Screenies!

[Endoperez]

JaydedOne said:
Okay, Endo and Co., with the game shipping, I say you put together a fun final set of Screenies.

Perhaps a Top Ten Screenshots To Make You Check Your Mailbox Every Hour. Or a My Top Ten Favorite New Things in Dom 3. Or a "My Top Ten Favorite Pretenders Designed In Beta." Or something similarly delicious.

... but you'll see those any way, in just a few days! Well, more like a week. Or more.

OK, I see why you want to see something new. What about a short story?


A random Early AGe game, on a small map, with default settings. My random nation happened to be Kailasa. I decided to do something you might try one of the first times you play: an extreme bless with Imprisoned pretender. Fire 9 Water 9 with a Mother of Rivers, IIRC.

I got to the map, which was small. Maybe 10 land provinces, and few seas in the south end of the map. I started in the north-western corner. I bought Yavatas, proceeded to advance two-three provinces, and found out my enemy. EA Ulm. His forces seemed small enough, and I decided to try and finish him quickly. I sent in reinforcements and recruited a mercenary group with a H2 Inquisitor leading them, to help against enemy dominion.

I attacked, beat him, saw his capital, and attacked. I beat the defenders. I also saw that he had conquered most of the provinces next to his capital.

Time went by, nothing much happened. He took provinces, I beat his forces with some losses, etc. At some point, I was freaked out by a small squad of his experienced, two-handed sword wielding, att/def 14 prot 16 or something sacred units all having at least 2 affliction, but I never found out what had happened. With his bless of Fire 6, Air 7, Nature 6 or something.

I proceeded to start advancing with another force in my capital, but it was expensive due to my Kailasa's cheapest priest being 360 gp. H1 and 5 paths of magic, granted, but still a priest for 360 gp. I couldn't tackle one of my starting neighbourd due to it being Earth Mother defended special one, so I had to waste a turn moving south. After that turn, I realized Ulm had advanced westwards, because he now owned the province I had wanted to conquer. His forces were mostly archers, the bane of Yavatas. I attacked another province of his, and bought some other mercs.

He kicked my second army's butt. Archers hurt.

Well, no biggie. I'll burst into his capital. And hey, I just reached Conjuration 3, I'll summon some of these celestial dancers! They are essentially unarmed Yavata with higher Awe, they should work fine!
I did succeed in conquering Ulm's capital, but his damn Phoenix cast damn annoying Suplhur Haze straight on my main squad, not hitting any of his own guys, when my guys were bundled on to the small gate leading inside their Fortified City! I won the battle, but lost all but one of my Yavatas, and only got one mage and some MI and archers of his (the Phoenix escaped).

The next turn, I was of course besieged in his capital, but could summon some Fall Bears with a Yakhsa that had brought reinforcements. I kept him from reaching my capital with other forces, but his army outnumbered mine in there. I bought mercs (horde of ghouls and crystal amazons) and sent another force to re-claim his capital, while my scout discovered that he had made another fort.

It seemed to be going well, I forgot to re-bid one of the mercs, he bid them, and succeeded in conquering few of my provinces. I might be able to keep him off, but he has bigger armies, can recruit faster, and my upper hand in magic doens't work as well as I expected. I was researching Construction, but that wouldn't have helped me against everything he had to throw against me.


Do you realize what this was? A blitz versus the AI, on a random map! I enjoyed it! See the attached picture for proof.

[Nerfix]

Ouch, but I wonder if the AI just got lucky with archer spam.

[Morkilus]

Wow, your scales must be wacky. Is Order/Death/Misfortune a solid strategy for this nation?

[Endoperez]

Morkilus said:
Wow, your scales must be wacky. Is Order/Death/Misfortune a solid strategy for this nation?

No.

As I said, I played it as dual level 9 bless, and as one of you might play it. Before playing a nation for the first time, you don't know whether they need resources or not, or what blesses their sacred units are good with. I chose Fire 9 because it's almost always good, and Water 9 partly because I knew it worked, and because Quickness is always good.

Kailasa is Heat 2 nation, but they should would have Sloth instead of Death. I also chose Misfortune and Rare events, just because I thought Dom2 hobbyists guys might do something like that. Heretics! Common events all the way!


I'm not sure what you mean by "viable"; I still enjoy Luck, but haven't done any tests. For SP, Luck is Fun. In MP, for those of us who can't win by strategy alone, it's fun and can provide ideas that could surprise our more experienced enemies by sheer randomness. I'm not sure if the gold and gems are enough to offset other nations' Order etc scales. I hope Order isn't enough to offset bad luck in bigger games, but it might work in blitzes. I haven't run any tests, so this is just quesswork.

[Nerfix]

What's your favourite nation so far?

[PDF]

Nerfix said:
What's your favourite nation so far?

Shinuyama is waayyy cool and fun, all eras

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:
What's your favourite nation so far?

I don't have a favourite nation. Even in Dom:PPP, I tried all the nations, wanted to know all of them, I wanted to be able to play (at least a little) with every one of them. I haven't tried all of them yet. I've chosen an age, then chosen a nation, then quickly checked it, wondered and pondered about it, made a better pretender and tried out early game. Then I usually got tired, and tried another nation, or age. Bandar Log is nice, and I've had some success with them, in all of their eras. I've played some test games in which I tested reached some low-to-mid level spell. I want to try out all the weird combination items MA Ulm can eventually get (Smiths' 10% random will turn up a lot when you'll never recruit any other mages). LA Tien Chi has amazing versatility, even if they lack in Evocations. I love the idea of Chelms but haven't played it yet. I've played LA Agartha a bit, but I couldn't do what Boron does in his AAR (I can't use Death outside of Enchantment).



This reminds me: my opinion on Broken Empire is based on early game, the first 10 to 15 turns. I was actually going to report that Disingterate was changed to only need Death 2 before I checked my DomII manual... I've never been big on Death outside of Enchantment (and Evocation, Shadow Blast is cool).

[Nerfix]

Hmmm, what do you think of EA Agartha?

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:
Hmmm, what do you think of EA Agartha?

Their starting sites are cool cool cool! "An Earth mage may enter to scry." Is that cool or what?

Other than that - they eat rocks and stone and olms, and live centuries -> you can take full Death. That's like 120 free points, except in the very, very long games, but it still probably works out. BUT! Their race is doomed to become extinct. They are the DEFINITION of Death scale! It fits them perfectly!

What else... Oh, they'll DEVASTATE all castles. Most if not all Agarthans have Siege Bonus.

[DominionsFan]

Endoperez said:

Their starting sites are cool cool cool! "An Earth mage may enter to scry." Is that cool or what?

Other than that - they eat rocks and stone and olms, and live centuries -> you can take full Death. That's like 120 free points, except in the very, very long games, but it still probably works out. BUT! Their race is doomed to become extinct. They are the DEFINITION of Death scale! It fits them perfectly!

What else... Oh, they'll DEVASTATE all castles. Most if not all Agarthans have Siege Bonus.

Hm this is definitely sounds interesting, I will give them a try for sure. Maybe I won't play Ermor mainly.