Dominion Vs Military
 

okay. I've been analysing this game for a while, yet I can't for the life of me see the amazin value of high dominion (except in race-specific strategies).

Here's the logic running through my head. I'm sure its flawed, but here it is anyways:

If you have the choice to build a temple or recruit more troops, why do veteran players "always" seem to chose the temple? You could buy another caster with 200 gold, which would provide a much wider range of advantages the a temple that very slowly increases your scales (which may not even be super impressive) in parts of your empire that probably won't produce any troops, and statistically aren't high income. It just seems alot more "reliable" to control/defend valuable provinces, and attack new ones when you need more resources/gold. Why bother with dominion?

If your opponent has negative scales, they'll only affect your border provinces, which are only a fraction of your total empire. Losing a bit of population somewhere is easily offset by using your gold to attack him (thus increasing your income even higher). Besides, fluctuating economies are a fact of life in times of war. Why commit so much to temples? And there's a good chance that your opponent will have good scales (only a handful of races use death3/cold3/heat3).

Lastly, having someone kill you by lowering ALL your dominion to 0 seems near impossible. I'm sure it happens, but it hardly justifies spending thousands on temples everywhere. In almost all cases it should be alot easier to wipe you out with military then kill your dominion.

So why does everyone give such high value to dominion? Even in the manual the hard advantages of dominion are minor, yet Dominion is made to sound like the most important part of the game (hence the title). Sure your troops get +1 moral and your Pretender is beefier, but you can't win the game with only your pretender...

I guess I'm saying, as a newbie, the impression I got from the manual and this forum is that Dominion is the key to this game, whereas so far I've only seen it usefull in a few race-specific strategies. I know I'm missing the real picture. Hopefully you can shed some light on this for me.

pushing dominion feels like the strategy in chess to control the centre of the board.. it's not seem obvious, but the pros say its a huge advantage. I dunno if i'm the only newbie who can't see beyond what's written in the manual, but I would love to hear the advantages of dominion discussed in general.

Anyways, its 4am and i'm still drunk.. i'm sure this will all make more sense in the morning.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

1. Pushing your dominion into lands controlled by your enemies reduces the benefits that they get from their scales. Often, this hurts them much more than your dominion helps you directly. And anything that hurts your enemies is usually good for you.

2. The stronger your dominion the greater the effectiveness of very powerful and useful spells such as Gift of Health. There are also spells that can only function in your dominion (such as GoH).

3. If you push your dominion so much that none of an opponent's dominion remains, their pretender goes 'poof'. This can be a much easier victory in some cases than trying to defeat an enemy that is strongly-entrenched in their capital castle if that is that enemy's Last remaining province.

4. Dominion spreads TWO provinces out from temples, not just one, so when the enemy builds a temple in their province directly across the "border" from you (which the AI does a lot), they are pushing their dominion deeper into your turf than you may think.

5. You need temples to recruit priests (and sacred troops).

Building temples not only helps you to accomplish what I've said above, but it counters the enemy doing the same to you. And they will. Count on it.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

I'm very shure you don't benefit from your neigbours luck scale, but you suffer from his turmoil if it encroaches upon your provinces.

Wrong temperature scale hurts your economy and the fighting skills of you troops. Keep in mind, though, that there are seasons in the game, which adjust the temp scale as well. Generally, though, the chance for ideal temp is much better with higher dominion.

Dominion gives you -poor- scrying ability.

Every 5 temples your maximum dominions strenght gets +1. That does not only make it harder for the enemy to repell it, it makes dominion-depending effects stronger (spells etc.) and it lets you recruit more holy troops per turn and province (up to the max dom number)

So always remember:
Dominion is a pretenders best friend !

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Dominion does more than just give you a +1 morale bonus and more hit points.
Think of Dominion as giving yourself "home field advantage" and every battle as a play-off game.
Would you rather fight under your Magic3 scale or your opponents Drain3. Do you want your Heat2/3 or that cold2/3 scale and all the disadvantages that come with it ?

If you don't worry about pushing your Dominion that means you'll have to fight every new battle "on the road" once you have reached your dominion borders and want to continue expanding.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Those were my initital thoughts & I have not yet overcome them completely. Certainly in SP it is pretty irrelevant.
I would rather invest in field forces than forts or temples (this is me in games not just Dom2).

However most people play relatively conservatively & do not fight until they have to so you do not need the defences (army!) early. If you do invest in one you should probably use it on someone who just spent a couple of thousand on temples.


In MP you will get to experience joys such as defending you dom -3 capital against 400 vampires every turn.
Also as immortals are only immortal in friendly dominion so people are reluctant to use them outside of it - scare away that VQ. This is can undermine peoples ability to play optimally.
Plus as mentioned you do not get the benefits of opponent's +ve scales but suffer from their negatives so replacing their order 3 with your order 3 can hurt them.
Swapping cold 3 for hot 3 can screw giants.

I think people do build too many temples but they are presumably not punished for it enough by aggressive play. There must be a balance & knowing it is something that will only come with MP experience (I hope).

Pickles

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Ermor is going to have a very tough time recruiting undead in provinces with *your* dominion ...

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

you need dominion as a lot of nations :
- ae/sg ermor / pan cw / ctis miasma : if you play these nations and can spread your dominion in the territory of other pretenders you hurt them really A LOT http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and as arryn said as ermor you get lots of better freespawns with this , as ctis miasma higher income
- if you have good positive dominion scales ( growth , luck , order , productivity ) they help yourself great
- if you bloodhunt : negative dominion increases unrest so it makes bloodhunting a bit harder
- playing a heat / cold nation and these are a lot :
pan cw , ae/sg ermor , atlantis , r'leh , jotunheim , caelum , vanheim , abysia , mictlan , machaka , some themes like marignon df . so about 1/2 of the nations in the game .
here fighting under your heat / cold aura helps you alot :
e.g. caelum : better BoW damage shield , higher protection from your ice armors , a lot higher fatigue for your enemies

- many mages are priests too so they need a temple to recruit (MICTLAN!,abysia) or the priests themselves are good (e.g. caelum , man )

so temples are really good

ulm can bring drain to the enemies this way http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


i personally have this Build Order :
bloodnation :
lab , start hunting , castle , temple
nonbloodnation : castle , temple , strategic important provinces : lab

unless you guard it well NEVER build the temple before the castle , especially lategame ( ghost riders http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif ) .


against ermor temples + lots of priests are almost a must earlygame .


conclusion : about 1/2 of the nations profit extremely from spreading their hostile dominions to the enemy .
the other 1/2 of nations has to build temples to counter this .

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Also, spending 200 on troops gives me an ongoing drain on my economy. If those troops aren't needed or useful for even 10 turns, that's about ... 180 additional gold they've cost me. The temple, like PD, is a one time cost that gives an ongoing benefit.

I've got some MP games going where I have over 30 temples. And I still have provinces I've owned for 20 or more turns where it's been enemy dominion for all that time.

If I didn't have the temples, I'd be up the creek without a paddle; if I'd bought troops, I'd probably have a negative income.

On some maps, the troops might well have been more cost effective, allowing me to raze enemy temples. But between having non-aggression treaties (which allows me to focus my military efforts on other borders) and maps that have chokepoints that make it harder to bring huge amounts of troops to bear, the temples are, imo, more worthwhile.

If it had been Karan or Inland, something where every province has 4-6 neighbors, things might be different. But even then, razing my peaceful neighbor's temples would lead to my having a war on all fronts, and rapidly losing my conquests.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

I disagree with Pickles - I always choose Dom 9 or 10 in SP if I can afford it. It makes a big difference to a lot of little things - you'd be amazed at the number of spells or effects that are bigger and better in your dominion (or don't work at all outside it). I need hardly any scouts when my dom is so strong that I get very accurate reports of neighbouring provs. Unrest goes away faster, so income comes quicker. All my summoned commanders have 2x hp. It's particularly useful at the moment where I'm up against Ermor, who also has strong dominion, and his gets him free troops.

What interests me is how many castles MP players seem to build - in SP I hardly ever need to build castles because there's always an AI capital to take when I need one! If I ever get into MP I'll have to read up on castling ....

CC

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

magnate said
"I disagree with Pickles"

No you don't http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif. Building lots of temples is irrelevant in SP as the AI does not defend his or preach much. So your dominion will spread for free - especially if set at 9+. And its benefits are the same in SP - at least offensively - the AI will never try to squeeze you or spam immortals etc.

I am not sure why your summoned commanders get more HP in dominion either are you sure? (hot things like hot better etc but more HP?)

Pickles

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

i think magnate means together with GoH because it works only in friendly dominion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

wow, thanks!! that definitly builds a new paradigm for playing in MP! Gonna have to develop some patience, since it looks like it might be months before I gain this kind of experience..

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

I am no master (although my grandfather, who taught me chess, actually was), but I can say this: controlling the center (or other stragetically important areas) in chess is *key*. It will cause you to win or lose. It is not obvious, it is not bombastic, it is not imposant, it is not "shock and awe"; it is none of these, but it will win (or lose) you the game.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Veterans don't, at least in MP. Troops are almost always a better choice, as long as you use them to grab new territories or to prevent the ennemy to grab yours. Still, don't neglect temples - just ask yourself "do I really need a temple here, and why?" before building one.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Not to mention "Can I protect it?"

- Kel

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

1. The AI doesn't preach (or preach much) because it doesn't need to. The AI spams temple-building instead.

2. Your dominion will not spread for 'free'. Dominion spreads outwards a maximum of two provinces away from dominion sources (temples, prophet, pretender). So you need to have temples strategically placed to act as centers for that spread. Having more temples than the minimum needed to blanket your nation will boost the spread of dominion faster.

3. The AI *will* try to squeeze you with dominion. As I said in #1 above, the AI builds lots of temples. It does not attempt, deliberately, to kill you via dominion, but it might do so incidentally if you take no steps to counter it.

4. The AI does not defend its temples with castles as many humans do, but as a general rule it does keep non-PD garrisons in provinces with temples. It does not always do so, but it does often enough that you cannot assume that temple provinces will be nearly-free pickings.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

I don't know who told you that, but next time you meet this person don't forget to tell him there's no such limit.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

It's in Ceremony's dominion .PDF, in the description of the spread of dominion due to "temple checks". Nowhere in the document does it describe a cascading dominion spread that you claim can happen (which is the only way for dominion to spread 2+ provinces away from a dominion source). Until the devs say otherwise, I'll take Ceremony's word on the mechanism.

Oh, and I miswrote my post. The maximum is 1 away (ie: adjacent), not 2. I was mistakenly including the source province in the radius.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

It takes 5 minutes to test. I'm contemplating a game where I just sat on my capital and force-generated 100 turns, and I can see my dominion up to 11 provinces away.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Ouch. So, all the temples I built in back provinces in several games are useless, except for raising the max dominion push of the pretender and prophet? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

If what Nagot says is true (and I see no reason to doubt his veracity), then Ceremony's doc is in serious need of amending, and those of us who've relied upon it for the conduct of our campaigns may have wasted a great deal of time and wealth. Contrary to the doc, if a province's dominion "fills up", it will continue to spill over into successive provinces ad infinitum, in an expanding ripple, without the need for a "temple check" in that, or a directly-adjacent, province. This is the best way to explain dominion spread as Nagot is asserting. The only other way, that of the game checking for dominion push from a source out to *all* provinces, for each and every check, makes even less sense and would eat up enormous amounts of CPU time.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Maybe dominion generated by temples is handled differently than that generated by pretenders / prophets. Unlikely, but possible.

I can attest that in SP games on large maps my dominion can go a long, long way until it "hits" a wall of black candles and then stops.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

xxxxxx deleted wrong info - sorry, folks xxxxxxxxxxxx


Personally, I have seen dom "wander" FOUR indie provinces from my starting location (no pretenders/prophet ever walked into that direction) in the game (SP) I'm just playing.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Just wanted to report a bit on my findings in a 1on1 game I had against the AI
My dominion score (in the making of the pretender) was very low, I'd say around 1-3.
I lost due to no dominion when my furthest province from his nearest province was ATLEAST 5 provinces away.
Just thought you should know.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

The assumption that your domain spread to max 2 provinces away from the source is absolutely false.

How to see this?
Create a God with 10 Dominion, create a game with this god and another human god.
Make him hosting (without playing) for a lot of turns, and then check. So you'll see how the dominion with spread with capitol and god only, without moving them
I got 50 turns, and the domain was in provinces far away from my capitol. (5 provinces away it reached for now)

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Even so and even in SP, pushing dominion can be important. As mentioned, the AI does tend to spam temples. In my current game, I didn't let that bother me, and I had negative dominion 2 or 3 provinces deep inside my territory. Then he cast "Dark Skies", and all of a sudden my troops has like morale or 7 and 8. Ouch.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

yep very true . i tested it myself now too . probably the temple spreads work the same way too .
so far i too believed as Arryn the 2 province rule from the mentioned dominionguide.pdf .
hm this leads to new interesting possibilities :

only build as much temples until you reach dominionstrengh of 10 ( so 10 when you start with dominion 8 etc. ) .

furthermore i think when you have maximum dominion in a province the dominionspread check always wanders further to provinces with not maximum dominion strenghts .

so in theory playing as mictlan there should be no big difference when playing with max dominion when spreading dominion via 5 blood sacrifices near your capitol temples or in temples near the front .
only the center of maximum dominionstrengh should vary but total dominion strengh should be the same with both methods or ?


in general you can put up the rule then i think :
build as many temples as you need to reach dominionstrength of 10 and all additional temples are only optional when you can afford but not neccessary .

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

why does it say you can't preach in a province because its reached maximum dominion, but then you look and there's only 2-3 dominion on that province, and your Pretender's dominion is like 8. what gives? do provinces have a maximum dominion different then your Pretender depending on circumstance?

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Simply there's no limit where your domain could spread.

Every Dominion Point you get, plus the bonus of the temples (+1 every 5 temples, to a max of 10) gives you the chance that a temple, prophet and god (god counts as 1 dominion point fixed and 2 temple check) add 1 point of dominion.
Having dominion 5 means your temples have a 50% chance of pumping your domain by 1.

The temple try to raise first the dominion where it's located, but it's not sure. The closer the dominion is to his maximum, the more are the chances the temple spread the dominion point in another province starting with the neighbouring.

When all provinces are maxed of dominion, every temple pumping dominion will push your dominion in the enemy border.

Every slave sacrificed count as a temple check.

So on the more temple you've the better it is.

And dominion is usually needed for many strategies, most of them already said, but I resume them.
First you need it to support your pretender and prophet if they're going to operate in enemy territory, so you need dominion push.
Second, immortals. There're a lot of them, Wraithlords, Vampires, and such, they benefit of immortality only under your domain.
Third, your troops get a morale bonus.
Fourth, you get your scales, instead of the enemy ones, and enemy dominion bring unrest.
Fifth, some nation dominion is fearful, like SG or AE Ermor, or CW Pan (they kill your pop), or C'tis Miasma (it disease your non swamp survival troops).
Sixth, many spells work only under your domain.
Seventh, if you've heat or cold scale it benefits your troops, and can weaken enemy troops (like Jotun Niefel Jarls have -2 att and def in heat scale).
Last you can kill people by out dominion them!!!

Probably I'm forgetting something, but it seems a good list to make your domain very important.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

A Priest can only raise dominion in a province up to his level in holy magic. So a basic indy priest can preach a province up to a positive 2 dominion, but no higher. This is what the message you're seeing refers to, not the max dominion that your nation is capable of. You pretty much have to rely on your Pretender, Prophet, and temples to truly max out your dominion in a province.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Preaching depends on the level of the priest not the god
Temples give +1 level for this purpose & ceremonial faith 2 levels.

Pickles

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

There's no need for adjacent provinces to completely fill up for your dominion to expand further. In the aforementioned testbed after 100 turns, although my capital and the surrounding provinces had reached max dominion (10), it was only about 5-6 average 4 provinces away. Interestingly enough, the farthest province (11 away from the capital) showed a dominion of 2, while it connected to my 'dominion area' thru provinces where the dominion was only 1.

FYI, I made a similar testbed with 2 nations, one (let's call it A) had a dominion of 10, the other (B) had a dominion of 8 + 9 extra temples (so 10 temples with one in the capital, ie an effective dominion of 10). I placed the capitals in opposite corners on a large map. Both dominions spreaded at a steady rate, with B spreading marginally faster. When the 2 dominions came into contact, B started to overrun A, and slowly pushed it back to its capital. At the time I stopped the experiment (after 100s of turns), B's dominion was about 10+ times as big as A's.

I have to say I ran this testbed in the early days of Dom:PPP, but from what I've seen I don't think the mechanics of dominion spread have changed, so I believe you could get similar results if you conduct the same experiment in Dom 2.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

oh, yeah, that makes sense. so what do you do with all your L2 priests after they've maxed out your important provinces? do you ship them off to battle to cast courage nonstop, or do you keep them doing bugger-all until your pretender dies and you need to call god? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

you can them always use against ermor / pan cw and other undead horde nations ( e.g. ctis desert tombs ).
or build new temples / castles etc in other provinces , shuffle troops ...

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Give them Sceptres of Authority or Rods of the Phoenix and have them join your attack Groups as artillery.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Well, sadly, an L2 priest can't cast Sermon of Courage. Putting artillery items on them is an option, as Arryn pointed out, but the priests generally have crumby aim; only items with 100 accuracy or area of effect spells are particularly useful on them.

Personally, unless fighting an undead nation, I try to avoid building very many L2 priests; I don't find them particularly useful except for building temples and banishing undead, while they sap the gold income and clog the production queues. (So to speak - I'd generally rather build a scout, spy, or mage than a L2 priest.)

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

Incinerate, from the Rod of the Phoenix, never misses and generally kills (or at least seriously damages) what it hits.

Of course, if equipping your L2 priests is too much of a bother and you absolutely refuse to pay their measly 1.67gp/turn upkeep cost, you can always suicide them since they're commanders and can go off into hostile territory by themselves.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

This seems very easy to explain to me. Each temple is equal to your max dominion spread when pushing dominion. In this example, both nations had 30 for god and 10 for home province push. But A had only 10 for the single temple push while B had 10 temples at 10 each spread or 100, resulting in a whopping 90 additional dominion spread above B.

I think, in fact, that a 10 base dominion selection with 10 temples is exactly equal to an 8 base with 10 temples. The dominion spread should be identical, once B catches up to A by achieving 10 in the home province.

On a small map, high dominion is very important since you may not get the 19 extra provinces to increase your max dominion by 4 with mass templing. On a large map or with only a few players in the game, you might as well get low dominion and just plan on building lots of temples per the typical AI strategy.

My two cents worth anyway.

Re: Dominion Vs Military
 

One other point of note is that dominion spreads from the various points of dominion checking (temple, prophet, ect) and stops once it “finds” a place to effect. That is, it effects the provinces nearest the temple first, modified by a random choice of which nearby province to check. The general knock on expansion described in other Posts does work, but one can influence this. As such, one should also consider where your temples are built.

For example, a temple at the tail of your empire will spread dominion, but mostly in the tail of your empire. If you are fighting a two front war and on one front dominion is more important, the temple in the tail may or may not help you. On the other hand, a temple near the front lines of the important front will ensure that the effects are felt in the right place.

In addition, a high dominion is harder to overcome than a weak one. The idea of a “Wall of Dominion” to keep out enemy dominion does make sense and you can provide support to the “Wall”. If you build temples at the front, they will battle with the enemy dominion, hopefully defeating it or at least keeping it at bay. Ideally, your dominion will grow in strength, making it harder to defeat at the same time the temples keep pushing. This allows your back territory to expand undisturbed. If you instead chose to keep all your dominion generation in the center of the empire, counting on it to spread out, you will have very weak dominion at the edges (see other Posts) and the effects of your dominion will be spread evenly along the edges of your empire. This weak dominion will soon be defeated and you are splitting your defensive resources in trying to stop it.

In short, do not throw out Ceremony’s model. It has one error, but the guiding principles of that very well written article are still valid. It is also worth repeating what has been noted before, the article was written with developer input, so it has more insight than many of our general speculations.