The Dominions of Khaldun

[Niarg]

My copy hasn't arrived yet, hopefully it should arrive soon...

Excist, the only reason I chose Agartha is because I randomly got them a couple of times in the demo. I might choose them but it's more likely I'll settle on a new race.

Lazy_Perfectionist, I haven't really got a playstyle yet, I was just looking for targets that I should try to aim for in the early game (get how many per year, research what?). When my copy of the game arrives I'll have a read through the manual and try to work things out.

[Excist]

I'm still a noob so take this how you would like


However, one of the things that has me in love with this game already is that there are SO many different ways to slice the cheese

I am sure some methods are better then others, and a lot of that depends on how you have your dominion and pretender set up. But, the game is suitibly complex enough that it is impossible to come up with the 'ideal' strategy. So if you plan well and react intelligently you can have viable builds around massing enourmous troops, expanding dominion and territory early with a fairly strong awake pretender vs having a strong dominion scales and expand slower, but by the time your pretender is awake you are in a good position to suddenly own the map.

I have not seen this, but according to the game manual you can even play this as an rpg with a few heroes fully equiped wading through millions of foes, and that too can be a viable strategy with good choices of magic items.

My impression is focusing on research, focusing on gem production and summons, focusing on gold income and national troops and focusing on creating powerhouse heroes - you can set your priorities there anyway you want as long as your dominion is growing since that is the point and name of the game.

[Excist]

Is anybody planning on doing the dorky thing of naming their god after a kohan?

If nobody is then I'll stick with Agartha and take along one of my (now) many Agartha gods into this epic game.

If so, then I'll switch to either the Sidhe race or the Eaglelord race.

I haven't played either of them yet, but they probably would be most in line with Ravid and his Council Ways.

[Slobby]

I wasn't planning on naming my pretender after a kohan. Feel free to dork it up tho!

@Niarg - My noob opinion for start is to try to take control of all provinces your capital borders asap to maximize income. Of course if there are a couple of really strong indies it'd be better to take less defended provinces further out than to waste troops.

Pretender choice can also make a big difference. For example I was originally going to pick a certain pretender and play to it's strengths. For fun I tried another pretender, which I thought was inferior, and have come up with an almost entirely different strategy based on it's strengths.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Niarg, you've played other strategy games.

In those other games, did you prefer the small but deadly elite force of warriors? Or did you prefer overwhelming hordes?

Do you prefer defeating your enemy by forcing a confrontation with their army and destroying them in the field, or do you find yourself avoiding direct conflict, raiding and attacking their infrastructure instead, leaving them incapable of victory despite their superior forces?

One common rule of thumb is to average one province a turn for your first year. For some nations, the number is higher. Don't feel compelled to attack an indie immediately, if another turn of recruitment well cut down on your recruitment. If not taking one now means taking two later, instead of taking one now, heading back for reinforcements, then moving out again...

Another guideline people go by is the number of provinces per player. If there are 10 land provinces per land player, try to get those ten by the end of your first year to be on an even footing. More is better, of course.

Attacking provinces adjacent to your capital is very important because it increases production. But after that, gold is a more important factor than resources- until you get other forts up or find very nice independents.

[Niarg]

I know there are so many ways to play the game and that is what is making it so overwhelming at the moment, especially as I don't have a manual until my copy arrives.

My favourite startegy would be one based on troops (magic is way beyond me at the moment), they should be fairly strong but I'm not bothered about supercombaters (I get way too attached to individual units in really small armies and just don't care enough about units in large armies). A head on confrontation is most to my liking, especially if there are a few different types of armies I can use.

I've looked on the Dom3 wiki and I was thinking of C'tis or Ulm.

[Excist]

Well, it's a good thing you're not being Agartha then

Their troops kinda suck and without strong magic support and heroes they kinda get owned big time.

basic infantry holds up ok for it's weight class, but can't hit a wall, trog's do good damage, but die really easy and everything else is expensive AND still doesn't hit anything (but if you get lucky they will at least kill most things in 1 hit when it lands) plus they suffer from outnumbering on their already low defense.

You need some good casters to ruin the opposing armies as Agartha. At least that's my initial impressions.

I guess I'll be sticking with the Agarthans.

I do so love the atmosphere of that race. So grim.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Ctis is a great race. The early era host a distinct lack of archers and scouts, however. You can get those in independent provinces, and I recommend doing so. Defenders usually match the pop-type, so you can find archers that way. Scouts are a bit more of a hit-miss affair, so you'll want to summon undead scouts, i.e. a Black Servant. You have more than enough death gems to do so, and its a low-level spell. You can use them for other things later. As well, your nationals are all coldblooded. This won't effect you much in your own territory, but it does mean you'll have trouble invading (and they'll conversely have trouble invading you) colder nations such as Caelum and Niefelheim.

Ulms a nice race, lacks cavalry, but has quite a few archery and stealth options. No experience with them.

For both these races the resource cost per unit is fairly affordable. But you will want a lot of them, they're good and not high in gold cost. You'll need to put some care in the placement of your forts and the resulting resource production. Blesses can be useful in battle, but will not be central to your strategy. You have some useful sacreds, but you cannot (or should not) produce them in large numbers.

I don't know if they're right for you, but you may want to give Sauromatia a whirl. They've got plenty of unit choices, as long as what you're looking for is not infantry.

[Potatoman]

Their primary magic type is blood, however, which is fairly newbie-unfriendly.

You might really like T'ien C'hi, actually. They've got decent front line troops, access to almost every path of magic, and some of the best archers in the early age. I might be switching nations again anyway.

And yes, I'm planning on naming my pretender (and important units, probably) after a Kohan from the game .

[Niarg]

I'll choose C'tis for now, there's quite a good wiki on them and they seem to be what I'm looking for.

Just need to wait for the game to arrive now, it's taking ages