FAQ: The Dominions 3 Faq & IRC Channel Info

[Edi]

BLESSINGS

Q: What are blessings?
Blessings are special combat abilities and bonuses granted to sacred units when they are blessed in combat by a priest. They are dependent on the magic paths and levels of the nation's god.

Q: What is the difference between a strong bless and a weak bless?
A strong bless is reserved for occasions when the player suffers from a strong sneeze. (You can all thank Wish for this one... *grin*)

The actual answer is that a weak blessing is a level 4 to level 8 bless and is granted if the god has level 4 or greater in a magic path. Most weak blessings increase the benefit at every other level, meaning additional bonuses at levels 6 and 8. Some weak blessings increase the benefits at every level, but the increase is not as great in effect. A strong blessing is a level 9 or 10 bless, meaning that the pretender god has 9 or 10 levels in that particular kind of magic. A strong blessing has all the benefits of the weak blessing and also adds a more powerful special ability unique to that path of magic.

Q: Can I increase blessings during the game?
No. Blessings are set during pretender god creation and the effects cannot be increased by empowering your god to higher levels in magic paths. Conversely, if your god dies and loses magic levels, blessing effects are not decreased.

Q: What are the bless effects? (Effects by Jazzepi)

• Fire 4: +2 Attack
• Fire 6: +3 Attack
• Fire 8: +4 Attack
• Fire 9: +4 Attack, Flaming Weapons (dmg 6 AP fire)
• Fire 10: +5 Attack, Flaming Weapons (dmg 6 AP fire)
• Air 4: Airshield 20% (+10% per level)
• Air 9: Airshield 70%, Shock Resistance 70%
• Air 10: Airshield 80%, Shock Resistance 75%
• Water 4: +2 Defense
• Water 6: +3 Defense
• Water 8: +4 Defense
• Water 9: +4 Defense, 50% Quickness (extra action every other round in combat)
• Water 10: +5 Defense, 50% Quickness (extra action every other round in combat)
• Earth 4: +2 Reinvigoration
• Earth 6: +3 Reinvigoration
• Earth 8: +4 Reinvigoration
• Earth 9: +4 Reinvigoration, +4 Prot from armor
• Earth 10: +5 Reinvigoration, +4 Prot from armor
• Astral 4: +1 MR
• Astral 6: +2 MR
• Astral 8: +3 MR
• Astral 9: +3 MR, Twist Fate
• Astral 10: +4 MR, Twist Fate
• Death 4: +100% Affliction Chance (+50% per level)
• Death 9: +350% Affliction Chance, Death Weapons (dmg 2 AN, MR negates)
• Death 10: +400% Affliction Chance, Death Weapons (dmg 2 AN, MR negates)
• Nature 4: Regeneration 5%
• Nature 6: Regeneration 10%
• Nature 8: Regeneration 15%
• Nature 9: Regeneration 15%, +2 Berserk
• Nature 10: Regeneration 20%, +2 Berserk
• Blood 4: +2 Strength
• Blood 6: +3 Strength
• Blood 8: +4 Strength
• Blood 9: +4 Strength, Death Curse
• Blood 10: +5 Strength, Death Curse

Q: Which bless is the strongest?
That depends on several things. Mostly it depends on the intrinsic abilities of the available sacred units. For example, sacred units with high defense will benefit proportionally far more from a high Water blessing because it can increase their defense to levels where they become almost impossible to hit. A sacred unit with very low defense to begin with will not become substantially harder to hit, so it might benefit more from a bless that allows it to do more damage and hit easier (Fire). A sacred unit with a lot of hit points will benefit more from a Nature bless (regeneration) than a weakling with few hit points and so on.

Generally, Fire, Water, Earth and Nature are considered the most powerful blessings while Air and Blood are considered the weakest. Death Blessing can be powerful, especially for sacred mages with damage dealing spells. The usefulness of Air and Astral blessings is more dependent on the specifics of your sacred units than the FWEN blessings. A strong Astral bless can be powerful, especially if combined with a strong Water or Fire bless. A weak Astral bless is generally considered to be very weak unless you have low MR sacred units.
A weak Air bless can be sometimes be useful but it is considered very weak. The most effective bless differs from nation to nation and according to your particular play style, but the above categorization is generally the accepted view of the majority of Dom3 veterans active on the Shrapnel Games forums.

It should be noted that sometimes getting access to magic paths that the nation normally does not have is much more important than the secondary benefits of a blessing, whether strong or weak. This is especially true of Astral and Death magic, which are considered by many to be the strongest magical paths of all.

[Edi]

MAGIC RESEARCH COSTS

Q: How much does magic research cost for the different difficulties?
Here is a breakdown by difficulty. Note that the aggregate total is for one school of magic. To research all levels of all schools, you need to multiply the aggregate total by 8. Research costs appear in the Fibonacci series pattern, meaning that each level of magic requires research points equal to a sum of the two previous levels.

• Easy: 20, 40, 60, 100, 160, 260, 420, 680, 1100, aggregate total 2840
• Normal: 40, 60, 100, 160, 260, 420, 680, 1100, 1780, aggregate total 4600
• Hard: 60, 100, 160, 260, 420, 680, 1100, 1780, 2880, aggregate total 7440
• Very Hard: 100, 160, 260, 420, 680, 1100, 1780, 2880, 4660, aggregate total 12040

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AI BONUSES FOR DIFFERENT DIFFICULTY LEVELS

• Easy AI: -30% gold, resources & gems, 0 design points
• Normal AI: 0% gold, resources & gems, 0 design points
• Difficult AI: +30% gold, resources & gems, +50 design points
• Mighty AI: +60% gold, resources & gems, +100 design points
• Impossible AI: +100% gold, resources & gems, +150 design points

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AGING MECHANICS

• The maxage of lifeless creatures is increased by 50% of original maxage per point of Earth magic. Default age/maxage not tested, presumably ???/2400 (Monolith, Sacred Statue, Colossal Fetish, Oracle etc)
• The maxage of undead creatures is increased by 50% of original maxage per point of Death magic. Default age/maxage for undead is 187/500
• The maxage of demonic creatures is increased by 50% of original maxage per point of Blood magic. Default age/maxage for demons is 370/1000
• The maxage of all other creatures is increased by 50% of original maxage per point of Nature magic. Default age/maxage for them is 22/50
• Fire magic decreases age by 5% of maxage per point, or by 1, whichever is greater. It is currently unclear (i.e. not systematically tested) whether the maxages of some of the creature types affected by aging mechanics (lifeless, undead and demons) are affected by Fire magic at all.
• Order of ascendancy for the different types of creature properties is Lifeless, Undead, Demon, Other. This means that e.g. lifeless undead do not get increased maxage from Death magic, but use Earth magic as the determining factor instead.
• Changing a creature's type (lifeless/undead/demon/other) by modding it will automatically reset its age/maxage values to the default for that type. This means that e.g. a light infantry that is modded to be a demonic unit will have its normal 22/50 age/maxage changed to 370/1000.

[Edi]

CASTLES

Q: Can I choose what types of forts to build?
No. Each nation has a set of predetermined fort types for different sorts of terrain, so you can only build the specific type of fort for any given terrain. In provinces with multiple terrain types (e.g. forest and mountain), it will be one or the other, probably the fort for the terrain that has a lower terrain type number in the map file.

Q: There is a command for 'Continue fort construction'. I was building a fort and the commander was killed by an invading enemy (nation or independents from an event). I took the province back, why can't I use that command?
You are out of luck. The money's gone, your enemy tore the half-built fort down to rubble. You must start over and pay the full cost for the fort again.

Q: Why can't I build enemy national units from castles I've conquered from him?
Because the developers did not want that in the game and to keep all nations unique. You can only recruit your own troops and the native population type independent units in castles. This is not going to be changed.

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UNABLE TO RECRUIT/SUMMON ANY UNITS

Q: I can't recruit any more units, they just don't appear and the same happens with summons. What's wrong?
This behavior looks like a bug, but it is not. If you have unrest 100 or more in a province, recruitment is impossible there. If you only have problems in one province, this is the likely cause. Dominions 3 also has a built-in limit for maximum number of units simultaneously in the game. If your recruited and summoned units are not appearing, you have reached that limit and no new units can appear until enough units die off first.

Q: How high is the unit limit?
9k commanders and 140k units in the game simultaneously. Once these limits are reached, no new units can appear until some die off.

Q: What causes this problem to appear since I only get it in some games?
The problem most often happens in Late Era games where R'lyeh Dreamlands and/or Ashen Empire Ermor are present, since both of these nations generate massive numbers of freespawn units. Avoid including them in games on large maps and you will not likely experience this problem. It can potentially appear in large Early Era and Middle Era games involving Pangaea whose Pan units generate Maenad freespawn units, but this is a rather unlikely occurrence. A more likely reason would be the AI recruiting massive amounts of chaff units everywhere.

Q: Are there any other solutions besides excluding Late Era R'lyeh and Ermor?
Yes. See the Better Independents mod. It can mitigate the problem significantly in large games, especially SP games, but it is not without its issues and was originally created to address a different issue (monotonous AI chaff hordes). Read the thread and try it out, but there are no guarantees.