Youtube Shenaniganry

[Okor]

Alright, so I've decided to try an actual lets play, using EZvid for videos. With luck, I won't be awful.

I figured I'd start out with a game I particularly enjoy, Dominions 4. The concept is that the top god has buggered off, and all the lesser gods/powerful wizards are fighting to fill the power vacuum by claiming various thrones of ascension. It starts off innocently enough, but before you know it the God-Emperor is omniscient, the giant word in the sky is burning the world, and everyone's fading to dust as a lich cackles manically.

All very good fun.

Anyways, I'd figure I'd give you all some choice on what we're going to be rolling with for this series.

The map we'll be using is Valanis, a decent sized map that is essentially a chunk of rock in the sky, after the entire damn world blew up.



Here are our options for the nations. As said by men much wiser than me, a Nation is a chassis, while the God is the engine powering the whole thing. I've cut it down to the ones I think I know how to play.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Atlantis! Hordes of coral-armed infantry, rising from beneath the sea to... Well, mostly die. The real core to this nation would be the Basalt Kings and Queens. The queens are powerful priests that also happen to be horrifying, angler-faced monstrosities that can crack elephant skulls between their scaled thighs. The kings, to contrast, are similarly powerful mages that toss boulders, magma, and only occasionally water around, compensating for the lack of bows underwater. Everything else in the faction is largely there to do the dying for them.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Ah, my sweet, sweet Xibalba. Flying hordes of stealthy bat people wielding sharpened sticks and black magic. Seriously, these guys move like the wind, could hide in the nexus, and when you kill one, seventy-three take their place. They've got powerful blood magic, hordes of guys, and pretty good sacred troops. The only problem is that your basic infantry flies into battle with all the self-confidence of a spoon, a pointy stick, and a loincloth. They die in droves, they kill in droves, and somewhere along the way they summon jaguar-demons to wreck anything their spears can't. However, they are, well, as blind as bats. They have almost no ranged presence to speak of.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Agartha is a nation of pale, naked Cyclopses hanging around in caves on top of a vault filled with dead gods and tormented souls. They have a lot of HP, a lot of strength, but that's about it. They only have one terrible eye, so expecting them to hit something is an error. Fortunately, they have ways around this. All Agarthan armies are backed up either by wizards that debuff/buff to the point of actually letting them hit something, and/or hordes of psychic worms that paralyze the enemy while making their brains dribble out of their ears.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Abyssia is an army of heavily-armoured fire. They love the heat, they love flames, they love their red-hot salamanders, and they also enjoy hot demon-on-fire loving that results in flying assassins. They also happen to have some access to blood magic, which, with the aid of blood sacrifices, will help spread their fiery dominion of doom ™. They're very difficult to kill, are very killy themselves, but suffer from a few maluses. For a start, being on fire prevents them from using ranged weapons, meaning they need to rely on fireballs and the like to stay relevant in that regard. Secondly, they're units are all very expensive in terms of resources, meaning that you're going to be stuck with a relatively small, elite force.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

C'Tis is a race of Egyptian Lizardmen. They have very strong slaves that quickly annihilate the enemy (But require a taskmaster to command them), very powerful necromancers, and excellent priests. Sadly, they lack decent sacred troops, and any ranged capability beyond a rare few spells and javelins. Still though, their infantry are quite impressive (Although, like pretty much everything, is not comparable to the shining phanlaxes of Ermor), their chariots can trample through the foe, and skeleton spam with the help of your necromancers is always fun.

[Stephan Donnel]

Apply image editor to thy screenshots you rotting wench!

[Stephan Donnel]

On the other hand - I vote you take Abyssia.

[Okor]

Apply image editor to thy screenshots you rotting wench!

I'm sorry :-(

They seemed fine at the moment, and it didn't let me edit them after.

On the other hand - I vote you take Abyssia.

Fine taste.

[Jams Bolero]

This kinda reminds me of the Toontown Rewritten LP I'm doing right now! Key tip: Don't wait 4 months between videos.

[Aadibah]

Egyptian Lizardmen all the way.
Make all the reptile puns

[Sarah Kerrigan]

C'Tis is a race of Egyptian Lizardmen. They have very strong slaves that quickly annihilate the enemy (But require a taskmaster to command them), very powerful necromancers-

Clearly the superior race. use these.

[Dean Winchester]

I vote for which ever is the fourth one! Because that is too much reading and I refuse to do it!

[Dr. McNinja]

Xibalba. mug:

[Albert Wesker]

I vote for which ever is the fourth one! Because that is too much reading and I refuse to do it!

also my opinion

(Except I actually did read all that fuck you.)

[Jade Harley]

Egyptian Lizardmen all the way.
Make all the reptile puns

^^^^^^

[Okor]

And so the voting ends.

According to the cruel whims of Nuffle, random chance has decreed that we are playing with C'Tis. LET'S SEE HOW AWFUL I AM!

[Okor]

IT TURNS OUT VIDEO RECORDING IS HARDER THAN OKOR'S ABS

SO AS SUCH, I PRESENT TO YOU:

IMGUR!



Behold, our glorious God. I did a little more research, and it turns out that C'Tis has very agile, poisonous sacred troops. As such, I put a lot of my points into water to make them even faster and harder to hit. For my dominion, I went with a high stat to ensure more heat (We are lizards after all, so it works to our advantage), Order (For gold), a point in productivity (Because we do need it for resources to allow the heavier troops to hold the line), and left the rest as is.



RNJesus, the one true god, has named us. ALL HAIL MELUHHA!



The map. We're in the top center. Those two fellows you see on the side are our starting commanders. Sadly, early age C'Tis lacks a scout, meaning we're stuck with two commanders.



I quickly start recruiting a Sauromancer to start researching all the good stuff available to us, and some Serpent Dancers to help with early expansion. I also queue up a Taskmaster, as our giant dinosaur slaves are very, very helpful.



I prophetize our Lizard Lord, to make him an avatar of my power. More stats, more holy power, etc. It's lovely. That throne up on the mountain is a Throne of Ascension, our goal. Get enough of those, and you win the game. Sadly, they're usually well defended, but we'll have to leave this one for later, due to it being unreachable for now due to it being on a mountain at the edge of the world.



Our starting battle plan. The heavies advance forward to absorb the brunt of the attacks, the light infantry follow up to consolidate the position and soften up the enemy with javelins. The Serpent dancers go around the flanks to ruin everything ever.

I have some more pictures, but it's getting late now. I'll have the next few turns uploaded tommorow.

[Okor]

And now that the first turn has passed, we can see what's surrounding us. We've got militia to deal with, who are so weak and pathetic it borders on hilarious. The archers present means that we might suffer some casualties to arrow fire, and heavy infantry tend to be made of sterner stuff than their comrades. But hey, we've still got this.



We begin recruiting a horde of Slave Warriors. Sadly, our glorious Sauromancer takes two turns to recruit, so I am tempted to start buying Reborn in his place. The reborn are essentially cheaper, weaker versions of the Sauromancer. Less magical ability, and less research capability, but you can pump out a lot more.



Here is our initial expansion force. It's largely the same as the previous post, but we've added some Serpent Dancers to flank around the side.



BEHOLD OUR GLORIOUS SAUROMANCER. While they have almost no armour, and no weapons, they instead possess mastery over death magic. There are several types of magic in Dominions 4: Fire (Self explanatory, really), Water (Which also includes ice), Earth (Buffs, Debuffs, and boulders), Air (Illusions, lightning bolts, anti-arrow abilities), Astral (Mind magic, divination, brain-melting), Death (Zombies, darkness, and debuffs), Nature (Buffs, animal summoning, plant-monster summoning), and Blood (Demons and curses out the wazoo). All of these magic paths also contribute towards magic item forging, which allows you to turn the average commander into a horrific blender of death, or the average wizard into a world-ending machine of destruction.



The first battle to expand our glorious empire goes successfully, although it takes the Serpent Dancers a mite too long to get to the enemy's back lines.



We get out Sauromancer out, and immediately start on a taskmaster and some more Serpent Dancers for our second expansion force. We also queue up a priest to bless them so that they can reach maximum effectiveness.



This is our secondary expansion force in all of its glory. The heavy infantry will take the brunt of the attack, the Slaves will go around the side to maim, kill, and burn, while the Serpent Dancers do the same thing to the enemy's commanders.



Here is how things stand at the end of turn 4.