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Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead AAR

This will be my first (and maybe not my last http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif ) Dominions 3 AAR. I will try to make this AAR quite detailed and informative so that it is (hopefully) interesting to read for both new players and old veterans. All screenshots used that are bigger than 50kb will be attached as thumbnails so that people with a slow internet connection can also enjoy the AAR hopefully because my AARs are always very screenshot-heavy.

If you are a fan of swedish gothic music the title might sound familiar to you. And you are correct, apart from fitting well for Argatha Ktonian Dead it is also the title of a song from Gothminister. I recommend listening to them while playing Argatha Ktonian Dead. Many of their lyrics imho catch exactly the mood of late age Argatha. They are now a quite desperate kingdom. The real Argatheans, the Pale Ones, which form Early Age Argatha have long been wiped out and now the caves of the Pale Ones are ruled by a human necromancer cult.
For further reading pleasure the detailed descriptions for all 3 Argatha Ages:
Early Age Argatha Pale Ones:
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/8159/1df0.th.jpg
Middle Age Argatha Golem Cult:
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6463/2gy9.th.jpg
Late Age Argatha Ktonian Dead:
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8433/3gw6.th.jpg

So the first important decision has been made, i picked an age and my nation.
Now as second even more important decision i have to build a god for my nation to worship.
To help the decision process let's first check what Argatha's national troops and commanders have to offer.
Troops:
Crossbowmen:
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/1425/4dk7.th.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/2886/5xw7.th.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6572/6zx2.th.jpg
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/3123/9gj0.jpg
Their steel crossbow is an Argathean invention and superior to the crossbows the other human empires use because he inflicts 1 more weapon damage.
Melee Infantry:
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/5534/7wr9.th.jpg
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4593/8cf3.th.jpg
http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/4889/10rn3.th.jpg
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6522/11bv0.th.jpg

Sapper (Siege unit, +7 siege bonus)
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/9978/12ra9.th.jpg

Cave Knight (the cave dragon continues fighting till the end of the battle if the Knight gets killed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/958/13da8.th.jpg

Blindfighter (bless troop, recruitable everywhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif )
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/8452/14ri6.th.jpg

Commanders:
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8805/15ip0.th.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/830/16zk6.th.jpg
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/3521/17tb5.th.jpg
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/4478/18ek7.th.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8901/19sw4.th.jpg

Magepriests:
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/7567/20vj2.th.jpg
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6869/21fl9.th.jpg
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/5411/22wv0.th.jpg

Interesting changes/new features compared to Dominions 2:
-The old age trait
As you might have noticed the Ktonian Necromancer has a strange philosophical looking head symbol. This means that when we recruit him he is considered to have old age already.
All units and commanders in Dominions 3 have a lifespan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
If they are considered to be of old age you will see the old age symbol. From then on they start to get stat reductions and every new year (every 12 turns) there is a chance to get afflictions from old age. The older the unit already is the higher is the chance that it gets the diseased affliction.
Growth Scale has has a strong impact (unfortunately i do not know the details yet, the manual is not finished yet) on old age. With high growth scale your units of old age are less likely to get afflictions whereas death scale increases the chance. Nature mages get a bonus whereas firemages suffer more from old age. There are also rituals to increase your lifespan.
Most humanoids are considered to be of old age when they are older than 50, mighty summons and some nations (R'leh especially) have a very long lifespan and are considered to be of old age at the age of 1000 or even 2500 years.
I like the introduction of the old age system very much, it makes all your commanders and units more unique and adds much variety because most really good mages are of old age.
-The new randoms system
http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/1029/23ro3.jpg
These are the possible magic paths for our Necromancer.
All randoms are now this style and are normally 2-5 different paths. Also they all have a percentage probability.
This means that our Necromancer will get 1 random that is either fire, earth, astral or death magic and then has an additional 10% chance to get another random which can also be either fire,earth,astral or death.
This makes getting magically flexible much tougher in dominions 3. So each nation has to work much harder to get an expert in every of the 8 possible paths and has the result that all nations feel more unique than in dominions 2.
-Changed holy system
Now priest levels range from lvl 1-4.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/583/24ib2.jpg
Requirements for the priest spells got also reduced 1 level per spell and word of power is a new spell.
There are now more priests with lvl 3, so Smite is a more common spell http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Now that we took a closer look at all national units and commanders of our nation we can start designing our god.
Argatha has many very promising looking units and commanders.
The necromancer is a very powerful battlemage (more about that in later chapters when he goes to real combat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ), the crossbow troops are very useful and the blindfighter looks decent enough to try a bless strat because he has already very promising base stats.
I need lots of money though to use many necromancers and if i want to recruit blindfighters i need also productivity because they need many resources.
With all that in mind it turns out that there is one god that seems optimal for my planned strategy.
You can btw save your gods now, so you do not need to make a new god every time again but you can instead simply load your old successful builds if you want to use them again.

I select an already known god from dominions 2. Sorry about that, but unfortunately my most disliked god is optimal for my strat and thus i have to pick a great mother as god.
For other strats there would be some other very interesting gods though:
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/8836/25be4.th.jpg
Two of them are Argatha-only, no other nation has them.
The Olm
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9766/26ik1.th.jpg
and the Oracle
http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/6088/27kz5.th.jpg.
Notice that the Oracle is immortal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif. That makes it very interesting to attempt a SC (SC=Supercombattant, meaning a commander who can solely kill a whole enemy army) strategy.

(Warning: Not for the faint hearted, view the screenshot at your own risk http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/8759/28dv3.th.jpg
We pick though the Great Mother because we want to try a 1,5 bless strat(boronian neologism, meaning a major (lvl9) bless combined with one minor (lvl4-8) bless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/8830/29vo4.jpg
We pick an earth 9 nature 4 1,5 bless, this should increase the combat value of our blind fighters quite a bit and help your necromancers to cast more spells. Note that you now immediately see the bless effects, so you do not need to look in the manual what the effects of your bless are.
Dominions 3 has many such nice small improvements and is thus more accessible than Dominions 2 where you were forced to read the manual. Dominions 3 you should be able to play without reading the manual at all, playing the tutorial should be enough. Nontheless it is recommended of course to read the manual nontheless, but you could start playing Dominions 3 without reading the manual as a new player http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

As scales we pick very economical scales:
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/323/30uh4.jpg

If you are an old dominions 2 veteran you probably begin to wonder how this is possible. If you look at our bless, god and scales you will notice that in Dominions 2 this design should cost -92 points.
The design becomes possible though through the new feature to chose your desired awakening.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2585/31nd3.jpg
We pick imprisoned, this gives us 250 extra points. In Dominions 2 you had 500 base points for god design, in Dominions 3 you only have 350 base points for god design but can get up to 250 extra points by deciding to use a non-awake god.
Imprisoned means that our god will not be available from the start of the game on, but escape out of his prison within 3 years +/- half a year as random factor. So around turn 30-42 our great mother will manage to escape her prison and from then on we can use her too.
If we would have taken dormant our god would have awakened within a year +/- a few months random factor, so around turn 12.
Awake finally is self explanatory.

Now we have done all adjustments. Fort selection is gone. Each nation now has a couple of forts they can build, they are terrain dependent. So in mountain terrain all nations will have a different fort type than in farmland etc..
Imho this feature is a good idea too, it removes the old watch tower castle spamming problem which many people disliked in Dominions 2.

This is also a good opportunity to end the first chapter and just in time because my weekly Eu2 MP game starts in 20 minutes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. After the MP game i will probably write the second chapter about the first couple of turns for our wannabe Goth-Necro-Argatha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Yay, a second AAR! Can't wait for it to get rolling.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Woot for AARs! A human necromancer cult eh?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Whats wrong with the earth mother? She's not so bad...

Are you going to test the new unit limits in this game, or keep it smaller?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

TOO FREAKING COOL!

Thanks a lot for the pictures, and the new random magic system looks HOT!'

I also like the new info about the starting points etc.

Keep going!

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Agreed, this AAR has gotten off to a stupendous start. I can't wait for the turn posts.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Man this makes me want the game even more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

More AARs are allways nice, expecially dom3 ones... but I'm puzzled by the new random system. In the above example, does that mean that the mages will sometimes have more magic than other times ie 1 in 10 will have an extra point of magic?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Strange. I can pull the links from the source and view the pictures on imageshack, but I can't see them in your post. Not having that problem in any other post that I know of. Am I the only one? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

OS: WinXP
Browser: Firefox

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Ok now our god is complete, so we have to decide the rest of the settings. Let's start the game.
We will play a huge game with all late era nations, 18 in total:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5485/1vt6.jpg

We set the AIs to mighty. In Dominions 2 the AIs on impossible got +70% gold and gem income and some other minor boni.
In Dominions 3 the AIs on mighty get +60% gold and gem income and also some other minor boni.
There is also impossible, where AIs get +100%. On impossible my surviving chances are too small because the AIs are imho much better in Dominions 3 than in Dominions 2. They now build lots of castles for example. This change alone makes the mighty AI setting in Dominions 3 already tougher than the impossible AI in Dominions 2.
Versus impossible AIs in Dominions 3 you have only a chance if you micromanage extremely (which i normally do not do, yeah shame on me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and if you are a bit lucky too.
Two of the 17 AI nations are death dominion nations, this makes it even tougher. I will try to micromanage more than usual, but nontheless i think i have not a very high survival chance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
The AIs also have now 3 behaviour settings which can be chosen:
Defensive, aggressive and normal. I chose random behaviour for all AIs.

Now it is time to chose the game settings:
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/1860/2ul6.jpg
The money, resource and supply multiplier settings are new. In 25 point steps you can chose anything between 50 and 300 points. 300 points means then 300% compared to the normal 100 points whereas 50 points means only 50%.
I leave all 3 at the default 100%.
Gold income in Dominions 3 is about 2,5 times higher than in Dominions 2 and supply got also increased by roughly the same factor.
Magic site frequency i set to 75%. This does not fit the mood of late era too well, the default setting for site frequency for late era is 35% whereas it is 50% for early era, but with site frequency this high i find hopefully enough sites to show most of the nation specific summons Argatha gets and also some other of the new summons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
And it will lead to bigger battles as a positive side effect too. The other settings are rather standard as well, so we only need to select a map and then we can start.

As map i select the beautiful new Dominions 3 map Glory of Gods from Jason Lutes. It is a quite large map, so we need to zoom out much to show the whole map (some parts are covered by the UI though):
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/7145/3bs0.th.jpg
480 land and 122 sea provinces, so roughly 1,5 times the size of large faerun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
We are lucky and start almost in a corner position.
Because the map is so big i cannot write about every single move/battle, so the first turns will be detailed and then only key battles and key decisions will be presented in detail, otherwise the AAR might exceed 1000 pages (and the writer's sanity might be in danger too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

On turn 1 there is not much to do. I send my scout towards the bottom corner because there is probably one AI nation, i prophet my starting commander and check for mercs:
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/6421/4vh5.jpg
Only Frodo available. Well hobbits eh hoburgs have to die http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, so lets bid 225 for him.
For our remaining 175 gold we recruit
http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/5972/5pf7.th.jpg
an attendant of the dead, 2 blindfighters and 1 heavy crossbow.
I am not very happy with this decision, the attendant of the dead will not be too useful with my build because i picked drain 2 and i would have rather had a 3rd blindfighter instead of the heavy crossbow.
But i decided to recruit the attendant of the dead because i picked misfortune 3 scale. So the chance is not too low that i might get my first bad event already on turn 2. If this would be a "lab destroy" event i would be totally screwed because i could not build any new mages till my god awakens around turn 36.
So i need to buy the attendant and thus in order to use the remaining resources have to build the heavy crossbow who does not fit into my planned expansion concept too well neither. Everything important has been done now though, so we end our turn.
Time for the first "waiting for turn hosting" commercial:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4784/7sp1.th.jpg

Seriously though hosting is quite fast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. For a late turn on a big map it can take about 5 minutes though for all the calculations. I have the impression though that it is nontheless faster than hosting time in Dominions 2 on epic Faerun SP games.

Turn 2:
We indeed got Frodo. And we have our first spy reports now too:
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1773/8tz6.th.jpg

Merovia, the province with only 30 light infantry (=LI) and militia looks weak enough. We will use Frodo against them.

The ship wreckers are available now as mercs too for 150. We bid 155 for them.
http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/5049/9dy2.jpg
With the rest of our money we can hire 1 necro and 3 blindfighers and use up the remaining resources and gold http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Turn 3:
Our hobbits owned the indies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.
http://img305.imageshack.us/img305/4007/10hz5.jpg

Those red numbers are a new feature. They show how much damage your units inflicted in combat. So now you see when your SC dies from a lucky enemy open ended dice roll http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Normal damage is shown in red colour, poison damage in green colour and cold damage in blue colour.

http://img283.imageshack.us/img283/1369/11nb8.jpg
Not a single hobbit died http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. We also got the ship wreckers.
http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/2326/12st8.jpg
Unfortunately there is an inkpot end in merovia and the population is very low, so our first conquest is rather worthless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

We have enough money to order another necro, bid for the black bones pirates and 3 new blind fighters.
We spend our research on thaumaturgy for thaumaturgy 2 first. Research costs are doubled in Dom3, so we need 40 points instead of 20 for the first research level.

Turn 4:
Oh no, an enemy archer hit Frodo. So despite only losing 3 other hobbits because of the death of their leader the whole squad is lost. This is annoying, i thought i have placed frodo backwards enough http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
The battle replay reveals then that he died later while our troops were attacking. He was scripted to stay behind, unfortunately a stray arrow hit him.
http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/1649/13fx9.jpg
The arrow inflicted 6 damage. So the damageroll for the arrow has been quite lucky, because it was a shortbow arrow with 10 base damage, and Frodo has 14 body and 15 head protection (another new concept, now body and head protection are seperated, that means that a unit with e.g. 20 body but only 5 head protection can occasionaly get hit on the head too (i do not know the exact concepts, maybe they will be in the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) and thus can get killed because head protection was much lower than body protection ). So the shortbow hit had a really good damage roll, 10 higher than Frodo's protection roll!
This will severly limit our expansion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Ordering another necro and 4 blindfighters and "suiciding" the ship wreckers + black bone pirates onto another indy province.

Turn 5:
Bah. A vampire count attacks one of our provinces (random event). Fortunately he decided to attack the province with the inkpod end. And my mercenary attack was really a suicide, the defending indies were tougher as i thought.
A very unsuccessful turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.
I decide that it is time to use our blind fighters.
http://img320.imageshack.us/img320/2149/14qt5.jpg

Turn 6:
Nothing really important happens. The Elephant Corps mercs have liberated our province from the vampire count and our blindfighter army conquered another province.
The next turns we are probably doing only what we did since the last turns:
-Check for mercs
-Buy new necros and blindfighters
-Conquer more indies

So i will speed up the process a bit and only tell unexpected or otherwise particularly noteworthy happenings for the next couple of turns. This way i can describe more detailed when early game ends (= when we run out of indies to conquer and need to start the first war with an AI nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

Turn 7:
http://img463.imageshack.us/img463/5038/15pi1.jpg
We build our first castle. Now each nation gets 3-4 different castle types depending on terrain. There will probably be a detailed castle chart for the nation specific castles in the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
We are lucky, only 4 turns to build. Afaik 4 turns is the fastest possible castle build speed in Dom3.

Turn 8:
Hehe 2 magic sites at once:
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/662/16ii4.jpg
A gold mine (+100 gold income) and an iron cliff (+1 earth gem).

Turn 9:
We conquered a coastal province with [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gif[/img]ies (= Ichtyids). Hurray. Only 33 resources though unfortunately, a castle has priority there. We start building an army of [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gif[/img]ies there. They are afaik the only way to enter the sea via indies. Because in Dom3 water mages can no longer automatically enter the sea. So you have to forge them water breathing equipment. There are still shamblers in coastal provinces too, but only as unit, but without a commander. Because those shamblers you only get via a magic site.
So those coastal provinces with [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gif[/img]y population are the only way to conquer sea provinces without using summons or forging water breathing items afaik. Well unless your nation has aquatic units and commanders of course like e.g. late era Atlantis.

Btw has no blindfighter yet died because there was no long battle yet. If the battles last <10 turns fatigue doesn't become a problem and the blindfighters are nearly unkillable by most indies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Turn 11:
Lol we get 2 random events, and both are positive. Misfortune 3 rocks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. Seriously this happened because 1 of the two events happened in a border province which is still outside of our dominion, so has 0 misfortune scale, so a 50:50 chance for good:bad events and the other one happened in a province where we have dominion, but not yet 3 but only 2 misfortune scale, so about 75% chance for a bad event.
All in all we have been very lucky nontheless to get 2 good events.
Outrunning your own dominion quickly with maximum negative scales is btw an old veteran strat which especially QM uses often. It still works well in Dom3, probably even slightly better than in Dom2 because more nations have good bless troops than in Dom2 and viable bless troops are a strong motivator to use bad scales.
This is especially important to keep in mind for new players. If you expand faster than your dominion spreads (and use purposely a low dominion, just enough to not dominiondie) you can somewhat negate your negative scale effects because afaik provinces which are not your dominion are treated as provinces with neutral scales. So they are like turmoil 0 or misfortune 0 provinces then for you instead of turmoil 3 misfortune 3 provinces.
If the enemy dominion there has the same bad scales as you then the provinces are treated for you as turmoil 3 misfortune 3 provinces too though iirc. You only do not profit from positive enemy scales, those provinces are then treated for you like with neutral scales.

I have to try to spread my dominion though, so i have soon to start building some temples to profit from my good scales and more important to keep out ermor and ryleh dominions because those are popkiller dominions. I do not know if i neighbor one of them yet, since i somehow forget in almost every game to use indy scouts and did so in this game too ... .

Turn 13:
Our little empire grows.
http://img419.imageshack.us/img419/9274/17sh3.jpg
Another new Dom3 feature. Random events can now happen in indy provinces too. If a random event creates armies, those armies stay and fight together with the native indy armies already present. This can lead to very nasty indy provinces. In a blitz game i had once the bad luck that an indy province had had 2 barbarian attack and 1 vampire count reveals himself events, so there have been then the normal indy troops, about 150 barbarians, 20 vampires and the count. Also this adds a new random factor. If the indy event happens in the same turn in which you try to conquer the indy province the event indies fight there too. So you can never be 100% sure that you will only fight those indies the spy report tells you about when trying to conquer an indy province. So if you have really bad luck theoretically the vampire count event e.g. might happen in the turn your SC god attacks a province and he might get killed while buffing by the flying vampires who attack him. Iirc this indeed already happened to me in one game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In this game i dare not to attack this province, probably 50 or more barbarians have a good chance of overwhelming my ~10 blindfighters i have there. Since blindfighters are slow (1 mapmovement) i have to wait for new mercs because i will get them probably faster than it would take to travel to new indies (would take 3 turns). So the mercs can then play cannon fodder http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. The blackfists which played this role are decimated down to 1 man, so i have to wait for new mercs.

Turn 15:
http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/2900/18yd4.jpg
A slightly unpleasant turn. Our new fort gets besieged by a barbarian horde (random event) and the indy province enchanced with barbarians has beaten my conquest force.
This battle told me that i do not understand yet the Dominions 3 routing rules. Also my first 2 blind fighters died [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif.

Situation right before the rout:
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/1844/19uk2.jpg
It is currently the enemy turn, the barbarians did break our fodder mercs in that turn. Then our blindfighers, who were a seperate squad and just started creeping (5 actionpoints, that doesn't deserve getting called moving http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif ) towards the enemy routed also. Fortunately they were still at the corner of the battlefield, otherwise the barbarians would have slaughtered them all. So only one died to the barbarians and the other 12 escaped. Under dominions 2 rules because they were a seperate squad they would have been unimpressed by the slaughtering of the fodder militia and would have continued fighting. Now they routed at the same time when the militia mercs routed. I know that routing rules got changed for Dom 3, but i do not know how exactly they got changed. The change lead to my humiliating defeat though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/skull.gif.

At least we soon have enough fishies for attempting to go underwater. The army at my capitol i left there purposely as a reserve if i run into an AI. It has not yet happened, but should soon happen. In most of my former games i expanded like hell and then almost simultaneously got attacked by 2-3 AI neighbors i ran into and they did beat my scattered armies then and because i had no reserves did wipe me out. So this time i left some reserves to be prepared just in case. Or at least i try to convince myself of that via Boronian autosuggestion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif.
My "save" but slower expansion seems to work so far well enough, i am nontheless leading in the province race.
http://img358.imageshack.us/img358/8791/20qk1.jpg
Mictlan is 2nd and Ermor 3rd. That might mean that Mictlan has a good bless.

The AI expands normally slower than a human the first 20 turns, even on impossible. This is because the AI uses big armies normally. The effect of this is normally that you start getting confident around turn 20, then around that you also run into your first AI neighbors, and you have your armies spreaded out whereas the AI has massed their armies and attacks you very likely then and beats your spreaded armies. It can be quite mean http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif. You start feeling confident and 5 turns later the dream is over and the AI is overwhelming you. So basically the AI lets you expand (and suffer casualities from indies) and then steals the provinces from you. Quite nasty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In the next update we should meet our neighbors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Expect the next update in ca. 15-20 hours http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

On the Design Dominion screen shot shouldn't it list Productivity 3 as giving resources +30%?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

It does for me... The second last image of Boron's first post, the one shwing all the scales? It says income +6%, resources +30%. (Doesn't it?)

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Frostmourne27 said:
It does for me... The second last image of Boron's first post, the one shwing all the scales? It says income +6%, resources +30%. (Doesn't it?)

On my screen is says resources 30%. The '+' is absent.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

> ... first bad event already on turn 2. If this would be a "lab destroy" even ...

Lab destroyed cannot happen before turn 5 now IIRC.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

About the + thing, yeah, sorry, it is missing a +. I don't know what I was thinking. Still, I think it's fairly clear, productivity probably doesn't lower resources to 30% of base or anything...

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Wow, this promises to be one hell of a brawl. Looking forward to more.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

I have a question...what's Middle Era Ulm like?

That map looks gorgeous. Let's hope you have good luck with those sites. Can't wait to see all the new summons.

And I can't put to words how much I apreciate pictures. Preeettyyy pictureeees~

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Very nicely done.
Looking forward to the actual gameplay stuff .

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Hi Boron:

I did not see Machaka or Pythium on the list of nations. Is that just because you cannot play all late era nations in one game (i.e., there are more than 18 of 'em)?

Thanks again for th AAR.

Pasha

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

480 land and 122 sea provinces, so roughly 1,5 times the size of large faerun

Nice! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

They doesn't exist in the late era. Some nations appear, and other disappear with the ages. Other are just reformed.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

These AARs are -very- enjoyable. Thank you for the effort in putting them together. They make the wait for Dom3 release both more and less bearable at the same time. ;-)

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Kristoffer O said:
They doesn't exist in the late era. Some nations appear, and other disappear with the ages. Other are just reformed.

Oh? What replaces the two?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Nerfix said:Oh? What replaces the two?

Patala and Jomon?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Is it correct to assume that it is not possible to have a game involving nations from different eras (e.g., Machaka vs. Late Era Ermor)?

Pasha

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

You can easily use mods to put any nation in ant era. Some betatesters happily threw all nations of all eras into one big game. So you can throw pythium or machaka in LA games with a simple mod. All players must agree though. In SP it is no problem of course.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

First thanks to all for all the nice comments. Those really motivate even more to continue writing the AAR http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Unfortunately i had not enough time yet today so i will answer first the unanswered comments and will write the update today night instead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Quote:

Oversway said:

Whats wrong with the earth mother? She's not so bad...

Are you going to test the new unit limits in this game, or keep it smaller?

Nothing is wrong with the earth mother, i only do not like her green skin and her drawing in general. So i normally avoid using her out of aesthetic reasons. She is the only pretender i find unaesthetic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I am not sure if i may comment on the unit limit sorry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Normally even on the glory of gods map it should not be a problem though, so much i think i can say http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Quote:

Ballbarian said:
Strange. I can pull the links from the source and view the pictures on imageshack, but I can't see them in your post. Not having that problem in any other post that I know of. Am I the only one? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

OS: WinXP
Browser: Firefox

Can you maybe post a screenshot?
It looks as if you have problems with the thumbnails, but i am not sure which problem exactly. For me and some people i asked the screenshots seem to work fine. But if you attach a screenshot how the chapter looks for you i think we can hopefully solve the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Quote:

ioticus said:
On the Design Dominion screen shot shouldn't it list Productivity 3 as giving resources +30%?

You are correct, it only shows it as 30%. If you take sloth 3 it shows -30% though.

Quote:

okiN said:
Wow, this promises to be one hell of a brawl. Looking forward to more.

Yeah http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. And now that the AI builds new castles and with more supply than in dom2 and lots of other changes that slightly strengthen national troops and slightly nerf SCs and Mages expect some 1000 troop battles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Quote:

PashaDawg said:
Hi Boron:

I did not see Machaka or Pythium on the list of nations. Is that just because you cannot play all late era nations in one game (i.e., there are more than 18 of 'em)?

Thanks again for th AAR.

Pasha

Glad to see that you are interested in Dominions 3. Though QM has converted me into a blitz fanatic (and a classic longterm game disliker) i am really looking forward to play a longterm Dominions 3 game with you. Aku probably buys Dominions 3 too, so maybe we can get a nostalgia MP game going. Can't await to read your unique comments about the MP then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Dominions 3 has about 60 nations. Nations have now a history, so some nations are present in all 3 eras with different units. Each era has about 20 nations. So the late era game is with all late era nations.
As Kristoffer said with a mod it is no problem to play a game with all 60 nations. But to my great surprise, i could not believe first that i will like the era system i really like the era system. This way Dominions got a history http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Some nations are in one era only because they got annilihated at the end of the era. Some nations are present in all 3 eras but have declined in late era.
The sea nations are an example for that.
Oceania is in early and mid era, in late era it does not exist anymore because Ryleh annilihated them. Ryleh is the only nation that starts in the sea in late era. Atlantis still exists, but Ryleh has defeated Atlantis too, so Atlantis was forced to leave the sea and splitted into 2 cultures. The smaller one now lives in the Mictlan rain forests and provides their best mages, the larger one forms late era Atlantis which was inspired by the Innuit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Quote:

Nerfix said:
I have a question...what's Middle Era Ulm like?

That map looks gorgeous. Let's hope you have good luck with those sites. Can't wait to see all the new summons.

And I can't put to words how much I apreciate pictures. Preeettyyy pictureeees~

Middle Era Ulm has not changed very much, it is basically base Ulm from Dominions 2 with some slight changes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Middle Era in general is very close to Dominions 2. There are of course the new nations too, but most of the other nations are very similiar to dominions 2, though all of them have gotten some changes.
In early and late era though there are many new nations and the known ones from dom2 have gotten big changes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

So middle era reminds on Dominions 2 whereas early and late era feel very new and add most new content http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Glad that you like the pictures, many will follow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Attaching a screen shot. I trimmed it to keep the size reasonable.

Enjoyed reading your AAR but feel like I am really missing out by not viewing the thumbs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

I was sure I said how cool this AAR is, but it seems like I didn't really post in here.
In that case...

All hail Boron, Author of AARs, Abolisher of Boredom, Bringer of Screenshots.
Having spent a whole lot of time playing Dominions, there is nothing left for Borong but to claim godhood.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

okiN said:

Quote:

Nerfix said:Oh? What replaces the two?

Patala and Jomon?

But Patala and Jomon also exist as new nations in the old eras...

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Nerfix said:But Patala and Jomon also exist as new nations in the old eras...

In that case: i dunno, lol �\(�_o)/�

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

okiN said:�\(�_o)/�

Wonderful, I love that smiley.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Thanks Boron, for giving us this detailed AAR packed with screen shots.

As JaydedOne mentioned before, it makes the waiting for dom-III both more and less bearable.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Ballbarian said:
Attaching a screen shot. I trimmed it to keep the size reasonable.

Enjoyed reading your AAR but feel like I am really missing out by not viewing the thumbs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

That looks indeed evil http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Normally it should look like in the attachment.
I have to use thumbnails imho by the masses of screenshots i use, otherwise for ppl with modem or isdn one thread page with 2-3 AAR chapters would probably load for 15 minutes or so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Does anyone know another good picture host service?
I do not necessarily need to use imageshack http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Also does anyone else have the same problems as Ballbarian?
If you view it with other browsers like netscape or internet explorer do you have the same problem?
Or maybe another reader knows what to do to solve Ballbarian's problem?

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

The AAR works fine on my Mac at home and my PC at work.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

No problems on internet explorer here.

I also use imageshack and not sure of another picture hosting site.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Found the problem. For some reason my EZ Trust firewall was blocking the thumbs. Haven't figured out what it didn't like about them, but at least I can get the images now. If it turns out that others are having similar problems, and if it were not too much extra work, a simple work around would be to post a text link to the image following the thumb.

Thank you for the AAR and your help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Quote:

Agrajag said:
I was sure I said how cool this AAR is, but it seems like I didn't really post in here.
In that case...

All hail Boron, Author of AARs, Abolisher of Boredom, Bringer of Screenshots.
Having spent a whole lot of time playing Dominions, there is nothing left for Borong but to claim godhood.

Hehe thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Quote:

Ballbarian said:
Found the problem. For some reason my EZ Trust firewall was blocking the thumbs. Haven't figured out what it didn't like about them, but at least I can get the images now. If it turns out that others are having similar problems, and if it were not too much extra work, a simple work around would be to post a text link to the image following the thumb.

Thank you for the AAR and your help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Hm that might indeed be the better idea. Future screenies that are bigger than ~ 50 kb i post only the direct link. Cause on the Thumbnail you cannot see anything anyways but it uses 40 kb or so too, that are another 5 seconds for someone with isdn to load. And if there are 40 thumbnails per threadpage that would be 40x5 seconds then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Quote:

WraithLord said:
Thanks Boron, for giving us this detailed AAR packed with screen shots.

As JaydedOne mentioned before, it makes the waiting for dom-III both more and less bearable.

Yeah i know exactly how you must feel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. And i am a very impatient person often so if i wait for something i really want even something like 5 days are for me like waiting for a year http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Quote:

Nerfix said:

Quote:

okiN said:

Quote:

Nerfix said:Oh? What replaces the two?

Patala and Jomon?

But Patala and Jomon also exist as new nations in the old eras...

They are named differently for each era.

Early era "india": Kailasa
Middle era "india": Bandar Log
Late era "india": Patala

Early era "japan": Yomi
Middle era "japan": Shinuyama
Late era "japan": Jomon

Edit: I am awfully sorry but today i somehow had never 2-4 hours time in a row to continue the AAR. But since i only play Eu2 MP on tuesday and wednesday and the tuesday MP is now over this should mean that tomorrow and on friday i can write at least 1 new chapter. And i will try to write an additional chapter for the promised but now not written finish of the 2nd chapter.
Since i have semester holidays with luck i hope to finish the AAR till October, so that it is finished about when Dom3 gets released http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Thanks for the AAR Boron, I really enjoyed it....http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Finished the second chapter. Since it is on the first page of the thread and i did not find a way to backlink to it from here i am simply posting the chapter again so that you do not have to search it in the first page of the thread.
Enjoy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Also from now on i am linking the bigger screenshots instead simply via direct link, this way the thumbnails do not use bandwith in vain because you cannot recognize anything on them anyways.

Quote:

DominionsFAN said:
Thanks for the AAR Boron, I really enjoyed it....http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Thanks, i hope you enjoy the now finished 2nd chapter as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I think this is now also a good opportunity to make some propaganda for the (almost) "official" dominions irc channel. Have you ever been there yet? Since we betas are now allowed to answer questions about Dominions 3 too and some of the betas are regular guests there. So you might come to the channel and chat about Dom3 and if there are enough people who have time there might also be spontaneous Dom2 blitzes (and in some weeks instead Dom3 blitzes) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

The permanent Dominions IRC community channel:

IRC
irc.gamesurge.net port 6667 channel #dominions

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

You have already quite the empire! I hope you can keep it against the AI!

So, how about those summons...

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

wow, keep it up Boron. Nice long and detailed AAR. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

I like how you're explaining many new features in context! Thanks.

Pasha

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

It's like coming back to the family after a long long vacation. OK, I'm ready despite knowing that I am and always will be a Dominion doormat.

Re: Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead

Hm turns are no longer shown in SP, so i will use season descriptions instead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Because i can only be sure about the turn if it is the begin of a new year, otherwise something like "summer in the year 2 of the ascension wars" can refer to 2-3 turns i think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Only in MP games the exact turn is still shown.

"Late summer in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

We conquered our first underwater province. It was only guarded by 9 shamblers, so our 40 fishies defeated them easily http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
Site searching is progressing, we have researched conjuration 3 now too and can search for death provinces now too. Well only conjuration 2 is necessary for dark knowledge, but we wanted conjuration 3 for summon earthpower.

So currently we have thaumaturgy 2 and conjuration 3 researched, now we research evocation 6 (will take at least 10 more turns from now on). Evocation 6 has an absolute key spell for our nation with magma eruption then.
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/6918/1my7.jpg
You old veterans might notice that the range of magma eruption is now shorter. This has been done for the other good no-gem damage spells too. This way they are more balanced because they are still as deadly as in Dom2, but because of the shorter range you will suffer more friendly fire casualities and archers counter artillery mages now somewhat because of this change http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

"Early Fall in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

Hm seems the turn descriptions are more exact than i thought. Early fall, fall, late fall etc.. So i could use exact turn numbers too. But the Dom3 way sounds imho more stylish, so i will stick to this description now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/191/2sb1.jpg
We have encountered our first neighbor. It is Ermor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif.
Currently according to scoregraphs they are about half as large as we are. So i have to buy more temples and try to kill them asap http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif.

On a side note our secret weapon, our super shooters do not as well as we hoped http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../firedevil.gif. We had 2-3 battles where 10-20 indy knights defeated large crossbow armies we sent. Probably their low precision is the problem. We will switch completely to blind fighters and necros now. Vs. archers the crossbows would anyways be not very useful. Now that we have 3-4 new castles we are reaching the stage anyways were gold income and not resources becomes the bottleneck.
At least our propagandaminister did a good job. So our people still believe that those far away battles were successes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif. And they are kept happy with drugs and psychedelic music anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif.

"Winter in the year 2 of the ascension wars"

http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/2429/3wd1.jpg
We border now Caelum and Abysia too. The ichtyids cost only 3 resources for the net ones and 7 for the better armored ones. With the castle there we can now recruit ca. 40 + an ichtyid commander per turn. We will buy hordes of them to conquer the seas now and to raid later the AIs on the other side of the sea there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Hm an unexpected short update today from me. Turns are now getting bigger, so i need several hours in a row. But today there is unexpectedly a 6 player dom2 nostalgia blitz, so these several hours in a row are not available now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. I hope you find it somewhat amusing if i use normally not fitting and occasionally well fitting music every now and then to loosen the AAR a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.