Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

[DominionsFan]

JimKnopf said:

The probabilty that I will buy Dom 3 has risen considerably during the last 24 hours. So I am looking forward to yor mod and will in the meantime follow your advice.

Dominions 3. is a must have of course.
I hope that you will like my mod, it wont be easy to make it, since I plan it as a "total conversion" mod, so basically everything will be changed in it compared to the vanilla game. The hardest part will be the balacing, but I already have some mathematical plans regarding the balancing question. I will basically add for each unit stat/ability and items a basic value, and the values will be added together. The spell/gold/resource cost will depend on those values.
OF course all units will have new graphics, I wont use the Dominions 3. races, but "normal" fantasy races, such as the elves, dwarves and so on.
As for spells, I have an idea there also, but I keep that for myself for now...I am still thinking about that method.

[Endoperez]

Most players here wouldn't choose Turmoil/Luck for competitive multiplayer, but I've found it's good enough, and very fun and enjoyable, in single-player games against the AI.

Restless Worshippers spreads your dominion faster. Dominion 6 or 7 should be enough, and I think it'd give you a scale more. Probably Production, to give you little more income and to help with your hoplites.

Astral 3 Oracle is fine, if you want to base your strategy around scales. However, relying on Fortune might be costly if you have a streak of bad luck - you won't have a pretender to help you through tough times. You might want to consider e.g. Manticore instead. As Arcoscephale, your Priestesses can heal any afflictions he might get, and if he has no magic you lose only time when you call him back to the realm of the living. Some items and spells also help immensely. Body Ethereal has AoE: 1, which means one square in the battlefield, which means it can be cast on nearby units. Even those that totally fill one square (size 6 monsters, like Manticore). He can't use many items, but e.g. Cat's Claw Talismans, Horror Helmets, Burning Pearls and Antimagic Amulets are worth their price. Amulet of Luck is also very, very good, and Ring of Regeneration would be even more important if you didn't have priestesses to heal wounds. Regeneration doesn't heal afflictions, but makes them less common.

[JimKnopf]

Saxon said:
The other thing I would mention is how long do you spend on a turn? If I try to play this game quickly, I get my butt handed to me and I am pretty good at all the games you mention. You have to take your time with this and look at everything. In terms of cards, this is Bridge and MOO is Go Fish. Really. Take your time, use the F1 screen, look at your taxes and unrest every turn. Plan ahead for spells, units and magic items. Learn your nation and how they work. If you are playing Arco, look at Astral magic very closely before you start, all of the spells. Learn the crystal matrix and understand fatigue. Power up your mages and cook the enemy with mind burns.

Saxxon you hit my weak spot I am one of these impatient guys. I already learned that Dom II needs more diligence thanother games. But I have to admit that I still forget recruiting troops or casting a spell here and there.
I want to thank you especially for your honesty admitting that this game is a challenge for you, too.
I think most of my frustration came from feeling stupid.
Because most people always seemed to be complaining that the game is to easy. And I should not be able to beat it on Easy ?
That was more than I can take.

[JimKnopf]

Thank you all for your support.

Maybe some of you are interested in my efforts and pretender setup. The only non-Ermor nation I played until now was Arcoscephale because it was the nation I played in the Demo and I liked the high level of their priestesses.

I tried differnt ways to win.
First I tried the simple way. Building standard troops and building local defence until 10 and later 25. But that was not enough. I simply had not enough troops to attack a nation and keep the others from attacking me. In these games I lost quite early.
In later games I tried to be more peaceful. Trying to build a compact empire and abstaining from the conquest of provinces if the ratio of gained territory to additional borders seemed unfavouvorable to me. Instead I planned to increase my research and scan all provinces with Acashic record for magic sites to be able to build powerful armies of summoned creatures. But that didn´t work well either. Because the AI nations continued their wars and one or more of them usually grew big and powerful. And my empire was on their menu before I was ready.

Now to my curent setup.

I played as Welli the Oracle. Pretender God of (surprise,surprise) Arcoscephale.
Reasons for Oracle: cheap, high dominion, Astral magic lvl 3 (no need to reruit an Astrologer instead of a Mystic to cast Acashic Record. Ok this not really a big advantage.)

Magic: No changes

Dominion Theme: Restless worshippers.
Domion str.: 8 (I want my dominion stromg because it has so many benefits for me)
Turmoil: 1
Productivity/sloth: 0
Heat/Cold: 0
Growth: 3 (More people = more money = more troops, temples etc. Besides I like the thought of an empire of life as counterpart to Ermor)
Fortune: 3 (It would be a catastrophe for me if a strategic border province would revolt and another nation would conquer it before I could get it back. And the good events are really nice.)
Magic: 3 (I want fast research to get powerful summons and spells, and I want my spells to do much damage; besides priests are more effectiv against the undead units of a certai empire.)
Castle: Fortress (fits best to my other choices, because no points remaining)

Any stupid choices in your opinion ?

In the game setup screen I changed some settings to increase my chances of winning:
world richness: rich (the benefit for nations with high growth should be larger than for such with low growth or even death)
special site frequency 75: (I expected to be able to cast AR quite fast so this should be to my advantage)

As you can see I tried to be clever (Normally I would call this cheating).

Nevertheless. It looks bad again for me. It started promising. The neighboring provinces to my starting province were not too well defened. I made good progress. The first AI I met was Ermor in the west. Not too good. But I was lucky insofar that this happened the very turn I conquered the province I intended to make to my western border. So I installed enough defense to and went north to secure my northwestern border. Mercenaries liberated in the meantime remaining independent provinves with weak defences. While securing my northwestern and northern borders i encountered Abysia, C´tis and Ermor again, this time coming from the north. Additionally I could not resist to conquer two underwater provinces because they could potentially shield six other border provinces. Three of these I already had conquered Two others had strong independent defenders that decided to spare at the moment. The last province was independent but only reachable by sea at this time.
The neighbours of my Water provinces were R´yleh, Atlantis and again Ermor.
The trouble began when suddenly Jotunheim conquered a province neighboring to my home province in the east. This province had been well defended and so I had decided to wait with an attack until the easy prey would all be mine. Maybe that was a mistake. But on the other hand I now had almost 20 provinces in the west and north with very few border provinces.
Since in the meantime my business in the north was finished I moved my troops in attack position to attack the Jotun province. The war went well.
To protect my western and northen borders I increased local defence there each turn when necessary i.e. wenn it seemed to me the enemy forces in the adjactent provinces might have a chance to conquer one province of mine. To the south were my water provinces. These I filled with Shamlers and Ichtyds.
Suddenly C´tis declared war on me and started to build up forces near my northwestern border. Additionally I had reached the core territories of Jotunheim in the east and resistance got harder, So moving troops at a large scale to the west was no option. The Problem with the Jotun core territories was, that these were many little provinces with many interconnections, which made it hard for me to hunt his armies down. I tried to counter this with the building of local defences in each newly conquered province, and attacking lightly defended provinces with mercenaries. But even relatively small armies ofJotunheim were able to defeat local defenfes of 25 ord annihilate mercenary bands.
Besides that the strength of local defences in the nortwest had become up to 80 and 90 to counter the amassing of C´tis troops. So raising their strenghth had become very expensive. And finally they were able to capture one of my provinces. Strangely it took them mysteriouly long to break the gate of my fortress in this area. So I was able to move the Jotun legion just in time to the west to requonquer my territory before C´tis could make use of the breach in my defense belt of provinces with large local defence.
Unfortunately Jotunheim used this chance to recover and reconquered most of its core territories.
To make everything worse Atlantis had declared war on me, too. The first battle was a victory for me but on the long run i lost my sea provinces because I had not the money to replace the trops fast enough. And last but not least Ermor kept moving large stacks of troops along my borders ignoring the fact that are lots of AI provinces worse defended than mine.
That was the moment I decided to stop playing and instead start this thread.


Now my questions to you did I make some real stupid mistakes ?

[Graeme Dice]

Turmoil: 1

Never take turmoil unless your theme requires it. Similarly, do not take restless worshippers.

Growth: 3 (More people = more money = more troops, temples etc. Besides I like the thought of an empire of life as counterpart to Ermor)

Growth provides little to no benefit in the unmodded game unless you plan to play for several hundred turns. Order 3 provides a far greater boost to income.

But even relatively small armies ofJotunheim were able to defeat local defenfes of 25 ord annihilate mercenary bands.

Besides that the strength of local defences in the nortwest had become up to 80 and 90 to counter the amassing of C´tis troops.

These are mistakes. You spent hundreds or thousands of gold on province defense instead of building a castle or buying mobile troops with greater combat effectiveness.

[Gandalf Parker]

It seems awfully early to plan a complete changing mod for Dom3. But I guess I cant really speak since I will release a Dom3 version of my Poke_in_the_Eye scenario, and a randomize everything module, early after its release. And most likely a "play against every single nation in one giant game" scenario.
All of which tends to make Johan shake his head at me.

[DominionsFan]

Gandalf Parker said:
It seems awfully early to plan a complete changing mod for Dom3. But I guess I cant really speak since I will release a Dom3 version of my Poke_in_the_Eye scenario, and a randomize everything module, early after its release. And most likely a "play against every single nation in one giant game" scenario.
All of which tends to make Johan shake his head at me.

Hehe, nah it is not early. We must design everything in our head before the game is out. I am playing with many ideas still, not to mention that I must start to work on the unit gfx also...

[Arker]

I'm having similar troubles. I can win Brittania pretty reliable, in a 3 nation game, with any nation I pick. But Orania kicks my butt.

Currently playing it as Ulm. My pretender is also an oracle, with 3-5-5 earth astral nature and 10 dominion. I tend to play pretenders like this, simply because they're easier for me to get value from. With mobile pretenders, I agonise over whether it's worth the risk to use him in this battle, worth the lost research to move him over here, etc. With an oracle, I can't move him, so I don't need to worry about it. I max the dominion, because my (admittedly limited) experience with the game tells me dominion is very important. How many times have I lost my entire army and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when I gave the storm fort order? But I've found if I just keep him under siege and use preachers and temples with a very high dominion pretender, he'll evaporate. This particular pretender was built so that he'd be able to cast some important spells, acashic record, gift of health, the firbolg summoning spell, I forget the other one... I research acashic record first, then gift of health, then throw research into construction.

Ulm seems to have a significant advantage in the home-guard too... 10 points of defense is pretty meaningless with, say, Mictlan, but fairly powerful with Ulms troops.

I tend to use two different types of armies. One will be a mounted commander and several of Ulms ultra-heavy knights. Moving quickly, it's good for defense or offense, as well as squelching unrest. The other will be a foot commander, backed up by one or more master smiths, preachers, and engineers. I use sappers for my archery section (they aren't quite as good as Ulm Arbalesters or Longbowmen that I sometimes get to build when I conquer the right province, but they are fairly good and really rock for sieges as well.) Up front, three squads of troops, heavy infantry with shield and flail that can soak up plenty of missile attacks without a scratch, axemen on a flank I *try* to get in a position to flank the enemy after they are tied up on the shielded men (sometimes works) and light infantry with javelins (obviously from a conquered province, but fairly common) on the other flank and forward a bit, they're cheap to replace so I'd rather see them get hit than my axemen. Sometimes both types of armies combine, then the horsemen get stuck on a flank and told to hold/attack rear.

Generally I do quite well with battles, it seems. Lots won without a loss. But, so far, every game eventually ends with another nation bringing in an army so much bigger than anything I can field that it becomes hopeless... or else I lose my pretender, loaded with enchanted items and on top of the hall of fame, to a storm-castle command that doesn't work despite outnumbering the enemy by 10 to 1 with heavier troops, in which case I throw up my hands in disgust and quit.

I've tried with R'lyeh, Arcosephale, Mictlan, and Man so far, lost with all of them. I've conquered other maps with them fairly easily. So any tips you more experienced players might offer will be thankfully appreciated...

Oh yeah, fortresses, I've mostly used wizard towers and fortified cities in the past, this time I went with hill forts, for more defense. I generally try to place them as efficiently as possible, given that (if I'm understanding this correctly) perfect efficiency would mean every province without a fort borders one and only one province with a fort. I also weight provinces that have special troops I want to build (druids, for instance, as Ulm are a great boost, they can do everything my priests can do and a lot more.) Anyone else have insights into what fortresses to use and where to place them?

[Sandman]

Try a rainbow pretender as Ulm - a human wizard with low levels (no more than 2) of every magic path, and use them to search for sites, and later, forging rare items.

[Ironhawk]

Arker said:
Generally I do quite well with battles, it seems. Lots won without a loss. But, so far, every game eventually ends with another nation bringing in an army so much bigger than anything I can field that it becomes hopeless... or else I lose my pretender, loaded with enchanted items and on top of the hall of fame, to a storm-castle command that doesn't work despite outnumbering the enemy by 10 to 1 with heavier troops, in which case I throw up my hands in disgust and quit.

First, keep in mind that the AI focuses on quantity, not quality. So even if they field what appears to be an overpowering force, it probably isnt as powerful as you might think. And if you are really having manpower shortages, its like just because you are playing resource-heavy Ulm. Just build hordes of hoburgs or militia or something to take up space on the battlefield and ease the burden on your powerhouse troops.

Losing your pretender, or a prize SC, that is totally decked out is just the way things go. It happens even to veteran players and you shouldnt beat yourself up over it. Just call him back, rearm, and get out and fight again.

As for losing seiges with 10-1 odds, you really shouldnt be surprised. After all that is the purpose of walls, is it not? To allow few soldiers to defend against many. The trick with walls is that your ground troops must fight thru the Gate. And the Gate allows so few troops thru that even tho you have 10-1 odds, you are fighting the battle with only 1 of your men against 2 enemy while the rest of your army sits around and gets shot to hell. The trick to winning seiges is to negate the value of the Gate as much as possible. Some tips for doing so:

1) Put your absolute best troops in the attack position. If you can breakout here you will be able to employ your numbers. Heavy Cavalry work well cause they have high prot, high morale, and many strong attacks.

2) Use way, WAY more archers. During a seige you should have something like 2/3rds of your army as archers since they can fire over the wall and do not need to go thru the gate. Place them as far forward as possible.

3) Additionally, as above, use mages. A couple of well place fireballs or blade winds will clear a path for your vanguard.

4) Lastly, if you have them available, flying troops are incredibly valuable in a seige. If you are incredibly brave, they can attack on the first turn and possibly stop the enemy from even getting to its own Gate. Otherwise you can use them to flank or attack the enemy rear, regardless of the protection of the wall.