I just drop.io’d the old Dom2 Magic Item Quick Reference which should do the trick. It’s a handy PDF reference of all the magic items from Dom2 which mostly still apply.
Hey, this drop.io site is pretty cool, too…
i think i’ll go back to my roots, and try Man. According to all the fantasy titles i’ve read over the years, MAN ALWAYS WINS, though, of course, it’s usually a downer.
mwhahahahahahahaha etc
Does anyone have any advice on minimising, or coping with, late-game micro? I find that the bulk of my time is spent on three things:
- looking around my empire, making an inventory of what mages, items, and armies I have and what I can do with them;
- forging;
- scripting armies/mages.
Hetzer
5344
I have gone ai as my situation isnt holding for long… im away for a week and i think after that i would be done anyway…
nice game
Jens
As to the first, I’m all about the ‘n’ hotkey. I make sure I don’t set commanders to defend or hide or research if they have nothing to do but instead use some command like search that will leave that back in the no-orders status next turn. I concentrate mages in a few key places so I can manually review my researching/forging operations.
As for scripting armies and mages, it’s really not very necessary. A few stock scripts for your national mages cover 98% of your needs in this department. Remember, raiding is more effective than conventional warfare in every situation except capitol defense. If your enemy has one huge army coming at you, don’t meet it head on. Split your huge army into tons of little raiding forces and start taking 5-10 provinces from him a turn. He’ll turn that huge army around and start playing defense toot sweet.
To add to Kraaze’s post, you can “copy and paste” mage scripts. So if you create a script that 90% of your mages will use you only have to script it once and paste to the rest of your mages (the exact hotkeys escape me, it’s not obvious but it does work well).
IIRC:
- Create the script
- Point to the script
- Hold down CTRL and press a number key to assign it to the script.
Then you just hit the desired # key for any other commander you want to assign that script to.
17 hours to go. yes, i didn’t get an email either, but i am a suspicious character
Thanks, guys - I appreciate the pointers! I do use stock mage scripts quite a lot, although Jomon’s very heterogeneous magic picks mean that I still have to do a fair bit of fiddling from mage to mage.
I also take Kraaze’s point about raiding. Heck, avoiding pitched battles is worth it just so I don’t feel the need to elaborately script every ten-man stack or piddly one-pick mage.
Would concentrating your mages, excessive searching/staying outside fortresses, etc be less “effective” from a min-maxing standpoint, though?
Thanks, Steve! I didn’t get notification either.
Any chance you could explain your entirely cryptic in-game message that you sent this turn? :)
Queue was clogged up again, though this time I’ve figured out why. My ISPs DNS config keeps getting overwritten when I establish a VPN to my work, which then leaves the system with no usable DNS when the VPN tunnel is shut down.
I’ll have to monkey with the VPN config a little bit to prevent that from happening, but in the short term I know to manually correct it after using the VPN to prevent cloggage.
Part of the challenge of being successful in Dom is finding an effective balance between research, site searching, battle support, forging, etc. for your mages. It can be fairly elusive and it really depends on the game, the map, your civ, your opponents, etc. so there’s really no hard-fast rule, at least that I know of!
I typically have a few mages with assorted magic schools accompany my armies and as they conquer new provinces, I let them hang around for a turn to search for sites. It’s also a good time to patrol to decrease unrest and preach if necessary.
I usually have a couple of straggler mages running around searching provinces in my “safe” areas to fill any gaps in magic schools.
Allow me to respectfully disagree :)
Not really. You should have a research target in mind ahead of time (I usually shoot for 200 research/turn) and recruit to meet it. Aside from that, maybe one or two site searchers early. Later on a few battlefield mages or forgers can be hired once there’s something researched for them to do. Waffling around trying to do twenty things with mages is a good way to accomplish nothing useful with them.
Speed is life, having a conquering army diddle around like that is just asking for someone to smack you with overland spells or ambush you with a custom tailored force designed specifically to shred the types of troops in your army. Armies should move like lightning, fast and unpredictable. Any mages with the army should have a reason they are there. If that reason is just “some spells might be neat” then it’s quite likely that the money spent on the mage would have been better spent on more troops. If the reason is something like “I suspect SCs from this foe and need someone to cast petrify” or “flaming arrows really kick ass” then a mage or three is quite justified.
In the beginning I do this too but it’s generally not practical or efficient past say turn 20. By that point mages should be doing your searching via spells.
I was speaking in broader terms. But yes, I agree, it’s important to have some pre-defined goals with research.
Speed is life, having a conquering army diddle around like that is just asking for someone to smack you with overland spells or ambush you with a custom tailored force designed specifically to shred the types of troops in your army.
Armies should move like lightning, fast and unpredictable.
I’m talking the early game, right out of the gates. Waiting a turn before taking on an indie during expansion isn’t going to set you back. Of course, if the situation dictates differently (like a rival on the other side of a juicy indie) then by all means keep moving on and worry about searching later.
Any mages with the army should have a reason they are there.
Right; combat support and site searching. You’ve got to conquer the province before you can search it.
If that reason is just “some spells might be neat” then it’s quite likely that the money spent on the mage would have been better spent on more troops. If the reason is something like “I suspect SCs from this foe and need someone to cast petrify” or “flaming arrows really kick ass” then a mage or three is quite justified.
Best way to learn the game, IMHO. Script stuff that sounds fun, watch the replay, and learn.
In the beginning I do this too but it’s generally not practical or efficient past say turn 20. By that point mages should be doing your searching via spells.
Baby steps. We’re helping a new player learn to get out of the gates with a good, solid start. The more complex shit can come later…
I stand corrected, you are right that your advice was better tailored than mine towards a brand new player.
wahoo
5356
Not in the latter stages. I’d rather keep my big army together to take an enemy’s fortress and surrender the 5-10 smaller provinces. If you’re taking a bunch of smaller provinces but you’re losing your forts you’re losing a) ability to recruit your best troops/mages b) will run out of gems/etc.
In this case raiding is prolonging the inevitable even if you’re getting more short-term money and gems. B/c it’s pretty easy to recapture provinces from raiders and not so easy to recapture forts.
I was about to debate you, but then I remembered that you are scary hard to beat even with your inferior tactics. So, um, yeah you’ve got that right ;-) Silly me.
wahoo
5358
You’re much too kind…Look forward to seeing you return to MP sometime soon.
Also, you can take down Crom. The game is over.
I just think, especially in the latter stages, provinces taken by raiding can be retaken through teleporting SCs, ghost riders, etc. Also, if you’re facing an astral nation your raiders will need astral mages accompanying them otherwise they’ll get mindhunted hard.
I’d love to but my schedule is hectic. I have a beautiful little 6 week old girl who demands a lot of daddy attention plus I’ll be traveling for work so I sadly have no Dom3 time at the moment :(
Done, hope it was a good one.
You’ve still got the wrong mentality. Raiding doesn’t work because each group is somehow impervious to the enemies tricks or to retaking. That’s a conventional army take-and-hold hold approach. Raiding works because there’s so many expendable groups that the enemy loses provinces turn after turn even if they can slaughter a group or two every turn. It’s not take-and-hold, it’s take-move-take. It bleeds the enemy dry unless they adopt the same tactics in return. But it’s a hard switchover if they aren’t ready for it so by the time they realize their mistake they are bleeding bad usually.
Admittedly in the latter game the raiding groups probably have little/no national troops outside of some select sacred and they likely move via flight or teleportation but it’s still a great tactic.
SPOILERS
Winter in the Year 5
Caelum attacks my capital with air queen Aella and a half dozen Eagle Kings and all but one commander are killed. Finally, a substantial victory in the fight against the flying scourge!
Abysia gets into the swing of things, at long last, and besieges a Caelum fortress two provinces away from my capital. The question is: Is this an anti-Caelum move, or an attempt to take over first place in the game? Is Evil Steve easing my burdens, or creating some?
The BIG question therefore is: Should I be teaming up with Caelum at this point to fight the Abysians?
Perhaps Evil Steve will send a messenger…
