Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

well, building forts mostly allows recruiting of national units and pooling resources. The cost of the castle relative to the gold boost is so low as to be unnoticeable, basically.

True in most cases, and in fact I personally DON'T build forts to increase gold income, but it is a form of Exploit that can potentially increase your gold revenues by up to 25%. The main reason it isn't done is not because the gold increase is negligible but because fort costs are so high relative to per-province income, in a normal-settings game.

I'm AFB, but IIRC building a fort gives you (baseIncome*admin/200) extra gold per turn, so you need to hold a province for (200*fortCost/(baseIncome*admin)) turns in order to show a positive cash flow. Depending on the province that may or may not be worth bothering with. From memory, here's some examples:

130 gold province, Tel City (Admin 40, 1400 gold): +26 gold. You need to hold the city for 54 turns to show a net profit.

390 gold province, Tel City (Admin 40, 1400 gold): +78 gold. You need to hold it for 18 turns to show a profit.

130 gold province, Hill Fort (Admin 20, 800 gold): +13 gold, 61 turns.

390 gold province, Hill Fort (Admin 20, 800 gold): +39 gold, 21 turns.

A 21-turn payback isn't short, but it's in line with the payback times for many buildings in other 4X games like MoM--although of course those games may go on for hundreds of turns and Dom3 usually caps out in the 80s.

Playing on smaller but richer maps (x3 or x4 and high gems) is one way of reducing micro, by effectively consolidating provinces into larger and richer metaprovinces. It tends to emphasize normal armies slightly more over summons/thugs, and it also makes fort-building a strategic option for economic development.

None of this changes the fact that Exploit plays much less of a role in Dom3 than in most 4X games--I'd actually submit that Dom3 isn't really a 4X game at all. It's mostly 2X, Expand and Exterminate, although research plays a big role and the Exterminate phase is unusually rich because of all the unit/spell variety.

-Max

[Benjamin]

I'm so pleased at this thread. I had just posted at QT3 about thinking of giving dominions another go, but how much I hated the MM, especially from gem gens. I thinks to myself, why don't I go over and see what's going on at official dominions 3 forums, and I find this thread. I'm so pleased.

Anyhow:

1)I'll be happy to see gem gens go. Mechanics that drive players to be tedious to win stink, and an overwhelming late game gem income is bad gameplay even without tedium.

2)A mod removing gem gens does or does not currently exist? I see people in the threads recalling games without gem gens, was that simply an honor based ban?

3)If push comes to shove, it's really the fever fetish I hate.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

2)A mod removing gem gens does or does not currently exist? I see people in the threads recalling games without gem gens, was that simply an honor based ban?

You can find the unique gem gen mod here:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=699040

And as mentioned it will be integrated in CB 1.6.