Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

B9 isn't bad against thugs and supercombatants if you have cheap holies (mictlan, or marignon). Especially if it sometimes horrormarks the killer like I heard it did.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

But the B9 Death Curse allows an MR roll, and SCs will tend to have a high MR. It's probably easier just to Spirit Curse or Curse the SC in question with a mage, which does not allow an MR roll. Same thing with the horror marks--it would be nice if there weren't an MR roll, which IIRC there is.

-Max

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

This certainly isn't an _F_aq, but it is somewhat related to the afflictions/curse/horror/mark questions - what happens to afflictions/curses/horror mar if you are immortal and die? If you are a hero and die and get brought back? If your god dies and is called back?

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

They still stay with you. As it says, you can never be rid of them. From the game mechanics point of view, each unit has an individual identification number and curses and horrormarks are tied to that ID. So even if you change shape by spells or other means, the unit keeps the curse and horror mark.

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But afflictions are healed by immortal units over time, and when a god is called back from the dead he has a chance (I don't know how high) to heal any afflictions he is suffering from.

-Max

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'course, if you have quickness and +4 att skill, strength is very usefull

--
youd say that extra affliction chance of death would be way more effective then death curse...

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The instructions for adding maps and mods is different for the mac.

On a mac the maps are stored in the application package: ctrl-click on the application itself, select "show package contents", maps are in the folder Contents/Resources/Maps.

But the mods are stored in a completely different place: the folder dominions3/mods in the OSX home or user directory.

Confused the ! out of me before a nice person splained it.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Hmm. Perhaps someone could write a section for Mac and Linux versions for that sort of things which are different from Windows. I've never used a Mac and my Linux skills are sadly lacking, so I haven't paid much attention to that either. I run my Dominions on Windows and the documentation I produce is obviously limited by that when it is system specific.

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On Linux, there is a difference between the folders where the game is installed and the user directory, too, as it is often the case. You can (and should) put the things in your user directory, but you *could* put them in the system-wide installation directory, too. Have you tried creating a maps folder in the same location where the mods folder is?

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I intended my post to be able to be added to the FAQ entry about adding maps and mods. I think it's accurate and informative enough and can just be appended to what exists there already.

If I need to give it to you in a different format, let me know.

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Do Tower Shields help against spells such as Flame Bolt and Falling Frost?
What about lightning?
Are these spells considered magical missile weapons, and hence parry-able by a sufficiently large shield?

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AoE hits everyone in a square. Thus Falling Frost is not affected by shields. Same with Gifts from Heaven etc.

Flame Bolt targets one unit and can be avoided or parried. Shields are useful.

Lightning tends to strike conductors. Anyone in a square can work as such. Thus Lightning Bolt has the flag 'hit' to implicate that it will automatically hit a target in the square it strikes. Shields offers no protection.

Blade Wind sends out a multitude of mundane missiles. They can all be parried with shields.

Earthquake targets an area, but will not strike those who sucessfully passes a def roll. This is a pure def roll, so shields will only be bad here, since they lowers defense before adding pary. Not much use to parry the ground.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Thank you very much, then, Kristoffer O.

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The FAQ has been updated. New additions are the section regarding the built-in unit limit in the game (at the end) and the section on reporting bugs (near the top). Also added link to EricM's 3.10 sprites thread to he DB section.

The organization has been cleared up a bit with the addition of lines of stars between each section. MAkes it easier to find what you are looking for.

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Aging mechanics added to FAQ.

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The FAQ should contain something about joining/connecting to MP games. Alneyan has done something about that for Dom2, see his signature.

The FAQ should be divided into multiple posts so that one can link to a specific section of it. You're the only one who can post to it, anyway. Just make sure it stays at one page only.

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I can chop it up to separate sections in separate posts at some point. I have not played any MP, but if someone more conversant with that aspect is willing to write something, they are more than welcome to do so. That is what this thread is for, among other things. Suggestions are always welcome.

I did the FAQ as an afterthought and haven't generally paid much attention to it, so it can use some improvement. Any of the mods could post to it, since they can unlock the thread, add a post and then lock it up again. The reason it's done that way is to discourage clutter in the actual thread, much like the Shortlist/bug discussion division, which has generally worked rather well.

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Speaking of questions...

Against a giant undead army I equiped two demiliched with skull staffs and masks, so 4D +2D = 6D. I figure they can use extra gems to empower themselves up to 7D. BOOM, undead mastery. Only, the didn't cast undead mastery, but bone grinding. That caused my own army to route, and certainly didn't inflict enough damage to cause Ermor to pause. So, did I miss something here, or is this just a case of bone headed AI.

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Nope. Undead Mastery takes 7 death gems. Mages can only use additional gems if their magic level exceeds the level required for the spell. So they couldn't get 7D this way.

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The FAQ has been reorganized by category along the lines of the Bug Shortlist thread. It should be easier to find specific FAQ issues and link to them now. I also added links to the Reorganized Mod Manual and updated EricM's sprite list links and the Dom3 DB discussion link.

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One addition to the Heal Troops list:

One of the LA Pythium commanders, I think the Epoptes, has weak healing ability.

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There are quite a lot of healer commanders now and because they also have the healer icon, I might as well axe the list from the FAQ. When the FAQ was made, we did not have the icon so you had to know what units could heal.

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Fair enough. I hadn't read the list in awhile, and it sounded like it was trying to be complete. The icon does make it less needed.

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Added section on the level of bonuses the various AI difficulties get. In the same section as magic research and aging mechanics.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Added a couple of common questions on magic sites, one more list entry to healing afflictions (secondshape/firstshape pairs) and a note about 100 unrest and recruitment to the first recruitment question.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Excellent, thanks! Especially the 100 unrest note is a very FAQ. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

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2 things I just noticed. First, Fire bless is listed as 8AP damage, but in game it is shown as 6AP damage, which I would think to be correct.

Also it might be worth noting in the "which bless is strongest" question, that opening access to specific globals/rituals/summons is worth thinking about when debating the relative merits of 2 different blesses. Sometimes the strongest bless for a nation's sacreds is a path that they will never make any other use of, where another path with a slightly less useful bless gives the pretender options in the later game that are more beneficial than the difference in bless bonus.


Edit- Just looked at it again, it might be clearer for newcomers if Water bless is listed as "50% Quickness", and to say so on both lines. Currently the W9 may be confusing to some, and it makes it look like maybe the W10 version gives full quickness.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Blessings section updated with mention of opening up new magic and the FW blessing infos corrected. The FAQ has also been reorganized to put IRC Channel info on top.

FAQ links (as well as my own sig links) have been updated to the new forum format so the links work. The Strategy Index is completely unusable at the moment, since all of its links need to be updated.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

FAQ formatting has been fixed so it's actually readable again.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

I have read and reread the complete Manual at least 4 times.

I have also read different sections for clarifaction more times than I can count.

SOMETIMES, you just have to ask a question, either because you just don't understand it or perhaps because you are looking in the wrong section BECAUSE you don't understand it.

I understand that a lot of the vets that have been so helpful in these Forums and going up and beyond the call of duty to make these FAQ's and other listings.

Without you guys there would not be the community that D3 has.

That being said, it seems to me that this particular game draws a somewhat older and more mature player. One that not only has responsibilities in life but also understands there are proceedures to find out information (as they do every day in thier chosen professions).

We try not to bother the 'upper Eschelon' as they have been thru it more times than they need to.

But when we DO post our problems in the Forum there are a lot of people that remember when they where just as frustrated as the Noobs are and how these same Noobs are trying hard to compete with the more experienced players and last perhaps 40 turns before they are unceremoniously destroyed and forgotton in thier respective games. And they are happy to pass thier acquired knowledge on to the next generation of players (which is what keeps this game alive).

We don't ask the 'GURUS' (and I mean that with complete sincerity and respect) to answer our Noob questions as this would be akin to swatting a fly with an Atom Bomb.

However, we also don't need to be told by these people that we respect and hold in somewhat AWE that when we ask a qustion that we should go somehwere else to find an answer or "Read the Manual" (agian).

Every Forum I have EVER been on in some pretty inticate games ask NOOB questions and I think MOST of us take the time to answer them (up to a point when we become the elite and then there is always an 'underclass' that takes over).

I for one don't need to be scolded for asking a question that I can find no answer for OR that when I look in the FAQ and put in words like 'Heal Afflictions' it comes up 'Not Found'.

So please, moderate these forums and do the excellent job that you do mediating disputes, directing threads that should be in another area to the proper place, and in general hold this game together.

But to criticize a very new player and make him feel pretty stupid on a public forum for asking the same question that you probably asked 5 years ago....

Just my opinion and not directed at any one in particular but I HAVE heard people ask why the 'gurus' get so angry

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

I'm sorry if you felt like you wee being lectured, that was not the intention in the 2 spells thread. My comment is the only one there that could be considered so, though it was made as a more general comment on the board at large, not toward you in particular. Unfortunately tone of voice does not carry through text too well. :(

One of the reasons there is sometimes frustration among the veteran players when faced with questions covered by easily found material (such as the FAQ) is that more often than not the questions are posted without even trying to look for any information, whether in the manual or somewhere else. This is often due to the fact that unlike many other games, Dominions 3 almost requires that the player actually read the manual instead of ignoring or just skimming through it.

That said, the manual does not have all the answers to common questions and some answers it does have are a bit hard to find. That is the reason why the FAQ was posted. In most forums I have frequented, the forum FAQs are considered more or less required reading and I suspect most of the veterans here think the same way about the Dom3 FAQ. Doesn't mean that it necessarily needs to be religiously studied right off the bat, but a quick skim through the FAQ by reading just the questions (in boldface font) will give an idea what kind of information there is.

As far searching for a specific phrase, that is often a good tactic, but a dangerous assumption at other times. The reason being that if you use an exact phrase and whoever wrote about the subject did not use that particular phrase, you won't find anything. Searching for just 'affliction' would have found the relevant FAQ section immediately. It's not exactly a common word outside Dominions circles and even in the FAQ it only appears in the section dealing with them. The forum search function would also have netted an answer, especially if tried with acouple of variations like "heal afflictions", "healing afflictions" etc.

You are right that the crowd here is on average a lot older than in many other gaming communities and what you say about attitudes toward searching for information is true, we deal with that every day at work. So we tend to apply it outside of work as well and that's why we also do the things we do with writing FAQs etc. It is sometimes easy to forget that others may be far less experienced in doing that. This leads to less forgiveness for cases where the information has been made easily available through e.g. the FAQ or other manuals like the modding and mapmaking manuals. It's different when basic information is easily available, but must be applied in complex combinations to get the desired results. In those cases questions that look basic on their face can be anything but. In Dom3, modding and mapmaking are subjects where both the common and seemingly common but actually truly complex questions can easily arise.

Then there is also the factor of inauspicious coincidences. Someone comes to the forum and posts a slew of questions that would all have been answered by reading the game docs, the FAQ and the manual, they get answers to their first few questions, perhaps even detailed ones, but sooner or later the answers start getting shorter and less friendly as frustration mounts. Then somebody else comes and asks one or two questions instead of a whole slew, but gets a curt answer nonetheless because of the previous person. I know that should not happen, but it does because nobody here is anything other than human.

Do not take this as a rebuke of your above post, but as an explanation of how interactions on forums like this often go and why. You have a lot of good points in your post and you have legitimate reason to be frustrated and angry at what you saw as disrespectful treatment. I am not angry at you for saying those things and I don't think anyone else is either. It is a good reminder that the old hands like me sometimes take some things a bit too granted and expect more from new players than we perhaps should. Not always, but sometimes, and we need to work on that.

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And some of the answers that the manual has have been invalidated by game patches. (See the thread "Lies my manual told me": http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...ht=lies+manual , for example.)

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I get pretty annoyed by people asking about how to do stuff in the mod forum because 90% of the time it's really quite clear in the mod manual and they haven't made any effort to try and find the answer. Not only that, but often they're effectively asking you to do what they want for them, with examples of code etc. Go and find examples from mods already out thre, it's what I did. Play around and try stuff from the mod manual. Dive in and have a go at doing an entire mod as a learning process. I did all of this with my first mod Avernum and I didn't end up irritating people with lazy questions. Not only did I learn quickly through this process, I also ended up producing a mod I could continue to work on and improve as I honed my mod making skills.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

I would like to thank you for responding to my post and the understanding of the points I was trying to make.

I agree that sometimes we (Noobs, including myself),find it easier to ask a simple question so that we can continue on with a game or perhaps so we can just go on to the 'next' question.

The size of the manual itself is daunting to say the least, and no matter how many games you play there is ALWAYS something someone does that you just sit and stare at. Wondering how did he do that and how was that possible.

I for one have played most of the EU games as well as the Ageod AACW which is very intricate.

But they did not have MAGIC, and I believe that if you look at the forums that is where the game starts to veer off the beaten path to those of us that are tacticians. I personally have tried to look at magic as just long range artillery or perhaps better armour/equipment but to no avail.

This is possibly the deepest game I have ever played (including Chess) as there is no set rules or moves. Throw in Summoning, Communions, Blood magic (and of course Giants) and all of a sudden you have a game that some of us feel like we are not only lost, but lost in the DEEP part of the forest.

Some games have Strategy Guides that walk you thru the game and you use them for about a week until you feel comfortable and then you start exploring options on your own.

No matter how many times I design a pretender I ALWAYS find that it just isn't that good. Of Course there are guides Like the ones Baalz and others make) and all of a sudden you get a glimpse of what they are talking about which brings up 20 other questions that just are not covered in the manual.

I guess what I am trying to say is this IS D3...some of you have been playing since D1 and we hang on every word you say because it might give us a foot up. If you where playing HOMM 5 I would know the answer to every question you ever wanted to know on any subject in that game.

We look up to you with respect for just the time you have put in this game and for STILL being here.

Maybe in a year I will be one saying..."its in the manual" ( I may also say check out page 45 in the manual).

Anyway THANKS to all of you who take the time. And thanks to you for taking the rime to listen to frustrations of a person whoi really is trying but ffles lost and just won't quit!!:D

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Section on installation and directories added to the second FAQ post. It covers the issue discussed in this thread and I also moved the bit about where to install mods and maps to that section. It covers Windows issues, not Linux or Mac.

It occurs to me that if somebody with experience of Dom3 on the various operating systems were to write a more detailed and coherent piece on what installs where in each OS, that could help a lot of people. I've not run Dom3 on Linux or Mac, so I can only cover the Windows side and that only on XP.

The stuff we would need is where savedgames go and where mods and maps go and whether it varies depending on default or custom main install directory.

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As I've always been preaching: If you add a section about information how to start the game in debug mode, then everybody can see the savepaths for themselves. People who are used to click on icons will need to learn how to add parameters for that, of course.

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RE: where stuff goes on a mac:

Maps are stored in the application package: ctrl-click on the application itself, select "show package contents", maps are in the folder Contents/Resources/Maps.

Mods are stored in the folder dominions3/mods in the OSX home or user directory.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

Savegames are also in the user directory

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I've read the manual backwards and forwards - hell I've fallen asleep reading it.

Its dogeared, and tagged each in relevent sections. I've read the FAQ, the Strategy guides, the db. I've read the mods, the unit db. I've played way north of 500 games of dominions. I've spent *weeks* trying to figure out why a mod doesn't work.

And I still find out something new every week. Like ritual of returning working in the capital province.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

The section on installing and enabling mods updated and separated from installing map question.

Also added a question on where to find the modding and mapmaking guides.

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Added Burnsaber's sprite editing tutorial to the FAQ in the modding & sprites section.

Re: FAQ Discussion & Submissions
 

*practices dark magic*

It's been three years since this thread has had a post in it, so high time. I added a new post to the FAQ thread that deals with the Fire and Death bless weapons, Flaming Arrows spell and spells vs spell effects and why things don't always stack.

Highly recommended reading, since those questions pop up with surprising regularity and there is quite a bit of misinformation floating around about them.