Dominions 5 Nation Analysis: EA Arcoscephale
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Error at 16:30: I mean to say Philosophers are impacted by magic scales. I instead say they're not. The Cap on Philosopher research appears to be 19RP per turn for 65 gold.
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The Greek, I mean Arcoscephalian, city states are still divided, and the defining power of the agrarian heavy-infantry militiaman, the hoplite, has not yet taken to the field.
Instead, the land of academics and sceptics is defended by the mystical and the aristocratic. Noblemen ride into battle in chariots, while other warriors go into battle as myrmidons, clad in heavy bronze, or with wings that combine engineering and magery in equal measure.
Above them, Arcoscephale has the soaring wind riders. Great warriors that bond with the dwindling population of Pegasii on Mount Cephalos. While a little held back by the fact they're size four units, this warrior elite carves through the independent tribes or warriors of the world after the disappearance of the Pantokrator, and adds an extra dimension to the Arco armed forces.
From the mid-game onwards, expect Arco to go to war with a cluster of communion mages supporting powerful elemental and nature magic, with wind riders serving as scouts, screens, and outriders that protect the squishy siege and mage corps that Arco can bring to bear.
All in all, I want to say this is an above average nation. It lacks deep access to many of its paths, and has no real death or blood access, but can expand, research, and use communions to bring powerful magic to bear. It doesn't have the late game blood play of Berytos, but a superior troop line up and strong mage presence gives it the edge at other points in the game.
Did I mention i'm up against these guys teamed up with Elves? And i'm playing Pelagia?
From a passionate gamer to one of the badass military and geopolitics analyst.
Oreiad seduction turned assassination battle:
"What? You don't want an amazing mountain spirit lady? Here, have a giant swarm of angry bugs instead"
Sounds about right for Greek mythology.
Humans: _are weak_
Also Humans: _have very significant roles in almost all the most powerful nations_
Humans are not individually good at all, but I think they are the best team players in the game. Very cost efficient mages and communion slaves are usually human. Human troops usually serve their purpose well for the price, even if they're not outstanding. In dominions humans tend to be the metaphorical plumbers, electricians, and retail workers of the world that keep things running. Nations without humans at all tend to have over costed mages, expensive and so smaller if more elite armies, and/or widespread species related problems like cold blooded. Human stats suck, but the tendency for versatility and synergy among human units is great.
That’s honestly why humanity dominates most settings. We aren’t a species that can master one thing well, we diversify and fill every nook and cranny we can.
It's already in the description. But Philosophers do indeed get magic scales. 19 research for 65 gold seems really amazing, i'm still not sure it'd tempt me away from pumping some scales, but it's really interesting and worth noting if you have a strat that relies on a research rush.
19 research is juicy - no arguing there. But they´re also one-dimensional, the only thing they can do is research and flexibility is so valuable.
Plus their cap-only, which is such a shame - if they were recruit anywhere I´d say you could build some strat around these guys.
@@freyrbjornsson6452 Well the team we are up against went sloth arco
@@ballinstalin2225 ..and how are they faring? I mean, I might ofc. be wrong - just throwing my 2 cents in there.
Mage Engineers have events you can get with luck 2 magic 2. 6 per game that increase their magic paths, 2 each for air, earth and astral.
And another event that only requires luck 1 that gives you stymphalian wings max 3 times per game. All of these events are categorized as common, rather than uncommon.
Your event whispering skills are fantastic. I had never thought that you should look at a nation's event list as a review topic, but you're convincing me.
@@PerunAU Thank you! It's a shame that so few nations have special events like this.
I believe Lampads are D2S1N1 if you commander-ize them, so their supply bonus is only in effect if you cast Gift of Reason on them. So their main use would seem to be to add nature + death to your communions, after turning them into leaders. 15 nature and 1 death gem for a D2S1N1 is pretty decent for such magic diversity. You would probably need Death on your pretender to get them, but Oreiads can cast Gift of Reason pretty easy.
Good points, but adding different magic paths to communions is easy for arco, since they can just craft crystal matrices with their mystics. I wouldn't worry about adding death paths on a pretender just for that.
28:29 - the Keledone is a spell-singer. When it fatigues out, it will drop out of the communion rather than die.
That should only apply to Man's national nature communions, rather than all spell-singers in general. I'm not sure how the tag affects the keledone without magic paths.
Another thing to mention. Arco has one of the most fun rainbow pretenders to play with the gray ones (the only trinity rainbow). A lot of debate about how good a pick they really are but they’re definitely fun. And they were in the old 80s movie Clash of the Titans which I remember fondly (but haven’t seen since I was a kid). In fact just about the whole nation reminds me of that movie.
I´m playing EA Archo right now in a Llama game. I love this nation - such great diversity of things you can do.
After having given the matter quite some thought, I tend to view EA Archo as a scales nation. Yes, their sacreds are good... agains indies. Against another player they´re too one-dimensional - flying, size 4, attack rear... bah, just too predictable and easily countered - and the size 4 bit means they cant really go toe-to-toe with other elites.
Instead, go for mass of stuff - alot of myrmidons, alot of mystics, dig deep in to those super battlefield buffs.
The same way I play arco. Also I find cardeces being reliable infantry.
I agree with them being scales. you'll note the version i ran here was a plus 9 scales build....which is pretty scale heavy.
the rainbow bless buys you expansion and a nifty tool to augment your forces.
after that? mage ball and troop time.
@@malibelizec2543 I agree - they serve well for expanding.
I in turn disagree with this. Their sacreds are really solid. Basically sacred heavy cavalry. No reason to attack rear. With a bless they are badass enough to just charge the front and win.
And that they are size 4 dont mean as much, since they are mounted, so they take less harass. And they fly, so they are guaranteed to engage a target.
The Pantokrator bless this content 🙌👌
I find the Keledones to be a very interesting emergency niche defenders. The communion slave tag allows them to get easy buffs from communion masters. This not only means you don't have to rely on battlefield wide buffs like Fog Warriors, Army of Gold/Led, etc, but also that you can give them a lot more buffs that don't come in battlefield wide versions. This is especially important as it allows you to use them as defenders by giving them buffs like Fire Shield so not only do you not need to defend them, they are your actual front line with high hp, very high prot and full resistances. Heck even without a fire shield or similar buff any mage with a crystal matrix can use them to cast a whole host of battlefield wide spells that would normally wipe your own army too but your communion slaves are very beefy and your caster can be protected with items. Think about the possibility of a handful of crystal matrixed communion masters casting devastating battlefield wide spells on turn 1 thanks to the communion than watching as your enemy's army dies much faster than your own emergency defense crew.
>43 turn expansion by turn 13
my lord
Atually, Arco do have good thugs, because wind lords are good thugs. How good they are depend on your bless of course, as stuff like regeneration makes them really good, but even without it, wind lords can be made into very good repel/defense thugs that can also take some hits without dying. They are also a lot cheaper than elf thugs while still being almost as good.
The magic scales do effect it... 10 - 6 + 2 (from magic scales) = 6
This is already in the description. the first 20 odd minutes of the videos are one cut so didn't want to go back and Re-edit it. Do you think that correction would be more visible in the comments?
People don't look for corrections, especially not in the description(links etc. However...). So putting corrections in the comment has the side effect of poping up to all who want to correct/complain.
...
Which is also why I am here 😅
I started watching your Ukraine analysis and just saw that you do Dom5 too! Amazing.
Ah cool, not often you see people make the discovery in that direction (since dominions is fairly niche). Perun knows his stuff, on both counts.
note: the archer chariot has a second form once it dies, but once the battle ends it'll die.
I think that Hamadryad is, with some preporations is much better version of Keledones. Hamadriad have a tone hp. You can include it in communion as a slave with ES misc item, and you can give it regeneration from regeneraion ring and/or Communion Master self buffing (Oread or Priestess with communion master ES misc item, or S1N1 Shaman if you have some luck)
The Monster in the Maze is a much better thug in Worthy Heroes--It has 13 extra HP, better attack and MR, and innate fear. It's not that great, but if you need to scramble a thug or counter thug in a hurry, it's not awful.
The 2 leader heroes are also much better in Worthy Heroes, they have hero weapons. Someone magic phases your stack of siege chaff with a Melqart or Titan SC, then spends the next 10 minutes trying to figure out how the hell something in that pile of crap minced them into sausage in 2 combat rounds.
How do the wind riders compare with the amazon indy type? Do you get the fliers on PD? This nation is hurt by its lack of serious archers which are extra useful in EA. The summons are odd..they are from a relatively modern update but genuinely suck and are way too late in the research tree. Sometimes I wonder if the games still play the game vs just add color. Color is great but if its not useful it wont be used.
You mean the amazon pegsus ones? Whole different ballpark. Not even the same planet. Arco's pegasi are serious elite heavy cavalry stuff.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't spellsinger communion slaves leave the communion when they fatigue out? Regarding Keledones
Usually yes, but the Keledones are also auto-comslaves so that does not apply.
Wasn't that only with the chorus slave spell of Ma Man that can only be cast by spellsingers? That spell mention it happening specifically as does the manual, but haven't tested it.
@@silm.8509 Just checked it and you are right. Spellsinger entering through com slave does not drop out.
Good to know. Thanks to both of you.
lampad are awesom light infantry , they can hit every unit with decan if you cpam them enought
Arcos got shafted with the change to how repel works between dom 4 and dom 5
Icarids only have a combat speed of 8, so even though they fly, you wouldn't be able to use them to attack the rear of the enemy formation, right? Or is that not how it works with flying troops?
Of course, you've got sacred flyers, so I'm not sure why you'd want Icarids, anyway. But are they really that slow when flying in combat/
Flying takes one turn to move anywhere regardless of CS.
sacreds are size 4, icarids are size 2. So they might be useful for adding 1 extra attack of dubious quality, and tanking 30% (?) of hits to a square?
i thugged Pathos in my first sp game in dom 4 and he died from bleeding after storming the walls and killing the enemy pretender :(
I mean cast melancholia on a research province and let the philosophers be miserable. Smart, but miserable.
WOOHOO!! my favorite nation in EA. should be sleeping but fvck it.
Summons are most suited to LA Arco
Why is it so?
Native death access. Also hounds of twilight and Keres seem to me geared towards fighting Lemuria specifically.
Arco-seph- al'e...wow have I been butchering that name.
I am pretty sure there not a the bird is not a bird. But just a man with artificial wings. I mean the name is sort of a giveaway. They better not fly to close to the sun ;)
Despite the description mystics can never have more than 1 path at level 2.
It is not documented anywhere I could find, but yeah it does indeed seem to be the case.
what description would make you think otherwise? they are 100% S with independent 50% each FWE and then their 100% FWES, the pick from which is the only way they can get a level 2.
@@damiangray9668 That description leaves the possibility of S FF WW, for example, if every one of the 50% probabilties is rolled independently. Should be pretty rare statistically...but I have not seen it EVER happen.
So I am thinking these are not true independent rolls.