Librarys and sages
 

I have noticed that Libraries are much rarer in Dom 3. Is that just my bad luck or has there been a change in frequency? This has made it harder for me to research. Has anyone else ran into this issue and found nice ways around it?

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Libraries are more rare, but at least in the earlier ages, various Tribes often have shamans leading them. These Shamans are sacred and have (usually) N1 and 10% random. If you build a lab AND a temple, you can recruit and research with them.

Of course, research in general has been made harder, so you can't expect to research as fast or efficiently as before.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Interesting. I have yet to receive the full game, so perhaps I have misunderstood something. I thought the general trend was that magic was stronger in the earlier era and less powerful in the later eras. But by making magic harder to research over all, it makes all periods have less. Am I on track or am I missing something?

Thematically, I could see the idea of fewer libraries in the early era than in the later eras, but that would go against the idea of less magic later.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Sages have S1 and no randoms. In later ages, magic research stays the same, sites became less common, and mages more restricted. LA Tien Chi's Barbarian mages, as an example, have D2N1, A2D1 and E2D1 IIRC, and one random that has four out of AEDSN, but not the one they have 2 in. There won't be E3 Ancestor Smiths, etc. They are more restricted in magic.

Early Age is more powerful in magic than later ages, but in some ways less powerful than Dominions II. There are more powerful mages in Early Age than in Dominions II, but research is harder.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

I've seen that statement crop up several times, but what is it based on?

Certainly, early game where research is limited by "I can only recruit one mage per turn in my capital" research is slower, certain research strategies are weaker (such as those based on finding cheap indy mages or based on skull mentors), which means that for short games, research is harder for many of the most popular strategies, but research being harder in general I disagree with, or, to be more precise, haven't seen convincing arguments for.

An example: the abundance of money means that, for most nations, long-term, money based strategies actually allow you to spend a higher fraction of your income on researchers and since the benefits from magic-scale and experience scale just as well in Dominions 3 as in 2, you actually end up researching faster in 3 than in 2 from a certain point in time all other things being equal, since you'll be getting more than 2 research mages for each 1 you had in Dom 2.

So, what have I missed? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I quite agree that in some situations, research is harder in Dominions 3 but I don't see how it is true in general, which is generally asserted.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Well, the Magic scale does not affect research as much as it used to, for one. For another, the default research point costs for each level of magic have been jacked up by one level. So, while it's true that at turn 30 or turn 50 you are likely to have more research points available in Dominions 3 than in Dominions 2 (due to more money), you're likely to have amassed fewer research points or at least fewer spells (due to a slower start and to research levels costing more). This definitely prolongs the early game phase. I haven't played enough to know if it shortens the midgame, but I can imagine it might.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

I think it was early guesswork about what the ages would mean

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Not so sure I agree. Yes, you have more money - but unlike Dom2, it's difficult to go with a strategy of using all your money for mages/forts/temples/labs. Both because you really _need_ troops in Dom3, and because those forts/temples/labs cost substantially more, so you're unlikely to be able to make a _lot_ of forts the way you could in Dom2 with Mausoleums, watchtowers, and Wizard towers. Heck, even the middle range fortifications were substantially cheaper in Dom2.

So, Dom2 you could get a lot of mages cranked out for research pretty quickly. Dom3, sages are seen more rarely, and while yes, there are lots of shamans about, the shamans are pretty poor researchers, _and_ it's what, 900 gold to build the temple and lab required for them? Whereas Dom2, it wasn't that difficult (with some nations at least) to have 3 forts by turn 12 or so, all churning out national mages.

Oh - and in Dom2, your researchers didn't have a _nasty_ habit of dying of old age. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Played in over 10 games of Dom 3 now and I have not found a single library or sage. So they r very rare, they were as common as muck in Dom2.

It makes more sense to me having sages do yr research, than some half-baked Deer hunter tribe witch doctor. Perhaps a little re-balancing to make it, make more sense, make sages more commom, cut research stat on the tribe mages?

Re: Librarys and sages
 

I'm not minding the reduced library frequency much.

It might be considered a differentiator, since different nations have different access to research-boosting items.

Research speed is definitely a deliberate part of balance -- ex. Oni commander research penalties. If they could count on getting good researchers fast, that penalty would be less meaningful.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

While that is true, in my experience gold scaling on the income side is higher than the scaling on (mostly static) expenses such as forts, temples, labs. Sure, I pay twice cost for labs and temples and way for fortresses than I used to - but I don't, in general, need more temples, labs, or fortresses than I did in Dominions 2. And, being forced to shell out real money on the fortresses (sniff) because of not being able to choose the cheap options, I end up with fortresses with better administration ratings and higher income: They cost more but the long-term gain is worth more than the mere cost-factor needed to match normal income growth from 2 to 3.

The exception to this might be to the ones going from Dom2 mausuleum strategies or using all mage/fortress/no-troop strategies to Dom3 as you note, and for nations such as the Ashen Empire all odds are off* - but again, that's not the general case.

* We really do need somebody to do a thorough analysis of Ashen Empire in Dominions 3. So many of changes made to balance other nations have a weird impact on the undead hordes.

As for troops, I almost always neeeded troops in Dominions 2 - both for single player and multi player. In Dominions 3, I just need more of them, but seem to have a larger percentage of my total income available to use on mages as the game progresses [so long as it is not a short game setup - those call for radically different strategies] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And then again, you could play long Dom2 games without getting sages if you were unlucky. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif As for early-game research, I happily concede that on the spot: it is bloody obvious that early-game research has been hit with a sledgehammer - which is why I'm interested in the question of mid-to-long game research where my tentative opinion, based on way too few games to be definite, is that I'm certainly not worse off, on average, than in Dominions 2, once I've got a core realm established and can start mass recruitment of researchers.

The point in time when the research explosion begins is definitely later than in Dom2, but RP/turn tends to grow faster per turn after that point than it did as well.

Now that is a good point - for some nations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Librarys and sages
 

I haven't done a thorough analysis but I've played them SP several times and I'm about to start my first MP game with AE Ermor so I'm somewhat familiar.

Overall I'd say AE Ermor got savaged with the nerf stick. They were weakened in a lot of way and subtly boosted in a few ways but the overall net is downward I believe.

Changes I've noted.

1: Capital province gives 15 death gems now instead of 10. Ermor can get a faster start and more summons.

2. Capital provine starts with 30k pop so it takes a long time to die down. Ermor gets a little more gold in the early game phase.

3. Ermor still gets the points benefit of bad scales, but can't get the point benefit of dormant/imprisoned pretenders. So Ermor doesn't get a higher point pretender than everyone else like they used to. They just get them earlier which doesn't make a lot of difference since early on they are just summoning and so forth.

4. Slower research hurts Ermor since a lot of Ermorian strategies required conjuration or construction or globals. Historically Ermor has never been as good at research as the other nations anyway and this exacerbates the problem.

5. Boosts to banishment REALLY hurt undead horde strategies. Even humble indie priests will blow big holes in an horde of longdead unless they are protected by the magics of unholy priests. This means Ermor needs to spend more gems to make sure all their armies are well covered by priests or else anyone with a few priests will evaporate their hordes.

6. Boosts to castle/temple costs really limit Ermorian access to the good undead. Ermor has always had a cash problem and now that a temple+castle combo is going to cost about 1200 minimum Ermor can't afford them. Alchemizing won't cut it at those cost levels. On the flipside, Ermoria n players are going to be drawn to enemy castles like moths to light because if they can take it a free castle is a big bonus to Ermor.

7. I can't quantify this yet, but it seems like the distribution of magic sites have changed. The sites that give more than one gem of a type seem to be rarer. My SP Ermorian games have seen me scrambling for death gems in a way I never was in Dom2. In the late game phases, it seems an AE Ermor player in Dom3 has less death gems available than he would have had in Dom2. Not 100% sure on this one yet, it could have just been crappy luck in the games I played.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

7. Less gems

LA games' default site frequency is lower than DomII's, or earlier ages'. Just 35 IIRC.

Re: Librarys and sages
 

Ahh thank you Endoperez, that might explain what I was seeing.