Newbie's first impressions

[NTJedi]

If you are somewhat knowledgeable about greek myths, fantasy lore and enjoyed playing the Civilization series... then this game is a great treasure.

PCarroll... have you discovered that you can place the location of your troops and assign commands to the commanders?

This game does take patience and I would suggest not playing against Ermor AI until you feel well experienced.

[jeffr]

I'd say stick with it. It really is very deep and alot of fun. I think it is a war game, with spell research there to allow you to build a superior army. You can play games quickly against the AI to try out various strategies. Feel free to ask specific "how to" questions here and I or others who are far better than me will answer them. The community is really helpful. After you become comfortable with the game's mechanics, join a some Multiplayer games. That is where the game really shines. I still get stomped, but I really enjoy trying to figure out counters to the strategies that have been used against me. The game has been modified a great deal to make it much more balanced and to eliminate certain "cheesy" (in my opinion ) strategies.

Some initial advice would be:

1. Learn the hotkeys. The UI becomes much better with them.

- F1 brings up a city report that shows much info at a glance and allows you to set taxes (to lower unrest, my goal is usually 0 unrest), increase Province Defense (1 or 2 is enough, as mentioned above 11 against the AI will usually deter an attack on that province, so you can channel the AI's attacks).

- 8 turns on arrows that allow you to see what provinces are adjacent to the currently selected province.

- n cycles through all commanders that don't have current non-defend orders. Always try to have commanders doing something, researching, searching, scouting (if stealthy), atttacking, ferrying troops around, patrolling, etc.

- tab toggles your commanders that research "on" and "off" in the UI, making it much easier to manage commanders

2. There are spell, unit and magic items guides (pdf and excel) that help alot. I don't have the link handy, but Sunray's and Liga's sites (or something like that, do a Google) might have them.

3. Most people always try to recruit a mage a turn in every castle with a lab. Magic is very powerful (or so they tell me ).

4. Focus your spell research to achieve specific spells. I heard someone recommend a strategy to go for Flaming Arrows (Enchantment level 4?), take Marignon, build crossbows and then rock. Remember to equip the mage that is going to cast Flaming Arrows with some fire gems. Certain spells require that a mage have gems in addition to the necessary level (Fire 3 for Flaming Arrows, I believe). Also, arrange your troops with the Crossbows at the back with some high protection infantry in front of them to slow down the enemy while your crossbows shred them.

Another might be to take Niefel themed Jotunheim and take a Pretender with 9 levels of Nature magic (i.e. N9). This will give your sacred giants the Nature 9 blessing, which will give them regeneration, 50% poison resistance, and the berserking ability, which rocks. You bless your sacred troops (sacred troops have candles in their unit dialogs) by casting the "bless" spell with a priest. Each unit can have battle orders. If you can get a priest with a Holy 4 level, then cast "Divine Blessing" and all your sacred troops on the battlefield will be blessed.

5. Try to expand at one province a turn early in the game and then more than that as time goes by. Avoid Heavy Cavalry, Knights and Longbows early. One possibility is to take a Pretender that is a "Super Combatant", something that can cast certain "self buff" spells that make it almost invincible against the independent provinces. Others can give better advice, and you can search the forums, but the Alteration and Enchantment schools have the best of these "self buff" spells: Mirror Image, Mist Form, Fire Shield, Iron Shield if you need protection. There is an post by Quantum Mechanic (I think) on this subject.

6. Build some scouts and send the out. Take a decent dominion (6 or 7).

Man, a long post, but stick with it and you too can experience the joy of crushing some magic loving wuss in the early portion of an MP game and the lust for vengeance that comes when the other magic loving, super combatant loving, life drained equiped pansies crush your soul later in the game

[Tals]

NTJedi said:
If you are somewhat knowledgeable about greek myths, fantasy lore and enjoyed playing the Civilization series... then this game is a great treasure.

PCarroll... have you discovered that you can place the location of your troops and assign commands to the commanders?

This game does take patience and I would suggest not playing against Ermor AI until you feel well experienced.

Dom 2 is a strange beast - i've played this for sometime now and mostly MP, PBEM or tcpip which the game is very well suited for. For me the real draw is playing a game where their is literally hundreds of different spells and items - all with nicely different effects. So a world where it is possible for armies to Portal to your enemies doorstep is available

I also found the game through the strategic newsgroup and the now defunct gone gold forum - though I don't frequent the Ng's anymore. Likewise I was an Ex Stars! player looking for another pbem game - the games are similar in that they both have great pbem hosting options - although Stars! interface was more intuitive the games are pretty much different so not really fair to compare

I also find the inteface whilst being initially not very intuitive - becomes so, almost like riding a bike - I hadn't played Dom 2 for about 6 months until recently, started it up and I was straight back into the game.

If I was to have a complaint i'd wish for some more diplomacy options - whilst I understand the point about a God not wanting to ally to another god, in reality this wouldn't be the case and some good old fashioned diplomacy options would really assist

Tals

[sushiboat]

PCarroll said:
Besides all the behind-the-scenes stuff (the economic and magical dimensions), the most annoying thing about Dom2 so far is the difficulty of establishing defensible borders. In my trial game, provinces changed hands the way they do in Risk; and that got old in a hurry. Nothing is more frustrating than making a successful attack, only to find that the enemy has meanwhile snuck in and taken over a couple lightly defended or undefended provinces behind your armies. That situation soon starts to seem hopeless.

The best defense is a good offense. It's better to play musical chairs in your opponent's territory.

Build forts in provinces that have good magic sites or high income. If a computer enemy takes a province with a fort in it, it won't move on until it either captures the fort or is defeated. If the enemy goes around your forted provinces, you should be able to cut off its retreat and kill it.

Buy province defense. Every province should have a PD of at least 1, which will give you a look at the enemy army that captures the province. After PD 1, the AI recognizes increments of 10. Having PD of 11 in several provinces will often delay AI attacks. PD is a useful supplement to any other defensive forces you have. Also, you can use low PD to set a trap. If all but one of your border provinces have a PD of 11, and the one has a PD of 1, the AI will probably target the PD 1. You can have armies positioned to pounce after the enemy takes the bait.

Create a supercombatant (SC), a powerful commander who can singlehandedly kill whole armies without taking a scratch. Start with a creature that is already powerful -- e.g., a Queen of Elemental Air, a Golem, an Ice Devil, or a Bane Lord. Give it a lifedrain weapon (Death or Blood) such as Wraith Sword, Hell Sword, or Blood Thorn. Fill its other equipment slots to make the SC harder to injure or to give it other desireable qualities. If the SC can't fly naturally, give it Winged Shoes or a Flying Carpet. Thus you will have a highly mobile commander who can recapture your provinces. Do a search on this forum to get more information about making and using a SC.

Play around with magical movement spells, such as Teleport (Astral) and Cloud Trapeze (Air). These spells allow you to catch your opponent before his army moves in the regular movement phase. Just be sure that the mage(s) you send is tough enough to get the job done. If you have a SC who can Teleport or Cloud Trapeze, you might want to do that even if it can reach the province with regular movement.

Summoning units that don't require upkeep will allow you to have more large armies, which will help defense. Vine Ogres, undead, Wolves, Elementals, and seasonal spirits (Summer Lions, Winter Wolves, Spring Hawks, and Fall Bears) are often used. Some commanders can "Summon Allies" for free. Werewolves can summon Wolves. Some of the Elemental Kings and Queens can summon Elementals. The Draconian Chief can summon Draconians. The Mound Fiend can reanimate undead. The Ivy King can summon four Vine Ogres for one Nature gem -- not free, but a very good deal. Later in the game, you might want to have Mechanical Men and Living Statues. If your nation is using a lot of Blood magic, Devils are among the best troops available. A Vampire Lord can summon immortal Vampires for free.

[Endoperez]

Bummer_Duck said:
Look at Stars!, and take into account that it was created (as far as I can determine) 7 years before Dom I and still has alot of GUI features that make Dom II seem clunky. I'll also point out that Stars! was created mainly by 2 programmers, not a big company.

I just wanted to point out that Illwinter team consists of Kristoffer Osterman and Johan Karlsson. Not a particularly big company, either.

[Truper]

Well well. Somebody who started playing wargames before I did. Stick with it my friend, there *is* a lot here. Once you begin to get a feel for the differences between nations, and then between the various themes, you begin to realize that there is an awful lot of strategy in Dom2.

The community is pretty good about helping people out, too. Ask here, and you'll get answers. If you're into IRC, stop by #dominions on irc.gamesurge.net port 6667 sometime. A few of the Dom2 grognards hang out there, and its a good way to get a bunch of questions answered quickly.

[Bummer_Duck]

Endoperez said:

I just wanted to point out that Illwinter team consists of Kristoffer Osterman and Johan Karlsson. Not a particularly big company, either.

I guess I assummed everyone here knew this...and was pointing out a apples to apples comparison.

[magnate]

Patrick - I've refrained from contributing to this thread so far, having pestered you so much on csipgs, but there's just one important question: are you a fan of magic in wargames? If you're not, I don't think you're going to get very far into this game before its UI limitations annoy you. If you are, do keep going with it. Magic is critical to the game, and gives it much of its depth. Battlefield spells, summoning spells, artillery spells, item forging, blessings, etc. etc. - all of them affect the war element.

Best,

CC

[PCarroll]

magnate said:
Patrick - I've refrained from contributing to this thread so far, having pestered you so much on csipgs, but there's just one important question: are you a fan of magic in wargames? If you're not, I don't think you're going to get very far into this game before its UI limitations annoy you. If you are, do keep going with it. Magic is critical to the game, and gives it much of its depth. Battlefield spells, summoning spells, artillery spells, item forging, blessings, etc. etc. - all of them affect the war element.

Best,

CC

"Are you a fan of magic" is kind of a strange question to me. I mean, we're not talking about magic per se, but about a dimension of game play.

First, for the record, I'm now into my second Dom2 game--the first one I started on my own. And things are going fine so far. Fifteen turns into the game I've conquered a number of independent territories, built a fortress, started a temple, and am into level 3 evocation research.

Apparently my first post sounded like whining to some folks. Didn't mean it that way. I'm brand-new to the game, but I'm learning and doing OK. I was just expressing my surprise at how unusual the UI is compared to other computer games. Makes learning more of a challenge, and it keeps me in the dark as to what's in store.

I guess I still don't quite know what to do with magic yet. The walkthru gave me the basics of doing research and gathering gems, but I still need to learn who can cast what spells where, when, and how. I haven't made it a high priority, since I'm just getting used to the UI. But I plan to get there. Discovering the F1 key helped a bit.

Will I like the magic dimension of this game? It depends. In Master of Magic, I liked summoning creatures, forging magic items, and casting protective spells on my units--and especially casting global spells. But after a while I decided I didn't like playing with White magic much, because it meant I had to painstakingly cast all kinds of protective spells on as many units as possible. That was time-consuming. Sometimes there'd be a big payoff, and I liked that. But all in all, I preferred to cast battlefield-wide spells like High Prayer or Blur, or global spells that affected the whole world. The more widespread the effect, the better; the more picky and specific the spell, the less I usually liked it.

But yeah--I liked beefing up Torin with all kinds of magic armor and items and spells, then sending him out to conquer the world. Similarly, early the in the game I liked casting Confusion and handily winning battles I'd have easily lost without magic.

Then again, in Age of Wonders, it was sometimes a pain in the neck to cast routine spells. Turn after turn I'd have my wizard cast Enchant Weapon on a few units in a stack, until he ran out of mana; and I never paid much attention to what effect it was having--I just knew enchanted weapons worked better.

So, I'm not the kind of gamer who gets into the nitty-gritty details of what's happening. I'll notice when my guys quickly tromp an enemy, or when (as just happened this morning) those lizard-looking guys chewed up my army and sent them packing. But I probably won't know exactly *why* any of it is happening. In that one battle, I noticed there was an enemy leader who cast "barkskin," so I guess the enemy troops had some kind of special armor for one thing--which means I'd better get some stronger troops or better weapons or armor or something before I go back into that province.

I'll build a temple because I know it's supposed to boost dominion, and that's supposed to be important. But I'll never pay attention to the numbers and see how *much* it improved things. If I need more money, I'll look for ways to get some; but I won't track the precise effect of taxation changes, conquering farmlands, or whatever. Numbers bore me too much.

So, I guess I'm more of a "broad-stroke" kind of gamer. Not much interested in finessing my way to victory; I'd rather bulldoze my way through. In MoM, the bigger a spell was--the more it accomplished all at once--the more I liked it. So the best spell of all was, of course, the Spell of Mastery (which, once cast, wins the game outright).

As to the other (nonmagical) part of the game, I tend to be an expansionist. It works in Risk, and it pretty well works in every Risk-like game I know of: get big! I always try to get big fast, and to keep my enemies from getting big. I've heard that some expert players were able to win MoM while having only a few cities; and apparently the trick was to manage those few cities VERY closely and carefully, squeezing every ounce of worth from each of them. I'd never have the patience for that. I always had to try to grab the lion's share of the map.

OK, so much for writing. Time to get back to playing Dom2.

--Patrick

[jeffr]

One thing I do during a battle replay to try and determine what is going on is to periodically right click on a unit I'm interested in. This will pause the replay and give you the unit's current status: hitpoints left, current spell effects (fire shield, paralysis, etc.) and weapons (if it's an enemy commander). If you right click on a specific stat (hitpoints, attack, etc.) at the top of the dialog, it will tell you how that number was arrived at).

So, for example, if you see that your defense is 0 and you are wondering why, right click and you might see that you have been blinded or are paralyzed.

Another use is to track the status of a particulary important unit in the battle (say, your pretender). I've watched my units lose hitpoints but then gain them back via regeneration, etc. It helps explain what's going on.

So, if you wanted to find out what Barksin did exactly, right click on the unit after it is cast. You'll find that it's basic protection (it's protection without armor, i.e it's skin/hide/whatever), has risen to 10. This has probably raised it's overall protection value by some value slightly less than 10, depending on the armor it is wearing. There is a description of how protection is calculated in the rulebook or one of the dom2 pdf guides on the net. It has also been made 25% more receptive to fire damage. The spell effects guide also has this info.