Various Questions
 

1) I can give a commander with nature magic (like an Imperial Alchemist) nature boosters so that he is no longer suffering from old age (since each level of nature magic pushes back the onset of old age). Can I use this in conjunction with healing to cure afflictions that would otherwise be incurable (barring Gift of Health or The Chalice)?


2) While playing a game of MA Ermor I set an Ermorian Cultist (H1 caster) to reanimate Soulless and a Grand Thaumaturge (H3 caster) to reanimate Longdead Horsemen in a province with no corpses. Next turn I had a collection of Longdead Horsemen and no Soulless. Do Soulless require corpses to raise or is there some kind of check that an H3 caster has a higher chance of succeeding at than an H1 caster?


3) What does the Reincarnation ability of the Kailasa Gurus and Yogis actually do?


Dominions 3 is a great game that I have been exploring for about a month now but there are lots of little nuances (in addition to big ones) that I have yet to figure out.

Re: Various Questions
 

1) That's an interesting question. I've never been quite sure what the game uses to distinguish between old age and regular afflictions. It may just be old age on the unit. If so, that should work. It would also imply that old characters can't be healed of even regular battle wounds.

2) Soulless require corpses. Ghouls use population.

3) In theory, some dead ones come back. I haven't played the monkey nations enough to see how effective it really is.

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with reincarnation, it is almost entirely flavor. they come back only very rarely. I think of the times that I've played them, I've only ever seen something get reincarnated once, and they came back as a Guru or something.

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3. Sometimes they turn into a temple check upon death also - 1 point of domspread for 1 turn effectively.

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It is my belief that old age units don't heal afflictions.

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1) No, I think the game tracks whether afflictions come from old age or not.

Re: Various Questions
 

Thanks for the replies so far. That said, I have another question:

Though I can't recall where, I remember reading that the morning star or the mace that some infantry wield ignores shields. Is this true?

Furthermore, are there other hidden bonuses to the various types of weapons the rank-and-file of the various nations use? Really, if its something about the weapon (or armor or shield or whatever) that isn't in the manual and isn't visible when you click on the weapon in the game, then that's what I'm curious about.

Re: Various Questions
 

Morningstars and flails get a +2 to attack when the defender has a shield. I think that's about it for those weapons.

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Yep. The #flail tag is just +2 vs shields. Very few weapons actually have it.

Re: Various Questions
 

Can afflictions caused by unremovable items (Eye of Aiming -> Lost an Eye, The Heart of Life -> Chest Wound, etc.) be healed with a healer, recuperation, Gift of Health or The Chalice? Can the chance of them occurring be mitigated by giving the commander regeneration ahead of time?


Furthermore, can the starting afflictions on pretenders (for example the Forge Lord's limp or the Allfather's missing eye) be healed?


Finally, does regeneration do anything to heal existing afflictions or is it solely preventative?

Re: Various Questions
 

The only way I know would be to remove the cursed item first (by changing unit type with a shapechange ability or the transformation spell to a form without the cursed item slot, or by dieing (immortal unit, recalled god, ritual of rebirth ...)), as long as the item is equipped you cannot remove the affliction

Getting thos affliction when equipping the item is automatic, regeneration has no effect here.

I'm almost sure that they can be healed.


Regeneration will only lessen the chance to get an affliction when damaged.

To remove afflictions on a unit you can use any of the following methods:

- using a healer
- casting gift of health
- Chalice in same province
- units with recuperation
- immortal units heal afflictions with time too (I think that it works less often that with recuperation)
- changing unit ID (transformation, forced shapechange (not with the shapechange command, but with werejaguars transformation for exemple), transformation in wight or mummy with the appropriate rituals, ...
- unit being ressurected (immortal unit killed in dominion, god recalled after death, etc ...)

Undead cannot be healed by healers units, but gift of health and the Chalice works on then (say hello to the Tartarian factory ;))

Re: Various Questions
 

Two distinct, but related questions:

1) Is higher taxes + growth + patrolling worth it vs just growth?

For example, I'm playing as MA T'ien Ch'i and their Eunuch gets a +15 patrol bonus plus their two guardsmen (imperial and ministry) have patrol bonuses of +2 and +1 respectively. This makes it pretty cheap and easy to get a patrolling force of 6 that equals 31. So, my capitol produces roughly an extra 100 gold/turn when cranked to 120% tax rate and the patrolling die-off SEEMS to be roughly equal to the population growth. My question is, is it worth it? In theory my population would keep growing if I weren't squeezing it and eventually I would get that extra 100 gold/turn without the cost and micro of maintaining a goon squad to follow the tax collector. What tax rates can the various levels of Growth support?


2) What tax rates worth of unrest can X patrollers handle?

It seems to me that the success of your patrollers on a turn-by-turn basis is random, but assuming average rolls, how much unrest can a force of 10 patrollers handle? It's nice having the extra chance of catching enemy scouts, so I may be tempted to patrol anyway, but I'm curious how much tax-related unrest I can throw at these guys while they are busy de-stealthing...


Area of Effect mentions in his LA Man guide that a force of 21 patrollers (a single Judge) can manage the unrest from a tax rate of 120%. He also implies that you can break even on population with Growth-3 and 120% taxes. Has this changed? Has anyone verified this?

Re: Various Questions
 

In the long run it's not worth it. At least in the simple analysis. You will get more gold from one province over the course of a game by not overtaxing it. On the other hand, if you overtax, you get more gold now, which you can use to buy troops to take/hold more provinces and make more gold that way.
That's the trade off and that's always situational.

What you have for growth/death is mostly irrelevant. You may be able to keep your population up while taxing with Growth, but you're paying 120 design points and not getting the actual growth.

Re: Various Questions
 

I Agree with thejeff. Both options can be used, regarding of your strategy.
If you are are not relying on sacreds unints, going to mass usual chaff, and beat all with magic in midgame, it is good to have good scales, and it's a big question - to tax or not to tax. If you use blessed units heavily, and going to have very agressive start/midgame, you even can take most of your scales deeply negative to get better bless, win 2 first wars easeir, your ecoomy still can be better, because of more provinces.

Re: Various Questions
 

Actually, during initial expansion, immidiately before war and during war, I believe that it's better to overtax then undertax without thinking, if, of course you use patrullers which can't be effectively used in fighting. Because it's better to have 5% less pop in provinces, but still have these provinces unnder your rulership :)

Re: Various Questions
 

It is common (and good play) to overtax the first couple of turns to get necessary commanders, troops etc. A good start more than pays of usually vs. slightly more money over the life of the game.

Re: Various Questions
 

It is also better to use free or efficient patrolers. Using expensive patrolers really doesn't make sense. Mictlan can use slaves, and anyone with a little blood and nature can use cross breeds, especially the wimpy ones. You can also use these to pillage provinces you arne't likely to hold near enemy lines. If you have a bunch of commanders you can just set them to flee. I don't know if animals are good at pillaging or not (Horde of Animals).

So, can you use a horde of animals to pillage?

Another thing to keep in mind is that while you're thinking compounding interest, your opponent sees your growth scales and is thinking plague.

Re: Various Questions
 

How exactly course of stones works? What mathematics is behind it?
How does it look like (result, not graphics)?

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Curse of stones?

Cast it 3 or 4 times against big armies, using pen boosters if you can make them. Watch the other side gradually fall over due to fatigue.

Re: Various Questions
 

It works on whole battlefield, so affects all troops, including mine. The question was how much of fatigue it adds, to understand if it would be effective to cast this spell, having E8-blessed sacreds, who would recover fatigue and wait till all non-E blessed units will die. Sacreds usually have quite a lot of armor, so it's interesting if reinvig 4 will overweight enough the effect of this spell on own troops, and how it will affect others.

Re: Various Questions
 

Curse of Stones does not affect your own troops.

Re: Various Questions
 

If I put a Lychantropos' Amulet on an undead like a Black Servant, would it eventually turn into a skinshifter or would being undead negate that effect?

I'm playing an MA Ulm game and looking at the best way to thug (among other things) Black Servants and the Lycan Amulet is objectively better for a non-caster thug than a ring of regen (cheaper, same effect, +berserk on a no encumbrance unit).


Also, if you have a scout hiding in a province when a commander of yours (with gear) dies in combat, would your scout pick up the gear or would the enemy commanders get at it instead?

Re: Various Questions
 

Undead can turn into skinshifters as easily as anything else.

Hiding scouts will not find gear. It's claimed by commanders on the battlefield or lost.

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I always equip bane lord thugs with lyc amulet since dom2 and they never turned into skinshifters.

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Thanks, as always, for the prompt replies.

Moving on, does luck have a chance of preventing AoE damage like that from a Fire Brand or a fireball? The text for luck indicates it can prevent spell damage but I'm not sure if it only affects single target spells (like lightning bolt).

Re: Various Questions
 

How is upkeep calculated ? How much percentage of the original gold cost is the monthly upkeep ?

How do hydras work ? sauromantia greater hydra has only 6 hp. I guess if they get killed, the spawn a new form with one less head and again 6 hp until all heads are depleted ?

Re: Various Questions
 

Curse of Stone applies an effect on all units that fail the resistance check that's visible on the unit screen like any other special attribute - it doesn't give an apparent increase in encumbrance or anything like that.

Units who suffer from the effect gain a massively increased amount of fatigue from their actions - the exact amount is random, but a cavalry unit might take 40-50 fatigue before reaching your lines and an elephant can go unconscious during a single turn of trampling. Units already in melee don't seem to be too severly affected.

Elephants is probably the unit that the spell's the most effective against, them being especially susceptible to MR targeting attacks.

As a definite answer: yes, they can be healed as easily as any other affliction.

Every 15gold worth of units in your army equates to an increased upkeep of 1 gold. Sacred units, however, have an upkeep of 1gold/30cost - half that of other units. The upkeep of commanders and common troops follow the same rules. Some summons have hidden upkeep costs, there's no way to see them in-game excepts through experimentation.

Entirely correct, each form has one head less than the prior and the final form (with its single great head attack) has 40 hp and a protection 13, unlike the lesser forms. The Hydra returns with a full complement of heads after the battle.

Luck has a 50% chance to prevent nearly everything - regular damage is something it always protects against. Its limits are found at "mind duel" and some more esoteric weapons - it still protects against spells like soul slay.

Re: Various Questions
 

"it still protects against spells like soul slay."

Pretty sure that's false.

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Soul slay is treated as a 999 damage MR negates so I think it actually does work.

Re: Various Questions
 

that's nice.