Q: New to game, need advice - getting wrecked

[jutetrea]

Not a complete noob when it comes to strategy games, yet every time I play I'm going along doing fine - then BAM its all over.

Just have the demo for now, waiting for a bud to check it out and we'll grab 2 copies.

With normal AI, 1v1 was too easy, 1v2 was ok, decided to try more.

Just played as the apes, with the 4-armed skelly god. Large map, me + 4 AI, mid starting position on a narrow strip of land between 2 landmasses (took it because tried 3 games and had an enemy within 3 spaces).

Expanded, didn't use the pretender till she was kitted out with 1st stage magic EQ, had everything for at least 2 provinces around the capital. Had found 2 enemies so far, no incoming activity.

Went after the top one, abysmia? Doing fine, then stopped cold. I'd have 7 commanders, pretender and 200 troops and I'd lose to 50 troops with 5 commanders... no commander loss, but lose 40-50 troops and kill 5-6 of theirs. WTF?
I was using the biggest monkey, slingers, and the 2nd smallest archers with some cav support (like 12 or so), tried it a couple of times as i had handy reinforcements, no luck.

Suddenly 2 other enemies start pounding on my back door, 1 popping a fort down. So, I hit the fort with 6 more commanders + 200 troops, similar config and stall at the door, no problem - i'll just swing down with the experienced guys.

Put the top battle on hold, beef up a bottleneck and go south where 2 other pretenders appear, a drake, and a few trog lords. Proceed to get my butt handed to me, massive losses, few kills and then my pretender gets horror marked, hunted and insta'd as she tosses her second buff.

So, if you've survived that I have a few questions after playing about 4 1/2 times:

Do the enemies duke it out? Or is it all v. 1?

Is there any diplomacy? Will sending bribes actually do anything?

I'm assuming magic is the game breaker for me, I went to level two in all schools vs. specializing - and never jacked up my casters (empowerment?)

Should the pretender be used for combat? melee or magic?

What is up with their heavy cav whooping me and mine seeming to just stall and get cut down, even using it to flank and take out rearmost doesn't do much.

Where are they getting their big mobs? summoning? is summoning a ritual? do they last till they die or 1 combat?

I'd rather not look at "stategies"... but without a save its pretty painful to spend 2 hours and suddenly have it go poof. So at this point, any advice is welcome or even pointing out places to read till I get a manual.

love the game (although bunch of micro on the troop side, especially with getting defeated), feel i've just scratched the surface which is how it should be.

Help?

[Antpile]

I've been playing the game for a few weeks now, maybe a month. I am a newcomer to the Dominions series as well, so no prior knowledge. This is useful because I have very recently been in your shoes.

First off, the nature of a FFA vs many opponents is that sometimes you will just get screwed over. Not much you can do about it, it was just bad luck. If you end up in the middle of 2 or 3 comps and they need to go through you to get to anyone else, well, you are just plain in trouble.

The computers do fight eachother, yes. If you use scouts liberally you will see them fight.

There is no diplomacy as far as I know. The computer will often leave you alone until it feels it can beat you though and will send you a message letting you know it's about to open a can on you when it is ready.

Magic can definitely be a game breaker. However, you don't HAVE to be a heavy mage to win. This game has many strategies that can be quite potent if pulled off correctly.

This is a tough one. You need to design your pretender with a specific use in mind. Some are rainbow mages made mostly to find magic sites and cast a variety of spells, some you make with the idea of their bless being potent, some are for casting a specific high end spell or combo of spells, some are for combat, etc. The thing is, you have to know the race you are playing and the goal of your pretender and get them to work together, then design the pretender accordingly.

One thing that eventually just clicked with me is something akin to when building decks for Magic TCG finally clicks. At first you are just throwing together cards that look cool, but eventually you get to the point where you are building it with a specific purpose in mind and you cut out all the un-needed stuff. At first you are haphazardly building a pretender and tilting scales this way and that, but you don't really know what you are doing or what you are going for.

In your case with the monkeys, might I suggest taking a master lich (for his immortality, so you can use him in battle without worrying too much) with fire 3, air 2, astral 2, death 4, and nature 2. Give him a dominion of 8 (to spread his dominion quickly, since immortality does not work where you don't have dominion.) Put 2 into heat for your free points and 1 into magic to aid with research.

Now, you don't start with fire or air gem income, so this is a somewhat risky move, but your pretender will be a good site searcher and his immortality lets you move him around without worrying. If you don't get the gem income you need just alchemize them as you won't need many. The goal is to get to enchantment 4 quickly by recruiting a lot yogis when money is tight and guru's once you can afford it. While your white ones are researching away move your pretender to any squares you liberate to search for sites.

The monkeys have a plethora of ranged units and are one of the few early era races to get the longbow. This is a fact this pretender is built to capitalize on. Once you hit enchantment 4, give him some fire gems, put him in an army that has a lot of archers backing it up, and script him to cast flaming arrows first thing. Your archers should take care of the rest. Also, as soon as you hit enchantment 4 start researching alteration to level 4 for wind guide and script him to cast this as well. He'll need air gems for that one.

Once you have those two spells going on a mass of archers there isn't much they can't handle. The only things you'd have to be real careful of at this point would be caelum using flying units to get to your archers or abysia and their fire immunity. There are some magical spells that can render your archers useless, but the computer is unlikely to use those and a human player might not reallize what you are doing until it is too late.

After this you can always use your probably huge gem income to empower your pretender up a few more levels to cast some of your national summons if you like or just clean it up the ol' fashion way.

[Nick_K]

Diplomacy in the dominions series takes a bit of getting used to...
Basically, the AI will consider itself at peace with you at the start of the game. If you end up at war for any reason it will then attack you quite relentlessly, so all it takes is one battle to trigger a big war.

If the AI attacks you, you attack the AI, you use a non-anonymous province attack spell (e.g. call of the wilds), or (probably) you assasinate a commander of theirs (no 100% about this last one) then you're at war. If you both attack an independant province on the same turn and end up fighting you're not at war. Also, the AI will sometimes attack provinces you're sieging if they're at war with the guys in the fort.

The key is to choose your wars so you don't fight on each front. The way to stop the AI attacking you is to have a strong (especially numerically) force in every border province that they can attack. In the early game I'll build border PD to 20 and try to put a commander or two with troops in each such province to discourage attack. Later you'll need bigger armies and more PD.
This is only really possible if your borders are not large. Try planning your expansion so that you get to bottlenecks and then stop and fortify. Ideally put fortresses in the border provinces so that the AI will be slowed even if they do attack.
Once you have strong borders, choose one enemy - maybe someone you have too large a border with - and attack.
Sending bribes doesn't do anything - I think it's mainly there for multiplayer diplomacy

[jutetrea]

Thanks guys!

Good analogy on the MTG as well, it does seem very similar especially with the multiple magic paths.

I obviously haven't been dealing with magic effectively yet, I'll end a game with a ton of gems, rarely alchemize them, never empower, never search. Being on the demo and limited to lvl 4 spells I thought I wouldn't need to...oops (especially while the AI doesn't seem to be limited

Someone mentioned in another thread that a possible way to stave off multi thrashings is to stay on top of the army graph, even if its just with your cheapest units stockpiled.

Other than the greeks (ascepolis?) siege guys, are there specific strategies for breaking into forts? I can have an overwhelming # of troops, and still get stuck on the door forever.

How much does itemization (forging) play into everything? Is it generally better to rush research or initially get your main guys geared up then research? I'm assuming the construction path buffs your available forging recipes, is it worth hitting early?

Thanks again, i'll try the buffing of the archers approach. (I'm assuming longbow gives a better range/damage then shortbow/slings and thus more attacks before melee go at it.)

[Teraswaerto]

jutetrea said:
Thanks guys!
Other than the greeks (ascepolis?) siege guys, are there specific strategies for breaking into forts? I can have an overwhelming # of troops, and still get stuck on the door forever.

When storming a castle you should have some kind of elite troops charging the gate. A few elite defenders can hold the gate against huge hordes of inferior troops, at least until they collapse from fatigue, since the attackers come at them only a few at a time.

[thejeff]

Other alternative is to hold back and let the defenders come out.

Since there's no way to order defenders to hold the gate, they'll charge out where you can surround them.

That and fliers to attack the rear.

Fliers also help with breaking down the gate in the first place.

[Ironhawk]

Magic is a huge part of the game. Even magic up to only level 4 is very powerful.

Seiging a fort is a simple matter of (to make a long story short) more men seiging than the enemy has defending. As for how to Storm a for - thats a different matter. There are tons of strategies for it, but at its most basic level it is this: How will you counter the defensive advantage of the wall? Some of the common ways to do this are: archers, magic spells, flying, trampling, or an ultra elite vanguard to take the gate.

Yes, staying on top fo the army graph (or close to it) will make the AI less likely to attack you. It is an important factor in SP gamees.

Forging Items plays a pretty big role in the full game. There, you will often forge "booster" items which increase your power in a magic path so you can cast the mega spells. Or equip an SC (super combatant) with all kinds of fancy equipment to go and destroy all your enemies.

Oh, and as for Abysia specific attack strategies, magic is probably the easiest is magic. Look for the high precision, armor negating spells like Lightning Bolt, Soul Slay, etc.

[jutetrea]

Thanks a ton guys, I've learned more with this post than i have playing for 2 days.

Tried again, this time vs. 4 comp opponents EA, got an edge keep with expansion room up top, and 1 good chokepoint, 2 2 province chokes... right outside of which are the greeks and ulm i think, leaving me with about 12-14 provinces I can hold. 2 of which declared war on me before I even found them, even while I was at the top of the army board.

Fire arrows work FANTASTIC! significantly cut down on my losses.

Been going with a 2 prong approach, group of melee on the left with ranged behind, same on the right, if I have cav i go flank/rear.

Established my borders, playing defensively and advancing slowly. Slowly building up my big army as I make my way to the first enemy stronghold, hopefully connecting 2 chokes so i reduce my exposure. No clue where the other baddies are, but they have to be behind somewhere.

This game SERIOUSLY needs a waypoint system (build a unit, tell it where to go...in x turns it arrives, if the province is taken, oh well). Half my time is spent shuttling guys back and forth to the front, cleaning up after partial routs, etc.

So, questions:

Does encumberence/fatigue matter with the undead?

Should I have spent more time searching before jumping in with defense/expansion? I only hit like 2 areas, found some sites... but now have a 3path doing searches..slowly.

Is it worth empowering your peons? Should I wait till i have a hefty gem pile or go for it right when i get enough?

I'm only a few turns away from my first siege, so I'll try the tips.

Can't wait till the full version gets here.

Edit: Oh yeah, any insight on Blessing? i.e. triple bless? I'm assuming that a higher path conveys the static bonuses (i.e. +1 MP 4S)? And that having 3 paths with 3 bonuses all stack? I hear it mentioned a lot, is it significantly powerful or just another viable strat with the right races?

Thanks again!