NEWB Questions

[Immaculate]

I'm super new to this game (i got into it through LdiCesare's Dominions NES and so far i like it. I have played a game to year four with Sauromatia and year 3 with Mictlan and have been reading these forums somewhat but i have a few questions that hopefully you can answer for me.

1) What is clams/clamming? People keep talking about this on these forums and i have no idea what it means.

2) How do you do early expansion without a strong bless? I can expand with about 14 jaguar warriors and a priest to bless (fire 9, water 9, blood 4) them as Mictlan but can't seem to do quite as well without the bless or with a weaker bless. I mean, i guess i could take an awake pretender and use that but i want to see what other options there are.

3) Are mercenaries worth it? there are a few i like- like hannibal's elephants- they are useful as shock troops- but the pirates seem useless.

4) Should i switch to using the CPM (acronym is probably completely wrong- i am referring to the mod that most people use for MP play) when playing SP so as to get used to it?

5) What should research priorities be? Combat spells or spells to help develop a gem economy?

Thanks,

Immac.

[Starshine_Monarch]

1) Clamming refers to the construction and hoarding of large amounts of items that create magic Gems. The name comes from the Clam of Pearls which generates Astral gems, though the technique can refer to Fever Fetishes (Fire gems) or Blood Stones (Earth gems) as well. If you play with Conceptual Balance mod 1.6, these items have become Unique artifacts, so this technique cannot be used with that mod.

2) An awake pretender is certainly one option, as is a heavy bless if you have the kind of Sacreds that could be worth one (Jaguar warriors are ALWAYS worth one). Some nations, like Pythium and Ulm have elite non-sacred troops which are good for expanding. Generally speaking, there are a lot of options for expansion, but different nations have different ways of doing it best. The best thing you can do is play around until you find your favorite way of expanding.

3) Mercenaries I think are helpful for early expansion as well as a quick and cheap defense, depending on who's available for bid thought. Some mercenaries are even Mages, so they can search for magic sites you might not be able to with your own mages. Later in the game though, Mercenaries become kind of obsolete. Generally by that point, there are better things to spend 150+ gold on.

4) A vast majority of the players here use the Conceptual Balance Mod for multiplayer games. So yes, it would do you well to become familiar with it in Single player.

5) Like expansion, research priorities vary from nation to nation. Typically though, Thaumaturgy 2, Conjuration 2 and Evocation 2 are what most people shoot for first because of the remote site-searching rituals that can be found there.

[thejeff]

2) Since bless troops are usually best in the early game and bless nations often pay a price in late game diversity for a strong bless, it's expected that a heavy bless will let you expand faster than other nations. Awake pretenders can also help. Most nations can expand fairly will with national troops. It just won't be as fast as double bless Mictlan.

5) The remote site search spells your nation can cast are usually good early targets. Other considerations are spells needed to help expansion or fight off early rushes. If you're using an SC pretender or recruitable thugs, you may want to research buffs for them first or Construction for cheap gear. If you find yourself next to an aggressive nation you need to think about what you need to counter them.

[Raiel]

Welcome to the community, Immaculate.

If you're looking for help with early expansion that doesn't rely on your pretender or a bless, here's a guide that may be of use to you:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42211

[K]

4. Most of the players on the forums have been playing for years and use CBM and other mods as a way to relearn the game and keep it fresh. I have yet to see any evidence that this particular mod actually "balances" anything or even improves the game.

That being said, every time I set up a game without mods I get players to sign up super quick, so don't feel required to learn the game twice.

[llamabeast]

CBM is very good though. You should use it.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by K

4. Most of the players on the forums have been playing for years and use CBM and other mods as a way to relearn the game and keep it fresh. I have yet to see any evidence that this particular mod actually "balances" anything or even improves the game.

That being said, every time I set up a game without mods I get players to sign up super quick, so don't feel required to learn the game twice.

I'm not convinced CBM does as much to balance the game between nations as it could. What it does do is make a lot of useless options from the base game playable, and nerfs some strategies that were far too good (and therefore dominant) so that the realized playing field is a lot more diverse. So you can think of it as balancing available options from a given nation's perspective.

(E.g., Gorgon, PoD, and Cyclops have all been nerfed relative to the base game because they saw far too much play due to their being far better than other equivalent options. The VQ, on the other hand, *might* actually be playable in CBM, and a number of other options are appealing that would never even be considered before).

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Immaculate

I'm super new to this game

Most welcome to the forums, a new dom3 player is always good news.

2) How do you do early expansion without a strong bless? I can expand with about 14 jaguar warriors and a priest to bless (fire 9, water 9, blood 4) them as Mictlan but can't seem to do quite as well without the bless or with a weaker bless. I mean, i guess i could take an awake pretender and use that but i want to see what other options there are.

I think you need to practice and find a way with each nation. There are some general tactical tips and tricks of course, one thing is to understand what beats what. Archers do well against barbarians but gets crushed by heavy cavalry etc etc. If you are expanding without bless you might need to work out a few different squads to take different kinds of indies.

3) Are mercenaries worth it? there are a few i like- like hannibal's elephants- they are useful as shock troops- but the pirates seem useless.

Can be, I usually forget they exist so can´t say. Don´t plan your strategy around them in any case, there´s always a chance you don´t get the good ones.

4) Should i switch to using the CPM (acronym is probably completely wrong- i am referring to the mod that most people use for MP play) when playing SP so as to get used to it?

The CPM(celebral pharesis mod) don´t see much use, even though it adds some great content, because of the bug it causes with the mouse cursor twitching back and forth all over the screen.

( yeah play CBM, it rocks!)

[Gandalf Parker]

1) A clam is an item that gives an astral pearl. Since that can be used to give you any other gem, or turn into gems which can turn into gold, its a very desired commodity. It is also the gem which casts some of the most desired spells in the game. Therefore clamming is concentrating on developing a factory for generating as many as possible. Whether or not that is just another game tactic or is too powerful to allow is an ongoing debate. Some games use a mod to downgrade or not allow its use.

2) Carefully choosing the first province to attack helps alot. Waiting until the first host turn gives you an idea of who is next to you. Unless you mean the taking of a province on turn 1 which some feel is very important. That requires careful choices in the initial creation of your nation and god. Other than that I can only say that eventually you will get a feel for what terrains in certain eras tend toward certain native populations in order to avoid making an initial attack on something like knights or elephants.

3) Many nations have elites which work much better if they are directly behind some flak units. Also some nations have very strong mages who could be susceptable to various attacks and can stand to have more bodies on the battlefield to take attacks. Also the ability to hire a sizable force when you are way out in the field, or need bodies to help break down castle walls, can be very important. Of course the ability to gain certain mages for early searching, or water units for an early entry to the water that you can build off of, can help turn the tide of a game.

4) Altho many swear by it, CBM isnt the community standard that some feel it is. And if you look at the games in the multiplayer forum, and on Llamabeasts server, and on my server, its not a majority of the games being played. It is not an easy mod to turn on and off since it makes many many basic changes to the way the game is played. It strongly affects strategies. IMHO it is best to learn the game as its written, and then learn it with CBM. That way you might have a comfortable grasp when joining games either way. However it is a great mod which has grown steadily since the early days of Dom2 so I tend to agree with many that it deserves more support than it gets.

5) With ANYTHING about this game some people have absolute answers. But do not be disconcerted at getting many different ones. Thats the wonder of this game. That years after its release people are still arguing about the "best" anything with it and are even learning new ways to surprise people. Also many of the absolute answers have many unspoken factors such as favorite nations and map size or mod choices. Focusing on "combat spells" OR "gem economy" would IMHO be workable strategies only in certain games with certain nations on small blitz style maps which are expected to end fairly quickly.

That said, in general, I like to grab a couple of levels of Evocation right away so that my low-level mages have something useful to cast. At that point I usually have some provinces so I like to shift to Thaumaturgy so I can get some spells for finding magic sites. After that it starts varying wildly depending on the nation, game settings, map size, number of players, etc. Some nations need Conjuration for a few levels due to important national spells, some need Construction to give equipment to their elite thugs. I avoid Alteration for awhile since it appears that the spells which most anger people for the mages not doing what they are told tend to be in that area. So in answer to your question my default would tend to be combat for 2 or 3 levels, then gem economy for 2 or 3 levels, then whichever is specific to that nations best abilities.


Gandalf Parker

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Immaculate

2) How do you do early expansion without a strong bless? I can expand with about 14 jaguar warriors and a priest to bless (fire 9, water 9, blood 4) them as Mictlan but can't seem to do quite as well without the bless or with a weaker bless. I mean, i guess i could take an awake pretender and use that but i want to see what other options there are.

A few small tricks (and I think you can safely expand with 7 jaguars and smaller bless if you use them):
Placement/Shock - indies will always behave the same. So you can set up your force so that it gets the first strike - reduces the number of enemies (and therefore casualties you take) and creates a shock effect. If you can kill enough in the first two or three rounds they run - ranged weapons are good to maximize their casualties before they hit you, works best against unarmored stuff, though.
Defense/Protection - If you can't rout them right away, you will take hits. Since you don't want to loose troops you want them to parry or have a good armor. Compare attack and defense values or prot and strength+weapon damage of your troops and the indies and watch how the battles work out to get an indea. Defense works worse when going against superior numbers, though.
Fatigue - very important for longer battles. With fatigue protection drops, as does defense. Attack drops but slower. So fatigue is an equalizer, and militia will kill your elite armoured knights if you can't kill them before they are weary.