Basic Strategy Questions
 

I'm new to Dominions II. I'm having trouble finding information between "Patrol: By giving a leader this command he will patrol the province he/she is located in and..." and "I set my PD to 10 and because I have rock solid Nads with blessing and Volgrave armor I usually mass my VD's with VH's and use summonned Slags as a meatsheiled..." ?????

Neither one of those is very helpful for me. Here are my basic strategy questions. (I realized that there are countless strategies and hence countless ways to approach these issues, but I'm looking for some basic guidance.)

1) Basic magic strategy:
I feel compelled to have a rainbow mage regardless of which race I am playing. This lets me find every type of gem and forge nearly every item.

2) Searching for Magic sites
I usually send out a mage with about magic areas (fire, earth, death for example). But of course he/she can't find everything. I want to find them all so I'm tempted to send out my pretender searching after about turn 15 or so. Later if I have a good astral gem income I'll use that reveal all astral spell.

3) How do you do this without a rainbow pretender? If you have no water mages you can't find water sites so you can't empower a mage with water gems to find water sites. Do people just not bother looking for gems that aren't primary to their magic?

4) Castle strategies. Because of administration I am loathed to put two castles closer than two territories from each other. What's some wiser thinking on castle placement.

5) How many gems do you put in the hands of mages as you send them into battle? I don't have a good feel for this. I tend to want to pile up gems for empowerment and magic items but I realize that a mage without gems can't do much. On the other hand I have most of my mages doing research anyway rather than out there fighting -- at least in the early game.

Thanks in advance!


Ice

Re: Basic Strategy Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good. Thats not a problem. The long-time players will tell you that finding the nation/theme/pretender combos that fit your playing style will give you much better results than trying to force yourself to play someone elses "killer strategy"

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">All extremes can be dangerous to pursue. I also want to find every site but trying too hard in that area becomes damaging to your empire. A mage with 1 in a magic isnt worth moving around. Maybe if he has 1 in many many magics. 2 finds many sites, 3 is better, 4 might not be worth pushing for. So I try to get mages with 2 or 3 in multiple magics, maybe some 1's added into it. Also dont forget that priests can find sites also. Its a good idea to send a 2 or 3 str priest along with your searchers.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Again, dont try too hard to get everything. I do it like this.... If I have mages for it, then I will search for sites. If I get lots of sites for certain gems, then I increase my mages in it.

Some sites do overlap. I might start out with mostly nature magic. Thru luck of the rolls, I might find alot of water-gem sites (you can find some with nature magic). So I boost a couple mages a point or two in water, make some water items to boost them farther. They look and find yet MORE magic sites. And maybe one for water mages. OK I can take a hint.

disclaimer: I tend to play loosely and take advantage of what the game throws me. Some others use strategys all-thought-out before the game so would consider my method very unplayable

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The checker-board perfect placement of castles is a strategy of the "formula fiends". Im more of a "random rogue". I look for choke-points that I can make use of a castle in. Such as a long province with lots of resource and population that is between really strong independent provinces or water.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As a general rule I like to give them 1 gem for each magic. If they have 3 in nature then I give them at least 3 gems. More if I have plenty. Dont give them too much though, they are greedy gluttonous pigs. If you dont have flying commanders who can do fast deliveries then consider sending scouts along who can stay hidden during combats holding the gems and blood slaves that the mages will need later.

Re: Basic Strategy Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have no idea what you're talking about. I can only assume that this gobbledygook is intended to represent technobabble that you don't understand.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Clearly, you've outlined the merits of having a rainbow mage. Are you similarly aware of the drawbacks? Do you feel that the pros outweigh the cons? Do you LIKE this style? Does it work for you? If so, then keep doing it. If not, then reconsider. This is a valid and accepted playing style, although not necessarily well-suited for all nations and players.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is certainly a workable approach, but be mindful of the opportunity cost of sending your pretender out on the move, and thus losing all his research. You could try forcibly hauling him around with Wind Ride, thus not having to interrupt him with motion. (Disclaimer: This suggestion was whimsical and is not to be taken seriously, although you're welcome to try it)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is an approach that is used by many. Alternatively, you can use spells like Tiamat, to find all elemental sites undersea, or Acash if you can afford it and feel the game's site frequency in conjunction with the terrain will yield paydirt.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Checkerboard placement is certainly a valid way to place castles. There's also the "Mad Castler" placement, that I happen to be fond of, where I just put cheap, low-admin watchtowers in every single freaking province, making any attempt at invasion a serious pain in the ***.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">None. In fact, I rarely employ mages in battle except if I have a very specific purpose, as the spellcasting AI is, in my view, incredibly stupid. It's better than that of many other games....but it's still very stupid (read: does not make the same decisions I would have, where my decision wins the battle easily, and theirs loses).

Thus, I do not entrust my mages with gems unless they have been very specifically instructed on what to do with them. Plus I am loathe to give up the research they provide when firmly parked in front of a lab researching. Thus I only bring them out with a purpose in mind....and give them the gems only to accomplish that purpose.

Re: Basic Strategy Questions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, but do you need to be able to find everything and forge anyhting? Remember that you can only search 1 province every 2nd turn that way and forge one unit or cast one spell. Having a damned lot of options isn't of much use when you can only choose one. I'm not saying it's bad, just saying that if you instead bought a solid magic base in one or 2 well-chosen paths and put the rest of the points in scales, esp. order, magic, production, and a good cheap castle, you could buy a lot more troops to take territory lot faster and to build more mages to search that territory faster so your options would be more limited but you would be able to do more of those few limited ones.

Also, sitesearching by spells, (***spex, augury gnome lore, (thaumaturgy 2) Dark knowlege, voice of apsu (conjuration 2 and 3) and arcane probing (evo 2) ) is generally better than by moving mages around because you can search sites faster with less mage-time, and without having to move your mages to all kinds of vulnerable places out of your castle. They also find the hardest-to-find sites you really wouldn't want to miss. Also, this leaves your pretender free to do what he is supposed to, being either burrowing his nose in the books like a real sissy or putting some fear of god to all those pesky pagans, depending on what you prefer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I have no water mages, I dont really need water gems or do I? Instead of figuring out how to get gems that are useless to me, I could be getting gems that ARE useful to me, preferably from the closest neighbour.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Build as many as you need, except in long-Lasting multiplayer games build them everywhere, or face some painful raiding. After research reachs higher levels, basic troops lose most of their usefulness as some high-level spells and summons take them out without much effort. So, in the end high resources dont matter all that much, what matters is how many mages/commanders you can field.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I never give mages gems "just for the heck of it", when I do give them some I script them to cast some special spell and give them as many gems as they need and no more. Scouts, preferably flying ones can haul them extra gems for the next battle.

Also, you menion empowerment one time too many: in 99 cases of a 100 it's better to do something else with your gems as empowering is hideously expensive. If you gotta boost magic levels, items are usually better in it.
http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/magiboost.xls
is a very good file listing all the magic-boosting items with their building requirements.