The complete !?!? FAQ

[Twan]

This faq was originally made to answer questions from the legendary "rsolow" (who disappeared soon after). But it may be the beginning good base for a community ressource.


SUMMARY...

GAME BASICS - This post, all questions about general rules, orders, buildings etc.

SITES & SITE SEARCHING - post n�2, all questions about magical sites.

UNIT POWERS & SPELL EFFECTS - post n�2 all questions about units & spells.

MAGIC ITEMS & COMBOS - post n�3, all questions about magic items or their effect combined with spells.

MISCELLANOUS - post n�3, all other questions

NATIONS & STRATEGIES - post n�4 reserved, all questions about a specific nation and it's strategic choices.


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GAME BASICS
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-Why build Fortresses?

Building a fort will allow you to recruit most of your national units.


-Recruiting National Units away from home ????? Although the new provinces allow me to build most of my national units, none (except my original fortress) allows me to recruit Niefel Jarls and Niefel Gaints. Am I doing something incorrectly or are some units only able to be build in your initial province?

Yes.


-Global Enchantments -- Are they Mine ?!?!?! Surely there must be somewhere where I can see which global enchantments I currently control?


Yeah, the Global Enchaments screen in the lab [or hitF6]. Looks like a planet with a sword in it. Shows a list of all enchaments and their owner.


-Attacking Enemy Commanders ???? -

The option to attack commanders and mages existed in Dom 1, but was removed in Dom2 as unbalancing. It is very difficult if not impossible to get troops to attack commanders in Dom3, which is what makes some tactics like skelly-spam so powerful.
There are assassins and assassination spells though.


-Ordering Archers to Attach Enemy Archers ???

You shouldn't order them to "attack archers" , as this will make the charge them to kill them in melee.
Better order them to "fire at: archers". They will switch to another target ( : nearest) as soon as there is no more valid pre-set target, e.g. no archers, or all enemy archers routing.
Only special items like the gladiator chains can ""attach"" other units.


- How do I engage the Enemy if I am in my Fort ??? If I set my troops to "Patrol" will that enable me to engage enemies as soon as they move into my fortified province?

Yes.

Does encumbrance matter?

Encumbrance affects how much fatigue you get from making melee attacks and spellcasting. As detailed in the manual, when your fatigue goes up your attack and defense go down (attack goes down by 1 per 20 points of fatigue, defense goes down by 1 per 10 points) and your Prot is effectively halved. (The manual has details, but at 45 fatigue many attacks will be vs. 1/2 Prot, and at 75 most attacks will be vs. 1/2 Prot.) This is why you may see some fairly tough, regenerating critters like squadrons of trolls cut through most of an army of chaff and then all suddenly evaporate--fatigue gets too high and suddenly they're taking more damage than they can regenerate.

-What does 0 encumbrance mean?

Units with 0 encumbrance can fight in melee combat without accumulating any fatigue. Their melee encumbrance remains zero no matter how much heavy armor, shields, etc., they wear. They are subject to the usual armor encumbrance penalties when spellcasting though
-Conversion Rates ?!?!?!??

Explanation is on p. 43 (note : but the system is probably bugged, tests showed that actual dominion isn't really used for all spreads)


- Where to build Temples????

Successful temple checks result in "Dominion blobs" which wander around unless they find a place to settle, i.e. a province with low or enemy dominion. This could be several provinces away .. . At least thats was the programmer told when I asked how in Dom2 my dominion could spread into a province 5(!) hops away from my border ....

If you build all your temple into the center of your empire, you'll have max dominion there first, and only after all provinces are "filled up" the dominions will really spread into enemy provinces. With a temple at the border, there's at least a chance the "dominion blob" travels into an enemy province, so that you get a chance of increasing your dominion there now, instead of 20 turns later when your mainland is 'overflowing' ...


-Afflic(a!!?)tions ?????

1. Can Afflications be cured by spell?

Afflictions can be cured by commanders who have the "Heal Troops" order. These commanders include, but are not limited to:
Arcoscephale Priestesses, Arch Bishops of the Sacred Shroud, and one of the T'ien C'hi national heroes.
The faery queen summoned by the "Faery Court" spell has the ability to cure afflictions.
These commanders cannot cure afflictions caused by old age. I'm not sure if the game differentiates between afflictions caused by old age, and afflictions caused by battle damaged to people who have the old age symbol. Commanders are also unable to cure the afflictions of undead units.
The global spell "Gift of Health" gives units a 10%*(province dominion level) boost to hitpoints, and cures afflictions of any unit (including undead) in the pretender's dominion.
The artifact "The Chalice" cures afflictions for all units (including undead) in the province where it's carrier is located.

2. Will Afflications go away on there own over time? If so, does "resting" increase the speed with which they go away??

They don't (except if your unit has the "recuperation" power).

3. Can units become "diseased" and is this considered an afflication (with red hearts) that spreads from unit to unit within a squad (or within an army) ?

Disease is an affliction, but is not contagious. Disease can be spread on the battlefield by a unit with the disease cloud ability, such as the Master with the Iron Crutch for T'ien C'hi, certain units, or a death spell that causes disease on the battlefield.


Non-?!? questions...


When two of your armies move into the same province, do they combine forces to attack, or do you do two attacks, one after the other?

If both armies are from the attacking side they combine. If one is from the defending side, and the other from the attacking side, the defender's armies combine. If both armies and the defender are all from different nations, one army will attack the defender, then the other army will attack whoever is left from the results of that battle. It is therefore an obvious advantage to go last but there is no way to control (or, really, even predict) which nation will go in which order.

If you press 'y' when you have selected a province several of your armies are moving into, you can give orders and select the placement of all the forces moving there. It's currently slightly bugged in that you can't change the orders of units already in the selected province (like stealthy forces).


- Spies, and rooting them out? What's the best ways to find spies ?

Page 67-68 of the manual describes stealth, patrol etc. If a Spy has Stealth 20, you'd need 60 units precision 10, AP 10 units to have a 50/50 chance of catching it, worse chance with unrest, better chance with high PD. Fast units and high-precision units are better at patrolling and catching enemies than other units. Flying units are counted as very fast (30 AP).

The best way is flyers, moving around your empire and patroling. The spell Call of the Winds is excellent. I usually use this spell offensively to attack an enemy for the surprise value. Then any surviving flying leaders gather the remaining hawks and patrol my empire from then on. I usually have 10-20 hawks under 1 hawk leader, excellent use of 5A gems!

Also another cheap way is Ring of Warning +10 patrol bonus on a cavalry leader.


- unrest? I may have missed this but how angry can your population get before they revolt etc? Is there some specific number they reach when bad things start to happen?

Many events scale with unrest, mostly attacking and revolting ones (size and frequency goes up IIRC).
100 unrest makes you unable to recruit in that province. Unrest also reduce the chances of blood hunting.
Unrest is capped at 500


- Arrows vs shields in dom3

Attacker rolls DRN + (Size points in the square) +2 if magic weapon
Defender rolls 2 + DRN + (shield parry x2) - (Fatigue / 20)

Take a shortbow hitting a square filled with units (6 size points) which have no fatigue.

With no shield:76% chance to hit.
With a buckler : 46% to hit.
With a round shield : 18%
With a tower shield : 3%


- AI doesn't follow orders ?

It will ignore your orders if:
* There is no valid target for the spell it is trying to cast. It's not very smart about this, either. At least in dom2, it wouldn't cast for instance resist fire, if you had a 50% fire resist item, so having such an item actually made your resistance WORSE than if you didn't have it. I don't know if this aggravating problem is still around. Of course, the AI will happily try to summon soulless, even if there are no corpses...
* The AI thinks the enemy army is too weak and does not want to waste the spell.
* The AI thinks the fatigue cost would be too high for the spell (the AI will never cast a spell that puts it over 200 fatigue, and sometimes won't cast them to put it over 100 fatigue).


- You killed our God! (AI diplomacy...)

At the start of the game you are at peace with every AI player, until he declares war, or until you attack him.
From time to time, after a war was started but then stopped, the AI will think that some truce has been made an "make peace" (without any message notification).
The exception is the "You killed our God!" war, which never stops


- How to dispel global enchantments ?

There's a [rather long] explanation of global enchantment mechanics on pages 87-88.

Only five global enchantments can be active at a time. If there are five active, then I think it is something like each enchantment gets "points" equal to extra gems used + DRN (I believe there is also a bonus for levels the caster is above the required magic skill level). Whichever one is lowest gets dispelled / doesn't take effect.

You have three options:
1) Cast Dispel on one of the enchantments.
2) Hunt down and kill the mages that cast the enchantments. They die, so does the enchantment.
3) Use more gems when casting a new global (if it's the same it will override the ennemy spell, if it's another it will try to override a random enchant)
_________________

[Twan]

SITES AND SITES SEARCHING :
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- Using "Acashic Record" to Find Gem Sites?

There's always an indication. just right click on the province and you will see colored numbers in the middle up according on how you searched, each color represents a path of magic plus holy magic. Which paths have been searched shows up on the overview (F1) screen as well.


- Searching home provinces for gem sites???

There are supposed to be no additional magic sites in home provinces. However, I once found one using a monthly site-searching ritual. This was on a random map, and it may be that the random map generator introduces the possibility. If it does, its a bug.


- Arena? What is the Arena?

The Arena is a site that gives you gold.
And the Arena Death Match is a fight to the death between two commanders, wherein the victor gets a magic artefact.


- Academy of War -- Enter for Training ?!?!

Academy of War gives 4 exp per turn to commander and troops.

Other ways to gain xp (for non mindless units) :
1 exp per turn
+1 exp for participating in a battle
+3 exp for winning a battle
+1 exp per unit hit in melee combat
+100 exp for winning the death match
+8 exp for visiting the Ancient Master
+3 exp for carrying a Champion Skull


- The Jevellan Wall !??!???

It's a free fort. If you locate the Jervellen Wall while you are in the process of building a fortress in a province (as well as if you have a fortress already constructed), it won't have any effect.


-The Fire Prison? Enchantment Bonus 20 ??? Does this mean that global enchantments cast from this province only cost 20% fewer gems?

If they are in the Enchament tree, yeah. And only the base cost is affected not the gems you add to strenghten the enchantment. ...and if the bug from Dom2 is still present, EXTRA gems for globals don't count until you exceed the original (undiscounted) base cost, which would make this kinda useless for globals.


-Steel Ovens? Construction Bonus? How does this contruction bonus work? Does it mean buildings cost 20% less to build in this province?

No, it means all your construction spells and all the items you forge cost 20% less gems.


Non-!?!? questions...


Well of Pestilence What does the 'Increases Death' attribute of this magic site do? Is it talking about Death in terms of scales or the Path of Magic? Or both?

Scale, in that province.



UNIT POWERS & SPELL EFFECTS
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-My giants have Chill (Chill 15) but I cannot find anywhere in the manual that explains it. Is it in there anywhere?

Try page 57 . The chill causes fatigue and the number (15 in this case) is how far it extends.


-Hand of Death ???? Can one still wield a one-handed weapon and successfully use "Hand of Death?"

Actually what weapons you wield don't matter with Hand of Death, or any other touch spells.


- Re-Raising Skeletons ?!?!?!

- If these skeletons die in battle, can they be immediately raised as the battle progresses? Can other creatures that die in this battle be raised ?

Raise Skeletons does not need corpses, it's Raise Dead spell that does.

- So unlimited Skeletons??! What is the counter for them -- banishment?

The number of skeletons you can raise is only comparable to the number of ?! that may be included in your posts. Skeletons are fairly weak summons. Banishment easily kills them and even light infantry have no trouble taking them on.


- The Dragon Master Spell... Does "Iron Dragon" = "Drake" or " Wyvern" ???!?!?

I've tested it, it only works for wyverns and drakes (like the description said).


- Master Enslave Spell ??? If I successfully cast this spell and teke crol of all enemies, do I retain control of them after the battle?

Yes


Non !?! questions...


-Harpoon? What is the effect of harpooning ?

Similar to Net, or Web, special attacks, or Slime/Tangle Vines spell effects. It keeps the affected unit from moving and lowers defence until the unit breaks free, which takes a strength check.


- Does the spell Astral Corruption only effect magic use of other nations, or friendly mages as well?

Friendly mages as well (probably).


-Exactly what does the spell Illwinter do? Why is it not listed in the manual?

Worldwide unrest, temperature scales changed towards cold 3.
Global spells don't have national spell section. It's a mistake. It was one of the first ones reported in the manual typo thread.


-Strength of the Spring? As it said units w/ SotS is more powerful & gains more HP during spring. What i wanna ask is, is "this unit is more weaker and loses hp durning other seasons" the unmentioned part of this ability?

The HP decrease/increase based on seasons.
This flexing in hitpoints means you'll have to attack when they have high hitpoints and use another army to attack when they have low hitpoints.


- Wish... What can this spell do ?

A few keywords are acceptable for the computer. All wishes can be repeated. This is a (probably incomplete) list:

* "Armageddon" : earthquakes and meteors kill 20% of the population and of the units in most provinces of the world.
* "Army" : gives you 300 militiamen.
* "Artifact" gives you a random unique artifact. This is pretty funny if that artifact exists, whoever has it gets a message that it disappears into a poof of smoke and your mage suddenly has it! If the item is cursed, the mage cannot remove it.
* "(Artifact)" : gives you the said artifact... including those which aren't listed in the magical item manual or in the forge lists : Vial of Frozen Tears (+1 D,W), Sun Sword/Shield/Armor/Helmet (of Solaris - mostly awe, berserk, and magic resistance), Hammer of the Cyclops (50% forge, 37 damage), Precious (attack and strength bonus), Greenstone Armor (prot 17), Robe of the Sorceress (+1 S,D,N,B and prot 15), Crown of Karafagus (+1D and 1 mummy/t), Admiral's Sword (curses those it touches).
* "Blood slaves" : you get 250.
* "Broth" : same as "food"
* "(Creature Name)" : you get the said creature. Like "hero", they lose all magic. However, if you can cast Gift of Reason, they still have secondary powers, so Arco Priestesses have heal, etc.
* "Death" : guess what happens to the mage...
* "Death Match" : a Death Match is scheduled next turn.
* "Defence" : same as "power"
* "Dominion" : your dominion increases slightly.
* "Experience" : the caster gets 1000 experience.
* "Fame" : same as "experience".
* "Food" : you get 2 Cauldrons of Broth and 5 Endless Bags of Wine.
* "Gems" : gives 25 of each gem type, including astral (that's 175 gems for the price of 100 astral), but no slaves.
* "Gold" : gives you 3000 gold pieces.
* "Hero" you get a random hero from any race. The hero shows up as a normal unit, but loses his magic skills since he is not a commander (if you cast gift of reason on him, he still has no spells available). You cannot ask for a specific hero however.
* "Magic power" : the caster gets +1 to all magic levels, up to 10.
* "No starve" : same as "food"
* "Population" : brings more pop (+20%) in a random province you control.
* "Power" : the caster gets +20 strength, +10 attack, +10 defence, +10 precision, and +50 hitpoints.
* "(Pretender name)" : you get that pretender, with default magic and abilities (Daughter of the Land gets gems, Moloch gets imp, Ghost King gets ghosts, etc).
* "Provinces" : a couple of provinces just convert to be yours.
* "Strength" : same as "power"
* "Supply" : same as "food"
* "Troops" : same as "army"
* "Weapons" : get a random weapon artifact.


Where can I find more infos about spells ? Is there a page with all the effects not listed in the manual ?

There is a page about dominions 2 spells, most have not changed much.

It's the Sunray's page : http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/spells.html

Dr.Praetorius has made a database of dom3 spells and effects for modders, and probable explanations of spells fields, you can download it here .

[Twan]

MAGIC ITEMS AND COMBOS
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-Construction Level 9 (and beyond)!!??

You might want Iron Dragons, or Poison Golems or Juggernauts, but you won't get better items after level 8.


- Boots of Planes -- what about the troops !?!?

Troops will stay where they are : boots of planes cast teleport and not gateway. Gate Stone, another artifact, can be used to move armies. There's also The Flying Ship.


- Sword of Swiftness + Quicken Self ?!?!?!?!!?

Its 4 attacks, quickness doubles your attacks, no matter how many you get but you can still (iirc) only attack 1 square per round which is a max of 3 human sized kills.

Quickness also affects fatigue. W9 blessing means you act 50% more often and the spell Quickness means you act 100% more often. This means you accumulate fatigue 50% or 100% faster too (more attacks in a shorter period of time). This does not apply to weapons like the Sword of Quickness or dual-weapon attacks, which let you make two attack rolls during a single attack. In that case you accumulate fatigue only once per turn (unless you're using Quickness on top of that).


- Lychantroop's Amulet -- (a niefel jarl) Becoming a Werewolf !??!?!

You don't want your Niefel Jarl to have that amulet. Basically it will turn him into a smaller unit the werewolf and he will always be on beserk in battle. He will still have his casting abilities to use outside of battle, but in most cases you don't want your giants to be wearing that amulet


- "Heart of Life" Chestwound -- Can it be Healed ?!?

IIRC it can't be healed as long as the heart is inside.
However, getting rid of the heart (probably by killing and reviving the commander) should allow the affliction to heal.


- "The Ark" -- how does it work?

1. Are all non-holy creatures 100% likely to be diseased, blinded and damaged (page 280) -- or do they get a saving throw(s)?

There seems to be a distance effect. It does not cover the whole battlefield, just like 20

2. If they have a saving throw(s), are the non-holy creatures forces to make saving throws every round of combat?

Not all units in range are affected, so I believe a savings throw takes place. With that said, most units ARE affected within the range radius.

3. Does the length of combat have any impact on the results of being "Arked" ?

I only have conjecture here, no observable evidence. It would make sense that they have to save every turn or every 3 turns or whatever.


- - Wearing 2x Rings of Wizardy -- Bug or Feature?

All Path and resistance boosters of the same item will not stack, unless you have a 4 slot misc, then you put it in the 1st and 3rd slot and they will stack.


- Constructed Magic Items with Spell Effects ???

You must differentiate between ritual, combat spells and "self-cast" spells:

Combat Spells can be cast at a cost of "5" fatigue, the commander does not need any magical ability at all. The spells are cast with base values, if they are level dependant.

Self-cast spells are cast in combat by the item itself. Very few, mostly high-level ones do that. The commander might have to worry about the effects, but not about fatigue from casting or any requitements.

Ritual spells from items can be cast by commanders wich couldn't use those spells otherwise. But as its still the commander who casts the spell, gems will be subtracted from the nations treasury.



MISCELLANOUS :
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- What Race Should I Play ????!?

I suggest a race that abuses question marks, and pollutes forums with short-lived 1question threads instead of using existing topics.


- [/i] Unreachable Province ??? I found a province that it totally surrounded by mountains (it shows no yellow lines when the [8] key is toggled). [/i]

The province is unreachable except by spells.


- List of National Troops with stats by Nation ???

There's one in progress : the Sunray new Unit Stats Excel files, a version has been attached not long ago by sunray_be, just browse the forum.


- Random Maps ??? Can I...
a) reduce the percentage of water provinces in my random map
b) generate a random map that is larger than the approximately 400 provinces that constitutes "Large."
c) have the map "wrap around"

Yes for all but 'c'. If you go to "Game Tools" and choose "Random Map Creator" you can tweak the size and types of provinces to create. But it's not able to make wrap-around maps.


non-!?! questions...


How to take screenshots ?

Do it in these steps:

1) Press PRINT SCREEN button.
2) Close game or alt-tab out of it.
3) Open Paint or another graphic editor program
4) Paste

There is no in game key/function to save screenshots, but above method works fine.

There is also http://www.fraps.com/ and www.irfanview.com if you're using Windows.


Where can I find a complete list of all units in the game ?

Edi has made the dom3 Database, see in official faq.

[Twan]

PS : it's finally a good beginning for a real FAQ, with many really interesting answers, I'll add other questions and chapters in a near future.

[B0rsuk]

Last time I counted rsolow's threads, he created at least 38. (with 50 messages posted total). However, your FAQ contains only 34, if I'm not mistaken. You still have some homework to do.

[Twan]

He posted a strategy for Niefelheim and some other posts without !?!?, but perhaps I've forgoten one or two questions.

I've started to add interesting/recurring questions from other posters (just in chapter one for the moment). I'll make 2 parts per chapter, the mythic !?!? questions and the non-?!?! questions (or informative messages assimilable to question+answers) from other posters to make this thread a real FAQ when keeping its particular identity.

[MaxWilson]

Additions to FAQ.

Twan said:
-Recruiting National Units away from home ????? Although the new provinces allow me to build most of my national units, none (except my original fortress) allows me to recruit Niefel Jarls and Niefel Gaints. Am I doing something incorrectly or are some units only able to be build in your initial province?

Yes.

You can check which units are capital-only by right-clicking on any gem sites in your capital. If a site says "allows recruitment of X" you will not be able to build X at any other fortresses you build. This is useful if you're familiarizing yourself with a nation and/or deciding which nation to play--if you are a fan of recruitable-anywhere mages make sure you pick a nation whose mages are not capital-only.

Twan said:
- Sword of Swiftness + Quicken Self ?!?!?!?!!?

Its 4 attacks, quickness doubles your attacks, no matter how many you get but you can still (iirc) only attack 1 square per round which is a max of 3 human sized kills.
This combo also double the normal number of !?!? in a rsolow title.

Quickness also affects fatigue. W9 blessing means you act 50% more often and the spell Quickness means you act 100% more often. This means you accumulate fatigue 50% or 100% faster too (more attacks in a shorter period of time). This does not apply to weapons like the Sword of Quickness or dual-weapon attacks, which let you make two attack rolls during a single attack. In that case you accumulate fatigue only once per turn (unless you're using Quickness on top of that).


Does encumbrance matter?

Encumbrance affects how much fatigue you get from making melee attacks and spellcasting. As detailed in the manual, when your fatigue goes up your attack and defense go down (attack goes down by 1 per 20 points of fatigue, defense goes down by 1 per 10 points) and your Prot is effectively halved. (The manual has details, but at 45 fatigue many attacks will be vs. 1/2 Prot, and at 75 most attacks will be vs. 1/2 Prot.) This is why you may see some fairly tough, regenerating critters like squadrons of trolls cut through most of an army of chaff and then all suddenly evaporate--fatigue gets too high and suddenly they're taking more damage than they can regenerate.

What does 0 encumbrance mean?

Units with 0 encumbrance can fight in melee combat without accumulating any fatigue. Their melee encumbrance remains zero no matter how much heavy armor, shields, etc., they wear. They are subject to the usual armor encumbrance penalties when spellcasting though.

-Max

[lch]

moderation has created a number of threads in rsolow's fashion lately (except for the exclamation marks).

[Twan]

Added your answers.