What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

What is it? Incredible strategic insight? Encyclopedic knowledge of all the units, counters and counter-counters? Micromanagement skills and tricks? Ability to minimax the heck out of the game engine? Excessive quantities of free time? Diplomatic skill? Something else entirely? I am interested in your opinion on this question that has been bugging me lately. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Diplomacy, knowledge of your opponents tactics, turn efficiency, knowing confidently what will happen in future turns and being correct, knowing the best methods for spending gems and gold(hence not summoning eater of the dead), knowledge of your opponents personality, and a touch of luck.


Dominions is full of moves and counter moves.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

I guess it is strategic thinking plus micromanagement plus knowledge. Diplomacy is also important. Knowledge will greatly help the other two in reaching of the goal but it is definitely not the main thing. You won't win a game with pure knowledge.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Yes, yes, yes, yes, not necessarily, yes, and I'll explain.

The most important thing is to realize two key facts:

1. Everything has a use. Even spells or units that people say suck actually have a use in certain circumstances.

2. This is a turn-based game, so turn advantage is the key to many things. Speed, efficiency, and long-term planning count more than having the right race.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

This is what makes a skilled Dominions player, in order of significance:

1) Diplomacy: Without question the single skill which has the most dramatic effect on the result of a MP game. It can make a weak nation strong when used right and a strong nation weak when ignored or used poorly.

2) Strategic Planning: Picking a nation, design, and overall strategy is the foundation of a strong empire. Adapting to what dominions offers you, be it geography, gems, and most importantly sites (a single good site can change the course of your empire). Lastly knowing yourself, the nations opposing you, and the diplomatic situation well enough to know who to strike and when.

3) General Dom Concepts: Focus on the key concepts of dominions rather than memorizing the minutiae. The way one unit class fares against another. Boosting your mages magic paths. The interplay of armies vs battlefield magic/enchants and research. Building and killing SCs. Beyond this there is only a little to memorize - some key summons, very dangerous spells, SC chasis, and perhaps a couple of signature or sacred units.

4) Tactical Experience: You need to know, at a glance, how your forces will fare in a battle against a (mostly) known enemy force. What tactics you can use to improve your odds and what tactics your enemy is likely to use given thier forces. Its also quite helpful to be able to accurately predict where your opponent will move thier armies and when they will engage or retreat.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

I'd like to add in early expansion as a critical concept to master, though I agree with pretty much all of the above as well.

While I don't agree that EVERYTHING has a use, as per K's post, I was forced to eat my words on the utility of crumble and iron walls...normally they're still pretty bad, but in a VP situation they can be very much worth casting.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

I'm going to defer to Ironhawk and the other experienced MP gamers in the thread, but I must say that in my very limited MP experience thorough knowledge of the DB has come in pretty goddamn handy many times. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Diplomacy: It's what makes the world go round.

I am not a skillful Dom 3 player. I have no head for numbers. I have never won an MP game. But in almost all of my MP games, I have stayed around til the endgame... because of diplomacy. I have kept Mega powers from attacking me, through diplomacy.

You might say I am cowardly, but I am not. I have attacked game leaders when the time was right, even though outclassed. But I have had fun in most all my MP games. And the key to that was diplomacy.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Edi is so right that it's not even funny. Just from a casual glance at the database, I learned things about my situation ingame that led to large differences in gameplay.

Encyclopedic knowledge is key.

You can have poor diplomacy and win from a corner of the map, or even with luck and gumption as your potential opponents slaughter each other for being too visible.

You can think everything has a use and get proved wrong time and time again as people who utilize key units and tactics slaughter your motley crew.

Knowledge of magic, how it's used, when, what you can do with different paths at different levels of research is essential to Dom3 mastery.

Min/maxing your empire according to its strengths and weaknesses is extremely helpful and ties in to all-around game knowledge. Learn everything you can, the game is deep.

With a general knowledge of tactics, and a vast knowledge of game minutae, you are a very dangerous nation indeed... even if you never so much as glance at your game forum thread, never send a message to a neighbor, and never trade a gem.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Hmm, the encyclopedic knowledge is probably the part that probably stymies new players the most (at least it stymies me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ). Separating what choices in pretenders, spells, items are the best versus choices that are mediocre or "just for fun" is a pretty hard job in the beginning. Whatever part of he game you are in, it seems like there is a main line of most effective choices that most experienced players, and then maybe a set of choices that do the same thing, but are less efficient to varying degrees. The challenge for new players is really separating the best choices from the chaff. Until then, it's really easy to make suboptimal choices and not realize it under it's too late.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

I don't think you can have 'poor diplomacy' and beat anyone who has 'good diplomacy' unless you're playing a duel. Diplomacy is by far the most important factor in MP. The number of times a clear winner has continued to win throughout the midgame, extended it into the lategame and, surprise surprise, won in the end simply due to them persuading people not to attack them is pretty staggering. Meanwhile people with 'poor diplomacy' scrap amongst themselves until they get flattened by someone who hasn't been in a vicious bloody stalemate for the past turns.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

It's not the be-all, end-all, but it certainly helps. I'm a complete MP newbie, really, but in this department I have an advantage over most people simply because I put the DB together. Meaning I had to dig deep enough into the game and doublecheck that I got everything right that I know substantial portions of it from memory. Not perfectly, but close enough that it doesn't make a difference.

I've gotten best results through diplomacy in all the three MP games I've played.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

BTW, is it possible to create a fixed team in a MP game where you define teams at the start and then see his area? I don't think I want a game decided by the fact that you suddenly have to face a 2 : 1 or worse opposition. It's just unfair!

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Not possible at the moment.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Luck is also very important in MP games.

and above all, loads of time...

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Diplomacy is the most directly correlated to how long you can survive in an MP game. It fades in importance as the number of players decrease. In the end, even the smoothest diplomat will still need to face at least one enemy to win, and that is when you need the deep knowledge of the game.

I survived many MP games and did well on all the graphs based on diplomacy but in the end would get slaughtered (see Endgame Slaughter Moves thread) because of lack of knowledge of these endgame tactics (or in that case, it turned out to be a bug exploit).

Now I understand many endgame strategies but still am learning specific tactics - spell combos that are effective, units to deal with specific situations, etc.

So I think there is a learning curve you need to move up and the important skills shift throughout the game, but diplomacy is the most important until the very end when your ability to handle endgame clashes will determine whether you can win or not. Of course, you will never get to that point without some diplomatic success.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Winning without more diplomacy than "ok NAP 3" and "I end the NAP" is perfectly possible. It's just a matter of luck, and success to look like a medium threat (too big for one neighbour alone, too small to have a big coalition against you).

I think early game luck (like being surrounded by rich badly defended indy provinces, finding good indie mages early, having one neighbour trying to rush another guy and not succeeding well so you can expand quietly, or a nation weak against yours to rush) is mosty what decide who are the players who can compete for victory, it's very rare to be in the list after a bad start.

Then midgame reduce the list to the people who have also a good knowledge of their national magic possibilities and a good execution of their plans (how many battles are won/lost because of a gem forgoten somewhere or a cancelled move order ?), and like I said above, succeed to avoid a coalition against them.

Then if there are still several competitors, late game limit one more time the list, to people who know well the limitations of the engine and the imbalances of the game, using standardized strategies winning against anything else (magical economy items, diversification to death/astral magic, tartarians, art of defensive round one casting, knowing the big list of summons/spells/units not worthing to be used at this stage of the game, etc...).

Finally in this group victory goes to the one who know the better how the others play, and is able to predict some crucial ennemy moves, going to the good provinces with the good units and scripts is crucial as it's often a matter of "if I go there and he send force X I win, but if I go there and he send force Y I lose".

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

"What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?"

Not loosing your temper when getting beat up by other nations is a good thing. It's when you loose it that bad things start to happen...

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

A couple of people have mentioned "encyclopedic" knowledge as being neccessary for a skilled player and I just wanted to reiterate that this is definitely not the case. It doesnt *hurt* to have that knowledge but it is not a requirement. Since the advent of Dom3 I have routinely entered and thrived in games where I had basically no idea of the stats and abilities of any units of the nations of other players.

What is more important is to learn how to look at a given unit that you've never seen before and tell from its stats - ok this unit is Light Infantry, Cavalry, etc. And to know how to compensate for certain stats - high defense means use arrows or massed attacks, high prot means AP or high strength/dam attacks. Stuff like that.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Expect the unexpected.
Read on the forums that building more than 1 in PD is a waste of money? Do not get surprised if the enemy takes all your provinces at once with small stealth armies.

Always have a plan B.
What will happen if you do not win that big battle? See to it that you know and that you have a backup plan.

Do not put all your eggs in one basket.
One big army is as vulnerable to your miscalculations as two smaller armies but at least you get a second chance when those bombard rituals starts falling.

Know your enemy.
Use scouts.
Use diplomacy so that through other players you will get knowledge of how your enemy fights and if he is trying to betray you soon.

And so on...

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

i believe that the most essential key to "skillful" is either having many heads -- like a hydra -- or cold-blooded like a bog beast.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Edi:

"at the moment"?

Do you know something we don't?

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

Creativity!

Find new and unexpected ways to use the spells and items. If your opponent has encyclopedic knowledge this is harder, and if you have it it is easier.

Find unexpected ways to move strategically.

If your enemy expects what you will do you will only win if he is considerably weaker then you.


But creativity will only win you an even war. On a grander scale you must use diplomacy to fight a combined enemy force not stronger than your own, unless you can surprise and defeat some armies to even out the odds.

Re: What makes a skillful Dom 3 player?
 

From Legendary War Master Sun Tzu:

"All warfare is based on deception.

Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we
are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder,
and crush him."

Diplomacy is very important, but when it fails, and at some point it always does, you must be ready to go to war. And your forces must always be ready for the unexpected assault.

Do not gear your research towards the enemy you plan to fight, but all of your neighbors.

When outnumbered and out gunned, be prepared to hunker down and defend your castles. Alliances have a way of coming unglued when wars take a very long time and the enemy cannot successfully storm your castles. If you cannot defend a castle-do not build it.

Castle defense is the cornerstone to surviving wars. Taking castles quickly is the key to winning them. Unlike some in this thread, crumble is one of my most used spells in war.
Gate in an army, cast crumble, and with little notice your enemy is facing 20 mages with gems, and a variety of troops.

Typically at a castle where he has few defenders.