Dom 3: Orania - Curunir's Quest

Warhammer · 10-13-2006, 02:15 PM

I decided to fire up a dynasty for Dominions 3. This is going to be a turn by turn account of my attempt to take over Orania.

Warhammer · 10-13-2006, 02:29 PM

Pics and stuff will be up shortly, I screwed up my screenshot settings and need to start over...

Warhammer · 10-13-2006, 04:00 PM

Before making my pretender, there are some things to consider. First, who are the Vanir, this overview gives a rough idea of them.

This preview gives us some important information about Vanheim. First, we have the ability to sail with our armies. This gives us the ability to attack across water without the use of special items. Second, Vanheim prefers cold scale +1, which means we will get some bonuses fighting in cold terrain, but penalties fighting in normal heat or hot terrain, or even colder terrain. The big thing for us is that our pretender can be more powerful because we will gain points for this.

This also gives us an idea of what sort of magic our nation is going to be adept at. Most of our mages will have air or earth magic with some blood thrown in. The other important tidbit is that we can use blood sacrifices to extend our dominion. NOTE: Dominion refers to areas which believe in our god, not the land that we control, these are two separate things.

Average priest strength means that we are going to have fair holy mages. These are the mages that can bless troops, banish demons and undead, etc.

Finally, military Vanir means that we are not going to have normal "mannish" type troops. We will have the Vanir from the Scandinavian mythos as the majority of our leaders. We do have some man troops, but these are not the best of our forces.

Before, I start creating my pretender, here is our single type of blessed regular troops, the Vanhere.

Note the high attack and defense values for these troops. These are very solid troops, but I plan to make them even better. Since they are holy troops, if they are blessed, they will receive some bonuses based upon the magic paths I select for my pretender. Additionally, they have glamour, stealth, and berserk ability. Glamour means that the the units get +25 stealth, plus, they cannot be seen at all when in a friendly province, so enemies will have problems in locating my forces to see where I am strong. Additionally, it gives the mirror image ability in combat, which means that the enemy must first hit me, and if he does, he has a chance of hitting my mirror images. Once he hits me, I lose that ability. However, if I am wounded, my forces become berserk. My berserk ability is +5, which means that I get a +5 to those attributes, attack and strength if I remember correctly.

So let's think about this, I have a pretty good attack, my defense is pretty good, but I have glamour which means I am tough to hit, but even if I get hit, I get better attack values. Which attributes could these forces use? The forces encumbrance is low, so unless we get into a long drawn out battle, that should not effect how we fight, so reinvigoration is out. A magic resistance of 14 is pretty good, so I don't really need that need to take anything to increase that. Adding to my strength will not benefit me that much, since their strength is solid, and once I go berserk that is going up anyway. Chance of affliction does not mean much if I intend to kill some one, so I'll pass on this (afflictions are cutting off an arm, a disease, losing an eye, etc.). Regeneration and additional berserk skill are ok, but you are planning on getting hit. Now additional attack, with flaming weapons sounds pretty good, as does additional defense skill with quickness. Quickness allows you to make two attacks per turn, plus you gain +3 attack and defense. This means that once blessed these forces will have a 20 attack and a 19 defense!

With this analysis complete, I opt to use a bless strategy rather than make a Super Combatant. This decision is important because this will dictate several traits of my pretender. First, to gain the desired bless effects, I must take Fire 9 and Water 9 magic paths. Second, since blessings can be used at any time, I do not need an awake pretender (one that I start the game with). I can take an imprisoned pretender and gain some points during his creation. I now have a general idea of what my pretender will look like.

First, I must choose a form for my pretender. I have three choices, first the Arch Mage.

Second, the Great Enchantress.

Finally, the Frost Father.

There are a few things to look at here. First each of these forms start with low dominion. Second, they all have good access to additional magic paths, this means if they start with only one type of magic path, I can add others cheaply. Next, they all have pretty good precision. I hope I don't need to use my pretender to fight, but if I do, with the high paths in water and fire magic, I will be able to be accurate with my spells. Research is pretty important, but not an overriding factor for him because I will get additional RPs since he will be an imprisoned pretender. Ultimately, I take the Frost Father because his water magic ability will make that cheaper at high levels, so he will be cheaper than the Great Enchantress, plus his precision is higher than the Arch Mage. Also, the Arch Mage is mounted, and there will be some magic boosters which I will not be able to use while mounted, so I choose to go with the Frost Father. His Chill and Cold Resistance also fit in with the Vanheim theme, as well as protecting him. The Chill will cause damage to adjacent units that try to attack him.

Next, I choose my awakening.

I opt for imprisoned because of the 250 points it will give me in creating my pretender. The downside is we will not see him for 28-42 turns in the game, roughly 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 years.

Next we look at our magic paths.

I take Fire 9 and Water 9 as discussed earlier. I also take a rainbow approach and take a little bit of everything. This will allow him to cover all the bases when searching for magic sites. It will also allow him to get some boosters in these paths, which he would not be able to make full use of if he does not have any natural ability in them.

Finally, let's look at our dominion.

I opt to take Order 2, Sloth 2, Cold 1, Growth 0, Misfortune 3, and Drain 3. This means that we will get +10% income, +5% random events, we will get 39% fewer good events, and -2 RP for each researching mage. But, we do have a fairly high dominion which means we can recruit quite a bit of holy troops per turn, as well as expand our dominion with a fair amount of ease. You also do not want to take low dominion because if you lose all dominion, you lose because no one believes in you as a god.

EDIT: Now Curunir is complete!

Next installment will be our army and the lay of the land...

Warhammer · 10-13-2006, 04:28 PM

In my previous post, we saw one of Vanheim's holy units, the Vanhere. They are going to make up the bulk of my land forces eventually, but what of the other types of units. First, we'll look at our commanders.

The Van Scout is a basic scout unit that won't be used for much else. I could use him to incite revolts or assassinate a commander, but that won't be until later in the game.

The Vanherse is my basic priest unit. It is a very good combat unit as well. However, the magic ability of these guys are low. These guys will be used enmass for their bless abilities and banishing abilities against undead and demons. After casting a few spells, they will ride into combat.

Vanjarls are basically an upgraded version of the Vanherse. A little more air magic, some blood magic, and better holy magic. If possible, I will use them more than Vanherses, but that will depend on my income.

Vanadrotts rock. They are my best mage as well as commander. They get 3 air magic, 1 blood, 2 holy, and then one random air, earth, death or blood magic, plus an additional path at 10% chance! These guys are going to be my army commanders. If I can afford multiple in an army I will do that, but these guys are expensive.

My military forces are a all pretty good.

These guys are not that great and will only be used in an emergency.

These guys will be used in a pinch as my front line forces. However, I prefer the second version a little more than the first. They have good attack and great defense, but cannot be blessed.

These guys will be used for additional supplies in areas and to open the way for the cavalry.

These guys are the cavalry of Vanheim. They are good forces and can really get in behind enemy lines and cause havoc. Hopefully, I will have more of these guys than any other troops, bar Vanheres.

Hirdmen will be the second largest infantry contingent in our armies. Hopefully, I won't have too many of them, but these guys are better than the unblessed Vanheres.

The last commander, which I forgot to include earlier, is the dwarven smith. These guys are skilled at earth magic and get an additional death, air, fire, or earth path. They are also the best of my researchers, bar the Vanadrotts who will be used for other purposes.

fantastic flying froggies · 10-13-2006, 04:30 PM

looks pretty much like Dom 2 so far...

if you get the chance, can you expand a bit on the differences between the versions?

Warhammer · 10-13-2006, 05:13 PM

Sure, but I answered a bit of that in the thread in the general forums. I'll also try and get some additional info so I can expand on that.

fantastic flying froggies · 10-13-2006, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Sure, but I answered a bit of that in the thread in the general forums. I'll also try and get some additional info so I can expand on that.

yeah, I saw your post in GD after I'd read the dynasty, so never mind

...

Glad to see Dom back though, like you, I only played the Dom 2 demo and enjoyed it but just never got around to buying the real deal.
Maybe this time around...

Looking forward to reading more...

Warhammer · 10-14-2006, 09:15 AM

Here is the overview of the world, I am playing with 14 other pretenders.

The last I remember the Pantokrator had decided I was a threat, and then I knew no more. Unlike those other cowards I had decided in my folly to come in open war against the Pantokrator and I was punished for those actions. It appears that I am imprisoned in some sort of void. But something must have happened because it has been ages since my last battle.

I attempt to make contact with my priests in Vanheim. Surprisingly, they are still there, but only a fraction of their former strength and glory to which I led them.

[Aside, this is one of the biggest differences from Dom 2, the strategic map is much nicer to look at. Additionally, the GUI is much easier to handle. As you can see, my magic gems are at the top of the screen, if you want to know what your gem income is, just hover the mouse over the gem, for example.]

I instruct my scout to explore the surrounding area starting with Pergami. My army will also start their assaults there. With our high gold cost troops, I need all the income I can get, and farmlands are high gold income provinces. From there, I can move to The Land of Our Lord which is just off this map to the southeast, which is a farmland, forest, and mountain region.

For our purchases, I order the finding of a Vanadrott to join our forces. We need a high quality army commander to lead our forces.

Turn 2

I ordered Erik to blood hunt the previous turn since we need adequate people for our blood magic. Only virgins will suffice. [This is a mistake since he has no blood magic, silly me.] We have located Sigvidar, a Vanadrott who will join our forces.

He comes with 3A 1D 1B magic. [The death magic will eventually come in handy to lead undead troops as everyone with any levels in death magic get a +20 to their leadership skill for undead troops.] Sigvidar will make an admirable leader for our troops. However, I will wait a while before I name a prophet. I want to have the most powerful prophet I possibly can before naming one.

My orders are for Dag to keep scouting and for Sigvidar aided by Erik to take our starting forces to attack Pergami.

We will recruit a dwarven smith for research and our first Vanhere. Our army growth will be slow at first, but with my power to grant our Vanheres additional attack and defense, they will be almost impossible to defeat on the battlefield!

Warhammer · 10-14-2006, 09:19 AM

A note on this, I am going to be bouncing in and out of character for this due trying to explain somethings about the game. I will try to remember to put those comments in brackets [].

10-13-2006, 04:00 PM	#3
Warhammer Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dayton, OH	Vanheim and the Making of a Pretender Before making my pretender, there are some things to consider. First, who are the Vanir, this overview gives a rough idea of them. This preview gives us some important information about Vanheim. First, we have the ability to sail with our armies. This gives us the ability to attack across water without the use of special items. Second, Vanheim prefers cold scale +1, which means we will get some bonuses fighting in cold terrain, but penalties fighting in normal heat or hot terrain, or even colder terrain. The big thing for us is that our pretender can be more powerful because we will gain points for this. This also gives us an idea of what sort of magic our nation is going to be adept at. Most of our mages will have air or earth magic with some blood thrown in. The other important tidbit is that we can use blood sacrifices to extend our dominion. NOTE: Dominion refers to areas which believe in our god, not the land that we control, these are two separate things. Average priest strength means that we are going to have fair holy mages. These are the mages that can bless troops, banish demons and undead, etc. Finally, military Vanir means that we are not going to have normal "mannish" type troops. We will have the Vanir from the Scandinavian mythos as the majority of our leaders. We do have some man troops, but these are not the best of our forces. Before, I start creating my pretender, here is our single type of blessed regular troops, the Vanhere. Note the high attack and defense values for these troops. These are very solid troops, but I plan to make them even better. Since they are holy troops, if they are blessed, they will receive some bonuses based upon the magic paths I select for my pretender. Additionally, they have glamour, stealth, and berserk ability. Glamour means that the the units get +25 stealth, plus, they cannot be seen at all when in a friendly province, so enemies will have problems in locating my forces to see where I am strong. Additionally, it gives the mirror image ability in combat, which means that the enemy must first hit me, and if he does, he has a chance of hitting my mirror images. Once he hits me, I lose that ability. However, if I am wounded, my forces become berserk. My berserk ability is +5, which means that I get a +5 to those attributes, attack and strength if I remember correctly. So let's think about this, I have a pretty good attack, my defense is pretty good, but I have glamour which means I am tough to hit, but even if I get hit, I get better attack values. Which attributes could these forces use? The forces encumbrance is low, so unless we get into a long drawn out battle, that should not effect how we fight, so reinvigoration is out. A magic resistance of 14 is pretty good, so I don't really need that need to take anything to increase that. Adding to my strength will not benefit me that much, since their strength is solid, and once I go berserk that is going up anyway. Chance of affliction does not mean much if I intend to kill some one, so I'll pass on this (afflictions are cutting off an arm, a disease, losing an eye, etc.). Regeneration and additional berserk skill are ok, but you are planning on getting hit. Now additional attack, with flaming weapons sounds pretty good, as does additional defense skill with quickness. Quickness allows you to make two attacks per turn, plus you gain +3 attack and defense. This means that once blessed these forces will have a 20 attack and a 19 defense! With this analysis complete, I opt to use a bless strategy rather than make a Super Combatant. This decision is important because this will dictate several traits of my pretender. First, to gain the desired bless effects, I must take Fire 9 and Water 9 magic paths. Second, since blessings can be used at any time, I do not need an awake pretender (one that I start the game with). I can take an imprisoned pretender and gain some points during his creation. I now have a general idea of what my pretender will look like. First, I must choose a form for my pretender. I have three choices, first the Arch Mage. Second, the Great Enchantress. Finally, the Frost Father. There are a few things to look at here. First each of these forms start with low dominion. Second, they all have good access to additional magic paths, this means if they start with only one type of magic path, I can add others cheaply. Next, they all have pretty good precision. I hope I don't need to use my pretender to fight, but if I do, with the high paths in water and fire magic, I will be able to be accurate with my spells. Research is pretty important, but not an overriding factor for him because I will get additional RPs since he will be an imprisoned pretender. Ultimately, I take the Frost Father because his water magic ability will make that cheaper at high levels, so he will be cheaper than the Great Enchantress, plus his precision is higher than the Arch Mage. Also, the Arch Mage is mounted, and there will be some magic boosters which I will not be able to use while mounted, so I choose to go with the Frost Father. His Chill and Cold Resistance also fit in with the Vanheim theme, as well as protecting him. The Chill will cause damage to adjacent units that try to attack him. Next, I choose my awakening. I opt for imprisoned because of the 250 points it will give me in creating my pretender. The downside is we will not see him for 28-42 turns in the game, roughly 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 years. Next we look at our magic paths. I take Fire 9 and Water 9 as discussed earlier. I also take a rainbow approach and take a little bit of everything. This will allow him to cover all the bases when searching for magic sites. It will also allow him to get some boosters in these paths, which he would not be able to make full use of if he does not have any natural ability in them. Finally, let's look at our dominion. I opt to take Order 2, Sloth 2, Cold 1, Growth 0, Misfortune 3, and Drain 3. This means that we will get +10% income, +5% random events, we will get 39% fewer good events, and -2 RP for each researching mage. But, we do have a fairly high dominion which means we can recruit quite a bit of holy troops per turn, as well as expand our dominion with a fair amount of ease. You also do not want to take low dominion because if you lose all dominion, you lose because no one believes in you as a god. EDIT: Now Curunir is complete! Next installment will be our army and the lay of the land... Last edited by Warhammer : 10-13-2006 at 04:14 PM.

10-13-2006, 04:28 PM	#4
Warhammer Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dayton, OH	Combat Forces In my previous post, we saw one of Vanheim's holy units, the Vanhere. They are going to make up the bulk of my land forces eventually, but what of the other types of units. First, we'll look at our commanders. The Van Scout is a basic scout unit that won't be used for much else. I could use him to incite revolts or assassinate a commander, but that won't be until later in the game. The Vanherse is my basic priest unit. It is a very good combat unit as well. However, the magic ability of these guys are low. These guys will be used enmass for their bless abilities and banishing abilities against undead and demons. After casting a few spells, they will ride into combat. Vanjarls are basically an upgraded version of the Vanherse. A little more air magic, some blood magic, and better holy magic. If possible, I will use them more than Vanherses, but that will depend on my income. Vanadrotts rock. They are my best mage as well as commander. They get 3 air magic, 1 blood, 2 holy, and then one random air, earth, death or blood magic, plus an additional path at 10% chance! These guys are going to be my army commanders. If I can afford multiple in an army I will do that, but these guys are expensive. My military forces are a all pretty good. These guys are not that great and will only be used in an emergency. These guys will be used in a pinch as my front line forces. However, I prefer the second version a little more than the first. They have good attack and great defense, but cannot be blessed. These guys will be used for additional supplies in areas and to open the way for the cavalry. These guys are the cavalry of Vanheim. They are good forces and can really get in behind enemy lines and cause havoc. Hopefully, I will have more of these guys than any other troops, bar Vanheres. Hirdmen will be the second largest infantry contingent in our armies. Hopefully, I won't have too many of them, but these guys are better than the unblessed Vanheres. The last commander, which I forgot to include earlier, is the dwarven smith. These guys are skilled at earth magic and get an additional death, air, fire, or earth path. They are also the best of my researchers, bar the Vanadrotts who will be used for other purposes. Last edited by Warhammer : 10-13-2006 at 05:20 PM. Reason: Added additional troops

10-13-2006, 04:30 PM	#5
fantastic flying froggies Pro Rookie Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Sunny South of France	looks pretty much like Dom 2 so far... if you get the chance, can you expand a bit on the differences between the versions? __________________ Detroit Vampires (CFL) : Ve 're coming for your blood! Camargue Flamingos (WOOF): pretty in Pink

10-14-2006, 09:15 AM	#8
Warhammer Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dayton, OH	Turns 1 & 2 Here is the overview of the world, I am playing with 14 other pretenders. The last I remember the Pantokrator had decided I was a threat, and then I knew no more. Unlike those other cowards I had decided in my folly to come in open war against the Pantokrator and I was punished for those actions. It appears that I am imprisoned in some sort of void. But something must have happened because it has been ages since my last battle. I attempt to make contact with my priests in Vanheim. Surprisingly, they are still there, but only a fraction of their former strength and glory to which I led them. [Aside, this is one of the biggest differences from Dom 2, the strategic map is much nicer to look at. Additionally, the GUI is much easier to handle. As you can see, my magic gems are at the top of the screen, if you want to know what your gem income is, just hover the mouse over the gem, for example.] I instruct my scout to explore the surrounding area starting with Pergami. My army will also start their assaults there. With our high gold cost troops, I need all the income I can get, and farmlands are high gold income provinces. From there, I can move to The Land of Our Lord which is just off this map to the southeast, which is a farmland, forest, and mountain region. For our purchases, I order the finding of a Vanadrott to join our forces. We need a high quality army commander to lead our forces. Turn 2 I ordered Erik to blood hunt the previous turn since we need adequate people for our blood magic. Only virgins will suffice. [This is a mistake since he has no blood magic, silly me.] We have located Sigvidar, a Vanadrott who will join our forces. He comes with 3A 1D 1B magic. [The death magic will eventually come in handy to lead undead troops as everyone with any levels in death magic get a +20 to their leadership skill for undead troops.] Sigvidar will make an admirable leader for our troops. However, I will wait a while before I name a prophet. I want to have the most powerful prophet I possibly can before naming one. My orders are for Dag to keep scouting and for Sigvidar aided by Erik to take our starting forces to attack Pergami. We will recruit a dwarven smith for research and our first Vanhere. Our army growth will be slow at first, but with my power to grant our Vanheres additional attack and defense, they will be almost impossible to defeat on the battlefield!

10-13-2006, 02:29 PM	#2
Warhammer Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dayton, OH	Pics and stuff will be up shortly, I screwed up my screenshot settings and need to start over...

10-13-2006, 05:13 PM	#6
Warhammer Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dayton, OH	Sure, but I answered a bit of that in the thread in the general forums. I'll also try and get some additional info so I can expand on that.

10-14-2006, 09:19 AM	#9
Warhammer Pro Starter Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Dayton, OH	A note on this, I am going to be bouncing in and out of character for this due trying to explain somethings about the game. I will try to remember to put those comments in brackets [].

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