I think he is referring to a different bonfire. At least I hope so, because, if not, he is in the NW as well. It's a little crowded up here with Hinnom taking all the real estate...

Hey igorCRO. Does your avatar have anything to do with the fact that you are playing Marverni?

Just wanna barge in and say that I really enjoy reading these PBEM games. I used to follow some Age of Wonders games on Heavengames and it was fun to follow. But there I knew how the maps looked.

Can any of you post a map and with the capitals?         Edit things out if necessary.

I've only played the demo of Dominions II for 1min or so. Was in the menus a long time listening to that wonderful music.

Then setting up a game just checking the options took a long time. Remember something about +3 or -3 to luck and it looked important in that I thought it covered a great deal of things. Everything from spells being successfully cast to random luck.

Anyway, when I started it I was so completely and utterly LOST that I just looked at the screen...I remember (perhaps) rightclicking on a province and there being 2 or 3 soldiers....couldn't find out how to move them....didn't know what the HELL to do....so I went to their webpage and found a guide for playing the game....it was in 30 steps....

I just stared and wondered WTF the idiots that made the game were thinking...Making a game SO unaccessible that you not only are LOST when you start your first game but they KNEW about it and had therefore made that hugeass GUIDE to guide you through how to play the goddamn game....I just uninstalled and never looked back....I did read a little about Dominions III but when people said it had the same interface and still no tutorial, no tactical combat and indie graphics I just shook my head and moved on.

Wonderloss speaks the truth. Intelligence info is a valuable commodity, and each of us have only vague idea about each other players' positions. I would even guess that given the number of turns, nobody knows the exact position of every other player. It would be convenient if spectators could watch it as a football match, but then the info would leak inevitably, so it's best this way.

I was thinking about what makes this game so immersing and special, and I think the fact that you cannot control the battles micro-style, only send orders and then you wait for the messenger to arrive with the news... good or bad. I always eagerly look at the numbers first, and then I frantically think - omg, dead commander, which one was it... The tension is really great.

Last time I watched the battle of my commander Henan'el against some ichtyllids - basically amphibious, armored reptilians with spears and shields - and they threw a net on him at one point, immobilizing him, and because he has no armor and relies on defense, he started to receive huge amount of hits immediately. Despite being a giant, he had only a few hit points left before my chariots arrived and scattered the reptilians, saving his life. So with a bit of luck, the monkey king would have to pay his bounty to some stinking lizards, lol! The anxiety was really strong - OMG, is he ok?, does he have afflictions, missing limbs, chest wound? Especially when you have a few elite troops, you become really attached to them.

So the absence of micro, IMO is s good thing for this game. PBEM would not be possible otherwise.

You did not know? I thought your omnipresent assassins reported to you.

I have played 2 MP games before this one, one as Ulm, and one as Atlantis, and I lost in both of them rather quickly. As Atlantis, I run out of the water with my supercombatant pretender and won a few battles, but overextended and had him killed at enemy castle, and did not recover after that. As Ulm, I lost against early Wyrm pretender rush as I had no way to stop him, and he locked me in my castle. 

Ad net - yes, the gfx actually showed a net across over my commander, and he had status "Paralysed", I believe.

Ad Dom3 - luck is of course great part of the game, as is the case of all games that depend on dice - and Dom3 uses open-ended dice throws, so once in a while, the impossible happens. I understand the game turned sour after this session - and I am in no small part the cause of it. But I would encourage you to give the game a few more tries - it's really worth it. Please also consider the fact that as different the nations in the game are, their advantages come into play in different stages of the game. Some are physically weak at first, but quickly research powerful spells that will make the earth tremble - and those should turtle behind a strong PD in the beginning. Some are immense giants that excel in physical combat, but have really a lot of trouble figuring out how to read a book - and those have to put their strong units into action fast, while their advantage lasts. Most often, your strategy is laid out by the geography, and your and your advesaries' strengths and weaknesses, not by personal feeling of sympathy or otherwise.  

Well, but you are judging arguably a very complex and deep game by a single session.

Take poker, for example. It's a luck dependent game for sure, because cards are drawn at random. No poker player can guarantee he will be able to win a particular round - or even a game. But in the long term, the tournaments are won by the same people, because even if luck plays its role, the good players know how much they can bet on their card, and have better calculation, intuition and psychology. So even in luck based game, skill wins in the end (it does not apply to all games, though, some are really totally luck based). Same goes for backgammon - the good players know when to double the odds, and even if they don't win more often, they win more points. In the long run, the lucky streaks cancel themselves out.

On the other hand, take chess (I am a passionate and long-time chess player). Chess is completely deterministic and open game - no hidden cards, no luck. Despite that, you can lose a game in as few as ten moves, just look at some famous miniatures. It's very rare on the master level, of course, but it happens regularly even to some club old-timers - and for reasons not always obvious to them. Sometimes you put a piece on a wrong square, sometimes you take a really poisoned pawn, sometimes you create a weak square that paralyses your whole position.

Deep games have often layered levels of skill, and if you go deeper and deeper (and it always takes time and many losses), you discover important nuances about things you took for granted. That's what makes them beautiful and rewarding. And though I am no Dominions expert (because the core of the game is supposed to be magic, and it did not even enter the play yet), I feel that there is much depth to be found here.

That is not to say I was not lucky in this game (and it's not in any means over yet), but luck had arguable had its say in real life historical battles too - that's just the way warfare goes.

Concerning our game - yes, you were very unlucky, but you also took risks. You knew where I was, you saw my troops in battle so you could estimate that it would be difficult to beat them head on. I don't know what moves you took, but if you rushed to take Wynna sooner, and fortified it with reasonable PD, I would be probably hesitant to enter it, and we would have to come out to some kind of agreement. But you bet everything on one card and sent both your prophet and pretender - thats equivalent to All-in in poker. Yes, the battle was crucial, and you were unlucky to fight the independents first, but I still think I could kill both them and you afterwards anyway (with more losses).

But even after that happened you were unreasonable with your demands - I was really ready to let you live as a sort of vassal state, taking Wynna and Mark and letting you to expand southward. Of course I would never really let you grow enough to endanger me, but such is the nature of this game. There can be only one victor in the end, so everyone is bound to become your enemy sooner or later. Many real-life nations had to make such decisions - to bow down after lost battle and accept servitude to survive. Many of them survived and lived to the day their overlords fell to a more powerful enemy - and sometimes they even got to stab him in the back. Some chose to stand and fight to the end, and were utterly destroyed.

Okay, but if I am the first one to die on that map, we will start over again.

First into a province is supposed to be random. Despite that, from what I have read, Abysia always goes first.

There is no in game penalty for being last. However, if you do not get your turn in before the game hosts (stale turn), that does create a severe penalty. You miss a turn of recruiting, moving armies, etc.

I'm sorry you aren't enjoying the experience enough to repeat it, Elana, I think it would've been fun to see you around again from time to time in Dom3.

Angelina Jolie continues to spread her fame across the land, albeit more slowly than some other factions.

Yomi sees the big Hinnom army camped nearby, Damn guards, Arrite swords men, and several illegitimate sons of Koabel (what other kind is there?)./   And Malthus, radiating power...   my, my, all this for one little 'ragged band" of leaderless demons?  Hinnom must be green with envy....   but hinnom will get nothing from the dead hands of Yomi.  Come, Hinnom long beards, and visit the yomi Hall.... see our new candle wicks, made with long beard dog hair!   We await you. 

out of char.  Hi thranite...  thanks for the nudge... i think dom3 would be fun - even when losing - if i were established enough to actually put up a real fight....    I love games (win or lose) where I can 'grow' a position... make some beautiful things, etc., In FfH2, helping elves to grow a pretty, ancient forest... or in Alpha Centauri, growing the red spores, with my Gaia-towns snuggled in...  I looked forward to Dom3 as a game where there would be at least 10 -12 turns before any serous armed conflict... enough time to actually create something to have fun with.  Having 80% of my position destroyed on turn 3, and then facing PD that is stronger than my entire position, well boxes me in. Kinda boring.   And my options for waging a defensive war?  Virtually nil -no real choices from which to choose:  no "interesting' choices" as I have mentioned in many other posts at SD.  Yomi in a box is boring.  And having fun making real choices about how to defend against hinnom - well there are no 'interesting choices - all that awaits Yomi is a massive slaughter ... very boring.  All I can hope to do is inflict maxim causalities on the attacking hinnom.  And I will. And I hope the Yomi box upon which Hinnom will casually snack becomes as deadly as those 'special' burgers that "Jack in the Box" served a number of years ago. back in char>  Choke on Yomi hinnom dogs!

Army movement happens in the same phase, and who arrives first is determined randomly - it's in the game manual (together with a list of all phases, like when globals are cast, and when mercs are hired, etc).

Edit - I stand corrected! I have just found this on the Dom3Wiki manual errata: If forces from different nations attack the same province on the same turn the order that the battles resolve in is deterministic based on nation number. It is not random as described in the rulebook.

I would say there is a penalty for arriving first, because you have to fight the independents and then you remaining forces have to fight the other invader. But it really depends - there is a round limit for battles after which attacker auto-routs, so there is a slight advantage to being a defender.