cthulhu wrote:I think the learning curve is severely overrated. Getting to the top end understanding of complex races is really hard, but there are a couple of groups of races:
A) Bad ones
B) One trick ponies with a competent trick, like Abysia
C) really ass fuckingly complicated races like T'ien Chi
Playing Class B races like Abysia to a rudimentary level isn't very complicated (Mass fire mages, Mass infantry that is immune to fire, blast bad dues with firey shit while massed infantry mops up whatever is left).
Ashdod is even less complicated.
I would think that it's more of the game requiring you to have a long-term strategy from the get-go that makes the learning curve pretty steep.
You can't really just jump in, learn the game one concept at a time, then win. You need to know how to pick the right pretenders, to make the right army choices, and to have a proper end game strategy.
But once you figure out what a country is good at, the game is much easier to understand.
cthulhu wrote:I think the learning curve is severely overrated. Getting to the top end understanding of complex races is really hard, but there are a couple of groups of races:
A) Bad ones
B) One trick ponies with a competent trick, like Abysia
C) really ass fuckingly complicated races like T'ien Chi
Playing Class B races like Abysia to a rudimentary level isn't very complicated (Mass fire mages, Mass infantry that is immune to fire, blast bad dues with firey shit while massed infantry mops up whatever is left).
Ashdod is even less complicated.
I would think that it's more of the game requiring you to have a long-term strategy from the get-go that makes the learning curve pretty steep.
You can't really just jump in, learn the game one concept at a time, then win. You need to know how to pick the right pretenders, to make the right army choices, and to have a proper end game strategy.
But once you figure out what a country is good at, the game is much easier to understand.
My view is that Abysia's start, end, and mid game is pretty much the same strategy except with bigger spells.
Pretender design is an issue, but most of the strategy guides include a suggestion.
I know. I'm just saying most people may not realize it's actually Abysia's schtick unless they read the strategy guides. Some people for instance may end up researching Thaumaturgy because they think the Thaumaturgy spells are cool (i.e. Mass Enslave)... without ever realizing that Abysia will NOT be able to cast those spells unless they work at it really hard or start with a Pretender tailor-made for that spell.
In most games (say, Civilization), people are introduced to the game one concept at a time, and it rarely leads to "dead ends" wherein your mid-game is essentially doomed because you made some wrong tech choices in the early game.
That doesn't make Dominions III a bad game. But the initial learning curve is still rather steep. It just rapidly tapers off once you realize that your strat needs to have a beginning, middle, and end game plotted out from the get-go.
I'm honestly winging this a bit more than I am strictly comfortable with.
I do sort of have an endgame plan that involves dicking over whoever gets the chalice for their tarts, but not really very much of one.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
name_here wrote:So is there a hidden shortcut to save hunting for paths on dudes or do I just have to man up and do the naming thing?
Sort of? Pressing F1 will take you to Statistics > Nation Overview, where there's a list of all your provinces, and under each is a list of all the dudes in that province, and their paths are listed on the right as appropriately colored numbers.
From there you can click on a dude's name to go back to the world map with them selected, or on their orders to change their orders. It's a very convenient part of the interface.
Man, nation overview gets more and more useful all the time.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
Yeah to be fair you need to be given a strategy guide written by someone who is not an idiot at the first opportunity. But once you've GOT one it's all pretty easy.
Zinegata wrote:I know. I'm just saying most people may not realize it's actually Abysia's schtick unless they read the strategy guides. Some people for instance may end up researching Thaumaturgy because they think the Thaumaturgy spells are cool (i.e. Mass Enslave)... without ever realizing that Abysia will NOT be able to cast those spells unless they work at it really hard or start with a Pretender tailor-made for that spell.
In most games (say, Civilization), people are introduced to the game one concept at a time, and it rarely leads to "dead ends" wherein your mid-game is essentially doomed because you made some wrong tech choices in the early game.
That doesn't make Dominions III a bad game. But the initial learning curve is still rather steep. It just rapidly tapers off once you realize that your strat needs to have a beginning, middle, and end game plotted out from the get-go.
Akula wrote:You are going to have so much freespawn. Are you going to cast transformation with some of your pans in order to get their upkeep to go away?
Certainly not any time soon.
The advantage of transforming Pans is that they only make maenads in Turmoil regions, and my dominion is really shitty and I am surrounded by Order powers. Pans who want to go with armies can often profitably be transformed into upkeep-less wolves or pigs. But The reality is that Pans "only" cost 23.3 gold a turn as upkeep, so every turn they sit there making Maenads pays itself off. Maenads are garbage flavored garbage, but a turn's freespawn of them is certainly worth more than three infantrymen, and it costs les (especially as Maenads do not themselves cost upkeep).
No, the thing I want to get rid of is the damn Milita I got from an event. Fuck those guys.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
Also, I got 1000 event gold and proceeded to blow it on temples.
DSMatticus wrote:It's not just that everything you say is stupid, but that they are Gordian knots of stupid that leave me completely bewildered as to where to even begin. After hearing you speak Alexander the Great would stab you and triumphantly declare the puzzle solved.
I got 1000 event gold and proceeded to blow it on temples.