How difficult is this game?

[Nikolai]

> So you're telling me that you can research all these powerful spells and have no one capable of casting them?

That is very often happening. Each nation has strong magic paths, weak magic paths, paths on pretender, and paths on independant mages. First two are fixed, third you design, and fourth is random.

Some people will go out of ways to make sure that their pretender covers all path nation is missing. Others make sure that he can forge boosters for strong paths of nation. Others concentrate on making sure he can summon other mages that complete the nation. Others forsake some paths completely.

As many strategies as players. In MP, trade can close holes.

Example: MA Man has many, many air mages, but no one has solid chance of getting Air magic at level 4. But that is level required to forge items that make air magic stronger, and many awesome air spells need much more than level 3 air magic.

So some players will forget that, and really hurt. Others will make sure their Pretender has air magic at level 4 or more. Others will look at nations list in an MP game, and say "Cealum is in game, and he will want to trade air boosters for nature boosters". And then the game starts, and Cealum is closest neighbor, and only wants to trade daggers, blade first.

[Fenris99]

How do I get gems?

[Fenris99]

Nikolai said:

That is very often happening. Each nation has strong magic paths, weak magic paths, paths on pretender, and paths on independant mages. First two are fixed, third you design, and fourth is random.

Some people will go out of ways to make sure that their pretender covers all path nation is missing. Others make sure that he can forge boosters for strong paths of nation. Others concentrate on making sure he can summon other mages that complete the nation. Others forsake some paths completely.

Ahh this is very interesting.

[Amhazair]

First, you have a gem income from your capitol, this will generally be of a type your nation is strong in. Then, in each province there is a chance there will be 1-4 magical site, most of which will give you gems of some kind. A few of those sites you will discover when you conquer the province, but most will remain hidden until you search for them.

Searching can be done in two ways: first a mage can search the province he's in for sites in the paths he possesses. Sites come in levels from 1-4, and you search in the path and levels of your mage. So a Fire3 Astral3 mage will find most, but not all fire and astral sites, but will not uncover sites of other paths. Second, there are site-searching spells spread around the different research schools. There is one for each path of magic, and casting that spell (select the 'cast ritual spell' order on a mage in a lab province once you have the appropiate research, then select the spell in question from the list you get) will cost some gems, and will search a province of your choise for all sites in that path. There are also 2 spells that search for sites of multiple paths, but one is underwater only, and the other very expensive.

Thus getting more sites of the paths your nation is strong in is quite easy, as you will have both the mages to search manually, or to cast the remote search spells, and the gems needed to cast those spells (from the gem income of your capitol), but finding sites in other paths will be harder. There are several ways to do this, the easiest being designing what is known as a 'rainbow pretender' A rainbow pretender uses a pretender chassis with cheap access to new paths (take a look at most 'human' pretenders, they fit the bill perfectly), and will buy low levels (often 2, sometimes more) of magic in as many paths as possible. This is useful for finding sites, and if you take care when choosing your magic picks (this will come with experience) will allow you to forge many useful items your national mages might not be able to forge.

[Nikolai]

> How do I get gems?

Your capital generates some.

Magic sites are assigned randomly to provinces at start, or even appear sometimes out of their own. Some are hidden, so you have to search for them with mages.

Some items generate gems every month.

Some lucky events give you gems.

And there is trade in MP.

And there are spells that give you gems periodically or in one go. And if you are total bastard, you can hunt your population down to sacrifice them as slaves, or you can kill them to send crows to collect death gems (not recommeded)

There are no simple answers in Dominions III. :-)

[Fenris99]

Thanks for the answers, guys.

The manual is good but it doesn't cover everything.

I'm sure I will have more questions after I play tonight. I'm reading the Marignon strategy page, they look straightforward for a beginner.

[Edi]

As far as what determines the paths of your mages, the magic paths are an intrinsic part of the unit itself, so a mage may have certain paths fixed and some randomly determined (randoms can only be less than 100% sure, so not all of your mages always get them all).

Units that have been intended for a specific nation ahve been designed with that nation in mind, so for example the magic paths of mages reflect that.

[Yrkoon]

As well as empowering your mages (permanent increase for a lot of gems) you can also use the gems in combat to boost your level temporarily. You can use one gem per spell to increase you level by one. It's a good way of casting spells you would normally not be able too.

For example a weak fire mage with one level in fire magic can use one gem to cast phoenix power (level 2 fire spell). Phoenix power boost your level in fire by 1 for the whole battle. You mage is now level 2. By using another gem, your mage can cast a level 3 spell. All of a sudden your crappy mage is quite deadly.

[Yrkoon]

There is also communions and sabbaths to increase your mages' power. You can find more about those in the forums, and propably in Edi's FAQ.

[Fenris99]

This is all great advice, thank you