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[Ignus]

I've had a couple of those. While attempting to break a siege all of my mages decided that killing people was far too much effort, ignored my script and just buffed themselves and fled. Stupid squid heads....

[Kagus]

I had an idea a long time back for a special Dominions nation that might be fun.  Something with special heavily-armored elite unit that has the same tag as Pythium's communion slaves.

Because of their heavy armor, attempting to use them for standard spellcasting would just murder them.  The idea was instead to have the communion masters (or rather sabbath masters, as I wanted this nation to specialize in the blood/earth magic combo) cast various reinvigoration spells on themselves to keep the warriors on their feet, and to also buff themselves up with some useful combat buffs.

Someone coined a term for this method...  Can't remember what it was.  But the main difference is that the frontliners would be standard troops instead of commanders.  I was just curious to see if that tag worked on mooks the same way it did on commanders (Pythium's slaves).

I've had a couple of those. While attempting to break a siege all of my mages decided that killing people was far too much effort, ignored my script and just buffed themselves and fled. Stupid squid heads....

For all the fun it is to pre-define orders and then let people work it out on their own...  This really is one major point of annoyance.  I usually ran into that when I put people too far back so they were out of range.  But, sometimes, I really don't know what was going through their little brains...

What really gets me are some of the buffs they insist on casting.

[Il Palazzo]

(Discovery Channel's narrator's voice)
An Agarthean Oracle is a creature whose vision organ consists of a single large eye. However, the so called "Marble Oracles", which are statues sculpted to represent some of the more venerable of the Oracles of old, posses two eyes, as empirical experiments on the Caelian front proved beyond doubt.
The reason for this remains unknown, just as unknown is the answer to the question of: Why has the sculptor not made them with even more eyes, lie ten for example?(Cut to Jepetto pulling his hair off and crying "WHYYYY?!")
The answer, if ever found, will most likely go along the lines of "magic works in mysterious ways".


Two High Seraphs with crossbows, stomped over by a mammoth, for an eye does not equal a good trade in my book.

[Lorak]

If they're made of marble, why would they even have/need eyes?

Not that I'm complaining, the crossbows were fun while they lasted.

[Kagus]

I am constantly reminded of why I never shelled out the cash for a full version of this...  Namely, the fact that I simply can't play Dominions worth a damn.

Playing the demo.  Early Age, Atlantis, going up against Vanheim (eep) and Sauromatia (although you can't select them, all nations are in the game and will occasionally be picked by the 'random nation' setting when used on an AI opponent)...  Well, let's just say that things aren't looking too pretty right now.  I've got a pack of 10 Kings that are whupping ass with magma bolts and acid rain, but a suitably large force would be able to overwhelm them and they're facing off against the Sauromatian cataphracts...  Lucky me, the archers do absolutely diddly against the kingly hides.

Then I'm looking at a spaghetti bowl of provinces with Vanheim's hidden armies prancing back and forth between them, right outside my second fort.  I'm losing soldiers in pretty much each confrontation, and although I've got a few spellcasters I don't have the sheer force of royalty that the king group down south is packing.  And Sauromatia has crawled up around the mountain ridge and is looking to join in on the mess.

I've got a lot of land, and that's good, but I don't really have a lot to back it up with, which is bad.  I spent most of my early game betting on researchers and spellcasters, so my military might hasn't exactly been building up all that well.  I've just recently released my nest egg of researchers and they're doing a pretty good job, but I think it would've been nice to have a little bit of padding between the mages and the enemy cavalry...

Basically, the situation is that I've got the most research, provinces, forts, and gem income (Vanheim has managed to make off with more income despite having far fewer provinces, which disturbs me greatly), but now I've run into the other dudes and I don't really have much to hold on to my property with.  This isn't helped by the fact that Atlanteans only get their national troops in watery keeps, so my mages (my ace in the hole with this predominantly magic-centered plan) have to make quite the trek before getting to where they need to be.


What's funny is that I'm actually better with EA Agartha...  I managed to find a god/scale/magic combo that's relatively effective (at least so far as I can tell).  But what's more than that is it's actually fluffy, which just tickles me senseless.

[Il Palazzo]

Don't be silly. Playing against AI(on the appropriate difficulty level) you'll always end up being swarmed like that. Playing against humans is what the game was made for - do the right thing and buy it!(athought $50 is bloody crazy, I know).

[Disaster!]

If anything this PBEM is a big learning experience for me.

I've identified a lot of technical mistakes that I will have to work on if I want to improve for future games.

I won't point them out right now obviously, but I'd love to chat about them after my annihilation (or after my unlikely victory).

[Il Palazzo]

If anything this PBEM is a big learning experience for me.

I've identified a lot of technical mistakes that I will have to work on if I want to improve for future games.

I won't point them out right now obviously, but I'd love to chat about them after my annihilation (or after my unlikely victory).

Well, seeing how you're one of the three largerst empires, you've got plenty of time and resources to improve your strategy in this game. One could even summarize Dominions as a game about changing one's tactics to fit the circumstances.

[Korbac]

Dom 3 really is a game of strategy. I mean you do have the typical strategies for first contact and if you're not sure what you'll be up against, but as you fight your opponent you're going to have to adapt to what they're using.

[Kagus]

Don't be silly. Playing against AI(on the appropriate difficulty level) you'll always end up being swarmed like that. Playing against humans is what the game was made for - do the right thing and buy it!(although $50 is bloody crazy, I know).

This is Normal AI, if I didn't set them to Easy and just forgot I did.  I've always heard people talk about how the Dominions AI is a joke, and utterly inferior to playing against a human opponent, even on the hardest difficulty setting.  And, considering I still have more of a challenge dealing with just the independents than seems appropriate, I can only assume that my experience playing against a real opponent would be a massacre.

Hmm...  Is that why you recommend I get started in a game?  Perhaps under your wise and experienced guidance?  HA!  Your skills of misdirection require refinement!  I won't fall so easily to your wiles!


Damn, they're still selling the thing for $50?  Was kinda hoping a few notches would be taken off of it from how long it's been on the market...  Don't get me wrong, I deeply respect these guys for making it this far with an actually original idea, and I want them to get all the support they need...  But I also don't want to shell out $50.  Eep.

Well, I'll muck about in the demo for a while longer, try out some new things.  See if maybe this time I'll actually be inspired to go the full length.

[Lorak]

Playing against humans is a whole different style, which I've had to adapt to over the course of the few games I've been playing here on Bay12.

The AI comes at you with hordes and hordes of units, which in a typical game involving humans things usually don't work that way.

From my experience, building shit tons of troops and sending them out to battle is only effective in the early game.  By mid game, most human players have mages mixed in with smaller armies that completely decimate unsupported hordes of troops.

Either that, or they have heavily equipped powerful commanders running around by themselves who are perfectly capable of destroying entire armies.

Also, when playing against humans, it's very very important to go into the game with a -long term- plan.  That's something I've struggled with.  My first two games here, I didn't have a long term plan, and I was wishy washy about what I wanted to research and kept bouncing around my research so even though I had a very high research rate, I ended up being far behind my opponents who knew what they wanted to research and went straight for it.

Another thing is diplomacy, which adds a -lot- more to the game than you would think.  Dominions 3 multiplayer games tend to be chock full of treachery and deceit, especially when playing with Il Palazzo.  Your ability to convince your neighbors that you are stronger/weaker than you really are, and that they should attack somebody else instead of you can seriously make all the difference in the world.

[Il Palazzo]

Also, when playing against humans, it's very very important to go into the game with a -long term- plan.

While it certainly helps to have such a plan, it isn't a necessity in my opinion. No single plan works against thinking, adapting human, especially as different nations have such different strenghts and weaknesses, and you never know whom you'll encounter first. As long as your intelligence on your neighbours(i.e.enemies) is good, you should always be able to learn about their style of play, and develop some counter measures.
I find the importance of espionage in this game to be one of it's best features - spying is not strapped on to the gameplay with some atrificial "special actions", as it's done in most 4X games. Instead, it's a naturally emerging activity, as all you get by spying is some knowledge on other players' strenghts, weaknesses, and deployment, which turns out to be immensely important pieces of information.


Ehem, anyway, I need to postpone the turn by some 24h, more or less. I'll try to submit the turn earlier, but it's also possible that I'll have to put it off even more.
Sorry guys. You can always spend this time preparing a new allied offensive on the Agarthean front.

ed: o.k., turn in. Sorry for the delay.

[Il Palazzo]

One of the Pinocchios was sent to teach the rowdy Pythians some good manners. It went to where a big army stood, and said: "Now now, you've been very, very bad. Line up nicely in front of me, and prepare for the beating."
And all the Pythians wanted to tell the Marble Oracle to get lost, but it's awesome equipment intimidated them, so they did line up and begun to recieve serious spanking.
Around the middle of the job, Pinocchio suddenly got an epiphany: "Oh, no! I've been spanking them Pythians for too long! The battle round limit is approaching! Am I supposed to spend the rest of the eternity doing this job? My (un)life is pointless, I'm going to dismantle myself now".
And so it was lost with all of it's expensive equipment. And it was decided, that all Pinocchios will be now subject to compulsory depression counseling, to prevent any further disgrace to the glorious Agartha.

[Disaster!]

One of the Pinocchios was sent to teach the rowdy Pythians some good manners. It went to where a big army stood, and said: "Now now, you've been very, very bad. Line up nicely in front of me, and prepare for the beating."
And all the Pythians wanted to tell the Marble Oracle to get lost, but it's awesome equipment intimidated them, so they did line up and begun to recieve serious spanking.
Around the middle of the job, Pinocchio suddenly got an epiphany: "Oh, no! I've been spanking them Pythians for too long! The battle round limit is approaching! Am I supposed to spend the rest of the eternity doing this job? My (un)life is pointless, I'm going to dismantle myself now".
And so it was lost with all of it's expensive equipment. And it was decided, that all Pinocchios will be now subject to compulsory depression counseling, to prevent any further disgrace to the glorious Agartha.

Not a prestigious victory, but I'll take what I can get.

[Kagus]

The battery probably just ran out.