questions (and is there a FAQ anywhere?)

merlinme · #1 January 23rd, 2007, 07:35 AM

Hello all. Just bought Dominions 3, finding it all very absorbing. A few questions which I couldn't find the answer to in the manual (although I might have missed it):

1) How do you get rid of afflictions? Will any afflictions (e.g. Limp) disappear if you just wait long enough?
2) When I cast the Nature spell which reveals all Nature sites in a province (Haruspex?), it searches the province to level 9. However the manual states that the most hidden a site can be is level 4. Is there any advantage to searching a province to level 5+?
3) Is it possible to have more than one magic site of the same type in a province, i.e. is there any point casting Haruspex on a province which already has a Nature site?
4) Do you ever get magic sites in your home province?

In general, is there a FAQ which answers these sorts of questions?

Thanks,

merlin

llamabeast · #2 January 23rd, 2007, 08:40 AM

Hiya, glad you're enjoying the game. It's awesome.

1) It's very hard to get rid of afflictions. There are a few units which have a "heal" order - priestesses of Arcoscephale and Fairy Queens are the two I can think of. Also the magic item the Chalice can cure afflictions in the province it's in. So if you're not Arcoscephale, Fairy Queens or the Chalice are pretty much your only options, and they're both pretty hard to get. Mostly, afflictions are things you're just stuck with. I think it's meant to represent the grim reality of a fantasy world where permanent and nasty injuries really are pretty permanent.

2) I think the search to level 9 is just to emphasise that you really have searched it thoroughly, but frankly I think it's a bit confusing and it should just put a 4 instead. A level 4 search is just as good as a level 9 search.

3) Yep, you can have multiple nature sites etc on a single province.

4) No, there's no point searching home provinces.

Not sure about an FAQ.

Cheers,

llamabeast

calmon · #3 January 23rd, 2007, 08:47 AM

1) There are some ways to heal afflictions like a special unique item (the chalice), a global enchantment or by some national commanders like the Arcoscephale Priestess. Just waiting helps nothing.
2) no advantage, its just like doing it with a level 4 magic skill.
3) yes, its possible
4) nope

A nice site with some infos are this one
http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/

Its mainly dom2 but it helps for dom3 too.

Dom3 Wiki:
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dominions_3:_The_Awakening

thejeff · #4 January 23rd, 2007, 09:08 AM

The global, Gift of Health, will heal afflictions in your dominion.

Note that commanders using the heal command will only heal wounds, not afflictions caused by old age. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell which an affliction is, other than keeping track of where it appeared.

Edi · #5 January 23rd, 2007, 10:18 AM

1) In addition to the ones listed, other units that are also capable of healing are early era Ermor priests and the Mother of Serpents pretender that is available to some nations. T'ien Ch'i has a national hero with that can heal troops.

2) No advantage. If you've done a lv 4 search, it's just as good as 5+ search. I agree that the radar spells should set the search level to 4 instead of 9.

3) Yes, it is, but any radar spell like Haruspex, Arcane Probing etc will always find ALL sites of that type in the province no matter what. However, if you've done a lv 1, 2 or 3 search with a mage, then there is always a chance that there is a higher level site that has not been discovered yet. Sites that you can see immediately upon conquering a province (such as Mine of Superior Iron) are lv 0.

4) No, you don't. The only way to get them is that on a specific map a certain province has been set as a special start location for your nation, your nation has fewer than 4 startsites and some site has been assigned to that province in the map file. In other words, doesn't happen.

Edi

thejeff · #6 January 23rd, 2007, 10:54 AM

4) It's also possible for a random event to create a site in a capital, but as far as I know those are all visible.

merlinme · #7 January 23rd, 2007, 10:58 AM

Thank you all very much, very helpful. I do think some of these things (e.g. being able to waste time searching your home province, being able to waste time doing a level 9 search when you've done a level 4 search) are a bit... quirky, but I guess it comes with the territory when you're playing a game which is such an obvious labour of love. As I say, I'm certainly finding it absorbing. I'm playing as a random nation in a single player game and I got Arcoscephale, so I noticed that my priestesses had a heal ability, I wondered how common it was. It's actually quite handy, as I've got lots of sacred troops who get regeneration after blessing. They've been taking a lot of punishment but surviving with good experience, so a turn or two healing them seems like time well spent.

thejeff · #8 January 23rd, 2007, 11:33 AM

Well, you're able to do a level 9 search after you've done a level 9 search as well. Or doing a level 1 search, for that matter.

There's just no mechanism to prevent searching.

I hope that the autocast searching gets rewritten and makes this easier to handle.

merlinme · #9 January 23rd, 2007, 11:38 AM

To answer my own question, there is a specific FAQ at the website that calmon posted:

http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/faq.html

There's lots of other cool stuff there as well, (thanks calmon), but that's specifically the FAQ.

It's for Dominions2 though, I don't know if the information is out of date.

Incidentally having reviewed the section on the chances of getting magic sites, I think I was extremely unlucky to have cast Haruspex on about ten provinces (including 6 mountains and a forest) in a middle era game, and got two bleedin' Farms of Plenty (i.e. no gems). Although I guess a lot of the Nature sites must be in a forest. How does that work? If the random roll gives a Nature site, and then another roll determines a site which should be in a forest, do you get no Nature site? Or does it only pick among the ones which could appear in that terrain? Or is there some other complexity I'm missing (has it changed from Dominions2)?

Manuk · #10 January 23rd, 2007, 11:45 AM

to prevent your campaigns from stalling you could leave your wounded behind. If i'm not mistaken you have to click on a unit inside a group and then press 'w'. This selects all wounded inside that group.

Personally I don't care that much about them, maybe because I'm not always Acrocephale , but still then. It's easy to do and there mus not be that many wounded anyways.