Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Hey all, Dom3 newbie here. :) Had a few SP/MP questions to ask.


1. Sitesearching Q's -- so basically any land can have from 0-4 magic sites, AFAIK. Do those sites include hidden fortresses? Pre-existing Mines? Temples/Mines/Labs/etc. from luck events (more specifically, do those luck events uncover sites, or just create sites)? There's a buncha FAQs on sitesearching but I can't seem to find an answer to this specific question. :/


2. Casting globals enchantments -- say there are 5 globals in effect and I want to cast a global. Does my global basically act like a random dispel at that point, subject to DRN and what not? And it can attack my own globals too, should it be one of the 5 preexisting?


3. Domain effects -- what positive/negative effects do I suffer when under enemy domain? I vaguely remember reading on the forums that while under another nation's luck domain that ends up being bad luck to me. I'm sure somebody compiled a list, but I can't seem to find it again (blah)... can anybody kindly point me to it?


4. Overland spells -- Okay, I'm being shot at by arrows from the sky. And lesser horrors are eating my commanders. And stuff. Is there any way I can ID who's doing this to me, or do I just suck it up, build domes and get bodyguards? :/

Inverse question - I'd like to cast overland spells at some secret/presumed enemy... which spells are detectable and which aren't?


5. Commander (execution) order -- What determines the execution order for commanders/mages? Is it rearrangeable?


6. How exactly does protection work? It seems to be like damage reduction... is this applied to every single attack in the same turn, and does it get reduced after every attack (like defence)?


7. How does fatigue work for items with spell abilities? Does it just use encumberance? I notice my guy spamming thunderstrike using an artifact sword and the rate of fatigue is significantly lower than I expected.


8. A flyer self-casts blink and teleports around the battlefield, being instructed to "attack rear". I notice the flyer's going to the exact same spot, even though the battlefield is changing and the locale he's at is definitely not the rear of the enemy army. What gives? (Or rather, what am I doing incorrectly here...)


9. I hear there's an active IRC channel where actives lounge around and answer these questions in real time. :) Now where could that be... (kindly point the way to a noob who isn't finding relevant posts, le sigh)

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

1) Up to 4 sites. This counts sites from events, but not temples, labs or forts, just like you can build a building in a province with 4 sites.
It counts non-hidden sites (level 0). It counts the sites that produce forts, but not the fort itself.
Buildings are not sites.
Luck events create sites, but only if there is room for them.

2) Random dispel. Same mechanics. Can overwrite your own globals. Obviously, if you're casting a global that already exists it will go against that one.

5) Execution order is not rearrangeable. It goes by unit id. Which is also the order commanders are shown in the army set up screen. Order in battle is fixed, top to bottom. Ritual casting order, I believe, flips between top to bottom and bottom to top randomly.

6) Protection is damage reduction. Applied to every attack. Does not get reduced like defence.

7) 5 fatigue for item spells. No encumbrance.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

9. Check the stickies :D

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

I have a couple counter-questions to the answers...

1.thejeff, you say that the site limit of 4 counts the event sites, but magic sites are distributed at the map generation phase,right? So basically you can have lucky site events only in provinces that were assigned less than 4 sites, even if you haven't discovered them all?

2.I don't have much experience with them, but I thought that casting a 6th global targeted the one with less gems invested in it? At least, that's what someone told me.


Now for answering 3, though this isn't off accurate testing but common knowledge:
troops gain +1 morale in friendly dominion and -1 in enemy one,
regarding enemy dominion on your lands, for order/productivity/growth, you can only get negative effects(so the -% to income/Resources/etc) but not any positive ones; for heat/cold, it depends on your nation's preferences, and enemy luck is treated as misfortune,while misfortune is obviously treated the same:P I have no clue about the Magic scale.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

1) That's how I understand it.

2) I'm not 100% sure on that, but I thought it was random.

3) AFAIK, magic scale works like everything else for the research bonus: drain always gives penalties, but there is no bonus for magic outside your dominion. I believe the battlefield mr bonus/penalty always applies.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

ad 4.)

All remote rituals are anonymous.
So you can only make educated guesses about the casting nation by looking at the magic and research the spell requires.
If you want to remain anonymous it's best to cast spells you cannot cast naturally and let someone who can take the blaim.

ad 8.)

I don't know, there was some thread about the battle behaviour of flyers way ago, I can't remember the conclusion but one thing is certain that fliers set to attack rear will often get stuck on the frontline (since the unit makes some kind of morale check or so).

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

1) Yes, up to 4 sites per prov on the map. This includes mines, and sites that give you a lab or fort. Random events can give you another site, mostly mines, if there are less than 4 sites currently in the prov. You can get free labs and temples from events even if there are 4 sites. Temples have nothing to do with sites.

2) Yes your global does a DRN dispel if there are already 5 up, and yes it is completely random which of the 5 existing globals it will try to replace, your own global is possible.

3) Under enemy dominion your units have reduced morale. You do not get any positive income/resource/luck/research benefits from scales. Your god and pretender will be weaker. Some enemy globals will be more effective in enemy dominion.

4) You can guess who's doing it based on the paths required. Also remote rituals where an army is summoned that you get to keep (Call of foo, Arouse Hunger, Horde from Hell) will identify you in the battle screen.

5) Top to bottom in the battle setup screen ('t' or 'y'), except spells are cast first during each combat round, and commanders go before troops.

6) Protection is applied to every attack that is not armor-negating. It is not reduced by hits, except for special attacks that destroy armor.

7) 5 fatigue per cast from an item.

8) Flyers have less change of making it all the way to the rear when there is a big army in the way.

9) The Dominions 3 Faq & IRC Channel Info

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Many thanks to the different people answering my noob questions. :) I have a few more, plus some additional clarification I'd like on a few old queries.


RE: 6) Huh, so I guess armor even protects against magic spells... just that a lot of them have AP/AN effects. (I was thinking in D&D mode I think, where armor has no effect on magical damage.) What about fatigue damage? Does armor protect against that?


RE: 8) So the thing I should ask is more about the behavior of units post-Blink spell... if a unit is attacking rear, gets blinked somewhere else, does it retarget based on its priorities? (Say I used "attack rear" and hit a big unit that did "Hold and Attack" and now it's finally moved to the front lines... does it retarget to attack the new unit at the rear? Based on personal experience it doesn't seem to do that.)

NEW QUESTIONS! :)

10) Sceptics (EA Arcoscephale) - does this unit reduce the dominion effect of the owner of the land, or the prevailing Pretender's dominion? Say if I was holding a territory that was under enemy dominion, does moving a Sceptic there help kill off the enemy dominion? Vice versa, say I am using dominion to attack other lands and sneak my sceptic into enemy territory (with my dominion prevailing), does that reduce my dominion spread there?


11) Spell casting scripts -- say if I script a unit to cast, say, Shock Wave (range 2) and no enemy is nearby, does the caster change spells to something with more range, sit out for the turn, or move towards the enemy so she can cast the spell?

Similarly, if I have a priest scripted to spam bless and all units are already blessed, does the unit move up to find other things to do, like engage in melee? (I'm noticing this in a test game, ugh.)


12) Domes - what spells do and don't they protect? Obviously, direct fire spells (seeking arrow, volcano, etc.) are prevented. What about Monster Boars, Wolven Winter, or Teleport (or other spells)?


13) I'm getting hit by the global "Wild Hunt" and my sacred leaders (not my priests) are targeted. What gives? (Oh, note I'm playing CBM 1.5.)


14) Twist fate - does that only protect against physical attacks, or does it protect against magic as well?


15) "Stay behind" - If I have a leader set on this command and units guarding him, does he actually stay behind the units guarding him or move towards the battlefield?


16) Elemental royalty - say if they're in the Hall of Fame, I still can't reanimate them into a mummy, right? To get them back I'd need to resummon them. If they are cursed/horrormarked (or have their paths empowered) do these effects last, or do they start fresh after each resummon, and I'd assume anybody else summoning them would get the same unit, complete with all debilitations/empowerments.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Earth typically is physical damage and armor protects against it. Fire is armor piercing, meaning that armor is only half as good against it. Astral is commonly armor negating, armor doesn't protect at all. Armor doesn't protect at all against fatigue/stun damage (associated with Water), armor negating shock damage (Air), or poison (Nature).

They work exactly like the Stone Idol item.

Something with an appropriate range. Units scripted to cast don't move. Only if they're set to attack will they get closer to an enemy in case they can't hit them directly. Attacking isn't the same as firing, too.

Protect against everything, including your own. Don't try to teleport back into your domed capital.

No idea, might be buggy.

Against everything, AFAIK, like luck, but with a 100% chance and only once.

If they're set to guard the commander that is told to stay behind, nobody will move.

AFAIK that's right for unique units like that.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

10) My understanding is that they reduce dominion towards 0. Your dominion or an enemy's.

11) If the caster is scripted to cast a particular spell and can't find a valid target, they will cast another spell. If they can't find a target for any spell, like a low level priest with everyone blessed and no undead in range, they'll default to "Stay behind troops"
Post ninja edit: I normally wouldn't argue with lch, but I'm pretty sure about this. In practice this only shows up with H1 priests or with mages in the very early game when little is researched.

12) I believe domes work against anything targeting the province.
Including your own spells. Teleports, site searches, etc.

14) Twist fate works against (most?) magical attacks. Magic Duel may be an exception, there may be others.

15) Bodyguards are ignored for troops to stay behind.
Post ninja edit: I'll have to check this.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Elemental Royalty and other unique summons cannot get into the hall of fame. Same with pretenders.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

This is incorrect.

Pretenders and Unique summons (which covers the Elemental Royalty) can all enter the Hall of Fame, it is just that they can not gain Heroic Abilities (which is the where the difference is compared to other HoF entries)

This is easily checked by looking at the awake Pretender SC's that make the HoF in the first few turns of a game.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

My mistake :doh:

Of course they can enter the hall of fame, they just don't get anything out of it.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

We are not in disagreement, we're saying the same. I'm just talking mostly about mages, who will always find some stupid self-buff or useless spell to cast, in case their scripted spell has range issues and thus no targets.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

The classic here of course is the way S1 mages start casting Blink if there are no other spells researched that they can cast :doh:

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

This I wasn't sure of, so I tested it.
A commander will not stay behind his own bodyguards. With "Stay behind troops", he and his bodyguards closed to behind the rearmost other troops and when they broke and ran, moved to the front line.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

I was thinking of a single squad instead of multiple ones, but that's interesting to know. Do two such "stay behind troops" commanders with their own bodyguards cancel each others advancement out, though? That's what I'd expect.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

As near as I can tell, any commanders and their bodyguards do not count as troops to stay behind.

2 squads both advanced.
In another case, where one commander was a caster (prophet), he and his guards stayed behind while he cast. The other commander charged in with his troops.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Yeah, the "Stay Behind" thing is driving me crazy in CBM 1.6 EA Arco, when I'm fielding large quantities of Engineers (yay for non-cap leader, finally!) and SCs and dunno how to protect them since they all just crazily charge the front lines. :( I could give them some crossbows and summoning trinkets but that's annoying to micro (and I have... er, *had* a ton of engineers).

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

It may be obvious, but they'll stay behind archers if you have any on the field.
X-bows are even better for this, since they'll stay put twice as long.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Yeah I just wanted to figure out ways where I didn't have to do that for MP, since then units can be attacked with "fire archer". :/ Oh wells.

Does a commander spamming a skelly trinket count as an archer? And if that guy + guards stay in the back, would the entire formation move? Hrm, lemme test that out...

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Fact about item spells: not only do they only cost 5 fatigue to cast, but under a quickness effect, you can cast several times on the same turn.

That starting commander with 3 or 4 stars (and the corresponding 13+ precision) that is only used for its command ability and stay behin troops ? Give him a wand of fireball, boots of quickness (if you can afford them), and maybe some reinvigoration item(s) (needed with quickness, as you will take 10 fatigue each turn), and you just got one more artillery.

Cheaper yet : if you happen to have a W9EX blessing, a Shroud of the battle saint will give both a 50% quickness and some reinvigoration for only 5 astral gems.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

I haven't tested the skelly trinket spamming commander and guards, but what I would expect is this:
He and his guards would not count as troops to stay behind. No commanders or bodyguards do.
But, the trick might work anyway. Commanders on "Stay behind troops" try to stay behind the rearmost troop on the field. The most recent skeleton to appear would count.
I've never tried to exploit this, but I've seen it with skelly-spamming mages. Later in the battle after the mage exhausts himself and recovers to cast one more Raise Dead, I've seen commanders turn from the rear of the main line and race back to behind the new Soulless and then follow them forward.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Hmm. with mictlan I usually form expansion groups of 7 jag warriors. the priest is given orders to bless bless bless hold hold - stay behind troops - and of course they usually run up behind the jag warriors.

*usually* jag warriors will kill things fast enough that its not a problem. Every so often the priest runs to the front and gets killed.

I may have to try adding one slinger with orders to fire.. just so the priest can stay behind him...

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

I've actually made use of some of that behavior.

Sacreds with Hold & Attack and a H1 priest on Blessx5,Cast.
If he hasn't caught them all before they've moved out of range, he'll default to "Stay Behind", close and then cast more Blesses.

Usually you're right, he's caught them all and needs something to keep him away from the fight.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

More questions for the kind vets to answer. Most of these questions pertain to Dom3 under the CBM 1.5/1.6 mod. :)

17) What exactly does "dome stacking" constitute and why is it banned from a bunch of games? (Is one of every dome okay? Or say, are multiple air domes in the same province acceptable. Does the game even allow you to stack multiple domes of the same type?)

Oh speaking of which, how do you tell which caster cast the dome? Or do you have to rename/take notes to remember... :/


18) I'm playing an MP game and a neighbor goes AI. How much diplomatic memory does it have in regards to declaring war? Does it start considering aggression the turn it turns AI? The turn afterwards? Or is it possible for it to check prior turns and see I've taken provinces, etc.?


19) Do fatigue effects factor into the undead defense/crit chance? Say a Wraith Lord casts a few spells and goes into battle without reinvigoration; does he now have the possibility of being critted due to hanging fatigue?


20) Forge orders -- are they entirely random by forger, or random by side? If I was making the same 5 artifacts as another nation, is it a winner-take-all situation (that would suck :( ) or do casters get random priority. I guess the same question applies to global rituals as well.


21) Artifact: Nethgul - does it give out horror marks? I seem to be reading conflicting reports on the forums. I read the manual and it didn't say anything about it, and the few turns I've used it in SP haven't given me anything (though it's blinked my precious commander into the middle of enemies before, UGH).


22) Old age - what affects the lifespan number other than nature? I've had a mage vacillate between normal status and old age, pending season of year. (I've given him Boots of Youth a bit late to counter any debilitating effects of him dying from old age, but he's 47-years old and the old age cutoff vacillates between 46 and 48, which is kinda getting on my nerves mainly as to why it's doing that.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Disclaimer - not a "vet".

Dome stacking is casting lots and lots of (cheap in CBM) domes over a province, so that the likelihood of a spell getting through is negligible. I believe a recent patch made it less worthwhile, in that domes of the same type do not "stack" in this regard (if one fails, the rest remain up, but are not applied until the next attempt.) Multiple types still "stack".

The real offender is air domes, with 80% chance to stop and no "time-out" on the casting - multiple "stacked" air domes is pretty close to invulnerable vs. ranged spells.

It depends on whether the dome "times out" after a while or not. The ones that indicate you can add more gems to make it last longer "time out" after a while; in that case, you get a ritual icon on the caster. The others (air and forest, IIRC) do not, and are essentially permanent until dispelled by a spell getting through (caster is irrelevant after casting, IIRC.)

Not sure.

Yes, they factor in. However, in the wraith lord example, assuming it is fighting living foes, it is well advised to cast soul vortex, which will regenerate the fatigue rapidly (at the expense of the opponent troops, no less!)

The go in the order of unit numbers, either top to bottom or bottom to top (which direction is determined randomly.) So, assuming you've got a relatively even distribution of forgers over time, you'd statistically each end up with around half. It's not "random", but it's not winner-take-all either.

It casts horrormark spell on opponents.

Probably fire boosters in this case. Or mods. Fire magic decreases max lifespan, and does so in a dynamic way (so adding fire boosters to a fire mage can "flip" them over the old age line because the cutoff gets closer. Removing the booster can make them "not old age" (they don't get younger, but they don't feel the effects of old age.)

The other option that comes to mind is an updated mod that has changed the maxage of the unit in question. If a mod has updated mid-game, this can affect existing units.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

One of the most effective uses of the quickness-item spell effect may be the Standard of the Death+Boots of Quickness. With that, your ordinary commander is turned into an effective anti-thug.

Also: I never figured fire magic decreased max lifespan. Hmm.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Keep in mind this can be really tricky when employing elephants and other tramplers. I like to put all my elephants on the south side and my troops/commanders to the north so that fleeing elephants don't trample my commanders. But this doesn't work if commanders with "stay behind" decide to stay behind the elephants.

This is particularly funny when an elephant in retreat is behind your lines -- and all your commanders rush to catch him and get squished :)

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Worst case is Oceania's damn lobsters. At least elephants will retreat or attack.

When the rider gets killed, they don't move forward or retreat. They just sit and try to squish anyone who comes near them. Which, when your enemy routs leaves them sitting in the back. Your commander then runs right up to the closest one and hides behind, only to be squashed seconds later.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Random side question, and I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question to ask on the forums, given that it pertains to the one MP game I'm playing.

As a complete MP noob with only a few SP games under my belt, I feel that I'm slightly disadvantaged compared to some of the other players around, so hopefully this justifies utilizing the wisdom of the Dom3 crowd. :)

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/7255/unknownsite.jpg <-- what the heck could this site be?

Given that the enemy pretender is camped there along with a massive entourage for a few turns already, and given that he has both Nature and Death, I'm assuming it's a bonus site for either magic school.

...Any suggestions? If people don't want to just hand me the answer, I would be more than willing to learn how I can edit map files in SP to insert all the different magic bonus sites onto a province and see what matches. Just point me in the right direction for that, too. :)

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

First of all, it's not clear what you mean by bonus sites in this context. There are sites that allow a mage of "X" magic type to summon "Y" unit type. Then there are sites that allow casting spells or forging for cheaper (percentage off the cost.) The latter type do not have a school of magic associated (except as far as discovery goes), e.g. if it's a nature site giving a 30% enchantment bonus, death spells will also cost 305 less. There's also sites that allow mage of x school to scry...

For the first type, it's not likely worth a pretender's time to sit and summon single unit, even for free. For the 2nd type, bonuses to allow cheaper casting of an important ritual or item forge, yah, definitely worth it to park the pretender there. No way is it worth it just for scrying.

That said, you're unlikely to be able to ascertain the exact site. You can tell it's an earth site from the icon, and you know the terrain is mountains or border mountain (you should be able to tell which from hovering over the icon in game, but it's the same icon so we can't tell from the screenshot.) From there, you could see what earth sites are allowed in mountains...but I think it's a longshot to assume it's a school bonus site just because a pretender sat there two or three turns in a row. Not sure if anyone's compiled a resource to be able to cross-reference those, though. Edi's database has columns for terrain types, but it's not yet filled in.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

I guess I wasn't clear, but by bonus site I meant "ritual/forge discount" site. Obviously just considering opportunity costs it most likely wouldn't be any other kind of site.

Most earth sites look like a different icon... slightly brighter and mistakable to look like a brown harp (for me, I blame my poor vision :P), whileas this one looks like... uhm, something else, so I assumed it was a more unique site. I'm not writing off the Death site either, but if it is a death bonus site I sure as hell won't be able to tell since that icon looks like the generic death magic site.

I'm assuming the sites are somewhat special since I know several nations in the game have pelted the province with a variety of things and the pretender who can stealth is instead sitting there not moving. We're on turn 57 (or 58?) on an easy-research game with most artifacts forged so I'm putting more money that it's a ritual discount site than anything else. Yarg I'm confusssssseeed.

PANGAEA STOP READING MY NOOB QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING!!!! (Ahem, j/k :))


PS - Oh, I vaguely remember a bug in earlier versions of Dom3 where if you overcast your discounted global, the bonus gems didn't apply until you exceeded the original cast cost. (Example - I cast GoH at a 20% discount site for 40N instead of 50N, but if I put 50N gems in it total I do not get the +10DRN bonus.) Is that still true or did they fix it?

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

It's probably a rare site, judging from the icon. My favorite E sites are a 30% Conj discount site, a 20% Conj discount site, and a Gnome recruitment site. Like Stavis, sys, have a look at Edi's DB. Or better yet, capture the province. :)

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

BTW Stavis, what I really intended on doing is basically go to the Dom3DB file, find the few discount sites there are, mod a map to be completely visible and populate them with all the different discount sites and just play a matchup game to see if any icons match, at which point I can assign certain probabilities to guessing what site that is.

I've been playing an exceptionally scout/skeptic-heavy game to more or less keep tabs on everything (they're cheap at 25-30gp and easily spammable... oh and the player in question is a blood pusher, so multiple birds with the same stone). I really enjoy watching the big battles by other players to learn nifty tactics from other players but I'm kinda cheap on my Astral Windows/Stone Spheres. Given all this extra intel I just enjoy trying to optimize what I can do with it. Yes, I enjoy figuring out the exact trajectory of how the 800-lb gorilla will charge at me a LOT more than figuring out how I should deal with it.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

I'm pretty sure that the icons map to the level of the path needed to find the site, ie all level 4 Earth sites use the same icon.

And as far as I know the globals cast at discount sites still behave that way.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Yeah, site image equals to path level (there are also useless level 4 sites I think).
However if you see the province filling with high level mages and summons appearing it's most likely a discount site.

Re: Newbie questions, sitesearching + lots more Qs
 

Ah, awesome, that's what I needed to know -- that the site icons map to a corresponding level. Browsing the Dom3db .xls file, I think the icon may correspond to a lvl3 site, which makes it possibly Conj+30. Iono.

Too bad about the globals and discounts, though I can see how that would get pretty overpowering if discounts were applied towards overcasting.