Dominions 3: Noob tips?

[DSMatticus]

So, with all the talk around here about Dominions 3, I'd decided I'd go out and buy it. I'd like to start off by saying I am absolutely horrible at these games. I'm one of those 'sandbox empire builder' players, who will sit around and tediously micromanage until I have a pretty empire and pretty armies and etc, etc. Standard, uniform armies and cities/planets/provinces/whatever-the-game-in-question calls it. Bad habit, but I usually play SP and AI's always suck, so completely unoptimal play isn't punished.

So, one, I'm looking to break that habit, if anybody's got any tips on that.

And two, I'm new to the Dominions series and it obviously has a learning curve that is more aptly described as a learning wall that you run into headfirst repeatedly until you have a crack you can see through. I've done some playing and reading to get the general concepts of the game, but I don't have anything resembling a play strategy. I'm not even sure what the most important things to be doing are, and I certainly don't know what order to do them in. So, what's a good age/nation to grab for a n00b like me, and what would a rough not-suck-ass play strategy look like for them? Just to have something concrete in my hands, so I can look at it and say, "oh, I see why that works."

My best run so far has been with MA Abysia. Heavy infantry standing in front of artillery mages delivering evocation booms. Well, actually, my best run was with LA Ermor, but let's forget that one, because they apparently get thousands of undead for free and the AI had no counter to that.

[tenuki]

Some early insights from a fellow noob; more experienced players please correct the bigger errors and omissions this will probably contain.

Disclaimer: Some of the following is derived from my mistakes in Vae Victis (my first MP). If my fellow players in this game haven't noticed me doing the things I'm recommending below, that's because I've learned of their necessity only recently, and the hard way. I'm also saying nothing about bless strategies, because my scant experience in the game does not cover those at all.

The hardest thing to wrap your head around initially is pretender design. The best method I've found so far (dunno how others do it) is to take a nation you'd like to play, get its strengths and weaknesses down and work your way backward from there. Browse the nation guides on Shrapnel to find something that appeals to you, toss a few ideas around in SP, then settle for a build and join an MP game to see how it all plays out against real people.

Another must read for pretender building is the booster guide. Look at the paths your national mages have and use the guide to determine where they will do just fine on their own and where they could use some help.

In MP, speed is essential, so focus on early development and look for ways to bring your strengths to bear faster. The usefulness of most things in Dom3 has a half-life -- eventually everybody and their mom will have easy access to the appropriate counters, or simply bigger trucks to run you over with, so getting your goodies online in time is key. (E.g., a useful early-game spell that you need a const-6 booster to cast is not an early-game spell for you and will probably be useless later on.)

Covering for magical weaknesses looks nice in theory; however, if you overdo it, you end up with a pretender who can do lots of things that only your pretender can do, and you won't have the time to actually do them.

A good example for this (and a frequent pitfall for new players by all accounts) is giving your pretender paths that your national mages don't have. If you do that, you also need a plan for obtaining gems for these paths. Getting started in such a path will involve trade, lucky events, or manual searching with your pretender; the last of the three is a dubious plan for anything less than a semi-rainbow. Later on you'll need lesser casters (usually summons, for which you need gems and research, or indie mages, for which you need to get lucky) to do the legwork. If it's summons, make sure you have quick access to them. It sucks to have your god tied up casting a stupid site-searching spell for 15 turns just because you have no low-level caster to do it for you. If you get the same problem for several paths, you'll probably want to revise your pretender design.

In summary (this is what the better nation guides all come down to accoding to my reading): Formulate a game plan and whittle everything down to essentials. Decide beforehand what units you want to get in each stage of the game, maximize their use (buffs, bless, items) and availability (timing, money/resources, gems), then run with it and leave the rest to opportunity. 'Nice to have' usually equals 'wasteful'; better go for a stronger dominion (important!) and good scales.

As for a learning-the-ropes nation, I vaguely recall someone saying somewhere (was it Frank Trollman?) that Man is great because their units are about as standard as it gets and give you a good feel for how the game behaves on average, especially combat. MA Man is reputed to be not quite top-of-the-line in MP, however. I chose Pangaea, but that's just my love for going about things ass-backwards.

[Ancient History]

To echo Tenuki with the blind-leading-the-blind bit, develop an actual plan for what you want to accomplish and stick with it. If you really want to be the first to get X summonable critter, then develop a plan to get X summonable critter in the least amount of time.

There are little tricks and things that are not immediately apparent which can prove very valuable in play against actual living players. For example, overtaxing a province is rarely something you need to do against AIs, but is sometimes very valuable when you need that extra bit of cash, especially if you're patrolling at the same time. Because many players let the tax rate set automatically, they don't even think about it.

[gp1628]

The biggest collection of info on the game is at the official forums
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138
Such as a thread on how to change the game defaults (like making the mouse click quieter or turning on Rename for every game)
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44262

The next best source is the player-updated wiki
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Main_Page
Such as the only ALMOST complete KeyPress chart for the game
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Hotkey

Servers exist at
http://www.Dom3Minions.com (any kinds of Dom3 games including some you can connect to and play Solo or with a few friends)
http://www.LLamaServer.net (pbem multiplayer games only)

Here is a list of the in-game tips
http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/tips.txt
Here is a list of player created additional tips
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39748

The first nation to try would be Middle Age Man. Not easy to win with but its the easiest to understand. It has basic scouts, infantry, knights, mage, priest. Everyone tends to know what those are and what they are for so you can concentrate on just lerning how the game works.

If the AI stomps you then play again with a weaker AI. But the start settings for AI mostly only decides how many points it gets to create a pretender with. To further effect AI play: turning the strength of independents UP with make the AI weaker (turning indepts down to make it an "easier" game is a common mistake but it just makes the AI kick your ass harder). Turning supplies down on the game setting also hurts the AI.

Even after years, people in the forums cannot agree on what nations are strong or weak. Mostly because they are all unique so it ends up that most people will play a particular nation well and others badly. Your first goal should be to find the nation whose pros and cons best matches your playing style. Offensive, defensive, stealth, turtling, research, armored armies, water, undead, or barbarian hordes.

Dont rush thru the experience. This game can live a LONG time on your machine. Enjoy learning the nations. Enjoy the vanilla game. Enjoy solo play. When you feel like you have figured out the strongest nation and the best build then jump into multiplay (but keep in mind that they have found the strongest nation and best build also which are NOT the same as yours). If you get tired of any part of Solo or Multiplay then there ARE lots of options for extending that experience. Game settings, Maps, Mods, Scenarios which can greatly extend Solo or Mp play even to the point of being a completely different game (so dont rush into those too fast).

[DSMatticus]

Thanks for all the helpful advice so far (and the recommended reading, gp1628).

So some general questions:

1) How much RP/turn is 'competitive?' I like to focus on research early, so my capital spends every turn it's not producing an army-related commander producing a research mage. I eventually tend to let this grind to a halt though at 200 RP/turn. I have a feeling this may not be enough. Should I just keep mass-producing mages at every available turn? Is there ever a time you feel like you have 'enough' research?

2) Generally, what proportion of your provinces get decked out? How often do you build castles, temples, or labs?

3) Pretenders. So far, for pretenders, what I've done is tend to focus on the paths the nation gets gem production for, even though that usually has a lot of overlap with the national mages. Should I use my pretender to diversify, or to cast the heavy spells of its nation with less investment? It always seems iffy trying to focus on spells you can't guarantee gem production in.

4) More pretenders. Seeing builds online, they always seem to have tons of magic paths and I have no idea how they afford it without totally trashing their scales. Are they doing dormant/imprisoned, or are those always bad ideas? When are they okay? Is X9X9 a reasonable goal to have for a caster/researcher/searcher (NOT combat caster, mind)?

5) Turmoil 3 + Luck 3. This is what I've been doing for pretty much every nation, because it seems like the income from random events is pretty fantastic. Early on, I live and die by the dice, but once I have enough provinces the money seems to come in faster than I can handle. Am I missing anything, or is this actually pretty viable? (And are the random events from turmoil more likely to be good from the luck?)

[Ancient History]

Thanks for all the helpful advice so far (and the recommended reading, gp1628).

So some general questions:

1) How much RP/turn is 'competitive?' I like to focus on research early, so my capital spends every turn it's not producing an army-related commander producing a research mage. I eventually tend to let this grind to a halt though at 200 RP/turn. I have a feeling this may not be enough. Should I just keep mass-producing mages at every available turn? Is there ever a time you feel like you have 'enough' research?

It depends on the nation, and your research goals, but in general the best mages a side can produce are restricted to their capital site (MA R'lyeh being one obvious exception), and if possible many players try to produce one mage per turn from their capital. Keep an eye on the Research graph to judge how you're doing against other players.

2) Generally, what proportion of your provinces get decked out? How often do you build castles, temples, or labs?

Castles I like to keep some distance between, if only to avoid draining provinces of all resources by having two castles draw on them. Labs I plonk down on castles, and sometimes in other provinces if I need an indie mage or to take advantage of a magic site that offers a bonus. Temples I build everywhere and often, provided I have the gold.

3) Pretenders. So far, for pretenders, what I've done is tend to focus on the paths the nation gets gem production for, even though that usually has a lot of overlap with the national mages. Should I use my pretender to diversify, or to cast the heavy spells of its nation with less investment? It always seems iffy trying to focus on spells you can't guarantee gem production in.

Again, it depends on your goals. Some national mages just don't have the path levels to cast national spells, so it can be useful to have a pretender with levels high enough to cast them. Some national mages don't have the right paths to cast certain national spells at all - MA Man, for example, has no mages with Death magic.

Diversifying your magic with a pretender is a valid tactic, it just requires a certain extra amount of effort - but the rewards can be substantial. A pretender with Death can revive an undead commander, like a Mound King, who can be made a prophet and reanimate undead every turn, for free. Blood magic is a relatively easy area to dabble in, if your pretender has at least Blood 2, and idle commanders can blood hunt when not engaged in more worthwhile activities. Most paths just require dedicating a good chunk of your pretender's time to site searching - or making do with alchemy to change gems. Expensive, but sometimes the combinations are worth it - priests with Rune Smashers work a treat against Ermor, for example.

4) More pretenders. Seeing builds online, they always seem to have tons of magic paths and I have no idea how they afford it without totally trashing their scales. Are they doing dormant/imprisoned, or are those always bad ideas? When are they okay? Is X9X9 a reasonable goal to have for a caster/researcher/searcher (NOT combat caster, mind)?

A lot of points in a pretender usually means that designer has a very specific play or set of plays in mind - if that fits how you use your pretender, it might work, otherwise you'll be in a lot of trouble. Either way, you're looking at some substantial difficulties to contend with, in the short term (if dormant/imprisoned) or in the long term (lots of negative scales). Most of the high-path Pretender builds I see are intended for bless rushes.

It is also worth remembering that negative scales can have their own advantages - Cold 1 means you get ice elementals instead of water elementals; Turmoil increases random events; Death provides more corpses for necromancers; Abysia has units that are empowered in high Heat scales, etc.

5) Turmoil 3 + Luck 3. This is what I've been doing for pretty much every nation, because it seems like the income from random events is pretty fantastic. Early on, I live and die by the dice, but once I have enough provinces the money seems to come in faster than I can handle. Am I missing anything, or is this actually pretty viable? (And are the random events from turmoil more likely to be good from the luck?)

Luck economies are viable, particularly if you have fortune tellers that can limit negative events. Lucky nations look weaker on the graphs than other nations, which is good and bad. In the early game, Luck is much more important, and a single bad event can seriously throw off an entire game - such as your only lab burning down in an accident, costing you all of your research to that point.

[gp1628]

Keep in mind that in Dom3 there are NO pat absolute answers. There are only suggestions and possible tactics to keep in mind. They should all come with a tiny print disclaimer saying "NOTE: Tested in (solo or mp) with xxxxx mods, on a ##/player prov ratio, and only if not starting next to xxxxxxxx nation."

With that disclaimer in mind I also would end up having to say "it depends on your goals, the nation, the map size, and solo or mp" for just about every question.

1] Some nations really need war mages. But in general for the nations I like to play and the style I play in... I make mages at the capital and have them research, I use indept provinces as much as possible to make scouts and commanders. I tend in general to research Evoke 3 quickly if there are battle mages, then Thaumaturgy 2 for site finding spells, then it varies depending on nation. So as soon as I have Thaum2 I set a low mage for each type doing a monthly cast (Shift-M) for sites. They will automatically recast it each month and choose a new province to distantly search.

2] Labs more often for a research nations such as Arcos (which gets a price break on them), Temples more often for a nation such as MA Man or Pangaea (which get price breaks on them), or if Im fighting an undead nation, or if Im pushing dominion strength to dom kill my enemies.

3] the guides people have written like to refer to pretenders as "rainbow" (many magics), or SC's (super combatant), or Null (cheapest nothing dormant to get the most points for other things like scales), or Bless (pushing magic to 4 or 9 in as many types as possible to get the extra benefits for your sacred units). In general its considered to be a good idea to avoid the magics of your nation to fill in the gaps even if that is terribly un-thematic. And do NOT neglect the dominion strength of your pretender.

4] The choice of pretender chassis (body) can help a lot. Not the purchase cost, the starting dominion, the starting magics, and the cost of adding new magic areas. Then you can buy more points with scales. Take note that some nations are affected less by some scales than other nations are.

5] Some can stand cold or heat, and a low armored nation or one with luck-givers can stand turmoil, and one that relies on armies might stand low-magic in a quick game.

Im not trying to discourage asking questions. Its just that the answers tend to be better for specific nations in specific games. Early Pangaea on a large map game will get you suggestions that would be quite wrong from Late Ulm in a small map game. Keep asking but consider all answers to be light suggestions.

[K]

I think the only hard and fast rule is to understand that some nations just suck and some rock. Learning on a more powerful nation is probably suggested.

[gp1628]

I think the only hard and fast rule is to understand that some nations just suck and some rock. Learning on a more powerful nation is probably suggested.

Agreed.
But what is fun about this game is that
1] is figuring out that some nations suck and others rock
2] figuring out that others have come to the same conclusion
3] then figuring out that people dont agree on what nations those are

Its a lot of fun to join a multiplayer game and win using a nation that everyone else thought sucked

[DSMatticus]

My favorite so far is probably R'lyeh. Not sure where they are on the suck-or-rock scale, but the underwater thing usually gives you plenty of breathing room. Though, it is very annoying that a huge number of combat spells do not work underwater. Followed by Abysia, who seems to be great for blowing stuff up with fiery combat mages.

So, what are some 'WTF? awesome' nations.

[gp1628]

There are no agreed-on wtf's even after years of arguing. Maybe Hinnom, or Late Ermor. But its all up to individuals. I love Pangaea and tend to pull off some wtf tactics with it but thats a pretty hard nation to play the special stealth tactics, and it tends to land in other peoples "sucks" category if they try to play it like Ulm (like a marching armored army)

The really wtf nations tend to be the modded ones you can add in. There is a cool browser to look thru those but its not really appropriate to a noobs tip thread

[Username17]

A lot of it depends on play style. Bless Rush is a lot scarier on a small map blitz game than it is on a big world map with a lot of players. Also: the Early Era is a lot less balanced than the middle or late (the Late Era is less balanced than the middle, but not by a lot).

The nations that people "know" are overpowered tend to get ganged up on, which means that they don't really even win that often. Niefelheim, Hinnom, and Helheim are the closest to "WTF?!" that the game has to offer, and those are all Early Era nations. The Middle Era has some bruisers in it, but there genuinely isn't any country that makes me especially afraid. Except in the sense that if I'm starting next to Mictlan or Vanheim I figure that they are about to attack me because their awesome bless troops become proportionately less awesome later in the game.

The Late Era has Ashen Fields and Dreamlands, and those are crazy. But they aren't especially unbeatable, they are just crazy. As in: the things they do are really weird and they can't be played or fought against like other nations. That gets them consistently overvalued I think.

-Username17

[gp1628]

Also any kind of comparison such as sucks or wtf change completely between solo or mp

[Kaelik]

Also any kind of comparison such as sucks or wtf change completely between solo or mp

No one but you is stupid enough to talk about solo, because it's impossible to lose to the AI without some serious artificial handicaps.

[gp1628]

Ahhh you still enjoy the game totally unmodded?

And yes, Im a solo player. And my dom3 website is mostly about solo playing. Altho I will admit that I no longer play against vanilla AI (unmodded)

[Username17]

I genuinely don't like mods. I understand that there are genuine flaws, and there are weak nations, and so on and so forth, but by and large the available mods don't even address those things. They just introduce a bunch of change for change's sake. In a game as complicated as Dominions, it is a pointless cruelty to fiddle with numbers on things. The chances of fixing more problems than you cause are not good, and the cost of shit working differently is huge. Crap like CBM is less than worthless.

Now that having been said, I do like Mod Nations sometimes. I will probably release a final version of my Hoburg in the near future. And I can see going through and pumping up some of the underperforming nations like Yomi or buffing the AI factions so that they put up more of a fight in the late game or something.

-Username17

[fectin]

LA Ermor is lots of fun. I don't even know about how good it is, but endless undead hordes are just plain fun.

[Zinegata]

Some good newbie tips...

1) For your first game against the AI, pick a "human" nation (i.e. MA Man) so you get to learn how basic armies work, and start with a Rainbow Pretender as described in this guide:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/User:Sec ... ster_guide

The idea is that you'll learn how to expand using regular armies, and the Rainbow Pretender gives you access to just about all spell paths so you can try summong stuff and see what you like.

2) Once you have several "Rainbow" games under your belt, pick one nation to master initially. Know what Pretenders work best for this nation. Know if it has a strong early, mid, or late game. Again, Dominions is an extremely complex game. Knowing little salient facts (i.e. how LA Man can build cheap research mages without building a lab) can be the difference between being a strong, competitive nation... or having a very short and exciting game.

3) Understand the "flow" of your nation based on its early, mid, and late game strengths. For instance, bless rush nations will generally have a devastating early game, but they fade as the game drags on. Develop your Pretender based on this flow.

------

Okay, so let's do an example of a nation analysis... starting with a nation that I played the most, LA Man (Chelms) based on the Death & Taxes Guide.

The early game is mostly about expansion. It's about grabbing provinces from weak indies, and maybe overruning a weak neighbor.

In this regard LA Man is basically "average-to-strong" in the early game, with good archers (longbowmen), and an excellent infantry unit that has a shield, sword, and a crossbow. This is much better than what indies typically field, so you can probably beat on them with your field army. The army is rather slow however, and it probably wouldn't last long against some of the stronger rush armies.

Midgame is more about getting research/gem production to break you into late game... and launching wars to stop research/gem leaders.

LA Man has a fairly strong mid game. Read up on the Death & Taxes guide (except set your tax rate to 110, rather than 120). You will make a bit more money than an equivalent-size neighbor, which will let you make more forts and mages. Moreover, Man's main mage is the Magister - which can be built without a lab. With your forts you'll be relatively safe from attack, and with your research you can probably race for Artifacts or Elemental Royalty.

In terms of warring, Chelms gets quite a number of good support spells for their archers... like Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows. This is often adequate for mid game limited wars.

The late game boils down to converting your gains in the midgame to something that can wipe out your enemies... either through sheer firepower or ceaseless attrition. More often than not, it's the guy with the most gem income (especially those with 2x the income of their neighbors) who will win.

Without a Pretender, Chelm's end game kinda sucks. Its mages are weak and aren't built to throw down mega-spells. To remain competitive you need a massive gem income, gem gens, and the ability to produce SCs.

------

So, given this, the Pretender I would now typically take for Chelms is as follows:

- A Rainbow Master Lich. He's not an SC, but as I noted previously Chelms has a good early game. You don't really *need* an SC.

- Scales are focused on Income and Growth to enhance Chelm's inherent advantages in forts. It is also very tempting to take Magic with Chelms, since you'll be swimming with so many mages, but Chelms does have Drain Immuity and going -2 Drain is like 80 free points!

- Take S4, D5, N4, W2 for your rainbow's magic paths. Why?

--- Chelms, at best, gets S2 with its mages. This prevents you from getting key items like the Ring of Sorcery or Ring of Wizardry. You need an S4 Pretender unless you want to try and luck out with an indie site.
--- Chelms, at best, gets a D1 mage. You need D5 to cast some of the better Death spells (which opens up other paths!). Moreover, with just two boosters your Pretender can now cast Tartarian Gate.
--- Chelms does not start with a Nature mage. At all. Despite having Nature income at the start. So put those Nature gems to use by taking N4.
--- The only other path Chelms does not have is Water. Get W2 and you can now cover the only remaining "hole" in the inventory.

With this setup, the game plan is basically as follows:

1) Expand with your human armies.
2) Build forts like crazy to protect your holdings and build mages for research.
3) Use some of your mages and Pretenders to aggressively site-search to increase your base gem income.
4) Once you have enough income and research, use your Pretender to start clamming. This further increases your gem income, which will be decisive in the late game.
5) Occassionally research stuff like Flaming Arrows in case there is a war. If you built a lot of forts though, expect people to avoid attacking you in favor of softer enemies.
6) Race for artifacts. Get the Chalice, as it will let you field good Tartarians. You'll also pick up magic boosters along the way.
7) Race for conjuration, and with a combination of boosters/empowering get the elemental royalty OR head straight for Tarts.
8) Once you have enough Nature gems and research, summon Lamias. Some of them will come with Water magic, which will give you another clammer. Some Lamias will come with Blood Magic, which will let you break into blood.
9) Pick up Alteration 9 for Wish. Whenever you have 100 Astral gems, cast it and ask for gems. The Genie will give you 175 assorted gems in return.
10) Mass Tartarians and armies. March on your enemies. Ignore losses and simply replace them with your superior economy (thanks to Clams and Wishes). Win game. Trying to be cute generally won't work against this setup since you will have access to all the magic paths and have good income for all of them, so if your opponent tries to send your Tarts to Hell, you can too!

Now, this isn't the most optimal way to win. And lots of bad things can happens (i.e. somebody beats you to the CHalice). But having a plan like this from the get-go considerably improves your chances of making it to the end game.

[DSMatticus]

That was very insightful, Zinegata. Helped me understand the rationale behind a rainbow pretender, anyway. I believe I've been trying to play a bless-style pretender with a rainbow-style of gameplay. The anti-thematics of rainbow pretenders... grates on me.

So, your options for pretenders seem to be...

1) Bless pretender, picks up 4 or 9 in a few paths, makes super sacred armies. Early/mid tactic.
2) SC pretender, good early game expansion. Early tactic.
3) Rainbow pretender, fills gaps in nation's magic, giving you every spell you could ever want by the end game. Late tactic.

Nations with weak initial armies want SC pretenders, or else they sit in their capital and suck (or rather, fail to expand as they need to). Some nations have strong synergies with their blesses and troops, so they want a bless pretender and hope to have enough territory by the late game that their income and sites make up for the points invested in their decreasingly useful mobs. Nations that already have a strong early game can afford a rainbow pretender who will help establish magical dominance and versatility late game. (Note: massive generalization, I'm sure variations and combinations and other options exist. Just getting my head around when each one is best.)

[Zinegata]

A Pretender used primarily for Blesses will typically have something like F9, since at level 9 you get an extra bonus of some sort. This, however, is largely incompatible with Rainbows - more often than not you'll only need around 6 points in a path to cast its best spells. And you can get there anyway with a few boosters. So at most, a Rainbow usually won't put more than 4 into any single path.

What's done more often is for a Rainbow to have a few minor blesses. For instance, give your Pretender E4, then bless your Sacred mages. Voila! You now have reinvigoration on your spellcasters.

I would also note the following about each type...

1) Bless Pretender - most Bless Pretenders often start off imprisoned, but are extremely powerful once they come out (with 9s on a few key stats). The idea is that you get a very powerful bless boost in the early game, and then the Pretender comes out in the mid/early late game and plugs some important role for you. For instance, a Cyclops Pretender with E9 can also cast Forge of the Ancients, and is a very powerful SC.

2) SC Pretenders are generally designed for early game expansion, and often have minimal magic. However, some neat ideas to trick them out include...

- Use an SC Pretender with NO magic paths, but using a nation with a lot of high level priests. So even if you Pretender is killed, you can summon him back ready for war again without losing any magic paths. Very good for the early game, while still giving you mid and end game utility.
- Use an SC Pretender with no Magic and trick up your scales. Some nations have good enough magic that you simply don't need a Pretender to shore up any magical deficiencies.

3) Rainbow - The Rainbow isn't actually supposed to just come out in the lategame. They're pretty useful in the early and mid game too.

In particular, Rainbows should be used to site-search. With multiple paths they can reveal multiple magic sites in a province and boost your gem income (or give you access to better units on occassion). With the gems, you can summon support units for your army, or even tag along to cast some buffs.

This is why the Lich is often the preferred Rainbow. He's not as cheap as the Enchantress, but he's immortal, so you can risk using him in battles within your territory.

(So, in general, pick a Lich if you want to use your Rainbow in fighting. If you just want a forger/ritual caster, get an Enchantress instead)

Also, never forget that Rainbows that aren't sleeping or imprisoned can immediately research, and often have a VERY good research score. They can be the difference between entering early battles with a few critical spells that win it all for you, or an embarassing rout against indies.

Finally, as mentioned previously, getting a few 4's can help boost some of your blesses too. E4 is very popular for nations with sacred spellcasters.

So again, it really boils down to making a game plan. The best ones involve having your Pretender come out at the right time with exactly what you need.

[gp1628]

The latest free patch/upgrade has been released by the developers and is in beta testing. It should be released soon. People should hold off creating new multiplayer games since getting everyone to patch at the same time is problematic

[Username17]

The latest free patch/upgrade has been released by the developers and is in beta testing. It should be released soon. People should hold off creating new multiplayer games since getting everyone to patch at the same time is problematic

I thought that might be the case since Llamaserver crashed over the weekend, and that happens every time he messes with beta tested patches.

-Username17

[Grek]

I'd like to recomend the opposite of what Zinegata recomended, since this is what helped me:

Pick a bless-rush nation and an imprisoned pretender designed to give you a strong bless. Good choices include N9 E9 Niefelheim, or F9 W9 Mictlan. Crazy-good choices include N4 E9 W9 Niefelheim. Get a good dominion and recruit as many sacreds as humanly possible. Your battle plan is really simple: Put a thin line of your cheapest arrowcatchers at the very front of your lines to eat arrows and horse charges. Put your priests and other commanders in the back, set to bless the sacreds. In between them, put your sacreds, set to hold once and then attack. Your priests will bless the troops, turning them into even more badass individuals than they were before, while your chaff units up in the front eat a dozen arrows and generally hold off the enemy until turn two when your newly blessed sacreds charge up and crush the enemy. Using this strategy, you'll only need 10 sacreds to crush most indie provinces, and even less if you're good at judging what provinces are tough and how much chaff you'll need.

[Zinegata]

Going bless rush wins games very easily against the AI, but won't teach you the other 90% of the game - which is casting spells, making battle formations, and the like.

So unless you want to play Bless Rush nations exclusively - and one without an end game in case the game stretches longer than a few years - I very much suggest that you don't start with a Bless Rush nation. It teaches bad habits.

[DSMatticus]

My preferred playstyle would be rainbow pretender, I think. I enjoy development and late game fun. Which depresses me, because it's so anti-thematic as to be hard for me to do. I can't just start slapping the wrong things on my pretender! It just isn't right.