Welcome back, guys! Let's jump into the daunting task of trying to turn mindless undead into a successful nation, but this time with a decent base! Let me know your favorite strategies with Sceleria, and we'll all try to win a few with 'em!
This video was excellent, informative, to the point whilst also expanding on small nuances. I like the longer format with more in depth discussions, I agree with a previous commenter I like hearing the lore as well, but I understand time is not always permitting so I don't mind missing it. Overall this format and style of video is excellent, it's my favorite so far. Fantastic work I look forward to many more.
Why thank you so much! Really appreciate this specific kind of feedback! I'll use this format more going forward, as it seems to be really more of what people are looking for! Thank you!
Cool to see a death nation. Some of the tips here apply to other nations. Communions and blood get the deep dives since they're so unintuitive and it's nice to see something else. I've been trying my hand at LA Agartha and It's quickly becoming my favorite nation and I'm starting to really like the death nations as a whole. I just love the blindfighters conceptually and as a unit. I was really bad at spending my gems and having someone say "just do reanimation you dingus" does help. Looking forward to more guides.
Haha, glad it helped! Late Age Agartha is a blast, and a really fun nation, but try not to get sucked in by those blindfighters! Too many holes to patch up in my opinion, but that's what's beautiful about this game: literally EVERY view has a place, depending on playstyle!
Fighting Sceleria is a very tough for me. They literally are just a better version of MA Ermor. They enjoy the best of both worlds-and you have to predict which of the two Sceleria paradigms they will invest into more, in order to counter. Or they can do both. Infinite hordes of free undead via reanimator priests, and robust armies of living men supported by strong mages. You can imagine a situation where your anti-undead priest army gets pounced on by an army of living human troops and just gets annihilated. Then they swing the undead army around and you’re defenseless. Brutal. The most annoying part about trying to destroy Sceleria is how they are uniquely incentivized to spam forts.
Sort of. I mean, close enough that it FEELS that way, but Ermor has much better access to magical diversity (as sad as that is haha). I love how Sceleria has those two aspects to them though! Its great seeing the living and dead marching together! Wait until you start mixing "sparse lines" with human troops in between: the humans will filter in between the undead, and so it effectively lengthens their fatigue, because some of them are sitting behind undead waiting for a turn, haha. Its glorious! I've gotten fairly comfortable beating them, when I have to, but I much prefer PICKING them :P
Reaper, I bought Dom Six maybe 3 months ago, really enjoying it, love your videos. if you ever feel up to it, I would enjoy a mid-level play by play on a multi game if that ever makes sense
Oh lord, I can't be teaching people the inner tricks I use with LA Ulm! I think I've won 3 or 4 with them alone... kind of a dangerous animal to let loose, you know? :P
@@tjeisenman4439 Wait, really? Crap - alright I'll crank one out. I love LA Ulm, and I dominate with them in MP when I'm lucky enough not to get coalition rushed. I'll have to put one up for you as soon as I can. Just work getting crazy, so I'm running out of time... all of the bill increases in the US making things crazy out here haha ;)
@@AOReaper duuuuuuude I totally understand but bro it would be awesome and I'd appreciate it. I can never find my groove with them and they're my favorite so ya .... Bad times hehe
This will be useful to help kick my habit of being the sea troll in my MP circle. Still bad at hittin that 20 provinces by turn 10ish mark or whatever people say is ideal though
Love your videos, but is there a reason you don't shift-click to 6 defense? This game has a ton of shortcuts I don't know but that's one of my favorites!
Yes: when I record I very often forget half of the stuff I'm doing, because I'm doing 6 things at once (notepad documents I'm alt-tabbing to, pulling up Dom inspector, etc). Shortcuts are an absolute necessity for me otherwise, and I use them rigorously, but I appreciate the tip regardless! Thanks for the comment!
Slingers are a legit buy for most nations, even from indies! Flaming arrows + forward position does in fact put in some work, I've won wars this way just drumming up hundreds of ranged units from foreign rec to go with national troops by turn 12-15, depending on matchup. However they are a) only situationally useful in combat and b) otherwise give value in that they're a gold-efficient means to break walls. It's hard to think of many nations that need siege chaff LESS than Sceleria, lol. The only time I'd consider is if going full scales Sceleria (not recommended, you're priority #1 in nearly every MP lobby) and having to fight stuff like elves where concentrated sling fire is more likely to pop glamour than your melee front line. That just isn't a realistic scenario in practice...but many other nations get slingers (or indy access even w/o fort), and the rocks are like a crappy evo you can get for 0 mage turns. Versus enemies w/o shields or high prot on significant fraction of their stuff, you can go from "no slingers" to "slingers + other ranged trash summing to 200-300" over the course of a few turns. Note that early on, this is actually dangerous TO Sceleria if you don't have lots of shields, especially with flaming arrows...you need a big critical mass of skeletons for that not to thin you out too much. For bless I like mix of undead command + undying like you mention. Undying gives high priority for heal spell, and you can use N1 indy with thistle mace to cast a bunch of healing touch on the slave battery. Decent % of the indies are sacred, and will take your resist bless if you have it. Until they nerf demilich, it is still a very competitive choice. Teleporting innate caster that's immortal is just so brutal. Right now, you can even block attempts to soul slay it by casting remote attacks into same province, which due to lower MR the soul slays will all target the crappy chaff while you cast multiple wind of deaths or bone grindings (first cast is faster than antimagic). Obviously any anti-rush pretender is worth a hard look too. Stellar cascades is kind of bad because it's only armor piercing. If they pass the MR check and have decent armor, it's too close to a 1:1 trade for fatiguing your mage vs the enemy troops...but more importantly, it's just not that impactful round to round if they can pass the MR check. IMO the most impactful stuff by far is darkness, mass flight, and battlefield wide fog warriors. Due to communion, very few things can thug or SC communion masters on advance and spells since they can just cast drain life and such.
Well my friend, you've missed the change. Slingers can no longer pop glamour, unfortunately. Missiles just ignore the mirror images now, and don't "pop" them. They have to be removed in melee. One of the major nerfs to slinger strategies, and as I mentioned: I know the flaming arrows strats with them (used them myself), but given the lack of use vs glamour now, and their low damage, the situation I find them useful in for Sceleria is essentially nonexistent. Demilich is strong, of course, but I have a sneaking suspicion it will be nerfed somehow at some point, so I'm sort of avoiding playing it. That being said: these guides are aimed at experts (who don't need my opinion on a chassis and understand that some of what I say is hyperbole) and newbies (who REALLY don't need to attempt to figure out a demilich early on hahaha). It takes a lot of finesse, but it IS a strong option! And yes, I mentioned darkness and mass flight somewhere in my research section (either in this one or the Ermor research video I linked). Definitely strong as hell, and oh boy do people hate you when your 1000+ army of skeletons drops on the heads of their mage core hahahaha! I disagree on stellar cascades. IF they make the check, sure it CAN be less effective, but if they don't (arcane finesse can be huge here - as well as our magic scales for a total of -2 effectively) stellar cascades capitalizes on your advantage of untiring troops, and makes it so even your skeletons can win melee wars of attrition. I really like throwing a few in here for this, and with your communion (which I mentioned specifically for this) setup you're not going to be fatiguing at all from it. I do love that you know the "first cast" speed of certain spells vs antimagic. That's one of the things us ol' vets recognize, but its so hard to explain to new players who are just beginning to grasp the basics of mages in combat haha. Still: great tip!
Also: hey, as in relation to my last response to this: the nerf came out today :P Exactly why I tend to avoid emphasizing things that I just have a "sense" are going to be changed in a big way in the future. :)
@@AOReaper I missed the glamour change wrt ranged, that's disappointing. I don't think arrows have been too strong at any point in Dom 5 or 6 (I didn't play 4, but my impression is that the previous turn-based system made projectiles more reliable). I completely agree Sceleria in particular doesn't want/need slingers, but they are still valuable in other nation matchups simply because you can get so many w/o committing fort or commander turns to field them. Hence, if slinger volume of fire has ~DRN 0 odds of hurting a significant fraction of enemy troops, they're worth a look to contribute that + sieging. But again, not for Sceleria. You have plenty of chip damage, more than any other nation before long. IME problem with cascades is that players will put up barkskin or other prot buffs, antimagic, and still have their own armor, so you're (usually) rolling 12.5 + DRN against half their armor + DRN to deal some fatigue damage. That isn't USELESS, but runs afoul of opportunity cost. Even if we ignore cap-only mage options, astral death lets us pick from the following: - Star fires (when friendlies aren't nearby) - more actual damage vs 15-20 prot + MR than cascades deals fatigue damage. - Shadow/nether bolt - guaranteed damage component + MRN effects - Leeching darkness - as a cloud effect this is no joke and very competitive as a DRN option Also ignores shadow blast (uses a gem) and higher tech than cascades. These things all tend to do more damage per cast than cascades can do in fatigue damage even with its AoE advantage, and due to concentrating that damage, is more likely to remove stuff from the battlefield as a threat sooner. Further building against cascades: the kinds of things your skeletons will struggle to kill also tend to resist the fatiguing effect from cascades for various reasons. However, those kinds of elite troops are less likely to resist straight up unlife damage (even if they pass the MR check) and things like drain life, which Sceleria can also do easily.
@@AOReaper True, though it seems they went for blanket cost increase to immortals (making the non-demilich options go from bad to worse in viability). Demilich itself, while it costs more, still seems like a valid option since its magic phase attack game remains devastating. It just results in reasonably 1-2 scale(s) worse to pick it. Since it does not help with expansion, it would likely be taken dormant or imprisoned though, and is thus still worth a look for Sceleria due to its coverage + ability to severely screw with big fights before they happen.
@@TheMelnTeam Yea, the glamour changes were odd, but kind of accomplish what they were originally designed to do better. Kind of glad for it, but yea: makes the slinger trick much weaker. Slingers have some purposes, but they're VERY high risk, low/medium reward for the simple fact of HP routing numbers. I LOVE facing somebody with hordes of slingers, specifically because its somebody that is doing something specific (flaming slings) and I can counter it easily (just more armor) and then I can capitalize (large fear based casts to catch at least a bunch of them - or AOE spell that deletes 5 squares of them per turn and forces battlefield wide morale checks). I don't think the place isn't there, its just VERY niche/specific, and has huge downsides. You aren't wrong in that way about cascades. Certainly when we get to level 8/9 spells for battlefield wide prot buffs they lose their potency, but what makes them strong is that they're online REALLY early for some nations, and have a great place there, and the AOE makes it easier to target living hordes designed to counter undead hordes. Elite troops are ordinarily better to target with specific target astral spells, because of their low numbers (but that goes without saying). Undead (immune) vs humans with medium prot = useful. When the humans ramp up their spells: you do as well, and change tactics from cascades -> star fires, or something more widespread (etc etc). I've personally won a game ~year 6 or so, spamming cascades via communion (thank you Ind!) all throughout the game, only changing when it fit the scenario. The spell is certainly very strong, and has a great place, but obviously it can't cover specific tactics to counter it, which is why everything in dominions has a counter ;) It also is VERY dependent on your current research levels, because leeching darkness (for example) is trans 5, not evocation 5, so its impossible if you went Trans 1, Conj 3, Evo 5 (for example), so all of these spells have a place, with similar situations, but it depends almost entirely on your research vs your opponents, and the exact armies at play.
The fact so many mages just need "Random damage Protection" is kinda silly and absurd in regards of just. "It is signifigant if a faction just has tanky mages."
Well, you have to change your approach of thinking towards this I believe. You probably watch enough guides that you think we all take +10 all resist on every bless: far from it. 90% of the time I take 1-2 of the ele blesses I take, and ignore the rest to be able to afford something else. Example: if I'm playing Sceleria vs abysia, Ashdod and Ulm, there's no way I'm going to take a cold resistance bless, or even a poison one. I'll just raise that fire resist to +15, and then possibly some reinvig and even morale to counter specific blood/fire based things they're going to do. This is all just a set of guidelines in which I try to cover all of the good angles to start thinking about when you're approaching combat. Most of the time: spells can counter spells, as long as you script them carefully enough. Hope that helps!
I wish this game had some feature to play horde nations better Haveing to send dudes out to collect skeletons is so mind numbing Also MA CTis mentiomed yay
Couldn't agree more. Honestly, the worst part about Dominions in general seems to be (at least from what people tell me) the micro-management crap of later turns. I get it: believe me (I am a huge Ermor player). If they found a way to fix that (I've seen games like Heroes Hour that let troops walk without a commander, at the risk of being killed easily if caught), I think it would help a LOT.
@AOReaper i feel like the guys that make Dominions get lost in the details Wpunds are fun on commanders but how many heavy cav are rendered useless cus the horse becomes limp? I always just stop playing when my turns take whole minutes just moving troops I love how much there it, truly but some QOL fwatures are sorely needes
@@JanJansen985 100% in agreement. I'm a deep "technical thinker" when it comes to gaming, and I love deep-diving mechanics and rules, and maximizing my odds of success, but when you combine a requirement of a mind to be like that (like Dom does) and then you add in tedious micromanagement of ferrying troops around (mentally braindead) you make the game more niche than it needs to be, because it takes a special kind of mind to enjoy BOTH, haha. Out of all of the youtubers, and gamers I chat with about Dominions, I've never yet found somebody who enjoys both the deep thinking aspect AND the monotonous micromanagement.
Well, at least for me that spell is FAR too niche to really mention. It applies insane reinvig to the caster, but only targets "mindFUL" troops and commanders, so it specifically targets its "own" style of troop. Its only really great against, for example, undead hordes - but it won't target them (mindless), so it gets really tough to script unless you scout spy your enemy army and know exactly what you're up against. If you have an entirely mindless army, and are against the living: could be great, but now you've got to get somebody to handle a 500 fatigue monster spell, for 5 astral PER CAST, which is brutal, and then its MR negates, which is fairly easy for many to avoid. Requires investment of items to boost penetration, etc. so it becomes HUGE risk, medium reward for you. It truly could work out in SOME situations, but far too niche to make a core part of your strategy, unless you really go super deep on it. That being said: I've seen people work magic with less! If this is your specialty, show me how to put it together, and post a video (link it here, and I'll be glad to go back and forth with you on improving the strategy/etc). Would love to do collaboration like that! Make us all elevate our games!
You lose mein Freund... sorry about that :P Should've checked this video before you fought our undead brothers. OR just join us... undeath is quite fun!
Very good idea! With the Divine emperor though, its REALLY easy to throw boosting items on him, so I don't worry about hitting super high numbers. Forgive my spelling if I mess anything up, my keyboard keys are going out haha.
Mwahaha, keep it a little known secret! Now that they even nerfed asphodel, our free-spawn (and pseudo freespawn) nations are being beaten down, but I secretly believe this patch was specifically for me hahaha.
Any nation that gains massive benefit from "away from cap" recruitment is a win in my book. Sceleria can have great income, but also an undead chaff production that rivals Ermor. Their magical diversity is an issue, but they have easy communion setup to cover for these holes. Once you get forts up everywhere, and produce the SUPER cheap cultists every turn, each cultist produces ~7 longdead per turn, forever. And given their cheap cost, its REALLY cheap to have infinite armies, and spend nearly ALL of your income on diplomacy or building more infrastructure. REALLY hard to deal with if allowed to set up.
For the expansion turn 2 I wound's have go to the horses for 30 horses I wouldn't try to get around 80-90 legionnaires. I now expanding slower and get less attrition you seem weaker and you're in a better position for your first wars. the militia then barbarians would have been my pick
Welcome back, guys! Let's jump into the daunting task of trying to turn mindless undead into a successful nation, but this time with a decent base! Let me know your favorite strategies with Sceleria, and we'll all try to win a few with 'em!
I better see a battle vestal bless
@@JanJansen985 Oh hells hahaha! Maybe I'll have to make one on my next pretender creation video, just to give you crap :P
I forgot to mention i like hearing the lore
Balls! I'll have to focus on the lore next time: my apologies!
This video was excellent, informative, to the point whilst also expanding on small nuances. I like the longer format with more in depth discussions, I agree with a previous commenter I like hearing the lore as well, but I understand time is not always permitting so I don't mind missing it. Overall this format and style of video is excellent, it's my favorite so far. Fantastic work I look forward to many more.
Why thank you so much! Really appreciate this specific kind of feedback! I'll use this format more going forward, as it seems to be really more of what people are looking for!
Thank you!
Cool to see a death nation. Some of the tips here apply to other nations. Communions and blood get the deep dives since they're so unintuitive and it's nice to see something else.
I've been trying my hand at LA Agartha and It's quickly becoming my favorite nation and I'm starting to really like the death nations as a whole. I just love the blindfighters conceptually and as a unit. I was really bad at spending my gems and having someone say "just do reanimation you dingus" does help. Looking forward to more guides.
Haha, glad it helped! Late Age Agartha is a blast, and a really fun nation, but try not to get sucked in by those blindfighters! Too many holes to patch up in my opinion, but that's what's beautiful about this game: literally EVERY view has a place, depending on playstyle!
Great video! never played multiplayer before but i love watchin the vids.
Fighting Sceleria is a very tough for me. They literally are just a better version of MA Ermor. They enjoy the best of both worlds-and you have to predict which of the two Sceleria paradigms they will invest into more, in order to counter. Or they can do both. Infinite hordes of free undead via reanimator priests, and robust armies of living men supported by strong mages. You can imagine a situation where your anti-undead priest army gets pounced on by an army of living human troops and just gets annihilated. Then they swing the undead army around and you’re defenseless. Brutal. The most annoying part about trying to destroy Sceleria is how they are uniquely incentivized to spam forts.
Sort of. I mean, close enough that it FEELS that way, but Ermor has much better access to magical diversity (as sad as that is haha).
I love how Sceleria has those two aspects to them though! Its great seeing the living and dead marching together! Wait until you start mixing "sparse lines" with human troops in between: the humans will filter in between the undead, and so it effectively lengthens their fatigue, because some of them are sitting behind undead waiting for a turn, haha. Its glorious!
I've gotten fairly comfortable beating them, when I have to, but I much prefer PICKING them :P
Reaper, I bought Dom Six maybe 3 months ago, really enjoying it, love your videos. if you ever feel up to it, I would enjoy a mid-level play by play on a multi game if that ever makes sense
So, you've finally discovered the OP nation. Now we just need to know how to beat them. ; )
Commmmmme on la ULM 😂 I know you got it in ya :)
Oh lord, I can't be teaching people the inner tricks I use with LA Ulm! I think I've won 3 or 4 with them alone... kind of a dangerous animal to let loose, you know? :P
@AOReaper damn I can't find a good video on them and I struggle bad with them
@@tjeisenman4439 Wait, really? Crap - alright I'll crank one out. I love LA Ulm, and I dominate with them in MP when I'm lucky enough not to get coalition rushed. I'll have to put one up for you as soon as I can. Just work getting crazy, so I'm running out of time... all of the bill increases in the US making things crazy out here haha ;)
@@AOReaper duuuuuuude I totally understand but bro it would be awesome and I'd appreciate it. I can never find my groove with them and they're my favorite so ya .... Bad times hehe
@@tjeisenman4439 I gotcha. I'll leap in as soon as I can!
This will be useful to help kick my habit of being the sea troll in my MP circle. Still bad at hittin that 20 provinces by turn 10ish mark or whatever people say is ideal though
Love your videos, but is there a reason you don't shift-click to 6 defense? This game has a ton of shortcuts I don't know but that's one of my favorites!
Yes: when I record I very often forget half of the stuff I'm doing, because I'm doing 6 things at once (notepad documents I'm alt-tabbing to, pulling up Dom inspector, etc). Shortcuts are an absolute necessity for me otherwise, and I use them rigorously, but I appreciate the tip regardless! Thanks for the comment!
Slingers are a legit buy for most nations, even from indies! Flaming arrows + forward position does in fact put in some work, I've won wars this way just drumming up hundreds of ranged units from foreign rec to go with national troops by turn 12-15, depending on matchup.
However they are a) only situationally useful in combat and b) otherwise give value in that they're a gold-efficient means to break walls. It's hard to think of many nations that need siege chaff LESS than Sceleria, lol. The only time I'd consider is if going full scales Sceleria (not recommended, you're priority #1 in nearly every MP lobby) and having to fight stuff like elves where concentrated sling fire is more likely to pop glamour than your melee front line.
That just isn't a realistic scenario in practice...but many other nations get slingers (or indy access even w/o fort), and the rocks are like a crappy evo you can get for 0 mage turns. Versus enemies w/o shields or high prot on significant fraction of their stuff, you can go from "no slingers" to "slingers + other ranged trash summing to 200-300" over the course of a few turns. Note that early on, this is actually dangerous TO Sceleria if you don't have lots of shields, especially with flaming arrows...you need a big critical mass of skeletons for that not to thin you out too much.
For bless I like mix of undead command + undying like you mention. Undying gives high priority for heal spell, and you can use N1 indy with thistle mace to cast a bunch of healing touch on the slave battery. Decent % of the indies are sacred, and will take your resist bless if you have it.
Until they nerf demilich, it is still a very competitive choice. Teleporting innate caster that's immortal is just so brutal. Right now, you can even block attempts to soul slay it by casting remote attacks into same province, which due to lower MR the soul slays will all target the crappy chaff while you cast multiple wind of deaths or bone grindings (first cast is faster than antimagic). Obviously any anti-rush pretender is worth a hard look too.
Stellar cascades is kind of bad because it's only armor piercing. If they pass the MR check and have decent armor, it's too close to a 1:1 trade for fatiguing your mage vs the enemy troops...but more importantly, it's just not that impactful round to round if they can pass the MR check. IMO the most impactful stuff by far is darkness, mass flight, and battlefield wide fog warriors. Due to communion, very few things can thug or SC communion masters on advance and spells since they can just cast drain life and such.
Well my friend, you've missed the change. Slingers can no longer pop glamour, unfortunately. Missiles just ignore the mirror images now, and don't "pop" them. They have to be removed in melee. One of the major nerfs to slinger strategies, and as I mentioned: I know the flaming arrows strats with them (used them myself), but given the lack of use vs glamour now, and their low damage, the situation I find them useful in for Sceleria is essentially nonexistent.
Demilich is strong, of course, but I have a sneaking suspicion it will be nerfed somehow at some point, so I'm sort of avoiding playing it. That being said: these guides are aimed at experts (who don't need my opinion on a chassis and understand that some of what I say is hyperbole) and newbies (who REALLY don't need to attempt to figure out a demilich early on hahaha). It takes a lot of finesse, but it IS a strong option!
And yes, I mentioned darkness and mass flight somewhere in my research section (either in this one or the Ermor research video I linked). Definitely strong as hell, and oh boy do people hate you when your 1000+ army of skeletons drops on the heads of their mage core hahahaha!
I disagree on stellar cascades. IF they make the check, sure it CAN be less effective, but if they don't (arcane finesse can be huge here - as well as our magic scales for a total of -2 effectively) stellar cascades capitalizes on your advantage of untiring troops, and makes it so even your skeletons can win melee wars of attrition. I really like throwing a few in here for this, and with your communion (which I mentioned specifically for this) setup you're not going to be fatiguing at all from it.
I do love that you know the "first cast" speed of certain spells vs antimagic. That's one of the things us ol' vets recognize, but its so hard to explain to new players who are just beginning to grasp the basics of mages in combat haha. Still: great tip!
Also: hey, as in relation to my last response to this: the nerf came out today :P Exactly why I tend to avoid emphasizing things that I just have a "sense" are going to be changed in a big way in the future. :)
@@AOReaper I missed the glamour change wrt ranged, that's disappointing. I don't think arrows have been too strong at any point in Dom 5 or 6 (I didn't play 4, but my impression is that the previous turn-based system made projectiles more reliable).
I completely agree Sceleria in particular doesn't want/need slingers, but they are still valuable in other nation matchups simply because you can get so many w/o committing fort or commander turns to field them. Hence, if slinger volume of fire has ~DRN 0 odds of hurting a significant fraction of enemy troops, they're worth a look to contribute that + sieging. But again, not for Sceleria. You have plenty of chip damage, more than any other nation before long.
IME problem with cascades is that players will put up barkskin or other prot buffs, antimagic, and still have their own armor, so you're (usually) rolling 12.5 + DRN against half their armor + DRN to deal some fatigue damage. That isn't USELESS, but runs afoul of opportunity cost. Even if we ignore cap-only mage options, astral death lets us pick from the following:
- Star fires (when friendlies aren't nearby) - more actual damage vs 15-20 prot + MR than cascades deals fatigue damage.
- Shadow/nether bolt - guaranteed damage component + MRN effects
- Leeching darkness - as a cloud effect this is no joke and very competitive as a DRN option
Also ignores shadow blast (uses a gem) and higher tech than cascades. These things all tend to do more damage per cast than cascades can do in fatigue damage even with its AoE advantage, and due to concentrating that damage, is more likely to remove stuff from the battlefield as a threat sooner. Further building against cascades: the kinds of things your skeletons will struggle to kill also tend to resist the fatiguing effect from cascades for various reasons. However, those kinds of elite troops are less likely to resist straight up unlife damage (even if they pass the MR check) and things like drain life, which Sceleria can also do easily.
@@AOReaper True, though it seems they went for blanket cost increase to immortals (making the non-demilich options go from bad to worse in viability). Demilich itself, while it costs more, still seems like a valid option since its magic phase attack game remains devastating. It just results in reasonably 1-2 scale(s) worse to pick it. Since it does not help with expansion, it would likely be taken dormant or imprisoned though, and is thus still worth a look for Sceleria due to its coverage + ability to severely screw with big fights before they happen.
@@TheMelnTeam Yea, the glamour changes were odd, but kind of accomplish what they were originally designed to do better. Kind of glad for it, but yea: makes the slinger trick much weaker.
Slingers have some purposes, but they're VERY high risk, low/medium reward for the simple fact of HP routing numbers. I LOVE facing somebody with hordes of slingers, specifically because its somebody that is doing something specific (flaming slings) and I can counter it easily (just more armor) and then I can capitalize (large fear based casts to catch at least a bunch of them - or AOE spell that deletes 5 squares of them per turn and forces battlefield wide morale checks). I don't think the place isn't there, its just VERY niche/specific, and has huge downsides.
You aren't wrong in that way about cascades. Certainly when we get to level 8/9 spells for battlefield wide prot buffs they lose their potency, but what makes them strong is that they're online REALLY early for some nations, and have a great place there, and the AOE makes it easier to target living hordes designed to counter undead hordes. Elite troops are ordinarily better to target with specific target astral spells, because of their low numbers (but that goes without saying). Undead (immune) vs humans with medium prot = useful. When the humans ramp up their spells: you do as well, and change tactics from cascades -> star fires, or something more widespread (etc etc). I've personally won a game ~year 6 or so, spamming cascades via communion (thank you Ind!) all throughout the game, only changing when it fit the scenario. The spell is certainly very strong, and has a great place, but obviously it can't cover specific tactics to counter it, which is why everything in dominions has a counter ;) It also is VERY dependent on your current research levels, because leeching darkness (for example) is trans 5, not evocation 5, so its impossible if you went Trans 1, Conj 3, Evo 5 (for example), so all of these spells have a place, with similar situations, but it depends almost entirely on your research vs your opponents, and the exact armies at play.
The fact so many mages just need "Random damage Protection" is kinda silly and absurd in regards of just. "It is signifigant if a faction just has tanky mages."
Well, you have to change your approach of thinking towards this I believe. You probably watch enough guides that you think we all take +10 all resist on every bless: far from it. 90% of the time I take 1-2 of the ele blesses I take, and ignore the rest to be able to afford something else. Example: if I'm playing Sceleria vs abysia, Ashdod and Ulm, there's no way I'm going to take a cold resistance bless, or even a poison one. I'll just raise that fire resist to +15, and then possibly some reinvig and even morale to counter specific blood/fire based things they're going to do. This is all just a set of guidelines in which I try to cover all of the good angles to start thinking about when you're approaching combat. Most of the time: spells can counter spells, as long as you script them carefully enough.
Hope that helps!
I wish this game had some feature to play horde nations better
Haveing to send dudes out to collect skeletons is so mind numbing
Also MA CTis mentiomed yay
Couldn't agree more. Honestly, the worst part about Dominions in general seems to be (at least from what people tell me) the micro-management crap of later turns. I get it: believe me (I am a huge Ermor player). If they found a way to fix that (I've seen games like Heroes Hour that let troops walk without a commander, at the risk of being killed easily if caught), I think it would help a LOT.
@AOReaper i feel like the guys that make Dominions get lost in the details
Wpunds are fun on commanders but how many heavy cav are rendered useless cus the horse becomes limp?
I always just stop playing when my turns take whole minutes just moving troops
I love how much there it, truly but some QOL fwatures are sorely needes
@@JanJansen985 100% in agreement. I'm a deep "technical thinker" when it comes to gaming, and I love deep-diving mechanics and rules, and maximizing my odds of success, but when you combine a requirement of a mind to be like that (like Dom does) and then you add in tedious micromanagement of ferrying troops around (mentally braindead) you make the game more niche than it needs to be, because it takes a special kind of mind to enjoy BOTH, haha. Out of all of the youtubers, and gamers I chat with about Dominions, I've never yet found somebody who enjoys both the deep thinking aspect AND the monotonous micromanagement.
Crazy how nobody mentions that a5 d5 battlefield drain spell 😢
Well, at least for me that spell is FAR too niche to really mention. It applies insane reinvig to the caster, but only targets "mindFUL" troops and commanders, so it specifically targets its "own" style of troop. Its only really great against, for example, undead hordes - but it won't target them (mindless), so it gets really tough to script unless you scout spy your enemy army and know exactly what you're up against.
If you have an entirely mindless army, and are against the living: could be great, but now you've got to get somebody to handle a 500 fatigue monster spell, for 5 astral PER CAST, which is brutal, and then its MR negates, which is fairly easy for many to avoid. Requires investment of items to boost penetration, etc. so it becomes HUGE risk, medium reward for you. It truly could work out in SOME situations, but far too niche to make a core part of your strategy, unless you really go super deep on it.
That being said: I've seen people work magic with less! If this is your specialty, show me how to put it together, and post a video (link it here, and I'll be glad to go back and forth with you on improving the strategy/etc). Would love to do collaboration like that! Make us all elevate our games!
I prefer geting conj3 first just to be safe then go to construction to help the research and it's true for most nations
the only exception is for the awake expander that need a specific spell
Yep, if I see neighboring opponents who look tasty, or hungry, I tend to prioritize conj as well. Enchant is greedy.
Bros... Sceleria has 40 forts and infinite skellies, what do?
You lose mein Freund... sorry about that :P Should've checked this video before you fought our undead brothers. OR just join us... undeath is quite fun!
I like to have d6 on my pretender well of misery consideration d5 if he can hold a weapon
Very good idea! With the Divine emperor though, its REALLY easy to throw boosting items on him, so I don't worry about hitting super high numbers. Forgive my spelling if I mess anything up, my keyboard keys are going out haha.
Misfortune ohhh noes lol
Oh brother, you know its going to end epically badly with my luck hahaha.
neat!
Why they did not up the cost of this 90 point pretender when they just increased some others today I do not know
Mwahaha, keep it a little known secret! Now that they even nerfed asphodel, our free-spawn (and pseudo freespawn) nations are being beaten down, but I secretly believe this patch was specifically for me hahaha.
Why one the strongest nation
Any nation that gains massive benefit from "away from cap" recruitment is a win in my book. Sceleria can have great income, but also an undead chaff production that rivals Ermor. Their magical diversity is an issue, but they have easy communion setup to cover for these holes. Once you get forts up everywhere, and produce the SUPER cheap cultists every turn, each cultist produces ~7 longdead per turn, forever. And given their cheap cost, its REALLY cheap to have infinite armies, and spend nearly ALL of your income on diplomacy or building more infrastructure. REALLY hard to deal with if allowed to set up.
For the expansion turn 2 I wound's have go to the horses for 30 horses I wouldn't try to get around 80-90 legionnaires. I now expanding slower and get less attrition you seem weaker and you're in a better position for your first wars. the militia then barbarians would have been my pick
you got lucky whit the defense of the farm land so you end up been right whit your choice of expansion :)
@@skoub3466 Mwahaha :) I prefer the practical to the theoretical :P