Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

I played singleplayer against AI many times and came to conclusion that i really like summoning rituals as they seem to be most helpful ones in many hard times.

But what i want to know from the experienced D3 players is:

What D3 nation is most powerful in summoning rituals ? What would be the best pretender desing to suit well with summoning ? And what would be the best research path choice for summoning ?

*edit*
With summoning i mean also everything similar, even if it's called in game 'binding', 'creating', etc.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

Assuming these are serious questions...

With Dominions 3, you'll soon discover there is no 'best' for anything really. Though there are some more popular strategies.

--What D3 nation is most powerful in summoning rituals ?

This question is a red herring. Summoning what? Each nation has magic paths that it specializes in, and this naturally means completely seperate summon groups.

Take EA Agartha and LA Ermor for example; the latter is set up to summon tons of undead of all different kinds (though a lich/ghost king does help significantly) while the former can spit out Umbrals, and with Umbrals, you really don't need any other summon in the entire spellbook (though some would argue that everyone needs a Tartarian Factory).

So is one better than the other? No, just different.

--What would be the best pretender desing to suit well with summoning ?

Well, that should be obvious, right? One which has the magic paths you want for summoning what you want. Though some can be better just by adding increasing their paths. For example, if you want a Ghost Factory, the difference between a Lich with D4, and one with D9 + Skull Staff is quite big.

--And what would be the best research path choice for summoning ?

Once again, depends on what you want. Though generally the Conjuration school has the most, followed by the Enchantment school. Just look at the spell list in your manual.

In the future, it would help to be a lot more specific with your questions. These sort of generalized/'the best' questions will most likely bring blank stares from most Dominions players.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

For my playstyle in single player games, nothing beats a Wraith Lord. Incredibly durable due to their starting equipment, with the ability to cast Soul Vortex and then just wade through hundreds and hundreds of the chaff the AI loves to recruit so much, these guys are also immortal if things go awry.

With this in mind, your best bet is probably LA C'tis because you can get a D5 mage very easily, and search every province for death sites from turn 2. You need Conjuration to cast the spell and Alteration for the Soul Vortex.

I equip them with a Frost/Fire/Shadow Brand, Charcoal Shield, and a Pendant of Luck. Nothing more is necessary, you could probably get away with less.

This should give you a good starting point to say, "I like this" or "I don't like this" and maybe try something else. Blood and Death have the best end game summons, but often nations have their own spells typically called "National Summons". If you are looking for good national summons try the angels of Marignon.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

I'm sorry if my questions were irritating to you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

I just have played game for a week, so i don't have necessary knowledge to ask more detailed questions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

I would offer Astral as well. It's not really a summons, but Wish can give you some awfullly nice super combatants.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

No, not irritating, heh. If they were, I wouldn't bother writing a response. Just very difficult to answer.

I should re-emphasize and rephrase that list piece of advice I gave, to just look at the spell list in the game (click on each one and read the description) and with the manual open to check out the stats of various summon units, and to examine each spell individually. Spending an hour doing that will give you a much better idea of what's available, and probably save dozens of hours of just random experimentation.

If you want strategy examples that are different or more advanced from what the manual offers, I suggest the strategy index. (On the off chance you haven't already examined it) Reading about what other people do with a nation, or suggest doing with it, can be very helpful in directing you to points of interest that you would want to examine and experiment with.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

I may be able to add a couple of pointers.

It is often said that the best summonable creature is the Seraph. It's rather expensive, though. To try it you'd need to be playing as MA Pythium or MA Marignon.

Quite a few good summons are in the Death school, so you could try playing as a Death heavy nation - EA or LA C'tis, for example. You can also reanimate undead with clerics of several nations. It's another form of summoning, and very useful.

Again as noted above, Blood has a lot of entertaining summons available. Jotunheim and Abysia have some Blood for checking out the basic summon roster there.

EA Mictlan and Lanka have a wide range of powerful national Blood summons, and for Mictlan at least you really want to be using them to get the best out of the nation.

Finally, MA R'lyeh has an interesting summon site in its capital and might be worth a look-in.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

To any question that starts with "What is best..." in DOM3 there is only one answer: 'It depends.' Everything is interdependent and based on an overall strategy.

Not to sound trite, but the "real" answer to your question is LA Ermor, as all of its (national) players are summons. Your only (national) commanders are freespawn or summoned. (You may still muster regular units, but they have upkeep costs--yeccch!)

However, even Tartarians are available to anyone if they have the appropriate Death-level and Conjuration-9 research.
[Hint on Tartarians. They come to you powerful but useless because they are feeble minded. Acquire the Chalice (Construction-8; unique) and all that goes away. NOW, you have a fighting force.]

Again, it all depends. If you are a powerful Blood nation, you may use vampires; Seraphs seem popular as well.

A summons in itself is not useful; it must be tailored to either the threat or the conquering strategy.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

I think the best summon races are the blood races (e.g. Mictlan) for devils, storm demons, etc. and the death races (e.g. LA Ermor) for all the nice death summons.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

Dont equip Wraith lords if you use them whithin your domain as raiders/thugs. Just give them some cheap bodyguards like militia and place them far from the enemy. Sould vortex will devour bodyguards, remove fatique from wraith lord and kill enough enemies to make them run.
Maybe something really cheap, like a pendant of luck. Thats the beauty of it - these guys cost a lot, but after you've paid for him, you can sent him into battle right away and you dont care if he dies.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

*Tienchi has some useful demons of water and fire, don´t remember the age.
*Agartha has the Umbrals that are very powerful.
*Pangaea can autosummon maenads with good turmoil scale and Pans.
*Late Ermor and Rlieh get free creatures.
*Middle Ermor, Late ctis, Lanka can reanimate undead with their priests.
*Lanka, Mictlan (except middle9, late Marignon, late ulm have special blood summons
*Bogarus have special very cool commanders
*as said pythium and marignon summon angels
*Yomi and shinuyama have some unique summon
sure im missing some nationals, i just remembering here

as general
*earth statues can handle and absorb many troops
*death has good death mages that can skelly spam in battle
*nature vine ogres that are plentiful and absorb many damage
*water is poor with the naiads and water trolls as troops (better spend water gems on clams)
*astral is very poor unless national summons or the ether warrios that are expensive(better achemize or spend on wishes)
*fire is awful with the fire lions (can alchemize to money)
*air is probably the worst only worth if national summons or the flying ethereal birds.
*blood is always good, only blood gets you spinal demons or flying dark demons. in combination with other paths better ones (any path but astral that gets you horror attacks)

bottom line. The usual spending of gems goes to summoned commanders and their magical equipment (that costs gems) that are a sort of "heroes" that fight in melee such as the wraithlord posted above. Summoning troops is not that bad, specially against the AI that doesn´t bring those SC (fighting commanders).

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

Imho astral golems are very cool as anti-SC casters.
Sea troll king is a very good fighter if you can equip him properly. Regen, poison immunity, cold immunity, chill aura, quickness. Mind fatique though.
Call of the winds can be useful for sieging, or capturing provinces with 1-2 PD. But even then in helps to cast twice to be sure. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

The golem is too good to be true.
*cheap-30(or 35 gems)
*easy to learn, is on contruction, the same you research to give it the gear you forge.
*big
*lifeless
*mindless
*encumbrance 0
*can cast teleport(with a starshine cap) and body ethereal

at the expense of:
*low attack
*vulnerable to magic duel
*cannot life drain or regenerate (if i dont recall wrong)

the main reason I dont mention these is because i guess semigall is asking about troops more than commanders.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

Correct.

I still haven't really mastered using SC's efficiently, so for now i'm depending more on massive armies, not on single units.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

Try mechanical men + storm + wrathful skies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

Lanka or Mictlan. Massing armies of their summons can really be fun.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

I like any spells that scale with caster level my two favorites are clay men and summon statues but the other are cool too.

I love the create lich, immortal spell caster? awesome.

Mechanical men are great.

The Iron dragon, Tarrasque, and Juggernaut are cool but too high up on the research tree to be useful most of the time.

I want to like monster toads, but for some reason they just dont seem to do as well as thier stats would suggest.

As for a good summoning nation I like MA Argatha the golems are sweet and most are sacred, give them a fire 9 bless and set them to killin.

Re: Need hints & advices concerning summoning...
 

First ask, "Why Summon?"

You can summon units for a specific purpose. That might be just bulking out an army, getting new mages, or some specific tactical use.

Nearly all paths can get you bulk units, especially I think Death and Nature. The big exceptions are Fire and Astral, but they do have some neat summons in there. Air can bulk out an army, but not with much that can fight well, although it gives tactical options with flying units.

All magic paths can summon new mages *of the same path*. If you're looking to diversify, water can get you into both Nature (naiad) and Death (Kokythiad) paths at a reasonable magic level, as well as a spell that can get some random paths (Frozen in Ice?). Death also has some summons that can get you into new magic paths, although not at a strong level.

For specific tactical things, see many of the examples above. Simple things can be sticking watchers down with ?Earth to do your patrolling for you, telestic animations to boost Dom by preaching, and so on.