Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

This is a new feature of dominions 3, I think it adds a lot of new strategy to pretender creation. What r yr thoughts on it?

I have only played the demo 1 day and the full game 1 day, but here r some thoughts about it.

If u r going to create a SC, the pretender should be awake. A SC pretender is most useful at the beginning of the game, when he can on his own or with a little help conquer indies, expanding yr empire very fast early in the game. He can further be developed then over time by magic items, spells etc...

A bless strategy, means u can go dormant or imprisioned, as yr sacred troops still get there blessings. Also this means yr pretender will have at least one powerful magic path lvl 9 or 10 usually, so he should be designed to be primarily a strong spellcaster. By the time he comes out of prision, u should have researched a global enchantment or high level summons, so is impact on the game is powerful and immediate.

Pick a figurehead pretender, ie ...crone with zip, imprisioned, good strategy she can't die! Then spend points on really high dominion and fantastic scales ie... +3 order, growth, luck, productivity and magic. It would be nice, once released that yr figurehead pretender could be given stealth to keep her out of trouble/harms way. The crone would only be good for spreading yr dominion and transporting troops.

I am pretty new to dominions what do u think? What cunning ideas have formed in yr head? Please share.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Use imprisoned, max out the beneficial scales (with possibly a decent bless, depending on nation) and conquer the world with your national troops.

Works quite well as a 'rush' strategy. Twice with EA Ulm I've managed to win the game before my Pretender broke free.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Depends on the situation and what I am trying to achieve. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm sort of partial to Dormant.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Me too - imprisoned takes so much longer, yet that for 100 points more vs. dormant's 150 points (over awake that is). I just started a Late Man game with a dormant pretender with decent (but not awe-inspiring) magic, plus mostly maxed out scales - thought about going imprisoned, but I got enough with dormant so it didn't seem necessary.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Im playing eary era jomon and they have poor research so I chose that god that gives a bonus to research and gave him a rainbow setup. Seems to work pretty well.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

I think you have it down pat. Awake for a god that is useful early on. Dormant for blessings. And imprisoned for gods that you dont plan to ever really use.

Dormant also saves me from myself. I tend to kill my god by using him too early. Making him dormant insures that I have a nice elite force ready to accompany him.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Am I the only one who likes gods with both good scales & good magic (normally high in air for precission and maby one other) even if I have to wait 3 years for it.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

I doubt that it would work too well. I prefer Dormant. Worked like a charm in my MP game today. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Yep, many strategies. Dormant pretender, any of them, really helps research. On the other hand, good scales helps everything whole time.

For the scale-heavy pretender, something with high starting dominion is a must. Oracle and the Fountain of Blood, and the more expensive immobiles, are all good chassises for scales bless.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

I'm rather Dormant, as it gives approx the points we used to get in Dom2 ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
That's not a good rationale though, so there are others :
- unless you want/need an early SC, Awake gives you a rather weak pretender and/or scales.
- Dormant gives +150 points and you'll have your pretender in 10-14 turns, so still in early game.
- OTOH If you go Imprisoned you get only 100 more points, and won't get him before 35-40 turns, that's looong, and unless you go for a really big bless you can go without...

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

I prefer Dormant as well... Imprisoned isn't worth the extra points unless you have some special bless strategy planned.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Or if you play long huge games where there is no real rush to get your pretenders. Or you play heavy bless strategy (W9E9N4 pretender for EA Agartha, for example). Or you make pretender who will be all scales and support (research, summoning, forging) and those 100 points mean extra 2 scales and magic level or two.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

I play like a turtle, and I prefer imprisoned.

For my R'Lyeh Kraken I can put 6 in air and 5 in water and +3 on luck and magic.

In my extensive experience of 2 games it works pretty well.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

(From my impressions from the demo)
Awake is obviously for SC pretenders, or pretenders that are essential early on (Such as what I've been told about LE Ermor).
Dormant is for anything that isn't vital in the very first turns, this probably means you could dormant a rainbow mage, or a mage based SC, it could also be used for balanced pretenders like in Dom2.
Imprisoned is imo mainly for blesses and squizing a bit of extra scales (if those +100 points make the difference between no magic scale and magic-3, you will probably have better research with the scales over those 20 turns than the pretender itself will net you, for example). I think it would work really well with bless pretenders, because by the time the pretender escapes, you will have researched all the way to the sophisticated spells that could use 9 in a single path.

So far in the demo I'm having a lot of fun with Imprisoned pretender with high blesses and great scales and relying mostly on my nationals.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

You'd be surprised. The exta boost to resources and income help you crank out troops at a high rate. Combine that with a decent blessing, and you can be on the attack with an elite army by turn 4. Simply head straight for the enemy capital http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

It does depend on the nation though. EA Ulm have great troops already. Combine it with a good blessing strategy and you've got a force that's difficult to overcome so early into the game.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

What's an "SC" pretender?

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Super combatant, designed to conquer provinces on his own.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Supercombatant pretender. It means, that your pretender is capable to fight in the battles, without the great risk, that he will die. Of course it doesnt mean that he is invulnerable, however SC pretenders always have huge HP, decent attack and defense, protection etc. Also he only counts as an SC, if he is equipped properly. This also doesn't mean that you can attack 200 heavy troops / mage / priest armies with 1 SC pretender, because he can die easily. You must use him to either conquer weak provinces with his bodyguards, or just use him in your main army. That way, there is only a small risk that he will die, and he will kick some *** on the battlefield. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Super-combatant. Refers to a powerful commander designed for crunching through mundane troops with ease, usually through one or more of

* a very strong base unit type
* good equipment (usually including one or more of luck, antimagic, ethereal, reinvigoration, life draining, regeneration, quickness, high damage, high prot, high def)
* buffing magic (ex. casting spells to increase luck, speed, et al before joining the fray)

ex. Son of Niefel is already a formidable giant; given good equipment he's even more brutal. OTOH, a Crone is normally not slaying masses in melee combat.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Oh okay, I've used my Kraken like that. I need that "amulet of the fish" to really see how he does against a serious army on land, but so far he's eating tritons like popcorn.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Not sure if you're playing single player games or multiplayer games, but computer opponents have a really tough time expanding into water provinces. If you're finding the game too easy you can switch to one of the land nations.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Single player, and I like sitting in the water and hiding, thank you very much!

I'm still figuring the game out... just realized I've wasted my time researching blood magic, for instance. Also, I researched construction to the maximum before learning that all I needed for an Amulet of the Fish was a little air magic and construction 4.

I'm not quite ready to embarrass myself in multiplayer yet, give me a week.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Hm i mainly use 3 kinds of pretenders:

Awake dragon, for speeding up expansion and often with lvl 9 for the bless too if i have useful bless troops.

Works well with nations like mictlan or vanheim.

Imprisioned oracle or fob for uberbless, cool for rushes. E.g. Mictlan f9w9b6 FoB.

Dormant SC god, like the risen oracle. When you have researched your first buffs you have your god then too and the 150 extra points give you 3 more scales http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
As SC god i only pick immortals, the other SC gods are imho too fragile now in Dom3.
The immortal SC god dies too, but because he is immortal it is not problematic then. And if he wiped out 50% of the emeny army before dying he did a good job http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Dragons? They seem to suck a la pre CB mods ( a lot of pretenders seem to be once again massive suckage, or massive bonus - look at WItch King). I've found a couple of pretenders that rock for awake pretenders though to speed up the early conquering.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Agreed. Low dominion, high path cost, + the extra points you need to make a dragon awakened, dragons are REALLY on the low end of desirable pretenders here.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Eh dragons seem to suck maybe, but Kiss and Caine, keep in mind the doubled research costs and how difficult it is to get your 2nd castle.

So the dragon is i think the only pretender that can go on expansion on turn 2.

Fireshield is enchantment 3 now. For a GK you need imho fireshield and ironskin, that is 2x level 3 research, that takes quite a bit to be researched, 2x 200 rp.
Also the GK is a bit nerfed, only 2 dominion and 120 points.

Also taking the lvl 9 bless for your dragon is somewhat affordable.
Imho the dragon is a good chassis.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

What's this Witch King you speak of?

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Hm, I've never used dragon pretenders in Doms 2. tbh, but Im gonna try them out in Doms 3. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

They work best with "weak" indies.
In my Dom2-Blitzes in the channel indy 6 was normally the default setting.
Now we take either indy 6 or leave it on the dom3 default, which is indy 5.

If you play with indy 8-9 dragons do probably not work well.

But with indy 5-6 they very often rout the indy melee troops with their breath attack http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

In yesterdays blitz i used a w9 dragon and he did conquer 1 province per turn for me from turn 2-12 ca., then i ran into opponents.
The dragon helped me a lot there imho, i was able to conquer the most indy provinces in this 7 player blitz. So i could afford to make naps with my 2 neighbors and could comfortably build up and start blood hunting (i took mictlan EA).

With the dragon you usually get more indy provinces. And after that for raiding he is somewhat useful too.

A dragon usually means 5-15 more provinces then your enemy if he did not also take a dragon.
But some nations are better at expanding as others.
So the above statement is only true if you both have a nation that can expand about as well as your opponents nation.

If you want to try a lvl 9 bless strat the dragon is optimal normally imho.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

I agree with Boron. In Dom2 Dragons were rather 2nd-grade pretenders as they weren't the best chassis for bless-9 and neither were they flexible enough for other uses.
But yet when I played Dragons I was rather happy, you would get either a rather cheap level-6 dragon, or the same at level-9, maybe more costly than optimal pretender, but in all cases able to eat indies right from turn 2, or kill easily enemy pretender before turn 20 or so when they get fully equipped.
In Dom3 I also think they're an even more viable choice when taken Awake or maybe Dormant.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Nope. Not even close, even looking only at the pretenders available in the demo's five nations. Wyrm, Mother of Monsters, Drakaina, Manticore, possibly Father of Serpents, Destroyer of Worlds, White Bull, Earth Momma.

Some may not be perfect for turn 2 - but by turn 4 or 5, definately. (And I've had a Wyrm take 15 provinces by turn 20.)

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Ghost King, whatever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Dagon too. If you are lucky and your first Mage of the Deep is 2E you can give him a Black Steel fullplate and off you go!

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Hm the wyrm has low protection. Only 11, and only 8 defense. So you need to buff him with at least BE and personal luck imho.
But any buff adds encumberance, and unless you have a damage shield the wyrm only kills 2 enemies a turn.
And he costs more than a dragon because you have to buy him at least 1 magic path.

Mother of monsters also needs protection, but thanks to the poison she has a damage shield. And she's cold blooded.

Drakaina has similiar issues as the mother of monsters.

Manticore has no breath attack and horrible protection, so you need to buy lots of buff magic for him.

Father of serpents also has horrible protection and costs 125 already.

The earth momma works, but imho she needs ironskin + summon ep or some items to work, and that is lots of research in dom3.

White bull works i think, so does the deva and the destroyer of worlds. But none of them is imho cheaper than the dragon.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Don't knock the magicless wyrm.

Sure, protection and defense are low, but with all those hit points and regeneration, plus fear?

He may not kill a lot, but they run away pretty quickly.

And if he dies, call him back. No paths to lose, so no worries.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Read what I said about my Wyrm taking 15 provinces. That was with indies _6_, and no magic paths. No items until turn 10 or so, when I researched Construction and got some things on him. "Only" killing 2 enemies a turn wasn't a problem, given that the defenders break morale.

Frankly, I didn't expect him to do so well, but figured it didn't matter much if he died. Spent about 2 turns healing him with priestesses, and other than that, used only a single "trick" to help him do so well. Again, I suspect a number of other pretenders could do nearly as well, certainly as well as the dragon once you equip them with a few items or research a few turns.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Which trick did you use?
Something as cute as your poor mans SC black servant? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

How dare you diss black servants!! They are my litle ulmish babies, ulms forging abilities+various items and site searching from a rainbow mage= 3 or so stealthy, ethereal, 16-20 strength, life stealing, fear causing, great prot and/or defence thugs by turn 20 (in dom2, in 3 life stealing and, in the case of this build shield, are nerfed).

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Boron, I used a "trick" that any nation, any pretender, can use on turn one, or rather before, at turn zero design.

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Hmm, I thought I've read somewhere that only lifestealing weapons were nerfed in Dom3, not native lifestealing ability. Is it not the case?


I've never tried mini-SC out of black servant. They seem to have to few hitpoints zero protection for me to risk giving them good items and to risk loosing these items if you lose the battle. Were they actually that effective?

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

It seems to me like this system has the ability to (possibly) introduce an entirely new genre of pretenders - research/forging/summoning ones (especially for acessing alternate paths).

This would be a preferebly awake, possibly dormant pretender with good magic (maybe -air is it?- for owl quil) on a non-battle chassis (immobile pretenders seem like the most obvious choices). It may or may not be rainbow. It might a sort of fine line to draw (between a bless strat and a rainbow strat), but it is something to look into...

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Tell master inquisitor Boron the "trick". Confess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Yep. It wasn't putting _great_ items on them, it was just inexpensive trinkets - cheap black steel armor, maybe a lucky pendant, and then between etherealness, high armor, and lifestealing to get back health, they were the cheapest, least expensive mini-thug around. Had them take 8 or so provinces all by themselves against indies-9, and they were also a real surprise to human players. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

That's still cost 10 gems for equipping a very weak creature...

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Dominion 9 or 10?

Re: Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?
 

Hmmm, Wyrm with no magic and 10 Dominion...