Some beginner questions

[how786]

Hi,
I'm in the early stages of my first game. I'm playing Man with a Phoenix, Fire 4, Air 6. Right now I just got Evocation 2 and am researching Conjuration.

I've read a few threads here, a beginners guide and done the walkthru. These questions have popped up:

1-Do my units gain experience or go up in level as they win battles?
2-How do I determine where to build a fortress? (Who actually builds it, btw?)
3-Is it good to leave a commander and some troops in border provinces to guard them?
4-One of the threads suggested sending a Mother to search forest, mountain etc. provinces. When the Mother I recruited searches it says she is not skilled enuf. How does she get more skill?

Your help much appreciated.
How786

[Morkilus]

I'm a relatively new player, but I think I can answer most of your questions. Also, the search engine in the forum is pretty robust (helps if you put a plus sign in each term if you have multiple terms).

1. Yes, both commanders and units gain XP and stats with XP. If your commanders are among the deadliest, they get into the Hall of Fame and get special powers.
2. Fortresses "gather" resources and taxes from immediately surrounding territories, so it's good to build them next to mountains and forests if you want to build lots of national troops with high resource costs. They also protect your temples and groups of high-value commanders such as sages, so build them where you have temples and libraries. Any commander can resume building a fort, so you might as well have a cheap one build it. You can switch them off, only one commander is needed to build it.
3. It's up to you... in multiplayer, it's better to make alliances and non-aggression pacts rather than spread your armies about. The AI can be intimidated by large groups of militia, most humans aren't.
4. The skill is refering to your path level... there are no magic sites to be found with path level greater than four, so if your 4e4n Earth Mother can't find anything, there aren't any Earth or Nature sites to be found in that province. Most players like to use site-searching spells from a distance, like Haruspex and Earth Lore.

Have fun

[Peacekeeper]

just a little more on #4

There are two ways to increase magic paths. Through items which you can forge(see Construction 4 item Thistle Mace that takes 2 nature magic and 10 nature gems to forge, this is a list of magic items, they will be listed there, or after looking for it, a list of all magic boosting items is here. The extra level(s) in the path last only as long as the mage is wearing the item.

The other is Empowerment. Youll find it in the same list as search for magic sites. You use a number of magic gems to boost your mages magic path(nature for nature magic, earth for earth, etc etc). This boost is permanent but expensive.

If its just searching for magic sites, pay attention to Mork, there are no magic sites above level 4 in a magic path.

/edited to clean up a bit and add a new link.

[how786]

Thanks for your help. The replies prompt a few more questions.
1-The manual says one can only build 3 types of buildings: temples, labs and fortresses. You mention libraries. Can you address these in more depth? If I can't build them, how do I get them? What are they?
2-What is the difference between a castle and a fortress?

THanks again for your help
How786

[Ironhawk]

1. Libraries are a level-0 magic site, which means as soon as you capture the province it will be visible to you. Right clicking on it will say "Allows you to recruit sages". And when you check the recruitment screen for that province you will in fact find the Sage commander. Build a Laboratory there to enable recruitment of the Sage. Then, to protect your investment it is usually wise to build a Fort as well. As you play more you will encounter many magic sites of this kind which allow you to recruit different kinds of mages (tho Sages are the best researchers).

2. The term "Fortress" is the general term in dom2 to describe any fortification. Some people use castle and fort terms interchangably. The kind of fort that your nation will build is the one that you select during the Pretender Creation process ie (watchtower, mausoleum, wiz tower, hill fort, etc).

[Endoperez]

At this point, the most important variable of fortresses is probably Administration value. Administration tells you how many % of resources and gold the fortress collecs from neighbouring provinces.
Don't build castles too close to each other. It's expensive, they will have less resources between them, and if they were farther away you wouldn't have to move your just-build units too far.

Re: unit experience
All units collect experience. 1- and 2-star units are pretty common. Three-star units are rare, and usually only tough or very lucky units achieve three stars of experience. Man's Knights of Avalon have ability to heal their battle wounds, so they have greater chances of surviving unil they get high levels of experience. Even then, 4- and 5-star units are very, very rare. And powerful.
Mindless units can't acquire experience. Undead and demons can, if they aren't mindless.

Re: sites and becoming more powerful:
Most magic sites need level 2 or 3. Those requiring level 4 are rare, but very powerful if found.
If your Mother didn't find any sites, instead of making her more poweful, research Thaumaturgy 2 and use Auspex and Haruspex. These spells search the province for all Air and Nature sites, respectively, and Thaumaturgy has spells for most other paths as well. Astral and Death only need level 1 mage to cast the spell. Death spell is called Dark Knowledge and is in Conjuration, Astral spell is Arcane Probing and is in Evocation. Blood searcher Bowl of Blood is in Blood, which isn't that surprising. There are very few Blood sites which actually need Blood, but they are usually quite powerful. There are a few Holy and Unholy sites as well, but they are very rare.
If you pay close attention to provinces' scales, you can sometimes quess which kind of magic site it must have. As an example, if a province has Death rating, and it has been in your Growth dominion for many turns, it is probably worth it to cast Dark Knowledge on it.

[how786]

Thanks for these tips!
How786

[OG_Gleep]

The site searching spells search with a power of 9, it will find any sites for that particular path. There are a couple of other spells, an Astral 3 spell that will find all sites in a provence, including holy sites. There is another spell that will find all elemental sites in a provence.

They all take gems, so you will either have to alchemize, or do some manual searching to find them.

To get a good feel for magic, you might want to try a Rainbow pretender in your next game. Any pretender that costs 10 per path will do, then take 2-4 in every path that your national mages don't have access to (try to get 3 astral). Put Magic sites on 75% and have a ball.

I typically use castles in two ways. As a forward recruting stations, and as speed bumps for opposing armies, placed in tactical positions (borders/chokepoints/ports etc.). If you plan to use it as a forward recruiting station, placement is important. The higher the admin, and the more resource rich provences around it, the more resources you will get access to.

As PK said, boosters are very important. Boosters can turn a Sage useless sage with 1 death, into a Wicked crazy sage with 8 death (absolutley not advisable, but its possible). Its useful to know what your options are, as you can instead use items to boost your pretender, and save a lot of points during creation.

3. I didn't see anyone mention PD. Have you figured out how to use Provence Defense? In the top right corner, you will see the word defense and a number. You can raise this by spending gold. The higher the level, the more troops will be available for defense should anyone attack it. There is a chart in the manual I believe that shows what each nation has for PD. They are not all created equally however. Having 11 PD for Jotun, and 11 PD for Citis is very different. At certain intervals, you gain certain things. I think recommended intervals are 1,11,21,31. The AI will normally go after the lowest PD provence when deciding its attack route. A strong PD is often enough of a detterant to keep the AI at bay. The great thing about PD is it doesn't cost upkeep, and as long as you retain the provence, you get fresh troops for each attack, and they can catch stealth units. I tend to put atleast 1 in PD for every provence. Getting to see the layout of the enemy army is well worth 1 g.

[Endoperez]

Ah, THAT was what I thought I was forgetting.

PD 11 is enough to catch spies. And as OG_Gleep mentioned, AI doesn't know the difference between 19 and 11. PD 19 is much more expensive than PD 11, and not that much more useful.

Some types of PD, like Ulm's Crossbowmen or Machaka's Archers, fare much better if you have few infantry units in the same province. It is probably worth it to line 4-8 infantry to the recruitment line for those nations.

You can recruit units even if you don't have the resources, BTW. The resources will accumulate over many turns, so 15-resource province CAN recruit 20-resource heavy infantry if given a few turns.

[how786]

Thanks for all the excellent input. Altho I'm only at turn 27 of my very first game, I can appreciate the great depth and complexity of this game. Wow! It presents a daunting task for a newbie like myself.
I'll give the rainbow mage a try.
Could you define 'choke points'?
The tricky thing about Forts (are you also referring to them as castles?) is their ability to drain resources from adjacent provinces, which, if not well thought out, can create problems. This area seems 'above my head' right now. The choice of WHERE to place them.
Last night, I had a fort in a nice province close to my capitol. I kept trying to recruit a rather cheap commander to man the defense force there but it never would appear as acquired even tho it appeared I had both the gold and resources.
Also, it seems that I always have unspent resources after each turn. I'm wondering if there is some way to use these well other than buying troops.
Could one of you elaborate as to how gems are used to raise mage skills? I've not figured that out. Is it a temporary elevation or permanent?
Also, how does I fast forward or speed up combat?
I appreciate the heads up re:PD. I did not know about it. Sounds very useful.
Thanks for all the help! Keep it coming. please. I'm soaking it all in.
How786