General Help for a not quite Beginner

[jscott]

I will preface this by saying that I'm not quite a beginner at Dominions. I played Dominions 2 extensively on my roommate's PC during law school (which, depressingly, was over 4 years ago at this point), but I think it might have been just the demo. For whatever reason, I drifted away from the game and now just purchased Dominions 3.

The game has excellent documentation and the tutorial did a good job refreshing my memory on a lot of the game's basics, but it didn't really help me in a couple of ways.

1. The most obvious first question that confronts a new player is what age to play in. For my first few test starts (games where I didn't intend to finish, just to play and get a feel for the unit mix and map types available), I picked the middle age. Is that the best age to start in? Is there a "best age" or just each age offer just a different sort of challenge, but are equally accessible to new players.

2. Designing a god seems heavily dependent on what faction you pick, but I find it hard to believe that there aren't general rules of thumb. The strategy wiki on the game offers a few general hints at what type of Pretender you can create, but doesn't get very specific. Is there a guide somewhere that just generally discusses how to create a balanced Pretender that isn't faction-specific?

3. What is the danger in selecting the option to rename units in the game setup screen? I couldn't figure out why the game recomended that this be turned off.

I have tons of other questions, but I don't really want to bog the thread down since the first two at least are the ones holding me back from getting too involved in a game (that, and I forgot to download any patches after receiving the game).

Thanks.

[Morkilus]

1. I like Early Age because it has more magic. I suppose if you wanted to prepare for multiplayer, Early and Middle age would be best. According to the Victorious Nations post, there have been 22 each finished Early and Middle games, and 13 Late Age games. I'm sure there are "undocumented" big multiplayer games, though. Most of mine have been early age; perhaps Late Age has the specter (haha) of AE Ermor that drives people away?

2. I'm not sure what you mean by a "balanced" god. Pretenders have very specific uses depending on their design, as you well know. I suppose a "balanced" pretender could be a dual-blessed cyclops, which could fight, cast impressive rituals, and well... keep your Helhirdings alive through the bless.

3. There is no danger in renaming units... besides what happens when you have a game full of players with so many mages that they name them "3N1S1F" and stuff like that. This isn't as useful now that paths show up in the F1 screen, in my opinion.

[jscott]

Balanced pretender wasn't the right word.

I sort of meant is there a guide that points out obvious wastes of points, for example. I seem to remember in Dominions 2 that pushing your magic levels on your Pretender beyond a certain point wasn't worth it, since they level up somewhat in the game (at least as I recall) and the cost at startup becomes prohibitive. I just couldn't remember what that level was.

Plus some of the physical forms are very expensive, but aren't super combatants, so I was wondering which forms are just too hard to use in general for a beginning to get an efficient value of the points.

I was sorting of looking for general do's and don't on designing a God. I didn't really mean how to design someone who was balanced at everything. Sorry for that.

[sector24]

I think choosing a pretender is entirely dependent upon the nation. You want to design your pretender to fill out the weaknesses in your nation or to exploit its strengths. Basically there are 3 pretender types:

Bless

For nations that have powerful sacred troops (Niefelheim, Lanka) you want to choose a pretender that starts with the two paths that you want to boost in order to get the bless. The higher the pretender's starting path, the fewer points you pay in the long run. For instance, if you want an Earth/Nature bless, consider the Cyclops (E3) vs the Earth Mother (E1N1). To get E10 and N10 on the Cyclops, you need 706 design points. The Earth Mother needs 720 points. Even though the Cyclops is more expensive and you have to pay the 50 points to open up the nature path, it's cheaper because you get a head start on the Earth path.

The pretender's stats are really secondary considering it will probably be asleep or imprisoned to afford the bless. The bulk of the legwork will be done with your sacred troops. You just have to choose the most economical pretender that the nation allows.

SC

If you have weak national troops or are slow out of the gate, you want a combat pretender. Arguably the best pretenders are the Wyrm, Prince of Death, Gorgon, Ancient Kraken, and Dragons. The pretender doesn't even necessarily need any magic paths (especially the Wyrm).

Titans and other middle range pretenders have high hit points, but are expensive and don't have the abilities that you want for a pretender which are generally Fear, Regeneration/Recuperation, Flying, and high stats (Protection/Defense/MR)

Rainbow

The rainbow pretender is designed to open up paths that your nation doesn't have natural access to. They can assist with site searching for early gem income, and possibly forge important items or cast important global enchantments. These pretenders are the most dependent on the nation, but generally if your nation has no Earth magic you want E2, and since the end game is dominated by Astral, Death, and Blood, if your nation has none of those you will want a pretender that can compensate.

--

I would definitely not start with the Late Age due to Ermor and Rl'yeh being unconventional and quite powerful. My favorite is EA, but MA is fine too. There is more magic in EA so if you want to learn proper spellcasting you may as well start there.

[Torin]

These are my experiences with gods

*The most common approach for multiplayer is a titan sized god with air, astral, water and/or earth to auto buff and use magic gear too.

*There are the 1st turn fighters to expand faster that generally have dominions 9-10 (for an awe ability gift) and are the Wyrm (magic not needed), the dragons (maybe the blue one more levels to give more defense), Prince of death, the big bulls, giant octopus or the cyclops. These don�t are expected to hold player controlled foes.

*The bless approach with an imprissioned absent pretender with insane paths.

*an absent imprisioned god (the astral fountain maybe) just to have enough points to pay extreme good scales and high dominion

*rainbow pretenders for research bonus and late game potential with skills in many or all paths.

*special pretenders for very special uses like the forge lord or the pretenders that produce gems.

*a stealthy god for dominion attack with dom10

(the last 3 designs are rarely used in MP. except maybe the rainbow)

Edit. I didn`t see sector�s post while writing so some stuff is mirrored

[ano]

Try a race that doesn't need a bless and has access to earth or astral magic (bakemono, for instance). Take prince of death with dom9 (to get awe) and d3 (you may take more if you like, but that's not necessary). Forge him an earth shield from the trinkets (one for 5 gems with bigger parry - I don't remember exactly) and later some armor and weapon (his Rod of death is AN, but doesn't use strength of wielder), but that's not necessary for expansion too - only shield is needed.
And enjoy... He will easily take out even rather big armies of indies with the orders "hold, hold, attack archers".
Or try S3 or E3 wyrm. This guy is amphibious, can attack on turn 2 and doesn't need early forge, but definitely needs research in alteration (ironskin, body ethereal, personal luck) and conjuration (if you took E3 then you definitely need earthpower). However, he is weaker later on.
Or take a dormant titan sized god with good magics that can be used for self buffing and good items. He won't help with expansion much, but will be a powerful sc later.

[Horst F. JENS]

Nothing speaks against starting with a late age game. Choose a nation for yourself, choose some enemy nations that you feel you can handle and start playing.

Late age in general focus more on troops and less on magic, so it is a good way to learn basic troop tactics and don't worry too much about magic.
The default magic site frequency setting for late age is lower than in the other ages, but you can change that before the game start.
Because of the fewer magic sites all players tend to have fewer magic gems.

Early age is the inverse of late age, with relative weak troops but strong mages, and the default magic site frequency setting is high.

Middle age lays in between.

If you have no idea about how to design your god, take a no-magic combat god (Wyrm, Manticore), very good scales and dominion9 to get the Awe effect.
After playing some games with a nation you will get a feeling for what your national mages can do and can't do so you can plan your god with that wisdom in mind.

[llamabeast]

If you do play Late Age though, I recommend avoiding including Ermor or R'lyeh, since they are Weird. Apart from that, yep Late Age is just generally like Middle Age with more armour and less magic.

[jscott]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll try starting a game I intend to play through tonight.

[Cor2]

Here is something I struggled with as a Newb: You have to take into account Starting paths, cost for new paths and starting dominion when looking at the price of a pretender.

IF you want an earth 9 bless It may seem like a good idea to get a crone and buy earth 9, cuz she costs 10 points. In reality its cheaper to buy a cyclops even though it costs more at the base. (as sector24 pointeed out)

Some rules of thumb/ tips:

never go with dominion under a 4. 6 or higher is reasonable.

As far as blesses go, choose what complements your national holy troops. Mages like earth, fire is good for argatha b/c of their crap attack.


Blood 9 bless is considered by many to be the worst bless and a waste of points.

Remember that certain immobile pretenders can teleport (not the sphinx). Meaning that they can open a can o' woop *** late game, especially if high in astral. This is often very suprising the first time its used.

A pretender with no magic paths has little risk associated with dying, besides preist time spent calling god or possible afflictions. Conversely Rainbow pretenders suffer the worst from death.

Its usually good to make sure you have astral, so if your nation does not have it your pretender should.