Dom3 MP is still Supercombatant based?

[Cohen]

Well mostly that's my biggest concern atm, and what was the worst aspect of Dom2.

MP games in mid sized maps, or larger, resolved about massive spellcasting and summoned, uberequipped, supercombatants.

Not to talk of some other really overpowered spells like the Ghost Riders which enforced full cover of castles in provinces (enforcing thus watchtower as fort selection).

Are recruited armies actually important now, and will they be for the whole duration of a game, the main force of a player?

[Agrajag]

Not that I have the game, but I can hazard a guess.
First of all, its obvious from what we were told that the usefulness of recruited armies depends on the era played; Late Era features weak mages and strong troops, while Early Era features strong mages and weak troops, (the middle one is obviously a balance of both), so the strength of recruited troops depends on chosen era.
Furthermore I read that SCs have been nerfed (including Life Draining Weapons), and I think mages got a little nerf as well, so I'd expect spells and SCs to be a bit less dominant.

[Nerfix]

Life draining weapons now only drain max. 5 points of HP per strike. Not sure they drain fatigue anymore.

The amount of supplies and money in game has increased.

Ghost Riders, no dea.

Recruited units, blessables aside...I don't know. Yes to maybe if you also count in the national summons. We'll see with time.

Also, making sleeping Pretenders seems to be the trend since you get only 350 design points in the game when you start the game.

Putting the pretender to sleep fr a year or so in game time gives you 150 points, putting it to sleep for three years gives IIRC 250 points.

[Boron]

Hi Cohen .

Not sure if you think the rebalances go far enough, but at least i like it the way it is in Dom3.
My impression is that it seems now quite balanced and national troops are much more useful.

You can no longer chose forts, each nation gets 4-5 types of forts, 1 for each major terrain type.
Mad castling is more difficult, iirc the fastest speed to build a fort is 4 turns.

Then gold and supply have been multiplicated with ca. 250% compared to dom2. Research cost is doubled.
Because mad castling is much harder thus research is much slower in dom3.
National troops are now very useful in the first half of the game and because of many small minor nerfs to mages and SCs national troops have now a slightly better chance to kill a SC. Also because of the higher gold income you will have at least twice as large armies as in dom2.

Some of the most important buff spells have been nerfed a bit too.
The protection spells all have now a negative resistence to one form of magic. Invulnerability only gives 25 protection and poison weakness.

Gods you often take dormant or imprisoned now for additional points. So together with the slower research they cannot be used as well as SCs as before.

Not sure if you think all those changes go far enough, but imho it seems much more balanced and fun to play than dom2 .

[Fate]

I really like the imprisonment idea, but reading through the AAR's I noticed that all the gods seemed to be imprisoned. Is there any way for an un-imprisoned god to cause a threat, or is that a useless decision?

[Nerfix]

I would have liked if Invulnerability would have for example nullified the effects of Quickness or lowered MR or such because many SC's are going to be poison immune anyway...

[Gandalf Parker]

I think the AARs are making heavy use of imprisonment only because the early games didnt chance it. Only now after many games are they exploring the imprison thing more.

Super Combatants have been majroly downgraded from being something close to an exploit to being just a tactic. They are still useful, but not so overwhelmingly the obvious choice. I think that was definetly the way for Illwinter to go with it. You might still end up in games where everyone goes with SCs but if you do then its the players fault

Of course thats not a promise that someone wont find a loophole but if they do then I think it will likely be such a specific combination of unit, equipment, and spells that it will be much easier to patch.
Just IMHO

[Daynarr]

Supercombatants are still in play, but you wont be able to rely on them to win you large battles by themselves. Actually, even SC pretenders can get 'owned' by large enough armies. Another change to note is rewritten morale system where SC's can rout if they get hurt and didn't go berserk. Morale system is another 'SC nerf'. SC's in Dom3 serve more as support to armies then to win you wars by themselves.

[Nerfix]

Nevertheless I maintain my "We'll see" thought since I remember people saying these kind of things about how SC's aren't around in Dominions 2...

...and how wrong they were.

But ah, it's just my pessimism. My biggest concern is that all the death dominion nations have seemingly been jammed into Late Era...

[Boron]

Nerfix said:
I would have liked if Invulnerability would have for example nullified the effects of Quickness or lowered MR or such because many SC's are going to be poison immune anyway...

Quickness got changed a bit too.
It now only doubles melee attacks, but no longer is useful for mages. Mages only can cast 1 spell/turn even with quickness.

There are now also some new SC counters.
One really nasty one, especially for SC gods, is horror mark.
Horror mark is Thaumaturgy 1, 2 astral to cast.

Horror marks stack now. If you horror mark an enemy pretender 10 times or so, then the chance is extremely high that already in the next turn he will get attacked by a horror. And there are some cute new unique horrors .

In one blitz game QM and me both took SC gods and both had astral nations. Simultaneously we had the same idea and horror marked the enemy god.
My god was immediately horror attacked on the very next turn, QMs god 1 turn later.
Our gods got easily slaughered.

And when i called back my god he was still horror marked, so he got killed again the turn i called him back .

Those horrors are really nasty, they have i think a good chance to beat a fully equipped AQ and the like too.

Also there are now a couple of nations who can cast gifts from heaven ... .
Maverni's druids are especially noteworthy.
They are 2e2s, 2 100% randoms that can be wesn and an additional 10% random that can also be wesn.
So with summon ep any of their druids can cast gifts from heaven, and you have a very good chance that your druids get a nature pick, so they can also do eagle eyes for "sniper" GoHs .

Also remember the new random system. Most nations are good in 2-4 paths and have high difficulties getting access to the other 4-6 paths.
So your gem income is lower than dom2 normally, and you are longer limited to those items you can forge (unless you trade).

AQs and the like are still scary, but they are imho no longer as good as in Dom2. Also they are now unique, so you cannot mass produce them anymore via wish.