.com.unity Forums - Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

.com.unity Forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/index.php)

- Dominions 2: The Ascension Wars (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55)

- - Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ? (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=29274)

Thank you all for your overwhelming support

This is really a great community here. I think it will take me quite some time to to check out all the advice I got from you .
In the meantime I was able to start a new attempt and it looks pretty good for me this time.
Although I am at war with Pythium, Ermor and C�tis I don�t see any danger for my empire. Once C�tis was the strongest Empire regarding troops and provinces.
That has changed after they declared war on me. Now I am the strongest. I own about 25% percent of the map with 7 nations (includung mine remaining)
Now to the bad news
It�s turn 131: So it will be no fast victory. (If I should actually win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )
I used a game setup that would hopefully be very disadvantageous to Ermor. (World richness rich + Independents 9). Apparently it worked.
All AIs are on Easy level.
So all in all it won�t be a glorious victory. But I think this time it will be a victory.

I will keep you up-to-date with my progress and will incorporate your advice into my strategy for my next game.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Last night I played Oriana again. One thing that stood out was that you run into AI empires pretty quick and have fighting on all sides. Many of the suggestions on this thread are excellent, but most focus on how to build a stronger nation, rather than how to deal with the particular map.

Can anyone share how they deal with the multiple front war? It was mentioned that the AI tends not to attack when the PD is set around 11. That can help stabilize a front, but not stop a grumpy army. What other tactics and strategies have people found useful?

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Whatever map you are on doesnt really matter after a certain point as the tactics are pretty much all the same. Once you know how to handle the AI you should be able to do it anywhere. In your case, the best advice is the old adage: the best way to win a two front war is not to get in one.

-Keep your PD high on all AI or potential AI borders.
-Keep your troop numbers at #2 or #3 rank.
-When you do declare war on an AI (or they do on you) go straight for the throat! Take thier capital and crush thier production capacity and then mop up the rest of thier provs.

If you do find yourself in a two front war (as i agree is often the case vs. AI) the best things to do are to just get to the chokepoints and fortify them. Place good sized garrisons there and just let the AI impale itself trying to attack you every 5-10 turns there. It doesnt know any better. Keep the defensive posture until you are finished with your primary opponent. Only then come back and wipe out the secondary.

One other note about fighting the AI. Try to keep the size of your front to as few provinces as possible (like 2-3 if you can do it!). This will keep the AI from randomly breaking out and wandering around aimlessly in your backcountry. Use lulls in the fighting after big battles to capture territory and move the front forward thru wide areas (where you might need to defend 5+ front provs) and back to a more managable size.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

And never forget that one of the swiftest ways to subdue an enemy offense is raising Unrest to all hell in their home province. It won't win you the game, but it can sure as hell make it a lot easier on you if you have couple spies in each neighboring kingdom's capital (with a liberal sprinkling of disaster spells on their more lucrative provinces, of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Quote:

Graeme Dice said:

Quote:

Turmoil: 1

Never take turmoil unless your theme requires it. Similarly, do not take restless worshippers.

Quote:

Growth: 3 (More people = more money = more troops, temples etc. Besides I like the thought of an empire of life as counterpart to Ermor)

Growth provides little to no benefit in the unmodded game unless you plan to play for several hundred turns. Order 3 provides a far greater boost to income.

Quote:

But even relatively small armies ofJotunheim were able to defeat local defenfes of 25 ord annihilate mercenary bands.

Quote:

Besides that the strength of local defences in the nortwest had become up to 80 and 90 to counter the amassing of C�tis troops.

These are mistakes. You spent hundreds or thousands of gold on province defense instead of building a castle or buying mobile troops with greater combat effectiveness.

You are right. It was really a mistake to raise local defense that high. During my last successful attempt to beat the map I nowhere had local defense higher than 40. Maybe even that was too high. This I reinforced with with a squad of good troops (about 20 to 30 heart companions or heavy infantry) and as many mystics I could produce. Later on I reinforced them with hordes of vine men from enchanted forest. That worked pretty good.

Regarding Growth vs Order: I planned to have a strong dominion that spreads fast. Thats why I chose the restless worshippers theme. So I had to choose turmoil 1.
I will check out your advice, regarding using Order instead of growth.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Quote:

Saxon said:
The provincial defense issue appears to be a big problem for you. A couple of points on that might help. First, the troops you get for the money are generally pretty weak. I think of them as a deterrent to keep out very small armies and some cannon fodder to support the real defense army when it arrives.

Second, look at the cost of those weak troops. For each step in provincial defense, you pay one more gold than the current defense. That means to upgrade from 3 defense, you have to pay 4 gold. Not to bad. But to upgrade from 22, you have to pay 23 gold. That is getting pricy, especially compared to what you can get for that kind of money at your castle.

Now, if you were pushing provincial defense up to 60 or 70, you were paying 60 gold for each weak unit. A lot of your resources were not utilized in the best possible fashion.

Sure, there is no upkeep, but you also can not use these troops for anything except the defense of one province. Regular units can move on both offense and defense and are much more flexible. I keep my defense at 11 unless it is a active boarder, where I try to put it to 21. You get an extra commander at these two cut offs, so it is worth going up from 10 or 20.

The money I save goes into mobile troops, temples, labs and castles.

My other comment is about the immobile pretender. I personally prefer a mobile pretender, as it give me more flexibility. For the �super players� they can plan turns in advance and handle tricky things. I get things wrong on many occasions and sometimes need to rush a pretender to battle to help out. Again, I am not saying it is not possible to do it, but for those of us who need extra help, a mobile pretender is a nice extra resource. They don�t need to be a Super combatant (SC), just their spell powers can tip a battle.

One Ermor tip is that Eyes of Aiming put into the normal priest make them pretty good at cleaning up large numbers of the lesser undead. The normal one misses a lot, but the boost to precision increases their kill rate.

You mention you didn�t want to recruit Astrologers. They are one of Arco�s trademark magic units, which in Dominions is usually a clue that you should pay extra attention to them. They are strong in astral magic. With a starshine cap and the banner of the northern star, you can boost these guys to five astral, which is huge. (speaking of which, small is big in this game. A single extra level of magic goes a long way, it is different than games with huge bonuses that don�t mean much) If you get lucky and get a mage with four astral to start, you can boost him up to six. Have a look at the crystal matrix and slave matrix. You can turn these mages into powerful killing machines that do not tire. I mentioned mind burn, but should have said soul slay. I have created a firing squad of about 20 astral mages that will kill just about anything and can teleport in to do it. Dominions has lots of ways to power up mages and some commanders and the more you find, the more you will win.

I like the other unit, the Mystic, but they can not be powered up as far. I would suggest building only Astrologers and Hearts Companions at your home castle and recruit your mystics at secondary castles. If you do not have a bless strategy, you might ignore the Hearts Companions. Sorry, I don�t remember their cost compared to the regular Hoplite units.

Finally, sure, lots of people say the game is easy. But usually it is the hard core who post and not the normal folks like you and I. The postings are biased. Also, it is a human thing. Most folks don�t like to admit they get their butt handed to them by a game, so they don�t post their failures, they post their successes.

In the meantime I started implementing strategies from this Thread and I am doing much better. I even won the Map once (OK, to be honest I quit the game, when I contolled about 50% of the map and was convinced I would win).
Currently my local defence values range between 25 and 40 supported by as many mystics as I can build. Besides that I add summons or normal troops. That works well in most cases.

Mystics vs. Astrologers
In the beginning when I used mages only to research and almost not in battle I chose Mystics because they are slightly better in research.
Even now I still prefer Mystics. Especially in the early game their fire and water mages are very useful in battle. The astral battle spells looked rather weak to me.
Nevertheless I will have a closer look on the astrologers.

And thanks for the tip about eyes of aiming, because in my current game a war with ermor is unavoidable.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Quote:

Morkilus said:
I've failed plenty of times against the AI, usually when there's an AE Ermor or C'tis involved. Dunno why I lose to C'tis. I find that I have alot more fun playing when there ISN'T a death theme to have to deal with, since the other AI nations never have a chance. It's pretty much given that you'll be fighting Ermor and probably be crushed. It's not cheating to leave them out, but if you want to fight them you better beat them early in the game, and have a solid plan to do so. In multiplayer, it's not unusual to gang up on a death theme just so the dominion doesn't spoil the... spoils http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

You are right. Actually it was stupid from me calling it cheating to leave Ermor out. I would never play without Ermor because it simply makes me feel good to save the world from the undead.
What I do is to change the world setup in a way I hope is disadvantageous to ermor. (Independents: 9 + Richness: rich).

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Even 25 PD is probably too much.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

yes, the best defence for anyone other than ulm is to mass indie archers/crossbows (or possibly others if you have longbows ect) with a few units up front to take damage and possibly more archers or a flaming arrows/wind guide mage. Vrs the ai mystics are better than astrologers except for mind hunting ect but in mp where people go for quality over quantity those astral spells become very viable.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Regarding PD, think about it this way, for each point you put in PD you get a unit that's worth... X gold (lets say 10), that means that if you got 11 PD you paid 11 gold for a unit worth 10 gold.
Obviously its more complicated than that (these units don't cost upkeep, and if they win the battle they get to regenerate), but that's an interesting approach to PD.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Of course, with nations with solid PD ( Jotuns especially, but also Ulm & Abysia, etc ) there are some interesting ways to use high PD values. For example, when I've been positive someone was about to attack a particular province I had a good army in, I've cranked the PD up to a very high value (35-50) just as I'm expecting them to attack.

The PD then soaks up the bulk of the casualties for me (troops are all moved to the rear) while mages are buffing the troops with all the good things like body ethereal, legions of steel, mass regen, luck, etc. The enemy troops and mages get tired going after the PD, and then have to deal with the real forces. In theory, this results in very light casualties for the army, and the PD regenerates after the battle.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Quote:

Cainehill said:

Of course, with nations with solid PD ( Jotuns especially, but also Ulm & Abysia, etc ) there are some interesting ways to use high PD values. For example, when I've been positive someone was about to attack a particular province I had a good army in, I've cranked the PD up to a very high value (35-50) just as I'm expecting them to attack.

The PD then soaks up the bulk of the casualties for me (troops are all moved to the rear) while mages are buffing the troops with all the good things like body ethereal, legions of steel, mass regen, luck, etc. The enemy troops and mages get tired going after the PD, and then have to deal with the real forces. In theory, this results in very light casualties for the army, and the PD regenerates after the battle.

I use same tactic whenever possible. Actually I use it with nearly all nations as they can soak damage just as well. Those you mentioned are best for the job though.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Quote:

Agrajag said:
Regarding PD, think about it this way, for each point you put in PD you get a unit that's worth... X gold (lets say 10), that means that if you got 11 PD you paid 11 gold for a unit worth 10 gold.

That is certainly interesting. Has anyone made a chart containing approximations of what the nattion-specific PD units are worth? I think something like this would be a useful reference for people who want to play a Nation for the first time.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Quote:

JimKnopf said:
Mystics vs. Astrologers

As you have seen, Mystics are good vs the AI becuase the AI just mobs all its troops together and sends them out. This makes excellent targets for thier large AOE spells like Falling Fires, etc.

But Astrologers have strong astral which is very powerful against single targets even at low levels (like Paralyze!). This is not so useful versus AI, but is incredibly powerful vs. humans who will use SCs against you. Also, some of the really high level astral spells are powerful, like Master Enslave. Doom and Will of the Fates are also great high level grief/buff spells.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

true but one of the greatest anti SC's any one can employ is petrify, boosted/empowered mystics handle that well.

Re: Thank you all for your overwhelming support

If you are going after a SC, you generally need to worry about magic resistance. In cutting through magic resistance, that extra level of astral can sometimes make the difference. Also, the higher level of astral helps keep fatigue down, which is important if you are trying to cut through magic resistance through sheer volume of spells.

Re: Thank you all for your overwhelming support

thats the thing, petrify kills if it isnt resisted and paralyzes even if it is resisted (so your vine ogre hordes can pummel the enemy)

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Ahh! Thanks for the tip, I will try that out. Hmm, I wonder if that is going to be nerfed in Dom III, as it seems too simple. Most very powerful things in Dom are a bit more complex.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

One of my favorite tactics involves PD. Using stealth armies of Pangaea I would take a province, crank the tax to the max, buy as much PD as I can and maybe recruit units if they are good, then fade my army back into the woods to move a few provinces off and do it again. By the time he kills the PD there he finds that they are too unhappy to allow building any units or tax.

I could tie up alot of his armies trying to stop me until he figures out to buy lots of PD. Its not really a winning strategy but its a very useful ally strategy.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

As the starter of this thread I have to thank you all. I was really frustrated with this game. I wasn�t able to win this map. But now I am able to do so.

Regarding the PD discussion: I think 10 should be the minimum. In border provinces I usually raise it to 25 (supported by mages) if my AI neighbour hates me and I�m not able to deal with him/her the way he/she deserves.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Gandalf,

Are you sure that you don�t get taxes when unrest goes over 100? I was sure I was getting some in my current game. If you are right, I need to makes some changes�

On PD, I like 11 everywhere, as it will usually hold off Call of the Winds and Call of the Wild. I still argue that if you really need PD, you better get Mechanical Milita. If you have not tried that spell, you will be impressed. (At least in single player)

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

I believe the taxes go down with unrest? Or population (and therefor taxes)? Generally 100% can be maintained but cranking it to 200% is quickly damaging.

I find it a particularly handy thing when seiging a home castle. Drive up the unrest so that even if he does manage to get it back he wont be able to develop a response force. Another quick rush often grabs it again.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Hmm, I will check tonight. I know that when it hits 100%, you can not recruit, which makes your tactic very effective. I have found against the AI, they do not agressivly patrol when you drop a spy or two on the capital. I have found it so effective that it is almost an exploit. Against a human who knows what they are doing, I suspect the spy would have a short life span...

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Humans definitely react if you raise unrest on them. The trick there is to have a whole set of spies start raising unrest on the same turn. You can cripple someone in this manner if you hit thier capitol and gold-heavy provinces all together. Quite powerful.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

How many spies do you need to push it over 100 in one turn? If you catch them out and they can not recruit a patroling force the next turn, you could really disrupt things. Still, even pushing it up to 60 or so will disrupt income, it is a nice idea.

Re: Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

Sometimes you have a chance to take someones home castle even though you know he has large armies that will rush to take it back. Cranking taxes to 200% and setting everyone to search for blood maidens can give a nasty blow to his economy and ability to create national units.

Sometimes I even leave as his armies approach. Dont even bothr making him fight to get it back. Particularly with Pangaea or some other nation where I can hide my armies nearby just waiting for him to try and move his main army back out to the front lines. Its a difficult winning strategy but its a great ally strategy.