Dominion 3 Strategy & Questions

[Orion]

I just got my full copy of the game. Since I'm too new (and too busy atm, since school starts on Monday) to join the Den game, I decided not to clutter the game thread with my reflections.

-- Sacred mages (and priests). What are they good for? Okay, so some nations get crazy thug/mage/priest sacreds like Yakshas and Ba'als, or just sacred thug mages (Atlantean mage ancients). You can run them with a bless strategy and they self-buff. But what if your mages are sacred wimps? Is it worth designing a bless for casters? Earth/air? earth/astral?

--What's with all the weird "giant dude/demigod" pretender chassis in the 75-125 point range? When I want a rainbow mage, I always choose one of the puny humans; when I'm going bless, I choose one of the immobiles, and for SC I tend to grab a monster, especially if I want awe from dominion. So far I've never quite figured out what the titans and demigods are good for.

--Is drain as terrible an idea as it looks? Every other negative scale has drawbacks you can work around. Drain reduces research by a great percentage than magic increases it, absolutely crippling all the cheap researches and independent mages. It would be cool if it actually paid off in having less to fear from magic, but it looks like as soon as you try to invade somebody they can own you in the face with their superior spells.

--Good god, the terrible nations are terrible. I tried playing some of the "weak" nations versus AI, figuring I probably wasn't good enough yet to notice their lack of power loops and that ti wouldn't matter if you're not competitive. They're really unplayable, without hyperbole. Ulms infantry fails hard against everything, and their mages are bad too. Similarly, I played 3 turns of Machaka before realizing that I didn't know what I could build that would beat independent and that I had no mages I was excited about developing.

[Orion]

Is there a list of national heroes somewhere? I keep having them show up, and finding I don't know what to do with them.

--The Crone pretender starts old. I know she can eventually get young with blood magic, but isn't having your pretender accumulate afflictions kind of terrible?

I have lots of questions about magic sites:

First, how common are level 3 and 4 sites? Would I be better off site-searching with a mage who has 2 in everything or 3 in what my nation uses, or one with, say, 4 in three path and using site-search spells for the other one or two paths? This also affects how useful the site-search spells ARE compared to searching manually.

Second, how many blood sites are there? I know that you don't get slaves from sites, but is it still worth having a blood mage search my lands? I tried it once and found basically nothing.

Third, how do you get bloodhenge druids? I've attacked a forest full of indy bloodhengers, but the recruitable natives were regular druids. Searching with a level-3 blood mage turned up nothing.

What good are all the weird monsters and big animal you can summon with conj 1-3. You know, horned drakes, sea dogs, tigers. It seems hard to get enough to make a squad of just monsters, but if you mix them in you can't play to their strengths so they're just extra bodies.

[Username17]

-- Sacred mages (and priests). What are they good for? Okay, so some nations get crazy thug/mage/priest sacreds like Yakshas and Ba'als, or just sacred thug mages (Atlantean mage ancients). You can run them with a bless strategy and they self-buff. But what if your mages are sacred wimps? Is it worth designing a bless for casters? Earth/air? earth/astral?

Sacred anything costs half upkeep. Even if you never bless them at all, a mage who is sacred costs 1 gold per 30 instead of 1 gold per 15 each turn. So if your minor research mage is sacred (like a Tungalik or a Mictlan Priest), that's goo. Also, if you happen to have Earth or Astral blessings, that's good for mages.

--What's with all the weird "giant dude/demigod" pretender chassis in the 75-125 point range? When I want a rainbow mage, I always choose one of the puny humans; when I'm going bless, I choose one of the immobiles, and for SC I tend to grab a monster, especially if I want awe from dominion. So far I've never quite figured out what the titans and demigods are good for.

Firstly, they can use equipment. That's super important, and makes them often much more frightening than a manticore in the middle game. But it also means that they can use Hammers and shit like a Rainbow. But they have a higher Dominion score than a rainbow, and they are basically impossible to snipe down with Seeking Arrow and the like.

People like the Titan and the Lady of Springs are actually a deal if you just want 2 or 3 paths of magic and a medium Dominion. Go ahead and open up Man. Now make a Lady of Springs and set her to Water 4, Nature 4 and give her a Dominion of 7. Now change to the Archdruid and do the same thing. The Lady of Springs is not only tougher and make more gems per month, she also costs less at those settings. You save 45 points, which means that since she pays 50 instead of 10 for a new path, you're still 5 points ahead adding a third path (at any value). Meaning that our little clam whore could very plausibly add an Astral suit to that and still come out costing less than a similarly equipped Human. In order for the Rainbow chassis to pay off, you need a 4th path.

--Is drain as terrible an idea as it looks? Every other negative scale has drawbacks you can work around. Drain reduces research by a great percentage than magic increases it, absolutely crippling all the cheap researches and independent mages. It would be cool if it actually paid off in having less to fear from magic, but it looks like as soon as you try to invade somebody they can own you in the face with their superior spells.

People who have really big researchers can get by with Drain 2. It's 1 point from each researcher. If you plan to do most of your early research with a Great Sage or something, and your mid-game research with Skull Mentors, going from Magic 1 to Drain 2 is 120 points you can spend on more Cowbell.

--Good god, the terrible nations are terrible. I tried playing some of the "weak" nations versus AI, figuring I probably wasn't good enough yet to notice their lack of power loops and that ti wouldn't matter if you're not competitive. They're really unplayable, without hyperbole. Ulms infantry fails hard against everything, and their mages are bad too. Similarly, I played 3 turns of Machaka before realizing that I didn't know what I could build that would beat independent and that I had no mages I was excited about developing.

Machaka has cheap archers, a reasonably decent hoplite, and some badass spider cavalry. They are weak, but mostly because they don't have national spells of any kind. It's an unfinished nation, but you can get by with fighting with spiders and archers, then busting out Banefires, then busting out Tartarians. Death + Nature is a perfectly respectable end game.

Ulm is just garbage.

-Username17

[Username17]

--The Crone pretender starts old. I know she can eventually get young with blood magic, but isn't having your pretender accumulate afflictions kind of terrible?

The Crone is free. You get what you pay for.

First, how common are level 3 and 4 sites? Would I be better off site-searching with a mage who has 2 in everything or 3 in what my nation uses, or one with, say, 4 in three path and using site-search spells for the other one or two paths? This also affects how useful the site-search spells ARE compared to searching manually.

It varies somewhat by type. Air sites are biased a bit towards the 3s and 4s, but most of the Earth sites seem to be 1s and 2s.

Second, how many blood sites are there? I know that you don't get slaves from sites, but is it still worth having a blood mage search my lands? I tried it once and found basically nothing.

There are almost no Blood Sites. If you are a blood power, you should probably search your empire for blood, because the few blood sites there are are biased towards blood bonuses. Mount Chaining makes all of your demon summoning cost 40 percent less there. I'm not even kidding. Finding Mount Chaining makes you win the game.

Third, how do you get bloodhenge druids? I've attacked a forest full of indy bloodhengers, but the recruitable natives were regular druids. Searching with a level-3 blood mage turned up nothing.

There are a couple of magic sites that let you recruit Bloodhenge Druids. These sites show up in forests think, but they are pretty rare and have absolutely nothing to do with where you saw Bloodhenge Indies.

What good are all the weird monsters and big animal you can summon with conj 1-3. You know, horned drakes, sea dogs, tigers. It seems hard to get enough to make a squad of just monsters, but if you mix them in you can't play to their strengths so they're just extra bodies.

Their primary purpose is as emergency fodder while you are being sieged. You can't buy troops while under siege, but you can still cast spells. So you can swell your ranks with tough weird monstrous stuff to camp in the gateway while your towers continue to blast the attackers.

A few of them are actually pretty strong on their own. Ice and Fire Drakes are actually pretty good at conquering provinces backed up by even the most rudimentary armies. Shades are shockingly good at soaking damage and so on.

And the level 3 summons tend to be just plain good. Banes and Vine Ogres are important thugs and quite affordable. The battle summons are dick though. No way is a lesser fire elemental worth a gem.

-Username17

[Akula]

Is there a list of national heroes somewhere? I keep having them show up, and finding I don't know what to do with them.

--The Crone pretender starts old. I know she can eventually get young with blood magic, but isn't having your pretender accumulate afflictions kind of terrible?

Yes, it is. But take a pick of nature magic and she becomes young again. She really is a X/Y/D/N pretender. Good if you want a middling dom and need to cover sorcery weaknesses.

I have lots of questions about magic sites:

First, how common are level 3 and 4 sites? Would I be better off site-searching with a mage who has 2 in everything or 3 in what my nation uses, or one with, say, 4 in three path and using site-search spells for the other one or two paths? This also affects how useful the site-search spells ARE compared to searching manually.

Level 3 sites are relatively common, and also not terribly impressive, normally. There is like one or two level 4 sites of each magic type and they are supposedly terrain type limited. The most effective searchers have 1-3 in a wide variety of paths.
But sight search spells are better because they save you a mage turn and let you avoid the places you searched before. So you will use them in the second and third year if you have had any luck searching so far.

Second, how many blood sites are there? I know that you don't get slaves from sites, but is it still worth having a blood mage search my lands? I tried it once and found basically nothing.

Blood sites are rare. But there are like 4 that give a 30-50% bonus to blood magic and will change the game if you find them, so it is worth it to search.

Third, how do you get bloodhenge druids? I've attacked a forest full of indy bloodhengers, but the recruitable natives were regular druids. Searching with a level-3 blood mage turned up nothing.

They have a site that lets you recruit them. It doesn't normally turn up in their provinces however.

What good are all the weird monsters and big animal you can summon with conj 1-3. You know, horned drakes, sea dogs, tigers. It seems hard to get enough to make a squad of just monsters, but if you mix them in you can't play to their strengths so they're just extra bodies.

When you desperately need bodies to throw into the breach. Low level summons are mostly for when you need to fend off a rush or finish a siege faster.

[Zinegata]

--Is drain as terrible an idea as it looks? Every other negative scale has drawbacks you can work around. Drain reduces research by a great percentage than magic increases it, absolutely crippling all the cheap researches and independent mages. It would be cool if it actually paid off in having less to fear from magic, but it looks like as soon as you try to invade somebody they can own you in the face with their superior spells.

If your mages produce a lot of research on their own (i.e. 7+/turn), they're fine. But if your nation's researchers only produce 4 research a turn normally, you'll run into major issues.

Ulm's mages in MA are also immune to drain, so it's 120 free points for them. Also, I don't agree with Frank that Ulm is useless. They did fairly well in the report angel posted (they didn't die first ).

--Good god, the terrible nations are terrible. I tried playing some of the "weak" nations versus AI, figuring I probably wasn't good enough yet to notice their lack of power loops and that ti wouldn't matter if you're not competitive. They're really unplayable, without hyperbole. Ulms infantry fails hard against everything, and their mages are bad too. Similarly, I played 3 turns of Machaka before realizing that I didn't know what I could build that would beat independent and that I had no mages I was excited about developing.

The aggravating part of Dominions 3 is that you can't really "Pick a nation and run with it". It's more of "Pick a nation, understand it, then build a Pretender for it, then pray it all works out in the end."

What Pretender are you using anyway for Machaka? Scales? Magic Paths?

Is there a list of national heroes somewhere? I keep having them show up, and finding I don't know what to do with them.

The strategy wiki lists some of them, but it's not finished.

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominions_3:_The_Awakening

Click on the nations for a list of national heroes. It differs per age. And honestly, most of them suck and are just a vanilla hero with slightly better stats. A few you can build a strat around, but only if you're lucky enough to get them.

--The Crone pretender starts old. I know she can eventually get young with blood magic, but isn't having your pretender accumulate afflictions kind of terrible?

The Crone's main advantage is that you can buy new magic paths for a mere 10 points, so you can really customize her magical abilities. That being said, the Enchantress with a free astral gem is usually the better choice, and has the same 10 point cost for a magic path.

First, how common are level 3 and 4 sites? Would I be better off site-searching with a mage who has 2 in everything or 3 in what my nation uses, or one with, say, 4 in three path and using site-search spells for the other one or two paths? This also affects how useful the site-search spells ARE compared to searching manually.

The general concensus is that having 2 in everything is enough to show all of the minor gem-producing sites. Level 3 or 4 is needed if you want the more unique stuff.

List of all sites is here:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Category:Site

Site-search is 100% reliable, but searches only for that type of site. And you tie up a mage to cast the Ritual.

A mage with multiple magic paths search for all types of sites simultaneously, but has a chance of failure unless he/she has 4 in all paths.

For more info, see the sitesearch portion here:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?p=758437

[name_here]

2. They're more late-game SCs. Get up to construction 6 and kit them out fully. The monsters have limited slots but can kick the asses of independants, while the demigods have more slots but solo no one.

3. Well, firstly a few guys ignore drain, and secondly some nations rely on small numbers of high-research dudes. The advantage is that it can transform enemy communions into microwave dinners because it throws off their fatigue calculations.

4. Yeah, Ulm is pretty much terrible. Now, with Machaka, your spider riders kick ass and you've got swarms of archers for handling low-protection shieldless guys. Your mages kind of suck but skull mentors and lightless lanterns are a big deal, and nature/fire totals out to some acceptable battlemagics. The thing with the spider guys is that they perma-shapeshift to riderless spiders on death, which loses a frankly shitty attack to gain protection, hit points, and lack of upkeep.

5. The wiki has a scattershot list, but generally many nations seem to have these heros: Slighly improved version of your knight commanders or a kickass infantry dude, superior version of your midrange mage, and superior variant of your top mage.

6. You get what you pay for. Unless you're T'ien and get to de-age your pretender via research.

Magic sites: Generally, most sites seem to be in the 1-2 range, but the 3-4 ones can match your capital sites in income or provide other shinies. Also, site searching spells can be cast every turn instead of moving every other turn.

[Orion]

true, but for mages with 3 or more paths at 2, it still seems that searching on foot would be faster.

[Username17]

true, but for mages with 3 or more paths at 2, it still seems that searching on foot would be faster.

With the exception of Holy and Blood (which are rare as fuck), that's pretty much true. So a Ktonian Necromancer with F2E2D2 searches better on foot than casting overland spells, while a Caelum High Seraph does not (having A3W2X instead of E2D2F1X like a Ktonian Necromancer).

-Username17

[Grek]

For Machaka, you've got two basic options:

Take order 3, growth 3, hike up taxes to 130%. Get luck if possible, take heat 3 and sloth 3 to make up the points. Use your sacred patrol bonus priests to patrol and keep unrest down. The net result is that you're getting about twice as much gold per turn, and killing people off a bit slower than a death 2 dominion would. If you get lucky and get a gold event, all the better. Use the money that you get from doing this to buy as many of the 30gp spider riders as you possibly can and then rush someone puny looking. From there, either go into strategy number two at a late start, or, if you've got a big enough advantage, keep rushing people with massive piles of spiders.

OR

Start up with a Great Sage who has ridiculous research. Like, as much as you can get. Points in every path. Have him research construction while you send out your recruited black sorcerers to find gems. Built fever fetishes, put them on one of your spider riding commanders. When he dies of disease, the spider left behind gets the fetish. You end up getting alot of fire gems this way on the order of 100 per turn once you've got it really going. This goes into lightless lanterns and then massive research. Flame Arrows with your archers, thugs kitted out with fire brands and golden shields, falling fires and a volcanic erruption on every one of your enemy's bases every turn for the whole war.

[K]

--The Crone pretender starts old. I know she can eventually get young with blood magic, but isn't having your pretender accumulate afflictions kind of terrible?

The Crone is free. You get what you pay for.

The Crone has 4 misc. slots and so can have a lot of path boosters on at once. That's her claim to fame.

On top of being free, she is also the prime candidate for being turned into a Wight.

[Akula]

The Crone has 4 misc. slots and so can have a lot of path boosters on at once. That's her claim to fame.

On top of being free, she is also the prime candidate for being turned into a Wight.

Do you get to keep the misc. slots?

[Zinegata]

Magic sites: Generally, most sites seem to be in the 1-2 range, but the 3-4 ones can match your capital sites in income or provide other shinies. Also, site searching spells can be cast every turn instead of moving every other turn.

Oh, yeah. I hadn't considered that.

[Orca]

MA Ulm can survive in single-player. You spam pikemen in chain at first (not plate! You get less and the encumberance makes them no better), then get a whole lot of black knights later. Don't mix these tactics any more than you have to.

MA Oceania similarly spams centaur medium cav. Not the sacred heavy guys, the 40 gold/8 resource icthycentaurs (sp?). These can be buffed very effectively.

I take no responsibility for success of these tactics in MP though.

[name_here]

General, probably somewhat inaccurate rule for site searching: with six total points into paths, it is probably better to use spells with two paths and manual search with 3+ paths. Exception: it is ALWAYS better to spell search underwater when looking for elemental sites and having W2. That's not even an argument.

[Zinegata]

MA Ulm can survive in single-player. You spam pikemen in chain at first (not plate! You get less and the encumberance makes them no better), then get a whole lot of black knights later. Don't mix these tactics any more than you have to.

MA Oceania similarly spams centaur medium cav. Not the sacred heavy guys, the 40 gold/8 resource icthycentaurs (sp?). These can be buffed very effectively.

I take no responsibility for success of these tactics in MP though.

Angel had a nice link earlier that includes MP Ulm in action.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3302467

That they didn't die first shows that they aren't necessarily doomed all the time. However, later in the game they run into issues with magic diversity, which probably disqualifies them from powerhouse status.

[cthulhu]

Is there any way to auto queue ritual spells such as site search?

Actually, is there any way to automate site searching AT ALL??!?!

[Zinegata]

Is there any way to auto queue ritual spells such as site search?

Actually, is there any way to automate site searching AT ALL??!?!

For ritual spells, I believe there's the Shift-M command.

Select a caster, press Shift-M. It will bring up a list of rituals. Select a ritual spell. Said caster will then cast that ritual every turn.

Dunno if it works for site searching though.

Automated site-search (via a wandering caster) doesn't seem to be an option.

[cthulhu]

Can you automate forging too?

[K]

The Crone has 4 misc. slots and so can have a lot of path boosters on at once. That's her claim to fame.

On top of being free, she is also the prime candidate for being turned into a Wight.

Do you get to keep the misc. slots?

No. She turns into the Wight base unit.

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

And yes, site searching can be automated if you automate the site searching rituals. They automatically choose a new province to check.

[Username17]

The automated spell casting for site searching is a little buggy, but in general works pretty well. Here's how it works:

• Immediately after having cast the last spell it selects a new province to cast upon.
• It starts at the lowest numbered province (provinces are normally numbered from the lower left to the upper right, but custom maps can have any numbering).
• It skips provinces that have already been searched in that type (at any level) and provinces that have 3 located magic sites.
• It skips provinces that another caster is already casting the same spell on this turn (so you can script four or five guys to cast Auspex, that's no problem).
• If there are no available provinces that have not been searched in that type, it will cast on provinces that have been searched at less than 4.
• Then it stops.

Now, there are some holes in this algorithm. The most obvious of course is that if you have a plains province with Death 3 in it for no damn reason, the chances are pretty damn good that it has a Well of Pestilence in it and you should cast Dark Knowledge on it. But there are some weirder issues that may or may not come up.

• It chooses the next province after casting the last spell, which is before site searching by hand resolves, so it may end up targeting a province that you just searched with an actual mag in the field. You can reverse this one by selecting the mage in question and Shit-M casting it again, because once you start him on a casting chain he will now recognize that province as skippable.
• It chooses the next province after casting the last spell, which is also before combat. So it may end up targeting a province you just lost in battle. If you intend to take it right back, that may be OK. Or you can select your mage and re-assign him, as that will again reset his targeting procedure for this turn.
• Some nations only have 1 fucking magic site in their capital. There aren't any more magic sites to find there, but the spells don't recognize that fact. Sorry dude, it's just one of the costs of success.

-Username17

[Akula]

Can you automate forging too?

I wish. You can make it easier. If you group all your forgers and know what you need, you can Shift-F them and set all the forging in that province at one time. If you need thug gear it is pretty easy to 1) identify what you need (2 brands, 2 charcoal/vine shields, 2 rainbow armors) 2) identify who can forge it (naiad #1, F1 E3 dwarf, naiad #2, F1 E3 dwarf #2, A1 N2 Enchantress #1 and #2) 3) Set them all to forge. It isn't automated, but it saves me a little time.

[cthulhu]

So I've got the packs of thaums with communion master/slave going on.. but what are you supposed to be casting to blast everyone off the map with that?

Nether darts x a million + skelly spam is hilarious and effective, but whats the end game for this?

[Grek]

Evocations like falling fires/frost, thunderstrike or blade wind. Just have all the thuams spam it and let the communicants eat the fatigue. Or Master Enslave if it's end-game.

[name_here]

Nether darts is the end game for that. Well, and master enslave. Other big, battle-field sweepers that require like death 7 are also good.