Dominions 5 - Formations

[@kalebgates7711]

A few more advanced topics that could be worth discussing / thinking about, especially for history nerds: Oblique order strategies -- using elite shock troops / more numbers / time* to manage a defeat in detail strategy by focusing your attack against a portion of the enemy army. IE: putting your sacreds all to one flank while chaff delays the troops on the opposite side. The sacreds will either cause a break through allowing them to attack rear, or "roll up" the rest of the line from the dominant flank. Generally this is heavily dependent on army-comp, but hugely impacts the efficacy of elite units compared with spreading them throughout your line. *time: delaying the contact of the weakest portion of your army, thereby allowing the strong side to ... ^^^ (usually done via a diagonal line) Wedges --- contrast to the oblique strategy, an elite / well reserved center with weak flanks. The goal is to blow through the middle while your flanks hold off cavalry charge. Can work against thin lines, especially if you have a cav charge to drive them apart in the center. Cannae / Channels --- Using two smaller lines to force the enemy line to split in half exposing a gap in the center. Reserves then flood this gap either encircling the enemy lines or attacking the archers. Can be an incredible surprise card to pull out against skirmishing armies who expect flanks from the sides NOT the middle.

[@LucidTactics]

Nice, those are pretty good ideas.

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

I find in Dominions that trying to overload a flank just doesn't work as well as you might think. None-elite blocking troops just get mulched too quickly and/or rout, and the times that they do hold until the elite can roll-up the line they still take so much attrition that you need to replenish your chaff, which halts your offensive. Dominions is so killy that in reality you're better off just smashing center with hard hitters, whether that be elite troops or glass cannon chaff. Blockers are still handy for preventing flanking attacks / commander snipes, but in the center they just die.

[@michaelbodell7740]

Fire and keep distance can be an effective command for mounted archers (horse, camel, etc.). You can use them as bait even in one unit squads at the front edges of the battle on fire and keep distance and they can drag a slow infinity squad (that is on attack closest) and have it chase the archer without being able to close until your main troops kill the commanders or handle the other squads and come back.

[@Nightcloak27]

line formations are linked to number of squads not directly to leadership: any commander that can lead 3 squads without penalty can do line formations and that's where the exceptions come from. It's also why an inspirational bless doesn't allow sacred 60 leadership commanders to set line formations despite the fact that their leadership is now over 80

[@LucidTactics]

What determines how many squads you can lead?

[@Nightcloak27]

@@LucidTactics That I could not tell you. I wish I could and it /seems/ to be linked to the overall leadership but there don't seem to be any hard or fast "X amount of leadership gives X squads," as say Ithillid commanders can't do formations despite having 40 reg and 40 magic leadership, but some hybrids like that with no specific leadership 80 or above can (I think the leaderships in question were 60 reg and 40 magic but it's hazy). The only reason I know that it's by squads is because I got an in-between turn tooltip that told me that's what it was.

[@gibbcharron3469]

@@LucidTactics In Dominions' code, this is all determined by the Goodleader/Poorleader/Okayleader/etc tags. For example 'okayleaders' (eg indie commanders) can lead 40 troops and two squads, while 'Goodleaders' (eg Bandar Commanders) have a base of 80 troops and three squads, and that is the first level of leadership at which you unlock line formations. However, you can also reduce/increase the total number of troops from this base level, which is where weird leadership numbers like 60 troops come in. Indie Mounted Commanders, for instance, are just 'okayleaders' with 2 squads and no bonus morale, but have +20 leadership for a total of 60. The important part is that line formation and squad numbers are hardcoded as part of this tag, no matter how many total troops the commander can lead--You could stack 100 bonus leadership onto an 'okayleader', and they would still never unlock line formation or more than two squads, while you could reduce a 'goodleader's troop count by 79 and they'd still be able to put their one dude into line formation.

[@LucidTactics]

@@gibbcharron3469 ah thanks

[@AlgaeNymph]

I understand if you don't want to edit the videos, but would it also be a pain to plan out and organize what you're going to say first? The vid felt a bit all over the place. In particular, I would've liked to know what each formation is for and what their weaknesses are. That said, you did cover the basics so good job on that.

[@Bill_Garthright]

Thanks, Lucid. This was very useful. I suspect that you _could_ do another video on this, but that's the thing about Dominions. There's always another tactic someone has figured out, huh? And you probably don't want your videos to be 5 hours long. :)

[@Ragatokk]

Odd you did not mention having a melee as the first unit of the squad will make them attack instead of fire.

[@MrDicoz]

How do you script flying commanders when playing as Nazca or Caelum for example? When you have a frontline of grounded chaff you can just have them hide behind them but if you have a small raiding force of only flyers how do you do it? I usually just put them in a corner and set them on (hold) (hold) attack rear but they often get killed when they charge into the enemy force

[@edwardzdankiewicz9068]

Is there benefits to mixing troop types in a squad? Is there way to control alternating placment of things like pikes and axes?

[@LucidTactics]

Theres a benefit for balancing squad morale out. There are probably other benefits for mixed compositions like being harder to counter - i think the order units are recruited determines their placement in the field.

[@redgaarden8101]

Can only think of adding shields to discourage archers from shooting your 2h troops.

[@davidfletcher7633]

Alternatively recruiting size 4 giants and size 2 men should start them in the same square if you move all of them (at once) to a commander.

[@Mewobiba]

What determines whether a unit has formations is if it has any tag of "good" or above leadership, in any area - normal, undead or magic beings. Because "good" rating also confers 80 leadership of the given type, it usually correlates to having 80 leadership, but some units have a rating of "good" but then a raw number penalty (Mekonean mages are an example, having good normal leadership but a -50 command penalty) and some will have over 80 leadership but no formations (such as most D3+ mages having at least 90 undead leadership, but not being 'good' undead leaders). This wasn't always the case; it used to be that only the normal type of leadership counted for determining formations. The change caused Mound Kings and Banes to go from being unable to use formations, to now being able to, making them the easiest generic access to formations.

[@alfarabi73]

How do you position so that your archers avoid hitting your melees in the back? Damn, it used to be so much easier when you could Bodyguard all melees :(

[@ancalagon4747]

Hi Lucid. Does the AI take into consideration buffs cast on troops or items on commanders (like it does inherent characteristics) when choosing targets for evocations?

[@LucidTactics]

Generally no except it won't try to cast buffs on top of troops that already have it

[@Lodrigues1]

Pantokrator be bleseed, a double upload! Unless it was supposed to be only one :D

[@MrJherime]

👍

[@mcgeeal1]

Popcorn out