You would be correct in that it's pretty much useless. It's generally useful for getting through walls (not the case here), and useful for shadowboxing myself if the demilich has earthquake (he can't get me here unless he senses the attack coming and magic phases me in the open).

This particular series is recorded out, and yeah I can try doing multi-turn episodes in the future. I'm an intermediate player on my end who has been doing multiplayer about 2 years now so I'd probably consider watching this after other more experienced players. Hopefully we start getting regular uploads from those more experienced players as well. I still think some fun things happen in this game though so I'm looking forward to what people think. I also pre-watch my stuff on 1.5x or 2x before posting because I talk really slow so that'd be a pretty normal way to view as well I think. In terms of coverage, it's a balance. I try to scroll through the scripting on big fights so people can see what's being cast, and I try to bring attention to aspects I think are important without overdoing it. Hopefully it's a understandable balance. Another thing is sometimes people are listening with the episodes on in the background via the playlist so I try to describe things in a way where they don't always have to be watching to understand what's going on. So when I'm scrolling through the spells and reading what you can clearly see for yourself it's partially for that reason. I've gotten requests to both skip obvious raid results and not skip them, and to go over things more and less. I've settled on trying to at least pull them up so newer players can see formations. The thing I do for experienced or time constrained players is only title big battles so you could watch the core of a series in just a few episodes.

Hopefully the book wasn't annoying. Appreciate the comment!

He may have been worried about vulturing pressures is my guess so he wanted to clean up his backlines and keep his stack together. People keep taking chunks of him. Definitely the most damaging move to Abysia would be pressuring that Tree.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the pop caps on provinces either. I understand people didn't like how strong growth was over a full game, but there are so many tools to hurt population that it really didn't feel overpowered to me vs taking death scales for pretender design points. I'd rather had dumping scales give more points than nerfing yet another scaling mechanic. The game has spells to nuke both provincial and global populations to turn things into a gem game, and no spells that directly add population. Instead the positive spells increase the growth rate of existing populations, but an increased growth rate of a province hit by Armageddon, pillage, Black Death etc. won't be recovering any time soon since the starting point will be so much lower. If anything people were buffing growth scales in mods in dominions 5 with mods like regrowth so that nerf kind of came out of left field.

​​@@DarkSideCookiesI think it's actually not exactly a nerf. Growth now goes up to +5, and you can get there with Thrones and globals; also the default state of a plains province is effectively +1 growth over its scales. (Rivers also now give a growth bonus). I really like the reversion to the mean aspects of it; if you take death scales, it'll eventually slow down (e.g., cap loses a point of density penalty at 37500), and similarly with growth. But it's really subtle: it takes on average 70 turns from a random starting population to cross one of those thresholds, even with growth/death 3, because they're spaced quite far apart. The only thing I don't like is the lack of national survival traits limiting the penalty; like Ubar should be happier than average in their waste.

@@DemonsthenesDominions I think the crossover point is frequently much faster from bad events isn't it? Could be some bad luck on my end, but I feel like I lose tons of pop to events when I take death. Yeah, I wish there was more national help. Abysia gets it I believe so why not Hinnom and Na'Ba? Part of the unlimited growth thing is nostalgia for me as well. When I did single player and played to turn 200+ I enjoyed seeing my cap become a sort of new Rome at around 80k pop.

​@@DarkSideCookiesyeah Death has a bunch of popkill events. Less than misfortune does with its barbarians... But Death/Luck combination seems ok.

@@DemonsthenesDominions Yeah, you just don't gain design points rolling that :( Luck 3 is so nice when you can get it now though. It feels buffed, but I don't know if it's a placebo effect.

Your suggestion for that Houri is better than what I end up trying to use her for.

100% agree

I do plan to! I think they make a little better thug chassis than a Shaytan

It's mostly scheduled out at this point. If you want me to slow down I certainly can so we stay more on par :)

@@DarkSideCookies Nah it's fine, I'll try to use it as a motivation to get shit done myself.

It's tricky including manikins in siege defenses since they'll hp route your army before the elite troops die in most cases. Next war for the early mid game and mid game is probably still sacreds + camels, but with better magic support. It's going to take time to really scale the blood economy.

I think he was just outnumbered. 2v1s are extremely hard, and I've died before on the receiving end of them as well. The biggest "mistake" I saw was in not realizing his northern fort was lost and withdrawing those troops back to his capital for a concentrated defense.

Yeah, it can really be a disruptive ability for achieving surprise

Yeah, with the borders I've got at this moment. It'd have to be Man, Vanarus, Pyrene, or Abysia. I think my most favorable matchup is Abysia right now, but I'm willing to see how his war with Bandar plays out first since I anticipate they'll both take attrition. Those Tiger Riders have done nothing but win so far this game. I'm definitely on the lookout for more territory though

Storm Demons are the initial blood summon I'm planning for as my first blood 9 because Pyrene has Demon Knights so I was looking for something to kind of counter them. They also have high map move similar to devils, and make for great blood hunting patrollers. Shaytan though are the premier blood summon for Na'Ba, and can be geared to do Devils or Storm Demons within reason. Vampire Lords can do Fiends of Darkness as well with enough boosters, and I think those fit the stealthy part of the Na'Ba roster really well. The other Na'Ba summons like Ifrit (great army thugs) and Ghullah (interesting assassins and sabbath turbo comm batteries) are also planned for but after Shaytan. The final piece of a big blood eco is the ability to control territory through 3 Red Seconds. Late game army movements often require magic phase forts to prevent excessive gem burning. Generally fire gems are one of the less popular gem types so I was hopeful to keep trading for them if needed. This lobby had tremendous demand for Nature and Glamor (3 nations vying over Mother Oak and Man/Vanarus for Glamor). If I couldn't get fire gems by trading, I would have had to spend less fire on gear to compensate. Gems for army spending comes first -> gear -> summons is my general sort of priority list for gems except I would really want one Marid to break into A4.

I haven't looked into that aspect too much. A few turns prior I miscounted, and had extra units in a province though. I had False God pull up that turn, and he just saw a handful of Militia. I view that as a lucky break for myself since he didn't see my Garnets that turn. Outside of that, I haven't looked into that portion. I'm also not sure if it looks at units in order saving something like glamor for last. Veil Army would protect hunting in forted provinces, and I'll eventually figure out to only put garnets in forts as long as I'm wanting to keep the effort hidden. I don't think neighbors seeing a ghullah or shaytan is the end of the world for unforted hunting since people expect to eventually see those units wandering around. Also, for some reason many people don't look at what their scouts see when they get patrolled out so you can get lucky as well. Something I'd be curious to check is if Veil Army prioritizes commanders. That would be especially powerful.

It's a valid set of questions too. I potentially could have saved a fair amount of gear or malikah availability for combat by testing that.

I've already started doing trades to try and fill in the gap, and I plan to continue doing that. It's a very disappointing fire gem income though :(

If it makes you feel better, you lost in my original recording.

@@DarkSideCookies It probably was the same as the one I had. Sigh.

@@-Kidzin Yeah probably

Yeah, fighting Ballin around now or sometime soon would have been a good move on my part.

Dominions is a game with some floor, but it isn't very bad if you're just playing against the AI. Certain hotkeys make the experience a lot better. Dominions 6 is still ironing some stuff out, but the quality of life improvements are very much worth it imo. I'd try out 5 some more, and if you like it enough to want to play multiplayer then get 6.

Yup! Time to get that blood eco rolling, and hit some greedier scaling research milestones. I normally like starting it after first wars though I know other people do different timings with it.

Some day I'll figure out an elf thug that can survive the back lines.

@@DarkSideCookies Wouldn't the best thug be one with mirror image, mistform, astral shield, and etheral?

@@jamesbeus598 Mirror Image is included in the chassis because the thug has glamor so we don't need to cast that, Mistform would have required giving him a gem since he's only A1 but it would have been a big improvement, I don't think I can fluff astral shield from a Mukarrib onto an F1A1G2 thug, and he did get fluffed with Ethereal. So that's pretty close I think to what it needed to be. Script was Air Shield -> Resist Cold -> Personal Luck -> Windrunner -> Protection from Lightning Air Shield probably was in case of large rocks, Resist Cold was for Jotun auras, Personal Luck was to help with boulders too, Windrunner was a mistake a think due to the thug having fatigue issues, Protection from Lightning was to help him survive the whip I gave him. Unfortunately, I think I needed him to just fail a morale check and flee, but he didn't.

The most well scouted disaster in the game it seems haha I'll be curious to see if Pyrene scouts it too

I try, but I make so mistakes all the time. Still feeling lots of room to improve is part of the allure of Dominions for me too

Yeah, it's just a change I'd like to see in general. Not sure why it's proving more difficult to implement.

The buzzing is a fan or my AC running in a different room. It happens when I screw up my sound settings like input sensitivity and forget to put an OBS filter. Put it too low and you hear buzzing, and put the setting too high and my voice cuts out all the time. I need to do more quality checks as I record so I don't end up giving myself a choice of losing 3-6 hours of recording and redoing things potentially on a different patch, or shipping the disappointing audio.

Yeah, probably a missed opportunity on my part not trading for his fire gem income and sending him something he could have used more where he could have crowdsourced a kit for titan.

Timing out fights is very hard in Dom6 as you lose all buff if the fight goes long enough, so just a ring of regen would not have been enough. A good full kit might have done it though.

@@Kris_Lighthawk Yeah, with enough kit the titan might recast some buffs too in twilight given this was vanilla casting ai

Thank you for the feedback!

I'd be okay with that. I can make them myself for 3A as well. The difference is now he has 0A instead of 2A profit unless he has someone else willing to buy that turn.

@@DarkSideCookies it's turn 28, it's not as though he is swimming in hammers, and mage turns are still highly valuable. I'd rather spend my hammers turns doing something else and my mage researching than give a scaling enemy 3 gem quills.

@@seanz6274 Yeah, then we wouldn't do the trade then, and that's okay. I'm not willing to profit a scaling enemy 4A for 4x as many quills in this particular case since I have my own hammers and air mages so this is only saving me a mage turn.

Thank you again for the feedback! Good to hear this one came through well

Yeah, I always get more upset at myself when I lose mages like that than anything my opponents ever do.

He's leading about half the troops. If there was a battle outside when I wanted to storm, I didn't want all my troops on one general. He gives +2 leadership and the prophet gives +1. But yeah, there's definitely some concern he might die.

Were you starving? Edit: I see now after you explained. It would seem as though I'm starving pretty badly haha I blame your influence!

I may have some time to try and rerecord some of these turns soon so if I pause uploads it'll probably be due to that. Thank you for the feedback!

Yeah, I was feeling pretty confident about this war mostly because Pyrene did all the heavy lifting. I'm definitely going to make some mistakes in the mid game which I think you'll notice as well.

Some drawbacks, but it's really intriguing and can save me a diplo malice.

Thank you for the info. They feel really weak right now. I think I'd be okay with them staying the same form for all their hp, or starting with a bit more. Maybe I'm just used to how they were prior though.

Thank you for the math!

I was pretty surprised as well. I think there's interplay between my 20 defense and his 13 attack (before blood surge), and my 14 attack and his 16/10 defense on his Tiger Riders. My guys also have a better shield, but I still thought he'd stomp me before the test game. The X factor was the Body Ethereal spam iFlyte showed. I think that would tilt it decisively in his favor since it negates damage, but my guys would still get harassed down. I think I lose even if I match his buff coverage if I understand it right.

I generally don't start spinning up blood until after a first war because I want my troops and mages fighting rather than patrolling. So it might be a little bit longer.

I should be able to do better than that, but yeah Pyrene has already put it under control!

I'm getting some of the sword guys to mix in with the Jann Guard. I want a critical mass to overwhelm his sacreds with. You're close on the number of astral mages. I'd view 8 as a minimum, but I want 12ish astral mages total for a Soul Slay communion. 8 Soul Slays a round for 4 rounds should do a lot of work. The archers are a great strength for Na'Ba, but they have an insane resource cost that I just can't mass unfortunately. Something I'd have to do in peace time.

Yeah, I normally start posting much sooner, but I wanted to preserve the secrecy of those garnets for as long as possible. I'm running more foreign rec at the moment in terms of labs, but I do plan to get more forts online soon mostly to get better access to the rest of my mage lineup. They're just really expensive giant forts. 2-4 unforted labs for Na'Ba is basically a fort anyways depending on what you're comparing it to though you're limited to the hermit sahir. I do still want Panuonia, but iFlyte has only won battles from what I've seen so far so I have no plans to antagonize him or prompt an all in from in on the eve of war with the Jotuns.

The desert has always been a cannot lose location. I'd fight a war with anyone over those garnets. Jotun's are indeed scary. I think they could beat me 1v1 at this point in the game. Definitely true though that the strategic movements though would be super inconvenient and the border gore would be horrendous. Signing that defense pact with Pyrene made me feel a lot better though. I felt confident in a 2v1.

I'm curious to see a proper mid game fight between asphodel and ulm now. The ulmish damage vs asphodel fatigue timings. How many manikins can each ulmite kill before passing out. I wonder how the black centaurs do as well. Struggle to damage vs struggle to hit.

​​​​​​@@DarkSideCookiesif guardians get on centaurs, just like pretty much all sacreds they will get murdered, regular blackplate won't do much against their defense. Smith evos will also cut through them. Main issue comes down to not getting overwhelmed by regular manikins and especially behemoths. It might be bit late-mid game depending on research priority but once Ulm gets magma eruption it really should just crush Aspho.

@@-Kidzin I was thinking more black minotaurs should be able to trade into guardians, and behemoths fear effect will go nuts. All sort of stuff like harpies getting on mages, rigor mortis or foul vapors, cavalry sneaking through on flanks, Howl etc. Unlike most of the other popkill nations. Asphodel can actually lead the game in research

Yeah, water throne, or steel adepts/gnomes were my preference after a forging discount. Na'ba gets a lot of thug chassis so a discount on forging would have been really nice.

@@DarkSideCookies Yeah, I just value getting astral path a lot on a nation without it (besides getting golems eventually) and essentially 6 bless points into defense is just massive for a sacred cav nation.

@@-Kidzin Yeah, just different priorities for different nations. I was looking at the throne from my point of view.

I have a few tools to deal with the lion. Soon I'll be able to do Soul Slay communions (risky given the vanilla casting AI), I can try to build several high damage thugs (risky in that I could lose them and gear - GSS thugs like you mentioned for example), and I could try to use my sacreds especially with strength buffs since they have built in FR and hit fairly hard. I'd say Ballin already got to set pretty friendly borders for himself, but I think I'll have enough tools to defend myself by the time his war with Bandar ends. The later the game goes the better my odds vs Abysia get especially if I get to break into blood as well since the benefits of his bless will start fading in comparison to the costs of the bless via his awful scales.

@@DarkSideCookies Those are fair points. A question did you ever think about getting cave kobolds in this game? I know your mountain options are limited but it feels like Na’ba would like some forts with tons of resources.

@@jamesbeus598 My understanding was those only added resources in caves? Maybe I should have tested them myself rather than relying on outside info