Game Over!!
 

I am (WAS) fighting Ermor and Jotunheim on two fronts with Abysia. I was beating Ermor and hoped to take their castle.

A force of 45 Jotuns came out of nowhere and in 3 turns took Abysia and a large battle at Ermor did not go as well for me. I won but my forces were depleted.

Next turn I get a hurricane on my second biggest province which was the only one left with a temple which got destroyed.

I am not a quitter but I know that I have no chance now.

I will start a new game with Abysia again and hope for better results...

ps: Do you guys generally win 1 player games???

Re: Game Over!!
 

Confession: i actually lose quite alot of 1 man games (unless vrs easy ai which is too easy) but all i can say is while ive never been a fan of them before cb, blood of humans aby is good under cb (its sacreds get a weak fire shield which slaughters undead)

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I was playing regular Abysia and found thei blessed troops, Lava Warriors, to be too expensive to be worthwhile.

Maybe I will restart as Blood of Humans Abysia.

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I have a hard time vs the AI on difficult settings with 10 AI on certain maps. I don't like playing with small number of AI opponents on smaller maps, as I like the variety more AI's bring. That said, they tend to DoW at the worst possible time, coming in from multiple angles.

Try a non-wrap around map. If you get a good position, its much easier to defend against multiple AI's.

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Maybe you need to blood hunt more?

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I lose most games versus the AI unless I do something tried and true like Ermor AE which is well, boring.

When I play I try to see how full I can stack the deck against myself and still eke out the win.

Rathar

Re: Game Over!!
 

I often do quite well, but haven't had the time to actually finish any of my SP games in a long while. When I encounter a major setback that would slow the game down but not really stop me, I usually drop the game. I might lose those games, but I'd like to believe (:p) that I would win them more often than not.

That said, it can be hard to try to survive on impossible settings (Mictlan on a small map vs too many enemies, with non-battle pretender). Some of my fondest memories are of total defeat.

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Normally, yes. Unless I seriously stack the deck against myself. There are a couple of tricks that you will pick up over time that will increase your ability over the AI dramatically. Half the fun is figuring them out tho.

As for using Abysia, yeah you should definitely blood hunt more. Do not attempt to play a bless strategy with Lava Warriors. While it might be possible it would without doubt be difficult. Use blood and summon up all manner of devils and demons to augment (and eventually supplant) your mortal armies.

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Once you understand how the computer plays, and what it can't handle, it becomes fairly easy to beat. I lost my first many games of Dominions 1, usually to Ermor. But even when I removed Ermor I still lost. Then I read various strategies and killer combos that people have devised, and I don't think I've ever lost to an AI since... though occasionally there are close calls.

In the base game, there are things you just can't do. Don't recruit slingers, light cavalry, horse archers, militia, or light infantry (some people will argue, but they probably lose to the AI:) ). Don't spend all your gems on magic items for your ordinary commanders. Don't spend all your gold on conventional armies. Don't rely on archers against heavy armor. Don't fight Ermor or Rlyeh with standard units. Don't summon ice, earth, or fire drakes, or wyverns, or most other low-level summons. Don't buy water mages. Don't set your province defense at 21 everywhere to get the cool new commander. Don't set taxes low to make people happy. In general, don't buy a human pretender. Don't buy any castle other than Castle, Wizard's Tower, Watch Tower, or Fortified City. Don't put a Ring of Water Breathing on a mage, send him underwater, have him build a lab, then put the ring in the lab. Don't make a Holy-2 indy priest into a prophet. Don't send a cyclops into combat, even though they are big and strong, because they have an anime eye that is 90% of their face and always gets hit. Don't use immortals in hostile dominion. Don't take extra paths on a pretender with expensive paths. Don't take Turmoil + Unluck. Don't take Drain unless you are Ulm, then take Drain 3. Don't take Growth either. Don't use Blood mages in battle.

Then there are things that you do do. Search for magic sites. Spend most of your money on mages, and have them focus their research on a goal. Equip them with Owl Quills, Skull Mentors, and Lightless Lanterns. Never forge anything without a Dwarven Hammer, if your nation can make them. Give Endless Bags of Wine to your commanders of large armies. Buy a Wyrm god and send it out solo on turn one. Or take a Vampire Queen and give it Black Steel Plate and various other items, and let it rip. Mass priests against undead hordes (and by "mass" I mean 20-40, not 2-4). Mass battle-mages aganst normal armies, with Blade Wind, Lightning Bolt, Thunder Strike, Falling Fires, Falling Frost, Nether Bolt, Nether Darts, and so forth. Mass units that don't have upkeep for your armies - Vine Ogres, Summer Lions, Longdeads, Soulless, Fairies, Demons, Vampires, Crossbreeds, and so forth. But get them as cheaply as possible. Go underwater ASAP, using amphibious summons or mercenaries or even an amphibious God. Use boosting items and boosting spells to raise your mage power levels for good combat spells, or to make the spells more powerful and cheaper. Go for spells with multiple effects or wide areas, or ideally, the entire battlefield (Fire Storm, Earthquake, etc). Kill enemy armies remotely with Murdering Winter and similar "artillery" spells. Dedicate 5 provinces to blood-hunting, summon all the Ice Devils, give them nice equipment, and watch them annihilate helpless enemy armies. Or summon Bane Lords, give them Wraith Swords and Flying Boots, and do the same thing. Forge Soul Contracts, Lifelong Protections, and Skullfaces and observe their effects. Mass archers and cast Flaming Arrows and Wind Guide. Research super-strong mass summons and use those instead of low-level single-unit summons; for example, Summon Wights, Ether Gate, Fairy Court, and the mass-Devil, Ice Demon, Storm Demon, and Demon Knight spells. Summon a Lamia Queen to summon Lamias instead of summoning your own Lamias, and summon a Vampire Lord to make Vampires for free instead of summoning Vampires. Summon an Ivy King and give him an Ivy Crown (I forget which slot he's missing... head? hands? feet?), then let him summon Vine Ogres at a huge bonus. If you have a nation with strong holy troops, either pick a strong bless and buy tons of them, or don't use a bless strategy, and don't waste money on sacred units; but don't go half-way.

In general, if you don't do the "don't dos" and pick a few "do dos", you'll beat the AI unless you get encircled by multiple opponents early. You can't just look at it like Risk or Warcraft... you have to plan for specific long-term killer strategies, then execute them.

Re: Game Over!!
 

that post should almost be stickied, saber cherry. good call.

Re: Game Over!!
 

After you get a feel for Dominions, you forget how lost you were at first, and how all the "obvious" strategies are not, in fact, obvious; but rather things that other people told you, and you never would have figured out otherwise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Game Over!!
 

On of the most important things to know is, that the AI will always attack the weakest defended province. I usually leave one province without PD, so I know it is this province that will be attacked. Whenever an enemy army appears, I command my forces to move into that province to intercept. This works 99 percent of the time, and prevents the enemy to rampage through your provinces

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no one has mentionned archer decoy'ing. basically, put groups of 2-3 cheap troups (militia or something) up in front to draw missile fire. works like a charm against players and AI alike (though players can get around it, but it's not that easy).

Re: Game Over!!
 

Not sure if its already been mentioned but as a starting point you might try turning up the independents quite abit. Many early players think that weak indepts make it an "easy" game but it actually just helps the AI to rush you.

You are generally smarter than the AI as far as who to attack. If the indepts are 5 or higher then the player will hold back on the first turn to SEE who is nearby, then attack the province they think they can win. The AI just picks a direction and attacks. If the indepts are weak then the ai can grow quickly winning all the local battles. If the indepts are strong then the ai wastes his first set of troops usually, and sometimes even their god.

Re: Game Over!!
 

This thread should definitely be stickied, because of Saber Cherry's post. With spoiler warnings.

Isn't that a bit drastic?

Do:
Hire mercenary mages.
Hire independent mages and especially sages.
Give gems to your mages for important battles.
Script your mages.
Get a level-4 priest to cast fanaticism constantly.
Use fast, flying and cheap units to patrol.
Build lots and lots of scouts and spies.
Protect your mages with a screening force.

Don't:
Engage in a guerilla war against the AI.
Take Golem cult.
Use top-tier mages for research and nothing else.
Use sages in combat.
Try to assassinate a death mage with a bog-standard assassin.
Enter the arena with anything valuable.
Give your mages heavy armour.

Re: Game Over!!
 

Oh, right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I was thinking of battle-mages, but water mages are useful for forging a few things, casting Murdering Winter, summoning ice devils and Water Queens, and making clams in an unmodded game. But other mages tend to be more flexible. Overall, I find water mages to be the least useful.

Re: Game Over!!
 

quickness+falling frost can be useful when massed (quite easy with atlantis)

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Of course it is. It's useful even without massing it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif However, Water 3 isn't that common. Quickness + Frozen Heart is much easier to get. The point that there are seldom Water mages on the field stays, and of course there are all those Undead that are almost always immune to cold.

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Heh. I thought the reason SC said not to buy water mages is because they kill off the other mages by casting Breath of Winter - never leave a water bracelet on a water sage for long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Game Over!!
 

yea, breath of winter is evil

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That too. In fact, I've recently encounted a rash of Rime Hauberks forged by water mages and placed on normal commanders... so that they can kill even when they're not around http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I have to admit that I picked one up after a battle and put it on the Ulm Black Forest vampire-hero, who killed his troops with it too, despite my scripting to have him fly to the rear and attack away from my other units.

But it's true, Breath of Winter is almost universally bad except for Jotunheim/Neifelheim, Ermor, or solo supercombattants. And it's cast unscripted http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Falling Frost is a nice spell but it requires more water magic than 90% of water mages will ever have. It cannot be cast underwater. However, water mages cannot buff with "Summon Water Power" on land! A Robe of the Sea is expensive, while a Water Bracelet is Construction-6. Considering that normal water mages (Hydromancers, Initiate of the Deeps [Atlantis' cheap non-capitol mage], Jade Amazons, Master of the Way, Celestial Master, Master of the Five Elements, Pythium, Wizards, Sages, Skratti, Caelum, Marshmaster, Starspawn, Astrologer, Mystic, Rain Priest, anything else with randoms, especially summons) are all W1 or W2, water on a recruitable mage almost never lets you cast Falling Frost.

Of everything I listed, I think Jade Amazons have a 1/16 chance of W3, Skratti have a 1/4 or 1/8, and S&A Celestial Masters have a 1/4 (these numbers may be off due to forgetting which randoms are #, $, or ?).

Then there are the recruitable W3 mages: Atlantis King of the Deep (290g), Deep Seer (180g, capitol-only), Neifel Jarl (500g, capitol-only). There are no cheap W3 summons of which I'm aware.

So, what do you do with this water?

W1 mage: Cast Quickness, then Slime. At Alt-6, Frozen Heart... but not really, since it has a range of 20 on a W1 mage. Underwater, cast Water Power then Water Strike (1 enemy per cast).

W2 mage: Cast Quickness, 4x Cold Bolt, then Breath of Winter and kill your own troops. At Evoc-7, Ice Strike is OK, but only range 25, and only really good on high-level mages.

W3 mage: Almost doesn't exist except for 2 nations, Ice Devils, Sea Troll Kings, Elemental Queens, and W9 Gods... or massive communions, after which you have better spells than Falling Frost.

So - for the first half of the game, W1 mages research, W2 mages forge clams (if you play that way), and all the cool mages get into the hall of fame. W2 mages can't get into the hall of fame except by friendly kills (not sure if those count). It's hard to find a good use for low-level water magic for much of the game.

edit: Before you go summoning Sea King Courts willy-nilly, consider this:

Re: Game Over!!
 

Forget what everyone else is saying, recruit those water mages! They are ignoring that nearly all of those 'useless' w1 mages have other paths. If we are talking about a level 1 single path, f1 and a1 are better useful, but not all that much better than w1.

Mages with only level 2 single path: yeah water is weaker (in battle) earlier on, but once you can give them water bracelets and get falling frost, they are a great deal! Before that they are great forgers. Plus, aren't we talking about just hydromancers here? They are not that common, anyways. There are also sea fathers but they have some holy magic and are sacred, so good researchers.

Yeah everyone has seen problems with BoW, but the same can be said for any troop that radiates heat,cold,disease,etc.

To sum it up, recruit mages that have water!

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My two pieces of gold:

Recruit mages! is very high on the "do" list. Don't recruit Water mages! is pretty low on the "don't do" list. It is very important to recruit mages, to research, to forge, to search for sites. However, if you must chooce between different mages, Water mage usually is worse than a different mage. However, mages that have Water often have other nice qualities. Master of the Way are the cheapest researchers of Tien Chi for example, and good Banishers against undead.

Re: Game Over!!
 

Water 2 mages are good for casting "voice of apsu" and search those cool magics sites. As for fire 2 cast "augury" and so forth.
It´s good to blood hunt also even if you almost never use it in battle. ( I casted once a battle blood spell on MP to give strenght to all my units and then some vampires and devils killed 2 enemy air queens )

Re: Game Over!!
 

+strength blood spell would go well with a mictain blood+fire bless (which would give even more strength to their multiple attack, flaming sacreds)

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Doms 2 AI got many major flaws, like it wont build castles, or enough castles, it builds loads of useless troops etc. etc.
I never had problems beating the hardest AI at all....
I hope that these errors will be fixed in Doms 3, if there will be a Doms 3 at all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Game Over!!
 

I always thought AI builds too much militia etc. because it doesn't build castles.

Besides that, you can't be serious about NEVER having problems with the hardest AI! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif The user interface alone will take a few games to master!

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.. of course I had in the beggining. :-) .. actually imo if you play on big map against multiple AIs, its harder to win in Doms 2., then in Galciv 2 for example. The Galciv2 AI got major flaws also, but its easier to win there against multiple AIs, in Doms 2. it is much harder.

Re: Game Over!!
 

Yes hopefully the AI for DOM_3 will know how to manage food supply or at least not suffer starving. Hopefully it will know to build castles at choke points on the map and not just build them but guard them otherwise it will only make the AI weaker because gamers will use the castles they build. Also hopefully the AI will avoid the weak milita... it's sad watching it buy mass cheap troops. Also hopefully the AI won't be sending it's pretender into the death match. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif Also hopefully the AI will try summoning some of the royal elementals and other commanders... it's sad watching it waste gems on fire drakes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

In any case from what I've read about the game so far it sounds great... even the max of 1500 provinces! I'll be happy with 1200 provinces, giving the AI SC's to start and then enjoy a long great game!

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Heh. Better "wasting" gems on fire drakes than wasting them on elemental royalty, unique devils, etc, when they're not available. At least you always get a fire drake. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

That said : seeing more of the non-unique summonings made worthwhile would be good. (Mechanical men, lamias, statues, and mmm, vine men/ogres are the only non-blood non-commanders I can think of that worth summoning now.) But supposedly some of the unique summonings are toned down in Dom3 - here's hoping.

Another thing that would be awesome : skills or spells or _something_ that could let you have some idea of whether or not all uniques in a category are gone. Blood rite spies, air royalty gossip, someting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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I thought that was part of the balancing. You might get someone of great power... but you might lose the games.

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Amen.

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Maybe it would help to make increase the amount of summoned creatures for most spells. Honestly, most summons are not worth the attention of a mage for one whole turn. Three or more might.

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how about tripling the amount of units drake summoning costs and doubling the price? as said mage time is precious

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Maybe you could connect the amount of units summoned to the path of the summoning mage?

I would expect my level 9 Firemage to summon more fire snakes than my level 3 mage

Re: Game Over!!
 

well of course there are spells that do that but some just dont