High PD kinda useless.

[Graeme Dice]

[quote]
bleach168 said:
I'm playing Pythium and I have lots of money so I invest in PD usually up to 50-60 in provinces bordering my enemies.[/qutoe]

Are you aware that that much province defense is costing you 1830 gold? You could have bought 183 troops for that cost.

[Gandalf Parker]

Jotunheim gets a great return from PD. Since they are so expensive to maintain as an army. And a 6 in PD for them is equal to 11 for other nations

And no matter how you are swayed by this discussion ALWAYS put at least 1 into PD. If you dont then when it gets taken you wont know if it was an army or a scout because you will get no battle report on it.

[Meglobob]

Gandalf Parker said:
Jotunheim gets a great return from PD. Since they are so expensive to maintain as an army. And a 6 in PD for them is equal to 11 for other nations

This was true in Dom2 but is it correct in Dom3?

Jotunheim only get 1/2 a Jotun militia upto PD 20 ie...10 units. Easy to defeat I have found.

Compare to Man, same era, gets 1 Spearman, 2xMilitia ie 60 units at PD 20. Tough to defeat especially eary game.

Things have changed. How worthwhile PD is, depends on the individual nation now.

Also at 21+ u r getting better quality troops for yr PD, which also effect things.

[dirtywick]

I usually bump it up from anywhere between 5 and 31 depending on where the province is located. Adding a respectable amount of PD makes sure your oppenent is using a real army to take the province.

[Patriot]

I just purchased this game and have only begun to play my first game, so I am a total newbie. I've yet to play another person, so bumping up your Province Defense high and turtling up might lose you the game against a human. I don't know.

But in my game, where I'm playing against several computers, I up my Province Defense to the max in every province and use my army to snatch weakly-defended provinces, trying to avoid a costly battle. Since I've scaled towards a high income, it's somewhat easy. I'm trying to kill off my opponents with temples and a 10 dominion pretender. It's pretty anticlimatic way of playing though. These are normal computers too, so that may be the problem.

Anyway, if the computers actually defended each province well or ranked up a high Province Defense, I might avoid attacking, as replacing 200-300 men and merging them takes time. I think the biggest thing about Province Defense, and it explains it in the loading screen between turns is that, Province Defense returns full force if not defeated and at no cost to the player.

This is a great game by the way.

[NTJedi]

Patriot said:

Anyway, if the computers actually defended each province well or ranked up a high Province Defense, I might avoid attacking, as replacing 200-300 men and merging them takes time. I think the biggest thing about Province Defense, and it explains it in the loading screen between turns is that, Province Defense returns full force if not defeated and at no cost to the player.

Yes even tho Dominion_3 has more gold available the computer opponents rarely invest in province defense. Personally I would setup the computer opponents to place a minimum of 8pts in province defense and then have them invest 2% of their total gold into province defense for existing provinces. And provinces with forts/castles and/or high gem income should have a minimum of 15 province defense.
It's sad attacking a computer opponent only to discover their average province only has a total of 4pts in province defense after 35 game turns passed.

[DominionsFan]

Meglobob said:

This was true in Dom2 but is it correct in Dom3?

Jotunheim only get 1/2 a Jotun militia upto PD 20 ie...10 units. Easy to defeat I have found.

Compare to Man, same era, gets 1 Spearman, 2xMilitia ie 60 units at PD 20. Tough to defeat especially eary game.

Things have changed. How worthwhile PD is, depends on the individual nation now.

Also at 21+ u r getting better quality troops for yr PD, which also effect things.

Yep, Jotun milita is like 1/2 compared to the other nation PDs.

[Hadrian_II]

I think PD is very effective against the AI as it tends to send every turn lots of troops to attack but never enough to win. My PD killed about 400 enemy troops each turn (in ca. 5 provinces). I had a PD strength of about 60+ and supported it with mages (i used trollkings and each of them got in the hall of fame after 10 turns with 500 kills each )

[Ironhawk]

Hadrian_II said:
I think PD is very effective against the AI as it tends to send every turn lots of troops to attack but never enough to win. My PD killed about 400 enemy troops each turn (in ca. 5 provinces). I had a PD strength of about 60+ and supported it with mages (i used trollkings and each of them got in the hall of fame after 10 turns with 500 kills each )

Yeah PD is well-used as renewable fodder. Tho when playing agains the AI, I found that the best use of PD was convincing the AI that you were "strong". Putting heavy PD on aggressive AI borders made them think twice about attacking you, and it seems the AIs are technically at peace until they make thier first attack on you or vice versa.

[Gandalf Parker]

Keep in mind also that everything has its pros and cons. Particularly in this game. If you think its worthless it usually means to look at it again. Using the gold on queued units can be better but not every time.

PD is a way to catch spys and scouts.

PD is a way to defend a province such as one with a lab without cluttering up the commander and units displays.

PD is instant and does not rely on resources to make them.
There have been times when I had alot of money and was about to be attacked someplace which I really didnt want to lose. Cranking up the PD there was something I considered to be perfectly acceptable in costs.

Taking a forward location at great losses can mean its a good time to pump some of your capital gold into PD for that province to give you time to create and move up a replacement mobile army.

Gandalf Parker