Hey everyone, quick addendums I didn't speak too much about. The Epoptes can cast Epopteia, a spell which increase growth+2 in a province until the next spring (best plan ahead and cast this in spring!). Combining this with order scales and growth2 means you can create farmlands(and sometimes forests) out of plains provinces. Pretty nifty sidequest that will increase pop growth significantly. Also if opting to go turmoil, red shield infantry have low recruitment point cost and are okay to use. Avoid dropping sloth unless you must (my bless pretender has sloth because I personally do not like misfortune scales, but I know some people do!) Finally, I don't think I explicitly mentioned this but the hydras have a poison cloud aura. The more hydras are together the FURTHER the poison cloud will reach. Pretty nifty. While you're here... sailboats next.

Really like the 'At a glance series'. It's well presented and organized, and gives a quick overview that's digestible. I also really like how you highlight spell recommendations, which is something normally missing in a lot of the longer form guides.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Thank you! Credit goes to some IRL pals who gave me the idea after being scared away from the longer guides!

What if you wanted to kill people with dogs, but hydras said no

oh boy. Here i go poisoning again

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

10/10 thats great! Lol

Pythium: the rise of the snek!

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Hydras are so much stronger now. Its crazy. They weren't directly buffed... But being able to wade to the front lines, hold + attack, the cloud dispersion changes, poison reducing stats, less sacreds on the field... Its all so good.

I'm playing LA Pythium in multiplayer at the moment and I haven't really used Hydras. The second year just started and my armies so far have focused heavily on serpent cataphracts. They're very strong against indies even with just a minimal bless. I don't remember them being this strong in Dom5 so treating the rider and the mount separately in Dom6 probably helped them a lot.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

You know what, youre right even unblessed the serpent cataphracts are strong. A lot of it is that the mount itself is VERY tanky. Good idea! I would definitely recommend adding hydras to your armies if you can spare the serpent priests to lead them, and to paint gift of the sacred swamp on your armies.

@Icapica

3 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames I did start trying them after my previous comment. They are so much better than I expected.

I've been finding the assassins win-loss is about 50%, losing out most times they find a cavalry commander out in the field still on his mount instead of napping in a tavern, and sometimes to an indie commander getting a lucky 16-20 damage swing before they can land one of their own. I'm finding it a little hard to justify spending the early cap turns on those guys and not on researchers to hit Evo 2 for Web or Alt for buffs or Ench for skeletons. Thoughts?

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

High risk / high reward, cavalry commanders suck for all assassins since they almost always use daggers and can't reach the rider. I feel like you can catchup research later, especially with the unforted mage production. But its definitely a player choice deal. I think if you don't go assassins, palatini might be better versus heavy cav provinces than comitatense. On research, web is real strong although I feel like ench2 should be the first research goal. Getting gift of the sacred swamp lets you start mixing hydras with your troops(safely) and that is very strong. Maybe ench2 for gift, then straight to web so those mages have other stuff to do?

I suggest to give a example of expanding army (against indie) to recruit if you go full scale

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Full Comitatense worked very well in Dom5, even against heavy cavalry. In dom6 we may need Palatines for the extra armor against buffed heavy cavalry? But I recommend using the serpent assassins for those provinces over your primary army, at least initially. I'll tell you what, let me have lunch and I'll hop on stream in 20-30minutes. I have scales Feminie expansion for a video to make too.

@skoub3466

4 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames Damn I miss the stream. But Thanks for working on a feminie video I trying whit no luck on the expedition part in a decent paste. I mean I can get good result if I get lucky whit the merch but that's not a reliable strategy especially whit the ai and his infinite gold ^^. You can expand whit the golden lion or whit dumbo before the nerf but that's cheating D/

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

The replay should be up and about! I may ramble a ton more on live stream unfortunately. Expanding without a pretender or crutch sacreds is definitely tough, but its a skill that can be worked on!

@Icapica

4 ай бұрын

You could try Serpent Cataphracts. I've relied on them heavily during expansion and they've been very good. My only bless is some reinvigoration which doesn't matter that much in short fights against indies. If you meet a province with exceptionally tough indies, dropping a pile of gold to quickly recruit Retiarii just for that province can be a good idea. Those units will be gone after the fight, but they are very good and will win you the fight. Also remember your decent foreign recruit units. Recruiting them can help your expansion party keep going despite attrition.

I love dom content so I’m definitely not talking shit and I watch all your vids. I know this is supposed to be an at a glance quick review but damn that was insanely fast. Would be nice if you could at least spend a little more time on things but I know your trying to keep things short. I mean the video is 10 mins long and they have more than 10 commanders :) but thanks man love the content. Maybe you can talk to us about why poison is so good? Could it be that it works differently now than in past dominion’s games. Does it now reduce stats? When should you use the hatchling vs the hydra? What are some good bless ideas that synergize with the nation?

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

I'll have a video eventually soon probably on clouds, which will talk about poison a good bit. I feel like whenever I do these at a glance videos there is SOMETHING I want to talk about on the side thats important to the nation, but no way I could/should include here and keep it quick. tldr for poison in dom6 -> It reduces the attack/defense stats of a unit by 25% for every [maxhp] of the unit. So if a unit takes 40 poison damage, and has 20hp, it will have -50% attack/defense. (-50% is the max penalty) Hatchlings have one job and one job only: extend the poison clouds of the main hydra sacred. The big hydra is the pride and joy. The hatchlings are just kind of there. Good blesses: Fire resistance to cover the weakness. Hardskin / berserker to increase hydra durability (making regeneration more valuable), larger for more hp, regen because why not? (but expensive), anything that adds strength or weapon effects because hydras have many attacks. I'd mostly avoid statblesses on hydras and focus on either making them more durable(either to phys weapons or magic)

Don’t have a lot of time to test but wondering how good “Cloud of dreamless Slumber” is? Have a soft spot for Oceania which also a poison gas spammer and saw a possible use for mass sirens.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Very strong! Its sleep cloud from dominions 5 rebranded. Killed me real good in lucid's finals last year :( Try to have a killing method that is not melee, they might go to sleep too

@stephenlucas8836

4 ай бұрын

Guess make a defensive line and let the enemy die from poison while everyone is sleep. Also Capricorn are efficient at making claymen.?

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

@@stephenlucas8836 something like that. Oceanians have higher mr than normal, but idk if itll be enough. Have good poison resistance for the gas tho

@stephenlucas8836

4 ай бұрын

@@ZanGames Had a soft spot for Oceanian as one of the forgotten nationals no one strategizes for. It Got two good mages right now but Illwinter expands on its barebones troop roster and spells. Only Dudes in turtle armor and spears. Wish they diversify the gear if not give them more coral. All so many obscure Greek and map filler sea monsters to draw on.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

They needed a lot of help in dom5. Maybe the addition of glamour on their sirens will take them far? I'm sure most people havent even looked at them lately. Sounds great youre giving them a shot, I hope you find cool strategies to bring them into the spotlight with!

Kind of weird that that the Late Rome nation is here when EA Ermor is based on early Christian Rome.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Maybe shows the circular time period of dominions? La Pyth gives me vibes of Rome just before the Huns said hello, but technically they were Christian then too.

@willowdelosrios4326

4 ай бұрын

@@ZanGamesIt’s funny, because in terms of mages, LA Pythium is clearly based on Rome prior to the widespread adoption of Christianity, while its troop roster is based off of the reformed military of the late Roman army; its mage roster is based heavily on various late Greco-Roman mystery cults. The Heliodromus was a priest in the mystery cult of Mithras, the Epoptes and Mystes explicitly worship the Great Mother, aka Magna Mater, a title associated with the goddess Cybele (although sadly, the game doesn’t include the other aspect of her worship, the Galli, priest (esses) who ritually castrated themselves as part of their initiation, wore their hair long and in women’s styles, used traditionally female cosmetics, and pitched their voices to sound like women, because Cybele says trans rights), the Renata and Renatus I believe are based off the cult of Sarapis (a romanized, syncretic hybrid of Osiris and Apis), and the Reveler is obviously part of the Dionysian mysteries. All of these cults were suppressed once Christianity became the state religion. Meanwhile, the comitenses and limitani are how the Roman military was restructured later on, with the limitani being local garrisons and comitenses being the much more heavily trained soldiers which could be sent across the empire where they were needed. This restructuring occurred when the Roman state was not yet officially converted to Christianity, but Christianity was still one of the largest religions in the empire (part of the reason Constantine converted is because he believed it would help stabilize the empire and secure his position). Some of the mystery cults held out longer than others (Mithraism was extremely popular with soldiers, for example, and we have records of one of the commanders of the garrisons in Britain being ordered to force the Mithras-worshippers among his troops to destroy their gathering space and place of worship, well after the majority of the empire was Christian), but given that EA Ermor is newly converted to not!Christianity, and MA Pythium is based off of Christian Byzantium (despite still using the legionary system and lorica segmentata armor, things which had been abandoned well before the empire had been divided into East or west or the adoption of Christianity as state religion), it’s strange that LA Pythium is the one with all the pagan cults.

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

@@willowdelosrios4326 this is the coolest comment ever. Thank you a ton! Most of what i studied about rome had to do with architecture and roman britain, so nearly 0 religious stuff. I really appreciate more historical analysis! A joy to read 😁

Please do LA ULM next

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

Next is difficult, but I'll definitely add it to the list!

But do they have have Thulsa Doom?

@ZanGames

4 ай бұрын

They've only got Tsotha-Lanti unfortunately