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8.7.1 General advice
They're at their strongest when in large enough numbers compared to enemy. For example a group of 20 elephants will easily dispatch 100 infantry. So how to counter them? Answer:
-> Size 4 (and above) units on your side. -> Troglodytes don't have good protection, so you could try archers. Just recruit lots of indy archers and have them shoot at the Troglodytes. They have lots of hp, but they'll go down quite fast. Blade Wind would also work. -> Troglodytes' magic resistance is respectable 12, but you could still try False Fetters. Earth Meld can also be used to ground them for one turn, but unfortunately Troglodytes are strong enough to break out from that in one turn. -> Elephants MR is very low so MR check spells will kill them easily. mind burn, soul slay, charm, enslave mins and hellbind heart comes to mind. 8.7.2 Elephant counters Masses of elephants are a big threat even early on, so how to deal with them effectively? Let us begin by looking on the elephant's weak points. Weaknesses of the elephant: Low morale: 9 Abysmal magic resistance: 6 Low defense: 8 Moderate protection: 11
Sleep N2 - low level (2), low fatigue (20), long range (30), good precision (+5). Pros Stops the elephants in their tracks instantly by giving them 110+ stun damage when they fail their MR check. The sleeping elephants will also block their brethren to great effect. Cons Not very good against hordes of elephants unless you yourself got lots of spell casters. It may also miss sometimes based on spell casters precision (combine with eagle eyes). Panic N2 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), long range (25), some precision (+1), great area effect (5+). Pros If the elephants had low morale before they now have none. Spam this spell and you won't have any trouble scaring them off into their own units with the first javelin/bolt/arrow/stone volley. You can even cast this spell when the elephants are entangled with your own units in close combat as it won't hit them. A great spell against all low magic resistance units overall. Cons It won't scare the elephants by itself, just lower their morale. Thus you have to combine it with (preferably missile) units of your own. Seven years fever N1 F1 low level (1), moderate fatigue (30), good range (20), some precision (+2), some area effect (1). Pros The elephants won't heal after combat. Combine with arrow fire, retreat or fight to the death to delay. If playing Machaka this may be the way to go as they have no problem casting this and have cheap and fast archers. Cons Mostly for Machaka and mostly for delaying action. Curse N1 S1 - low level (1), moderate fatigue (30), extreme range (50), extreme precision (+100), affects one person. Pros Will make the elephants useless if combined with arrow fire and/or javelin chaff. Then send in the real troops. Great spell for C'tis witch doctors. You can also find witch doctors easily. Cons This is a combination spell. Pretty hard to use if you don't play C'tis. Frighten D1 - low level (1), almost no fatigue (5), extreme range (50), some precision (+5), small area effect (1). Pros Fear +15 attack in the square where it hits. That gives the elephants 18% chance of passing it. So it is pretty good. You can spam this spell to great effect. The more death mages the better spamming it together. For even better chance of success combine it with panic to first lower their morale. Cons Not very good at scaring off big hordes apparently. Will also hit your own troops so try not to use it when your troops are in melee with the beasts. No problem with mindless though Terror D3 - moderate level (4), very low fatigue (10), long range (25), some precision (+1), great area effect (5+). Pros Just as Frighten but with lower fear attack (+10) and much greater area of effect. Excellent spell overall. A hordes of elephants are no problem if you have a couple of sauromancers spamming this. Just drive them before you! Cons Can be hard to cast for most nations not into death. Will hit your own troops. No problem with mindless though. Paralyze S2 moderate level (4), low fatigue (20), extreme range (100), extreme precision (+100), affects only one person. Pros This spells needs no explaining. It will both: Hurt the elephant it may route. Stop the elephant it will block others. Cons No real cons. Astral are not for everyone. A bit high level for early on rushes. Soul Slay S3 high level (5), low fatigue (20), extreme range (100), extreme precision (+100), affects only one person. Pros This is THE spell to instantly kill the pesky buggers also known as elephants. If you can use it you should. Cons Astral 3 means it isn't for everyone until later in the game. Level 5 says the same. If you are being rushed you probably won't have it yet. Thankfully there are other low level spells that you can use in the meantime. Bonds of Fire F1 - low level (2), low fatigue (20), moderate range (15), some precision (+3), small effect (5).
This is contrary to belief a good way to stop elephants when playing for instance MA Ulm or Abysia. Why? Because to escape the shackles you need high morale, something elephants do not have. When they are standing still they are easy targets for your arbalests (playing Ulm) and other fire spells (playing Abysia). If they eventually break free they will take some AN damage that will help them rout. Cons You have to be dangerously close to the beasts, so use screening. Also, the enemy may try to boost the elephants morale with banners. It won't be enough all the time though as the elephants need to take the test against 20. Prison of Fire F3 - moderate level (4), moderate fatigue (30), long range (25), some precision (+2), good area effect (3+). Pros Just as Bonds of Fire but with better range and greater area effect. Cons Harder to cast. I see this spell mostly as an Abysian counter to elephant horde. This spell will give them plenty of time to massacre the elephants will fireballs and the like. Rage F2 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), long range (25), extreme precision (+100), only hits one person. Pros Makes the elephant kill his mates and hopefully the juicy commander(s) with banners. Great in combination with Prison of Fire and Bonds of Fire. Cons This will usually hit the spot, although it is hard to cast for most nations. Confusion A3 - high level (5), very low fatigue (10), long range (25), some precision (+1), small area effect (1). Pros Similar to rage but with an area effect and more random result. A possible counter for air heavy nations. Cons Way too high level to stop an early rush. 8.7.2.2 Enchantment Flaming Arrows F4 - medium level (4), very high fatigue (100), gem cost 1, BF effect. Pros Flaming arrows will pierce the little (11) protection the elephants have and then hurt them bad. Cons None really. Hard to cast and not really low level. Nothing else in enchantment except rituals that I won't touch with this guide. You could perhaps use the various undead battlefield summoning spells to wear the elephants down. 8.7.2.3 Alteration False Fetters A2 - low level (1), very low fatigue (10), very short range (10), no precision (+0), moderate area effect (2+).
I can't see how the elephants would get free of this in a hurry. To get loose an elephant would need to roll a DRN (2d6 unlimited) of 15 (15 + 6 MR to exceed 20 that is needed to get free). This happening isn't very likely. Another good thing is the area effect of this spell, and its cheapness and low level. It is highly recommended that you use it if you can. Combine with hard hitting infantry.
Obviously the very short range. You have to get awfully close to the beast before casting but as the spell is so effective against them it isn't that dangerous. Body Ethereal S1 low level (3), moderate fatigue (30), very short range (1), area of effect 1. Pros Will make it much harder to hit the enchanted unit, and this will save them from being trampled most of the time (75%). Use this on the soldiers your are sending into the fray, but be sure to back them up with other spells to even the odds even more. Not very expensive on the fatigue in reality as you can usually buff your mages a level cutting it in half.
None really, this is a real lifesaver. 8.7.2.4 Evocation Flame Bolt F2 - low level (1), low fatigue (20), long range (40+), some precision (+2), only hits one person.
The earliest and probably the best (until pillar of fire) raw fire damage spell to kill elephants. Good precision (for a fire spell), really good damage (22+ ap) and low fatigue. And as elephants take are size 6 they take up one whole square so area damage of 1 is not needed. Other contenders: Flare: does area damage of 1 but cost 50 fatigue and has no precision boost, it is also higher level. Fireball: Higher level and less damage and precision, also area damage of 1.
You need something else to stop the beasts first, before you can really start pound them. So why not Prison of Fire? Slime W1 low level (1), low fatigue (20), long range (25+), some precision (+2), area effect 1. Pros Surprisingly good against elephants as they almost always get slimed due to their abysmal MR (6) and then start to move real slow. Trample becomes less effective and their defense is halved down to 4. Now you can actually kill the beasts in close combat. All this for a very low level spell. Cons Not very good when the elephants come in very large numbers. But then you have better spells and this can work as a complement before going into close combat. Combine Slime with cold bolt/blast and falling frost for very good results. Cold Bolt W2 - low level (1), low fatigue (20), very long range (45), some precision (+3), only hits one person, high damage (19+). Pros Very good at both stopping and damaging the large and easy to hit creatures. Actually much better than its fire equivalent above, Flame Bolt, except the lack AP. Combine with same Slime found at the same level and commence pummeling the sitting ducks. Cons As with Slime you have need better spells when the elephants come in very large numbers. That or a large group of spell casters. Falling Frost W3 high level (5), low fatigue (20), long range (25), low precision (+0), great area effect (5+), high damage (17+). Pros Same as cold bolt but area effect. Use this, slime, and archers when the ellies come in horde numbers. Cons None really. High level, difficult to cast for many nations. Magma Bolts E1 F1 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), long range (25+), some precision (+2), only hits one person, 3 effects, very high damage (25+). Pros This is a very nice spell against elephants. Just stop them with the also accessible Fire Bonds/Prison of Fire first. This is the counter I use when playing MA Ulm and meet elephants early on. The smiths can cast both with very little research. Later you use the big brother Magma Eruption of course. Cons Hard to cast for many nations. Nether Bolts S1 D1 - medium level (4), low fatigue (15), very long range (30+), some precision (+2), area effect 1, damage 20+ AP. Pros Pretty good against elephants in combination with frighten and terror. Cons Hard to cast for most nations. Stellar Cascades S2 high level (5), low fatigue (20), long range (30), extreme precision (+100), great area effect (5+), 25 stun damage. Pros This spell is ridiculously good against elephants as it is easily spammable by low level mages (guru for instance), it has crazy precision and great area effect. You only need 4 hits to stop a large number of elephants completely. Then you can rip them apart with in close combat (extremely easy to hit) or missiles (100+ fatigue means lots and lots of critical hits). Cons High level. Lightning Bolt A2 low level (2), very low fatigue (10), very long range (35+), good precision (+4), only hits one person, moderate damage (14+). Pros Easy to spam and quickly kill a small number of elephants. Cons Low damage. Thunder Strike A3 medium level (4), high fatigue (50), extreme range (100), some precision (+2), area effect 1, damage 26+ AN. Pros Can both kill and stun elephants quite quickly Cons It really costs too much fatigue. Too high level of air is needed to make it useful to many. Shadow Bolt D2 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), very long range (30+), some precision (+3), only hits one person, very good damage (20+ AN). Pros This is a good spell for both stopping (paralyze) and bombarding incoming elephants. Use it in combination with lots and lots of immune undead creatures. Cons None really. It is a pretty solid and easy to get spell. Hard to stop hordes of elephants with it though. But then you have: Shadow Blast D2 - high level (5), high fatigue (100), very long range (30+), no precision (+0), extremely good area of effect (7+), very good damage (20+ AN). Pros This is an extremely good spell against all low MR, big sized, high HP monsters. Use it extensively. Cons Costs much fatigue so you will either need higher than 2 death or gems to cast it twice with the same mage. Some of you might think that I should mention Vine Arrow. But it is not very effective against elephants as they have the strength to break through easily. Bonds of Fire is a much better ¿stop¿ spell on elephants as they have to make the test against morale and not strength. Same with Tangle Vines. 8.8 Growth and Death by the Numbers K, you know that the Growth Scale changes income by 2% for every tick, but what about that .2% population chance? Well, advanced spread sheet technology, I ran some equations and came up with concrete numbers. Methodology: I basically ran two seperate serieses of equations. The first was simply to track the population chanced caused by the Growth/Death Scale. The equation was simple, (growth multiplier)^(# of Turns). Therefore, Growth 2 after 10 turns would be 1.004^10 which is approximately 1.04, or you'll have 4% more people then what you started with. And since there is a direct correlation between population and gold income, you nab an extra 4% of gold as well. The second check was a bit more complicated. For a given # of turns, I took the average population change over all turns so far, and then multiplied that averaged by the scale's money multiplier. On the spreadsheet, this looked like Average(B4:B10)*1.02. B4 through B10 represent spread sheet cells with the population adjustments for turns 1 through 6. The 1.02 multiplier represents the 2% extra money you'll recieve for Growth 1. Caveats: 1) Unless you spread your domain then your growth/death effects won't matter. So, though my chart says Growth 3 will give you a whopping extra 46% gold after 102 turns, more likely you'll recieve less then that as most of your territories won't have converted at the game's beginning. 2) Dominions 3 has plenty of ways to kill population, and none of these are taken into account with my chart. For example, if you have a destructive domain (LE R'lyeh and Ermor), then these charts really don't apply to you. 3) Dominions 3 rounds population to the 10's. In practice this means your capital will recive/loose 60 population per every tick of Growth/Death for the first several turns. My charts don't take this staggered growht into account. 4) My numbers represent additional gold over the several turns. Not how much additional gold you recieve per turn at the end of X number of turns. Expect gold income to below my given percentage for most of the turns, and significantly higher by the later turns. 5) I recently read a developer post claiming Neutral (growth and death at zero) provinces do experience small population growth. If that's the case, I never personally observed a neutral province gain population. With out further ado: Turns D 3 D 2 D 1 Neutral G 1 G 2 G 3 6.. 92% 95% 97% 100% 103% 105% 108% 12. 91% 94% 97% 100% 103% 107% 110% 18. 89% 93% 96% 100% 104% 108% 112% 24. 88% 92% 96% 100% 104% 109% 114% 30. 86% 90% 95% 100% 105% 110% 116% 36. 85% 89% 95% 100% 106% 112% 118% 42. 83% 88% 94% 100% 106% 113% 121% 48. 82% 87% 93% 100% 107% 115% 123% 54. 80% 86% 93% 100% 108% 116% 125% 60. 79% 85% 92% 100% 108% 118% 128% 66. 78% 84% 92% 100% 109% 119% 130% 72. 76% 83% 91% 100% 110% 120% 133% 78. 75% 82% 91% 100% 110% 122% 135% 84. 74% 82% 90% 100% 111% 124% 138% 90. 73% 81% 90% 100% 112% 125% 140% 96. 71% 80% 89% 100% 112% 127% 143% 102 70% 79% 89% 100% 113% 128% 146% If anyone has any comments or concerns (It's quite possible I made mistakes), feel free to let me know. I'm working on the charts in Open Office right now, but am not quite ready to release them. When I am, I'll post them as an attachment. 8.9 Guide to communions 8.9.1 Original post Article Author: Baalz The basics. Communions (and their interchangeable, less well known blood brother Sabbaths) are a way for mages to work together to become greater than the sum of their parts. The slaves both boost the magic power of the masters and soak up the fatigue of the spells cast resulting in masters who can cast big spells much longer than otherwise possible. Because of the fact that they keep soaking up fatigue after exhaustion - all the way up to 200 fatigue at which point they start taking damage and quickly die, it is often the case that a mismanaged communion causes catastrophic loss of mages even when you win. Many the player has sworn off communions after watching a dozen mages perish as Armageddon is opened up on the terrified and fleeing PD. In Dominions, bad luck can always render any carefully laid plans asunder, but understanding how to use communions will result in them being much more useful and much less dangerous (to you, hopefully they¿re quite dangerous to your opponent). First it¿s important to understand the basic mechanics of the communion. Slaves boost the power of both slaves and masters inside the communion by 1 per power of 2. This means +1 at 2 slaves, +2 at 4, +3 at 8, etc. The masters are boosted in all paths which they already have, while the slaves are boosted in all paths whether they have them or not. The slave power is important for calculating the fatigue they receive for spells cast by the master. The specific mechanics of how fatigue is parsed out is not entirely clear, but roughly slaves will receive fatigue as if they cast the spell themselves (which is why the power level is important), divided by how many slaves there are. Encumbrance is not added to this calculation and significant extra fatigue is accrued if the slaves could not cast the spell themselves after the communion boost another reason the slave power is important. The communion bonus does not show up on the character sheet, but it is effected by buffs. This means that so long as there are at least two slaves, all slaves will benefit from such spells as phoenix power for the purpose of soaking up fatigue. All commanders resolve their orders in the same order that they¿re listed in the strategic screen from top to bottom. This is particularly important to note for communions as any slaves acting in a turn sequentially before any masters act will be able to cast spells (and indeed will do so by default). This can be a really good or really bad thing (see below), so make sure you anticipate it. Note, there is no known way to alter the order the commanders act in, just to anticipate it and change which ones will be slaves and masters (and which ones you bring to battle). Note, all spells are resolved before movement or archery, so the order the commanders is only relevant for resolving spells - slaves will not be able to take any action other than spells regardless of what order they come in if any master casts a spell. Putting together a successful communion is a lot like baking. You've got several different basic components which need to be properly balanced, and a few optional extras which can be used to add an interesting twist if you want. Just like baking, you can't stray too far away from the correct ratios or the bread won't rise resulting in best case reduced effectiveness of the communion, worst case a bunch of dead slaves. The basic components of course, are the masters and slaves, and choosing the correct ones to use is not as easy as it first seems. First, you've got to decide what type of thing you're baking, is it bread, or cookies, or a cake? There are several different types of communions, here are a couple recipes. Once you become familiar with them you will be able to tweak them without unbalancing the important factors and come up with your own recipes. Classic communion This communion is intended to rain down mid-line evocation spells in a never ending barrage. Masters should have an elemental path and you'll want to script something like falling fires, falling frost, magma eruption, thunderstrike, acid rain, blade wind or gifts from heaven. Slaves will either need one level in the same path or one of the masters will need to cast power of the spheres (or phoenix power, etc if all your masters are the same path). The really important thing to keep in mind with this communion is critical mass. You need to have *at least* 8 slaves, 10 is much safer to have a buffer against those stray arrows. Outside of that, as you add masters make sure you have more slaves than masters. 14 slaves, 12 masters is fine*, but if you're short on mages you'll want 10 slaves and 5 masters. The * is because you'll need to add a few extra slaves if you're spamming particularly fatiguing spells like Thunderstrike. Your masters will have +3 to all paths, which really helps those spells which scale with mage power. Your slaves will be at least level 4 after the boost, which means they should be taking only 1-3 fatigue or so per spell that is cast as the spells you're casting all have requirements of 3 or under and fatigue in the 30-50 range this is important in order to keep your slaves from accumulating fatal fatigue. No worries as these are the spells the AI will choose once your scripting expires, and you should be able to go 15 or so turns before slaves start dying, making this quite a rare occurrence (not much stands up to 10 turns of such a barrage, you¿ll generally have won or lost by then). Reverse communion 2 or 3 masters then as many cheap slaves as you can muster. Your masters will cast power of the spheres then whatever other booster is appropriate (phoenix power, etc). For air spells you can use the third master to cast storm so that air power is an option. Now, all your slaves have been boosted 2 levels, so they can cast fun things like falling fire, thunderstrike, etc. Even lowly S1 mages are now capable of Soul Slaying. The fun thing about this one is it¿s a great way to use all those cheap researchers you¿ve got with no other preparation. Leading a fight with three rounds of 10X Falling Fires makes quite a difference considering how cheap the mages are. Note, this communion takes advantage of one of the quirks of the communion, the fact that slaves can cast spells so long as they act sequentially before all masters in the turn sequence. Commanders resolve their orders in the same order that they¿re listed in the strategic screen. If for whatever reason you¿re not comfortable trying to get this order right you can have the masters retreat after casting the buffs the buffs remain in effect. Note, the communion bonus does not affect slaves casting by themselves, only the buffs the masters cast help. Apparently the slaves are acting by themselves outside the communion. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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