Dominions 6 - Shinuyama - Ep 6 - The Horror of Asphodel

[@kirbyone]

From my perspective right about now (Na'ba) I've only got a few options for my next war. I've got a decent border with Ulm, a decent border with Asphodel now that Man was dead/dying, diagonals with Nidavangr and Marignon, and a north/south border with Shinuyama Based on how many times they've been saying "Kirby was warning about Asphodel" you can probably guess I wanted to fight Asphodel, but my take was if I tried 1v1 in this state I'd just be free food, so I was playing heavy handed diplo with everyone in the game to try and get a coalition. With no success I had to pick someone to fight or I would stagnante. Nidavangr border was bad, and I felt a long slug fest with Ulm would tie me up for too long if Asphodel needed to be dealt with. I didn't want to fight Shinuyama because I wanted them to fight Asphodel, but I also didn't want them to get bigger So that left Marignon, and with a diagonal border it was awkward but much more awkward for them. If things went poorly or I had to pivot to fight Asphodel I'd have a choke point to hold off Mari so he wouldn't be able to hurt my infrastructure. Plus I felt like the player was not doing super well and his nation was kinda small. It was not ideal but I hoped to painlessly get some free stuff out of it...

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Yeah personally I think you made the right strategic choice for your situation. Nobody felt ready to fight Asphodel with the resources they had, and Marignon was the only 1 cap nation that looked potentially like food nearby (nobody had killed his stuff, but compared with the rest of the lobby, Marignon was not thriving and had roughly 20 provinces with the average size being 27 or so with 9 surviving players left). And you probably were not quite big enough as it was to head into the late game, unless you were able to take the whole Man region from Asphodel in that war. Personally I was putting all my resources towards preparing for war with Asphodel, but didn't feel close to ready for it, and nor did Pyrene/Nidavangr.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

I spoke incorrectly about how many Black Centaur Asphodel gets in a game; the popkill is slow enough that they'll still be able to make 3/turn around turns 45-50, so it's probably well above 200, not roughly 120 that they'll have made by midgame. Of course you will probably lose some early game in expansion and taking Thrones in addition to losses in player wars, though thanks to Recuperation, implicit losses from afflictions tend to be modest.

[@gloomfiend]

Just a little advice, maybe turn down the volume of sound effects in battles a bit, I couldn't hear what you guys said during the Machaka fight (These dying spiders are loud lol) Great series, I'm invested!

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Yeah Lucid tried to warn us not to talk during the fights for this reason, but because we can't hear the battle audio while recording, it's hard to resist!

[@TheRottenapples]

I would not want to watch a silent battle. Everyone always overreacts to complaints and turns the volume down to almost nothing. Just let people do their thing and you do your thing.

[@Wonko-bj4jx]

Asphodel's reanimation gives you an undead unit of (usually) the same size, with the animal tag being the deciding factor on if you get four legs or two, leads to some odd situations where Cynecephalians turn into wolves. Bogus turns into a carrion giant but will still disappear suddenly.

[@caementicium284]

That sounds reasonable I think, in undeath they regress.

[@lowlife4103]

I think NaBa is ok making an aggressive corner war as long as they can steal some marignon land and then make a peace deal. If they offend mari and it turns into a forever war, then NaBa still has the mobility advantage. Taking a throne fort and then negotiating for peace would be a good play. Marignon does not want to march all his knights deep into NaBa lands.

[@jimdee5319]

Fear/awe bless deserves to die to Asphodel.

[@AlgaeNymph]

Now that we're having big battles, it's time for a friendly reminder to let them play out first, _then_ do the pause and analyze on the second replay.

[@davidrossa4125]

I second this

Poor Man, getting all their expensive Knights of Avalon slaughtered like that. I think their matchup against Asphodel is a little bit difficult because their troops are so bad against them (besides the expensive elite Knights), but on the other hand their monks are very strong against undead spam. Here, though, they just didn't stand a chance. These Black Centaurs have a potent bless, while Man has a good bless in the wrong matchup. If they'd had a more appropriate bless and a bit more monks, i think they might've stood a bit more of a chance at holding Aspho off. A prot-bless might've helped them more, and the bonuses from a solid blood-bless would've definitely enabled them to fight a bit more evenly gainst the centaurs. On the meta level, though, i feel like it probably shouldn't ever get to this in a multiplayer game. Most players should know how strong Aspho is and, if not outright help Man, at least form non-aggression pacts to allow Man to focus their entire army towards Aspho. Meanwhile Aspho SHOULD have to be weary of attacks from all sides, as their popkill is slow enough to still make their land valuable early-mid game and they're such a threat that nobody should allow them to engage in a 1 on 1 war like this without attacking their rear. It may show weakness to be in Man's shoes and announce that you can't handle Aspho when you're sitting with a bless like this, but i think in this situation you just have to make the call and announce that clearly and early. Best case you'll be able to rally some support against the undead horde and maybe even win the war, and worst case you'll just lose a little quicker because someone decideds to eat you from behind. It may not feel good, but Man should've probably called for help and bunkered up in their forts for a bit, that way they could more easily force smaller frontlines should Aspho actually try and rush them down and they might be able to hold out long enough for someone to attack Aspho and force a response from em'. As it stands their chaff primarily serves to empower the black centaurs in battles like these.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Man did call for help! I think everyone declined. We decided joining would have a good chance of getting us killed at this stage of the game (see previous commentary about needing more infrastructure and mages on that border and more research to fight them). I think most other Asphodel neighbors made a similar calculation. Na'Ba, for example, probably felt they needed to have a profitable first war before they'd be ready to join a coalition against Asphodel.

@@DemonsthenesDominions That's fair, i suppose everyone was looking to grow a bit and reduce the number of competitors somewhat before going in against Aspho. Can't wait to see how this series turns out, even if my beloved Man is seemingly doomed. Either way, great job with it!

[@sammydavis5628]

Yikes. I do wonder how we'd beat that Asphodel stack if we had to fight it right now. Scary stuff.

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Probably all 20 Uba being mustered to do point buffs on a swarm of Dai Bakemono archers is the best script we could do at this time. Don't think we could win that war 1v1, in big part because gathering our forces into one place before we've lost the war would be pretty hard. But probably we'd be able to avoid it being a true 1v1; we're big enough that Asphodel eating us would threaten to snowball the world.

[@DarkSideCookies]

Does the Twist Fate bless proc for each life on a Nid? Seems like you could do something goofy with a Magic Weapons/Twist Fate/Luck bless.

[@LucidTactics]

Shouldnt. Luck does though.

[@moidalize]

Dormant Idol of Sorcery with Luck, Recuperation, and as much Undying as you can afford works well.

[@DarkSideCookies]

@@moidalize Yeah, that sounds good. It should help offset some of the counters like disintegrate and petrify via luck. It has Recuperation to heal up afflictions after battles, and Undying to get the most out of those multiple lives during battles from normal attacks.

[@daral9217]

Yeah, single player I just give up on a province Bogus is in and hope and didn't really need it.