Dominions CKII Quest: Pretenders and Pantokrators
- Thread starter Paddywagon Man
- Start date
- Location
- USA
Admittedly my knowledge of Underwater groups is a bit of EA Oceania and all the ages of Ryleh. What is Ys's thing?
- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Ys is an elitist faction. They have some really strong recruits in their capitol, both powerful mages and very strong amphibious cavalry. Their main weakness is that they can't recruit most of their good units anywhere else. They're also dangerous because rather than a strictly aquatic, they're actually fully amphibious; Oceania would have trouble invading the dry portions of Agartha's caves, but Ys wouldn't have that problem.
Edit; Ys is also resource-hungry, and ocean lands are generally metal-poor, which slows them down in the beginning. But they're one of the few aquatic factions to make good use of metal at all.
Edit; Ys is also resource-hungry, and ocean lands are generally metal-poor, which slows them down in the beginning. But they're one of the few aquatic factions to make good use of metal at all.
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Sea elves.
I joke. However, Ys is ruled by the Morgens, who are descended from the Tuatha de Danaan. They're powerful magic users. Meanwhile, the younger ones are sacred cavalry that can operate both on land and on water. Besides that, the bulk of their ranks are filled out by merrow in the water and Marverni on land.
Edit:
Here's the wiki page.
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They're a Tir na n'Og break away nation that sunk to the bottom of the sea. Their comprised of the Morgen basically elves who are powerful mages and elite cavalry. Then you have the Merrow fish people who are mostly chaff and a few surviving Marveni called the Kernou who are mostly redundant but their mages give the nation some astral magic.
For gameplay their the only water nation that is stronger outside the water than in it because their knights are fast really powerful and breath fire making them devastating raiders.
Here's a link to their Illwiki page
MA Ys - Morgen Queens - illwiki: Dominions 5 Wiki
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- Location
- Norway
Nations Overview: Underwater
(R'lyeh, Atlantis, Oceania, Pelagia, Ys)
R'lyeh is central to much of the underwater factions lore, as DarkLight mentioned, and we saw them foreshadowed at the end of threadmark A Question of Origins. Space illithids with psychic powers arriving in a falling star at the start of the Middle Age, strong in Astral and Water magic, occasionally dabbling in Death and Earth. Start out underwater, but scary to everyone because their army is amphibious except for a few aquatic-only slaves. Illithids have a mind blast attack, which concretely means "Multiple-use LOS-range stun attack, magic resistance negates". Recruiting an illithid costs about 5x what a normal soldier does, so they're too costly to mass-produce, usually fronting enslaved mermen and underwater beasts.
It's easy to call R'lyeh "lovecraftian", but the Deep Ones are in Atlantis. Much like our own Pale Ones, the Deep Ones never stop growing, their kings and queens are immense, they're strongly aligned to one path of magic (Water), and in the EA -> MA transition they lose some of their oldest native giants but pick up some human auxiliaries. Atlantean soldiers wield poisonous coral glaives and armor. Atlantean mages have a little Astral, Fire and Earth to back up their Water focus. Atlantean priests are powerful and zealous. Mostly amphibious.
Oceania reminds me of the jokes about D&D players who put multiple Half-X templates on one character. A mixed bag of half-fish mer-man versions of a bunch of creatures which were already half-human in Greek myth: mer-dryads, mer-harpies, mer-centaurs, mer-minotaurs, mer-satyrs. They use bronze weapons, partly because iron would rust and partly because their faction shtick is The Primitive Wild (But Underwater). Strongest in Nature magic, secondary Water, a little Earth on the mer-minotaurs and a little Air on the mer-harpies. One of the least changed nations as the Middle Age starts. Amphibious except for the mer-dryads.
Pelagia is run by twin-tailed Tritons, who are strictly aquatic. Since their best units can't go on land, this faction sucks in a regular game. They have some minion Mermen though. Their special stick is being able to convert Water into Astral magic resource at 1:1 instead of 2:1, hence the name of the Pearl Clan Tritons. Strongest at Water magic, sprinkled with Nature, Astral, Earth and Air. Units are several kinds of triton+merman infantry, some aquatic cavalry on healing mer-unicorns, and some mer-unicorns (hippocampi) without riders.
Ys used to be a land nation in the Early Age. Specifically, it's a splinter state of Tír na nÓg, which in the lore was mostly destroyed in the Age transition. The Tuatha sorceress Dahut hid the city of Ker-Ys beneath the waves to avoid the cataclysm, and it became the new capital of Ys. Many of her fellow sorceresses accompanied her, making Ys strongest in Air magic and illusions and glamers, secondary Water and Earth, and a little Astral and Nature. The champions of Ys ride fire-breathing fey horses and kelpies, and their line troops are humanoid merrows. Entirely amphibious, perhaps even better on land, as they can still raise druids and cavalry in land provinces.
Previously in the Nations Overview series: Ermor Cluster.
(R'lyeh, Atlantis, Oceania, Pelagia, Ys)
R'lyeh is central to much of the underwater factions lore, as DarkLight mentioned, and we saw them foreshadowed at the end of threadmark A Question of Origins. Space illithids with psychic powers arriving in a falling star at the start of the Middle Age, strong in Astral and Water magic, occasionally dabbling in Death and Earth. Start out underwater, but scary to everyone because their army is amphibious except for a few aquatic-only slaves. Illithids have a mind blast attack, which concretely means "Multiple-use LOS-range stun attack, magic resistance negates". Recruiting an illithid costs about 5x what a normal soldier does, so they're too costly to mass-produce, usually fronting enslaved mermen and underwater beasts.
It's easy to call R'lyeh "lovecraftian", but the Deep Ones are in Atlantis. Much like our own Pale Ones, the Deep Ones never stop growing, their kings and queens are immense, they're strongly aligned to one path of magic (Water), and in the EA -> MA transition they lose some of their oldest native giants but pick up some human auxiliaries. Atlantean soldiers wield poisonous coral glaives and armor. Atlantean mages have a little Astral, Fire and Earth to back up their Water focus. Atlantean priests are powerful and zealous. Mostly amphibious.
Oceania reminds me of the jokes about D&D players who put multiple Half-X templates on one character. A mixed bag of half-fish mer-man versions of a bunch of creatures which were already half-human in Greek myth: mer-dryads, mer-harpies, mer-centaurs, mer-minotaurs, mer-satyrs. They use bronze weapons, partly because iron would rust and partly because their faction shtick is The Primitive Wild (But Underwater). Strongest in Nature magic, secondary Water, a little Earth on the mer-minotaurs and a little Air on the mer-harpies. One of the least changed nations as the Middle Age starts. Amphibious except for the mer-dryads.
Pelagia is run by twin-tailed Tritons, who are strictly aquatic. Since their best units can't go on land, this faction sucks in a regular game. They have some minion Mermen though. Their special stick is being able to convert Water into Astral magic resource at 1:1 instead of 2:1, hence the name of the Pearl Clan Tritons. Strongest at Water magic, sprinkled with Nature, Astral, Earth and Air. Units are several kinds of triton+merman infantry, some aquatic cavalry on healing mer-unicorns, and some mer-unicorns (hippocampi) without riders.
Ys used to be a land nation in the Early Age. Specifically, it's a splinter state of Tír na nÓg, which in the lore was mostly destroyed in the Age transition. The Tuatha sorceress Dahut hid the city of Ker-Ys beneath the waves to avoid the cataclysm, and it became the new capital of Ys. Many of her fellow sorceresses accompanied her, making Ys strongest in Air magic and illusions and glamers, secondary Water and Earth, and a little Astral and Nature. The champions of Ys ride fire-breathing fey horses and kelpies, and their line troops are humanoid merrows. Entirely amphibious, perhaps even better on land, as they can still raise druids and cavalry in land provinces.
Previously in the Nations Overview series: Ermor Cluster.
- Location
- Dragyxx
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Let's see, trying to parse some things into our new format.... As this is midway between Early and Middle ages, Ys is probably pretty new as a nation; Tir na nOg has fallen relatively recently, and their capitol hasn't been sunk for too long. They're probably not as established as they want us to think they are, and are likely still in the process of fully subjugating the local merrows.
Ys has the potential to be very strong. But their population of full-blooded Morgen is basically finite due to being very slow to reproduce. If this is an actual princess we've got, we can probably actually ransom her back for a lot more than she's letting on.
Ys has the potential to be very strong. But their population of full-blooded Morgen is basically finite due to being very slow to reproduce. If this is an actual princess we've got, we can probably actually ransom her back for a lot more than she's letting on.
Amusingly, ichthyocentaurs were a thing in actual Classic Greek art.
On a separate note, I think Ys presumably has a pretty severe limit on its ability to expand. The morgen seem to be pretty limited in numbers. Furthermore, there's a clear line of separation between the morgen and the merrow. In-game, the player can just pump out army after army of morgens on their faerie horses. In-setting, I suspect that they can't afford to do the same, particularly since losing a lot of morgens would presumably do very bad things to their social stability. I don't think it'd be anywhere near as bad as Sparta losing a big chunk of its Spartiate but it's a similar kind of logic.
That could be a useful thing to have in an ally.
On a separate note, I think Ys presumably has a pretty severe limit on its ability to expand. The morgen seem to be pretty limited in numbers. Furthermore, there's a clear line of separation between the morgen and the merrow. In-game, the player can just pump out army after army of morgens on their faerie horses. In-setting, I suspect that they can't afford to do the same, particularly since losing a lot of morgens would presumably do very bad things to their social stability. I don't think it'd be anywhere near as bad as Sparta losing a big chunk of its Spartiate but it's a similar kind of logic.
That could be a useful thing to have in an ally.
Yeah their like the Knights of the Chalice from Marignon whereas in game their the core of your army which a Marignon player hugs as their sole saving grace as a nation. In lore their really rare and were wiped out by Ermor. Only I'd say that the Morgen are even more rare as their a tiny minority ruling class and you can't just recruit more of them from the general populace.
- Location
- Norway
She might not be mechanically "recruited" to the military yet, but having background NPC adventures.
I like the idea of ransoming her back though. Maybe turn it into a carrot-and-stick offer: if Ys is willing to play nice and give some diplomatic concessions (like not claiming all the sea under our caves), they can have their princess back. If Ys wants to play hardball, then we start demanding a ransom and possibly extorting secrets from the princess.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I've found that Ys is relatively stronger in the water in the early game because most aquatic units (including ours) have lower Attack than comparably numerous land units, which means that their high-Defense elite cavalry are even harder to stop underwater than they are on land. Their elites are also high-MR which means they can shrug off illithids and olms long enough to slaughter them. On land, though, there are a lot of options which can overcome their cavalry on an equal basis (by which I mean in terms of gold spent on each side), and their human infantry are solid but not truly impressive, so while they can mostly hold their own a land-based faction will usually be able to outmatch them in any sustained conflict.
As the game shifts to higher-magic during the mid and late game, Ys starts to wane in relative power underwater- their elites turn into full-blown thugs, but their caster support is focused toward Air which isn't at its best underwater to say the least. On land, though, their power rises drastically as their human auxiliaries can mass-produce communions which can either act on their own with extremely useful paths or power up their elite mages to truly ridiculous levels that let them supplement their thug-led elite cavalry and still-solid infantry with utterly devastating combat magic. It's vitally important for Ys to have a strong set of land production centers by the end of the early game so that they can exploit these advantages properly in time to build up the needed critical mass of communion mages.
In terms of what this means for us, I would say that it means if we enter into a serious conflict with them at this stage of the game and it's focused on our underwater border, we will probably get spanked unless we are willing to throw a huge amount of wealth at drowning them with Wet One corpses. We should try diplomacy and if it looks like diplomacy is set to fail, see if we can ally with another faction against them so that they're at an economic disadvantage. I would really like to not fight Ys if it's avoidable, though, because they are one of the best-equipped underwater factions to crush R'lyeh. If we can set the two of them against one another that would be fantastic.
Ahem.
FUCK BLACK LAGOON
FUCK SEA *LVES
FUCK SQUIDS
FUCK PYOPIAL SPAWN
AND FUCK UNDERWATER
Demonax did nothing wrong
Telkhines was an inside job
Stygian waters can't freeze sulfur fumes
Where are the 6 thousand nemedian-
*deep coughing*
Ugh. Whew. Don't know where that came from. Had a bit of left overs from the Helinika Ascension War
We're gonna need to freeze the ocean out.
FUCK BLACK LAGOON
FUCK SEA *LVES
FUCK SQUIDS
FUCK PYOPIAL SPAWN
AND FUCK UNDERWATER
Demonax did nothing wrong
Telkhines was an inside job
Stygian waters can't freeze sulfur fumes
Where are the 6 thousand nemedian-
*deep coughing*
Ugh. Whew. Don't know where that came from. Had a bit of left overs from the Helinika Ascension War
We're gonna need to freeze the ocean out.
- Location
- USA
Pat Pat.
We all have been there. Let it out. Just hope we don't have massed blood factions. I rather not recall that mess.
I just love the fact that Someone was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO salty at Theredos existing, they created a faction that is tailor designed to counter every single thing about the nation, was included in the mod that is all about Uber strong and unique nations, and the mod creator said "you know what, Theredos doesn't need anything to set it apart from its vanilla counterpart, it's fine"
THEREDOS STRONK
Still waiting on an MA version of Theredos. Maybe just port the Atlantis faction from Age of Mythology over.
- Location
- USA
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
FUCKING BLOOD AND DEATH FACTIONS SO MANY.
WHY WAS THERE SOME MANY OF THEM.
ONE GAME, ONE F***ING GAME.
Sorry, sorry. Flashbacks.
- Location
- USA
....A bad time to mention I usually build a high faith God with the worst Province Stats possible to wipe out all land I claim so fighting me is hell?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Don't worry about annoying me, I don't know the story but I'm loving the flashbacks!
- Location
- USA
It was me and two others versus Xibalba, Mictlan, Berytos, Lanka, Ermor, Sauromatia, and C'tis. It WAS HELL, FUN HELL. BUT HELL.
