Dominions 6 - Patch Notes - 6.08 - The Asphodel Patch

[@ScowlieMeerkat]

Carrion my wayward son...

[@lordgates9180]

The way he pronounces it made me think of that as well. Haha

[@Sorrac0001]

Carrion Fortress is just a version of Grow Fortress that Panic Apostates can cast, same price and you still get Bramble Forts but it requires N3D2 instead of N4. It's pretty significant because it means you don't have to rely on chance or a pretender to build forts anymore, which means you don't have to gimp yourself when playing with non-nature pretenders. It looks like they fixed all the missing spirit sight tags too, and as a bonus all manikin now get recuperation and cold resistance like proper skeletons.

[@raphaelsutton962]

My pretender picked up a carrion seed as a spoil of battle and slowly died from it. That was a fun surprise.

[@LucidTactics]

Oh boy XD

[@cringephodel]

@@LucidTactics The real question is whether it converts an enemy commander that dies while holding a carrion seed to Asphodel's side

[@Madhattersinjeans]

Yeah this seems like the best use for them. Slap them on a cheap indie sac them into a big army of mages and poison their best commanders. On the other hand, once they have the seed they could do the same to other players with it. Turning it into a weird game of hot potatoe

[@Icapica]

That pretender passive bless change doesn't affect things like stat blesses. Passive bless means those blesses that affect sacred units all the time, not just when they're blessed. That means things like heroism, enlargement etc. Since you don't have to be blessed to get those effects, it makes sense that they work for the pretender too when outside dominion. They're supposed to be on all the time.

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

By passive bless I assume they mean stuff like Larger which doesn't require a blessing in battle but I don't know

[@nojzero]

From a SP game, I've noticed the carrion seeds are useful for tossing on researchers once they start getting diseases from old age, because they keep magic paths. Then you could potentially add a grinder. The carrion bow was nice to toss on the freespawn commanders, since you end up getting quite a few by later game.

[@fishbones1397]

13:00 I assume passive bless means stuff like recuperation or larger.

[@TheMelnTeam]

I thought passive bless is stuff like larger, survivals, and recup.

[@rope7741]

pretty sure you're right

[@Icapica]

Yup. Passive bless is anything that is active on sacred units even without blessing them.

[@kalinmir]

I'd assume that in this context it means that the pretender blesses/is blessed while in battle (passive since you cant script the spell "blessing" for a pretender)

[@Icapica]

@@kalinmirWhy would it mean that? Pretender is already blessed automatically when they are in their own dominion. This update does not change that.

[@kalinmir]

@@Icapica I would think that they would be blessed outside of it

[@Redfog-z6u]

With regards to resummoning unique monsters when they die not being particularly loreful, its pretty common in fantasy settings with multiple planes of existence that killing something from a different plane(like a devil or elemental)just sends it back to its home plane instead of permanently ending it. Ive always assumed dominions is working on that basis with its unique summons

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Yeah I think that's a good way to think about the Elemental royalty and other uniques; there's just one of them but they're immortal on this plane in the sense that killing them here just sends them home.

[@DarkSideCookies]

You're banishing rather than killing which makes sense

[@Shapeshifters07]

Actually that totally is how it works considering Conquest of Elysium 5 literally has this as a mechanic. There are actually multiple planes of existence and unique summons that have planar immortality as a trait.

[@Ragatokk]

Fixing asphodel is so needed! Have not seen the changes yet, but hope its good.

[@Rakykia]

Awesome fluffy changes and new tricks! Always loved Asphodel lore, but I really hope they addressed the wonkiness of translating expansion into reliable advantage. I feel like Asphodel is in a unique situation where a successful early turns do not convert 1-to-1 into infrastructure & mage production, and definitely not into infrastructure or production where you want them. When you need there to be forests, then preferably forests in strategically reasonably locations, and to roll a N4 pan as early as possible, the amount of random variables just stacks up and leads to extremely unrewarding play experience. Doesn't matter if you can take 27+ whatever provinces turn 12, if you happen to be in a forest desert you will have worse mid-game than a 12 province Asphodel who lucked into 2 forests in cap circle and a few nearby.

[@coryherberg9826]

The new fort summoning is available to all pans so you don't need to roll the n4 anymore at least

[@Rakykia]

@@coryherberg9826 ho? I missed that. That's great!

[@Akabans999]

​@@Rakykia yeah you need N3D2 and it can also be sumoned in shalow seas

[@asgoritolinasgoritolino7708]

Doesn't the carrion seed also work if the unit dies in the battlefield? That way, it would serve as an extra life for the unit.

[@MRProgressor]

Yeah that's what I'm wondering: What happens if you die of other means then the disease the item gives you?

[@georgeshannon2724]

I think this is the point Lucid is missing@@MRProgressor

[@cipherpunk7409]

For Carrion Seed, if you have an astral mage you want to convert, you could always teleport them into a sea province you control for instant death/conversion. Pretty niche but there might be a weird use case there.

[@MaximusAutismus]

Black mino with a proper semi hellbless turns them into bulldozers of death. Blood surge is a very good bless for them.

[@weeaboobaguette3943]

33:30 Like putting a hot knife through melted butter.

[@DarkSideCookies]

If you gift of reason, according to the mod inspector the Daitya gets a little more magic potential (H2 + 2 50% chances at each of ABG) while the Danava (H2 + 2 50% chances at each of AB) gets a little less magic and more weapon slots

[@Sevyns762]

I’ve wanted to, and tried to, play asphodel ever since I first started playing Dom 4 - pumped to give these changes a try.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Fear and Dread stacking was pretty busted. If you were in melee with a line of heavy cavalry or other 4 sacred "units" per square, and those had both blesses, it took about 1.5 rounds for your morale modifier from far to drop to -10. I think the hit rate for fear auras remains excessive got very high density units, but this does eliminate a pretty ridiculous amplifying effect and makes more sense thematically, so it's a great change.

[@DarkSideCookies]

Fear and Dread stacking was the very first thing I did in Dominions 6 to The False God using Helheim. Small numbers of cavalry presumably getting 2 fear auras (mount and elf) were delivering massive routes. Eventually started mixing in the Jotun wolves, and I'm sure Wailing Winds and Dark Skies would eventually be in the cards. I kind of wish Fear wasn't a bless though. It's more fun when it feels special for units with strong mechanics.

[@markmittelbach7975]

Does it have to be the disease that kills them, or can you kill them however and they respawn in that province? Because if you can just have them at the front of an army running into die, and you get the seed back, then that's a way to generate out commanders.

[@chocomess2384]

Those new pretender chassis are pretty spicy too. I wonder how effective that Swarm Body ability one of them has is. Kind of a weaker built-in Phoenix Pyre?

[@battlemode]

Fun overview as always sir, cheers

[@Xaxares]

Did you try having the unit affected by the heart die in battle? Maybe they can come back that way?

[@sysjkb]

This was my thought. Set the commender on the front lines of your army.

[@fabianschmidt1702]

They said in the patchnotes, that 1/3 of the sacred spawns are carrion furries

[@Milorada7375]

I killed throne defender Titan indie and got a size 9 carrion titan. Wonder what will happen when I gift of reason it

[@F4R207]

Was wondering why my current Apshodel game suddenly had different sprites when I booted it up yesterday. I guess I should restart.

[@TheIceDragon225]

Hoping Ys gets something like this. I've felt that their elven units got some kinda anti-synergy going from air to glamor.

[@CasparMinning]

I had that bug with my pretender loosing his passive bless things. I teleported him fully kitted into a water province, the one province my bless wassnt in... and he drowned because underwater breathing was passive...

[@MRProgressor]

I thought Asphodel also had some fort pop protection in 5, just like Therodos. But never messed with them much, so could be wrong.

[@LucidTactics]

They do its pretty small though -1k pop protected.

[@jb9515]

Hey Lucid Thanks for the vid! I watched your dom5 videos on asphodel and I was wondering if you had a better understanding of the scales and dom points for asphodel in dom6. I'm guessing growth 4 is a must for forest conversion. What edge does one get for each magic scale? If you lose out on sacred is magic 3 mandatory as well? What is the balance of dominions spread to convert forests vs popkill? I wish the nation descpt pointed out forts perserve 1000 people..is that for every nation now? I was digging through the mod manual and couldnt find a nation tag for forts thats preserve life. I'd love to thank you for your mods but Sombre is banning anyone who criticizes illwinter and while I dont care about the forums the ban also blocks comments on the workshop.

[@LucidTactics]

I had done some testing. Reanimation from priests is uneffected by scales. Dominion based animation really likes magic 3 and growth 4. I should test it again though and write things down this time.

[@jb9515]

@@LucidTacticsAre we using carrion priest to reanimate? I didnt think a few manikins per turn were worth the gems. Does that reanimation action have the ability to reanimate sacred?

[@Adantehand]

Oh neat, you also play Starsector too.

[@andrewcole4843]

Whilst the carrion fortress change is welcome there is still high random risk - my game had a difficult forest throne 4 provinces away nearest forest 5 provinces and zero death herophants by turn 8. So lost zero battles but already lost the war. The choices of pretender and bless are all no doubt imperfect so as to force a very varied choice of imperfect solutions and replay. But still with limited spawn sacreds difficult to work in enough fire counters and the dominion level choice is between drastic population decline and dom kill exposure it still seems to have a please pick on me sign hanging over it. Even the imprisoned rainbow options to include fire resistance etc are more risky with changes to gods making human ones more vulnerable. So still falls in the realm of "interesting challenge" all be it a cleverly designed one.[ I tried dom 2 Elder cyclops in spite of scales not fitting].

[@TheGahta]

ohh no more twiceborn on dryads then transforming them to get hulking big Thuggs XD Looking forward to asphodel becoming more then "Funny ermor", especially the change to summon fort is nice now that you no longer have to play Gacha with your big guys until you hit N4

[@werotan]

Can't the seed artifact be used as combat LaD ?

[@bradenatkinson4784]

Hey have you tried winds of death as a counter to awaken forest cause I think it’s a hard counter since it kills all the vegetation on the map

[@bradenatkinson4784]

I don’t know about other battle field wipes also think fire shield would do a number on those trees basically I feel like illwinter might be jumping the gun on some balance changes before people can come up with the solution

[@LucidTactics]

I havent that sounds fun to try though!

[@Timlagor]

How likely is it that someone picks up the magic items if your leader dies in combat?

[@tornielsen2888]

Good Asphodel changes. Most of the others suck. Majority of the "fixes" were stuff that didnt need to be fixed. Like no twice-borning animals.

[@Timlagor]

I thought Passive Bless would be the fact that your God is automatically blessed all the time while in Dominion

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Nope it's things like Larger that you don't need to be blessed for sacred units to benefit from.

[@Timlagor]

@@DemonsthenesDominions Pretenders used to not get those?

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

If it was Total War Warhammer this patch would've been 15$ DLC instead.

[@charlesleitz7549]

Can you just drown commanders and convert them into manikin? The manikin are poor amphibs...

[@LucidTactics]

Thats a good idea ill test

[@dimas3829]

Man, I loved this faction, lore-wise, for their uniquness, but playing them was horrendously bad. Those changes seem to make them actually playable.

[@kibbylol]

Are these changes retroactive?

[@Maeniel83]

If your question is: are ongoing lobby games effected - then it is yes.

[@kibbylol]

@@Maeniel83Thank you good sir that is quite huge as I'm asphodel in one of my games

[@-Kidzin]

Taking away twiceborn/transformation from gods is silly. Why would pretender god not be able to alter himself? Changes like that limit creativity. Things that truly break game are simple, common etc. Also I hate that Mandehas are unique. And yeah heroism nerf is one of thoes things from 80-20 ratio of players complaining. Also can't commanders just suicide with the seed? It seems to work like twiceborn.

[@LordSasquatch63]

I'm ok with making Mandehas unique, but they needed to make them more distinct, like give each one an extra path or different abilities or something like the Grigori have.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

​@@LordSasquatch63they do have different paths. Each has a total of 8 paths with 3/3/2 between Blood/Air/Death, vs Dominions 5 where the two path was always Blood.

[@LucidTactics]

Suiciding with the seed doesnt work sadly. Re: Pretenders changing themselves. Funny story - the start of stopping pretenders from altering their form - used to be when you called them back... they would keep their transformed form. This lead to a very sad/funny interaction where if you were playing an aquatic nation and your pretender died while having curse of frog prince cast on them... when you called them back they would be a frog... and die underwater immediately.

[@LordSasquatch63]

@@DemonsthenesDominions i meant like one of them gets some nature, another gets some glamour, something like that. Like the Grigori, the Tlaloc guys that Mictlan gets, or the Heliophages, something like that. The 1 point difference in a path they all already have doesn't feel like it does enough to give them distinct personalities, so to speak. If we're worried about balance just different sprites and default weapons could do the trick without changing their power level too much.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

​@@LordSasquatch63yeah I think it's fine; they basically are an all in one super commander for Demon armies, with H3, auto Darkness, and an awesome chassis. So a bit of individuality seems enough, and I think thematically, the concept Illwinter has for these guys is clearly just within those paths. BTW the change to make them unique happened before this release, not that it matters.

[@cringephodel]

Why are the carrion centaurs not just commander versions of the saggitarian carcasses? also the name carrion commander is not great. How about carrion satyr or commanderized carrion minotaurs. So much more thematic. Mild complaints. Also the uses for the carrion seed item are nuanced and subtle I think. Vengeful vines spell is busted, already calling. Anyway I will end this stream of consciousness and finish the video

[@LucidTactics]

Good ideas

[@saberq6413]

For all have sinned and the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus god alone