High PD kinda useless.

[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.

[bleach168]

Graeme Dice said:

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

Yes I realize that. I don't want to pay the upkeep on 183 troops or have to replace losses.

I guess I will take Kissblade's advice and add some battlemages or something. At least until PD commanders don't suicide into the enemy.

[Ironhawk]

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.

...

I suppose I could add extra commanders and have them guarded by extra troops but I feel this defeats the purpose of no upkeep PD.

Putting so much money into PD isnt the answer. If you are having to defend a front against an enemy then you should be stationing real armies there to do the defending. Since PD is usually so weak and (as you have just seen) extremely easy to defeat by any non-trivial force, its best to keep your levels b/w 10-20 for spy catching and maybe repelling the odd raid. Beyond that it loses all its bang for the buck and you are better off recruiting more national mages and troops.

[Endoperez]

An occassional higher level can be good, but those are just occassional. Raising PD over, say, level 40 by paying for it is very expensive, and shouldn't really be done. Level 40 is already very high, but I quess it might have a situational use any way.

[bleach168]

You know what, instead of spending all that gold on PD, I think I will just spam forts (and labs) all along my borders. Once Gateway is fixed, it should be easy to defend my borders.

[Ironhawk]

A much better use of your money

[Saxon]

Hmm, spamming forts along an active border and not manning them is a bit dangerous. If your enemy grabs one, they have a nice base to build from and you have to retake it at some cost. I prefer defending against with a more flexible border, where you can lose and re-take a province relativly easily. But as some one else wrote, if you have real problems on the border, you should have a real army to deal with it. Once you defeat the attacking force, you may wish to go and visit the enemy provinces for a little chat. After all, the best defense is a good offense...

[isodea]

PD is certainly a double-edged sword cost vs. effectivness wise. It's one of the most interesting features of Dom for me. I usaually dont go above 31 in any given province. Sometimes when I take an enemy province deep in thier lands and am waiting for reinforcements I'll bump it up to 50+ as a stalling tactic. It brings a smile to my face when they throw a big army at it and, win or lose, it costs them mass casualties.