DEATH!!!
 

OK...so what happens when you get your pretender killed?

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Does he/she return? I can't remember who she was, but she was brown and had 4 arms.

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Still trying to figure out a way to stay alive with Kailasa.

Is 4 AI's and one human too many when playing on a 45 province map?

Startin over......

Again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

Re: DEATH!!!
 

Deva? Give your priests the call god command, you need to get a total of 30 points(ie a holy3 priest calling for 10 turns, 5 holy2 priests for 3 turns ect) and your god will come back at your capitol with -1 on all magic paths and maybe afflictions. For a 45 province map you should have either 3 or 4 opponents, maybe 3 if your new.

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I dont think 30 points is correct. In more than one game I put over 40 points in and he still didn't come back.

There may be a threshold of turns?

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Its either 30 or 40 points afaik, dont know about others but thats what i remember.

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It's 40.

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And does it help if your priest is doing his call god from a temple?

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I don't think it "helps" so much as the only place you can Call God is from a temple.

Jazzepi

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You can call god from anywhere I believe. No temple needed. Your points equal your priest level and it is 40 points. I have called my god back playing Caelum back in just 1 turn later in the game.

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The number of opponents is a matter for personal taste. As an extreme example, On the Dom1 demo I would often play with every land opponent except Ermor on the (small) Urgaia map.

Having 5 players for 45 provinces seems fine to me.

Dominions is quite hard at first, much more so than most strategy games. I think only MOO3 and Football Manager 2005 made me lose as much when I started. It's pretty normal to lose a lot at first.

You can call a pretender back with the 'call god' command. They appear at your capital once you've done it enough. The returned pretender will lose 1 level from each magic path. Some of the afflictions they had will be cured, but not necessarily all of them IIRC.
Your bless is not affected by this loss in magic.

With the demo you probably don't have time to win outright without a fairly dull rush strategy. For example:
Taking fire 9 / water 9 on your pretender gives a great bless.
Then take strong dominion, imprisoned (for points), death 3, sloth 3, drain 3 (points... don't need growth or magic with the time limit). Order 3 (for gold).
Build lots of your sacred melee guys. Put your prophet in charge and have him cast 'divine blessing'. Put them near the front of the battlefield and give them attack orders.
They will annihilate almost any independant or AI force you're likely to meet on a small map. poor against humans because they're very vulnerable to archers.
This is a quite dull tactic though... If you want to win you could try it but I doubt you'll find it interesting for long.
Sadly, the turn limit means that it's hard to win in the demo while using the fun stuff of dominions. With Kailisia in the full game you can summon Gandharvas - they are awesome!

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You need to be in a temple to Call God

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No matter...I just started over anyway. The God's name was Destroyer of Worlds??? Since I don't have the manual, I am not sure what all this "bless" and having a strong "bless" means or not having my "bless" affected. I am pretty much learning by trial and error. And still not real clear about magic in general. Like, what effect on the rest of the nation having a god with 6 nature has. Or does this just allow him to cast spells with 6 nature icons? I read somewhere about having to have at least 5 levels of magic with a person to get a "bless" Does that mean to get a bless spell? As my holy men have been casting bless all the time. Another one.....I have a mage with 2 fire levels. Can he cast any 2 fire(only) spells? Can he cast a 3 if he has a fire gem? But not a 4?? That's how I have been understanding it, anyway. I also understand that some spells require a certain number of gems. If they are in a lab(?) or is it a fortress(?) they can draw out of the pool. But if they are in a province without the proper building, can they cast those spells if they have those gems on their person?

Anyway...took the same pretender, just a different strategy. Pretty much stayed put until I got a Yaksha(??) and several Yavanas built. And had some Guru along. The little Markata aren't so bad if given courage. God you can build thousands of them for almost nothing. It is a sight to see them fire missiles at approaching infantry. I also summoned some help (horned serpents and cave drakes). Expanded a little bit more slowly. Seems to help. I am thinking Kailasa is not such a sucky nation to play. At least it seems to be going better, now. My AI opponents are Niefelheim and Pangea. (Please forgive my butchering of names). Question....does pure, raw odds have anything to do with morale?? Example: I attack 30 infantry with 30 of my better troops (Bandar maybe) and they won't seem to run as easily if I have 90 or 100 of the little monkeys. I dunno...maybe just cuz I get a kick outta those little monkeys throwin rocks and overwhelming the enemy.

Sorry this got so long.....Just having fun.

Re: DEATH!!!
 

In Dom3 a "strong bless" is reserved for when a player suffers from a "strong sneeze"

actually when you are selecting magic for your pretender you might notice things popping up at the bottom of the magic window like 10% regeneration (in the event of a 6 nature pretender)

these are the extra effects, besides a morale boost, that your bless will give sacred units.

playing with increasing other paths above 4 or 9 will show you the other effects, even without a manual.

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markatas are nice when you have the ability to cast wind guide and fire arrows on them.

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Starting over is often the very very best thing one can do as a new player to this game. Running a bunch of games to turn 10-20 or so will teach one a lot.

Rathar

Oh and it takes 40 points of priest to call back a god. 20 lvl 2 priests 1 turn, 5 lvl 1 priests 8 turns, etc. I think one can call god from anywhere but in this I could be incorrect.

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Your bless effects are based on the magic your god starts with - gaining or losing it during the game doesn't affect this. Whenever a sacred unit of yours is blessed with the 'bless' or 'divine blessing' spell it gains all of these effects.

Taking very high levels of magic can result in sacred units that are ridiculously powerful when blessed. This allows you to steamroller enemies in the early game without having to research or anything first.
Blessing always increases morale by 2 even if you have no magic on your god.

The bless effects start at level 4. You get a 'special' one at level 9.
For instance: Fire gives a bonus to attack (+2 at level 4 IIRC, then +3 at level 6, +4 at 8, +5 at 10). At fire level 9 you get the 'flaming weapons' ability which substantially increases the damage you can do.

Water gives defense bonuses and the quickness +50% ability (move 50% faster, get an extra action every other turn).

Kailisia's elites have a high defnese so with the water bless they are very hard to hit. They hve 2 attacks so the fire bless makes them do a lot of damage. The combination makes them too tough for the AI to deal with.

Of course, there are lots of other tactics. i usually don't like to use expensive blesses because there end in an early-game rush which I find unsatisfying against the AI.

As for morale... I don't think the size of the enemy army is taken into account, but the size of your unit certainly is.

Re: DEATH!!!
 

OK...Thanks everyone. Especially Wish....for the laugh about the sneeze comment.

Now...I hear talk about a "Dominion Kill" strategy. I think I understand that if your Pretender has no more white candles on the map....Dominion?....then you lose. Is this correct? And is this what is meant by dominion kill? And how does one achieve this? By temples and strong priests preaching? Or I assume....more likely...some sort of strong dominion dominant spells?

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it aint easy, strong dominion, blood sacrafices, and sneaky preachers are the only way to go about it.

sometimes all you need is strong dominion.

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I don't think you can rely on dominion kills... even the AI can usually prevent them. Sometimes an AI will have a low dominion though and will just die out.
You need to be careful it doesn't happen to you, of course. Build temples and preach if you see your dominion getting too low. If you start next to a couple of enemies with high dominion things can get a little troublesome early on.

My main use of dominion kills is to avoid storming heavily defended castles. If I conquer most of an enemies' provinces and build temples there then I can preach in a few besieged provinces until his dominion dies.

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No, you don't.

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So....what happens to your dominion when your pretender dies?????

(I got mine killed again)

I think he went nutzo, cuz I had him set to casting spells and he charged into the enemy like stripe-ed assed ape. ('scuse the pun.....I'm playing Kailasa)

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Your pretender spreads dominion, so if he gets killed you lose approx. 3-4 temples' worth of dominion spread per turn, but nothing aside from that.

The 40 figure is what the book gives, but isn't 100% accurate. I have put more than 40 points into calling and not had my pretender come back til later (it was a 2nd death, so that may affect it, but it's not always 40 from my limited experience)

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also death means -1 to all paths and possibly losing awe (if your pretender had it from dominion) upon being called back.

sounds like your pretender went berserk. theres a number of ways that could happen.

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Wish...on thinking about it...I think I gave him that berzerker armor you can forge. Not a good thing to give a god, eh?

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BTW...he was flashing red. Is that what they do when they go berzerk?

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yup