thing.

Those who whine about a specific aspect of the game have simply not felt the
sting of other strategies. If they get their way and see their peeve du jour
castrated, they will get slapped with something else, and they will keep
whinning until Dominions II looks and plays like a turnbased Rome: Total War.

Sorry I like to whine, but I prefer it to insulting people. Your last... well, it's not really an argument, just a chance to denigrate people who disagree with you. If Ghost Riders was 1 gem and needed level 1 death magic, virtually everyone would agree that it was undercosted and overpowered... yet your last paragraph would still apply, and thus it is irrelevant. Of course, nerfing something that is so powerful that it dominates gameplay will cause people to start using other strategies. That's the whole point! It makes the game better and more interesting. If the late game is dominated by 5% of the units and spells since they are vastly superior to other uses of resources, and making those 5% expensive enough that they are similar in efficiency to next-best 10% of units and spells... you end up with an end-game where people can effectively use 15% of the units and spells without people like you calling them insane. That makes the end-game three times as rich and three times as good. And, just possibly, it could force people to use more than an ounce of thought to counter experienced elite national melee units. Would that really be such a bad thing?

[Turin]

well tuidjy those are convincing examples. Now everyone just has to build a gatestone for each army and you can simply teleport away. Great counter.
The other is even better: Convince your opponent to send no scouts to your provinces, that forces him to send those riders blindly and therefore they are easily countered.


Boron: Mech men with wrathful skies is a good counter, but that has more to do with wrathfuls awesomeness, than with ghostriders weakness.
Think about the second example with fiends: your army was worth 250+ blood(fiends +ice devil + equipment) + I guess at least 20 gems in equipment. Your opponent sends an army worth 15 gems against that and roughly breaks even(15 gems vs 40 blood) . Now imagine what would have happened to those fiends if he had sent 6 castings.
Devils are only costeffective when you play with unlimited soulcontracts, but having two vastly underpriced spells/items counter each other doesn´t mean that there is balance. If you use pure devil armys from the spells, you will lose if he sends appropriate numbers of ghostriders.

enslavers/charmers can work, but massproduced they are only available to a few nations. Another problem is that they are usually fragile, which means you have to protect them from wrathers, flames from the sky and leprosy.

It´s really not hard to get mass ghostriders.
bloodnations can use vampire lords with a staff(55 blood+7 death gems, everyone else can use demiliches(25 gems) or even moundfiends with staff(35 gems) if their research is limited. c´tis and ermor get mass ghostriders without effort.

[Zen]

Brick: I love lamp.