Dominions 5 - Late Age - National Tier List

[@khankhomrad8855]

Timestamps! 00:01 Introduction 09:57 Abysia, Blood of Humans 15:23 Agartha, Ktonian Dead 17:21 Arcoscephale, Sibylline Guidance 18:49 Bogarus, Age of Heroes 20:26 Atlantis, Frozen Sea 23:38 Caelum, Return of the Raptors 28:40 C'tis, Desert Tombs 32:07 Erytheia, Kingdom of Two Worlds 36:55 Gath, Last of the Giants 38:27 Jomon, Human Daimyos 41:21 Lemuria, Soul Gates 43:43 Man, Towers of Chelms 46:09 Marignon, Conquerors of the Sea 48:51 Mictlan, Blood and Rain 52:00 Midgård, Age of Men 54:45 Pangaea, New Era 58:06 Patala, Reign of the Nagas 1:01:51 Phlegra, Sleeping Giants 1:05:01 Pythium, Serpent Cult 1:09:56 Ragha, Dual Kingdom 1:12:05 R'lyeh, Dreamlands 1:13:50 T'ien Ch'i, Barbarian Kings 1:16:49 Ulm, Black Forest 1:18:53 Utgård, Well of Urd 1:21:21 Vaettiheim, Wolf Kin Jarldom 1:24:42 Xibalba, Return of the Zotz

[@LucidTactics]

Thanks!

[@grassrootsdictator5701]

I was thinking about dominions at work and Lucid delivered. Nothing wrong with preamble, never be afraid of making too long a video.

[@Bill_Garthright]

These videos are great! Thanks, Lucid! Oddly enough, I really don't care that much where you rank the nations. I mean, what interests me the most are your comments about each of them. And I've taken notes in all three of these videos. I only play single-player, and I've barely scratched the surface yet when it comes to all of the nations which are available to play. So this really helps me decide which nations I want to play next. So, thanks again!

[@Damedghost]

I just wanted to say that Mictlan's troops do change. In MA they get scale armor and bronze spears as part of the end of their isolation deal. Too bad scale armor is the same prot value as their EA mictlan armor but costs more. So AFAIK their regular troops actually get worse with ages!

[@Ben111000111]

“LA Caelum is pretty cool.” No further analysis required

[@Eivael]

Vaettiheime national overview would be hype - I've played around with them in single player and it really felt like you could get superstar research and a lot of the troops are actually useful in one way or another.

[@entropius]

I just won a Vaetti game that went to turn 70. This is just one game, but I'd be happy to talk about my experiences with them. They have huge potential to be badass but some very strong weaknesses; I think I won that game because, basically, I used diplo to avoid having wars that exposed their weaknesses and had a build that helped me get past them as quickly as possible and get to the lategame before my neighbors where they're very strong.

[@Korakos]

"popkill is bad" - LucidTactics 2020

[@cronialpaler]

19:05 "You got blood; you got death; you got earth; you got fire--" Me: You got mail!

[@bki9840]

"LA R'lyeh renders you and your opponent crazy"... Well that's the entire point of the nation, isn't it?

[@entropius]

(I'm the person who sent in the Vaettiheim interventions video -- I wound up winning that game in the end) Before I started that game I was quite paranoid about their weakness to AoE things (elementals, tramplers, evocations) when other nations were hitting research 4-5. I never had a major fight with those things present, but I saw it as a major weakness; the only real build counter I could find was to stack resistances on the bless. I wound up killing Bogarus (who oddly had drain3?) as part of a double-team without facing much thunderstrike, and then had no major army vs. army battles for a while thanks to some diplomatic conniving. They have some huge strengths though -- very gold-efficient and fast research with Vaetti Hags, cheap but good cap-only sacreds, and extremely good expansion independent of bless and production scales using Wolf Brothers. (You do need order3, but you want that anyway.) Still, I really worry about their vulnerability to AoE magic in the early midgame. I see three counterplays: * Omni-resist bless on Rimvaetti and hope they can carry fights. (I did this -- I took F3W3A3E4, fire res +10 shock res +15 reinvig 2 def +2). Even with this, Maws of the Earth will make you very very sad. * Pull S1 Vaetti Hags and Vaetti Gygjas from the labs, and paint your troops with Luck and Mossbody * Take advantage of your awesome research to try to leapfrog over your adversaries in research -- so that by the time you're dealing with these sorts of counters to your troops, you have other magical counters as appropriate (Relief + Rigor, skellispam, Foul Vapors, blood shenanigans) online. I am not confident enough in my evo-baiting skills, sadly, to rely on this as a counter... since one good hit on something other than your bait blob is going to *hurt*.

[@AgentFransis]

Lucid you tease. Elaborate on Vaettiheim.

[@tarsis6123]

Damnit, more preamble.

[@Ben111000111]

Erytheia: The King and queen get +1HFirst prince/ss gets crowned. Will then marry one of the other gender if they are in the same province. The assassination events trigger when you have two of same gender in a province, this is a mostly avoidable problem. The princes are more useful as they are all FSH2, so can join and divine bless a daduchoi communion. (They can also random the paths needed to summon Hesperides) Erytheia is possibly the fastest researcher of any era, potentially capable of completing all schools in 50 turns, definitely within 60 The “underwater” crossbows can’t be recruited underwater, where they are an advantage, and have less range, damage and protection then Indy crossbows on land.

[@malibelizec2543]

Erytheia is good nation. Probably A tier.

[@BEARSERF]

The Queens are good for Manifest Vitriol, which most of them can cast, as well

[@rovsea-3761]

In fact, Bogarus should (in theory) be even faster, as the Master of Names has slightly better research value, for less gold and the same number of fort turns (both nations also get citadels). In addition, nations like Ulm and Pythium, who both also have citadels, also have foreign recruit magi which allow them to scale up their research without having to use their forts (some other nations also have these, but generally not quite as efficient).

[@whats82]

Always interesting to see how other people rank things. I feel there's so much fog of war in dominion that no one ever sees everything. Also. Remember that inspector reads some stats wrong. The daduchos from erythia is 175g in game.

[@crazyjay2741]

Been playing Dom 5 for about a year but purely single player. Never touched MP and probably never will. It is good to hear what people think about nations since I usually play the same handful each time over and over again

[@hanzgruber8743]

I would personally love to get a nation overview for vaetiheim. I like them but I don't see the S tier rating so would love the clarification.

[@Eivael]

I wish the nagas were slightly better - the hypnotize attack can be super cool but they just don't quite feel good enough

[@bellduke6417]

I would love to see that vattiheim guide, you did say it would take a full guide to explain why it's S tier, I am a plebian at dominions, but i can tell the bless is going to be so important on this nation. The Gygja's Vatti and otherwise are sacred as well as the Niefel Jarl, so do you pick a mage bless, but you also have the rimvatti, whose fatigue play is so good( they can crush fort battles attack and defense at the gate), there are also the low research sacred summons in conjuration that are great rush insurance with the relatively low hanging fruit of conj 3-4, plenty small for an early war in a nation that wants magic scales anyway. That is just one aspect to this very complex nation. I know uploading the national overview it will give away your build's but i think vattiheim is a cool nation( pun intended), and i want to see what you can do with them Also i want to see that LA Ryleh, Perun torturing himself with EA Pelagia, and now your doing this...

[@entropius]

Rimvaetti are super good for their cost, but they're not worth a giant bless. They have good stats in cold and could be improved further, but as Lucid says, half of their power is their ability to just exist angrily at people and freeze them, so good blesses on them are survival ones. Meanwhile they're threatened far more by magic than by being bonked over the head, so giving them resistance blesses makes more sense. My build was F3A4W3E4 Frost Father, with 10 fire resistance, defense, 15 shock resist, and 2 reinvig. This also gives you a bless that's helpful on the mages and Niefel Jarls, who have a similar need to not die to magic. It also breaks you into all elemental paths, giving you ele-staff access and from there elemental royalty.

[@bellduke6417]

@@entropius I know, but i still tried to experiment with a chill aura/ blood bond bless with them to give each one chill 8, It was pretty crazy, and while it does KO unresistant supercombatents and thugs like nothing else, i eventually concluded it wasn't worth the win more when they already did that job already. Rimvatti aren't worth designing the entire bless around, there a very specialized and effective tool, one with a simple enough counter, but they will choke your fort gates like nothing else in the game, and forces your opponents to kit our thugs and SC's with cold resistance gear, which does nothing to save the thugs and SC's from your berserk vatti and sorcery magic path counters. Vattiheim is a very technical nation, but the concept of being the only size 1 nation in the game is still fun as hell, but yeah they do want every scale save prod real bad.(luck for transform and gems, magic for hags and research dominance, order for their troops,cold 3 because rimvatti, and growth because obviously.)

[@entropius]

@@bellduke6417 I think we agree about them, then: It's not worth designing a bless around them to try to make them solve all your problems, but they solve a lot of problems on their own, and IMO with a resistance bless can solve slightly more problems and are slightly harder to counter. And I agree on the scales. I played them with every scale maxed except cold3 (technically not max) and sloth.

[@darkranger116]

solid tier list rankings. i always thought minotaurs played and felt SO much better at size 4 with 33hp rather than 25hp. actually makes them feel large and in charge

[@Doombot221]

I just realized that spirit masters have death and higher nature. Lamia Queens? That would break them into some slightly higher death/nature, more reliable foul vapors, and blood. Some cool tricks I hadn't thought about before on them.

[@CantusTropus]

I presume you're talking about Gift of the Sacred Swamp, Pythium's national version of the Poison Resistance spell. That's Ench 2, but it's not Serpent's Blessing, since it only hits 5 AOE.

[@auraguard0212]

Pythium: "They have some cool stuff." _puts it in just-above-shit-tier_

[@MrMasterCGO]

Im glad Vaetti are getting love, lot of people under rate them

[@fakeymcrealname9374]

I'm stoked!

[@Doombot221]

Wonder if Patala is a nation where you could take a couple imprisoned incarnate blesses. Use the imprisoned points to get scales for expansion and then you have the blesses once you have sacred summons online that can really use it. A greedy late game strat to be sure, but maybe that would be their ideal thing thematically--even if it isn't likely competitive for mp

[@LucidTactics]

as you say, its still greedy meaning you will struggle with expansion and your first war when someone sees patala and thinks - hey free land

[@Doombot221]

@@LucidTactics definitely, you'd be relying on diplo and maybe a little luck to pull you past the first hump of the game. But there are other weak early powers with more obvious power curves like Bogarus which you could convince someone to eat instead. Like a bunce of the monkey nations I think they are potentially powerful but like some finesse to really shine--as you've noted in the past :)

[@rovsea-3761]

Patala does have some pretty spooky titans that they can take, and going dormant I think could be an option, using elephants or troops for expansion with a few scales, then using the titan as a defender in case of early war. I think titans fit best in that niche of dormant, because it allows them to help out before too much magic comes online, while there's enough support magic up to make them substantively better than monsters once they do come online.

[@Kaiser282]

I feel like LA C'tis should have some of the Nazca mechanics with their dying holy commanders...

[@KermodeBear]

After playing 2 games as LA C'tis, and surviving to see the end of the game, I feel pretty damn good about myself...

[@ulizez89]

La ctis is good, even better in DE. If they survive their first war, all those D4 mages pay dividends.

[@kunknown2340]

LA C'tis is no nation to sleep on, may not be as good as MA but it is good.

[@giorgilobjanidze5667]

I gotta say that agartha should at least be at B The sepulchures or whatever their called are great tanky sacreds that can use the same bless as blindfighters Umbrals can be summoned in larger numbers faster and cheaper Cave knights buffed with legions of steel and marble warriors are a thick wall of flesh Decent paths thanks to alchemists and the insanity of death/earth Honeslty while there are quite a few weakneses late age agartha is still super solid and basically a brick of a nation that can solve any problem with enough skeletons and giant sacreds

[@Mrollllf]

I would love to see you play LA Agartha or Pythium some time.

[@tarsis6123]

I'm here to dispute your LA Ry'leh claims. Aquatic only freespawn that cost you even 1 gold/turn is... insanity?

[@jhoxha]

Very thematic

[@Maerlande2]

I disagree with everything! Oh yeah. I should watch it first :)

[@stmvol5847]

Late Age is the best age thematically.

[@bear-kaiser9242]

so we keep one thing Buff Phlegra lets get the ball rolling we did with Mekone lets do it with Phlegra

[@conferencecatering5448]

The best players in the game after playing consistently for 5+years: we are beginning to scratch the surface

[@davidmills1520]

I love dominions, as I loved Magic the Gathering (card game) 25 years ago (and was a top pro player), but one thing with Dominions is that it seems so overwhelmingly important how map positioning and diplomacy goes, to the point where the strength of nations and even how you script, etc, just seems to fade in importance in actual games. (This is from watching but not playing multiplayer; I just have played single player.)

[@LucidTactics]

Yeah i think they are both really important. Some people only want to play the combat side, and they get pretty frustrated when they have to deal with the diplo stuff. I can understand that. That said, diplo is one of the major mechanics in the game that stops players from snowballing & from nations which are too strong from always winning.

[@gregorstamejcic2355]

Vaettiheim is by far my favorite these days. Any chance of doing a nation focus on them?

[@ivansaliuk132]

Idk if Ctis is D tier - won fiew games with them with DE - they great here

[@werotan]

So can you make a noob friendly guide like 3 nations per age ?

[@entropius]

My thought with a "noob guide" would be to give new players options to learn the game and get better in a friendly environment. So if I were writing a "ten-nation" curriculum to learn the game, I'd suggest something like the following in order: 1. MA Ulm: Very basic recruitment of troops, knights+infantry+cavalry, simple magic. 2. LA Atlantis: Paying attention to temp scales; introduction to dominion mechanics. Forging boosters. Scripting effective but straightforward magic, some using gems (falling frost, winds of death, wailing winds, stygian rains), sailing. Underwater movement and recruitment. If desired: basic communions (forgiving fathers with falling frost). 3. MA Ashdod: Sacred giants. SC's. Experimenting with blesses. 4. EA Caelum: Flying. Air magic: storm, thunderstrike, air elementals. 5. LA Marignon: Awake expander. Blood hunting. 6. EA Ulm: Stealthy armies. Making use of randoms. A nation with more but weaker tools where it is not always obvious what to do. Transitioning out of troop-based early game; using pretender for access to midgame tools. 7. LA Lemuria: Freespawn. Immortals. Popkill. 8. MA Man: "Safe" communions. Nature magic. 9. EA Ermor: "More dangerous" communions. Death magic / skellispam. Roman nations. 10. LA Vaettiheim: Putting it all together -- a nation that has lots of tools at its disposal, but not a huge amount of any of them

[@Korakos]

what was the vampire change?

[@gonogg]

assume you're talking about LA Ulm, they used to get a generic b2d2 vampire (paths might be a little off coulda been d3b3 or something dumb? been a while) they now get one of 8 unique vampires whenever they cast sanguine heritage

[@Korakos]

Ah cool

[@callumfinlayson-palmer8393]

@@gonogg the d3b3 is the basic vampire lords which anyone can get in late blood. The old Ulm ones were in fact all d2b2.

[@gonogg]

@@callumfinlayson-palmer8393 k? wasnt thinking of the d3b3 guys, just couldnt recall exact stats on the old ulm fucks

[@LucidTactics]

The important thing is you could have an unlimited number of them

[@auraguard0212]

Was Man's starting army fixed?

[@wintermath3173]

Vaettiheim LP when

[@entropius]

I totally should have recorded my recent Vaetti game. They can have a *beast* of a lategame.

[@David-qm2qj]

says he will not pull up the dom 5 mod inspector for every nation ... does it anyway.

[@LucidTactics]

XD

[@MrMasterCGO]

I managed to expand with Scales Jags rather well. I just died on turn 30 by a 3v1

[@redvenge709]

Your estimation of LA C'tiss is waaay off. The falchioneer beats the warrior all day every day. It is more expensive, but it is all around a better unit because it has flat out better stats. Your falchioneer is going to do more work before it's killed than a warrior. C'tiss still uses falchioneers in the LA. Usual early game moves for C'tiss in ANY age is chaff + poison slingers. You have plenty of chaff options for LA C'tiss. Eventually, you will have legions of long dead, allowing you to use poison slingers into the late game (unless your opponent has heavy poison resist. light poison resist will not stop slingers). Lizard Kings are amazing. H3 super leaders that can spam spells to prevent morale routs. There are several strategies involving morale routing your enemy; do not underestimate the potency of this. Sacred Serpents are trash. Skeleton Chariots are a waste of reanimation points. Your tomb kings reanimate long dead unless you are at war. Then you put the tomb kings in your armies so they can buff your undead, raising MR, Attack, Defense and speed. Having said all that... LA C'tiss still has issues. No fast moving/cavalry/flying units really puts you at the mercy of opponents who smartly script or set up their armies. Lack of ranged weapons and diverse magic paths make it easier to predict your army make up and counter it. They also have a poor selection of diverse, viable pretender chassis, making them even more predictable. TL;DR LA C'tiss has good units, but lacks diversity in units, spell paths, and pretender design.

[@LucidTactics]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on falchioneres esp in the late age. They are much harder to mass and do much worse vs well armored stuff. But enjoyed your analysis.

[@redvenge709]

@@LucidTactics You ranked Patala and Pythium higher than C'tis. Pythium is akin to taking pieces from 20 different puzzles and throwing them into a box and saying "Here, make a picture". Their hydras have a poison cloud that MURDERS THEIR OWN ARMY. They do have access to a spell that grants a tiny amount of poison resistance (H1N1), that does not stop hydras from killing their own army. Pythium HAS NO SYNERGY WITH IT'S OWN ROSTER, the worst mages in ANY era, and you ranked it higher than C'tis. Have you seen what kinds of hoops you have to go through to gain access to the apostate casters? You need a lab without a fort. How long are you going to have that before someone breaks it? I cannot comment on all your picks because I have not played many of the LA nations. I have played LA Pythium and LA C'tis. For you to rank LA Pythium (an absolute dumpsterfire) over LA C'tis (a predicable nation) boggles my mind.

[@LucidTactics]

@@redvenge709 I was actually considering picking pythium in the tournament because I was at the end of the draft. Tested builds and everything. I think they have some interesting things they can do. They have great research and good troops. I think hyrdas don't really go in major armies, you can work around hydras with small groups of troops though. As strange as it may sound, it's not that hard for me to visualize pythium winning a game after I spent a good deal of time thinking how to play the nation. Its very hard for me to imagine ctis winning.

[@redvenge709]

@@LucidTactics How do you have "great" research? Your line mages are 1D/1W with a 1 in 3 of 1W/1S/1N or 1S/1D/1N. 11 Research is average in LA. How are you going to utilize Pythium's mish-mash of trash casters? Communions might get you a few tricks, but all your paths are going to be low, so fatigue is going to be a problem. With such low paths, you are locked out of many summons, including good thug chassis, so you have to pin everything on your pretender. Early game site searching is going to be a priority and many paths are locked behind apostate casters, which need an unfortified lab. Patala is the only other LA nation as weak as Pythium is early game. You have poison clouds on your hydras, but that is the only thing to deter early game assault. If your enemy is prepared for that, you are in trouble. LA Pythium desperately needs two resources: gold and time. If your bless is too greedy, you may not recover. If your early expansion fails, you may not recover. If your enemy attacks before turn 14, you may not recover. Anything that costs you gold or time before you get the pieces in place will cripple you. I have never seen it win multiplayer against players of equal skill. I do not believe it is possible. LA Pythium is just that terrible.

[@LucidTactics]

@@redvenge709 well you have cheap efficient forgein recruit mages. And the fort mages are actually more useful in combat than I first have them credit for. It's definitely not a super strong nation but it might have enough things it can do and string then together fast enough to win. What are the things it can do? Insanely early FV. Very good hydra fluffing. Ok skellyspam. Maybe got a very very fast fog warriors timing for the second war. Though I think even though you ask for answers, the only way you would be convinced it's by seeing it :)

[@moleman7632]

I was alright with this until you ranked Ryleh as a C. The nation is pretty much ranked the worst nation in the game. You can't get on land with your garbage troops, your troops are 90% aquatic "free" spawn that costs money and just sits there until the provinces are dead and they just starve to death. And if you do get on land you don't have MA Ryleh's ability to threaten raiding to keep your little enclaves because no nation wants your cancer near them and your garbage armies will just be shoved back into the sea. AND Atlantis has Void sanity on their underwater commanders (except 1) so your dominion effect doesn't even affect your biggest enemy! They either sit in their pond and watch the game end, or if Atlantis is in the game: sit in their pond and wait to die to Atlantis. They dont even have the great slave mages of MA/EA because they are all going to go mad so you essentially have mages that are worthless a lot of the time that you cannot pay for.

[@LucidTactics]

I'm doing pretty good with them right now. They arent feeling like a C nation to anyone in the game i dont think.

[@tarsis6123]

@@LucidTactics Are we going to see that game? I'd like to be wrong about them, but I lack the skill to get around the hangups....

[@CantusTropus]

I believe Sun Awe does work Underwater as long as you aren't in deep sea.

[@malibelizec2543]

Does awe stack with sun awe?

[@dogebestest7187]

I wanna respect your LA Rlyeh opinion Lucid, but you kinda gave no reason for it. What is the "cool stuff" you can do with them that outweighs money costing aquatic chaff you get swamped in that you can't get rid off, maddening of your own mages etc thats also better than recruit anywhere D3 with D4 potential

[@LucidTactics]

The secret is one point in dominion and growth. Also never build more than 4 temples.

[@ursulbekbakiev2618]

Say what you will, I live free

[@Chikanuk]

LA Rlyeh C while Ctis D =\

[@LucidTactics]

Funny you mention that because i just at ctis with rlyeh in about 6 turns.

[@Chikanuk]

@@LucidTactics Well, shit happens. I seen few times how "lowest" tier nation beat "highest". But in general, at least from my perspective, in LA Rleh suck hard, and Ctis is in far, far better place.

[@williamreese7828]

@@Chikanuk The real confusing one is tiering LA C'tis lower than EA C'tis, since LA C'tis is much stronger.

[@Owlr4ider]

@@williamreese7828 You have to remember that LA opponents tend to be much tougher than EA opponents, especially when it comes to regular troops and armor in general.

[@redvenge709]

LA Man is awful. Their unique capitol building produces boatloads of nature gems and not one single LA Man-mage gets a nature magic path. It's a weird handicap unique to LA Man. The magisters are old and rapidly collect diseases. On top of that, I've never seen LA Man do well in any MP game. They live or die by diplomacy, not the strength of their roster.

[@LucidTactics]

That's also funny because I'm murdering utguard with them in a game right now

[@redvenge709]

@@LucidTactics Which means what? If I say "I beat Utgard with C'tiss", you would immediately want to know the situation. Was Utgard at a disadvantage (poor expansion/hit with bad luck/dogpiled by other players/etc)? Are you more skilled than Utgard's player? Are you in the early, middle or late game? The final question is: How much diplo went into your current situation? Are you winning because of your superior unit roster or superior diplo? (which was my original point)

[@LucidTactics]

@@redvenge709 you have good questions but too much for me to answer in text. The man stuff will probably eventually make it up on KZbin so you can be the judge.

[@IAmTheTrav]

Are you recording this in the toilet? Horrible echo

[@gonogg]

got his ass

[@Ergo319]

microphone hurts my ears man.