Dom3 MP is still Supercombatant based?

[Cohen]

Well mostly that's my biggest concern atm, and what was the worst aspect of Dom2.

MP games in mid sized maps, or larger, resolved about massive spellcasting and summoned, uberequipped, supercombatants.

Not to talk of some other really overpowered spells like the Ghost Riders which enforced full cover of castles in provinces (enforcing thus watchtower as fort selection).

Are recruited armies actually important now, and will they be for the whole duration of a game, the main force of a player?

[Agrajag]

Not that I have the game, but I can hazard a guess.
First of all, its obvious from what we were told that the usefulness of recruited armies depends on the era played; Late Era features weak mages and strong troops, while Early Era features strong mages and weak troops, (the middle one is obviously a balance of both), so the strength of recruited troops depends on chosen era.
Furthermore I read that SCs have been nerfed (including Life Draining Weapons), and I think mages got a little nerf as well, so I'd expect spells and SCs to be a bit less dominant.

[Nerfix]

Life draining weapons now only drain max. 5 points of HP per strike. Not sure they drain fatigue anymore.

The amount of supplies and money in game has increased.

Ghost Riders, no dea.

Recruited units, blessables aside...I don't know. Yes to maybe if you also count in the national summons. We'll see with time.

Also, making sleeping Pretenders seems to be the trend since you get only 350 design points in the game when you start the game.

Putting the pretender to sleep fr a year or so in game time gives you 150 points, putting it to sleep for three years gives IIRC 250 points.

[Boron]

Hi Cohen .

Not sure if you think the rebalances go far enough, but at least i like it the way it is in Dom3.
My impression is that it seems now quite balanced and national troops are much more useful.

You can no longer chose forts, each nation gets 4-5 types of forts, 1 for each major terrain type.
Mad castling is more difficult, iirc the fastest speed to build a fort is 4 turns.

Then gold and supply have been multiplicated with ca. 250% compared to dom2. Research cost is doubled.
Because mad castling is much harder thus research is much slower in dom3.
National troops are now very useful in the first half of the game and because of many small minor nerfs to mages and SCs national troops have now a slightly better chance to kill a SC. Also because of the higher gold income you will have at least twice as large armies as in dom2.

Some of the most important buff spells have been nerfed a bit too.
The protection spells all have now a negative resistence to one form of magic. Invulnerability only gives 25 protection and poison weakness.

Gods you often take dormant or imprisoned now for additional points. So together with the slower research they cannot be used as well as SCs as before.

Not sure if you think all those changes go far enough, but imho it seems much more balanced and fun to play than dom2 .

[Fate]

I really like the imprisonment idea, but reading through the AAR's I noticed that all the gods seemed to be imprisoned. Is there any way for an un-imprisoned god to cause a threat, or is that a useless decision?

[Nerfix]

I would have liked if Invulnerability would have for example nullified the effects of Quickness or lowered MR or such because many SC's are going to be poison immune anyway...