The new general "Dominions 5" Thread

[deuterio12]

Lower mr is something I prefer to reserve for poison/fighting Pokémon. Also Rage is one of Onyx's moves and I would rather no Pokémon is undisciplined (although now that I think about it maybe something along a line of "trade X" rituals that every Pokémon nation gets to obtain Pokémon outside one's speciality but they would be undisciplined versions of the national Pokémon representing traded Pokémon that don't follow orders).

So for now just lowering their huge base protection, along lowering the other rock pokémon's protection so onyxes are still the best protected but it's less loopsided. Also removing the Slam attack as per tyckspoon's suggestion.

New version, Pokémon 0.904

Spoiler: Changelog

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All:
-Standardization of champion and legendary Pokémon HP. Champions have twice the HP of the normal version and legendaries have 4x. Exception for Magneton Emperor that is significantly larger than the normal version.

Pewter City:
-All Onyx have protection 18 now, lose Slam attack.
-All Pokémon Golems, kabutops and omastar have protection 17 now.

Vermillion City:
-Magneton Emperor corpse eater reduced to 5, protection reduced to 21.
-Pikachu runner changed to Pikachu brawler, morale increased to 11, cost decreased to 12 gold/11 recruitment, has evolution now.

Celadon City:
-Beauty X overhaul, no longer gets freespawn, instead gains N1/H1 magic and costs 2 commander recruitment points
-Added Heavy Bellsprout (spear, shield and armor, can't stealth), Garden Bellsprout (cap only, bigger and faster, so airshield 50 cap only), Furs Oddish (furs armor, no cold vulnerability, can't stealth), leather Paras (leather armor, less vulnerable to fire) all have respective evolutions.
-Added some national spells that take N1/H1 to cast and allow to produce extra Garden Bellsprout.
-Spring Beauty and Venusaur Champion each loses 1 N magic and gains 1 random
-Fixed Spring Beauty's alternate shapes having lower costs so her upkeep was reduced for 3/4 the years.

Also added Violet City, aka flying nation Pokémon style.

[lord_khaine]

For recruitment, how many EA Cave provinces do you see that can support 135 recruitment points? Onyx troops are cap-only or summoned, for any practical purpose; the foreign recruit sites are going to be used for Champions, if anything.

Well.. with order scales you can likely get one every 2nd turn.
As well as a champion to bodyguard.

Double Edit: Ok, spun up a quick test game. Slam does not appear to check against Defense; the Very Detailed log is just going straight to damage vs prot. It can be Repelled, but a Berserk Onyx is never going to fail that check and is unlikely to fail it with their very high base morale even before getting berserk triggered. That's.. problematic, as it's negating one of the few things that is a legitimate weak point for them. I believe I was the one who suggested giving them an AoE attack in the first place, but I think I have to retract that now, as the only real solutions I can see to them at this point are 'spam Frozen Heart/be Niefelheim and hope they didn't bless Cold Resist' or 'suicide a lot of maul-equipped barbarians at them.'

Yeah i knew the bit about defence, why do you think i was worried about how hard it was to find a low magic counter?
As it is each Onyx basically deletes a square each turn of anything less than giants.
Its even possible that this can actually handle the out of control Celadon Freespawn. Volt City is just unlucky to be caught in the middle..

Lower mr is something I prefer to reserve for poison/fighting Pokémon. Also Rage is one of Onyx's moves and I would rather no Pokémon is undisciplined (although now that I think about it maybe something along a line of "trade X" rituals that every Pokémon nation gets to obtain Pokémon outside one's speciality but they would be undisciplined versions of the national Pokémon representing traded Pokémon that don't follow orders).

So for now just lowering their huge base protection, along lowering the other rock pokémon's protection so onyxes are still the best protected but it's less loopsided. Also removing the Slam attack as per tyckspoon's suggestion.

Alternatively, you could add the Defence negate's tag to the slam move.
Its the same one that the oriental dragons have.

As for the garden Bellsprout, perhaps they should have their regular evolution blocked?
Since as i understand, their evolved form would now be size 3 tramblers who swallow?
That should perhaps be reserved for a summon, since it sounds exceptionally nasty.

[deuterio12]

Yeah i knew the bit about defence, why do you think i was worried about how hard it was to find a low magic counter?
As it is each Onyx basically deletes a square each turn of anything less than giants.
Its even possible that this can actually handle the out of control Celadon Freespawn. Volt City is just unlucky to be caught in the middle..

Heh, in my talks with the Celadon player the only nation he seems to consider a threat to him is indeed Pewter city (helps that they're also the ones that ended up expanding to the big body of UW provinces).

Alternatively, you could add the Defence negate's tag to the slam move.
Its the same one that the oriental dragons have.

Yeaahh, that's one of the "secret" tags that only the devs know about. Luckily there's a workaround in directly copying the stats of Tail Sweep then just overwrite all the other stats.

Here's an updated .dm file with defnegates Slam.

As for the garden Bellsprout, perhaps they should have their regular evolution blocked?
Since as i understand, their evolved form would now be size 3 tramblers who swallow?
That should perhaps be reserved for a summon, since it sounds exceptionally nasty.

I would rather allow evolutions, but I can also increase the xp needed to evolve. How does 60/120 sounds?

[lord_khaine]

I would rather allow evolutions, but I can also increase the xp needed to evolve. How does 60/120 sounds?

Its perhaps worth at least allowing a testing.
Though im still worried its to strong at crushing even heavily buffed elite infantry.

Else. Celadon 2.0 feedback

Spoiler

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-spelling error at Emerald in Ephemeral Emerald Exploration flavor text.
-heavy Bellsprout got a evolution?
-Garden Bell sprout are size 1
-its intentional that parasect cant be recruited in the capital?
-No leather parasect?
-hilarious. got my first ever H5 priest
-regular bellspout seems moderatly balanced now. They expand with some attrition
-you need to look at fort PD. Its absolute bonkers! Purely Glooms and Weepinbells
-The heavy bells are to strong. They chew though most infantry without casulties, since they can now tank damage while the poison cloud wrecks their opponent.
Heavy Weepinbell are even worse. 18 of them ate 42 barbarians with just 2 casulties.
-Venusaur champion does now work as a thug, able to solo indie provinces. As a 300 gold, SrT mage with a 10 gem item i suspect thats fitting.

edit.
On further consideration. It can be poison cloud should be removed from all the basic pokemon.
As it is, due to the cloud buff, its likely to strong. Since clouds trigger 3 times each round at 1/3 dam, and you can fit 5 poison pokemon in a square for a combined value of 15,
then its possible to lethally poison a human in a single round, and likely to do so in 2-3.
Meaning that every fight a human nation have against these are likely to be phyrric at best.

[deuterio12]

Ok, managed to take out a couple of the Golem thugs with good old orbital bombardment Gifts from the Heavens.

Its perhaps worth at least allowing a testing.
Though im still worried its to strong at crushing even heavily buffed elite infantry.

Will increase the evolution XP needed then.

Else. Celadon 2.0 feedback

Spoiler

Show

-spelling error at Emerald in Ephemeral Emerald Exploration flavor text.
-heavy Bellsprout got a evolution?
-Garden Bell sprout are size 1
-its intentional that parasect cant be recruited in the capital?
-No leather parasect?
-hilarious. got my first ever H5 priest
-regular bellspout seems moderatly balanced now. They expand with some attrition
-you need to look at fort PD. Its absolute bonkers! Purely Glooms and Weepinbells
-The heavy bells are to strong. They chew though most infantry without casulties, since they can now tank damage while the poison cloud wrecks their opponent.
Heavy Weepinbell are even worse. 18 of them ate 42 barbarians with just 2 casulties.
-Venusaur champion does now work as a thug, able to solo indie provinces. As a 300 gold, SrT mage with a 10 gem item i suspect thats fitting.

-Fixed typo.
-Yeah evolutions whenever possible.
-Fixed size.
-That was my original plan yes but I'm open to the argument of allowing them to be recruited at the cap too.
-To get leather parasect, evolve leather Paras.
-Ouch, that was a typo, the glooms and weepinbells were meant for the over 20 PD values but ended up assigning them to basic PD. Fixed.
-With the poison cloud nerf (see below) hopefully they shouldn't be brought down.
-Nice.

Speaking of thugs, the Vermillion's Magnemite Riders and their gear ended too nerfed somehow along the way, now even two working together with full magnemite gear get defeated by light PD. Will buff Magnemite Mail with an extra+5 HP, +2 morale, +2 protection.

edit.
On further consideration. It can be poison cloud should be removed from all the basic pokemon.
As it is, due to the cloud buff, its likely to strong. Since clouds trigger 3 times each round at 1/3 dam, and you can fit 5 poison pokemon in a square for a combined value of 15,
then its possible to lethally poison a human in a single round, and likely to do so in 2-3.
Meaning that every fight a human nation have against these are likely to be phyrric at best.

Note that the value showing in poison cloud is not the poison damage but rather the area. Sadly can't control the strength of the poison, just the area.

First I would rather try to just reduce said poison cloud size. Did some testing and with poison cloud 1 for basic pokemon often they don't even poison the square right in front of them and even if they do, overlap is a lot rarer so troops fighting them suffering much lighter poison damage if not evading it completely.

Pokémon 0.906

[lord_khaine]

Will increase the evolution XP needed then.

There might still come a "told you so" again, if they end up going utterly Celadon and eating entire armies :P

Speaking of thugs, the Vermillion's Magnemite Riders and their gear ended too nerfed somehow along the way, now even two working together with full magnemite gear get defeated by light PD. Will buff Magnemite Mail with an extra+5 HP, +2 morale, +2 protection.

Yeah, the Riders should be able to handle that.
At their peak they were a bit OP, more or less able to solo armies.
But if its suddenly so bad they cant handle a bit of PD when geared.
Then you can likely divide that buff between the mail and the rider.
How are the riders doing on their own?

Note that the value showing in poison cloud is not the poison damage but rather the area. Sadly can't control the strength of the poison, just the area.

First I would rather try to just reduce said poison cloud size. Did some testing and with poison cloud 1 for basic pokemon often they don't even poison the square right in front of them and even if they do, overlap is a lot rarer so troops fighting them suffering much lighter poison damage if not evading it completely.

Yeah i do know how poison cloud works. With poison cloud 1 its just a total of 5 per square, or around a 50/50 chance of hitting any of the 3 front squares.
I still suspect anyone fighting them will end up with staggering attrition unless poison resistant. Its like fighting MA C'tis, except your mages dont get hit.

All the same, are still iffy on allowing the modified pokemon to evolve.
Will look at things again. But still think the Heavy version should perhaps be kept in leather or light mail.
The 21 prot weepinbeel does certainly seem a bit overboard.

[deuterio12]

There might still come a "told you so" again, if they end up going utterly Celadon and eating entire armies :P

That would imply the other army managed to close in enough to be eaten, so it would still count as progress.

Yeah, the Riders should be able to handle that.
At their peak they were a bit OP, more or less able to solo armies.
But if its suddenly so bad they cant handle a bit of PD when geared.
Then you can likely divide that buff between the mail and the rider.
How are the riders doing on their own?

Not any better, take out a few guys and then run like rats after some scratches.

I could buff the rider's own stats, but a) they're already pretty elitish in everything but morale and b) the gear is also supposed to work for the guitarrist.

Hmmm, I guess I can just buff the commander's morale and leave that out of the item.

Yeah i do know how poison cloud works. With poison cloud 1 its just a total of 5 per square, or around a 50/50 chance of hitting any of the 3 front squares.
I still suspect anyone fighting them will end up with staggering attrition unless poison resistant. Its like fighting MA C'tis, except your mages dont get hit.

All the same, are still iffy on allowing the modified pokemon to evolve.
Will look at things again. But still think the Heavy version should perhaps be kept in leather or light mail.
The 21 prot weepinbeel does certainly seem a bit overboard.

Fair enough, replaced their armor with light ring cuirass and iron cap, end up with 15 average protection (14 body, 19 head). Also helps if there's some variety in the armors between Pokémon nations. Even considered making custom shields but wasn't sure how to balance it.

Also made the parasect recruitable at cap.

Pokémon 0.907.

[lord_khaine]

That would imply the other army managed to close in enough to be eaten, so it would still count as progress.

That in turn are implying the Weepingbeels didnt allow them close because they were hungry!
Dam.. this is already as such nasty enough i would considder casting army of giants.
But at least thats first at alt 6.

Not any better, take out a few guys and then run like rats after some scratches.

I could buff the rider's own stats, but a) they're already pretty elitish in everything but morale and b) the gear is also supposed to work for the guitarrist.

Hmmm, I guess I can just buff the commander's morale and leave that out of the item.

I guess you could always try and use a elf knight as a sort of baseline for how much PD these guys should be able to handle.
And the guitarist does also have a bit of air magic as i recall?

Fair enough, replaced their armor with light ring cuirass and iron cap, end up with 15 average protection (14 body, 19 head). Also helps if there's some variety in the armors between Pokémon nations. Even considered making custom shields but wasn't sure how to balance it.

Also made the parasect recruitable at cap.

Ill look into running basic expansion tests with them later today.
Will see if it screws them utterly against indies.
As for custom shields. Just look at the other shield models? like Machaka hide shields. Or Bucklers?

[deuterio12]

Well that was a messy battle and all my communion slaves died but a win's a win.

MVP were the pikachu libres who broke through the Pewter flank and kept going all the way to their lone commander on the back who was also their prophet and kicked her to death.

Ogres performed nicely too with their big clubs.

Also lots of friendly fire I guess. Although it may also be that the the rhyhorn riders trampling didn't actually count as kills since I'm pretty sure they ran over some electric rats at least.

Plus Pewter deploying Golem thugs loaded with earth gems now so I think he was trying to set up some earthquake traps which I managed to dodge by dumb luck my great skillz.

That in turn are implying the Weepingbeels didnt allow them close because they were hungry!
Dam.. this is already as such nasty enough i would considder casting army of giants.
But at least thats first at alt 6.

Synergy!

I guess you could always try and use a elf knight as a sort of baseline for how much PD these guys should be able to handle.
And the guitarist does also have a bit of air magic as i recall?

Air 1, Astral 1 with a 10% for A/S/E/F. Actually had one of them with magnemite gear try to seduce assassinat Pewter's prophet but even with luck she got her ass kicked.

Will look at pony thugs a bit for inspiration.

Ill look into running basic expansion tests with them later today.
Will see if it screws them utterly against indies.
As for custom shields. Just look at the other shield models? like Machaka hide shields. Or Bucklers?

Thanks, really appreciate it!

Different types of shields would be nice but there's bigger priorities right now I believe.

[lord_khaine]

Well that was a messy battle and all my communion slaves died but a win's a win.

MVP were the pikachu libres who broke through the Pewter flank and kept going all the way to their lone commander on the back who was also their prophet and kicked her to death.

Ogres performed nicely too with their big clubs.

Also lots of friendly fire I guess. Although it may also be that the the rhyhorn riders trampling didn't actually count as kills since I'm pretty sure they ran over some electric rats at least.

Plus Pewter deploying Golem thugs loaded with earth gems now so I think he was trying to set up some earthquake traps which I managed to dodge by dumb luck my great skillz.

That fight does look like you massively overpowered him in army size.
While he meanwhile threw a handful of big monsters after you, and hoped for the best.
I suspect in this case skill difference made the result.
What killed the onyxes ?

Air 1, Astral 1 with a 10% for A/S/E/F. Actually had one of them with magnemite gear try to seduce assassinat Pewter's prophet but even with luck she got her ass kicked.

Will look at pony thugs a bit for inspiration.

Hmm.. funny.. i kicked untold amounts of butt with them. They just need a minimum of gear and a little alt research.
or did the assasin have a bodyguard?

So. Preleminary results on Celadon testing.
-Garden Bellsprouts are doing quite well expanding due to having discount crossbows. May considder bumping their recruitment cost to 15.
-A bit of syntax error in the sentence construction with the second sentence in Ephemeral Garden.
-The poison is still nasty. Got 10 exxcegcutes killed when they began running after a group of heavy bellsprouts.

[deuterio12]

That fight does look like you massively overpowered him in army size.
While he meanwhile threw a handful of big monsters after you, and hoped for the best.
I suspect in this case skill difference made the result.
What killed the onyxes ?

One taken down by Str bless´Strength of Giants+Stormpower Lucha Libres and the rest by Gifts from the Heavens

Also even if I did have more Pokémon, his were plain bigger and covered about as much of the field. 22 Rhyhorn riders along a line of Onyxes and gravelers is quite the scary sight.

Hmm.. funny.. i kicked untold amounts of butt with them. They just need a minimum of gear and a little alt research.
or did the assasin have a bodyguard?

No, just a Rhyhorn Rider prophetess.

Really you seem to have all the luck, I recall you boasting about grabbing throne wizards with your guitarrists while mine failed miserably at that too earlier on.

So. Preleminary results on Celadon testing.
-Garden Bellsprouts are doing quite well expanding due to having discount crossbows. May considder bumping their recruitment cost to 15.
-A bit of syntax error in the sentence construction with the second sentence in Ephemeral Garden.
-The poison is still nasty. Got 10 exxcegcutes killed when they began running after a group of heavy bellsprouts.

Increased garden bellsprout recruitment cost and fixed syntax. Poison killing your own troops is a disadvantage, not an advantage. The clouds persist a bit after the poisonois troops move on so you need to make sure to don't leave units lacking poison resistance following behind, but it's much less of a trouble for enemy units attacking from the front.

Pokémon 0.908

[tyckspoon]

That fight does look like you massively overpowered him in army size.
While he meanwhile threw a handful of big monsters after you, and hoped for the best.
I suspect in this case skill difference made the result.
What killed the onyxes ?

Only one commander, no mage support, big pile of scary-looking troops. Yeah, that's a pretty newbish arrangement, although possibly Deuterio made the first move and hit him before he finished organizing/consolidating his army - even something as basic as having a couple Golems around chucking out Blade Winds to help thin out the numbers on Vermilion's side could have made a difference. Kind of hard to deal with 160 some Magnemites chucking out Confusion, tho - within a couple rounds literally everything you have won't be reliably following orders any more, so good luck executing any kind of plan.

[lord_khaine]

Only one commander, no mage support, big pile of scary-looking troops. Yeah, that's a pretty newbish arrangement, although possibly Deuterio made the first move and hit him before he finished organizing/consolidating his army - even something as basic as having a couple Golems around chucking out Blade Winds to help thin out the numbers on Vermilion's side could have made a difference. Kind of hard to deal with 160 some Magnemites chucking out Confusion, tho - within a couple rounds literally everything you have won't be reliably following orders any more, so good luck executing any kind of plan.

Oh no, Deterio was actually busy trying to handle the freespawn monster he was worned about making.
And that had now begun to grow out of control like the green stuff in the back of the fridge.

Pewter then took the chance to stab him in the back.

One taken down by Str bless´Strength of Giants+Stormpower Lucha Libres and the rest by Gifts from the Heavens

Im still not entirely certain those Lucha Libres are not OP. Even before storm power enters the mix.
They are likely the best counter in the entire game to any sort of heavy unit/monster.

No, just a Rhyhorn Rider prophetess.

Really you seem to have all the luck, I recall you boasting about grabbing throne wizards with your guitarrists while mine failed miserably at that too earlier on.

Well.. yes alright.. baring a lucky smite then the guitarist should have won.
But yes. Was a bit lucky getting those throne wizards. Dont even recall if i buffed the Guitarist with a cat charm.

Increased garden bellsprout recruitment cost and fixed syntax. Poison killing your own troops is a disadvantage, not an advantage. The clouds persist a bit after the poisonois troops move on so you need to make sure to don't leave units lacking poison resistance following behind, but it's much less of a trouble for enemy units attacking from the front.

I might get a new round of testing in thursday. Else, means it will likely kill the enemy army during a rout

[deuterio12]

Only one commander, no mage support, big pile of scary-looking troops. Yeah, that's a pretty newbish arrangement, although possibly Deuterio made the first move and hit him before he finished organizing/consolidating his army - even something as basic as having a couple Golems around chucking out Blade Winds to help thin out the numbers on Vermilion's side could have made a difference. Kind of hard to deal with 160 some Magnemites chucking out Confusion, tho - within a couple rounds literally everything you have won't be reliably following orders any more, so good luck executing any kind of plan.

Initially Pewter did have Golem support with his main army, but got greedy and split them off to thug as much of my land as possible.

Also notice it was a defensive battle for me, meaning he charged straight ahead into my biggest troop concentration.

Im still not entirely certain those Lucha Libres are not OP. Even before storm power enters the mix.
They are likely the best counter in the entire game to any sort of heavy unit/monster.

Well yeah but still expensive and cap-only and suffer from nasty attriction. I got some to help expanding and although they did help, none survived early game. And remember I picked an air shield bless and everything. 80% arrows blocked still means 20% get through and they drop one by one, or if they get surrounded their defense wears out fast too.

I might get a new round of testing in thursday. Else, means it will likely kill the enemy army during a rout

I'll make all of celadon's troops mindless so they die where they're standing. Plants do not retreat!

Hmmm, if the units are fast enough they should only suffer light poison damage.

Actually Cerulean has managed to score a few wins agains Celadon and in those their armies don't seem to suffer any significant losses in the pursuit phase.

[lord_khaine]

Initially Pewter did have Golem support with his main army, but got greedy and split them off to thug as much of my land as possible.

Also notice it was a defensive battle for me, meaning he charged straight ahead into my biggest troop concentration.

As we said. rookie mistake. Does sound a bit like an amateur boxer being allowed to win, right up until the point where he find himself trying to headbut a uppercut.

Well yeah but still expensive and cap-only and suffer from nasty attriction. I got some to help expanding and although they did help, none survived early game. And remember I picked an air shield bless and everything. 80% arrows blocked still means 20% get through and they drop one by one, or if they get surrounded their defense wears out fast too.

Mhm.. thats why i didnt say OP as expander. But as counter to anything heavy.
I suspect a small team of them can murder anything up to and including a Lastygonian Tyrant not purpose build to deal with them.

Hmmm, if the units are fast enough they should only suffer light poison damage.

Actually Cerulean has managed to score a few wins agains Celadon and in those their armies don't seem to suffer any significant losses in the pursuit phase.

In this case they will be moving though several poison clouds. Im quite certain then, there is no such thing as light poison damage unless your poison resistant.

And yes, the relevant difference here though, is that Cerulean, as a Pokemon nation, are fighting the plants at a safe distance.

[deuterio12]

Saffron going after Fuschia meaning somehow it's now a trio of 1x1s so seems like they're indeed mostly rookies besides Celadon.

As we said. rookie mistake. Does sound a bit like an amateur boxer being allowed to win, right up until the point where he find himself trying to headbutt a uppercut.

He seems to have wised up a bit since he's now doing a fighting retreat with his golems (had taken some land from behind him with guitarrists leading magnemites and his golem thugs went to retake it instead of also trying to take on my main army).

Also almost lost a battle to one of the scattred onyxes, going berserk and keeping to fight after the PD was cleaned up, but luckily his berserk ran out and auto-routed due to no commander. I think it happens if they go unconscious while berserk?

Mhm.. thats why i didnt say OP as expander. But as counter to anything heavy.
I suspect a small team of them can murder anything up to and including a Lastygonian Tyrant not purpose build to deal with them.

Well it's kinda needed since Vermillion doesn't really have any hard-hitting troops otherwise and a little bit of shock resistance drastically reduces most of their offensive.

In this case they will be moving though several poison clouds. Im quite certain then, there is no such thing as light poison damage unless your poison resistant.

And yes, the relevant difference here though, is that Cerulean, as a Pokemon nation, are fighting the plants at a safe distance.

Well I'll see if I can run some tests about that.

[lord_khaine]

Saffron going after Fuschia meaning somehow it's now a trio of 1x1s so seems like they're indeed mostly rookies besides Celadon.

Well its perfect. Gives you better information on pokemon matchups.
Just hope you got scouts scattered around to catch Screen shots of the fighting for later study ;)

He seems to have wised up a bit since he's now doing a fighting retreat with his golems (had taken some land from behind him with guitarrists leading magnemites and his golem thugs went to retake it instead of also trying to take on my main army).

Also almost lost a battle to one of the scattred onyxes, going berserk and keeping to fight after the PD was cleaned up, but luckily his berserk ran out and auto-routed due to no commander. I think it happens if they go unconscious while berserk?

Then this will likely be a learning experience for him then ;)
And yes, berserk runs out if the unit in question drops unconcious from fatique.

Well it's kinda needed since Vermillion doesn't really have any hard-hitting troops otherwise and a little bit of shock resistance drastically reduces most of their offensive.

Well i guess we did nerf the riders a bit to much for them to be able to fill that role.
But normal nations have to invest in construction and items to counter stuff like monsters.
Not just throw a handful of sacreds after it.

Well I'll see if I can run some tests about that.

I can start by testing what my own observation from the first 36 turns of an actual game ends up being.
But it can be the plants are still to mean with their poison. Its not certain though.

[deuterio12]

Well its perfect. Gives you better information on pokemon matchups.
Just hope you got scouts scattered around to catch Screen shots of the fighting for later study ;)

Have some around, but Pewter took my scout-producing province.

Well i guess we did nerf the riders a bit to much for them to be able to fill that role.
But normal nations have to invest in construction and items to counter stuff like monsters.
Not just throw a handful of sacreds after it.

Many nations have some kind of troop hard-hitting with two-handed weapons. EA Ulm in particular is quite good at countering monsters with several of their base troops. LA Marignon declares that shields are heresy and every single troop is carrying a two-handed weapon of sorts.

Giant nations are the monsters.

It's just puny Ermor and friends that go all "oh look at me we're all human sized and hide behind shields instead of using both hands to properly murderize the enemy".

I can start by testing what my own observation from the first 36 turns of an actual game ends up being.
But it can be the plants are still to mean with their poison. Its not certain though.

I'll admit I'm half-convinced to remove the poison from the base Pokémon and make it evolution only since the basic plants are already packing a melee and ranged attack.

[lord_khaine]

Have some around, but Pewter took my scout-producing province.

oh god! they took your scout province! those bastards!

Many nations have some kind of troop hard-hitting with two-handed weapons. EA Ulm in particular is quite good at countering monsters with several of their base troops. LA Marignon declares that shields are heresy and every single troop is carrying a two-handed weapon of sorts.

Giant nations are the monsters.

It's just puny Ermor and friends that go all "oh look at me we're all human sized and hide behind shields instead of using both hands to properly murderize the enemy".

Yes but my point is, that some monsters/heroes are so mean, that even EA Ulm picks up their axes and goes home.
Those still get trashed by Pichachu Libre.

I'll admit I'm half-convinced to remove the poison from the base Pokémon and make it evolution only since the basic plants are already packing a melee and ranged attack.

I do think its likely in order.
Poison is super effective against human type. There is a reason its normally restricted to special troops.

[deuterio12]

oh god! they took your scout province! those bastards!

Just took it back.

In the other hand Hiker out of nowhwere took out of one my cooltrainers.

Yes but my point is, that some monsters/heroes are so mean, that even EA Ulm picks up their axes and goes home.
Those still get trashed by Pichachu Libre.

Do they? Just had a golem thug with the fire shield item you came up with trash a team of Pikachu Libres

Arc Armageddon avenged them right away since he happened to be passing by. Funny since I had a feel to move him to stop raiding the waters and move there this turn.

Kinda anime battle, the golem crushed some 30 troops and sent the rest running until only Arc Armageddon remained having been busy powering up (scripting my pretender? Whot's that?) then they clashed together with the Magneton Emperor unleashing a point-blank tri attack for the win.

I do think its likely in order.
Poison is super effective against human type. There is a reason its normally restricted to special troops.

Well here's a test version for that. Pokémon 0.909

[lord_khaine]

In the other hand Hiker out of nowhwere took out of one my cooltrainers.

at last someone has begun using assasins!

Do they? Just had a golem thug with the fire shield item you came up with trash a team of Pikachu Libres

Arc Armageddon avenged them right away since he happened to be passing by. Funny since I had a feel to move him to stop raiding the waters and move there this turn.

Kinda anime battle, the golem crushed some 30 troops and sent the rest running until only Arc Armageddon remained having been busy powering up (scripting my pretender? Whot's that?) then they clashed together with the Magneton Emperor unleashing a point-blank tri attack for the win.

Hmm.. fair.. if they dont have a fire resistance bless.. then fire shield is likely one of their few weaknesses.
Shocked it didnt end in a mutual kill though.

Surprised the Tri Attack hits hard enough to 1-shot a thug bordering SC golem though.
Try and keep track of how many things are blown up. Might be its a little op.

Well here's a test version for that. Pokémon 0.909

Great. Kinda bored at the moment since my other games are on a break.
Will give it a try tonigt.

Edit.
Uhh.. sadly the link dont work.

[deuterio12]

at last someone has begun using assasins!

Hey, I also used gentlemen to help expansion a bit besides the guitarrists who mostly failed.

Hmm.. fair.. if they dont have a fire resistance bless.. then fire shield is likely one of their few weaknesses.
Shocked it didnt end in a mutual kill though.

Surprised the Tri Attack hits hard enough to 1-shot a thug bordering SC golem though.
Try and keep track of how many things are blown up. Might be its a little op.

The tri-attack didn't one-shot from full HP, the Pikachu Libres did manage to shave off a significant amount of HP before going down. Although with 34 protection even blessed double kicks weren't enough on their own.

Great. Kinda bored at the moment since my other games are on a break.
Will give it a try tonigt.

Edit.
Uhh.. sadly the link dont work.

This one should work.

[lord_khaine]

Hey, I also used gentlemen to help expansion a bit besides the guitarrists who mostly failed.

Well.. when used correctly a guitarist should trash the fool who spurned her with her guitar.

The tri-attack didn't one-shot from full HP, the Pikachu Libres did manage to shave off a significant amount of HP before going down. Although with 34 protection even blessed double kicks weren't enough on their own.

Hmm yeah that ends as 17 prot. Enough to only get chipped by the kicks if you can use temper flesh.
Perhaps the main issue is the scaling potential, with Strenght of giants being stacked by storm power and a strenght bless.

And i guess shock resistance takes a lot of the bite from tri-attack.

This one should work.

It does. Thanks.

[deuterio12]

Well.. when used correctly a guitarist should trash the fool who spurned her with her guitar.

Guitarrist: Hell had no fury like a woman scorned!
Throne Wizard: Well maybe no fury but they do have these mindless elementals with fire shield.
Guitarrist: IT BURNS US!

Hmm yeah that ends as 17 prot. Enough to only get chipped by the kicks if you can use temper flesh.
Perhaps the main issue is the scaling potential, with Strenght of giants being stacked by storm power and a strenght bless.

And i guess shock resistance takes a lot of the bite from tri-attack.

I won't deny the storm+bless+strength of giants is strong, but also demands a lot of setup. Needed to invest in the bless then research two schools (one all the way to level 5, the other that isn't offering much else for the national paths), ferry air gems, have a priest handy plus an earth mage able to cast Strength of giants. Although granted the storm and strength of giants benefit most of the troops, so it's more needing to bring a priest along, but still needs time to research all the pieces.

And yeah 29 armor-negating shock damage can vaporize a lot of stuff but a Golem can tank a few from full HP.

It does. Thanks.

Great, looking forward to your testing of the nerfed to bottom tier new and improved Celadon!

[lord_khaine]

Guitarrist: Hell had no fury like a woman scorned!
Throne Wizard: Well maybe no fury but they do have these mindless elementals with fire shield.
Guitarrist: IT BURNS US!
Khaine's Guitarist: You Cant Burn Me! My HEART Burns Stronger Than your Fire SHIELD!

I won't deny the storm+bless+strength of giants is strong, but also demands a lot of setup. Needed to invest in the bless then research two schools (one all the way to level 5, the other that isn't offering much else for the national paths), ferry air gems, have a priest handy plus an earth mage able to cast Strength of giants. Although granted the storm and strength of giants benefit most of the troops, so it's more needing to bring a priest along, but still needs time to research all the pieces.

And yeah 29 armor-negating shock damage can vaporize a lot of stuff but a Golem can tank a few from full HP.

Well.. honestly its already brutally strong with just 2 out of 3 there.
And its actually not something i considder a lot of setup compared to when i actually play a complex nation like Jomon.
Else as you get into yourself, the 5 path both benefits a lot of your troop, as well as all your mages. You want that researched anyway.
While enchantment 3 is about a turns research where you are now. And brings a few neat spells.
Meanwhile, a single priest is hardly that big of a time investment? You want a few around anyway for reasons most of the time.

Great, looking forward to your testing of the nerfed to bottom tier new and improved Celadon!

I suspect you will be surprised over how much Celadon still hides.
Their rampant growth kinda overshadowed all the other little neat things they got.
Im quite confident, that as they are now i would trash people in a regular game with only normal nations.

edit.
The great city Veteran still has the Pranktator spelling error.
And The summon Ivysaur the wrong fluff text

[tyckspoon]

Report for the next round of cleanups (as of version .802 - some of this may have been caught already, but I didn't see it mentioned):

Heavy Muks have Stealth. They also do *not* have Poison Resistance, causing them to self-destruct in their own poison clouds. (Edit - normal Muks also lack Poison Resist. Have not bothered recruiting Shield Grimer, assume Shield Muk probably also has the problem.)
Grimer's Poison Gas attack isn't actually Poison-type damage - it's just untyped magic damage. And armor-negating, which means basically nothing can defend against it. Intentional?
The Summon Nidoran spells can summon the Team Rocket Nidorans. Again, not sure if intentional. (Note this means Fuschia's summoned Nido-family pokemon can be much weaker than intended, as being a normal Pokemon nation Fuschia is likely to be full Order, so the Rocket Nidoran Chaos Power penalizes them.)

[deuterio12]

Cerulean City got their cap sieged but managed to break out. Their basic strategy was drowning the plant horde with squirtle summons . Seems like the battle report only registers the 6 initial non-summoned squirtles but grants them all the kills from the summons.

Alas Cerulean also clumped their mages in the mid of their forces instead of behind a screen so the green AI targeted them directly.

Well.. honestly its already brutally strong with just 2 out of 3 there.
And its actually not something i considder a lot of setup compared to when i actually play a complex nation like Jomon.
Else as you get into yourself, the 5 path both benefits a lot of your troop, as well as all your mages. You want that researched anyway.
While enchantment 3 is about a turns research where you are now. And brings a few neat spells.
Meanwhile, a single priest is hardly that big of a time investment? You want a few around anyway for reasons most of the time.

Easier said than done since the only national priests are the guitarrist and Nurse (and shiny pikachu but that demands even more research).

The guitarrist is expensive and kinda of a waste to be used as a blesser.
The nurse is expensive and lacks other magic.

Which is kinda relevant in a scenario like my current one where I need to watch out for earthquake traps and a nurse would thus be splattered if I don't thug her out.

Then of course Strength of Giants demands an E2 mage at least so either a)25% chance with a cap-only male cooltrainer meaning 1 every 4 turns or b) forge earth boots at 10 gems a piece for E1 mages.

Then the Vermillion cooltrainers are derping during assassination attempts and casting useless spells and getting taken out one by one even with bodyguards. While when I just send some remote assassinations against Pewter, their cooltrainers behaved like bosses quickly summoning big hard rock pokemon to guard themselves. So even keeping a couple armies with Strength of Giants coverage alone is proving a challenge (storm and bless not necessarily included).

I suspect you will be surprised over how much Celadon still hides.
Their rampant growth kinda overshadowed all the other little neat things they got.
Im quite confident, that as they are now i would trash people in a regular game with only normal nations.

Abyssia would probably like a word about that.

edit.
The great city Veteran still has the Pranktator spelling error.
And The summon Ivysaur the wrong fluff text

Should be fixed now.

Report for the next round of cleanups (as of version .802 - some of this may have been caught already, but I didn't see it mentioned):

Heavy Muks have Stealth. They also do *not* have Poison Resistance, causing them to self-destruct in their own poison clouds. (Edit - normal Muks also lack Poison Resist. Have not bothered recruiting Shield Grimer, assume Shield Muk probably also has the problem.)
Grimer's Poison Gas attack isn't actually Poison-type damage - it's just untyped magic damage. And armor-negating, which means basically nothing can defend against it. Intentional?
The Summon Nidoran spells can summon the Team Rocket Nidorans. Again, not sure if intentional. (Note this means Fuschia's summoned Nido-family pokemon can be much weaker than intended, as being a normal Pokemon nation Fuschia is likely to be full Order, so the Rocket Nidoran Chaos Power penalizes them.)

Ah, good catches. Removed the shield/heavy muk's stealth, gave all muks poison resistance (including Team Rocket's Muk), also removed the rocket nidorans from the Fuschia summoning pool, added actual poison-type to poison gas.

Pokémon 0.910

[lord_khaine]

All the same, sounds like Celadon is on the ropes, if their Cap is being attacked.

Easier said than done since the only national priests are the guitarrist and Nurse (and shiny pikachu but that demands even more research).

The guitarrist is expensive and kinda of a waste to be used as a blesser.
The nurse is expensive and lacks other magic.

Which is kinda relevant in a scenario like my current one where I need to watch out for earthquake traps and a nurse would thus be splattered if I don't thug her out.

Then of course Strength of Giants demands an E2 mage at least so either a)25% chance with a cap-only male cooltrainer meaning 1 every 4 turns or b) forge earth boots at 10 gems a piece for E1 mages.

Then the Vermillion cooltrainers are derping during assassination attempts and casting useless spells and getting taken out one by one even with bodyguards. While when I just send some remote assassinations against Pewter, their cooltrainers behaved like bosses quickly summoning big hard rock pokemon to guard themselves. So even keeping a couple armies with Strength of Giants coverage alone is proving a challenge (storm and bless not necessarily included).

Its of course always easier to do so than to say so.
But to start with you get a prophet. And the guitarist can always do regular stuff after blessing. While its always practical having a nurse along.
And i dont think making a ring of floating is much of an issue for an air nation.

As for strenght of giants. Yes of course its troublesome. I would likely have called it out as OP if you had easy access to that spell on a nation with str scaling shock attacks.
Though i think it should be pointed out, thats again a special case with pokemon nations, who have far better remote attack spells.
Your trouble with them indicates they are likely a little to effective.

Abyssia would probably like a word about that.

The word would likely be arrgllplmp! (translater :help i got leaf cuts on my tongue).
Since they are next on the list after Ulm. I doubt their troops can do much. And i dont fear their mages much before firestorm.

The new Celadon does work quite well. But without poison cloud their smaller pokemon can likely handle a minor buff,
I purely use Garden bellsprout, Heavy bellsprout and leather paras (besides the special pokemon).
A few initial minor suggestions are increasing the poison cloud of the leader Venomsaur by 1.
And lovering the nature requirement of either the first site spell, or all of them. Since the big mages had their nature magic reduced by 1.

[deuterio12]

All the same, sounds like Celadon Cerulean is on the ropes, if their Cap is being attacked.

Cerulean had stalled again before, that's how and Celadon sieged their cap. But yeah they're with their back against the wall.

Its of course always easier to do so than to say so.
But to start with you get a prophet. And the guitarist can always do regular stuff after blessing. While its always practical having a nurse along.
And i dont think making a ring of floating is much of an issue for an air nation.

As for strenght of giants. Yes of course its troublesome. I would likely have called it out as OP if you had easy access to that spell on a nation with str scaling shock attacks.
Though i think it should be pointed out, thats again a special case with pokemon nations, who have far better remote attack spells.
Your trouble with them indicates they are likely a little to effective.

Actually no Pewter remote spells, just Hiker spam. Guess it's an opportunity to check exactly how OP Pokémon assassin spam is agains anoher player.

The word would likely be arrgllplmp! (translater :help i got leaf cuts on my tongue).
Since they are next on the list after Ulm. I doubt their troops can do much. And i dont fear their mages much before firestorm.

Burning ones have 18 armor before bless or Berseker 3. And Abyssia also has Protection 17 infantry with tower shields. Acid is no longer an option out of the gate and unlike crossbows, razor leaf is slashing damage so 5 damage rolling against halved protection 8-9 (before berserk/bless/shield), not the best of odds. And once burning ones close in all of Celadon's stuff instantly suicides into their natural fire shields.

The new Celadon does work quite well. But without poison cloud their smaller pokemon can likely handle a minor buff,
I purely use Garden bellsprout, Heavy bellsprout and leather paras (besides the special pokemon).
A few initial minor suggestions are increasing the poison cloud of the leader Venomsaur by 1.
And lovering the nature requirement of either the first site spell, or all of them. Since the big mages had their nature magic reduced by 1.

The Celadon city's Cooltrainer still has base N3 and 25% chance of rolling another out of the gate, give her a thistle mace and she can cast all the special sites. They can even forge a moonvine bracelet too in case the RNG hates you and never rolls a N4 Cooltrainer.

What do you mean "special pokemon"? Anyway some troops standing better than others inside the same nation is standard fare if you ask me, plenty of vanilla nations are like that (EA Ulm may as well be called the Maiden nation). If there's nothing particularly OP in Celadon's troops anymore, I would rather move to another Poké nation before we spend years trying to fine tune each troop like we're Blizzard. Doubly because your favorite units are all non-stealthy, so I can still claim normal bellsprouts and oddishes still have an use for sneaking around.

Will increase the poison cloud of the venusaur champion and legendary.

[lord_khaine]

Actually no Pewter remote spells, just Hiker spam. Guess it's an opportunity to check exactly how OP Pokémon assassin spam is agains anoher player.

It is nice to get that part stress tested as well.
Does sound like its a bit of the pain at the moment.
Please keep track of the assasins succes rate :)

Burning ones have 18 armor before bless or Berseker 3. And Abyssia also has Protection 17 infantry with tower shields. Acid is no longer an option out of the gate and unlike crossbows, razor leaf is slashing damage so 5 damage rolling against halved protection 8-9 (before berserk/bless/shield), not the best of odds. And once burning ones close in all of Celadon's stuff instantly suicides into their natural fire shields.

Im genuinly not certain how things work against Tower shields. Have not fough any of those yet.
And fire shields could actually be a weakness for Celadon, on a unit with a large shield.

Burning ones im not worried about though. Not unless they got an exceptionally nasty bless.
They are 70 gold per head. And Garden Bellflower hits for 10 AP against 9 before berserk/bless.
While Bulbasaur/Ivysaur are going to shoot right though both tower shield, berserk and bless.

The Celadon city's Cooltrainer still has base N3 and 25% chance of rolling another out of the gate, give her a thistle mace and she can cast all the special sites. They can even forge a moonvine bracelet too in case the RNG hates you and never rolls a N4 Cooltrainer.

What do you mean "special pokemon"? Anyway some troops standing better than others inside the same nation is standard fare if you ask me, plenty of vanilla nations are like that (EA Ulm may as well be called the Maiden nation). If there's nothing particularly OP in Celadon's troops anymore, I would rather move to another Poké nation before we spend years trying to fine tune each troop like we're Blizzard. Doubly because your favorite units are all non-stealthy, so I can still claim normal bellsprouts and oddishes still have an use for sneaking around.

Will increase the poison cloud of the venusaur champion and legendary.

Special Pokemon cover over the slightly more expensive ones like Excegcute, or whatever you get from recruitment sites.
And yeah thats of course true. Regular bellsprout can likely still take a nice chunk of PD if you bring 30-40 of them.

But alright. Who would you rather i move to. One of the new nations?
Or the Ninja nation, who seemingly struggles a little bit?