The Old God has left the world and the pretenders are awakening and coming out from hiding. You start the game by designing one of the pretender gods that will compete for true ascension to godhood. The type of god can range from a magically powerful arch mage to an ancient kraken or a mystic monolith that people pray to. Your pretender controls one of over sixty different nations and with the help of that nation he will spread his word and battle the other pretenders. Dominions 3 is a turn based strategy game. You can play single- or multiplayer (1 - 23 players) with simultaneous turns. There are more than 1500 different units, 600 spells and 300 magic items in the game. The game also features a medieval musical score by Erik Ask Uppmark and Anna Rynefors, both awarded the title of Musicians of the Realm by the Swedish Zornmärkeskommiten. Dominions 3 is a highly detailed game and a 300 page pdf manual is included in the download.
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Pretender Design and Nation Analysis | Locked | |
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May 18 2013 Anchor | |
Am I an uber bet? Does it matter? If you are reading this, I'm probably a hell of a lot better than you. There ya go! I have opened the gates to confrontation and abuse !Here's the story. You joined a game and you got a nation. Let's just guess that you got a nasty random and are stuck playing some nightmare like LA Pan. That recently happened to me although it wasn't the fault of anyone else. I deliberately chose a nation that bores the shit out of me and seems like a desperate cripple. But, I went ahead and made a pretender and played the game. Right up top let's get some things clear. I have a comment thread on dom3mods. That's the main location for writing this guide and the best place to comment. I'd like to keep this thread fairly clean. Pretender Design and Nation Analysis Comments
An example will help here.
LA Pan example We've got the harpy. Doesn't look like much but 7 gold/1 resource for a flying stealthy patroller. We can potentially do stuff with THAT! Looking over the other units there are some great ones. LA Pan has good solid troops. What it is clearly missing are the great stealthy raiders of EA and MA. The satry sneaks of LA are flimsy chaff that can't kill anything. They are not anywhere comparable to the revellers of the previous ages. But there is a gem. The Minotaur Soldier has good protection, a heavy hitting weapon and trample with enc 4! You might be tempted by the Grove Guard but look close. It's got 1 more protection, beserk, and some other benefits. But it's 50% more gold and 20% more resources. It also has 1 more encumbrance, MM1, and 1 less ap. These are tramplers! What matters is how long they can trample and how fast they can trample and how many you can mass. So in this analysis the Soldiers easily win out. Now we see that we have a very solid troop good anywhere. What to put with it? It needs some screening. Well early game let's probably stick with dryad hoplites. They cost a LOT more than Satyr Hoplites but versus any not undead melee troops they will live far far longer. And that has nothing to do with any bless. So our core army will probably be Dryad Hoplites and Minotaurs for quite a while. How good is this army? More on that later. Another key thing to note. You have ZERO ranged ability. The basic satyr has javelins but NO shield. They have protection 6, lousy morale, and are most likely suicide units. You won't be using a ranged combat strategy with troops. Personally they aren't worth buying. But what about later when cap only infantry won't be enough? Do we have anything? Sure. There is a damn fine cavalry in the Centaur Cataphract. But they are high resource. It's going to take a very specific situation to choose those over more minotaurs. For infantry you've got the very good and cheap gold Satyr Hoplite. But you won't be buying many if you don't have some production. The one thing completely missing for Pan is a decent light infantry blocker. The Satyr with shield has only a buckler and any monkey lover worth his salt will remind you bucklers are nearly useless.I see a clear conclusion developing here. If we want to do anything with armies we better take some production. Mage Review
LA Pan Example Looking over the magi you have the excellent researchers in Dryads for 80 gold with N1H1. Pretty darn fine but what can you do with them in battle? Well, they will do damn fine with bows and eagle eyes. That's a valid option and they have leadership so you can stealth about. Sadly, from troop review you have crap for stealthy troops.Next up is the Pan. Sadly the randoms are 10% with 4 paths. That's all but crap. You might as well ignore the randoms and assume you will get E2N3 magi forever. But they aren't sacred and bloody damn expensive. Pan has an upkeep problem. What should we do? You want the Pans but for battle you'll need earth boots or Evo 7 to get storm of thorns which is about the only reliable Nature fighting spell. You get the great nature battle buffs but those are high level too and what do you do early game? Spam swarm? Not a bad option and a hell of a spell used correctly. Still, pans are great magi but you'll go broke buying too many. There is also the amazing spell transformation which can massively improve your upkeep problems. But it costs N gems. More on that later.Now for the capital. The Panic Apostate is D2N3. Sort of wimpy really. You have N3 already and death plus nature is not a powerful cross path. The only good thing that comes to mind is Lamia Queens but... nature gems again. Wtf! How will we pay for all these nature summons? However, a bit of a sleeper is the black dryad. They don't look like much but with D1N1H1 there is a ton of stuff you can do. Forge Bows of Botulf and Banefire Crossbows with eagle eyes! Now that's solid. Your Panic Apostates can spam Skull Staves to boost up to D2. Clearly you'll need death gem income. But the potential is there and the Black Dryads are sacred. Also cheap at 150 gold. Can you leverage this enough to make for real power? Frankly, my feeling is no because I suck balls with LA Pan. But it's theoretically very solid. Edited by: Maerlande |
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May 19 2013 Anchor | ||
Bookmark post. You may want to edit the first one and post it in a separate post so that the thing is readable. |
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May 19 2013 Anchor | |
I can't separate it Edi. It just keeps adding. I am slowly converting the bbcode since the direct copy from dom3mods is messed up. A lot of the code is lost. But I can now separate it given you provided a bump Step 2: Develop a Grand Strategy Phase 1: Early game What is the early game? The period when research doesn't much matter. This is key. You are working with armies and you pretender if available soon enough.Early game is expansion and early rushing. Let's go over expansion first. Most nations can do extremely well expanding with an awake pretender. But that always costs late game power. Can you expand without one? In real MP games a practical expansion is 15 or so provinces per player. Some folks shoot for 20+ but the reality is that usually leads to an early death by a gang up. In graphs off games it's more viable but in the normal graphs on games a huge nation is SUCH a target. I prefer to expand moderately and keep in the average size. I play for the win, not to be big fast.Early expansion is very easy with heavy bless or an awake SC pretender. Without those you need some scripting skill. Practice fighting with the minimum troops required and you'll do just fine. Do you have powerful expansion troops? LA Pan Example Another bump edi? Edited by: Maerlande |
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May 19 2013 Anchor | ||
Yes, it keeps adding to the same post unless someone else posts in the thread in the meanwhile. Hence the bookmark post so you have more than just one post to work with. |
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May 19 2013 Anchor | |
Step 3: Analyzing your opponents
You can't predict all the things that your opponents will do. But you can make general predictions. Is EA Niefelhiem in the game? They will probably base their strategy on Jarls and a monster bless. What do you do? I don't have all the answers and it's a tough thing to measure. But you will have a rough time if you do not consider your opponents fundamental goals.Let's break it down. You have say 9 opponents. Look at their nations. What will they likely do? Try to have a plan for the most obvious actions. Sure it's hopeless to plan for everything but the key is to keep in mind the obvious actions. This section of my guide is in some ways the weakest but in others the most critical. I can't hold your hand through every situation you might encounter but the point is to keep things in your plan. Look over who you have to face. What might they do and most importantly what things they might do that are most dangerous to you. LA Pan Example: My opponents in this game were (including their most obvious strengths):
Edited by: Maerlande |
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May 19 2013 Anchor | ||
Here's another bump in case it's helpful. Nice write-up! |
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May 19 2013 Anchor | |
The Wrap Up I have chosen to not list other national choices. If you have worked the analysis you should have an idea of what to do. Here is what I did. Btw, it didn't work I use these archtypes to guide my pretender design. You can clearly hybridize but you may weaken the functionality.
I've put this all together. The key choice is diversity. I'll make a pretender that can site search for a broad gem income and forge a pile of good stuff. What does that really mean? Well, for site searching, the game system is pretty simple. Level 2 in a path finds 90% of all sites in that path. So if you want a huge gem income with the least effort a rainbow pretender with 2's in paths does it most efficiently.But for forging there are other considerations. Most paths have a clear booster path using level 2 path base. Some need cross paths and there is an excellent guide on the wiki on how to do this. Magic Booster Guide The exception is air magic. There is no low path air booster. Both air boosters are A4 path requirement and the only other option are the challenging Staff of Elemental Mastery or artifacts. The staves are available with 2 weird cross paths: Air and Earth or Fire and water. So to reliably get the ability to max out all paths you require A3.Having decided that my end game is diversity to the max and a monster gem income I am making a rainbow. I don't subscribe to the theory that year one gems are useful. Searching in year 1 too much is just an invitation to be killed. I'm going dormant.Here is my plan. I'll go dormant. My pretender will arrive right about turn 12. Given my armies are solid and my expansion is tested, the pretender can site search right away. But I do want good scale. I chose a crone. The crone is the cheapest rainbow chassis by a long shot. 3 base magic paths and 4 misc slots. The big disadvantage is no body slot. Beyond that it rocks. Scales are:
Now to pick magic. I have already decided to be a monster site searcher so that is 2 in every path. But Air needs 3 for boosters assuming magic a Ring of Wizardry eventually. I chose:
Some may wonder why S4? My plan requires the ability to make Rings of Wizardry. Without native high astral this is tough. But S4 and E2 makes Crystal Coins and Starshine Skullcaps to get to S6. It's potentially possible to work with s3 but there is always a risk of magic duel. I prefer S4 on rainbow pretenders. Last but not least is Dominion. I didn't leave much room. I can only take Dominion 5. I will have to be careful but Pan gets very cheap temples. I'll have to aggressively make temples and defend them. The Sacrifices
Edited by: Maerlande |
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May 20 2013 Anchor | ||
Sweet. |
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