Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

having high dominion does not make dominion spread take longer.

The chance that dominoin stays in province is higher; but the number and effectiveness of temple checks is greater. The latter outweighs the former.

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

The number of temple checks is greater? How so?

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

Sorry.. brain about 6 steps ahead. The number of temple checks is exactly the same, the effectiveness is increased.

I was thinking about the awake pretenders extra dominion increases.. (vs a sleeping pretender) but its not germane.

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

every time i read one of your guides i must play dom3...again :-)

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

Well good, keep playing Jens.. we need more players

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

I have lost an embarrassing number of Oreiads in my current MP game. (This is the one where I'm using a Virtue Dom10 pretender). Here are some of the ways:

I tried to be cute and combine a shock resist item (or was it Resist Elements?), Ironskin, and Resist Lighting. Somehow the math worked out that I was only 75% shock resistant. This was when I learned that resistance is a % chance to avoid the attack entirely rather than damage reduction. So eventually she killed herself with a shock wave.

Fatigue was occasionally a problem. I really don't understand why she persisted in swinging her frost brand instead of using shockwave when only at 60 or so fatigue.

Ulm's PD and troops are just that good. High enough morale, attack skill, and strength to produce enough 1-pt hits that mistform pops on a 1% per hit chance. This is probably the most common failure mode.

forgetting to script correctly or at all

trying to seduce, failing, losing the assassination battle. Once it was skellyspam, another time I was facing something really big.

As I am thinking back, I just realized something. I was scripting stoneskin, mistform, strength of gaia. The point of Str of Gaia being +nature and +regen. However, does the barkskin effect of Str of Gaia over-ride stoneskin? I don't think I have a recent battle to view to check this. Argh.

All in all, the thing about Oreiad thugs is that they are fiddly. My first ever MP game I was Helheim. I put firebrands & golden shields on Vanjarls and CTd them all over, and I was amazed at how well it worked. Whereas Oreiads I have managed to screw up in multiple ways. So I think an experienced player can make Oreiad thugs work, but newbs should think twice. Also, Vanjarls are recruit anywhere, and cheaper than Oreiads.

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

Exactly my criticisms of oreos.

They are a great unit but miscast and only occassionally userful as thugs.

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

I'm not sure I buy resistance being a % chance. Are you sure you weren't just getting bad open ended rolls combined with critical hits due to fatigue.

A mage in melee with opponents will only cast spells half the time. It has nothing to do with fatigue.

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

> I'm not sure I buy resistance being a % chance. Are you sure you weren't just getting bad open ended rolls combined with critical hits due to fatigue.

The case of the self-inflicted lightning strike was quite dramatic. Here we are, smacking down shockwave, and then oops, we just did 11 points of damage to ourselves with our own shockwave. Goodbye!

> A mage in melee with opponents will only cast spells half the time. It has nothing to do with fatigue.

Right, of course. I get it now.

Re: EA Arco - uncle moneybags
 

aaminoff is right in one thing. %reduction vs. %avoid should be really easy to tell. In particular, %reduction would show up small amounts of lightning damage every time you were in the AoE, but %avoid would show no damage most of the time and then *bam* lots of damage. Word to the wise, don't use ironskin with shockwave. =)