Terrorism in Dominions 3

[weimaar]

Hi guys,

I know this sounds a bit off (since this is a fantasy game and has little to do with modern terminologies) but how is the concept terrorism and partisans implemented in Dominions 3? For example, is there a way of blowing up a target temple? Could someone list all the possible ways of harrassing a target province without getting caught?

[Executor]

There are many spells you can cast at your enemy which will appear as random event and unknowen to the target.
Flames from the sky, hits 50% of the army with
Send Horror, send a horror that attack the targeted army,
Phantasmal attack, send 25 phantasmal warriors that attack the targeted amry,
Manifestation, send an Ashen Angel that attack a commander,
Earth attack, a size 6 Earth elemental attack a random commander,
Murdering Winter, similar to Flames from the Sky but weaker,
Mind Hunt, targets enemy commander, MR negated so use penetration bonusees,

There are items you can use, bane venom charm for example.
It spreads disease in the province it is located so it can affect the army located there.
Imprint Souls can make a targeted province your depending on how powerful your mage is.

And possibly the best way is to wish for Armageddon and hit every province on the map with a volcanic eruption killing population and troops.

There are many many spells and items that have terrorist effect you want, just study the manual a little.

[Sombre]

By 'without getting caught' do you mean 'without the owner knowing it was you that did it'?

[weimaar]

Thanks alot for the quick replies.


By 'without getting caught' do you mean 'without the owner knowing it was you that did it'?

Yes. I am especially looking for that cross border terrorism where you send someone over to blow the temple that causes so much "negative dominion"

And how about counterespionage? Other than putting level 10 on local militia/defence, how can i find out if there are any assassins/spies in my provinces?

[Executor]

You can patrol.
Units with patrol bonus patrol better.
While you can't demolish an enemy lab or temple, you can send a scout with a false idol that count as your own temple, I think, some nations have stealthy preachers to lower dominion inside the enemy territory.
A good way to shut down an enemy for is to cast unrest spells, or use spies to make upriseing, 5 should make over 100 unrest in a turn.
Once you plan to attack a fort, you can cast crumble to lower it's defense so you can storm the same tun for example.

[Calahan]

I believe an insane Tart can destroy an enemy temple if it is sieging an enemy fort when it goes insane, and ends up with the "Destroy Temple" command (unless it got fixed at some point, if indeed it is a bug). Nowhere near reliable enough to form any sort of strategy around though.

[Sombre]

Well in that case you have to remember that the remote spells which actually do something resulting in a message will 99% of the time have the targeted player trying to work out who did it to them. They can usually work out who by considering the paths of the spell, who their immediate neighbours are etc.

Unrest caused by spies is something that they'd actively have to look out for since they won't get messages about it.

[Illuminated One]

This on the other hand could be used to create some animosity between foreign nations. For example use a bane venom charm on a flyer to move in from the border of a death nation. Move only like a normal (not flying) scout afterwards...

[vfb]

...
Unrest caused by spies is something that they'd actively have to look out for since they won't get messages about it.

The victim of unrest caused by spies gets a big huge "Enemy spies are messing about causing unrest in province X" in his turn messages, and it's usually pretty easy to figure out who has spies.

The victim only doesn't get messages about passive unit-caused unrest like from Revelers.

[Agema]

Terrorism would essentially be represented by events that cause unrest. For instance, invade a province that (presumably) before had 0 unrest, you'll probably see it has 20-30 after you took it - presumably angry locals not happy with the disturbance and change of rulership. You also get a bit of unrest in provinces with enemy Dom, I think. Others have explained events, spies, assassins, patrolling and so on.

[SlipperyJim]

It's not anonymous, however:

Sneak (or fly, or teleport) in a raiding force to capture a backline province. If there's an undefended temple there, so much the better! Burn it to the ground, set the tax rate to 200%, and sneak out before the counterattack can arrive.

[Sombre]

...
Unrest caused by spies is something that they'd actively have to look out for since they won't get messages about it.

Who doesn't get messages about it? The victim certainly does, he gets a big huge "Enemy spies are messing about causing unrest in province X" in his turn messages, and it's usually pretty easy to figure out who has spies.

The victim only doesn't get messages about passive unit-caused unrest like from Revelers.

Yes, sorry, I had those two confused. It's fivefold angels, khlysts, revelers etc that they don't get messages about.

[LDiCesare]

The options you have to stealthily decrease enemy dominion are:

Move a stealthy pretender or prophet there.
Stealthily preach.
Send in stealthy heretics (I'm not sure there are many - EA Arco has one, LA Pythium has many heretics but I don't think they are stealthy), or a someone with a stone idol (same effect: decrease any dominion, including yours).
There's no blowing up temple that I know of.
Hoping a tartarian besieging a castle goes appropriately mad.

You can spread a misfortune or turmoil dominion of your own hoping a bad event destroys enemy temples, but that's not more reliable than a tartarian.

For unrest, a few Bogarus units are great at raising it without doing anything special.

[Gandalf Parker]

It's not anonymous, however:

Sneak (or fly, or teleport) in a raiding force to capture a backline province. If there's an undefended temple there, so much the better! Burn it to the ground, set the tax rate to 200%, and sneak out before the counterattack can arrive.

One of my favorite tactics.

Also there is Scouts wearing the Amulet of Explosion (or whatever its called). Unfortunately it doesnt do as much as it could. But that seems pretty close to a terrorist bomber as I can think of.

Spies instilling uprisings.
Certain items which affect the province and can be given to stealthy units.

[chrispedersen]

...
Unrest caused by spies is something that they'd actively have to look out for since they won't get messages about it.

The victim of unrest caused by spies gets a big huge "Enemy spies are messing about causing unrest in province X" in his turn messages, and it's usually pretty easy to figure out who has spies.

The victim only doesn't get messages about passive unit-caused unrest like from Revelers.

Its not just revelers. Bogarus has a similar unit; there are a few others.

[LDiCesare]

[
Also there is Scouts wearing the Amulet of Explosion (or whatever its called). Unfortunately it doesnt do as much as it could. But that seems pretty close to a terrorist bomber as I can think of.
Phoenix Pyre is probably quite similar, except it can burst several times... I don't know how it combines with immortal...
(I just played with that in a SP game - I was trying to finish a bit faster so I teleported/cloud trapezed 24 mages into a province, without bothering to script them. They had a few bottles of living water and I thought they would do well enough against some PD. Several of them cast Phoenix Pyre. A stray arrow killed one of them. He burst, killing another one, and causing a chain reaction. One of the starets reappeared near the back of the enemies, where he was killed and burst again. Overall, I lots 17 out of 24 mages because they were too near one another and Phoenix Pyre can have a big area of effect.)

[rdonj]

Phoenix Pyre and immortal work together properly. It's only second shapes and immortal that don't interact with each other iirc. Which is unfortunate for Nehekara b/c it means you're better off letting your kings die and become immortal before adding the phoenix pyre buff.

I wonder how the vengeance amulet works with phoenix pyre.

[K]

Multiplay is not so much about killing an opponents units, but breaking their will to fight so they go AI and so be become about three times as weak. In essence, multiplayer Dominions is an exercise in applied terrorism.

Doesn't Volcanic Eruptions destroy temples? Not sure since I haven't played in a while.

[vfb]

Nah, it's the earthquake event.

You can cast Baleful Star to shift scales to Misfortune, Rain of Toads does that too. Melancholia will lower dominion by an insignificant amount.

[Fate]

Hurricane gives unrest, decreases pop, and appears as a random event (though they will obviously suspect the few air nations if it strikes repeatedly).

[Loren]

[
Also there is Scouts wearing the Amulet of Explosion (or whatever its called). Unfortunately it doesnt do as much as it could. But that seems pretty close to a terrorist bomber as I can think of.
Phoenix Pyre is probably quite similar, except it can burst several times... I don't know how it combines with immortal...
(I just played with that in a SP game - I was trying to finish a bit faster so I teleported/cloud trapezed 24 mages into a province, without bothering to script them. They had a few bottles of living water and I thought they would do well enough against some PD. Several of them cast Phoenix Pyre. A stray arrow killed one of them. He burst, killing another one, and causing a chain reaction. One of the starets reappeared near the back of the enemies, where he was killed and burst again. Overall, I lots 17 out of 24 mages because they were too near one another and Phoenix Pyre can have a big area of effect.)

Yeah, I lost a whole bunch of casters in a similar fashion. I had scripted some buffs but then left it open as previous attempts had gone astray due to specifying the wrong spell for the range and the AI overriding. Most of them cast Phoenix Pyre after finishing the scripted buffs, this put them very near 100 fatigue. One died. IIRC I got back 1 of about 40.