Dominion 3 Strategy & Questions

[Zinegata]

I'm game for another one. Out of academic interest, I'd like to either do EA Archo or Agartha, OR MA random.

Don't do random. You need a game plan from the very beginning to be successful with this game.

As Frank said, EA Arco is weird. Expansion is gonna be tough with relatively poor troops, and your magic is all over the place.

But you do have the advantage of cheap and relatively efficient researchers (Philosophers), if you're willing to go Sloth and give up on any high-resource units. Baalz has written an excellent guide on EA Arco to take advantage of this, but it was written for CBM so a lot of it doesn't apply.

However, the basics of it are as follows:

1) Since you have crappy troops and will be taking Sloth to make your troops even crappier, a SC out-of-the-box Pretender is a must. (Do NOT follow Baalz's recommendation for a White Bull in vanilla Dominions though. He's a lot weaker in vanilla)

2) Have your SC and an army expand like crazy. Try going for Windriders as they cost very little resources (but a ton of gold).

3) Recruit lots and lots and lots of Philosophers to jump-start your early game research. Get yourself some Alteration and Evocation levels up.

4) Stop recruiting Philosophers and start recruiting these girls:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Oreiad

They may look weak and frail, and they cost 400 gold each. But they also have Awe 6, and can cast just about every good defensive self-buff, plus regenerate to heal any wounds. One of them can rout most Province Defenses. A group of them can rout an army that has no specific counter against them

Baalz's script still holds mainly true for vanilla:

mistform, stoneskin, resist lightning, cast spells.

Though you should probably have her cast Summon Earthpower or give her the boots of the messenger to increase her reinvigoration.

Better yet, from a strategic perspective, these girls are also Stealthy and can cast Cloud Trapeze (plus Rain of Stones later on for mass army killing), so they can wreak havoc in your enemy's rear areas. To top it all off, they can also Seduce enemy commanders.

For his full guide, read here:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42440

But again, remember: A lot of the info there applies only to CBM! Only the Oreiad section is vouched to be still mainly applicable to vanilla .

[koz]

What, in your opinion, is the best summonable thug? All schools and paths considered.

[Akula]

What, in your opinion, is the best summonable thug? All schools and paths considered.

The question is really to broad. Thugs are all about sneaking provinces from an enemy for the smallest amount of gems you can invest. I'd say of the summons cheap enough to be used regularly, and vulnerable enough to still qualify as a thug rather than an SC, the golem stands out for its ability to teleport to any province and then bug out if a kill team is teleported on top of it.

But that ignores so much about what a thug fundamentally is that I just don't see it as that useful of an answer. The above answer is from the perspective of the unmodified game, discounting national summons.

[koz]

What exactly is the difference between SCs and thugs? I don't seem to quite get it.

[Akula]

What exactly is the difference between SCs and thugs? I don't seem to quite get it.

A thug can 1) take a province a turn without support provided it doesn't face dedicated countermeasures, 2) work as part of an army to reinforce a frontline or kill priority targets. While an SC is expected to fight on its own against pretty much anything short of defenses designed specifically to deal with it, for example it is immune to a large number of elements, regenerates a lot of health every turn, has some way to kill both large groups and a few elites, is better than fatigue neutral, and has at least 20 MR (this is actually way to low to be safe against MR negates spells). Those are some of the bare minimum entry requirements.

Also there is a different philosophy involved from the ground up, a thug is generally built to the cheapest specs that will still work (because thugs are mostly built to do one thing) while an SC is built with a mind towards layering as much defense as you can squeeze in with little concern for the cost (because SCs are designed to face unknown opponents with the best overall chance of success, cheaper is still better). Keep in mind that no SC can be perfect due to gear restrictions.

[koz]

OK, that makes more sense, thanks Akula. In that case, to rephrase my earlier question - upon what summoned creature(s) could I potentially build a good SC?

[Winnah]

Very basic terms, a thug is used by people on various Dominions communities to describe an often (but not always) cheap unit that can stand in for an army or squad. They could be tasked with clearing out provinces of weak defenders, raiding and attrition, or beating down on other tough units as the need requires.

Typically they have higher than average attributes and special abilities like awe, fear, heat or chill, maybe trampling. It can run the gamut of units like a Bane Lord, which are pretty solid units, to more powerful units that are capable of self buffs, such as Vampire Lords. They are typically equipped with gear to assist them in either survivability and/or inflicting as much trauma as possible.

A Super Combatant on the other hand, needs a proper, well thought out strategy to defend against. They are extremely difficult to pin down and kill due to a combination of natural attributes and gear. Elemental Royalty and Demon Lords are examples of units that can be considered SC's. Without gear and spell research, these units are much less powerful.

My description is a bit vague and overwrought, but when talking about SC's, it's important to remember that these are expensive units that you probably want to invest a lot of gems and research into. Many thug and SC builds are highly dependant on spell research and construction in order to function optimally, such as Pan's or Dai Oni. A Prince of Death or Gorgon probably does not need such heavy investment, but become significantly more effective when they have access to increasingly powerful options.

[Username17]

upon what summoned creature(s) could I potentially build a good SC?

The best Super Combatants are Rudras and Mandehas. Both of those are Monkeys-Only summonables. Then there's the Grigori, which are Hinnom Exclusive, and the Seraph, which is available to everyone via the spell Wish (and also at merely ruinous cost to Marignon and Pythium via a national spell).

The Air and Water Queens work very nicely, as do the Ice and Arch Devils.

Honestly though, i think any creature with Air 4 like an Air Queen or Seraph is probably too valuable as an army caster to actually use as a SC. When I last played as Marignon, I thugged up a flock of Angels of Fury and my Air Queens and Serpahs were used as major casters. In the final battle, I had an Air Queen scripted to open with Fog Warriors and a Serpah scripted for a Will of the fates opener. Actual melee combat was for a group of lesser angels.

-Username17

[K]

The thing to remember is that SCs are blinged out to the max, tend to abuse some mechanic, and generally are better sent alone to fight armies because their abuse of a mechanic means they can kill the whole army alone.

Thugs have the minimum equipment to do their job and are backed by armies, generally.

For example, Bane Lords are often just handed a decent shield, a AoE weapon like a Frost Brand, and maybe a Luck Pendant. They are then expected to be supported by casters and a regular army who will be tossing down stuff like battlefield regen or Antimagic or something. You expect them to fuck up a lot of people, but they are a 20ish gem investment even with items and are expected to last long enough to justify the investment.

On the flipside, a Seraph has a lot of Awe and gets Fear item to lower people's morale so they can get past the Awe, casts self-buffs that mess up armies when you can't kill the caster like Fire Shield and Phoenix Pyre, rock an AoE weapon, probably have several MR items to boost them to ridiculous levels of magic resistance, and might enter battle casting a battlefield-destroying spell. They cost 200ish gems and can really only be killed by specific tactics for their build.

[Zinegata]

OK, that makes more sense, thanks Akula. In that case, to rephrase my earlier question - upon what summoned creature(s) could I potentially build a good SC?

Since people haven't mentioned it yet, I'll throw these in:

Tartarians are often considered an ideal chassis for SCs, as they have a ton of HP and come with multiple spell paths. This guy for instance:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Tartaria ... Lightning)

Can cast a ton of protective buffs, along with Rain of Stones natively to wreck entire armies of poorly armored foes (i.e. Mages!).

And these guys are kind of cheap too at only 10 Death gems apiece, plus another 20 to cast Gift of Reason on them if they didn't start out as a commander.

Unfortunately, they start out afflicted with feeblemind (so you'll need either the Chalice Artifact or the one Global spell that heals afflictions) and are still kinda insane after being healed (they will occassionally pillage your own provinces and refuse to follow orders).

On the other hand, their powerful spell casting often makes them ideal army casters (that are harder to kill than normal mages) instead of being risked as a true SC.

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If you've been beaten to the Chalice / Gift of Health, you probably won't be making Tartarians for your SCs, but there are also a few other options.

Each of the elemental schools (Fire, Air, Water, Earth) has "royalty" elementals. Each is a powerful unit, but do note there is a limited number of them so it's also a race to get them. Plus, they cost a lot of gems - often 50+.

Blood nations can also race for the Archdevils, but again there is only a limited number of them. And they cost over a hundred blood slaves.

And finally, you can just outright Wish for guys like Rudras using the Wish spell, but it will be very pricey at 100 pearls.

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For most purposes, I've found that SCs are actually less vital than being able to cast army-killing spells OR getting thugs for raiding. People generally still need armies to break into castles, while thugs drain your opponent's economy by attacking provinces where his army isn't present. SCs by contrast tend to be useful for breaking armies... but only if the army has no anti-SC counters. And by the time you start mass-producing SCs and turn the game into Titanicus, most nations have some kind of SC counter available.

Some good thugs are:

Banelord - as he's relatively cheap, and he's undead. He only needs some basic protections and a sword and he can chop through most PDs.

Black Servant - Less beefy than the Banelord, but he's stealthy and ethereal.

Ivy King - who ar pretty decent Nature casters, have good regen, AND can summon more Vine Ogres at a discount.

There are also some nations who can buy commanders who make decent thugs, such as the Black Lord of Ulm - but these need gear to kit them up.

[Akula]

Tarts are for magic diversity as much as SCing. In the end, SCs are nice because you generally need to bring a lot of mages to effectively beat them out, and if those mages get killed they can be slow to recruit back up.

Also Rudras are 120 gems to wish for. Wished troops need a Gift of Reason. The elemental royalty are actually pretty shitty SCs though. The air ones are really the only set able to do it well.

EDIT: Black lords of ulm do not make good thugs. And they eat a recruitment slot that could be more profitably spent on a mage. Vanjarls are the most prominent recruitable thug, high stats, glamoured stealth, and decent buffing ability. Combine that with the fact that you have to recruit them outside of cap and it makes them good at the job with the added bonus of a low opportunity cost.

[Zinegata]

EDIT: Black lords of ulm do not make good thugs. And they eat a recruitment slot that could be more profitably spent on a mage. Vanjarls are the most prominent recruitable thug, high stats, glamoured stealth, and decent buffing ability. Combine that with the fact that you have to recruit them outside of cap and it makes them good at the job with the added bonus of a low opportunity cost.

Black Lords don't if they were in any nation without an effective 50% forge bonus. Ulm's bonus bring them to the "decent" level because they can be kitted up relatively cheaply.

Also, yes, you could kit out a Master Smith instead for thuggery and other things, but not all of your Forts may have a lab yet and the Black Lord has better fighting skills and battlefield movement.

Vanjarls are indeed much better out of the box though.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Has anyone looked at this Avernum mod before?
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/ind ... wtopic=309

It's gotten much less power-creepy since the gemgen was removed from the elite mages, but the sheer variety of soldier and commander types still makes the nation versatile enough that I have concerns about using it in regular multiplayer.

Would this nation be balanced if it were split into 2, each with 2 of the 4 races that compose Avernum right now?

[Akula]

Anyone have an opinion on what the cost should be for a low level national spell that summons 1 Ether Warrior? I was thinking level 1-2 and 2 or 3 pearls.

[Winnah]

Considering the base spell Ether Gate is Conj. 6, costs 90 gems and summons 15 inits in addition to a commander (a decent commander though), I would say 2 or 3 gems is a little cheap. Ether Gate is somehwat overpriced for my tastes unless I am pulling in an early Astral income.

I have noticed that the cost/power ratio increases as the path level gets a bit higher. Making the spell cost 5 gems for a level 2 spell may still be a little cheap, but I can't see increasing the cost further.

[Zinegata]

Anyone have an opinion on what the cost should be for a low level national spell that summons 1 Ether Warrior? I was thinking level 1-2 and 2 or 3 pearls.

A bit higher on both counts I'd say. A 22 HP ethereal unit at spell level 1-2 is pretty powerful, and costing only 3 gems makes it trivial to put out early.

Maybe "okay" if the nation has total crap for national troops.

[angelfromanotherpin]

It feels weird to be able to summon a dude who carries a magic weapon for less research and gems than it takes to forge just the weapon.

[Zinegata]

To be fair, a Moon Blade's not actually that great of a weapon. It should honestly be lower on the research tree than a Fire or Frost Brand.

[Akula]

Considering the base spell Ether Gate is Conj. 6, costs 90 gems and summons 15 inits in addition to a commander (a decent commander though), I would say 2 or 3 gems is a little cheap. Ether Gate is somehwat overpriced for my tastes unless I am pulling in an early Astral income.

I have noticed that the cost/power ratio increases as the path level gets a bit higher. Making the spell cost 5 gems for a level 2 spell may still be a little cheap, but I can't see increasing the cost further.

Okay, serious question, how many wights have you summoned? I am willing to bet that the answer is none. Because at level 3 and 5 gems to summon a wight is unlikely to enough to justify the cost. To make that spell usable it should cost 2 gems, and this ether warrior summon is national; the spell should be better than merely usable.

If you consider your suggested price by another metric, ether gate is a shitty spell that no one casts because it is monstrously overpriced. To summon 18 warriors would be the same price as the gate, and an ether lord is worth more than 3 ether warriors. Thus at 5 gems this spell would be less efficient than a spell that no one casts because it doesn't justify its price.

Let me put it this way, to actually have a significant force of these guys you would have to get research in conj and then spend 10 early mage turns to field a threatening force. Now this force is pretty good, assuming that the enemy doesn't have troops that are armed with magic weapons, or mages of any kind with evocation researched to 3. I honestly think that a nation that invests 40-100 research points, 30 gems, and 10 mage turns gearing up for a battle deserves to win it if the enemy gets literally no research into the countermeasures, spends nothing, and deploys 0 mages. I would say that they might be too good against the monkey nation's summons, but that would be a lie because they would die instantly against any era of monkeys.

The only case I can consider where this spell might be too good is in an early capitol siege, but if your capital is sieged down fully early, you likely are not coming back.

[Zinegata]

Okay, serious question, how many wights have you summoned? I am willing to bet that the answer is none. Because at level 3 and 5 gems to summon a wight is unlikely to enough to justify the cost. To make that spell usable it should cost 2 gems, and this ether warrior summon is national; the spell should be better than merely usable.

Wights are generally not great for when they come out though. They have good Protection, but their Baneblades aren't really for indie killing. You generally get big numbers of them because you want to smash up an SC with some shock troops.

Ethereal on the other hand is very useful for routing early indies and PD.

If you consider your suggested price by another metric, ether gate is a shitty spell that no one casts because it is monstrously overpriced. To summon 18 warriors would be the same price as the gate, and an ether lord is worth more than 3 ether warriors. Thus at 5 gems this spell would be less efficient than a spell that no one casts because it doesn't justify its price.

Let me put it this way, to actually have a significant force of these guys you would have to get research in conj and then spend 10 early mage turns to field a threatening force. Now this force is pretty good, assuming that the enemy doesn't have troops that are armed with magic weapons, or mages of any kind with evocation researched to 3. I honestly think that a nation that invests 40-100 research points, 30 gems, and 10 mage turns gearing up for a battle deserves to win it if the enemy gets literally no research into the countermeasures, spends nothing, and deploys 0 mages. I would say that they might be too good against the monkey nation's summons, but that would be a lie because they would die instantly against any era of monkeys.

The only case I can consider where this spell might be too good is in an early capitol siege, but if your capital is sieged down fully early, you likely are not coming back.

The amount of commander-turns needed to put them out is a legitimate concern, but again I'd have to see how the nation's overall actual power is. If it's entirely reliant on Ether Warriors, then the spell should probably summon more of them at the same time.

But if the nation has decent national troops anyway, then getting just 1 of them could prove to be a very useful supplement to the army; if only to draw fire and soak hits.

[Winnah]

A wight is not a good comparison. Granted, the units may be somewhat similar in terms of stats, the obvious difference being etherealness, but consider the paths involved.

How many astral unit conjurations are there at low level? How many death? The comparison is deeply flawed because the opportunity cost of summoning a Wight means you miss out on summoning the slightly more expensive Bane.

You want a 2nd level death comparison, the Mound King would be more appropriate. A 3 gem unit. Has the advantage of being a commander with good movement, the Ether Warrior is better in every other respect. It even lacks the disadvantage of being vulnerable to banisment spam from an indie priest.

If you want to determine the unit worth by another metric, such as CBM, then you would be better off asking active modders in one of those communities.

[Username17]

CBM summoned unit costs are batshit insane though. They change wildly every CBM update because the summoning costs are so weird that people are constantly finding ways to break it by summoning low tier crap at ricockulous prices. You at least used to be able to get nine fucking bone fiends for three blood slaves in one casting. That is fucking madness and sparta.

Anyway, Ethergates are actually pretty awesome. You get a badass etheral giant who can spam netherdarts and 15 ethereal ogres. It's not Legion of Wights, but it compares pretty fucking favorably to a Troll King's Court. Your comparison point is the Gandharva, at 3 astral pearls each. Gandharvas are a game defining major advantage of Bandar Log.

I would be vaguely OK with someone being able to summon Ether Warriors one at a time for 3 pearls each. But only because they are move 1. Ether Warriors are incredibly awesome at cutting up neutrals.

-Username17

[Avoraciopoctules]

So for a mod nation with early-game Ether Warriors as a signature tactic, monkeys are a good comparison? I might be able to do something with that. In fact, I was already thinking about a nation with elephant commanders, and those mesh well with monkey/hindu culture. Maybe an LA monkey splinter faction that started worshiping weird astral stuff instead of nagas.

[Zinegata]

Gandharva is basically an Ether Warrior with Awe AND a Standard instead of Ethereal and an anti-magic sword. But they're Conjuration 5.

I would say that the nation can get away with having a national army slightly stronger than the monkeys. Standards can be a pretty big deal, especially on someone with built-in defenses like Awe.

[Akula]

Wights are generally not great for when they come out though. They have good Protection, but their Baneblades aren't really for indie killing. You generally get big numbers of them because you want to smash up an SC with some shock troops.

Ethereal on the other hand is very useful for routing early indies and PD.

Wights are high hp, 0 enc, high prot, high strength units with a chill aura, a magic weapon, and two elemental immunities. They are also size 2, which is a not inconsiderable advantage. Because of the costs involved in summoning wights until conj 9 they often are used as SC hunters, but they do better than you might think against soldiers when they are in a reasonably sized group. Mostly from the chill aura.

I am also unsure how feasible it will be to summon these guys in time for indie clearing, figure that even with an awake researcher the earliest you get them is at turn 5-7, I guess you could spend all your gems and flatline your research for a turn to get a 3rd expansion party.

A quick list of early shit that will paste a bunch of ether warriors:
1) Awesome countermeasures
2) Evocation 3, F, W, A and maybe D
3) Skellispam
4) Good sacreds with an F9 bless
5) Troops with magic weapons in sufficient number to swarm
EDIT: 6) Smite spam will probably also work

There are 4 MA nations that might have a problem with these guys if the actually have combat focused research, Man, Ulm, Agartha (might be able to smite them to death), and Pan. Three of these nations are just bad overall, which I think is more the issue here than anything else.

A wight is not a good comparison. Granted, the units may be somewhat similar in terms of stats, the obvious difference being etherealness, but consider the paths involved.

A wight is a perfect comparison because the spells do the same thing, summon a single elite troop. A spell that summons a single elite troop must be very cheap, because most nations can recruit elite troops for gold. Also, spells that summon undead or magic beings have the hidden cost that a mage must lead them, thus making raiding with small groups of ether warriors even more expensive.

How many astral unit conjurations are there at low level? How many death? The comparison is deeply flawed because the opportunity cost of summoning a Wight means you miss out on summoning the slightly more expensive Bane.

That is not a meaningful metric. Wights are not a bad summon because it costs you a bane, wights are a bad summon because the spell does not do enough to justify the mage turn spent on it and the gems invested.

You want a 2nd level death comparison, the Mound King would be more appropriate. A 3 gem unit. Has the advantage of being a commander with good movement, the Ether Warrior is better in every other respect. It even lacks the disadvantage of being vulnerable to banisment spam from an indie priest.

These spells and units occupy completely different niches. A mound king exists for providing undead leadership to nations that want to summon undead and move them at full strategic speed (or to become a reanimating prophet). In that niche it has a role, and you might summon it if you have undead and don't want to use mage turns shuffling them.

Anyway, Ethergates are actually pretty awesome. You get a badass etheral giant who can spam netherdarts and 15 ethereal ogres. It's not Legion of Wights, but it compares pretty fucking favorably to a Troll King's Court. Your comparison point is the Gandharva, at 3 astral pearls each. Gandharvas are a game defining major advantage of Bandar Log.

Gandharvas are a good comparison because they have a lot of the same vulnerabilities, I think the multiple attacks, lower encumbrance, higher map move, and sacred status are the edges that the Gandharvas have, where as the ether warriors have better weapons and are ethereal. I honestly think that Gandharvas are a bit better with any semiserious rainbow or earth bless, but worse on their own merits.

EDIT: Forgot the Gandharva's awe, which I think pulls the unblessed Gandharva about even against most foes, but worse against enemies that the ether warriors moonblade provides a real advantage against.