Attacking provinces by proxy
 

Is there any way to 'encourage' indipendents (barbarians, troglodytes or even Bogus and his henchmen) to attack an enemy province?

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

There are a couple of remote attack spells like ghost riders where they aren't under your control, but they disappear after the attack even if they win leaving an empty province. You can't make those random attack events happen.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

Not in the conventional way. What you can do(although I don't recommend, it its acually quite a bad idea unless you have loads of fortune tellers) but for the sake of the question you ask is to have misfortune 3 and spread your dominion over his lands. Only negative scales work from enemy dominion so he will feel it if you spread your dominion over his lands and will get those evenents still its not like you are enforcing it. Also there are some spells that increase misfortune in the targeted province which might eventually lead to an attack, but I generally feel they are waste of mage time and gems.

But yea you are better off with what Admira_Aorta said. Just send horrors or use remote attack spells.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

In a scenario game where the AI or the Independents have an AI like a computer player would get, then they can be given a "goal" on the map they will work toward. Its not done very often. Its a lot of work to setup so it tends to only be done on big multiplayer games

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

If you want plausible deniability then there is always "send dream horror" spell. It can actually happen as a bad event in provinces with high magic scales. Though not every player knows of that so they will probably suspect you anyhow.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

There are a few more remote spells that could also happen as a bad event. Problem is of course, that as soon as you start spamming those your plausible deniability goes away.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

I thought that it doesn't work this way.

To make what you describe happen I'm pretty sure you take Luck-3 and spread your dominion into their lands and they experience it as Misfortune-3.

Thematically because what is misfortune for them is lucky for you.

Doing a search I found this.

However Baalz in the thread says that spreading your Luck-3 into their lands doesn't give them the worst events of Misfortune-3, and to do that you need to take Misfortune-3 scales as you suggest to give them the worst events, this I didn't know.

So if Baalz is correct you can influence bad events in enemy lands in either of the two ways, but only inflict the real bad events by taking Misfortune-3 and risking those same bad events yourself, or take Luck-3 and inflict the worst events that Luck-3 gives. Perhaps you might take Misfortune-2 and spread that? Or as somebody in the thread suggests and use fortune tellers to protect yourself.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

I wasnt suggesting it for real, since I didn't know why did he need to send barbarians.Also I never said it would be optimal, I just said that you might be able to pull something like that if you have loads of fortune tellers-hence no frear from misortune scale. Regarding Misfortune/Luck I was pretty sure negative scales work while positive don't, thats why Luck 3 in enemies' lands (with your dominion) counts as luck/misfortune 0. hence some of the bad events. The only scale that works I think is the growth from the growth scale.

But to be 100% sure I have to make some tests and I cba atm.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

I think in enemy lands both luck and misf count as misf. But, do indies count as enemies or friendly lands for unlucky events? Nobody knows (at least I don't).

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

there are ways of increasing the misfortune scales in an enemy province. Rain of toads, baleful star (I think?) and of course, Bogarus's Lilkho.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

Actually I figured a way to test it. Get 1 nation with really high dominion and Luck. Then another nation with low dominions and death. if luck in enemies lands counts as misf 3 then there should be some plagues on time to time. If it counts as misfortune/luck 0 then there should be no plagues(ofc if no mifortune sites exist.) I will test that later on and tell you the results. (let me know if the test doesn't seem right)

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

Do you have an example map you could post/attach where the Independents have been given a "goal"? Because I would be interested in seeing how that is done with the current mod commands, as I see nothing in either manual (mapedit or modding) in relation to this type of modding for the AI behaviour, so seeing a template for this would be very useful in knowing how it's done. (although apologies in advance if the info is in the manual and I have just missed it)

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

If I remember right from other threads where he's mentioned that, it's not actually giving the independents a goal, it's done by creating an AI nation with the independents flag, so that what look like normal independents can attack unexpectedly. Obviously you'd want to give them similar troops to indie pop types or it would be obvious immediately.

Re: Attacking provinces by proxy
 

I dont think its actually in the manual. Its more in the threads which talk about boosting the AI by figuring out what the AI does and why, then building with it. In all of Illwinters games, the AI has a tendency to want to "connect the dots". The AI operates in the same fog of war as the players. But if the AI "sees" a location far across the map it tends to want to connect to it. Especially if it owns that location. So you can give the AI a "goal" or target direction with that.

Its been used at least twice that I know of. The first was the Heaven/Hell scenario (Rock and a Hard Place?) with two of Amos nations. The Heavenly Host one and the Infernal Damned one. The write up was something like "a god has declared himself, and a mighty enemy has declared against that god. We are caught in the middle. Pagans, Pantheons, and Heretics must unite for survival (we can fight it out after we win this one)". Anyway the heavenly host was spread across the top of the map and the infernals across the bottom. Both were given super defended little spots in the other territory with no expansion abilities (like a gold site but no recruitable population). It was apparent that they drove straight toward each other. The players were all in the middle of the map to either fight each other or unite against the hordes of armageddon.

The other was the Newb&Vet games. This is the AI portion of one of them.
http://www.dom3minions.com/~gandalf/NewbsandVets_lvl6_boosted_AI.txt
And here is the map
http://www.dom3minions.com/~gandalf/NaVIIIMap3a.JPG
The player teams were in the corners 1 veteran and 2 newb players behind him.
The AIs had the black dots with secondary locations of black circles. In the earlier game each AIs secondary was next to it. In this one each AIs secondary site was behind its ally to the left. So early in the game the AIs created a diamond of ownership on the map cutting off access to the prize in the middle, and giving the players time to consolidate their areas abit.

Unfortunately none of the scenarios are available as full downloads. The Dom2 scenario commands worked but the Dom3 ones are broken. So the only way a scenario can properly be played is on a server, not solo. :( Too bad. Its fun to create a thematic AI by hand selecting all the variables.

But the scenario commands for the new Illwinter game Conquest of Elysium 3 work well. Besides just new AIs you can program world events, quests, campaigns, and timed events into the map. Id like to see some of it get back-ported some day.