The new general "Dominions 5" Thread

[lord_khaine]

Since the last one fell off the map then i guess its time to make a new thread about my favorite niche game.
And to kick it off i give you the tale of my own last game.

The Rise and Fall of Fantasy Japan Jomon

Spoiler: Year 1

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Journal of Vizir BigHat, Chief Advisor of the Shogun.

Month 1-3
The Time of Changes is upon us! The Highest One, the Pankrator, has stopped responding to its priests.
And the most ancient one, slumbering beneath the dungeons of Castle Jomon has off, breaking several walls, countless expensive works of art, as well as both the Shogun and several of my esteeem collegues who were to slow to get out of the way.

Ahem.. so unfortunate..
A random Samurai has declared himself prophet, and are even now gathering the remnants of the Imperial Cavalery to sally out and claim the land surrounding us for our new lord, the Supreme Being.
Whereever it is now. It seemed to head towards the ocean, perhaps its thristy?


Month 4-6
Our new lord and savior have been confirmed to vanish down Lucky Lake, only to emerge a few months later, having done stars know what down there. All the same, the peasants are impressed, and its almost embarresing how little our regular army have done by comparison.

Though the cavalery have finally reached critical mass, and should make it possible to split off from the archers in a few months.


Month 7-9
Contact has been made with Ragda to the east and Marignon to the north. Ragda were very reasonable in explaning their desire for a border between us, not wanting people who could build a fort in the lake bordering their capital, to actually be able to do so. And so we peacefully split the provinces between us.

Marignon meanwhile responded to the suggestion of letting the river between us act like a natural border, by sailing across the river and taking the southern part of it. Some people would take that as a sign of agression. But im certain its just because they want to get to know us better.
So for that same reason The Supreme Being has crawled up from the western Ocean to impresse all the peasants of a rather major town just 2 months travel from Marignons capital..


Month 10-12
The negotiation with Marignon was tense, and war came on the table a few times. But in the end the argument that none of us can afford a war won though. And so we will concede the town that Supreme Being awed in return for the province north of Jomon.

Besides that things are progressing well. A Monk of the 5 paths have made contact with the sons of the Dragon King, dwelling in the grand western lake. They to have been awed by the majesty of the worlds largest phallos symbol, and so are going to join us. With that we now have 2 military centers. The cluster of dragon palaces hidden in the lake, and the double fort of North Jomon and South Jomon.

For the cavalery unit has proved their worth, lead by General Manti they have now a string of victories with minimal casulties. And so focus will move on to train a major force of them, when it comes to taking the 2 thrones located north and south of Jomon.

Eastward the prophet has subdued a tribe of predatory lizards, as well as a clan of Zhh.. zoors..? zons..? bat people. Their magical traditions will be studied, and potentially their shamans will be allowed to serve the supreme being.

Spoiler: Year 2

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Month 13
A new year dawns. The dawn of the dragon. 23 provinces have been converted to follow the Supreme being, and the first Riujin joins. Though the initial focus now needs to be avoiding attention from the fearful nations surrounding us.

Marignon to the north might be a blasted hellscape, but their fanatics simply refuses to die to anything besides direct decapitation, and spilling their blood invokes blood vengeance.

Midgard to the south west meanwhile has their vanir knights empowered by all paths of magic. Leaving them almost impossible to see or hit.

Ragda to the east though, is the most scary of them all, having ogre sized knights mounted atop dragon sized griffons.

Thankfully none of them seems to considder us a threat, and so seems receptive to the idea of simply leaving us for later.


Month 14
Luck has at last smiled upon the nation of Jomon, the imperial site searcher found found a single spot blessed with every element of the ring. Along with the curiously frozen flames a junior astrolog found in the eastern swarm, then our national gem income has more than doubled in a single day.

Meanwhile mounted samurai are getting into position to sweep clean the throne of death to the south west of Jomon. We really want the throne of Gaia to compliment it, but the titan of Marignon is getting dangerously close to that throne, perhaps diplomacy will be in order. We know they badly want the throne of law that lies in the lake beneath their own capital.


Month 15
Scouts bring trouble of war brewing to the north, semingly between the hellish blessed fanatics of Man and the giant berserkers of Utgard. Its a mess we are going to stay clear off.
And thankfully, it seems the Supreme One is at last returning from its little trip. Hopefully it has had enough to eat for now, because its presence beneath Castle Jomon will likely do a lot to deter invaders.

Thats especially important now as the dual Cavalry commanders Manti and Coran, along with Windsong the dragon, are circling the throne of dead, preparing for a pincer attack that should eleminate that stain on our nation.


Month 16-17
Crushing Victory, the hordes of the unclean dead were utterly decimated, and a mere 4 samurai horsemen died honorably in the process. This is a massive succes by any standard, and not just the moral one we usually have to use until our sages figure out how to make our warriors emply the arcane techology known as a –shield- in combat. Unfortunately the throne ended up only containing the unholy Lower Throne, a source of magic utterly forbidden in Jomon by penalty of death. We are not even certain its worth building a fort around it.

Oh well. On to the next one up north. Hopefully its going to be a little more useful.


Month 16
Glory to the brave warriors of Jomon! Losing a mere 4 men to the greater glory of the nation, they killed 4 times their own number. With only minimal support from a pair of wandering priests.

… just a shame it ended up hardly being worth it. The throne in question, the lower throne, is a horrible thing, mostly suited for the sort of unholy magic Jomon would newer sully its hands with publicly.

At least the throne to the north still have a chance of being something more useful to our cause.
More Ryujin are being lured up from the deep, by the promise of glory, and a chance to impress young jomonese girls.


Month 17-20
Another glorious victory.. or something. The hordes of vinemen guarding the throne were almost effordlessly squashed by a combination of Samurai cavalry and a unit of sharkmen. The only casulty of note being an unfortunate dragon who bravely charged the rear without the support of its lazy brethren.

Just sadly, it turned out to be the almost insignificant throne of storms. Ya! More air gems? What are we going to do with the stuff? Feed the Supreme Being in hope it will stop snacking on valuable furniture or priceless clay art? Hmm….

On a side note, the chief shugenja reports that our magical research is progressing almost after scedule, as we have just figured out home to summon swarmps of nasty bugs. He insists this will be of massive tactical advantage in the fight against just about everyone else who surrounds him. Well.. he is a dangerous madman who put honey in his tea, so i just smile and nod in hope it means he will go away faster.


Month 21-22
Unexpectedly, a gift fit for the emperor we no longer have arrived from the nation of Caelum. A massive amount of gems and gold, apperently send to empty their treasury before barbarian invaders can plunder it. Its quite unexpected, as we had not even heard the nation of Caelum were in trouble..

Alright back after shouting a bit at the scouts. Now its time to make plans for the future. Step one is to secure the lakes previously in Caelums control. A flight of Ryujin can only almost cross the 6 or so provinces they need to pass in order to reach those lakes.

Sight… i guess i need to ask the master Shugenja for help again…


Month 23
It has been explained to me that the solution is to fit each Ryujin with a pair of shoes?
Sight.. sometimes i wonder why i even bother asking. But the shoes looks fancy so the dragons love them.
Go figure. I will turn my attention towards the logistics of the trip, as well as of liberating the Caelum lakes.
Its important to ensure enough magical supplies are packed. And most embaresing, a minor mistake was made in not packing enough nature gems, so the trip is delayed a month.

To make matters worse, the proud nation of Jomon has been ranked as a minor power?!
The insult almost make me crack my favorite cup. Fortunately a solution is at hand, in the shape of the ninja clans we have recently recruited.


Month 25
It took a little bit of preparation to get the dragons launched, in the end new boots was enough to send 6 of them ½ across the world into a pond formerly owned by Caelum. Turns out there is a reason for why Ryujin are rulers of the Jomon see. 3 dragons was all it took for each section of the lake.

Now that they are there they might as well get into position to grab a bit of land. At the moment the world is partly distracted by the massive war between Mictlan, Atlantis and Agartha. We will use this oppotunity to grow stronger. And perhaps also to do something about Mictlan and their tasteless use of blood magic.


Month 26
The honerless landgrab continues. It does not sit well with the samura, but thankfully we can explain it away as seasonal dragon migration, while packs of Ryujin takes over former Caelum provinces.
Midgar and Marignon is quite occupied with sieging down the citadels, but thats fine. They can have those. Meanwhile the dragons are constructing a spring palace down the lake.

Spoiler: Year 3

Show

Month 27
Report has reached of Atlantis falling to the combined efford of Ragda and Mictlan? The rapport were a little unreliable. But what is known is that this is a unpreceded opportunity. With another water power down the number of people who can oppose the Ryujin in the sea has shrunked down to Mictlan, kind off?
And so another flight of dragons are send to take over the now vacated lake.

Meanwhile we prepare for the potential war against Mictlan. They are far, far to dangerous. Someone need to stop them before their use of forbidden blood magic escalates. Prefebly someone else. Like Ragda or Mictlan. Two nations with an uncomfortable degree of power.
Hmm.. the idea situation is a war between those power that weaken all, while we gently invite Agartha into the proud Jomonese Nation.

Month 30
Wind of Spring Dawns New
Your last sunset nears
-Cencored- Flying Felines

Not one of my better pieces, but i think it gets the idea across.
It has been send to the nation of Mictlan. They are to big a risk in the long run with their potential for blood magic. Since Ragda moves in now, then its the perfect time to strike as well.
If we end Mictlan Ragda can be given credit for the deed.

The army moves into position as i write this. A large force of cavalry to the east, supported by archers. A large force of sharkmen to the west. Supported by fish men.
Those are the feint. 20 Ryujin gathers in their lake, preparing for a massive strike against around 10 different provinces.


Month 31
When it rain in this cursed land, it rains toads.. typical!
Just as i challenged Mictlan, Marignon challenges me. Its the M&M gang..
I have already yelled for the head Shugenja. We have 3 months to figure out what we can do against Marignons cursed flagellants and their hellish bless.


Month 34
I made a gross miscalculation, and it might end up costing us all the gains made so far. The war against Mictlan progressed well enough, with lightning raids from the sacred water dragons taking large swathes of land. But when challenged by Mictlan, i foolishly though that a quick initial strike would scare them off.
Just sadly failing to take into account the large number of hellblessed zealots they have roaming the land.
And so the number of dragons were insufficient, and lead to large loses that will take at least a couple months to recover from.

Now im forced to make peace with Mictlan to focus on this new threat, since a massive Marignon army moves towards my capital. God has been petitioned to move out and stare at them a bit, and the Head Shugenja has promised to cook up a little surprise for them as well. So far his attempts at making acid elementals have failed though, and the latest batch also looks more like jelly than water.

And in the end, i start to fear all of this isnt enough. We got barrels of unholy blood from the cursed throne we took. Initially to keep it out of the hands of everyone else. But now, ancestors have mercy, i think it has become nececary to put it to use. Somehow. However you actually do so. Dam thing did not come with a manual..


Month 36
War, war newer changes.
The raiding has been fierce, its a problem when 10 unarmored fanatics and a single preacher can sail over and beat down reguar province milita. So far its been hard to find a counter for that, besides increasing province spendings.

The living acid blobs worked moderatly well, but ran into the problem so many other things face, that spilling the blood of Marignon fanatics invokes a blood curse that kills most normal men. The first major army that Marignon send were in part only turned back by the grace of god, whom valiantly ate some fifty fanatics or so before the rest eventually broke.

Though now that the field is littered with the dead, a new plan has taken form. From the Ravens feasting on those, dead gems have been harvested. And a expert on the unclean death magic has been recruited to do something with it that i hope will be a bigger surprise, than flying acid blobs.

On another note, bathing the head Shugenja in unholy blood did not seem to turn him (more) crazy, and actually improved slightly on the smell. He seems to have gotten an affinity for it now. But it will be a long while before he can do anything useful. So it wont make a difference in this war.

Though it is one where we need to act fast. Marignon has broken the ultimate taboo, and invoked the horror! Of the astral plane. The Supreme being has already been marked by them. This can of course now only end with the utter destruction of their nation.


Month 38
Oh Supreme Being.. and all the Ancestors.. directing this war is giving me migraine..
But i cant leave the task to the generals, who dont know anything about magic. Or to the Head Shugenja who is a raving madman, lately he has taken to dying his beard pink. I dont dare to ask why..

Though the plan for the Great Jomon offensive is finally done. The center will be held by the Supreme Being and a assorted bunch of rabble. As well as our new acid elementals. They are painstakingly slow, but that problem has been solved by catapults and a bit of air magic.

East our subjogated tribes of lizard warriors will handle the brunt of the fighting, protected by both their own shamans and a few astrologers.

And west a small elite force of Shark men and Ryujin, again supported by an astrologer to ward against evil magic, has just emerged from the sea to take a province. But this time, instead of falling back, they are going to drive deeper into Marignons domain, and link up with the Sea King we have bribed in the northenwest lakes of Marignom.


Month 40.
Setback upon setback. The western force got ambushed by a massive Marignon army, after a sudden attack of astral horrors had baited their gems out. The loss of our troops were bad enough, but the loss of 8 Riujin were far, far worse.

The Eastern force meanwhile, managed to get baited into attacking the titan of Marignon, Jorgen Muppet, and suffered horrible casualties before withdrawing back to our keep.

Now, while under siege by a fallen angel with a redicoulus name, then the time has come for a final gamble.
An elite Squad of air dragons have been armed with massive greatswords, and launches themselves against the mad titan, while the remnants of the East and central army makes a push forward into Marignon.


Month 45.
5 months of intense raiding back and forth has followed. The attack on Jorgen the Titan failed, in part due to the entire team getting stunned by a storm spool. A new force should have been prepared, but they got tied up fending of raids from Marignons fallen angels.

Now Marignon made their own move, and placed the capital under siege. Thanks to Cliffscale the Ryujins heroic sacrifice i know their rather simple plan. Charge in around 500 flaggelants under the protection of Mistform.

Its also a plan thats immensely hard to counter though, as this combined with their blessing makes them more or less impossible to kill. So this will be the last entry unless a solution is found.

[Glimbur]

Sounds like you got a little adventurous with ryujin, lost a pile raiding, and then got turned on. Poison cloud and sleep cloud might have handled the flagellants, at least with some blockers to slow them down. Lucky militia or earth elementals or whatever. Maybe you should have left the thrones alone and gone for a player? All your neighbors were kind of scary though.

[lord_khaine]

Well.. no.. its actually not even the case that i got turned on.

Spoiler: Map of Jomon

Show

The Ryujin performance were god-like.
I think i lost around 1 out of 8 in the initial strike against Mictlan, so that war were going well.
But i made a fatal flaw when i launched them into Marignon's domain, and forgot that
a) he had Drain 3, so they spellcasting were nerfed.
b) had his realm overrun by rowing bands of hell blessed flaggelans.
(Marignon's bless were Awe, regeneration, Undying 10 and Blood Vengeance)
So a single Ryujin were not enough to take Marignons provinces.

And yeah sending a lot of troops to support a Ryujin attack would perhaps have helped earlier.
But the border between our realms were patroled by his titan

Spoiler: Jorgen Muppet

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So the first army i send after him ran into this ugly guy, and got more or less decimated.
I tried sending 3 Ryujin with greatswords after him, but they failed.
And before i could gather a stronger force to try again, then i were suddenly under attack myself, by Fallen Angels.

Spoiler: Fallen

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So a lot of Dragons suddenly have their hands full kicking those off my land.

Going for the scattered thrones were not an issue though. We had 24 throne points, and 18 is required to win.

[Glimbur]

Best of luck. I have a soft spot for Jomon, they are less evil than most LA nations.

[Manticoran]

As the mictlan, I have comments, but I think I'll hold them until the game is actually over, as I think I'd give stuff away that are still in progress.

[lord_khaine]

Best of luck. I have a soft spot for Jomon, they are less evil than most LA nations.

Yeah. They dont use blood magic.
Or eat you. The worst they do in general is to tax you if your a peasant.
I mean you could be drafted to the army. But militia is so crappy that its a waste of gold :P

And thank you. Sadly i am likely out of the running for winning this game.
At this stage its more a degree of spite that makes me try and see just how long i can hold out.
And just how much damage i can do.

As the mictlan, I have comments, but I think I'll hold them until the game is actually over, as I think I'd give stuff away that are still in progress.

I am curious about those.
Since it kinda have to be a secret weapon not yet blown.

[deuterio12]

Congratulations to lord_khaine for making the meme build of dragon fleet Jomon get so far, which usually remains only in theory as they get crushed early on due to some of the crappiest land troops around.

[tyckspoon]

Well. Vengeance)
So a single Ryujin were not enough to take Marignons provinces.

And yeah sending a lot of troops to support a Ryujin attack would perhaps have helped earlier.
But the border between our realms were patroled by his titan

Spoiler: Jorgen Muppet

Show

So the first army i send after him ran into this ugly guy, and got more or less decimated.
I tried sending 3 Ryujin with greatswords after him, but they failed.
And before i could gather a stronger force to try again, then i were suddenly under attack myself, by Fallen Angels.
.

Target defense skill: 28. Base Ryujin attack: 12. You either needed to send enough after him that harassment penalties made him hittable or go for magic attacks. Water elemental or Frozen Heart spam would do the job in sufficient numbers.

Edit: didn't notice the general element resists. Frozen Heart would still do it, but it's be very inefficient trying to wear through the regen as well.

[lord_khaine]

Congratulations to lord_khaine for making the meme build of dragon fleet Jomon get so far, which usually remains only in theory as they get crushed early on due to some of the crappiest land troops around.

Thanks a lot
And yeah, for a few short months i lived the Jomon dream.
It even lasted a little bit into the war. Just sucked being up against one of the worst counters.
Where drain 3 made spellcasters suck. And horror attacks made sending small groups of dragons anywhere risky.
By the time i had learned to deal with those it were to late.

Target defense skill: 28. Base Ryujin attack: 12. You either needed to send enough after him that harassment penalties made him hittable or go for magic attacks. Water elemental or Frozen Heart spam would do the job in sufficient numbers.

Edit: didn't notice the general element resists. Frozen Heart would still do it, but it's be very inefficient trying to wear through the regen as well.

Well the difference isnt that big.
Base Ryujin 12
greatsword of sharpness +4
Quicken self +2
Ring of the warrior +5
Thats a starting value of 23. And adding to that each Ryujin has 4 attacks each.
Of course, i decided to go for overkill, and added a stonebird. Thats 10 additional attacks.
Just unfortunately, it didnt work, they all got stunned during round 2 by the storm spool. And killed by the fire shield.

Frozen heart or water elementals were also unlikely to do anything. He were regenerating 20%, so likely the blood vengeance would have done more damage to the mages.
Perhaps an absurdly high number of water elementals would have done it as well against version 1.0. But they would have had to do a lot of damage to burn though the regen.
And a magic weapon were needed because he had a minion who cast Body Etheral on him.

[zlefin]

general question: is the ai any better at building thugs/scs than it was in dom4 (i.e. terrible and inept)

[lord_khaine]

Dont know..
Its why i began playing human opponents.
Even if they suck as well! Im looking at you Marignon!

[Knaight]

It's really not. The AI is getting a lot better at handling armies with minimal magic support than it used to be (the endless militia waves of Dom 3 are a thing of the past), but it's still pretty terrible once the magic system gets brought in, especially items.

[Glimbur]

Anyone like any mods? I am getting into Dominions Enhanced. I also am considering a build your own nation game for next game I play, based on an idea from someone on a discord server (Bloax). It would probably be months out yet though.

[tyckspoon]

Anyone like any mods? I am getting into Dominions Enhanced. I also am considering a build your own nation game for next game I play, based on an idea from someone on a discord server (Bloax). It would probably be months out yet though.

Recently installed Dominions Enhanced, been playing pilot single-player games with the added nations.

Edit: Most of the nations have some interesting aspects, but they're not really grabbing me more or less than the base nations. Enjoying messing around with the Pretenders Enhanced titans, tho. Makes most of the Titan class more viable, and almost all the Monsters have changes to make them at least somewhat viable expanders - improved base Protection generally across the board, a second or third attack so they can clear mobs faster, Awe and/or Fear, and they almost all have Recuperation as baseline.

I haven't run most of the games up to highest levels yet, so can't render an opinion on the higher-level spell additions. On the low level spells, I think the big standout is having a smaller area/non-gem using version of Fire Arrows, so you can set up effective archer swarms much sooner and with less required specialist mages. I don't play underwater nations much, but if you enjoy them you'll probably appreciate all the new underwater combat spells giving your mages something else to do other than wait until Water Elementals happen.

[Glimbur]

I like all the options DE adds to water. Summer rain to help with fatigue, water weird for body guarding, creeping ichor to assassinate... it's nice.

[Manticoran]

I'm actually writing a pair of mods, one set up for balancing pretenders around a 190pt Kerberus as minimally as possible(Make fewer changes, make sure changes that are made are obvious whenever possible, and make thematic sense), and one around balancing the nations some, again with the same design philosophy of minimal changes. Ah, also a note that we're trying to do more buffs than nerfs, as nerfs feel bad, but people are almost always happy to have buffs.

Some broad strokes on what we've done regarding Pretenders: Titans are generally cheaper, and if represented on their model have bad gear. Death related titans often have invuln.

Messengers have affliction resistance, monsters have recup, immobiles are all 100 points with innate domspread, most mages are 0 points.

Nation changes are usually minor mage changes, but we have a couple species wide changes(Abysians can get 5 years older before they're old, Caelians get a couple stat buffs across the board, as dom5 was not kind to them now that flying lance chargers don't always hit first.)

We've set up a discord for talking about it, if people are interested? We're about to start a 6 player FFA.

I found that a lot of mods add what I consider to be "too much", where I start wondering about everything they're doing.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah i took at look at Dominions enhanced.
But though it went a little to far overboard with the spells it added.
The more you give to a single path, the more you erase the differences between each path.

[deuterio12]

My personal peeve with DE is more with all the national spells it adds so basically every nation is abusing their own special snowflake magic instead of most everybody sharing the same pool of spells for most stuff which to me is one of the main charms of dominions, most everybody having an idential spell library with only a few national spells here and there. Figuring out what will work best for each scenario. Instead DE is all "lol just go with those custom tailored spells for your nation."

[lord_khaine]

I do like the idea of having a small handful of unique summons and spells.
But while the conjuration spells could and should be better than default conjuration summons,
Then i do agree on that combat spells most of the time should only be situational useful.
With of course noteable exceptions like the Marveni Tatoo ones.
Or i guess the Xibalba soul ones are also an example of national spells done right.

[Manticoran]

I do like the idea of having a small handful of unique summons and spells.
But while the conjuration spells could and should be better than default conjuration summons,
Then i do agree on that combat spells most of the time should only be situational useful.
With of course noteable exceptions like the Marveni Tatoo ones.
Or i guess the Xibalba soul ones are also an example of national spells done right.

I think the Caelian national paralyze spell is a good example of what NOT to do, as a note, for most circumstances.

It makes a crosspath (Air/Death) that previously blew to get at 1/1, suddenly a very powerful combat path. I'm ok with the devs doing that, but unless the nation has problems utilizing their mages at all, I could never justify modding something in so incredibly gamechanging.

[lord_khaine]

Hmm.. yeah.. im alright with some path combinations not being good for combat casting.
Its not like there isnt plenty of other tasks for a low level mage. Like forging, researching or site searching.

[Glimbur]

I'm working on an ambitious mod to make 3 eras of pokemon. I mostly have the planning for the first era done, but I think I want a chaff pokemon. Should I just use rattata, or is there another choice?
Other pokemon are the 3 original starters, pikachu, geodude or sandslash, and maybe dratini. Or dratini might be summon and pretender spawn only, not sure.

[Manticoran]

Like nations themed around pokemon?

[Glimbur]

Exactly. The first nation will have all the recruitable commanders as humans and all the units as pokemon. Events and XP shape will let top level pokemon become mages. Later eras will play with that approach somewhat.

[Knaight]

I'm working on an ambitious mod to make 3 eras of pokemon. I mostly have the planning for the first era done, but I think I want a chaff pokemon. Should I just use rattata, or is there another choice?
Other pokemon are the 3 original starters, pikachu, geodude or sandslash, and maybe dratini. Or dratini might be summon and pretender spawn only, not sure.

Caterpie, weedle, and the rest of the grubs come to mind as chaff units.

[Glimbur]

Caterpie, weedle, and the rest of the grubs come to mind as chaff units.

Those could work too. It would be amusing to have your chaff turn into kakuna between fights. I would give them map move to represent being carried so it's not the worst thing but would still cause issues. I am worried that getting the fliers for final step of evolution is too good for chaff.

[tyckspoon]

Those could work too. It would be amusing to have your chaff turn into kakuna between fights. I would give them map move to represent being carried so it's not the worst thing but would still cause issues. I am worried that getting the fliers for final step of evolution is too good for chaff.

Nazca and Xibalba already have swarms and swarms of crappy flyers to use as chaff, Pangaea has harpies; it's generally not considered the strong point of those nations. I wouldn't expect it to be a problem, especially since the life of chaff swarms tends to be short, brutal, and not rich in XP - unless you use a really low requirement for the xpshapes you probably aren't gonna get a lot of your front line blockers surviving to third stage. (Maybe more possible if you have a capsite that can be entered for XP training? PokeArena, have a recruitable commander Trainer that can enter with his troops for XP? Basically cloning the function from the similar magic site.) Might be something to consider if your third-stage 'chaff' evolutions are also available as relatively massable summons, tho - a national summon spell that creates a swarm of Beedrill or Butterfree could mean you'd need to be more careful what you did with their stats. (recent patch made sleep aura a moddable function, so you could have Butterfree with 'Sleep Powder'..) Heck, you could actually just sprite-swap Zotz and call them Zubats.

For recruitable chaff, just about any of the first-route trash pokemon should work ok. I'd pick based on the stats you want them to have; something that is intended to swarm around and die in droves with generally crappy stats would call for a different 'mon than something that should be mainly capable of standing in a line and absorbing arrows while the mages warm up.

[deuterio12]

Pidgeys and Sparrows for cheap flying chaff.

Zubats should have mind-blasts to represent Supersonic.

[Olinser]

Pidgeys and Sparrows for cheap flying chaff.

Zubats should have mind-blasts to represent Supersonic.

Pikachu should be the cheapest most disposable chaff just so we can watch armies of them die.

[deuterio12]

Pikachu freespawn so it's not optional to have hordes of them die. They'll be all over your provinces whetever you like it or not.

Plus summon horde of pikachus national spell that the AI always prioritizes.

Also mandatory to include the generation I pokemon death fainting cries in battle.

Legendaries can be the high level unique summons.

You could actually make multiple factions with pokemon, each based in an element/gym/city from the game plus even a Team Rocket nation with stealthy unrest generating trainers!

So like Petwer Town faction that gets a bunch of rock pokemons and Brock as a national hero.