Dominions Player Preffered Playstyles "Poll"

[Huzurdaddi]

Boron said:
4.Abomination/Iron Dragon (best for special lategame tasks)

Boron, could you explain what you find these good for? Perhaps their use is a side effect of hoarding making resource costs irrelevant? Since price/performance they both seem to be lacking.

[alexti]

Huzurdaddi said:

Boron, could you explain what you find these good for? Perhaps their use is a side effect of hoarding making resource costs irrelevant? Since price/performance they both seem to be lacking.

Abominations are quite good and have multiple uses.
- mass damage spell [virtually] immune (RoS,WS,FftS,MW, nothing can really hurt them - regeneration rocks!)
- anti-GR - their ranged attack kills off ghost raider attack before they can really hurt your army.
- fodder destroyer - again ranged attack takes of enemy fodder before it had a chance to slow down your troops
These 3 together make Abominations very valuable addition to the late game army.
Abomination are also very good at defending sea provinces, because they can efficiently take care of GR and similar attacks.

Ice Dragons are somewhat less useful, but they are still good at clugging fort's gates and generally distracting enemy fire/spellcasters from your other troops.

[Boron]

Huzurdaddi said:

Boron, could you explain what you find these good for? Perhaps their use is a side effect of hoarding making resource costs irrelevant? Since price/performance they both seem to be lacking.

Yeah what alexti said .

Additionally with their 3 AP attacks Abominations have a small chance to also kill weaker thugs like banelords and firbolgs .
Iron dragons you can use as rout blockers by parking 2-3 in the rear corner then they probably don't die and your 5-10 SCs don't rout if 1 gets killed but you save using rather useless troops anyway .

[PvK]

I.National troops

1. Infantry of Ulm
2. Black Forest Guardians (but I wish they were better - I like them because they are a different kind of undead, and I like Guardians' style)
3. Praetorians
4. Lictors
5. Tomb Guards
6. Black Hunters
7. Machaka Hoplites
8. Hypaspists
9. Emerald Guards
10. Imperial Archers
11. Knights of the Unholy Sepulchre
12. Lots of others

II.Summons

1. Black Servant
2. Celestial Soldiers and Servants (wish they were a bit better though)
3. Giant Scorpions
4. Crossbreeds
5. Vine Ogres
6. Fir Bolg
7. Void summons
8. Lots of others

III.Mages (without considering wishing unique mages like Belphegor)

1. Iron Smiths
2. Iron Priests
3. Spectral Mages
4. Arco Priestesses
5. Mictlanis
6. Machakans
7. Prophetic Broken Empire Grand Thaumaturg
8. Rainbow pretender
9. Independent mages (others less likely to expect)
10. The more variety, the merrier

IV.SCs/Thugs

1. Various Pretenders
2. Various immortals
3. Commanders of Ulm with magic equipment
4. GoR'd elite Cave Drake on flying carpet
5. Heroes
6. other eccentric GoR'd units
7. Succubbi
8. Others with character.

V.Playstyle

I like trying to maintain an elite cadre of troops and to use combined arms tactics to win battles. I like watching battle replays. I like trying new interesting tactics, techniques and units rather than looking for "the best" thing and repeating that ad nauseam. I like following the history of my survivors. I prefer armies to SC's and to mage teams. I enjoy playing with allies rather than free-for-all. I also enjoy single-player games.

VI.Game parameter preferences

Magic research : Normal-Very Slow
Magic sites : 10-50%
Indeps : 4-9
Renaming allowed

VII.What i like most in Dominions 2

I like the style of the design on most levels. I like the unpredictability of combat results, the mortality of practically everyone, and the huge variety of so many aspects of play, and so many potential play styles. I like the detail down to individual troops. I like that the combat system is more realistic and most units are mortal (as opposed to other games where units gain hitpoints from experience, and where humans have so many hitpoints that they have to be hit 50 times with a battleaxe before they die).

VIII.What i dislike in Dominions2 and should be improved in Dominions3

Later game turns get to take a long time, and longer than necessary - some more automation options and convenience orders could be good.

I don't like the balance of supercombattants - I think they should be more expensive to develop single units which can really take on entire armies alone. It's cool that it's possible, but not so nice that it's actually more efficient than building armies.

I don't like the national research system - I don't like that there are powerful spells with low power requirements so that once a nation researches far enough, a low-level mage becomes a better choice than recruiting a bunch of troops.

I don't like the ease and efficiency of casting single spells which can spoil entire armies of national troops. It's cool the spells exist, but I wish they were harder and/or more expensive to cast, and that there were more countermeasures, again so that regular mortal troops were not considered so inefficient.

I'd like to see changes which result in many more troop (and pretender, and summons) types being considered viable into the late game.

Light infantry and cavalry (and low-hitpoint pretenders) should have appropriate changes so that they are not seen as so inefficient. For instance, they should use their speed to avoid melee combat by slower superior troops.

I like that there are supply limits and effects, but I think fatal Disease is too harsh a consequence as currently implemented.

IX. Items - you mentioned these at the start, and then forgot a section for them.
I like almost all items.
I don't like Life Drain, because I think its implementation makes it too strong, they're too cheap, and they promote SC's too much.
I don't like the fast and unlimited payoff of hoarding items.

PvK