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[Kagus]

Back to Dominions for a bit:

Am I the only guy who uses "portal mages"?  Stock up on blood slaves, make a few imp-summoning contracts, and give two each to a few random cheap mages that I can keep in the back.

Once you've got a few "portals", it's actually somewhat useful, at least as far as I can tell.  Each equipped portal will give you ten imps per turn, and they all fly out to the front lines.  If the enemy can't deal with all the imps every turn, they tend to build up to quite a respectable horde...

Sure, you've got the problem with horror marks, but that can be handy in its own way at times.  Someone in battle summons a horror, and they'll target your portals instead of the other troops.  Same goes for "package delivery" horrors when they pick out who they're gonna munch on.

You can have combat portals with lifelong protection contracts for the in-battle support, and you can have "long-term" summoners stocked with the other contract, so you can supplement your fielded armies with demons.

I dunno...  I like doing it, and it lets me use Abysian blood slaves for something helpful, instead of trying to use them in any real combat (boy was I in for a fun surprise when I first tried that).   Imps and devils get along just find with Abysians.

[Tommy2U]

Contracts are a known and respected strategy.
The mages _will_ get eaten by horrors though, sooner or later, so the blood-slave effectiveness tends to even out compared to other uses of blood in the long run and it's no longer a no-brainer it was in Dom2.

[Kagus]

Well, I was referring to Dom1 in that post (the only one I've played extensively, due to the lack of a time limit), but since we're on the later releases, I may as well bring up a couple other things.

Now, I know it's pretty useless in the long term (or even just the short term), but Kailasa monkey hordes are just too much fun.  Having a swarm of chittering monkeys tossing rocks at the heavily armored soldiers walking straight towards them has its own wondrous attraction, one that I am hard-pressed not to fulfill.

And then comes the subject of Agartha.  Do they all still have the full amphibian tag, or was that fixed?  And also, are they any good in the long term (having a maximum of forty turns can kinda limit your play)?  I'd love to see some of the critters they can draw forth with their special spells, but the demo won't allow for that...

Now, back to the original Dominions.  Can Marignon actually do anything worthwhile without its special troops?  I know that certain sides get hit harder by the unit limitations than others (Jotunheim vs. Man, for instance), but how does the shining empire fare in the scheme of things without its holy paladins and grand masters (who, if you got a group of them together, would make such a perfect Spanish Inquisition.  Nobody would expect that)?  

I've been reading up on a few of these strategies and info sites for Dominions, and nobody's mentioned Starchild communion.  They're cheap, they've got the magic requirements, and they can still blast the enemy troops even without spellcasting.  Just have them buff the big-boy Star Spawns and let the mind blasts rip!  Literally.

Also, when I play as R'lyeh, I tend to use mass-fire mind blasts to obliterate enemy commanders.  Get a group of illithids together and have them all target the same luckless mage, and he'll be out of the running before he even knows what hit him.  Blast 'em enough times and their brains will rupture, taking them out of the running for good.  Same goes for their bodyguards, and anyone else who happens to be standing too close.

And is there any hope for a Caelum without mammoths?  They seem kinda puny to me as it stands now...  I'm probably just not doing it right, but whenever Caelum gets mentioned so do mammoths.

[Tommy2U]

Ah well, the game balance changes between the parts of Dominions saga. I've played Dom1 for a short while only, so what I'm writing might might not apply to your situation.
In Dom2, the basic strategy for Marignon was Fire-9 bless (Moloch or red dragon), build a lot of flagellants, crossbowmen and some infantry, research evocation for assorted flaming death and alteration (?) for Flaming Arrows (more flaming death). Knights of the chalice were not worth the price tag. I think you can live without grand masters too, you'll just have smaller magic versatility (no random, I guess).
Dom 2 and 3 don't have the Attack/fire at commander/magic user order any longer due to heavy abuses
Early age Agartha in fact has some nice summons (Umbrals?), otherwise it's rather difficult to play - the troops can't hit a barn door. Try using  troglodytes initially for trampling, later on earth elementals are better tramplers. The other, fire/earth national summon (children of Rhuax?) should also be a mainstay of your forces. I can't remember if the last two are above lvl 4 magic, if so, Agartha can be difficult to play in demo.
Try using larger armored and archer apes with Kailasa, also they have good sacred troops and powerful mages.
WRT mammoths and other tramplers, mix them with some high morale slow units - this will increase the average morale of the group. Also, keep your mages off to the side, so they don't get trampled by fleeing units. False horror spam with Caelum mages was a very cheap strategy in Dom2, look for that spell in Dom1.

[Kagus]

I think that just so happens to be a level five spell in the first dominions...  Lemme check.

Nope.  Six.  Even better.

EDIT:  Oh, and by the way.  The special blessings came later on, in the first dominions you just have "blessed", which gives the standard bonuses.  It won't give any special benefits if your god happens to have certain magic paths.  No fire resistance or other goodies, just the standard holier-than-thou benefits.

[ March 31, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

EDIT:  Mictlan.  I must know everything about it!

[ March 31, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Janne Joensuu]

In original Dominions... Summon Lesser Air Elementals. Free flying, ethereal tramplers? Oh yeah! Even when they go down in size and can't trample any more, they have armor-negating lightning attacks. Just a couple of mages summoning them can really change the outcome of a battle.

Marignon can really mass out those crossbows. They're aresome. Their Royal Guards also have good stats, and if you have the resources to build them they aren't bad for the cost. Other than that, any shielded infantry is good enough to protect your crossbows and mages. Flaming Arrows would give the crossbows a huge boost, but it's just out of demo's reach.

Agartha of Dom3 - there's no bug with full aphibian that I know of. They're all amphibious creatures, what with everyone having gills. Their troops have a hard time hitting anything, and I hear using huge hordes of trampling Troglodytes is more common than relying on the natives. The demo doesn't let you cast nice spells such as Magma Eruption or Petrify, but Earth Meld and Blade Wind aren't bad. The Magma Children and Earth Elementals (Rhuax Pact and Earth Pact or something similar, in Conj.) are nice early spells, and Umbrals rock. They're ethereal, undead Ancient Ones without equipment but a life-draining attack.

[Kagus]

Well it just seemed a bit buggy to me, since they had a special water-dweller unit which was essentially useless since everyone had amphibious abilities.  I figured they intended for the water-born pale ones to be full amphibians, while the others were merely poor amphibians.  Might give them some extra use.

One more thing...  Is it worth getting Dominions III?

This is a serious question.  I've barely scratched the surface of what it has to offer, and the fade-y graphics were a bit harder on the eyes than the solid stuff in the first Dominions.  Is it a good enough game to pay whatever the cost is for it, or should I just turn my searching elsewhere?  Can the transparency or color scheme be altered to become nicer to look at and less of a strain?  And are power-mages (aside from astral kings) better/worse than rainbow mages?  Because I happen to like the godly aspects of being the supreme power in whatever power you're supreme in.

[Janne Joensuu]

quote:Originally posted by Kagus:
<STRONG>One more thing...  Is it worth getting Dominions III?

This is a serious question.  I've barely scratched the surface of what it has to offer, and the fade-y graphics were a bit harder on the eyes than the solid stuff in the first Dominions.  Is it a good enough game to pay whatever the cost is for it, or should I just turn my searching elsewhere?  Can the transparency or color scheme be altered to become nicer to look at and less of a strain?  And are power-mages (aside from astral kings) better/worse than rainbow mages?  Because I happen to like the godly aspects of being the supreme power in whatever power you're supreme in.</STRONG>

I'm a die-hard fan so I won't answer the first question.

GUI of original Dominions looks better than the later ones, but it's much worse when it comes to actual playing. Even the demo of Dom3 should allow you to change it, though - disallow fading and animated backgrounds from the video options and change opagueness to 94 or so. That's how I've played it. You can also change the look if you replace spesific image files in the main directory, there are few alternative interaces in the main forum. The threads this was discussed in happened a long time ago, so finding them would be hard, but I guess they'd also work with the demo.

[Tommy2U]

I'm also a fan of Dominions, so my opinion could be biased. If you intend to play it in multiplayer, then it's obviously a perfect buy. If not, well it's still great fun, lots of replayability and a great bang for the buck, but the game really shines in multiplayer.

Regarding GUI, here is a pack of alternative GUI colours (works with the demo):
Alternate GUIs for Dominions

Regarding rainbow mages, they are easy and fun to use and often popular with beginning players, but vulnerable to assasinations, stray arrows, hostile spells, and the like. The loss of magic paths on recalling dead rainbow mage _hurts_.
In competitive Dom 3 games, people often use either a high bless strategy involving a dormant or imprisoned pretender with very high magic in 1 or 2 paths (various dragons, titans, moloch, prince of death, etc.) or an awake low-magic supercombatant pretender to have a very tough fighter capable of fighting entire armies on its own right from the beginning (say, a no-magic wyrm). If it dies, the loss of magic on recall is no big deal.
BTW, when a sleeping/dormant pretender used in a high-bless strategy awakes, it is probably going to be a tough fighter too, especialy that you should have some items to equip it by that time.

You could go in-between and try, say, a semi-rainbow ghost king or vampire queen - plenty of magic paths and a capable fighter.

[Tommy2U]

And the Wet Ones(?), the water-based Agarthans, they constitute Agartha's province defence in underwater provinces.

[Kagus]

So, is it possible to find players these days who don't automatically go for the "ten commandments" of winning?  Thou shalt not conquer fewer than one province per turn, thou shalt not design a pretender fitting your nation's race, thou shalt not leave the independent troops who have nothing to do with your race bloody well alone Etc. Etc. Etc.?

I am, as always, a style player.  I make gods that (zounds!) seem like something their nation would actually worship.  I remember reading a play-by-play where someone had taken a moloch (and named him "Wotan", of all absurdities), and another player had asked him about when he was going to be pumping out ice devils.

The moloch-man described how he was wondering what the moloch had to do with blood magic.

Molochs are fiery princes of the frikkin' underworld!  They're demons for crying out loud, blood magic fits them like a glove!  And not a single mention of the WATER magic required in making an ice devil?  Crikey...

So, yeah.  I have to wonder about the folks who take Pangaean death-and-fire mages, Vanir astral kings,  Ulmish air mages, and Ermorian druids.  They just don't seem right to me.  Particularly when you get oddball mixes like Sons of Niefel leading the armies of Atlantis or Caelum against the wyrm-lord of Jotunheim and the Abysian monolith.

But I suppose that's just me.  Why can't people make a game where playing a cool setup is playing a powerful one?  In several of the games I've played, the most boring or out-of-place units/races are the most powerful.

[Rabek Jeris]

Amen, Kagus. Amen. I've always been into playing games for immersion over actually winning. I play what seems fun, not just what wins.

[Torak]

I always play an arch mage God. Unless I feel like something different.

You'd be suprised at how powerful a Maxed Earth, Fire, and Water mage can be, especially with level 9 construction equipment.

[Kagus]

Okay...  I have realized that the only way I will ever become any good at this game is if I dedicate myself to one and only one nation.  If I can master that one nation, I might expand later on to similar nations, and from there spread across the board.

I'm looking for ideas as to what to go for.  I intend to just run rampant in the Dom1 demo, as spending money is not one of my preferred actions.  But, since it's my brithday tomorrow, I might be able to convince myself that I've earned a shiny new game.

I know a little bit about my play style, but not much.  I'm hoping that those of you who know a bit more about the game can point me in the right direction for a nation to master.

I play long and slow.  My early-game is dung, and I don't tend to expand quickly.  I couldn't rush if my life depended on it (which it has, in some cases), but I have a tendency to swing around a lot of weight later on.  Build up a juggernaut, fuel it, and let it run.  That's the way I like to play.

I want to find a nation that's good in the late game, can use its nation-specific units to full effect even in the later stages, and holds enough power on its own to not need a whammy to win.  I like having options, but I also like having direction as far as strategy is concerned.  And by options, I do not mean Super combatant/Empowered rainbow mag/Ice devils.  I can't stand cheap tactics, and as stated above I don't like strategies that clash with the atmosphere of a nation.  I've got no problem summoning ice devils as Jotunheim, for instance, but that's about the only nation I feel okay doing it with.

I have also exhibited (in other games) a peculiar knack at defense.  When the armies are knocking at the door and I'm pressed on several sides, I shine.  

I remember one particular instance when I was playing Battle for Middle Earth (the first one, not that junk heap of a sequel).  It was my standard setup.  Four AI players, one buddy AI playing Gondor, and two enemy Mordor spots, both either hard or insane (I think it was just hard, but I forget).

About four minutes into the game, my buddy's gone.  His capitol gets snatched up by one of the two orcish armies, and I'm suddenly sweating.  My auxiliary settlements include two farms.  Wow.

Those, of course, fall soon enough.  I'm scrambling to set up defenses for the horde I kow is coming.  Finally, I see the first orc shuffling his way into view, followed by hundreds of his fellows as both of the AI Mordor players attack me in unison.  That's when the madness started.

From that point, I am under a constant siege.  I shuffle buildings about to make way for more resource buildings in my fort, which I need to fund the repairs of the gate, the archers who are falling like flies to orcish catapults, and to save up a little scraping to summon Gandalf for some much-needed help.

Every thing that could go wrong, did go wrong.  Fellbeasts swept down on my troops and scattered them, trolls came rushing forward to pound at my defenses, the damned BALROG was summoned outside my walls, catapults kept up a barrage, towers fell and were quickly replaced, etc...  I thought I was done for when the gate finally caved in and the forces of evil stormed through, but somehow, somehow I managed to keep them at bay long enough to get the gate back up.  I was filled with joy when Gandalf finally came (I had to cut back on reinforcement recruiting in order to get the cash for him), and I smacked around a few orcs before he died.  

This continued, in much the same fashion, for quite some time.  I had, essentially, stabilized my defenses.  They kept getting torn down and built back up with about the same regularity, but the blood never stopped pouring for a second.

And then, it stopped.  The AI died.  Apparently, it couldn't comprehend their strategy lasting for so long, so it stopped doing anything.  I simply built up my forces, killed the few orcs who were sitting around aimlessly in their forts, and wiped the two baddies from the game.  A strange vistory, but I felt I'd earned it from the insane defense.

So, yeah.  From that massively long and highly-derailing comment, you can see that I'm a guy who holds onto his spot.  If I take something, I don't intend to give it back.  I like having a nation that can sit in a spot and make French taunter impressions at the enemy armies futilely trying to take it.

I'm not sure, do to my inexperience, what nation this most corresponds to.  I'd like to find out though, as Dominions seems to be a game with the potential for real strategy, as you move armies around the map in an incredibly complex game of chess.  It just happens to be filled with certain cheap tactics that ruin it for me...  If I want one of those, I'll play R/P/S.  Rock beats everything unless specifically defended against.

Any hints for an aspiring god?

P.S.  
Bonus if it's a terraforming nation.  I love shifting the world to my god's preferences.

EDIT:  Why the hell do I love the games I'm no good at and the strategies that aren't good to begin with?  Vaetti hordes call to me with their coolness...

[ April 03, 2008: Message edited by: Kagus ]

[Rabek Jeris]

Very impressive story.

I think Ermon (or whatever.. the undead one) might be good for you. Their domain constantly raises the dead, so time, not so much conquest, is their main weapon. Defense is also -decent-. The units themselves aren't that great, but the horrible terraforming (if you're smart and drop all the options to the worst) makes it difficult to supply armies in your land. Given enough time and temples, you can pretty much turn the entire world into a wasteland with minimal conquest. The trick is surviving long enough, but if I can figure it out, I'm sure you can.