Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Shinuyama: Difference between revisions

Shinuyama is the nation ruled by the Bakemono after the rebellion against the [[Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Yomi|oni kings]].

'''Shinuyama''' is a goblin nation that’s modeled after Feudal Japan. At a glance, it appears weak, and it’s certainly not the easiest nation to play, especially for a beginner to start with. However, it does have a few distinct advantages over other nations, and some considerable drawbacks. For starters, all of its light and medium infantry and archers, one basic commander, and one priest, are stealthy. It also has stealthy assassins. It also has a naturally amphibious commander and some pretty decent amphibious troops, and most of it’s other troops have either forest or mountain walk, or both. It has a dozen or so unique summons. Finally, none of its national troops are capital only. However, these cool quirks come at a price, such as labs cost twice as much, your starting army is absolute garbage, no recruit able sacred troops, and sacred troops can only be summoned by your pretender as none of the mages have the paths necessary without empowerment. Shinuyama can be difficult to start out playing, simply because there are so many options available.

===Great Sage, Awake===

F3 A2 S6 N3

This build works well. The Celestial General makes a good SC as air and earth are both good paths for self-buff spells, and the bless is useful for your sacred troops (although a bless strategy with Shinuyama is doom because your sacreds can be difficult to field early), which the high level ones are much better than most nations. The drain scale adds a bit of MR which your Oni summons need to keep from being banished. Additionally, since Shinuyama starts out with such an awful army, he’ll help a lot with early expansion. The only drawbacks here are research you won’t be able to crank out many Dai Bakemonos, but the tough, gold expensive, resource light troops like Kappas and O-bakemonos can hold their own with a few buffs and Rust Mist, or none at all against weaker armies.

;Bandit :The Bandit is a medium infantry with a spear that is stealthy. It’s not a bad unit overall, probably the best choice for infantry for stealthy squads, and would maybe find a place in your regular army.

;Dai Bakemono (archer):I’m not sure what the use is for these guys. They’re really heavily armored archers with a lot of hit points. They’re the only unit Shinuyama has with a long bow, but at 38 resources it’s hard to find a place for them when, for nearly the same cost, you can recruit 9 Bakemono-sho archers.

;Bandit Leader:The Bandit Leader is a basic stealthy commander. They’re cheap with a movement rate of 2, so if nothing they’re good for ferrying troops to your front lines. There’s another stealthy commander with magic and the same leadership, so these guys are outclassed in every way. Can’t go wrong for the price, though.

;Shuten-doji:Here’s a cool unit. It weighs in with good stats and high leadership, 100, so it’s a bargain at 100 gold. Even with no armor it has 8 protection which isn’t shabby. The coolest part about these guys is they have a aura which activates every turn that’s supposed to entice units not to attack it. The aura is quite large and cast automatic each battle turn. The aura increase fatigue of foes (MR negate). ''There is a bug (Version 3.04) so that the aura also affect friendly troops.'' The Shuten-doji has a life-drain attack but is not undead. With the right equipment he can become a Thug.

;Uba: W1 D1 N1 ?1 (WEDN 100%)-She’s a pretty basic mage. There’s a handful of useful spells for her, like Ghost Grip, Decay, or a few evocation spells depending on picks, but she’s not best used in battle. She can summon the early national summons, and some of the late ones for Shinuyama without help, and make decent researchers. The poison Dagger is not very useful because she is not much of a Melee fighter. She can change shape to the form of a cat. While losing most magic skills in this form (all magic -1), she gain stealth ability and start move 3.

;Bakemono Sorcerer: F2 W1 E2 D2 H1 (FWED 100%, FWED 10%)-This is your combat mage and general purpose summoner. He gets quite a bit of magic for 300 G and is holy, so you’re sure to find a lot of uses for this guy, from summoning to forging, to attack spells. Their main strength is that they can all cast Rust Mist regardless of their paths, which makes even strong units like Knights fall quickly, but be careful not to get your own troops with it. All Bakemono Sorcerers start with Old Age, and Old Age will hurt Precision.

;Yukinaga the Heart Hider

:Fire 1 / Death 1 / Research 4

:Immortal

;Summon Ko-Oni: D1 10 Death Gems-These guys are awful on all levels. There’s more a more efficient use of Death Gems than this, they’re not much more than bad light infantry. They get a second life if they die when they come ethereal and lower hit points.

;Summon Dai Oni: D4 F1 45 Death Gems-The Dai Oni is definitely strong thug, but doesn’t quite have the stats for an SC alone without at least Construction 6. First, it’s sacred and also has the wolf guardians, and magic paths of F2D3E3H1, so some good buffs and attack spells, like Bane Fire or Soul Vortex are an option. They have massive undead leadership, 210, and only improve from there. They also start with Fear +3, and with a horror helm it gets as high as +8! It’s really a pretty good unit for it’s price.

Your early armies will probably include a lot of Kappas and O-bakemonos, which can free up resources for other troops. I usually put them in the front because they can take an arrow from most archers. Put your archers behind them, and on the flanks put your Bakemono-shos set to attack rear to swarm the enemy. This works well for a while, but your army is going to take losses.

You may need to adapt differently to situations, for instance some troops cut through Onis like butter, but would have more trouble with Dai Bakemonos. An elephant, for instance, drops quickly to a small group of O-bakemonos, so there’s no need to get your better troops trampled, or if you are using Behemoth summons yourself you’d change your formations drastically.

If you chose the Great Sage, the first thing you should begin to research is Evocation to level 3. There’s a lot of great spells in that school that will help with early expansion. Rust Mist is a great spell throughout the whole game. Fireball is good for killing barbarians, as is Acid Bolt. That’s going to be your first thing to set.

This pretender strategy is a lot better in the early game when Shinuyama needs the most help. Finding Air sites can be good too, as this bless greatly improves the Tengus and the troops from the Dai Tengu spell to where they’re pretty tough, and in the late game when your good thug/SC summons are sacred.

;Conjuration: As mentioned earlier, all the unique nation only summons are fairly useful from levels 2 to 8. Tangle Vines at 1 isn’t bad for your Ubas early on, and Ghost Grip at 5 is a good spell that nearly everyone you recruit/summon can cast. Dark Knowledge at 2 is a must if you’re site searching, and Harvester of Sorrows at 7 is a cool unit that’ll really tick your neighbors off. There’s a lot of other useful spells here as well, it’s a great school for this nation if you’re using the Luck scales as you’ll have plenty of gems lying around.

;Thaumaturgy: This school is great for site searching, which can be essential if you want to take advantage of your summons and forging quickly. Other good spells include Decay and Frighten, and Dust to Dust for undead killing, at level 1. Rage is a neat little spell at level 3, try casting it on an elephant and watch it wreak havoc on the enemy army. Iron Will also comes at 3 which raises MR, so if your Oni are getting banished you can turn to that spell. There’s a few other cool spells, but most of the spells in this school are for dealing with the undead, so against Ermor this school is a priority but, past level 2 research is better spent.

;Lesser: With either pretender design you’re going to have access to a lot of items, so I’ll just highlight some of the more important ones. Fever Fetish, obviously, works well with this nation, and if you can Clam of Pearls. I also like items that can give melee commanders something to do in safety, like the Scepter of Authority, Black Bow of Botuf, or Ice Pebble Staff. Bane Blades are good for assassins, and the Horror Helmet is good for a lot of purposes.

;Very Powerful: More upgrades here for commanders include Rod of the Phoenix and Banefire Crossbow. There’s also a couple of path boosters, like the Staff of Elemental Mastery or Water Bracelet. Of course the Wraith Sword is great and the Lantern Shield has it’s uses. Bone Armor is great if you can get your hands on it, as is the Robe of Invulnerability and Wraith Crown. The Boots of Stone are good in a pinch.

Shinuyama isn’t really pick up and play, so it takes a bit of practice to figure out what works and what doesn’t and the first few turns can be very difficult. Once you get it down pat though, it’s a bit easier. I do think the nation could use some minor tweaks in future patches, such as giving some sacred summons to your national mages to at least make a bless strategy viable as there’s really no way to summon enough units to keep up with another nation with a couple of castles, but the strength of the later sacred units kind of makes up for it. Anyway, you can still have some fun with it.

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