Pretenders useless?

[curtadams]

For SP I have to agree with the OP. With practically any nation I can grab enough territory using a pretty much national army approach that by the time magic becomes relevent I've effectively won or at least played to the point of boredom, barring LA Ermor opposition or such. At least against the mostly normal troop armies the AI fields, 10+ archers or heavy infantry is far more useful than any mage who can't do a battlefield enchanment or large AOE spell, and cost about the same. To that you have to add lab and research costs. Likewise for the effort of making a strong SC I can just take scales to get bigger armies - even the best early SC is about as useful as one decent army, and often less. Against humans I can see how it's different, since humans have a better grasp of making units quasi-invulnerable to normal units and mages can be handy then.

[thejeff]

Is Wrathful Skies as effective as it was in Dom2?

I don't usually play Air nations, but the only time I tried it in Dom3, it only damaged a handful of units a round and they quickly reached and slaughtered my mage.

I'll have to play with it again.

[HoneyBadger]

Kiss Blade, a Pretender is kind of like the Queen of Blades in StarCraft 2, or the Xel'Naga, except you actually get to see what your Pretender looks like, unless you're playing a Judeo-Christian-Islamic Nation

[Ironhawk]

thejeff said:
Is Wrathful Skies as effective as it was in Dom2?

I don't usually play Air nations, but the only time I tried it in Dom3, it only damaged a handful of units a round and they quickly reached and slaughtered my mage.

Oh, was it nerfed? Are you sure you cast Storm? Of course its always best to put your Wrather in a back corner so it takes a long time for the enemy to reach him, as well.

[Turin]

I have found a scales oracle to be pretty optimal for SP too, because using an early expansion pretender usually results in lots of provinces early, but low troopcount so all the AI´s gang up on you.

[thejeff]

He was well in the back. I think I had storm, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'll play with it again. Should be able to pull it off in my Chelms game...

[krpeters]

Thank you all for the responses... I've learned a lot!

Firstly, from what you're saying, the small game/AI is a big part of it. It sounds like early magic is much more effective against intelligent humans than against giant AI hordes. It's hard to outwit someone who has no wit to begin with

Secondly, my playing style favors mass armies... although I think this is a response to the mass armies the AI likes to hit me with. When you suddenly see 600 troops show up on your doorstep, a pretender or a group of mages will probably get eaten up and spat out... at least, again, in the early game. Meanwhile, my War Minotaurs will happily stomp them flat.

Maybe it's time I tried multiplayer games... where's a good link to get started with that?

[Teraswaerto]

Dom 3 Multiplayer and AARs is a good place to start.

[alexti]

krpeters said:
Thank you all for the responses... I've learned a lot!

Firstly, from what you're saying, the small game/AI is a big part of it. It sounds like early magic is much more effective against intelligent humans than against giant AI hordes. It's hard to outwit someone who has no wit to begin with

Early magic is pretty effective vs AI. It's actually easy to outwit AI

krpeters said:
Secondly, my playing style favors mass armies... although I think this is a response to the mass armies the AI likes to hit me with. When you suddenly see 600 troops show up on your doorstep, a pretender or a group of mages will probably get eaten up and spat out... at least, again, in the early game. Meanwhile, my War Minotaurs will happily stomp them flat.

I foresee 400 dead and 200 fled troops and one much more experienced pretender

Against AI you don't *need* to use any sophisticated strategies, but using them is more fun