Dominion 3 Strategy & Questions

[Korwin]

Again, really anyone can read this except Drago:

How the heck do you kill a dom9 wyrm with S6? He's got a horror helmet, horned helmet, ring of fire, and amulet of resilience. 200+ hitpoints, 20 regen/turn, body ethereal, luck... I don't really see any way to get enough damage out before the fear kicks in and everyone routs.

I'm Ashdod, mind, so death and earth are my primary access.

Flamming arrows worked fine. Sadly C'ties pretender got away with 20 HP and since the fight was in the magic phase, his retread was not cut

[K]

Again, really anyone can read this except Drago:

How the heck do you kill a dom9 wyrm with S6? He's got a horror helmet, horned helmet, ring of fire, and amulet of resilience. 200+ hitpoints, 20 regen/turn, body ethereal, luck... I don't really see any way to get enough damage out before the fear kicks in and everyone routs.

I'm Ashdod, mind, so death and earth are my primary access.

Flamming arrows worked fine. Sadly C'ties pretender got away with 20 HP and since the fight was in the magic phase, his retread was not cut

Chance are good that he got a ton of afflictions, so it's not likely that he'll survive another battle.

[K]

I finally fixed my Dominions.

I've been having this problem where updating my drivers caused FFXI to fail, but not updating borked Dominions. The battle videos textures would get chunky and the units would vanish. Because of that, I've been stuck with either not watching battles or trying to watch them on wireframe mode and hoping that I could pause it when units reappeared.

I thought I'd put the fix here so that some internet search in the future can find it.

Dominions 3 uses a series of command line switches. Fixing my graphics problem required the "--noglext" command.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I'm contemplating a mod nation based on the idea of ridiculous numbers of really terrible troops.

- You can recruit Mictlan Slaves (Gold cost: 2) as soldiers.
- You have reanimator priests, but never more than H2, so you can't mass skeletal lancers.
- You might have one or more commanders with the power to generate freespawn or Summon Allies.
- Province defense might be 100+ units if you raise it to 20 points or more.
- There are going to be elephant commanders recruitable, but no tramplers in normal soldier recruitment

What balance considerations should I take into account when I'm putting a faction like this together? How easy should it be to deal with the inevitable supply consumption problems?

[K]

Skeletal lancers are only available to Ermor and need to be modded in for other nations. A normal Priest of H3 or higher who can reanimate because it is undead, demon, or has a national ability can only make ghouls, soulless, and longdead.

Back to your issues, making them a Nature nation should alleviate any supply problems.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Skeletal lancers are only available to Ermor and need to be modded in for other nations. A normal Priest of H3 or higher who can reanimate because it is undead, demon, or has a national ability can only make ghouls, soulless, and longdead.

Interesting. Thanks, I didn't know that.

Back to your issues, making them a Nature nation should alleviate any supply problems.

Sure, but should I? Pangaea is another nation with lots of chaffy undead reanimation and human freespawn. If I put in too much Nature emphasis, I might be stepping on their toes.

Hmm. I'll probably flavor this as a combination of elements from Kailasa and Mictlan. Spear and Bow Yavanas will probably still be sane in MA.
That way you can really emphasize just how terrible the 2 Gold infantry are.

[koz]

Av, you could just give all commanders the supply bonus ability (#supplybonus<value>), which would eliminate the need for Nature.

[Avoraciopoctules]

That could certainly work. And if you have mindless skeletal warriors that probably fight as well as your 2 gold infantry, I can definitely see the argument that starvation isn't something you should have to bother worrying about.

I'm still not sure precisely what magical themes to go with for the nation, though.

[koz]

That could certainly work. And if you have mindless skeletal warriors that probably fight as well as your 2 gold infantry, I can definitely see the argument that starvation isn't something you should have to bother worrying about.

I'm still not sure precisely what magical themes to go with for the nation, though.

Will the nation involve custom sprites or only pre-existing ones?

[Avoraciopoctules]

A mix of both. Most of the army will be made of existing Dom3 units, but the commanders will primarily be new units with new sprites.

There's going to be at least 2 different elephant commanders, 1 reanimator priest, and 2 mages.

[koz]

A mix of both. Most of the army will be made of existing Dom3 units, but the commanders will primarily be new units with new sprites.

There's going to be at least 2 different elephant commanders, 1 reanimator priest, and 2 mages.

Have you considered doing something like the Golgari?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Not until now. That looks like a pretty interesting base for national flavor, thank you.

[koz]

Now, I know Frank has already given us the low-down on who you can bless-rush with and who you can't, but I'd like to know what criteria are used to make these evaluations. Specifically, what determines whether you can use your sacreds to bless-rush or not?

[Winnah]

It depends on the base advantages of the unit and what other advantages the nation can easily call upon.

Regeneration works as a percentage. So a high health unit will heal more damage per turn than a low health unit. The advantage can be skewed by other modifiers, such as the ability to avoid or mitigate damage in some manner, like armour, high defence, spells like Mistform and so on. So a Neifel Jarl will heal a lot more than a Tuatha, but if the Tuatha has Mistform running, they will only take 1hp damage from a normal hit, assuming their Glamer or defence fails them, so it does not matter if they can only regenerate a few hp per turn.

Protection from an Earth Bless is good, but the reinvigoration is most important. If you're unit is too fatiqued, then hits will start ignoring armour due to critical hits. Interestingly though, every armour piece benefits from the blessing (and other armour improving buffs), which may come in handy when determining gear for sacred commanders (some misc items provide armour).

Units with a natural high defence (like a lot of mounted units) get a lot out of a Water or Astral Bless. It makes them significantly more difficult to land an effective hit on. It can work well when complimented by various buffs that mitigate damage from other sources, which the Bless will not protect them from. Units with special attack forms get a lot of a water bless, as they will close with the enemy more efficiently (useful for some charging units) and their attack rate improves. Multiple attacks being multiplied = a lot more hits in combat, due to a unit's defence being cumulatively lowered for every subsequent attack in a round.

Fire works with units packing normal weapons, in order to make their attacks magical. It also improves attack rating, which really shines with multiple attacks. A jaguar warrior, for example, has a flaming obsidian sword when under a Fire bless. When they change forms, their claws do not benefit from the flaming weapons effect, but they still get a +4 to their attack rating on their multiple attack routine.

[Orion]

What is the deal with ice devils? I generally assume that one grabs unique commanders when one gets the chance but these guys are seriously underwhelming me in my Niefelheim game. They appear to be vaguely big W3 casters, who I guess could be a diversity pick for a nation with minor water, but are basically worse in every way than the recruitable Skratti giants.

How do you get rid of a disease demon? Just patrol with a stack of dudes?

Is the wiki ever coming back?

[Username17]

What is the deal with ice devils? I generally assume that one grabs unique commanders when one gets the chance but these guys are seriously underwhelming me in my Niefelheim game. They appear to be vaguely big W3 casters, who I guess could be a diversity pick for a nation with minor water, but are basically worse in every way than the recruitable Skratti giants.

How do you get rid of a disease demon? Just patrol with a stack of dudes?

Is the wiki ever coming back?

Ice Devils are bad ass mother fuckers who can rip their way through entire armies by themselves.

A Jotun Werewolf is fine as a thug, with his 48 hit points, protection 9, defense 13, and MR 14. That is a bad ass. And he has Water 1 so he can quicken himself and encumbrance 2 so he can keep the rage going. And he comes with regeneration, which frees up a slot.
But let's talk about the middling grade Ice Devil: Oriax. He has 76 hit points, Protection 15, Defense 17, and MR 18. And he has Water 3 and Encumbrance 1 and his own Cold Aura. He also has Cold Power and comes with a free Frost Brand, which is a decent enough thug weapon. You need a source of regeneration for this bad boy, but all his stats are massively higher than a Jotun Werewolf. He will rip a Jotun Werewolf in half. He will rip two Jotun Werewolves in half.

In Oldest Profession, I had the best Ice Devil, and he killed a Seraph (the one you wish for) in hand to hand combat by virtue of being a bad ass. The Ice Devils are not impressive as casters. You don't give a fuck about their casting ability (except the guy who is a Holy 3 and the guy who is an Astral mage). You care about their ability to be personally tougher than EA giant thugs. By kind of a lot actually. Seriously: that asshole has Protection 15 while naked. He has the defense of a Van before you give him a shield or he casts his own quickness. These guys are serious, serious butt kickers. Given the right equipment, they will kill tartarians just by running over and stabbing them to death.

The Ice Devils (with the exception of Nycafor, who is a tool) are one of the best SC chassis in the game. And they come out at Blood 6, which is considerably easier to research than any other late game thug.

-Username17

[K]

There is a fine art to making thugs and SCs. Do it right, and you can take down entire armies.

Do it wrong, and 200 gems won't kill a single enemy unit.

[Orion]

How do you get rid of a disease demon? Just patrol with a stack of dudes?

Seriosuly, this guy is pissing me off. Even patrolling with dozens of draconians isn't smoking him out and I've got 3 capital casters diseased.

[Zinegata]

How do you get rid of a disease demon? Just patrol with a stack of dudes?

Seriosuly, this guy is pissing me off. Even patrolling with dozens of draconians isn't smoking him out and I've got 3 capital casters diseased.

Mind Hunt, if you have it.

[koz]

What are the good recruitable sacred (i.e. worth blessing) in LA?

[Zinegata]

What are the good recruitable sacred (i.e. worth blessing) in LA?

Not a lot honestly. The rule of thumb is that sacreds are useless more often than not.

Off the top of my head the useful ones are Mictlan's (Jaguar Warriors), the Ancestor Vessels from TC (Lancer/Archer), and the giants of Gath.

[Username17]

What are the good recruitable sacred (i.e. worth blessing) in LA?

Well, there's the elephant in the room, which is Jaguar Warriors. Holy shit.

For people who have capital sacreds you can make a bless rush out of:

• Midgard: Van
• Tien Chi: Ancestor Vessel
• Pythium maybe? You have to do something, because your whole faction sucks except for the sacred hydras thing.

But the Late Era has this other thing where a bunch of factions have otherwise mediocre build-anywhere troops that just happen to be sacred. And that is actually pretty fucking scary if you happen to grab yourself a fire or death bless.

You wouldn't try to bless rush with Gibbors, but Levites are build-anywhere medium infantry that happen to be sacred. That is worth considering a bless for, at which point Gibbors are lot more interesting to build. Flagellants are pretty awful without a bless, but at F9S9, they are pretty damn fearsome.

-Username17

[Akula]

I've never gotten Flagellants to really work out, since the bless is actively not what your sacred mages or summons want. Arssartuts are also something you can rush with, probably want to get W9E4-9N4 ideally.

Jotun woodsmen are the same as ever, and come with the same jarls and godes, so you can get an E9N9 bless or something as Utgard. You certainly don't have to though.

[Zinegata]

Midgard: Van

Personally, I've never been terribly impressed with Vans. They're strong units but they're expensive and hard to mass.

Moreover, Midgard gets Skinshifters anyway, which can cover a lot of your early rushing needs. You're probably better off with a bless for your Vanjarl commanders, who make good thugs.

[K]

Jaguar warriors (Mictlan)
Blindlords? (Agartha)
Hydra (Pythium)

The hydra are cap-only, but at 1 resource each and costing 250 gold, you are going to get all the hydras you'll ever need out of your capital.

Some of the cap-only Sacred are really decent too. Ancestor Vessels for Tien Chi, Dryads for Pangaea, and the Atlantis one all have special powers that make them really interesting.