Endgame
 

In Master of Magic, I used to enjoy the endgame immensely, which was the point at which I was on top and winning and enjoying finishing exploring all the nodes and conquering the last bits of my opponent's empires. In Dom3, curiously, I find that I rarely play a game through all the way to the endgame. I usually don't research or use 9th level spells in more than one or two research paths, and I especially don't siege and occupy all the enemy forts. Frequently I don't even go to war with all remaining opponents, I just look at the map and realize that I'm bigger than all the other nations put together, start a new game, and never come back to the game I'm winning. Consequently, I have little understanding of the Dom3 endgame even against the AI.

The one thing I have noticed is that PD becomes more useful in the endgame because it's easier to buy 50 PD for a mage cadre than to move troops to the front. (Partly that's because I use the BI mod so it's hard to build troops outside of castles.)

So, any SP players out there, how do you play endgames? Grinding war of attrition with your vast armies and mage cadres? Teleporting squads of SCs guarded by Siege Golems? Build lots of temples and push for dominion kills?

-Max

Re: Endgame
 

I didn't play SP for a long time, but I was using old tested Russian tactics - huge masses and do not care about losses. Put nature's bounty + riches from beneath up. Spam forts. And move forward on whole front, use couple-hundred or thousand big armies and as big ones province behind and march, march forward. Send armies behind constantly to fill any holes that can appear [or astral travel them].

Re: Endgame
 

I also don't finish games. Can't remember the last game I finished, probably been a year or more.

The problem for me is the time I spend doing a turn near the end. I'll sneak 2 hours in at the end of the night and only get 2 turns in. So I start a new game, let the last one languish on the save game list for a couple of months (because I'm going to go back and finish it), then delete all of them and start the cycle again.

I switched to easy research a few months ago, just so I can use more high level spells. I also find the AI is much tougher on that research level.

Re: Endgame
 

Really? I've been thinking about easy research for the same reason, but I was reluctant because it felt like changing "the rules" for the sake of my own convenience. If it helps the AI I can justify it on those grounds.

-Max

Re: Endgame
 

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I've started playing smaller games. No more than 6-7 opponents. That tends to keep the turns a playable length and keeps most of the game where the AI is still vaguely competent.

I still don't finish most of them.

Started playing with victory conditions too, but I find that annoying. Either I'm already bored with it or they kick in while I'm still having fun.

Re: Endgame
 

I've also began to change victory conditions (use VPs, to be exact). Though it actually allows to skip what is usually called lategame.
I think the reason is twofold: first, the MoM had a quite beautiful ending, together with point systems which allowed to mark how good your performance was this time; second, it contained some interesting quirks possible to use in lategame only (artifact creation, Spell of Mastery), together with some targets which you could take only at this levels (strong nodes & dungeons). Also, it had initial restrictions in research which could be partially lifted in endgame.

Running experiments.
 

Trying summons I've never cast before, using odd combinations of equipment, fielding bizarre jokes (Bob Dylan the Gargoyle with the Stone Sword; an army of mechanical men led by a mechanical man in a flying ship; making a hydra prophet; wishing for a blood slave, GoRing her, and turning her into an SC in a massive investment of gems...).

Re: Running experiments.
 

Juggernauts on flying carpets rule actually.

Re: Endgame
 

arrg! foolishly repeat posted.

Re: Endgame
 

ditto!

Re: Endgame
 

ahhh... good old MoM.

In SP I play medium or small maps and try to amass and outfit a couple dozen Thug/SCs. Not too much micro-mgt then. Castle seiging is a pain then though. Usually sit a couple on top and let the rest blast on. I usually learn some pretty good SC vs. chaff lessons.

Played Ea-Neif SP last night. Amazing what the big boys can do with breath of winter, reinvig,quickness and frost brands standing shoulder to shoulder. The only time I would lose one was when I forgot to script one and the tag-team would split up at battle start. The back one ,unscripted, casting leeching darkness till he fell on his giant @ss http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif , with the front one being swarmed on four sides instead of three and no stacked chill.

-SSJ

Re: Endgame
 

The AI cannot remotely compete on Easy research. You have to use Hard research to give them a longer window where there huge chaff armies are effective. Which is why you put them all on at least Mighty and Aggressive.

Re: Endgame
 

Hmmm. But the AI doesn't do well with huge chaff armies in the endgame (because it can't handle SCs). On the other hand, it does pretty okay with Thunderstrike/Lightning Orb/Disintegrate/etc. if it gets that far in research. After all, the AI uses pretty much the same battle AI that you do except that AFAIK it doesn't script it. Intuitively I think it's plausible that the AI benefits from easy research (which effectively drops each spell a researchlevel).

As an aside, note that the spell research formula is a Fibonacci-like recurrence relation:

C1 = 40
C2 = 60
CN = C(N-2) + C(N-1)

Dropping research to easy makes C1 = 20, C2 = 40, C3 = 60, etc.

Anyway, I've found that the AI actually does pretty well at research (on Impossible) until I pull ahead economically and start building more mages and skull mentors than he can afford.

-Max

Re: Endgame
 

hmmm MofM ruled the realm of fantasy game until Dominions... ahhh my undead Highmen Paladins.....

Well for my part I like to finish the games until the final victory, maybe because I never play on too large maps with too much opponents, so i play 'human sized' games with never too much micromanagment or boring. And like said before, it's always fun to try funny and totally useless combinaisons of spells, summons etc...

Playing at this scale I usually play with easy reserch as the game never last too long.

Re: Endgame
 

I also loved MoM. But even in MoM I tended not to finish the game. Once the winner was obvious I tended to move on.

In Dominions I will play abit longer but still rarely to the endgame announcement. I tend to solo play on huge maps (maximum in fact, 1500 provinces) with lots of variations thrown into them. I was one of the pioneers of the mega-game concept, pre-built AI gods, boosted neutral armies, etc. I rarely play a standard game and I like to play until I get a feel for whether or not the variation is interesting. Then Im eager to try something else.