New Player questions
 

Hi Pretenders!

Actually, returning player from Dom2 (but it's been a while). A few questions regarding Dom 3:

1) Can I "lock" the map so that it won't move when I move my mouse around? I like getting it to a certain size and position, but when I mouse over to the edge of the screen or accidentally slide the wheel, things get wacky. I would like the size and position to stay fixed. Possible?

2) Do some nations not have scouts? I did the tutorial to dust off my memory of basic game mechanics and then started a game with C'tis. I began with 2 regular commanders and my Pretender. But no scouts? Are lizards just too cute to sneak?

3) I'm confused by "Afflictions". If I have a unit that gets 100% chance of Afflictions, what exactly does this mean? That he is guaranteed to inflict an affliction on a single opponent every round of battle? Or what? And what are the afflictions? Is old age an affliction?

4) Can someone help me get my head around research by suggesting a methodology? I understand the mechanics of gaining skill in paths, but I feel like I'm researching blind without goals and I'm sure that goals are important. Looking through the grimoire is fascinating, but overwhelming, making it near impossible for me to keep enough information in my head at one time to formulate a coherent strategy. Is this just a trial and error thing, do I just need to read the entire grimoire and gain experience with it to see what *all* spells do and then just shoot for the ones that seem cool, or is there some more efficient way of planning research? Related to this, how can I set up my Pretender's magic without understanding what my magical goals are?

Thanks, I can see that this is going to be murder on my bedtime habits. Just one more turn ...

Re: New Player questions
 

1) i play in windowed mode and it locks

2)yep some dont have scouts but you will find plenty indie scouts :)

3)when you have the blessing to inflict more afflictions you just have a higher chance of afflicting an enemy with every hit. old age isnt an affliction but it will cause afflictions over time

4) too newb myself ^^

Re: New Player questions
 

1 and 2 covered well by DakaSha

3. When hitting an opponent with Y remaining hit points for X damage you have an X/Y chance of causing an affliction. So If they have 10 hit points left and you hit them for 3 there is a 30% chance of an affliction

The death bless increases the chance of affliction, so if you had a +100% chance of affliction (level four death bless), you'd have a 60% chance in the above example.

4. It really depends what you are after. Your best bet at first is to look at the strategy guides in the Strategy Index, most of them have research recommendations. The generic choices first up are often those that allow remote site searching - Thaumaturgy 2, Evocation 2, Conjuration 3 (and blood 2 if you are heading that way, though there aren't many useful blood sites).

After that you need to figure out what your strategy is

Edit:Oh, forgot - with regards to Pretender selection. It's the most important decision in the game, sorry there are no easy answers ;) Again reading a few strategy guides will give you a good idea. It might be worth your while picking a starting race to get the hang of and follow a guide or two for them at first. Once you know them better you can improvise yourself

I advise against trying to learn too many different nations and strategies too quickly, get one thing down to a reasonable level then move on. You can easily drown in it all otherwise.

Edit2: One important thing to know is that most PBEM games run with the excellent Conceptual Balance Mod (CBM) by quantum_mechanics, currently at version 1.5 and located at http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43120

The devs don’t balance the game, they just add content and let users mod balance, which CBM does very well, mostly through modification to research levels and costs of spells, but also units. So if you are at the beginning of the learning curve I'd recommend just stick with CBM, it is more commonly used than the vanilla game by far and switching between the two can be confusing as some things change drastically

Re: New Player questions
 

1) dunno

2)i thught every natioon have a scout commader( a unit that can sneak.
the "cute" lizards are the only nations without scouts but only in ma and la they have assasin.

3) purguy hit badazzmonsta for 1. badazzmonsta has 100 hp, so purguy have 1% to put an affliction on badazzmonsta.
shininknite hit badazzmonsta for 90. badazzmonsta has 100 hp, so shininknite have a 90% to put an affliction on badazzmonsta.
with a death bless, you gain additional afflicction chance(4=+100% ; 5=+150; 6=+200%)
.for example, with a 6 bless, purguy would have ad a 3% chance(1+200%=3)

4)it depends on nations, but usually the first goals should be construction 6 and/or the remote search spell

Re: New Player questions
 

3) I'm pretty sure affliction chance is (damage inflicted by blow / creature max HP). So a 3 damage hit to a 10HP creature is 30% chance whether or not it has full HP or just 5 left. Death bless modifies this as explained in the comment above.

4) Experience counts for a lot.

As a general rule, you want to look for site searching spells (mostly Thaum-2, some Conj-2) pretty quickly. Construction-4 is also a good bet, as you can forge items that let you boost your magic skills and that's also when the magic items generally start getting really interesting.

After that, you need to identify what your nation is good at. Some can recruit big, stompy heroes, you'll want to priotise Construction 4 so you can forge them magic weapons and armour. If they can cast as well, look for self buffs (eg. Mistform, Ironskin, Quicken self) which are mostly available in Alteration & Enchantment up to path 3. Different magic paths also make different use of various research areas. I perceive Astral gets a lot from thaumaturgy, whereas air or earth is more Alteration and Evocation. Common battlefield paths are often Evocation (most common in the 4 elemental paths really) for mages to act as battlefield artillery, or Alteration and Enchantment to buff your units in the same way as individuals explained above.

A last thing to note is that Conjuration and Construction have unique creatures and items respectively available at level 8, so there's a big plus to getting there first and getting first pick.

Re: New Player questions
 

Unique summons are not solely available at conj 8. The elemental royalty is lower, for example. Plus there are all the various Demons from blood. And then assorted strays like the Treelords in... ench i think?

Re: New Player questions
 

4) As others have said, there is no short answer for what to research.

Generally speaking, if you are new to a nation and trying to figure out research, you should look at what paths your highest mages are strong in. Then go to the grimoire and filter out only those spells. So, for example, if you were playing Pan who is strong in Nature magic, you would go to the grimoire and hit 'n' to show only nature spells. This would quickly reveal to you that the schools with many/powerful nature spells are ones like Conjuration and Alteration, say. So you would tend to concentrate your research in those schools. In particular, you will want to pick out one or two rituals or battlefield spells which you believe are a very powerful addition to your overall game strategy. Make those spells your research goals and use them to dictate your research plan.

As you grow more comfortable and experienced with the grimoire, you will quickly realize how certain powerful spells are normally not available to a particular nation's mages. This realization will reflect back on your pretender design. You will find yourself eventually selecting pretender paths in order to cast specific spells which your nation otherwise couldnt, but that have extremely powerful synergy with your nation. Or making sure your pretender has enough magic to forge boosters which your mages otherwise could not.

Re: New Player questions
 

Elemental Royalty is all Conj-8 (except for Illearth, but he's in blood anyway).

Re: New Player questions
 

Serves me right for trying to post about spells from memory at work. I'll go edit :)

Oh, I forgot this forum doesnt allow edits after a certain time period. Shrug

Re: New Player questions
 

Excellent! Thanks for the answers, guys. A lot of this is coming back to me but it's great to hear your thinking. I've been playing C'tis just to have something to get to know better. If you have any specific suggestions for C'tis they would be great to hear. I'm going to play a few games vs. a hard AI for a while and get to know the units and spells.