Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead AAR

[Boron]

This will be my first (and maybe not my last http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif ) Dominions 3 AAR. I will try to make this AAR quite detailed and informative so that it is (hopefully) interesting to read for both new players and old veterans. All screenshots used that are bigger than 50kb will be attached as thumbnails so that people with a slow internet connection can also enjoy the AAR hopefully because my AARs are always very screenshot-heavy.

If you are a fan of swedish gothic music the title might sound familiar to you. And you are correct, apart from fitting well for Argatha Ktonian Dead it is also the title of a song from Gothminister. I recommend listening to them while playing Argatha Ktonian Dead. Many of their lyrics imho catch exactly the mood of late age Argatha. They are now a quite desperate kingdom. The real Argatheans, the Pale Ones, which form Early Age Argatha have long been wiped out and now the caves of the Pale Ones are ruled by a human necromancer cult.
For further reading pleasure the detailed descriptions for all 3 Argatha Ages:
Early Age Argatha Pale Ones:
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/8159/1df0.th.jpg (http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1df0.jpg)
Middle Age Argatha Golem Cult:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6463/2gy9.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=2gy9.jpg)
Late Age Argatha Ktonian Dead:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8433/3gw6.th.jpg (http://img153.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3gw6.jpg)

So the first important decision has been made, i picked an age and my nation.
Now as second even more important decision i have to build a god for my nation to worship.
To help the decision process let's first check what Argatha's national troops and commanders have to offer.
Troops:
Crossbowmen:
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1425/4dk7.th.jpg (http://img165.imageshack.us/my.php?image=4dk7.jpg)
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/2886/5xw7.th.jpg (http://img174.imageshack.us/my.php?image=5xw7.jpg)
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6572/6zx2.th.jpg (http://img174.imageshack.us/my.php?image=6zx2.jpg)
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/3123/9gj0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Their steel crossbow is an Argathean invention and superior to the crossbows the other human empires use because he inflicts 1 more weapon damage.
Melee Infantry:
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/5534/7wr9.th.jpg (http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7wr9.jpg)
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4593/8cf3.th.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=8cf3.jpg)
http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/4889/10rn3.th.jpg (http://img131.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10rn3.jpg)
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6522/11bv0.th.jpg (http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=11bv0.jpg)

Sapper (Siege unit, +7 siege bonus)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/9978/12ra9.th.jpg (http://img150.imageshack.us/my.php?image=12ra9.jpg)

Cave Knight (the cave dragon continues fighting till the end of the battle if the Knight gets killed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/958/13da8.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=13da8.jpg)

Blindfighter (bless troop, recruitable everywhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif )
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8452/14ri6.th.jpg (http://img204.imageshack.us/my.php?image=14ri6.jpg)

Commanders:
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8805/15ip0.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=15ip0.jpg)
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/830/16zk6.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=16zk6.jpg)
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/3521/17tb5.th.jpg (http://img128.imageshack.us/my.php?image=17tb5.jpg)
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/4478/18ek7.th.jpg (http://img128.imageshack.us/my.php?image=18ek7.jpg)
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8901/19sw4.th.jpg (http://img174.imageshack.us/my.php?image=19sw4.jpg)

Magepriests:
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/7567/20vj2.th.jpg (http://img104.imageshack.us/my.php?image=20vj2.jpg)
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6869/21fl9.th.jpg (http://img201.imageshack.us/my.php?image=21fl9.jpg)
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/5411/22wv0.th.jpg (http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22wv0.jpg)

Interesting changes/new features compared to Dominions 2:
-The old age trait
As you might have noticed the Ktonian Necromancer has a strange philosophical looking head symbol. This means that when we recruit him he is considered to have old age already.
All units and commanders in Dominions 3 have a lifespan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
If they are considered to be of old age you will see the old age symbol. From then on they start to get stat reductions and every new year (every 12 turns) there is a chance to get afflictions from old age. The older the unit already is the higher is the chance that it gets the diseased affliction.
Growth Scale has has a strong impact (unfortunately i do not know the details yet, the manual is not finished yet) on old age. With high growth scale your units of old age are less likely to get afflictions whereas death scale increases the chance. Nature mages get a bonus whereas firemages suffer more from old age. There are also rituals to increase your lifespan.
Most humanoids are considered to be of old age when they are older than 50, mighty summons and some nations (R'leh especially) have a very long lifespan and are considered to be of old age at the age of 1000 or even 2500 years.
I like the introduction of the old age system very much, it makes all your commanders and units more unique and adds much variety because most really good mages are of old age.
-The new randoms system
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/1029/23ro3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
These are the possible magic paths for our Necromancer.
All randoms are now this style and are normally 2-5 different paths. Also they all have a percentage probability.
This means that our Necromancer will get 1 random that is either fire, earth, astral or death magic and then has an additional 10% chance to get another random which can also be either fire,earth,astral or death.
This makes getting magically flexible much tougher in dominions 3. So each nation has to work much harder to get an expert in every of the 8 possible paths and has the result that all nations feel more unique than in dominions 2.
-Changed holy system
Now priest levels range from lvl 1-4.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/583/24ib2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Requirements for the priest spells got also reduced 1 level per spell and word of power is a new spell.
There are now more priests with lvl 3, so Smite is a more common spell http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Now that we took a closer look at all national units and commanders of our nation we can start designing our god.
Argatha has many very promising looking units and commanders.
The necromancer is a very powerful battlemage (more about that in later chapters when he goes to real combat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ), the crossbow troops are very useful and the blindfighter looks decent enough to try a bless strat because he has already very promising base stats.
I need lots of money though to use many necromancers and if i want to recruit blindfighters i need also productivity because they need many resources.
With all that in mind it turns out that there is one god that seems optimal for my planned strategy.
You can btw save your gods now, so you do not need to make a new god every time again but you can instead simply load your old successful builds if you want to use them again.

I select an already known god from dominions 2. Sorry about that, but unfortunately my most disliked god is optimal for my strat and thus i have to pick a great mother as god.
For other strats there would be some other very interesting gods though:
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/8836/25be4.th.jpg (http://img111.imageshack.us/my.php?image=25be4.jpg)
Two of them are Argatha-only, no other nation has them.
The Olm
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9766/26ik1.th.jpg (http://img243.imageshack.us/my.php?image=26ik1.jpg)
and the Oracle
http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/6088/27kz5.th.jpg (http://img125.imageshack.us/my.php?image=27kz5.jpg).
Notice that the Oracle is immortal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. That makes it very interesting to attempt a SC (SC=Supercombattant, meaning a commander who can solely kill a whole enemy army) strategy.

(Warning: Not for the faint hearted, view the screenshot at your own risk http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/8759/28dv3.th.jpg (http://img124.imageshack.us/my.php?image=28dv3.jpg)
We pick though the Great Mother because we want to try a 1,5 bless strat(boronian neologism, meaning a major (lvl9) bless combined with one minor (lvl4-8) bless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/8830/29vo4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
We pick an earth 9 nature 4 1,5 bless, this should increase the combat value of our blind fighters quite a bit and help your necromancers to cast more spells. Note that you now immediately see the bless effects, so you do not need to look in the manual what the effects of your bless are.
Dominions 3 has many such nice small improvements and is thus more accessible than Dominions 2 where you were forced to read the manual. Dominions 3 you should be able to play without reading the manual at all, playing the tutorial should be enough. Nontheless it is recommended of course to read the manual nontheless, but you could start playing Dominions 3 without reading the manual as a new player http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

As scales we pick very economical scales:
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/323/30uh4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

If you are an old dominions 2 veteran you probably begin to wonder how this is possible. If you look at our bless, god and scales you will notice that in Dominions 2 this design should cost -92 points.
The design becomes possible though through the new feature to chose your desired awakening.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2585/31nd3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
We pick imprisoned, this gives us 250 extra points. In Dominions 2 you had 500 base points for god design, in Dominions 3 you only have 350 base points for god design but can get up to 250 extra points by deciding to use a non-awake god.
Imprisoned means that our god will not be available from the start of the game on, but escape out of his prison within 3 years +/- half a year as random factor. So around turn 30-42 our great mother will manage to escape her prison and from then on we can use her too.
If we would have taken dormant our god would have awakened within a year +/- a few months random factor, so around turn 12.
Awake finally is self explanatory.

Now we have done all adjustments. Fort selection is gone. Each nation now has a couple of forts they can build, they are terrain dependent. So in mountain terrain all nations will have a different fort type than in farmland etc..
Imho this feature is a good idea too, it removes the old watch tower castle spamming problem which many people disliked in Dominions 2.

This is also a good opportunity to end the first chapter and just in time because my weekly Eu2 MP game starts in 20 minutes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. After the MP game i will probably write the second chapter about the first couple of turns for our wannabe Goth-Necro-Argatha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[okiN]

Yay, a second AAR! Can't wait for it to get rolling.

[Nerfix]

Woot for AARs! A human necromancer cult eh?

[Oversway]

Whats wrong with the earth mother? She's not so bad...

Are you going to test the new unit limits in this game, or keep it smaller?

[Nerfix]

TOO FREAKING COOL!

Thanks a lot for the pictures, and the new random magic system looks HOT!'

I also like the new info about the starting points etc.

Keep going!

[okiN]

Agreed, this AAR has gotten off to a stupendous start. I can't wait for the turn posts.

[Nerfix]

Man this makes me want the game even more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Frostmourne27]

More AARs are allways nice, expecially dom3 ones... but I'm puzzled by the new random system. In the above example, does that mean that the mages will sometimes have more magic than other times ie 1 in 10 will have an extra point of magic?

[Kristoffer O]

Yep

[Ballbarian]

Strange. I can pull the links from the source and view the pictures on imageshack, but I can't see them in your post. Not having that problem in any other post that I know of. Am I the only one? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

OS: WinXP
Browser: Firefox

[PashaDawg]

Thanks, Boron!

[Boron]

Ok now our god is complete, so we have to decide the rest of the settings. Let's start the game.
We will play a huge game with all late era nations, 18 in total:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5485/1vt6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We set the AIs to mighty. In Dominions 2 the AIs on impossible got +70% gold and gem income and some other minor boni.
In Dominions 3 the AIs on mighty get +60% gold and gem income and also some other minor boni.
There is also impossible, where AIs get +100%. On impossible my surviving chances are too small because the AIs are imho much better in Dominions 3 than in Dominions 2. They now build lots of castles for example. This change alone makes the mighty AI setting in Dominions 3 already tougher than the impossible AI in Dominions 2.
Versus impossible AIs in Dominions 3 you have only a chance if you micromanage extremely (which i normally do not do, yeah shame on me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and if you are a bit lucky too.
Two of the 17 AI nations are death dominion nations, this makes it even tougher. I will try to micromanage more than usual, but nontheless i think i have not a very high survival chance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
The AIs also have now 3 behaviour settings which can be chosen:
Defensive, aggressive and normal. I chose random behaviour for all AIs.

Now it is time to chose the game settings:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/1860/2ul6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The money, resource and supply multiplier settings are new. In 25 point steps you can chose anything between 50 and 300 points. 300 points means then 300% compared to the normal 100 points whereas 50 points means only 50%.
I leave all 3 at the default 100%.
Gold income in Dominions 3 is about 2,5 times higher than in Dominions 2 and supply got also increased by roughly the same factor.
Magic site frequency i set to 75%. This does not fit the mood of late era too well, the default setting for site frequency for late era is 35% whereas it is 50% for early era, but with site frequency this high i find hopefully enough sites to show most of the nation specific summons Argatha gets and also some other of the new summons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
And it will lead to bigger battles as a positive side effect too. The other settings are rather standard as well, so we only need to select a map and then we can start.

As map i select the beautiful new Dominions 3 map Glory of Gods from Jason Lutes. It is a quite large map, so we need to zoom out much to show the whole map (some parts are covered by the UI though):
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7145/3bs0.th.jpg (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3bs0.jpg)
480 land and 122 sea provinces, so roughly 1,5 times the size of large faerun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
We are lucky and start almost in a corner position.
Because the map is so big i cannot write about every single move/battle, so the first turns will be detailed and then only key battles and key decisions will be presented in detail, otherwise the AAR might exceed 1000 pages (and the writer's sanity might be in danger too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

On turn 1 there is not much to do. I send my scout towards the bottom corner because there is probably one AI nation, i prophet my starting commander and check for mercs:
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/6421/4vh5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Only Frodo available. Well hobbits eh hoburgs have to die http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, so lets bid 225 for him.
For our remaining 175 gold we recruit
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/5972/5pf7.th.jpg (http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=5pf7.jpg)
an attendant of the dead, 2 blindfighters and 1 heavy crossbow.
I am not very happy with this decision, the attendant of the dead will not be too useful with my build because i picked drain 2 and i would have rather had a 3rd blindfighter instead of the heavy crossbow.
But i decided to recruit the attendant of the dead because i picked misfortune 3 scale. So the chance is not too low that i might get my first bad event already on turn 2. If this would be a "lab destroy" event i would be totally screwed because i could not build any new mages till my god awakens around turn 36.
So i need to buy the attendant and thus in order to use the remaining resources have to build the heavy crossbow who does not fit into my planned expansion concept too well neither. Everything important has been done now though, so we end our turn.
Time for the first "waiting for turn hosting" commercial:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4784/7sp1.th.jpg (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7sp1.jpg)

Seriously though hosting is quite fast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. For a late turn on a big map it can take about 5 minutes though for all the calculations. I have the impression though that it is nontheless faster than hosting time in Dominions 2 on epic Faerun SP games.

Turn 2:
We indeed got Frodo. And we have our first spy reports now too:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1773/8tz6.th.jpg (http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=8tz6.jpg)

Merovia, the province with only 30 light infantry (=LI) and militia looks weak enough. We will use Frodo against them.

The ship wreckers are available now as mercs too for 150. We bid 155 for them.
http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/5049/9dy2.jpg
With the rest of our money we can hire 1 necro and 3 blindfighers and use up the remaining resources and gold http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Turn 3:
Our hobbits owned the indies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.
http://img305.imageshack.us/img305/4007/10hz5.jpg

Those red numbers are a new feature. They show how much damage your units inflicted in combat. So now you see when your SC dies from a lucky enemy open ended dice roll http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Normal damage is shown in red colour, poison damage in green colour and cold damage in blue colour.

http://img283.imageshack.us/img283/1369/11nb8.jpg
Not a single hobbit died http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. We also got the ship wreckers.
http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/2326/12st8.jpg
Unfortunately there is an inkpot end in merovia and the population is very low, so our first conquest is rather worthless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

We have enough money to order another necro, bid for the black bones pirates and 3 new blind fighters.
We spend our research on thaumaturgy for thaumaturgy 2 first. Research costs are doubled in Dom3, so we need 40 points instead of 20 for the first research level.

Turn 4:
Oh no, an enemy archer hit Frodo. So despite only losing 3 other hobbits because of the death of their leader the whole squad is lost. This is annoying, i thought i have placed frodo backwards enough http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
The battle replay reveals then that he died later while our troops were attacking. He was scripted to stay behind, unfortunately a stray arrow hit him.
http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/1649/13fx9.jpg
The arrow inflicted 6 damage. So the damageroll for the arrow has been quite lucky, because it was a shortbow arrow with 10 base damage, and Frodo has 14 body and 15 head protection (another new concept, now body and head protection are seperated, that means that a unit with e.g. 20 body but only 5 head protection can occasionaly get hit on the head too (i do not know the exact concepts, maybe they will be in the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and thus can get killed because head protection was much lower than body protection ). So the shortbow hit had a really good damage roll, 10 higher than Frodo's protection roll!
This will severly limit our expansion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Ordering another necro and 4 blindfighters and "suiciding" the ship wreckers + black bone pirates onto another indy province.

Turn 5:
Bah. A vampire count attacks one of our provinces (random event). Fortunately he decided to attack the province with the inkpod end. And my mercenary attack was really a suicide, the defending indies were tougher as i thought.
A very unsuccessful turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
I decide that it is time to use our blind fighters.
http://img320.imageshack.us/img320/2149/14qt5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Turn 6:
Nothing really important happens. The Elephant Corps mercs have liberated our province from the vampire count and our blindfighter army conquered another province.
The next turns we are probably doing only what we did since the last turns:
-Check for mercs
-Buy new necros and blindfighters
-Conquer more indies

So i will speed up the process a bit and only tell unexpected or otherwise particularly noteworthy happenings for the next couple of turns. This way i can describe more detailed when early game ends (= when we run out of indies to conquer and need to start the first war with an AI nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

Turn 7:
http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/5038/15pi1.jpg
We build our first castle. Now each nation gets 3-4 different castle types depending on terrain. There will probably be a detailed castle chart for the nation specific castles in the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
We are lucky, only 4 turns to build. Afaik 4 turns is the fastest possible castle build speed in Dom3.

Turn 8:
Hehe 2 magic sites at once:
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/662/16ii4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A gold mine (+100 gold income) and an iron cliff (+1 earth gem).

Turn 9:
We conquered a coastal province with /threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gifies (= Ichtyids). Hurray. Only 33 resources though unfortunately, a castle has priority there. We start building an army of /threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gifies there. They are afaik the only way to enter the sea via indies. Because in Dom3 water mages can no longer automatically enter the sea. So you have to forge them water breathing equipment. There are still shamblers in coastal provinces too, but only as unit, but without a commander. Because those shamblers you only get via a magic site.
So those coastal provinces with /threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gify population are the only way to conquer sea provinces without using summons or forging water breathing items afaik. Well unless your nation has aquatic units and commanders of course like e.g. late era Atlantis.

Btw has no blindfighter yet died because there was no long battle yet. If the battles last <10 turns fatigue doesn't become a problem and the blindfighters are nearly unkillable by most indies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Turn 11:
Lol we get 2 random events, and both are positive. Misfortune 3 rocks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. Seriously this happened because 1 of the two events happened in a border province which is still outside of our dominion, so has 0 misfortune scale, so a 50:50 chance for good:bad events and the other one happened in a province where we have dominion, but not yet 3 but only 2 misfortune scale, so about 75% chance for a bad event.
All in all we have been very lucky nontheless to get 2 good events.
Outrunning your own dominion quickly with maximum negative scales is btw an old veteran strat which especially QM uses often. It still works well in Dom3, probably even slightly better than in Dom2 because more nations have good bless troops than in Dom2 and viable bless troops are a strong motivator to use bad scales.
This is especially important to keep in mind for new players. If you expand faster than your dominion spreads (and use purposely a low dominion, just enough to not dominiondie) you can somewhat negate your negative scale effects because afaik provinces which are not your dominion are treated as provinces with neutral scales. So they are like turmoil 0 or misfortune 0 provinces then for you instead of turmoil 3 misfortune 3 provinces.
If the enemy dominion there has the same bad scales as you then the provinces are treated for you as turmoil 3 misfortune 3 provinces too though iirc. You only do not profit from positive enemy scales, those provinces are then treated for you like with neutral scales.

I have to try to spread my dominion though, so i have soon to start building some temples to profit from my good scales and more important to keep out ermor and ryleh dominions because those are popkiller dominions. I do not know if i neighbor one of them yet, since i somehow forget in almost every game to use indy scouts and did so in this game too ... .

Turn 13:
Our little empire grows.
http://img419.imageshack.us/img419/9274/17sh3.jpg
Another new Dom3 feature. Random events can now happen in indy provinces too. If a random event creates armies, those armies stay and fight together with the native indy armies already present. This can lead to very nasty indy provinces. In a blitz game i had once the bad luck that an indy province had had 2 barbarian attack and 1 vampire count reveals himself events, so there have been then the normal indy troops, about 150 barbarians, 20 vampires and the count. Also this adds a new random factor. If the indy event happens in the same turn in which you try to conquer the indy province the event indies fight there too. So you can never be 100% sure that you will only fight those indies the spy report tells you about when trying to conquer an indy province. So if you have really bad luck theoretically the vampire count event e.g. might happen in the turn your SC god attacks a province and he might get killed while buffing by the flying vampires who attack him. Iirc this indeed already happened to me in one game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In this game i dare not to attack this province, probably 50 or more barbarians have a good chance of overwhelming my ~10 blindfighters i have there. Since blindfighters are slow (1 mapmovement) i have to wait for new mercs because i will get them probably faster than it would take to travel to new indies (would take 3 turns). So the mercs can then play cannon fodder http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. The blackfists which played this role are decimated down to 1 man, so i have to wait for new mercs.

Turn 15:
http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/2900/18yd4.jpg
A slightly unpleasant turn. Our new fort gets besieged by a barbarian horde (random event) and the indy province enchanced with barbarians has beaten my conquest force.
This battle told me that i do not understand yet the Dominions 3 routing rules. Also my first 2 blind fighters died /threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif.

Situation right before the rout:
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/1844/19uk2.jpg
It is currently the enemy turn, the barbarians did break our fodder mercs in that turn. Then our blindfighers, who were a seperate squad and just started creeping (5 actionpoints, that doesn't deserve getting called moving http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif ) towards the enemy routed also. Fortunately they were still at the corner of the battlefield, otherwise the barbarians would have slaughtered them all. So only one died to the barbarians and the other 12 escaped. Under dominions 2 rules because they were a seperate squad they would have been unimpressed by the slaughtering of the fodder militia and would have continued fighting. Now they routed at the same time when the militia mercs routed. I know that routing rules got changed for Dom 3, but i do not know how exactly they got changed. The change lead to my humiliating defeat though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif.

At least we soon have enough fishies for attempting to go underwater. The army at my capitol i left there purposely as a reserve if i run into an AI. It has not yet happened, but should soon happen. In most of my former games i expanded like hell and then almost simultaneously got attacked by 2-3 AI neighbors i ran into and they did beat my scattered armies then and because i had no reserves did wipe me out. So this time i left some reserves to be prepared just in case. Or at least i try to convince myself of that via Boronian autosuggestion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif.
My "save" but slower expansion seems to work so far well enough, i am nontheless leading in the province race.
http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/8791/20qk1.jpg
Mictlan is 2nd and Ermor 3rd. That might mean that Mictlan has a good bless.

The AI expands normally slower than a human the first 20 turns, even on impossible. This is because the AI uses big armies normally. The effect of this is normally that you start getting confident around turn 20, then around that you also run into your first AI neighbors, and you have your armies spreaded out whereas the AI has massed their armies and attacks you very likely then and beats your spreaded armies. It can be quite mean http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. You start feeling confident and 5 turns later the dream is over and the AI is overwhelming you. So basically the AI lets you expand (and suffer casualities from indies) and then steals the provinces from you. Quite nasty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In the next update we should meet our neighbors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Expect the next update in ca. 15-20 hours http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[ioticus]

On the Design Dominion screen shot shouldn't it list Productivity 3 as giving resources +30%?

[Frostmourne27]

It does for me... The second last image of Boron's first post, the one shwing all the scales? It says income +6%, resources +30%. (Doesn't it?)

[ioticus]

Frostmourne27 said:
It does for me... The second last image of Boron's first post, the one shwing all the scales? It says income +6%, resources +30%. (Doesn't it?)



On my screen is says resources 30%. The '+' is absent.

[Kristoffer O]

> ... first bad event already on turn 2. If this would be a "lab destroy" even ...

Lab destroyed cannot happen before turn 5 now IIRC.

[Frostmourne27]

About the + thing, yeah, sorry, it is missing a +. I don't know what I was thinking. Still, I think it's fairly clear, productivity probably doesn't lower resources to 30% of base or anything...

[okiN]

Wow, this promises to be one hell of a brawl. Looking forward to more.

[Nerfix]

I have a question...what's Middle Era Ulm like?

That map looks gorgeous. Let's hope you have good luck with those sites. Can't wait to see all the new summons.

And I can't put to words how much I apreciate pictures. Preeettyyy pictureeees~

[Turin]

Very nicely done.
Looking forward to the actual gameplay stuff .

[PashaDawg]

Hi Boron:

I did not see Machaka or Pythium on the list of nations. Is that just because you cannot play all late era nations in one game (i.e., there are more than 18 of 'em)?

Thanks again for th AAR.

Pasha

[Oversway]

480 land and 122 sea provinces, so roughly 1,5 times the size of large faerun



Nice! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kristoffer O]

They doesn't exist in the late era. Some nations appear, and other disappear with the ages. Other are just reformed.

[JaydedOne]

These AARs are -very- enjoyable. Thank you for the effort in putting them together. They make the wait for Dom3 release both more and less bearable at the same time. ;-)

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:
They doesn't exist in the late era. Some nations appear, and other disappear with the ages. Other are just reformed.

Oh? What replaces the two?

[okiN]

Nerfix said:Oh? What replaces the two?



Patala and Jomon?

[PashaDawg]

Is it correct to assume that it is not possible to have a game involving nations from different eras (e.g., Machaka vs. Late Era Ermor)?

Pasha

[Kristoffer O]

You can easily use mods to put any nation in ant era. Some betatesters happily threw all nations of all eras into one big game. So you can throw pythium or machaka in LA games with a simple mod. All players must agree though. In SP it is no problem of course.

[Boron]

First thanks to all for all the nice comments. Those really motivate even more to continue writing the AAR http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Unfortunately i had not enough time yet today so i will answer first the unanswered comments and will write the update today night instead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Oversway said:

Whats wrong with the earth mother? She's not so bad...

Are you going to test the new unit limits in this game, or keep it smaller?


Nothing is wrong with the earth mother, i only do not like her green skin and her drawing in general. So i normally avoid using her out of aesthetic reasons. She is the only pretender i find unaesthetic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I am not sure if i may comment on the unit limit sorry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Normally even on the glory of gods map it should not be a problem though, so much i think i can say http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Ballbarian said:
Strange. I can pull the links from the source and view the pictures on imageshack, but I can't see them in your post. Not having that problem in any other post that I know of. Am I the only one? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

OS: WinXP
Browser: Firefox


Can you maybe post a screenshot?
It looks as if you have problems with the thumbnails, but i am not sure which problem exactly. For me and some people i asked the screenshots seem to work fine. But if you attach a screenshot how the chapter looks for you i think we can hopefully solve the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


ioticus said:
On the Design Dominion screen shot shouldn't it list Productivity 3 as giving resources +30%?


You are correct, it only shows it as 30%. If you take sloth 3 it shows -30% though.


okiN said:
Wow, this promises to be one hell of a brawl. Looking forward to more.


Yeah http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. And now that the AI builds new castles and with more supply than in dom2 and lots of other changes that slightly strengthen national troops and slightly nerf SCs and Mages expect some 1000 troop battles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif


PashaDawg said:
Hi Boron:

I did not see Machaka or Pythium on the list of nations. Is that just because you cannot play all late era nations in one game (i.e., there are more than 18 of 'em)?

Thanks again for th AAR.

Pasha


Glad to see that you are interested in Dominions 3. Though QM has converted me into a blitz fanatic (and a classic longterm game disliker) i am really looking forward to play a longterm Dominions 3 game with you. Aku probably buys Dominions 3 too, so maybe we can get a nostalgia MP game going. Can't await to read your unique comments about the MP then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Dominions 3 has about 60 nations. Nations have now a history, so some nations are present in all 3 eras with different units. Each era has about 20 nations. So the late era game is with all late era nations.
As Kristoffer said with a mod it is no problem to play a game with all 60 nations. But to my great surprise, i could not believe first that i will like the era system i really like the era system. This way Dominions got a history http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Some nations are in one era only because they got annilihated at the end of the era. Some nations are present in all 3 eras but have declined in late era.
The sea nations are an example for that.
Oceania is in early and mid era, in late era it does not exist anymore because Ryleh annilihated them. Ryleh is the only nation that starts in the sea in late era. Atlantis still exists, but Ryleh has defeated Atlantis too, so Atlantis was forced to leave the sea and splitted into 2 cultures. The smaller one now lives in the Mictlan rain forests and provides their best mages, the larger one forms late era Atlantis which was inspired by the Innuit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Nerfix said:
I have a question...what's Middle Era Ulm like?

That map looks gorgeous. Let's hope you have good luck with those sites. Can't wait to see all the new summons.

And I can't put to words how much I apreciate pictures. Preeettyyy pictureeees~


Middle Era Ulm has not changed very much, it is basically base Ulm from Dominions 2 with some slight changes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Middle Era in general is very close to Dominions 2. There are of course the new nations too, but most of the other nations are very similiar to dominions 2, though all of them have gotten some changes.
In early and late era though there are many new nations and the known ones from dom2 have gotten big changes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

So middle era reminds on Dominions 2 whereas early and late era feel very new and add most new content http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Glad that you like the pictures, many will follow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Ballbarian]

Can you maybe post a screenshot?
It looks as if you have problems with the thumbnails, but i am not sure which problem exactly. For me and some people i asked the screenshots seem to work fine. But if you attach a screenshot how the chapter looks for you i think we can hopefully solve the problem



Attaching a screen shot. I trimmed it to keep the size reasonable.

Enjoyed reading your AAR but feel like I am really missing out by not viewing the thumbs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Agrajag]

I was sure I said how cool this AAR is, but it seems like I didn't really post in here.
In that case...

All hail Boron, Author of AARs, Abolisher of Boredom, Bringer of Screenshots.
Having spent a whole lot of time playing Dominions, there is nothing left for Borong but to claim godhood.

[Nerfix]

okiN said:

Nerfix said:Oh? What replaces the two?



Patala and Jomon?

But Patala and Jomon also exist as new nations in the old eras...

[okiN]

Nerfix said:But Patala and Jomon also exist as new nations in the old eras...



In that case: i dunno, lol ¯\(º_o)/¯

[Nerfix]

okiN said:¯\(º_o)/¯

Wonderful, I love that smiley.

[WraithLord]

Thanks Boron, for giving us this detailed AAR packed with screen shots.

As JaydedOne mentioned before, it makes the waiting for dom-III both more and less bearable.

[Boron]

Ballbarian said:
Attaching a screen shot. I trimmed it to keep the size reasonable.

Enjoyed reading your AAR but feel like I am really missing out by not viewing the thumbs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif


That looks indeed evil http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Normally it should look like in the attachment.
I have to use thumbnails imho by the masses of screenshots i use, otherwise for ppl with modem or isdn one thread page with 2-3 AAR chapters would probably load for 15 minutes or so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Does anyone know another good picture host service?
I do not necessarily need to use imageshack http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Also does anyone else have the same problems as Ballbarian?
If you view it with other browsers like netscape or internet explorer do you have the same problem?
Or maybe another reader knows what to do to solve Ballbarian's problem?

[PashaDawg]

The AAR works fine on my Mac at home and my PC at work.

[Aku]

No problems on internet explorer here.

I also use imageshack and not sure of another picture hosting site.

[Ballbarian]

Found the problem. For some reason my EZ Trust firewall was blocking the thumbs. Haven't figured out what it didn't like about them, but at least I can get the images now. If it turns out that others are having similar problems, and if it were not too much extra work, a simple work around would be to post a text link to the image following the thumb.

Thank you for the AAR and your help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Boron]

Agrajag said:
I was sure I said how cool this AAR is, but it seems like I didn't really post in here.
In that case...

All hail Boron, Author of AARs, Abolisher of Boredom, Bringer of Screenshots.
Having spent a whole lot of time playing Dominions, there is nothing left for Borong but to claim godhood.


Hehe thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Ballbarian said:
Found the problem. For some reason my EZ Trust firewall was blocking the thumbs. Haven't figured out what it didn't like about them, but at least I can get the images now. If it turns out that others are having similar problems, and if it were not too much extra work, a simple work around would be to post a text link to the image following the thumb.

Thank you for the AAR and your help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Hm that might indeed be the better idea. Future screenies that are bigger than ~ 50 kb i post only the direct link. Cause on the Thumbnail you cannot see anything anyways but it uses 40 kb or so too, that are another 5 seconds for someone with isdn to load. And if there are 40 thumbnails per threadpage that would be 40x5 seconds then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.


WraithLord said:
Thanks Boron, for giving us this detailed AAR packed with screen shots.

As JaydedOne mentioned before, it makes the waiting for dom-III both more and less bearable.


Yeah i know exactly how you must feel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. And i am a very impatient person often so if i wait for something i really want even something like 5 days are for me like waiting for a year http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Nerfix said:

okiN said:

Nerfix said:Oh? What replaces the two?



Patala and Jomon?

But Patala and Jomon also exist as new nations in the old eras...


They are named differently for each era.

Early era "india": Kailasa
Middle era "india": Bandar Log
Late era "india": Patala

Early era "japan": Yomi
Middle era "japan": Shinuyama
Late era "japan": Jomon

Edit: I am awfully sorry but today i somehow had never 2-4 hours time in a row to continue the AAR. But since i only play Eu2 MP on tuesday and wednesday and the tuesday MP is now over this should mean that tomorrow and on friday i can write at least 1 new chapter. And i will try to write an additional chapter for the promised but now not written finish of the 2nd chapter.
Since i have semester holidays with luck i hope to finish the AAR till October, so that it is finished about when Dom3 gets released http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[DominionsFan]

Thanks for the AAR Boron, I really enjoyed it....http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Boron]

Finished the second chapter. Since it is on the first page of the thread and i did not find a way to backlink to it from here i am simply posting the chapter again so that you do not have to search it in the first page of the thread.
Enjoy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

Ok now our god is complete, so we have to decide the rest of the settings. Let's start the game.
We will play a huge game with all late era nations, 18 in total:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5485/1vt6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We set the AIs to mighty. In Dominions 2 the AIs on impossible got +70% gold and gem income and some other minor boni.
In Dominions 3 the AIs on mighty get +60% gold and gem income and also some other minor boni.
There is also impossible, where AIs get +100%. On impossible my surviving chances are too small because the AIs are imho much better in Dominions 3 than in Dominions 2. They now build lots of castles for example. This change alone makes the mighty AI setting in Dominions 3 already tougher than the impossible AI in Dominions 2.
Versus impossible AIs in Dominions 3 you have only a chance if you micromanage extremely (which i normally do not do, yeah shame on me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and if you are a bit lucky too.
Two of the 17 AI nations are death dominion nations, this makes it even tougher. I will try to micromanage more than usual, but nontheless i think i have not a very high survival chance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
The AIs also have now 3 behaviour settings which can be chosen:
Defensive, aggressive and normal. I chose random behaviour for all AIs.

Now it is time to chose the game settings:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/1860/2ul6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The money, resource and supply multiplier settings are new. In 25 point steps you can chose anything between 50 and 300 points. 300 points means then 300% compared to the normal 100 points whereas 50 points means only 50%.
I leave all 3 at the default 100%.
Gold income in Dominions 3 is about 2,5 times higher than in Dominions 2 and supply got also increased by roughly the same factor.
Magic site frequency i set to 75%. This does not fit the mood of late era too well, the default setting for site frequency for late era is 35% whereas it is 50% for early era, but with site frequency this high i find hopefully enough sites to show most of the nation specific summons Argatha gets and also some other of the new summons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
And it will lead to bigger battles as a positive side effect too. The other settings are rather standard as well, so we only need to select a map and then we can start.

As map i select the beautiful new Dominions 3 map Glory of Gods from Jason Lutes. It is a quite large map, so we need to zoom out much to show the whole map (some parts are covered by the UI though):
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7145/3bs0.th.jpg (http://img178.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3bs0.jpg)
480 land and 122 sea provinces, so roughly 1,5 times the size of large faerun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
We are lucky and start almost in a corner position.
Because the map is so big i cannot write about every single move/battle, so the first turns will be detailed and then only key battles and key decisions will be presented in detail, otherwise the AAR might exceed 1000 pages (and the writer's sanity might be in danger too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

On turn 1 there is not much to do. I send my scout towards the bottom corner because there is probably one AI nation, i prophet my starting commander and check for mercs:
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/6421/4vh5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Only Frodo available. Well hobbits eh hoburgs have to die http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, so lets bid 225 for him.
For our remaining 175 gold we recruit
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/5972/5pf7.th.jpg (http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=5pf7.jpg)
an attendant of the dead, 2 blindfighters and 1 heavy crossbow.
I am not very happy with this decision, the attendant of the dead will not be too useful with my build because i picked drain 2 and i would have rather had a 3rd blindfighter instead of the heavy crossbow.
But i decided to recruit the attendant of the dead because i picked misfortune 3 scale. So the chance is not too low that i might get my first bad event already on turn 2. If this would be a "lab destroy" event i would be totally screwed because i could not build any new mages till my god awakens around turn 36.
So i need to buy the attendant and thus in order to use the remaining resources have to build the heavy crossbow who does not fit into my planned expansion concept too well neither. Everything important has been done now though, so we end our turn.
Time for the first "waiting for turn hosting" commercial:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4784/7sp1.th.jpg (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=7sp1.jpg)

Seriously though hosting is quite fast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. For a late turn on a big map it can take about 5 minutes though for all the calculations. I have the impression though that it is nontheless faster than hosting time in Dominions 2 on epic Faerun SP games.

Turn 2:
We indeed got Frodo. And we have our first spy reports now too:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1773/8tz6.th.jpg (http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=8tz6.jpg)

Merovia, the province with only 30 light infantry (=LI) and militia looks weak enough. We will use Frodo against them.

The ship wreckers are available now as mercs too for 150. We bid 155 for them.
http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/5049/9dy2.jpg
With the rest of our money we can hire 1 necro and 3 blindfighers and use up the remaining resources and gold http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Turn 3:
Our hobbits owned the indies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.
http://img305.imageshack.us/img305/4007/10hz5.jpg

Those red numbers are a new feature. They show how much damage your units inflicted in combat. So now you see when your SC dies from a lucky enemy open ended dice roll http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Normal damage is shown in red colour, poison damage in green colour and cold damage in blue colour.

http://img283.imageshack.us/img283/1369/11nb8.jpg
Not a single hobbit died http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. We also got the ship wreckers.
http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/2326/12st8.jpg
Unfortunately there is an inkpot end in merovia and the population is very low, so our first conquest is rather worthless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

We have enough money to order another necro, bid for the black bones pirates and 3 new blind fighters.
We spend our research on thaumaturgy for thaumaturgy 2 first. Research costs are doubled in Dom3, so we need 40 points instead of 20 for the first research level.

Turn 4:
Oh no, an enemy archer hit Frodo. So despite only losing 3 other hobbits because of the death of their leader the whole squad is lost. This is annoying, i thought i have placed frodo backwards enough http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
The battle replay reveals then that he died later while our troops were attacking. He was scripted to stay behind, unfortunately a stray arrow hit him.
http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/1649/13fx9.jpg
The arrow inflicted 6 damage. So the damageroll for the arrow has been quite lucky, because it was a shortbow arrow with 10 base damage, and Frodo has 14 body and 15 head protection (another new concept, now body and head protection are seperated, that means that a unit with e.g. 20 body but only 5 head protection can occasionaly get hit on the head too (i do not know the exact concepts, maybe they will be in the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and thus can get killed because head protection was much lower than body protection ). So the shortbow hit had a really good damage roll, 10 higher than Frodo's protection roll!
This will severly limit our expansion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Ordering another necro and 4 blindfighters and "suiciding" the ship wreckers + black bone pirates onto another indy province.

Turn 5:
Bah. A vampire count attacks one of our provinces (random event). Fortunately he decided to attack the province with the inkpod end. And my mercenary attack was really a suicide, the defending indies were tougher as i thought.
A very unsuccessful turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
I decide that it is time to use our blind fighters.
http://img320.imageshack.us/img320/2149/14qt5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Turn 6:
Nothing really important happens. The Elephant Corps mercs have liberated our province from the vampire count and our blindfighter army conquered another province.
The next turns we are probably doing only what we did since the last turns:
-Check for mercs
-Buy new necros and blindfighters
-Conquer more indies

So i will speed up the process a bit and only tell unexpected or otherwise particularly noteworthy happenings for the next couple of turns. This way i can describe more detailed when early game ends (= when we run out of indies to conquer and need to start the first war with an AI nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

Turn 7:
http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/5038/15pi1.jpg
We build our first castle. Now each nation gets 3-4 different castle types depending on terrain. There will probably be a detailed castle chart for the nation specific castles in the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
We are lucky, only 4 turns to build. Afaik 4 turns is the fastest possible castle build speed in Dom3.

Turn 8:
Hehe 2 magic sites at once:
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/662/16ii4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A gold mine (+100 gold income) and an iron cliff (+1 earth gem).

Turn 9:
We conquered a coastal province with /threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gifies (= Ichtyids). Hurray. Only 33 resources though unfortunately, a castle has priority there. We start building an army of /threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gifies there. They are afaik the only way to enter the sea via indies. Because in Dom3 water mages can no longer automatically enter the sea. So you have to forge them water breathing equipment. There are still shamblers in coastal provinces too, but only as unit, but without a commander. Because those shamblers you only get via a magic site.
So those coastal provinces with /threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gify population are the only way to conquer sea provinces without using summons or forging water breathing items afaik. Well unless your nation has aquatic units and commanders of course like e.g. late era Atlantis.

Btw has no blindfighter yet died because there was no long battle yet. If the battles last <10 turns fatigue doesn't become a problem and the blindfighters are nearly unkillable by most indies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Turn 11:
Lol we get 2 random events, and both are positive. Misfortune 3 rocks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. Seriously this happened because 1 of the two events happened in a border province which is still outside of our dominion, so has 0 misfortune scale, so a 50:50 chance for good:bad events and the other one happened in a province where we have dominion, but not yet 3 but only 2 misfortune scale, so about 75% chance for a bad event.
All in all we have been very lucky nontheless to get 2 good events.
Outrunning your own dominion quickly with maximum negative scales is btw an old veteran strat which especially QM uses often. It still works well in Dom3, probably even slightly better than in Dom2 because more nations have good bless troops than in Dom2 and viable bless troops are a strong motivator to use bad scales.
This is especially important to keep in mind for new players. If you expand faster than your dominion spreads (and use purposely a low dominion, just enough to not dominiondie) you can somewhat negate your negative scale effects because afaik provinces which are not your dominion are treated as provinces with neutral scales. So they are like turmoil 0 or misfortune 0 provinces then for you instead of turmoil 3 misfortune 3 provinces.
If the enemy dominion there has the same bad scales as you then the provinces are treated for you as turmoil 3 misfortune 3 provinces too though iirc. You only do not profit from positive enemy scales, those provinces are then treated for you like with neutral scales.

I have to try to spread my dominion though, so i have soon to start building some temples to profit from my good scales and more important to keep out ermor and ryleh dominions because those are popkiller dominions. I do not know if i neighbor one of them yet, since i somehow forget in almost every game to use indy scouts and did so in this game too ... .

Turn 13:
Our little empire grows.
http://img419.imageshack.us/img419/9274/17sh3.jpg
Another new Dom3 feature. Random events can now happen in indy provinces too. If a random event creates armies, those armies stay and fight together with the native indy armies already present. This can lead to very nasty indy provinces. In a blitz game i had once the bad luck that an indy province had had 2 barbarian attack and 1 vampire count reveals himself events, so there have been then the normal indy troops, about 150 barbarians, 20 vampires and the count. Also this adds a new random factor. If the indy event happens in the same turn in which you try to conquer the indy province the event indies fight there too. So you can never be 100% sure that you will only fight those indies the spy report tells you about when trying to conquer an indy province. So if you have really bad luck theoretically the vampire count event e.g. might happen in the turn your SC god attacks a province and he might get killed while buffing by the flying vampires who attack him. Iirc this indeed already happened to me in one game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In this game i dare not to attack this province, probably 50 or more barbarians have a good chance of overwhelming my ~10 blindfighters i have there. Since blindfighters are slow (1 mapmovement) i have to wait for new mercs because i will get them probably faster than it would take to travel to new indies (would take 3 turns). So the mercs can then play cannon fodder http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. The blackfists which played this role are decimated down to 1 man, so i have to wait for new mercs.

Turn 15:
http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/2900/18yd4.jpg
A slightly unpleasant turn. Our new fort gets besieged by a barbarian horde (random event) and the indy province enchanced with barbarians has beaten my conquest force.
This battle told me that i do not understand yet the Dominions 3 routing rules. Also my first 2 blind fighters died /threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif.

Situation right before the rout:
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/1844/19uk2.jpg
It is currently the enemy turn, the barbarians did break our fodder mercs in that turn. Then our blindfighers, who were a seperate squad and just started creeping (5 actionpoints, that doesn't deserve getting called moving http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif ) towards the enemy routed also. Fortunately they were still at the corner of the battlefield, otherwise the barbarians would have slaughtered them all. So only one died to the barbarians and the other 12 escaped. Under dominions 2 rules because they were a seperate squad they would have been unimpressed by the slaughtering of the fodder militia and would have continued fighting. Now they routed at the same time when the militia mercs routed. I know that routing rules got changed for Dom 3, but i do not know how exactly they got changed. The change lead to my humiliating defeat though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif.

At least we soon have enough fishies for attempting to go underwater. The army at my capitol i left there purposely as a reserve if i run into an AI. It has not yet happened, but should soon happen. In most of my former games i expanded like hell and then almost simultaneously got attacked by 2-3 AI neighbors i ran into and they did beat my scattered armies then and because i had no reserves did wipe me out. So this time i left some reserves to be prepared just in case. Or at least i try to convince myself of that via Boronian autosuggestion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif.
My "save" but slower expansion seems to work so far well enough, i am nontheless leading in the province race.
http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/8791/20qk1.jpg
Mictlan is 2nd and Ermor 3rd. That might mean that Mictlan has a good bless.

The AI expands normally slower than a human the first 20 turns, even on impossible. This is because the AI uses big armies normally. The effect of this is normally that you start getting confident around turn 20, then around that you also run into your first AI neighbors, and you have your armies spreaded out whereas the AI has massed their armies and attacks you very likely then and beats your spreaded armies. It can be quite mean http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. You start feeling confident and 5 turns later the dream is over and the AI is overwhelming you. So basically the AI lets you expand (and suffer casualities from indies) and then steals the provinces from you. Quite nasty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In the next update we should meet our neighbors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Expect the next update in ca. 15-20 hours http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

Finished the second chapter. Since it is on the first page of the thread and i did not find a way to backlink to it from here i am simply posting the chapter again so that you do not have to search it in the first page of the thread.
Enjoy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Also from now on i am linking the bigger screenshots instead simply via direct link, this way the thumbnails do not use bandwith in vain because you cannot recognize anything on them anyways.


DominionsFAN said:
Thanks for the AAR Boron, I really enjoyed it....http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif


Thanks, i hope you enjoy the now finished 2nd chapter as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.



I think this is now also a good opportunity to make some propaganda for the (almost) "official" dominions irc channel. Have you ever been there yet? Since we betas are now allowed to answer questions about Dominions 3 too and some of the betas are regular guests there. So you might come to the channel and chat about Dom3 and if there are enough people who have time there might also be spontaneous Dom2 blitzes (and in some weeks instead Dom3 blitzes) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

The permanent Dominions IRC community channel:

IRC
irc.gamesurge.net port 6667 channel #dominions

[Ballbarian]

Thank you for the links Boron! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

You have already quite the empire! I hope you can keep it against the AI!


So, how about those summons...

[DominionsFan]

wow, keep it up Boron. Nice long and detailed AAR. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[PashaDawg]

I like how you're explaining many new features in context! Thanks.

Pasha

[DragonFire11]

It's like coming back to the family after a long long vacation. OK, I'm ready despite knowing that I am and always will be a Dominion doormat.

[Boron]

Hm turns are no longer shown in SP, so i will use season descriptions instead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Because i can only be sure about the turn if it is the begin of a new year, otherwise something like "summer in the year 2 of the ascension wars" can refer to 2-3 turns i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Only in MP games the exact turn is still shown.

"Late summer in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

We conquered our first underwater province. It was only guarded by 9 shamblers, so our 40 fishies defeated them easily http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Site searching is progressing, we have researched conjuration 3 now too and can search for death provinces now too. Well only conjuration 2 is necessary for dark knowledge, but we wanted conjuration 3 for summon earthpower.

So currently we have thaumaturgy 2 and conjuration 3 researched, now we research evocation 6 (will take at least 10 more turns from now on). Evocation 6 has an absolute key spell for our nation with magma eruption then.
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/6918/1my7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
You old veterans might notice that the range of magma eruption is now shorter. This has been done for the other good no-gem damage spells too. This way they are more balanced because they are still as deadly as in Dom2, but because of the shorter range you will suffer more friendly fire casualities and archers counter artillery mages now somewhat because of this change http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

"Early Fall in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

Hm seems the turn descriptions are more exact than i thought. Early fall, fall, late fall etc.. So i could use exact turn numbers too. But the Dom3 way sounds imho more stylish, so i will stick to this description now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/191/2sb1.jpg
We have encountered our first neighbor. It is Ermor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif.
Currently according to scoregraphs they are about half as large as we are. So i have to buy more temples and try to kill them asap http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif.

On a side note our secret weapon, our super shooters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPoI20s-e3o) do not as well as we hoped http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/firedevil.gif. We had 2-3 battles where 10-20 indy knights defeated large crossbow armies we sent. Probably their low precision is the problem. We will switch completely to blind fighters and necros now. Vs. archers the crossbows would anyways be not very useful. Now that we have 3-4 new castles we are reaching the stage anyways were gold income and not resources becomes the bottleneck.
At least our propagandaminister did a good job. So our people still believe that those far away battles were successes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif. And they are kept happy with drugs and psychedelic music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNnMbC8B7MI) anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

"Winter in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/2429/3wd1.jpg
We border now Caelum and Abysia too. The ichtyids cost only 3 resources for the net ones and 7 for the better armored ones. With the castle there we can now recruit ca. 40 + an ichtyid commander per turn. We will buy hordes of them to conquer the seas now and to raid later the AIs on the other side of the sea there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Hm an unexpected short update today from me. Turns are now getting bigger, so i need several hours in a row. But today there is unexpectedly a 6 player dom2 nostalgia blitz, so these several hours in a row are not available now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. I hope you find it somewhat amusing if i use normally not fitting and occasionally well fitting music every now and then to loosen the AAR a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

[Boron]

Ballbarian said:
Thank you for the links Boron! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Your welcome. And thanks for the idea, the links are better than the thumbnails i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


DragonFire11 said:
It's like coming back to the family after a long long vacation. OK, I'm ready despite knowing that I am and always will be a Dominion doormat.


Welcome back http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Don't worry, i tend to be always too lazy to do MM to the degree Arch, Turin or Yurri do it. So if i make the "fault" to try to MM in the next game with them as much as they eventually i will stop Micromanaging so much and get soundly beaten by them again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.


PashaDawg said:
I like how you're explaining many new features in context! Thanks.

Pasha


Glad that you like it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


DominionsFAN said:
wow, keep it up Boron. Nice long and detailed AAR. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif


Thanks again DominionsFAN http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Nerfix said:
You have already quite the empire! I hope you can keep it against the AI!


So, how about those summons...


Yeah it is starting to get big http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Some of the summons might soon get summoned, i got a strong incentive to research conjuration.
I found the ultimate gateway this turn !!!!!

[Nerfix]

Ultimate Gateway, isn't that the 40% bonus to Conjuration site? Wow! Talk about luck!

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
Ultimate Gateway, isn't that the 40% bonus to Conjuration site? Wow! Talk about luck!


Even 50% http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

Oooooh. Even better.

[Boron]

"Winter in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

http://img326.imageshack.us/img326/2324/1uh6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
We found the Ultimate Gateway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

http://img457.imageshack.us/img457/9783/2ke8.jpg
So soon we can try out some of our national summons.
Nation specific summons that are only summonable by 1-2 nations are in blue. We have 5 nation specific summons in conjuration and some more in the enchantment school.

Currently all gems still flow into finding new sites though and the others get stockpiled till we have more research, because our nation has good troops, so for us there is not much need for those lowlevel summons imho http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

Show the enchament tree next! Pleaseee~?

[Boron]

Special update for Jurri http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Jurri said i have not written enough yet about reasoning behind my strategies i did so far.
Well the reason is because there was no strategy at all behind my turns, i just did random stuff http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

More seriously though Jurri is right i think so i will try to explain my plans (and lose the last bits of reputation as good strategian i might still have along the way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif ).

We are still in the early game phase of the game. This is a good opportunity to use QM's excellent early game guide for Dom2:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=398324&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=1&vc=1

It is basically still true for Dom3, but there are lots of changes of course, so QM's guide needs to be rewritten for Dom3 eventually on the one hand because of new indies and changed indies and on the other hand because of the slowed down research. So SC gods become less important in Dom3 in the earlygame imho.

There are two categories of game types for Dom3 imho. Expansion differs for them.

Category 1: Blitzkräääg games
Blitzes (how surprising http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif ) and small SP/MP games.
I think you could use provinces per player as the main criteria, lets say any game with less then 10 provinces per player averagely.

In those games fast expansion is probably most important. If the game is MP then you can rush some players earlygame and maybe completely neglect diplomacy.

Category 2: Sitzkrääääg games
Those games are very long games which reach the very lategame stage almost always. At least if the province count is > then 20 provinces per player averagely then it is almost granted that the game will last at least 100 turns.

Here we should differ if the game is SP or MP, but imho in both modes, though the reasons are different, it is best to not overexpand.
SP: Some additional castles are more important than some more provinces imho. In Dom3 getting new castles is tougher than in Dom2, and most indy mages are much weaker than in Dom2. Also most nations have very good troops, much better than the indy troops too.
So in Dom3 it is imho better to have 40 provinces and 5 castles than 1-2 castles but 60 provinces at the same time in a huge game.

MP: If you are number 1 in provinces and gold income and have a rush strategy, your opponents will fear you and ally vs. you. The Ironhawk style is imho the best for longterm games. Do friendly diplomacy with all the players, grow in secrecy and optimally have one player who rushes to mark as badboy. You will be rank 2-5 in most scoregraphs but in truth you are number 1 in power. You try to hoard as many uniques as you can get and eventually you start hostilities when you feel strong enough by "dowing" the other players indirectly, e.g. through casting some globals in 1 single turn.
Time will tell though if this strat is still as good in Dom3, because gold is a more important resource and hoarding is harder.

Ok enough about game classifications. Our SP game clearly belongs to the Sitzkräääg category http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

My thoughts about Argatha:
My two most important units, the Necro and the blindfighter, are both non-capitol only, but have only 1 Mapmove. So many castles close to the front are important. Because they are so slow expansion will be a bit slow though. We speeded up our expansion by heavily use of mercs.
Imho though Argatha is never the fastest late game expander. But it is not important. Argathas strongest time will be in midgame.
The Argatha Crossbows look promising too, but my experience with them is not so good. Versus HI and HC they tend to lose. Since their precision is rather low they tend to inflict huge friendly fire casualities too.
The cave knights are too expensive, and the various argatha infantry units are not bad, but imho the blindfighter is the best one out of them.
Argatha LI needs too many resources. It is more MI, but they cannot be used well in combination with your crossbows and they take casualities vs. enemy HI/Crossbows/HC.
10-15 Blindfighters with my bless can take most indy provinces without taking losses.
Only barbarian provinces and provinces with lots of HC/Knights i avoid. Knightprovinces i avoid in general, vs. Barbarians i use either indy shortbows or Argatha light crossbows.

My initial research goals depend.
Thaum 2 for augury and gnome lore and conjuration 2 for dark knowledge are normally my first research goals.

After that i usually try to get conjuration 3, enchantment 3 and evocation 6 asap.

Once those goals are researched Argatha is ready for some pvp conquests.
Your Necros can then do probably the most impressive midgame battlemagic in late era:
-Skellyspamming
-Banefire
-Gifts from Heaven
-Magma Eruption
-Blade Wind

Also as support magic they can cast summon ep. And my bless gives them another 4 reinvigoration.
If you fight undead hordes you can also research wither bones.

So in midgame as long as there are no good counters Argatha rocks. My Necros can easily kill hordes of lightly armored troops with blade wind, heavi troops with magma eruption and enemy SCs with banefire and gifts from heaven.
If you get rushed by humans earlygame you can defend with skellispam.

It only gets problematic once your enemies have counter spells. Rain of Stones, Flames from the Sky and Mind Hunt are the spells i fear most in longterm MP games.

But in midgame normally you should be able to rush some opponents. So by the time the above mentioned spells become available you can hopefully overwhelm your opponent. Also your national summons and classical thugs are good options.
For lategame you could try the demilich/wraith lord/ghost riders/tartarian/flames from the sky route.
And when your great mother awakens she can summon a faery court. Then you get access to air magic too. And ivy kings for vine ogre spamming.
Only getting access to water and blood is complicated for Argatha.
But for late era they are a magically extremely flexible nation.

That are my thoughts about Argatha so far, ideas and discussion are very welcome http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

It seems that you've thought out the things, but it's kind of a pity that some units are apparently not worth it.

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
It seems that you've thought out the things, but it's kind of a pity that some units are apparently not worth it.


You might get this impression. Surely there will be a few units not worth it, you cannot avoid that in a game with 2000 units.
But if the argatha units are worth it or not is hard to say http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
And it is only my opinion for this special game.

In MP more units would be worth it. Also if i do not decide to do a bless i need to use other units than blindfighters.

So better do not read it generally, but specifically for my game with my scales and god http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In SP surviveable troops are imho important, like my blindfighters.
Argatha is really tough though nontheless.

If i play them in a mp game vs. QM i usually try to use only indy shortbows as troops.

Argatha is really complicated. Your Crossbowmen get beaten by archers normally. Only the heavy ones would have decent protection. But the heavy ones get easily owned by meelee troops.
Your light infantry is too resource heavy, so you cannot really mass produce them, hence not use them like real LI.
Your HI is too high encumberance and too resourceintensive, so they lose vs. enemy LI hordes.
Also none of your troops survives friendly fire hits from your necros anyways.

So in MP i tend to use only masses of slingers or shortbows with my necros if possible.

But that is only my playstyle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[BigJMoney]

I'm wondering what this "Partial Darkvision" ability does? I never noticed it in Dom II. Is there a spell that turns day into nighttime? I might as well ask also if PD shows up in the little army icons that represent enemy defenses on the map.

Man, this is going to be good. Caelum and Abyssia right next to each other! You could not ask for more interesting neighbors. I kinna wish in Dominions there was a way to view which nations were already at war with each other :-). Too bad I never thought about it before, hehe.

=$=

[Sindai]

Dominions 2 had "darkness" spells. Non-undead units got huge penalties to attack, defense, and precision in darkness. I assume that darkvision simply ameliorates those effects.

[Jurri]

Boron said:That are my thoughts about Argatha so far, ideas and discussion are very welcome http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Very nice! Can't really discuss your ideas before getting the game, though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Endoperez]

Sindai said:
Dominions 2 had "darkness" spells. Non-undead units got huge penalties to attack, defense, and precision in darkness. I assume that darkvision simply ameliorates those effects.



That's one part of it. Also, Agartha capital has Cave City and they can build new ones in suitable terrain, and Cave Cities have either darkness or partial darkness. I haven't actually defended against anything when I've had a cave city, so I don't know the details.

Also, as mentioned in the progress list, Fiends of Darkness have special ability which makes them more powerful in dark and less powerful under the effects of Solar Brilliance.

[JaydedOne]

Endoperez said:

Sindai said:
Dominions 2 had "darkness" spells. Non-undead units got huge penalties to attack, defense, and precision in darkness. I assume that darkvision simply ameliorates those effects.



That's one part of it. Also, Agartha capital has Cave City and they can build new ones in suitable terrain, and Cave Cities have either darkness or partial darkness. I haven't actually defended against anything when I've had a cave city, so I don't know the details.

Also, as mentioned in the progress list, Fiends of Darkness have special ability which makes them more powerful in dark and less powerful under the effects of Solar Brilliance.



Again, that's some beautiful attention to detail. Pushes Agartha up my list of nations I want to play on release. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[BigJMoney]

I agree, Jayded. These developers are extremely creative with the details to their game. It's a major reason why I love Dominions, as well!

=$=

[Wick]

Boron said:
We will play a huge game with all late era nations, 18 in total:



I just noticed this. I thought there were 20 nations in each era, 60 in all? Screenshots would be joyfully recieved.

[Boron]

Currently my AAR is a bit paused, i got carried away recently with Silent Storm Sentinels. They had it this month in a pc game magazine, so i bought it a few days ago. Since i loved Ja 2 i am now addicted to Sentinels. But in a few days i should have finished the campaigns (Sentinels campaign and Silent Storm Axis campaign) and then i am done with Silent Storm for a while i think and can fully focus on Dom3 again.

But currently i am curious about when i meet my first Panzerklein http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

[JaydedOne]

Well, hey, I'll take your beta copy if you're not using it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[okiN]

Boron said:Currently my AAR is a bit paused, i got carried away recently with Silent Storm Sentinels. They had it this month in a pc game magazine, so i bought it a few days ago. Since i loved Ja 2 i am now addicted to Sentinels. But in a few days i should have finished the campaigns (Sentinels campaign and Silent Storm Axis campaign) and then i am done with Silent Storm for a while i think and can fully focus on Dom3 again.


Heh, those games are great. You tried the hotseat multiplayer yet?

...oops...


Boron said:But currently i am curious about when i meet my first Panzerklein http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.


You probably won't have to wait very long. The panzerkleins in Silent Storm are pushovers, but when you're going up against the Sentinels ones, you'd better have something heavy on you or your squad'll be toast. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Boron]

okiN said:
Heh, those games are great. You tried the hotseat multiplayer yet?

...oops...


Boron said:But currently i am curious about when i meet my first Panzerklein http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.


You probably won't have to wait very long. The panzerkleins in Silent Storm are pushovers, but when you're going up against the Sentinels ones, you'd better have something heavy on you or your squad'll be toast. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif


Havent tried them in Hotseat yet, can you play them via internet too?

Hm my Sentinels Addiction is almost gone not because of Sentinels but because of PCPowerplay, the gaming magazine that offered Silent Storm Gold as full version in their magazine. They did only use Sentinels 1.0 and because the CD is not original you cannot patch it. Has probably been the last time i buy a game this way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif.

At least it is positive for you, now i will soon write a new chapter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

JaydedOne said:
Well, hey, I'll take your beta copy if you're not using it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


I still played smaller SP games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

But a turn for the AAR takes now already at least 30 minutes playtime http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

Ahh, a new chapter. I'm hoping we get to see some of those summons.

[Boron]

"Late winter in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

WAR !!! (http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=1593335023295427412&q=vader+war)
http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/9004/1ee2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/1093/2if0.jpg
Fortunately we only border 1 ermor province so far, nontheless the ermorian DOW is annoying. We have basically no forces in this area, and research is not ready for ermor neither (we only have evocation 4 so far).

My idea how to deal with this problem is to defend only the next turns and research thaumaturgy 6 for wither bones and evocation 6 for the other goodies mentioned already in my update for Jurri.

“Early spring in the year 3 of the ascension wars”

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7051/3bp4.jpg
A barbarian attack into the heart of our empire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif.

Here you have your first summon, Nerfix http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8133/4gt0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Costs 3 deathgems. Not bad, but i won't use them i think and rather wait for other summons. The attack and defense ratings are simply too low for my taste.

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/9412/5yo1.jpg
At the end of our turn. The barbarians will keep the province 1-2 more turns, x-bows move slow, and there are 70 barbarians, so i need to amass at least 50 x-bows to have a reasonable chance of routing them before getting into melee range.

The conquest of the seas is slowly proceeding though. But our expansion slowed down quite a bit and now our misfortune 3 scale starts taking its toll. Almost every turn at least 1 negative event.

Our gem income per month is ok:
7 firegems
1 airgem
2 watergems
18 earthgems
15 pearls
15 deathgems
3 naturegems

Most of our land provinces have now been searched for fire/earth/astral and death.
With the underwater provinces i wait, i hope to somehow find an indy water mage for voice of tiamat or get very lucky with a necro that i can turn him into an accashic record caster. Theoretically it is possible to get an astral 2 necro because of his 100% and 10% randoms who can both be astral too. But the chance for that is rather low, i am no statistics expert, but my guess would be that the chance is like 1 out of 100 or so.
Maybe i instead empower a necro simply. Since accashic is conjuration with my 50% bonus site it becomes then competetive even costwise with the normally better way to sitesearch via the single path searchspells (that's what i did so far).

[Boron]

Wick said:

Boron said:
We will play a huge game with all late era nations, 18 in total:



I just noticed this. I thought there were 20 nations in each era, 60 in all? Screenshots would be joyfully recieved.


It is only ca. 20 nations per era.
Currently there are "only" 18 nations in late era, so late era is the nation with currently the fewest nations.

For early era there are currently 20 nations and for middle era 21. New nations are probably added via patches (like it was done for Dom2, Dom2 got at least 5 new nations iirc via patches http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).
So eventually there might be about 25 nations per era i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[JaydedOne]

Out of curiosity, what utility do you see the cavern wight having? With his low scores in attack and defense, as you pointed out, he doesn't seem like he's much better than most national units and 3 death gems a pop seems a bit much if you're only getting one at a time. I guess his hps make him a nice buffer between your mages and attackers, but is there some use beyond that for him that I'm missing?

[Boron]

JaydedOne said:
Out of curiosity, what utility do you see the cavern wight having? With his low scores in attack and defense, as you pointed out, he doesn't seem like he's much better than most national units and 3 death gems a pop seems a bit much if you're only getting one at a time. I guess his hps make him a nice buffer between your mages and attackers, but is there some use beyond that for him that I'm missing?


First there is a niche use:
He is amphibian and poison resistent, so for conquering the seas if you find no ichtyids he might be rather useful.

Then at level 8 there is the spell hall of dead. There for 30 death gems you get 20 such cavern wights. But if you can cast that spell conjuration 9 is not far, and then the old wights from dom2 are there. There you get 20 wights for 30 gems too. And those have bane blades.
Hm maybe they get a cost decrease in a patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

As they are they are okay but not outstanding and there are better alternatives with the classical death summons for them. If they would cost 2 gems and 15 gems for the mass summon spell, they would be useful though i think.

Now they already have that amphibian niche, so they have their uses, but only 1 out of 20 games or so.
And their mr is rather good, so they don't get banished easily.

[Endoperez]

I think they are a bit better than that. They have Str 17 and glaives - even with their att of 10, they'll massacre any unshielded heavy infantry, and even against shielded infantry or cavalry they should fare quite well. They are also available in MA, where they'll just massacre e.g. Ulm.

They are tough for non-mindless undead, and have exceptional morale for non-mindless units. If there was an item comparable to Ivy Crown, they would be just plain better than Vine Ogres, and Vine Ogres are good. They also have the excellent mapmove 3 of most undead, and their high magic resistance makes them more resistant against most common undead counters.

They aren't exceptional unit, or even something you'll want to summon in every game, but they are good in few situations (underwater, against heavy armor) and a bit more useful in MA than in LA.

[Nerfix]

Oooh, Cavern Wights. Expensive, perhaps too expensive but they look like they can pack a punch.

Let's hope the Ermorian DoW won't be too problematic.

[Agrajag]

I don't remember how many option a necro gets for his random, but assuming 4 (ie all sorcery picks), that makes it a chance of 0.00625 (or 0.625%) [which is (1/4)*(0.1)*(1/4)]

[BigJMoney]

"Conjuration 9 is not far"...I was thinking maybe with the deccelerated research, the gap from 8 to 9 might be more substantial? You'd have to tell us how that goes.

=$=

[Boron]

"Spring in the year 3 of the ascension wars"

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/6945/5bu8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Ermor attacks the same indy province i attacked.
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/3499/2hr4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I had only 50 crossbows, ermor wins with huge losses.
Maybe i do not know Dom2 as good as i think, but i think those ghuls are new Dom3 Ermor units http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/3299/3of7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The poison claw has additionally to damage a paralyzing poision effect which does fatigue damage i think. This effect seems to have no MR-savethrow, so a huge horde of them might be dangerous for a SC. The ghuls are size 2 so they can swarm well.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7097/4fq8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I almost overlooked it. We found Loremasters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
Loremasters seem much much weaker than in Dom2, BUT they are in fact much more useful in Dom3 because they are probably the only mage that can have all 8 paths!

This reduces MM a lot. Eventually i will get an Astral2 Loremaster and sitesearch with accashic then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

It will take at least 10 more turns though to get evocation 6, construction 6 and conjuration 5. But i have searched enough classically imho, so i will stop searching now and save all pearls for accashic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

The ghouls were in Dominions 1...and 2...and they've always been cheap fodderdead. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

And yay for Loremasters!

[Boron]

BigJMoney said:
"Conjuration 9 is not far"...I was thinking maybe with the deccelerated research, the gap from 8 to 9 might be more substantial? You'd have to tell us how that goes.

=$=


Hm yeah but by the time i am that far in the game i should have 500-1000 RP so i think it doesn't matter much anymore then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Agrajag said:
I don't remember how many option a necro gets for his random, but assuming 4 (ie all sorcery picks), that makes it a chance of 0.00625 (or 0.625%) [which is (1/4)*(0.1)*(1/4)]


Thanks. That is quite unlikely. Fortunately i have loremasters now, so that should increase the chances a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.



Hm i think i will attach all screenshots normal again, this is probably better than linking them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
The ghouls were in Dominions 1...and 2...and they've always been cheap fodderdead. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

And yay for Loremasters!


Hm and how did you get them in Dom 2?
I can't recall ever getting ghuls as Ermor AE or SG, they only got soulless as freespawns i think.
Maybe i misremember though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

You misremember, Ermor gets them as freespawn. Ermor and other unholies could aslo reanimate Ghouls and there was a spell that summoned ghouls.

[Ballbarian]

I don't think that they had the poison claw before. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

Ballbarian said:
I don't think that they had the poison claw before. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

They did, and it's actually a pretty poor attack.

[Morkilus]

I looooved ghouls (as you can probably tell by my avatar), and use them probably more than I should have in my BE Ermor game a while back. They're actually not too bad at taking down units like Jotuns, and it can be a pretty irritating way to reclaim lost provinces if you're sick of Black Hawks or have way too many death gems.

[Nerfix]

Looooving ghouls sounds wrong. Somehow it does.

[BigJMoney]

Boron said:

BigJMoney said:
"Conjuration 9 is not far"...I was thinking maybe with the deccelerated research, the gap from 8 to 9 might be more substantial? You'd have to tell us how that goes.

=$=


Hm yeah but by the time i am that far in the game i should have 500-1000 RP so i think it doesn't matter much anymore then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.




It is interesting that you mention this. It makes it sound like doubled research costs doesn't affect the late game at all and if you think about it, it makes sense. I wonder if the doubling alone was enough to get the desired effect.

Man, I had no idea ghouls had poisoned claws. That makes them a bit more desirable in my eyes, now.

=$=

[Agrajag]

So, does that mean that AR is Astral 2 now?

Oh, and ghouls were not that common mainly because IIRC they cost population to reanimate, which was kind of a rare resource playing as AE or SG http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Endoperez]

Agrajag said:
So, does that mean that AR is Astral 2 now?

Oh, and ghouls were not that common mainly because IIRC they cost population to reanimate, which was kind of a rare resource playing as AE or SG http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Acashic Record is still Astral 3, or at least I haven't noticed it having been changed. However, Astral 2 allows for Starshine Skullcap, and Boron must have quite a few Ktonian Necromancers with Astral, so after one SH SC he can forge Crystal Coins as well.

[Ballbarian]

They did, and it's actually a pretty poor attack.


As much as I used them, you would have thought that I would have noticed. *smacks forehead* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Boron]

Agrajag said:
So, does that mean that AR is Astral 2 now?

Oh, and ghouls were not that common mainly because IIRC they cost population to reanimate, which was kind of a rare resource playing as AE or SG http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Yeah i only remembered Soulless too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Seems though that the Ghuls have not changed much then. Iirc i NEVER even bothered when playing Ermor AE in Dom2 to check the stats of a soulless or ghul, i just saw them as fodder and used them in hordes lol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

I said astral 2 cause then i can forge starshine skulcaps, as Endoperez already hinted http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


BigJMoney said:

Boron said:

BigJMoney said:
"Conjuration 9 is not far"...I was thinking maybe with the deccelerated research, the gap from 8 to 9 might be more substantial? You'd have to tell us how that goes.

=$=


Hm yeah but by the time i am that far in the game i should have 500-1000 RP so i think it doesn't matter much anymore then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.




It is interesting that you mention this. It makes it sound like doubled research costs doesn't affect the late game at all and if you think about it, it makes sense. I wonder if the doubling alone was enough to get the desired effect.
=$=



Hm you have to keep in mind that gold income is doubled too. So i think research is even in lategame slightly slower like in Dom2, but theoretically eventually you will almost reach break even point because you have two times as much gold too. Or even more, i think it is rather 2,5 times as much gold as in Dom2.
But in earlygame and midgame you lose many turns compared to Dom2, and in lategame eventually you should be able to accumulate at least with some nations about double research than in Dom2. So in lategame you likely research almost as fast as in Dom2 but in early- and midgame you lose many turns of course.
If you play on a very large map though you might maybe even research faster than in Dom2 with all the extra space.

[JaydedOne]

Well, one thing to bear in mind is that even with the gold income being doubled, you can still only buy one commander per province at a time. So, you're still slowed somewhat on purchasing your researchers, at least until you build enough castles to buy those non-capital spellcasters. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[BigJMoney]

Yeah, I'll keep all this in mind when I get the game. To be honest, I don't even know the precise reason research costs were doubled. I don't know if the intent was to delay magic in the early game (in that case, it worked perfectly) or to make it harder to get to the powerful spells in general (in that case, more would need to be done). I'm kind of making a mathematical observation here - and I may draw a graph to show it - that going from high level spell to higher level spell will not be any different than it was in dom2. In fact, I'd predict the nations that will be hit the hardest from the research changes will actually be the same ones that suffered in Dom2 from not having the reseach potential of the other nations. Again, a graph would show that. Of course, if it's all intentional, it's all good.

Anyway, I don't want to go OT any more; I'm becoming rude. I'd start a new thread, but it's probably not worth it.

=$=

[quantum_mechani]

I would say the reason for the doubled research costs are very simple- the amount of gold was doubled but they didn't want to make research comparatively easier.

[Boron]

BigJMoney said:
Yeah, I'll keep all this in mind when I get the game. To be honest, I don't even know the precise reason research costs were doubled. I don't know if the intent was to delay magic in the early game (in that case, it worked perfectly) or to make it harder to get to the powerful spells in general (in that case, more would need to be done). I'm kind of making a mathematical observation here - and I may draw a graph to show it - that going from high level spell to higher level spell will not be any different than it was in dom2. In fact, I'd predict the nations that will be hit the hardest from the research changes will actually be the same ones that suffered in Dom2 from not having the reseach potential of the other nations. Again, a graph would show that. Of course, if it's all intentional, it's all good.

Anyway, I don't want to go OT any more; I'm becoming rude. I'd start a new thread, but it's probably not worth it.

=$=


Feel free to further post here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Hm all in all research is slower in Dom3. Not much slower than in Dom2 though in the lategame. But unlike in Dom2 in Dom3 magic diversity is harder to achieve with the new random system.
Most indy mages got nerfed a lot too. They are more valuable than before for diversifying your magic, but they are weaker than in Dom2. In this game i am very lucky to have found the loremasters.
But even with them it is harder than in Dom2 to diversify. Some booster items have higher requirements to forge, and then there is the old age, so eventually many of my loremasters and necros will die.

[Boron]

OT: New Screenshots look uglier than the old ones because i turned down graphics to a minimum. My PC is not the newest and has problems with mass battles.


Nothing important happens the next turns. We get averagely 2 provinces per turn but lose one province per turn through a random event attack. We have now 300 research points, so research is slowly progressing.

"Fall in the year 3 of the ascension wars"

Caelum dows and attacks 1 province in which it wins.
We have almost finished our war research though, magma eruption and the other toys are already ready. Here is the secret test vs. barbarian "volunteers" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/2274/1wc9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Magma eruption is my favourite non-gem battlefield anti-troop spell. 1 successful hit kills 10+ troops often http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8088/2xl2.jpg
The border situation with caelum. They took 1 province, but i have many castles there and they have not much troops there, 50-200 troops per province. I will need 2-3 turns to position my armies, but then my necros in combination with the blessed fighters should overwhelm caelum fine.

[B0rsuk]

Speaking about gold, income, blah blah... how about profits from Alchemy ? Were they increased, or has transforming gems to gold become comparatively useless ? Does it still matter that fire gems fetch best prices ?

[Boron]

B0rsuk said:
Speaking about gold, income, blah blah... how about profits from Alchemy ? Were they increased, or has transforming gems to gold become comparatively useless ? Does it still matter that fire gems fetch best prices ?


Alchemy was not changed.
The prices are still the same as in Dom2, and alchemists have a 50% bonus.
That means that it is much less useful than in Dom2, roughly 50% less useful.

In Dom2 for Abysia this was nice e.g., they had ca. 150-225 Gold capitol income, so the 5 fire gems were a nice boost, +75 Gold. Now they only boost your 350-500 Gold income +75 too, so they are really much less significant.
Or to speak in terms of normal provinces, 5 firegems are only worth 1-2 provinces income whereas in dom2 they were worth rather 3-5 provinces.

[Agrajag]

A shame really, getting Fire or Earth was a nice boost for AE or SG, now I guess its less effective.
Although I hardly know how the balance has changed, so I'm in no position to comment beyong my mild disappointment.

[NTJedi]

B0rsuk said:
Speaking about gold, income, blah blah... how about profits from Alchemy ? Were they increased, or has transforming gems to gold become comparatively useless ? Does it still matter that fire gems fetch best prices ?



Perhaps dominions_4 will add an option to play the game with a black market which manages the buying and selling of all gems. In multiplayer games the actions of each player would have an effect on the buying and selling of gems.

[Boron]

Warning:
This update is mainly about my planned midgame strategies and my reasoning why i plan to play midgame this way. If you want to explore Dom3 on your own better do not read this chapter, otherwise it might take away some SP fun from you while discovering Dom3.
So if you are new to dominions and want to explore some month on your own in SP better do not read this chapter.

Warning finished.


It is still "fall in the year 3 of the ascension wars":

We decide to already attack this turn because our research has progressed far enough and we have castled enough.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4177/1jw7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

All orders for this turn:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/1412/2vd8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
After beeing quite peaceful the last couple of turns (only conquered some sea provinces) we feel ready to start some ambitious conquest programs.

More zoomed out:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/3777/3je7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
To keep the visibility i just named the various for midgame important sectors with letters.
I will explain more detailed now what i plan for the different possible theaters:

A:
Ca. 15 land provinces still populated by Indies. I plan to conquer them slowly within the next ~10 turns.
B:
Ca. 10 indy sea provinces. I plan to conquer them slowly within the next 10-15 turns too.

A and B are the map borders, if i conquer them there is nothing more to conquer in these areas. So in the West and the South of the screenshot the map ends.
This is perfect, these hinterlands are then relatively save and not easily targetable by the AI, only via magic.
Since the AI does not build SCs and does only rarely use army teleportation spells this means that these hinterlands do not need too much forces to be guarded. PD will defend vs. weaker attack spells like call of the winds/wilds and 1 castle/medium army per ~10 provinces vs. i think occasionally occuring teleport attacks by the AI (the AI researches much better now, so these attacks can afaik indeed happen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and vs. Indy Attacks via random events.

If this would be MP human enemies might also use SCs, so i would have to use even more resources on fortifying my hinterlands. In SP i can be more sloppy though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

C:
Lots of sea provinces. There might be somewhere Ryleh Dreamlands though. If i am lucky they are in the other big sea of the map which is not connected to this sea, if i am unlucky they are somewhere in this sea and eventually i will border them.

D:
Caelum territory. I hope to wipe them out in the next 10-20 turns. I have no idea how big caelum actually is, somehow i am always a bit thrifty when spending money for intelligence. I have only my starting scout, who is somewhere in nowhereland in A and i constantly forget to move him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

E:
Ermors lands. If Caelum turns out to be a pushover i might start an offensive into their lands as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

F:
Once i have conquered the seas i can use my Ichtyids for raiding the coastal areas http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Planned battle tactics:
In SP i am always the lazy powergamer type. So i powergame, but in the laziest possible way. This means it is not as effective as if QM or Arch would do SP powergaming, but i only need a fraction of the time they need since i try to minimize micromanagement.

Because of that my battle tactics are really really boring. Sorry fellow readers.
In fact i simply abuse only 1 single spell, magma eruption.
Magma eruption is the best non-gem-needing battle spell vs. troop hordes. Hm maaaaaybe astral fires is even better in this field, but i cannot cast astral fires and astral fires has a MR savethrow.
So for ALL my necros the script is the same:
Summon Earthpower, blessing, 3x Magma Eruption, cast spells.

If it would be MP i would diversify more and use all D3 Necros for Banefire and all astral Necros for either Body Etheralizing my Blindfighters or for Gifts from Heaven.
And when fighting vs. troop hordes the missing 50% would still be scripted to magma eruption, if fighting rather vs. SCs or lots of enemy mages they would be scripted to skeleton spamming instead.

Since the AI doesn't use SCs though but troop hordes, i think the above script is hard to top. And it suits my lazyness well, so i do not have to script much. Once my troops get depleted i will throw in some skeleton spamming, but i do not plan to use any other spell than those 2 for the whole midgame.

There might still be tough monsters the ai summoned or quite tough gods they chose, which almost classify as SCs, but those should be dealt with after turn 5 then when the tactical ai picks the spells. So really no need to script vs. SCs and Thugs in SP imho.

Summon EP and the blessing gives me 8 reinvigoration, so this is almost like relief. And the blessing also blesses my blindfighters.
So my mages can cast spells much longer than usual and without equipment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Finally noteworthy is also QMs favourite spell, blade wind. I could use this spell too, but i personally find magma eruption more useful in SP. In MP Bladewind would be probably better though.
But in SP i mainly fight troop hordes. And magma eruption works much better at killing troop hordes than bladewind.
Bladewinds big advantage is though the 5 greater range and the huge straying effect. Lucky bladewinds can stray so much that they hit enemy mages http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
If you ever played with QM you know how annoying that is, especially when your mages are frail. So if you play e.g. Pythium vs. QM playing an earth nation your pain tolerance has to be immense http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif.

Since most ranges were nerfed in Dom3 my 2 reinvigoration spells also serve the purpose to let the enemy get into range to get mowed down by magma eruption http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

So for midgame i plan to mainly rely on the above mentioned strat. For lategame i plan to build a few SCs and lots of national summons and some good battlemages.

But midgame combat will be a bit boring, since i powergame too much. But it is imho necessary, otherwise there is the danger that i get bogged down too much and get killed by the AI in lategame then.

Sorry about this rather boring update, but i think it was necessary nontheless. Unfortunately you might get the impression that SP is boring by this update, but that is not the truth. No it is interesting.
See it this way: The AI is now imho so challenging that you are forced to abuse a lot to survive vs. the AI.
So if you draw the conclusion that the Dom3 AI sucks this conclusion is wrong, no it improved a lot compared to Dom2.
And i do not even play on the highest setting, i play only with very difficult AIs (60% bonus to gold/gems/supply/resources). There is still left the impossible setting where the AI gets +100% bonus.
And you can take a weaker nation for yourself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Imho the AI is good enough for many joyful SP experiences http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Agrajag]

Are you sure its a wise plan to attack Caelum with X-Bows and necroes? Wouldn't they just fly over and eliminate your weak X-Bowers in melee?

(Hehe, apparently XBow and Xbox aren't that far away on the keyboard http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif )

[Nerfix]

I found the update interesting. How soon it will be untill we will be seeing more summons?

[JaydedOne]

*smile* I really like the map, by the way. I think the possibilities of playing a water nation on it look like a lot of fun.

And thank you for the detailed write-up of strategy. I'm personally happy to see that much insight into how you're playing the game.

[Boron]

The comments are this time almost an update also.


Agrajag said:
Are you sure its a wise plan to attack Caelum with X-Bows and necroes? Wouldn't they just fly over and eliminate your weak X-Bowers in melee?

(Hehe, apparently XBow and Xbox aren't that far away on the keyboard http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif )


Hehe that might be true http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

If Caelum had many fliers on my border http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. They AI is playing a ground based Caelum though on my border.
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4531/1ah9.jpg

So there are only a few fliers mentioned in the spy reports. The 2 fliertypes in the caelum castle are only mediocre.
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/8424/2ab6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/7752/3dg5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

So my X-bows should have 2-3 times higher numbers and should defeat them hopefully. At least i am taking this risk http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.



JaydedOne said:
*smile* I really like the map, by the way. I think the possibilities of playing a water nation on it look like a lot of fun.

And thank you for the detailed write-up of strategy. I'm personally happy to see that much insight into how you're playing the game.


Yeah the map is done by Jason Lutes. He did some excellent Maps for Dom2 already, but this map he did for Dom3 is imho even better. It is fair and beautiful http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Glad that you and Nerfix liked my strategy chapter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


Nerfix said:
I found the update interesting. How soon it will be untill we will be seeing more summons?



I am right now researching conjuration and have gathered ~15 Necros already in the gateway province, so in a few turns i should be able to summon umbrals http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
And quite a horde http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. I have currently 195 deathgem, one umbral costs 2 deathgems, so 1 deathgem thanks to the gateway, so i can summon about 200 umbrals soon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

Interesting, Raptors are actually around in middle Caelum too?

Good luck. 200 Umbrals sounds like a force to be reckoned with!

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
Interesting, Raptors are actually around in middle Caelum too?

Good luck. 200 Umbrals sounds like a force to be reckoned with!


No Raptors in middle era for Caelum.
In early era the raptors are around though.
Somehow it makes sense, since in dom2 the caelum theme was called return of raptors.
So in early era the raptors are there, in middle era gone, and in late era they are returned again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Hm yeah, but i will only use them in emergencies since i want to wait till i have buffs (=battlefield enchancements) for the umbrals http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:
Interesting, Raptors are actually around in middle Caelum too?

Good luck. 200 Umbrals sounds like a force to be reckoned with!



Firest, this is Late Age game.

Second, Umbrals are summoned one at a time, so I doubt Boron actually fields all of them at once.

[Nerfix]

Oh, sorry, I forgot this is LA.

[Boron]

"Late fall in the year 3 of the ascension wars"

Lots of stuff happened:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/1016/4gd9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

4 indy attacks: Tritons, they did of course win because as land nation you cannot buy underwater province defense, Barbarians and Villains, they were both defeated, and a Vampire Count.

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/8537/5ge4.jpg
A rather big battle in Talito, ~200 caelian troops vs. ~ 50 argatha defenders + ca. 50 PD troops (PD strength of 25).
The caelian fliers luckily killed a necro.
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/391/6jk8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
It was a tough battle, but occasional lucky magma eruption hits from our surviving necro forced the caelian hordes finally to retreat after our pd troops have fled already.
The caelian troops look so strange because one of their mages casted arrow fend.
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/8569/7ze5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Not many casualities, but if caelum had had about 100-150 more troops i think they would have slaughtered my force.

Caleum has a few more troops on the front than i thought. I will need to wait for reinforcements.
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/1406/8py6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Boron]

Endoperez said:
Second, Umbrals are summoned one at a time, so I doubt Boron actually fields all of them at once.


I plan to simply set about 20 Necros to monthly summon and once i have battlefield buffs + teleporters i use them then to take down large AI armies. Maybe i move them via stygian paths, maybe with some lucky tartarians which can astral travel. I have not yet summoned a tartarian in Dom3, so i dunno which randoms they can get. I hope they still have linked randoms like in Dom2 and that i can this way get some that can astral travel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[ioticus]

Can you sort your event messages now?

[Boron]

ioticus said:
Can you sort your event messages now?


No, they are still like in Dom2 i think. There might have been some small overhaul, but i think they have been left unchanged.

[quantum_mechani]

Boron said:

ioticus said:
Can you sort your event messages now?


No, they are still like in Dom2 i think. There might have been some small overhaul, but i think they have been left unchanged.

Some reports that used to spam the screen have been combined, for instance blood hunt reports from the same province.

[DominionsFan]

Boron said:
Yeah the map is done by Jason Lutes. He did some excellent Maps for Dom2 already, but this map he did for Dom3 is imho even better. It is fair and beautiful http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.




If you want to see screenshots from a good mapping software, take a look at here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=443815&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=3&vc=1) .

The screenies are in post #448776 - 06/09/25 06:00 AM

[Nerfix]

Hmm, mass attacks have never been Caelum's forte. Let's see how this all goes.

[Agrajag]

Boron said:
Glad that you and Nerfix liked my strategy chapter http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Not just Nerfix and him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Boron said:
Maybe i move them via stygian paths


So Stygian Paths works now? :O

[Nerfix]

I thought a bit of funkiness is just WAD with Stygian Paths? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[okiN]

I once played a game with a friend of mine who was BE Ermor. In a last-ditch effort, he sent all his troops (Hundreds of them, pretender included) to attack my capital via Stygian Paths. Some 20 wights got through, only to dissolve without a commander when confronted by my PD. He lost the game that turn since he had literally nothing left after that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

OK, that's no more a bit of funkiness, it's lots of funkiness.

[Agrajag]

okiN said:
I once played a game with a friend of mine who was BE Ermor. In a last-ditch effort, he sent all his troops (Hundreds of them, pretender included) to attack my capital via Stygian Paths. Some 20 wights got through, only to dissolve without a commander when confronted by my PD. He lost the game that turn since he had literally nothing left after that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


What he was probably aiming for was getting the game so funked up it won't be able to host, thus getting a draw due to technical difficulties http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Last time I sent so many troops with so many stygian paths, it made the game hang while hosting.

[NTJedi]

okiN said:
I once played a game with a friend of mine who was BE Ermor. In a last-ditch effort, he sent all his troops (Hundreds of them, pretender included) to attack my capital via Stygian Paths. Some 20 wights got through, only to dissolve without a commander when confronted by my PD. He lost the game that turn since he had literally nothing left after that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Yes I once sent my bog mummy pretender via 'stygian paths' with a powerful army. The spell description says you might be attacked by forces from the underworld... and well I was looking forward to see if any unique creatures would attack. Needless to say there are no attacks... units and commanders are just killed without a fight. The spell is also bugged as the spell told me I had over 9 million units die. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

I'm sure the spell has been tweaked somewhat, but if the spell description still says you can be attacked then an actual battle should happen instead of the game just killing units. Just never use this spell while playing Dominions_2.

[Boron]

At least i hope stygian paths works now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
Somewhere was mentioned i think that they are fixed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[quantum_mechani]

Boron said:
At least i hope stygian paths works now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
Somewhere was mentioned i think that they are fixed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I've checked it, it works now.

[DominionsFan]

quantum_mechani said:

Boron said:
At least i hope stygian paths works now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
Somewhere was mentioned i think that they are fixed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I've checked it, it works now.



Good to hear, thanks for the info.

[Boron]

"Late fall in the year 3 of the ascension wars"

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/7365/1id0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
This turn we are quite defensive, the indy attacks have disturbed us. I try to catch the small caelum raid group.
From my side no major orders for this turn.

We reached conjuration 5 though, so we can start umbral summoning. No astral 2 mage in sight http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

"Early winter in the year 3 of the ascension wars"

Yay, 1000 Gold event (and a barbarian attack event, another province lost temporarily ^^).

Especially for Nerfix:
http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/4348/3jo9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Quite good. The Glaive is magic, 11 Dam, +1 to attack, -1 to defense, length 4.
So a good SC killer if he hits. If you take a fire 9 dragon this might work.

And now the real bad boy, the umbral http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/4199/4jn2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
They are almost like thugs and cost only 2 Deathgems http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Their lifedrain attack is also magic and armor piercing.

No major battles happened this turn, but Caelum has castled and Ermor has drawn a few undeads to my border. I am not making real progress grmbl.
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8951/5zy3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2822/6ieoo5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
HMPF i need bodyguards. I tend to forget stuff in dominions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. A caelum flier army on hold + attack rearmost did kill my 2 necros who where the only commanders and thus won a major battle. It was a pyrhic victory for Caelum, but they won nontheless.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7461/7tq9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/4738/8lw9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Caelum has now 300 or more troops there, and they did win the victory at our upper castle. Probably they will try to siege the castle this turn.
I might need to use the umbrals already.

[JaydedOne]

Wow. Thanks for sharing those two new summons. They rule. But Endo hinted there was something beyond the sepulchrals and the umbrals... Any hints?

[Boron]

JaydedOne said:
Wow. Thanks for sharing those two new summons. They rule. But Endo hinted there was something beyond the sepulchrals and the umbrals... Any hints?


Yeah there are some more nation specific summons, but they all are only mediocre, i.e. they are not as powerful as the umbral.

I will show you all the missing new summons for Argatha LE now because i am not going to summon them in the game i think.

Iron Ancestor:
Ench 3, reanimate ancestor, 2e 2d, 5 earthgems
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6559/9vu0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Iron Corpse:
Ench 3, iron corpse reanimation, E D, 3 corspes, 4 earthgems
http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/994/10ld9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
At ench 6 there is ktonian legion, there you get 17 iron corpses for 20 earthgems, 2e 2d required to cast.

Hm good that you asked, i misremembered the tomb orcale:
Conj 5, awaken tomb oracle, 3D 2E, 30 deathgems.
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/9730/11kx9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

They seem neat, i think i am summoning some. They should be useable as SCs, especially with my bless. Soul vortex, invulnerability, summon ep, maybe some cheap gear http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

Goodnes, those Agaratans sure seem to pack a punch, especially TO and Umbrals. Pity about the battle though.

And the iron corpses seem pretty lame. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Sepulchrals and Umbrals are cool though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DominionsFan]

Yeah the Tomb Oracle will be a very good unit.
The Iron Corpses are not that bad at all imho. Their protection is decent.

[Nerfix]

True, but they are kinda expensive for what they do for, hmmm, 1.25 gems per corpse?

Umbrals are interesting...I wonder if LA Agartha has sneaky commanders. A task force of even 10 Umbrals could be bad new for most provinces defence, especially if led by a stealthy mage.

Sepulchrals look also very good, but I do not know how much they cost. They are propably decent with Water 9 blessing, and Fire 9 will give them a powerful offensive edge. A W9/E4 Olm could be good for Agarta throughout the ages.

[DominionsFan]

Nerfix said:
True, but they are kinda expensive for what they do for, hmmm, 1.25 gems per corpse?

Umbrals are interesting...I wonder if LA Agartha has sneaky commanders. A task force of even 10 Umbrals could be bad new for most provinces defence, especially if led by a stealthy mage.

Sepulchrals look also very good, but I do not know how much they cost. They are propably decent with Water 9 blessing, and Fire 9 will give them a powerful offensive edge. A W9/E4 Olm could be good for Agarta throughout the ages.



Yep they are a bit expensive, however..
1. we gotta wait and see the magic gem income changes in Doms 3.
2. maybe higher luck will grant more summoned units? [example: high luck scale = 20 summoned units, instead of 17]
3. units like these can be handy in certain battles, regardless of their cost.

[Kristoffer O]

Boron, you have forgotten the flame corpses http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:
Boron, you have forgotten the flame corpses http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Does this sudden burst of posts mean the demo is done? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Kristoffer O]

It means that I am back from some days away with about 100 students. It also means that I have managed to look away from Dwarf Fortress for a while http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[okiN]

Nerfix said:Does this sudden burst of posts mean the demo is done? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


As a matter of fact... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Boron]

Kristoffer O said:
Boron, you have forgotten the flame corpses http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I did leave them out on purpose, i'll post why on the beta forum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
True, but they are kinda expensive for what they do for, hmmm, 1.25 gems per corpse?

Umbrals are interesting...I wonder if LA Agartha has sneaky commanders. A task force of even 10 Umbrals could be bad new for most provinces defence, especially if led by a stealthy mage.

Sepulchrals look also very good, but I do not know how much they cost. They are propably decent with Water 9 blessing, and Fire 9 will give them a powerful offensive edge. A W9/E4 Olm could be good for Agarta throughout the ages.


The sepulchrals cost 4 deathgems.

Dominionsfan is correct i think, the iron corpses have a niche. But eventually they will get replaced by mechanical men. But since you need enchantment 3 for skelspam anyways, so in times of need in a blitz e.g. you could use them.
But they are very niche imho, the earth could also be invested in items e.g., like dwarfen hammers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Boron]

"Late winter in the year 3 of the ascension wars"

A rather uneventful turn.
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/4404/1fm3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Caelum did only attack the castle province where we expected them to attack and sieges it now with ca. 100 troops.
Noteworthy though is the 400 troop strong ermor army that showed up this turn on our border there.
Time for a "strategische Frontbegradigung". We have to give up that border province with Ermor since we cannot hold it with our insignificant border guard army there.
But fortunately the castle that is besieged by caelum currently is the only access for ermor from this route to our territory. Unfortunately this also means that we have to protect this castle at all costs because it is in a strategically so important chokepoint. These forces will be missed in offensive operations vs. caelum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6835/2if5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Old age starts to take it's toll btw. Our mages start getting afflictions. Only 1 of the loremasters got the diseased affliction, the others have only stuff like crippled,lost an arm and the like, so nothing lethal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

Kristoffer once said that death mages are less likely to get disease from old age, good that my necros all have death magic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I lost my patience, no S2 mage has showed up. I will empower a necro with S1 now. We have almost researched thaumaturgy 6 for wither bones.
Now we aim for conjuration 7 for earth kings as next target.

"Early spring in the year 4 of the ascension wars"

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/559/3hj8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Not much happened. Ermor did attack as expected, but the bulk of their force there are only ghuls+soulless.
My break seige attempt succeeded, and i am besieging a caelum castle. I decide to counterattack ermor on the other front a bit, the key of this minor attack is to reach the chokepoint mountains there and then dig in there (=build a castle and defend ^^). I use my last reserves on the caelum front for another army group, ca. 5 necros, 100 x-bows and 50 blindfighters.
Because caelum has castled every province on their border with me my progress there will be slow and painful, like medieval siege wars.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/7958/4kz9.jpg
Army size report looks not too bad. We are ranked ca. as 5th place. 10% of those troops should be our umbrals though and 40% our ichtyids, which are only useful for underwater conquest and minor coast raiding, but for land warfare they have imho too bad stats. On land they are at best MI.
So all in all we are not as powerful as this graph suggests.
But we are in a comfortable position nontheless since we lead in provinces (unfortunately http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ).
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/6584/5cg8.jpg

I am only in this comfortable position though because i was so lucky to find the ichtyids in a province with many resources and my corner starting position. At least 33% of my empire are sea provinces!
So normally i would be in a very challenging game by now, but because of my huge luck it seems a bit too easy currently. If i would generate this game 10 times i think i would at maximum be as lucky as i am till now in this game in 1 of the 10 games.

[Nerfix]

Well ouch. Two-front war is never nice, but you handled it smoothly. Let's just hope all goes well in the future...

[DominionsFan]

Boron said:
Old age starts to take it's toll btw. Our mages start getting afflictions. Only 1 of the loremasters got the diseased affliction, the others have only stuff like crippled,lost an arm and the like, so nothing lethal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.





Eh! Units can loose an arm because of old age? That is a bit....odd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif ,,and yes I know that is counts as an affliction but still.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[Nerfix]

DominionsFan said:Eh! Units can loose an arm because of old age? That is a bit....odd. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif ,,and yes I know that is counts as an affliction but still.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

It can seem a bit odd, but perhaps the mage slipped, broke his arm and the arm never healed or got infected and had to be amputated.

A bit of a stretch I admit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Daynarr]

Well, lose an arm does not necessarily mean that if fell off. It just means that his arm is unusable. Maybe his arm broke and can't heal (as nerfix said) but I bet its more common that there was some infection or problems with bloodstream in that arm that made it 'wither off' and unusable (look at me, I'm sounding like bad version of dr. House http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif). He may still have it 'attached' to his torso you know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Agrajag]

More like Dr. Zoidberg than Dr House http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Either way, its much funnier to imagine the arm just randomly falling off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Caduceus]

Consider it debilitating rheumatoid arthritis.

[Kristoffer O]

Or perhaps the fellow got insane in the brain and chewed his arm off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Happens a lot.

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:
Or perhaps the fellow got insane in the brain and chewed his arm off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Happens a lot.

Ftaghn.

[Boron]

Rofl you guys are hilarous http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Very cool explanations for the old age afflictions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif.

As usual i have been overconfident btw, Caelum kicked my *** http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[coobe]

very entertaining aar boron. cant wait for the next turn

[silhouette]

Kristoffer O said:
Or perhaps the fellow got insane in the brain and chewed his arm off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Happens a lot.

OK, already I can see the disturbing trend that his Dwarf Fortress habit creates. Please tell me that patch 3.02 will not include a Fell Mood affliction, or commanders becoming enraged and attacking another province at random instead of following your orders. New Legendary hall of fame abilities would be acceptable of course.

Sill

[Boron]

"Spring in the year 4 of the ascension wars aka Boron sucks season"

A large caelum force tries to break the siege of their castle.
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8291/1ez5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
300 troops in total.

We have ca. 150 opposing forces.
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4292/2qf5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The caelum fliers are scripted to hold+attack rearmost i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. Most caelum fliers target our x-bows, but a few also hit my mages.
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5819/3nt0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The problem is that caelum had too many troops and i had to less. If i had used the blindfighters as bodyguards the numerical superiority of caelum would have won the battle nontheless i think. Some of their fliers would have hit my mages anyways. And caelum also had about 150 archers.
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/3272/4ad0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
So putting my necros into the x-bow mass would not have been a good idea neither, the caelum archers would have killed some, and the caelum fliers too.

I simply had not enough forces, so caelum slaughered my main army.
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7696/5rc4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Horrible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/firedevil.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif.

Against ermor we won our battle.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8246/6ng7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/655/7jx8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
But the losses have been somewhat high nontheless.
http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/48/8av5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Overall a very sad turn. We will be rather defensive this turn with our orders. I need to get some more troops somehow. I think i will summon some iron corpses.

All in all the situation at the caelum front is slightly uncomfortable now.
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/5289/9rm5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

We need a few turns to produce new armies. Caelum is somewhat weakened too, but they can fly, so they can bring reinforcements faster. I am researching this turn enchantment 3, then i will use all my earth for 400 or so iron corpses and later for mechanical men.

[coobe]

nice! like the screenie heavy style. And not only cause i got DSL 6000 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Boron]

coobe said:
nice! like the screenie heavy style. And not only cause i got DSL 6000 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Yeah Rythin style AARs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
Imho the best AARstyle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif.

[Nerfix]

That's quite a mob the Caelians have! I'm suprised that Ermor hasn't made more...massive attacks. I wonder if they are involved in other wars...

[DominionsFan]

Kristoffer O said:
Or perhaps the fellow got insane in the brain and chewed his arm off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Happens a lot.




Hehe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[DominionsFan]

Boron said:

coobe said:
nice! like the screenie heavy style. And not only cause i got DSL 6000 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Yeah Rythin style AARs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
Imho the best AARstyle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif.



Yeah your AAR is very good, just keep it up Boron..and post lot of screenies! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Agrajag]

Lots of screenies?
That's not nearly enough, I want more than 20-50 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
How about Legions?
Or Zounds?

[Cainehill]

Undead legions of screenies! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Boron]

Cainehill said:
Undead legions of screenies! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


Mercy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.
I have not yet finished my ritual to become a lich, so i am still a mortal.
So legions of screenies are not an option http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Caduceus]

Kristoffer O said:
Or perhaps the fellow got insane in the brain and chewed his arm off.



There is a genetic disorder called Crigler-Najjar where the child is mentally retarded, usually male, if memory serves, and they will chew their fingers off.

Don't know if they are good wizards, though.

[Nerfix]

I wonder if that has something to do with having Hybrid or Starchild blood somewhere in your family tree.

[Morkilus]

Kristoffer O said:
Or perhaps the fellow got insane in the brain and chewed his arm off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Happens a lot.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Strangelove123.jpg

[Boron]

"Late spring in the year 4 of the ascension wars"
Only minor battles this turn, most likely the situation won't change for some turns. The attrition-wars have started.

We easily defeated a caelum attack in Ecnapale:
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/6773/1wo9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
As long as caelum has not at least 200% of our troops they usually do little harm.

Talito was attacked by both Ermor and Caelum:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3588/2yh6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8320/3hm9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/1249/4hm8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Caelum and Ermor have left enough troops though, so we cannot counterattack.
It is not problematic though, since i can still grow by taking water provinces and a few indy land provinces. And i got my accashic caster, so my gem income will increase a lot too. Preparing a second accashicer also.

I redecided my use for the tomb oracles. I will use them simply for massive raiding with this plan:
They first reanimate a huge horde of skeletons, when they have 500-1000 they start marching deep into enemy territory with them and serve as support mages in the battles by skelspamming and blade winding. Once their undead numbers drop to <300 they dig in and reanimate till they have enough undeads again for further conquest.
I summon them now at a rate of 2 tomb oracles per turn. 1 tomb oracle reanimates 7 longdead per turn iirc.
So this is currently irrelevant, but in 20-30 turns i will have a nice amount of skeletons per turn i get for free http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Iron corpse reanimation started this turn too. I have 400 earth gems to waste http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Nerfix]

Caelum has a largish empire it seems.

But it sounds like you have a warplan there.

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
Caelum has a largish empire it seems.

But it sounds like you have a warplan there.


Fortunately Caelum seems rather small, ca. 15 provinces.
But they get +60% Gold income from the difficulty, and they have a castle everywhere. So they can hurl 200-300 troops at me each turn and replace them in 1-2 turns http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Caelum is the 2nd-smallest AI empire, only Ulm is smaller. Ulm seems to be wiped out very soon, they have only 2-3 provinces left http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

Ulm, always getting the short end of the stick.

[Boron]

"Early summer in the year 4 of the ascension wars"

No noteworthy battle this turn, we killed about 200 Ermor/Caelum troops and took 10-20 losses.
Caelum has massed though according to the spy report 280 troops in one of their castles on our border.
The spy report can be very wrong, the actual size might be 50-200%, so 140-560 troops.
I decide to leave my Army in Ecnaphale nontheless.
Our gem stockpile dwindles quickly. The iron corpse reanimation project used ca. 150 earth gems last turn. In 2-3 turns our stockpile will be completely depleted.
Our death gem stockpile is dwindling too, we use about 40 each turn but gain only 19 per turn. Next turn we have conjuration 7, so we can summon the earth kings then.

"Summer in the year 4 of the ascension wars"

Blarg. Caelum fliers had much luck and killed 4 necros in 2 battles. We won both battles though.
Hm earth kings are now conjuration 8. So we cannot summon them yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif.

"Late summer in the year 4 of the ascension wars"

No AI attacks this turn. Nothing else that would be noteworthy happened.

"Early fall in the year 4 of the ascension wars"

A stronger caelum attack.
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/2589/5bc0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
We won, but the casualties were high.
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/9545/6dq1.jpg (http://imageshack.us) Caelum has finally softened up our border defense too much, a bit too early for my taste. Time to give march orders for the iron corpses to the front to crush Caelum once and for all (hopefully).

[Nerfix]

Wow, Caelum giving hard time without OL/False Horror spam or Wrathing Squads.

[BigJMoney]

I don't understand. If they have so many fliers, why not attack your more exposed provinces? It's like they just have to take that once province of yours.

=$=

[Nerfix]

BigJMoney said:
I don't understand. If they have so many fliers, why not attack your more exposed provinces? It's like they just have to take that once province of yours.

=$=

It's the AI http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Daynarr]

Yes, it's AI. :p

Btw, notice how many national troops they are using instead of indie rubbish they used to have in Dom2.

[DominionsFan]

Daynarr said:
Yes, it's AI. :p

Btw, notice how many national troops they are using instead of indie rubbish they used to have in Dom2.



Yes it is definitely an improvement, and with patches + modding, the AI can be extremely good, trust me. I already have many ideas how to improve the AI with modding, and it will work. Not that I play too much against the AI, but still, many people are focusing on SP, so they will like our TC mod. Not to mention that it will have the good old fantasy races, such as the elves, dwarves etc. with totally new unit gfx etc. etc. etc. so the MP fans will be also happy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif [Well when the mod will be done, since making a TC mod for Doms 3. will take huge amounts of time, but I will work with 4 other people.]

[ioticus]

What's a TC mod? Anything you can do to improve the AI (without giving it cheats) is a good thing.

[DominionsFan]

ioticus said:
What's a TC mod? Anything you can do to improve the AI (without giving it cheats) is a good thing.



Total Conversion mod. It means that the modded game will be very different compared to the vanilla game.
Its very hard to make, especially for Doms 3., since you can/must change tons of datas, graphics, etc. Not to mention that finding the optimal balance will be also very hard. I would say, releasing a TC mod will take lot of months even for 5 people.

[Boron]

DominionsFan said:

ioticus said:
What's a TC mod? Anything you can do to improve the AI (without giving it cheats) is a good thing.



Total Conversion mod. It means that the modded game will be very different compared to the vanilla game.
Its very hard to make, especially for Doms 3., since you can/must change tons of datas, graphics, etc. Not to mention that finding the optimal balance will be also very hard. I would say, releasing a TC mod will take lot of months even for 5 people.


Wow that sounds great DominionsFan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

You said it will have the classical fantasy nations like dwarfes/elves. Do you plan to make a mod based on an already existing fantasy universe like warhammer or D&D or do you create a new one that you and your partners invent?

Btw you have to include a draconean nation then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Thilock Dominus was working a draconean mod for Dom2 but afaik unfortunately never finished it.
But i love Dragons and Lizardmen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DominionsFan]

Well Boron, the mod will have a "traditional" fantasy setting, but it won't follow any existing fantasy universe. IF you ask why, the answer is simple. Following an existing fantasy universe means restrictions in spells and units. Restrictions = not good.
So we've decided that the first release will have 6 races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Undeads.
3 races will be "good aligned" [humans, elves, dwarves], and the other 3 races will have evil alignment. This will be important in the campaign scenario, there will be permanent alliances in it.
Later on, we plan to add more races, starting with neutral races like Gnomes and Lizardmen.

Hopefully, IW will give us the power to change the Spell names/descriptions, so that we can add many unique national summons. [AFAIK this won't be possible in the vanilla game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif]
Originally we wanted at least 20-25 national summons / race or more.
Also, like I've said in a previous reply, all units will have totally new photoshopped graphics.
When time will come I will start an own thread for the mod, you can read lot of other informations about it there of course.


*edit* typo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Thilock_Dominus]

Boron said:

DominionsFan said:

ioticus said:
What's a TC mod? Anything you can do to improve the AI (without giving it cheats) is a good thing.



Total Conversion mod. It means that the modded game will be very different compared to the vanilla game.
Its very hard to make, especially for Doms 3., since you can/must change tons of datas, graphics, etc. Not to mention that finding the optimal balance will be also very hard. I would say, releasing a TC mod will take lot of months even for 5 people.


Wow that sounds great DominionsFan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

You said it will have the classical fantasy nations like dwarfes/elves. Do you plan to make a mod based on an already existing fantasy universe like warhammer or D&D or do you create a new one that you and your partners invent?

Btw you have to include a draconean nation then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Thilock Dominus was working a draconean mod for Dom2 but afaik unfortunately never finished it.
But i love Dragons and Lizardmen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Don't worry. I have intention to transfer my wood Elf to Dom3 and finish my half done Draconian race to dom3.
The problem with dom2 was the limitation of modding some things. Luckly I've heard it should way easier to change stuff in Dom3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Boron]

Thilock_Dominus said:
Don't worry. I have intention to transfer my wood Elf to Dom3 and finish my half done Draconian race to dom3.
The problem with dom2 was the limitation of modding some things. Luckly I've heard it should way easier to change stuff in Dom3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Hopefully http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Your wood elf nation was nice too, but i really love dragons and draconians, so i am really looking forward to your draconian mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[DominionsFan]

Boron said:

Thilock_Dominus said:
Don't worry. I have intention to transfer my wood Elf to Dom3 and finish my half done Draconian race to dom3.
The problem with dom2 was the limitation of modding some things. Luckly I've heard it should way easier to change stuff in Dom3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Hopefully http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Your wood elf nation was nice too, but i really love dragons and draconians, so i am really looking forward to your draconian mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.



I don't see a way to add a dragon race to Doms 3. How could it be balanced? Dragons are supposed to be rare and mighty. We will definitely add dragons for various races as a high cost summon....but as a race...I just don't think that it would work. Just imagine a dragon with 50-100 HP, that wouldn't make any sense. Well maybe a half-dragon race could work, but that race would be a bit odd.

Lizardmen on the other hand will be perfect for a race.
They can get dragons as national troops, but only as high summons. Dragonlings could work as low level summons.
Just my .02 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Nerfix]

The half dragons were my fav race in AoW 2.

Shadow Demons were cool in Shadow Magic.

[Manuk]

i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW

[Thilock_Dominus]

Manuk said:
i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW



BLASPHAMY!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Boron]

Thilock_Dominus said:

Manuk said:
i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW



BLASPHAMY!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif


I second that.

The draconians were my favourite Aow nation. In Aow 2 SM i also liked the shadow demons and the nomads though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Hm the tigrans were also cute http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Blofeld]

Manuk said:
i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW



True, very true. It's a pity they took away lizardmen and Azracs and put generic fantasy races instead. Turtle catapult was cute http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
AOW1 had so well balanced and interestingly described units for various races, while in AOW2... mounted halfling sheriff surrounded by poison cloud.
Pleaseee...

AOW1 races with AOW2 battle mechanics - that would be nice.

[Manuk]

AOW has an issue that Dominions resolves good.
Balance
Despite of having much less units AOW has poor balance between units and in between races too. There's never better to have many weak units than few powerful, as weak units cost too much upkeep. Ussually you end up using only melee lvl3 units like yetis or warlords. Maybe Anti-air units like druids or spiders to help.
Draconians are maybe the most useful race. They are neutral, so they relate good with others and they generate research by population wich is the best bonus. And they have a lvl 2 units with true seeing, regenerating hydras as grunts and top of that their end unit is the red dragon. Result: overpowered.
Halflings are only good to generate money with their bonus or leprechauns (if you invest quite a bit).

even then the game is cool. I would like to play MP online to have tactical battles. I played in PBEM before I learned of Dominions, When I´m tired of Dominions I play AOW just to rest my mind.

[Nerfix]

I got really disapointed in the early versions of AOW 2, it just felt...really bad. AOW 2 was the game I abandoned in favour of Dominions. I read a strategy guide to Dominions I in a finnish game mag and I was sold: everything sounded a bit similiar to AOW, except tne times more detailed and numerous.

Well, the two aren't quite the same thing, but I was just...awe-struck when I started playing Dominions.

It felt so magical.

[Blofeld]

Cities had maximum development levels in AOW1, so it was rather difficult to build sufficient numbers of highest tier units. While playing with good-neutral races, I ended up migrating low level cities to elves or halfling to churn out their decent low-level archers or pony scouts there while training human cavalrymen and knights in level 3 cities.
In the AOW1 demo mission it was essential to capture the orc lvl 4 capital before they got to training red dragons there, otherwise you were toasted.
Races were pretty well thought-out, with i.e. halflings having lvl-1 pony scouts, but lacking regular full fledged cavalry, etc. As far as raw combat might was concerned, orcs were much better than halflings, which was logical IMHO
In AOW2 any city could grow to the upper limits, so the above was no longer true. Additionaly, unit balance was plain wrong. Beside draconians, archons come to mind. All their units had vertigo inducing holy strike and their chariots were uber.
Site exploration and unit descriptions were gone, too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

The series sported some dominionesque ideas, e.g. dominion-like "sphere of influence" projected from towers. The above coupled with land-withering global spell was very Ermor-like http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Nerfix]

Yeah, haha, I also back then thought that "Wow, this Dominion thing sounds a lot like the Wizard Domain but much cooler!". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DominionsFan]

There is a draconic race in Wesnoth for example. The draconic units ain't stronger then let's say the human units. Its making no sense to me. Lizardmen as a race can be balanced, but not a draconian race. Well depends, maybe someone wouldn't care to see weak dragons or draconic units. Personally I wouldn't like it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[Nerfix]

Perhaps something like Abysia. Weak but stronger than human units, strong units, special units and a flying commander. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NTJedi]

Blofeld said:
Site exploration and unit descriptions were gone, too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif




Lots of people miss the site exploration. In the original AOW it was mysterious, scary and fun not knowing what to expect from exploring a site. Unfortunately Triumph decided to remove this great feature without even checking with the fans. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
At least with AOW:SM we were able to convince Triumph to change that stupid "auto_surrender" feature into being only a game option. At least 95% of the AOW:SM community does not use the auto_surrender.
As of right now Triumph is working on a game for the XBox called Overlords. The game appears to be like DungeonKeeper from the screenshots we've seen, but that's just a guess. It will be available for the PC as well, yet not sure how features will be lost since it has to be compatible with the XBox too.

[DominionsFan]

NTJedi said:
As of right now Triumph is working on a game for the XBox called Overlords. The game appears to be like DungeonKeeper from the screenshots we've seen, but that's just a guess. It will be available for the PC as well, yet not sure how features will be lost since it has to be compatible with the XBox too.




http://www.triumphstudios.com/press.php

I think that the game will be neat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Ballbarian]

I used to be a diehard AOW player. Haven't played a single game of it since I downloaded the Dominions PPP demo about 2 years ago. I actually first learned of Dominions from a thread in the AOW forums. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Boron]

Ballbarian said:
I used to be a diehard AOW player. Haven't played a single game of it since I downloaded the Dominions PPP demo about 2 years ago. I actually first learned of Dominions from a thread in the AOW forums. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I was a diehard AOW fan too till i discovered finally Dom2 by accident. I discovered it via an OT thread in the paradox forum.

Till then i have not played much Aow neither, only a few mp-duels http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Agrajag]

Well, if you are really set on a balanced draconian race, you could use the Elderlings of "The Liveship Traders" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DominionsFan]

Actually, draconian summons can be part of the lizardmen race.
We are planning the mod with my mates. Just a few examples.

Example: Goblin national summons will be various Hobgoblins and Ogres. Orc national summons will be various Half-orcs and Trolls.
Lizardmen national summons will be various lesser dragons and draconian troops.
Also all races will get some high summons. [example: Lizardmen will be able to summon dragons, Orcs and Goblins will be able to summon various monstrocities etc. etc.]

[Thilock_Dominus]

Amazing how well this thread is going off-topic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

The way to balance eventually a Draconians race to play may be giving them disadvantages which makes up for their strength-ness. It could be things like eg. very-low birth rate and/or very fragile versus cold etc. etc.

[Nerfix]

Or then the Abysia aproach. Which I what I would do.

[DominionsFan]

Thilock_Dominus said:
The way to balance eventually a Draconians race to play may be giving them disadvantages which makes up for their strength-ness. It could be things like eg. very-low birth rate and/or very fragile versus cold etc. etc.



Hm....you have some valid points there..

[Potatoman]

AoW2: SM was a pretty good game that was made even better by a fan-made rebalance patch, the DwiggMod. If you ever tire of Dom3, it's worth revisiting.

[BigJMoney]

This thread gets the Off-Topic Of The Year Award. Even the OPer has taken a ride on the OT train.

/threads/images/Graemlins/icon44.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Panda.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif

=$=

[Boron]

BigJMoney said:
This thread gets the Off-Topic Of The Year Award. Even the OPer has taken a ride on the OT train.

/threads/images/Graemlins/icon44.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/Panda.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon09.gif

=$=


Hehe.
I will soon continue the AAR of course, but i am currently a bit busy with preparations for the next semester, so i do not have enough time to plan my next turns.
In the last turn (not yet shown as an AAR) Caelum defeated the rest of my main army, 1 turn before the reinforcements arrived, so the situation is now rather complicated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


DominionsFan said:

Thilock_Dominus said:
The way to balance eventually a Draconians race to play may be giving them disadvantages which makes up for their strength-ness. It could be things like eg. very-low birth rate and/or very fragile versus cold etc. etc.



Hm....you have some valid points there..


And there is also gold cost. It could be very interesting if a nation would have almost only dragon units, but all units would cost 300+ gold. They would only have some very weak human servants, something like sappers, for sieging, but not for conquest.
So you would have thug-like units, but if they are expensive enough and all have some potential weaknesses it would be very interesting i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Imagine e.g. if all dragons would be cold blooded. This way in cold provinces they would have very high encumberance then.
And there are the seasons too, so during winter for the heat 0 preffered nations temperature would be cold 1 because of winter.
Might be very interesting and the dragonrace would probably be quite unique then in gameplay http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Thilock_Dominus]

I have open a ne thread about Draconians here: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=451987&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=&vc=#Post451987
So we can discuss it there.

[DominionsFan]

Boron said:



DominionsFan said:

Thilock_Dominus said:
The way to balance eventually a Draconians race to play may be giving them disadvantages which makes up for their strength-ness. It could be things like eg. very-low birth rate and/or very fragile versus cold etc. etc.



Hm....you have some valid points there..


And there is also gold cost. It could be very interesting if a nation would have almost only dragon units, but all units would cost 300+ gold. They would only have some very weak human servants, something like sappers, for sieging, but not for conquest.
So you would have thug-like units, but if they are expensive enough and all have some potential weaknesses it would be very interesting i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Imagine e.g. if all dragons would be cold blooded. This way in cold provinces they would have very high encumberance then.
And there are the seasons too, so during winter for the heat 0 preffered nations temperature would be cold 1 because of winter.
Might be very interesting and the dragonrace would probably be quite unique then in gameplay http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif




Yes this sounds good. I will talk to my mates. The vanilla mod will have the lizardmen race for sure with draconian / dragon summons. [Well when the modding will allow us to add researchable summons, because we cannot do it in the vanilla game sadly.] Maybe later on we will add an own draconian race as well. Time will tell. [However the lizardmen will be sort of Draconic, because of the summons..] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif