New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

Can someone do an after action report on a game of thiers and post it.

Make it explicit and with explanations on what you did,why you did it, and how.

This games looks like it might be kinda fun,but i seem to be lost in it.

Also is there a tutorial that i dont see ?
Im trying the demo by the way.Not the full game.

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A whole game? That would be a huge post. And then there would be a a hundred Posts analyzing it all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

There have been a couple on Dom 1 which would be helpful. We could dig those up. Until then I can do a couple turns which some might find helful.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK but these are just quick moves. Nothing that will stand up under heavy analyzing....

CREATE GOD because I cant play without one

ULM because they are fairly easy to play

TITAN because he doesnt die easily if I make mistake

named him Urkle because I thought Urkle of Ulm would be funny

then I clicked on CASTLE and chose the Fortfied City becasue it has a high admin which Ulm can use. The 80 creation points is alittle high for others though

then I clicked on DOMINION and turned ORDER up 3 notches (left clicked 3 items on ORDER). I turned PRODUCTION up 3, COLD down 1 (right click) just to get some points back and hopefully it wont bother Ulm too much. GROWTH up 1. LUCK up 1. Magic down 3 to get some points back and Ulm doesnt count on magic much. I added 1 to DOMINION power to help push those scale settings ahead of my army easier.

I EXIT that and go to MAGIC. I have him 1 magic point in FIRE and 1 in NATURE just so someone had them. His mages get fire and earth magic. Exit that area.

hit READY then choose CREATE GAME. I clicked on pythium, man, ULM, ctis, marignon, and pangaea. They all should have gone to "easy AI" except Ulm saying HUMAN. Fairly easy opponent choices. Then hit OK.

I chose "the Desert Eye" because it was biggest.

I named the game Ulm because I planned to have a game for each race and might want to remember which is which.

Now choose "PLAY EXISTING GAME", ULM, then Play Game.

Select ULM (turn nbr 1)

read the Messages and then EXIT

now you are looking at a game in progress. Click around. Check things out......

When you are ready, get back to your home province by hitting the "home" key on you keyboard.

In the box at the upper left I click on taxes and change it to 200 %. Thats going to make them mad but I need some money.

The top army unit on the left side of the screen I click on the "defend" and change it to patrol. That should take care of some of the anger.

The next unit down is a spy. Right-click it and you will see the brown robe emblem meaning he can sneak into provinces that you dont own. Left click him so he is lit up and move him to a neighboring province.

Urkle I click on the "defend" and change it to "research"

On the right side I click on MERCENARIES. If any are available then I try to make an offer to hire them.

Then I click on RECRUIT UNITS. I select another Spy, and as many crossbows as I can get since the units I already have are melee with no fire support. (unless the mercs you hired are shooters) then EXIT that.

Now I click on the End Turn at upper right of the screen.Then click on HOST, then on ULM (turn nbr 2)

OK, This time the neighboring provinces have given up some info. You can right-click on them and use the "Province Info" button to get a guess at whats there to meet you. Pick an easy target, hit "a" to select everyone, then left-click on the target province to make the movement arrow appear saying you did good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Probably you should buy more units. A Smith, and more crossbows since you will need to rebuild a patrolling unit later and crossbows are cheap.

Hit End Turn, then choose HOST, then Ulm (turn nbr 3). This time the Messages mention a combat which you get to watch.

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

I know the feeling!

It's been a while since I played Dominions 1, so I went in pretty fresh.

Anyway, try C'tis with an earth mother. Make her a spear before using her in combat. increases survivability a lot without stalling you. Remember to order her(at the "t" menu where you assign troops to commanders) to attack nearest or she'll spend the fight throwing rocks at the opponent.

As for mundane troops - Build mostly Elite warriors with some swamp guards to put in front to absorb damage(mostly from arrows. you have to set up a formation to get this to work right.)
When you find some neutral archers you should build some of them too. Order them to fire at enemy archers - the bane of your fragile swarms.

Magic - Your sauromancers are pretty good from day one casting terror, and if you go for Enchantment level 3 and raise dead they'll be a force to be reckoned with in battle. Evocation is useless for C'tis, Alteration and Blood magic nearly so. The others can be nice in some circumstances. Consider high magic scale if you want to use casters to their full potential. Neutral mages might change some of this slightly, but your national magic is the only one you can really rely on - you've got gems for it from the very start, you can easily search sites for it, and you can access it anywhere you want. When picking pretender magic, remember that his time is precious(unless he is a total wimp. In which case I wash my hands of it all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ) You really don't want him to run around site searching. If you take something your nation does not have then whatever you have planned should not depend on more gems than you can easily get through alchemy.

Oh, and don't forget to hire mercenaries. They're worth the cost when you're up against tough opposition. Remember to put them in front http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Disclaimer for style of play, having written this in light of the demo for the most part etc.

Oh, and have fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ October 28, 2003, 04:38: Message edited by: mr.white ]

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A whole game? That would be a huge post. And then there would be a a hundred Posts analyzing it all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

There have been a couple on Dom 1 which would be helpful. We could dig those up. Until then I can do a couple turns which some might find helful.

Quote:

Make it explicit and with explanations on what you did,why you did it, and how.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK but these are just quick moves. Nothing that will stand up under heavy analyzing....

CREATE GOD because I cant play without one

ULM because they are fairly easy to play

TITAN because he doesnt die easily if I make mistake

named him Urkle because I thought Urkle of Ulm would be funny

then I clicked on CASTLE and chose the Fortfied City becasue it has a high admin which Ulm can use. The 80 creation points is alittle high for others though

then I clicked on DOMINION and turned ORDER up 3 notches (left clicked 3 items on ORDER). I turned PRODUCTION up 3, COLD down 1 (right click) just to get some points back and hopefully it wont bother Ulm too much. GROWTH up 1. LUCK up 1. Magic down 3 to get some points back and Ulm doesnt count on magic much. I added 1 to DOMINION power to help push those scale settings ahead of my army easier.

I EXIT that and go to MAGIC. I have him 1 magic point in FIRE and 1 in NATURE just so someone had them. His mages get fire and earth magic. Exit that area.

hit READY then choose CREATE GAME. I clicked on pythium, man, ULM, ctis, marignon, and pangaea. They all should have gone to "easy AI" except Ulm saying HUMAN. Fairly easy opponent choices. Then hit OK.

I chose "the Desert Eye" because it was biggest.

I named the game Ulm because I planned to have a game for each race and might want to remember which is which.

Now choose "PLAY EXISTING GAME", ULM, then Play Game.

Select ULM (turn nbr 1)

read the Messages and then EXIT

now you are looking at a game in progress. Click around. Check things out......

When you are ready, get back to your home province by hitting the "home" key on you keyboard.

In the box at the upper left I click on taxes and change it to 200 %. Thats going to make them mad but I need some money.

The top army unit on the left side of the screen I click on the "defend" and change it to patrol. That should take care of some of the anger.

The next unit down is a spy. Right-click it and you will see the brown robe emblem meaning he can sneak into provinces that you dont own. Left click him so he is lit up and move him to a neighboring province.

Urkle I click on the "defend" and change it to "research"

On the right side I click on MERCENARIES. If any are available then I try to make an offer to hire them.

Then I click on RECRUIT UNITS. I select another Spy, and as many crossbows as I can get since the units I already have are melee with no fire support. (unless the mercs you hired are shooters) then EXIT that.

Now I click on the End Turn at upper right of the screen.Then click on HOST, then on ULM (turn nbr 2)

OK, This time the neighboring provinces have given up some info. You can right-click on them and use the "Province Info" button to get a guess at whats there to meet you. Pick an easy target, hit "a" to select everyone, then left-click on the target province to make the movement arrow appear saying you did good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Probably you should buy more units. A Smith, and more crossbows since you will need to rebuild a patrolling unit later and crossbows are cheap.

Hit End Turn, then choose HOST, then Ulm (turn nbr 3). This time the Messages mention a combat which you get to watch. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Boy, it would have saved me a lot of work if I had noticed you wrote this before typing it all out myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it was a little easier to understand the way it was done in Dom 1.

The "power" felt in the world by the strength of your new god and his followers is the dominion. If you were a god of death then thw power of your dominion spreading before you might push the scales in that area toward death, chaos, bad luck. If you were a god of nature maybe it would push the scales in a province toward growth and magic. An Abyssia god might take high heat and use his dominion to push a rise in temperature so that enemy troops would fight at a minus. Caelum might push cold.

Also, since dominion afects the stats of your god and prophet, you can use it to kill a god trapped in his castle by bringing in lots of priests to push his dominion completely out. This can make some really powerful gods very weak before you finally charge in.

Is that the kindof explanation you wanted or did you want the formulas and effects? (like what does growth +3 do vs growth -3)

Quote:

Also,how do i raise those huge armies of undead my foes always seem to have ?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you mean Ermor then the only way is to be Ermor. Thats his advantage. A mage with death can summon undead every turn at a lab but it wont ever match the automatic generation of undead troops that Ermor gets. While learning the game Ermor is one of the AI's I would leave out.

Quote:

Oh and some explanation on tax settings and their effects, as well as how to counter them would be nice also http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Im not the best bet for that. One of the formula folks can help. All I would say is that taxing makes a province mad and can make people leave (lower the population) unless you patrol heavily. By the way, once the unrest gets to 100 you cant recruit units there so thats a magic number to avoid. Especially in your home province.

[ October 28, 2003, 16:36: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You don't. You get some elite units on 'guard commander' and then about 10 priests. The elites protect the priests while the priests banish the undead.

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

Okay, how about giving me an example of an army you would field and the orders the units are under in it ?

Also is there anyway to actaully control the units during the battle ?It all seems to happen automactically during a kinda "turn resolution" process.

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There is no control of units once TC has started. You can script them for certain actions though, and that is what you'll need to do to maximize their efficiency.

Without knowing what exactly you are using as a nation I'd recomend that you take your archers and locate them behind some infantry. Give the archers the fire at closest, or fire at enemy archers, give the infantry the hold and attack command. Depending on how well you figure your commanders will survive you can stick them waaaay in teh back so they won't get attacked, or stick them with the infantry and let them deal some death to the enemy.

If you have mages then you can use their specific spells by scripting it. I won't go into that as I don't have enough experience with Dom2 (or 1 for that matter) to really give good advice.

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok here are some general advices.

1) Place heavy infantry to the center right of the field (closest to enemy) and give them attack closest order. They are your front line and they have to engage and hold enemy units.

2) Place cavalry at either top or bottom (or both) right side of battlefield (they will be at the flanks of your heavy infantry) and order them to attack rearmost units. They will try to outflank the enemy and strike at their archers or commanders.

3) Place archers behind those front troops and order the to fire NONE. That will allow hem to choose their target for themselves. This is important if your opponent is fielding units with high protection. If you order them to fire at closest enemy, that enemy can be heavy cavalry and their arrows will be completely ineffective against them. They will often choose targets they can damage and sometimes they even target commanders.

This is just basic design and there are, as you will surely discover, more effective ways for dealing with various opponents. A big fun in the game is discovering new tactics and seeing their effects on battlefield.

Hope this helps.

Re: New, trying to get into game-but i am failing
 

Arrgghhhh, im getting slaughtered by armies 1/2 my size !

Thats when im lucky enough to not be outnumbered.

How do i place units in specific formation locations on the field,this must be my problem.

The AI is on easy also,so there must be something i am doing horribly wrong.