Pure Dominion victory
 

Has anyone found a way to win with Dominion? I don’t mean surrounding a tough pretender in his last province and preaching him out, I mean knocking out a fairly large nation with just dominion.

In my recent AI game, I have done it by accident, but I have not read about it much in the forums. Is there a strategy associated with this? I kept a stable front between C’tis and myself and was trying to max dominion as I was Pangea. I used BS and Queens of Elemental Air to target their temples, but did not engage their main armies. It was a long game and would not have worked except for the length of the game.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Its a definate strategy. Particularly for nations that have stealthy priests. But to speed it up people often try to come up with scales that will hurt the enemy. Its difficult to create a scales setting which hurts them but you can still play under it.

Ive used it as Pangaea against heavily armored nations such as Ulm. I can take very low money, resources, food but sneak-preaching that all over Ulms territory hurts him bad. Also many other nations. I can also take a major hit on magic. But of course there are balancing nations and pretender choices which makes it a strategy that wont work every time in every game. (thats what I love about Dominions)

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

its cruel with certain tactics, try it with ctis miamasa (not stealthy priests but assains can raise skeles to assasinate priests and target temples and their priests are strong), pangaea (also send in some f9 white centaurs for fun) and caelum (these guys rock, having your dom in their provinces gives them less money, makes their troops tired, gives you higher prot, gives you more money if you conquer them and makes soem arty spells better. Take turmoil, luck and magic. They dont benefit from your magic and luck irrc so they are good scales (and helpful for caelum). Having flying, stealthy, lvl 3 priests for 90 gold each is mean. Can also work with man, they get cheap temples and only pay 30 gold for a lvl 2 stealthy priest.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

I'm attempting it now. Kind of by accident. Jotunheim in the little 'Brittain' map, with Caelum, Abyssia, and Mictlan as opponents. Started on Ireland, so I ran for Connor I think it is, the northern province that bridges over to Scotland. Abyssia was set up on the other side, so I built a fortified city there and consolidated my Island. In the meantime Abyssia took out Mictlan. I got some water mages, so I forged some gear and started taking over the water provinces. Right now I have them almost completely encircled. One province left with a Kraken and stuff so I'm waiting till I can consolidate a good army to take it. The Abyssians have Caelum down to their home province and it under siege, but nearly half their territory is my dominion now. All with temples and living fortresses and garrisoned with triton guards or troopers. And it turned out there was still some neutral territory left on the east coast, so I'm grabbing that and digging in. Decided not to attack them, try and see if I can't kill them with dominion. If they attack me I should be ok, I have a fairly good bunch of troops built up, and a lot of good forged items, every province gone over with a fine-toothed acashic comb for magic, and leading solidly in gem income.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Sure thing I've done it. Try Man
dominion 10
(half price temples)
stealthy priests
A prophet bard (stealth +30)
A sealthy god, mother of tuathas I think is called (stealth +25)
Add restless worshippers dominion (more spread)
Is the most I can think of.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Manuk covered it there but i would change 1 thing: the pretender. I find you dont need a stealthy pretender, restless worship+your monks is enough so make your pretender a mage, give it 5 nature and 5 air (i used the divine serpent) and anything else you want on it (points permitting, i took some production for longbows). He sits at home researching while a bunch of longbowmen (35-40) shielded by 10-15 axemen conquer indies. Your bard prophet should head straight towards the enemy and your home province should crank out mothers of avalon. Put your main research into conjuration until you reach lvl 7 then get construction+alteration. While all your conquered provinces crank out monks try to establish a very well fortified choke point (would be amazing on clahs of the titans) patrolled by huge numbers of lnogbowmen. Once you reach conjuration 7 you should have enough monks in enemy territory to do dominion damage, help them along with air queen SC's popping the enemies temples. I suggest you give her snake bladder stick, vine shield, some sort of helmet, armour of displacement that gives 3 defence, ring of regen and something else (cat charm/amulet of luck maybe). I did this to thuella, she had 3 lightning swarms, an AoE 4 poisonous attack, caused fear, had 18 prot, 24 defence, good regen and could buff. She anihilates armies since they attack her, get caught by her vine shield and then get left to die in the big poison cloud.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

I tried the man thing on forgotten cliffs, with a snake pretender, won in 31 turns, which was exactly how long it took me to get an air queen out.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Good job, when i played i didnt go completely for dominion, spent alot of my time being indecisive which i tend to do alot with tests until i actually decide on a strategy.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Ok, it sounds like it is possible, but would it stand up in MP? It seems that MP is the real test of strategies. It seems to me that your enemy could fairly cheaply start putting up temples, PD and preists and hold you off. In the mean time, could them then stomp on you with some other strategy? How does this rank as a strategy versus many of the others?

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

I dont know that ANYTHING stands up well as a "strategy" in a Dom MP game. But it does make a good "tactic". Particularly if you ally yourself with a strong up-front type of army.

Its like my "stealth guerrilas" tactics with Pangaea. By itself it would be really hard to take that final home castle and win the game. But without it, a nation could be much stronger for not having to invest in PD everywhere or keep roaming armies behind his front lines. So if I team up with someone like Ulm or Ermor then together we can totally frustrate someone.

Id say its the same with the dominions-invasion tactic. Sure he can combat you but it forces a different type of combat then he would use against someone else. So if its used to keep him spending gold on two fronts then its something worth adding to the tactics toolbox. It makes certain races well worth allying with.

This aint chess. Its more rock-paper-scissors.
Gandalf Parker

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Also try combining your super dominion push with a global that will damage the enemys invading (and if your dominion is far reaching non invading) armies. Also, as i said try to get a chokepoint and load it (or them, try to make it no more than 3 provinces) with longbowmen and atleast 1 or 2 vine ogre makers.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

You could also cast the wild hunt, using your high-nature pretender. Might help a bit.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

You are correct: the dominion-only strategy does not hold up in MP. As you say, humans detect your dominion-attack far better than the AI and rapidly move to patrol and preach to counter you. Additionally they would take your moves as a declaration of war and attack you - at least to destroy your temples if not wipe you out entirely.

The only case of a dominion-attack strategy that I have heard of succeeding was with GE Arco - BUT - the player only used the dom-attack in conjunction with a regular military attack. Big teams of Skeptics were used to nuke enemy dominion to great effect (provinces going from dom 10 -> dom 0 in a single turn!). Backed up with very strong dominion to overrun the dom of these provinces. I'm sure Stone Idols were put into play as well as Arco is great at building those.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

you could stealth preach, set up like 5-10 monks in each province, and only have them all preach once in place.

I am suprised no one is doing this in council of wyrms.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Who says nobody is?

Well, as the monk-man in CoW, I suppose it's safe to admit that nobody is.
Even with low-level patrolling (moderate PD or a small force of real troops) a force of 5-10 monks would be discovered in 1-2 turns. If someone noticed that they were finding monks in all their provinces every turn, they might get upset.

I think it would be about impossible to dominion-kill a human player without them knowing it was happening. I did take out Jurri (playing as BF Ulm) in one game (me as GE Arcoscephale) that way but I had the support of a massive army (first Ermorian, then Arcoscephalean) in his capital to keep him from patrolling my skeptics into oblivion. It was just easier and safer to do that versus sieging a well-defended fortress.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

marignon can have stealth preachers too

thing is, since they are each individuals they are not considered a "large" army... however after even two get caught, maybe even one, they'd be on to you

shoot I catch scouts and assassins trying to cross my HEAVILY patrolled pythium border all the dang time.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Ah, so that was you Ygorl. I'd heard the story but I couldnt recall who the player was. Did you use any Stone Idols? Or just skeptic teams?

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Awww, I get to be part of a legend, and then it's like that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Oftentimes it's more cost-efficient to outpreach a single or even a couple fortresses in my experience as well, and it's not that uncommon in MP either. What is more difficult is dominion-killing someone who still has a significant amount of land. While undoubtedly possible, I suspect it's rarely worth the trouble, since usually everybody uses a reasonably high-dominion pretender (which translates to efficient temples and high concentrations of dominion) or else has a special plan to avoid dominion death.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

No stone idols, just 20 or so skeptics (one of which was prophetized and preaching) and a few priestesses and archangels. It took a long time.

Jurri, if I had my say, you'd get to be part of *all* the legends!
You've probably earned your way into most of them... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

How can you know in MP if someone is dominion-attacking you?
if you cannot identify whos dominion is, If I don't remember bad enemy dominion is black candles in any case and of any other player than you.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Well look at scales and then try to match them to neighbours, otherwise patroll and catch one in the act. When trying to dominion kill some-one aswell as stealth preaching make sure to have some high level priests on your border (atleast level 4), if you can get these then if you have a 5 astral mage around cast angelic host, gives you an archangel and 6 angels. The archangel as well as being a flying lvl4 priest and fire 3 mage can make a decent thug/SC. He can cast phoenix power, holy avenger, fireshiled and phoenix pyre (i suggest boots of quickness for his feet) and if he has fairly high prot (i had a forge lords hammer+forge of the ancients so mine had an invunerability robe) and lifedrain (or phophetise him and rely on regen from a ring of regen) he should do well. His awe causing him to be hit less and the fire shield and holy avenger punishing those who do, and if he gets killed he can come back with the pyre (mine also had e10 bless so good reinvig)

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Isn't there a high level spell where you can create/conjure a creature that spreads dominion like a prophet? What if you planned to crank those out every turn in the end game? Even once they do detect it, wouldn't it be too late by that time? I want to say there are two spells that do something like that, but I can't remember for sure.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Juggernauts spread dominion (level 9 construction) and I think you can wish for dominion.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

I will also ask if there are in particlar any nations that are more easily killed by mass dominion spread than others. For example, are there any nations that can't typically afford to put temples in every province? Are there any nations that would have an especially hard time defending temples?

Finally, is there any way to see the Dominion level of your enemies' pretenders from a menu in the game?

=$=

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

F2, F3 or F4 screen lists the titles of a particular pretender god in the beginning of sme description or other. The more titles, the more dominion. It might vary a little, but it gives you some hints about his magic, scales and dominion.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Multiple juggernauts in one army all spread dominion individually, right? I built an army with 10 juggernauts at the end of my last game, and won after the 10th one was built through a dominion victory! It was hilarious because I wasn't expecting it (I wanted them to see combat, grr....) and those juggernauts were literally all the way on the other side of the world from my enemy's lands. I was going to use the Gate Stone to go in with 10 juggernauts, 10 Steel Dragons (or whatever they're called), 120 clockwork horrors, and 125 Ulmish fighting men. I really, really wanted to test out Will of he Fates and Army of Gold.

=$=

PS -- Do Army of Gold and Army of Lead stack on each other? Also....I seem to have a hard time getting my mages to cast powerful spells like these, even when they have a bunch of gems. Am I correct in thinking that every gem past the minimum requirement raises the effective caster level by 1 for puposes of fatigue? Does this caster level also effect the variable elements of the spell?

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

The first gem raises the effective caster level for all purposes (right? certainly for purposes of if he or she can cast it at all...); additional gems reduce fatigue as you stated.

I don't know firsthand about the Army spells. I'm sure the protection stat increase (to 20?) doesn't stack (though the second one might boost it a bit more?) but I don't see any reason why you wouldn't get both the MR and FR bonuses...

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

The Juggernauts look pretty cool and dominate the scene. It is not often that I call my wife to look at a screen in Dominions… However, they are pretty slow, so they never made it to the enemy ranks in the game I used them. If I remember, they are not terribly offensive in any case, so they may not have done much even if they did get there.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Oh yeah, it is Man and Panagea that are best suited to dominion victories with their cheap temples. I would think Mitlian is the worst, as you would need to put your blood slaves heavily into this, reducing your ability to do your other magics. On the other hand, if you were taking other magic paths and had a really good supply of blood slaves, they might be powerful. The water nations in SP would also do relatively well, as they can afford to build a temple right next to the enemy without fortifying too much. I have encircled enemies on the Britain map and it does seem to wear them down more than a regular frontal push does. However, that might be simply the effect of getting more temples out because I am avoiding costs on PD and forts.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

I think there's a limit on the number of gems a mage can use. One per caster level, I believe. That may be stopping your mages.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

I've never tried to stack the "army" spells. But I've seen the devs explain that they purposely limit stacking of buffs/resists so that you cannot create an impervious army.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

Also i believe that if the ai thinks you dont have enough troops it wont 'waste' gems on the buffs you have scripted. Mictlan can be dangerous in a dominion war, prophetise a high priest of the sun, give him a jade knife and he can sacrifice 7 slaves per turn, a non prophet with a knife can sacrifice 6.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

In one of the battles I watched my huge army was chasing one small fleeing Mictlan unit. And one of my mages far away still casted "summon lesser water elemental" twice ! If only I could physically torture mages for wasting gems!!

Hopefully Dominions_3 will have better AI for battles such as: Do not use gems when all enemy opponents are fleeing.
Because in most situations(99%) it's better to keep those gems for the next battle.

Re: Pure Dominion victory
 

My mages tend not to use gems too much, the only gem problems i have are:
1:Mages using too many gems for a spell and
2:Mages not using the spells at all and costing me the battle