One of the things I love about Dom3

[Squirrelloid]

Admiral Zhao - For example, the manual leads one to believe that blocking an arrow with a shield merely means you get to add the shield's protection against the arrow (based on how other combat works, where the only explanation is given), which is wrong. A parried arrow is actually totally negated, which is a critical difference when planning battle tactics, and yet is never mentioned in the manual. (see pgs 74-77 - the melee combat section is a necessary read because that's where the only description of actual shield effect is).

Or perhaps the total absence of mention that fear reduces enemy morale each round of combat, which is really significant and the more important of its effects.

Other examples could of course be mentioned. In fact, there are entire threads on this board pointing out inaccuracies of the manual. Ie, http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39469.

James243: Maybe i'm showing my age, but I remember the manuals from the 80s and early 90s games, which were at least as good as the Dom3 manual if not better. In the 80s, RPG manuals had full spell listings with descriptions and game data, for example. So i don't consider inclusion of such things special - its a flaw with the product if it *doesn't* have such a manual.

(in the case of RTSes, the games are generally simple enough that the 'functional' manual is really all that could be expected. My copy of starcraft came with a perfectly good manual for the complexity of the game, including, most relevantly, a fold-out tech/building tree).

[Sombre]

The manual is wrong about enough mechanics that I can't trust it without testing or asking someone who has first hand experience. So it's inaccurate in enough cases to no longer be useful to me. But when I first ordered the game I did enjoy reading it.

A particularly bad example not mentioned by squirreloid would be that the manual states quite clearly you can't retreat safely from a sieged castle. Which you can.

[vfb]

It doesn't really say that. In the Break Siege section, it says, "Units which retreat are eliminated instead of being able to return to the fortress."

It doesn't say you can't retreat to a neighboring friendly province. It just says you cannot retreat to back inside the fortress. It's possible the author assumes that all neighboring provinces are not owned by the army breaking siege. He should have made that assumption clear though. Or maybe he just didn't understand the mechanics, and managed to accidentally leave himself some wriggle room.

In the Storm Castle section it says nothing at all about the consequences of retreat.

That said, the manual is completely wrong about several aspects of dominion spread. And it's a bit wrong about blood hunting, and the turn resolution sequence, and call god, and I'm sure a bunch of other things I just can't remember right now. Isn't there a manual erratta thread somewhere?

Also: MoM and Moo and Civ II had really great manuals.

[Sombre]

I think it's pretty clear what is meant. "Units which retreat are eliminated". Yes, they are under the normal non-siege-specific condition that there are no friendly provinces to retreat to. Something which is covered by the manual elsewhere. I guess it's /possible/ we are supposed to infer that the author assumes there are no bordering friendly provinces in a siege situation (which would just make it poorly written). But let's be real, the manual just has it wrong. You'll only find the statement ambiguous if you really go looking for ambiguity.

[Illuminated One]

It's questionable to rely on the manual for battle strategy on any case imo.
You might have a relatively good plan in "theory" i.e. worked out from the manual, that does fail completely in practice for reasons of battle placement and AI (as soon as you are into range your script runs out and the AI takes over for example or AI choosing the perfect target...).

[Squirrelloid]

There's a difference in the manual handing you strategies and the manual's description of game mechanics being accurate so you can make reasonable judgement calls based on it. (One might foolishly believe that morale 15+ units don't have much to worry about from Fear given the manual - and one would be horribly wrong). And one can make perfectly good strategy in Chess based on the 'manual' (ie, rules) - that computer games permit mathematically complicated rules doesn't mean that the players should be incapable of knowing them, nor does it mean that they can't form strategy based on those rules.

Also, the way in which the AI chooses targets and behaves should probably be covered in general terms, since that's an essential part of playing the game. (So, the manual should probably say things like "During combat the player has no control of targetting, and only limited control of scripting. Instead, the program chooses targets for spells and attacks, subject to any constraints of scripting. In general, the game tries to maximize x,y,z (number of units, hps of damage, etc... whatever the ordering is). Actions which have no appropriate target in range fail, and the game tends to replace those orders with other orders as follows: {list}. Some spells the AI will refuse to use if the opposition appears to weak to warrant it, or {specify other cases}, and will default to other spells as described previously.")

Also, the spell descriptions in game (and presumably in the manual) are aggravatingly vague about the effects of spells. This is not a selling point, strategy games should have transparent mechanics or they stop being about strategy. Spells should list precise definitions of what the spells do.

Also, an explanation of 'attack rearmost' which explains why it rarely attacks the actual rearmost units would be useful. I have no idea why sometimes this works but mostly it fails and just attacks the front-most unit on the side.

[Torin]

Attack rearmost fails if theres units in the path or near the path so they "lure" or "taunt" your units to melee.
Theres a check. I dont know what checks but your units are not lured by commanders unless they are too close. But instead looks for "soldiers" or non commanders.
Perhaps checks morale or something in the enemys stats.

You can force the ai to go to one side placing your frontmost group un that side and flankers on the opposite. But human opponents can prevent that putting their own flankers on both sides so you cannot slip trough. Slow flankers are best to stop enemy cavalry so they dont venture too far ahead.