What are some useful strategies for construction?

danm · #1 February 9th, 2007, 11:52 PM

Construction is cool (especially if you are not wow'd by summons and find yourself with a bunch of gems laying about - hehe)

1a) its always good to boost your commanders a bit. adding a low(to no)encumbrance shield, helmet, and armor, with luck, etherial, or similar boni to your mages makes a BIG difference once arrows start flying their way. Magic boost items also can make a HUGE difference in battle (spell fatigue depends on path level -- higher paths == more spells)

1b) SKULL MENTORS. +9 research for 10 death gems is about as good a bargain as anything in the game. (think 2 cheap researchers at 100+ gold each and upkeep every turn, vs 10 gems and an inventory slot) There are quite a few handy items of this sort. Again, spell path boosters can be amazing, allowing you to use cheaper units for rituals/summons, or enabling certain spells/summons in the first place.

2) I havn't had a lot of luck or experience building effective supercombatants and thugs yet (hihi im a nub too!), but word is they can be quite nifty. The Dom2 veterans will have this down to a fine science, as it was apparently a vital skill in that release. It's harder to do properly in dom3, but still handy if you have the inclination.

Items certainly won't win the game for you all by their lonesome, but I don't know of a strategy that isn't at least improved by the right items (and most depend on one or more key constructables)

Aleph · #2 February 10th, 2007, 01:35 AM

Also - fever fetishes (either on cheap commanders, be sure to get them back before the commander dies, or on undead, who produce less gems but don't suffer from being diseased), blood stones, or clam of pearls to drive magical economies.

Fever fetishes on undead, in particular, can also be a nice boost to your economy if you alchemize them for gold.

Nick_K · #3 February 10th, 2007, 09:33 AM

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the skull mentors. The lightless lantern at Const 6 is also very good: it's more efficient in terms of RP/Gem and the horror marking isn't actually a big deal... but those extra two levels of research needed are a bit annoying

Taqwus · #4 February 10th, 2007, 07:02 PM

Some items are rather useful, militarily. For instance...

Supply items: starvation really bites.

Staff of Storms: shuts down -most- fliers, really weakens missile fire, and ensures Summon Storm Power will work.

Sword of Aurgelmer: luck to all friendly units :O

Banner of the Northern Star: +1S to all astral mages. Helpful if you're astral-happy and they're not.

Nightblade · #5 February 10th, 2007, 08:55 PM

After the 1st time i encountered the rogue commander Bogus the Troll that single handedly routed a whole army of mine, i never underestimated the values in battles of good items anymore.

BigDisAwesome · #6 February 10th, 2007, 10:07 PM

yeah those guys are insane. i'm pretty sure i remember seeing a flying unit with a defense of 29.

General_Jah · #7 February 11th, 2007, 04:43 AM

What about some SC strategies for pretenders? IS the pain point to get your defense really high or your protection really high?

From the manual it seems that though high defense can make or break you in a huge battle with masses of troops that have a superior defense. A smaller force, especially a lone pretender, that even has a high defensive will get dropped when he is swarmed by 2 a hit.

So is this really that viable a strat for a lone pretender?

Thanks!