Newbie's first impressions

[jeffr]

I'd say stick with it. It really is very deep and alot of fun. I think it is a war game, with spell research there to allow you to build a superior army. You can play games quickly against the AI to try out various strategies. Feel free to ask specific "how to" questions here and I or others who are far better than me will answer them. The community is really helpful. After you become comfortable with the game's mechanics, join a some Multiplayer games. That is where the game really shines. I still get stomped, but I really enjoy trying to figure out counters to the strategies that have been used against me. The game has been modified a great deal to make it much more balanced and to eliminate certain "cheesy" (in my opinion ) strategies.

Some initial advice would be:

1. Learn the hotkeys. The UI becomes much better with them.

- F1 brings up a city report that shows much info at a glance and allows you to set taxes (to lower unrest, my goal is usually 0 unrest), increase Province Defense (1 or 2 is enough, as mentioned above 11 against the AI will usually deter an attack on that province, so you can channel the AI's attacks).

- 8 turns on arrows that allow you to see what provinces are adjacent to the currently selected province.

- n cycles through all commanders that don't have current non-defend orders. Always try to have commanders doing something, researching, searching, scouting (if stealthy), atttacking, ferrying troops around, patrolling, etc.

- tab toggles your commanders that research "on" and "off" in the UI, making it much easier to manage commanders

2. There are spell, unit and magic items guides (pdf and excel) that help alot. I don't have the link handy, but Sunray's and Liga's sites (or something like that, do a Google) might have them.

3. Most people always try to recruit a mage a turn in every castle with a lab. Magic is very powerful (or so they tell me ).

4. Focus your spell research to achieve specific spells. I heard someone recommend a strategy to go for Flaming Arrows (Enchantment level 4?), take Marignon, build crossbows and then rock. Remember to equip the mage that is going to cast Flaming Arrows with some fire gems. Certain spells require that a mage have gems in addition to the necessary level (Fire 3 for Flaming Arrows, I believe). Also, arrange your troops with the Crossbows at the back with some high protection infantry in front of them to slow down the enemy while your crossbows shred them.

Another might be to take Niefel themed Jotunheim and take a Pretender with 9 levels of Nature magic (i.e. N9). This will give your sacred giants the Nature 9 blessing, which will give them regeneration, 50% poison resistance, and the berserking ability, which rocks. You bless your sacred troops (sacred troops have candles in their unit dialogs) by casting the "bless" spell with a priest. Each unit can have battle orders. If you can get a priest with a Holy 4 level, then cast "Divine Blessing" and all your sacred troops on the battlefield will be blessed.

5. Try to expand at one province a turn early in the game and then more than that as time goes by. Avoid Heavy Cavalry, Knights and Longbows early. One possibility is to take a Pretender that is a "Super Combatant", something that can cast certain "self buff" spells that make it almost invincible against the independent provinces. Others can give better advice, and you can search the forums, but the Alteration and Enchantment schools have the best of these "self buff" spells: Mirror Image, Mist Form, Fire Shield, Iron Shield if you need protection. There is an post by Quantum Mechanic (I think) on this subject.

6. Build some scouts and send the out. Take a decent dominion (6 or 7).

Man, a long post, but stick with it and you too can experience the joy of crushing some magic loving wuss in the early portion of an MP game and the lust for vengeance that comes when the other magic loving, super combatant loving, life drained equiped pansies crush your soul later in the game

[Tals]

NTJedi said:
If you are somewhat knowledgeable about greek myths, fantasy lore and enjoyed playing the Civilization series... then this game is a great treasure.

PCarroll... have you discovered that you can place the location of your troops and assign commands to the commanders?

This game does take patience and I would suggest not playing against Ermor AI until you feel well experienced.

Dom 2 is a strange beast - i've played this for sometime now and mostly MP, PBEM or tcpip which the game is very well suited for. For me the real draw is playing a game where their is literally hundreds of different spells and items - all with nicely different effects. So a world where it is possible for armies to Portal to your enemies doorstep is available

I also found the game through the strategic newsgroup and the now defunct gone gold forum - though I don't frequent the Ng's anymore. Likewise I was an Ex Stars! player looking for another pbem game - the games are similar in that they both have great pbem hosting options - although Stars! interface was more intuitive the games are pretty much different so not really fair to compare

I also find the inteface whilst being initially not very intuitive - becomes so, almost like riding a bike - I hadn't played Dom 2 for about 6 months until recently, started it up and I was straight back into the game.

If I was to have a complaint i'd wish for some more diplomacy options - whilst I understand the point about a God not wanting to ally to another god, in reality this wouldn't be the case and some good old fashioned diplomacy options would really assist

Tals

[sushiboat]

PCarroll said:
Besides all the behind-the-scenes stuff (the economic and magical dimensions), the most annoying thing about Dom2 so far is the difficulty of establishing defensible borders. In my trial game, provinces changed hands the way they do in Risk; and that got old in a hurry. Nothing is more frustrating than making a successful attack, only to find that the enemy has meanwhile snuck in and taken over a couple lightly defended or undefended provinces behind your armies. That situation soon starts to seem hopeless.

The best defense is a good offense. It's better to play musical chairs in your opponent's territory.

Build forts in provinces that have good magic sites or high income. If a computer enemy takes a province with a fort in it, it won't move on until it either captures the fort or is defeated. If the enemy goes around your forted provinces, you should be able to cut off its retreat and kill it.

Buy province defense. Every province should have a PD of at least 1, which will give you a look at the enemy army that captures the province. After PD 1, the AI recognizes increments of 10. Having PD of 11 in several provinces will often delay AI attacks. PD is a useful supplement to any other defensive forces you have. Also, you can use low PD to set a trap. If all but one of your border provinces have a PD of 11, and the one has a PD of 1, the AI will probably target the PD 1. You can have armies positioned to pounce after the enemy takes the bait.

Create a supercombatant (SC), a powerful commander who can singlehandedly kill whole armies without taking a scratch. Start with a creature that is already powerful -- e.g., a Queen of Elemental Air, a Golem, an Ice Devil, or a Bane Lord. Give it a lifedrain weapon (Death or Blood) such as Wraith Sword, Hell Sword, or Blood Thorn. Fill its other equipment slots to make the SC harder to injure or to give it other desireable qualities. If the SC can't fly naturally, give it Winged Shoes or a Flying Carpet. Thus you will have a highly mobile commander who can recapture your provinces. Do a search on this forum to get more information about making and using a SC.

Play around with magical movement spells, such as Teleport (Astral) and Cloud Trapeze (Air). These spells allow you to catch your opponent before his army moves in the regular movement phase. Just be sure that the mage(s) you send is tough enough to get the job done. If you have a SC who can Teleport or Cloud Trapeze, you might want to do that even if it can reach the province with regular movement.

Summoning units that don't require upkeep will allow you to have more large armies, which will help defense. Vine Ogres, undead, Wolves, Elementals, and seasonal spirits (Summer Lions, Winter Wolves, Spring Hawks, and Fall Bears) are often used. Some commanders can "Summon Allies" for free. Werewolves can summon Wolves. Some of the Elemental Kings and Queens can summon Elementals. The Draconian Chief can summon Draconians. The Mound Fiend can reanimate undead. The Ivy King can summon four Vine Ogres for one Nature gem -- not free, but a very good deal. Later in the game, you might want to have Mechanical Men and Living Statues. If your nation is using a lot of Blood magic, Devils are among the best troops available. A Vampire Lord can summon immortal Vampires for free.

[PCarroll]

Just finished another game. Played Man this time, with Ermor as an enemy (since somebody said the AI is best at playing Ermor).

Don't understand how the game ended. I won--somehow. Several turns back, I had stormed the Ermor fortress and demolished it, but the Ermor army took one of my fortresses, then another. I got my fortresses back, though.

At this point, Ermor was besieging two other forts of mine. I sent my God in with too small an army and tried to lift one of the sieges--but my God got killed in that battle. However, I guess Ermor failed to take the other fort, and suddenly the computer declared that I had won. My God who just got killed "ascended."

I guess that kinda makes sense somehow.

My impressions of the game at this point? Still mixed. I'm not sure I really like big, complicated games anymore. Too much to do every turn, and the game goes on too long. I used to like them because the size obscured my ineptitude: if I made a mistake or two somewhere, I could usually make up for it somewhere else. But now it just gets tiresome having to recruit new units every turn, keep track of mercenaries, and balance the various dimensions of the game (magic, economics, dominion, etc.).

And btw, I haven't yet seen dominion play a real role in the game. Maybe it has invisibly made my God stronger, but I haven't noticed.

So, I think I'm off to find a smaller, shorter, simpler game to play.

--Patrick

[Ed Kolis]

Hmm... if you like fantasy and wargaming you might like Land of Legends, or Battle for Wesnoth...

Dominion, BTW, is very important - for one thing, if you lose all your dominion, you're out of the game. Perhaps that is how you won your game - did Ermor run out of dominion? Also, you were correct in thinking that it made your god stronger - it directly affects your god's (and prophet's) hitpoints. In a +10 dominion province your god will have triple his normal hitpoints - but conversely, don't send your god out into enemy dominion if you expect him to get in a fight! Dominion also affects other things such as morale, too...

[quantum_mechani]

PCarroll said:

My impressions of the game at this point? Still mixed. I'm not sure I really like big, complicated games anymore. Too much to do every turn, and the game goes on too long. I used to like them because the size obscured my ineptitude: if I made a mistake or two somewhere, I could usually make up for it somewhere else. But now it just gets tiresome having to recruit new units every turn, keep track of mercenaries, and balance the various dimensions of the game (magic, economics, dominion, etc.).

You should try playing small map one-sitting blitz games. There the focus is much less on the micromanagment and magical 'economics' and more on tactics.

[NTJedi]

PCarroll said:
And btw, I haven't yet seen dominion play a real role in the game. Maybe it has invisibly made my God stronger, but I haven't noticed.

So, I think I'm off to find a smaller, shorter, simpler game to play.

--Patrick

The higher your dominion the higher your gods life while he's in that province.
If you enjoy fantasy TBS games then I recommend Heroes_3 and AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic.

[PCarroll]

If you enjoy fantasy TBS games then I recommend Heroes_3 and AgeofWonders:ShadowMagic.

I'm afraid I don't know what I like anymore; I seem to be hopelessly fussy.

I've played HoMM2. Liked it pretty well overall, but I found the game dragged on and on--and I hated it when a last enemy hero was wandering around on some distant part of the map and I had to spend a hundred more turns just hunting him down. The game was over by then, so it was just busy work.

I've also played AoW3:SM. Another good game. But it has too many "moving parts" for my taste these days. Too much fussing around with city improvements, production, resource guarding and harrassment, and so forth. And as often as not, I skip tactical battles because they get too big and long. (The stylized tactical battles of HoMM2 are more to my liking.)

A simple card game or classic board game might suit me. But then it's almost always abstract, and I miss the theme (be it fantasy, history, or whatever). Also, classic games tend to be very analytical; and to me, analysis is work, not play. I don't want to have to work at a game. Nor am I competitive. I play games for fun; competition is incidental.

Yet, it's a catch-22. I want a game to just be a pleasant escape, but I also want it to be worth seriously studying and getting good at. But I don't want it to be worth getting good at just so I can boost my ego by beating other players; I want it to be good for me--good mental exercise, stress relief, a way to exercise the imagination, or whatever. I also want it to suit my taste, and yet I don't want to whine and weasel out every time I run into something that doesn't quite feel right.

Lately I've been thinking of taking up a game like chess or bridge again. I do that periodically, but my discipline never holds out. I can happily while away hours studying at Chessmaster's "academy," but then I find it's really not much fun for me to play in actual games. Too analytical, too abstract, too much hard work.

But OTOH, I get restless when playing a just-for-fun game that has no real value other than just a break from the seriousness of day-to-day life. If a game doesn't somehow seem meaningful to me, I perceive it as a waste of time.

What a weird, tangled-up attitude I've delveloped toward games, huh?

--Patrick

[Alneyan]

PCarroll said:
What a weird, tangled-up attitude I've delveloped toward games, huh?

I pretty much feel that way myself (sometimes, at least), so perhaps I can make a worthwhile suggestion: Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD). In that game, you are a dungeon exterminator (a delver), hired to... well, clear up dungeons and their inhabitants.

The game, while not specifically strategy, still requires reflexion: it is a pretty much "old school" puzzle game, quite different from some recent games in that genre. Once you have figured out what you should do, you have to do that yourself, so the game does have a fun execution part - unlike Dominions, where you cannot direct battles yourself, and can only think about them. (That makes the game better strategically, but also reduces its fun factor for me)

Since it is a puzzle game, you will get that "Aren't I bright?" feeling after having beaten a tough room, and you can compete with other players to see how efficient you are (that part is purely optional). Throw in the level editor, and you have a pretty fun game that will last for a long while.

Their webite is at http://www.caravelgames.com . There are currently two editions of the game: Architect's Edition, available freely, and the superior Journey to Rooted Hold sequel. DROD was formerly a commerical game, known as Webfoot DROD back then, so you might have heard about it already.

[PCarroll]

Alneyan said: I pretty much feel that way myself (sometimes, at least), so perhaps I can make a worthwhile suggestion: Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD). In that game, you are a dungeon exterminator (a delver), hired to... well, clear up dungeons and their inhabitants.

Thanks. Just tried the demo--or rather, a similar demo the company offers now. It was hard to tear myself away. I usually don't like puzzle games, but it was pretty fun.