Q: New to game, need advice - getting wrecked

[Ironhawk]

Magic is a huge part of the game. Even magic up to only level 4 is very powerful.

Seiging a fort is a simple matter of (to make a long story short) more men seiging than the enemy has defending. As for how to Storm a for - thats a different matter. There are tons of strategies for it, but at its most basic level it is this: How will you counter the defensive advantage of the wall? Some of the common ways to do this are: archers, magic spells, flying, trampling, or an ultra elite vanguard to take the gate.

Yes, staying on top fo the army graph (or close to it) will make the AI less likely to attack you. It is an important factor in SP gamees.

Forging Items plays a pretty big role in the full game. There, you will often forge "booster" items which increase your power in a magic path so you can cast the mega spells. Or equip an SC (super combatant) with all kinds of fancy equipment to go and destroy all your enemies.

Oh, and as for Abysia specific attack strategies, magic is probably the easiest is magic. Look for the high precision, armor negating spells like Lightning Bolt, Soul Slay, etc.

[jutetrea]

Thanks a ton guys, I've learned more with this post than i have playing for 2 days.

Tried again, this time vs. 4 comp opponents EA, got an edge keep with expansion room up top, and 1 good chokepoint, 2 2 province chokes... right outside of which are the greeks and ulm i think, leaving me with about 12-14 provinces I can hold. 2 of which declared war on me before I even found them, even while I was at the top of the army board.

Fire arrows work FANTASTIC! significantly cut down on my losses.

Been going with a 2 prong approach, group of melee on the left with ranged behind, same on the right, if I have cav i go flank/rear.

Established my borders, playing defensively and advancing slowly. Slowly building up my big army as I make my way to the first enemy stronghold, hopefully connecting 2 chokes so i reduce my exposure. No clue where the other baddies are, but they have to be behind somewhere.

This game SERIOUSLY needs a waypoint system (build a unit, tell it where to go...in x turns it arrives, if the province is taken, oh well). Half my time is spent shuttling guys back and forth to the front, cleaning up after partial routs, etc.

So, questions:

Does encumberence/fatigue matter with the undead?

Should I have spent more time searching before jumping in with defense/expansion? I only hit like 2 areas, found some sites... but now have a 3path doing searches..slowly.

Is it worth empowering your peons? Should I wait till i have a hefty gem pile or go for it right when i get enough?

I'm only a few turns away from my first siege, so I'll try the tips.

Can't wait till the full version gets here.

Edit: Oh yeah, any insight on Blessing? i.e. triple bless? I'm assuming that a higher path conveys the static bonuses (i.e. +1 MP 4S)? And that having 3 paths with 3 bonuses all stack? I hear it mentioned a lot, is it significantly powerful or just another viable strat with the right races?

Thanks again!

[Shovah32]

Most undead have 0enc so unless you have some undead mages burning themselves out with spells it shouldnt matter. Afaik in an undead unit has enc above 0 he should fatigue as normal.

Triple blesses, while not ALL nations can use them are deadly for those who can. A f9w9s9 mictlan has cheap, fast, high defence units who can all take 1 hit with no damage, have good mr and are extremely deadly. A f9w9(e9/n4/s9/d9) vanheim/helheim has extremely tough, fast, deadly sacreds with glamour who are deadly and almost impossible to kill without magic. A w9e9n4(although most people wouldnt go so far) niefelheim has immensely tough sacred units(above average defence, good prot and regen) and can make AMAZING thugs/SCs with its jarls(they can buff, have full slots, great stats and that bless).

[Taqwus]

jutetrea said:
Been going with a 2 prong approach, group of melee on the left with ranged behind, same on the right, if I have cav i go flank/rear.

Just watch the friendly fire.

It should be noted that some nations have units which are reasonably capable of both missile and melee combat; Late Era Man's Defenders are an example. Modify your deployment respectively.

Against humans, archer placement may take some care due to the possibility of flyers set to 'target archers'. If you can't shut down such fliers, you may wish to hold back forces to protect the archers.



*snip*

This game SERIOUSLY needs a waypoint system (build a unit, tell it where to go...in x turns it arrives, if the province is taken, oh well). Half my time is spent shuttling guys back and forth to the front, cleaning up after partial routs, etc.

Depends on the nation and your recruitment habits. With Late Era Ermor or R'lyeh, this is unavoidable -- hordes of freespawns. If you're in the late game with a nation with strong summons or powerful + expensive + rare troops, you may be relying much less on moving troops around.

So, questions:

Does encumberence/fatigue matter with the undead?

2xENC is still felt for casting purposes, so armor enc matters. They do not gain fatigue when attacking normally, but whatever fatigue they accumulate from other methods (casting, or certain fatigue-causing things like being hit with Magebane) still applies.

Should I have spent more time searching before jumping in with defense/expansion? I only hit like 2 areas, found some sites... but now have a 3path doing searches..slowly.

Expansion tends to be more important; hiring mages to run around searching is expensive in terms of maintenance, and opportunity cost (not researching, for instance, or not helping you take provinces while he's stopping to search).

By the way, all the magic paths except Holy have a remote-search spell requiring no more than level 3 in the relevant path. Astral has a rather expensive one which locates -all- magic sites, including holy, in the province that you pick (provided that you own it at casting time). Once you have a gem income that can sustain casting these spells, it should boost your efficiency as you don't need to have them spend half their time moving.

Is it worth empowering your peons? Should I wait till i have a hefty gem pile or go for it right when i get enough?

Usually not, unless it's the cheapest way to get something that you could really use. Forging booster items tends to be more efficient *if* you can forge them (some are hard; air, for instance, has no boosters available with just A3 if memory serves). Summons and other rituals may be more useful.

For instance, if you have easy access to Earth-1 mages, but not Earth-2 -- taking *one* to Earth 2 might be useful as he can now build Earth Boots which will bring him to Earth 3 (which allows the Dwarven Hammer, which in turn makes forging cheaper) and the other E1 mages to E2.

If you're looking to bootstrap the Death machine and have a done a lot of research, but all you have are D1 mages -- getting a D1 mage to D2 lets you get a Skull Staff for +1D; the resulting D2+1 can then summon a Mound Fiend which is D3 native; D3 + Skull Staff = D4 which lets him forge a +1D skull helmet for D5 total, which if memory serves is enough to forge the +D3 unique Sceptre for D7 net (has to lose the staff, so net +D2) which easily allows summoning D4-native Demiliches, or for that matter Tartarians. Yeah, it's bizarre and quite a bit of forging and research, but if you want Tartarians and you have are D1s... and it's cheaper than empowering all or even most of the way.


It might also be useful if you have a particularly bad-*** monster commander and would like him to be able to cast a useful buffing spell.

Edit: Oh yeah, any insight on Blessing? i.e. triple bless? I'm assuming that a higher path conveys the static bonuses (i.e. +1 MP 4S)? And that having 3 paths with 3 bonuses all stack? I hear it mentioned a lot, is it significantly powerful or just another viable strat with the right races?

Depends on the availability of sacred troops, how large the map is, and so forth. If it's a monster game with several hundred provinces, for instance, and the sacred troops you have in mind are capital-only and have a resource cost, they might give you a decent head start during expansion, but by the late game the lousy scales you've taken to afford your blessings will be hurting your entire empire (unless you're minimizing your own dominion...) and you won't be cranking out that many sacreds.

Blessings do stack. Hence, the F9W9 combo -- the +4 attack and flaming weapons of F9 works well with +50% Quickness and +4 defense of W9.

[jutetrea]

nice, thanks.

Game just suddenly stopped saying "you have reached the end of the demo", so i'll just wait for delivery I guess. Got a bit of reading to catch up on

Are the Dom2 forums useful? Or have there been enough changes since that a lot of it doesn't apply?

[Manuk]

Sunray's page
Arryn's page
Gandalf's and Nerfix's page

There you can read some stuff alright.

[Taqwus]

Some of the strategy-affecting differences...

Dom 2:
- No Eras.
- Base Nation + Theme option; themes generally cost design points.
Most themeless nations resemble Middle Era D3 nations.
Themes may be similar to other eras.
A couple of themes have turned into global enchantments.
- You bought one fortress design with design points, and used it on all terrain; hence, one could go for 'mad castling' with a cheap fortress.
- And forts were cheaper, too.
- It was much easier to access all magical paths; randoms were either FAWE, SDNB, or FAWESDNB. Sages were common and had a FAWESDNB random. Spectres had two.
- Far fewer national spells.
- Half the income and supply of D3. Combine with cheaper forts and there's more emphasis on mages and SCs than large armies.
- Lifedrain weapons not restricted in how much they could drain...

[jutetrea]

Cool

Initially thought sea going races would suck.. but its kind of nice to be a bit more undisturbed.

Completely dif stats though I'm figuring. Ran up against the Ry'leh(sp?) and by the time i'd knocked them out of their keep others had conquered huge swaths of land with huge armies so I was way behind as i butted heads right off the bat (again!).

What's up with random map placement? Tried the Farthing map, 76 land 25 sea.. end up 3 provinces away from the only other sea nation. I was mid left, he was top left. Seems like every map i try there's an enemy within 3 or 4.