Cradle of Dominon (and my obsession) with Ermor...

[Darkhon]

I have to admit not being a very good Dominions 3 player.

I've tried almost every nation. I want a nice sweeping epic game so I typically use medium maps, but if I really want a good challenge I pick up good old Jason Lutes map "Cradle of Dominion".

This map is so well balanced and strategic in nature, that for some reason every time I play on this game I find myself liking it more and more.

Here is how most of the games go:

1. I tweak my units and armies making sure to move the army around so they are not all piled on top of each other (why that is the default I have no idea), get a couple awesome mages to do research and hunt for magic sites. etc.

I generally leave casters on "Spells" instead of specific spell scripts because we are always doing research and who knows if I am going to get a new spell that maybe was more appropriate or if the abysians come maybe "Fireball" wouldn't have been the best or whatever, so I leave it up to the AI.

Probably not the wisest idea, because technically I can guess most of the time who will be coming for me and I can customize before battles. I always hear "Double bless....double bless" when I read strategy guides, I guess that means cumalative bless spell is like the "I win" button with some units but I generally leave it up to the caster (delagation).

This is very true also because as you play Lutes map 199 provinces probably doesn't sound like much to you MP players, and stuff, but it's BIG and you end up with lots and lots of wizards and priests. too many to tweak.

Early wars are fun.

A few key provinces in dispute, at some point I get a foothold in their territory and push to slay their god, yay!!!!

At some point, I will end up controlling about 50% of the map and there will usually be some other dominant force on the map and I will go "Oh shi..."

By this time, I've stop tweaking new troops or worry about which troop line to put them on. I just put everything of a particular type on one line and hope for the best. (Too much to micromanage). If I think of it, I'll tell archers to "Fire" and wizards to cast and I'll even spread them out a little on the map. I always leave them in the center because I am hesitant to have them start right at the top of the map.


I always wish there was a "Preferences" mod or something that lets me store some default behaviors and it automatically sets "Fire" on certain units I selected or "Spells" on certain heroes I am going to build. After all, these units are all known, it could be a simple cfg I think. (There probably is)

I can't figure out the hotkey to re-cast spells or make magic items. I saw a "Tip" that said "M" was but every variation of M I enter brings up the messages. Any ideas there?


I bring up this map especially because of Ermor. Whenever I really want an ego boost I pick "Ermor". LA Ermor is so easy on this map. I make some kind of God who has maxed -3 in almost everything besides luck and magic. I usually pick a lich queen because she is immortal and it seems to me some of the choices don't make a lot of sense for an entirely dead nation of undeads to have a living god, but whatever.

I guess I kind of "roleplay" her in the sense that I don't do tactically what is the smartest thing as Ermor. Instead we lumber along like this mighty sleepy juggernaught, crushing everything under the weight of an onslaught of undead.

In short order I have a gaggle of Dusk elders and arch bishops cranking out Bane Lords who have obscenely sized armies.

I spend most of my time moving "Bane Kings" with 80 units to my front lines in waves of 4-5.

Instead of getting discouraged at 50% of the map conquererd, I look at the stats and go "Ah...okay, I've won this one..." as I see my army so high it couldn't possibly be rivaled.

So I started looking at mods to satisfy my "Dark Lord" tooth. There was some neat looking ones, sanguinarians and blood elves but they lacked the mmpph of Ermor.

So I decided "You know the only way to really play this game? Is to to play it against the AI Ermor....AS Ermor!" (since I doubt I could face LA Ermor with my average skills, they just too numerous and the map is just too brilliant, by the time I conquered their front lines the provinces I got would all be empty of life and I'd have no money to sustain my growing empire)


So here is what I ask of you mod community:

Can you make (any of the following):

A) A mod that simply renames the LA Ermor to "Armor" and places a playable copy of Ermor so I can go to Head to Head?

B) A new map in the style of Jason Lutes...I LOVE this map, I REALLY LOVE IT, but I at times wish for another map similar yet not quite the same.

C) A mod/map/scenario or whatever call it "End Times". In this mod put 4-8 "Dark Lord" races on the edges of the map and in the center the happless independent nations who thought they were safe.

Include LA Ermor, but each playable nation should have the same mechanic that they have no recruitable troops at their capital and just "automaticaly" recruit low level troops (either enslaved thralls, summon homonunicli, mutated chaos warriors etc) there are plenty of reasons for legions to show up besides just undead.

What appeals to me about LA Ermor and what would appeal to me about these races is two things;

1- I like to have a totally evil race to just left off some steam with.

2- Even if I forget to recruit troops in a provine, they just slowly showup there

Then let's clash!


Also, if you know the answer to some of my questions above (How to automate spell casting, magic item making, and how to default tactics on troops without even setting it, that would rock).

[Endoperez]

Ermor is probably impossible to duplicate. We can't mod in dominion effects, population-death or similar things.

EDIT: The following suggestion is for playing against the evil races, not for playing AS evil races.
It would be possible to make Ermor start from multiple positions, each with a castle, a lab, a temple, an immobile Death mage and a magic site with little Death income. The temple will spread Ermorian dominion and the immobile mage will ensure that as long as there's at least one castle, there's at least one commander left to summon more mages.
Dominions 1 had a scenario that used Ermor like that. Several of the unique Death artifacts were spread out the Ermorian commanders.


Answers:
Dual-bless: effects Blessing has on sacred units depend on your pretender's magic, level 9 gives a special power, and dual-bless is two level 9s. Whether or not it works depends on the nation.

Automating spellcasting: Hover your mouse over the commander in map view, and press Shift+M. Press ? to see list of commands, there are similar keyboard shortcuts for research, patrol, blood hunt etc etc. You can't automate item forging.

You can't automate battle tactics, but you can save presets. When in troop placement view (shortcut 't'), hover your mouse over orders and press Ctrl-1 to save those orders into slot 1. The slots go rom 1 to 0. To paste the orders on some other unit, hover mouse over its orders are press a number.
You can save orders for commanders and units, but you can't give units commander-orders or commanders unit-orders.

[KissBlade]

May I interest you in LA Ryleh?

[Darkhon]

I saw a mod that can convert a unit to a tree, so it's impossible to give Ermor exact affects, but can you approximate it? for instance using "Random Events" that spawn troops.

[Edi]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Ermor is probably impossible to duplicate. We can't mod in dominion effects, population-death or similar things.

Actually with patch 3.21 it can be duplicated. Check the modding manual for the dominion effects section for nation modding.

[Gandalf Parker]

Id love to see duplicate nations mods. Id be glad to host "Ultimate Ulm" with 70+ Ulms on a huge map. Or "Extreme Ermor". Or "Arcos Apocalypse"

It is possible to use an external macro program to duplicate extensive recordings of mouse moves, mouse clicks, keypresses, and typeing to a hotkey.

Did you look at my maps? They are not on Jasons level but they can provide variety. A new batch of maps every day. Various sizes, and my green maps include many chokepoints.
www.Dom3Minions.com

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Id love to see duplicate nations mods. Id be glad to host "Ultimate Ulm" with 70+ Ulms on a huge map. Or "Extreme Ermor". Or "Arcos Apocalypse"

Arcopocalypse Now?

More Ermor?

Agartha and Son? O.o

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Mind Lord?



Enough of this silliness. A note about the Double Bless: bear in mind that -any- magic path above 4 will give -some- Bless effect. The Double Bless (sometimes referred to as Double Major) does require 2 paths at 9, but you can still have a Dual Minor with 2 paths at 4, or various other combinations. --- Blessing ONLY affects Sacred units, so is more effective for some nations than others.

[SlipperyJim]

I'm sorry to say this, but you're going to have to learn how to script your commanders -- especially your mages. Simply telling them to "Cast Spells" will be okay as long as you have an overwhelming advantage, but it's no way to win a close contest of any kind. More importantly, you are actually depriving yourself of a lot of the fun of the game by leaving spellcasting in the AI's hands. Magic is a huge part of Dom3. Roll up your sleeves and take charge!

Fortunately, as Endoperez noted, the game allows you to save a number of scripts with hotkeys. So let's say that you're playing MA Ulm. Set a script for a Master Smith to Summon Earthpower, Blade Wind x 4. Make that script #1. Now you can tell every Master Smith to follow that script by highlighting them and pressing the '1' key. Cool! There's some micromanagement, but it's not too bad.

[Humakty]

Well, if your allergic to muicrogestion, I recommend abysia EA and MA : just script fire power+ stay behind troops/cast spell on the dragon mages : you should have max results for min efforts.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Id love to see duplicate nations mods. Id be glad to host "Ultimate Ulm" with 70+ Ulms on a huge map. Or "Extreme Ermor". Or "Arcos Apocalypse"

Easy to do. But you're never going to do it, right?