the Gold Lion (running)

[Ferrosol]

well i doubt it was arco as they just turned up on my border with a Blue Dragon

[johnarryn]

Haha, ok... i just assumed it was the Arcos because of the nasty number of kills their god is racking up.

[Dragonlord]

OK, this is Marverni nation bowing out.
I have asked the host to set me to AI control, my castle is besieged and I have no troops left.

Lessons learned: the map generator sucks. It put me and 2 othr nations at starting positions within a small piece of territory of about 8 provinces, this should be further spaced apart.

I would dearly like to know how Lanka pulled this one off...having an army of 70 troops + prophet + pretender beelining straight for my capitol on turn 5, and having another 30 sacred troops reinforcing that on turn 8...while also having captured himself half a dozen provinces in the meantime...

Are awake pretenders a MUST in multiplayer?

[Nix]

I can see how he did it. Expansion with mercenaries (you can see Lanka hired a lot of them) while the pretender sticks around building up troops; then he stumbled upon a red candle, gathered his men and followed the trail straight to your fortress. He's got a lot of sacred troops because his dominion is totally beefed up, resulting in a high holy rating for his home province. You know he has high dominion because his pretender has so many names.

[Hellboy]

Dragonlord said:
Lessons learned: the map generator sucks. It put me and 2 othr nations at starting positions within a small piece of territory of about 8 provinces, this should be further spaced apart.

Well, it depends entirely on how many players are on the given land mass. I think Nix has the right of it - it can be surprisingly easy to track down another player, with just a bit of luck.

Are awake pretenders a MUST in multiplayer?

I'm new to Dom3, but at the least I can say based on reading the forum that bless strategies are enhanced by sleeping or imprisoned pretenders. Beyond that, I suspect it can work, but its tricky and rather nation dependent.

[Dragonlord]

Nix said:
I can see how he did it. Expansion with mercenaries (you can see Lanka hired a lot of them) while the pretender sticks around building up troops; then he stumbled upon a red candle, gathered his men and followed the trail straight to your fortress.

Red candle ?! This was frigging turn 5 ! I had just given my first order to capture my first province on turn 4 ! (Mostly cause I was scared of getting beat by indies and kept failing to buy mercs, even though I offered em twice their asking price.... and I staled for a turn). Point is there *was* no trail to follow back, I found his home province just before dying and it was 3 hops due north of me. Way too close. Its not like he ran into my dominion candles either cause I noticed that the turn he showed up I was even down to zero dominion in my home town, and 1 candle in 2 neighboring provinces.

A map setup like that (in terms of player density) pretty much forces everyone to be ultra agressive from turn 1 onwards and spend 300-400 on mercs, otherwise you get run over by the others who do that. Boring...

Anyways, I am considering starting (hosting) a new MP game that hopefully addresses this by having 12-15 provinces allocated to each player (so no more than 10 players on a 130 province map). That should allow for more refined strategies to also get a shot...
Perhaps the Cradle of Dominion map, I like a well designed map which also graphically looks nicer than the stuff the random generator makes.

[Hellboy]

Dragonlord said:
Red candle ?! This was frigging turn 5 !

He's talking about your domain going positive, which will show up as red candle on Lanka's map. This is certainly possible by turn 5. (and actually it's a black candle w/ a red tip)

I had just given my first order to capture my first province on turn 4 ! (Mostly cause I was scared of getting beat by indies and kept failing to buy mercs, even though I offered em twice their asking price.... and I staled for a turn).

For your next game you should figure out how to take your first indy no later than turn 2. (I know some people do it on turn 1 - not sure if that's a good idea or not)

Point is there *was* no trail to follow back, ...

Again, a single candle could screw you.

... it was 3 hops due north of me. Way too close.

agreed (see below)

Its not like he ran into my dominion candles either cause I noticed that the turn he showed up I was even down to zero dominion in my home town, and 1 candle in 2 neighboring provinces.

I think it's more complicated than that. For one thing dominion candles come and go pretty frequently in the first few turns.

Anyways, I am considering starting (hosting) a new MP game that hopefully addresses this by having 12-15 provinces allocated to each player (so no more than 10 players on a 130 province map). That should allow for more refined strategies to also get a shot...
Perhaps the Cradle of Dominion map, I like a well designed map which also graphically looks nicer than the stuff the random generator makes.

Sounds good (let me know, I'll likely want to join in!). However, you're actually describing a very dense map - the map for this game had 17.6 provinces per player, at the outset (230 provinces w/ 13 players). So, you might want to consider upping the provinces per player a good bit more.

I suspect that it is actually rather difficult to write the code for a good map setup, that is maximally fair to all players. I noticed that DrPraetorious has hosted a couple of games where he used a script to generate fair starting positions. I don't know if he's considered making that publicly available, or not.

[johnarryn]

Well, Lanka also risked quite a bit going right for you... lets say he hadnt found you, or couldnt beat you and ran into another nation with a SC, hed have wasted all his time and troops, and not have cleared all the provs around his capital.

I am a bit curious how Lanka was able to pay for all these sacred troops plus mercenaries... regardless, he got lucky, and you got unlucky. I dont know if it completely erases the validity of random map set-ups. I also dont think you have to buy mercs... in fact, on a map with so many players, bidding for mercs is often a very bad idea in my opinion.

Anyway, sorry you got knocked out so early, it sucks.
Let me know about the new game you plan to start =)

[Micah]

yeah, he also spent 250 points on having an awake pretender, plus another chunk getting his dominion high enough for awe. If he couldn't have a good shot at taking a lot more provinces than other players early on in the game (or even taking them out entirely) he'd be pretty screwed down the line once his horrible scales and/or limited magic selection start to be felt.

Sure it sucks to get taken out early, but if you'd met him on turn 50 instead of turn 5 you'd have just as much of an unfair advantage as he did now, it's all part of the choices you have to make. I also saw one battle you had with him with a scout, and I believe I remember you sinking a few javelins into his ghost king, though not enough to kill him. Pretenders aren't invincible, and he did have to wade through a bunch of indies, plus you get the advantage of having more turns of recruitment and the benefit of PD.

Oh, and whoever said that you need to expand on turn 2 is 100% correct...having to recruit with only the 80 resources in your capital is a really good way to lose.

[AdmiralZhao]

Hi all, Lanka here. I thought I would throw my two cents into the ring and give you an idea of what it was like to walk in my shoes to Marveni's capital.

Finding Marveni:
This step was not very difficult. When I took my 2nd or 3rd independent province I saw one of Marveni's black candles on the independents to the south. I sent my army to investigate and immediately found Marveni.

Defeating Marveni:
This was more difficult and a lot more risky. I was very lucky to have this turn out well. A couple of crucial points:
1) Right after I arrived next to the Marveni capital, we both attacked the same independent province. The Marveni army had to fight the independents first, and then faced my army without their PD to back them up.
2) In the battle that Micah mentions, 1 or 2 more javelins would have done for my ghost king. As it was, he caught a disease from one of their spears.
3) If at any point I lost a battle, or my mercenaries, or hit any sort of significant delay, I would have been locked into a long grind of a war while everyone else was expanding. I think it pretty much would have been game over for me if I lost any of our battles.

Mercenaries:
I agree with Micah, mercenaries are a sometimes food. They are very useful when they complement your troops or if they give you an immediate boost in a crucial province. I kept trying to get a second group of mercenaries for the push on the capital, but other people kept making even more outrageous bids than me. Marveni actually won the bids on 2 groups of mercenaries, which is one more group than me.

Candles:
I believe that you can see all enemy dominions that neighbor your own dominion. When Marveni's capital went down to 0 candles, that was because my pretender and prophet had been next door to the capital for at least one turn. When I first showed up the Marveni capital had 1 candle.

Notes for next game:
This is my first game using a SC pretender; the main reason I picked one is because in my previous 1 on 1 against seej, he did to me what I did to Marveni. Dragonlord, I would encourage you to try a SC pretender in your next game. It makes an amazing difference in the early game in terms of your rate of expansion and your strategic options. Of course, as Micah points out, the SC becomes much less impressive as the game rolls on. Now there is nothing for Lanka but to fade into gilded obscurity in the middle game, much like a cannibalistic Netherlands....