Grand Strategy Noob plays Dominions 5

[Galdred]

Alternatively you can use a frostbrand. The AoE frost effect bypasses all defences and jinn have frost vulnerability to boot.

Indeed, that was my initial plan, but I found no water mage, except my pretender, who should do something else than smithing frostbrands.

I am thinking about going on a site searching spree with my rainbow pretender now, but what should I do to avoid him getting stupidly murdered?
I was thinking of giving him a shademail haubergeon, some boots of speed (messenger), and maybe some items that summon bodyguards? And casting twiceborn on him (my neighbour Ermor just murdered Tien Chi's pretender with an indie assassin).
Is it worth using Helhirding bodyguards? That seems horribly inefficient.
How else should I equip him (I am at Const 4, and probably won't move to Const 6 for a while, unless there are tons of items I am missing)?

 

[Trash Player]

Can you put on a good defensive script for them? Gems for a couple of summons?
Twiceborn is good against random stuffs and gives a better than mortal chassis to boot.

 

[Malakal]

If he can return then script that, he could die in the void but eh, bad luck is bad luck.

You can forge him the returning item too or precast the returning ritual.

Alternatively he could cast fly on himself and retreat, not sure if pretenders can die to retreat though.

Or give him bodyguards.

 

[Trash Player]

Tested twiceborn on the dwarfs. The result is the size 1 chassis, which has stealth on top of the usual advantages. Pretty good deal for 5 gems.
The mounted ones will return as the standard size 2 ones, losing stealth and glamor, despite costing 15 gems for being size 3 cavalries.

 

[Johannes]

Returning is terrible here, you don't want your pretender risking void in a random villain attack. Twiceborn is good. Beyond that you can give him some survivability item to not get killed in an unlucky random assassination.

And you can script him on retreat, as long as he's not going to a province where losing all retreat routes seems possible. Pretenders never get lost retreating, if they have any place to retreat to, and assassinations dont follow the defenders script.

 

[Matalarata]

Have him forge a bottle of the elemental before starting sitesearch, I find it the most cost effective deterrent. Especially if he's your only W mage and you cannot properly invest gems otherwise.

 

[Johannes]

Cmon that's const6, not really the time to start sitesearching for the first time.

Armor is most crucial to general survivability, but a +hp or twist fate item won't hurt either if you're feeling paranoid. And a gem or two if it helps him get off a good spell, giving him gems to be able to cast a specific battlefield spell, can be a good call if you need to switch from searching to combat quickly as strategic situation changes.

 

[Infinitum]

Shademail is probably the safest bet to avoid fuckery from your opponents, especially given your awake bless. That, a few gems, maybe a vinemen spawning trinket and a retreat script and you should be safeish.

 

[Malakal]

Shademail is probably the safest bet to avoid fuckery from your opponents, especially given your awake bless. That, a few gems, maybe a vinemen spawning trinket and a retreat script and you should be safeish.

But you can't both site search and be stealthied, you can only move in a stealthy way and then site search in plain sight. This could help but not prevent assassination attempts.

Important point tho: since your bless isn't even incarnate your pretender is not that important so don't sink too much into protecting him...

 

[Infinitum]

Sure, if they can predict where the pretender will surface next (which is not all that likely unless they have full scout coverage and are paying attention). I guess you could sprinkle in a gaggle of scouts following it to act as ablative armor for blindly aimed seeking arrows and assassination attempts, but that's fairly niche.

 

[Johannes]

You'd have to predict with the assassin where the sitesearcher goes next, to catch a stealthing sitesearcher with assassination, not a task many players would try or succeed in. Or have assassins waiting all around, wasting their turns trying to assassinate in seemingly empty provinces. If the enemy wants to wreck havoc with those shaytans or whatever that'd be actually dangerous to the pretender, more likely he will aim for your fort where there's guaranteed targets. And murder attempts in non-assassination situations you can just retreat out of.

 

[Galdred]

Only Barkskin is incarnate indeed. But it makes quite a difference (well, not that much against fire throwing Ubar, especially now that their forces are gone).
Ermor has killed T'ien chi pretender with a Stalker (and we are neighbour).

Are bodyguard useful, or too unreliable to matter?

What is a cost efficient Vanjarl raiding kit? I saw recommendations for vine shield + horror helm, but both are pretty expensive (I can go this route if they are really better than the alternatives).
Charcoal shield seems nice too, but it costs 9E+4F with hammer, which I cannot really afford easily.

 

[Malakal]

Armor: You only get a good cost efficient armor at cons6 - knight armor. Before that you can either be good or cost efficient. Black steel plate is a good solution to the issue of decent prot for low cost, you can also use fire plate. Since both offer merely extra 4 and 5 prot you may also leave this slot open for the generic armor Vanjarls get.

Weapon: Frost brand is the best you get for cheap, snake bladder stick is another more weird option but you need to have poison resistance or your guy will kill himself, mace of eruption kinda works too, plus all the assorted 5 gem weapons that are decent enough to use (sword of sharpness for example has decent stats and AP).

Shield: Vine is the norm but I had it break in Dom5 since it has abysmal stats for a shield, Charcoal is great vs masses of chaff and skeletons and has great stats but is expensive, blacksteel is a cheap shields with good stats but no secondary effects.

Thats it, dont pour more gems into light thugs.

Light thug: frost brand and thats it probably. Heavy thug: sword of swiftness (I prefer it over frost brand), charcoal shield, blacksteel plate, girdle of might (you can add another reinvig item if you expect a really big pd or small army).

 

[Galdred]

I ran a few test against what my Ermor neighbour is fielding (3+ armies of 200+ heavy infantry or Hastati + archers + Elder Augur with Evocation 4/Ench 4 or 5, or lots of long deads).
3 Vanjarls with Wraithswords, armor (I already have chainmail of displacements, even though they are not super cost efficient) , dragon helmet, burning pearl and dancing trident, and they wrecked groups of 200+ supported by a commander with lifelong protection just fine.
However, it is rather costly, and won't work against undeads (also, life drain doesn't heal wounds, so my Vanjarls could end the fight with full HP and 3 wounds).

What would be a cost efficient way to deal with them without Construction 6 (I have Const 4, Enchant 4, alteration 4, Construction 4)?
My war with Ubar left me with a shortage of Helhirdings (45 or so, but 10 are protecting the besiegers in Ubar), so sending them against his large armies seem like a losing proposition.
Charcoal shields kind of work; but the lack of regen/recovery makes it much less reliable. My guys sometimes succumbed to their 1000 papercuts, and they cost a ton to make.
Vine shields are good indeed, but I would need some AoE to go with them, and frostbrands will be of little use against the hordes of undead.

I could try to bring lizard shaman communion for regeneration, and dwarves for strength of giants/legions of Steel but they lack mobility, but aren't there other spells that would make it much easier to deal with them?
Curse of stones seems good to deal with the humans, but not so great against longdead.

Dust to Dust would be a terrible waste of the potential of my Hangadrots but I guess I could mass banish with the Vanjarls. Would behemoths be any good? They are expensive, but they can probably deal with chaff quickly.


Should I focus on Construction 6 for firebrands and lanterns, Evocation 6 for wailing winds, or Enchantment 5 for elementals?

 

[AgentFransis]

Elementals are in conj 5. You definitely need to go to evo 6 asap for wailing winds and mass tstrike. Start blood hunting if you haven't already and get blood 1 so your jarls can sabbath up for tstrike without storm.

 

[Galdred]

Elementals are in conj 5. You definitely need to go to evo 6 asap for wailing winds and mass tstrike. Start blood hunting if you haven't already and get blood 1 so your jarls can sabbath up for tstrike without storm.

My Bad, Ench 5 would have been for Hordes of Skeletons, but I don't think it would be a good Handagrot job.
So Evo 6 is higher priority than both Const 6 and Conj 5?

 

[AgentFransis]

Yes, just for wailing wind alone. And mass tstrike can of course be devastating (orb lightning is good too). Air elementals are strong too but I don't think it's as high a priority and unless you have storm it will cost 2 gems for a vanjarl to summon an elemental which would drain your reserve quickly if you rely on it heavily.

Another thing is I would be very careful about sending thugs against his armies since he can just soulslay you.

 

[Trash Player]

You get D1 for Helkarl outside of cap, so D2D is available. Banishment is not cost effective if they have Antimagic already.
Imo, the dwarves with troops plan is the best. It does not require research or that much gems, only gold. You need the bodies for sieging anyway.
It takes some precious cap turns but you get Twiceborn for insurances.
12 MM isn't slow, it is pretty much the standard for most armored humanoid. I can see where you are coming from, though, with the ponies.
Ermorian roster is very speedy in this department but I don't think it matters that much at all. Their best mages are also 12MM.

You might need to account for their mages more though.

 

[Galdred]

That is a good point. Getting mindhunted or soulslain doesn't sond good, but Evo 6 is far away(I have 200-250RP/turn, so I would need 10 turns or so to get it. What can I use in the meantime ? Dilute geared Vanjarls inside ungeared ones?
Summoned wights (but they aren't cheap!)?

 

[Malakal]

You can and should - when fighting skeletons and puny humans - just spam EQ. EQ is def check negates so all your elves just laugh at it, just equip the dwarves casting it and watch puny humans and their undead minions get obliterated.

Being an old dude with a robe in dominons is a death wish...

 

[Johannes]

You can defend against EQ as Ermor mages with casting luck / cheat fate / body ethereal, you can even have all 3 on each mage if you place 3 mages in the same square with each of those spells cast by the different guys on turn1, EQ takes longer to cast. But only if you know it's coming... And the troops are still gonna get hurt no matter what.

You get D1 for Helkarl outside of cap, so D2D is available. Banishment is not cost effective if they have Antimagic already.

Antimagic doesn't help the skeletons who spawn after Antimagic was cast. But the nature banishment is not that good against longdead regardless, since it targets a smaller AoE. Great against soulless though, due to lower MR and higher HP, who they will target preferentially.

I could try to bring lizard shaman communion for regeneration, and dwarves for strength of giants/legions of Steel but they lack mobility, but aren't there other spells that would make it much easier to deal with them?

A lizard shaman can cast regen even without communion. First power of the spheres, that gets you to N2 and from there you can cast Regeneration with 1 gem. If it's in drain scales though, the PoTS will knock you out for a while before casting the 2nd spell. Carrying a thistle mace to get to N2 works too, but is more expensive.

 

[Galdred]

It went rather well, but I should use cheaper "chaff".
It's a pity I didn't get more of these mages.
I used 3 thugged Vanjarls, supported by 4 lightning bolt Vanjarls.
The Helhirdings were mostly there to eath the Starfires.

He is sieging one of my castles with this:

How many D2D Helkarls and charcoal shields do I need?

 

[Infinitum]

Unless that ambassador mage is capable of laying down battlefieldwide enchantments, it's just some barely supported sacreds. No need to get cute.

EDIT: Does he even have backline defense? Some frontline distractions and 3-4 airdropping vanjarls will murder that.

 

[Galdred]

His ambassador is usually spamming Hordes of Skeletons. His backline is the Archbishop, the centurion and the amabassador each protected by 5 bodyguards.
The PD Vanherse tried Final rest on the skeletons, and it was lackluster to say the least.

 

[Johannes]

What's the Ermor bless?