[DOM3 AAR] Detail - a mini-vignette

[Beefeater]

DETAIL – A DOMINIONS III VIGNETTE



Terens squinted through the early morning mist. Nothing. To either side, his fellow legionaries stood in neat ranks, banners listless in the doldrum calm. The chill, still air was a bad omen, and Terens spat to ward off Cold Harald’s cursed breath; Decurion Galba chuckled at his superstition, but like many legionaries Terens believed that this far from Ermor, the barbarian gods were strong.

That was when he saw them, dark antlered figures swamped in the tendrilled fog. For one panicked moment he thought that the Ulmii had somehow recruited beasts from his nightmares, but then the shapes grew distinct and he could make out a line of warriors clad in furs and animal skins marching through the trees. Nearer they came, and faster, then the barbarians were pounding across the ground toward Terens’ lines, too fast for the legionaries to throw their pilae. Galba barked an order and the maniple drew together for protection, shields braced for impact. The Ulmii axemen ploughed into them, and Terens was lost in the shield-wall’s insane violence, stabbing again and again, the legionaries’ shouts mingled with the Ulmii war chant and the screams of the wounded and dying.

Hour after weary hour they fought until the axe warriors, broken, fled for the safety of the trees. A breeze picked up, and the eagle banner first fluttered, then flew proudly, prompting cheers from the Ermorian lines. For a second, Terens breathed easily, but his sigh of relief caught in his throat when he saw the eagle standard flapping ever more wildly, the wooden banner now rimed with frost, until the fabric itself grew stiff and brittle, snapping with a tortured groan that sent a shiver down his spine. As snowflakes whirled around him and the air grew unnaturally chill, Terens finally saw with sinking heart the great white figure striding through the mist. It was eighteen, no, twenty feet tall, and as it came toward the legionaries it swung a greatsword longer than a man was high. An Ermorian Pontifex flung a spell at the giant figure, but it contemptuously swatted his magic aside and responded with a frosty bolt that left the unfortunate priest sheathed in an icy cocoon, his face twisted in anguish. Then it was on them. Galba screamed as the giant sliced him in two, and Terens turned to flee, discarding his own useless gladius, its smooth iron now latticed with ice. The triumphant UImii raised an ululating cry, punctuated by the shouted name of their God: “Harald! Harald! COLD HARALD!”

Terens’ last conscious sight was of the grinning axemen advancing towards him, but the sound of their chanting continued long after he had sunk into blackness.



Cold Harald

[elbasto]

What the... 88 HIT POINTS?

[Beefeater]

Yep, 8.8 times the average. Not too shabby.

[Faenaris]

A very intriguing and addictive story, Beefeater. I'm looking forward to the next piece.

However, I have to admit, I know next to nothing about Dominions 3. I have browsed the website and looked at a few screenshots. So far, the game looks like a Age of Wonders 1-type of game, but on a grander scale. Could you tell me a bit more about it? Is it truely a superb turn-based game? I'm a sucker for turn-based games. The fun. Oh, the fun.

*wanders off, muzing about the days of Xcom*

[Beefeater]

SO, WHAT IS THIS DOMINIONS THING ANYWAY?

Dominions 3. In all likelihood you have never heard of it. It is made by a phone-boxful (there are only two of them) of game designers, and distributed by the worryingly patriotic Shrapnel Games, who sell Dom3 via mail-order. Don’t expect to see Dom3 marketed much either, save for the distributor’s upbeat motto “Nothing beats our games. Absolutely nothing” (this accompanied by a fetching picture of a sharp-taloned eagle in flight).

Which is a shame, as the game is an absolute corker, and they actually deliver very quickly (at least to me – I’m based in London and I got my copy within three days of ordering) from the other side of the pond. This is very good corporate courtesy, so two thumbs up to Shrapnel Games there. There are also irregular (but so far pretty frequent) updates by the game’s makers, which randomly add whatever they feel like – bug fixes, new factions, whatever. As might be expected from independent game designers, it is chaotic but exciting.

Dom3 is a God game: you play a potential (‘Pretender’) god, and your goal is to wipe out all other pretenders. Each pretender wanders around a MTW/STW style map supported by a nation (faction, in MTW2 terms) of devoted followers, and they fight their way across this terrain until only one is left, who is then the winner and gets to be Top God. It’s a strategic rather than a tactical game: there are battles but you can only give orders to your commanders and then watch how they carry them out. The subtlety comes in your choice of units and commanders, their organisation, the orders you give them, and, of course, the preparation and casting of lots and lots of spells. It also has a very nice (although sadly limited) medieval soundtrack.

Too limited in scope even honestly to call a vignette, this is more like a detail, which will follow the progress of a single short campaign in Dom3. I hope this will give a bit of the flavour of the game – and, more importantly, that it will entertain a little.

WORLDS UNKNOWN

For the purposes of this AAR, I have decided to play a small random map with three computer opponents. I choose the early era (yep, three eras in this game) and the nation of Ulm. Each nation changes quite a lot across the three eras, and some only exist in some eras and not in others. In the early era, Ulm is sub-titled ‘Enigma of Steel’, and is a nation of proud barbarians. They are led by nature-worshipping shamans, and an emerging class of warlords and master-smiths who have just unlocked the secret of steelmaking. By way of contrast, middle-era Ulm is a sort of HRE-type Germany with steel-armoured pikemen and excellent mounted knights, and late-era Ulm is a fallen Transylvanian kingdom replete with Vampire counts and wolves howling at the moon.

SUPREME BEINGS, by IKEA

It’s now time to design my Pretender god. I can’t just go out and build an all-powerful Zeus, unfortunately: instead I am given a set number of points to buy attributes with.

First I choose how the god of the Early Ulm manifests itself. The choice is from a range of templates (for example, immobile objects of worship like a fountain or big rock, powerful human magic-users of various stripes, monsters and dragons, and more traditional god-archetypes like a giant clay earth mother, storm god, forge-lord or great white bull).

Since my faction is one of hardy barbarians, I decide to go with a frost theme for my Pretender. The Father of Winters is a giant frost magician of barbaric appearance, which fits quite nicely. As a Giant he is unusually large and strong, so I can use him for early conquests. He also starts with two levels of water magic to reflect his power over snow and ice. At a cost of 75 points (I start with 350), he’s not too expensive, so that leaves a good amount of space to load him up with more magic. On that note…

THE PRESTIGE

The next thing to buy is magic potential. A pretender can have between none and ten levels in each of eight magic skills: Air, Earth, Fire and Water (your basic 4 elements), Nature and Astral (the first does what you’d expect, the latter involves manipulation of all kinds of magic), Death (Necromancy) and Blood. This last is interesting and controversial: Blood magic gives access to some of the game’s most powerful spells, but these can only be cast by sacrificing unfortunate subjects (‘blood slaves’). Leaving aside the pretty dodgy morality of giving this kind of choice to a player, in-game, the process of winnowing through your population for suitable sacrifices makes them very unhappy, so you need to spend much more time suppressing revolt – you really do have to become the Evil Empire to use Blood magic properly. I’m not touching blood magic with a plastic rod in this game.

I choose a mix of water, earth and nature magic. Earth and nature are good choices: Ulm has an affinity for both spheres, and good earth magic allows you to forge magic items, a key part of any Ulm strategy. Next up is setting how fast belief in my Pretender spreads – and what kind of a god he is to his people.

SEA OF FAITH

Belief in your pretender spreads with a speed of 1 to 10, where 10 is fast and 1 slow. Belief is important because without believers, pretenders wither and die: conversely, any region where belief in your pretender is strong will be easy to take and hold. Belief can be spread by building temples all over, but the initial source is your pretender him or herself: nothing increases belief like an eighteen foot giant with a sword knocking on your front door.

Where belief in your pretender is strong, the land is shaped into his image. Each choice costs points as well: I choose for my pretender a dominion of mild turmoil, somewhat skewed towards cold (my pretender is stronger in cold regions).

With his design complete, it remains only to give Cold Harald his name, and send him out into the big wide world. Now for the bit you’ve all been waiting for, the AAR itself. Time to see what awaits Cold Harald...through the eyes, I think, of the unfortunate Terens.

[Faenaris]

Well, I have ordered the game from E-Bay (I don't have an international accepted credit card and my dad refuses to buy something from an online store. Why he trusts ebay then, is a mystery to me.) and I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival. I'll only be able to play it at the end of the month, but I'm already looking forward to it. The game even has a 300 page manual! Excellent!

Now, I'm also looking forward to your AAR, beefeater. Go give them hell with Cold Harald! Oh, and thanks for your extensive reply.

[Faenaris]

I missed the mailman and now I got a piece of paper in my hands, stating there is a package waiting for me. I hope it is Dominions 3.

Anyhow, how is the AAR going, Beefeater? Don't let the lack of replies bother you, the moment they read your AAR, everyone will be all over Dominions 3.

[Faenaris]

My apologies, moderators, but this thread is to valuable to let it rot away, in my humble opinion.

So, *BUMP*

[Beefeater]

Cheers Faenaris. Work has been rather busy of late - the New Year boost - so I've not had much time to write. Rest assured more is coming.

[Faenaris]

Alright, Beefeater, thanks for the reply. Take your time.

[Daimon]

This is really good. Hope you update soon ^^

[TevashSzat]

Beefeater, when are you going to return to M2TW vignettes as they were quite good and cant wait to start reading them again

[Beefeater]

First I heard it, a rhythmic stamping, filtering darkly through the gloom. Then I saw it; like a titan’s cartwheel, it revolved around a wooden axel that fed into a series of crates. To my horror, I saw that it was drawn by men chained to each spoke, their exposed skin cracking with each toiling step. Fur-clad Smiths moved to and fro, overseeing their labour.

My captor laughed then. “You fear, city-man? No need. The Wheel is for the strong; if they live, they will learn the secret of steel. You will not learn, city-man. The Wheel is not for you.”

-Terens, “The Wheel of Pain”

Cold Harald has awoken, and the five tribes await his command. New horizons stretch invitingly out from the borders of frozen Ulm – but what kind of world is out there?



Cold Harald’s World

Ulm is the province on the right hand side with a castle in it. The entire world consists of 42 land provinces. There are also a further six submerged provinces, but since I haven’t picked any undersea nations, we don’t have to worry too much about them for now. Note also he light white colour – this is a cold world, which is good for Harald, whose spells will be more effective in frosty areas.

There’s only one way to win a game of Dominions, and that is to spread belief in your pretender – in this case, Cold Harald – across the entire map until no other pretenders can claim the belief of any living (or undead) being. Most of the provinces are currently controlled by independent forces, but somewhere out there are three other pretenders, each seeking sole dominion. Let’s meet the opposition.

FALSE GODS

Three other nations inhabit this world. The Abysians are magma-blooded humanoids with a destructive bent. Ermor and Arcoscephale are Rome and classical Greece respectively, although the Ermorians, going one up on Caesar, have access to dinosaurs. Each can be expected to put up a fierce fight. As of now, I have no idea what kind of gods may be leading them.

ROAD TO POWER

In Dominions, you execute out your will through the actions of your commanders. I have three commanders; Harald himself, a warlord called Beric and a spy called Oligar. Normally it is very risky to start moving troops around without knowing for sure what they are going to hit, but Harald is a ‘supercombatant’ (an unusually strong pretender who can make up for an army on his own) and so I order him and Beric to take a group of soldiers and go exploring the promising looking croplands to the Northwest. The spy Oligar sneaks into the neighbouring province to gauge their strength.

I also recruit some new archers and an Antlered Shaman from the great oak, Irminsul, that is in my home province of Ulm.

PITFALLS

Lack of familiarity with the game teaches me a harsh lesson. I had forgotten that a great strength of Ulm armies is their stealth ability: they can move into provinces and hide there unknown to the defenders, which is what they do unless specifically ordered otherwise.

What could be wrong with such a useful skill? The answer, as you may have guessed, is that 30 foot tall giants are a bit more conspicuous than the sons and daughters of the forest. So I moved Harald and his soldiers into the soft and fertile lands; the soldiers scattered to commence their spying – and Harald was left on his own to confront the army of defenders that turned up to challenge him. The battle was short and, for Harald, quite sharp.

Result: Proud Independents 1 – Hardy Barbarians 0

Fortunately, so long as your Pretender has believers left, you’re not out of the game. If I can expand our borders with conventional troops, Harald can eventually be summoned back. So it’s a blow, but not too bad a blow. And hey! I know now how many troops the people of Solian can muster. So I order Beric and his soldiers to attack, and my Shaman and his troops to march to the rescue.

END OF DAYS

It didn’t work. Apparently Shamans can stealth too. Beric and his troops were slaughtered. The unfortunate Shaman retreats to Ulm to lick his wounds.

New plan. Shamans and Antlered Shamans are my priests and will be responsible for recalling Harald from the void. However, it will take too long for just one or two of them. So for now, the strategy is to build as many of them as possible and to use them to research new spells.

Finally, some good news! A hero has wandered up to my front door and offered to join.


A hero awakes; all that stands between him and domination is..a typo (or two)

Good news flowed thenceforth: a few turns later, Harald was back, and looking for trouble for Solian, properly supported this time….

Me and THIS army, actually.

…and overruns the terrified defenders.

The Independent provinces in the Northeast of the map fall, one by one, to Ulm’s conventional armies.

Finally, resistance crystallises in the township of Konberg; the prosperous people of these plains have learned to domesticate elephants, and these terrible new creatures of war smashed the first Ulmish army.


Just as tough as in Total War

One way to take them on would be to rebuild a bigger army with better troops. Another would be to use Harald himself. A third would be to have Harald summoning supernatural creatures to face down the Elephants.

But better still, why not do all three? The tribes gathered; steel warriors (fatherless sons, trained on the Wheel of Pain) mingle with Warrior maidens wielding bows, and among them stalked the root-sinewed forms of Vine Ogres, summoned lions, and of course the aforementioned 30’ giant.


Bit chilly, eh?

See how the ground has gone cold this time round? First, it was winter. Second, belief in Harald has gone ahead of him, and the locals through their belief are undermining their own soldiers’ efforts. Hampered by the chill, the elephants would be at a massive disadvantage against Harald’s supernatural army.

As before, the elephants were released in a wild wall of muscle, charging into the packed ranks of Ulm. This time though their charge was halted; skidding and uncertain on the icy soil, the elephants were easily isolated and surrounded; summoned lions tore at their hindquarters as the antlike figures of Harald’s Steel Warriors swarmed around the unfortunate creatures. On the left flank, Vine Ogres tore a screaming swathe ahead of them. Before long, the defenders’ morale was shattered, and the remnants of their army fled the field.


Divide and Conquer

With the fall of Konberg, independent resistance to Harald and the tribes was over. The true battle was now to begin: Ulm now bordered both smoldering Abysia and proud Ermor. Interesting times lay ahead for this tiny world.

@XDeathfire: I'll get back to M2TW in due course; I haven't been writing nearly enough of late but will try to correct this soon.

[Faenaris]

Thanks for the update, Beefeater. I once did the same thing with Ulm: use my Pretender as a SC, only to have him killed because the other troops just hided. That's why I love Middle Age Ulm more: black steel + not so much hiding.

Looking forward to reading about your struggle against the Ermorians and the Abyssinians.