The new general "Dominions 5" Thread

[deuterio12]

Well as the pokedex entry says "Brutally vicious and enormously destructive. Known for totally destroying cities in ancient times. " Which would include killing people I would say since I doubt a Gyarados would be nice enough to allow everybody to evacuate in time. And we are playing in those ancient times now.

Will give ancient Gyarados a discount.

EDIT: You mean the legendary Gyarados pretender chassis, right? Or the commander recruit?

[lord_khaine]

Relevant Gyrados link
It can be its only destroying the towns of the unworthy?
I mean, what awake expander does not end up with a count of at least 10-11 towns crushed into obedience?

[deuterio12]

The awake expander who runs into a bunch of hidden indie mages or some terrible luck spawns an army of cave trolls on top

Excellent point, removed friendly unrest and feasting on friendly people/pokemon.

Also that comic would be an excellent example of how things are in a popkill nation where monsters show up out of nowhere and devour people and everybody's just completely chill with zero unrest increase.

[lord_khaine]

Excellent point, removed friendly unrest and feasting on friendly people/pokemon.

Its not a problem when its someone else god snacks on

Well. Cerulean initial impression.

Spoiler

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-It seems mainly about hordes and hordes of little squishy things.
-surprisingly hard to figure out a bless for this.
-The detail about slightly to large flag applies here.
-They expand decently.
-Horsea could perhaps use a bit of poison resist. Else they kill themselves.
-Magic Carp school seems like a waste of a spell. That i am worried the AI would cast.
-Turns out this is a bit like playing Jomon. The trick is to get an UW town as fast as possible.
-Like how conjuration has become a bit of a combat path here.

[tyckspoon]

Didn't have time for a test run, but downloaded last link I could find (version name Pokemon031) to check out Cerulean's info screen. First look opinion:

Most of your land-recruit troops are nearly worthless; terrible stats with almost no redeeming features. Like playing Xibalba if you took away the flying lances and forced your crappy man-bat troops to walk across the field and fight the enemy front-line troops. Notable exceptions in Shellder, which at least have enough Protection to hold a line, and Staryu, which have an absurdly accurate ranged attack (this may almost be worth loading up on weapon blesses - if they were recruit anywhere or maybe Cap + underwater so you could actually mass them they'd make a pretty terrifying firebase with maybe something like Farshot + Fire Weapons + .. I dunno Decay Weapons + probably Magic Weapons so you can punch through all the defenses that are countered by that. Thunder Weapons would probably be the best because the stun effect would disrupt the enemy as they tried to advance, but too expensive to take along with extended range.)

You really want to go underwater ASAP and set up a fort there so you can recruit the already evolved version of your troops -they generally look pretty solid.

Tentacool are particularly bad. They have no defensive stats worth speaking about, and their offense is non-existent. Their attacks either need to add Strength, or be Armor Piercing/Armor Negating - as it is they rely on inflicting bonus effects to do anything, but they have such low damage that they have to explode a DRN roll at least once to even pierce standard 10 Protection. As is the only useful thing they can do is die and hope their Acid Splash takes somebody out with them. For Poison Sting, maybe look at things like the Swarm bugs' Tiny Sting or Mind Blast as a guide: Make it Armor Negating but cap damage at 1, so it can reliably inflict its poison but will almost never be the actual direct cause of death. (The superlow damage on their attacks may be why they don't appear to try to fight in assassinations? The AI may be perceiving the attacks as pointless against a higher Protection enemy, leaving it with no 'correct' options to choose so it defaults to 'hold and do nothing'?)
- The Supersonic attack you have on some of the 'mon has a similar problem; it inflicts Confusion as a bonus effect on damage, but has functionally zero chance of actually inflicting damage. Suggest the Mind Blast model here too or just change the actual damage to be 'MR negate apply Confusion'.

- Lapras doesn't look good enough to be worth what you're charging for it (keeping in mind I didn't try to play it, so this is just a stats/cost assessment. The special effects on the attacks may be better than I'm giving it credit for.) Compare to Pewter's Onyx at the same cost. I'd suggest halving its price in both gold and rec points to start, then maybe apply reclimit if you want it to be impossible to spam.
- Recruitable Gyarados champs are a pretty mean-looking heavy thug/light supercombatant, especially with access to two of the major combat-buff paths (Liquid Body/Quicken/Mistform/Mirror Image/Air Shield/at least a few elemental resists, apply according to what you need them to resist.) Only really restrained by lack of body slots to fully customize them, but you can still pop something like a regen ring and a reinvigoration item on them and just let them cut loose.

- Sailor is an abnormally good commander for Early Age; he'd be worth picking up just for the bulk leadership + Morale bonus, let alone the extra mobility/raiding potential for being a Sailing commander (worth extra for being able to shuttle an entire army's worth of units around on his own.) Balance-wise, consider cutting down his command ability some or make him cost 2 command points.

[lord_khaine]

Most of your land-recruit troops are nearly worthless; terrible stats with almost no redeeming features. Like playing Xibalba if you took away the flying lances and forced your crappy man-bat troops to walk across the field and fight the enemy front-line troops. Notable exceptions in Shellder, which at least have enough Protection to hold a line, and Staryu, which have an absurdly accurate ranged attack (this may almost be worth loading up on weapon blesses - if they were recruit anywhere or maybe Cap + underwater so you could actually mass them they'd make a pretty terrifying firebase with maybe something like Farshot + Fire Weapons + .. I dunno Decay Weapons + probably Magic Weapons so you can punch through all the defenses that are countered by that. Thunder Weapons would probably be the best because the stun effect would disrupt the enemy as they tried to advance, but too expensive to take along with extended range.)

The land things actually expand decently well. Yes they have garbage stats. But they all shoot and are dirt cheap.
It is early age after all. Not a lot of things have armor.

I made expansion armies with Krappys, Horsea, PsyDuck, Slowpoke (also minor error in slowpoke description)
Though yeah i could not really figure out what to do about Lapras either.

As for the Sailor commander. I think he is desperately needed.
Since its a nation with hordes and hordes of cheap chaff. Then you badly need need his massive leadership.

[deuterio12]

Its not a problem when its someone else god snacks on

Well. Cerulean initial impression.

Spoiler

Show

-It seems mainly about hordes and hordes of little squishy things.
-surprisingly hard to figure out a bless for this.
-The detail about slightly to large flag applies here.
-They expand decently.
-Horsea could perhaps use a bit of poison resist. Else they kill themselves.
-Magic Carp school seems like a waste of a spell. That i am worried the AI would cast.
-Turns out this is a bit like playing Jomon. The trick is to get an UW town as fast as possible.
-Like how conjuration has become a bit of a combat path here.

Ok, seems like I figured out how to properly reduce flag size, I need to leave some empty space or the game will amplify it.

Added poison resist to Horsea and Seadra.

Removed magikarp school spell.

Nice about the conjuration spells. But you noticed Pewter City also has some of those, right?

Didn't have time for a test run, but downloaded last link I could find (version name Pokemon031) to check out Cerulean's info screen. First look opinion:

Most of your land-recruit troops are nearly worthless; terrible stats with almost no redeeming features. Like playing Xibalba if you took away the flying lances and forced your crappy man-bat troops to walk across the field and fight the enemy front-line troops. Notable exceptions in Shellder, which at least have enough Protection to hold a line, and Staryu, which have an absurdly accurate ranged attack (this may almost be worth loading up on weapon blesses - if they were recruit anywhere or maybe Cap + underwater so you could actually mass them they'd make a pretty terrifying firebase with maybe something like Farshot + Fire Weapons + .. I dunno Decay Weapons + probably Magic Weapons so you can punch through all the defenses that are countered by that. Thunder Weapons would probably be the best because the stun effect would disrupt the enemy as they tried to advance, but too expensive to take along with extended range.)

You really want to go underwater ASAP and set up a fort there so you can recruit the already evolved version of your troops -they generally look pretty solid.

Staryus can be recruited underwater besides coastal province even if it doesn't say in the frontal description.

As lord_khaine pointed out don't understimate lots of cheap stuff spamming ranged attacks.

Tentacool are particularly bad. They have no defensive stats worth speaking about, and their offense is non-existent. Their attacks either need to add Strength, or be Armor Piercing/Armor Negating - as it is they rely on inflicting bonus effects to do anything, but they have such low damage that they have to explode a DRN roll at least once to even pierce standard 10 Protection. As is the only useful thing they can do is die and hope their Acid Splash takes somebody out with them. For Poison Sting, maybe look at things like the Swarm bugs' Tiny Sting or Mind Blast as a guide: Make it Armor Negating but cap damage at 1, so it can reliably inflict its poison but will almost never be the actual direct cause of death. (The superlow damage on their attacks may be why they don't appear to try to fight in assassinations? The AI may be perceiving the attacks as pointless against a higher Protection enemy, leaving it with no 'correct' options to choose so it defaults to 'hold and do nothing'?)

The attacks were already adding Strength, just that tentacools aren't exactly muscle builders. But using the armornegating+1 damage max sounds like a nice improvement do applied it.

- The Supersonic attack you have on some of the 'mon has a similar problem; it inflicts Confusion as a bonus effect on damage, but has functionally zero chance of actually inflicting damage. Suggest the Mind Blast model here too or just change the actual damage to be 'MR negate apply Confusion'.

Ups, my bad. Changed to apply directly confusion. No MR check but no acuraccy bonus either.

- Lapras doesn't look good enough to be worth what you're charging for it (keeping in mind I didn't try to play it, so this is just a stats/cost assessment. The special effects on the attacks may be better than I'm giving it credit for.) Compare to Pewter's Onyx at the same cost. I'd suggest halving its price in both gold and rec points to start, then maybe apply reclimit if you want it to be impossible to spam.

Halved gold and recruitment point cost.

- Recruitable Gyarados champs are a pretty mean-looking heavy thug/light supercombatant, especially with access to two of the major combat-buff paths (Liquid Body/Quicken/Mistform/Mirror Image/Air Shield/at least a few elemental resists, apply according to what you need them to resist.) Only really restrained by lack of body slots to fully customize them, but you can still pop something like a regen ring and a reinvigoration item on them and just let them cut loose.

Well, they are supposed to be nasty.

- Sailor is an abnormally good commander for Early Age; he'd be worth picking up just for the bulk leadership + Morale bonus, let alone the extra mobility/raiding potential for being a Sailing commander (worth extra for being able to shuttle an entire army's worth of units around on his own.) Balance-wise, consider cutting down his command ability some or make him cost 2 command points.

It may be a bit too OP in other nation with more elitish troops, but for Cerulean City that as lord_khaine kindly pointed out needs to spam hordes of cheap stuff with not that good morale, it's kinda needed. Consider the Xibalbians get a flying priest commander with great leadership too.

Anyway:

New version, four cities so far, Pewter, Cerulean, Vermillion and Celadon.

Changelog besides new stuff added:
-Poison sting and Constrict attacks are now armor negating but capped at 1 damage.
-Flag size reduced.
-All gyarados unrest generation and popkill removed.
-Fixed Slowpoke description.
-Legendary Gyarados discounted to 200 base (180 with national discount).
-Lapras gold and recruitment point cost halved.

Spoiler

Show

[lord_khaine]

The attacks were already adding Strength, just that tentacools aren't exactly muscle builders. But using the armornegating+1 damage max sounds like a nice improvement do applied it.

That would make the maids much more effective at assasinating people.

Halved gold and recruitment point cost.

Having looked at them some more. Then i am wondering if their main strenght lies in countering other monster pokemon.
Their water blasts hit like a truck. A team of those targeting large enemy monsters could prove unusually effective.
But that is purely theory.

- Recruitable Gyarados champs are a pretty mean-looking heavy thug/light supercombatant, especially with access to two of the major combat-buff paths (Liquid Body/Quicken/Mistform/Mirror Image/Air Shield/at least a few elemental resists, apply according to what you need them to resist.) Only really restrained by lack of body slots to fully customize them, but you can still pop something like a regen ring and a reinvigoration item on them and just let them cut loose.

I missed those. Where do you recruit Gyarados?

New version, four cities so far, Pewter, Cerulean, Vermillion and Celadon.

Awesome. Thats already enough for a small test game.
I will try and find time to look at Vermillion next though.

[deuterio12]

Having looked at them some more. Then i am wondering if their main strenght lies in countering other monster pokemon.
Their water blasts hit like a truck. A team of those targeting large enemy monsters could prove unusually effective.
But that is purely theory.

Yeah they were kinda intended as heavy artillery. In theory.

I missed those. Where do you recruit Gyarados?

You can recruit the champion versions in mountains. No direct way to recruit the troop version right now but I'm open to suggestions (perhaps in mountains too up to 1 per turn?)

Awesome. Thats already enough for a small test game.
I will try and find time to look at Vermillion next though.

And yeah I would be up for a small test game if there's a couple other people interested.

Or heck we could even do a 1x1 between us.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah they were kinda intended as heavy artillery. In theory.

It can be they are actually worth more in that role.
They are clearly not useful for clearing indie provinces. All the pokemon nations so far trash those.
But perhaps they are worth their cost against other nations. Could settle for an initial 50 gold discount.

You can recruit the champion versions in mountains. No direct way to recruit the troop version right now but I'm open to suggestions (perhaps in mountains too up to 1 per turn?)

Isnt swamp a more natural habitat for either version?
Thats certainly where i would live if i were a giant monster snake.

And yeah I would be up for a small test game if there's a couple other people interested.

Or heck we could even do a 1x1 between us.

Would be awesome if we could find 2 other people for it.
A 4 people game gives a better idea of internal balance when people cant tailor their bless directly.
But a 1x1 game would still give a better idea on how nations interact than playing against AI.

First though i want to look at Pikachu city.

[deuterio12]

It can be they are actually worth more in that role.
They are clearly not useful for clearing indie provinces. All the pokemon nations so far trash those.
But perhaps they are worth their cost against other nations. Could settle for an initial 50 gold discount.

So 150 or 50 gold?

Isnt swamp a more natural habitat for either version?
Thats certainly where i would live if i were a giant monster snake.

Hmmm, that sounds better yes. Also swamps rarer than mountains. Will do.

I'm thinking of adding them at the cap too like the Onyx with 1/month rec limit.

Would be awesome if we could find 2 other people for it.
A 4 people game gives a better idea of internal balance when people cant tailor their bless directly.
But a 1x1 game would still give a better idea on how nations interact than playing against AI.

First though i want to look at Pikachu city.

Sure!

[lord_khaine]

So 150 or 50 gold?

When your potentially blasting a pair of medium pokemon each round, then yes i think 150 gold is a good starting point.
We should likely also keep in mind, that since pokemon lacks shields, then ranged attacks like these will be Super Effective.

Hmmm, that sounds better yes. Also swamps rarer than mountains. Will do.

I'm thinking of adding them at the cap too like the Onyx with 1/month rec limit.

I think it would balance with how the pretty powerful Onyx is found in a cave?
But being allowed to recruit 1/month is likely a good call.

[deuterio12]

New version 0.42

Changelog:
-Fixed a couple missing/misnamed sprites.
-Went around converting all capital letters in the image file and path names to normal size which removed most of the reported errors, still 4 hanging around not very sure why. all the reported errors.
-Beam attacks now have aoe property since it seems like otherwise #beam doesn't do anything special.
-Lapras cost bumped up to 150 gold/75 recruitment
-Gyarados troop now recruitable at Cerulean City capital and swamps, Gyarados Champion switched from mountains to swamps.

EDIT: Last errors were found, some missed capital letters, uploaded 0.42 which is error free.

[tyckspoon]

New version 0.42

Changelog:

-Beam attacks now have aoe property since it seems like otherwise #beam doesn't do anything special.
-Lapras cost bumped up to 150 gold/75 recruitment
-

I know #beam is used to make things like the drake breath attacks; not sure how it interacts with range and Area to actually define the affected squares (extends to range covering area width in squares, I think?) Should be careful with that one, recruitable beam throwers are going to be really tricky to balance.

[deuterio12]

I know #beam is used to make things like the drake breath attacks; not sure how it interacts with range and Area to actually define the affected squares (extends to range covering area width in squares, I think?) Should be careful with that one, recruitable beam throwers are going to be really tricky to balance.

Checking in another forum, it seems like when using #Beam the range is how "long" the beam is while #aoe is how "wide" the beam is, so if no aoe is defined the beam has no width and basically doesn't do anything special.

As for recruitable beam throwers, vanilla EA/MA Abyssia already have their salamanders and they're usually considered more in the weakish side of things than anything.

Also don't suppose you would be interested in a small test game with me and Lord_Khaine and anybody else interested?

[lord_khaine]

Vermillion first impression

Spoiler

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-Oh god its pikachu everywhere?
-Yikes the Pikachu Libre seems like the mother of all counterthugs. I can easily imagine one of them suplexing an Onyx now..
-The gentlemen are not good assasins
-A lot of the regular pikachu have trouble with any sort of ranged attack. You likely need to lead them with a commander that has line formation.
-The guitarist is expensive but pretty good. First test game she earned her keep by stealing 2 wizards for me.
-Its hard to see if the supersonic attack does anything now.
-There are several viable expansion options.

[tyckspoon]

As for recruitable beam throwers, vanilla EA/MA Abyssia already have their salamanders and they're usually considered more in the weakish side of things than anything.

Also don't suppose you would be interested in a small test game with me and Lord_Khaine and anybody else interested?

Salamanders don't beam, they have an AoE melee attack. And they're already pretty good, even with needing to enter melee and their crippling encumbrance - Abyssia's weakness has more to do with Plan A being 'set it on fire' with B through D all being 'crap I don't know maybe more fire.' Recruitable beams is more like being able to recruit Fire Drakes.

[deuterio12]

Vermillion first impression

Spoiler

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-Oh god its pikachu everywhere?
-Yikes the Pikachu Libre seems like the mother of all counterthugs. I can easily imagine one of them suplexing an Onyx now..
-The gentlemen are not good assasins
-A lot of the regular pikachu have trouble with any sort of ranged attack. You likely need to lead them with a commander that has line formation.
-The guitarist is expensive but pretty good. First test game she earned her keep by stealing 2 wizards for me.
-Its hard to see if the supersonic attack does anything now.
-There are several viable expansion options.

-Well there's really few electric pokemons in the first games so I had to fill the ranks somehow.
-Seems like Pikachu Libre worthy of his 60 gold price tag. Still the Onyx just needs to land a single blow to squash them.
-Gentleman will get buffed with summoning a trio of pikachu runners and one pikachu thunderer on top of the two sacred pikachus.
-Pikachus vulnerable to arrows yes, but did you try screening them with magnetites?
-Guitarrist performing well is good (pun intended).
-Will add a flying sprite to supersonic.
-Multiple expansion options is good. Care to be a bit more specific?

Thanks once more!

Salamanders don't beam, they have an AoE melee attack. And they're already pretty good, even with needing to enter melee and their crippling encumbrance - Abyssia's weakness has more to do with Plan A being 'set it on fire' with B through D all being 'crap I don't know maybe more fire.' Recruitable beams is more like being able to recruit Fire Drakes.

Thing is, Abyssia's the only nation that naturally resists fire accross their whole rooster (in contrast with lots of nations that resist cold), so if salamanders were "pretty good", then how come we never see Abyssia dominating early game with salamander rushes before anybody can research actual fire resistance?

Ditto for fire drakes. Despite options for multiplying their summons, they're more of a last-ditch option than exactly something anybody considers important enough to plan their strategy around. Most players will rather spend their gems in lightless lanterns or fire elementals that lack any kind of beam attack and only last 1 battle.

If anything, half the time I meet Abyssia in MP they're summoning masses of devils and horrors and whatnot. That's their actual plan B, with salamanders being barely a part of plan "kill it with fire!" A.

[lord_khaine]

Pikachu Libre is for that matter also quite efficient at clearing indies with just a little bit of screening chaff. Like the runners.
The gentleman's pikachu isnt sacred though. And yeah its kinda weird. Twice in a row they lost to a barbarian chief who just ran in and smacked him in the face.
Perhaps just give him 1 more pikachu and a price discount of like 20 gold? He is also a commander. That is quite effective.

I did look at screening them with magmites. But its hard for the melee version.
And magmites are slow. found it amost as easy to just send pure magmites in to clean up.
Or get flying pikachu's to hand archers. They are nasty in large packs.

Thing is, Abyssia's the only nation that naturally resists fire accross their whole rooster (in contrast with lots of nations that resist cold), so if salamanders were "pretty good", then how come we never see Abyssia dominating early game with salamander rushes before anybody can research actual fire resistance?

I think thats because salamanders are undisicplined and expensive, while also being kinda fragile.

[deuterio12]

Pikachu Libre is for that matter also quite efficient at clearing indies with just a little bit of screening chaff. Like the runners.
The gentleman's pikachu isnt sacred though. And yeah its kinda weird. Twice in a row they lost to a barbarian chief who just ran in and smacked him in the face.
Perhaps just give him 1 more pikachu and a price discount of like 20 gold? He is also a commander. That is quite effective.

I did look at screening them with magmites. But its hard for the melee version.
And magmites are slow. found it amost as easy to just send pure magmites in to clean up.
Or get flying pikachu's to hand archers. They are nasty in large packs.

Ups, forgot the #holy tag there.

Ok, will do as you suggest for the gentleman. In particular since Vermillion already has the guitarrist seducer.

Looks like pikachu combined tactics are pretty effective, just as planned.

I think thats because salamanders are undisicplined and expensive, while also being kinda fragile.

Which goes to show how great offense potential can be balanced by being expensive and/or relatively squishy. And the beam pokemon are considerably more expensive (in particular recruitment points, salamanders only 15 each) even if tougher.

[lord_khaine]

Ups, forgot the #holy tag there.

Of course.. less relevant since he cant bless them.

Ok, will do as you suggest for the gentleman. In particular since Vermillion already has the guitarrist seducer.

Yeah all the assasins dont have to be equally viable for everything.

Which goes to show how great offense potential can be balanced by being expensive and/or relatively squishy. And the beam pokemon are considerably more expensive (in particular recruitment points, salamanders only 15 each) even if tougher.

True. Though beams are also orders of magnitude more safe than the salamanders melee splash attack.
½ the time it gets stabbed before it does anything.

[lord_khaine]

Rainbowtown initial impression

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-looks like the most diverse town so far.
-large selection of very different commanders. Some gives a pretty good deal on their pokemon companions
-Something is wrong with Venosaur. It kills itself when it uses Solar beam
-Minor spelling error on Erika
-Im not entirely certain if Beauty X's ability to freespawn chaff is OP or not. But i suspect it can grow out of proportions if allowed alone to long.

[tyckspoon]

Rainbowtown initial impression

Spoiler

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-Something is wrong with Venosaur. It kills itself when it uses Solar beam

'Beam' attacks start in the same square as the attacker, so they can and usually will hit themselves; basically the same thing you mentioned with the Horsea where they'd kill themselves by standing around in their own poison clouds. I vaguely remember there was a patch note a while back related to the Dragon pretenders which basically said 'Upped Dragon elemental resists so they don't kill themselves with their own breath.'

Edit: Celadon's Cooltrainer should probably have at least some of its possible nature randoms taken off. It's very low probability, but currently it can get up to Nature 7 if everything falls right, and it's quite likely to be Nature 4 + other crosspaths. Maybe something like a single 50% random Nature, if you want a high proportion of them to hit that Nature 4, and then 3 randoms from the crosspaths? Doesn't feel right to have a recruitable mage that even has the chance to hit levels you otherwise have to build a Pretender to do.

Edit Edit: Mixed up some weapon IDs somewhere, a number of Celadon's pokemon have the Petal Dance attack (very widespread - almost all of Pikachutown's basic attacks have been replaced with Petal Dance.) Shiny Pikachu has Trample, for some reason. Using beam attacks as liberally as you did for things like Bubble Beam and Hyper Beam is probably also going to result in a lot of unintentionally self-destructing pokemon.

(Checked on Pewter for the Petal Dance thing - it's only showing up on Geodude and its evolutions. I think you over-wrote Tackle.)

- Should do a pass on your Pretender costs. There needs to a be minimum cost for the pretender chassis alone, and most of your Legendary Pokemon chassis are overly cheap (presumably because the autocalc looks at them and correctly assesses that they're pretty terrible combat bodies, but that's not what you'd be selecting them for.) Legendary Pikachu is particularly silly for this, as you have it at base Dominion 3 for a mere 10 points for the chassis - that's such a cheap body as to be worth nearly the same as taking your god Dormant!

- One of your attacks in Cerulean (might be the Slowing effect on Bubble? So far I've mostly seen it with massed Krabbys.) is doing something really weird. I'm getting victims that are Entangled, Blind, Starving (as if they had no supplies), Enraged, and have an untagged additional affliction - it just says 'seems as if something is missing (no information.)' This might be one of your remaining errors. Another is probably Tentacruel - 'recruit terrain is undefined.'
- Confirmed it's 'Slowed', just watched a Tentacool Constrict somebody and apply all sorts of side effects that I have to assume are unintended

- Poison Sting doesn't seem to be working right either; might be the 'Acid' damage typing doing something weird? I can see hits, but they're creating an area cloud particle that fades after one round, and they don't look like it's applying Poison.
- Tentacruel/cool (in Assassinations, at least, have not tried as troops) still aren't actively attacking. They'll fire Poison Stings and fight back if something approaches them, but still do not try to actively approach the enemy (the round I had with a Barbarian they also stopped trying to shoot at it once it got within melee range, which is weird. Something in their defines appears to be shutting them down once enemy is within a certain distance.)

- Yup, Seadra just kill themselves as soon as they try to use Bubblebeam.

- Took a Dormant Veteran Trainer (male chassis.) He just woke up. He's 309 years old out of max age 90. I expect he'll keel over dead next Winter.

[lord_khaine]

Should do a pass on your Pretender costs. There needs to a be minimum cost for the pretender chassis alone, and most of your Legendary Pokemon chassis are overly cheap (presumably because the autocalc looks at them and correctly assesses that they're pretty terrible combat bodies, but that's not what you'd be selecting them for.) Legendary Pikachu is particularly silly for this, as you have it at base Dominion 3 for a mere 10 points for the chassis - that's such a cheap body as to be worth nearly the same as taking your god Dormant!

Yeah the pretender costs should likely be analysed seperatly.
But i actually think legendary Pikachu is correctly costed. It seems more or less worthless except as a way to get a really high Air magic score.
I were newer tempted to look at it in any of my test games.

[deuterio12]

Rainbowtown initial impression

Spoiler

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-looks like the most diverse town so far.
-large selection of very different commanders. Some gives a pretty good deal on their pokemon companions
-Something is wrong with Venosaur. It kills itself when it uses Solar beam
-Minor spelling error on Erika
-Im not entirely certain if Beauty X's ability to freespawn chaff is OP or not. But i suspect it can grow out of proportions if allowed alone to long.

Thanks! Will look at those with more care later!

Although with me messing up and making petal dance replace tackle means your vermillion review may be skewed since several of those pikachus would be hitting much harder in melee.

'Beam' attacks start in the same square as the attacker, so they can and usually will hit themselves; basically the same thing you mentioned with the Horsea where they'd kill themselves by standing around in their own poison clouds. I vaguely remember there was a patch note a while back related to the Dragon pretenders which basically said 'Upped Dragon elemental resists so they don't kill themselves with their own breath.'

Edit: Celadon's Cooltrainer should probably have at least some of its possible nature randoms taken off. It's very low probability, but currently it can get up to Nature 7 if everything falls right, and it's quite likely to be Nature 4 + other crosspaths. Maybe something like a single 50% random Nature, if you want a high proportion of them to hit that Nature 4, and then 3 randoms from the crosspaths? Doesn't feel right to have a recruitable mage that even has the chance to hit levels you otherwise have to build a Pretender to do.

Edit Edit: Mixed up some weapon IDs somewhere, a number of Celadon's pokemon have the Petal Dance attack (very widespread - almost all of Pikachutown's basic attacks have been replaced with Petal Dance.) Shiny Pikachu has Trample, for some reason. Using beam attacks as liberally as you did for things like Bubble Beam and Hyper Beam is probably also going to result in a lot of unintentionally self-destructing pokemon.

(Checked on Pewter for the Petal Dance thing - it's only showing up on Geodude and its evolutions. I think you over-wrote Tackle.)

- Should do a pass on your Pretender costs. There needs to a be minimum cost for the pretender chassis alone, and most of your Legendary Pokemon chassis are overly cheap (presumably because the autocalc looks at them and correctly assesses that they're pretty terrible combat bodies, but that's not what you'd be selecting them for.) Legendary Pikachu is particularly silly for this, as you have it at base Dominion 3 for a mere 10 points for the chassis - that's such a cheap body as to be worth nearly the same as taking your god Dormant!

- One of your attacks in Cerulean (might be the Slowing effect on Bubble? So far I've mostly seen it with massed Krabbys.) is doing something really weird. I'm getting victims that are Entangled, Blind, Starving (as if they had no supplies), Enraged, and have an untagged additional affliction - it just says 'seems as if something is missing (no information.)' This might be one of your remaining errors. Another is probably Tentacruel - 'recruit terrain is undefined.'
- Confirmed it's 'Slowed', just watched a Tentacool Constrict somebody and apply all sorts of side effects that I have to assume are unintended

- Poison Sting doesn't seem to be working right either; might be the 'Acid' damage typing doing something weird? I can see hits, but they're creating an area cloud particle that fades after one round, and they don't look like it's applying Poison.
- Tentacruel/cool (in Assassinations, at least, have not tried as troops) still aren't actively attacking. They'll fire Poison Stings and fight back if something approaches them, but still do not try to actively approach the enemy (the round I had with a Barbarian they also stopped trying to shoot at it once it got within melee range, which is weird. Something in their defines appears to be shutting them down once enemy is within a certain distance.)

- Yup, Seadra just kill themselves as soon as they try to use Bubblebeam.

- Took a Dormant Veteran Trainer (male chassis.) He just woke up. He's 309 years old out of max age 90. I expect he'll keel over dead next Winter.

About beams, there seems to be a #friendlyimmune tag that avoids friendly fire, seems to work fine to avoid them blowing themselves up.

Tentacruel "special terrain" is because they can be recruited both at swamps and underwater and the game probably has no special message for that.

In my tests poison sting was delivering weak poison. The cloud effect is intended but can be removed.

Now the biggest problem seems to be that Slowed (and confused too now) aren't working properly, but they were so in earlier versions. In particular 020-023 when Cerulean City was first added. You can download it and test it out. You don't even need to start a new game, just load a cerulean city game where slowing weapons were used using the 023 .dm file and the game will use the older code when choosing to watch it (that's why there is the bug where the watched battle and the final result can end up different, one is fixed to the turn but the other is run again with whatever rules were changed).

Compared both version's codes and the Slowed/confused codes appear identical.

Thus I strongly suspect it is something else that was added and is conflicting with the weapons coding. But no luck finding out exactly what yet.

EDIT: I had changed a bunch of weapon ID numbers around and Slowed ended up after bubbles and bubblebeam, so changed things so that Slowed would have an earlier number, but even then no luck.

[deuterio12]

Version 0.43. Main Changes:
-Fixed tackle being overwrriten by petal dance.
-Fixed the slowed and confusion conditions, turns out the strings had been changed accidentally due to some number replacing I did but since they're pretty long and only a few numbers got changed, I overlooked it.
-Fixed Erika's name typo.
-Gentleman now summons 3 pet pikachus
-Pet pikachu now properly sacred.
-Beam attacks now avoid friendly fire.
-Tentacruel troop can now only be recruited at swamps.
-Veteran trainer pretender chassis now have 1000 year max age.
-Celadon's Cooltrainer now can't roll nature in two her 100% rolls meaning she can get a max of 5 nature even if the stars align right.

Pretender cost is something that should be looked at in more detail but can probably wait a bit. Also agree with Lord_Khaine that the shiny pikachu in particular may be cheap is pretty worthless beyond investing the extra points in scales/ high air magic, and for the later he has only two item slots so not like you can thug/SC them out.

Also about Cerulean maids, I sent a squad of them to directly attack a province and things were weird with roughly half the tentacruels and tentacools advancing and shooting while the other half hanged back. At least until the enemy was routed then everybody charged forward.

As for Beauty X's spawning, they still add to your ukpeep so if you just try to turtle with them money will start to get tight eventually. Also Cerulean City has the fisherman commander who also spawns assorted fish pokemon, did you miss him by chance?

[lord_khaine]

As for Beauty X's spawning, they still add to your ukpeep so if you just try to turtle with them money will start to get tight eventually. Also Cerulean City has the fisherman commander who also spawns assorted fish pokemon, did you miss him by chance?

Yeah.. but thats a luxury problem? i mean if you have to much chaff you just declare war on somebody and throw it at them.
I noticed the fisherman commander, but he caught so many magiccarp it seemed a waste to have him.

[tyckspoon]

I noticed the fisherman commander, but he caught so many magiccarp it seemed a waste to have him.

I recruited a couple first turn while I was bulking out the starting army and just stuck 'em on Patrol in the capital. They make a fair number of Goldeen and some Seel as well. As for the Magikarp.. well, like you said, send 'em out with a commander on Bodyguard and eventually you'll get some 'free' Gyarados. Or they'll die. No great loss.


- Vermilion City: Giving some of the Pikachu variants Storm Power might be appropriate, both thematically and to give their attacks a little more punch - Armor Negating Shock damage is a good place to start, but they're still super low damage and will take a number of hits to actually bring anything down. Thunderers and maybe evolved Raichu?
(Something that's been bothering me about the pokemon project in general - you've been using a lot of variant ranged attacks, which makes sense for what you're trying to represent, but does it actually work? Can a troop use more than one ranged attack at a time? If not then something like the Thunderer is a lot weaker than what you might have wanted, since there's no reason for them not to just use Thunder all the time.)

[deuterio12]

Yeah.. but thats a luxury problem? i mean if you have to much chaff you just declare war on somebody and throw it at them.
I noticed the fisherman commander, but he caught so many magiccarp it seemed a waste to have him.

Well you're gonna need that chaff for the war since you 've been skipping on research by recruiting non-mages.

I recruited a couple first turn while I was bulking out the starting army and just stuck 'em on Patrol in the capital. They make a fair number of Goldeen and some Seel as well. As for the Magikarp.. well, like you said, send 'em out with a commander on Bodyguard and eventually you'll get some 'free' Gyarados. Or they'll die. No great loss.


- Vermilion City: Giving some of the Pikachu variants Storm Power might be appropriate, both thematically and to give their attacks a little more punch - Armor Negating Shock damage is a good place to start, but they're still super low damage and will take a number of hits to actually bring anything down. Thunderers and maybe evolved Raichu?

Oh, storm power sounds like a lovely idea to spread around Vermillion city indeed, will do!

(Something that's been bothering me about the pokemon project in general - you've been using a lot of variant ranged attacks, which makes sense for what you're trying to represent, but does it actually work? Can a troop use more than one ranged attack at a time? If not then something like the Thunderer is a lot weaker than what you might have wanted, since there's no reason for them not to just use Thunder all the time.)

Yes, a single unit can use multiple ranged weapons.

Exhibit A being MOOSE RIDERS! They have not one but TWO SHORT BOWS! It's one ot the things that made me fall in love with dominions at first sight.

A Larpas is fine too making use all of all three ranged attacks.

There's also the issue of ammo, stronger weapon-moves usually have less.

Fuchsia City basic planning:
-Juggler trainer: basic priest, calls koffing/weezing.
-Ninja Boy trainer: stealthy, assassin, gets grimmer/muk.
-Tamer trainer: strong commander, gets arbok, spawns ekans.
-Lass trainer: basic stealthy spy, gets beedrill.
-Also nidoran male/female (forts) plus evolutions, Zubats (foreign recruit) and golbats (cave) and venonats(foreign) and venomoths (forest)
-Magic is strong death, bit of astral (ghosts, teleporting), nature (lots of poison spells), earth (nidoqueen/king).
-Both Koga and Janine as heroes.
-Not that many poison pokemon in the first game so include ghastly, haunter and gengar. Plus they're as ninja as it gets. Ethereal. Later first ghost gym gets sacred and shiny and other alternate ghost versions besides basic ones like Vermillion City gets lots of pikachu. Ditto for bugs, add weedle/kakuna/beedrill.
-Champions/legendary pokemon: Venomoth(forests), Weezing(fort/city), Muk(swamp), Golbat (cave).

Not very sure who should be sacred here. Koga really loves his venonats/venomoths so maybe those?

Other suggestions welcome of course.

[Aeson]

Don't remember enough about Pokemon to recommend one to be sacred for Fuchsia City, but I'll just say that not every nation needs to have a sacred unit. They're nice to have, especially if they're good enough or available enough to build a strategy around, but you shouldn't feel that you have to give the nation one for the sake of giving the nation a sacred.