Province Defense

[NTJedi]

Has anything changed in regards to province defense?
or has this remained unchanged?

[quantum_mechani]

The amount of troops from PD was roughly doubled compared to in dom2. Now, the amount of gold avialable was also doubled, but that means more extra gold available to to be used on it. All in all, I use PD a lot more in Dom3.

[Daynarr]

You get 2 different types of troops for every level of PD and after 20+ you get additional 2 different troops types. That’s a lot of troops if you invest in it. Also, commanders you get are often not bad and very often second commander (for levels of 20+) is a mage. Of course, this isn't exact rule as some nations vary in PD department, but most of them are like this.

[BigJMoney]

Wow, this is really cool.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Nerfix]

Interesting, interesting.

[Morkilus]

They still like to run away like good little militia. Nonetheless, you feel alot better about spending the gold when you can get a decent mounted Van and fully glamoured footmen as well. This compares alot more fairly with Jotuneim's militia, which were pretty scary.

[DominionsFan]

wow, nice changes, I like them! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Ygorl]

I got PD of 40 in my hometown, and it has beat a couple solid AI midgame armies... Not that it would withstand a serious or intelligent attack, but it makes a lot more of a difference than it did in 2.

[Meglobob]

Ygorl said:
I got PD of 40 in my hometown, and it has beat a couple solid AI midgame armies... Not that it would withstand a serious or intelligent attack, but it makes a lot more of a difference than it did in 2.



Is it worth the money, however?

In Dom 2 I get PD to 10, because its very cheap to do so. Perhaps PD to 20, in provinces where u get that random event which raises it to PD 15.

But 40?

Isn't it better to spend the money elsewhere?

Or in Dom3 is PD really worth investing in?

[NTJedi]

If province defense has been improved... hopefully the AI opponents are investing more into province defense as well.

Perhaps the developers can comment on the AI opponents and how they invest in province defense.

[Daynarr]

Depends on situation Meglobob. If you are defending some chokepoint its well worth the investement. You can improve them by placing few artillery mages and maybe priests for sermon of courage. The fact that they all get back to full numbers after each battle makes them very usefull for defending critical provinces.

[Daynarr]

NTJedi said:
If province defense has been improved... hopefully the AI opponents are investing more into province defense as well.

Perhaps the developers can comment on the AI opponents and how they invest in province defense.



Since there is more gold, there is more PD for AI as well. Not too much but you will run into heavy PD often enough. I guess it depends if AI has enough money to invest in them.

[Cainehill]

I'd guess he got 40 PD via the random events, which have often given me 20-40 PD without spending for more than 5 - 11.

[Meglobob]

Daynarr said:
Depends on situation Meglobob. If you are defending some chokepoint its well worth the investement. You can improve them by placing few artillery mages and maybe priests for sermon of courage. The fact that they all get back to full numbers after each battle makes them very usefull for defending critical provinces.



Errrm...thanks, not considered putting a priest/mage in as backup, yea scripted to cast spells, then leg it at the end. Give that a go.

[Ygorl]

Cainehill, right on. In Dom2, I'd rarely buy PD above 1-3 points... Maybe knock it up to 10 as a surprise for a predicted invader, but I almost never went higher. In Dom3 I'm finding myself with the money to put it at 10 as a matter of course, and raise it to 20 or 25 as the situation warrants. Raising it to 40, though, would be *really* unusual.

[Nerfix]

Interesting, I wonder how hard it is for Caelum and stealth nations to overpower province defence now.

[Caduceus]

PD 10 = 55 gold
PD 20 = 210 gold
PD 30 = 465 gold
PD 40 = 820 gold

[Morkilus]

Daynarr said:
Depends on situation Meglobob. If you are defending some chokepoint its well worth the investement. You can improve them by placing few artillery mages and maybe priests for sermon of courage. The fact that they all get back to full numbers after each battle makes them very usefull for defending critical provinces.



I was very pleased to see (after back-to-back indie attacks on my capitol) that EA Abysia gets an Anathemant Salamander after 20 points of PD. With the regular troops and some very sturdy infantry, this is a nasty wall for halfhearted attacks. When splitting up larger armies in a blitzkreig-style offensive, backing up your rear provinces with PD actually works.

[Agrajag]

Caduceus said:
PD 10 = 55 gold
PD 20 = 210 gold
PD 30 = 465 gold
PD 40 = 820 gold


The formula is (N^2+N)/2

[Archonsod]

The increased income helps out with PD immensely. Playing EA Ulm, with scales granting a 10% bonus on income, I could easily field three armies (with commanders leading the maximum troops they could) and up almost all my PD to 50 while still having more than a thousand in the bank.

[Caduceus]

Agrajag said:
The formula is (N^2+N)/2



Sure, you could make it simple for me, but I enjoy calculating... No wait a second, I don't! Thanks!

[Agrajag]

Caduceus said:

Agrajag said:
The formula is (N^2+N)/2



Sure, you could make it simple for me, but I enjoy calculating... No wait a second, I don't! Thanks!


Hehe, you're welcome http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Just remember that its only for raising from 0 to N, if you raise it from K to N it will be (N^2+N-K^2-K)/2 (which is the cost for going from 0 to N minus the cost for going from 0 to K)
Also, that formula is basic mathematics, I think I officialy learned that on the eighth grade (which means I could do it myself even before http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif)

[Hammerstein]

Im currently trying the demo (oh god why isnt my copy here yet) and have cranked up some province defenses to 50 which gives you quite a lot of troops. What I noticed is that the AI will throw wave after wave or units against highly defended provinces and often take horrible losses.

Yet it manages to get another another huge army up by the next round. Obviously the AI uses every resource in every available province to ship troops to the front. I still hate this part of the game, if you do this as human opponent it takes an ungodly amount of micro-managing to achieve the same, once you control 20+ provinces it takes forever to ship your units anywhere.

So was this changed in DIII or do you still have to do all of this manually ?