EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

...and all the mythical creatures like Trolls etc.? Am I playing the wrong Age for these to appear as Independents? Are they Independents? I'm about 20 turns into a game and have taken some 30+ provinces (huge 1000+ province map)...I've only come across Humanoid creatures. Still having great fun in the play, but I'd love to get some more mix in there.

Also: What is the best way to take down Elephants? Right now I'm resorting to using mostly counter-Elephants but I'm thinking there "must be a better way".

Thanks for the responses!

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Mythical creatures, that aren't part of a nation of their own, are usually found as summons, not independents. Sometimes as events.

There are a handful of non-human independents, Lizardmen and monkeys are probably the most common. And of course the various aquatics.

Trolls can be summoned. I think there's a troll attack event as well. There are gnomes, but they're only recruitable from a magic site.

The easiest way to take down Elephants is magic. They've got low mr, so single target mr-negates spells work well on them. Soul slay/Paralyze/Rage, plenty of others depending on what paths and research you've got available.

The most elegant way is fear, if you can pull it off. They've got decent morale, but if you can hit them with enough fear causing spells, they'll rout and trample anyone behind them.

Counter-elephant aren't all that good, since without trample they don't do a lot of damage. If you've got a size 6 pretender or access to other size 6 creatures, the elephants won't stand much chance. Hydras eat elephants for breakfast, for example.

Otherwise, use lots of low resource high damage troops. Defense helps more than armor against trampling, so don't bother with heavies. Even barbarians work fairly well in quantity. Remember elephants cost 100 gold, so if you lose ten 10 gold troops for each elephant you're coming out even. Aim to have twice that many and see how it goes. Spells that stop them for a turn will help: Earth Grip, Tangle Vines, Bonds of Fire are all available very early.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

There are gnomes! There is a magic site that allows you to recruit them. Here is what they look like:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Gnome

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Though sea trolls are not uncommon if you are taking water provinces, and the occasional sea serpent or kraken also shows up.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Though the sea trolls and kraken aren't recruitable from those provinces, which I always regret.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Hey thanks gents for letting me know the finer points. Ok so my instinct about how to combat the elephants was pretty good (casting Earth Meld for now) and throwing masses of cheap troops at them in a 2nd wave (Hold and Attack). And the Counter-Elephants. I'm about to try this. I was hoping that "Spear Equipped" heavies might have been helpful though.

And as for the Gnomes....I'll find those little wankers on some casting set for a Travelocity Commercial before I find them on this map :-)

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Yeah, and even Kraken Pits don't show up any more often. Oh well.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

There is a troll pop type, so you might get recruitable trolls (but afaik that poptype has to be assigned by the map), there is also a troll site.

I once had the troll site in a troll province, so i was able to choose between 2 versions of the same troll.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Is there a mod out there where Indy's are creatures like from your standard Middle Earth scenario?

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Elephants suck on MR. Soul slay is a classic way to take care of pachyderms. So are size 6 critters they can't trample.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

By which we mean about three whole crushers who hold off the elephant army while a few mages blast them from the back lines. Or, if you are too cheap for that, a whole bunch of slingers or archers blast them from the back lines. Soul slay is a great spell, if you have Panic you are even better off, elephant retreats are hilarious.

Of course, there are ways around any of this. The crusher strategy stops working once your opponent starts bringing in the mages and giving the elephants flight en mass, anyone able to cast soul slay is able to be on the receiving end of magic duel, slingers or archers are rendered largely irrelevant by stone skin, iron skin, whatever, and Panic can be held off by a priest spamming Sermon of Courage, assuming you don't have someone there capable of using Fanaticism instead.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

There are several troll poptypes, but only one of them can appear randomly (the one with no spellcasting commanders). Even that one appears so rarely that you need to play dozens of games on faiurly large maps to ever see it.

Counting all my games from DomPPP to Dom3, I've seen that poptype only four or five times.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

I don't think spamming Sermon of Courage actually works. It does give them a +2 morale, which certainly helps, but it's a one-time bonus. Panic, or other fear effects can just keep driving morale down.
Standards do counter fear nicely. They keep pushing morale back up every round. You do have to keep them close though.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

You can use map editing to add whatever defenders you like (that are in the game.) This includes gnomes, dwarfs, lizardmen, trolls, goblins (bakemono and vaetti), elves (Sidhe and Tuatha), etc.

You can't mod the poptypes though (only choose from the available list), so once you defeat the defenders (say, a pack of gnomes) so if there's no matching poptype then you'd still be left recruiting e.g. standard light infantry.

The non-human poptypes (from Edi's db) are:

Tritons (various options)
Raptors
Lizards
Hoburg (various options)
Shamblers
Vaettir (optionally + Trolls, Dwarven Smiths, or Svartalfs)
Ichtyids
Asmeg
Mermen
Atavi (ape-men)
Pale Ones (Agarthans)
Cavemen
Kappa
Bakemono
Ko-Oni

Also using Map editing commands, you can add certain magic sites that allow recruitment of additional non-humans. Check out the magic sites tab of Edi's DB.

The SemiRand project is an attempt (in part) to create provinces where the recruitables (via either setting the poptype or the magic sites) match the defenders. In addition, some of the custom "Scenario" style maps out there do this too.

Check out the utilities in Ballbarian's .sig if you're interested.

Re: EA Game: Where are the Gnomes?
 

Great info all. Thanks much for the help.