Looking for tips from the pros
 

I'm pretty new to dom3 though I think I've got most of the basics down of how to play. Can thoroughly trounce the AI on normal so decided to move it up to hard.

The result: I get destroyed. Here's a screenshot of my latest game. Turn 37. Right before I got crushed between 3 AIs.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...ion3d/augh.jpg

Tried a few games and I keep getting wrecked and I'm not really seeing what I do wrong. So maybe some of you folks who yawn while killing impossible AIs will have some pointers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Warning this post is extremely long as I put in whatever info I thought may be relevant so someone can tell me where I went wrong. Thanks in advance to anyone who bothers reading the whole thing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Playing as EA Mictlan. Random map w/ 15 provinces per player. I have a bless oriented (f9/w9/b4) imprisoned fountain of blood pretender with turmoil 3,sloth 3,heat 3,growth 1,luck 1,magic 1.

My research went construction 4->blood 2->thau 2->evocation 2->blood 6->was going for construction 6 when the roof fell in.

Had a decent start, spamming out jaguar warriors to go take land and putting down 3 forts (cheap 800g ramparts) by the end of the first year. They are all within 2 provinces of eachother to allow me to quickly consolidate the jaguars that are built. Had ~15 provinces by then with 2 main groups finishing up the last few unclaimed lands. Doing a few random site searches with the high priest whenever I stop to buy random units to reinforce them, but other than that, none. Waiting for Thau2/Evocation2 before I bother looking for any.

Right about here is when Helheim declares war on me. He has 6 provinces and one fort... ok. His first army was destroyed by mine on accident when we went for the same independent province around turn 3 so it's not looking good for him.

He gets a few of my province defense 1 border areas. So I quickly crank up the province defense in threatened areas to about 25-30 to stop him while my 2 armies move back towards his lands. This works great thanks to the Jaguars you get on defense and they stop his advance cold. My main groups get there in a few turns and pick up reinforcements before quickly pushing straight toward his capital (around 20-30 jaguars and 10-20 eagle warriors in each group) with 5 tribal kings creating slave hordes behind them to catch arrows later and provide a block of troops to knock down his walls faster.

By now I've got 4 forts with blood slaves just starting to come in. I've got Ermor on my left, Sauromatia above, Atlantis below and Fomoria to my right behind Helheim. Oceana is above Sauromatia and declared war on me by like turn 5 (hadnt even scouted them yet) but they haven't done anything of importance since I let Sauromatia get the 2 independent coastal provinces up there to block them off. Building priests and jaguar warriors at all of my forts and various high priests/eagle warriors at the capital. I notice the only nations at war besides me and Helheim are fighting halfway across the map while all of my neighbors are at peace with eachother.

Things look good for now. If they stay nice just a few more turns while my blood starts to ramp up I should be able to hold off anything they throw at me. I wonder if maybe this game I'll actually survive...

No.

Next turn Sauromatia attacks my northern front and quickly captures my front line provinces with huge stacks of archers and random infantry. I get an army out and stop them at a 2 province wide choke point above Mictlan while another 200 strong force of theirs walks down my western edge. A 2nd army augmented with my first 30 beast bats heads over to stop them.

Both the western and northern Sauromatian forces are stopped, though it ends up costing me quite a few eagle warriors and beast bats to kill their masses of archers. The jags fared ok thanks to them though and I still have most of them ready to fight. By now Vanheim has 2 provinces (both forts) divided by Fomoria (the province in between got a barbarian attack and Fomoria snapped it up the next turn). They can't do anything while I sit on their capital so I send one of my two armies up to help with Sauromatia. The combined force proceeds to push them back up to roughly where we were before the whole thing started. Then I see new massive reinforcement stacks and crank up the PD to 20 on the lands my armies ended on to hold them off. They hold (barely in one case).

While this is going on I'm continually streaming in more jags, bats, and eagle warriors to replace the lost and Helheim's gates finally fall.

Unfortunately this costs me in research and blood as I can't afford everything at once. So there are a few turns where I'm only getting 0-2 priests in addition to the jags. Notice some huge armies wandering about Ermor and Fomoria... I hope they go bother someone else.

Yeah right. Next turn, just as things stabilize with Sauromatia and I get ready to send up a force of 120 jags, 30 bats and 50 eagle warriors to punch a hole, Ermor attacks my entire western side with over a thousand troops all put together. All of my provinces have at least 10 defense, with most having 20 and the 2 blood hunting lands having 30. Everything but one blood hunter province collapses immediately (30pd w/ 4 priests casting imps and such actually did amazing against even 200 guys) I am forced to split my huge group into two armies to try and stop them. Also notice Sauromatia has brought down a stack of 30+ hydras to attack with next turn... great. I consolidate 2 border armies together onto the 30pd province the hydras are coming to to try and hold them off.

Next turn... the Hydras take a beating but punch through (they HURT) and Ermor takes a few more provinces and besieges one of my forts. The bigger of my two armies (80 troops w/ about 40 slave arrow catchers) positions to intercept their biggest group of about 300 while the other goes to relieve the fort. By now I'm making bats as fast as I can and spamming out Jags. The armies are each led by a priest king or two along with a sun priest. Scripted as follows: (blood lust)(reinvigoration)(summon imp)(summon imp) and the sun priest has (divine bless)(hellfire)(hellfire)(smite)(smite).

Next turn, the hydras push further, I lift the Ermor siege on my fort and kill about 200 of their men in another battle with moderate losses. There is another wave coming for the fort so I set my group to patrol and crank up PD as high as I can while the other group holds their ground as well. Also send another group of jags/bats to finish off those damn hydras.

Next turn, the group at the fort routes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif and the freaking hydras ARE STILL ALIVE (7 left). Move 30 bats up to kill them. My westernmost army kills another 200 or so. Next wave has ~300 -_- My southern provinces seem to be holding fine after that one blood hunting group managed to kill everything that was thrown at it.

Next turn.... Fomoria declares war and backs it up with huge armies crashing down on me. I have nothing to send to try and stop them. There is no choke point... Dead.

So what did I do wrong? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Nothing that I could see. You just started from a position that is too wide open for Mictlan, because you need a lot of infra for expansion (temples for dominion spread etc) and your troop quality aside from sacreds sucks.

You should also play with independents set on 7, that will slow down the AI a bit more so that you can expand without needing to worry about an immediate AI rush. Another problem with the AI is that it uses huge hordes of independents instead of its own national troops. That problem can be mitigated with the Better Independents mod linked in my sig.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I'll give you one tip that may very well save your life one day, it is something many pros have said to me again and again. "Don't listen to Juzzas advice"

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

"He gets a few of my province defense 1 border areas."

A tip that works only against the AI: It seems much of their decision who to attack depends on the apparent power and difficulty to attack bordering provinces. Setting PD to 1 on border province basically invites an AI nation attack. 11 or so should prevent some, I've noticed that with PD of 21 or higher AI rarely attacks.

Anyway, only in SP. In MP, PD above autopatrol (10) is usually waste of money, many times PD of 1 is perfectly viable.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Considering you were surrounded and attacked on all sides you did not do too bad.

Alot of AI's were declaring war on you. This is probably because you have a low army graph compared to them. The AI's are bullies they all gang up on what they view as the weakest nation and a small army equals a weak nation to them. You could have spammed loads of slaves to make yourself look stronger. They would then have hopefully picked on someone else and you could strike well they are busy.

Consider investing in a thug or 2 as well, to try to hold your lines.

Use mercenaries more when your troops are over stretched.

View blood hunting/blood magic as more of a end of game winning tactic, it takes alot of time to pay off.

Avoid overreacting to invasions, ie...pulling your troops from 1 front to another. Sometimes you after sacrifice a little land to win the war. Better to concentrate on totally knocking 1 of your enemies out even if that involves losing some of your kingdom.

Its usually better to retreat than lose all your forces. Only fight battles you can win. Nations that keep there forces alive often end up winning the war.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Even with Mictlan? I'm getting a Jaguar warrior for every point above 19. Seeing as they cost 25gold anyways, it doesn't seem to be too bad of a deal to get up to 30ish PD for the Jags that don't count towards my normal production limit. AI is smart enough to bless too with the free priest even if my divine blesser moves on.

But I will try the suggestions given later on. Thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

It's good if you're going to fight a lot in that province, and keep on winning. Human players probably won't assault it many times with forces that aren't good enough to beat you. If it's a chokepoint, go for it. If it's not, he'll go around it. If he goes around it, or you take a few provinces and the front of the war moves, you can't move the PD elsewhere.

For some nations, it's worth the money, but it's always situational.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Two very good suggestions already made:

1) The computer will only attack you when it perceives the gain of at least 1 province. If you pump the PD on your borders and/or leave small armies in those provinces, it goes a long way towards keeping the peace.

2) I think you went into blood research too early. I noticed you have 0 conjuration which generally means no thugs. If you are going to have a smaller army graph by recruiting higher quality troops, then you need to quickly move to thugs and SCs. If not, then it's in your best interest to get lots of slaves and 10/4 archers and other cheap units to pump up your graph.

For what it's worth, I have lost lots of promising games in the same way you did. The trick is to either change the map options (harder independants, higher mountain %, different map dimensions like a tower map) or quickly advance your magic because you can't beat their massive chaff armies unless you build equally large chaff armies yourself, which you typically don't want to do.

I think the people on the forums that say that AI is a joke change the map options in the player's favor, like lots of magic sites or only having 4 opponents. It's very easy to divide and conquer when there are so few nations. I play small maps with 20 opponents and usually default settings, and this type of thing happens all the time because everyone gets crunched up against each other quickly, and you always have the smallest army graph. These types of situations are winnable, but you have to have the thugs/SCs summoned and equipped before the 3rd nation declares war on you or you typically can't recover.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

You started in a difficult location and did alright. Two provinces on the far northeast should have waited as it stretched your armies more thin. Try growing more like a circle while expanding towards choke points. Avoid marching into war when surrounded by multiple AIs and use the graphs to identify the most powerful AIs via provinces, income and army size. Avoid the most powerful AI until you have the strength to expand into them.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Yep - even with Mictlan. PD manipulation is the best way to control where the AI will attack. In SP pumping up your PD to crazy levels (20+) *usually* keeps the AI from attacking. The PD/AI handicaps are one the main reasons I lost interest in SP and moved on to MP.

You have a challenging open position being very exposed on so many fronts. I would expect you to lose quite number of provinces before you leveled out and came back.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Also, when playing as Mictlan you should really the Jaguar Demons rather than beast bats.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Why the blood fountain? You get Dom7 with those scales & paths, but with the same scales & paths:

Imprisoned Morloch 9F9W4B, 6Dom = mobile SC;
Imprisoned Mirror 9F9W4B1D, 6Dom = mobile and extra path.

I know the blood fountain has a small hidden bonus for blood hunting, but with those paths wouldn't a fountain spend it's time better elsewhere? 7Dom is slightly better which (I guess?) makes sacrafices better, but that seems offset by your pretender being immobile (limiting it's dominion influence). Once broken free the death path or SC I think would help more.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I tried a better mobile pretender at first, but I noticed each point of dom that I lose really adds up a lot later when I'm making Jaguar Warriors in 4-5 forts (I try to get 5 temples up if I have the extra $$$ for that extra point). I didn't even know there was a blood bonus with the fountain... where would these hidden bonuses be listed?

Also dominion spread usually isn't a big deal. My scales are trash and as long as there is no risk of dominion death I just let everything but the core of my empire have whatever dominion happens to be there.

I'm usually very close to summoning my first Ice Devil by the time my pretender wakes up anyways and his main job is to make a blood booster and then make disease demons for a couple turns while I get con6. Then once I get con6, a rain priest makes a cheap water booster, I give him the blood booster my pretender was using to make disease demons and he calls an ice devil. He gets various easy to make items: demon whip, shield of the accursed, the cheap nature helmet w/ an extra attack, bless shroud, boots of the messenger, luck amulet, amulet of regen. Research alteration while the items are being made/he is being summoned (so he can quicken self), and send him out to wreak havoc.

After that I go for blood 7 then evo 7. Once I get those then I can summon phoenix pyring arch devils and those guys are hardcore http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

In my current game (with that independents mod installed) I'm doing much much better. Going f9/s9/b4 this time. The w9 seemed less important later Move doesnt matter when you fly w/ no lance right? large portions of my armies fly later on and the s9 protects my summoned devils from banishes and the big guys from annoying stuff like blind. There's also the bonus of being able to cast astral corruption, which seems to be devastating for everyone but me. If my pretender is s10/b7 when he casts it with 200 slaves, does he get the +5 bonus for each point he is above the spell requirement in each school or is it averaged?

Also, is there any way to get more messages at the start of each turn? (items crafted, troops trained, etc)

And for early thugs from conjuration, which ones should I go for? Normally I just get a devil or 2 from "hordes from hell" and they seem to do ok, and as an added bonus they can lead a big contingent of demons too. Normally I just ignore conjuration until later, maybe getting up to conjuration 3 for voice of aspu. Of course if I'm fighting someone from the water then that changes and I go straight for school of sharks/shark attack (those 2 together seem to be really really powerful)

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I think the only thing you did wrong was to start in the middle. You have too many border provinces, open too many opponents. That is your problem. I hate to start in the middle because I never could figure out how to avoid the same problem you have.

I have always found the AI to be a capable opponent when you move away from normal difficulty and if the computer doesn't generate an absurd pretender and scales for them.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Quick aside: for multi-path spells, extra levels only matter for the primary path (the first one listed). In this case, only blood magic.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Basically you had a bad position and I think you made it worse by spreading yourself too thin. You need to concentrate on the core provinces while sending out smaller armies to raid the enemy, moving around in their territory grabbing a province, setting 200% tax and hopping on to the next. Don't chase the AI, make them chase you while your armies and larger PD protect the more important inner provinces. Once war starts you can afford to lose the outside ones, provided you are taking 1 or 2 a turn from any attacking AI and taxing them 200%.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I have won four front wars aaginst impossible AIs without using bless strategies and I allways play default settings. But I would say that blood magic is a little to slow for that.

Long time since I played the AI I should do that some time.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Yeah, the thing is suggestions for SP games basically break down into two categories.

1) General strategy. You seem to have this down and suggestions you get are going to be along the lines of tweaks, not overhauls. You've laid out a very viable EA Mictlan early game strategy. Unfortunately, playing against the harder AIs means you're not playing on a level field, you can't just be better you need to be much better so you can kill off many times what you lose just to push even. This unfortunately means playing a good game is often not enough to win, particularly if you get placed in a bad position.

2) Tricks to exploit the AI - use a lot of PD for no purpose other than to fool it, create thugs that the AI can't cope with, etc.

Unfortunately category 2 is really what you usually need to do to fight against multiple harder AI's - by the time they team up on you they just field too many troops to "fight fairly". This is unfortunate because once you learn a few tricks that the AI just can't deal with it does become way too easy.