Questions from a Newb

[Ferrosol]

After being persuaded by a couple of dom3 playing friends and playing the demo a few times.I have bought this game, but before I plunge into the game I was wondering if anyone would be willing to answer a few questions from a confused newbie

Q1.What do the following terms mean SC and Thug?
Q2.What are the most important things to consider when designing a pretender god? (i.e. Is it which is more important scales,magic or Dominons)
Q3. From playing the demo it seems like the key to victory is to mass magic users and build a horde of cheap troops (popcorn?) does this hold true for the main game?
Q4. Is it better to design a pretender that focuses on one particular field(i.e. air magic)or is a balanced approach better?
Q5. What should I look for in selecting a prophet?

Thanks in advance for any help

[Zebion]

sc = Supercombatant. Which basically means a strong commander,with probably some nice effects,tricked out in some bad*** items that can probably take an independant either alone,or with a small squad

thug = Not as powerful as an SC but nice to go with armies and help. Most likely an okay unit with some items

[Taqwus]

ex -- if you're going to rely on cheap sacred troops, Order scale makes less since than magic for blessing. If you're going to pump out lots of regular heavy infantry, you want Productivity. And so forth.

And if you're going against elite troops that never tire (wights, for instance), or powerful mages, chaff may die en masse... whereas swarms will help reduce the impact of mindblasting, since mindblasting targets 1 unit per blast only. And so forth.

[UninspiredName]

]Q2.What are the most important things to consider when designing a pretender god? (i.e. Is it which is more important scales,magic or Dominons)

Unless you use blesses a lot, scales is probably what you'll feel the most as you play the game. Dominion strength has limited importance as it doesn't really affect the game, but if you put it too low, I've lost the game with a temple in every province and half the world conquered. Dominion strength can also be important if you plan on using spells like Lure of the Deep.

Q3. From playing the demo it seems like the key to victory is to mass magic users and build a horde of cheap troops (popcorn?) does this hold true for the main game?

Well, it varies. Magic does have a lot of importance, but cheap hordes risk routing, and you would be amazed how well 10 of a powerful recruit do against 50 weaklings.

Q4. Is it better to design a pretender that focuses on one particular field(i.e. air magic)or is a balanced approach better?

That also depends. If your strategy somewhat revolves around of certain spells, blesses, or your physical form has a high Path cost, it can be a good idea. If you want him for researching or site-searching, though, multiple paths are usually better. Depending on your strategy, one might even want to not put any extra magic on your Pretender.

Q5. What should I look for in selecting a prophet?

Either a high-level priest, a supercombatant if you have a really high Dominion Strength, or someone who you really want to be able to build Temples (Like your starting general). Some people prophetize stealthy units, then send them behind enemy lines to spread your Dominion.

[Ironhawk]

1) SCs and Thugs are both single units which either via buffs (spells targeting the caster) or equipment are so powerful that they can defeat many foes. I think of SCs as units capable of defeating entire armies, whereas Thugs I use more for cleanup work like taking out PD.

2) This is one of the key points of the game and its difficult to give general advice like this. Best thing I can say is its better to pick an Overall Strategy before you build your pretender. Will you rely on your national troops and mages? Perhaps then you need scales. Will you be using a bless? Then you need a some level 9 magic on your pretender. Are your mages weak? Then perhaps you need a rainbow pretender to pick up the slack.

3) Magic is the key to the long term dominions game, yes. But you don't always need massed spellcasters on the battlefield. That is only one path of magic use. You could alternatively cast Artillery Spells (like murdering winter) from a distance at your enemies army. Or summon SCs to destroy them.

4) Again, it depends on your Strategy. I would say this: you should look at what spells you need your pretender to cast. And then make sure he has all the magic power he will need to do that (or close enough so that he can boost with equipment later on). With the exception of the rainbow mage, this likely means that you will be concentrating on only a few paths of magic.

5) If you have a recruitable H3 priest, many people like to prophetize one so you can get access to the H4 spells. Other than that, units with no holy are popular because they turn into instant H3 priests. If your nation has very strong national commanders they are sometimes prophetized so they can be turned into Thugs.

[Endoperez]

1) Example supercombatant:

A Wyrm (two-headed giant snake available as a pretender) with Air 4 and Earth 4. It is equipped with: Horror Helmet,Horror Helmet (both increase Fear), Amulet of Reinvigoration (removes several points of fatigue each turn) and Pendant of Luck (every damaging thing, from swords to missiles to spells, has a 50% chance of missing).
He is accompanied by a mage who has few picks in Astral. You have researched Alteration. The mage casts "Body Ethereal". It makes all units in one battle square (3 humans, 2 horsemen or 1 Wyrm) Ethereal, making 75% of all non-magical forms of damage miss them. It doesn't protect against damage. The Wyrm itself casts the following spells:
Earth Power (more reinvigoration), Mistform (makes him very hard to damage without magical weapons), Mirror Image (makes him surrounded by illusions, making most strikes miss him), Invulnerability (gives him protection 25 and lowers his poison resistance), Air Shield, then attacks.

In positive dominion, the Wyrm will have hundreds of hp, massive regeneration, most strikes won't hit him, even fewer will penetrate his protection, those few hits will be regenerated in a turn, etc. Even if someone manages to burst in (removing Mistform and the mirror images), he's almost impossible to kill.

This isn't even from the tougher end, as he starts with lots of fatigue which will take several turns to go down, and fatigue makes him much more vulnerable, and he won't have much attack; and especially because his magic resistance isn't too great so enemy mages will eventually succeed in Paralyze or Soul Slay or even Sleep, and he'll be an easier (but not exactly easy) target.

You can't really kill a Wyrm like that with mere armies. Especially if he's supported by an army.



As said before, decide what you want to do. You'll always want to specialize into something. This something could be Air Evocations, as an example, or level 2 in all paths your national mages won't get so that your pretender can find all the interesting magic sites, or Fire 9 to give your sacred units flaming weapons AND your pretender access to all Fire spells. Then you want to choose scales, like some Magic to help you research Evocation faster; or maximum Growth to keep your old mages from getting sick, some magic to research, and some order for money while affording this with Sloth and Misfortune and relying on getting lots of research done fast and then using all those gems for something very, very good; or you could just take high dominion to be able to recruit lots of sacred units in all castles and make your pretender Imprisoned and take as good scales as you can afford to build massive armies backed up by very agressive sacreds, aiming to get some good Fire spells for your pretender to use his skill in Fire for something really impressive once he wakes up.

Once you get the full game, the manual will have example strategies for the different nations. They aren't perfect, but they'll give you lots of ideas.

[Gandalf Parker]

Most of your questions would have a simple answer of "that depends". The game is deep enough that you can build a whole strategy going one way, then build another strategy going another way. So Im afraid that you will mostly get opinions, instead of absolute answers.

Such as, you thing about popconr troops. In the demo, you were playing small fast games. But on medium and large maps, and longer games, that might be a bad thing to concentrate on.

[Zebion]

Horror Helmet,Horror Helmet

I thought double items didn't stack,unless the creature has 4 misc items

[Endoperez]

Zebion said:

I thought double items didn't stack,unless the creature has 4 misc items

That's about weapons and misc items... But it just might be that helmets won't stack either. Still, it's extra protrction for that hrad, and there's not anything better at that point... Well, Dragon Helmet, I guess. Or perhaps a Starshine Skullcap; those give magic resistance.

[Jack_Trowell]

the horror helmet give -1 defense IIRC. A simple Black steel helmet for the second head would be better if you can't make anything else.

Whith access to air magic, you could do the spirit helmet (same protection as the horror helmet, and cast a lighting bolt each round. Not as good as fear, but still useful, as each ennemy death means one more chance to rout them)

Note that your wyrm isn't a true SC in the classic definition, as he still need an army (he need a mage to buff him, and without an army, and unless the mage himself is a SC, you will need troops to protect the mage)

If you have access to death, the wraith crown will make your wyrm etheral, and cast raise dead at the start of each battle. Then the wyrm will truely become a SC, able to take whole armies except for the more powerful ones.

Don't forget also to take dominions 9 or 10 as it will give your pretender the awe ability (+0 for dom9, and +2 for dom10), wich, combined to fear, is like better etheral a second time (powerful, but doesn't work versus units without morale such as undeads or versus spells and arrows)