Dominions 6: EA Rus Pre-Game

[@MichalBEvilinc]

Holy Bears, Holy Babes, Holy Bird Babes, and Babushka if you're lucky. My Favorite EA faction.

[@Aliyen]

I feel like I can get a lot more replayability from this nation than many. I like the variety of good options. Your choice of sharing damage to tick off group berserk with regen is very interesting. I was thinking of a quickness bless, with regen or resists, but I might go with yours.

[@BabelBuilder]

Getting resists are really good here. You have fire and lightning magic so friendly fire is going to happen at some point.

[@wadeperry4294]

The Leshiy has a forest shape at size 10 and upgraded paths. given the terraform mechanics, Leshiy thugs and supercomabtants in the late game get much more scary if all the plains and farmlands become forests.

[@BabelBuilder]

Ooo! Nice tip. That would add a lot of value to growth!

[@L425-g1f]

1:03:32 Don't forget that Immobile pretender, including Irminsul, generally have the bad forging trait that mean he need 1 more point to forge an item then normally necessary, which means he can't forge hammers at earth 3 (he can do the boots since the boots are earth 2).

[@BabelBuilder]

Yep! Even if we only get a hammer or two I do like the option. Alternatively, we could take death to help with those conjurations.

[@andrewcole4843]

Good bless/strategy - and a perfect use of nation strengths for expansion/logistics in contrast to your last one.

[@BabelBuilder]

Oh, what didn't you like about Suaromatia?

[@andrewcole4843]

@@BabelBuilder A bit coy about criticising a much better player but: you were complaining about slow expansion and the need for complex play then doing the opposite and going for infantry and slow units standard scripts. In my opinion cav nation (nerfed by mount changes to mount prot/repel/bloodlust but can be mitigated) with flanker lancers in every province (competing for role with the faster sacreds at first), horse archers all too low precision, and cataphracts/hydras great later but too expensive or slow respectively early. There are solutions to that but accepting infantry speed strategic movement not the best in my opinion.

[@BabelBuilder]

Constructive criticism is always welcome! I'd have to go listen to context, but I believe we had a conversation about expansion in general being slower in 6.

[@kirkyoung4147]

This feels like a birthday present. I started playing them last night!

[@BabelBuilder]

Happy birthday!

[@Timlagor]

Seeing a lot of random potential Astral mages. Probably enough that you actually can count on being able to put a communion or two together for the bigger battle spells.

[@BabelBuilder]

For sure, but not having cheap recruitable astral mages will always hold you back compared to say EA Kailasa.

[@josiekitter8595]

Nice. Just finished a game with Rus and was looking forward to when you would cover them. Bring on the bears!

[@BabelBuilder]

Rus was a nation I wanted to cover really early, but Wadestar was still actively posting his game. I am shocked no one else has posted content for them, since they are so much fun. Might even be a sleeper powerhouse too.

[@Timlagor]

47:00 I definitely like the Zmey as a rear-attacker. That line is going to make bodyguards feel silly so long as you can find targets who don't resist too much fire. Not unbeatable or anything but it strikes me as a great way to spend some fire gems -especially if you can get dragon mastery for bonus summons (both crown and sceptre look easily craftable at Construction 5 and 7)

[@TTHJJD100]

Construction 7 is a commitment but I'll say the same thing when other people tell me the same you're going to hit construction 7 no matter what. It's just about when.

[@Timlagor]

42:30 2% is a pretty slim bonus but at least they don't cost much. I'd want to be seeing some actual value from them as troops -even if it was only as a mobile reserve -that fire-flare could really help against the right enemy (shades and mannikins come to mind for some reason).

[@BabelBuilder]

2% is small, but the idea is you have like 50 of them stacked up.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder You're still spending 1 gem and half a mage action per 1% -in *one* province!

[@diazinth]

@@Timlagor with the amount of gem gen events, I don't think the return on investment of the gems used is that far away from at least decent though. And cash events can net you a lab/mage recruit decently often I guess.

[@Timlagor]

@@diazinth Fair point. I certainly haven't attempted to do actual maths on this (assuming the necessary data is even available).

[@diazinth]

@@Timlagor and I think good event also means not bad event, which might also influence the value :)

[@Timlagor]

3:50 I do like a cheap temple -by which I do of course mean a dozen* cheap temples * to start with 20:00 Priest is cheaper for building forts (as well as temples) and more useful when not doing so. He can also pick up some stray troops (though even with xp I think 10 is not going to qualify for real reinforcements. You might also consider scouts for fort building.

[@Xaxares]

That's a lot of options to deal with Zeus. Also this is a literal swarm of bare-bear-ians.

[@BabelBuilder]

The lazy man's way to kill Zues? A sloth of bears! O>O

[@kemui696]

the Skinshifters are hands down my favourite EA sacred unit. in my game with them i took a bless of undying X3, enchanted blood, blood surge (might be wasted as i can't remember if it stacks with berserk) reinvigoration and magic weapons. in the first year i was able to take cap and 3 tier 1 thrones without a single Skinshifter dying.

[@BabelBuilder]

Everything you mentioned should stack just fine. Things that share a name don't stack in 99.9% of cases.

[@Timlagor]

49:00 I wonder if it would be a good idea to sui-martyr your Prophet (sorry Alfred) once you get H3 flyers so you can have a H4. I suppose it might depend on what Heroic feature he's picked up.

[@BabelBuilder]

I don't think I would do it on purpose. We don't have any special holy spells, and we are not desperate for mass courage. You can also communion up to it if you need to.

[@synomuumi]

Love this week's thumbnail joke 🤣

[@FlawdaFootball]

Larger + Berserker might be worth it You dont have to worry about Alkonosts to bless because those are active all of the time, and your bears will have 13 attack when they go berserk. You could also add Spirit Sight as another always active bless because you have access to Solar Eclipse and are in the same age as Ubar and Tir Na Nog

[@BabelBuilder]

Interesting. The only issue I see is that larger really lowers our attack density by a lot since bears will go to 7 and sacreds to 4.

[@Timlagor]

38:00 Likho Script: Fire, Fire*, Retreat. ('ware flyers!) Not much good against PD but one of the few stealthy units who can punish armies for catching them and live to boast about it. * This might be too greedy but you should have some idea who you're up against and r50 is substantial.

[@BabelBuilder]

That would be funny if you can hit actual troops with a curse on the way out!

[@povilzem]

It's Baltic mythology, po perkunais! This nation is quite literally the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where the Baltic sons of thunder lived alongside the Belarusians and Ukrainians in harmony. All that's missing is an iron wolf.

[@BabelBuilder]

I am not sure it a good idea to get them to add any more nojurations. :P

[@Duvumvirat]

Its more to the baltoslavic mythology as in the times of Great migration. Perun/Perkunas as a thunder god etc etc. We were neighbors and participated in the same waves of european migrations, so balto-slavic ancient cultures and paganism have lots of intertweavings

[@leichenkocher]

Rus is a lot of fun and pretty easy to pilot LFG

[@Milorada7375]

Someone posted a video for Dom 5 testing EA units for all nations and put them in a chart, and Chud Hunters were top 5 for era. When they berserk they have 15 attack for the spear which is very good for repel

[@BabelBuilder]

Maybe with some barkskin/ethereal....hmm....that cost though!

[@gwahli9620]

If you got lots of undead enemies or throne defenders, you might think about thaumaturgy 5 to unlock "the ravenous swarm".

[@BabelBuilder]

Maggots is another good one!

[@Timlagor]

1:07:00 how hard did you think about Regen v Enchanted Blood with your Blood Bond?

[@BabelBuilder]

Enchanted blood is better than nothing, but its too slow to keep people alive with blood bond. You also don't need the +1MR as much as on some nations. The benefit would be skipping out on N7 and getting something else.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder The N7 price when you're already in Blood was what I was thinking of as the upside to EB.

[@rhysanderson4657]

i sure could use a bear in my life

[@BabelBuilder]

Bear with it.

[@KermodeBear]

Bears! 🐻🐻🐻 I am disappointed that Illwinter has yet to add a bear pretender to the game. An animal that is revered all around the world, with deep mythology, and cults that persist to this very day.

[@BabelBuilder]

That....that...It can't be true... I don't want a world with no bear pretenders!? Why did you share this curse upon us?! When I get time, I am going over the full list!

[@macianknight6168]

Real talk lmao I'm just about to play rus actually. No bear pretender...but a big tree, a horned lad/ a few other familiar sounding gods, and a weak werewolf who starts out in her shape-shifting form and has wolfs??? I'm not gonna say her name but you know the one lmao. Just make a better one but bear😤

[@Timlagor]

I'd recommend not doing the Fire shield route just because there's already one on youtube -the game would certainly be different but D6 content is limited enough it'd be nice to widen the variety

[@BabelBuilder]

Yeah, I try to mix it up. Larger and blood surge are hard to resist lol

[@noop1111]

C.H.U.D.

[@BabelBuilder]

Superior to humans!

[@blackleon1708]

Damn, never thought i would laugh at that, but you butchered a lot of names. No harm, just silly fun. Guide is still very good regardless.

[@BabelBuilder]

I wonder if Dominions holds the record for most distinct dialects used in a single game? I do try, but I am most definingly going to slaughter a lot things that come from outside of my limited linguistic skills.

[@Timlagor]

@@BabelBuilder "moieties" is a perfectly good English word!

[@BabelBuilder]

I actually had to look moieties up! Dominions Teaches Vocab 101.

[@danielmitranekapytola1108]

man your pronunciation of all dos summons lol

[@BabelBuilder]

Come for the strategy, stay for the slaughter of language! I am open to pronunciation tips!

[@altvibr]

UUUURRRRRAAAAAA

[@BabelBuilder]

Gruh?

[@Duvumvirat]

​@@BabelBuilderRussian war cry