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| When using Swarm, it's best to have your archers set to fire against anything except Closest, because otherwise they will die in droves, and their little screams will haunt your dreams for weeks.
Conjuration-3 is worth it simply for Summon Earthpower on your Gorgon, and Thaumaturgy-2 is necessary for remote site searching. You are going to be using a LOT of gems. You can successfully compete for artifacts with a Magic scale, and Sauromatia should be spending almost all their free gold on independent mages for magic diversity, which Construction-6 boosts tremendously. Without magic diversity, Sauromatia is much, much weaker. Air alone will get you Wind Guide and Arrow Fend. I took A4 on my Gorgon in Peccary, and have not regretted it, because it is the key to Air boosters. A single Fire-2 caster with your archers makes them into a magical missile juggernaut. It will also allow you access to Fire Resistance items if your thugs are going to face Abysia. Earth is essential, if only for Dwarven Hammers, which you NEED to allay your ravenous gem expenditure. Earth has some of the most useful and powerful battlefield spells in my opinion. Finally, a W2 mage gives you access to W4 with Robes of the Sea; otherwise you are stuck at W2 with Water Bracelets. 8.31.2.8 EARLY ENDGAME AND OTHER STRATEGIES Blood and Death, oh my. Hit the enemy capitals hard with Blood and Death. Rain of Toads can completely shut down enemy capitals by turn 40. It takes that long because you have to empower a Witch King to get to B3 in order to build Armor of Thorns for the rest of your Blood-random Witch Kings. The more Blood you use to summon, the better your upkeep and the more powerful your armies. Imps are actually nice, solid units, and dropping them on top of enemy PD is one of the best remote summons in the game for the research needed, though it is expensive in Blood Slaves and booster items. But honestly, what else are you going to do with near-mindless virgins? One efficient tactic you can use very early is to summon Dark Servants and equip them with a Bane Venom Charm, then send them to enemy capitals. They can also be used to damage large armies if you sneak into their path. There are so many and varied tactics you can use with a great degree of success with Sauromatia, that unless you make up your mind like Baalz once iterated, you can be overwhelmed and spill your seed uselessly on the field of battle. This is a VERY REAL danger and disadvantage. Concentrate on a bright pinpoint of tactical options and you will be much the better for it. In conclusion, this incaration of Sauromatia is the most powerful and fun nation setup I have ever used in Dominions 3. Sauromatia Dominion 5 Order 3 Sloth 3
Heat/Cold 2 Growth 1
Misfortune 2 Magic 1
It may be worth noting that this pretender build has exactly 0 points left over. 8.32 Yomi, Shinuyama, Jomon 8.32.1 Yomi 8.32.1.1 Yomi - Oni Kings analysis -> List of Oni Kings weaknesses: 1. Very low protection on ALL (!) demonic regular units. We are talking about protection 3, 4 and 6, with prot 6 for the best and most expensive 50gp and 65 gp troops. Combined with average defense, and low hps (9) for cheaper troops, and only 24hp for their best 50-65gp troops means that demons (in their normal form) are extremely fragile to both melee and archer attacks. (Which was clearly design and balancing decision, which I have no problem with for the most part) 2. (This is a huge deal breaker) Both spiritual and regular forms of demons can be banished relatively easily by cheap lvl 1 priests. >;( And unlike Ermor with its free or cheap undead hordes, demons are quite expensive to buy, so their loss really hurts. What makes things even worse, 12 gp demons (the only relatively cheap demons available to Oni player) are size 1! That means lvl 1 priest with the single cast of banishment can affect 5x6 = 30 demons in any of their two forms! Each unit has only 9hp or 5hp for ghost form, in addition to only slightly above average MR. (13MR). That makes attacking armies with more than few priests to be VERY cost ineffective for Oni, and if its more than several priests, its almost suicidal using demonic troops (which are main Oni troop type). Larger demons fare slightly better due to larger size, slightly higher MR and more hitpoints, but still suffer a lot from banishment, since their both primarily and secondary forms can be banished relatively easy by lvl 1 indep priests. I am not even talking about priests with level higher than 1, which many nations have, which makes banishment both larger in AoE and makes it even harderer to resist . Also demons have no easy way to make their demonic armies less banishable. 3. No sacred regular troops at all. Only two sacred commanders, with only one of them being cost effective option - the most expensive capital only 500gp Oni King. Few summoned sacred low level demons, but nothing to write home about. Therefore bless strategy - not very powerful, at least in the early/medium game before Oni Kings units have buffs they need to make them worth producing in significant numbers. 4. No heavy infantry at all and very mediocre human medium infantry. No cavalry, no units with any type of shields to withstand missile fire. basically Oni armies are extremely weak against any type of archers. 5. Quite average archers, worse than some of the common indep archers for the same price. Their only advantage is low resource cost, but as I said common indep tribe archers have better stats for the same cost in money and resources. 6. Below average researchers . 7. Relatively limited magic path selection Only 3 schools of magic. (Death, Fire and Earth only, nothing else other than sometimes air one, which is not very useful). 8. Small selection of pretenders, no unique *and* interesting pretenders. 9. No priest other than movement 1 lvl 1 priest, which is actually inferior to indep priest. (Most useless of Oni unit IMHO, in most situations -10 gp on its price is not worth having 1mp unit where almost all other Oni units are 2 mps) 10. Most of national summons are not very interesting, considering their price and also the amount of units they bring. Many summons, including the best ones, are impossible to cast not only by national mages, but even by mages summoned by national mages). So unless you design your pretender specifically to be able to cast these spells, you can pretty much forget about many of them, including those actually worth casting. *************************************************************************************** Now after reading this whole list you may come to conclusion that Oni Kings is a totally hopeless and weak nation. That would not be true. So to be totally fair, let me list their strengths as well, based upon my observations so far. *************************************************************************************** List of Oni Kings strengths: 1. The Oni King unit (of course!). It's a good commander, no doubts about that. That's IMO the main strength of this nation in MP. Basically its strategic role is quite similar to Niefel Jarls. It costs the same 500gp. It has about 30% less HPs than Niefel Jarl (Oni King only has 50hps). It makes it significantly less powerful in the early game, especially considering the fact that high bless strategy is *much* more beneficial to Niefelheim than to Oni Kings, therefore Oni King player is much less likely to go with the high bless strategy then Niefel player, which indirectly makes Jarls even better comparable to Oni Kings. However in the late game (assuming Oni player have managed to survive to see it), and with good research Oni King can be more powerful than Niefel Jarl. Invulnerability plus Soul Vortex is a powerful combo. Fire magic and (rarely) air magic also add diversity. So basically in the late game Oni King can be a very powerful unit. At the same time late game nations have a lot of different means to deal with SCs, and SCs overall are significantly less powerful in Dom3 than in Dom2 due to multiply balancing changes. Which, together with the fact that Oni Kings are capital only units, significantly reduces the value of Oni Kings in MP games during its later stages of the game, where Oni Kings finally have buffs they need to be really effective. This being said, Oni Kings units are still the major strength of the Oni Kings nation. In fact they are their main strength, because frankly it doesn't have that many others. 2. Many demon units are only res 1. That allows to produce a lot of them quickly, which can be quite useful if your castle is in danger of being assaulted by enemy. Mortal archers cost only 4 res as well. All this allows Oni player to raise army quickly and to experiment with sloth scale, if he chooses to. Demons are non sacred and cost a lot though, other than wimpy 12 gps ones. 3. Demons troops need to be killed twice, after death they revert to very weak but ethereal form. If this form is not destroyed by the time the battle ends AND the battle is won, the demon will reform in its normal form.
4. Battle mages are decent. Only level 1 and 2 mages, except Oni King themselves, which are rare and much better to be used in their SC role most of the time. However Earth, Death and Fire are good magic schools for battlefield, and so Oni Kings do have relatively good battle mages. 5. Oni have 2 good battlefield-wide spells. Both require level 6 research in two different schools. One gives demon troops prot 10 (which demon units desperately need, because most of them have crappy prot 3 and 4. The side effect is additional damage from fire, but most of the time its worth it). The other spell grants demons berserk ability. Both spells are must have for any serious battles). Although these spells do nothing to alienate the main Oni critical weakness - banishment by lvl 1 priests, they do help to balance odds somewhat when battling other nations national armies. 6. Few low level human troops and human commander have stealth attribute. *************************************************************************************** -> Quote:
BigJMoney said: I haven't looked as in-depth into them as you have, but I have played against them a couple of times, now. I would say that increasing the MR of their corporeal form is a good idea, as long as they don't increase the MR of their ghost form. They certainly should not be banished quite as easily as undead, as long as there is still some kind of balance between the two forms. Ie. the corporeal form is best destroyed by missile fire and melee and the ghost form is best destroyed by magic. It means the player fighting Oni Kings has to be more flexible. " =$= Big J Money =$= Well currently ghost form is twice as easily to kill by banishment as a normal form, which is quite easy to kill in the first place. That is due to the fact that banishment is AN attack, and corporate form having the same MR as the normal form but two times less hitpoints, which were low to begin with. So its 7 hitpoints for ghost form of for 30gp demon, and 12 hp form for 65 gp demon. And 5hp for 12 gp one. So increasing MR by four for normal demonic forms while making ghost form hp equal to normal form would be acceptable solution. Although I think ghost form would still need some MR increase, maybe not by 4 but by 2. I like your suggestion about these two forms having different MR and requiring different means to kill though. One of the main idea behind these double forms theme of On nation is to give demon troops the chance to survive the battle in ghost form. "Almost immortality", as their description tells us. However currently despite their "immortality" demon armies often suffer high casaulties in any battle when it comes to melee, much more so when few enemy lvl 1 priests are involved. And if dozen of indep lvl 1 priests are involved? Which you can bet your ass will be in MP with ANY nation vs Oni player? You can forget about medium or large demon armies than, unless you have huge numerical advantage over enemy, because you would fare much better with indep early era troops for the same price. Quote: BigJMoney said: As for having no heavy infantry, that's not a huge deal. You can always buy indies for the missile screen if you really want it. From what I can see, there isn't an easy way for an enemy player to figure out how to specifically target your most vulnerable with missile fire. =$= Big J Money =$= Two points. 1. After few turns of battle, during which you can and should try to distract enemy fire to decoy troops or high armored troops, as you rightfully mentioned, it usually comes to the melee, since all of your demon troops are clearly melee oriented units, even those who have some form of limited ranged weapon. And enemy archers are quite happy to shoot into melle. They hit their own units on regularly, but they hit you more often. However enemy units normally have much higher protection than 3 or 4, so they suffer much less from missile fire.
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Corvin said: List of Oni Kings weaknesses: 1. Very low protection on ALL (!) demonic regular units. We are talking about protection 3, 4 and 6, with prot 6 for the best and most expensive 50gp and 65 gp troops. Combined with average defense, and low hps (9) for cheaper troops, and only 24hp for their best 50-65gp troops means that demons (in their normal form) are extremely fragile to both melee and archer attacks. (Which was clearly design and balancing decision, which I have no problem with for the most part) Actually, this isn't low protection: It's Early Age, where armor is generally less strong - and quite some troops have to go without, even. Note - there are no crossbows or longbows as well, therefore vulnerability to archers is limited. Quote: 2. (This is a huge deal breaker) Both spiritual and regular forms of demons can be banished relatively easily by cheap lvl 1 priests. .. Each unit has only 9hp or 5hp for ghost form, in addition to only slightly above average MR. (13MR). That makes attacking armies with more than few priests to be VERY cost ineffective for Oni, and if its more than several priests, its almost suicidal using demonic troops (which are main Oni troop type). Larger demons fare slightly better due to larger size, slightly higher MR and more hitpoints,... Also demons have no easy way to make their demonic armies less banishable. You may have a point here, but lets compare that to the blood summons: lowly Imps have MR13 Demon Knights have MR15 Devils, Frost Finds have MR17 Quote:
Not all nations are created equal. Not every nation must have sacred troops to make a (plain) bless strategy viable. On the other hand, a simple N4 bless is tremendous useful with the Dai-Oni. Maybe add E4 to help with their encumbrance problem. Quote: ..before Oni Kings units have buffs they need to make them worth producing in significant numbers. What are the buffs you think they need? A N4E4 bless and a fire shield will make them quite useful even in the early game IMHO, and isn't hard to get at all. And what do you mean by "producing in significant numbers" .. being captiol-only and costing 500g per units, you're not going to hire dozends of them anyway during the first 30 turns anyway. Quote: 4. No heavy infantry at all and very mediocre human medium infantry. No cavalry, no units with any type of shields to withstand missile fire. basically Oni armies are extremely weak against any type of archers. There's no heavy infantry in the Early Age. At least, it shouldn't. I'm pretty sure the prot-15 indies do show up sometimes, but that's a bug I guess. According to the manual, EA 'heavy inf' is the prot-10 spearwielding type. Most troops are in the prot6-9 range. Considering this, the bandits and even the prot-6 Oni don't look that bad. Quote: 5. Quite average archers, worse than some of the common indep archers for the same price. The indie tribe archers are just too good (better than any national archers) and hopefully will get nerfed or made more expensive in a future patch. And Yomi has 2 types of archers: The bandits are quite ressource-intensive, but among the best archers in the EA. Quote: 9. No priest other than movement 1 lvl 1 priest, which is actually inferior to indep priest. (Most useless of Oni unit IMHO, in most situations -10 gp on its price is not worth having 1mp unit where almost all other Oni units are 2 mps) Yomi starts in mountainious area anyway. No use for a move-2 human priest, at least without mountain survival. Then the Demon Priests are only 80% as expensive, have 1 lower enc and 1 more MR than indie priests. And they have a 10% chance to get 1 magic level and become ultra-cheap researchers/forgers. And if that's not enough incentive to buy them - buy indie priests. Quote: 10. Most of national summons are not very interesting, considering their price and also the amount of units they bring. Many summons, including the best ones, are impossible to cast not only by national mages, but even by mages summoned by national mages). Kappa - castable (only by Nushi, but useless anyway) Karasu T. - NOT castable (to mage-time intensive for pretender) Konoha Ts. - castable (sorcerer) Dai Tengu - castable (seldomly, 1:10 Dai-Oni, pretty expensive)
A.o.Tigers - castable (Nushi, animals...) Nushi - .. needs pretender, but is worth it as it opens up 'nature' and 'water'.
Now after reading this whole list you may come to conclusion that Oni Kings is a totally hopeless and weak nation. That would not be true. So to be totally fair, let me list their strengths as well, based upon my observations so far. Mainly, I have come to the conclusion that you're looking at Yomi from a skewed MP perspective: You seem to be looking through Yomis units list and comparing it to the list of 'basic strategies' - to find that a good part of them will not work (easily) with Yomi. Be more creative - not all nations are created equal. Not every nation must have the full range of pretender-build options. Not every nation must work with the F9W9-nobrainer-bless.
List of Oni Kings strengths: 1. The Oni King unit (of course!). It's a good commander, no doubts about that. That's IMO the main strength of this nation in MP. Basically its strategic role is quite similar to Niefel Jarls. It costs the same 500gp. It has about 30% less HPs than Niefel Jarl (Oni King only has 50hps). Actually, most stats are slightly inferior to the Niefel, apart from Prot (at the price of higher enc) and Att (mostly from fire magic). Especially 'Prec 9' and the high encumbrance make Dai-Oni unsuitable as spellcasters unless you slap a lighter armor on them. Again, a 'possible' strength that is not easy to use - other than buying a Niefel Jarl and set him to 'attack nearest'. Maybe a price reduction would be in order? Quote: It makes it significantly less powerful in the early game, especially considering the fact that high bless strategy is *much* more beneficial to Niefelheim than to Oni Kings, therefore Oni King player is much less likely to go with the high bless strategy then Niefel player, which indirectly makes Jarls even better comparable to Oni Kings. As I said - is everyone obliged to go with a high bless strategy? Several low level blesses work way better on the Dai-Oni and have the added advantage to open up more magical possiblities for/with the pretender. Quote:
.. significantly reduces the value of Oni Kings in MP games during its later stages of the game, where Oni Kings finally have buffs they need to be really effective. Again - how many buffs do you think they would need? Fire shield and some low-level blesses can do the trick quite nicely, later then add Soul Vortex and some (cheap) items and everything seems ok to me. Quote: As you of course realize by now, I think Oni Kings really need some boost to make them stand up to other nations in MP. And I think they perhaps simply need to be played slightly different to be competitive. Maybe by someone who's a stronger player than me, btw. Quote: Suggestions: 1. Add 4 MR to all demon troops. Or if it's too much - consider Oni national demons as having +4MR when it comes to checks against banishment. After all, demons are supposed to be significantly more difficult to banish than undeads. But as it turns out, their current 13 MR, 14 MR and 15 MR is absolutely not enough. Bloods summons have 13,15,17. Why not use that for that Oni as well? Or why not use 17 or 18 for all Oni, at least in ghost form? Why should a small demons ghost be easier to banish than a big ones? On the other hand, +4 is way to much - Dai Oni only have 18, and some pretenders do not have more to start with. Quote:
2. Make the cheapest 12 gp demon troops (Ko-Oni) size 2 instead of their current size 1. Big is beautiful? I would rather say: make them harder to banish, and give them higher Def, and maybe lower their price... . Quote: 3. Make ghost forms of oni have the same HPs as a normal form, instead of having 50% of HPs . Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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