How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I played DomII a little, and I'm playing Dom3 now. I've been lurking on this forum for a long time now, but this is my first post.

I love Dom3 and I'm sure with the patches it will be better then ever. One question to all you SP'ers. I've seen so many say that there in their 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc, game. On large maps with lots of AI players. And they finished most or all the previous games. How do you guys do that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

I'm in my 3rd game (as EA Ulm)[ edit: MA Ulm ], sure. But thats only because I experimented and quit my first two early. I'm now in a game were I've eliminated one pretender (of significant size) and am battling the strongest AI empire (Ermor). I'm in the 5th year. I've been playing about 3 hours a day for 3 days now.

I may win, or may not. But one thing is for sure, it will take me at least a week or two, if not more to finish.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I'd like to know this too. Late games using largish maps (I like Aran) take me FOREVER to get through. I get to about what I consider to be the halfway point in a game and each turn has 10+ battles, 5ish random events and all kinds of other events to take care of.

I really wish there was a way to queue movement orders, commanders and some kind of rally point feature.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Willpower and bouts of inspiration. Often I play untill year three and then give up, but that migt be because I am still checking out all the stuff. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I think most people stop big SP games once they are first by far in the charts. I think in 3 years of dom 2 I may have fully finished 3 big games, all others I've stopped around turn 100 seeing I was by large first in everything.

In Dom 3 it's the same, once you have 2/3 of the map and 3 times the research capacity of the first AI, why continue ? (all agressive AI are probably dead, and the others are not going to do anything against a stronger nation). At this point if you want a fast and official victory I imagine you may have it by building temples on all your provinces then clicking end turn until ascension.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I never finished a big SP game in Dom2, and I imagine it'll much the same with Dom3. The end game against AIs always felt pointless since they don't really know how to play there. Not that it's necessarily easy, since you'll probably be fighting on multiple fronts, but wiping out army after army of chaff gets boring.

Turns take way too long to finish properly too. In MP games long turns are fine since you'll do one a day or something, but in SP not so much.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Don't feel bad. I received my copy on Oct 4th and I am currently mid way through my 3rd game. Keep in mind that I am normally restricted to evenings and weekends due to that inconvenient work thing.

The 1rst game was a medium map with only 6 ai nations.

The 2nd game was using the cumulative victory points (again on a medium map) so was fairly short.

My current game is a large map with all EA nations and I suspect it will take several more nights & another weekend to finish it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I think that few people have seen the "end game" screen in Dominions. I tend to play until Ive "won" but I know who won long before that end-game screen.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

In general I don't play more than 10 nations, usually more like 6 or 8. I've played huge maps before and generally, after you take out your immediate enemies, you'll see the rest of the AI nations fighting amongst themselves and your power greatly outmatches theirs. It's an exercise in patience to go an steamroll them all and I think the time is better spent starting a new game with a new nation on a smaller map.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Sometimes I use victory points in SP games. They give me limit. It's sometimes good, sometimes bad, as the game might end while I still want to try something.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Some people are just gluttons for punishment! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Heheheh, but seriously, you coud do as Endo suggests and set victory conditions. If you get the conditions right, you will officially win around the same time as it would be obvious (to human player) that the AIs could no longer meaningfully fight you.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

It's very simple, we don't have a life. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Injured.gif

THE question is; "Is there life after Dominions 3?"

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Target.gif[/img] Perfect! Thanks to everyone for all your responces.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Good point there.

Remember the Map for Dom2 Theater of War (found on that page) That was a large map based on victory points, and it was really well designed. I think as time goes on hopefully we'll see more maps like that from talented people.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

There are some ways of speeding up play. Once you get to a certain size, then mostly use the nation overview screen (F1) you can enter most commands directly there - and it is easy to see what hasn't been moved or a mage that needs to be researching instead of defending etc.
Also things like selecting all mages in a province and then that allows you to cast summons of whatever for all of them as it directly cycles through the spell casting window for all the mages selected.

GM12

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I dont use the nation overview screen that much since, even in a large game, there will only be a handful of provinces that are really, really important. Powerhouse forts, provinces with lots sites, etc. Personally, I find that a strong protocol for doing all my turn tasks speeds things up significantly ie: check battles, plan attacks/counterattacks, recruit/summon, move reinforcments, blood hunt, taxes, research. That way I dont get bogged down in trying to think about everything at once.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I tend to play on smaller maps with 2-3 computer opponents, 4/5 victory point win conditions, and easy research. This makes for quick but entertaining 2-3 hour games.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Ghost Riders and Gate Stone. This item/spell combination will significantly decrease time spent mopping up.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Once you've researched Construction 8 and Conjuration 9, and have good enough Death mages and the Earth/Astral mage (while the requirements are bigger in Dom3), and the gems to forge Gate Stone and spam Ghost Rider, you could've ended the game already.

Also, Gate Stone is currently bugged.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I think a couple of things would really help speed games up:
1. auto-search for scouts/spies
2. auto-search for mages scrying for magic sites
3. auto-search for mages wandering around looking for magic sites.
4. being able to direct an army/unit to an endpoint and having intelligeng path-finding. Right now you have to direct them 1-2 province at a time, turn by turn. Maybe it would weigh like this: first would be friendly provinces, second would be provinces with enough supply, third would be provinces with fast terrain (e.g. avoid swamps, mntns, etc.), fourth would be least number of provinces. You could check the path and change it afterwards.
5. if 4 is too complicated, then how about scripted orders--then you could just tell an army/unit: script--move prov1, prov2, prov3, prov4, prov5, end.
6. in fact, scripting would be awesome. You could tell one mage to forge item wine bag every other turn. You could tell another mage who has summon vine men via an item, to just summon vine men every turn. You could tell a fortress to recruit 1 mystic and 8 myrmidons each turn.

This would go a long way towards easing the administration of a huge empire. In my current game, I am taking 15-60 minutes to do all the minutia (tactics, logistics, strategy). Then, when I hit E it takes 5-10 minutes to think and resolve battles etc.. I have an Athlon 3400 with 2GB of ram, and it is churning!

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

This shouldn't be too hard to implement via an A* search, which would automatically take care of turn by turn changes in the path as long as the search is run every turn.

What I'd really like to see is a way to lock certain commanders so that the pool gems command doesn't work on them.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I don't worry about speed at all, because as I have said elsewhere that long turn hosting is what makes dominions such a good game. I am doing homework, going and talking to people and generally not being eaten by the game because the turns are so slow

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

That's a bit like saying "This model of car having a top speed of 20 MPH is a good thing - I can enjoy the scenery, and besides which I didn't want to get to work anyway".

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

You forgot "safer" and because more speed ruins the experience completely.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

LOL! Droll. I am not complaining about the speed, just illustrating the complexity of the game....

I personally don't mind because after 45 minutes of intense concentration I get up and get my blood flowing again, pet the dogs, take out the trash, kiss my wife, and think about the next turn!

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I would really love a way to choose an end destination for movement orders that would continue across turns if needbe. I would also like an automated search for magic sites.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

I complete the games by setting the game to using victory points. I don't use cumulative victory points because after a certain percentage you can just camp out until you win. On maps with 500+ provinces victory points definitely make the game more fun as your target enemy can change when one of the AIs are getting close to winning.
When you're feeling really confident about your skills edit the .map file and setup the computer opponents as allies! Most of my games include both human and computer opponents.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

This already occurs. Like auto-tax, auto-site search via spells was one of the MM improvements made to dom3.

Re: How do you guys/gals do it?
 

Why, by playing the demo of course!

[grumble]Tuxgames http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif[/grumble]