the Gold Lion (running)

johnarryn · #1 January 22nd, 2007, 01:45 PM

Well, even with a SC god your PD and troops you have on hand should be able to put up a fight, particularly in your dominion... did you see the other player coming? (im assuming its Arco).

That's not meant to be condescending, just encouraging =) I think you have a fighting chance.

Ferrosol · #2 January 22nd, 2007, 05:15 PM

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

johnarryn · #3 January 22nd, 2007, 09:35 PM

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

Dragonlord · #4 January 24th, 2007, 09:17 AM

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 · #5 January 24th, 2007, 06:04 PM

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.

Dragonlord · #6 January 24th, 2007, 07:39 PM

Quote:

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 · #7 January 24th, 2007, 08:16 PM

Quote:

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)

Quote:

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)

Quote:

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

Again, a single candle could screw you.

Quote:

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

agreed (see below)

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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 · #8 January 24th, 2007, 08:25 PM

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 =)

Hellboy · #9 January 24th, 2007, 06:59 PM

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.