So since Dom 3 is being discussed

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:49 pm

Well, if someone is willing to run it (I barely have sufficent patience to play, much less handle the various hosting bullshit stuff) we should probably go MA with no more than 8 people, because MA is allegedly the most balanced era and having too many new people would make it a round of "who screws up the least before getting eaten by someone who knows what they're doing", which I suspect is more fun to watch than play.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:33 pm

You should probably wait to base it around Frank and K's time if you are too intent on them being in it, seeing as they are both relatively busy, and are not that often free at the same time.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:29 am

I am currently figuring out how to host a PBEM Dom 3 game for my RPG group. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch to host for the Den as well, and it would be interesting to play against new people. Akula and I would probably co-run a faction since our group only has 1 CD key. I am not in a good position to run a Network game, however.

One note that took me a while to figure out: When you save the pretenders you want to use in a PBEM game, the 2H files you need to send to whoever is hosting are created in the following folder: "/dominions3/savedgames/newlords"

The actual name of the pretender is not visible in the filename. The file generally looks something like this: "mid_caelum_0.2h"

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 5:41 pm

So wait, how does your group play with 1 CD key? Do LAN games work off one, or only hotseat?

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:35 pm

Only hotseat and PBEM games. 2-Player quasi-PBEM is definitely possible if you send a zipped version of the entire savegame folder back and forth, and it's theoretically possible to do that with more players, but people can't take turns at the same time.

I am currently trying to set up a regular PBEM game and see whether the copy protection gives us trouble. It might, but the 2h files might also not store CD key info.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:43 am

I figure I'll offer my laughably inaccurate perceptions of LA nations.

Abysia: The pure-blooded Abysians are dying out, and they're only available as commanders and your capital-only sacred. They've been replaced by Humanbred heavy infantry, plus they've gotten a ranged unit. The Humanbred are slightly weaker and lack the heat effect. They've become more heavily focused on blood and death magic, and dropped to fire 2/3.

Arcoscephale: Their infantry strike me as decent, if resource intensive, human shields for mages. Also, my experience with the plate-mailed elephants was pretty positive. Unfortunately, they lack reliable access to battlemagic early on.

Agartha: The pale ones are all dead, and the golem cult is pretty much gone. They've begun using undead pale ones and zombie humans with attached iron parts/magical exploding barrels of fire. Earth, death, fire, minor astral, and they've got cave knights who ride the summonable cave drakes that fight on once the rider dies. Their infantry are also extremely heavy, and their crossbowmen are wildly inaccurate but still somewhat effective.

Atlantis: They've got cold resistance and Calean ice armor now, but the shamblers are largely gone except for some bone-armored ones who hit hard but have shit morale. They're pretty much water and death, and their non-capital mage is pretty shit, with only one in both paths. Also, their capital only sacreds kick unreasonable amounts of ass(22 total damage per swing and reduce enemy strength on hits), but don't have ice armor. Don't go with sloth scales.

Bogarus: It's hard to describe exactly how their troops are shit just looking at the numbers, but yeah, they pretty much are. However, their mages are pretty cool.

Caelum: Troops are pretty much the same as always, mages are now air, earth, and death, but not as good at air, so evocation spam is less badass.

C'tis: Sauromancers are back in the house, and they can summon undead priests to go MA ermor style in addition to the massive hordes of lizards. Their dominion no longer spreads swamp, which is a shame.

Ermor: LA Ermor is comprised entirely of the undead. Their dominion freespawns random undead chaff and longdead cavalry based on strength, with longdead legionaries in forts and armored sacred longdead cav in forts with temples. All mages and priests need to be summoned with death gems, limiting your production. Your dominion also flat-out kills population by itself even before you take all negative scales, so your building of forts and temples is constrained. Also, solar brilliance and banish spam kicks your ass, but you get enough freespawn to sacrifice armies of a couple thousand longdead legionaries and totally replace them. On the other other hand you will spend hours per turn on micro. You will learn how many types of longdead exist and curse the interface designers repeatedly. Also, everyone hates you and craves your 15 per turn death gems.

Gath: Okay, so I know nothing about these guys.

Jomon: Your magical paths are pretty scattered, with most guys having 100%AFEWN randoms, plus one with 2 astral and 2 of those randoms. Samurai are kind of meh, but not terrible. What's unusual is that Jomon actually has underwater nationals and can get PD below the surface.

Man: Mages aren't terribly impressive. However, they've got awesome crossbow equipped quality heavy infantry who count double or triple for seige defense, some guys who patrol like 16 dudes, and longbows, plus some average-ish guys to provide blockers.

Marigon: astral, air, fire, blood magic . Inquisitors kill enemy dominion as twice their priest level, which can be three on the high-end ones. Reasonably strong infantry, good crossbowmen, and sailing are also handy benefits. They've got the angelic summon line and their own unique fallen angel blood summons, who are reasonably awesome.

Mictlan: Pretty similar to EA mictlan, but they've got sacred atlantian water/blood mages and sacred atlantian troops wielding the same sort of glaive as the assaturts without the weakness rider. You will take a bless with these guys. It is not open to debate.

Midgaard: I have never seen these guys in action.

Pangea: The satyrs, minotaurs, and centuars are all armored now. You can't get maenads, though. Death, Nature, some tiny amount of blood.

Patala: Bandar Log with Naga. Water, earth, nature on those guys, with a splash of astral on the top ones.

Pythium: You have literally every path, although only one 20%NB random gives blood access. However, a number of your mages lower dominion like preaching enemy priests. You do get capital-only sacred hydras, but it's not really a big deal except in early expansion. Except for capital-only guys, your legionnaires are map-move one, but hit decently hard and some have fire resistance and good morale. Others have... neither.

R'leyh: Your dominon drives commanders insane, kills population, and gives freespawn. Most freespawn are low-end chaff of various types, but occasionally void beings spawn, and you've got the exact same lineup of recruitables as MA, plus a national spell that lets an astral mage go into single combat with an enemy commander in a distant province, except the defender has a bunch of his stats cut in half.

T'ien chi: Same solid archer/average infantry lineup as every era, plus reasonable non-capital death/other mages. Celestial masters have lost some diversity and strength but retain their ability to communion. You also have some barbarian cav, but that cuts into your archer production.

Ulm: somehow, priest smiths have become even worse. This is partially compensated for by new blood mages and national vampire lords. Additionally, the blood mages are half-decent at astral, and some S1 guys exist, so communions are possible. Unfortunately, they've lost the black plate infantry, except for capital only ghoul versions. If you can get three earth, there's now a national spell that gives +4 MR. Also, iron blizzard.

Utgard: Giant nation. That and how quickly death/earth assaturts kill them (two hits) is pretty much all I know.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:50 am

name_here wrote:I figure I'll offer my laughably inaccurate perceptions of LA nations.

Since I stalled out on the EA nations, I'll just add to this to warm back up for the last 6 or so.

Abysia: The pure-blooded Abysians are dying out, and they're only available as commanders and your capital-only sacred. They've been replaced by Humanbred heavy infantry, plus they've gotten a ranged unit. The Humanbred are slightly weaker and lack the heat effect. They've become more heavily focused on blood and death magic, and dropped to fire 2/3.

You have a much better base of mages and non capital bloodhunters finally. On the other hand, your infantry is much less hardcore than in previous eras. You will likely recruit mostly the map move 2 guys because the heat auras were really the only draw of the heavy infantry. These guys are light years better than EA Abbysia, but probably not as good as a well run MA Abbysia.

Arcoscephale: Their infantry strike me as decent, if resource intensive, human shields for mages. Also, my experience with the plate-mailed elephants was pretty positive. Unfortunately, they lack reliable access to battlemagic early on.

The elephants can make repel attempts and the heavy infantry is remarkably mobile. Mind hunt is easy to spam with evo-6 and const-6, but your mages are lackluster outside of combat besides that. Either get a god that can wish, or get one that can summon some nice stuff. A dormant SC wouldn't hurt to bridge the gap between lucky/ethereal elephants and mindhunt spam.

Agartha: The pale ones are all dead, and the golem cult is pretty much gone. They've begun using undead pale ones and zombie humans with attached iron parts/magical exploding barrels of fire. Earth, death, fire, minor astral, and they've got cave knights who ride the summonable cave drakes that fight on once the rider dies. Their infantry are also extremely heavy, and their crossbowmen are wildly inaccurate but still somewhat effective.

5 cave knights can take indies easily, just an FYI. So you can get away with sloth and a dormant god without gimping initial expansion to much. Awaken Oracle gives an SCish unit for 30 gems and a whole hell of a lot sooner than tartarians which it is competitively priced with. (If you take a strong bless you might want to just use the oracle.)

Atlantis: They've got cold resistance and Calean ice armor now, but the shamblers are largely gone except for some bone-armored ones who hit hard but have shit morale. They're pretty much water and death, and their non-capital mage is pretty shit, with only one in both paths. Also, their capital only sacreds kick unreasonable amounts of ass(22 total damage per swing and reduce enemy strength on hits), but don't have ice armor. Don't go with sloth scales.

Major E bless is gold for this nation as you get cheap light thugs out of those less than awesome non capital casters with it. This nation is well positioned to take and hold a large underwater empire and a respectable land one. Not the best nation but could easily be a power if it doesn't bog down with Ry'legh.

Bogarus: It's hard to describe exactly how their troops are shit just looking at the numbers, but yeah, they pretty much are. However, their mages are pretty cool.

With two forts and no magic scales you get +20 rp/turn. So yeah, the mages are all right.

Caelum: Troops are pretty much the same as always, mages are now air, earth, and death, but not as good at air, so evocation spam is less badass.

I looked at the line up and was very unimpressed, but I can't remember why. Maybe the useless forge bonus or the even worse heavy infantry.

C'tis: Sauromancers are back in the house, and they can summon undead priests to go MA ermor style in addition to the massive hordes of lizards. Their dominion no longer spreads swamp, which is a shame.

If your dom spread swamps you would be weaker. Because it would give other players an incentive not to let you get undead chariots and shit to critical mass because the need to kill you before your dom fucks them up.

Ermor: LA Ermor is comprised entirely of the undead. Their dominion freespawns random undead chaff and longdead cavalry based on strength, with longdead legionaries in forts and armored sacred longdead cav in forts with temples. All mages and priests need to be summoned with death gems, limiting your production. Your dominion also flat-out kills population by itself even before you take all negative scales, so your building of forts and temples is constrained. Also, solar brilliance and banish spam kicks your ass, but you get enough freespawn to sacrifice armies of a couple thousand longdead legionaries and totally replace them. On the other other hand you will spend hours per turn on micro. You will learn how many types of longdead exist and curse the interface designers repeatedly. Also, everyone hates you and craves your 15 per turn death gems.

If your neighbors know how to invade you you are pretty screwed. Research is slow and your armies are big but easily countered and kinda shitty.

Gath: Okay, so I know nothing about these guys.

Still good, but not Hinnom or Ashdod good.

Jomon: Your magical paths are pretty scattered, with most guys having 100%AFEWN randoms, plus one with 2 astral and 2 of those randoms. Samurai are kind of meh, but not terrible. What's unusual is that Jomon actually has underwater nationals and can get PD below the surface.

You mages are shit, your troops are archer bait, and your better off underwater than you are on land. This Nation is Lame.

Man: Mages aren't terribly impressive. However, they've got awesome crossbow equipped quality heavy infantry who count double or triple for seige defense, some guys who patrol like 16 dudes, and longbows, plus some average-ish guys to provide blockers.

Take Ord3 Gro3 and put a fort in every province as you tax to 120% with one guy and no pop loss. Get ridiculous hoards of stealth mages with a bonus to castle defense to act as an unbreakable garrison while your army has a relatively free offensive hand. Your PD is shit. It features Indy Militia.

Marigon: astral, air, fire, blood magic . Inquisitors kill enemy dominion as twice their priest level, which can be three on the high-end ones. Reasonably strong infantry, good crossbowmen, and sailing are also handy benefits. They've got the angelic summon line and their own unique fallen angel blood summons, who are reasonably awesome.

Basically, anything that worked in the MA works here too, but you also have powerful blood access.

Pangea: The satyrs, minotaurs, and centuars are all armored now. You can't get maenads, though. Death, Nature, some tiny amount of blood.

Put up your national global early and prepare to defend it against all comers as it is much better than your regular army.

Patala: Bandar Log with Naga. Water, earth, nature on those guys, with a splash of astral on the top ones.

Nagarishi are the most hardcore mage of any age. W3 E3 S1 N1 H1 +1 WESN. Troops are a huge joke. Seriously worse than MA in every way as far as the army goes. Clam like a madman and race for your super summons.

R'leyh: Your dominon drives commanders insane, kills population, and gives freespawn. Most freespawn are low-end chaff of various types, but occasionally void beings spawn, and you've got the exact same lineup of recruitables as MA, plus a national spell that lets an astral mage go into single combat with an enemy commander in a distant province, except the defender has a bunch of his stats cut in half.

Freespawn cost upkeep, and pop dies real fast. Like Ermor but you actually need money. This nation now sucks pretty bad. Still hard to deal with in the early game though.

T'ien chi: Same solid archer/average infantry lineup as every era, plus reasonable non-capital death/other mages. Celestial masters have lost some diversity and strength but retain their ability to communion. You also have some barbarian cav, but that cuts into your archer production.

You mean archers cut into your cav production. The enemy wade through withering composite bow fire, only to find that they have now earned a first strike lance to the face. The cav is awesome shit. Of all the ages, your non capital mages are the best, they are all able to do nasty things on the battlefield. Cap only sacreds are awesome again instead of lame, as they are heavy cav that also have magical fear bows. Oh, and you get 1 archer, 1 footman, and 1 barbarian light cavalry that I just gushed about PER POINT OF PD, more for points above 20. Strongest PD in the game. This might be the best TC.

Ulm: somehow, priest smiths have become even worse. This is partially compensated for by new blood mages and national vampire lords. Additionally, the blood mages are half-decent at astral, and some S1 guys exist, so communions are possible. Unfortunately, they've lost the black plate infantry, except for capital only ghoul versions. If you can get three earth, there's now a national spell that gives +4 MR. Also, iron blizzard.

Priest smiths are better simply because you can apply the forge bonus to more stuff. This nation is a blood house as soon as you can get about 4-6 vampire counts on the field as they are upkeep free bloodhunters that don't need a SDR to be effective. Empower up to bloodstones and then crank them out with a forge bonus to make those priest smiths good midrange evokers for the late age. Unmindhuntable spies means never having an enemy fort with less than 100 unrest. Ghoul Guardians are great because they get the high protection without the fatigue and shitty map move. Those guys are seriously hardcore.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:40 pm

I'm looking for interesting mods. Does anyone have mods (particularly any nations) that they can recommend? I like Tomb Kings, and I've downloaded a few more, but of those I've only tried out New Jomon in more than a few turns against AI. There are quite a few that are obviously bad with even such an elementary appraisal, but finding stuff that is both cool and vaguely balanced can be surprisingly challenging.

Endgame Diversity looks pretty nice, but I haven't summoned any of the new units yet so I can't comment on the balance yet. I find CBM cool simply because it gets rid of Farms of Plenty and enables Suicide Phoenix as an option.

--------------------

Also, any recommendations for strategy in a 4 player CBM + Endgame Diversity game in Dawn of Dominions? I'm playing EA C'tis, Akula is Marverni, and there's 2 others with Helheim and Ermor respectively. This means that Akula is boxed in by 2 fairly inept players and I have the right side of the map mostly to myself. Helheim is an imprisoned Son of Fenris with Water 6 (hahaha), Ermor has a Crone, Marverni Akula can discuss in detail, and I have a Great Sage for an initial research push in Enchantment followed by site-searching on the heels of my expansion. I want to grab lots of land early on so I get several sauromancers a turn, then build up troops on the borders of Helheim and Ermor when they inevitably gang up on Marverni. This should force them to refrain from committing their full armies.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:25 am

Is the Ulm strategy of crafting Blood Stones still applicable? Been reading through the wiki and I'm wondering how he discounted the cost of a Blood Stone down to just 5 Earth Stones.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 5:01 am

Zinegata wrote:Is the Ulm strategy of crafting Blood Stones still applicable? Been reading through the wiki and I'm wondering how he discounted the cost of a Blood Stone down to just 5 Earth Stones.

You can get it down to 6 earth and 9 blood. But you should have blood coming out of your ass as your upkeep free hunters rapidly snowball, and it produces 1 earth gem per turn; so in effect the cost is 5 "real" gems with a hammer. (This is for LA Ulm, who only get a 15% forge discount.)

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:11 pm

I loathe CBM with a fiery passion. I have a Hoburg nation I could mail you I guess. It's currently playable in the Middle and Late Era.

Unfortunately there is no real way for me to participate in a game right now, because I don't have an internet connection. Even right now I am writing this on my girlfriend's work computer. Should work itself out in the near future though. You know, once I have a place and an internet connection.

-Username17

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:22 pm

I guess we could start then. Vanilla would probably be best.

By then I mean when Frank gets a place with internet.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:48 am

FrankTrollman wrote:I loathe CBM with a fiery passion. I have a Hoburg nation I could mail you I guess. It's currently playable in the Middle and Late Era.

Unfortunately there is no real way for me to participate in a game right now, because I don't have an internet connection. Even right now I am writing this on my girlfriend's work computer. Should work itself out in the near future though. You know, once I have a place and an internet connection.

-Username17

I certainly don't feel attached enough to CBM to press the issue. A Hoburg nation sounds pretty potentially cool. And I just happen to have made an email address specifically for Dom 3 play-by-email a few days ago: dom3pbemav@lavabit.com

name_here wrote:I guess we could start then. Vanilla would probably be best.

By then I mean when Frank gets a place with internet.

Sure. We also probably want to go with one of maps included in Dom 3 by default if we desire to keep things simple. I prefer non-wrapping maps.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:38 pm

I will have a persistent internet connection in my flat, which I will have on Wednesday. Honestly, you could use any map, even a randomly generated one, and that would be fine. You just mail the map files to each player and move on with your life.

-Username17

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:22 pm

So how many people are interested in this game? The list as it stands now is.

Frank-Playing ?
Name_here-Playing ?
Avoraciopoctules-Playing ?
Orca-Playing ?
Anyone else?

What age? What mods? Any houserules? (Some games ban some of the more powerful globals...I'm not really in favor of that for a newbie game.)

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 10:18 pm

I'd be interested.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:35 pm

What would you prefer about the age, and mods? Also, map size is an important consideration. So preferences on that would be good. I'll edit you onto the list.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:54 pm

I'd prefer Middle age over Late over Early. There's no mods I have any particular knowledge of or preferences for/against.

Large maps and maps with edges promote turtling I think, which can lead to inconveniently long games. So one or the other but probably not both?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:22 am

I like large maps, but I don't have strong opinions about wraparound. Wraparound gives fairer setups, but it's harder to find a good looking wraparound map. So, whatever.

I'm generally opposed to mods, although if someone wants to try out a mod nation that isn't well drawn but completely insane (I think you know who I'm talking about there), I would be OK with that.

I would be fine with selecting last or hidden submissions of top three choices of nations, or whatever.

-Username17

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 11:59 am

I'd like to play but am unable to buy the game yet

.

Oh well, hope someone can put up AARs.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:39 am

It seems that nation mods could be in if people want them. MA is the age of choice, barring a bunch of people joining with a different preference. A large 80-85 province wrap around map or a medium 50-60 edged map seem to be the winners as far as map sizes go.

I see a couple of ways to do nations:

1) All players select select one nation for a pool, and third party randomizes.
2) Someone makes a list of nations that aren't shit, or absurd, and everyone picks in some order. (No Ulm, no Atlantis, no Ashdod, no Agartha, no Oceania; maybe a few others don't make it.)
3) Everyone submits top 2 or 3 choices to a third party, and that guy assigns nations.

As far as mod nations, Tomb Kings might be fine, and I don't know much about any of the other MA mod nations. And that one guy's shit won't fly. Period.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 1:14 am

Akula, I notice your name isn't on your player list. I'm assuming you're in?

Your first option for picking nations could and probably would lead to someone playing a side they know nothing about. I've never really got the hang of blood magic, for example. The second and third sound workable.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 2:46 pm

I don't see anything wrong with someone playing a powerful nation like Ashdod or a weak nation like Oceania if that's what they want to do. Alliances often form based on perceived threat. Playing a nation which is powerful and well established to be powerful is often a disadvantage, because people overreact to threats. In any case, a simple choose three and assign randomly seems appropriate.

Here are mine in no order:

Caelum
Pangaea
Jotunheim

As for settings: putting the Hall of Fame out to 15 is a must because heroic traits are fun. I'm fine with an enhanced magic site setup, but more than 50 or 60 gets pretty ridiculous. You get plenty of resources, supplies, and gold with standard values on all.

-Username17

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 3:54 pm

I would be interested in playing the MA versions of Arcoscephale, Mictlan, Jotunheim, Bandar Log, or Atlantis based on the fact that I like their sprites. My overall preference would be for Mictlan. Their shmancy aztec armor looks nifty, and I wouldn't need to micromanage piles of blood slaves everywhere thanks to the Lawgiver. Also, I discovered an awesome/stupid goal I can set myself based on a review of their Conjuration.

So:
- Arcoscephale
- Mictlan
- Atlantis

I definitely favor enhanced site frequency.

--

Here's some maps that look decent.

Map: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Isle_of_ ... mp_version
Map: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Small_Divide

----------------------------------------

Not immediately related to the upcoming game, as they are late age, but in other people's estimation, are these worth 1 Death Gem each and 4-5 levels of Conjuration research? You summon them in batches of 12 or so at a time.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:48 pm

-Ermor
-R'leyh
-Shinuyuma