Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Just note that blood magic is different. Non-trivially useful blood-magic magic sites are quite rare. The vast majority of your sacrificial blood slaves will need to be gathered by your commanders (preferably blood mages -- everybody else is bad at it) spending their turns to do so, thus costing you commander-turns as well as a mix of population/income as you patrol to keep the resulting unrest down.

Mictlan (EA,LA) is a bit difficult to start with, as it's completely dependent on blood for even spreading dominion.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Hey I noticed you mentioned buying the game in downtown NYC. I live in Astoria, NYC just so ya know. =)

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Well hello neighbor. I live upstate but I work in Manhattan.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

How do you kill your population for death gems? I never heard of that. Can any faction do it?

-Ubercat

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Taxes at 200% and pillage, then send the crows (air spell) I did say it was not recommended. :-) But I have done it with Cealum because I had air gems to burn, and no death income.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

How many death gems could you pull in doing this?

Surely you cant get enough death gems to be a useful strategy? Wouldn't alchemy be better? Even at air-->astral-->death, ie...1/4 the air in death gems.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

I think a good way to start getting some perspective on things in the game is to start by picking a unit that has reasonably strong troops (cough MA Vanheim cough) and a pretender design with good enough scales to use those troops (probably a stay-at-home or site searching pretender, for now).

Play on a map that's not overwhelming big with not an overwhelming number of people (cough Aran, six people cough cough).

Set the enemy nations to those nations that you think are interesting, because you'll get to see a glimpse of what they have to offer.

Now, once you've started your game, look at your mages and then look at your spellbook. Pick one or two spells that are either low or middle tech and that seem interesting to you (Thunder Strike is always fun) and research straight for it.

Fight, search for sites, build temples, and do whatever you would do while you're waiting to get the spell researched. Once you have gotten the spell researched, bring your mages who can cast it along with your army and play with the spell a little, as well as any other spells you happened to pick up.

You should have met your neighbors by now and seen a bit of what they can do. If any of their troops look interesting, you can start the next game as that nation and start the process over.

It might also be helpful to make three games wherein you choose and control all the nations in the early, middle, and late eras, so you can have a quick reference to all their units and mages.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

> How many death gems could you pull in doing this?
> Surely you cant get enough death gems to be a useful strategy? Wouldn't alchemy be better? Even at air-->astral-->death, ie...1/4 the air in death gems.

I do not rememeber exact ratio. I know I was not satisfied, and decided not to do it. Which is why I said 'Not recommended'. I think that spell needs balance.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Thanks for th advice, HotNifeThruButr . I shall try that tonight.

I played out a game last night. I didn't lose but I was losing when I went to bed. It seems to me that after turn 2 or 3 you have to conquer a new territory every couple of turns to stay competitive. Because that's what the AI will be doing.

In RTS I tend to be a turtler but I see that's not really an option here.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Re: Raven Feast, the formula is right in the book. 'The exchange rate is gems = sqrt(corpses)/3.' (DomIII Rulebook, p.208). Since it is 4 gems, the 'normal' conversion rate from Air:Death is 4:1. Substituting that into the formula, you can solve for how many corpses you need to generate how many gems. Here is a quick table.

Gem Corpses
1 9
2 36
3 81
4 144
5 225
6 324
etc.

Note this means that if there are 36+ corpses in a province, you will receive more gems than through alchemy. The really interesting part is that at 144+ corpses, you get at least a 1:1 ratio.

This is in addition to the fact that it eliminates all corpses in the territory, which can be useful in its own right.

The nations I can see this primarily useful for are EA Caelum (definitely can cast it, have Death mages with no Death income, IIRC), EA Ermor (would need pretender, but same dilemma), and, ironically, LA Ermor. Again, needs a Pretender, but their entire engine runs on Death gems, and they have the corpses to burn (almost literally).

Fenris: In regard to expansion, you generally want to take one province _or more_ starting from the third turn.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Gah! That's a lot!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

But, IMO, virtually required. General flow for first few turns:

1) Prophetize your non-scout commander, recruit mercs if you can (assuming they're any good), purchase troops and mage (if possible)

2) Send initial army + Mercs after easiest nearby province. Keep recruiting troops. One idea is to build another 'leader commander' to keep bringing new recruits to the army so that your initial commander doesn't lose turns going back to pick up more troops.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

How do I defend territories that have been conquered? Do I leave armies behind or keep pushing forward with them?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Recruit "province defense" (PD). To do this, find the "Defense" number in the top left bar thing, and increase it. Then you create a standing militia that will defend your province, that automatically replenishes any losses it suffers and which costs no upkeep. It's very helpful.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

The general early game advice of averaging at least one province/turn for the first year applies as long as you have indies to conquer. Turtling vs rushing really begins when you start running into other nations.

In the expansion, in an SP game, don't worry too much about defense. Independents don't attack, so all you have to worry about is random events. Once you have a border with another nation, defend that. Buying up PD is the usual defense, maybe supported by a few troops to cover your PD's weaknesses.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

As for buying PD:

level 1 always shows you who conquered the province. Spending 1 gp for that is very much worth it.
1-3 PD, depending on nation, is enough to beat enemy scouts, small groups of fliers, etc solo guys that your enemy might want to use. In multiplayer, most provinces have PD in this area.
11 PD has a small chance of finding and fighting against stealthy enemy forces or commanders. In single-player, buying some PD in provinces neighbouring enemy nations can keep the AI from attacking you.
21 PD has a bit better chance at finding the enemies, and it starts getting troops of better quality. All nations get another type of commander, who is sometimes a mage or a priest. This much PD is rarely used even in SP, but in some cases having lots of automatically replenishing units is worth it even if you can't script them - even in MP.

Quality of provincial defense varies wildly between nation. The nation list at the end of the manual also describes the units the nation gets from its PD. Some nations have excellent PD, some have useful PD, some have very, very weak PD.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

I'm confused. Province Defense automatically recruits troops?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

If someone attacks your province, the troops you will have in the battle will be any actual troops you have there, plus an extra force of a size determined by how much PD you have there. They will fight in the battle for you, but you can't see them apart from that. You can't move them around. If another enemy attacks, they will be there again, fully replenished. They are meant to represent local militias and defensive forces.

There is at least some explanation of PD in the manual. Also in the nation descriptions for each nation, it tells you what defenders you get for each point of PD (e.g. you might get an archer and a light infantry for every point). For PD values above 20 you start getting stronger, more elite troops present - but mostly PD above 20 is a waste of money anyway.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

I see. Thank you.

Will the AI attack my provinces a soon as it comes in contact with me?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

AFAIK, the AI picks on players and territories that it sees as weak. For the player aspect, this is generally comparing the Army Size graph scores. For the territory aspect, this is generally a place with no troops and little/no PD. So, as should be pretty commonsensical, having a large army, and having it at your borders with an enemy, should deter that opponent from attacking you.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

The AI is always either at war or at peace with you. It tells you when it goes from peace to war (it sends you a message declaring war), but unhelpfully it doesn't tell you if it decides to stop attacking you.

If you attack an AI it will become at war with you without telling you. If you fight it by both moving on the same turn into an independent province though, it won't take offence.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Heh. I must have missed the message when it declared war on me, then. I'll have to pay more attention to all those between turn messages I guess.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Just for the record, if you really, really want to turtle, using lots of PD (40 is probably sufficient for just about any nation) along with small armies (40-80 units large) along all your borders with the AI will make it so that even if the AI does attack you, you won't really lose any troops. Just note that 40 PD costs upwards of 700 gold and is not necessarily the most efficient use of your money... on the other hand, if the AI does keep attacking you in a province where you've invested that much PD, they'll undoubtedly waste far more than 700 gold trying to invade it. Just don't try that in mp.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Note that province defense is VERY VERY different from nation to nation. Some have excellent PD that will stop, with 11 strength a barbarian invasion and with 21 strength a barbarian horde (very common random events) Other have such crappy PD that is not worth anything at all.

It is good to get a taste of PD strength. One easy way is to start test game with turmoil and misfortune, and wait for indy attack. See how your capital defenders do.

Right now I am playing game with very crappy PD. My capital lost to 34(!) barbarians. Now I am keeping reaction force to clear barbarians from my inner provinces.

In MP you seldom buy more than 1 PD in peace, or 11 PD in war. Yes, sometimes you want to create quick and cheap cannon fodder to shield real troops, and sometimes you do make trap for enemy... but PD against a player is worthless without real troops (and mages).

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

don't believe the manual about giant PD
"province defense is the game's best..." (p.115) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Tharsonius: Actually, the rulebook is right, in a purely mathematical sense. Almost every PD cost-per-unit is ridiculously low. Let's use Arcoscephale (EA) as an example.

At 1 PD, you get a Myrmidon Champion, a Peltast, and 2x Cardaces. Using CBM gold costs (which is lower than vanilla costs, in this case), a Peltast and two Cardaces are worth 24g. Since you get this per point of PD, this is far more efficient than simply recruiting them.

Let's say you recruit 10 Peltasts and 20 Cardaces. For PD, that's 55g. 'Normal' recruitment would cost 240g. That means, should that province get attacked, you get a greater than 4:1 return on your investment.

Note: this also ignores upkeep on those units.

Now if you get twice that, in normal recruitment that's 480g, while PD now costs 190g. Not even 3:1 in that case. But overall it's still more efficient.

Please differentiate, though, between efficient and effective. I am not at all claiming that you'd want to do this, since many/most PD troops are not nearly worth their cost (even under CBM).

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Fenris99: If you want to pursue a turtle strategy against the AI, then the most important thing to do is control the bottleneck provinces. Instead of having a wide border with the AI, try to find the key provs which control access to large parts of your empire's interior. If you control the bottle neck provinces and put a ton of PD into them, the AI will brainlessly just keep ramming itself into them with no hope of victory. In this way you can gain almost perfect protection from the AI with the least investment.

Also, you probably dont want to build a fort in those provinces, just so you dont have to constantly remember to tell your commanders to Patrol (if they are set to Defend they will sit in the fort while the enemy takes the province around you).

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Vedalken: I think Tharsonius meant giant PD in the sense of Jotun PD. The manual claims it's good, whereas actually it's one of the worst in the game.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Thanks, ironhawk.

I'll do some more experimenting tonight.

Any preferences on pretender types?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Ironically, a combat pretender would probably work best. Being able to take bottleneck provinces before your opponents is very important, and while your main armies mass in those provinces, your pretender can take independents on another front.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

What nation are you playing?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

I started a game as Marignon.

I don't see the pretenders as being powerful enough to conquer an indie by themselves. I got the Wyrm in my first game killed on turn 3 by attacking a province by himself.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

you have to give the wyrm dominion 8 or more(the more the better)
it will gain awe ability.
and will be difficult to kill unless fighting the lizardmen shaman indies.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

How do you raise the dominion stat?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

In pretender design only. Dominion of 9+ gives awe.

He should be able to handle anything but knights and heavy cavalry. Avoid the lizardmen because they'll curse him.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

At pretender creation. Dominion strength 9 gives awe+0, I think thats a 50% chance for a 10 morale unit not to attack you. At dominion 10 you get awe +2.

I personally like earth magic on my Wyrms. You can get the protection buff spells(20 protection from ironskin is nice. Later 25 from invunerability is great) from alteration and reinvigoration from summon earthpower in conjuration.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

An alternative is to put a cool bless on your pretender. Or rather, you pick strong magic for your pretender so that your troops get a strong bless when they are blessed by a priest.

For Marignon, try F9S9 (fire-9 astral-9). The Baphomet is an ideal pretender for this. This will make your flagellants vicious, and your knights even more powerful. You can bless an entire army at once (well, all the sacred troops in it - non-sacred troops can't be blessed) using your holy-3 recruitable priests.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

I didn't see where at pretender creation you can raise the dominion stat.

I'll try a new game tonight and I'll try to give my pretender a high dominion.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Its under the Dominion section Fenris. Same place as the Scales. At the top of the dialog there are some candles and the text "Dominion Strength". Just click on that. Costs are similar to extra picks in magic paths.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Fenris99, there are many pretenders that are "powerful enough to conquer an indie by themselves", but they need research spells to use. For example, a ghost king with water, air and astral can go:

Air shield, personal luck, mirror image, quicken self, attack closest.

This is very powerful, enough to anihilate at least most indies, and takes only Alteration 2. At other paths/levels you will get other great self-buffs like Ironskin, Mistform, Body Etherial, Summon Earth Power, Fire shield, Personal Regenration, Soul Vortex, etc...

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Marignon is quite easy to learn basics with. In the beginning pick a Wyrm or a Dragon. A Dragon can solo most indie provinces by just scripting fire x5 + attack (anything really).
Wyrms can solo with dom 9 or 10 (I prefer 10, magicless but 9 is almost as good too) Without high dom, take either astral or earth and sit him at home researching buffs till he can lead a small force of indies to start conquering himself. Once you get the right buffs for him, he should break off into soloing and let an indie commander to conquer stuff with the troops your wyrm was leading.
Regarding solo pretenders, avoid: Lizardmen, Barbarians (unless you have awe which really kills Barbs), Xbows, Heavy Cavalry/Knights <= though this last batch is pretty tough to deal with with standard troops even. Prepare a big line of militias to soak up the lances), and Amazons.
Your first army should pick up the first turn of troops (prophetize the commander), script him to fantacisim, smite, smite, smite, smite, cast spells.
You want to keep your pikemen on guard commander formation and put your commander right on front of your archer block.
Now the crucial thing to learn from all this is decoying. Always keep one (or two) seperate troops on front and a bit to the side on "hold and attack". These will soak up the first two volleys of archers and bad stuff. Constantly replace these decoys with your guys with battle wound, prioritizing battle fright (MAKE SURE THESE ARE NEVER IN YOUR MAIN GROUP) and diseased (they're going to die anyway).
Anyway, for the most part of the game, always make tons of archers + xbows. They are by far the most effective troops and your heavy infantries should mainly be there to soak up the extra resources you're not using. Learn to love your ranged guys when it comes to nations with standardized human troops. Also, always make pure mages from your fort provinces. Never recruit nation commanders and scouts since you can grab them from indies. Marignon can set up a secondary fort for spies so you might consider one just for that. Learn to love falling fires with marignon and look towards seraphs eventually. Another thing, when designing scales, ALWAYS take Order x3. (Unless you're LA Ermor ...), misfortune 1 is pretty safe and for the most part, so is Sloth 3 since you mainly need one or two mountain/forest neighboring provinces to conquer to give you all the resources you need. A point of cold/heat isn't bad either since the income penalty is effectively only 2.5% for the first point due to the changing temperature per season. I always take magic 3 as well but drain 2 is fairly common. GL =)

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Except, I think if you prophetize your commander he will be a level 3 Priest. Isn't Fanatacism an H4 spell?? Maybe KB meant cast Divine Blessing, which an H3 Prophet can cast. Only helps if you have sacred troops on the battlefield, though.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

My memory might be off, my laptop is sputtering so I can't play Dom lately but I thought h3 gave you Fanaticisim in Dom3?

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

No, it is H4.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Ah right, nevermind, it was smite that dom 3 took down. Yeah, just cast Sermon, Smite x4 then. =) Thanks, (haven't played dom for awhile cause my laptop with it went clunky >_> and it doesn't fly well on Vista)

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Thank you for the advice, KissBlade .

The game is not easy. It seems I have to build up for at least 3 turns before I can start grabbing indie provinces. The Ai seems to be doing it sooner. It also seems that you have to have a long view on what you're going to do; you can't just face challenges as they come. You have to have some master plan.

And I'm playing on a small map with easy Ai. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Look to be conquering 1 province per turn from turn 2 (ie...1 turn to strengthen your starting army), aim for 15+ provinces by early spring year 2.

This is minimium, some nations you should expand faster with.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

That's the minimum in competitive multiplayer. In the beginning, and against the AI, you don't have to hurry. Depending on your tastes, you might never start playing against other people, and thus might never feel the need for such a rapid early expansion. It's easy to do with some tactics, and some nations have an easier time than others, so you'll probably manage to do it at some point even if you aren't going all out for it.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

Once more, minimum with what independent strength? Indies 5, doable. Indies 7+, forget it, province per turn from turn 3 and you're likely not going to be able to do more unless you have good luck with the neighbors and good quality units in decent numbers.

Re: How difficult is this game?
 

With strength-9 indies (all I ever play), I can usually take a province every two turns when I get started. I'll take a turn or two to beef up my starting army, and then I go a-conquering.

After I've conquered the ring of provinces around my home fortress, then I can usually put a second army in the field and speed up to one (or more) provinces per turn.

I probably wouldn't be competitive in multiplayer, but I'm more-than-fast enough for SP. Sometimes, the AI will get a little ahead of me in the early game, but I always overtake it once I can get the war machine rollin'....

---

PS:
As others have written, the key to fast early expansion is Mercenaries. Hire up any mercs that are worthwhile, and use them to snag provinces while you build up a solid army of national troops.

Remember that your mercs are generally disposable, so use them appropriately. Put the Brave Breakers, the Black Fists, and Dante's Stingers on the front lines and let them do the hard fighting for you. You're paying them to die for you! Meanwhile, you're recruiting a strong force of whatever your best national troops happen to be. Once the mercs are dead, you'll have a company of Helhirdlings (or whatever national troops are best for you) ready to go forth and spread the word of your Pretender. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif