Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

Had the Demo just over a week now. Hard to get excited playing anything else, although I am having fun PBEM'ing BoA.

The DIII game I am playing now is solitaire vs AI in the Demo. I am Arco. Having some hellish battles with Ulm. I thought for sure he was going to swallow me up. I beefed up provincial defenses in our two adjacent provinces. One province up to 100. I have read on here that PD is not worth the money. I would have to argue that in some circumstances......such as mine. I was able to get quite a little cav, a few elephants and about 60-70 grunts of various denominations in the province. Ulm had 180 units next door. Including Cave Drakes and his God, Sigerus (or something similar...a giant of a man). Killed him in a subsequent battle. Had it not been for the PD's the province would surely have been lost. It was pretty close, anyway. The beauty of those are....that if you DO hang on to the province, they all regenerate again, so they will be there next month.

Just thinking.....some of these huge battles are awesome. In the Demo there is no way to save the battle for later viewing. In the full blown game, can you save the battles for later viewing like in Total War?

Think the game would be great MP, but haven't tried it yet. Have my name on a list. Hope some of you out there will join Gandalf's Demo game so I can get baptized.

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

No, you can't save battles. You can, however, make a backup copy of the entire game folder, in which case you can go back to view it later by loading that one as a game.

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

There are some 3rd party programs that you can run which will take video of your screen. That will allow you to record battles and save them to a common format.

Advantage of saving the full game directory:
being able to view it again inside the game to do things you didnt do before such as check a units stats, or zoom in one something.

Advantage of video save:
being able to share with people who dont have Dominions

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

Another advantage of savegame backup: You can create a video of it anytime if you decide you want one.

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

http://www.fraps.com/

Jazzepi

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

PD is far more valuable against the AI since it will mindlessly impale itself on a high PD bottleneck province forever.

But even that said, 100 pd is really just excessive. For example, the amount of money you spent going from 50->100 PD is 3,750gp! You could buy almost 20 mages for that price. And if the war shifts away from the province in question, a 3.7k investment in mages can move with it. Whereas your 3.7k PD investment is rendered useless.

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

Im surprised that there arent more youtube movies on Dominions. I only found one Dom2 and one Dom3

Re: Just some thoughts from a Noob
 

Ironhawk. Point taken. The problem was that the turn before, Ulm had decimated my real army, and there was no way I was going to be able to hold the province (or the next 5 or 6) without the PD. Yes, I could have just let him have the province and hopefully taken it back at a later time, but until then, it is hard telling how many more provinces I would have lost (and the fortresses, temples, etc) until I could muster a force to face him.....if ever. I had a large treasury and a good number already there. By adding that many, I had an instant army where I needed it, when I needed it. But, generally, I would agree with you.

Large battles...
 

I've thought on more than one occasion that a battle recording playable in a stand-alone viewer would be good for marketing. Might be that YouTube's obsoleted the concept.

On huge battles... heh, I had a Seraph leading an army of summons (fewer than two hundred, I think) successfully defend against an AI army of approximately one thousand units, IIRC. Late game so lots of splashy Astral Fires and so forth.

LA Ermor vs LA R'lyeh could lead to some extremely large battles. Not necessarily *long* ones if there's Rigor Mortis, Astral Tempest, or other fun battlefield enchantments, but large ones, yes.

Re: Large battles...
 

Hey jimkehn, if you want people to join your demo, I'd do the following. Make a thread on the Multiplayer forum called something like "Anyone for a demo game? (open)", and explain in it how people can join your game. One thing to emphasise is that people shouldn't hit the "start game" button unless you reckon there's enough of you already. Good luck finding an opponent!

Re: Large battles...
 

Thanks llamabeast. I am registered for one on Gandalf's server, but so far only two have showed up. Me and another guy. Was hoping to get 3 more. I'll get my *** kicked anyway. I'm Kailasa. I'm playing a solitaire of them now, and they seem pretty weak. Those darn little monkeys run at the sight of the enemy. At least they're cheap to build.

Re: Large battles...
 

Well like I say, if you advertise it on the MP forum you're much much more likely to get players.

The little monkeys are a bit rubbish. I started an MP with the cunning plan of massing so many markatas that I'd overwhelm all opposition. It backfired hideously unfortunately, and I was annihilated with a peak empire size of two provinces. I still think it could work if done correctly though. If those markatas were given Strength of Giants, I reckon they'd chew through anything.

Oh, Gandalf if you read this - how does it work with non-demo people playing the demo game? Can they play races other than the 5 in the demo? Can they research higher? And do they have to be using version 3.0? Just out of interest.

Re: Large battles...
 

No they end up with the same limits. Its built into the client on their side. The host side does affect some things so it can make a difference if the game is run by a demo version or a full version (the demo game on my server is being run by a demo version)

There might be a problem with "not high enough version" though. To be truthful I havent tested the demo/full crossover with each patch.

Re: Large battles...
 

The Markatas are a mystery to me. It seems some unit types they are afraid of and will run after taking a few losses and some they will stand and fight forever (almost). In both of these scenarios the squad numbers were comparable, so I am aware of the Morale consequences of small squad numbers. In neither case were there any magicians casting Sermon of Courage. What I didn't pay attention to was Dominion. I am not sure if they were in enemy dominion when they left. Also....Doesa province with say...6 white candles have a stronger effect on morale than a province with one white candle?

The Guhyana and Yavana won't attach to Monkey Leaders. Is this because they are "Sacred" or because they are "Magical" beings. And does this hold for human leaders as well?

Re: Large battles...
 

Also....Abyssa just entered my home province. My armies weren't there for the initial battle....just the PDs. However, they ARE there in the besieged castle. Is this how they are supposed to act? If they woulda stayed and fought on the battlefield I would have dispatched the enemy army with ease...I think.

Now then....I DID move them into the province the same turn, so maybe they are assumed to have moved in after the field battle occured and found their way into the castle thru secret passages?

Re: Large battles...
 

By default, movement to your own province with a castle will always result in having the troops inside the castle. You can change the move order to move and patrol to have the troops directly help in defending the province. Note that the option "move and patrol" only becomes available after you first give the move order and only if the target province contains a castle you own.
In provinces with a castle, only commanders (and the troops they lead) with the patrol order will defend the province(together with pd). Thus troops on defend, preach, research, forging, casting, etc will never help to defend the province.

Re: Large battles...
 

Dominion does affect morale and Markata cant really afford morale hits. To avoid routing so much you might try breaing units into smaller groups. If you have a commander with one big square of units, then break them into 5 units. It seems to help

Re: Large battles...
 

OK....the game gets deeper and deeper.

Re: Large battles...
 

Those early Divata summons, the blue dancing girls, come with the morale flag, so you can use them mixed with Markatas to really raise their morale.

The fun little secret of Kailasa is the normal Bandar Warrior; while they seem much weaker then their armored counterpart, they can throw 15 (or 13?) damage Sticks and Stones, with 2 attacks, nearly at the range of a sling. And they'll never run out of ammo.

Re: Large battles...
 

Thanks SelfishGene. SO....do I order them to fire? Or hold and attack, and while they are holding, they will throw rocks?

Re: Large battles...
 

Unfortunately, this is how the game was designed. If there's a castle your choices are "Defend castle" and "patrol". There's no "defend province". A big oversight as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Large battles...
 

Once you've given the move order to a province with a castle, select the orders menu again and you'll see a new one: "Move and Patrol". Selecting it makes the unit move to that province and immediately be tasked with 'patrol' orders. This means that they will fight attackers with the PD on the same turn that they arrive.

I'm not sure a 'defend province' command is that big a deal... patrol basically does this and I can't see many situations where the other effects of patrolling (reduces unrest, detects stealthy troops) are actually disadvantages

Re: Large battles...
 

PD can deal with unrest without killing people.

Re: Large battles...
 

Wait is this true? I hadn't read anywhere that PD reduces unrest.

Jazzepi

Re: Large battles...
 

I'm pretty sure PD does nothing for unrest.

Re: Large battles...
 

Province defense has no effect on unrest. What he's seeing is the effect of the autotax setting reducing taxes to reduce unrest.

Re: Large battles...
 

Ulm is one of the few races that pd is well spent. A storm of those arbalest arrows can sometimes take out commanders and result in a full retreat.

But 100 is excessive.

Re: Large battles...
 

I always thought Jotunheim was PD well spent. Better to have PD giants than try and move an army of them.

Re: Large battles...
 

Not in Dom3, Jotunheim PD is poor.

Re: Large battles...
 

Giants PD sucks. They have an attack of like 8 and cant hit anything. then they get teamed up on because of their size.

Despite the manual saying the giants pd is good, it is one of the worst.

Re: Large battles...
 

Hmmm it still feels as though they withstand CoW attacks with 6 PD better than a number of nations with 11 PD

Re: Large battles...
 

Is manual correct in that 6 pd is 3 jotun militia and a commander, for Early/Middle age? I think they got twice as many guys in dom2. Perhaps wolves have a much harder time hurting giants than most pd?

Re: Large battles...
 

You would think the giants would get a better troop for its pd, just fewer of them. Getting a bunch low morale low attack militia is just a bummer.

And I do not even play the giants-much.