Trolls - now with higher requirements

[Legowarrior]

I noticed in my last play through that both Sea King and Troll Kings now require Water 4 or Earth 4.

This is an interesting change from Dominions 5, since despite the cost decrease, and extra Glamour on the King, since it makes high level Earth a little harder, especially the Troll King.

In Dominions 5, Earth 2 would be enough to eventual get Earth Kings, with Earth 2 providing Boots, and Boots + Earth 2 allowing you to cast Troll Kings, and Troll Kings plus Boots giving you Earth 4.

But, it seems that Earth 4 through Troll Kings is out. You either need Earth 3 or Earth 2/Blood 3 to get Earth 4.

Water isn't as bad, since Construction 7 will give them access to both Water Boosters, if they have Water 2. This lets them get to Water 4, and access to Sea Kings. And of course Naiad are available if you have access to nature and water.

The biggest change for me is realizing that I can't rely on nations with native Earth 2 access to gain entry to higher paths. I either need to accept that Earth 3 (Earth 4 in battle) will be my maximum, or grab earth and possible blood on my pretender.

[Demonsthenes]

Every nation can blood hunt its way to empowering an E2 to B3 by midgame to do a blood stone... But it is quite a project involving a lot of mundane commanders blood hunting.

I'm more disappointed by the increase in cost from Dominions 5. Sure, the mage is more valuable with the extra 1 path, but it doesn't feel like how much cheaper summoned troops has been accounted for, which I'd have expected to land the spell at closer to the Dominions 5 price.

The Sea King's Court feels bad too, since he has the same paths as always, and Sea Trolls are now pretty affordable to just summon.

[Count von Bunnyhopven]

It feels a bit like a yet another nerf of Earth (Which was one of the strongest paths in the past). One of the reasons why it was so strong was that it was easy to bootstrap and easy to get more casters.

I guess now the path to higher earth without empowering goes through Hidden in Sand/Beneath. The first one have 1/3 chance of earth 3 per caster and the other one 1/4 chance. Though you can get more than one mage per casting. Though they are quite expensive spells.

[Una]

If you have Glamour 3 and Earth 2, you can mull glamour gems into E2G2N2 earth gnomes though. That allows you (often with a pretender) to get a good base of E2-E3 casters. It seems that part of reducing the amount of battlefield-wipes in the game also comes down to making it harder for everyone to get every path high by climbing the ladder, making you focus more on mid-path mages + a few high paths that you can wrangle from your nation and pretender. I think this is probably a good thing. Helps counteract the "paint every buff from every path in existence as a battlefield wipe" gameplay of late game.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by Una:

If you have Glamour 3 and Earth 2, you can mull glamour gems into E2G2N2 earth gnomes though. That allows you (often with a pretender) to get a good base of E2-E3 casters. It seems that part of reducing the amount of battlefield-wipes in the game also comes down to making it harder for everyone to get every path high by climbing the ladder, making you focus more on mid-path mages + a few high paths that you can wrangle from your nation and pretender. I think this is probably a good thing. Helps counteract the "paint every buff from every path in existence as a battlefield wipe" gameplay of late game.

You can do it sooner with Blue Kobolds. 2 Earth 1 Glamour Mages.

Which is cool, and maybe why Trolls are harder to summon.