Morrigan Madness.. opening a can of whoopa$$ on 800+ Urs

[sansanjuan]

Apologies for the sloppy intro

... delayed divine bless cast would have been uber

https://youtu.be/w482ddqoxaY

[Mount Nomad]

Fomoria is in no way underpowered even absent Dance of the Morrigans (the regular summoned variety are bad enough). In the video above, the Giant sacreds likely would've held the fort even absent Morrigans. Dance is definitely overpowered either way - Morrigans should not be treated like wolves and spectral infantry from comparable summons (likely all such spells have a universal spawn rate and just the units summoned are swapped).

Air and Conjuration were a crack about Summon Condors for MA Nazca - a ritual spell that is even more overpowered as it's far more accessible in the early game. As a rule, it seems the best national spells in Dominions go to the nations that are already strong without those spells (i.e. Pangaea). Additionally, while most spells are available universally, many are effectively limited by available national paths on recruitable mages.

*Insert random Dominions Balance wtf is that? meme.

[Perro Grande]

Yea I tested that spell out against a throne with a small army of commanders + body guards and it is def OP. They have an aging (decay) weapon, not life steal. They have fear. They are summoned the same way howl works, a bunch of them on the sides. Even school of sharks is not this OP.

The spawn rate needs to go down, mass spawn etherial fear decay good stats FLYING too on top of it is OP.

[sunbeam]

Originally posted by Mount Nomad:

As a rule, it seems the best national spells in Dominions go to the nations that are already strong without those spells (i.e. Pangaea). Additionally, while most spells are available universally, many are effectively limited by available national paths on recruitable mages.

*Insert random Dominions Balance wtf is that? meme.

Kind of quit playing, even watching Youtube videos of this game. And what you've written is a big reason why.

Maybe I'll check back in a few months or so, and Ilwinter willl actuallly start balancing the game. Or Red Rob's balance mod (or someone else's) gets playtested and tinkered with enough to have a semblance of balance.

As it stands though, there are only 4 or 5 effective nations in each era, with the rest being the Washington Generals - or something even worse. And actually in each era it seems like one nation is so overwhelmingly strong that if all nations have players that are of similar skill, that nation autowins.

Unless a diplomatic coalition forms against them and everyone dogpiles them. Which is a FUBAR game design, if anyone asked me.

Love to see what Sum1won's spreadsheet is like with Dom 5, but I haven't heard anything about that for a while. Maybe he just isn't interested in doing that kind of thing anymore, and I can't blame him honestly.

[Althaea]

Originally posted by sunbeam:

Love to see what Sum1won's spreadsheet is like with Dom 5, but I haven't heard anything about that for a while. Maybe he just isn't interested in doing that kind of thing anymore, and I can't blame him honestly.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeuclmaCiRo8vcTztsKjPJxnBgRDE-E1uNvE5j0x5wDZMMhRA/viewanalytics

The statistics are actually a lot more balanced than you'd think. Admittedly the statistics aren't perfect - a lot of games go unreported and of course even a hundred games is a pretty small sample size when it comes to a game like Dominions (and not even the EA has that many). I tend to be a bit dismissive of them myself even if they are a useful data point.

In my opinion, though, Lemuria aside, the balance isn't any worse than in Dom4 - the other top tier nations now aren't any worse than EA Xibalba, MA Ermor or LA Ragha were.

Speaking more generally, the balance to begin with isn't great. And speaking as someone who's been witness to and part of the process, it's something Illwinter tries to address, but balancing Dominions isn't easy at the best of times. And I can't blame them for being reticent when their previous attempts have gone wrong as often as not.

Their own sense of balance is a bit rusty, their beta testers - I will freely admit - tend to have their own biases, and the playerbase at large, while often having come to a sensible consensus, sometimes goes astray with memes like "Therodos is overpowered" (leading to a series of very sharp nerfs to an already struggling nation largely because a single skilled player had dominated a few games with them shortly after the nation's initial release).

There might be a discussion to be had about the methodology Illwinter should use when it comes to balancing between patches. E.g. I think they shouldn't be too worried about being mistakes by buffing/nerfing a nation or spell or other option too much, since it's something that can be reverted in the next patch or two.

But in any case you may be interested to know that there is a big collaborative balance mod being developed currently with input from e.g. sum1won, jBrereton and numerous other competent community veterans. It's currently in beta but AFAIK it should get uploaded to Steam soon.

[Mount Nomad]

Thanks for the spreadsheet link, Althaea.

Also worth mentioning that while some nations are objectively stronger than others in a number of ways, those strengths are generally less impactful than randomized starting locations, and even the memest of factions usually have hard counters (MA Caelum, for example, can completely shut down Nazca with scales and a cheap bless). Sometimes nations are strong because their counters are unpopular.

[sunbeam]

Originally posted by Mount Nomad:

T(MA Caelum, for example, can completely shut down Nazca with scales and a cheap bless).

Okay, I'll bite. What are you talking about? Nazca seems like they can do anything Caelum can do, only, you know better. And they have a lot more in their toolbox than Caelum's shtick.

I guess Caelum can do sacred archers, and Nazca can't, for what that's worth.

[Mount Nomad]

Nazca has a big toolbox, but limits itself to the best option (because that option is so strong) in most cases - Thunder Weapons and Condor spam + meme for the rest (trash scales, full bless on its variety of sacreds). If you know the core of what they'll do, you can counter it.

MA Caelum can have Perpetual Storm up by Turn 20. While many Nazcan units do have Storm Immunity, Condors do not, limiting a major concentration of birds from spreading out. Supaya and regular sacreds can still move, but Storm Guard have native Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Storm Immunity and Magic Weapons along with increased armor in Cold Dominion (guaranteed in your territory - 50/50 shot in Nazcan, who will go Hot or Cold). Your decent generic troops trump their sacreds, you retain full mobility with them, and even units that cannot Fly In Storms have very high natural mobility (Map Move 22 on High Seraphs, for example). Your dirt cheap Air 1 Storm Immune research mages can Summon Storm Power and attack in large concentrations.

Dormant Azi for your Pretender - you don't need it to expand. Fire 4, Water 4, Death 4. +Morale, +Att, + Def, Gift of Winter (cold mobility), Death Weapons. Magic 3, Production and Dominion to taste. Can handle national summons and be ready whenever Soul Vortex comes online.

You beat Nazca in mobility. You beat Nazca in unit quality (for that specific matchup). Nazca beats you in spell variety, but you win in raw midgame power, and Nazca will have terrible research, investing in a bless rush and with mages focused on Supayas (until you turn up, by which point it's too late).

[мєкση]

I could be wrong but from my experience Dance of the Morrigans seems to be affected by the amount of casualties, i.e. the more deaths then more Morrigans. I played a relatively long battle recently where only 16 appeared but there were few deaths on either side. I have played other games (dom4) with much more casualties and many more Morrigans.

Also spears of the morrigan (which they use) are now craftable by Fomoria and their attributes are in the inspector. Life and fatigue drain + decay.

I play Fomoria often and there are a number of weaknesses as well as strengths, not sure that they are so unbalanced as has been mentioned but they are a very strong utility nation. Fomoria is very expensive and it is hard to stay competetive with research, this is the biggest weakness for me. Other weaknesses include limited pretender choice, trash PD. Sacred troops are good, but there are better sacreds for other nations. Giant Kings can make great thugs but there
are arguably stronger nations for this such as Niefel.