New Player questions

[Dragar]

Armies certainly decline in importance over time, and become used mainly as shields for your important mages, thugs and SCs. It isn't just that they are less able to hurt SCs, they become very susceptible to large area spells, in particular battlefield enchantments like master enslave, undead mastery, fire storm, earthquake, etc.

Not that there is no place for armies later in the game, especially combined with powerful buffs like weapons of sharpness, fog warriors, mass flight, etc. They certainly remain useful for sieging and defending castles, and for patrolling. They just won't be your main offensive weapon.

The trade-off between recruiting and using for other purposes is part of the skill of the game, and there are no set rules, it is all situational. One conflict I have problems with is research mages - being competitive in research is critical, but at the same time the more mages you have sitting at home poring over books and the fewer you have on the battlefield. A key advantage the defender has in Dom3 is ability to keep his mages researching most of the time, while an attacker must commit them to the field for an aggressive campaign, which also makes them more exposed to remote attacks and assassinations.

In terms of having a focused undead army utilise spells that don't hurt them - unless you are ermor keep is as an option but don't rely on it. Someone expecting that can plan for it and hit you with very effective anti-undead spells. If you've been relying on large undead armies with foul vapours and rigor mortis to take out the enemy, it won't take too much to build a few poison resistant or even undead thugs (such as bane lords), or to set up a communion casting powerful anti-undead spells like Solar Brilliance or Wither Bones. Or they'll wait until you are well into enemy territory and cast Purgatory and wait for all of your chaff to burn.

Make sure if you have one or two armies operating on that premise that you also have something else capable of handling the counters. Flexibility and surprise are key in MP.

[RegnorVex]

Geez, the depth of this game. Like a good game of chess, there are basic operating principles governing the openings but then you're quickly into unpredictable tactics that put a higher value on situational awareness and knowledge of general principles. But like chess, I can see that there's also a lot of community knowledge about how to respond to well known lines.

I've been playing vanilla. Do people still play that or is CBM pretty standard? After reading the 300 page manual, I'm concerned that everything I know is wrong (to paraphrase Firesign Theatre).

[Dragar]

CBM is pretty standard now. Don't worry, all the principles and mechanics are the same, its just some details that differ - I'd make the switch sooner rather than later though

You are right in your assessment, and that there are standard responses to different threats - off the top of my head, counters to typical threats:

Large armies:
• Bigger (or better) armies!
• Thugs/SCs with high defence and/or protection, regen, area effect weapons or shields
• Large area of effect or battlefield wide spells
• Numerous raiding forces to take more than you lose from the 1 or 2 big armies against you

Undead:
• Low level spells such as solar rays, dust to dust, banishment
• Higher level wither bones, solar brilliance, undead mastery, fire storm
• Global spell purgatory if they are invading you
• Anti-undead thugs

Raiders:
• Mind hunt (if they have no astral)
• Teleporting thugs
• Counter-raid
• Castles

Thugs/SCs:
• Single target high precision elemental damage if not immune – frozen heart, disintegrate
• Penetration boosted astral magics of MR not very high – paralyse, soul slay
• Death magics – life drain, disintegrate
• Blood magics – leech, life for a life, the two level 9 prison spells
• Counterthug – specifically designed to kill his target, typically something that will attack first turn while the SC buffs himself. Something flying with a high attack score and armour piercing or negating weapon is often a good bet. Boots of speed or jade armour with a dusk dagger or gate cleaver will finish someone off quick smart if defence isn’t too high. If you know he casts 5 buffs at the beginning of combat you have time to dish the damage and don’t have to self-protect too much.
• Horror spam

Elephants (and other tramplers):
• Large creatures/giants if you can field them
• Fear spells
• Immobilisers like prison of fire
• Animal awe
• Commander assassination

Deadly archers (wind guide/flaming arrows_:
• Arrow fend
• Storm

[capnq]

Originally Posted by RegnorVex

After reading the 300 page manual, I'm concerned that everything I know is wrong (to paraphrase Firesign Theatre).

There are things in the manual that are wrong, often because they were changed in patches. There are entire nations not mentioned in the manual that were added in patches, as well. These forums are the most comprehensive Dom3 resource that I know of; you can dredge up a lot of info with the Search function, when you have a specific question.

[RegnorVex]

Yes, I've noticed that. I've been pouring through the forums a lot lately and have learned much from that experience. A lot of the replies in this thread have been very helpful (looks at Dragar). At the end of the day, however, nothing has been more instructive than actually playing.

[Edi]

The strategy index is probably the most concentrated source of useful links, though even there some info (such as how the site searching spells work) is outdated due to the most recent patch.

[Frozen Lama]

Originally Posted by Edi

though even there some info (such as how the site searching spells work) is outdated due to the most recent patch.

shouldn't that link just be removed so as to not confuse players?

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Frozen Lama

shouldn't that link just be removed so as to not confuse players?

Ideally, the info should be updated, but until then, IMO it's better to have partially correct info available, than to not have any indication that some answer to a question exists.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Dragar

Large armies:
• Bigger (or better) armies!
• Thugs/SCs with high defence and/or protection, regen, area effect weapons or shields
• Large area of effect or battlefield wide spells
• Numerous raiding forces to take more than you lose from the 1 or 2 big armies against you

Large armies:
• How are the armies fixed for leadership. If the army has relatively few leaders, assaassinate the leaders via
assassins, mindhunts, remote spells (earth attack, situationally whirlwhind), seeking arrow.
• Kill the army via remote spells. Usually gem intensive -things like wolven winter, flames from afar.
• Communions. Master Enslave. My army now.
• Skelly spam

Deadly archers (wind guide/flaming arrows_:
• Arrow fend
• Storm

• Archer decoys

Blessed units.
• Capitol only: Shut down the capital.
• Kill the blessing priests: Earthquake, rain of stones
(Also a pretty good answer to communions).



Actually Dragar - this would make a GREAT topic for a sticky.

[Dragar]

true, will combine posts and start a thread, useful reference we can build