Dominions 6: EA Pangaea Pre-game

[@issarabooncharoen238]

Fun fact, when the blessed couple's first form dies the second form is a sad dryad who has learned 2 death because she wants to bring her lover back. I think it ends there but I'm really hoping there's an event where she raises her dead lover as one of the Asphodel manikin centaurs to bring the story to its conclusion. Source: I thought it'd be a good idea to send them out to arena and centaur dude died on the literal last turn of the tournament.

[@BabelBuilder]

Neat! I knew about a second form, but not that she learned death!

[@Timlagor]

I better see some seduction action! (seducers are expensive so probably a good idea to gear them up for combat somewhat just in case) 8:00 I'm thinking a few Harpies to Straight up Attack Rear (maybe a few more to Hold&Attack Rear) could really mess up enemy spell casting. It's a suicide mission but It could be an absolute bargain in a major battle if it interrupts early spells. 13:00 I notice the Centaur(ide)s have a lot of Combat Speed too letting you try to stay out of melee.

[@BabelBuilder]

I need to practice using ranged units as distractions on fire and keep distance.

[@Milorada7375]

With swarm being 2N it is harder to assassinate if the seducing goes badly too

[@Merelyfish]

It's funny to see you do Pangea because I was thinking of maybe doing it soon for an upcoming EA and I had just stumbled upon Joseph Tomanek's "Nymphs dancing to Pan's flute" and thought it would be a perfect thumbnail

[@BabelBuilder]

More the merrier!

[@pederw4900]

@@BabelBuilderUUID’s 👋🏼 1:04 u😅u b he

[@perryshaffer8358]

The Centauride archer is also slightly faster than her Centaur brother. If you're having them fire and maintain distance this matters. She can stay ahead of enemy cav until she's cornered, giving her an extra shot or two before melee, and possibly a little more dispersal leading to some extra shots. Whether this matters depends on your overall vision for your force and the magic you can bring to bear. Edit: If you want to script the level 0 enchantment combat spells, have your mage buff themself first, then attack(one turn) for as many turns as it will take to get them to the battle line, then cast a specific spell. This will help you get these off reliably and early, always handy.

[@BabelBuilder]

That is a pretty decent use case for centurides actually. I need to work more fire and maintain into my scripting.

[@redman0027]

A few random notes: 1. any points in precision over 10 is calculated as double (pg. 67 in the manual) so centaur precision is actually higher than advertised (I don't know why they don't just give them higher precision?) so if you have 12 precision you actually have 14, and 13 is 16. 2. As far as blood magic goes, look at blood 4 Blood Fecundity - it increases growth by +2 for only 10 slaves +1 per extra month, which you can use to terraform into forest at growth 4, which for Pangea is nutzo. Unfortunately it requires a lab since it has no range.

[@BabelBuilder]

Correct on the precision notes. I didn't consider Blood Fecundity specifically, but great call out. Forests are just so so good for Pangaea!

[@kemui696]

currently doing a Pangea run myself and as a new player (less than 100 hours) I'm really enjoying this nation. not sure what you'd think of these but some thoughts I like to bring up from my own time playing them Satyr's (javelin flavour) are amazing for chaff, even into late game. yes you do need that critical mass of them but in the early game they can trade with a lot of indies and come out on top due to their berserk ability. Minotaur's. almost all youtubers i see talk about them call them trash or a trap. they are a glass cannon no doubt, BUT! i found that if you have 8-12 of the more armoured ones on a flank with the hold and attack script. they will absolutely munch enemy flanks in seconds. with the sayter's bogging the enemy down its a quick kill combo that will end fights and save losses all game. also, when storming a fort. i set these guys front and centre to charge the breach. their near one hit kill axe and trample will bowl over the enemy and let your troops get in faster. will take high losses doing that tho so buff accordingly, but on the plus side you just took a fort so turn or two to recruitment to get the numbers back up. Panii. call me crazy but i love having these guys lead armies. having a constant free income of chaff in the form of the Meanads only helps out your sayter's and mino's. plus they can out the box cast grow fortress so i find them essential for pushing borders. also good chance out the box you got pathing for cross breeding. maybe not the best blood spell but again, quick easy access to upkeep free chaff to drown front lines and keep your more expensive units alive. the sacred units. i went plain and took blood surge and larger on them. makes them killy and tougher and as i always have these on the flank with hold and attack rear. for the pretender and scales. i went lord of nature, i know the scales tweaks he gives are a waste and he is expensive meaning most likely a dormant start. but he already has nature and blood, only two points of earth needed to get larger. i think i went E2 N5-6 B4 to get the blesses i wanted. the scales i went candles5-6 3 turmoil, 2sloth 1 heat 3 growth and maxed luck and magic. maybe not the best scales choice but gave me the points i needed and the negatives are barely felt during recruitment. bit of a weird end game strat i noticed, probably not new to most players but made me wanna mention it. if you combo, gift of natures bounty and enchanted forests with growth 3 scales, you can in theory make an ever expanding forest of your dominion and over time dom kill everyone, it has its limits as it can't affect wastes and will take a super long time to do but is doable i think

[@BabelBuilder]

Great thoughts! I've been trying not to take blood surge every run, as I really think it is very powerful. Ditto with larger lately. Really, good blesses! You will never have as many Panii as you want! They are just soooo good! The terraforming stuff is new in 6, and really good for Pangaea since forests are sooo good for them.

[@kemui696]

yeah i find what works for me is sending out a war party of a Panii, white mino or normal mino if a white hasn't spawned, and a hierophant/ide. Pangeas biggest weakness if you ask me is the lack of leadership so having two to three leader per warband helps spilt the load and distribute troops where you need them on the field. Not tried the stealth raiding strat yet. still new to the game and my repertoire of strategies is small but growing. may have to try when i get to EA Ulm as i know a lot of their troops are stealthy. at the moment i'm leaning more into the the theme of each army rather then going for efficacy. so Pangea having blood and nature and the lord of nature basically being the king of the Panii, i couldn't resist leaning it it. but yeah watching the sacreds just rofl stomp back lines and enemy commanders i can see why the larger, blood surge combo is so enticing

[@BabelBuilder]

There is nothing wrong with playing to theme. If you ever move to mp that is where efficency actually matters.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder Too many size 5s to want Larger here. You could always use Blood Vengeance for variety! :D

[@BabelBuilder]

Hey, I totally did that!

[@bewawolf19]

40:32 One funny thing that happened to me whilst playing as Maverni doing an enslave mind spam build is I actually managed to steal the blessed couple for myself, though was disappointed in the reminder that they lose their magical paths and commander status when you mindcontrol them. It was though a nice trophy.

[@BabelBuilder]

Lol, nice one!

[@mex_I.M]

my 1st proper win was with Asphodel funnily enough. Iove those minotaur/centaurs combo

[@BabelBuilder]

All of the Pangaean nations are so much fun.

[@wintesrain]

Stealth reminder is super important. I've messed up my expansion because they just snuck to the next province over.

[@Timlagor]

26:00 Someone's gotta taxi the revellers to your secret party gathering in opponent's territory!

[@BabelBuilder]

PARTY!

[@Timlagor]

I think I like Minotaur Prophet. I'm definitely getting Pan early though with no other 100 Leadership options on top of all the things you mentioned.

[@BabelBuilder]

I really do think its a tough call. An unlocky bolt could berserk him...

[@kemui696]

wanted to do an update on my thoughts on Pangea now that i've completed that playthrough. i still love the Sayter's and Minos but after a gruelling back and forth battle with Sauromatia. they just couldn't hold up against the massed cav and archer bombardment. did have some fun and success with some leogryphs but they lack staying power. maybe a good option for a side line harasser or quick and cheap siege chaff. Forrest trolls summon really help to pack out the front lines and give the minos a nice meat shield to advance behind. but in the end what won it for me was a mass of lumber constructs, vine ogres and 3 tarresaques and giving my army a combo buff of oaken army, serpents blessing and the army wide regeneration buff to keep them fit and fighting and also survive the poison from the 3 super dragons. ashamed to say i slept on the dryad mothers for too long. their access to glamour opened some options i couldn't fully bring to bare in the later stages of the war. out side of the combat spells being able to summon in a fairy queen or even some fey troops really could of helped in the fight against Sauromatia. also if your going for vine men spam i would recommend going construction lvl 7 for the tree lords staff. gives two to nature and gives the ivy king label, goes well with a dryad mother and a ivy crown. lastly i mentioned the enchanted forest and boon of nature global enchant combo to potentially make a self spreading dominion forest. can confirm it dose work but two things to note. 1 its very slow and two you need a really high dominion strength to really get the benefit for it i was running 5-6 candles and it really did work to well against an AI that had 9 dominion strength. but considering it gives Pangea the 2 things it really likes, forests and high growth, still has some tactical value in that sense. so good combo that works but its not gonna be the death knell for your opponents 9 times out 10.

[@BabelBuilder]

Glamour is something I need to explore further. I generally know when I want other spells, but I don't have that deep gut feeling for glamour yet. If only your troops had dark vision. Those global should be great for Pan in a game long enough to get the benefits. The short games I stream generally don't last long enough for long-term rituals to pay off. Shame. :(

[@kemui696]

Couple of interesting glamour spells I noticed was summon spectral beast. Good ethereal monster summon that can hold up an advance pretty well. Second is summon sprites. The come in 6 at a time for 1 glam gem and do elf shot. Dose no damage but puts the enemy to 100 fatigue so good for taking the fight out of your enemy before lines clash. One interesting ritual glamour spell you can do and I think the faerie queen can do it out the box is the dragon lord ritual. Gives the caster the dragon lord label giving a bonus to dragon summons. Combine that with the couple of craftabels that give the same label and you can have a faerie queen printing out Forrest or sky drakes (the queen comes with 2 glam 2 wind and 2 nature out the box. Wind is nice for the crafts and battle buffing) so yeah maybe a pretender with some glamour wouldn’t hurt Pangea as it can broaden their options considerably and build on some paths they already have.

[@wadeperry4294]

As a coincidence, Pangea is kinda the same as Berytos, an offshoot of Therodos as the satyrs are the exiled children of the daktyls and hekaterides, might be wrong on the second. They were exiled and adopted by the Panii.

[@BabelBuilder]

Interesting I didn't know that! Its all connected! *grabs his red yarn*

[@wintesrain]

Not done watching so unsure if you mention it, Pangaea gets a reduced cost for the Thorn Spear and Thorn Staff which are 5 Nature Gems each and that pulls it down to 4 Nature Gems each. If you combine that with the dwarven hammer you get down to 2 Nature Gems per Spear/Staff. I was able to equip a spare Satyr Commander with a Kithaironic Lion Pelt and Thorn Spear for 4 Nature Gems and 1 Earth Gem. When they were mixed in with the Revelers they were absolutely obnoxious to pick out and helped deal with Ethereal units while still being in the crowd so to speak.

[@BabelBuilder]

Oh, nice one! I didn't catch that they had a cost reduction. Pangaea does have the magic weapon hole.

[@wintesrain]

@@BabelBuilder Not sure how effective it will be in multiplayer, but it has greatly improved the resilience of Saytr Warrior and Saytr Reveler in my single player game. I'm hopefully going to get to try it out tonight and will see how it goes.

[@Bill_Garthright]

38:46 Do you want a berserk prophet? I'm just wondering, because that would seem to have a downside, don't you think?

[@BabelBuilder]

I don't generally think it's a good thing, but for a mino chasis, he should be okay...Human players would def find a way to get him kill though!

[@Timlagor]

19:00 Minotaurs look like troops you only pull out of you're up against high protection enemies you're struggling to hurt. They're probably what you need when you find a 'Snek' or Monolith or some-such early on. I guess you could try to mass them and just obliterate things before they can take you down but the Def/Prot don't look promising for that price to me and they're not Sacred. Maybe you get nice Prot buffs mid-game and they become good for that? I'm not a big fan of the marginally different Male/Female troops. Not having a Holy Cow is just such a missed opportunity! Dominions seems generally to have a lot of troops that are just not as good as their competitors.

[@mandonz]

Would you mind showing off some of the seduction mechanics in your play through? I've never used them (like you say it's often costly) and I didn't want to spend on them just to get them killed by messing up something basic lol.

[@BabelBuilder]

If the opportunity presents itself I will sure try! Just in case it doesn't. Think about it like a better/safer assassination attempt. If you are on your boarder when making the attempt, you gain the target on a success (or if you are larger and can fly). If not, or you fail, it goes to a normal assassination attempt.

[@alfredhoenicke376]

Do you think that now Cavalry has 2 different health bars and stats, that centaurs are slightly nerfed from Dominions 5?

[@BabelBuilder]

No. I think comparatively they are better. A ton of cavalry really suffer from really bad mount stats. On the other hand there are a few that really benefited from the split.

[@Xaxares]

In earlier streams you had cast werewolves at people. In this one you will cast Bacon instead to clog their arteries. I remember you mentioning in the stream you had done this preview before it. It shows while talking about the Hamadryad. I seriously doubt that after "those" events, you'd still say they were nothing special.

[@BabelBuilder]

Goes to show you have to have a counter to some things. That was not solved by just swarming.

[@Xaxares]

@@BabelBuilder I wonder if Banes and assorted Banefire weaponry would be effective against one. Withering weapons and such.

[@Milorada7375]

I like the Glamour changes in Dom 6 but I was a little disappointed IllWinter did not do more to tweak this nation in EA. Even with troops being more important you're not using most of your kit. Why is the disciplined Satyr warrior so high in gold and RP? Why are short bow and long bow archers the same ridiculous 25G price? Why do female centaur warriors have no hat?

[@BabelBuilder]

She just got her hair done and refused to put on the helmet. We tried! I don't think a quick relook at their costs would make Pangaea OP, so I am all for it!

[@AAX11111]

>Mintaurs LMAO 🤣 🤣