I just came up with a silly multiplayer build for Piconye. If tonight's(1/24/24) Blitz is in LA I'll try and show it off. Oh boy! BTW there might be a blitz tonight, and Feminie at a glance is scheduled for tomorrow.

Short form videos for Dom are rare and appreciated.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I'll try and make more! They are pretty tough to stay on track. I had to actually write the summary that's in the comments to keep me focused. Glad you enjoyed it!

For those considering a Pope smite expansion, death smite is quite good against heavy cavalry. Mounts are now separate entities so they can be hit, and since they are animals, they have abysmal MR and death smite secondary effect reliably soulslays them. I attacked a heavy cav throne with some 30 piconye soldiers and 5 pope smiters, and before the 20 heavy cav made contact, 80% of them were on foot. I only guess that since riders with mounts had higher hp density they were priority targets for smite and they ones without were spread out behind werent targeted almost until all mounts were dead. So at the end I was left with about 15 mountless riders running to my frontline on legs :)

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Thats a pretty legit catch. I usually like the air or astral smite for the range in smite expansion, but the MR negates affects vs cav are huge! Especially with how nightmarish heavy cavalry is.

Another interesting thing about the extremely low combat speed, is that they actually stay in range of your buff mages way way way longer than other units do, allowing far more buff casts. Keep em coming Zan!

A fun bless to try with them would be the new icy mist weapon bless, and/or the slowing weapon bless. They have extremely massable sacred crossbows, and this would turn each of their shots into a lingering cloud of frost. This would synergize reasonably well with the slowing weapons bless, as anything hit by the crossbow is going to be slowed, forcing them to linger longer in the frost clouds, and disrupting the formation of units, preventing your squishy infantry from having to engage all the enemy troops at once. This would also be a good place to take the far-shot or precision bless. Chill aura could also be useful, because having so many size 2 sacred means that you can stack many chill auras in each square.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Ooh, Grippa and I were talking about the slowing weapons but you are right that it would have synergy with the frozen mists! Good idea! The only concern is that there are a lot more cold resistant units in the late age than normal, so it would have to be lobby dependent. I wonder if one age will take off as a popular mod due to easy access in the workshop.

@willowdelosrios4326

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames in fairness, the biggest frost resistant nations are present throughout the three ages, and the proliferation of human troops in the late age means that even the nations with resistance are often more susceptible to cold than they were previously. IIRC, bogarus for example has lower frost resistance on average compared to EA Rus, and same goes for LA Ulm and EA Ulm. Caelum is dominated by the Raptor Clan in LA, who don’t actually have resistances like the Airya, while Ragha has frost resistant units, but is heavily incentivized not to use them heavily. Atlantis does have cold resistance, but their troops are also extremely slow, so they are less of an issue for Piconye, because Piconye’s primary battle-mage is massable, and many of them can cast gifts from heaven even without a communion. Bogarus is also an entirely human nation with shitty sacreds, meaning that even if they resist cold, they are still going to die in droves to massed crossbows, especially with a precision bless. Lemuria is largely immune to cold, but Piconye has priests to deal with them, and crossbows aren’t exactly great against ethereal units as is.

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

One relevant issue: auras no longer stack the way they used to, stacking cloud/aura effects now causes them to spread out further instead.

@willowdelosrios4326

6 ай бұрын

@@CantusTropus depending on the circumstances, this is less of a nerf and more of a sidegrade. That being said, I did some testing in single-player and the frost mist effect is definitely hit or miss without the slow weapon bless. It’s not the greatest for expansion on its own, but it definitely isn’t useless. In long, grindy battles against large armies fielded by other players, it can do some serious work, especially in conjunction with a bit of mage support, but it is more of a support tool than something that can win battles on its own. Frost mist + slowing weapons works a bit better, but still suffers from the same flaws. Chill aura is somewhat better for expansion, but isn’t something you can take on its own. Personally, I found Blur to be extremely cost efficient. Unless playing around with an Enlarge bless, don’t bother with Hard Skin, because your troops have low enough hit points that even a little bit of damage getting through is likely to kill your sacreds. Luck would be kind of funny, as would fate weaving. Barkskin is better than hard skin here, but still situational, the splendor bless that blinds attackers is expensive, but is nasty on your soldier priests. Heat Aura + Blur + Barkskin is an option if you focus on soldier priests. Righteous Wrath + Blur + Twist Fate + precision or unaging might be viable as well, and doesn’t require extremely high paths on your pretender. Unfortunately, a lot of blesses that benefit Crosswielders don’t also benefit Soldier Priests. Frost Mist weapons + Blur + Chill Aura is decent for all your sacred units (blur + chill aura is good for soldier priests, Ice Mist weapons is good for soldier priests and the Crosswielder) you’d probably want an awake Oracle for this. I don’t know if they changed how heat and cold auras interact, but chill aura + heat aura in dominions five actually stacked.

Appreicate you keeping it brief! Most summaries end up at 1+ hr.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

It was actually pretty tough to keep it brief without going into details! Had to stop myself and re-record a few times where I caught myself talking about something for more than a minute or so... Glad you liked it! Shoutout to my pal Zietes for giving me the idea!

I love the information density! Subscribed.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Welcome aboard!

Excellent video! Obviously, the new nations will likely take priority, but I'd also like to see an analysis of some of the changed and/or buffed nations, of which there are many. For some examples, EA and MA Machaka received an entire new path (Glamour) and a couple of new mages. The change to how income works means that scales MA Machaka can expand easily even with unblessed Black Hunters, and they have access to the paths required to summon Faery Queens now. Other changes include MA Phaecia, who have +Production and +Magic scale limits by default, allowing incredible scales if you select one of the many good +Order pretender chassis; they also got access to Glamour and lost almost nothing in return. I could go on, but we don't have all day, hehe :p

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I was actually so hyped to play MA Machaka in dom6 I played them in a blitz on saturday. Unfortunately I am the only derp who didn't realize twitch does not save vods automatically and dont have coverage. Everyone else should(Kirbyone, DarksideCookies, Falsegod, DistantHorizon). I took Larger + HardSkin on the giant walking idol thinking I would be attacked. Boy was I wrong. Larger + Hardskin black hunters are MENACING. The amount of pygmies you can produce per turn and give flaming + poison arrows to is also insane. Definitely one of the dom6 winners. To your original point, this week I am just doing the 3 new LA nations. Next week I think I am planning for Patala, Machaka, and one I haven't decided on yet. Probably an Abysia. Edit: KirbyOne specifically should have a major battle at the end of his stream against me.

@rovsea-3761

6 ай бұрын

To be fair, Phaecia did lose their access to fire magic in exchange for their glamour :(

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGamesAnother big winner is LA Agartha - in addition to starting underground, their mages now have access to a special trait that functions like Healer, except it only works on corporeal Undead units. This means they can now go into a Tartarian lategame without needing to bend their entire build out of shape and jump through seventeen flaming hoops to make it work! This is coming on top of the (admittedly minor) buff of Tartarian Gate being reduced from 10 gems to 7.

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames I would also like to point out that unlike the other two new LA nations, Feminie actually has interesting national spells that are new to Dom 6, as well as a good National Hero, so that should be mentioned in the video.

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames Apologies for the spam of messages, but I'd also like to mention that Pygmies were also added to EA Machaka, meaning that they also have access to the mass archer buff strategy.

Good vid! I like the format

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Glad to hear it!

I'd also suggest unaging on their bless. All their mages are sacred, most are old. Unaging keeps rare paths you roll in the beginning relevant for longer, reduces encumbrance for more spells and better communions AND makes some chassis into surprisingly effective thugs, by improving all relevant stats. Try unaging.

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

It's possible, but this nation REALLY benefits from a strong troop bless for the early game, and even though you get +1 Bless points, you might struggle to find the space in your budget for Unaging.

@divvu1014

6 ай бұрын

@@CantusTropusNot at all. You NEED a strong bless for your first war. They can do with massed point buffing, especially if you also go magic scale, which incidentally is also a prereq for unaging.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I love unaging in a lot of nations! Hadn't considered it for this one, but its hyper focus on sacred comm mages might make it very important.

LA Piconye keeps Inds astral summons. Hashmals make for good thugs and Arels can be used as SCs or to keep your old mages alive with the healer trait.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Hashmal's and Malakhs are fun! Arel Sc's I hadn't considered. They make such good healers and N casters.

Piconye 4D Chess bless with Enlarge, let's go

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Small big people go!

Amazing! That could be an amazing series if you went through them all :)

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I'll certainly try, but its a lot!

Oh, that's actually a good summary...these guys sound pretty cool, actually. :D

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

This is the perfect reaction I was aiming for! Let us know how it goes if you end up giving them a whirl!

The image of a bunch of very small men hitting a titan with their small staves and killing it with fatigue is making me smile

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

"Now go away or I shall strike you again!" -- Some baculite hitting a titan's toenail, probably.

For a bless, I would strongly recommend Righteous Wrath for this nation, unless perhaps you're focussing on the sacred crossbowmen. Getting the equivalent of Blood Surge every time one of your tiny low-HP sacreds dies goes a long way to making them pack a punch.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Its definitely one of the ones I would consider the bless for! Since you get so many!

H-HE’S BACK

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Wooo! Hopefully! So much cool stuff in dom6! Looking forward to learning it with everyone.

@GeorgyZhukov42

6 ай бұрын

thats what i was thinking :p

I am stuck deciding between doing bless for those baculites and for mages, for expansion you can do the eparch strategy from bogarus, since your popes have the same cost and are also H3 for 2CPs. And in comprarison to bogarus your frontline holds for longer. So I am stuck between bsurge,+str+att bless for baculites mixed in soldier group (same CS, otherwise they outrun defenders) so that I have some killing power, or rushing pointbuffs and doing normal troops line and farcaster, arcane finnese and reinv popes blasting everything with smites.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I think all the routs are viable. Bless mages, xbows, or baculite. I feel like 1h /shield less so because the defenders are so good already...

I missed this :(

@ZanGames

2 ай бұрын

My first at a glance, deemed "too short." Probably worth revisiting since their build order is so unique... The one we chatted about.

The sacred don't deal a lot of damage so usually i take a bless that increase the killing power ( poison ? decay ? ) you mass them so much having frozen mist is very good too

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

The sword/shield guy, yeah... He isn't my favorite. The 2h guy actually hits fairly hard for its strength value, and its a magic weapon! They scale well with strength since its a two handed weapon too. The crossbows definitely want some sort of weapon bless since those trigger on hit(so even if you do 0 damage) and ignore shields. I am a fan of vitriol weapons here.

@slobodanvesela4149

5 ай бұрын

I love vitriol weapon as well, it kind of double your damages :')@@ZanGames

Hmm I'm just missing an expansion strategy for a short. I do think this is essential even in such short form content. Let's say someone wants to try the nation but gets stuck in expansion, they can't apply the rest of your nice video.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Great idea, ill fit it in!

What?!?! no "hello world"?!?!?! you've changed man... you've changed XD

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Yeahhh.... I don't know. Hey everyone seems so basic but just rolls off the tongue yaknow?

What do you think about taking an Obfuscate bless with them to make all their sacreds stealthy and then using their inquisitor priests to attempt to domkill people? Could something like that be a viable strategy with them? You can make a lot of H2 and H3 inquisitors that are effectively H4 and H6, that would usually have a 100% chance to remove a black candle every turn, the H6s even in strong enemy dominions.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

About an hour before you replied I started prepping this for tonight's blitz...and then they voted EA. I was so excited! Yes I think its a legitimate strategy that would be hard to defend against early on!

What do you mean by reliable mages? Is it their paths?

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Yes, they have paths that consistently let them be easy & effective to use in combat. I'll go in depth here if you dont mind. Their sage priest is F1E1S1+FESWN. Those 3 base paths can all use a gem to temporarily become stronger in combat. So an earth1 can use an earth gem to cast earthpower and become earth2 in combat. A lot of paths have much more useful spells available at X2. With their randoms, 3 / 5 of them automatically become X2 in one path(which is good). Or they introduce an entirely new path. Normally this new path is not ideal as it doesnt tend to be strong at X1... but in this case every sage priest can join a rather stable communion to power up that path of magic; stable because they all mostly have the same paths. So if you ask me, 5 out of 5 sage-priests have good randoms and are combat capable. Compare to the harab seraph of LA Caelum for example, where in my opinion only 2 / 5 of the paths are combat capable without gems or items.

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGamesAny relatively cheap mage with Earth + Astral paths guaranteed is a reliable combat caster - communion up and you can easily cast Earth buffs and Gifts from Heaven, both of which are useful in combat. It's a big part of the strength of MA Tien'Chi, since the Geomancer is probably the cheapest E+S mage in the game (they're only 90 gold, which is incredibly affordable after taking into account the price hike that every mage in the game has taken).

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I completely forgot about MA TC, its been so long since I've seen or played them. 90g for a geomancer is still a steal... But youre absolutely right!

Could you elaborate a bit on the thug gear and also how you feel about the individual sacreds? I'm new to the series with this game and unsure how much I can trust old info, so would appreciate the blanks being filled in a bit on gear, and given that you mentioned wanting to build around a specific kind of sacred I'm just wondering what you gravitate towards and the benefits/costs of each. incidentally, is there a reason why the bless would have to be different for the two melee units? idk if shield vs 2hand makes that big a difference, though the split makes sense if you're on magic weapons at least.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Hi! So on the three sacreds, i'll do a big info dump with a tldr at the end if you prefer that. Soldier Priest: Personally I think this is a relic from MA Ind. I feel like the Defender unit does what this one job, and does it cost effectively. However I could see aura related builds used on these guys since they are tanky. Say things like Heat/Cold aura, fear, dread and so on. I'm not a big fan of aura builds, but thats just me. Baculite: I like this guy because it comes with a built in magic weapon and really high defense skill. Using a weapon with two hands in this series scales 25% better with the unit strength score. So +4 strength adds 5 damage instead of 4. The meta I am used to in dominions 5 favored two handed units because protection eventually got so high that 1hand+shield units struggled to kill anything as the game progressed, and archers got phased out a lot easier than here. So a lot of players went with high strength builds on their sacreds when possible, which would scale better with these guys. Magic weapons bless was almost mandatory too. So from a dominions 5 viewpoint, this guy coming in with a two handed magical weapon is very attractive. Dominions 6 is a different game, so its possible that this guy is not as effective as I theorize. Regardless, bless wise this guy would love extra strength and attack skill. Possibly something protective to keep him alive? Or just let the mages add protection too. Crossbowman: I like ranged crossbows in general because weapon blesses scale well with them. Most weapon blesses take effect on hit, regardless of you doing damage. So if an opponent fields a lot of shielders, they'll be hit by the weapon effect even if they block it with their shield. This is a big deal on things like unholy weapons that do a crazy 10 armor piercing damage. There are also spells you can use to ignite arrows or poison them that can all stack on this guy too. TLDR; 1h + Shield guy likes auras and being tanky, Baculite scales well with stats and comes with magic weapons, crossbow likes weapon blesses. All three probably enjoy some sort of elemental resistances to avoid damage from remote spell attacks like flames from the sky. All personal preference ofc.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

I realize I forgot to talk about thug gear. "Thug" gear is a dominions term for investing gems into equipment to allow a commander to complete a task. Beating up province defense alone is a task, usually done by giving the commander some armor/shields to keep them alive long enough to rout province defense. Area of effect weapons like frost brand help beat up the enemy quicker. A second thug could be made by the defending player to kill the 1st thug above. This one might simply be given a greatsword of sharpness to cut through the defenses of the above one and kill them. Its important to note that in this scenario, the 2nd thug requires less investment to take out the 1st thug. So we all try and find a middle ground between completing the task and doing it cheaply.

@dp101

5 ай бұрын

Thanks for all the info! Regarding gear a bit more, I've come across the terminology before so I know what the goals of thug gear are, it's the specifics that I'm missing. The aoe ice/fire swords seem good, but the part I really struggle with is the defensive gear, there's just so many different kinds of armour and I don't know what to prioritise. Given the forms of magic you have access to here, is there a specific setup for armour that you'd typically go with? Or even just knowing what stats are more/less important to try to get through armour would be nice.

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

@@dp101 those swords are good! For defensive gear...it goes back to the task at hand. Everything in dom5 can be killed (not sure about dom6 yet). Importantly this means there is no catchall armor. Slots can be filled to cover a ton of weaknesses, but usually never all of them... So the armor just depends on what you want. Fighting PD? Lion pelt, knights armor were popular. Opponent has a snake bladder stick? Greenscale dragon armor. And so on Gearing up to take on a whole army? Gotta check all the ways they can hurt you and try to cover it all with as few slots as possible.

Just one question does the nation have any nation specific items or spells

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

The nation has the angelic summons from Ind / Hinnom / Ashdod. Malakhs/ Hashmal are cheap thugs and standout. Arel is a good healer / N mage available later on. It also gets cyclops, but they dont look worth it to me. Same for the rather generic nature summons(elephants/tigers/lions/buffalo) No national items

@Akabans999

6 ай бұрын

​@@ZanGamesshame, an item providing extra amount of suply would be thematic

The glutton tag on so much of their units might also be a concern. If the nation focuses on building swarms of units you might need to dedicate a lot more extra gems into supply items or risk starving.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Youre right! They consume as much supply as a regular human, but need to field a lot more units than a human nation. The nation has access to N...but its not a lot and finding the gems in LA could be tough! Definitely a concern to be accounted for!

@Doombot221

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames might also mean growth scales would be more important to your dominion for the extra modifier on supplies. Their lack of access to blood might also be considered a weakness in LA when there are so many blood nations around.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

@@Doombot221 Growth is almost always good. Many forts help locally with supplies too via supply routes. Lack of blood is definitely a lategame weakness from a dom5 viewpoint. I have no idea if that is the same situation in dominions6. I think it will be, but i really want to confirm before i say anything.

@CantusTropus

6 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames It might not be as true as it used to be. The other level 9 lategame stuff generally got buffed in terms of usability - for instance most of the Conj 9 summons have had their prices slashed, in addition to most of the generic summon spells getting improvements (cheaper costs, summoning more dudes, or both). Due to the addition of Glamour magic, the default site frequency has gone up by 5 in each each (EA 60 -> 65 sites, MA 50 -> 55, LA 40 - 45), which means that there will be more gems on average in most games. On top of that, what with everyone just having more troops in general now, and big lategame battlefield wipes not being as much of a thing anymore, it's possible that more games will simply be decided by conventional armies without there being as much of a need for armies of summoned demons to do the job. Of course, this is all speculative for the time being!

What language is this video cuz I'm not catching very many of these words

@ZanGames

5 ай бұрын

Nerdy strategy grognard stuff. My favorite!

This was the First Nation I played and was excited about the size 2. I really miss having a giant thug. EA pyrene was more to my liking. Watching video now… are there summonable thugs worth checking out? Prefer air, earth and nature. Realize nation gems limit your magic schools.

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

Piconye gets the angelic beings from Hinnom/Ind line. The most common thug would be the malakh, which is an H1 and comes with built in Awe, invulnerability, and some resistances. They fly and are stealthy too! Great raider. Thats probably about it though, I wouldn't thug with the other more expensive summons.

Been trying to wrap my head around piconye, the size 2 units are a blessing and a curse, and so is having low path astral mages that're also priests. You don't often get communion priests and getting over level 3 priest is really nice! But having such low astral and not much path diversity is sad. I will say the most noticeable thing is the bird knights, making them another bird nation hilariously, especially since feminie is the other ind replacer and they're an elf nation with the right bless!

@ZanGames

6 ай бұрын

I feel like Piconye is a tiny version of Erytheia, except with consistency and H3s. Low paths in LA is fiiiine. Usually.