Newbie questions
 

Greetings everyone. I'm quite new to Dominions 2 and have still problems. But first I want to thank the people at Illwinter for creating a good game that works under Linux, Bruce Geryk for creating a good intro walkthrough and Gandalf Parker for creating the Starter files.

Onward to the questions:
1. What is the best way for infantry nations (Abysia, Jotunheim, ...) for dealing with enemy cavalry? Spearmen if available? Mages? Summons?

2. I have had problems with Abysian troops that have broken early in the battle. Cause unknown, my guess is enemy spells. What is the best way to increase morale? Priests?

3. Research strategies, I have none yet. Blood nations should go for blood early of course, but the rest? Fire, evocation? Nature, conjuration? Death, enchantment?

Re: Newbie questions
 

1) Not many people use cavalry as they are generally don't very worth the gold/resources. With Abysia I just use brute force against cavalry. With Jotunheim, it is harder since they are so big, have poor attack stats, and cavalry generally has good defense.

2) Priests are good. But maybe you should try getting a bigger squad of Abysian troops together.

3) Depends on your nation and pretender setup of course.

Re: Newbie questions
 

(Assuming 'cavalry' refers to HC/knights:)

Spearmen: they were a very effective counter to shock cavalry in ancient warfare, not so in Dominions. High damage weapons (like battleaxes) is what you want.

Mages: Abysia's magic is good vs armor (many fire-based evocations deal armor-piercing damage). And Incinerate is a 99% guaranteed dead HC/cast. Jotunheim (especially Utgard) can use the Eagle Eyes/Tangle Vines to good effect very early - a Jotun spearman can kill an entangled knight with a single blow ~80% of the time.

Summons: my Favorites when dealing with HC are actually battle summons. Will o' Wispes for Abysia, and Swarm with Jotunheim.

Level 3+ priests, berserk-type spells, big squads, fighting in your dominion.

This depends on a lot of things. Obvious ones in the beginning: nation, theme, pretender, game setup (map size, site richness, VCs). Think of a global strategy, focusing on your strengths. Then adapt depending on what happens in the game (immediate or latent threats, alliances, gem income, indy mages).

Re: Newbie questions
 

That's good advice so far, here's just a tiny addition:

In general, the answer to almost all of your questions is "it depends", but here goes:

1. Fodder + spells also helps; tie up those enemy cav with some cheap screens of militia or cheap summons (manikin, who also cause nice fatigue, or vine men, or whatever) and hit them with flares, fireballs, or missile fire.

2. Priests help against acute moral drop, but net average morale can be raised by simply having larger squads of troops. Or you can break up your troops into lots of smaller squads, knowing well that a few will route, but others will be there to take their place.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Against cavalry I tend to create a wall of infantry, spears if possible. Slingers are cheap and can cause rout. In any case I have them HOLD and attack closest. Then I use some fast moving units (cavalry, summons, usually anything if its 4 legged or flying) which I set off to the sides with orders to attack archers or attack rearmost. If they are REAL fast (such as flyers) I might have to hold them up long enough to make sure that the enemy cavalry is going against my sword-fodder troops. You can do that by assiging them to guard a commander, and have that commander set to hold/hold/attack rearmost

You can mix in high-morale units into the same squad in order to help morale rolls. Many nations have some sort of cheap infantry that has a slight morale increase. Or use something like vinemen which are cheap to make.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Yeah, about that heavy cavalry, they typically get one charge attack with a lance which does extra damage at the start of a battle. Let them use those Lance attacks up on fodder (units with light armor tend, predictably, to have higher defense and lower protection, which is good because the lances tend to do enough damage that armor doesn't always help).

As for spell research, it depends very much on what spellcasters you have. My preferred approach is to get one or two good combat spells first, then do research to enable a more powerful Ritual spell and/or Magic Item. Different disciplines have different payoffs. Some of my faves:

Fire: Evocation Level 2 (Fireball)--unless you're Marignon, who starts out with Holy Pyre, just as good in most situations
Water: Alteration Level 2 (Quickness), Enchantment Level 1 (Breath of Winter)
Death: Enchantment Level 3 (Raise Skeletons/Dead)
Astral: Thaumaturgy Level 2 (Mind Burn)
Earth: Construction

Different spells work well in different combos. Blood Level 2 works great for Jotunheim or Abysia, because of Frost Fiends and Devils.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Hi, I'm a newbie too, so here's a contribution and a question. Take the contribution for what its worth.

c) The one advantage pikes or spears seem to get is ther length. That would seem to be something that could negate a favorable attack from cavalry.

q) I've been trying to figure out the small squad vs large squad idea. I've been trying the idea that by splitting my infantry into small squads, I'd minimize the routing of all the squads at once. But reading this I'm learning the part about a large squads might be harder to route. So what's the conventional wisdom about which is better. Splitting your troops out into the five or more squads that a leader or leaders can handle, or bunching the troops up into one big squad that's harder to rout?

Re: Newbie questions
 

Hey marc420, welcome to the addiction.

The thing with the spears makes a lot of sense, and they do have a "repel" attack in Dom2. But sadly, this doesn't work well against heavy cavalry.

My favorite tactic against these buggers is: Large block of heavy infantry with orders to "hold and attack", backed up by a group of mages casting damage spells. Having crappy troops like Mictlan slaves or Maenads absorb the initial lance charge helps too.

I don't think there's a definite answer to small squad vs. large squad. That's the beauty of Dom2: You have to adapt to your enemy and the situation.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Another advantage of having multiple squads instead of one big block is that if you spread the multiple blocks across the battlefield it makes it less likely that enemy non-flying flankers will be able to get to your rear where the vulnerable mages are likely to be.

Re: Newbie questions
 

If you have morale 50 troops afaik they never rout . Morale 30 troops almost never rout as well .

So undeads , devils , mechanical men , vine ogres and the likes can be used in very small squads and still fight normally until extinction .
The common troops with morale of 8-12 should better be used in large squads otherwise they might run from the first volley of missiles .

As Gandalf has said you can mix in your low morale troops a few vinemen or undead or similiar to increase the squad morale a lot .

With many nations it is important to quickly replace your national troops by summoned ones . Mictlan is a good example for this unless you run a good blessing .
Most national troops become rather obsolete in midgame .
Vans , Jotunheims Gigants and a few other national troops are exeptions .
In general the bigger part of your upkeep is better spent for mages though .

Re: Newbie questions
 

AFAIK mindles and undaed, don' "mix" there morale with normal troop, IIRC beserking troops doesn't help to once they are berserking, what Gandalf means, if i interpret him correctly was normal troop of high moral, like wingless for caelum, most elite troop of any nations, etc.

Re: Newbie questions
 

There are also certain spells whose area of effect is defined in terms of squads, IIRC.

Incidentally, dispossessed spirits might make decent chaff against heavy cavalry; they're cheap and mass-summonable, and since they're ethereal, 75% of non-magical lance attacks that would otherwise hit should miss.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Thank you for all the answers! They were helpful in figuring out what went wrong.
BTW, does anyone use firedrake a lot? I tried to add a pair to my army but they didn't seem to create a difference. Summer lions on the other hand was a great summon. (Abysia, default)

Re: Newbie questions
 

The fire summons are not so good .
As Abysia rather use devils .

The summer lion is etheral , thats good but he doesn't fly while a demonbred / devil / storm demon / FoD / SC flies .
0 protection hurts the summer lion .
So overall he has probably a lower performance then a devil but he costs 6 fire gems vs. a maximum of 7 blood , much cheaper when using soul contracts .

I would rather use my fireincome for fetishes , cash + flames from the sky / fires from afar .


Abysia is imo a good beginner race because it is powerful but more straightforward then e.g. caelum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
Probably the best way to learn the game is just participate a few MP games and see what the other ppl use on you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . If you are lucky some will even explain to you why they played the way the played and give you hints http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Using tactics learned in SP in MP is dangerous because most of the stuff that works in SP doesn't work in MP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Newbie questions
 

Of course you can do both, since they require different resources resources to summon, and you can't convert one (fire gems) to the other (blood slaves). X fire summons + Y devils will always beat Y devils.

Summon Lions may be great or not depending on the circumstances - they're easily dispatched with spells like Blade Wind for instance. The fire summons that work best for me (cost-wise) are the Fire Snakes (not Drakes).

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Caelum looks at least as straightforward as Abysia to me.

That's excellent advice.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Well, fire gems can be converted to fetishes/gold and that gold can be used to boost blood production. But anyway, I rather use fire for some items, flames from the sky and fetishes.

Well, it's easy to counter caelum's main hitting power in the late game, forcing the caelum player to seek another options, but devils and unigue blood summons stay tough all the way to the end.

Re: Newbie questions
 

That's OK when you have time for these investments to pay off - but when you have to deal with an immediate threat, forging Fetishes or performing alchemy to be able to recruit an extra bloodhunter probably won't help you as much as using these fire gems to summon critters you can use immediately. The point is, blood being a more practical route than fire summons to develop medium or long-term muscle doesn't mean you should disregard the latter entirely: this weakness is compensated by the fact they are immediately available in numbers, while it take 1 mage/turn or 1 contract/turn to get a single Devil.

Say, one of your fortresses is on the point of being stormed and Baal Chozron is here to defend it. Will you have him summon a Devil or 5 Summer Lions - assuming keeping this fortress is of utmost importance to you?

Re: Newbie questions
 

Coming in late on this thread...

If I recall correctly pikes are the only normal weapon long enough to gain a repel attempt on a lance. But since the repel attempt is against the morale of the attacker and HC usually have good morale, you are probably going to fail.

Re: Newbie questions
 

Long spears (Man has some) are length 5, longer than mounted lances.

And there are also forgeable items (whips, Dancing Trident, Stone Bird). And the female Titan's owl pet. Maybe others, including special attacks on summonable critters - eg, Wailing Ladies if I remember well. True, all of these aren't very common on your regular troops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif