Newbie questions enemy unit stats and a question about construction magic.

[Beanchilla]

#1) Is there an easy way to see the stats of enemy units before going into battle? Or is it part of the game just reading their description and trying to figure it out yourself.

#2) I have found units with all sorts of magic but rarely any construction magic. Is this because of the factions I have played as or is ther some trick to training people in construction magic I don't know about?

Also, I'm pretty bad at this game so far. Have restarded a few times just playing against the AI as I get the ropes. I'd love to hear some tips. Seems like I'm discovering more each time I play.

[Der Liebe Frankie]

#1 even scouts don't tell you, but you could risk losing the scout by setting his battle instructions to "retreat" and have him attack the province you want intel on. Then right click over units in the enemy army to see their stats.

#2 You main character you can set up at the beginning (I assume you know how). Possibly some faction has contruction mages. Alternatively, you can train any mage using the "empowerment" menu item, for a high price. Use alchemy to translate gems into pearls and then earth gems (at a rate of 2 for 1 pearl, and 2 pearls for 1 earth), and it's something like 30 earths to train in construction (IIRC) and more to get to level 2, etc.

I'm bad too and I've played quite a while. Reading the manual is supposed to help, but I also get the impression the game is not very well balanced (maybe intentionally) so it can have a rogue-like experience. I've just started hand-picking my enemies when setting up the map and that ssems to help.

It's no good always losing. No fun in that!

[Beanchilla]

Thanks for getting back to me! I had stopped playing but your post makes me want to jump back in haha.

[FrustratedTurbine]

Use dom 3 mod inspector once you know what units the enemy is feilding. Unfortuanetly, I dont think there is any way to do it before a battle.

[DedZedNub]

I'm new also to DOM3. There may be some scrying spells that will maybe give you some info on your enemies, so it might be worth looking over the spell list (just thinking out loud, I'm going to have to check them as well).

-----

EDIT IN: There is a Ritual in the Thaumaturgy Branch, it's called Astral Window. It requires level 2 Astral Knowledge and level 3 Thaumaturgy researched. It might do what you want but it will require three Astral Pearls also. What it seems to do, if I'm guessing right, is actually allow you to enter the province and see everything in it, pretty much like you can do in any of your fully controlled provinces. That might allow you to also inspect the enemy units and check their battle orders. But that's a heavy cost to do so. Also it mentions that using more Astral Pearls will allow the scrying to last longer (probably more turns and provinces per Ritual).

-----

But overall, that's the main issue with DOM3 (and probably DOM4 as well per reviews), the ability to look over troops, even friendly ones is a lot of work. I mean, I often want to know what units I have in a territory at a glance, maybe even their battle orders. You can't see that from the main map, only movement orders it seems. So you have to right click each territory you have units in, then you can see the commander orders, then right click on the individual units to see if exactly what they are and if they are wounded or not. Given all that, I don't think the game is meant to be mini/maxed at the low level. You can get some sort of healing, and otherwise, well wounded units are just telling a story, no point in clicking on each just to find out where to put them.

I think that's the only real negative issue many reviewers have, for example the guy at Circle of Eight I think it was, it is with the interface. It takes more clicks to do things than it should, but the main problem is a lot of basic information that you'd like to have on the map screen or accessible directly from it, is not there. You almost always have to click to another screen to find that information and then remember it as you return to the map screen. Other than that it's a good game with a lot of depth and options.

I went in thinking that the user interface comments were baseless, but given that common example above, where you are just trying to find out what shape your units are in, what exactly they are, who exactly are your enemies (as you say pretty much impossible but understandable as fog of war), and what your various standing battle orders are for your commanders ... it's always nowhere to be seen on the main map, even via mouseover, you have to go into another screen to find it. There are no icons indicating things, which their could be, no mouseing over the units to get a quick bit of extra info, etc.

So it's ... it's not even old school really to be fair ... it's just the way it was constructed. As that reviewer said, the user interface does need a major overhaul. I mean it gets everything done, it just never keeps a hint of what you always need to know in front of you. That's probably the main negative.

-----

EDITED IN: I guess, in all fairness, we should consider the situation. You can see the little icons for each enemy and you have any scouting report from adjacency or scouts and spies. You aren't going to know usually, nor care, if the individual units have wounds or experience or the like. That is, when you spy them with your telescope from the nearby highlands or your scouts says they have about 20 Lizard Men Infantry, you aren't going to know that two have a limp and one is diseased, the scout can't get that close for that long. The little icons and the province information, if there, should give you a sense of what you are up against, if you are familiar with them. Otherwise, welcome to one of the negatives of pretendership. You will meet fantastic beings and all sorts of armies and races. Actually knowing what you are up against, without experience and familiarity, is just a non-sequitor. It's going to come down to, should I even dare say it, a matter of faith. Does your pretender believe in himself/herself or not? Rroarrh, Attack!

-----

@ chauncypahl

What is Dom 3 mod inspector?