Noob Question: What counters extremely bless-heavy builds?

[Typical_Name]

I'm wanting to play Dominions with my friend, but so far he only likes to play EA Mictlan and he does so by buffing their jaguar warriors (and eagle warriors to a lesser extent) to ridiculous levels (I forget all the details since there's so many and he keeps making new builds, but I believe his current build involves Quickness, Undying x7, Swiftness x2, Spirit Sight, Solar Weapons, and Blood Bond). He needs to tank most of his scales to do this, but this isn't much of a problem for him as being Mictlan means that his dominion doesn't auto-expand (so most of his territory won't get the bad scales) and the jaguars allow him to easily win before the long-term payoff of good scales.

I'd like to dislodge the notion that heavy blesses are the only way to win this game, because I want to try other parts of the game too, but to do that I need to actually beat this kind of playstyle. I have a vague understanding that high level spells are more important than powerful armies in the late game, but don't know the specifics or where I would read about the specifics.

Any suggestions? I've thought about using Unholy Weapons, but this only goes so far and I would need to survive long enough to have my pretender enter the world (plus it's a large point cost that's not at all useful againt anything but sacreds) (there's also the issue that such a blood-heavy build would probably also use demons, which his bless would tear through like tissue paper with Solar Weapons). I've also thought about using one of the few nations to have blessed ranged units, like Agartha's Stone Throwers, in order to shoot them down before they rip everything to pieces, but the quickness and swiftness on the jaguars should allow them to cross the entire battlefield and enter melee within a combat round or two.

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by HorseloverFat:

Refuses to play anything except Mictlan? Your friend sounds like a real weenie. Research thaumaturgy 3 and drop a rock on his capital. No more recruits coming outta there for a while.

Eh, I can't just ask him to change his playstyle so that I can win, I need to find something to beat it. Right now I'm happy that the cool new bless mechanics have gotten him to come out of his shell and try something other than Lemuria. He'll move on to other stuff once we explore what other stuff there is, hence why I'm trying to beat him without resorting to mimicking his strategy (actually he started looking at Nifelheim after I wrote the OP but we don't really know what to do with it because we're both noobs).

Originally posted by wilson.max:

Originally posted by HorseloverFat:

Refuses to play anything except Mictlan? Your friend sounds like a real weenie. Research thaumaturgy 3 and drop a rock on his capital. No more recruits coming outta there for a while.

FYI, Horselover is talking about teleporting an awake Monolith pretender on top of Mictlan's capital so he can't recruit troops or gain income.

Oh, thanks. That's HILARIOUS.

Originally posted by 2spooky4me:

Originally posted by Mad hatters in jeans:

Get him to play a on a larger map. His strategy only works because he's attacking you on a small map.

It's a very narrow strategy that will lose very badly due to zero attempt to spread dominion and have trash scales to boot.

It's the Starcraft equivalent of cannon rushing. Once you survive the rush your opponent can be beaten with ease. And only a pro can salvage something once the initial rush is over and I have doubts about your friends capability if he refuses to play other nations.


It's not advanced it's silly. But it's a game so it's okay to be silly so long as everyone knows you're being silly.

It works in only 1 type of game against 1 opponent.

Adaptability is far more important than learning and using 1 strategy. I'll bet this genius couldn't play another nation if his life depended on it and spent his time learning only 1 cheese strat to troll you with.

Troll him back with similar stupid strategies until he realises the game stops being fun then.

Underwater is an excellent start. Deny him the chance of a fair fight. Delay delay delay.
Rituals that target commanders.

Alteration 4 curse of stones might work. Mictlan sacreds have fairly high encumberence

This is what I'm saying when I say people don't seem to understand the strategy.

This is not just a terrible scales win by turn 20 strategy, where all you have to do is survive. This is a strategy with depth in the sense that, should you take an under water nation and allow him to take over the land, he's going to have a working economy to roll you over with later because he doesn't spread his terrible scales to his other provinces, so those provinces are still operating under neutral scales.

So he can have both his economy, and heavy bless.

This is why it's an advanced strategy - because it exploits a national advantage of Mictlan that most players don't fully appreciate: the ability to spread dominion only as needed. Mictlan can also dominion kill under water nations very easily through blood sacrifice, once it has enough blood priests and a working blood economy, so going under water is a BAD idea.

Surviving for the first year or two isn't enough to win against this strategy, as he can always choose to ignore your defense and quickly expand across the map with small armies with heavy bless. Then he can dominion kill you with blood priests, or just overwhelm you with his economy, which he can still establish, because he can control his dominion spread.

You need more than a simple defense strategy to stop this kind of play.

Hmm, I see. My friend is smarter than he gives himself credit for.

[TheGrandWombat]

Originally posted by 2spooky4me:

This is what I'm saying when I say people don't seem to understand the strategy.

This is not just a terrible scales win by turn 20 strategy, where all you have to do is survive. This is a strategy with depth in the sense that, should you take an under water nation and allow him to take over the land, he's going to have a working economy to roll you over with later because he doesn't spread his terrible scales to his other provinces, so those provinces are still operating under neutral scales.

So he can have both his economy, and heavy bless.

This is why it's an advanced strategy - because it exploits a national advantage of Mictlan that most players don't fully appreciate: the ability to spread dominion only as needed. Mictlan can also dominion kill under water nations very easily through blood sacrifice, once it has enough blood priests and a working blood economy, so going under water is a BAD idea.

Surviving for the first year or two isn't enough to win against this strategy, as he can always choose to ignore your defense and quickly expand across the map with small armies with heavy bless. Then he can dominion kill you with blood priests, or just overwhelm you with his economy, which he can still establish, because he can control his dominion spread.

You need more than a simple defense strategy to stop this kind of play.

As the person who suggested trying an underwater nation in the first place, you're right. That is an aspect of mictlan that would invalidate a more defensive strategy. I still hold that it might work depending on how much this player thinks through his strategy, and there is a chance that he takes water breathing and thereby weakens his sacreds. That said, it would be taking a big chance with no guarantee of a payoff. I do believe that the Niefelheim strategy is a much better idea, as it more directly counters this particular opponent.

[Telos]

Play EA Arcos with good scales. Flanking chariots with attack rear orders will expand about as well as jags and will hold their own in fights with jags, especially since you'll often be able to use flanking and/or flying shenanigans to decapitate their leadership. Build skeptics as much as you can (stealthy heretics that automatically remove dominion candles from the province they're in) taking care not to accidentally dom-kill yourself. Seek out his black candles and dom-kill him before he even knows what hit him.

You can do roughly the same thing with EA Caelum or EA Xibalba, using stealthy flying H2 preachers for the dom-kill, and flyers to decapitate their leadership, though you'll have a much harder time finding an economical way to win a straight-up fight...

In any of these approaches, one key will be to keep him from getting up many extra forts. One fort's worth of jags is pretty easy to keep up with. 4 forts, not so easy. So try to use scouts to identify forts under-construction and drop them with a ton of flyers, and then flit away before his army arrives.

These approaches can all win out-of-the-box with little to no need for research, mostly just taking advantage of stealth and mobility to out-think him in cat-and-mouse games, despite your not stacking up well in a "fair" fight.

[TheGrandWombat]

I haven't tested it, but EA Xibalba may well be a decent counter. With your hordes of cheap flying units you can attack just about all of his provinces at once, and have a decent chance at taking out the priest commanders with attack rear. It is possible that your friend would be able to defend against your attacks with guard commander, but I don't know how effective that would be.

[76561188078797539]

Originally posted by TheGrandWombat:

It is possible that your friend would be able to defend against your attacks with guard commander, but I don't know how effective that would be.

Or learn to use a back line of units to avoid getting own commanders fly-drop-wiped, as you pretty much should be doing in any MP game >.>

[Meat Horse Array]

Originally posted by Typical_Name:

Originally posted by wilson.max:

FYI, Horselover is talking about teleporting an awake Monolith pretender on top of Mictlan's capital so he can't recruit troops or gain income.

Oh, thanks. That's HILARIOUS.

The monolith can solo most basic armies, but there are some specific hard-counters to this strategy, so you can't block their income/recruitment indefinitely; However, even the loss of a couple turns can be a significant setback - enough time for you to leverage an advantage. Just remember to script a "returning" when it's time to leave.

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by HorseloverFat:

Originally posted by Typical_Name:

Oh, thanks. That's HILARIOUS.

The monolith can solo most basic armies, but there are some specific hard-counters to this strategy, so you can't block their income/recruitment indefinitely; However, even the loss of a couple turns can be a significant setback - enough time for you to leverage an advantage. Just remember to script a "returning" when it's time to leave.

If I end up fighting a build that doesn't take either Magic Weapons or Solar Weapons, would it be viable to instead use a Demilich so that the pretender can just sit there until they are killed (which won't matter much since they're immortal), or is the Monolith being made of solid rock an essential part of the strategy? Is there something I should be doing to make the Monolith more durable? How does the Monolith attack (even if he has no armies parked there I need to get past province defense)? (I got into a battle with a monolith once and wasn't able to kill it, and after around combat turn 100 the game decided to kill everything on the battlefield and end it.)

[Telos]

The monolith has a ton of HP and solid protection, so can survive quite a few hits. The demilich has much less HP (and its max HP will be tiny in enemy dominion, so every hit it takes will put it at serious risk for an affliction). I'd be especially worried that a demi-lich might get unlucky and die. Both of these are pretty risky strategies, but if your opponent has very minimal dominion, you may be able to dom-kill them in just a few turns just from the dom-spread from your pretender (though ideally you'd also get stealthy heretics or preachers in position too).

To make a monolith more survivable, design it with more points of E-magic, as each gives it +1 protection, and it takes hits so rarely that each extra point of protection makes a real difference. With a little research, you can get even more survivability from self-casting astral shield, body ethereal, temper flesh, and/or summon earthpower.

It can kill things with pebble shards, or with other spells after some research. However, as you observed, Monoliths often win battles just by running out the clock. IIRC, the way battles worked in Dom4 (and so I presume also in Dom5) after some large number of rounds (50?) the attacker routs and tries to run away, which of course a monolith can't. Later (round 75?) the defender also starts to run away. Later still (round 100?) the battle is called in favor of the defender and the remaining attacking units are killed. That's bad news for an attacking monolith if you end up facing an enemy that can't retreat (like a heavily paralyzed unit, or an immobile telestic animate). But once your monolith is in position, he counts as defender, so then all he needs to do is not get killed.

[Meat Horse Array]

Against Mictlan, that domkill effect is probably something of a trump card.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by Telos:

The monolith has a ton of HP and solid protection, so can survive quite a few hits. The demilich has much less HP (and its max HP will be tiny in enemy dominion, so every hit it takes will put it at serious risk for an affliction). I'd be especially worried that a demi-lich might get unlucky and die. Both of these are pretty risky strategies, but if your opponent has very minimal dominion, you may be able to dom-kill them in just a few turns just from the dom-spread from your pretender (though ideally you'd also get stealthy heretics or preachers in position too).

To make a monolith more survivable, design it with more points of E-magic, as each gives it +1 protection, and it takes hits so rarely that each extra point of protection makes a real difference. With a little research, you can get even more survivability from self-casting astral shield, body ethereal, temper flesh, and/or summon earthpower.

It can kill things with pebble shards, or with other spells after some research. However, as you observed, Monoliths often win battles just by running out the clock. IIRC, the way battles worked in Dom4 (and so I presume also in Dom5) after some large number of rounds (50?) the attacker routs and tries to run away, which of course a monolith can't. Later (round 75?) the defender also starts to run away. Later still (round 100?) the battle is called in favor of the defender and the remaining attacking units are killed. That's bad news for an attacking monolith if you end up facing an enemy that can't retreat (like a heavily paralyzed unit, or an immobile telestic animate). But once your monolith is in position, he counts as defender, so then all he needs to do is not get killed.

Except at round 75 the defenders also retreat and after round 100 both sides are destroyed.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by Telos:

To make a monolith more survivable, design it with more points of E-magic, as each gives it +1 protection, and it takes hits so rarely that each extra point of protection makes a real difference. With a little research, you can get even more survivability from self-casting astral shield, body ethereal, temper flesh, and/or summon earthpower.

I second the recommendation for Astral Shield. Astral Shield is AMAZING on a monolith.

[TheGrandWombat]

I have seen a monolith accidentally take out an entire throne province by casting far strike and being generally impervious.

[Sombre]

Astral Shield seems like a bad idea because it risks you blowing yourself up by causing the battle to reach the 100 turn limit.

[Typical_Name]

Originally posted by Telos:

The monolith has a ton of HP and solid protection, so can survive quite a few hits. The demilich has much less HP (and its max HP will be tiny in enemy dominion, so every hit it takes will put it at serious risk for an affliction). I'd be especially worried that a demi-lich might get unlucky and die. Both of these are pretty risky strategies, but if your opponent has very minimal dominion, you may be able to dom-kill them in just a few turns just from the dom-spread from your pretender (though ideally you'd also get stealthy heretics or preachers in position too).

To make a monolith more survivable, design it with more points of E-magic, as each gives it +1 protection, and it takes hits so rarely that each extra point of protection makes a real difference. With a little research, you can get even more survivability from self-casting astral shield, body ethereal, temper flesh, and/or summon earthpower.

It can kill things with pebble shards, or with other spells after some research. However, as you observed, Monoliths often win battles just by running out the clock. IIRC, the way battles worked in Dom4 (and so I presume also in Dom5) after some large number of rounds (50?) the attacker routs and tries to run away, which of course a monolith can't. Later (round 75?) the defender also starts to run away. Later still (round 100?) the battle is called in favor of the defender and the remaining attacking units are killed. That's bad news for an attacking monolith if you end up facing an enemy that can't retreat (like a heavily paralyzed unit, or an immobile telestic animate). But once your monolith is in position, he counts as defender, so then all he needs to do is not get killed.

Actually, when I said that everything died, I meant EVERYTHING, including the Monolith I was fighting. It was nowhere near dead, but it was marked as being killed along with everything else when the battle abruptly ended on turn 100. Maybe it got changed between Dom4 and Dom5? Or maybe it had something to do with being in the nation's capital?

[76561188078797539]

Originally posted by Typical_Name:

Or maybe it had something to do with being in the nation's capital?

It had no friendly province to retreat to. Or ability to retreat for that matter :)

Autokilled.