Rise Of Qallupuit- A Dominions 3 AAR

[Immaculate]

Rise Of Qallupuit

I realize that strictly speaking this isn't a CIV story, but i hope you'll tolerate me posting this here. I've long been part of this community and i wanted to share a non-CIV gaming experience with members of this community.

Welcome to Dominions 3.

For a variety of reasons, I find myself, in the next 14-17 days with much more time on my hands then I am used to and I have decided to use it to write an after-action report (AAR) about a game I have been enjoying considerably lately. That game is Dominions 3. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, check out the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom3). My first exposure to the game was through a Dominions 3-based Never Ending Story (NES)( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=323730) which may be of interest to some readers.

So, without further adue, let us explore the world of dominions. In dominions, each player controls a would-be god, a pretender. Each pretender leads a culture (or civilisation) with the ultimate goal of trying to take over the entire world, extinguish the dreams and aspirations of all other pretenders and ultimately ascend to true godhood.

For this game, I will be assuming command of the Atlaneans. In times past the atlaneans were a strange kingdom of ‘deep ones’, amphibious creatures that made their home deep beneath the sea. They lived in their basalt cities and were led by Basalt kings. In that age they shared the oceans with the aboleth-inspired R’lyeh and the triton-kings of Oceana. Then came the ascent of the R’lyeh as their star fell into the sea and the Basalt city was destroyed. New cities of coral were built but ultimately these were destroyed by the tentacled R’lyeh who now spoke of strange whispers from beyond the stars and beyond sanity. The hated R’lyeh employed strange astral and telepathic magics to mentally enslave the surviving atlaneans (and any others who would face them) and to drive those who would not serve mad.

Now, in the late age, Atlantis has been driven from the seas by the hated R’leyh. Those that survived, those that fled, found themselves in the deep cold of arctic ice-floes on a forsaken coast of ice and bones. New kings of Atlantia arose and they called themselves Angakut; they were shaman kings and lead a bone cult. They practice death magics never before known to their ancestors and promise a return to the sea.

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This is a single player game and for my opponents I have chosen seven random AI set at ‘difficult’ and the R’leyh, set at ‘mighty’. There is one more setting above mighty but I’m still pretty new to this game so I don’t really want to try and take that setting on yet.

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Our pretender is a shard of the darkest basalt, the last of the dark crystals that grew in our ancient basalt cities. With time and magics unknown to living atlaneans today, it has grown not only to sentience but to great aspirations of vengeance and even godhood.

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The shard of our nation’s history has learned from the enemy and commands grave and terrible astral magics as well as some minor competence in the magic of nature itself. The blessing of the great basalt shard will bring magic resistance and some minor regeneration to those sacred units who can take advantage of it.

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Finally the Basalt shard is a benevolent god. Those who live in its lands are blessed with lives of interest and change (turmoil 1 causes loss of income but increase the chances of random events), productivity (it is easier for us to produce heavy weapons and armour), great cold (our lands are frozen slabs of ice suitable for us, the giants of ancient times, the caelum-flying angel-like creatures, and few others), growth (our women are fertile, our young strong, the fishing is good and so too is the hunt), luck (synergizes with the turmoil scale to produce more positive random events) and magic (our researchers are inspired by our god’s presence and research should be faster for us where our god’s dominion is strong). Finally, with a dominion score of 7, our faith will not be any danger of being snuffed out by some of the stronger enemy faiths but we will not be able to use it effectively as a weapon. These are pretty good scales in general, an approach I have never explored in the past (usually I prefer stronger magic) but am eager to try out now.

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Finally our pretender monolith is sleeping and will only awaken (and be useable) once we begin the first year (12 turns into the game). We name the monolith Qallupuit in honor of the inuit legend of the same name.

Now that we have designed our pretender god, let us begin the game itself.

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[Immaculate]

Spring of the First Year

Welcome to the lands of the Atlaneans. The bone coasts alluded to in our introductory text is called ‘Karghad Hills(171)’ by the locals. It is mountainous terrain. It provides considerable income, resources and supplies. There is no unrest there currently as the population is happy to serve Qallupuit.

(I lost the screenshot so this one is from turn 2 but it shows what we need it to show)

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You can see that we have 400gold in our treasury and that next turn we will produce 354 more gold of which 21 will be used to pay our troops.
Our troops are commanded by Tiquana (not shown in this screenshot- so sorry), a minor general of no great skills and we are assisted by Kinaktok the scout.

Tiquana is a snow captain and is armed with a polearm made of magical ice and armoured fairly heavily. Great Qallupuit has taken mercy upon this humble servant has decided to both rename him and to make him into our prophet. By making him a prophet he will be stronger where our dominion is strong and weaker in enemy pretender’s dominions. In addition, he will gain access to a variety of holy-based magic.

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His name shall be Mahaha.

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Mahaha is a maniacal demon that terrorized parts of the arctic. This creature is described as a thin sinewy being, ice blue in colour and cold to the touch. Mahaha’s eyes are white and they peer through the long stringy hair that hangs in its face. This demon is always smiling and giggling. It is strong, very strong and it is always barefoot. Mahaha is usually seen with almost no clothing on yet it never seems to be bothered by the cold. This cold demon takes pleasure in tickling its victims to death with sharp vicious nails attached to its long bony fingers. Many elders have remarked on the expression of the dead victims Mahaha leaves behind. It seems all of the victim have a similar expression on their dead faces – a twisted frozen smile.

Although this demon is twisted and evil, Mahaha is easily fooled. Most of the stories told about Mahaha end with it being fooled. Usually Mahaha is tricked into leaning over a water hole to take a drink and is pushed into the open water and swept away by the currents.

So if Mahaha ever corners you alone, ask it to have one last drink with you by the water hole before it tickles you to death.

Kinaktok is a tent-owner, a great honour amongst our people apparently.

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As you can see he is much more lightly armed and armoured then is Mahaha. But also notice that he has an icon below his stats that Mahaha doesn’t. The cloak and dagger icon indicates he is stealthy and cannot easily be intercepted and attacked by enemy forces. The other icons indicate that he is amphibious, which makes sense since we are atlaneans from the sea (the alligator), resistance to cold (that icicle thing), and can see better then most in the dark (I guess that’s for the midnight sun)(the eye). We will use him to scout the environs and try to determine where other pretenders might be.

We use our starting resources to hire Arssartut, which are our best infantry. Like our commanders, they are amphibious, resistant to cold and have darkvision. In addition, they are sacred (the candelbra) which indicates that if a priest blesses them, they can take advantage of the magics of Qullupuit and gain some magic resistance and regeneration. The Arrsartut are also armed with a bone glaive which, while it doesn’t provide much in the realm of protection, does help with their offensive push.

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We also hire a new commander, a Tungalik. The tungalik, like the tent owner and the snow commander, are individuals (not a unit like the Arssartut) and as such they vary from individual to individual. Each commander can be outfitted with magical equipment you find or make (the empty slots beneath their stats are there to indicate what items have been equipped) and they can sometimes cast spells. The tungalik are competant in water and death magic and can also serve as priests. Like their cousins the Arrsartut, they are sacred and can benefit from a bless.

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Thus ends the first turn, spring in the first year (each turn is a month).



In the second turn

You can see that with time, we have learned about our neighbour’s territories.

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Each territory fly a flag. Neutral territories fly a white flag. Don’t be fooled though- many are tough and that’s anything other then a flag of surrender. The candles associated with each territory indicate the dominance of either our pretender (white candles) or an enemy pretender (black candles). You can see that some enemy pretender’s dominion is influencing the oceanic territory to our immediate east as well as territory to our north-west. This is a good indicator of enemy capitals in those directions. Each territory is also defended by hostile units; the icons give you some idea of what those units might be and by mousing-over the territory in question, you can get a better idea of whats actually there. Don’t trust your scouting reports too much though- they are often wrong.

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Notice that Kinaktok has reached Reaper’s Reach (158) and is reporting the presence of hostile militias and light infantry. The triangle with an eye within it indicates the presence of our stealthed unit. Notice also that from where he is, he can tell that the sorrounding lands (and seas) are held by neutral principalities and that none are affected by either our or an enemy’s dominion.

Lets have a look at our giggling prophet Mahaha. You can see that he picked up some regeneration (the vine icon) and mastery of holy magic (the candelabra with the number three next to it). He has also gained more hitpoints (for the strength of our god’s dominion) and magic resistance (due to our god’s strong astral magic).

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Mahala is leading our sacred Arssartut as well as some seal hunters (harpoon-throwing light infantry) and snow-warriors (medium infantry). You can see that I have set our infantry in the center in three different squads (with the heavier Arssartut in the center) while the harpoon-wielding light infantry are on the flanks. Marhala will cast a divine blessing so that the Arssartut can begin to regenerate a little bit and in the unlikely even that the enemy should possess caster, it will assist them in resisting spells. I send them to go fight tritons in the seas to our east.

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We’ll have to wait until next turn to see how they do.

 

[Diamondeye]

Too bad the name is so much like Mahala that you actually misspelt it twice.

This definately looks interesting, though, I'll try to remember to follow it, your writing is usually fabulous.

And the game seems enchanting as well!

 

[Immaculate]

Too bad the name is so much like Mahala that you actually misspelt it twice.

This definately looks interesting, though, I'll try to remember to follow it, your writing is usually fabulous.

And the game seems enchanting as well!

HA! oops- i guess i'll leave it uncorrected for prosperity's sake. thanks for checking this out.

 

[Immaculate]

Early Summer, Year 1

The eagerly awaited results of our battle in ‘Fortune’s Water’ show that we only lost 1 unit.

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Here you can see our forces lined up opposite the enemy. As previously mentioned, our light infantry guards our flanks while our heavier infantry lines up in the center. Our prophet Mahaha hides in the back ready to throw down some serious holy magic. The enemy is led by Olgothu, the triton lord and he commands approximately 25 enemy ‘infantry’. The infantry is lightly armed but they wield poisonous knives.

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Here’s the enemy running from our infantry.

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A look at the map after the battle reveals that one of the AI nations lies directly north of us. They are the nation of Ulm and they, like us, are led by a monolith with an incomprehensible name.

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I don’t know much about Ulm in the late age except its associted with vampires. Let’s see what the manual says.

Ulm, Black Forest
After years of civil war the iron kingdom crumbled. During the Night of Treason, a great Malediction was placed upon the kingdom. The forests became dark and hostile. Wolves and creatures even worse stalked the land. Slowly the kingdom recovered, but it was not what it once was. The knightly order was all but destroyed and the smiths had disappeared. The secrets of Blacksteel were forgotten. An order of Black Priests emerged in Ulm. The formed and Iron Cult and forbade the use of magic. Magic outside religion was announced to be sacrilegious, and the few surviving master smiths were put to the flames. Although magery is forbidden, there are some fortune tellers and members of the Order of Illuminated Ones that secretly ply their trade.

They also have apparently good stealth troops and mages and powerful blood summons that require no research but have weak mages and low magic resistance.

So, I hire a few more units as well as a new commander (that I will introduce next turn) and I order Mahaha (spelled with an ‘H’, not an ‘L’) into the straits between Ulm and us and push end turn.

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[Immaculate]

Mid-Summer of Year 1:

The turn starts out well enough with a message regarding taxes. Its seems that fortune’s waters is a fortunous water for us to control as the tax collection there went incredibly well and we ended up with substantial bonus income. Remember that when we designed our scales, we choose to be lucky; this may be a consequence of that choice.

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Next theres the battle in the ‘East Kings Cut’, the straits between us and Ulm. Here you see the enemy is made up of Ichtyid and led by Olug. Of note are the Ichtyid that are armed with nets. Those nets can be thrown on your forces entangling them and making them waste a turn to try and get out (which is strength based and not guaranteed). Our forces are better and have better magical support in Mahaha and we didn’t lose any units in the fight.

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A look at the strategic map reveals we have some unwelcome company. I’ve faced the brown giants in the early age (but not in the late age) and they are VERY tough, especially in the early game when there is minimal magic floating around.

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The militias in the woods I am not worried about but the Jotun Javelinists and Huskarls I am very worried about. The Jotun javelinsts are no doubt very strong with many hitpoints. Our forces have little in the way of shields to protect them from javelins so we are gonna get splattered as we attempt to get into range and when we do we’ll have a heck of a fight against these brutes.

Here’s what the manual has to say about the nation of Joton (which apparently is called Utgard.

Utgard is a land of bitter winters and cool summers. It was once Jotunheim, the home of giants. But with the coming of man, their population has dwindled. After man ventured to the icy lands of Jotun, the giants of Jotun discovered the humans to be resourceful allies. With the awkening god, all grudges have been cat aside and the men and giants fight side by side. the alliance with the humans has estranged the Gygias and their Vaetti servants, who no longer aid the giants. Instead human seeresses have become influential. in the heart of Utgard lies the magical Well of Urd where the Norns gather and divine the future of the world. The giants of Jotun are immensely strong and resilient. they are born in the cold and do not suffer from cold climates. the people of Utgard prefer to live in cool provinces.

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I guess they heard about our cool ice-floes and decided to come live on them. Needless to say they are unwelcome guests.

Ultimately, we will have no choice but to war with them; we cannot allow them to encroach so far into our territory as to be adjacent to our capital.
Our tent-owner Kinaktok has also found another AI nation.

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It is the capital of Midgard, another Norse-inspired nation. Our limited dominion in the area seriously undermines our ability to see what they are up to, but they are accomplished sailors (or so says the manual) and that could be bad for us. Anyway, for now its simply nice to see that they are somewhat far away.

While Mahaha has been out conquering the seas, we have managed to accumulate another small army that is ready to be deployed. It will be led by the Angakok Tuaq who wields considerable water, death, holy and some earth magic. He is also an accomplished sailor (cute boat icon). Except for rather dismal precision, he’s not a bad unit.

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I order an assault on the woods in which the militia are camping as well as a neutral territory I hope the Juton move into (and are wounded fighting).

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Lastly, I spend some of our new tax money on some mercenaries that will prove to be no doubt useful against the encroaching Utgard. We place a bid on the ‘archers in white’ which will plug a very obvious hole in our tactical deployment (lack of good missile troops)

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With that, I end the turn.

 

[LDiCesare]

Nice.
Actually Utgard is not a tenth as dangerous as Niefelheim. In the early times, the lands of Jotunheim were ruled by mighty giants of Niefel. Their mere presence caused temperature to drop, and they wore strong ring mails and were sacred. Their heirs are far less powerful. Usually, men manage to swarm them and although they often kill a man or atlantean with a single blow, they don't hit that well and get hit very often, which makes routing them rather easy. Compared to their ancestors that is.

 

[Seon]

I love it

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

yeah, niefleheim is pure evil. I'm confused though; Ulm without smiths? doesn't seem very useful

 

[Seon]

The Iron Inquisition have killed all the Smiths. They have Iron priests who can throw a few iron darts though...

And they have flying immortal vampric harbingers of DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

 

[Immaculate]

Late Summer in First Year

The thing with playing against the AI is that if you want the mercenaries, you can pretty much always get them because the AI never bids over the minimum bid (or so I read on the Dom3 forums). So, not surprisingly, we got ‘The Archers in White’.



Also, one of our governors in East King’s Cut decides to employ slave labour to increase production. Slavery is a mark of the R’leyh way; not the atlaneans; we’ll have to watch the governor closely to ensure he doesn’t defect.

There were three battles in the nation this turn.
Firstly, the Utgard easily rout, without any hoped-for losses the woodsmen and druids of the swamps of Misty Murk near our capital.



Then its our turn in the swamps of Misty Murk recently conquered by the Utgard giants. Here is the enemy lined up for battle.



The enemy is led by the commander, a herse named Mundifare. The grey star indicates it is a veteren unit; its defence, attack and morale is better then a green unit. The red star indicates it is a heroic unit. In this case the unit possesses unequalled obesity. Maximum fat equals more hitpoints and less endurance.



The Utgard troops are all experienced veterens as well. Here you see our units meeting in midfield. Our regeneration doesn’t get much play as the giants hit very hard. But then, so do our polearms. The battle is close but our magical support provides a bless that gives good morale and a spell called Sermon Of Courage that also helps against an early rout. Finally, we manage to win the battle though we do lose 5 of our sacred Arssartut infantry.



We also attack the Utgard troops in the northern forest of Great Wood. You can see that the enemy has moved substantially more infantry into the province and hired some archers. Despite this, we manage to take the province with the loss of only 1 seal hunter.



Here you can see a seal-hunter’s harpoon entangling an enemy unit. This is the first time I witnessed this and I wasn’t sure what I was looking at initially. Note that infantry vs. archer in melee battle usually goes better for the infantry then the archers. I’m not sure I would have done so well in this battle if the enemy had deployed more intelligently.



Mahaha is ordered to construct a temple in the Great Woods on the border with both Ulm and Utgard. We have good scales but they are only active in areas where we have strong dominion and so a temple is required. This is expensive but dominion has the additional affect of modifying dominion and I am convninced that my success against the Juton this turn is due to morale boosters (like the blessing and holy magic). In addition, we order the hiring of an independent commander in Great Woods. These units aren’t great but they do allow you to lead troops or to build buildings without tying up more expensive nation-flavoured commanders. We’re not done with Great Woods yet though; we also order the organisation of the local defence. This isn’t too expensive at early or small sizes but it can be very expansive later on. I don’t know if Atlanean province defence is good or not so I only buy a little bit.

We also order our newest units, in conjuction with our archer mercenaries to invade the Juton territory to our immediate north while also invading the swamps west of our lands.



Next turn we should finally complete the research of our first magics. I’ll discuss that shortly.

That ends the turn; lets see how things go.

 

[Immaculate]

Early Fall in the First Year

We complete research into thaumaturgy. Our combat mages will be able to cast desiccation and frighten. I don’t think we’ll use decay much (though I could be wrong). Dust to dust might be useful- its for fighting undead. So far we haven’t seen any undead but if we do we’ll be happy to be able to cast this spell.



Our attack on the Utgard of Ulnath. Here’s a look at what they are deploying to defend themselves.



Our units take a real beating. We lose all our infantry in a rather quick battle with the enemy but ultimately our mercenaries win the battle for us. The thing is, when the enemy flees, they have nowhere to go (because we control the sourrounding terrain) so they lose any units that flee. So, its an expensive win for us but ultimately it costs the Utgard all their forces.



The swamps of Fennis on the border with the Utgard capital falls without any loses. Here you see the enemy’s militia getting cut down like hay. They also had some archers but not many and they never posed a real threat.



Once we’ve taken these lands, the map looks like this. As you can see we’ve pushed the Utgard back to their capital (despite some heavy losses). In addition, the marshes of Fennis contain the ‘Lake of Mists’. This site produces water gems for us. The bone coast we settled on already produce water and death gems. At this point in the game there isn’t much to do with gems though.



Our forces in Finnis and Great Wood converge on the Utgard capital. I’ve recently learnt how to coordinate attacks from multiple positions on a single enemy province and this is what it looks like. You can see that I’ve ordered my mage to cast dessication. This will tire the enemy. A tired enemy is easier to hit and when you do hit them, you have a greater chance of causing a critical wound. Hopefully this works because fighting their endurance should be a lot easier then fighting their morale (which is good) or hitpoints (which are great). We are also sending our mercenaries to reinforce the area but they won’t arrive until next turn.



I don’t buy too many units this turn; I want to save up for a fortress in Great Wood. This will help protect against Ulm’s armies and allow us to build more units in that area.

Mid Fall in the First Year

We got another lucky event. This one provides an extra bit of income turn after turn.



We also fought the Utgard in the farmlands outside their capital. As you can see, it was another expensive battle. Wasn’t there some warning about not fighting a land war in Morassia?



Here’s a look at the enemy’s defence. Their bless is pretty impressive; strong water gives them lots of defence and they move faster (and attack more often) while nature gives them regeneration. As the battle goes on we lose several of our elite infantry to Utgard javelin-throwers (too many).



We also get a message that the Utgard takes our swamps in Finnis.. easy come easy go I guess. They are down to 2 provinces (as far as I know).



In Great Woods we build forest ramparts. This cost us 800gold and will take 3 turns.



Finally, before we end the turn, we send our mercenaries to recover our swamps. I am not sure how we were able to move from the swamps of Finnis into Morassia while the enemy also moved from Morassia into Finnis. Wouldn’t one army intercept the other? Hopefully this doesn't happen again or we could lose Finnis...

 

[Immaculate]

oh no... what have we done?

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Cool picture considering

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

heh, militia getting mowed down. they really are terrible at combat, pretty much no point to building them

 

[Seon]

Unless you are Pythium. (Yes. Even Millitia have Tower Shields).

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

remind me not to attack you, your nation has some sort of tower shield fetish

 

[Immaculate]

Late Fall in the First Year of the Ascension

As the turn starts, our luck scale gives us free water gems.

Also, caelum declares war on us. What? Where are they even located? Can’t they see we are busy?



In addition, some of the giants of Monassia launch a small sortie (4 units) in an attempt to break the siege. It doesn’t go well for them. We kill the sortie and lose 1 seal hunter. I’m not going to show the battle- you’ve seen that sort of thing before and they don’t use any units that you haven’t seen before. And so our siege will continue.

What goes much better for the giants of Utgard is their defence of the swamps of Finnis. Apparently between turns they decided to hire a bunch of units (or build province defence?). Here’s a picture of my mercenary archers getting slaughtered. We barely cause any deaths whatsoever.



but then… but then… but then… the blessings of the great Qallupuit shine upon us. A barbarian uprising takes place in Finnis and a bunch of unwashed barbarians kill all the Utgard filth in Finnis. I don’t need to worry about killing the barbarians right away- they can just hang out for awhile while I expand elsewhere. That was really lucky.



End of turn.

Early Winter in the First Year of the Ascension

Our luck scale find us 1 air gem. One. Its almost insulting but we’ll find a use for it.

There are no battles this turn. Its sort of quiet. We do order the construction of a laboratory in ‘Great Wood’ though. It should complete simultaneously with our forest ramparts. You can see that we also trained a priest to help preach our faith. Lastly, Ulm finally started to move; I hope they don’t decide to invade.



We send an expedition out to fight the neutral infantry on the peninsula south-east of our capital.



That’s the end of a simple and quiet turn.

 

[Immaculate]

On a bear hunt with dwarfs.

There was once a human who was the foster son of some dwarfs. Once they were out breathing-hole hunting, and while doing so they began to hunt a bear. Their dogs set out after the bear, caught up with it and held it at bay. When the dwarfs came up with the bear the foster son saw that it was a little lemming, and he killed it by simply putting his foot on it; and as it was dying it snapped at his foot. Now the dwarfs told the human to go home first, and they cut it up while he went home in advance; but when the dwarfs came home it was a real bear they had with them. They had turned the little lemming into a big bear.

 

[Immaculate]

Mid Winter in the First Year of the Ascension

Our luck scales don’t always protect us, especially when events strike territories under the influence of a rival pretender gods. Here you see how a ‘very ill omen’ has greatly increased the unrest in the sea straits separating our lands form that of Ulm (East King’s Cut). This will decrease our income and resources from the province until the unrest disappears (by under-taxing the population). Wait, I didn’t get it in the screenshot but the third event is also an attack by a school of sharks upon this province. So that unrest comes not only from bad omens but from shark attacks (which explains why unrest is so high).



We also get a good event. Some crazy priests are warning of renewed R’leyh invasions. Fear-mongering is good for any government; just look what it did for Halburton.



Our forces attacking Mount Karhgad (the penisula near our capital) conquer the territory without taking any loses.



You can see that we’ve completed our fortress in Great Wood. The fortress is going to do pretty much only one thing for awhile and that’s going to be to pump out troops to assist in magical research. Later we may also use it to build a variety of units. For now we won’t worry about that.



Our forces in Mount Karhgad launch an assault on the tritons to the east. Hopefully this goes as smoothly as their last assault.



End turn!

 

[Immaculate]

Late Winter in First Year of Ascension

More bad news from East King’s Cut; we lose one fifth of the population. I wonder if this is a consequence of the high unrest or just another random event.



Then more bad news. Fortune’s waters just got very very very bad news. Damn it!



Finally, our luck continues when our assault on the tritons in the east results in my army getting its ass handed to it. We lose every single one of our infantrymen except for one. Things went really really bad.



This turn sucked. I spend our money regrouping some units and send one unit into the Fortune’s Water with orders to retreat right away. I want to have a look at whats defending that province. Happily, I end turn and hope for better random events.