Game02 Pretender Design

Game02 beginning now. I've taken what I learned through my game last time around and modifying my pretender. Once again I'm using the blue dragon chassis with Water magic 9. I'm keeping him awake and adjusting his scales significantly. This time around I'm taking dominion strength 6, Order 3, Sloth 3, and Cold 1. Ideally I will have both a lot of money and a solid research base. I will rely on my wind riders as hit and run squads to interfere with enemy economy, and I will remember I have chariots.

If the wind riders fail to pan out this time around I will attempt a 3rd game with a rainbow casting pretender and aim for some of the higher level summons.

And Tiamat, Prince of Order, King of Kings, God of Rivers is born.

Game01 Turns 16 to 20

Whoops, started playing through the game without remembering I'm blogging it!

Month 16

Month 16 was a bit unfortunate. The wind riders I sent northeast into Pangaea's territory unfortunately ran straight into Pangaea's newest army moving out into the world. They were all killed due to having nowhere to retreat to. On the upside the 11 of them managed to greatly damage Pangaea's army. Antimachos died for a lack of a province to retreat into.

My god successfully invaded Agartha. I'm constantly impressed at how powerful his breath attack his, against infantry he often kills four or five units a turn. His army of Peltasts and archers becomes a powerful force with him present. I send him againt another lightly defended Agarthan province.

I also discovered two astral sites and one earth site this turn, almost doubling my gem income. An elderly mage engineer perished while researching.

Month 17

Construction 3 research is now complete. 146 more RP and I will be able to craft several useful magical items. Most interesting to me is the Thunder Bow, a bow that can turn a useless commander into a powerful lightning bolt throwing unit. In addition I will be able to construct two air magic enhancing items the winged helmet and the bag of winds. Each of these requires air magic four to create though, and will require me to empower an Oreiad.

My god and a second army from my northern castle are both claiming Agartha's territories for my empire. I have continued amassing peltasts and barbarians in my southern city. My god is heading back towards my southern castle to amass a large army and push back the Agarthans to their castle.

Month 18

My god's raiding party was intercepted by a large force from Agartha. Vellon took a heavy toll on their light troops before he was engaged by a troglodyte lord. Before long he was completely surrounded and I was concerned he would die. Luckily the last of my archers routed and he escaped, having gained a limp. How does a dragon limp!?















Near my northern castle Pangaea has captured my archer producing province. I divert my main force to take it back. In the south I amass my pretender with the rest of the survivors to strike back at Agartha's army.

Month 19

I won all of my battles this turn, with medium costs. The army my pretender attack dissolved before they arrived. The army holding my archer producing province received reinforcements, but was still defeated. I lost a fair number of barbarians to centaur warriors, their charge is dangerous to say the least!

My southern castle has been sieged by a Pangaean army. All of my forces will now converge to defeat the sieging army and then proceed forward to siege Agartha.

Month 20

Tragedy has struck (again) to my army. The enemy's heavy calvary engaged my front line barbarians and my right flank of peltasts simultaneously. This left the core of my army to be easily flanked when the infantry arrived. Once again my pretender dealt some serious damage to the enemy infantry but in the end we were overrun.

At this point I think I will retire Game01 so that I can implement some new ideas for pretender design/nation scales. I'll detail these changes in my next post, as well as give an outline of my new strategy.

Game01 Turns 10 to 15

Turns 10 to 15
I've decided that to play and blog 5 turns of this single player game per day. Some turns may not be remarked upon as absolutely nothing interesting happens in them. This should be rare. I'll attempt to take as many screenshots as possible.

Month 12

I had my first engagement with an enemy nation this turn. I invaded one of the few remaining neutral provinces near me with my army of winged riders. After flawlessly defeating the indies Pangaea decided they wanted the country for themselves. Their army consisted of a dozen or so centaur warriors led by a minotaur lord. A small number of Satyr infantry guarded the minotaur lord.

It was a slaughter to say the least. The centaur warriors routed almost immediately after engaging with my wind riders. The minotaur lord and satyrs were completely surrounded and cut down. Over the course of the fight I only lost two wind riders. Very high ratio of troops killed to troops lost.



In addition Agartha declared war on me this turn. My castle on his border holds enough of an army to drive him back, and my wind riders can be there in one turn if makes a move.

Month 13

The old age of my mages has begun to give them many afflictions. These are various negative attributes (Diseased, Weakened, Lost an Arm etc) that will never heal without intervention. Luckily Arcosephale can recruit healers with the ability to randomly cure afflictions. I will recruit one this turn and leave her on healing duty.

Next turn gives me Evocation 2, supplying my mages with a variety of new offensive spells. Nothing too showy yet, but solid enough that they can have some impact on a battlefield. I'm switching gears on my research again, this time in the Thaumaturgy field. Thaumaturgy has a large number of astral spells I am interested in.

My first objective is "Curse" a 1N1S spell that has a 100% chance of cursing an enemy unit. Once cursed the unit has a greatly increased chance of suffering Afflictions. This will allow me to spam the Curse spell in battle against enemy armies and hopefully target a few enemy commanders. Once cursed their lives will be painful and short.

Another useful aspect of Thaumaturgy comes at rank 2 in the form of a set of four ritual spells, Augury, Auspex, Gnome Lore and Haruspex. Each of these spells costs 5 of a certain gem and allows me to search a province for all magical sites of the same type. For example Gnome Lore costs 5 earth gems and reveals all earth sites in a province. This saves me a turn per area searched (manually searching requires a move, search, move, search pattern) and guarantees I find all of the magic sites of the chosen element. If a mage with earth 2 searches a province and there is an earth 4 site hidden there, he will find nothing.

Month 13

Tragedy has struck. I sent my wind riders to claim the final indie territory (ignoring the one rules by that damn vampire count) and conquered it without a single loss. Unfortunately once again Pangaea was there to ruin my fun, and this time they brought along an army worth calling an army.

The bulk of his army consists of satyrs and barbarians. A small group of harpies are present in the rear, and centaur warriors hold the north flank.


My army is scripted to hold and attack rear. Ideally they will hold their ground for two turns and then fly to the rear and destroy dangerous mages and archers. This worked to my advantage during this battle. Pangaea centaurs charged quickly at my wind riders. Just as their charge arrived though my wind riders Hold and Attack script went off and the wind riders were laying waste to barbarian and satyr alike.

Unfortunately while my wind riders were busy destroying the infantry the centaurs fell on their exposed flank. Just as the Pangaea's infantry was routing the last of my wind riders was killed. Luckily Antimachos escaped the battle when the route occurred. He lives to lead another army.

With Pangaea pushing me in the north and Agartha's army nearing in the south I prepare the orders for my armies to fall back to my castle. I recruit an additional scout to send south into Agartha's lands and learn what he can.

Month 14
Agartha splits his army and attempts to attack both my castles in one turn. My patrolling troops turn back his army with minimal losses. His troops are somewhat scattered around my southern castle (Debrithia) now. I gather all nearby troops to defend Debrithia. My economy has taken a heavy hit and I am desperate for income. I send Antimachos with a modest 10 wind riders to harry Pangaea's lightly defended provinces. After capturing these provinces taxes can be risen to 200%, improving my gold income and fermenting unrest in Pangaea.

I begin recruiting slingers, peltasts and barbarians in my two cities.

Turn 15

The defense I purchased several turns ago (and never mentioned) in my archer producing province between my two castles paid off this turn. Agartha sent a small army against it hoping to catch me offguard. The militia rallied and repelled his army.

I have researched Thaumaturgy 2, and I'll be using my mages to begin magically searching for gem sites now. I've been operating on my base 2A2E2S income for too long now. Unfortunately not many of the mage I have recruited have gotten lucky enough to have the need level 2 in air or earth magic.

Taking a gamble I send my pretender leading a strike force of 22 peltasts south into Agartha's territory. I need extra gold, and taking it out of my main opponents pocket seems the way to go.

Game01 First Ten Turns

Month two

My scout returns his report and I find I'm surrounded primarily by militia with a few archers here and there. I have selected the territory to my southwest (Nilmeria) as it has the highest population that I can see. It is heavily defended by 50 light/heavy infantry and militia. With my Pretender along to use his powerful frost breath I should win easily. I recruit an additional Philosopher to continue progressing Research, and an additional three Wind Riders.

Month three

The battle in Nilmeria is one with only six casualties, thanks primarily to my Pretender's breath attack. My scout has found a second player to the south, Agartha. I move him into the player's territory. I move my army east into Glade woods, which is strangely not actually a forest. Back at my capital I recruit a Wind Lord, the commander version of my Wind Riders, as well as three more Wind Riders. My research continues to pour into Construction, with the hopes of crafting +research items for my Philosophers and armaments for my Wind Lord.

Month four

My first negative effect from my misfortune arrived this month. Nilmeria, the province I conquered last turn had an uprising. A well known count proclaimed himself as a vampire and claimed the province as his own. It is now defended by a Vampire Count and 110 various undead.

I have found Agartha's capital to the south and will now send my scout east towards the southeast corner of the map. My Pretender and Myrmidon move east into Debrithia, where I plan to establish my second castle.

At my capital I proclaim my Wind Lord as my prophet and recruit a Mage Engineer and four more Wind Riders.

Month Five

All has gone well this turn, and my Wind Lord now has an army of twelve powerful Wind Riders. I will begin sending him out to invade nearby provinces, while my Pretender and army attempt to construct a second castle in the south east. I've discovered Abysia in the southeast corner very close to Abysia. A castle here will let me hold them in their corner while I can expand freely in the northwest.

As things are moving smoothly at this point I'm going to skip to updating every three or four turns.

Month ten

Things are going well. Antimachos, my Wind Lord prophet is flying around and easily conquering independent territories. My second castle is complete and the majority of the northwest belongs to me.

I have just researched Construction 2, allowing me to forge a variety of magical items. For my Wind Lord Antimachos I forge:

• Enchanted Sword A sword that increases attack and defense

• Shield of Valor A light shield that increases protection and defense

• Weightless Scale Armor A low encumbrance suit of armor that increases protection

• Pendant of Luck A trinket that gives the hero luck, allowing him to avoid 50% of attacks

• Bracers of Protection A trinket that increases attack and defense

I have focuses on survivability for Antimachos, as if he attacks a distant territory and is killed my entire army will route and be destroyed.

Now that Construction is finished I am working on researching Evocation to give the Oreiads I'm massing Lightning Bolt, a powerful magical attack.

My income is very high and I am now amassing an army at my second castle. From here I will invade Agartha with my ground troops and mages. My army of Wind Riders will move east and begin harrying Pangaea who are only slightly behind me in number of provinces. I'll check back when the attack is ready.

Game01 Turn One

Month one.

I have a fairly nice starting position. I'm in a forest/mountain terrain giving my capital (Halemyre) extremely high resources at the penalty of a bit of a drop in income. To the north is a chain of mountains behind which are three easily defended territories. To the east is another forest/mountain chain beyond which lies a sea. Initially I will aim to expand southward and claim as much territory as I can before running into another player. After I find myself pushing up against another player I will redirect my efforts north, filling in the gaps I did not claim at the beginning.

Now that I'm in the game I can better survey my troops. My national units fit into three categories, infantry, calvary and fliers. For infantry I have Peltasts, Cardaces and Myrmidons. Calvary consists of Chariot Archers and Chariots, while for Fliers I have Icarids and Wind Riders. In addition I have Slingers but they are very inaccurate and weak. I will be better off hiring independent archers as I expand.

Infantry. Hmm. Peltasts and Cardaces are very similar units with identical stat breakdowns. The only difference is Peltasts carry two javelins to throw before entering melee, while Cardaces have a better quality helmet. If the Cardaces had a larger shield I would consider using them over Peltasts, but a better helm doesn't compare to a ranged attack. Myrmidons are heavily armed troops with very high defensive statistics and middling offensive. They are very slow and easily encumbered, so I may have over-rated them previously. It seems they would be effective at defending flanks/mages, I will experiment as I play.

Calvary. I am unimpressed by the Chariot Archer they are expensive at 55 gold/19 resources, and don't gain much in the way of useful archery statistics. Their precision is a little lower than slingers and damage is barely higher. I will stick with my plan of hiring independent archers. Chariots on the other hand are more impressive. They are as heavily armored as the Myrmidons, have a lower encumbrance and a high speed. They can also trample smaller units. A solid Calvary unit.

Fliers are where things get interesting. Icarids are a mediocre fighting unit, somewhere between Cardaces and Myrmidons in strength. They wear wing-harnesses allowing them to glide through the air. I don't think they will be significantly powerful, but could be useful for harrying the enemies back lines with a Hold, Attack Rear battle script. Wind Riders are the most impressive unit. Pegasus riding flying calvary, they are my sacred unit allowing them to receive the benefit of my nation's bless. They have high stats across the board and two attacks per turn, spear and hoof. They also have a map move of 3 making them potent raiders.

I also have a large number of commanders. The highlights are Myrmidon Champions (High leadership infantry commander) Philosophers (Cheap but powerful researchers) Mystics (1S/2? Mages, having a national Astral mage is always useful) Mage Engineers (Competent 1A/1E/1? mages) and Oreiads (Powerful 2A/1E/3N/1? Sacred mages with awe and a host of other abilities) altogether very powerful.

My starting army consists of a Myrmidon Champion leading 15 Peltasts and 15 Cardaces, a Scout and my Pretender. I send the scout south, turn my tax rate up to 200% and have the myrmidon champion patrol. My Pretender begins researching Construction. In my city I recruit a philosopher to begin amassing research points and two Wind Riders to begin amassing my army.

Game01 Pretender Design

Having looked around I've learned that Arcosephale is a very versatile nation. Positive aspects I've noted so far:

• Myrmidons, heavily armored and powerful infantry.

• Chariots, competent cavalry unit that can trample small troops.

• Wind Rider, Sacred flying unit with a map move of 3. Useful for tactical strikes or attacking the enemies rear.

• Versatile mages with several paths and strong research.

• Skeptics, a sneaky commander unit that lowers an enemy's dominion while in a territory

Cons:

• Weak archers in the form of slingers.

• Many commanders have old age and may die of disease etc

• Units are expensive in both Gold and Resources.

My plan is to capitalize on the sacred Wind Riders and create a powerful and highly mobile strike force. Secondarily on the ground I will amass spell casters and myrmidons as a slower, heavier hitting force.

In Dominions 3 the one true ancient god has just perished. Each player takes the role of a Pretender, a powerful being that has decided it will be the new true god. No true god would allow another to lay claim to his title, so you must crush all competition. At this point I will create my Pretender.

There are a staggering number of potential Pretenders that can be designed, and it helps to have an idea of how your strategy is going to play out before

you begin, hence the information gathering stage. There are three main design elements to your Pretender, a physical form, magic and dominion. A physical form is the body of your Pretender and varies from ancient wizards, to titans to dragons. Magic is your Pretender's talent with the various forms of magic. Dominion is the spread of your god's holy presence. I'll go more in-depth on each of these concepts farther in the future.

My objective is to make my sacred Wind Rider troops as powerful as possible while fielding a ground army of heavily armored myrmidons. By increasing magic of a particular element to a high level a bless is gained. Any sacred unit that is blessed by a priest will gain the affects of your Pretender's bless. I chose to use a Water 9 bless giving my Sacred units +4 defense and Quickness, giving them increased survivability and an extra attack every other round. In order to ensure I have enough gold and resources to recruit a large number of Wind Riders as well as myrmidons I will need to optimize my Pretender's dominion to give +income and +resources.

Designing a Pretender is based on a point buy system starting with 350 points. This is a laundry list of tasks I want to accomplish, and will be very hard to fit into my 350 points. In order to maximize the use of every point I settled on the Blue Dragon physical form. It isn't shown in the Screenshot but the Blue Dragon has Water magic level two by default. This gives me a physically powerful pretender that saves a few points by starting higher than 0 on the path of magic. After spending some time playing with my Dominion and magic I have finalized my Pretender.

Awake Blue Dragon
Water 9 for a powerful bless

Dominion Strength 6/10

Order 2 (Income +14%, random events -10%)
Productivity 1 (Income +2%, resources +10%)
Misfortune 2 (Random events +20%, event is good -26%)
Drain 2 (Research – 1 RP)

I've chosen this setup to provide additional income and resources at the price of negative random events and reduced researching power. Reduced researching power is somewhat neutralized by my powerful researching commanders.

I enter his name as Vellon and the game dubs me “Vellon, God of Patience, King of Kings, Opener of Wells”

Intro & Game01 Map Creation

Hello!

This is going to be a history of my gaming experiences with Dominions 3. Dominions 3 is fantasy turn-based-strategy computer game. It's incredibly deep, with a ridiculous number of units, spells, strategies etc. Currently I've only scratched the surface of this game. I have a decent understanding of the basic concepts and UI, but I'm still trying to learn the complex features.

For my first game I have generated a new random map. It is 40 provinces large, 15% of which will be sea. I plan to share the map with three computer players, making a total of 4 players with 10 countries each. This is a small number of provinces per player, but I'm hoping for a quick, dirty game.

Dominions 3 is divided into three distinct ages, the Early Age, Middle Ages and Late ages. My first game will be played in the early ages, defined by a high level of magic and low technology. As a relatively new player I have few yet which of the various nations I enjoy most. There are 20 Nations:

1. Arcosephale
2. Ermor
3. Ulm
4. Marverni
5. Sauromatia
6. Ti'en Ch'i
7. Mictlan
8. Abysia
9. Caelum
10. C'tis
11. Pangaea
12. Agartha
13. Vanheim
14. Helheim
15. Niefelheim
16. Kailasa
17. Yomi
18. Atlantis
19. R'lyeh
20. Oceania
    

Each of these has a very unique selections of units, built around a central theme. For example Caelum is a nation of eagle men with powerful air magic. R'lyeh is a race of ancient underwater demons based on HP Lovecraft. The variety is amazing.

To decide my nation I rolled a 20 sided die, and came up with a 1. This gives me Arcosephale as a race. This is their description in the nation menu:

“An ancient human kingdom led by Philosophers, Arcosephale mainly uses heavy infantry, chariots and flying Icarids. The Philosophers are skilled researchers. Mystics skilled in Astral and elemental magic give Arcosephale great magical versatility. The priestesses of Arcosephale can heal wounded soldiers.”

Sounds fairly interesting, I'm going to go poke around on the forums and see what I can learn about them.