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| There are two main classes of methods that remove fatigue. One, reinvigoration, provides a small but ongoing reduction in fatigue of the affected units. Reinvigoration can come from magical items; it can also be bestowed to sacred units as a particular blessing, if the pretender has certain powers. And some legendary heroes have seemingly profound reserves of energy... Reinvigoration helps even the unconscious.
The other class is the one-time removal of fatigue through some event. Typically, this event is either the use of a restorative spell (there exists a battlefield spell which reduces the fatigue of -all- friendly units in the battle, for instance), or through the draining life and energy from an enemy through certain dark magic spells or items. There are even units which have the innate ability to drain the vitality of the living. Leadership The number of troops a commander may lead. This value is separated into normal, magic and undead leadership. Most "normal" commanders can only lead normal troops, while mages for example can lead magical beings. Undead Commanders and Mages with Death or Blood Skills have undead Leadership. Age The age of a unit is tracked in Dominions 3, viewable by right-clicking Fatigue in the unit info screen. The number in parentheses is the age that the unit acquires "old age". Once that happens, an icon appears on the unit screen and provides several pieces of information: the age at which the unit became old, the unit's current age, and the penalties they are currently suffering in their dotage.. Units of old age accumulate afflictions. Eventually one of those afflictions will be "diseased", which means they will gain more afflictions and lose one hit point per turn until they push up daisies. Even undead may become old, but they are not affected by disease. How age works A nice discussion of old age can be found in this thread on the Dom3 discussion forum. From that thread, here are some interesting factoids: * Units "roll" on afflictions once a year, in late winter. It's a cruel season. * Different races turn "old" at different ages; thus tulatha get old much later than, say, mermen. * Fire mages turn "old" at a younger age. * Nature mages turn "old" at a later age. * Death mages have a lesser chance of gaining afflictions due to old age. * Even undead can get old; however since disease does not affect them they will not die due to old age, they will simply gain more and more afflictions. * The chance of gaining an affliction is relative to the age difference between the "old" age and the current age; so if a unit turns "old" at 40, they are unlikely to gain an affliction at 41, but very likely at 61.
* There are spells that will make a unit younger. * There are spells and items that will heal afflictions. * There are items that will transform the wearer into another typ of unit, usually with younger age. * There are items that will eliminate the hit point drain from disease.
Contents
Fortress In the fortress or army camp you will find all units present in the province. Here you can transfer troops to your commanders and give them battle orders. Commanders can build new fortresses in distant provinces. The fortress has several uses: * Supply depot - Food is collected from the countryside and transported from the fortress to nearby armies. * Administration center - Resources and armorers are gathered in the fortress to produce weapons for the garrison. Resources of neighboring provinces under same pretender¿s control can be used for producing more troops in the province of the fortress. There is also an increase in commerce in a province with a fortress and tax collectors have an easier time collecting taxes when the threat of the armed might of the nation is near. * Production center of the nation and allows you to recruit troops types of your own culture in the province. * Fortress - Inside the safety of the walls the brave will defend the heart of the province. For an opponent to conquer the province, he must capture the fortress. To do this, he must besiege the fortress until the defenses are breached, and then storm it to kill all the defenders. In the meantime, the defenders may starve. You can only build your national troops in a province with a fortress. Laboratory lab and some can be found in special sites. Otherwise the lab must be built by a mage. The mage does not actually build the lab but supervises the construction. If a commander enters the lab he can perform magical activities there. All research, spell casting and forging requires an acting commander in the lab. A laboratory is required in order to recruit mages. Laboratories, being home to arcane experiments, are somewhat prone to destruction by fire. Temple The temples are the centers of your religious authority.In the temples masses and ceremonies are conducted. From the temples your dominion is spread and in the temples priests are trained. Priests and sacred troops can only be recruited in a province with a temple. Obtaining temples Each nation's capitol automatically starts with a temple. Temples can be built by priests using the Construct Building order. Temples cannot be captured - they are automatically destroyed when a province containing an enemy temple is conquered. Some random events can also destroy temples. Effects of temples Temples automatically spread dominion for most nations. They also increase the effectiveness of preaching. Blood sacrifice can only be performed in temples. Temples allow the recruitment of priests and sacred troops. 7.6 Terrain Terrain plays a major role in Dominions. The type of terrain in a province dictates the amount fo gold and resources that might be available there, it affects the (random) magic sites that may appear in the province as well as the likelihood and number of such sites, it affects the supplies that are available to passing armies, and it affects the performance of troops in battles that take place in the province. Contents
Terrain Types There can be many different terrain types in a given province. For instance, there can be both Mountains and Waste in a province, or even Farmlands and Waste. Some terrain types are mutually exclusive however, like Swamp and Sea. Plains The "Plains" terrain type is not actually listed in Dominions 3 like it was in the previous Dominions games. If a provinces has no other terrain type, it is assumed to be "Plains". There is a chance to find a magic site, especially a Astral site, in such a province. Farmland Farmland provinces are usually well populated and give you much gold and population (tax base, blood slaves). The chance of finding a magic site is very low in Farmland provinces. Swamp Units without the "Swamp Survival" ability get penaltys for moving through swamp provinces (strategic movement reduced to 1, except flying units). Units with swamp survival fight better in swamps than other units (see table below). The chance to find a magic site in a swamp province is better than in a farmland province. Waste Units without the "Waste Survival" ability get penaltys for moving through waste provinces (strategic movement reduced to 1, except flying units). The chance to find a magic site, especially a death site, is good. Forest Units without the "Forest Survival" ability get penaltys for moving through forest provinces (strategic movement reduced to 1, except flying units). The chance to find a magic site, especially a nature site, is good. Some nature spells like Faery Trod or Beckoning work only in forest provinces. Mountain Mountain provinces are usually resource rich, but low populated. Making a castle in such a province is a good idea to produce high-resource units like knights. Units without the "Mountain Survival" ability get penalties for moving through mountain provinces (strategic movement reduced to 1, except flying units). The chance to find a magic site, especially a earth or fire site, is good. Border Mountain This section is a stub. Help us expand it, and you get a cookie. Sea A Sea province is a underwater province. Sea provinces can only enterd by amphibious or aquatic units. A commander with the sailing ability can move over one sea province into another land province, but cannot enter the sea province. Sea provinces give usually much gold and have a good chance to contain magic sites. The special site-searching spell Voice of Tiamat finds all elemental sites (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) in a underwater province. Only some spells work underwater and only some nations build castles or raise province defense in underwater provinces. Deep Sea see Sea above. Coastal Any land province neighboring a underwater province is a costal province. Some rituals like Lure of the Deeps affect only costal provinces. Fresh Water This section is a stub. Help us expand it, and you get a cookie. Economic Effects This section is a stub. Help us expand it, and you get a cookie. Site Likelihood Magic sites are more likely to be found in some provinces and less likely to be found in others. In general, Mountain and Forest terrain will contain more magic sites while Farmland will contain fewer. Gem Types Beyond the overall chance of finding a site of any kind in a province, the type of terrain in a province affects the likelihood of certain magic sites over other sites. For instance, you are more likely to find a site that provides Nature gems in a forest province than a Waste province. Types of gem sites that are associated with a particular terrain type (P =Primary, s= Secondary) Terrain Air Fire Water Earth Astral Nature Death Blood Plains P Farmland Swamp
Waste P Forest P Mountain s P Border Mountain Sea P s Deep Sea P s Fresh Water P s
Terrain Combat Effects Terrain Effect Counter Plains Farmland Swamp * +2 encumbrance * -1 Attack Skill * -1 Defense Skill Swamp Survival Waste
Forest Mountain Mountain Survival Border Mountain Sea Aquatic, Amphibian Deep Sea Aquatic, Amphibian Fresh Water 7.7 Logistics and Movement 7.7.1 Logistics Their exists a high-level supply model. While the ruler need not act as a quartermaster maintaining depots and allocating resources between baggage trains, he does need to pay attention to keeping his armies well-supplied. Most troops need to eat; some units (mostly certain magical ones) don't need to eat, but do so anyway. Larger units require more supplies than smaller ones. Supply is not accumulated or explicitly moved; instead, for each province the game determines the available supply levels. These are based upon such things as the population of the province and the terrain; a well-populated rolling plains provides more foraging possibilties than a sparsely populated mountain pass. In addition, any fortress that belongs to the owner may be able to contribute supplies, if there is a short and uninterrupted path of friendly provinces to the army in question. On the other hand, besieged garrisons must rely on the stores within the fortress, which will surely dwindle over time if the siege is not lifted. The consequence of providing insufficient supply is starvation. Starvation is not particularly good for armies, and among other things, has a large negative imapct on their morale. In addition, prolonged starvation increases troop mortality through diseases. It is therefore quite unwise for most large armies to penetrate too deeply and risk being surrounded without being able to trace a supply route to a nearby fortress. It is said that there are mystics who may know ways to alleviate supply shortages. A more mundane if rather short-term approach is to pillage; this can result in seizing food and gold, but quite naturally worsens the attitude of the locals. 7.7.2 Movement Movement on the strategic scale is measured in provinces. Armies, to remain as cohesive forces, must move at the speed of the slowest unit. Most infantry can move but one province a month; an army containing only cavalry can usually move two provinces a month, while an army that has only fliers may find itself flying over two provinces to reach a third. A few units may have much faster speeds. Flight is also applicable in battle; in favorable weather conditions, flying units can land behind enemy ranks to slaughter the vulnerable. Fliers have two other advantages. One is that difficult terrain such as forests and mountains does not slow them down, even if they lack familiarity with such regions; another is that, unlike other overland movement, they can over friendly provinces or even other enemy ones even if an enemy province is a destination. Few units can cross the seas at arbitrary points. A few nations have prowess at sailing, and have commanders who can lead fleets (abstracted) with enough supply to cross a small sea to immediately land a quantity of troops on the other side. Other nations have amphibious troops who can walk into the sea... or out of it. Underwater movement is slow -- only one province per turn is permitted. 7.7.3 Stealth Stealthy commanders leading either only stealthy troops or none at all can attempt to move to an enemy-controlled province without triggering a fight. It should be noted that the province militia and any patrollers have a chance of detecting such forces, and this chance is per commander; thus, stealthy forces may be destroyed piecemeal when detected, as their compatriots will not join in. Movement Order Dominions is not a IGO-UGO game; it is a WEGO game. Movement orders are executed in a not entirely predictable order. 7.8 Expansion Strategies Radial Expansion Radial expansion means focusing on capturing the provinces surrounding your home fortress. Since your home fortress drains a proportion of your surrounding provinces resources this strategy can work well for resource-heavy nations that have strong troops. For example it won't be too hard for Ulm to build up a force strong and diverse enough to deal with most independent types and Ulm will benefit from the resources you can gain from the surrounding provinces. However this strategy has it's drawbacks. First of all, the provinces you start next to won't always be profitable ones. You can start next to three plains and two swamp provinces which provide only small amounts of resources. Sometimes the independents you start next to are too hard to defeat for one to pursue this strategy well. You can start next to two provinces filled with Knights and Longbowmen, one province with Blood Vines and one lightly defended one. Perhaps the most optimal starting position for this strategy is starting next to several Mountain and Forest provinces. After the initial phase of capturing the provinces around your starting fort you should start to do long term planning. Will you go after lucrative provinces, or will you plan on find a spot for your next castle? If you plan to set up your next castle soon you should scan the map for a suitable nearby province and then head to capture it. Start building the fortress if you have the money and then carve it's surroundings. Repeat as many times as you want to or then switch your strategy if situation calls for it. Tunneling Tunneling means going after the most lightly defended provinces. Since the more provinces you have the more income you draw the better it will be. This is perhaps the easiest expansion strategy to pursue since pretty much everyone can mass forces and pick a weak enough target. Nations with fast strategic movement will however have the easiest time to supply reinforcements if something goes wrong. The downside of this strategy is that this can result in empires that are hard to defend against enemies. If the "tunnel" is too long it is possible that an enemy attack can sever it, and it is harder to defend a narrow territory in general. The easiest provinces are usually the more poorer and insignificant ones so your income might be lagging behind more focused empires. Tunneling can however result in fast territory expansion. You must however keep an eye on your empire to make sure you will not make it undefendable and too narrow. You should try to build up task forces to take stronger provinces for you, especially the ones that surround your home fortress. Shotgunning Shotgunning means using flying or sneaking units to pick poorly defended provinces, attacking and then moving on. This will result in "shotgunned", decentralized empires. This can work for your or against you. Pangaea and Caelum are perhaps the best ones in this strategy. Pnagaea has many different types of sneaking troops and Caelum has flying troops and more importantly flying scouts and sneaking priests in the middle era. Scouting is important for this strategy as you need to pick out provinces you can overpower. One good side is that this can allow you to find a spot for your second castle very soon. This can also allow you to pick valuable provinces in some cases. Picking the three Mountain provinces somewhat near to you as Caelum can give you fine acces to fortification spots and possibly even magic resources. The downside is the high decentralization. You will quite likely not have as many provinces as other empires and your empire might have less build capacity than other. However this decentralization can also work for you. It will be very confusing to go after an empire whose 10 provinces aren't in one "blob" but scattered around. In the best case you can launch harassing attacks against the enemy rear echelon while the enemy has to fight it's way through independent provinces while you plot a suitable battleground where you will attack from the shadows or from distance with overpowering force while you cut their escape with a smaller task force. Bursting Dam A somewhat risky strategy to counter enemy "tunnelers". The idea is that you do not start tunneling toward your opponents castle but instead wait for him. Conquer the provinces around your home fortress and maybe some more provinces. Maybe build more fortresses. Build up big armies of good troops (like Jotunheim giant's). Do not conquer thoug indy provinces (Knights, Longbowmen), instead wait behind those provinces. If your enemy moves toward your fortress he must first those thoug indy provinces. Now he is most likly weakened and you can overrun his army and move in his "tunnel" of conquered provinces direct to his fortress. 7.9 Tactical Battles Dominions is primarily a strategic game, not a tactical game. Furthermore, it is designed with an eye towards supporting a variety of multiplayer methods, including play-by-email (PBEM); and a large number of players, of which only two will be in any one battle. Therefore, the players' control of tactical battles is limited to preparation; it is up to the tactical AI to determine what individual units will do, and when. As such, your direct control stops when the battle starts. A recording of the battle will be sent to anybody with a presence in the contested platform -- including stealthy sides not involved in the battle. In addition, battles that are initiated via remote summons are shown to the caster, regardless of whether the summons are associated with the caster or merely 'unflagged' monsters. There is no hidden information in a battle recording. That is, all viewers get perfect information regarding unit ownership, items, spells cast, and so forth. You do not, however, get to see the actual scripts or squad assignments -- just their effects. All battles are single-attacker versus single-defender, although either or both sides may summon monsters. Most summoned monsters are loyal to their summoner, although some will attempt to slaughter everyone on the battlefield. Battle summons are ephemeral, and will disappear after the battle. Army setup Army setup is quite important. For instance, it would normally make little sense to have your frail magicians in the front and your slow-moving heavy infantry in the rear. You want your vulnerable-but-important units to be fairly safe, while you want others ready to enter the fray. If you have units which are always surrounded by flames, cold, or poison, you might want to keep them separated from units which are not immune. And so forth. Troops may be organized into squads, each of which can be placed somewhere within the army organization, and then given some basic order such as 'Hold and Attack'. Each commander can command a maximum of 4 different squads of units. Scripting a small squad of units (2-5) to guard a mage keeps them within a square or two of the mage, providing a meat shield that can greatly increase survivability against breakaway enemies because enemies tend to attack whoever is closest instead of picking out spellcasters specifically. Also worth doing if a warrior commander is going to charge into melee--it prevents him from getting totally surrounded. Since mages cost 200+ gold apiece it's worth a little investment in a couple of light infantry to keep him alive. Think of it as a virtual hit point boost. Scripting mages & commanders As with squads, you can give your commanders a particular place to stand when planning the disposition of your army. Commanders can command up to five squads, subject to their maximum leadership values. In addition, each may have up to five specific orders (such as "Cast Nether Darts" or "Hold"), followed by a general order (such as "Cast Spells" or "Attack"). Killer combos If you want your magicians to use specific combinations, you should script them to ensure their use. 7.10 Special Tactics Assassins While assassins may be somewhat expensive and their success is not guaranteed, the abrupt elimination of enemy commanders can be highly disruptive to enemy forces. Because assassins strike before armies move, sending in a few assassins can kill all the leaders of an army, pinning it in place and denying it magical support. Even one or two assassins can sometimes result in only half of an army participating in an intended attack, leading to defeat in detail. Army annihilation spells Armies can be felled en masse. Sometimes this is done with battlefield magic that affect all foes present; there is also ritual magic that can target enemy armies in arbitrary provinces. Murdering Winter, Fires From Afar, Flames From the Sky, and to a lesser extent Leprosy are ritual spells that can disable whole armies. Make sure to follow up the spell with an attack by a conventional army, since the units not killed by the spell will be at reduced hit points--they'll be harder to finish off next turn after they've had a chance to heal. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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