Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

First, the original is well worth reading.

Does anyone have any additions?


To stop the world
Spies. They are annoying little buggers that can hamper your enemy's economy. They can be much more, though! Imagine a group of 6 spies. They stealth through enemy lands, find his capital - and in one turn, cause over 100 points of unrest. No more sacred troops for you! No more capital-only mages for you! No more income for you! Even better, to catch the spies, the target of this strategy has to patrol, which reduces unrest, and as long as the unrest stays high, it's hard to catch any stealthy units, and he it will often take a turn or two to bring suitable patrollers. Once he has brought the patrollers in, you can move your spies out and wait until the capital is empty again.

Fearful Symmetry
Fear directly lowers enemy morale, as is easily noticed if you click on enemy units surrounding your Prince of Death. Heavy Cavalry with morale 4 are rather absurd sight... But, besides making it easy to rout them, low morale is also very effective protection if you happen to have Awe. Dominion values of 9 and 10 gives Awe, and I'm sure you all see where I'm going... Fear and Awe alone won't keep a unit alive, but you'll be fine if you add in some protection. Prince of Death can wear Black Plate armor without being fatigued by its encumberance. There are many, many ways to build an effective early expander around this idea, from Gorgon (med-to-high Earth for extra protection) to more monstrous creatures like Wyrms.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Rain from Hell

Works well with either a VQ pretender or a Tartarian Cyclops - both can get Earth & Air combination. Suit up the SC with reasonable protection gear/good shields/resistances and cloud trapeze into an enemy army.

Immediately cast rain of stones, which does the equivalent of blade wind to all units on the field. Normally, this is a double edged sword causing as much damage to your own units as to your opponents. With a high protection SC, however, you're insulated from this effect. In cases of mass undead, the damage is staggering. Have some extra air gems to cloud trapeze out again when the opponent retreats.

In my test case, the opponent had cast multiple pheonix pyre buffs on his mages in the midst of his troops - they all exploded for even more damage to his army.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Cant cast cloud trapezee without a lab. Better to give your SC boots of flying or some other means of flying and just fly them out after the battle.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

A small tip.

Research comes 2nd in the order of events. This means that spells researched at the beginning of the turn can be cast in that same turn. Just script cast spells and hope the computer AI selects the new available spells.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

How do generic spies cause unrest or hamper economy Endoperez? Or do you mean something with stealthing that has a secondary effect of unrest by its presense?

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Spy is different from Scout. Any unit that is stealthy can gather basic information, but some nations also have Spies. Spies have a special "Instill Unrest" order, and they also see the details of enemy lands in much greater detail that ordinary scouts (the spesific income, unrest, resource, PD etc numbers as well as the number of magic sites).

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

The Ancient Kraken is a really fun Pretender to play if you're a water-loving nation, but he needs some help.
One consideration is the fact that his poison cloud also poisons him. Accessorize your Ancient Kraken for less! Give him a snake ring and he'll not only be protected, he'll poison his enemies. That's 4-18 hp armor piercing attacks that now do poison damage as well. Doesn't suck. Cost: 5 nature gems, 1 level of nature magic, and 0 levels of Construction. Other good, and cheap, magic items for your Kraken-on-the-go are the ring of regeneration-I've had Ancient Kraken pretenders with 690 pre-Wish hp before (see below), and throwing regeneration onto that is a beautiful thing. It also helps avoid those nasty afflictions. Sure your kraken heals them eventually, but why suffer with a limp for any amount of time if you don't have to? Ok, it's not THAT cheap at 6 const and 10 nature gems, but it's dirt-cheap when you consider your Ancient Kraken will be regenerating 65 HP+ per round. That's one whole entire Niefel Giant,
every
single
round.
An Amulet of Antimagic is a real bargain for the Ancient Kraken, not only because it protects him from spells, but because the worst thing that can happen to him (besides death, and a well-played Kraken doesn't die very often) is Curse or Horror Mark. Even those aren't really that bad, but still, better to avoid. When you have an Ancient Kraken, Dom 10 is worth the cost. Not only will you get Awe +2 in addition to your Kraken's natural Fear +0, but your Kraken's stats will JUMP! Don't ask me why [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif[/img] but I've had over 550 HP in mediochre Dom provinces with a 10 Dom Ancient Kraken. A 10 Dom province will give you 690 HP, around 28 str, MR of 25 with an amulet, and greatly improved attack and defense. It's hard to improve on immortality, but what if your Pretender...

just...won't...die?!?!?

Good magic paths for your Ancient Kraken include Water-just one level and your Kraken can cast quicken self-remember those 4 attacks at 18 points AP damage each? well now make that 8 attacks etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda. Earth-stoneskin and ironskin are fun, but the real beauty is Invulnerability. Cost is a little higher at 3 levels of Earth magic, but the payoff is 25 points protection, and if you're still wearing that snake ring, there's no downside! The real treat though is Astral magic. Just 1 point allows you to cast both Body Etherial and Personal Luck. Another truly beautiful spell for an Ancient Kraken is Mossbody. Finally, 3 Death will enable you to cast Soul-Vortex, and 4 Death will allow Darkness (and did I mention Ancient Krakens have 100% Darkvision?).
Not too many armies-let alone SCs-have what it takes to tackle a 690 hp etherial, lucky, invulnerable, magic-resistant, quick, poisonous and poison immune soul-sucking Ancient Kracken of Fear and Awe, especially in the dark.

'Nuff said.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Just beware of Magic Duels though ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Magic Duels are not elegant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Consider somebody parking well-armoured ghost king with a good defense near that Ancient Kraken and just waiting for Kraken to die from hypothermia http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Magic Resistance doesn't help against Curse or Horror Mark, does it?

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

I believe magic-duels are based on the respective power of the participants in Astral magic? If so, I should warn that I usually play Ancient Krakens with 8 levels of starting Astral, empowering other magic paths as needed. As far as I know, MR does help against Curse and Horror Mark.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

The spells Curse and Horror Mark don't allow for magic resistance. Horror attacks might be affected by magic resistance, and high magic resistance helps to keep you from dying if a Horror attacks.

Ancient Kraken with 8 levels of Astral is so expensive that it should be undefeatable. It isn't, but it does come pretty close.

Van rush
This strategy works with EA Helheim, MA Vanheim and LA Vanheim. It works for EA Vanheim with few changes.

This strategy is based around sacred, mounted cavalry that has glamour and insane defense. Take an imprisoned pretender with Water 9, Fire 9 (Father of Winters is fine), full Order to have enough money for the expensive Vanir, and some Sloth and Cold scales to afford anything else you might want. Dominion 5-7 works well. Build groups of half-a-dozen or so sacred cavalry and use them to conquer independents. Avoid barbarians, heavy cavalry, Dark Vines and other tough provinces until you can bring a bigger force (10 to 15 Vanir) against them. If you meet another nation early on, you can probably kill it before it can come up with a way to deal with Vanir.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Bards can instill unrest as well.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2
 

Mechanics-wise, Bards are spies. They aren't named as such, but this is probably just propaganda. Chelms has a stealthy spy-mage too, BTW.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

As do Tien Chi and Late Era Ulm and probably others.

It would be nice if both spying and assassination had icons so you could be sure who could do what, before sending them out.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

As per Ancient Krakens with Astral 8 being extremely expensive, they are, but they're also the ideal Pretender for R'lyeh, especially if you're going for Wish rush combined with clam-spamming. I like to build up a posse of 5 (4 wished for) empowered (4 death, 3 earth, 3 astral, 2 nature, 1 water, plus atleast 1 fire and air if you're going to give them amulets of the fish and send them onto land), gift-of-reason Ancient Krakens by mid-game, and by end-game have a Kraken-factory, producing, gift of reasoning, and empowering atleast 1 (different) Kraken per turn. Backed up by communion-slaved Aboleth Mindlords, they really are pretty much unbeatable, being able to handle swarms, SCs, and anything magic you throw at them, since with Aboleths, the one thing you can count on being bigger and better at than anyone else is research. You can use your Krakens as a single force to take out heavy provinces, or divide them up and conquer quickly. They work almost as well on land as they do in the water, and by end-game you can factory-build well-equipped gorgons and void-lords almost as easily as you can your Krakens-(infact, you can summon up any Pretender-type in the game, just summon, equip, and empower whatever SC best suits your needs. You can start laying down Fountains of Blood and moving fast and furious into blood-magic. If you like the units of another nation, make your own. Do what you feel.) You do need a TON of astral pearls though, because each Kraken represents atleast 3 wishes-one to summon and then two to get the gems to empower them to level 1 in each magical path, unless you're getting in 50+ gems of each type a round-which, with this tactic, you should be by mid-game, but each Mind-Lord, once empowered to level 1, can produce clamshells. You'll want a couple hundred of these going by midgame, so get shucking! You also need several (not just one) mages who can cast Wish by mid-game. It can be risky, and it's easy to screw up, because you're basically putting all of your Nation's eggs in one basket, but the payoff can be enormous.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

<b> Frogmen Eskimos have you confused? </b>

while struggling to come up with a stratagem for the odd late era Atlantis i accidentally came upon something. Nature 9 bless is REALLY effective on the national sacred. Although I am sort of lost as to why the Assarut just tore through enemies while berserk,fire bless did not produce the same results. back the sacred up with seal hunters and you have a good early to mid game force

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Can't explain why berserking makes them more effective, but Water9 bless also works well, coupled with Fire4 for the Attack increase. 10 Arssartuts (1 turn recruitement) can take on most indies with no or 1 loss. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Atlantians always seem to kick more explitive than any other race while berserk. I don't know why, but I've noticed this with Living Pillars too. They're well-nigh unstoppable, for no real statistical reason I can put my finger on. I've seen one Living Pillar take out around 5 sacred W9/F9 Helheim sacreds, while the rest of his army ran away. Some do die quickly while berserk, but with others-maybe 5 to 10%-it's like this switch gets turned on and they just kill and kill and kill past all reasonability or believability. It's really one of the high points of playing Atlantis when it happens.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Basic question from someone new to the game: Why a Kraken and not a Wyrm? Less attacks, less hitpoints, less defense, but starts with regeneration, more protection, more attack, more strength, is poisonous and fully poison immune from the get go, is amphibious rather than aquatic (saving a misc slot if you want to go on land), has 2 helmet/2 misc rather than 3 misc, and has more leadership. You could go with Spirit Helmet/Wraith crown/Stone Bird/Pendant of Luck for a combat model, or Skullface/Starshine Skullcap/Water Bracelet/Crystal Coin if you want to gain turn and gem advantage through less empowering.

The big loss would seem to be some vulnerability to afflictions, but you could always use some of your turn advantage to create a Mother of Serpents to act as forward magical support and healing if that becomes an issue.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

The Wyrm is a fine Pretender, there's no question of that, but the thing that makes an Ancient Kraken outshine a Wyrm is the Kraken's efficiency in dealing with large groups of creatures. Large groups of creatures-and you'll learn that this is much truer in Dom3 than it was in Dom2-are very common, and can be the bane of many an SC. Most don't deal well with them. The Gorgon is one that does, because of her inherant Petrification. 200 units attack most SC's and you've got 199, maybe 198 units, and a very dead SC. 200 units attack a Gorgon, and you've got an art museum full of classics. The Kraken also deals well with large groups, and it's got three ways to deal with them better than a Wyrm. 1: The Ancient Kraken has 4 tentacle attacks-8 with quickness-each able to instakill a single medium-toughness armored unit. 2: Poison cloud-the Kraken doesn't even need to specifically attack a unit to weaken those around it-and you can easily add Breath of Winter on top of that, making for two different types of damage, which is hard for large armies to be resistant to. 3: Rejuvenation-my personal favorite inherant ability. Rejuvenation isn't easy to get-easier than petrification or immortality, but still not a dime a dozen. No matter how many healers you happen to have, they're never going to be as efficient as a creature that heals itself, no muss no fuss. Plus-and this is the most important-I just like the idea of playing an enormous ancient giant badass ship-devouring kraken. I don't get the same thrill from a Wyrm. I don't know why, but I don't. Maybe if it had more heads?

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

That's cool if it comes down to preference. I just don't see the edge; the Kraken needs to spend a round casting personal regeneration, so that's another damage shield that the Wyrm could have up, and with the additional item slots (both inherent and due to lack of need for poison protection and air breathing) and lack of need for Nature paths you can produce more Wyrms more quickly, so I think we're back to a conversation similar to the Mictlan bless strats. Some like super quality, others are happier with high quality in quantity.

Edit: Or a Carrion Dragon, which has a lot of the properties you like in the Kraken but more so - 8 attacks per round before quickness, recuperation, fear +10 - but can also raise the dead and when Gift of Reasoned has the benefit of already having 1 level each of nature and death, allowing you to avoid the 1st point premiums when empowering.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Oh yes, I love the Carrion Dragon. As far as I'm concerned, with the Gorgon and the Ancient Kraken, it's the third corner of the Holy Triumvirate of Dom3 SCs.

I just wish it were amphibious and/or immortal, but then I wish Ancient Kraken had 6 tentacle attacks (or ideally the 4 it currently has plus two killing-arms, like a real giant squid) 5% natural regeneration, an extra misc. slot (accounting for 10 total tentacles) and a bite attack.

Yes they would be overpowered. Yes, I would certainly give them a price-hike. No, they wouldn't be overbalancing, because they're still 1 unit moving 1 province a turn, and they still have plenty of disadvantages.

I think many Pretenders-SC Pretenders anyway-in Dom3 could use significant physical boosts, (not magic-path boosts mind you), to make them more outstanding compared to the droves and droves of units usually present in a game. Whatever it is, it's a GOD and gods should kick a godly amount of explitive.

The Gorgon, the Ancient Kraken, and the Carrion Dragon are the only Pretenders out there (that I am familiar with) that you can use continuously-from the beginning of the game to the end of the game-as lone province-taking SC's without risking death/crippling affliction. I don't think this is right.

Keep the multitudes of units on the battlefield, but bring back the SC, I say.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Gandalf, I noticed you stickied Tools and Tutorials in Mods Forum. Along a similar vein, is there any chance we could get this excellent thread stickied too in this forum? While you're at it, could we get the original stickied and added to this forum as well? Even though the original deals with Dom2 etc. it's definitely informative and useful for everyone, and should be one of the first things someone new to the game sees. A description and a rename wouldn't be a bad idea, for clarification.

While I'm at it, thank you Endoperez for posting this terrific thread and it's precursor in the first place.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Stunned by the weird discussion.
Generating a couple hundreds astral pearls a turn, yet struggling to find a way to win. Sorry, but simply I don't see that.

With THAT MANY gems, where "THAT MANY" stands for ten thousand gems (I do means 10000, assuming 33 "superior unit" x 300gem/per), any player, no matter johnny/tommy/spike who s/he is, should be able to win the game if s/he's not playing on a vast map, by "vast" I mean 2000+ provinces.

300 astral pearls =
* 12 Juggernauts
* or, 12 Abominations
* or, 12 Imprint Soul spell
* or, 30 Ghost raider spell (60 if it's 300 death gems) (that is almost enough to ruin somebody's day)
* or, 10 Black Death spell (20 if it's 300 death gems) (that is almost enough to ruin somebody's day, too)
* or, a silly....I mean a very equipped Seraph.
* or, ONE so-said SC kraken? (oh, yes, 300 is the "at least" cost for such a great unit.)

I'm not a great fan-of-tentacles. Not that great, at least.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Any strategy that involves Wishing for units and then empowering them is only for playing around in SP. The goal, I guess, is not really to win, but to make crazy units.

Anything that doesn't have all slots is generally bad choice for an SC. Empowering to let them cast buffs that make up for the slots is really wasteful and expensive. Only for SP, only for experimenting, etc.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Spot on Teraswaerto.

SP and MP are too completely different games.

SP is very, very easy and for experienced players is just for testing strategys used in MP.

MP is a harsh, very rapid, ruthless game. Expect the unexpected in MP.

Very, very few MP games will get anywhere near wish before someone wins. Also anything, 'wasteful' like globals, low level summons, clam spamming etc...are useless in MP and will get you killed. In MP you after make every gold piece, gem, research count.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

I agree in principle. However, some globals, clams, and even low level summons can be useful at times.

Globals are risky since they can be Dispelled so easily, and cost so many gems, but gem producing globals will pay themselves back quickly. Most others are very situational, and some I would probably never use (Ghost Ship Armada for example).

Clams are an investment to the future. Most of the time it's probably best to use the gems for something useful right then, but I would't say they are useless.

Low level summons can be used if there's a war you are losing and need every bit of help you can get. Saving gems does no good if you are wiped out.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Playing on very large 1500 province maps with many opponents is also a completely different game from playing on a 25 province map.

I'd play larger if I could.
That's the kind of game I like, and very-long-term is the kind of strategy I follow.

I also tend to play ocean races over land races (except for Mictlan) so a lot of units and strategies which I otherwise would use, aren't as available to me. I do consider globals (except gem-producers) to be wasteful, but I don't believe juggernauts or abominations are amphibious (maybe abominations, but I don't know).

And playing R'lyeh, how exactly are you going to manage to pull off a blitz game? All you've GOT are SCs (another reason to play huge maps). So I'm stuck with 1 very good SC capital only commander per round, kinda crappy to very crappy everything else, and summons. 12 abominations at a time might be great, but by the time I've crossed the board and it's down to me and one other nation, the other guy is going to be pretty damn tough too, and I'm going to lose abominations and juggernauts-lots of them at 25 pearls a pop.

If I can take out a hundred of the other guy's troops per SC of mine, and still keep the SC, it could very well decide the game, even if I'm putting all of my astral pearls into SCs. After all, I'm going to have a lot more of them than the other guy, because that's one thing R'lyeh's good for.

If somebody handed me 300 astral pearls at the beginning of the game, sure I'd use them differently than I would if I were producing that many every turn and had most magical research done.

People need to get around the idea that every MP game is a blitz game.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

I've never played a blitz game. Have you played an MP game, HoneyBadger? I am curious.

I like games that last long. Getting to high levels of research is fun, but the only time I can see one would have enough gems to Wish for and empower pretenders would be if one had Arcane Nexus up and even then there would be, IMO, a better use for the gems.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

I have, though not a lot. So yes, I'm just speculating like everyone else, since we're not all currently involved in the same specific MP game.

Arcane Nexus is a given, but if you make a determined effort at clam-spamming right from the beginning-and Aboleths can do this very quickly into the game-you can be generating tons of them, at an exponential rate. That's just applied mathematics.

And certainly, you can find lots of good uses for 300 astral gems. That's not at all the point. Circumstances differ and different strategies should be developed which can get the most out of whatever circumstance you happen to find yourself in.

I don't suppose that this particular thread is intended to find "the one true only best way" to do anything, regardless of the game you find yourself in, and your own feelings on a specific subject at a specific time. It's for coming up with strategies and expanding our knowledge about the game-tools in the toolbox.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Equipping a charcoal shield (7 ap fireshield) works pretty well too against weak foes.

It can cast soul vortex, but it cant regenerate (unless you play pangea and cast the right national priest spell). No regeneration seems so scary against lifeless units.

One risk of a solo 300-gem supercombatant in late late late game is running into a squad of 20 blood-3 mages. Each scripted to cast "life for a life". Total cost 20 blood slaves for 800 armor negating damage at range 100/precision 100.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Yeah, SCs aren't the answer to every strategy problem. I wouldn't solo any 300-gem SC in anything but an early to early-mid game, though. The idea of a 300-gem SC isn't that you solo him, it's that you group him with 4 of his buddies, put a tough army and lots of magical support behind him, and use him as a high-powered shock troop/support unit that you can send head-on into large groups of the enemy and don't have to worry so much about losing.

Basically, it's a main tank.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

shall i say that, 12 abominations kill units much faster than a single (empowered or whatever) kraken--much faster than you can ever imagine, while 12 juggernauts spreads your dominion like crazy.

yes, abominations can be summoned underwater;
no, even ocean races are able and should build labs above water and casting spells from there.

btw, i'll be very happy to use a group of 50 abominations against 4 ancient krakens, and i'll be even happier to use 250 abominations against 20 krakens, assuming i have an equal "magical support" on the battlefield.
tough army or not, it doesnt matter....

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Void, maybe we should just play rock-paper-scissors, that way we've only got 3 choices and we always know who's going to win. It'll take a lot less time.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

Maybe you could even use two hands to play, while I could use the larger SC giant foam football hand to play, and then we could both post strategies for the "best way to play"?

Mid Era Pangea has no spies WRONG!
 

Well, in one sense they do not. ME Pangea has no unit which can give you the detailed info of a spy, but they can instill uprisings, Here is how.

1) get a black harpy

2) give it ten revelers

3) send it to an enemy province

as each reveler has a check to produce turmoil separately you will average about 5 points of turmoil per turn. One drawback is the fact that you can not see how much turmoil you have caused, but the target will not be alerted that someone is causing trouble in their territories.

Re: Mid Era Pangea has no spies WRONG!
 

I'm posting here coz' I love the Ever-Expanding Tome, not for a paper-scissors-rock game. That said, it would be sad to see comical tactics--while relaxing--write in the tome.

Here's another example of such a comical idea, although IMHO it's far more executable than the great Karkens March On tactic, that had me stunned a few minutes ago on another Dominions Forum.

The idea is simple:

- Build a high astral unit. 10S Pretender can be a good start.
- Raise the unit's astral magic to 15+.
- Give him some penetrate bonus items. +7 or +8 would be very ideal(that's possible on a blind 4-misc slot unit).
- Get some astral gems for him.
- Have it scripted "Master Enslave","Master Enslave","Vortex of Returning"(or simply Returning).

Guess what?

Yup, that's the "THE GRAND MASTER". as hilarious as Kraken Swarm, but way more effective shall I judge.

A winning strategy for MA Man
 

Meglobob's quick & easy guide to slaughtering the opposition with MA Man:-

MA Man is a strong nation, it has alot going for it and many possibilites. Here is one based on stealth...

Bards, only 75gp, +30 stealth, can instill unrest, fantastic, recruit loads, get 4+ to every enemy castle, take unrest over 100. Your enemy can't recruit anymore. You have won.

Mothers 130gp, 2N 1A, stealthy, cool, research upto storm of thorns, put into squads of 4, script 5xstorm of thorns, should defeat most PD upto 30+.

Monks, 30gp, stealthy, can cast bless, can lead 10 stealthy blessed wardens into enemy lands. Can any PD defeat 10 wardens with a W9F9N4 bless? Or if you want decent scales try...E9N4.

Put all those together, plus plenty of longbows (wind guided of course, flaming arrows if your lucky) mix with plenty of lightning/thunder strikes...cool.

Re: A winning strategy for MA Man
 

Void, my point is that we're here to write suggestions about strategies in the game, not to be arm-chair generals and nitpick about the merits of a particular strategy as applies to our own personal method of playing the game.

I'm not at all trying to be comical except as a means to an end, nor am I suggesting or intending to suggest something that would necessarily lose someone a game.

If something I suggest flat-out cannot be done in the game, then please inform me, otherwise I fail to see your point as we don't play the game the exact same way, and no two games, or players, are alike.

Money makes the world go around...
 

Gold, you never have enough, especially in dominions, so here is a nice way to get more of it.

Research watcher spell, cast 2 of those in your capital and any other high population province with a lab. Get 1 of your cheapo mages to patrol with them. Now slam taxes upto 200% and leave them there. You now have double your income permanently, with 0 unrest and a mounting stockpile of corpses. Watchers have +50 patrol bonus and are tough defenders who discharge lightning and never retreat, so a decent defense to support your PD.

Also to get the most out of this, turn those corpses into free troops, research carrion reanimation, and when you reach 100 corpses get 100 souless undead for 10D gems, cool...

Death From Above
 

Ok, since my previous posts were-atleast to some-potentially not terribly worthwhile, here's an easy and useful strategy for Kailasa Early Era. Note: this draws upon an earlier strategy posted in the original Tome and just specializes it for Kailasa.

Create a Pretender with Air 10 and Death 8 (Destroyer of Worlds is a good candidate, but you might want to go with something cheaper. He's worth it though, because you're going to want a strong capacity to fight hand-to-hand. If you feel you can get away with it, give him Fire 4 and it'll really help your melee forces, while at the same time allowing easy access to Flaming Arrows for maximum messiness.)

Yes, it's very expensive, (especially if you go with Fire 4 on top of it), but there's no real reason not to make your Pretender imprisoned. The Bless effect payoff of this is to make your sacred Yavanna troops completely immune to missles, while at the same time your own sacred Yavanna archers are dealing out +300% affliction arrows.

The enemies' archers can only hurt the enemy, and your own archers again can only hurt the enemy, effectively nullifying as much as a third of all Independent forces, and forcing human-run nations to cross a battlefield under fire and fight your melee forces either hand-to-hand or with spells, but not air spells, since your sacred Awe troops and summons are now 75% resistant to lightning-a fact your Air 10 Pretender should be able to exploit.

Re: Alexander\'s Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge,
 

By the way, one nice thing about Wishing for a Pretender Type is, once you've Gift of Reasoned it, you CAN Prophetize a wished-for Pretender!

Banishment Party DJs
 

Fear and Awe on a really powerful Pretender (like a Carrion Dragon for instance) can be great, especially if you're using your Pretender to capture independent provinces. But, one thing you need to be aware of and avoid when "soloing" such Pretenders is that Fear and Awe have very little effect on undead
(they're back from the dead, you don't impress them).

A good strategy when "soloing" a powerful Pretender is to create a backup "holy slayer" squad made up of maybe 15 regular troops (your starting army should be fine for this in most cases) and atleast 5 commander units with atleast 1 level of holy magic each. Set each commander to cast Banishment x5 and then "cast spells" in the back of your forces, and put your regular soldiers in the front, set to "hold and attack". Not many undead will survive the Banishment party, and the ones that do can be cut down safely by your troops.

Use this type of squad to take out the undead provinces your Pretender has to avoid.

They can then be used to increase your Dominion around the edges of your national borders, which will make your Pretender stronger and protect your Dominion.

A few small tips...
 

In SP you can gain a advantage over the AI by buying all the mercenaries and never letting any AI nation have any.

Simply bid 1gp over asking price and they will be yours, everytime. When it comes to renewing there contract you after bid full price again +1gp, to 100% guarentee you keep them.

The AI it seems only ever bids the exact amount...

When you get a mercenary commander with a magic item, consider sending that mercenary to his death in the last month of his hire. Simply place him up front on his own and give attack closet orders. Have your own commanders in the rear with empty slots, with a little luck you will pick up the magic item off your former employees rotting corpse...

Re: A few small tips...
 

Interesting tactic altho it might be hard to duplicate on purpose.
For Pangaea:
In a solo game of mine there is an "eater of the dead" walking around randomly and just munching up provinces. At first I thought that it would be a major problem for me but it turned out to be a bonus. I followed it around with Pans while leaving them invisible. He devastated anyone elses armies that got in the area. But I was able to take any province with the few maenads that the pans tossed. Id crank up the taxes and maybe try to recruit some things. I was able to follow it closely since my pans werent susceptable to it, and take the empty provinces faster than other nations using scouts and attack orders.

Re: A few small tips...
 

The bit about bidding 1 gold over the asking price does not always work. It seems to work 99.9% of the time, but in an EA game I just played as Kailasa, I bid on the amazon archers with the pegasus commander 1 gold over the asking price and was outbid. Other than that one incident, which happened a few hours ago, I have never had the AI outbid me on mercs if I go 1 gold over.

Re: A few small tips...
 

Foodstamp, I have done this 100's, perhaps 1,000's of times now in Dom 3. It's never let me down yet. Perhaps due to excessive Dom 3 playing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif, you were tired and bid under by mistake?

Re: A few small tips...
 

I am pretty sure I bid on them right. The game I was playing was a test bed for an upcoming MP game and I had just read your post so I decided to test it as well.

The nation that outbid me was a modded in nation from Master of Magic and the mercenaries were the archers in white. It's possible I did not bid on them properly, everyone can misclick, but I am pretty certain i bid 1 gold over because I usually check the merc screen before I end turn.

bump
 

I just thought I'd give this one a bump since it's potentially pretty useful, especially to new players