Q: New to game, need advice - getting wrecked

[Taqwus]

Some of the strategy-affecting differences...

Dom 2:
- No Eras.
- Base Nation + Theme option; themes generally cost design points.
Most themeless nations resemble Middle Era D3 nations.
Themes may be similar to other eras.
A couple of themes have turned into global enchantments.
- You bought one fortress design with design points, and used it on all terrain; hence, one could go for 'mad castling' with a cheap fortress.
- And forts were cheaper, too.
- It was much easier to access all magical paths; randoms were either FAWE, SDNB, or FAWESDNB. Sages were common and had a FAWESDNB random. Spectres had two.
- Far fewer national spells.
- Half the income and supply of D3. Combine with cheaper forts and there's more emphasis on mages and SCs than large armies.
- Lifedrain weapons not restricted in how much they could drain...

[jutetrea]

Cool

Initially thought sea going races would suck.. but its kind of nice to be a bit more undisturbed.

Completely dif stats though I'm figuring. Ran up against the Ry'leh(sp?) and by the time i'd knocked them out of their keep others had conquered huge swaths of land with huge armies so I was way behind as i butted heads right off the bat (again!).

What's up with random map placement? Tried the Farthing map, 76 land 25 sea.. end up 3 provinces away from the only other sea nation. I was mid left, he was top left. Seems like every map i try there's an enemy within 3 or 4.

[Aleph]

Like many commenting here, I'm very new to the game, having played it (fairly constantly) for only about a month, and only in SP. Here's my perspective:

Just Surviving: If you're just looking to play through a huge game to see what is possible and want to avoid losing at all costs, play LA Rl'yeh. They are the only nation of that era to start underwater, and if you aren't facing Atlantis then you have no serious competition for the oceans. You will likely be frustrated by micromanagement (which is compounded by insanity domain effects), esp. given your above comments, but this will give you a sense of the value of F1. Lessons you can learn from Rl'yeh: Clam-spamming (N enabled Slave Mage -> Contact Naiad -> Clam of Pearls), controlling hordes, shifting from recruited to summoned commanders to save cash, raiding, and later a great experimental lab through Wish.

Bless: I tend to play large, long games. In these, bless is generally less useful than in small games, since many nations (but by no means all of them) have capitol-only sacreds. Even so, bless approaches far cheaper than a triple 9 bless can still yield great dividends without totally wrecking your economy. For example, Mictlan can run F9N4E4B4D2 with an imprisoned Smoking Mirror and still have enough points to runs a strong chaos economy (Turmoil/Sloth/Luck/Growth 3 and their freebie Heat 1) and taking dominion 5. While their many sacred troops won't be quite as nasty as they can possibly be, they'll still hit with brutal power (+4 attack, +2 strength, flaming weapons), regenerate, and reinvigorate (great for their many sacred spellcasters, both recruited and summoned) while being able to catch a lot of lucky breaks, generate compound population interest, and groom smaller provinces for bloodhunting/ recuperate bloodhunting losses.

[jutetrea]

Thanks for the reply.

I think I'm starting to get a hang of the terminology, but just want to clarify some stuff.

chaos economy works? lots of events, trying for positives for gem and cash flow? seems counter-intuitive, but I'm assuming it works since i've seen it mentioned a bit.

Haven't noticed the mirror yet, but randomly: why do folks pick a non-moving god? Don't you lose a lot of potential that way? Are they generally cheaper or that much more protected?

I'll have lots to play with once the full version comes in, definitely looking forward to it.

[Shovah32]

Non moving gods are generally cheaper for what you get(better dom, good start magic, decent new path cost) and chaos economy is good partly because it can get you extra points(order3misfortune2 is 40 points more than turmoil3luck3. You should avoid misfortune3 due to some very bad events)

[Aleph]

Well, above caveats about experience repeated:

Different races and map sizes require different layouts. I love Turmoil/Luck for Mictlan in part because a blood economy, even if located in your less affluent provinces, will still significantly cut into your income. The chaos economy provides opportunities for income for each province which are unrelated to taxation (200 gold pickups or mines /guilds worth +40 or 60/round are pretty common, with drops of 1000 and 3000 + magic items being more rare but happening maybe one round out of four). The extra gems are excellent for a nation which has access to so many different kinds of mages (blood/fire/nature/astral/water, national summons with death) and earth and fire can be alchemized for gold if need be. Given that your opponent doesn't benefit from the postive aspects of your scales (or so I've been told), turmoil/sloth/luck 3 is also pretty hostile environment to spread into enemy areas - little gold or resources and lots of random events without the positive spin makes invasion hazardous. Finally, Luck 3 + Improved Crossbreeding is one of my biggest joys in the game - it only takes a couple Basilisks, Chimera, or Dracolions to have me giggling on the floor.

I should also say that, while a 42% difference in income seems overwhelming and impossible to overcome, even with Order 3 misfortune 1 I've had some really nasty events (thief stealing a big chunk of magical gems I had been hording for empowerment, serious money losses, large exodus of population, etc). So you have to balance the guaranteed increase in gold income with the fact that you're likely to lose a chunk of it (and magical gems as well, which are often harder to come by) to misfortune.

Do they balance out? No clue. I've been told by people who seem to know what they are talking about that chaos is better in the long run/big maps and order better in the short run / small maps. Whether this is a side effect of the fact that chaos is often accompanied by growth (due to the fact that order 3 costs the same as turmoil/luck/growth 3) is unknown to me. You also gotta look at where you want to go with your nation - don't stint Yomi on gold, but EA/LA Mictlan / LA Ermor / LA Rl'yeh thrive in chaos. Between these two extremes there's a lot of guesswork.

[jutetrea]

I've tried it twice so far (been playing a big too much

First with Atlantis - had a terrible time with luck 3... still seemed to get hit with invasions/gold loss every time i turned around.

Just finished one (well premature ending of demo) as agartha, worked like a charm. 3 turmoil, 2 sloth, 1 growth, 3 luck, 2 heat with a mini-bless - 4F4A4W3A4D4G0B I think with the sage (37 research to start!). Just purchased the big sacreds and big mages... good quality, low quantity... and equipped my trogs, rushed up to blade wind and started rolling. Good map too, adventurien.. started on the top coast, about 4 from the nearest enemy.

edit: F4A3W4E4A4D4N4 with 3Turmoil, 3 sloth, 2 heat, 1 death, 3 luck

I'm curious what the "end of demo" is... when you take out your first enemy god/starting loc? 4 years? Sometimes it seems to end at the end of 3 years, some at the end of 4 years... but usually just as i have someone on the ropes or just decimated their country.

I haven't found much about Agartha, but with 3H3E 400g priests (divine blessing + blade wind) and big sacreds the bless thingy worked pretty well. Didn't bother jacking 9 in something as I was limited to 4th lvl spells anyway.

Fun, fun... seems i'll try the chaos bit out more, not a huge fan of focusing on bless - although i'm guessing it very much has to do with the race/nationals/capital limiteds.

I've found I like a combat pretender the best, big bull (good hp, trample, regen, lack of slots), dagon (big, trample, good slots) for atlantis, etc.. but it really sucks with no save function if they croak. More fun though

Question: Site finding - water seems easy with voice of tiamat, is there an equivalent for surface? Seems wastful to cast 3 or 4 spells on one province, doesnt that take forever? I had a great finder (lots of 4's), but wanted him researching.. what's an efficient way to search?

Question: What are the different eras about? Stuck on early for now, do the units change? Do more units become available? Do funky things like prices/site types, etc change? Any rule changes between eras?

Also really wish there was a pdf version of the manual online

[Aleph]

There's acashic record which searches for everything (unlike tiamat which is only elemental) but is cost inefficient for 25 astral unless you're already dominating. I believe certain land types have higher percentages of magic sites (wastelands, and starred provinces on certain maps) which might make them a useful target for akashic, but otherwise it's not a good idea.

In the current iteration of the game, you can have 1 spellcaster at a time doing monthly (SHIFT-M) search spells/spell and it will target okay - so 1 guy doing dark knowledge, 1 guy doing voice of apsu, etc. It tends to target newly acquired provinces 1st and will sometimes turn off for no reason or target capitals, but in general its a decent low management solution if you have low ranked mages of several stripes to spare.

There's no pdf manual to prevent piracy.

Bless is 100% nation specific, as are pretty much all strats in the game - you want strong non-capital only sacred troops, or absolutely amazing capital only sacred. Mictlan, one of my favorite nations, has good non-capital sacred troops and a ton of sacred unique summons. Playing them with the same scales you would play with Yomi is a roadmap for frustration.

While the nation names stay the same between eras (at least, for the most part, as there are some nations which are not present in all era), the units tend to change pretty dramatically from era to era. Agartha, for example, loses most of its Pale Ones as the eras progress and ends up a heavily armed and armored human nation with pretty strong death/fire/earth battlemages and some kickin' national summons. The most dramatic change award goes to Ermor, which starts out pseudo-roman with a little death and ends up 100% undead, with no national units able to be purchased with gold, the best magical income in the game to fuel a large variety of unique national summons, and a hostile domain which decimates population and reanimates freespawns everywhere it reaches. Mictlan changes a ton from Early to Mid (similar troops but losing its defining magical competency) and then goes back very similar to early in late.

[jutetrea]

Awesome, didn't know about shift-M, it was such a hassle that i'd rarely search.

gah, so much to try! bloody post is taking forever, guess i should have sprung for the quick delivery

I'm almost tempted to get a cracked version just so i can finish a freakin game. Unfortunately the only cheats I use are no-cd cracks for convenience.

being limited to only 5 nations is good, eases you into the huge quantity.

btw, nilheim giants - SUCK! i guess i let him get to big, cuz once i was ready to rumble so was he, and he wiped me. Trample chariots - core of my army - completely useless Love it!