Dominions 4

[Huw the Poo]

Question: can I upgrade regular units with better armor or weapons somehow? I know I can craft for my hero but anyway to improve the line units other than magic?

None that I know of, although I'll always hesitate to give absolute answers with regard to Dominions simply because you never know what niche ability one particular nation might have!  You've already mentioned magic so I'm sure you're aware you can confer army-wide buffs via your mages and priests, but when it comes to plain upgrading of equipment, no, I don't think it's possible.

[Dread Rlyeh]

There is a spell that will make one unit a commander which can be upgraded (as in given EQ) from that point.  Aside from the above mentioned buffs, units also gain exp which improves a couple stats. 

[airboy]

Finished my first D4 game as Early Age C'tis against the AI (4 opponents on a large map).  It was a pretty typical win against the AI for me (comparing to D3).  Everything came together.  I got some world-wide spells to help the nation, coupled with late game Super-Combatants, Coupled with ability to buy high defense levels due to lots of gold when I took enemy provinces, and now coupled with closing in on the Thrones of Ascension.  Once you reach a tipping point, you start to steam-roller everything.  Used lots of Death and Nature magic.  Astral and Earth never became important offensively.  Water had just gotten to the point where I could take to the seas and fight it out with Sea Trolls.  So it was mostly Death & Nature.  When you can start spamming 100s of Pale Riders plus Tartarians every turn you start mauling the AI. 

AI Giants have gotten a lot better played.  The AI use of flankers and different formations is also better.  Could not see any real improvement in the Sea nation.  So the AI play is better than in D3 - which makes it worth the purchase price if you are doing a lot of single-player.

I'm guessing that in Multiplayer games the Thrones of Ascension provides another big wild-card on winning.

I'm now playing EA Tien Chi to see how a multi-path magic plan with good scales works out. 

[Bison]

Sweet goodness another Dominions 4 patch that was snuck in yesterday.


Aug 25Dominions 4.20
Community Announcements - johan
This update focuses on the underwater part of Dominions. A new underwater nation is available as well as a bunch of new underwater pretenders to choose from. Many of the old underwater nations have also got some new recruitment options. There has also been some work to make the AI better as well as more modding, more random events and the usual bug fixes.

Game
New nation: Therodos
UW resources increased 25%
Press 'r' when designing pretender to get a random design
Dominion less likely to spread across sea-land borders
Horror chances altered
Being dead will make horror marks fade away over time
New summon spells: Flame Jelly, Bishop Fish
Oceanian lore rewritten
Oceania turmoil in coastal provinces, order in land/sea provinces
Haliades replaces Bishop Fish as oceanian priests
Initiates of the Deep, deep seer: lore remake
Witness of the Deep, Soldier of the Deep
Capricorn and Siren coastal recruits and chaos rebate
New unique items for Marignon and R'lyeh
Improved magic item info
UW pretender rebates and nation restrictions
Dagon remade (grab and swallow instead of trample)
New story events
Save and exit also marks turn as unfinished
Pelagian/oceanian name lists
Replaced some iron with meteoritic iron
Starting position improvements
Mummy Nazca Arena fix
Chakram flysprite
Double flysprite bug removed
Academy underneath didn't produce lab
Rainbow enchantment now affected buy own luck effect
Bodyguard mrl bonus bug fixed
Philosopher icon
Fullscreen resolution defaults to desktop resolution instead of highest
Updated tip of the turn
Some new bronze and iron weapons and armors
Some more units got weapons and armors changed
Giants reanimated into correct shape
Berserk bless (war-dance)
Lanka description now mentions blood hunt bonus/malus in turmoil/order
Couldn't cast spells if you had two 'life long protection' items
Send Dream Horror castable at UW provinces
Assassins must be stealthy to be able to assassinate
The four Balams are now unique
EA/MA Pelagia nation descr changes
Pelagian Mystic
Iron armaments rust in the sea
Rust permanent until repaired
Damaged weapons/armors lower dmg/prot
New poptypes: Ichtyid shaman, Bone Tribe barbarians
New mermen/ichtyid sites
Mermage & Pelagian Mermage remake
Pelagian Explorer
Enkidu Headhunter & Bone Tribe Headhunter Club -> Skull Club
EA Pelagia Hero
Turtle Warriors Javelin -> Coral Tipped Javelin
New Pelagian coastal recruits
Mermage/priest sprite remade
New 'rusty armor' icons
UW indeps a bit weaker
Lower throne no longer appears UW
Divine Glyph and Baphomet magic beings
Can't compete in arena while sneaking
Ancient kraken doesn't lose Ink attack if equipped with weapons
Abomination doesn't lose tentacles if equipped with copper arm and weapons
Macaw and Condor got headslots
New switch: --listnations
Some new throne defenders can appear now
Some nations got pretender discounts
Many typo, stat and event fixes
Non-commander communion possible
Theurg Communicant -> not commander
Theurg Communicant rec-limit 1
Theurg Communicant cost 35 -> 50
Option --partamount didn't work properly
Battlefield spell didn't affect everyone in enormous armies
Particles effects didn't look properly in huge battles
Minor memory leak fixed
National underwater PD takes precedence for local UW PD
Faster battle deployment for huge skirmish armies
Murdering Winter less effective vs commanders
Murdering Winter cost 50 -> 40
Flames from the Sky cost 35 -> 30
Thetis Blessing research level 9 -> 7
Therodos got proper names
Music can now start with a rare tune
Sirens are cheaper to recruit when Lure of the Deep is up
Looming Hell slightly harder to defend against
Vengeful Water less effective and cost 50 -> 70
More ability modifiers printed
Shambler base cost 25 -> 20
Cannot try to send more than 32 messages
Friendly Currents didn't affect encumbrance properly
Soul Leech and Consume Soul cannot be repelled
New network option (--maxholdups) to run over serial stallers
New network option (--timeleft) to set nbr of hour to first host
Auto refresh for html statuspage
Auspex could be pathed though the sea, fixed
Looming Hell vs stealthy didn't work properly
Berytian Melqarts reduced blood sacrifice
Land/Water shape recruitment fix

AI
Certain nations more likely to go for good bless effects
Smarter pretender god design
Can make pretenders with high levels of blood magic now
Fixed bug where AI for blood and death nations could waste up to 80 DP
More likely to buy holy units when having a good bless
Army and PD strength evaluation improved
Higher score for scripted spells

Modding
#aigoodbless, #aimusthavemag
#aifirenation, #aiairnation, #aiwaternation, #aiearthnation
#aiastralnation, #aideathnation, #ainaturenation, #aibloodnation
Deserter abilities now work for non commanders too
New unit mod commands: #incscale, #decscale, #reform, #domrec, #haltheretic
New item mod commands: #incscale, #decscale, #reform, #haltheretic
New nation mod command: #noforeignrec
Eventmodding #req_notnation didn't work
#blessbers, #uwheat, #hpoverslow, #poisonskin, #xploss, #enchrebate50

Linux
no multi processes on low memory machines

[Nefaro]

Awesome.

Another reason to start a new game.

[Bison]

To be honest I don't even know how 90% of the patch will effect the game, but I actually started a game last week that will clearly be restarted now.

[Huw the Poo]

There's talk of another Grogheads multiplayer game getting started.

[Nefaro]

There's talk of another Grogheads multiplayer game getting started.

O rly?   ^-^

[Huw the Poo]

Jump in, chaps!  Let's throw armies and lightning and shit at each other!

[Jarhead0331]

Jump in, chaps!  Let's throw armies and lightning and shit at each other!

Shit? Haven't come across that spell yet...I imagine your people worship the porcelain God?

[FarAway Sooner]

Jarhead, you need two ranks of Air Magic, one rank of Porcelain Magic, and Thaumaturgy to cast that spell.  It was released a few patches ago...

[Nefaro]

Call Shit Lightning?

What spell level is that?

Need a Thunder Golgothan to cast it.

[Huw the Poo]

Shit? Haven't come across that spell yet...I imagine your people worship the porcelain God?

You know how it goes...glorious battle, huge piss-up late into the night, then a good hour or so the next morning worshipping the porcelain god. :)

[jamus34]

How hard is Dom 4 to get into? Interested but I have no Dom 4 exp... Everything I know is from 3 and even that is limited

[JasonPratt]

I'm pretty sure it's no easier than 3 to get into. ;) But the User Interface has been improved somewhat (from what I've seen and heard -- don't own the game yet myself).