Terrible Player.

[K]

Dominions takes a long time to learn. I'm not talking about "40 hours", which is most games. Its more like "several months", or even a year.

The reason is that each spell has a niche. Some are rather broad, and some are vanishingly small, but troops are only the first step in winning battles.

My suggestion is the read some of the strategy guides which have been posted. Also, try scripting specific spells and watching the battles to see how each interacts with the combat.

Also, some nations are easier to play than others. Try a bless nation like Neiflehiem and choose strong magic on your pretender. Several excellent guides can tell you the details.

[Knai]

Plus a few small multiplayers, high speed, with other people couldn't hurt. Or a slower one, though quick, pseudo-hotseat style play would probably be best. Any local friends into the game?

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes, the Manual does a real good job of being a Manual.
But a Strategy Guide would have to be a set of encyclopedias.

Even one for each nation wouldnt quite cover everything. My own favorite EA Pangaea has two very different flavors (vine and maenad), and multiple full-blown strategies within those (stealth, or horde, or turtle).

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Iry

I'll definitely give a try to buying a capital mage every single turn, but how do you keep down the massive upkeep of maintaining that many mages?

Skeli-spam does work on a military level, but getting it to work seems to cost massive upkeep that prevents me from doing other things. Infact, putting 125 into province PD is what seems to let the skeli-spam work because the mages have time to build up a massive force of skeletons while the enemy is whittling away the PD, and when I win I get to keep all the PD. I'm not defending the tactic, because I would like to stop needing so much PD, but I am explaining how I seem to use it.

I don't understand this second paragraph, and it makes me wonder if you're using skelly-spam to mean something different than I think. For instance, if you mean "raise a whole bunch of skeletons with undead priests and/or gem-costing spells," that's not skelly spam. Skelly spam, as commonly used, means "put several death mages on the battlefield and have them cast Raise Skeleton or Raise Dead repeatedly." Depending upon how many Death levels each one has and what your Reinvig rate is, you may need more or fewer mages, but basically this pumps out a never-ending stream of skeletons which can defeat any normal-sized army.

The way you deal with the massive upkeep of building mages is 1.) expand and take many provinces, 2.) buy cost-effective mages, 3.) live with it. The upkeep for mages will frequently be your single biggest expense, but on the plus side mages generate RP while they're eating gold (unless you have them busy fighting or site-searching) whereas regular armies do you no good at all unless they're fighting. You generally do want to pick mages that get you lots of RP for the gold cost though: upkeep is 1/15 of purchase cost per turn, unless you're sacred in which case it's 1/30. When it's time to get in a war, all or many of those mages come off of research duty and start skelly-spamming or whatever. Frequently a couple of mages can stiffen up PD to the point where you don't need anything close to 125 PD in order to repel attackers.

-Max

[sector24]

Just to suggest something slightly different...
It seems to me like you are challenging the AI using tactics that the AI excels at; lots of troops, very low magic. It's not surprising that you don't do well because the AI is probably as good as you are at raising large armies and you are probably fighting multiple AI nations at the same time. If you want to stand toe to toe with traditional armies, the best nations for that are EA Niefelheim and EA Lanka.

To get a leg up on the AI with other nations, you need to focus on things that they can't counter. That's thugs, super combatants (SCs), and battlefield magic. In particular, try Abysia with evocation magic, or a nation like C'tis or Sauromatia with conjuration magic. Summon Bane Lords, Ivy Kings, and Wraith Lords. Forge them a couple items (luck, regeneration, fire/frost brand, shield). A properly equipped Wraith Lord can kill hundreds of enemy troops, plus he's immortal so if you make a mistake and he does die, you don't lose him. Bane Lords are weaker, but cheap and they can supplement an army nicely.

Learning the magic system takes quite a bit of time because of the number of spells and their unique uses and interactivity, but it is probably the most rewarding part of the game. Hope this helps, let us know if you've been making progress.

[MaxWilson]

Thugs and SCs against the AI? That way lies madness!

DO NOT... SEEK THE TREASURE.

-Max
Channelling Cleveland...

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

Surely it isn't too hard to blast across the map early with EA Abysia's sacred units and a strong blessing in nature, water, etc. Many, many things can defeat Normal-level AI....

Out of curiosity I have tried this. I started a game against four AI nations (they turned out to be Niefelheim, Ermor, Lanka, and Marverni), and default settings. My god was a Master Druid with E9N4 and dominion 7. My scales were Death 1, and maximal Order, Productivity, Heat, Misfortune and Drain.

At the start of the game, I told my starting commander to patrol. I made my starting assassin a prophet and told him to preach, and I had my god research Evocation and Alteration equally. I did not change these orders ever again, except to rebuild my lab, which was randomly destroyed early on.

Every turn (except at the end when it obviously wasn't necessary anymore), I recruited one Anathemant Salamander; I also continuously recruited as many Burning Ones as I could afford. I did not recruit any units other than this. Every turn, I told every mage to lead all the Burning Ones present into some semi-random neighboring province (or to besiege, break a siege, etc.). All mages were always scripted to cast Blessing five times. No troops were ever specially positioned within the battlefield.

It took me about 10 in-game years, and about an hour and a half of real time, to win. I lost many battles, but I was never in danger. I never deliberately cast any spell other than Blessing. I never built any buildings, except for that one lab, and I never used any province defense. My biggest difficulty was in fighting Bogus, who got right in my way toward the start--but that was only because I wasn't trying to be very smart about massing my troops.

At the end of the game, my income was over 3000 gold and my upkeep was about 650. I had almost 4000 gems.

Conclusion: IT IS INDEED not very hard to beat the AI, even if you play very stupidly and follow an extremely simple plan. So long as it's the right plan! (And I imagine there are lots of right plans!)

[Ironhawk]

Iry, the problem here is that what you are telling us doesnt really make sense. It makes me think that we are talking at different wavelengths, which is completely understandable. Most of us have been playing for a long time and its difficult to try and put ourselves back into the position of how someone whose just started playing the game sees things. Instead of trying to bridge the gap of understanding, I'm just going to tell you exactly what you need to do in order to beat an infinite number of AIs. Then, once you know that, you should be able to expand on that strategy to many others which will handily beat the AI.

Do This:
Start an EA game, choose Abysia
Build a pretender that has *at least* Earth-9 and Nature-4 magic
(this will give your sacreds a strong blessing)
Take scales Order 3, Prod 3, Heat 3, Misfortune 3, Magic 1
Choose dormant awakening
Take as much dominion as you possibly can.
Set independents to max (9)
Set magic research to easy
Start the game

While playing, buy only Anathement Salamanders (cheapest sacred mage)
Buy all Burning Ones (your elite sacreds) with remaining money
Set your research to 100% Evocation

In combat, lead a team of burning ones with a commander with holy magic
Script the mage/priest to cast Blessing x5, or Divine Blessing
Watch as your burning ones butcher all resistance!
Expand rapidly - AT LEAST one province/turn after turn 5.
Build more burning one teams as new provs give more money
Expand more and more
Buy only 10PD in any province
Perhaps build 25PD if the prov is a chokepoint vs. the AI
Build more forts+labs as money comes available to increase research with more mages

Continue in this fashion until you research Firestorm (Evocation level 7)
Once you get Firestorm, recruit Anointed of Rhaux
Put the Anointed with your combat team and give them fire gems
Script Firestorm
Attack the AI with a suitable number of troops + Firestorm (aby troops resist fire)

The Game is now Over. The AI cannot compensate anymore.

[Sombre]

He'll try it and it won't work and he'll talk about 125 pd some more and then gandalf will post?

[/crystal ball]

[Gandalf Parker]

Or he could jump right to the end by logging into IRC.

To Iry: IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is online chat rooms. There is one for Dominions 3 which is where a number of the experts that have commented hang out. The information on getting there is in the sticky posts at the top of the forums. They can take you step-by-step thru a winning game.