[Dom3] ANOTHER newbie game - MA, [5/5] - In progress

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 2:59 am

The earlier you site-search, the more gems you will accumulate from it. It doesn't directly matter whether you research earlier or later. Therefore, air on the side of site-searching except when you need to rush for a particular research level for an upcoming military engagement.
Site-searching manually is actually a pretty good deal if you do it with mages who have 3+ in 2 or more paths or 2+ in 3 paths. Site that require more than skill 2 are mostly rares, and as long as you have 2 paths, you're searching 1 path/turn just like a ritualist.
If you want to remote site search, remember you need gem income in each path you intend to search with spells. So if you have national mages with paths your capitol doesn't produce, get them out searching as early as possible, then bring them home once you have the income to support your rituals.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 3:14 am

Orion's basically right. You manual site search when:
1) You have a mage with paths that you don't have gems for. He goes out and searches, then comes home to ritual when you have the gem income.
2) You have a mage with 2+ levels in 3 or more paths. Trying to do it with a mage who only has 3+ in two paths is kind of... a preference thing. Odds are, it will be slower: you'll eventually end up having to backtrack a little bit to reach other parts of your empire, and who knows where your caster will end up in the end. It can get messy. It saves gems, takes about the same amount of time, but you'll probably lose a few mage turns here and there.

And yeah, he's right about site-searching vs research, too. Site-searching pays off more the earlier you do it. Research does too for certain research (some construction, for example), but to a much lesser extent because it's mostly gem-controlled. You might forego site-searching to rush for certain battle magics if you're expecting an early war.

It's difficult to say with battle-mages. You don't want to pull mages away from research, but it's very hard (i.e. nigh impossible) to win a war against a player without proper mage backup. So basically, the answer is you use as many mages in war as you think you need.

Also: I hate you both. The only serious wars I have ever fought have been against Caelum. And the next war I'm likely to fight will be against Caelum (Sorry Drago, but BKDG pretty much has to come to an end soon.

). Strategic bottlenecks are something I have yet to experience or benefit from. It's always flying fucking bird people. I am tired of flying fucking bird people.

P.S.: now I have some advice to ask for. I can see a province full of knights of the chalice and flagellants. They look super tough to crack. How should I go about this?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 3:48 am

Indies don't get a bless, so the flagellants are seriously worse than militia. Knights of the Chalice are seriously hardcore, having two equal and opposite problems. Problem 1: their lance charge are deadly and tend to vaporize your front line units on the first turn, routing them quickly. If you don't come in with lots and lots of guys, you can lose the fight very fast. Problem 2: They have really high protection and defense. Large numbers of crap troops will take forever to take them down.

The answer is combined arms. Any of your giants who has a decent attack skill can kill knights easily, but their lance charge might kill more giants than you want to lose. So buy up some of the most crap slaves and militias you can find, about equal to the number of knights you expect to see, and throw them in front. They eat the lances and die, then your giants crush the knights.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 12:48 am

So, Machaka, would you be interested in an NAP-3?

koz · Post by **koz** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 5:07 am

Sure, why not.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 5:24 am

Cool. We'll do that then.

koz · Post by **koz** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 8:10 am

To Mictlan: That unprovoked attack you just launched was cute, but you might find us less than willing to negotiate on withdrawal after being attacked. If you had asked nicely and not invaded us like a bully, we'd be more inclined to agree with you. However, you obviously want an excuse for war, so sure - a war is what you'll get.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 8:28 am

Hm. This does not bode well. It's not even turn 20, and we're dangerously close to throwing this game to C'tis.

I've discovered that when there are only a few players, you need to think very hard about who you're going to war with. You can't afford to get tied in a war while someone sits back and accumulates advantage.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 9:55 am

Like we've learned with previous games? lol

I would be sacred of me too, if i could find more gems...

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:04 pm

Mictlan -- I'm going to leave you province 73 in case you need it as a file to take action against Ctis later.

Ctis: I have neither the resources nor the desire to prosecute a war against you, but I do have an underwater army that outclasses your undeads in every way and who are sitting around eating gold. As such, I am claiming absolute dominion under the waves and will be coming for your water provinces shortly. You are welcome to wage a campaign of bloody revenge against me on land if you feel it is necessary, but I think we're both better off not fighting in earnest.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 11:17 pm

[SV]

Shinuyama,

We won't let you take Dominion over the sea, we'll be happy to kill these thingssss 'eating your gold'.

It would be unwise to persist further.

[/SV]

Edit:

[SV]

Dear Mictlan,

Issss there a reason for your army being parked outside of our borderssss?

[/SV]

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:56 am

Archmage wrote:That reminds me, what advice can readers give a newbie on how to balance mage-turns between research and site searching? I get that remote site searching is way more efficient turn-wise and ultimately is the way to go in the long run for the most part, but turns spent searching are turns not spent researching. Granted, having a pile of research and no gems to cast anything is a total waste of time, but what factors should be considered when deciding how many mages to allocate to research and how many to site searching?

Long answer:

1) You generally want to site-search your empire with as few mages as possible. Keep your mages researching for better spells, casting rituals, or fighting enemies.

2) Despite using only a minimal number of mages, you want to site-search as efficiently as possible, so that the few guys you allocate to this job are able to maximize your gem output.

3) As people have mentioned, a multi-path mage is probably better of site-searching manually. For instance - at the extreme end - a Celestial Master will search for Water, Earth, Astral, Air, Holy (Yes there are holy sites) and maybe Nature and reveal most Common sites (which only need 1 or 2 paths to reveal them).

Have one of these guys walk around and do manual site-searching. If you don't have a caster like the Celestial Master in your nation, then try to have your Pretender be the site-searcher. If you need your Pretender to do other things, then put together a stack of mages (preferrably with 2 paths each) who will roam around and do site-searching for you. In my EA Ulm game for instance I was site-searching with a stack of a Smith (Earth, Fire, Water), a Shaman (Earth, Nature, Death, Holy), and white Amazon (Air Astral) that gave me decent eight-path coverage for only 3 mages.

When doing you walkaround tour, prioritize Mountains (especially for Earth casters), Swamps (Death), Nature, and Wastelands. Basically anything except Farmland or clear spaces. Mountains, Swamps, etc do have a higher chance of containing magic sites.

Get these guys out searching as early as possible. TC for instance (one of the crazy best nations in terms of early manual searches) can recruit a Celestial Master on Turn 1, and have it trail the expansion army from Turn 2 onwards.

4) Research the remote-site-searching spells, and have a stable of cheap casters to do remote site-searching. Don't use an expensive 250 gold Celestial Master to remote site-search. Use a 55 gold Vaetti Hag who has exactly Astral 1, which is exactly enough to remote site-search for Astral sites. Be efficient.

If you have a lot of these cheap casters, have them all remote-site searching in one turn as long as you have enough gems and target sites. Why? Well, let's say you have a Hag that can remote site-search for Astral. It spends 5 turns to search 5 provinces, costing you 15 research (3/turn) BUT you don't get full gem production from these provinces until turn 5. By contrast, if you have 5 Hags do all the site-searching in one turn, you get full production immediately and lost only the same amount of research (15), which is much better.

Your remote searchers should generally target areas that have already been passed by your manual site search team (you did start early, yes?); prioritizing based on the following facts:

a) Provinces can have a maximum of 4 sites only, and the actual number of sites can be less than that. In general, a 55% site frequency game will have around 2 sites per province. So if your manual site-search team has already found 2 sites in a province, it isn't likely to contain more and should be on a lower priority. If they've already found 4, then take it off your site-search list. Capitals NEVER have extra sites other than the starting ones.

b) An exception to the above rule is when the province contains a rare site (usually one that produces more than 2 gems and gives other benefits - but check the Database for a complete list). A province that contains a rare site has a higher chance of having more sites (up to the maximum of 4), so feel free to prioritize site-searching them first.

c) Provinces that have scales even without any dominion effect ALWAYS have sites in them (check the DB). If a province has Death when it isn't under anyone's dominion influence, then it likely contains a site like the Well of Pestilence. Note though that Heat/Cold scales do change depending on the season.

Anyway, that's the main tips that I'd add. Hope it helped.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:42 pm

On thing to remember. High Gem Income can paint an target on you.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 1:07 pm

Yep. There's also sites that give special casting discounts / recruitable mages that also end up becoming a casus belli for war.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:32 pm

Only if someone knows you have them.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:13 pm

Zinegata wrote:Don't use an expensive 250 gold Celestial Master to remote site-search. Use a 55 gold Vaetti Hag who has exactly Astral 1, which is exactly enough to remote site-search for Astral sites. Be efficient.

This isn't exactly true. Or at least, it has some caveats. You're going to recruit vaetti hags anyway, because they are super cheap researchers and that is awesome. But don't go out of your way to recruit cheaper mages and set them to site-searching; you will eventually finish searching, and then you want that mage to go and do something useful and just generally be awesome all on his own.

Orion wrote:Only if someone knows you have them.

Exactly. Who advertises that they have awesome sites?

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 8:29 pm

Did you know you can see the sites in a province with an fort you are siegeing?
Mostly its when you take one over from another (losing) player, when it gets public knowledge.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:44 am

DSMatticus wrote:
Zinegata wrote:Don't use an expensive 250 gold Celestial Master to remote site-search. Use a 55 gold Vaetti Hag who has exactly Astral 1, which is exactly enough to remote site-search for Astral sites. Be efficient.
This isn't exactly true. Or at least, it has some caveats. You're going to recruit vaetti hags anyway, because they are super cheap researchers and that is awesome. But don't go out of your way to recruit cheaper mages and set them to site-searching; you will eventually finish searching, and then you want that mage to go and do something useful and just generally be awesome all on his own.

My point isn't to recruit a lot of cheap mages to remote site-search. My point is to use cheap mages to remote site-search, because it's a waste for a W2A1E1S1 caster to only use his S1 capability to remote site-search.

As stated in the preamble: Minimum mages for maximum efficiency.

Also, Vaetti Hags are actually awesome researchers and useful all-around casters.

Orion wrote:Only if someone knows you have them.
Exactly. Who advertises that they have awesome sites?

Not really. With diligent scouting you'll eventually spot somebody recruiting stuff like Adepts of the Iron Order, which reveals that someone who doesn't have Astral capability now has it (exception are the few sites that recruit stealthy mages). Frank got ganged up on in Oldest Profession precisely because people found out that he had one of these special sites this way.

Figuring out if someone has a discount site is less easy, but if someone is casting a normally expensive spell (i.e. Hidden Sands) in an out of the way province, then there's a good chance that you should suspect the province has some kind of discount site.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:52 am

Around 50% of hags are useful in battle with the right research (some of the later blood spells or as part of a communion) so you don't really regret recruiting them. The N and D ones can research and spam shitty fear and sleep spells in a pinch.

Hidden in sands is kind of a bad example because it needs a wasteland province to cast, and their might only be one in a person's empire. But honestly if you see a pile of mages outside a fort something is probably up in that province.

My 2 cents on site searching: You do it manually until you get whatever you need for your strategy or until you get remote spells if you have a burning need for gems. You should test your searching strategy like you test your expansion strategy so you can plan more tightly for your research goals and your site searching to coincide.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:01 am

Akula wrote:Hidden in sands is kind of a bad example because it needs a wasteland province to cast, and their might only be one in a person's empire. But honestly if you see a pile of mages outside a fort something is probably up in that province.

It's not a common example certainly (although I did end up in this situation once, wherein I was spamming Hidden in Ice). But my point is that with some diligent thinking you can figure out if someone has a discount site of some sort.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 3:27 am

Well my point was more that having hidden in sand cast in an out of the way province is the default.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 4:32 am

Someone has to deal with that growing threat that is C'tis. We really, really wish it was someone other than us, but hey: sometimes you gotta take one for the team. Even if the team is really "people who are lining up to kill you." S'all cool. So, it's turn 21. Ashdod is going to end their NAP with C'tis now. Attacks landing on turn 24, is that right?

We publicly beseech Mictlan to put aside their differences with Machaka and Shinuyama (and vice versa) so that any and all can join us in focusing on the real threat here. Yes, yes, I know; Mictlan has been super-aggressive. But wouldn't you rather they were channelling that aggression into picking on those nerdy reptiles in the south? Let's put all that ugly business behind us and get buddy-buddy.

(Drago, why do we always end up fighting? Lol. You are never that inconspicuous faction in the corner. Whatever you do, you always make it obvious. I don't know how you do it, but you just seem to paint targets on yourself. There's something to be said for being discrete. It's very nice.)

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 8:01 am

Akula wrote:Well my point was more that having hidden in sand cast in an out of the way province is the default.

Yes, but it's so expensive that casting it without a discount is kinda suspect. So seeing it used at all (not to mention multiple times) could be a sign of someone getting an Enchant discount site.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:04 pm

I'm already at war with Ctis, albeit in a small and bullshit way.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:27 pm

DSMatticus wrote: We publicly beseech Mictlan to put aside their differences with Machaka and Shinuyama (and vice versa) so that any and all can join us in focusing on the real threat here. Yes, yes, I know; Mictlan has been super-aggressive. But wouldn't you rather they were channelling that aggression into picking on those nerdy reptiles in the south? Let's put all that ugly business behind us and get buddy-buddy.

Mictlan made a lot of boastful threats directed at Machaka, and we don't expect forgiveness for our unprovoked assault. If Machaka wishes to interpret our actions as a desire for total war--which would not be entirely unreasonable, given that we were really, really aggressive--then Machaka can dedicate resources to counter-stomping Mictlan and we can wipe each other off the face of the land, allowing C'tis to swoop in and claim an even more effortless victory.