MA Phaeacia, Isle of the Dark Ships

[Stormworm]

So, I'm going into a game against three other people with Eriu, Man and Phlegra as my opponents. Its a FFA type game with throne victory condition enabled and story events are on. We all randomly picked our nations. The map is also randomly generated and not a premade one.

So, I'm looking for any advice how to play this nation effectively. Any pretender design tips, unit tactics or whatever little details that might help me secure the victory are very much welcome. I'm sure the other people are also gathering info how to play their factions, so any shenanigans I should be expecting?

[Andrej_S.]

Here is topic for this question.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/722060/discussions/0/1733213724907438723/

[Nrak555]

?? the mega thread is for one off Q&A not entire nation stategy

[kzickas]

Your sacreds are decent, but not great, having a strong high attack attack, and good defence, protection and hit points, but only two attacks per square. However both Man and Eriu are lightning nations, so I would recommend going with a major lightning resist bless in order to make your sacreds really strong against them. You also want earth 2 at least on your pretender, probably earth 3.

You can recruit earth mages (1 in 5 weavers are earth 1) but you don't have access to earth boots or dwarven hammers. The latter is especially important because weavers have a forge bonus, and forge bonuses become better the more you have since you can afford to use them more. If you have 6 air gems a normal a1 mage with a hammer can forge 2 owl quills, meaning the hammer has saved you 4 gems. A colossi weaver can afford to forge 3 owl quills, meaning that the hammer will have saved you 6 gems.

There are also some really strong earth buffs at E3 (strength of giants and legions of steel) which an E2 mage can cast by casting summon earth power first. An E1 mage can do the same by casting summon earth power with a gem and then the buff by using an additional gem, but that gets expensive fast.

Generally the colossi weaver is the mage you want to spam recruit. Never recruit mage pilots generally mages with no paths higher than 1 should be avoided unless it's astral or nature. A1 and W1 are both bad paths. Colossi storm captains can thug, and lead your armies with a morale bonus, so you want some of them, but they are too expensive and too high encumberence to be cost efficient thunder strikers.

Speaking of which, 1 in 5 colossi weavers are very cost efficient thunder strikers. All weavers are S1 so they can communion, but after orb lightning was changed there's no air spells with good scaling early on.

I would probably recommend a A3F3W3E3 rainbow bless, which would allow you to boost your sacreds up to pretty good troops with F/W/E and use A to give you protection against Man and Eriu's lightning. But take that with a grain of salt because I'm unreasonably fond of rainbow blesses.

You should probably do a practice game against AIs to see what kind of order/production you need to keep up a steady stream of troops.

[Stormworm]

I'll do a practice game for sure. I need to see how easy or difficult it is to expand with their units. I wonder how good Phlegra nation is at rushing strats, since the player who randomed that nation likes to rush with earth serpent or another monster. I certainly hope I'm not his neighbor.

[Norwegian Singbird]

Originally posted by kzickas:

Generally the colossi weaver is the mage you want to spam recruit. Never recruit mage pilots generally mages with no paths higher than 1 should be avoided unless it's astral or nature. A1 and W1 are both bad paths.

Orb lightning is an awesome spell for A2 mages nowadays, not like the garbage of Dom4.

A1 with storm power can: summon air elementals, gift of flight, orb lightning, wind guide, arrow fend, phantasmal spam. I don't think you can say A1 is a bad path. Without storm not very useful, sure, but mere phantasmal warrior can be enough to fend off SCs, for example.

Not saying that's what should be recruited above the other options, just that there are good options for low paths as well. For W1 not so many, though, but then water is the cheapest to boost with items.

[kzickas]

Orb lightning is probably better for a level 2 mage in dominions 5 than it was in dominions 4, but orb lightning in dominions 4 wasn't really a spell for low level mages. It had crappy starting stats but some of the best paths scaling in the game. On a communion master with 8 or 9 air dominions 4 orb lightning was better than thunderstrike, at least against enemies with some shock resistance.

[Stormworm]

After some testing I'm thinking of going with the earth serpent pretender for easy expansion and to be somewhat safe against rushing. Plus, free ocean territories that wont be contested. The colossi light infantry with spears and javelins seem reliable against most indies. Gold never seemed to be an issue. I didnt get to test orb lightning. I took a bless with plenty of lightning resist and reinvigoration x2.

If someone has a better ideas, I'm all for it.

[Twogun]

be ready to handle eiru's sihd lord thugs. with the correct bless, they are a real pain. have a counter.

[Mali Belizec]

It is easy to expand with this nation, light collosi warriors are perfect for this. But when expansion phase is over I have trouble with this nations and first wars.

Enemies have more armies and better ones than Phaeacia has and more mages too. It helps to get regeneration+reinvigoration on Drakon.

[Mali Belizec]

Shame this nation didn't attracted some good player to write an aar. Detailed aar, something similar to agartha aar from Cruxador, would give casual players a feeling about the nation.

[Stormworm]

I've isolated Eriu, preparing to siege their capital and take him out of the game. I lost my pretender early on when Phlegra did their earth serpent rush like I imagined he would. His pretender died in the same fight. Now he's busy fighting Man and trying to keep Eriu alive by donating gold and gems.

My units are spread thin and I'm playing pretend with magic mirrors to trick Man into believing my armies neighboring him are larger than what they really are. Trying to discourage him from invading my weakly defended fort. I need most of my troops to finish off Eriu.

The Ettin King of Man is hilarious btw. He's killed dozens of giants and humans by now and he's still going strong. Phlegra is really struggling to kill him.

Eriu has flying thugs who leap from province to province and they are a pain to deal with. I stopped hiring province defence entirely since they are a waste of money against those. They are using Cloud Trapeze I think? Other than that, he's pretty much dead and has nothing to contest my much bigger army.

My sea provinces remain uncontested so I figure the earth serpent was a smart choice in that regard as well.

Figured I'd do a small update on my current FFA game if someone is curious.

[Mali Belizec]

Which kind of troops you recruit the most?

[Stormworm]

Phaecian archers and colossi light infantry. Orichalcum guards is what I am currently trying to get as many as possible. They served me well in small numbers, with the lightning resist and reinvigoration bless. I'm trying to make something that can kill the Ettin King since for some reason, he's still going strong and killing Phlegra units. I dont wanna wait until he wants to start killing my units instead. I got orb lightning online and I'm going to give that spell a try against indies to see how it works.

[Mali Belizec]

I like reinvig 2x+regeneration bless for the Orichalum guards or fire&shock resist+regen.

What pretender I use depends on the map size. If it is smaller map I prefer dormant drakon E4N7. For expansion I use light colossi infantry and when expansion is over I shift to heavy infantry. For large maps I like master enchanter with F4E4N7 imprisoned.

Phaeacian archers are not that good so I try to find province with longbowmen and build fort so I can mass those.