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"Alfredo Tutino" <MI0307@mclink.it> contributed wisdom to 
news:iicqg7$qr1$1@newsreader1.mclink.it: 

> [well, 56 and still playing games, here -
> small eccentricities are  my cup of tea :-)]; 

Ahh I turn 55 in a couple of months.

> and I know that with
> patience and luck I might be able to find some answer, at least, in
> forums and other on-line resources; 

TIP: the forum searches tend to stink. But you can use google and limit the 
search to a particular forum with the site: tag. So if you were curious 
about the Tower map for newbies you would go to google or yahoo and put in
tower map site:forum.shrapnelgames.com

Also there is a wiki (that goes up and down alot) at 
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Main_Page

> but these few ones are bothering
> me right now... Answers would really be appreciated. And GP, after
> all, is *the* Propet - or at least a very good spreader of the word...

In full disclosure, I am biased. Im mentioned in the credits as a beta 
tester which due to continued patching and upgrades I still do. And Ive 
worked for the publisher. Altho I dont think it would have changed my love 
of this game. But I no longer have any ties or benefits from sales. :)
 
> 1) What are the standard victory conditions? In  other words, what is
> my final goal? Killing all other pretenders? 

The standard game tends to be a King-of-the-Hill regular old wargame 
strategy thing. Or in more RPGish terms "There can only be ONE!". (I like 
naming some of my gods "Juan, for there can only be Juan!"

In the developers storyline the Pantokrator was ruling the universe and 
decided to leave. Now many "pretenders" have gained enough power to 
consider themselves worthy of the position but to become a full god they 
have to get the others out of the way. Newish players often ask the chat 
channels "why cant my god bless himself or use holy powers like my 
priests" and the answer is "Because they get it from belief in you but you 
know that you are not a god. Not yet. Just a pretender."

> (but then, some of them
> seem to be immortal!) Spreading my dominion to all provinces (and
> maybe reach a given minimun level on each) of the map ? 

And therein the tip to not forget that the name of the game is dominions. 
Your pretender gains power (hit points, strength, and magic resistance) in 
your own dominion based on its strangth (how many white candles are in the 
province if you have that display turned on by pressing "3"). It also loses 
those in someone elses dominion. So for really troublesome enemies you can 
build more temples on his border and send more priests there and have them 
pray. If you can convert all his dominion to yours he will die, or at least 
be very weak when you attack.

> 2) Is there, at least for the sake of learning & experimenting, a way
> to go back to a previous situation and try something different? -
> apart from exiting the game, making a copy of the savegame somewhere
> else and copying it onto the current one when needed - which is a
> littlebit, let me say, clumsy? 

Sorry about that. There are many reasons that is "clumsy" at best. Its turn 
based, PbEM, a Linux game, and the developers own dislike for do-overs. 

For PbEM games (multiplayer Play-by-EMail) the save-games are automatic. 
You always have all your previous turns in your mail. For solo gaming there 
are various player-made utilities. I have a really simple WinXP shortcut on 
my site http://www.dom3minions.com/utilities.htm
Others by other people are more intuitive, or menu driven, or just written 
in various programming languages of choice.


> 3) Is there a way, for learning purposes, to
> eliminate random events (or at least the big ones, such as having a
> pivotal province invaded by unstoppable indipendent heroes out of
> nowhere)?

When you create a game you can set Random Events to Common or Rare.

But it wont quite remove them entirely. They are considered a basic part of 
the game and its (strange) concept of balance. When you create your 
pretender you can see how some of the settings affect random events. 
Setting your dominion to spread Order or Turmoil will help. More order in 
your domain will help avoid random events while Turmoil increases them. And 
the Luck setting can affect if they are good events or bad one. The type of 
events often have multiple triggers. Such as if you took a dominion boost 
to Magic and Luck. Or to changes in the Growth/Death scale. One of the 
effects of any extreme settings in the scales tend to being events to 
match.

Also those events are part of the built-in pro/con balance of some nations. 
Some such as Bogarus can increase misfortune (and events) in the provinces 
near there. Some such as Tien Chi get special pretenders they can choose 
which can increase the good fortuen events in their presence. And some 
nations get special mages (often calle fortune tellers) who can foresee 
events (help to avoid bad events in their provinces). 

So Im afraid its too much a part of the game to have any switch for taking 
it out completely. Its your prise of punishment for the choices you made.


Gandalf  Parker
-- 
Of COURSE you have found the perfect winning combination...
but keep in mind that they have also, and theirs is different.