The Gaming Den

Well, this is kind of a silly question.

I just got the game, is there a good place for newbs to play other people and learn the ropes?

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Well, this is kind of a silly question.

I just got the game, is there a good place for newbs to play other people and learn the ropes?

You can play a 1v1 against me. I'm a good learning platform, because I still suck.

Mister_Sinister wrote: I'm a good learning platform, because I still suck.

Dreadfully misquotable, that.

The AI is pretty decent for learning, but most people tend to set up "noob games" to learn in-depth MP play.

This thread also has some decent guides for magic, but army guides are best found on the Shrapnel forum.

I'd stay way from the forum itself though. The asshole ratio is super high over there.

There's a lot of ways to play MA Pan. But the basic way is to bust out Chaos and let your freespawn do the talking. You get a very expensive caster and very little gold, so you get very little other than Pans and freespawn trash.

Your magic diversity is limited. You get a full-power build-anywhere mage, but he's expensive. And your other mages have an extremely high overlap with that caster. All in all, you have a total of 10 points of magic Diversity, which is medium-low. Further, your casters are fully capable of spending every Nature gem you ever get (especially if your god or someone can make a Skull Staff so that you can make Carrion Lords with your death pans).

Basically, you want a magic diversity god. My suggestion:

• Death 2+
• Air 4
• Astral 3+
• Water and/or Fire if you can afford it.

You do not need Nature, Blood, or Earth on your god. You can save ~105 blood slaves by having Blood 4 on your god, but it's not worth it in the long run. Your best gods are the Master Lich or the Frost Father.

You can get a Dormant Frost Father with a Dominion of 6 and:
Turmoil 3, Cold 3, Luck 3, Growth 3, Magic 1, Productivity 2, and:
F2A4W3S4D2

That'll cover most of what you want out of a god.

-Username17

Why the Productivity scales?

My guess? Centaur Warriors. They seem kinda good.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Why the Productivity scales?

Money.

Also, you can accomplish things sometimes with Satyr Hoplites or Centaur Warriors, but only if you have the Productivity to actually make some. But mostly it's because you are dreadfully short of cash and rich in build points, so you might as well get big piles of Growth and Productivity in order to make up some of your cash shortage so you can buy more Pans.

-Username17

Satyr Hoplites. Good, if not great, medium infantry. While your maenads and carrion animals are slaughtered in droves, your hoplites will hold up a wall long enough for your elites to do some damage.

Another benefit of high production is that you can blow your wad on recruiting a shitload of revelers or harpies in a pinch. Probably not the most efficient use of gold, but you never know...

Alternatively, you could also go with Neutral rather than Turmoil scales for Pan. Your income won't be as wretched (letting you recruit more Pans) and you still get some freespawn. You only lose them once you hit Order.

Magic Diversity on the Pretender is essential though.

Mister_Sinister wrote:

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Well, this is kind of a silly question.

I just got the game, is there a good place for newbs to play other people and learn the ropes?

You can play a 1v1 against me. I'm a good learning platform, because I still suck.

Well if you want to I set up a "Help a noob learn Dom3" thread In The Trenches.

Zinegata wrote:Alternatively, you could also go with Neutral rather than Turmoil scales for Pan. Your income won't be as wretched (letting you recruit more Pans) and you still get some freespawn. You only lose them once you hit Order.

That's only sort-of true. You get zero freespawn in Order provinces, but you get more Freespawn the more Turmoil there is in a province. Every point of Turmoil you don't have costs you a lot of Freespawn every turn.

Shifting points from Turmoil to Luck is a significant drop in money, but when you consider that this money is directly buying zero-upkeep freespawn, it's a pretty good deal even so.

Magic Diversity on the Pretender is essential though.

Oh yeah. A lot of MA nations are actually pretty weak on magic diversity, and that will totally bone them in the late game.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:You get zero freespawn in Order provinces, but you get more Freespawn the more Turmoil there is in a province.

I may have been unclear; this is what I meant.

Also, I tend to agree that Turmoil / Luck is more natural for this nation; but I wanted to point out some possible alternatives (Neutral for more cash but less spawns than the Turmoil/Luck version) since everyone already gave the usual build.

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Well, this is kind of a silly question.

I just got the game, is there a good place for newbs to play other people and learn the ropes?

The unofficial irc channel #dominions at irc.gamesurge.net has seen a recent influx of popularity due to dom3mods duel tournament. (Organized by frosted, it caused a dom3 revival of sorts, pretty interesting). It is the place to be if you want to play blitzes or duels. Both are fairly short games, blitzes are made to play in a few hours, duels are just one on one games.

It is a cbm community mostly. 1.94 has just been released. (It is a mod).

Both the main shrapnel forums and dom3mods have fairly regular newbie games. Something Awful also organizes regular games, but you need to be a member there. Which costs RL money. (They mostly play with Awesome mods (awesome is the name, not a statement of quality)).

Please note that shrapnel has been a bit slow in accepting new accounts on their forum lately.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?act=idx
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3498147

More info on the game:
https://dom3-mod-inspector.googlecode.c ... index.html item/spell/unit browser.
http://wolfsbane.alwaysdata.net/Spells.html spell database
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Main_Page (community wiki, warning units do not contain bonuses from armor and weapons. Don't use the strategy wiki one, it is bad++).

One more thing:

I'd stay way from the forum itself though. The asshole ratio is super high over there.

That isn't even remotely true. The shrapnel forum is mostly dead now most vocal players that knew a lot about the game have been banned. (The games subsection still works). And while I personally can troll people at shrapnel every once in a while, it is mostly done against people that do not do their homework (testing takes little time, there are FAQ for everything, so a lot of questions are in fact a bit stupid).

Dom3mods can be a unfriendly place. But that is just like this place. Some people think they own the place and thus can insult everybody. Every forum has not nice people, best is just to ignore them. But if you have a thick skin, or are able not to irritate certain people. It is a great place to hang out. (It is also one of the few places that actively mods dom3)

The best advice I can give is find a forum that plays like the way you like to play. this place likes vanilla, and keeping naps and stuff. dom3mods likes CBM non-binding naps, and aggressive play (without going AI, and abusing bugs, you will get Calahanned if you do that) somethingawful likes even more aggressive play and more is more mods. Fun is the important thing there, and going AI while not liked will not get you shouted at like at dom3mods. I do not know how other communities play. There are a few more, the quarter to three one, and a Chinese one apparently.

Some oldtimers from this forum have some beef with other players in the dom3 community. Don't let that stop you from looking around. Just don't trust everything you see. Esp not when people call other people names, or talk about stuff they have no knowledge about. (don't believe people talking about CBM from this place for example).

I have a supercombatant with a massive heat aura. It puts on a Rime Hauberk. It now has a massive heat aura, plus a mild cold aura. Do these stack? Do they interfere with each other?

Pretty sure that they stack without restriction. The only things that affect Heat Auras is weather, a few spells, and Heat/Cold scales of the province.

Avoraciopoctules wrote:I have a supercombatant with a massive heat aura. It puts on a Rime Hauberk. It now has a massive heat aura, plus a mild cold aura. Do these stack? Do they interfere with each other?

They stack. Areas that have heat auras in them cause people to burst into flames. Areas with cold auras in them freeze people. Freezing is enhanced by cold weather and reduced by hot weather and negated by cold immunity. Burning is enhanced in hot weather and reduced by cold weather and rain, and negated by fire immunity. Poison auras also stack, and are unaffected by weather.

Note that your own auras can potentially cause you to burn/freeze/poison if you aren't immune to them.

-Username17

Interesting. Thank you.

Any tips for Shinuyama when you use the Awesome Gods mod? I usually go with the Celestial General(which is improved from the original by giving all of his troops barkskin, has a small aoe lightning bow, and attracts a handful of middle age Tien'Chi heavy infantry types and a short bow equipped light infantry every turn) with 3 Air, 1 Earth, 7 Dominion, and 200 points of scales, or a Ghost King indy killing thug with Astral 3, Air 2, Earth 1, Death 1, 9 Dominion, and neutral scales.

New Dominions 3 patch is out.

According to the Illwinter website, they aren't letting Shrapnel Games sell Dominions 3 anymore. People won't be able to buy it until Illwinter finishes setting things up with Desura.

The new official Dom3 forums will be at Desura as well.

Avoraciopoctules wrote:
The new official Dom3 forums will be at Desura as well.

I wonder if the mass of good players who were banned from the old forum will go to the new one?

Dominions 3 is now on Desura for $30
A new DEMO is available for Linux and Windows and Mac OSX. The new demo is caught up on all of the patched changes to the game.
Also for those who have the Dom3 game already, Illwinter has added the 300 page manual to their page as a free PDF download.
http://www.illwinter.com/

The demo limits research to level 4, and limits the playable classes. But it does now give a correct impression of the play and the system requirements.
The demo DOES allow for multiplay with friends.
The server www.Dom3Minions.com has more info and open games for DEMO play.

Does the demo still cut off the game a set number of turns in?

I dont think so. At least not as far into it as Ive played it.
Let me know