How do you increase undead leadership?

[Ajidica]

I've been trying out blood nations like LA Marignon and EA Berytos and I keep running into an issue where I never have enough undead leadership command points to lead the demons I summon. When I play EA Lanka the solution is easy, take some points of Undead Leadership death blessing, but that isn't really an option for Marignon or Berytos. If I have death I just recruit a handful of Mound Kings and my problem is solved.

As a result, I end up with tiny packs of 5-10 demons on my blood mages. I didn't see any undead command bosting items reasonably early on in Construction for non-death nations; while breaking into death isn't really viable until I get late game blood summons or getting lucky with death indy mages.

I've taken a look at some guides for LA Marignon or Berytos and I didn't see anything about commanding your demons, except that it is essential for Berytos as your recruitables range from "decent for expansion" to "it is bad and you should feel bad for recruiting it".

Thoughts? Am I missing something critical? Despite the amount of hours I've sunk into Dominions 4 and 5, I still keep finding new things in the game, including things that should be blindingly obvious.
(For example, I just found out about the wonders of taking a regeneration bless for my sacred mages as MA Uruk. I don't think I've burned out a single communion slave in communion I didn't set out to make disposable.)

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Empowering them further in blood/death should also increase their command limit.

[ÆtherNomad]

I'm not sure I understand why you say that the undead leadership bless isn't an option on Marignon or Berytos; all nations have cheap priests, so all nations that need more undead leadership should be able to make good use of that bless.

Other than that, an option that you mentioned is undead leadership items. You said that they aren't available early enough, but I certainly disagree: neither Marignon nor Berytos will be lacking undead leadership in very early game, and getting to Construction 4 is pretty quick. The biggest annoyance here is that all of these items have Death magic requirements, so only your god can make them in these nations, and the gems you need might be rather rare for you. Still, a Rod of the Leper King is only Const 2, D1 and 5 gems for 50 undead leadership; it does make the user diseased, but if you have an undead commander that's not a problem. If however you don't, then using a Crown of Bones (Const 4, D2, 10 gems, 75 undead leadership) is probably better.

Alternatively, Mound Kings, at Enchantment 2, D1 and 3 gems, have 80 innate undead leadership. Revenants are slightly less accessible but have even better undead leadership and are D1 mages. If you lack Death magic, then you can summon a Sleeper at Conjuration 5 and N4 for 10 N gems, a Succubus at Blood 5 and B4 for 66 slaves, or nearly any other more powerful blood magic summon that is also a commander.

[Ajidica]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

I'm not sure I understand why you say that the undead leadership bless isn't an option on Marignon or Berytos; all nations have cheap priests, so all nations that need more undead leadership should be able to make good use of that bless.

What I meant to say is that outside of taking death for the undead leadership bless, there isn't much for Marignon or Berytos to do with death. Plus, none of the guides I've seen for Marignon or Berytos talk abut taking taking death blesses on their pretenders so I assume that it isn't a required strategy if you want to use blood.

Other than that, an option that you mentioned is undead leadership items. You said that they aren't available early enough, but I certainly disagree: neither Marignon nor Berytos will be lacking undead leadership in very early game, and getting to Construction 4 is pretty quick. The biggest annoyance here is that all of these items have Death magic requirements, so only your god can make them in these nations, and the gems you need might be rather rare for you. Still, a Rod of the Leper King is only Const 2, D1 and 5 gems for 50 undead leadership; it does make the user diseased, but if you have an undead commander that's not a problem. If however you don't, then using a Crown of Bones (Const 4, D2, 10 gems, 75 undead leadership) is probably better.

Thanks for listing them out specifically, though I probably should have been more specific in saying undead leadership items outside of death magic.

Alternatively, Mound Kings, at Enchantment 2, D1 and 3 gems, have 80 innate undead leadership. Revenants are slightly less accessible but have even better undead leadership and are D1 mages. If you lack Death magic, then you can summon a Sleeper at Conjuration 5 and N4 for 10 N gems, a Succubus at Blood 5 and B4 for 66 slaves, or nearly any other more powerful blood magic summon that is also a commander.

So, essentially what you are saying is that if I am playing Berytos or Marignon and staying with my native paths, my only real options for meaningful undead command is to wait until I am decently far down the blood tree?

I was under the impression that Berytos, for example, is a pretty good blood nation once you get their blood economy going. How would you lead their demons around short of putting them in five or ten unit sizes on a lot cheap mages, taking a death/undead leadership bless, or waiting until blood 5?
Apologies if these are basic qustions, but the only other blood nations I've played were LA Ulm and Lanka, which have death and copious amounts of undead leadership built in.

[ÆtherNomad]

Originally posted by Ajidica:

How would you lead their demons around short of putting them in five or ten unit sizes on a lot cheap mages, taking a death/undead leadership bless, or waiting until blood 5?

I'm not a seasoned blood nation player, but I'd say that these are your only options along with Sleepers.

[HonourableRat]

It's worth noting that Berytos has a D3 national hero that can arrive very early (arrival time limit: 10) and is able to craft/summon stuff to improve your undead leadership. Considering how good Berytos' heroes are in general, you may consider picking Luck 3 to improve the odds.

But yeah, the only guaranteed way of getting more undead leadership early on is to either adjust your pretender creation accordingly or somehow having enough gems for empower. Otherwise you are relying to a lesser or bigger degree on RNG.

By the way, if you are playing Multiplayer, you can also try trading for the leadership items with other players.

[jojeck]

LA Marignon can do well with a rainbow bless and imprisoned pretender. That makes the capital sacreds and flagellents useful for expension and in later battles. The bless should take Unaging to help the Cap mages and Inquisitors to reduce effects of old age and I would take magic weapons and both magic leadership and undead leadership. The rest of the bless is whatever you prefer, either more combat bonuses or resistances.

A cheap alternative to the rainbow bless is just taking the sorcery half of a rainbow. This picks up 2 of the 3 bless points LA Marignon gets. So something like a dormant Enchantress with S3N3D3B3 will give Unaging, magic weapons, arcane leadership, magic resistance, Undying x2, Undead leadership and either Blood surge or +2 damage and 1 hp. This simple bless is great for the old mages and makes the flagellants useful in large late game battles against enemy using invulnerability, fog warriors and so on when either side uses mass flight.

With this bless the unexpected star of the show is the Missionary recruitable in any temple for 50 gold and able to sail with 10 flagellants (and bless them) and 10 magic units and 20 undead / demons. Of course how useful sailing is will depend on the map but on the random maps the game generates it is extremely useful. This solves all your leadership and mobilty problems cheaply.

The N3 and D3 paths on a dormant pretender are very useful for LA Marignon as they are the only paths it doesn't have on national mages. It is easy to break into N with a few indy mages to help site search and a revenant plus dusk staff canb site search D. You will be researching Conjuration 7 at some stage to get Angels so these paths on your pretender and cheap boosters let you cast Harbingers and also Lamia Queens, Spectres, Mound Fiend, and Ivy King which make nature and death battle magic available in any battle. The Pretender can also cast Fallen Angel and Vampire Count with boosters once Blood 7 is researched. So these paths on the pretender gives easy access to many useful middle and late game items, summons and spells and still lets you have Dom 7 and growth 3 and magic 1 (needed for Unaging)

[Mount Nomad]

Suicide your Pretender, and keep Calling it back until you luck into a +Death magic level.

[Ajidica]

Thanks for the responses everyone!