Primer: LA Man Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

LA Man is something of a baseline faction - meaning that it doesn't have any particularly extraordinary mechanics and it should reflect "typical" Dominion 4 gameplay. This is a bit of a change from Dominion 3, where it pioneered a specialized strategy (the taxation schemes) that allowed it to produce an enormous amount of gold; but that strategy is no longer doable since tax percentages were removed in Dominion 4.

That said, I think LA Man is still a pretty solid nation. Predictable, perhaps, but it can do many things well enough to be a respectable power. I don't think they are quite in the same powerhouse level as LA Ulm, and it's not a Bless Rush nation by any means (and Bless Rush seems to be very strong nowadays), but they're still good.

Much of Man's power lies with their main mage - the Magister Arcane - who is really the only mage that Man should ever recruit. At first glance, he doesn't seem to be a very exciting mage - getting 2 Air, 1 Earth, 1 Astral plus 50% chance of getting another rank in Air, Earth, Fire, or Astral. Worse, he starts off old, and would be vulnerable to afflictions.

But there are three other factors (often forgotten) that should excite players. First of all, he's reasonably priced - costing only 165 gold (compared to an unreasonable 250 gold in Dom 3). Second, he's not capital-only and not slow to recruit, meaning he can be mass-produced out of each and every one of your forts. Finally, he has Drain Immunity, meaning you can take Drain 2 for "free" and earn yourself 80 design points, extra MR in your dominion, without taking away from the Magister's considerable 14 point research total. In fact, those free points can easily go to buying you some points in Growth - a good economic scale overall which also mitigates your old mages.

[Sidebar: Why Drain 2 and not Drain 3? Because Drain 3 comes with some bad events that take away some of your magic gems. If you're also running luck then maybe risk Drain 3, but personally these events are very painful especially in the late game].

What this means is that LA Man will have a strong research push (netting an additional 14 research/turn per lab), and have a large pool of decent combat and support mages. Air gives you direct damage spells (LIghtning Bolt, Thunderstrike), buffs (MIstform, Fog Warriors), and battlefield summons (phantasmal warriors). Earth has somewhat weaker offensive spells, but nice buffs (e.g. Iron Warriors) and debuffs (Armor-destroying spells). Astral lets you communion up so that you can cast your bigger spells. So while you may only have one kind of mage in your army, it's a pretty damn useful one that can go a long way. The Magister Arcanes are in fact debatably in the running for best mage of LA when you take everything (cost, recruitability) into account.

Early research priorities, given your path list, should probably be Alteration or Evocation; plus a few support magics from Conjuration (Storm Power) and Thaum (Communions).

Evocation may often seem to be the obvious choice - as it lets your massed mages cast a huge number of Thunderstrikes (cast Storm via Communion, then Stormpower everyone so they get to A3). You can also cast Earthpower from Conjuration (give 1 earth gem to each E1) so that your mages get reinvigoration, which nets another Thunderstrike or two as the reinvig takes away the fatigue. However, this is a bit of a single-dimensional trick; and won't work well against an enemy with lots of shock resistance. That said, with enough mages you can simply annihilate an entire army.

Alteration meanwhile works to support your army - something which I'll cover in the next section. LA Man has a pretty damn good army, and the support spells from Alteration make it even better. False Fetters for instance helps gummy down small groups of enemies (important against Elephants), along with various Earth Meld spells. Wind Guide makes all your archers and crossbowmen better, and you will have a fair number of them. Phantasmal army allows you to summon chaff. Earth gives you armor-enhancing or degrading spells. Really, if there's any school that gives the most bang for buck for the Magister Arcanes, I'd say it would be Alteration - but do remember it's not quite the same level of mass-killing that Evoc gives you. That said, you can always just use your research push to get both schools up fast.

Finally, let's talk about Man's other mages, who you should almost never, ever really recruit as mages. The Magister, which was the primary mage of LA Man in Dom 3, is just awful now - with an increased gold cost of 100 gold while still having only a chance to get some (very weak) magic. Except for one task, there is nothing that a Magister can do that the Magister Arcane can't do better - and that's spying. The Magister is Man's only spy, and you should only recruit them as such. Sure, it's expensive and they're not that great in the role (their stealth isn't as high as other spies), but you have no other espionage option otherwise.

The Magister's other ability - siege engineering - is only really useful if you're massing them; and you're not about to do that when you can be massing Magister Arcanes instead - just pay 50% more gold and get a huge upgrade in ability; including the possibility of forging items that can help break down siege doorts.

Judges also are more expensive now, albeit its patrol functions can still be useful for safeguarding your capital against spies (personally, I'd rather use troops). However, the real reason to get Judges from a magical perspective is the fact that they're the only mage of LA Man that has Death. They only get a 25% chance of getting it, meaning you will need to recruit 4 or so Judges before getting one with D1, but it's important to realize that LA Man does have some unique summons that require Death. If these summons are useful to you as part of your strategy and you can't afford to have a mobile Death pretender, then recruit your four Judges (you may get lucky and get a Fire/Death one too - which gives you Banefire and Flaming Skulls). Personally speaking though, I think LA Man's summons are on the mediocre side and are too expensive (Post your reasons if you disagree).

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Now, we've discussed how LA Man has one of the best mages in LA. We'll now cover LA Man's army, which features what is arguably the best heavy infantryman of the late age.

Enter the Tower Guard & Defender. Aside from good protection, a nice shield, and a fairly damaging weapon, these guys are all armed with a crossbow - without costing more than other heavy infantry. This ability is unique only to Man's infantry, which also has a number of interesting implications. Unlike every other infantryman, the Tower Guard isn't forced to march towards the enemy - he can stay where started and keep shooting at the enemy. If they get close, they switch to shields and broadswords and fight as very good high-morale heavy infantry that's highly resistant to enemy misile weapons. In short, the enemy must come to you (and your kill zone) to defeat a Tower Guard army; he can't draw you in and try any shenanigans. It is for this reason that the Tower Guards will remain the core of your army for most of the game.

[Sidebar: Note though, that there are two version of the Tower Guard. A cheaper version, and a more resource-costly one called the Defender. The Defender has better stats, but costs about 25% more resources. In most cases, I think getting 5 Tower Guards vs 4 Defenders is better, but again it depends on what you're facing]

That said, the Tower Guard is still a heavy infantryman, with all the problems it implies. He's move 1 on the strategic map (albeit it's less of an issue given the slower movement rates), and costs a ton of resources (Production Scales are a must). The latter in particular makes them impractical to use when facing lots of evocation magic (the enemy's fireballs will kill them just as easily as it kills light infantry), but fortunately LA Man has chaff units too.

Your starting army consists of these good chaff units - short spearmen and longbowmen. The short spears are very effective since they get a repel against many unit, plus a shield to help with some arrow/crossbow blocking. On my first turn, I typically recruit only shortspearmen and add them to my starting army, who can then take on any militia/heavy infantry/archer provinces that doesn't outnumber them.

Longbowmen used to be the iconic unit of the armies of Man, but with the better-armored units in LA they lose a fair bit of effectiveness. Still, if you want to put as many arrows in the air as possible, longbowmen are the best option due to their range and damage. If you're able to get to Enchantment 4 (an otherwise weak school for you) and have fire income, you can cast Flaming Arrows which makes your longbowmen far more effective. That said, given how fast longbows can be recruited (compared to Tower Guards), I'd get Ench 4 first before massing Longbowmen if that's your preferred army killing strategy.

Other units of Man are highly situational. The Wardens aren't really good enough to give a bless to, and lack a shield for fighting archers. Their main use is for raiding, especially when supplemented by the new Forrester unit (your other raiding unit - which is a decent stealthy shortbow archer). If you want magic support for these guys, sneak them into a province, and then attack next turn with air-dropped (Cloud Trapeze) Magister Arcanes.

Knights are also very expensive, but with Production scales you can get a few for flanking- a role they're good at.

The light archer and crossbowman I would generally not bother with. The longbowman just gives better bang for the buck than the light archer, while the crossbowman has severe morale issues (morale 8 only!). Tower Guards are simply more reliable, while longbowmen are better when you're doing massed shooting (especially since you should have Flaming Arrows by this point!)

The rest of the troops are various flavors of infantry - long spearmen and axemen - who in other nation have situational uses but in the case of LA Man generally pale in comparison to the Tower Guards.

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Finally, to wrap up, let's talk about LA Man's Forts, Priests, and Pretenders options.

It is very important to realize that Man's forts take a very long time to build. At minimum they will take 6 turns. Hence, to maximize your troop and mage advantage you need to build your forts early to get 2 or even 3 additional forts by the start of Year 2. With that many forts, you can start pumping out many more Magister Arcanes and troops to support your nation. Do try to find nice provinces for them though - the long built times at least comes with a nice admin rating that enhanced gold output.

LA Man has a cheap H2 Priest and an Inquisitor H1. You may want to recruit some from time to time depending on the need, but do recognize they don't have H3s and are therefore a bit weak on this department so you may want to have a higher Dom score to compensate.

The other things you want from your Pretender are probably as follows:

1) Good scales for your good troops; especially since you're already getting Growth from the "free" points of the Magister Arcanes. Combining Growth with Order and Production can lead to a huge income, and thus enormous armies in the middle game.

2) Additional Magic Paths - particularly Nature. You get 2 Nature gems with you starting province and should probably find a way to use them.

3) Ways to strengthen your existing paths - particularly A4 for Air Boosters, F4 for Fire Boosters, and E4 for bigger Earth spells.

Now, I try not to give very specific builds in my "Primer" series (they're meant to be summaries of how a nation plays; but not step-by-step instructions on how to win), but I will point out that LA Man has a very nice and synergistic Pretender chassis in the form of the Tiwaz of War.

He has a nice Dom score (3) which makes him relatively cheaper, and he starts with Air, Fire, and Earth - all stuff to enhance your Magisters. Plus, he's a fantastic general who can lead a big army at +3 morale and also cast support magic or even SC for it. For short games, I think you'll be rather hard-pressed to find a better option, and even in long games I think he can stand up pretty well.

That said, the problem with LA Man will be the fact that people will generally know what you're going to use against them. They know you will be using Magister Arcanes, not only because they're very good but because you really don't have any other options. Likewise they know you'll have Tower Guards, because they're very good. Hence, you may need a surprise or two in order to keep your opponents offguard, and any surprise by definition has to come from your Pretender.

So don't be shy about trying to use some kind of Rainbow build or an SC that splashes some Nature or other kind of magic. Be creative. Just don't try to bless-rush with Wardens, because doing that will likely cause the real bless rush nations to come knocking with a demonstration of how to do it properly .

Edited by: Zinegata

I enjoy your guides, please keep up the good work!

Also, I hope the Magister cost will eventually be rebalanced. Their cost increase and tax slider removal pretty much destroyed the distinctive LA Man playstyle.

It was replaced by something much better in my opinion.

Nice! I love these primers of yours, keep them coming!

Should things like this go in the Council of Sages forum? Or do things only get moved over there if enough people "vote" for them? Although Man is a fairly straightforward nation I think it's always useful to get a reasoned appraisal of a nation's capabilities.

Ohlmann wrote: It was replaced by something much better in my opinion.

To be fair, having an actual decent combat mage AND research mage is better than the old mass of Magisters, because the Magisters weren't really very viable in combat and were used in wartime mainly to make taking Man's forts a costly and very slow affair.

My only real issue with this is that, as noted in the guide, the Magister Arcane pretty much became the only real mage that Man should recruit. Judges are just situational and/or for getting Death, while Magisters are overpriced spies. It makes Man rather terribly predictable.

Edited by: Zinegata

Ohlmann wrote: It was replaced by something much better in my opinion.

"Better" as in "more effective", sure. "Better" as "more interesting" - no.

I think a shoutout should go to the Lord Warden. You need to buy leaders for your troops, and early in the game that is going to have to come from the capital. None of your leaders are slow to recruit, so it's not the end of the world. The Lord Warden is sacred, which means his upkeep is actually very slightly less than that of a Castellan. He's a good leader and comes with a crossbow and a greatsword. Yes, his forest survival is completely worthless because he is map move 1, but he's a pretty decent package with stealth, preaching, and plain useful combat abilities. Most factions don't use their capital-only national troop leaders much. But LA Man actually does.

By the way, does anyone have good ideas about where to take research? Obviously, your early targets are the Owl Quill (Construction), Lightning Bolt (Evocation), and Wind Guide (alteration). But then what? Enchantment so that your pretender can cast Flaming Arrows?

-Frank

FrankTrollman wrote: I think a shoutout should go to the Lord Warden. You need to buy leaders for your troops, and early in the game that is going to have to come from the capital. None of your leaders are slow to recruit, so it's not the end of the world. The Lord Warden is sacred, which means his upkeep is actually very slightly less than that of a Castellan. He's a good leader and comes with a crossbow and a greatsword. Yes, his forest survival is completely worthless because he is map move 1, but he's a pretty decent package with stealth, preaching, and plain useful combat abilities. Most factions don't use their capital-only national troop leaders much. But LA Man actually does.

I didn't mention him because I think that most people would generally take the Indie Commader option - no morale bonus and all - rather than not recruiting a mage in the capital.

That said, yes, if you want a better commander then the Lord Warden's the better option. His leadership is the same as the Castellan but he gets all the other features you mention; and later in the game he can switch to leading raiding parties of Wardens - which is likely the main reason you'd get him.

By the way, does anyone have good ideas about where to take research? Obviously, your early targets are the Owl Quill (Construction), Lightning Bolt (Evocation), and Wind Guide (alteration). But then what? Enchantment so that your pretender can cast Flaming Arrows?

-Frank

I advocated either going Storm/Thunderstrike in Evocation or up the Alteration tree.

Evocation's uses are pretty obvious - massed Thunderstrike kills armies - but I know Storm shuts down archery which used to be one of Man's strong points. That said, given how you can now mass Thunderstrike-capable mages, you may be willing to live with less archery (this is why I said Longbowmen used to be the iconic unit of Man).

Meanwhile Alt 5 actually gives a fair number of nice options - Phantasmal Army for Chaff, Maws of the Earth for gumming/damage, and - synergizing with Thunderstrike spam - a spell that confers massed lightning resistance (this is why I like having both high Evoc and Alt). There's also Wooden Warriors if you've broken into nature for your nature gems.

Further up the Alt chain is Fog Warriors, which used to be one of the killer spells in Dom3; although I'm not sure if that's good enough to invest into.

Do people find Owl Quills useful now though for research boosting?

Edited by: Zinegata

Festin_K wrote:

Ohlmann wrote: It was replaced by something much better in my opinion.

"Better" as in "more effective", sure. "Better" as "more interesting" - no.

I disagree. Death and taxes in dom3 was boring, the new pricing of the mage and some other modification make the nation much better to play.

Ohlmann wrote:
I disagree. Death and taxes in dom3 was boring, the new pricing of the mage and some other modification make the nation much better to play.

I find nothing remotely interesting in another Thunderstrike spammer.
The only distinctive aspect left for LA Man are probably their crossbow heavy infantry. Take that away, and they would be tied with LA Arco for the title of the most boring and generic nation (at least in LA).

Edited by: Festin_K

Their path allow for a lot more than spamming thunderstrike you know ? :p

Nevertheless, that's how they will be used most of the time. And there is nothing interesting about Magister Arcane. They are a generic mage. Now you can get more of them. How exciting.

Also, death&taxes was the best thing ever.

Arco is boring? What? They get elephants! Random communions with excellent research! Healing! Phalanxes! Fortuneteller!

I agree with Festin_K. In Dom3 LA Man was uniqe and very interesting nation to play. And now I will not chose it for MP

Festin_K wrote: They are a generic mage.

Because generic mage have consistent path including A/E combo, as well as being communion-startable. And are cheap and not StR too.

But more to the point : Death & taxes have been replaced. Some will prefer the past, on this nation I prefer the new thing.

short.alastair wrote: Arco is boring? What? They get elephants! Random communions with excellent research! Healing! Phalanxes! Fortuneteller!

I have to be frank here - except for Elephants I don't really think any of those features are truly mechanically interesting.

Which is the point people are making. LA Man at least had a mechanically different strategy before. Now it's yet another one-mage nation. LA Arco also falls under this label because you're basically never going to recruit anything but Mystics for its mages.

Really? I can't agree. Preistesses with healer-3 are invaluable, although, sure, you're not going to be recruiting them for battlemagic duty. But you should have at least one per every army. Sybils, however, are wonderful for increased astral access as well as reducing misfortune. Combine priestesses with sybils (Mystics rarely have enough astral) to mindhunt with impunity. Sure, they can't pull it off as well as MA Arco did, but they still have that capacity.

Edited by: short.alastair

short.alastair wrote: Really? I can't agree. Preistesses with healer-3 are invaluable, although, sure, you're not going to be recruiting them for battlemagic duty. But you should have at least one per every army. Sybils, however, are wonderful for increased astral access as well as reducing misfortune. Combine priestesses with sybils (Mystics rarely have enough astral) to mindhunt with impunity. Sure, they can't pull it off as well as MA Arco did, but they still have that capacity.

Priestesses are recruited, as you said, for healing and not really magic duties. Basically it lets Arco get away with having some afflictions. I'm not saying you should never do it - you probably should have one for every army - but how is that really different from having one Magister to spy on every enemy?

The Sybil meanwhile is problematic due to Slow-to-recruit. Yes, you will get a few of them for the extra astral access and low-level death; but fortune telling isn't that reliable and not something to build a strategy around. It's a lot like the Judges in fact - you recruit a few to get Death access and patrol bonuses, but not in a big way.

This is why Arco and Man are both essentially one-mage nations. Just as Man is mass-producing Magister Arcanes, LA Arco is going to be building Mystics almost exclusively.

Compare and contrast to LA Ulm - that nation has three distinct mage types that you will use a lot of all game long (S1 Illuminati, Iron Blizzard/Forger Black Priests, Death/Blood Vamp Counts) on top of situational mages (Fortune Tellers, the S2B1 Illuminati). Admittedly though, LA Ulm's an extreme case.

Edited by: Zinegata

The Arco Priestess is a big deal. Sermon of Courage is a good spell and you can cast it with no research. Level 2 Priests are just god to have around. Having a level 2 Priest who heals afflictions and can generate research is a big deal. It means you aren't paing a large opportunity cost to put together a big group of priests. That makes Arco much scarier to factions that rely on undead and demons, because Arco can and will make big groups of Holy 2 casters. Nature 1 casting isn't great, but it helps site searching and there are certainly things you can do with it. Give her a thistle mace and she can cast Storm of Thorns.

I also disagree that the Sibyl isn't important. She's an Astral/Nature or an Astral/Death caster, two combinations that are very useful and not represented in the rest of the faction. She's 3 points of magic diversity more for the faction, so of course you're going to make a lot of them.

If you want to talk useless, let's talk about the Magister of Theology of LA Man. That unit is useless. For 10 more gold you get an actual Bishop, and that's still not terribly exciting.

- Frank

Frank->

I'm not saying they're useless. I'm just saying that for the most part your most-recruited mage who will do the heavy lifting will be Mystics.

I was looking for idea about LA Man in a tricky situation and found this Primer, thank to Zinegata for this, it's quite cool (alas if I didn't found some solution to my tricky context). So sorry to wake up a very old thread but...

Zinegata wrote: I didn't mention him because I think that most people would generally take the Indie Commader option - no morale bonus and all - rather than not recruiting a mage in the capital....

Really? For my newbie eyes the indie commander option looked rather awful. For larger armies formations look almost required and have a -1 morale penalty with indie commanders is very unpleasant. I suppose the red -1 has a huge psychological effect.
But it's right that I didn't thought it in term of all the MA I could have produce instead of any national commander I produced.

Zinegata wrote:
That said, yes, if you want a better commander then the Lord Warden's the better option. His leadership is the same as the Castellan but he gets all the other features you mention; and later in the game he can switch to leading raiding parties of Wardens - which is likely the main reason you'd get him....

Dam I knew the sacred upkeep thing and forgot remind it each time I choose between the Lord Warden and the Castellan in my capital. :-)

Zinegata wrote:
The light archer and crossbowman I would generally not bother with. The longbowman just gives better bang for the buck than the light archer, while the crossbowman has severe morale issues (morale 8 only!). Tower Guards are simply more reliable, while longbowmen are better when you're doing massed shooting (especially since you should have Flaming Arrows by this point!)

I'm still not sure of what to do with Light Archer but crossbowman really that bad? During first turns I found them more useful than Archer. Sure it's still two time the resources cost. But they are good against heavy armor like cavalry. They require a level 2 priest support for morale improve with sermon of courage. But with this they are cheap to produce in comparison of other units with crossbow, it's between 2.5 and 3 time more. For their use I'm still exploring and not sure. But I felt them interesting as a second line defense. But even in first line with fire command I didn't found them that bad and in fact much better than both spearmen units. I don't know what's wrong but I have huge flee problems when I try stick to spearman and much less when either if I mix with crossbowman (not in same squads) but even with crossbowman only. Ok the better morale of spearman should involve the reverse and there's probably something that misguide my observations on that point.

Zinegata wrote:
...while longbowmen are better when you're doing massed shooting (especially since you should have Flaming Arrows by this point!)

Flaming Arrows for LA Man? A fire level 4 spell? I wonder what magic boost path would allow it. At best LA Man produce rare random fire and level 1 only. With that base I wonder how boost them to 4.

Zinegata wrote:
[Sidebar: Why Drain 2 and not Drain 3? Because Drain 3 comes with some bad events that take away some of your magic gems. If you're also running luck then maybe risk Drain 3, but personally these events are very painful especially in the late game].

Dam I wish I had read that before! It's detail that seems important to know and the game looks unfair to not mention it anywhere because it's not an adventure game. I hope you are exaggerating how painful are the events.

It's like the practical importance of luck, now I regret not have put at least luck 1 but too late!

I have not played LA Man since Dom3, but IMO the spearmen are crap. Use the tower guards instead, they are a superior unit.

Having recruitable longbows is a really great asset, I often build a fort with any nation when I find indy longbows, LA Man has them in its roster instead. Only in very particular circumstances would crossbows be a better option, and in those you can use the super -flexible tower guards to fill the air with bolts.

I am not the original poster and do not know his reasons, but usually people goes for bows instead of crossbows to either avoid friendly fire issues (say, your troops are armored but your opponent's are not), or because of the combination with flaming arrows (double rate of fire=double the flames). And longbows>bows, so it's even better.

You use a communion to cast flaming arrows, and boost with Phoenix Power if the number of communicants is small.

Edited by: RobertOlmstead

I'm still not sure of what to do with Light Archer but crossbowman really that bad? During first turns I found them more useful than Archer.

A crossbowman is still a crossbowman, but the big issue is that unlike Ulm or Marignon your crossbowmen WILL fall apart once someone melees them due to bad morale and lack of a real weapon. Plus, having crossbows on your Tower Guards makes having seperate crossbowmen less necessary.

Flaming Arrows for LA Man? A fire level 4 spell? I wonder what magic boost path would allow it. At best LA Man produce rare random fire and level 1 only. With that base I wonder how boost them to 4.

As noted by the previous poster, communions can be had by Man. Also Crystal Matrixes if you wanna go that way. All you need is a Fire 1, communioned to Fire 2, Phoenix Power'd to Fire 3, and a final gem boost to Fire 4.

I have not played LA Man since Dom3, but IMO the spearmen are crap. Use the tower guards instead, they are a superior unit.

In general I do recomment Tower Guards as they're the best heavy infantryman of the age. It's just that sometimes you need chaff (and Tower Guard are too expensive for this) and spearmen fill that role.

Interesting read,
I'll just add that for me recruiting Wardens in the cap is a better move than getting TG imho- they have much better stats, and a minor bless will help them.
But eventually LA Man is a bit boring indeed : you have 1 mage and 2 units to recruit, and not many magic choices.