Question dump #1

[Edi]

First off, you are better off asking questions at the new official forums at Desura. That said...

1) Remote site searching spells are the height of inefficiency. It is most of the time a massive waste of both gems and mage time, because you need eight mages to search all eight paths. Acashic Record is way too expensive unless you have set site frequency to something ridiculously high.

In order to maximize your efficiency in site searching, read the site searching guide.

The long and short of it is that an across the board level 2 search finds 85% of available sites and a level 1 search finds 50%. So the best searchers are mages who have level 2-3 in two or more magic paths simultaneously. If you have a mage with three paths at level 2, they are excellent.

Gems should also be used to forge items to boost your mages, thugs and super combatants.


2) There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this. The rule of thumb is that you should recruit a mage every turn in every fort where you can and the ones who are not site searching (you need small parties for this) should be researching if not required in combat. A research pool of 130 points per turn is actually not a whole lot after a while in the game.


3) Branching out should be done by taking magics on your pretender that your nation doesn't have and doing proper site searching so you can snag any independent mages from good sites. Nature searches are especially important for this since with luck you can get excellent sites that get you high nature plus elements and astral. There are practically entire guides for this.


4) The AI does not know how to handle LA Ermor (either as an enemy or very well under its own control). As far as scales go, turmoil + luck is a crap combo. For Ermor it's the right one, though many events also have other scale requirements, so you can't bank on those big treasure events. The dominion of LA Ermor will kill your population anyway, even if you had growth 3, so you can't avoid that and need to plan strategies for it. It's not a nation for beginners, really.

[JonBrave]

In *SP* I use *auto*-spell-search for 2 reasons:

1. It's less micro, and I figure it might be more even with how the AI opponents search.

2. If you're a bit OCD like me, you'll end up haunted by the possibility that your level < 4 mage search *might* have missed something, and then end up going remote-casting over it to make sure

The time I would think casting is definitely best is when you've only got one level-2 certain-path mage available --- it seems to me a single(-unique)-path mage searching takes 2 turns per province and 2 turns of upkeep.

[jBrereton]

Thing 1: Yeah, TNN has big problems with endgame magic. Basically you're going to have to try to get some thugs up and win as fast as possible by just taking your opponents' territory. If you're playing with CBM1.94 (which you absolutely should), Bean Sidhes are good for making gear with a discount.

On remote searching: if you don't have the paths to have your mages (especially cap-only mages) able to travel around the map instantly, it's pretty valid. TNN might have it easier than some, with A2 giving you Cloud Trapeze (a type of Teleportation at Enchantment 4) for 3 air gems and Ris having alrightish diversity to search with, but some nations like *shudder* MA Pan get none of that.

Site-searching 'in person' is pretty sluggish. Totally understandable with a rainbow pretender (lots of little paths) as someone like MA Marignon that gets utterly garbage paths. But for other nations like Tien Chi, with lots of x2 paths, I'd rather have a few mages acting as a kind of searching artillery battery from the capital.



Thing 2: Difficult to tell, always. If you're doing relatively well in the charts for research (how well that is will vary by nation), it's often worth sending mages off with your army.




Thing 3, Commander Survival: This is one of those "nothing ventured, nothing gained" type things, although there are some 'thug chassis' that are better than others. One of the best is the Bane Lord, because:

- They have relatively high health
- As undead, they don't get fatigue without casting
- They have Fear
- They have a Cold aura
- At Conjuration 5, D4, and 12 gems, they're not super difficult to get hold of
- They have all the 'normal' slots, meaning they can get an X Brand (area attack 1h weapon), shield (Gleaming Gold fan for Awe, myself), Helmet (like a Horror Helm for extra Fear), Armour (Rainbow for +MR is always good) and Misc for Luck and +MR.

It's not cheap in gems, but it is a very good combination to kill PD and armies with, especially in teams.

Other good candidates are summons like Sleepers, basically any of the mounted mage commanders like Vanir or Ris, and other commanders (especially sacred ones, so they can be made regenerating for the affliction reduction, or reinvigorated to keep fatigue as close to 0 as possible) with good Att/Def, MR and strategic mobility (at least 2 Map Movement).





Thing 4:

Nope, you have to kill your units off to get rid of them. Many an expensive but old and feebleminded cap-only mage has been sent off to the wilderness to die to enemy PD, and the seas are often littered with the diseased bodies of LA Rlyeh's expensive-to-maintain but fairly crap freespawn.

[Slith]

Thank you for the responses, everyone. I didn't know I ought to ask at that Desura forum - is it because it's more active? Regardless, I'll ask one more thing now that we're here. Often, I get this problem that I have a load of units defending a fort. (They have the Defend command active, not Hide or such.) Yet, when an enemy attacks it, I get the report that they defeated my patrolling units (my PD, I assume) but I still have my fortress. Next turn, I can simply break out with the army defending the fort, but for some reason, my units always refuse to stop the enemy before they start the siege. Is there any way to get my armies to defend "normally"?

[chelubey]

Originally Posted by Slith

Thank you for the responses, everyone. I didn't know I ought to ask at that Desura forum - is it because it's more active?

Its incomparably more active.
Shrapnel was distributor of dominion3 for ages.
However since about 2013 dom3 is distributed by desura. So this forum is outdated and people gradually shift on desura (as long as new players which come there.

Originally Posted by Slith

Regardless, I'll ask one more thing now that we're here. Often, I get this problem that I have a load of units defending a fort. (They have the Defend command active, not Hide or such.) Yet, when an enemy attacks it, I get the report that they defeated my patrolling units (my PD, I assume) but I still have my fortress. Next turn, I can simply break out with the army defending the fort, but for some reason, my units always refuse to stop the enemy before they start the siege. Is there any way to get my armies to defend "normally"?

"Patrol" command.
Patrolling armies join PD on defence.