Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Hi folks,

I just got my copy of Dom III this weekend, and I've been messing around with it a little bit in between reading snatches of manual to better understand what's going on.

I won't bother you with basic questions that I can have answered by reading the manual, but if someone could recommend a good starter nation, that'd be good... I'm hoping for something that's not overly complicated, but has a bit of versatility to play with, so that I can better learn the game... I actually started a random match with Early Age Niefelheim, with a nature-magicky Son of Fenrir (who eventually died to the ubdeomilitia of the fourth of four nations I sent him into alone... evidently, not quite the combat monster I expected, once he got swarmed). It's fun, but I'm having trouble figuring out whether or not I'm actually being effective. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

It's definitely an interesting game, but I feel a bit in the deep end. There's so much to take into account... I think, overall, what I want to know is what players tend to prioritize.. I know it'll vary from nation to nation, but is there sort of a baseline amount for, say, how many mages you should hire to research? How important is it to look for sites? Can fortresses and temples and so forth wait, or are they a more important investment than the initial army?

I think I may have overdone the army recruitment with my Niefel game, because I was mowing through the indep (and Kailasan) forces with ease; granted, it was against an easy AI, but I feel as though I could've cleared the area with my starter army and used more of my funds for priests and mages and such. Does that square with your experiences?

So there's a scattered diatribe, peppered with a few questions.

And hi!

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

You are in for a great gaming experience nonsence, this is really a great game and it's so big that you have many weeks of fun game exploration ahead! Keep in mind that the game is quite new and even DomII vets do not have it wired.

I'd suggest that you start out with the Middle Era. The indies are very week in the Early Era and the Late Era has lots of peculiarities. Middle will give you better practice against tougher indies without too many "Holy Crap" moments. You might try Man, Caelum or Arco as starting nations. Definatly avoid Blood nations at first.

A few random tidbits of advice

- Try to expand as quickly as you can without taking many casualties. You want to get a good growth curve going, but it's important to build your army up. Recruiting shortbowmen if your country does not have good archers will help here.

-Searching for sites is important, but not urgent. Make sure you get it done, and the sooner the better, but not at the experience of expansion in the early game. It's worth while to search for everything that you can, even if that's a pain in the neck. Most site are levels 1 or 2, btw.

-You want to increase your research every turn until it's at least 200. This is not always possible, but try. Note that there are two nice magic items that create research- Skill Mentor from Death, and Lightless Lantern for Fire. These can help alot if your nation does those kinds of magic.

-Research priority is crucial, but it's hard to make reccomendations because it's dependent on the nation you are playing. Some candidates for early research- Evocation 2 or 3 if you need firepower, Thaumaturgy 2 to get site searching spells, Construction 2,4, or 6 to get power up items, resarch items and/or weapons and armor. Conjuration X to get some particular summons that will help you out.

-Building provence defence is very helpful against the AI.

-You want to build a second fort/temple/lab at the point resources become a limiting factor to your build at your capitol. Beyond that it's hard to generalize.

Far from a comprehensive guide, but i hope that points you in the right direction.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Here's a link to the wiki

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominions_3:_The_Awakening

And here's a thread you might find useful

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

I think Ulm is a good starting nation. Its benefits are heavily armored troops. Most people tend to understand what those are for.

There is a tutorial in the game which is very helpful

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

You should be hiring, at minimum, roughly one mage per turn. Think of 'provinces-that-can-recruit-mages' as another resource. Site searching priority varies, but if you have the early remote search spells researched, and the gems and mages to use them, it is rarely a bad idea to take advantage. Forts and temples are mainly important once you have more gold than your starting fort can make good use of.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

I second that opinion.

Ulm is rather straightforward and easy to play, little magic, but good troops. You just need a few mages for site-searching and forging, most of the time, you can overcome your enemy without hand-scripting every mage in battle. At least against normal AI, which you probably will be playing when starting out.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

For a starter player I would go for a Dominon 10 Imprisoned Oracle with really nice scales. It's a valid strategy and you won't start with your king piece on the board so you can't lose it until you understand risks a bit better.

A nice Order 3/Growth 3/ Productivity 3 on Early Age Ulm is very forgiving - simply make a big barbarian horde and expect tremendous losses. You can try the different types of barbarians (I like Shield Maidens and Archers myself) and see how they stack up knowing that you'll produce even more troops next turn so the fact that inexperience combined with a disposable troop strategy will leave you with a big pile of corpses won't be game breaking.

Elite strategies are harder to master, since your army will contain so few actual units. Mistakes that cause you to take "more losses" are unacceptable when your army is ten units or less.

-Frank

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Arco is a good starting nation as someone stated. They have a variety of magic, stealth, flying, and regular troops. I also think Machaka is a great nation to start with, they have a good path variety giving you a lot of strategy options and the ability to build stealthy armies. And actually I think MA Ermor would be a good starter nation.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Pay heed to Tyrant and Quantum_mechani's advice in this thread. They're probably the ones that hold most resolute. As for a good starter nation, EA Jotun is one of the easier themes to play. You also want to try nations with archers as they play a huge role in most military, EA Tien Chi's another nice pick to LEARN the game (they are not very beginner friendly to win with however) as they offer a great deal of versatility in terms of battle magic, summoning, sacred, archery, etc. Other recommendations are nations that start off with good national recruitable troops such as Man or Marig. (Though Marig has an array of problems from the fire magic)

PS. Plug for my guide, but also you can take a look at my sig guide for a preview of how most MP games are played. (Though I'll be honest, there's a bit of magic at "learning the ropes" on your own)

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Or EA Sauromatia may be interesting. There's not a huge chasm in the unit lineup; it has understandable units (light cavalry, spearmen, archers, et al); doesn't really need an ultrabless; doesn't rely on national spells; and has a fair bit of interesting magic available.

Arco, by the way, has the nifty healing priestesses that might be fun if you like creating combat pretenders.


Mostly, 'tho, I'd suggest avoiding:

Ermor, Late Era (very VERY different from everything else)

R'lyeh, Late Era (insanity domain is... interesting, possibly frustrating; Void Gate is a slot machine)

Oceania (reportedly quite bugged units)

Mictlan, Early or Late (blood sacrifice is an extra mechanic to fuss with, and it's mandatory here)

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

You can never have too many giants...providing you set the game to +300% supply, so they don't turn into a plague of giant diseased locusts. Niefel's easy to play, but (and this is coming from a fellow newbie who also started with Niefelheim) watch that you have lots and lots of province defense. Castles and kindof important, as you expand, but you only need one castle for maybe every 12 provinces that you're investing a lot in. Also, don't overlook those boulder-throwers, they have higher accuracy than javellineers, which is good so you don't have to worry as much about creaming your Niefel Jarl with friendly fire. And you can get away with not hand-scripting mages, but be very careful about troop-placement. You won't have a lot of troops compared to everyone else, so you want to try to make every one count. Right now I'm using somewhere around 24 Niefel jarls, each protected by 3 skin-shifters, in a line across the right side of the battlefield, with boulder-throwers directly behind. I have the Jarls scripted to cast bless, then holy avenger, then breath of winter, which gives my throwers time to hit the enemy, without putting my jarls in harm's way. Spellcasters I have further back, in two groups, also heavily guarded by skin-shifters. That way, flying enemies get divided up if they want to attack my rear. My provinces are at between 40 and 60 defense, and I only hold maybe 14 at this time, with two castles since I'm getting ready to crush a neighbor. I looked at the Fenrir as a pretender, but I personally prefer either monolith, cyclops, or great enchantress. Vampire queen is another possibility, but I prefer to have crushingly bad scales and extremely high bless/magic. Also, I try to ignore the basic Niefel giant. They're great troops to have, but I'd rather spend the money on a Niefel jarl that I can put time in to, get more and varied use out of, and directly improve.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

By the way, if you don't want to worry too much about magic for the first several turns of the game, create a pretender with high nature bless-it's a good idea for Niefel anyway, and then just set it on enchantment until you get Gift of Health. Casting that early in the game will help you deal with afflictions-which can be devastating to a giant army-and grant extra hit points to your already buff units. It also eases the effect of aging on my Gygjas. That's one of the reasons I use Niefel Jarls, because they make great researchers, on top of being some of the best fighting units in the game.

Currently I'm using a Cyclops with -3 in all scales (I don't have to worry about cold, and for a relatively easy time, I set money, resources, and supply to +300, which nixes out most of the disadvantages of bad scales, and grants me a little bonus to magic resistance, also important to Niefel Jarls. Curse is the bane of the Niefel Jarl, it's worse than a horror-mark, since one of my stronger Niefel Jarls, guarded by three skinshifters, took out the Devourer of Heroes quite easily.) My cyclops has 10 water, 9 earth, 9 nature, and 4 astral, with a dominion of 5.

The thing about Niefelheim is that it takes patience to win. It's easy to make a good start with them, but if you overextend yourself badly, you're doomed. Slow and steady is the way to go, building up your nation into a force which eventually become overwhelming.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Don't forget to build lots of temples. I've seen more than a few posts in Dom3 and Dom2 where new players have lost the game because their dominion became too weak.
Against the AI, I first conquer a few provinces - usually all the ones connected to my capital - and then expand at a slower pace while building up a province defence of 10 in every province or 20 in ones which border an enemy and putting a temple in every single province. It's worth cutting your troop production down a bit to build the temples.

Also, choose your enemies carefully. Underwater nations are a bit tricky to defeat when playing as land ones so you might want to avoid fighting them at first.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

About the nations suggested:

Ulm, EA: nice troops, nice mages. Blade Wind rocks in the Early Age, so aim for Evocation. Some Conjuration or Construction could help after that, to get either Earth Boots (item) or Earth Power (spell) to boost your mages' Earth further. Your troops have nice protection for EA, and can deal with heavy-protection units quite well.

Ulm, MA: very tough troops, decent mages. You can do only few things, but you do those well. In Evocation, you can go for Magma Bolts, Blade Wind and eventually Magma Eruption. Conjuration and Construction are good as well. You wil probably want other types of units, like archers, because your units can have trouble actually killing your enemies. Also, you NEED Production 3, but thankfully will lose quite little from Drain 3.

Man, MA
Build Longbowmen and protect them with infantry. Alteration up to Wind Guide would work really well with your longbow armies.

Arcos, EA and MA:
Astral works well with Thaumaturgy. Random elemental magics work with many different paths, including Evocation. You have good heavy infantry units in both ages, and might want to try tramplers (Chariots or Elephants). The latter are often risky, especially because they have a tendency to rout OVER your commanders.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Its interesting to see how some people overlap "easy to learn" with discussions about winning. Oh well, there is a reason for "Those that can, do. And those that cant, teach."

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with learning the game as Ermor, and you might as well play it against the AI where it's a powerful nation, instead of against people where it's not.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

I'd recommend middle age Man or Marignon for learning. They field good versions of the basic Dominions army, which is infantry in front of archers, with flanking cavalry to sweep up stragglers. Both have access to a decent magic set, with army enhancers, magic items, and summons, although the mix varies, so you get to play around with magic without having to know how to use it. Ulm is mostly a good start but IMO the magic is too bland apart from items, which requires good supercombant/thug design to use.

Vanheim has no archers but their high-defense infantry and cavalry are incredibly strong so it's also a good nation to learn on. It's a good nation to learn thug construction because the glamourous commanders are so strong.

Some trickier things to avoid:
Trampler nations: Arco, Patala
Blood nations: Mictlan early or late, Marignon late
Funky Dominions: Ermor or late R'lyeh
Cavalry nations: late Tien Chi

Many of these are quite strong but using their strength requires special tricks with magic or army layout.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Hmmm. I should offer one caveat with Sauromatia; it also applies to Pythium.

One has to be careful with hydras. :p

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

The easiest nation to play vs the AI is probably late era R´lyeh.
1)You are a water nation, so the AI can´t really invade you.
2)You get tons of freespawns, so the AI doesn´t want to declare war on you.
3)Setbacks don´t really hurt you, because of the many freespawns, which replace losses easily.
4) Your mages are very good at astral magic, which makes it easier to branch into other paths with rings of sorcery/wizardry to try out more stuff. Acashic record makes sitesearcing easy.
5) Void gate is a lot of fun.

Just make sure you take a dominion 10 pretender with good scales and you should be fine.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Thanks for all the replies; judging by the fact that most everyone is recommending something different, I probably can't go too far wrong.

I have to say, avoiding R'lyeh is... well, it's something that won't last too long. Unleashing an army of shapeless ctulhoid horrors is probably what sold me on the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Still, they sound fairly tricky, so I'll play around with more straight-forward stuff first.

So, to summarize:

1) I should research as much as I possibly can.
2) Temples everywhere.
3) Play a "standard" infantry-archer-cavalry race at first.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Good advice.

One last note, what I struggle with the most in Dominions (and continue to struggle with) is the magic system. Its so huge it takes alot to get yr head around it.

By this I mean what path of magic to research and in what order to be most effective, spells to aim for etc, etc...
It's also different for every nation as well, so only after playing 1 nation 3 - 4 times do u start being near 100% efficient in yr research/spell selection/gem spending choices.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Temples everywhere may be fine in SP, which is what we are talking about here, but FYI do NOT do this in MP. Expensive undefended temples will be burned. Build them only in forts or, rarely, in out of the way provences far from the enemy.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Early on, rapid expansion is far more important than leaving temples everywhere you go. That means putting money into troops, fast (well, unless you're AE Ermor) -- mercenaries, for instance. Even in SP.

400 gold will buy you a temple... or it might buy you a mage or two for research, or better yet, it'll cover most mercenary bands in SP which will let you capture more provinces faster for more income. Worry about more temples if your dominion is being stomped, or once you don't have as pressing a need for spending all your Au on troops and mages.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

I completely agree with Taqwus

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

If you want a practice nation my number one suggestion is late LA Man. They have great archers (longbows and crossbows), nice mages for LA (who arent affected by drain), armoured troops and some of the best national troops in late era in the form of defenders (good armour, kite shields, broadswords and crossbows) and possibly wardens (crossbows and greatswords) for raiding. For a pretender set-up try:

Prince of Death with:
dominion 10
order 3
production 3
misfortune 2
drain 3
dormant (so you have time to forge items for him)
and with spare points boost his death magic as high as possible

For your strategy: expand with your starter army and defenders, buying lots of magister arcanes for research into construction (some cheap armour and a luck pendant for your PoD) for when your pretender awakens. Once your PoD wakes up, give him the armour and pendant and send him out to crush any indies (other than undead) and nationals (with average morale) with ease (his fear reduces enemy morale, meaning that with awe he is untouchable and he can also quickly rout enemies).

Your can get diverse magic (magisters arcane have lots of paths, your PoD gives you death which also lets you access other paths via spectres) which allows you to get decent battle magic, good support magic such as buffs for troops(if you can fit some nature onto that PoD you can summon vine kings with some boosters and then use them to give your troops even more buffs) and also some nice summons (the contruction and enchantment schools are good for LA man).

If you can get your pretender up to death 9 you can also use your wardens to help take down or atleast slow down thugs and SCs in the early-mid game atleast (massed crossbows and greatswords with a 350% chance to cause afflictions and an extra, mr negateable addition to each attack can badly cripple lone enemies) and since they are size 2 you can swarm the enemy (the crossbows are ap and the greatswords have high damage so if you can hit the enemy you can probably hurt them)

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

When I first plunged into Dominions, I too wanted to know where the baseline was so I could try and gage how I was doing and what I still needed to learn. The game has so many nuisances that it can all seem a little overwhelming.

The bad news is that I don't belive there are any stock metrics to use as a baseline. They depend on a host of variables, strongly influenced by the faction and pretender you're playing, as well as the map conditions and your opponents. Some basics:

Research - Not all nations can hire good spell researchers, and a few don't even care a lot about research. This will require you to find mages you can hire from indy providence to bolster your research. There are also a few magical items that can boost a mage's research skill. Some nations allow you to hire good researchers outside your capital, but this requires that you conquer, find, or build a new fortress and then outfit it with a lab and possible a temple.

Gems - Your focus on gem hunting should directly relate to your need for gems. You will probably find it more effective to concentrate on the types of gems you want rather than trying to make due with the gems you end up with. You won't always find them, but expanding into the right types of providence and using the proper search plan will help a lot. There was a list of all the magic sites in dom2 as well as the magic paths required to find them. Not sure if that's in the new manual, but it's nice to know.

Fortress/Temples - Their need will largely depend on your strategy based on your nation and pretender. Some units can only be recruited from your capital, while others you can get from any fortress. If you plan is to focus on the capital only units, you will likely have less of a need for an early fortress. Taking a pretender with a low starting dominion can be dangerous, and will probably require early temples to offset. A high starting dominion can allow you to forego the initial construction of temples. Depending on my nation, I will often build a temple in a providence that can recruit indy priests early and use them as temple builders. They typically have much less upkeep than national priests and can make a cheap way to expand your dominion.

Advanced players will typically have an early, midgame, and late game strategy while they pick their nation and build a pretender. This is a fine art that will become easier as you learn the many spells, items, units, and nations in the game. A carefully crafted pretender can provide a bless to your sacred units that make them very powerful, or serve as the catalyst for a powerful global spell that will tip the tide of war in your favor. A 'rainbow' pretender, which has many magical paths can serve as gem hunting machine and provide a variety of magical options.

A) Early Game
Your early game will detail which units your nation has, if any, that you want to recruit for your initial expansions. Depending on your mid and late game, it will also layout your spell research priority. The magic paths available to your mages will be an important guide here.

I will typically want one of these things for my nation right away:
1) Combat spells
2) Summons
3) Thugs

The combat spells are the most straight forward. As a rule, merely sending some mages along with your army will not have the impact you might want unless you have the proper spells researched. And even then it may not yield the expected results. Typically my mages will serve to buff my combat troops, provide artillery support, or provide supplemental troops though combat summons.

Summons would include any ritual spells you want to spend your initial gem production. The conjuration 4 seasonal summons can be a popular choice.

Thugs are the precursor to super combatants. Single units that aren't powerful enough to attack entire armies, but that can make a worthy addition to your regular troops. I find thugs difficult to manage in the early game, since it can be depressing to find your hand picked heroes vanquished though the quirks of combat. Nonetheless, some nations might have national commanders, heroes, or summons that function as serviceable thugs with a small amount of work. With some early buffs or constructions items you can typically boost the protection and/or defense of a hero above 20, which will allow them to trounce lesser militia. The addition of luck, ethereal, and regeneration will greatly add their survival rate.

B) Mid Game

Having mastered the ability to conquer indy providence, you can now focus on the meat and potatoes of your war effort. This will be the point where you will push your spell research into the level 5 and 6 range. Depending on your gem requirements, you will likely want to start sending mages gem hunting, either by physically searching or using the various 2 gem scry spells. You will also want to start building temples to protect your dominion.

1) Combat spells
2) Summons
3) Thugs
4) Global Rituals

Merely handing gems to your combat casters without a plan will often result in them being wasted. Carefully managing their gem supply can be tricky, but allows you to cast those important battlefield spells which require gems. I like to use flying stealthy commanders which don't have any magical paths as gem couriers. They can sneak along with your army and measure out the required number of gems before each battle. A scout wearing boots of flying works well. With gems you can start casting those spells that enhance your entire army or doom your enemies. This can give you the edge you need to overcome a particularly nasty enemy army.

You may now have access to higher level summons, which can either be used to summon powerful combat troops, or to summon mages which offer new magical paths. This may require using some construction research to craft items to boost magical paths, or directly burning gems to empower a mage if required.

Thugs can now be very dangerous, with stealthy thugs serving as deadly assassins.

This would also be the point you launch those mid level global rituals to the dismay of your enemies.

C) Late Game

More of the same, with focus on building nigh-invulnerable army smashers. Your combat spells can now destroy entire armies, but may be expensive enough that you want to use them carefully. You can now summon elite units, turning your gem hoard into unstoppable armies. Your thugs are now true super combatants. The high level global spells bring ruination to your enemies.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Well, I started a new game with MA Marignon, using a Dormant Baphomet with Astral 9, Fire 6, Productivity 3, and the rest of my points in Dominion, I think. I looked at the national spell list, and liked the look of the angelic summons, so I'll be working towards that after a bit of evocation and construction. He hasn't woken up yet, but in the meanwhile, I've been scouting around and beating up on the neighbours, while I got my research machine going.

I like:

Flagellants - disposable Blessable troops! Great on the attack... sure, they drop like flies, but they're dirt cheap!

The.. uh.. middle mage. The not-yet-old one. Name forgotten. I have a bunch of them pumping out research right now (I was thinking of using the oldtimers for it, but they seem pretty expensive to waste on sitting around a capital. Pretty handy to have around on the battlefield, too, I imagine. I've got an inquisitor leading one of my armies, but I think I may swap him out to take advantage of some better fire spells.

Paladins. Holy crap, these guys are indestructible. He kept getting ahead of the rest of my army (I couldn't afford a cavalry group at the time) and charging into the fray, and I constantly feared for his life, but... man, they can sure soak it up.

There's definite one-more-turn syndrome going on. I like it.


And another question:

Is there a convenient list of units and their stats sitting around anywhere?

I ask because I went into a Caelum indep province with the intention of mowing them down with my crossbowmen while they advanced, with the rest of my army on a hold-and-attack. Thing is, soon as the battle started, some brown winged thingies were right up in my back lines, and I'm not really sure how they got there (or what they are - I only realized afterwards that one can r-click on units in battle to look at their stats). Is that a peculiarity of flyers, or did they just click reaaaaaaally far to the right of the army setup box?

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

Sounds like Harab Raptors.

Flying units essentially teleport in battle -- they may move from any square, to any square. They may also retreat by moving off-map just as quickly.

Most flyers cannot fly in stormy weather, but there are exceptions...

Sunray's guide --
http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/units_dom3.zip

includes statistics of all the national units; independent units are listed in the 'poptype' sheet of the Excel workbook; as far as I know, there is no similar info sheet for all (1712 in the unpatched, unmodded game) units and commanders.

Re: Hi, I\'m new! And.. uh.. help?
 

As taqwus said flying units basically teleport in battle. With S9F6 as your bless i would avoid paladins (too costly with that bless) and possibly flagellants (probably too expensive for what they do). If you find you like marignon you may like to try a bless such as:

F9(and whatever other paths you want) dom10 pretender, producing 10 flagellants per turn is nice, when they have flaming weapons its evil.

E9N4 dom5-6 cyclops, brings your paladins up from their fairly high prot 17 to the far nicer prot21 and gives them +4 reinvig so they can fight longer, the nature not only gives them a small (not important really) health regenertation bonus (can be very helpful vrs weak undead hordes ect who rely on attrition) but greatly reduces the amount of afflictions they suffer from. You can also use the cyclops as a SC once he wakes up (he has around 29 prot, full item slots and can buff himself with prot, reinvig and regen)