DOOM

[Wingedflamez]

I can see why they would say turm 3 is killer. But honestly if you get a couple of good gold events and new mine events it balances out. Especially with Pangaea turm 3 luck 3 is great. The only gold heavy unit is the pan, they have decent cheaper researchers.  So the gold loss isn't as bad, and turm 3 gives you a decent amount of berzerking free spawn. Which is good early game for chaff.

[parone]

its possible that when it was mentioned, Pan was singled out as the lone exception, due to free spawn and other things you mentioned.  having never played Pan, i wouldn't know.  do they get more free spawn with T-3?

i actually thought of playing Pan here, but it was grabbed up.  maybe i'll run into them and learn a thing or two.

actually, now that i think about it, i played against pan once in a game i subbed into, and i remmember fighting against armies of over 1000 of those crazy chick units.  i defeated two, i think, but he just kept raising them and throwing them against me, and eventually snowed me under when he got a research lead.

[Wingedflamez]

Yeah each actual pan generates a number of amends each turn as long as the provinces they are in has at least turn 1, with each additional level of turn the number of amends they get increases. I think with turn 3 they get like 8 or 10 each. And pans are the main big gun caster for Pangaea. So by mid game you will have a fair number of them.

The catch is that they go down like flies.  They are not overly powerful, their advantage is that they are berzerk so they dont run, and you have a million of them, which also means that you want to get mass buffs out ASAP because you get more bang for your buck.  You just have to watch out and put them with stuff that wont route easily either so that you dont lose half your army because of HP loss when the maeneds start dieing all over the place.

[Bronwell]

For what it's worth, there's a new thread on Desura forums with official confirmation that they are working on Dominions 4.  For first time it's NOT an april fool's post.  :).

[Faux]

For what it's worth, there's a new thread on Desura forums with official confirmation that they are working on Dominions 4.  For first time it's NOT an april fool's post.  :).

Yes it's awesome news. All the bits of info we've been getting from the few beta testers makes me impatient :).

[parone]

at this point, im pretty sure i should have spent a bit more time playtesting bandar :-[

i read a guide about them, and while im sure it was good advice for a skilled player, for me, it was a bit disasterous.

dead monkeys.  so many dead, little furry monkeys...

[Haerdalas]

Ah, don't worry. I dont think my guide was prepared for attacking a province with a predicted enemy count of about 30, to find 60 when the attack actually landed. That cost me half my starting army, so I had to return to base the next turn. Ouch.

independant strength 7 is nasty. Also, through testing some of your nations, I have found that I really like Machaka. Maybe I should have gone for them, as my SP with them has about 25 provinces by turn 20, decent research and a huge, nigh unstoppable army (admittedly made almost entirely of diseased and crippled units. Damn you starvation when besieging, damn you!)

[parone]

i love machaka.  maybe the most thematic nation. 

that said, i am so bad with them, it is either comical or tragic, i don't know which.   back to guides, i read one that said you should never recruit hoplites.  so i tried that.  it didn't work well.  also, i built most of my strat around death summons for midgame, but of course, i only found one death sight.

while it isn't going my way in this game(totally because i stink, not cus of bad luck) i love 7 strength indies.  instead of an all out land grab, you really have to be carefull where/how you strike.  also, they make a SC pretender somewhat viable. 

[Faux]

I've noticed that you should take any guide with a grain of salt. They're also mostly meant for vanilla and CBM changes stuff quite a bit.

[Bronwell]

I prefer indies 7 as well as the beginning is such a land grab that at least it makes it a little more unpredictable.  It helps that I always played SP with at least 6 indy setting, so was surprised at how easy 5 was.  It rewards taking a little more time to ensure safe attacks especially since losing because you were just a little short on troops can be so disastrous.  Gotta love when you have slow resource-intensive heavy infantry who break and get slaughtered trying to run.

For my end, I expected numbers of troops to vary wildly, but was a bit miffed when the estimates said "Mainly troops A and B".. but they forgot to mention "troop C".  Where the hell was my warning about C?..... hehe.

I love Machaka too.  Was one of the first nations I really got to know and I loved those hoplites.  I saw those guides too and thought they were crazy.  Those hoplites are god-like early-game.   Shield parry 8? and great armor and defense with a long spear that does 5 damage?.. yes please.  Sure.. mid/late game that strat move 1 means you better find some troop summons, but early game they rock.  Thinking about it, I assume CBM armor changes probably made them more viable.

Your mention of finding death sites reminds me of my luck site-searching in my other MP game (which I may have already mentioned).  I'm playing Sauromatia and was hoping for nature and astral sites to broaden my very limited magic options. 40 turns in and with 25+ territories spell + holy searched I have found exactly 1 astral and 1 nature site for +1 astral gem/turn.. and until about turn 35 had +1 Nature to the +1 nature I started with (found a couple nature since).  Wow.  Every single mage I have has nature magic and nothing to spend... and no astral to even alchemize.  I was worried about trying to find Enchantresses, and never even considered getting that site-hosed.

[Haerdalas]

Ah, well that SP Machaka game where I had 25 provinces by turn 20? Indy strength 9. There is one strategy with them which is ridiculously, insanely, brokenly strong, at least in the early game (have yet to go far enough with them to comment on mid/late). Obviously, with one of my enemies being Machaka, I will not be giving details.

[parone]

haerdalas-

some strats that seem 'broken' vs AI are actually pretty easy to counter in MP.  i don't know what you are talking about specifically, but i bet a good player(and by that, i mean not me) could probably counter it

[Wingedflamez]

OK sorry that took so long to get my turn in, things went nuts here at my house when I got home.  But its in.

[Phobos]

One thing I tried with Machaka in a game was recruiting a number of Spider Riders.  I would place them at the front of an army and have them fire bows.  This means they take a lot of archer fire and cavalry charges, but you actually want this.  When the rider gets killed, the spider remains.  The spiders have a ranged attacks as well, but importantly they have no upkeep cost.

After a few turns of battle, you usually have enough spiders to alter strategy a bit.  Their web spit attack is great at locking down tough independents and if you keep them on the flanks they will not block your regular infantry from the front line.

Once you get some research, you can try fielding Black Sorcerers as thugs.  They are not that tough in human form, but when they are wounded they change shape into a giant spider.  Stoneskin and Fire Shield are simple buffs they can cast before running into melee and morphing into a rock-hard, flaming spider.  A few of those can take out most normal independents as a group.  By themselves they will get swarmed, but they will not be able to deal as much Fire Shield damage as 3 or 4 of them can.  Once you get some research in construction, you can give them some trinkets to increase their survivability a bit.  You just need to ensure they keep their fatigue fairly low before they run into combat.  Summon Earthpower and a reinvigoration amulet can help out here.

I should point out that the only time I played Machaka in MP, I was taken out pretty quickly, so remember this before you take my advice.   

[Haerdalas]

Yeah, that spider rider thing was the stategy I meant. It may or may not do much good vs other actual players, but the rate of expansion you can achieve when you have an army of 14 protection, 26 hp, 14 strength Giant Spiders with no upkeep at 30 gold and 4 resources each is ridiculous. It also helps when your 3 luck gives you the +1000 gold event 2 turns out of the first 10, I guess... I would lose maybe a spider or two per battle when outnumbered 2:1. the only thing that managed to stop my first army of about 60 spiders was running into an enemy pretender, with about 5 other mages, spamming undead and fireball type spells. And I still managed to kill all but the pretender before my men routed.