Dominions 6 - Andramania: Dog Republic -- First Impression Overview

This is a first impressions and light national overview for the new doggos faction in late age after I played them in single player. Not a full guide. I discuss the excellent scales troops and synergy with new and existing spells.
edit: I realized I forget to talk about astral point buffs. Body ethereal is moved to Alteration 3 from 4, so it is even more powerful early. Your astral mages can do point buffs on formation fighter squares to make the troops even better!
Time stamps
0:00 Introduction and Disclaimer
0:55 Lore and dogmen in other eras
4:00 Chassis discussion
6:18 Expansion battle example
9:21 Mundane scales troops
14:08 crossbow tactics
18:31 Foreign recruit and sacred
25:00 Commanders
30:44 Spell synergies and early research
40:59 Communions
42:53 Capital only mages
45:59 Conclusion and weaknesses
#dominions6 #dom6 #andramania

[@clusterfox6143]

I'm gonna be the annoying nerd here and point out that it actually makes sense for halbardiers to be formation fighters. They were not meant to be swung around like battle axes. You poke with the point, and trip or slash with the axe on the withdraw. This allowed it to be used in tight formations.

[@valmarnecroa6021]

Agreed. Prying shields down while your fellow soldiers exploit openings. The Swiss guard were a good example of dense Halbert formations.

[@FlawdaFootball]

​@@valmarnecroa6021Weren't the Swiss known for their pikes not halberds? The Swiss have that national hero who threw himself on a row of them

[@valmarnecroa6021]

@@FlawdaFootball no. The swiss did have very well trained pikemen. But this swiss guard in the Vatican to my knowledge for instance always used halberds. I'll do some looking into it later, perhaps it was ceremonial and they switched to pikes. But I know the pictures you can find of them online and most of the art all depict them as such. And I don't know the hero you are speaking of. But I think it's fair to say you don't need to be a pike formation to fight one and throw yourself at the enemy line. If you were in around the 16th century during the age of pike and shot there were tons of them. As such it would have been very likely you would face them. But other units still existed wielding things like halberds, greatswords, and sword & buckler.

[@valmarnecroa6021]

@@FlawdaFootball kinda ranting now lol. But really if you are using a halberd throwing yourself at a pike formation probably isn't the worst idea. You can choke up on your weapon, they can't. So in close quarters you would have the advantage.

[@valmarnecroa6021]

@@FlawdaFootball I went ahead and looked into it more. The general swiss mercenaries were indeed pikemen. But they had several different types of units. Some of which did include dense blocks of halberds as well as crossbows and early firearms. The weaponry changing depending on the needs of the unit. For instance they might use the halberds or shorter weapons if they want to press into an enemybpile square at close quarters. It sees the swiss that acted as guards in the litteral sense had a preference for these shorter weapons. But apperently they still stacked halberds in tight formations. Up to ten ranks deep.

[@mrthreedaysgrace100]

So i guess you could say that MA TN truly did let the dogs out

[@castle5940]

Finally someone talking about the doggos :) Lots of good insights but one point I would add is that the slow to recruit mage can quicken your troops which I think is amazing because they then have 4 attacks per unit which means 12 per square for the formation fighters.

[@SinOfAugust]

Oof

[@Mewobiba]

On the Howlers, where I think they would shine is in the late-midgame where you start having real large area or battlefield-wide buffs, so they survive for a bit. Alternatively, if you get a wide enough line of crossbowmen to stretch the entire field, you could slap howlers behind and let them get buffed up to replace crossbowmen as they fall. Note that the Corpse Eater doesn't require them to fight; if they're just moving through provinces where you've recently fought or blood hunted that will get them a few extra HP. Also, I *think* that Unrest is treated as turmoil for the purpose of chaos recruitment (at least it does for chaos power), so even in order you could get some discounted - but of course unrest also lowers recpoints so dunno how useful that is.

[@Mewobiba]

Also, H2 priests were fine in Dom5; the problem was H2 magepriests, where the holy path was wasted and just added upkeep. But pure H2 priests like Jotun Godes or Ctissian High Priests were perfectly servicable for dominion control and better banishments.

[@ozisponas1593]

I played a game with them and gave sacred the ethereal buff. Honestly they are insanely strong

[@righteousindecision2778]

Fun video - I think I wouldn't mind trying Andramania. Historical note about medieval weapons: A halberd was used a bit like a spear (with some cutting and slashing ), and used in formation. A Poleaxe was used more like a two-handed axe (and it was shorter). It's easy to mixed them up, but I think you're thinking of a Poleaxe in this video when you talk about 'waving around' a halberd.

[@EmnelGaming]

Great video. Very happy that algorithm suggested it. Lol, I was about to write that I'm hoping you can pull off a turbo communion on them only for you to start talking about it. As I was saying - good video!

[@FlawdaFootball]

Well done video, one thing I would add as a possible weakness is that with a length 0 bite their units may be more vulnerable to Fire Shield in a similar way as are the Asphodel free spawn. But then again, they also have better HP than those, and their mages can put Fire Ward on them

[@Centinym]

The nation of good boys

[@KermodeBear]

Something that I have started doing in my test games that seems to work nicely: An Inspirational bless. Then I use the Magistrates to lead my initial expansion armies. This seems to have a few advantages: 1. Less expensive than the other commanders for leading troops, in terms of gold and resources. 2. They increase province defense as they move around. 3. Since they're already out and about, they are in a great position to build forts - while increasing PD. 4. Super low upkeep since it's sacred. 38/year vs. 92/year for the cheap commander. 5. They're sacred, so they can build a temple, too. Don't need to send a priest. Being cheap but capable leaders, and giving free PD, they end up saving quite a bit of money in the early game when it really matters. You don't get formations, but that's usually not a big deal for initial expansion. What do you think? I haven't been going heavy on the bless. The sacred units are nice, but I feel that this is a gold-hungry nation so leaning on scales is a better decision. Doesn't seem to need an awake pretender for expansion, their troops are very solid. I'm very interested to see what people do with this nation. I do feel like they need something extra, though. They're Good Boys, so better sacred unit access would make sense, or maybe the auto-bless mechanic from Ind, or maybe something to do with werewolves. Maybe special blood summons that create sacred werewolves? I dunno. Something. I want to like them (and I do), but they seem "just okay." It would be nice to have some special sauce on top.

[@duartemarco]

holy hell, those doggos can expand really good

[@rpscorp9457]

that pretty good for the basic troopers!

[@sophiem3560]

one minor point about the man-at-arms (greatsword) troop, if you mix him with formation troops he can still fill in 1 out of 3 slots, so that could be a way to stretch your gold out a bit when making halberd formations

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

23:36 Vegeterian humans can be perfectly fine, if they get enough vitamins and stuff. Vegeterian doggos - not so much :)

[@billhunter9386]

very good analysis, would love to see some pretender builds in future videos if you can

[@markmittelbach7975]

Check out the castle PD. I'm pretty sure it's a mistake, but it's funny.

[@Timlagor]

I think even if the sacred doesn't cut it in multiplayer it could be interesting single-player.

[@SinOfAugust]

I am kinda tempted to take flight bless for them, this way you have the means to launch vegan dog nuke into their backline. 1 for 1 your guys will probably win or hold out at the Frontline, and the only means your opponent has to stop them is something they have at the back. Flying vegans counters that, and they are chunky enough to cause damage even if the opponent holds something to guard the backline.

[@castle5940]

That's an interesting idea. I am still trying to figure out the best way to play the nation. Hopefully I find something really strong because I alteady love the nation and its lore :)

[@SinOfAugust]

@@castle5940 One of the few optimistic outlook nations, especially in the depressing nationscape of LA.

[@MrCarabide]

subbed!

[@rhysanderson4657]

theyre good boys

[@Xaxares]

Interesting that Great Orionde isn't one of the successors. Mayhaps it was too generic medieval despite their strangely colored lions?

[@justinboggin9086]

When talking about repelling you forgot that size difference is also added to effective weapon length for the calculation. This means the spear guys repel spear attack from the size 3 troops which is the most common size. Also I'm pretty sure the length difference is part the calculation so the high attack of the Doggos plus the bit of extra size difference is why there were a huge number of repels in your example.

[@Mewobiba]

Is size itself part of it? I thought size just modified weapon length (in dom5 at the S4 cutoff, I'd assumed in Dom6 it'd be S6). If size itself is added, that would mean e.g. an earth serpent would have an easy time repelling humans with swords, which I don't think is the case.

[@zerg0s]

Size itself is NOT added. Size is represented by weapon length getting a +1 bonus if you have Size 6+ (4+ in dom5), beyond that it doesn’t affect repel at all.

[@d1halberdgnoll963]

I guess their bite IS worse than their bark. As I understand, the Animal tag is the real problem here. Is there anything to protect regular troops against animal control?

[@Milorada7375]

You have easy access to Astral and communion so can cast Spell Ward and later Antimagic to boost the soldiers MR to 12-13. It's not great but not bad. Until later game most animal target spells are one unit or AOE 1 so your troops will outnumber their mages by a lot

[@dogebestest7187]

What the dog doin

[@JOnatanKERtis]

Yeap its a big mereor spawn nation

[@MC-ku4zz]

That was a great introduction to the fratcion. I love dog republic theyir units and lore. So the only thing i don't agree is that you assumed that their sacreds are weaker because Illwinter asummed vegetarians are weaker. That's not the case here. Those are dog people, they even have animal tag. And dogs can't really be vegetarians as they are carnivores. Them trying to be vegetarian is quite retarded idea and i love it.❤❤❤

[@jhealey48]

dont use the r word bro not cool

[@darklordvadermort]

dogs are omnivores (somewhat like but to a lesser extent than a raccoon or bear) but they do like their meat

[@TheMigdrew]

Dogs and wolves are both actually omnivorous and can and will eat plant matter in the wild(like partially digested plants in the stomach of their prey). Those serene guys probably just aren’t getting enough protein to make gainz like their meat-eating brethren.

[@castle5940]

I love the idea that the doggos become so virtuous they try to change their very own nature (meat heavy diet) for the benefit of all beings ❤️

[@FrejthKing]

move your dog into another room or put socks on its paws. its so annoying