Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Trying this against the regular AI's.

First game: I started right next to Ermor and he jumped me early on. While I was able to hold the battle line for a long time he was able to expand and I wasn't. I threw in the towel when I started losing units to a lack of support.

Second game: I got into an early war with Utgard but this has been much more manageable. He's definitely on the run but I'm staying within my dominion to save my immortals and it's being much harder to push dominion than I would expect, although Utgard's dominion finally seems to be collapsing.


I also had an interesting experience: I tried to sneak a *LARGE* army through Man's territory. I was caught and won the battle--I got the province. Afterwards I did not appear to be at war with Man--he never did anything hostile to me. In the end I realized his war with Utgard had reduced him to a single province so I took it.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

You couldn't beat ermor even with your tons of level 2 and 3 mages? That is unexpected I'd thought a undead nation would just be banished into loose bones.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

The problem is it's awfully hard to maintain a battle front against Ermor. I can smash their armies no problem but they keep messing me up in the process--and my troops need gold. An army breaks through and I got chasing it until it sieges a castle and I can catch up. Ermor is a royal pain in an early battle.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Try researching up thaumaturgy for wither bones... you've got the mages to cast it and it should cause ermor horrific casualties. Also, if you have lots of magical firepower one thing you can try doing is having your troops set on guard commander, on either a commander set to holdx5 and attack or a mage commander. That will give you a good chance to mess them up before they get close to you.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

I find the troops to be a tad similar to each other, with no real difference, apart from HP and move. It makes playing them a bit dull. (at least to my suboptimal playing style) The fact all their troops only count on ethereal to save their little a*ss makes them easy to counter by midgame in MP, I think. (or earlier for some faction) All my observations are relative to classical dom 3.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

There is quite some similarity indeed, but teh quadrapeds have a double attack, the monster even more.
The Collossi have 2x AOE 1 attack (Though I'm thinking it might be a bit much)
The new spells (which I was so very proud of) can help mid/end game.
One is a large AoE airshield (and a BF version which they can't cast easily), the other is a AoE stoneskin (and the BF version of it too)

In the end all human nations are pretty similar too though, not even diferecen in HP, only a little in move and rely on prot to save their axes.

Do you have any suggestion to ikmprove the race considering your view of it?

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

Well, after reading your post my view is all of a sudden quite different, as I hadn't spotted all of this. (I do not read all the DMs, lazy me)(it spoils quite a bit of pleasure too)

But, even knowing all this, I still think you could be quite hard pressed early on by, lets say, caelian infantry, or anything better using magic weapons.
What do you think of some sort of armored thralls, or mercenaries ? It would help diversify their base roster of units. You can even make them a level 1 or 2 construction/whatever, if you think armored stuff should stay exceptionnal.

edit : uh stoneskin uh ? Err maybe no armored goodies after all. Needs more testing to make my mind.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

hmmm it's a spell that casts stoneskin on undead only :D it's holy, the larger version (which you might not have yet) is death/holy since it needs to cost gems or �*t's too powerfull.

I'll post a new version which has all spells I'm talking about in any case.

I agree that nations with magic weapons will be quite annoying.. against them you'll just have to field immortals and grind them down.. some nations just don't do well against other sorts.. I think demon or undead nations wouldn't like fighting against this nation :D

I could see however that it might be too much of a problem.. then I'd might be able to think of something..but the smaller version of the holy spell, stone souls is already AoE 3 and castable by holy 3 priests... with this nation you could get your undead to prot 15 in a few turns of buffing with this spell if you invest in the holy 3 priests that is.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

No--the problem was keeping a solid battle line so they didn't slip around behind. Keeping a sufficient force to deal with whatever he could throw in a dozen provinces overstretched me.

It reached the point that he was pushing dominion on me, the attacks were getting bigger but I didn't have money to build any more troops.

Re: Souls of Shiar, Shards of a dead world - a nation for dominions and dominions 3K
 

hmm still I'd say just banishing the crap out of them with H3 priest should really really kill armies big time