Delhi Dome of Faith

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Theoretically the cost saving on upgrades and cheap healing for mass :elephant:, are astronomical. And from a balance prospective and in line with delhi meta it requires prep/early investment.

Now the question is:

“Can you survive or even thrive long enough to have 10 scholars and be in castle?”

I believe this is even more so the question to answer when NOT going TOV and considering the ghazi nerf.

Likewise because of the ghazi feudal nerf i still do not believe in the delhi 2TC option.

I think DOF play is tower/DOFscholars FC or sacred sites semi FC. The latter offers at least 125 bonus gold per site you capture (decap takes 60s).

To make 9 scholars from DOF you need 4.5min of production and be able to diverting 130g/min (~3 WB vils on gold or about 1 sacred site) toward said production. That investment is tiny!!! 585 gold?!! Relic captures aside (lulz), 10 total scholars (the 9 made plus the 1 free), allows all your non unit veterancy upgrades to come in less than 2.5mins, meanwhile all your unit veterancies take less than 75s?!!! AT some point you’re bound to have at least 2 Blacksmiths so effectively all non eco castle upgrades will take an effective 75s or less?!! All for 585 Gold?!!!

IT’S even better than described if you have the APM to micro the scholars in and out of facilities to maximize efficiencies.

Again the numbers are insane, BUT can we survive that long without TOV???

LET’S FIND OUT!!

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Even before the patch i predominantly played DOF over TOV just to be different and in hopes of finding something out. Now DOF feels a bit faster than before AND its less taxing to keep it in full production which is the real treat!!! With cheap scholars either speedy upgrades and/or military support becomes a given.

Consider 20 DOF scholars takes a while to train but only net you 1300 gold? That’s cheaper than 20 spears?! Provides over 7x research speed and uber ambient healing for elephants!!

Consider also if siege gets regulated, what will stop a delhi scholar elephants blob??

Nevertheless present day, DOF appears more functional. And some of my suggested fast sacred site fast tech builds appear more competitive.

I’ll have to revisit the maffs on everything .

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DoF is definitely good now, even just in terms of scholars healing units it probably provides more value than ToV, especially from castle onwards where scholars heal much faster, even more so with zeal tech in imperial boosting attack speed of healed units by 50%. ToV also only provides value while fighting while DoF is giving you much more with faster researched eco/military techs and having more scholars on the sacred sites.

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On paper DoF upside appears comparable to TOV, but i need to see it done in practice, bc DOF doesnt make all scholars cheaper just DOF scholars cheaper. While that is insignificant if you’re not losing scholars, but capturing sites, getting relics, and especially active on healing in combat will all expose scholars to death, remassing scholars becomes an issue, either you rebuild 1 at a time with DOF discount or you supplement that with standard scholar production at diminishing returns.

While its definitely easier to keep scholar production near constant at only 130gpm, which is huge!!! If you’re pulling them all say in castle for a huge engagement and lose say 10? That’s 5min of DOF reproduction, that’s very long!!

NEVERTHELESS to your point, scholars (monks imam priests etc) are exceptional at soaking dmg bc no unit has bonus multipliers vs them (one of the abuses of Juicy’s monks…) So in small engagements where scholars cant be sniped in 1 or 2 focus fires, they will end up soaking a lot, a lot of extra dmg.

Piety scholars require 26 feudal archer strikes to die. Early in feudal, that’s a lot of archers. Trading 65g to soak at min 130dmg (260 potential dmg to a spear) has real application in early combat!

ONE MAJOR downside early. I think its done on purpose. Scholars are slooowww unitl swiftness is researched an thats a 7min tech!!! otheriwse scholars in combat would have zero drawback and wpuld be busted if they could move faster earlier. 1.69 speed i faster than a knight.

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Need more time to write up a full post but here are th new numbers for a 6:30 triple sacred site capture attempt.

195g to make 3 scholars out the DOF immediately on age up. Still requires you age up 30s faster than the standard 4 builder speed, which still means you need 7 builders. Reminder, because you’re using 7 builders instead of 4 you lose some gathering opportunities equal to as much as 54 resources, aka you wont be able to afford a lumbercamp during transition, and because of housing timing, you’ll have to que textile immediately on age up in order to keep your TC from going ideal with pop cap issues.

If all you care about is getting this faster site then stop scholar production after making the 3. Also since you effectively lost ~50ish res from using more builders and you spent 65g more than the TOV, you’ll be that much resources behind dropping your first production/blacksmith. You can essentially make up the production/blacksmith time up if you skip the lumber camp and remain on stragglers for longer, but there is a drawback, that mean your double broad axe upgrade is further delayed-scholars will mitigate this, but it will still result in net delay.

Upside:IFF you can actually capture all 3 sites as much as a min earlier? This min alone will net you 375g over the TOV timings, and if you consider the fact the standard 2 scholar TOV build cant capture 3 sites simultaneously, that easily another ~62ish more gold bonus for DoF site times over TOV times. All in all, Iffff, you can capture any to all sites faster, the payoff easily eclipse the earlier investments.

Best scenario all 3 sites cap, 2 for 60s and 1 for 90s:
437.5g (gained) minus 119 resources (differences in cost of the additional scholars plus the resource opportunity cost of using additional landmark builders)= net gain 318.5 resources around the 8min mark of the game.

While nothing is guaranteed, it’s safe to assume delhi is pretty good at getting sites with only a few matchups that can out right deny delhi the attempts??

IMO 318 gold is a lot of resources 8min into the game, but having th production potentially delayed is a major factor that can further impede this favorable outcome??
Correction: the gold at 8min will in fact be 437.5g, the net resources gain compared to Tov timings is 318.5 net resources.
It might turn out that 1min early is too ambitious and using less than 7 builders prove to be more optimum at getting the production timing right, bc more time than not you need units to secure sites.

Let’s keep playing!

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Okay, if i delay my lumbercamp i can keep the 4:20-4:30 production building start time. Next, if you KEEP all your scholars housed in the mosque, you will get the ghazi raiders out a touch slower but you’ll speed up the sanctity timer up and can be ON the sites by 6:17, 6:20.

Only a handful of civs will have the unit mass to contest site captures, i dont think any can prevent all 3 except maybe mongols? Council hall English and Frenches?

All boomer civs will have to forfiet the sites or deviate from their boom. Think about it, most 2nd TC builds have the 2nd Tc up around 5:40(ultra fast) to around 6:00(standard). These builds are not gonna have a unit mass to contest sites at 6:20?? Who’s making a 750 res TC that takes 150s to build plus the mining camp? And can still make a production building AND have sufficient units to contest sites ALL at 6:20-6:50??

Wait… Abbasid military wing, is the only 2TC build that can have sufficient units to deny a site or 2 @6:20, but that’s it!

Next, one of the biggest issues with delhi FC is FOOD!! But if you research Pro Scouts as your first tech you can have it unlock around 7:30-8mins, which is perfect timing to pull in at least you nearest herd in a pinch. And if you’re dealing with an enemy timing? Research the House of Learning House tech first and get mini towers, next make Elephants and GG.

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I’m working on a Delhi FC predominantly to deal with the HRE’s maa feudal all in BS…(maa vs anything feudal that’s not knights or musofadi is so poorly balanced esp given the eco strengths of the HREs).

So far I’ve been getting my ass washed in the conq ranks as i tease out these functional details, but that’s good!! Any decent build should be meaningful at higher levels otherwise it’s a fun lil gimmick at best.

If i can string together 4 or 5 plus wins vs conq2+ I’ll post the details.

Also if you already have an idea please post it!!

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Im glad delhi has finally ascended. Versatility, map control design, broken :elephant: …, useful landmarks.

And dome of faith is now at the heart of all of this!!

(I can’t play delhi a bc how strong they are… I’m use to the constant frustration so i switched over to mali.)

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