Dominion 3 Strategy & Questions

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:36 pm

Yeah, that's what I did. And it crashes the game.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:48 am

Should work. Possibly a conflict with something else.

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On another note, does anyone have any reference material (online) for West African mythology? I'm thinking about adding a few uniques to Machaka for the hell of it. While the nations PD is weak, they're otherwise fairly strong. A few custom spells may make them more interesting.

Things like the Akiba and Sasobonsam are exotic, but not exactly unique. Harbinger of Sorrows and the Vampire can function as effective stand ins. Same goes for the many nature and animal spirits that already exist in the Dom3 spell list.

Opinions. Should I focus on summons, remote attacks or just reskinning some of the existing spells so that they have more of an African flavour?

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 6:49 am

Anyone know if the effects of the Lycanthropos Amulet can be modded?

I'm looking to produce a slightly different unit type, similar to the effect granted to some Jotunheim commanders.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:36 pm

New (again) LP,
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3441654
Currious how Long this One will last.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:40 am

Oh, God, that LP uses the AwesomeGods mod. It's gonna quickly turn into a mess.

Also, I am annoyed by the article's heretical advice that LA Man is supposed to do anything but hide behind an enormous number of forts, or that they're bad at research despite having a pretty cost-effective researcher that can be recruited anywhere even without labs. Hell, if you just don't succumb to the temptation to take Drain and get Magic scales instead, Man has few rivals when it comes to research.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:16 am

When people see naked soldiers they think Turmoil, and when they see heavily armored soldiers they think Order. But the actual synergy is the other way. Naked soldiers have a high gold cost relative to their resource cost - so they synergize with Order strategies. Heavily armored soldiers have a low gold cost relative to their resource cost - so they actually synergize with Turmoil/Luck strategies.

Order + Armored Troops usually just leads to fort spam for lack of useful things to spend money on.

-Username17

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 6:36 pm

In y'all's opinion, is order-3 really 120 design points better than turmoil-3 + luck-3? I say Order-3 and not Order-3 + Misfortune-3 because Misfortunte-3 seems like a universally bad idea.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 7:59 pm

It depends. On large maps, I like Order3 and Luck3. For an scales Pretender.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:03 pm

Korwin wrote:For an scales Pretender.

I can't parse this sentence. Sorry.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:12 pm

I like Luck and Order 3 on Pretenders with many other positive scales. Especially on big maps.
More readable?

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 8:15 pm

Much, thank you.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 2:28 am

FrankTrollman wrote:When people see naked soldiers they think Turmoil, and when they see heavily armored soldiers they think Order. But the actual synergy is the other way. Naked soldiers have a high gold cost relative to their resource cost - so they synergize with Order strategies. Heavily armored soldiers have a low gold cost relative to their resource cost - so they actually synergize with Turmoil/Luck strategies.

Order + Armored Troops usually just leads to fort spam for lack of useful things to spend money on.

-Username17

Yeah, which is pretty much the point of LA Man. Gain lots of money (Order + Judges). Lots of forts, which can the build cheap research magisters without the need for a lab - with each Magister also counting for something like ten soldiers for purposes of castle defense so that nobody can ever take your castles away from your short of mass magic use.

The article tries to say that this is a bad strategy and that they should instead get some offense gimmick (namely a Mother of Tuatha who can summon Tuatha cavalry for free), but that's not Man's big problem. The big issue is the lack of magical diversity and not a lot of ways to break into other paths.

======

If you really want to pump up Armored soldier production, then you really need to take Productivity. But I'm not really gonna advocate that (except for nations that desperately need their armored troops to win rushes) as the game will ultimately won by magic power.

I'm personally not terribly enamoured of Luck either, but getting a couple hundred gold out of thin air is still fun when it happens.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:36 am

Turmoil/Luck has some advantages with a high dominion.

Inflicting turmoil/misfortune on other players has often provided a few noticable distractions. Plus every negative event is one less potential positive event that turn.

Not a cornerstone of any strategy I use, just a nice bonus.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:15 am

Castle defense is quite viable in the Early Era where an "army" of Niefel Jarls is seriously 5 guys and you can keep them out indefinitely with 50 humans and a bag of wine. Castle defense in the Late Era is bullshit, as even a shitty and worthless army of Ermorians has a castle siege value of like 2000.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 5:59 am

On rechecking, each Magister adds 15 to the castle defense/offense, and he can sneak past sieges. With each fort pumping out a Magister, you can probably have 10+ Magisters out every turn to add 150 to a castle defense anywhere. Realistically, you'll have a supply of these Magisters already built up before the war - since there is a slight chance that the Magister pops out without any magic and you can gather all of them up into one huge stack that can defend your castle.

It won't save you against a massed Ermorian army, but it is usually more than enough against other nations that aren't packing huge amounts of chaff (and I don't really recall very many nations that get free chaff anyway).

The problem is getting enough magic firepower to deal with the massed chaff armies in the first place.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 6:30 am

Zinegata wrote:It won't save you against a massed Ermorian army, but it is usually more than enough against other nations that aren't packing huge amounts of chaff (and I don't really recall very many nations that get free chaff anyway).

In the late era, Ermor, Rlyeh, Ulm, Ctis, and Mictlan get actual freespawn chaff inherently and Pangaea has an inherent ability to create national summons that make freespawn chaff so that by the late game they are required by law to be on that train as well.

Then there are all the Death and Blood nations who have to pay for their chaff but still get huge amounts of it. The number of nations that will one-turn siege a castle with 500 defense and 500 siege strength inside is exceedingly large in the later era.

-Username17

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:17 pm

This topic is relevant to a real problem I'm facing in one of my MP games right now (a noob game and my foray into playing MP). I'm playing as T'ien Ch'i in an early-era game and am a close second by most metrics to Ulm. Ulm has turtled the entire game except when his neighbor (who was in the lead at the time) went AI, then he moved in and mopped up. Ulm went with really good scales and so they popped up castles on every single province they control. It's currently turn 50-something so all the major players have most everything researched.

My trouble is I'm at a loss for how to dig Ulm out of their fort-infested territory. When I march in with an army he has a group of five shaman/smiths cast marble warriors and stone rain x4 all in the same turn, then they retreat. This reduces my army to a nub. I have communions capable of casting Fog Warriors on turn 1 (which would neuter the stone rain damage) but that doesn't help when he's defending and gets to cast first.

When I march up with a small force of elite units and summons who can survive stone raining, he defends with an army which, combined with the various earth and nature buffs he can throw around, cut my elites to ribbons.

He has so many casters and troops sitting around in his provinces that there isn't really anywhere I can strike before he has time to march a counter over to whatever force I attacked with and tear it apart. What's a noob to do?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:44 pm

If direct engagement isn't working out, then maybe its time for indirect attack spells. If Ulm is patrolling, then assassins and bane-venom infiltrators will be of limited usefulness, but the spells that mess up provinces / armies from a distance will damage ULM without giving it a route of direct counterattack unless it burns lots of gems on defensive domes.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:50 pm

Earth Attack works pretty well on guys scripted to cast big spells and retreat.
Even if they survive somehow, they still don't have gems in the big battle.

Ghost Riders also works. They cast, they retreat, during the magic phase. Then your army rolls over them and now if he wants to get the sieging army out he has to attack.

Then you have the army tear down the walls and send the elite core in alone to storm the castle.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:00 am

Or simply nuke the world with Wishes.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:06 am

i am not enamored of nuking the world. I'm especially not enamored of nuking the world if your goal is to siege castles, since if every army is smaller it is harder to breach castle defenses.

-Username17

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:10 am

Sounds like a job for Draconians. Leave the chief out and summoning, then ferry troops to the front line. They are pretty good at beseiging castles, especially if backed up by a couple of Wall Shakers. Their main benefit is that they are strong, flying units, so they help you crack forts open faster.

Some remote attack spells can target troops inside a fort, even while your army is camped on the province. Avoid spells like leprosy and various Horror spells as they will always target the seiging army, even if it is your own.

If he is bolstering every fort as soon as he sees an army move in, then try splitting your army and taking multiple forts on the same turn. It will be an expensive, time consuming grind to wear them down, regardless of what you do.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 6:31 am

Domkill him.

K · Post by K » Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:29 am

Shatner wrote:
When I march up with a small force of elite units and summons who can survive stone raining, he defends with an army which, combined with the various earth and nature buffs he can throw around, cut my elites to ribbons.

He has so many casters and troops sitting around in his provinces that there isn't really anywhere I can strike before he has time to march a counter over to whatever force I attacked with and tear it apart. What's a noob to do?

You've reached the attrition stage of endgame.

At this point, your job is destroying entire battlefields with magic. Pick a spell that tosses down damaging effects, use troops that are immune to that effect, then try to draw in as many of his troops as possible and lock them up so they can't attack your troops and the battlefield effect grinds them down to nothing.

Since it sounds like you are rolling with Air, you should be burning down entire battlefields with Mists of Deception and other illusions like False Horrors and lightning spam, but a single SC who can simply not die while Wrathful Skies does it's work can be sufficient.

That being said, don't underestimate ritual spells at this stage. Frank has already mentioned the value of assassination, but look into dropping mages into battles in the magic phase as a means of keeping the enemy from moving his armies because you take his provinces before they move through the province.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 5:43 am

I'm currently in a multiplayer game where Bogus and crew decide to raid a province of mine.

The game is still in the expansion phase, plus my army is mainly composed of chaff, so recovering the province is not really an efficient use of turns, even to recover the 2 mines that were in the province.

Thaumaturgy 7 is a long way away and I am not playing a blood nation, so any research in blood magic will be a dozen turns away at least. A modest blood economy will take even longer to establish, as my nation is unlikely to be left to it's own devices for that long.

Is it worth leaving the group in place so that I can attempt to charm/hellbind the group later during the game?

Are they seducable? I have heard they are immune, but I don't know this for certain.

Can anyone provide a few hints as to the best strategy for capturing the group?

My best 'native' Nature users come in at N3. Forging Rune Smashers will not be a problem. An Eye of the Void may also be possible, for a penetration of +4. Empowering for extra penetration during an MP game is unlikely for nature, potentially possible for Blood with a lot of work. My nation has decent access to all paths except Astral and Blood.

The 'simplest' strat i can concieve with expected resources is 5 n3 casters kitted out with penetration items and bodyguards. I can probably scrape together some Crystal/Slave matrices for a light communion. Possibly a crystal shield as well. All n3's scripted to cast charm x 5. That is probably the best I can manage without overcommiting myself during an MP match-up.

Any thoughts or advice on how to best capture the group would be appreciated. Please point out any obvious flaws in my current plan.