Dominions 3

By Mauxe on January 4, 2011 9:24:25 AM from

Moving my postings on this game here to keep my thoughts seperate...

So last night I dove into the full game and had a much better run.
I went with the fire people and cranked my pretenders fire magic up to 9.
Although I forgot to look into the blessings... meant to do that.

I scouted the nearby provinces and once I had a bit of a force built up.. and evocation 3... I headed out to war.
I ended up taking over quite a few provinces.. built up my commanders to keep research pumping out.. sent some mages out to look for magical locations.. the same mages were priests as well so I had them build some temples while they were out. My scouts located 2 of the 3 empires I knew were out there...

Then I got tired and didn't pay attention to the preliminary data I had on an independent province. Part of me was just complacent though as my pretender+commander+40 troops were rick-rolling their way across the land with almost no losses. My last battle report told me that I had won.. but that I lost 38 of my 40 troops as well as 2 commanders I watched the replay and saw that a troop of battle elephants had been waiting for me and pretty much steamrolled my troops. My pretender ended up winning the day.. but it was costly.

Now I'm a bit more cautious and will hopefully be able to build back up before anyone notices that I'm a tad weakened....

+10 Karma | 48 Replies

Dominions 3 is a fantastic game, love the hell out of it, I am going back to playingand modding it until they can make Elemental more enjoyable to play. Fighting independents with elephants, crossbows, and knights can be costly if your not paying attention. And some times they have special units, I ran into one with golems one time that crushed my expansion. Great game. A million different strategies.

Provinces with elephants in I tend to avoid until I have a good strategy to deal with them. A size 6 Super Combatant pretender will kick them to the curb no worries.

If your still playing heres a tip to rebuild an army, spend some of that massive fire gem income Abysia by researching Conjuration 2 and doing a mass casting of Fire Drakes. Set them up in small groups so that in combat they will be just behind the infantry. The tough as nails infantry hold the line while the drakes shoot fire out of their mouths. This works well when the infantry are in smallish groups themselves, probably no more then twenty per group or the drakes fire breathing range is shorter than the block of your infantry.

I liked the game. Definitely had more soul than a lot of 4x games. My problem with it was about mid-game, it just became a grind taking over territories. I think it's the kind of 4x that is far more interesting to play against people than the AI. Playing on a super large map, it felt like a game of RISK that would never end.

Check this out:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=32314&page=1

A Dom 3 map with 1200+ provinces!

Try playing that as LA Ermor!

Very nice looking!

I'm trolling the MP boards waiting for a newbie game to pop up so I can get my feet wet.
Right now there is one posted but the OP wants players with less than 5 games but a proven history of not stalling...

So I guess that means between 1 and 4 games played.
I just got cleared on the boards so I'm going to see if he'll take a chance on me

If anyone that has Dom3 wants to get intop a MP game let me know. I'm still learning the ropes but can see the limitations of SP and would like to try some MP.

What game you getting into? Post a link to the game

I got turned down for not having a track record.

Here's the link though:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46842

Glad you are enjoying this, Mauxe. I gave the demo a go and think it could be fun, but I'm apparently way too lazy atm to learn all of the nuisances. I think this will be one I give a try again in the future and see if it hooks me.

Nice. Did you print and go through the tutorial as well?
They did a decent job with that - you get a lot of the basics of the game.

lmk if you get into it. I think it will be fun MP as you can sit and play with your turn a bit before finalizing and sending.

If you want Mauxe I'd join you in an "us vs the AI" game:

http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/vsAI_chk.cgi

Quoting MichaelCook,

reply 10

If you want Mauxe I'd join you in an "us vs the AI" game:

http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/vsAI_chk.cgi

do it mauxe - then teach me later!

Yeah, sounds good. I'll definitely join up.

I'll check out the link when I get home from work

Is the game very micromanage heavy? I remember trying the demo awhile back too and really wanting to like it because of all the detail and all the cool races. But I also remember that there was something about it that kept me from getting into it. But it could have been just the learning curve too.

Quoting FadedC,

reply 13

Oh god yes, the micro is crippling late game if you are doing well. Really why I stopped playing it, just became to cumbersome to bother with.

Well, I have not played many games yet but the thing that I really enjoy about the game so far is the thought I need to put into my turns. Micromanagement is a big part of the game and I think that should be known before jumping in. I think that if you want to queue up a bunch of units and run off to explore or battle you probably won't get as much from Dominions 3. Battles themselves are determined by the computer based on unit make-up, troop positioning and orders. If you have some scouting information that the province you are about to attack contains 60 troops made up of infantry and war elephants you can modify the formation your troops will take and the orders they will try to follow.

I went ahead and printed out the manual the other day. This is something I never even look at. There is a lot of useful information in there that helps to explain the mechanics and I would say that while the in-game help does a good job it is vital to read through the manual if you have never played before.

I don't mind having to give a lot of thought to my turns. Generally speaking though I don't like it when I have to spend a lot of time managing every detail of every province I own. So for example I enjoy things like building buildings like in civ or Galciv or setting battle formations and giving thought to my ship or army designs. But to give a specific example, I've played a few space games where you have to spend a lot of time building shuttles and putting people on those shuttles to transfer them from high population planets to low population planets, and that's a level of micromanagement that is just not at all fun for me.

I don't remember what it was about Dominions that triggered micromanage overload though, assuming that was the issue I had with it (which I think it was at least in part).

Gems are micro hell (when you are giving them to mages). Equipment is micro hell. Queuing unit builds can be (depends on nation and map size) moving forces to the front(s) is micro hell. Casting enchantments can be (depends on which ones) micro hell. Resetting orders for routed armies/new armies is micro hell.

Basically everything in the game is micro hell. Not that it's not worth doing, because the game is generally quite fun, but at some point that burn out will happen. Unless you are not really playing competitively or you are losing

I haven't played in over a year now though so I can't comment on how active the MP community is, or if there are more 'casual' games being played.

Based on my experience with the playgrounds of the gods.....the game is microintensive mid to late game because there are just so many damn provinces. You'll eventually have upwards of 8 armies moving across the map, and every territory you conquer will touch at least three hostile new provinces.

Unlike other 4x games, where territories are of various sizes, there are terrain obstructions that guide the map flow....Dominions 3 just has really big continent sized maps, where every province is about the same size. I think on Playground of the Gods, there are at least 90 provinces....

I loved the early game, but the mid-game micro quickly got me to the "just don't care anymore" point. Your mileage may vary on smaller maps.

Ok I have joined with game on port 6609 (era 2 game vsAI_grimly on port 6609 with easy AIs Machaka, Marignon, Atlantis).

Read the How to Join a Game page, create a pretender (remember to make a password and have all mods turned off, its vanilla only) and away we go!

Note that it will be us two vs the three AI's but they are easy AI's so we shall kick them where it hurts, in the motherboard.

I've chosen Bandar Log. I might do an AAR of this game and post it here.

Quoting MichaelCook,

reply 19

I've chosen Bandar Log. I might do an AAR of this game and post it here.

All the monkey races in this game are fun as hell. Especially Lanka, there's something uniquely entertaining about playing a bunch of monkeys that perform blood sacrifices in the woods to summon demons that blot out the sun.

Quoting shadowtongue,

reply 17

Yeah, that's also the reason I don't play anymore. There's just so much micro in the game that if you don't do PBEM it at one turn per day you'll go insane, it's inevitable. That said it's a really great game, and if they added really basic things like repeatable build queues and waypoints I'd be all over it.

If I had the time (classes are starting up again) I would return to my 2500 province game.

Keep in mind, that different races also demand more or less micro to be productive. Any that blood hunt, for instance, or any that have age issues. Abyssia, one of my favorites, unfortunately has both. But others aren't so bad. EA Arco's priestesses heal afflictions, which cuts out a lot of micromanaging wounded soldiers, and as a whole it's one of the easier races to get a handle for. I may be wrong, but I think it was also the one the manual used for the tutorial.

one of the mods.. cm 1.6 or 1.7 I believe.. seems to work to decrease some of the micro.

I haven't checked it out yet though

They used Mareveni, I know I spelled that wrong, the ones with the boar warrior guys and the bare chested warriors for the tutorial. Not that it's important, but for some reason, as a nerd/geek, I am compelled to correct even the slightest mistake in another's post.

CBM does decrease micro in that they remove the gem generating magic items, Fever Fetishes being the important one for micro-management.

Overall the CBM mod makes the game better, it increases the amount of viable strategies in multiplayer, but the latest release (1.7) is stirring up some discussion.

Ok, I have joined the game. Do I need to just sit and leave it open?

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

Dominions 3