Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

I know there is a newbies guide, but that shows the very basics, which I have down. I would like to know if there are any guides out there that deal more specifically with certain races.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

There's a rather good thread here full of specific tricks which are mainly race specific.

Check out Alexander's ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge !

PvK

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

One of the neat things about this game (and one of the irritating things) is that you could write a seperate strategy guide book for every nation.

Im afraid all I can recommend is that "search" link in the upper-right of the screen. Its not the best but you can try searching for the race name in the subject, or look for the nation AND the word strategy coming up in the body, something like that.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

I started thinking about making some kind of comprehensive guide, until I realised that it would have to have 272 different sections. It would have to have 272 sections (or something close) because each race plays differently depending on who you're fighting. Since there are 17 races that makes a total of 289 combinations, minus 17 because you can't have 2 of the same nation in the same game = 272.

Then I realised that this is what is so great about this game - if I am playing Man, and I am fighting Marignon, my strategy (not just battle tactics, but what I research, etc.) will be really different than if I'm fighting Caelum, and so on for the other races. So I have to think 'what are the weaknesses of my opponent, and how can I exploit them?' and 'what are the strengths of my opponent, and how can I best render them impotent?', which to me is the really fun part of the game.

BTW to that end I made a couple of different "games" involving all nations, and all themes of nations, so that if I'm facing someone I can pull up this game and check out their units and magic etc. - Becoming familiar with the weapons of the enemy is the first step to defeating him (or her http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Isn't there a quick reference about the units and leaders of every nation to be found somewhere? There are magic items, spells etc. references, one about units would be helpful IMO. Since I'm just a newbie I have to figure out what every unit and especially leaders (mages, priests etc.) and summoned/reanimated creatures can do before I can really play.

No, I'm not complaining about that. Finding out what every nation is up to is part of the fun of getting to know these guys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ March 09, 2004, 21:04: Message edited by: Starfighter08 ]

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's possibly worse than that when you consider that some themes play markedly differently than the base nation. Case in point is Ashen Empire Ermor ...

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

Sunray's site, before he ran out of bandwidth, had guides for some of the races. I downloaded most of them.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

(About the title)

I like the word "startegy"! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

It could mean the strategies for the first few rounds. e.g.:
- hiking taxes up to 200% and patrolling with your initial army
- the pros and cons of appointing a prophet immediately vs waiting until you can hire a super priest (e.g. the Neifel Jarl or Arch-Thug) or even waiting for a specific hero to turn up
- hiring mercenaries for quick initial expansion vs building up your own national troops
- what spells to research first, or what items to forge in the first few rounds
- try to get a foothold in the sea (or on land for Atlantis/R'lyeh) early or not?

These are a lot less dependent on what other nations are in your game, so could be put into a reasonably small document.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

Hehe... startegies... Didn't think about that really, but it probably is a slightly more approachable topic.

So, are there any forums or documents discussing startegies out there for different races?

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

Best thing you can do as a "newbie" is to run this forum in a minimized window as you play. When you encounter a situation that leaves you pondering you can just alt-tab here and make a quick search.

During the time I've been visiting this place most topics imaginable have been discussed. Some at greath length and others at greath depth. Run a search on Atlantis, C'Tis, Ulm, etc and you will undoubtely find a lot of solid strategy advice on nation specific strategy.

It's very hard to make a good 'startegy' since starting out well depends on so many things.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">We don't all have always-on broadband access!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is the 21st century, you should. Even in the remote boondocks of Wales! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

Against the computer AI the most consistant 'startagy' is to hire every mercenary company available, no matter the cost or which company becomes available. Sell gems if short on gold.

Mercs have a twofold benefit. They expand you military much faster than you ever could by simply training them, and most especially they have no upkeep. 100+ normal units can be a heavy load on your monthly payroll, but 100+ mercenaries have no upkeep at all. This more than compensates for the high initial hiring cost.

Mercenaries are always better than the equivalent trainable units because they come with experience and are generally skilled enough not to rout (the barbarian merc company is a notable exception). Also it keeps you away from buying the cheaper, less effective 'crap' troops every nation has at the start of a game; troops which become obsolete rather quickly.

Mercs are also rather cheap to maintain/re-hire as long as your expanding by one or two provinces a turn. In fact i think for most mercenary companies it costs the same or less to hire them a second time than it would to payroll an equivilent number of troops.

During this early phase try to hire few normal troops yourself, except for casters or researchers, to keep expenses down.

Doing this will quickly rack up hundreds of gold in the bank letting you go on a building spree and help strongly consolidate your holdings. By this time many of your merc troops will be depleted by attrition so you can being letting some of their contracts expire and so start to transition to a conventional military.

Against AI. Not vs. other human players. The AI doesn't seem very competitive on bidding for merc contracts on the lower difficulty levels.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are you sure about this? I've found the AI to bid rather aggressively on merc contracts, and most of them are already hired before the price drops to a range that's reasonable. Not so in any of the MP games I've found: Most of the time, the mercs go unhired for a few turns, which drops their prices into bargain-basement levels.

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

Dominions X has a fair number of Race specific Guides.

I suspect some of them may date from Dom1, but I bet they will still be helpful


Rabe the Antiquarian


http://www.dominionsx.com/guides.html

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I hire mercs as soon as they come on the market whatever their initial asking price, partly because if you wait the AI will indeed hire them up. AI tends to bid, as far as i can tell, about 1 over the current bid. So if a Merc company wants 400, and you bid 400, you'll almost always lose the bid (and likewise for rehiring). But the AI never really competes with you for a contract, thus my comment. If rampaging an AI with merc armies it won't bid 500-600$ for a 400$ contract to steal them from your service, something a human player is likely to do.

As long as your bid is 3-5% over asking price, you always seem to take the bid. In my current PBeM game mercs tend to have been bid upon rather competitively; one bid i made that was 100 over asking failed. Bidding is harsh in multi because your money may not be working for you if the bid fails, where instead you could be more dependably hiring casters or units, and the whole games' pace feels more pressing. Whereas with the AI your bid is assured if a bid is within the range above (at least at Normal and below).

[ March 12, 2004, 00:50: Message edited by: SelfishGene ]

Re: Are there any existing guides discussing race specific startegies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is the 21st century, you should. Even in the remote boondocks of Wales! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Try telling that to British Telecom! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

See, I don't mean that we haven't bothered to get it, but rather that we cannot get it yet, unless we go for an insanely expensive satellite option.

BT won't upgrade our phone exchange to enable ADSL unless we get another two hundred or so people in the area to register their interest in Broadband, and most of the locals are old dears who think 'broadband' refers to some variety of hernia girdle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif