High PD kinda useless.

[Ironhawk]

Hadrian_II said:
I think PD is very effective against the AI as it tends to send every turn lots of troops to attack but never enough to win. My PD killed about 400 enemy troops each turn (in ca. 5 provinces). I had a PD strength of about 60+ and supported it with mages (i used trollkings and each of them got in the hall of fame after 10 turns with 500 kills each )

Yeah PD is well-used as renewable fodder. Tho when playing agains the AI, I found that the best use of PD was convincing the AI that you were "strong". Putting heavy PD on aggressive AI borders made them think twice about attacking you, and it seems the AIs are technically at peace until they make thier first attack on you or vice versa.

[Gandalf Parker]

Keep in mind also that everything has its pros and cons. Particularly in this game. If you think its worthless it usually means to look at it again. Using the gold on queued units can be better but not every time.

PD is a way to catch spys and scouts.

PD is a way to defend a province such as one with a lab without cluttering up the commander and units displays.

PD is instant and does not rely on resources to make them.
There have been times when I had alot of money and was about to be attacked someplace which I really didnt want to lose. Cranking up the PD there was something I considered to be perfectly acceptable in costs.

Taking a forward location at great losses can mean its a good time to pump some of your capital gold into PD for that province to give you time to create and move up a replacement mobile army.

Gandalf Parker

[NTJedi]

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.

Some nations such as Pythium have weak province defense and some nations such as Jotun have very powerful province defense. The main reason I stopped playing Machaka was because their province defense had me losing provinces deep inside my territory to little weak spells like call of the winds. On a map of 400+ provinces it's unrealistic to place troops and commanders in all provinces for spells like 'call of the winds'. Sure eventually a global spell can be casted to help, yet I'd rather be investing my gems in an offensive strategy instead of placing a band-aid on some weakness in the nation.

Hopefully we'll see some improvements with province defense in the upcoming patches.

[NTJedi]

Patriot said:

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.

Yes even tho Dominion_3 has more gold available the computer opponents rarely invest in province defense. Personally I would setup the computer opponents to place a minimum of 8pts in province defense and then have them invest 2% of their total gold into province defense for existing provinces. And provinces with forts/castles and/or high gem income should have a minimum of 15 province defense.
It's sad attacking a computer opponent only to discover their average province only has a total of 4pts in province defense after 35 game turns passed.

[Endoperez]

NTJedi said:
The main reason I stopped playing Machaka was because their province defense had me losing provinces deep inside my territory to little weak spells like call of the winds.

Hopefully we'll see some improvements with province defense in the upcoming patches.

PD was changed already. Jotunheim, as an example, gets just few giants. Other nations get lots of (often weak) troops.


Commander at def 1: Machaka Chief
Units at def 1+: 3xMachaka Militia, Machaka Warrior
Commander at def 20: Machaka Commander
Units at def 20+: Machaka Hoplite

Stronger than it used to, but still quite weak. However, you can afford to buy more province defense. You might be forced to go a big higher with Machaka than you would with other nations, but you have Heat 2 for extra points. 60 units you get from PD 15 should rout a Call of the Winds.

[NTJedi]

Thanks for the info Endoperez... I might give Machaka another try.

[Cainehill]

Endoperez said:

It hasn't been nerfed per se. Jotunheim provincial defense is weaker now, but not because it was made weaker, but because larger armies are more common and they are one of the nations whose province defence wasn't boosted. They might not be one of the nations with very good PD any more.

From what people have posted, Jotunheim gets only 1/2 a troop per point of PD, that's half what they got in Dom2. I call that nerfed, wouldn't you?

[Shovah32]

For Border provinces i try to go pd20, maybe as high as 30-40 if its very important or i have no army near. As a general rule of thumb i try to place one recruited archer/crossbow in a province (atleast) for each point of pd. I add battle mages if i have cheap mages with great spells (any nation with e2+ is good(as are many others), summon earthpower, spam bladewind) because, while you often want them with your main armies the sort of damage they can do is amazing (nether bolts, bladewind, falling frost/fires, a few of the clouds ect)

[Endoperez]

NTJedi said:Thanks for the info Endoperez... I might give Machaka another try.

Thank Bruce. That's from the manual. You know, from the nation lists. All the PDs are listed there. And all the castles they build on various terrains are listed there.

[Endoperez]

Cainehill said:From what people have posted, Jotunheim gets only 1/2 a troop per point of PD, that's half what they got in Dom2. I call that nerfed, wouldn't you?

Half a Jotun Militia and half a Jotun Javelinist. That's about one point per PD. Javelins thrown with Jotun strength have pretty good range and insane damage.