A few random Queries
 

Without any kind of addendum, here comes a few questions I have been having while playing Dominions:

1) Do the various Quickness effects (Boots of Quickness, Quickness spells, blessing) stack, or is the best bonus the only one applied?

2) Do squads risk losing morale if they are hit, even if no actual damage has been done? An example would be an archer attacking a high-protection unit. Or is the archer basically doomed in this case

3) How should I effectively use cavalry? If I only use a few of them, they do not stand a chance while attempting to strike in the rear of the enemy army. Or should I only bother with the elite cavalry, such as the Knights of Avalon and their ilk?

4) Has there been an interest for games played with a high or very high research cost? I am under the impression that normal research cost is the norm, but then, I have only seen a few MP games.

Edit: I knew I had forgotten something:

5) When playing a stealthy game (hide, hit'em hard, run like the winds, repeat), how would direct strikes against the enemy forces be made? Going the stealthy way seems to mean having several smaller armies, and possibly weaker than their enemy counterparts. Or is the purpose to weaken the enemy so much that recruiting new units or even upkeep becomes a problem? In other words, how should a stealthy army finish the enemy off?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

Re: A few random Queries
 

As far as I know, concerning the question number 2:

.. and ..

So, it seems that to be hit but not wounded doesn't make any morale check (and so any morale reduction, and so no rout).

bye bye
Liga

Re: A few random Queries
 

Speaking from my faulty memory, so take with a pinch of salt:

1.-All these basically do the same thing: cast the quickness spell on the user, so they do not stack (the spell would be even ignored by the spell Ai for example if you were wearing the boots.

One exception: I believe "heroic quickness" stacks with the others.

2.- Only damage suffered & fear auras cause morale checks I believe. The lone archers still has a chance to deal damage to a high protection critter because of 2 factors:
-The open ended nature of damage rolls (if you roll a 6 you roll again for extra damage)
-The fact that the target's fatigue can result in armour piercing hits.

3.- I frankly barely use them except for specialized roles, as the most expensive elites they benefit the most from spell buffs, but they also cost you the most for every casualty they take.

4.- Players will flock to the most bizarre settings NP, there are always people waiting for somebody else to start (and/or host) a game.

5.- Players might choose to go with guerrilla tactics due to the following:

-They cannot face the opponent's main stack/pretender, so choose to fight elsewhere rather than lose their forces in a doomed atempt.

-They are trying to prevail in the economic field: by striking at your opponent's backyard you are not only reducing his monetary & gem income, you are also gaining such income for yourself until he claims back those provinces. Some of the damage takes time to recover from even when ownership changes back (say, unrest reducing the income), and some of the damage is even permanent (population loss).

If by doing so you become twice as big as your opponent, you can win by sheer force of numbers by being able to muster more troops & summons.

-Related to the above: trying to push the enemy dominion back by temple-smashing: having your enemy's dominion intruding your land is usally not a good idea: causes population loss from Death themes, loss of income if weather scale is different, causes unrest, gives morale bonuses to the enemy & penalty to your troops....

-Encircling an enemy army can result in its total anihilation, thus cutting retreat paths by surprise is always a reasonable move. Even the most powerful pretender will die if he routs and has nowhere to flee to.

Re: A few random Queries
 

What about the Quickness blessing (Water-9)? It is labelled as being a 50% only Quickness in the manual; does it mean it is useless if the blessed unit already has the Boots of Quickness? Or is it equivalent to the Quickness spell/Boots of Quickness, and as such does not stack?

My mistake; I had forgotten to specifically exclude such a scenario.

Thanks; I may attempt to host (or at least crate) such a game then.

Speaking of guerilla tactics, how often is the Plunder option used? If you take an enemy province, but cannot hold it, plundering is effective, but wouldn't your own army be very vulnerable to an enemy counterstrike then? Or am I missing something about when to plunder?

Thanks for your answers!

Re: A few random Queries
 

As best I recall, the only quickness that stacks with another (and with itself, BTW), is Heroic Quickness. Placing Quickness boots on units that have the W9 blessing is sort of a waste (the boots give 2 actions per turn, while the blessing gives only 1.5 actions per turn (in a 1,2,1,2 pattern)). In such a case, the "best" quickness (that of the boots) would be in effect.

Re: A few random Queries
 

hmmm i thought blessing quickness and spell/boots quickness stacked, though I could be wrong.

Re: A few random Queries
 

From Graeme Dice's post #258109 of 14 March 2004:
EDIT: furthermore, the stacking is multiplicative, not additive. As GD's post states, his HQ of 125% (2.25x) plus the armor's 100% (2x) = 4.5x (5 on 1st, 4 on 2nd pattern), and not the 225% (3.25x) of a simple additive stack. IMO, this makes the HQ HoF ability hands-down the most valuable award you can get on a leader.

Re: A few random Queries
 

What Arryn quoted tallies with my experience. There is a small benefit to stacking w9 with quickness if you cast the spell - you get 2 actions on your first round which can let you buff a fraction faster. Assuming you are already blessed of course - prophet, shroud of the battle saint or a 3rd party blesser who acts first.

OK I guess that amounts to there is no benefit ...
Oh except the extra +4 defence (edited in)
Pickles

Re: A few random Queries
 

Rather than begin a new thread for this question, I'm sticking it in here:

Does Ceremonial Faith's +2 preaching level per priest also apply to Calling God? (Reason I ask is that I'm currently editing Liga's latest manual addenda doc and I'm at that section. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

Re: A few random Queries
 

hmmm that's a great question Arryn.

I would guess not, because I don't think the temple bonus applies either, but I really do not know.

Re: A few random Queries
 

Another question (and bumping the one quoted above, which hasn't been answered):

Does Ritual of Returning work even if the attack that "wounds" the mage instantly kills him? (Will the spell thus prevent the mage from coming to harm? IOW, does the spell trigger before damage is applied? Or can you get a Returned mage who's mangled, mindwiped, or worst of all, having the spell fail because the mage was outright killed?)

Re: A few random Queries
 

I can answer that one. the mage just dies, or if he lives can very well be afflicted.

Re: A few random Queries
 

Thanks, 'lept!

Re: A few random Queries
 

Plundering also makes sense when the population's going to rapidly die off anyway, such as when you're playing a non-Broken Empire Ermor, or Carrion Woods Pangaea. They're doomed anyway, so you might as well get some more money out of 'em.

If your opponent doesn't have highly mobile reaction force, you may in other situations be able to pillage for a little while... although in such a situation it might be better to set taxes to 200% and move on to another target, if you can. OTOH, if it's an especially valuable province to your victim (say, the only high-pop province for a while, or it provided some valuable indy troop that he'd been making heavy use of) you may plunder AND tax to drive up income and lower pop for as long as you can. *shrug*

Re: A few random Queries
 

D'oh! Beaten to the punch by a good several hours.
1. As I mentioned on an SC related thread, Heroic Quickness and regular quickness do indeed stack multiplicatively, for truly mind-boggling results.
However, only regular quickness(The kind cast on the wearer of Boots of Quickness at the start of a battle) confers an attack skill/defense skill bonus, which some consider half the point of the spell.

3. Much, much too case-specific to begin to describe, and often pivots on nuances of timing and battlefield positioning. The line between slaughtering a Caelian raiding party with a single cavalry charge and winding up at point-blank orb lightning range is a fine one, much to my chagrin.
Flanking and counterflanking can be every bit as fickle.
Methinks you've narrowed your focus to cavalry's tactical uses, and forgotten the value of their relatively high strategic move.
Update: Of course, if you ever feel the urge to give a squad the "attack large enemy monsters" order, said squad should either be heavy cavalry, or something that carries Bane Blades. Those lances are spectacular against small Groups of tough creatures.
If you don't think your cavalry will be able to break an enemy squad by charging their rear lines, you could always put them on "hold and attack" orders and hope your archers/mages/infantry demoralize the enemy before your cavalry reach them. At the very least, they'll run down fleeing foes before they can exit the field. Of course, any cavalry save light cavalry are overqualified for this.
Besides which, a group of scattered, hungry, leaderless troops are usually much more of a burder to their general than a group of corpses.

4. Yer lookin' at 'im.

5. In addition to everything already stated, there's always the chance of finding a mage or pretender, all alone, searching for magic sites.
And just think of the psychological impact! Take out his prophet or destroy a temple an inch from his capitol with an army that comes out of nowhere, and it's safe to assume your opponent will be more than a little unnerved. There are countless ways the resulting paranoia can be bent to your advantage.

Re: A few random Queries
 

I should be ashamed of having forgotten the psychological value of doing some sneaky attacks. It might be very, very fun to deal such a blow well behind the lines, especially if it looks as if you did it on purpose (luck might work just as well though). I will be remembering that one.

How would cavalry be helpful as an alone army? Unless you have flying commanders as well (or anything else going at a map speed of 3), they will have to fight on their own, without any kind of support (archers, spellcasters, cheerleaders). Or should they mostly be used thus for diVersion attacks? For example, while the bulk of your army heads for the enemy army, one or two cavalry raiders may be a nice annoyance. Chasing them down will result in spreading forces, and buying PD may still hurt the economy.

Thanks for your patience everyone! Here comes two other small questions that did not seem to bring any result when searching the forum (which either means they haven't been asked before, or more likely, that I do not know how to search my way out of my bed).

6) Mountains, forests and swamps reduce strategic movement speed. However, waste does not seem to have such an effect. So is Waste Survival only useful to lessen the effects of starvation in Wastelands?

7) I gather that C'tis' Miasma effect does not affect neutral units? (Assuming they can suffer from disease and are within your Dominion)

Edit: Duh, that Last one was easy enough to check. If anyone else is interested, Miasma works as well against neutral units, but you should expect quite a few turns before killing off most of the neutral army this way. Still, it might be helpful for a very lazy pretender.

Re: A few random Queries
 

This can be done by other means too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . A teleported in / cloud trapezed in Sc can do this too . Earlygame a timed call of wilds / winds attack on several provinces can work too because lots of players buy only 1 pd earlygame .
Later in the game Ghostriders is just awesome .

I am more a fan of conventional attacks though . If your stealthforce is detected by e.g. patrollers and beaten then the whole effort was mainly in vain . The problem there is imo that the bigger the stealth army is the more likely it is detected . Against a castling opponent you have to besiege then the fort anyways which gives him the chance to catch you even if he didn't detect you before .
For Pangenea though a stealth strategy might be really nice because they are extremely good there . Their pans / pandemoniacs are stealthy and they can bloodhunt a bit . Fiends are stealthy too and there is an item that gives stealth leaders assasination orders . Gandalf stated he likes this and with pangenea this might really be worth a try .
I find them just personally too complicated http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

The ulmish cavalry has only 2 strat movement , as the sappers do . A cavalry / sapper force with ulm smiths has lots of combat potential .
Same for marignon their cavalry has 2 strat move , so do their x-bows / flaggelants and commanders .
So no need to run them as a single force . Especially a marignon knight/mage/x-bow force is not easy to deal with .

re Knights
 

I tend to only buy elite troops as I found when I started the other types ran away too much while my knights etc did the business. Of course it's so long since I used dross that I may get better value from it now.

Anyway knights will tend to tear through every indy without loss once you get a critical mass of them 10 or so on indy 6. This may make them too slow to be useful & sub critical massses suffer attrition.
Some support from casters or missile troops does no harm & you need sappers or some mass if you are not Ulm for sieges.

Pure knights are very vulnerable to certain counters - Smite for example especially Ulm's MR 9 Version but if you avoid these they do not actually need battlefield support.

Pickles