Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

I've been playing doms3 for around six months on and off with a good friend of mine in the EA. Over the past few games he has been solidly kicking my *** as Mictlan despite my best efforts. In order to improve my game I've begun writing a Doms3 Blog in order to force myself to think and learn more each turn I play.

I'm currently blogging my way through a very small single player game with three AIs. You can follow along at http://dom3story.blogspot.com/ any comments, tips or criticism are appreciated.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

That's a very nice blog!
With what, double or triple blessed jaguars? Then that's no wonder. You can fight fire with fire and take one of the Heims or tell him to pick something more reasonable.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

Double I think. They're tough but playing as Pangaea I fought a delaying war against him while researching conjuration to summon chaff and evocation for blade wind. Sending out raids with stealthy satyrs to kill off his blood blood economy helped a lot to. I don't think it's impossible to defeat him without a heavy bless nation.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

It isn't impossible, but it certainly is not an easy task as the odds are on his side. You're the handicapped one here.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

Try getting a blood economy for yourself : that sounds like the only way you haven't tried.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

It's good to see an AAR in blog form, and I agree with you that writing turn-by-turn reports really helps one improve strategy.

The only choice I disagree with so far is that you went order/misfortune over turmoil/luck. But that's just because I'm sucker for a game of dice. Especially for a small quick game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

One thing to note is that priestesses can't heal old age afflictions. Only Gift of Health and the Chalice can do that.

They're great for battle wounds, though.

I've never been able to figure out what to do with EA Arco. The philosophers want a sloth scale, but the decent troops are all high research. The Wind Riders, IMO, aren't quite good enough to build a bless around.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

Although a bit off topic,I would appreciate if you answered this question for me. Its a 1v1 and a small random map, and I am MA Marignon. Was it a mistake to go Order/Misfortune over turmoil/luck?

Although a short game, the income has really turned things over in my favor!
Although those damn hurricanes...

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

Sounds like you've got the right idea in raiding him and heading for blade wind. You should also consider the more mundane counter early on - archers. As Pangea, centaur archers are a bit expensive, but if you can land a couple indie shortbow provinces you should be able to field several archers for each jaguar once you account for crappy Mictlan scales and holy recruitment limits. A hundred short bows will tear up some jaguar warriors as they're trying to make it through your meanads, even if they've got an astral bless. Another potential counter is minotaurs. Goldwise you come out ahead if each minotaur kills more than two jaguars before dying, a feat not at all hard to if you're clever enough to let the minotaurs get the first hit in. Once you get haste researched think of a squad of minotaurs as a missile - it'll tear straight through large formations causing great damage before expiring.

On the raiding front, remember not just to target his blood hunters but also to target his high income provinces. If he's blood hunting he's gonna be relatively short on gold, it can be surprisingly easy to cripple his economy as he's trying to ramp up to demons. A lot of people miss this, if he's not got gold he's either got to completely forgo recruiting troops (not feasible until late game) or "turn off" some blood hunters. Also, consider spells which raise unrest. Monster boar and rain of toads can be great compliments to a raiding strategy and greatly compound your economic advantage. They also can greatly hamper his bloodhunting as it's not practical to place domes over many of the blood hunting sites and unrest raisers make blood hunting almost impossible.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

Order is always good. Luck is sometimes very good, but sometimes just decent. Order provides steady income, especially in the beginning; luck can provide gems, perhaps even items you couldn't have gotten that early without it, or even a fort or a mage you couldn't have otherwise (e.g. a necromancer). Luck could only give you little gold, wrong gems and flagellants, and a couple of bad events as well, if you get unlucky.

It's mostly up to whichever you prefer, and on your nation. Tien Chi generally can use gems of ALL types, and most of their good mages are sacred in all eras, so they can survive with less money and really benefit from the gems alone.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

elephants to trample?

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

About your EA Arco design, I don't think that Drain is a good choice. Your philosophers are the one of the best researchers in the game, but you are handicapping them with this choice.

Additionally, you really don't need Productivity for EA Arco, I don't think.. the only troops that really call for it are Myrmidons and Wind Riders. Wind riders are amazing (esp. with your bless), but they are really expensive -- how many could you build each turn anyway? Wind Riders don't require production. Myrmidons are fairly weak heavy inf, imo, and just plain aren't worth a Production scale. I would still build them, of course, but putting Pretender design points towards building them is not a good plan, imo.

So, I'd take at least Sloth-1 (to pay to remove Drain-2), and all of a sudden, you've got +2 research on your philosophers with no ill effects to speak of. I'd actually go all the way and take Sloth-3, but that's just me.

Also, going 1 off on your temp scale (to pay for Order-3) is a good idea, since the temp scale is -5% gold and the Order scale is +7%. That is +2% free gold as well as less bad events.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

re: CUnknown and my pretender design

I realized very quickly that I gimped my philosophers into near uselessness, but I want to stick the game out to the end. I agree with your conclusions about my scales. In a small game like this I am rarely recruiting more than three or four wind riders a turn, never limited by resources only gold.

I also haven't been using my pretender nearly as much as I would like, for the next game I am considering putting him to sleep to improve my scales for maximum gold.

EA Arco is a bit overwhelming with the variety of magic I have access to, any recommendations on where I should be applying my research at this point in the game? I'm thinking Construction to create a few Thug Wind Lords to travel with my wind riders.

Re: Vellon\'s Dom3Blog
 

I advice against equipping wind lords as thugs because they have low hp and they don't have any magic power to mitigate this(unlike vanjarl for example), which means they more or less go down from one real hit. So your gem investment becomes wasted far too easily. A super cheap boost like giving them a few frostbrands is acceptable though.

I've not played Arco myself but I believe Oreiads can create gargoyles, requires E3A1, quite easily. So do that and cast Gift of Reason on them. Voila, now you got some seriously tough thug chassis just add in the equipment.