Advice on learning the game

[Ignus]

I've been playing Dominions 3 on and off for about a year and a half now, and yet I still don't feel I understand it. Yes I know what all the buttons do and how to research etc. etc. but I don't feel like I'm ever on top of what the hell is going on. It always feels like I'm bumbling around and it just happens to go well sometimes.

To put it in perspective: I've always liked Master of Magic, and a part of that appeal was that I got the game pretty quickly. I understood what the numbers meant, what would happen if I chose to build a library, or told my strength 4 guy to attack a defence 3 fellow. This is the same with Civ, Master of Orion and even Dwarf Fortress. My actions had reactions and I felt in control.

I'm not complaining, I love this game and all the confusion it brings with it! It's just that I wish I could play it with some amount of conscious thought behind my decisions. I've used some of the race guides on here but I've found that they detach me even more, as I'm not making my own choices based on stuff I know.

Ok, enough rambling. My question is this: How can I stop feeling like a blind, groping Luddite?

[Verjigorm]

You have to play against a person to really learn it. The AI's tactics are mediocre at best and seems to lose steam somewhere in the turn 30-50 range, and there's no diplomacy to speak of. Just join an MP game and then ask strategy questions in the appropriate section of the forum which... I can't remember where it is just now...

The best way to play is to be like Water (no, I don't mean take a bunch of picks in Water magic), but be fluid and react violently to the motions of your opponent. Break before his advance and swallow him from behind, etc...

No one ever always wins. Much in this game depends on the advantage of initial positioning and a number of other factors such as who you get for neighbors. Dom3 tends to exhibit circular dominance patterns like Nation A kills Nation B and Nation B kills C but C kills A. Thus depending on who gets dropped next to who influences the outcome greatly as do the personalities of your neighbors.

Ten tips for any TBS:

1. "So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss." - Sun Tzu (In Dom3 language it means use lots of scouting either physically or magically. I love Stone Spheres. Eyes of God on Immortal or recuperating pretenders or when you have healers is also great). LA Man's Magisters are my absolute favorite spies of all time. +25 Stealth, spy ability, and they count as 16 dudes for siege or defense.
2. Never throw your army away. Land can always be retaken.
3. Use small things to control large things.
4. Save for a rainy day.
5. Don't let the enemy see what you are doing. Patrolling a choke point (Great Eagles, Simargls, Judges, Machaka Eye of the Lord or any unit with a patrol bonus) can prevent spies from entering. As a bonus, such patrols are also a great addition to blood hunting provinces and can net you a touch more income from states in which they are conducted. You can micro manage tax rates above 100% in patrolled states especially if you have growth scales.
6. Move in unusual or unexpected ways--if he is watching you, use that to your advantage. Try to control his thoughts through your movements.
7. There is no such thing as a strong ally unless you have a team victory condition.
8. Do not play your opponents game. Make him play yours.
9. Easily obtained food looks tasty but is frequently poisoned.
10. "War is simple, direct, and ruthless." -- G. S. Patton

[rdonj]

Could you give us examples of areas of the game you don't feel you understand? Dominions is a REALLY big game, as I'm sure you've noticed

[Rookierookie]

I don't really feel that it's any harder to achieve the same level of understanding in Dominions as in Civ or AOW2. Of course, I tend to play games on the high end of the complexity curve - EU3, HOI2, Alpha Centauri - so I might just be used to it.

[Ignus]

Yea, the MP idea did cross my mind. As soon as I get my dissertation out the way I'll commit myself to playing a couple. It can't hurt .


@rdonj Mainly pretender creation and magic in general. The problem I have with it is that I'm basically playing blind, just picking stuff that looks cool and rolling with it. Not that that's a bad thing, just that I'd like to win occasionally (yes, the AI beats me surprisingly often).

[Ignus]

@Rookierookie I play the same games as you. EU3 is one of my staples.

It's not a problem of playing the game, I can stumble from beginning to end, it's just that I'd like to be able to play it properly. Take HOI2 for instance, after a while of playing it it's just another board game. You know all the rules and how things work then you get on with playing the game, seeing how you can push it about. I'd like that feeling with DOM3

[rdonj]

Pretenders, huh? When you're designing a pretender for a nation, it's a good idea to take a look at the nation first. Just start a game quickly, browse through the nation's troop and mage lineup, and check what national spells they have. Take note of what's available. I'll use... EA Tir na N'og as an example case, since I was just talking about them in another thread.

If you look at TNN, you'll see that most of their stuff is expensive. Very, very expensive. With relatively low resource costs on its units, particularly units that are not cap-only. And that's not even counting the mages, which again are ridiculously expensive. Tuatha Warriors are a decent sacred that are quite capable of expanding under a number of blesses, but as the game wears on they will become less and less effective in comparison to your commander units. Because of this, this nation is an excellent choice for order and sloth, since gold is by far the most significant resource you'll be expending. If you had more resource-intensive units, or a really powerful cap only non-sacred, you could consider taking production instead of or in addition to order. Or if your nation didn't have decent expansion off the bat without it. TNN can do just fine without, though.

Temperature scales are a bit give and take. Personally I almost always take a temperature shift of one. This gives you extra points, and doesn't hurt you that much really because seasonal temperature shift will make the penalty closish to zero. Which temperature scale you pick should you take one depends on a number of factors, primarily which enemies you expect to encounter and whether you plan on using units that may have heat or cold auras. In SP my first inclination would probably be to take cold. Largely because it would make abysia less annoying :P And in SP I think abysia is a bigger pain than niefel is. In MP, well, I might still pick cold, but that's largely because TNN can theoretically make frost resist rings. Anyway, moving on.

Luck/misfortune is always a bit give and take. TNN has... not great PD, but it's certainly better than some. Plus you can fairly easily retake provinces once you have some thugs going. Also if you're going with order, luck doesn't really stack that well with it until your empire is fairly large. That's pretty much the choice here... go with order and maybe some misfortune, or leave order at 0 and go for luck instead. Luck will mean less bad events, and more gems... which could be good, as TNN could desperately use some magic diversity. Luck is also very good for nations with good path diversity... which sadly TNN is not. You'll never have as much gold with luck as you will with order, though.

Death/growth... meh. I hate death and never take it. Growth is good for long games, death is... acceptable for quick games. Do not take death and misfortune in combination, ever. TNN does not particularly need growth as it has no old mages, and it should be able to expand quickly. If you need points, you can consider taking death.

Magic should almost always be taken at level 1, basically no matter who you are playing as. Especially in MP. TNN is not an exception to this. Its mages are all overpriced and fairly expensive, you really need some magic to offset the cost. Nations with recruit everywhere high research mages can consider taking drain, especially if they're capable of forging lightless lanterns/skull mentors. TNN can make owl quills, but... you'll have much better uses for air gems, later. Especially in MP. Taking drain without meeting the above criteria is a bad idea.

A dominion of at least 6 should always be taken in multiplayer, or you're in danger of a domkill. Especially if your pretender is not awake. You're not in MP though so for the moment use whatever you like. You want to spread your dominion around to all your provinces though.



Okay, that takes care of scales. On to your actual pretender! TNN lacks a few things. Reliably decent earth magic, death, astral, blood, and fire. These are serious lacks, and at some point you really are going to want to try to fix these. That requires help from your pretender, lucky site finding, and/or empowerment later on. Another thing TNN largely lack is good, non-sacred expansion options. Sidhe warriors do work, but they're very expensive and not as reliable as tuatha warriors. If you don't go with a bless though they are your best option due largely to the glamour abilitiy, which will significantly cut down on their chance to be killed in melee. As TNN has no trouble casting any of its national spells, you don't have to worry about your pretender fixing that. Which leaves the other thing that they're lacking, an end game :P (note that if you play with llama's endgame diversity mod, they at least sort of have an end game)

The typical way to play TNN is as a bless nation. I use tuatha warriors to expand and move to sidhe lords once I hit alteration 3, as this allows them to defeat entire provinces by themselves without gear, just by blessing and casting a few protective spells. E9N4 is the typical TNN bless because it makes their sidhe lords ridiculously powerful and efficient. It's also not bad for the troops. They'll work with other blesses too, but if you go with a blessed TNN, not getting e9 is a bit wasteful.

On the other hand, playing TNN with e9n4 does little to fix their difficulties with magic diversity or having a late game. If you want a late game focused TNN, you could consider an awake or at worst dormant research/sitesearching god for them. As said before they lack much e access, and lack d, f, s and b entirely. Any such god should have enough of the above to help break into these paths. You could also possibly work some minor blesses in here which might be useful to you, but you'll likely have a weaker midgame without having a powerful bless for your sidhe. Instead of being fine with just a frost brand and a vine/eye shield, you'll want to build additional gear to fix their fatigue issues at the minimum (likely rainbow armor + girdle of might). They'll still lack the regen though unless you take 4n on your rainbow pretender... not very economical.

Of course, that's not taking into account any specific goals you may have. TNN can make good use of a number of globals, and it can be worth it to keep in mind the casting of certain key spells when building your pretender. This is getting a bit too long though so I'll stop now. Hopefully I've been helpful!

[Jarkko]

If you play EU3 or HoI2, then maybe you occasionally stumble on to Paradox forums? In the Off Topic subforum there I've been arranging introductory games of Dominions, both with the full game and the demo. Pop in there and join for the next one There is one requirement though, you *have to* be present in IRC during the initial gaming session (the first 10 or 20 turns), because that is the way those who have played the game a bit more can advice and help those who have questions about the game, tactics or even strategy

The latest thread is at http: //forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=470289 (not sure if direct linking is allowed), my intention is to set up an introductory MP game with the demo next week again, and a new MP game as soon as one of the current ones is over (shouldn't last that long anymore, I think).

[LDiCesare]

My own issue with understanding of dominions is that it comes in steps:
I am able to design a pretender with goals in mind. Like if I want a quick expansion, a wyrm or W9 dragon is nice. If I want a mix of bless + late game power, an oracle with S9 + some other bless is fine...
However, determining the goals is quite hard. I can get a very strong early and mid game with EA T'ien Chi for instance, but when it comes to late game, I am quite poor. I know that I need SC's, like tartarians or seraphs. I have no idea how many mages I need to summon enough tartarians, how many of them I should use as troops and how many as leaders. If I GoR many of them, it's expensive, slow, and I need more equipment. I start to understand that the best ones are the A2 ones for mistform, but then I realise I need more gems. Clam-hoarding I've understood, but in CBM1.6 it's gone and globals become more important. How many tartarian-casters do I need? If I want to be able to Wish for a seraph, do I need to take an S6+ pretender or can I hope to empower an ether lord?
My understanding of MP is that turtling is what matters most. You must be able to spend a lot of gems on big globals or summons + equipments, which means avoid costly wars, or you're toast late game as opponents will have more SC's than you. I'm not yet clear about artefacts either.

The big issue is that one must master the early game before understanding the mid game and then master the mid game before understanding the late game. And late game requires a lot of playthroughs and time to get there, along with some micromanagement.

[TwoBits]

I would put it this way: If all you're interested in is SP, than ignorance is bliss! You don't want to find out (except on your own) all the tricks and cool strategies.

Because once you do learn them, then it doesn't really matter how many AI-improvement mods, hand-built AI pretenders, impossible AIs, etc., you go for - you'll always come to a point in the game where you know you're going to win (or lose, but same difference). Then you're just going through the motions.

After that, SP becomes joyless (OK, that's my opinion), and is only useful for gaming MP strategies (and I bless and curse the day I found out about the Dubug mod in that regard, as now I can't/don't even need to play SP much to test strategies and tactics anymore).

So if all you want to do is play SP, stay away from the forums! Well, except for the mod forums, perhaps. Because the more information you get here, the sooner the SP experience will likely be ruined for you.

If you want to try your hand at MP however...