Tips for newbs - just add

[kasnavada]

In an MP game, always make your initial scout your prophet... unless you have H3 recruitable Priests. An H3 recruitable priest can be made into an H4 prophet... very nice. But otherwise the scouts do just fine, and can even stealth preach when needed.

I disagree to that. I always use my starting commander to make a prophet, because using sermon of courage and smite helps a lot in winning early fights (and limiting losses).

A scout is disposable, weak and prone to early death...

The advice I'd give would rather be "Don't forget to always have a prophet. And don't forget that making someone a prophet gives +1 holy magic if the commander has that magic or sets holy magic to three."

[Karlem]

Kasna, making your scout a profet gives you access to something most countries do not have: stealth preachers.

Just try doing your scout profet and have him travel with firt army and you solve both problems at the same time.

[kasnavada]

What is the point of having a single stealth preacher ? Stealth preaching has counters and works only with mass of priests anyway. It's not that useful in early game because you don't really have a lot of immortal units. Stealth preaching doesn't really has any other useful side that both of those...

Moving with the scout prophet creates another problem : I may be strange but I use the scout to scout.

Well, as I said, it may have a use... but it is not in my opinion good enough to make it "noob tip".

That's what I would call a noob tip : fill the map with scouts, especially in MP !

[Dedas]

There is not really a need for a stealth preacher in early game as the prophet spreads dominion automatically anyway.

It is difficult to say which unit should be the prophet because that depends on the nation your playing and what strategy you are planning.

[Sombre]

I agree with kasnavada. Making your scout a prophet isn't always a good idea. Always having a prophet is though, as is the +1 holy level tip.

"Becoming a prophet sets his holy magic level to 3, or adds +1 level if he's already at 3+. It also gives him bonus to stats when in friendly dominion, makes him sacred and keeps him automatically blessed at all times"

[Edratman2]

Don't equip armor or low level weapons on military commanders. It just replaces the equipment the commander comes with.

Learn to choose assassin targets with care. They almost always lose to knights and other mounted commanders.

This is not Civilization. You cannot always do everything you want/plan to do. You can only build one commander per castle and must choose between military, priest, research, site search or battle mages. At first, with only one castle, this is a huge issue.

Do not waste your money/resources on the lower military units.

Learn castle admin values and what type you are building. A province between two castles who admin adds up to 100% will go to zero resouces which means you cannot recruit in that province. Murphy's law will mean that a valuable indy mage is no longer recuitable.

The people that complain about the poor AI are experienced and skilled Dom3 players. Until you learn the 7 skillion complexities of the game, the AI will kick your ***.

Magic users can kill your (seemingly)invincible armies.

This is a rock/scissors/paper game. There is always something to beat everything else. As a collary, you may not have the reasearch gems or mages to play the card.

[Wauthan]

Remember the Dominions ethic. Soldiers suffering from terrible diseases or crippling disabilities are not discharged or treated. They are to be promoted to hold the glorious position of point men (aka arrow/javelin/lance fodder). Point men work best in small groups positioned in front the your main melee forces.

This serves to practical purposes:
1. Wastes "ammo" attacks, especially the dangerous Lance charges of cavalry.
2. Kills these subpar units so you don't have to pay upkeep.

Addendum: Commanders are usually an exception of this rule, and eye and heart injuries can be "treated" with Thaumernetic implants, such as Eye of Aiming. But if it's a crap commander (like a diseased scout) don't hesitate to stick a cursed or suicide item on him and toss him at some enemy (or send him to the deathmatch). With luck some foolish enemy commander (or Pretender) will pick up the cursed items.

[Wrana]

On eye & heart implants - unfortunately, in Dominions they work differently than in Earthdawn where the idea appeared first. So - do NOT use them on commanders which suffered such injuries. Especially not in case of eye - commander won't have his missing eye replaced with a magical one, he'll lose his remaining one!
BTW, I'm also against this thread (and we have trivia one!) - but I think that many people still won't read it so we'll still have amusing posts in MPs...

[Ironhawk]

Generally speaking, do not mix units with different movement speeds into the same squad. It will cause the squad to break formation as they charge the enemy and make them easier to kill.

There are some notable exception to this rule (like with Tramplers), but it generally holds.