What are some useful strategies for construction?
 

Again I'm new to the game and as of yet don't see much benefit for this research path other than possibly tricking out your Diety?

1) Are making these items for tricking out your commanders a viable strategy?

2) Or is the primary use for tricking out your diety into a SC like the tutorial suggests?

Some tips/strategies in this arena would be great, thanks!

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

For me its getting to the items that can raise magic levels so that my mages can cast the more powerful spells and summons. I also really need to make good items for my assassins.

Re: What are some useful strategies for construction?
 

The things to forge :
- boosters for your mages
- other useful items for your battle mages (reinvigoration items and things like eyes of aiming / of the void)
- ranged weapons for your commanders
- protective items for your valuable commanders once you know who you fight (especially if you fight someone using battle enchantmennts)
- once you can summon commanders with many hp (or ethearal) some armor/weapons/strength items to make them good melee thugs

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

For one thing, construction has few actual spells, but these include some good ones - it's quite a handy path for earth mages with battlefield spells, summons and global enchantments.

As for items, there are lots of uses for them. Off the top of my head:
- Path boosting items are often a far cheaper way than empowerment to cast more powerful spells in paths you don't already have a powerful mage in.
- Items can allow land units to go underwater. They get the poor amphibian penalties, but in some cases it can be very worthwhile.
- Supply items such as bags of wine allow very large armies to be fielded without starving

I'm not going to go into detail about SCs and so on because I only play SP so I doubt I'm very efficient there. SCs are a bit of a cheesy tactic in singleplayer: the computer cannot handle them so it more or less guarantees victory. It's about on par with playing the ashen empire... fun sometimes but not really a challenge.
However, equipping commanders with items is a fun thing to do which I really enjoy, even if these far-from-SC individuals might not live too long.

If you want effective uses of combat magic items, a SC does not have to be a pretender, any powerful summon will do. A tricked-out wraith lord or elemental noble can slaughter a huge AI army. I had an amusing battle recently where a wraith lord in friendly dominion with woundflame singlehandedly defeated an army of well over a thousand lanka troops incluing a dozen or so mages. However, equipping regular human commanders, even fairly elite ones, is unlikely to result in the same ridiculous effects; I find this makes it more fun, but in terms of benefit... not so much. A few nations (such as EA Jotunheim) have commanders who make good recruitable SCs when equipped with items but most do not.
Assassins can be equipped with magic items as well, which can dramatically increase their killing power. This can be important if you're hunting an enemy pretender in order to shut off a global spell, for instance.
Finally, if you can cast 'forge of the ancients' then you can potentially make items incredibly cheaply. Being able to equip every commander in an army with boots of quickness and a rod of the phoenix at negligable gem cost is quite a nice boost.

Re: What are some useful strategies for construction?
 

Construction is cool (especially if you are not wow'd by summons and find yourself with a bunch of gems laying about - hehe)

1a) its always good to boost your commanders a bit. adding a low(to no)encumbrance shield, helmet, and armor, with luck, etherial, or similar boni to your mages makes a BIG difference once arrows start flying their way. Magic boost items also can make a HUGE difference in battle (spell fatigue depends on path level -- higher paths == more spells)

1b) SKULL MENTORS. +9 research for 10 death gems is about as good a bargain as anything in the game. (think 2 cheap researchers at 100+ gold each and upkeep every turn, vs 10 gems and an inventory slot) There are quite a few handy items of this sort. Again, spell path boosters can be amazing, allowing you to use cheaper units for rituals/summons, or enabling certain spells/summons in the first place.

2) I havn't had a lot of luck or experience building effective supercombatants and thugs yet (hihi im a nub too!), but word is they can be quite nifty. The Dom2 veterans will have this down to a fine science, as it was apparently a vital skill in that release. It's harder to do properly in dom3, but still handy if you have the inclination.

Items certainly won't win the game for you all by their lonesome, but I don't know of a strategy that isn't at least improved by the right items (and most depend on one or more key constructables)

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

Also - fever fetishes (either on cheap commanders, be sure to get them back before the commander dies, or on undead, who produce less gems but don't suffer from being diseased), blood stones, or clam of pearls to drive magical economies.

Fever fetishes on undead, in particular, can also be a nice boost to your economy if you alchemize them for gold.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the skull mentors. The lightless lantern at Const 6 is also very good: it's more efficient in terms of RP/Gem and the horror marking isn't actually a big deal... but those extra two levels of research needed are a bit annoying

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

Some items are rather useful, militarily. For instance...

Supply items: starvation really bites.

Staff of Storms: shuts down -most- fliers, really weakens missile fire, and ensures Summon Storm Power will work.

Sword of Aurgelmer: luck to all friendly units :O

Banner of the Northern Star: +1S to all astral mages. Helpful if you're astral-happy and they're not.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

After the 1st time i encountered the rogue commander Bogus the Troll that single handedly routed a whole army of mine, i never underestimated the values in battles of good items anymore.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

yeah those guys are insane. i'm pretty sure i remember seeing a flying unit with a defense of 29.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

What about some SC strategies for pretenders? IS the pain point to get your defense really high or your protection really high?

From the manual it seems that though high defense can make or break you in a huge battle with masses of troops that have a superior defense. A smaller force, especially a lone pretender, that even has a high defensive will get dropped when he is swarmed by 2 a hit.

So is this really that viable a strat for a lone pretender?

Thanks!

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

You after go for defense first for a SC, this means awe, fear, etheral, luck, regeneration, mistform, invulnerability, mirror image, high protection/defense etc...

Once you are satisfied he is near to invincible then look to how he will kill everything.

Creating a SC/thug that can defeat the AI is fairly easy, creating one that defeat other players in MP is very, very hard.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

If plan to use your pretender as an SC, pick paths that give him advantages you can't get from your national mages.

All paths have useful buffing spells, but in Blood and Death they require high levels of research.

A few spells that come to mind:

Air: Mistform, Mirror Image
Earth: Summon Earth Power (for reinvigoration), several spells that increase your protection, such as Stone Skin
Fire: Fire Shield
Water: Quickness, Breath of Winter
Astral: Personal Luck, Body Ethereal, Twist Fate, Astral Shield. Don't take a little Astral on your pretender in an MP game, go for 9 - 10 or not at all, otherwise he will be killed by Magic Duel
Death: Soul Vortex
Nature: Regeneration, Moss Body

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

I'm still very new to the game but I keep hearing about MP on the forums... MP just doesn't seem very feasible considering how many turns my SP game has taken already...

How long do MP games take? How many turns a day, just 1?

Thanks for the input!

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

usually just 1 yeah, so a game can take along time, months are not unusuall..

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

There really isn't one good strategy for construction. Just like everything else is in dom3, you can't consider it in a vacuum. It's a piece of a bigger puzzle.

On a strategic level, you can coordinate construction with your beginning scales. For example you can offset choosing drain 2 by building research boosters. This miniminizes the percentage impact of the drain, since reserch items aren't subject to any research drain effects. Also, since drain doesn't change the number of gems needed for construction, construction is somewhat more attractive relative to spell casting when you choose drain. A good beginning strategy could be to choose a drain scale with growth and productivity to increase (resources and income, focus on troops and items and not put as much emphasis on magic (except focus on construction research). You could then go for a bless strategy and choose a dormant pretender with a one or two high paths to help bless effects in combat, like water, fire, earth, nature and/or blood.
On a more tactical level, you can build items based on troops in an army. For example, if you have an army of poison immune troops, make a poison immunity items for your commanders as needed, then cast poison cloud (several types of troops also naturally create a poison cloud).

Other of my early favorites are regeneration items for commanders with decent hit points, magic path boosting items, reinvigoration items and decent light armor for spell casters.

For commanders who you have just sitting a the back of a battle, make them a bow, an item that casts spells, an item that improves morale, or an item that creates fear.

Finally, some items are particularly good against certain troops. For example, if you are fighting a bunch of undeads armies, equip your non-spell casting commanders with items that cast anti-undead spells, like the herald lance.

Finally, for tactical item use to be successful, you need enough labs so its not a herculean task to change items.

A personal favorite of mine for a holistic construction strategy is to choose Pangaea with drain 2, luck 3, turmoil 3 and productivity 2 (for extra resources). Choose an imprisoned pretender with high earth and nature for reinvigoration and regeneration. Create an army of blessed centaurs and put them with you prophet and you have a formidable army (berserk, reinvigoration and regeneration). Buy Pans and they will generate hordes of maenads. Buy centaur archers and other longbowmen when possible. Construct sacks of wine and cauldrons of broth and summer swords to supply your berserking hordes. Construct Ivy crowns and generate armies of vine ogres. Construct fear generating items to send with your armies. Build a cheap temple in every province to spread dominion to enemy controlled provinces. This combination will make you rout enemy troops almost every time, even when you are numerically overwhelmed at the beginning of a battle. Make research boosting items as soon as you have the right paths and gems. Build path boosting items as needed, especially thistle staff.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

There are also a handful of good spells in the Construction path. Can't remember them offhand but I know that Mechanical Men (and whatever the more powerful version of that spell is) are both there. Thats a good spell, particularly in the hands of a powerful Earth mage. Is weapons of sharpness there too? Or legions of steel? Can't recall. Tho I think that Iron Dragons and Golems are at the top end and they are good summons.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

There isn't any more powerful version of Mechanical Men.

Mechanical Militia is a global (Construction 9) that gives Mechanical Men as province defence, but that's not quite the same thing, and not very useful at that point, IMO.

Weapons of Sharpness and Legions of Steel are both in Construction.

Forge of the Ancients is one of the more useful globals, Construction 7.

Re: What are some useful strategies for constructi
 

No, it was Clockwork Horrors that I was thinking of. CH is better than MM or vice versa.