Request for assistance
 

Hey, I have a few questions about DomII. First off, I've owned it and played it off and on for about a year and a half or so, but have never really aquired a whole lot of skill in the process http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Anyways, if anyone can help with my questions, please feel free to do so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Recently I've been playing a few games with lots of players and a large map. Usually roughly 10-12 players ("Normal" AI's) plus myself. Recently, I've played as Man and Ulm, yet the same thing has happened to me both times. I start out well, conquer the independents in the immediate area without trouble, and usually wipe out the closest AI as quickly as possible. Both times I've ended up with roughly 20 provinces, a few moderately sized armies, and all provinces explored for magical sites using the Acashic Record spell. It's notable to mention that I'm not skilled in the use of magic, and usually relegate it to the back burner, focussing on conventional armies.

My armies are usually mixes of fast, heavy troops and supporting missile troops. My mix is usually a ratio of about 2:1, missiles to heavy troops. Often archers in the back and the toughest cavalry I can recruit up front. With this mix, I wipe the floor with the AI in almost all battles, but can have trouble with large (100+) armies of weaker AI troops. So here comes my problem...

I always seem to hit an AI empire that has absolutely massive armies, and lots of them. This is usually around turn 40-50. I expand as much as I can, recruit what forces I can, but eventually they declare war on me and wipe me out without thinking twice about it. I just don't understand it; I'm recruiting as much as possible, using quality troops, yet the AI seems to be able to annihilate me with 6 or more 80+ troop armies. So, essentially, my question is how to avoid this, how to avoid the pitfall at this point in the game.

Pretty much, is there a detailed strategy guide for this stage of the game, something to teach me what I'm obviously missing?

Thanks!

Re: Request for assistance
 

I know how you feel, sounds like most of my experiences with large-map games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

There will probably be some advice coming from more experienced players, but what I can say is you'll have to work on the magic strategy a little. Taking down armies that have you massively outnumbered with poor troops can seem just about impossible, but a little of the right magic, properly applied, makes it easy.

With Ulm, the most important spell will be blade wind. It's an earth spell, and L6 Evocation I think. So you need the research to cast it, and boosted master smiths... I think you only need one booster level to cast it, but it's an exhausting spell to cast, so antifatigue items and even more earth boosters will help immensely. You want the spell summon earth power, that's IIRC conjuration 3, cast that the first round and it boosts your mages earth level 1 point for the rest of the battle. With summon earth power alone, they should be able to cast it, add some earth boots and they can do it without passing out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif It's not very good against anything with heavy armour, but will cut a nice huge swath of lightly armoured troops down with each cast.

If you're playing Ulm you also want to really work on construction. You need construction 4 for your master smiths to make dwarven hammers. Between their natural forge bonus and the hammers, you can churn out a huge number of useful items for the gems. All your battle-smiths should have earth boots and the anti-fatigue girdles ASAP, for reasons above. Once that's accomplished there are all sorts of other wonderful things your forges can churn out too. So basically what you want to research is construction 4, evocation 6, conjuration 3, not necessarily in that order, but all three of them as soon as possible. That gives you the tools to swat down enourmous hordes of crap troops like the insects they are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Ulmish arbalesters are powerful missile troops against heavily armoured enemies, but they just aren't cost effective facing hordes of cheap crap. For that you have to rely on your mages.

Re: Request for assistance
 

MAGNA ERUPTION for Ulm. For Man, just summon some Air Queen's or vine ogres, etc. Learn to use the magical spells instead of relying on recruitable troops once it's past turn 10 (if not even earlier), the bulk of your gold should be spent on mages. Also your pretender design/scales would be nice to see as well. A combat pretender is tricky at first to learn (to know what indies you can take and what not) but they definitely help.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Oh, the other nice thing about summon earth power is it gives a little antifatigue too. And the other nice thing about boosting your battle-smiths up higher than just enough to cast the spell - blade wind has extra effects. It's, like, 42 blades? or close to that, but with a +, meaning that there are more blades if the mage casting is higher than the minimum level. With Ulm I generally have more earth gems than I know what to do with, between a substantial income of them and a huge forge bonus (the smiths forge bonus plus plenty of dwarven hammers) so about the time in the game you're talking about, I'll even start empowering the battle mages. One properly boosted battle smith that can stand there and cast back-to-back blade winds through the battle can cut down literally hundreds of lightly-armoured enemies.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Magic. You have to go with magic. It is where the real power is and it is the way you are going to win. Ulm is the only one of the many races that has limited magic and even it needs to take it into account if it is going to win.

If memory serves, Man has cheap temples, so you might want to explore a dominion based approach. I think they also have nature spells, so explore powering up mages with the thistle mace. Gift of Health is a nice global, which boosts the hit points of all your troops in friendly dominion. Sounds like that would go well with your strategy/style of using lots of regular troops.

I had the same challenges you did when I first started. My problem was that I was treating the game like a regular wargame. I had to change my way of thinking radically and approaching things very differently. It is hard to describe, but let me try. Most games are the real world put onto the computer. This game is a fantasy world, with special laws of physics which you can change. You have to learn a new way to think to handle the new laws of nature.

I can only recommend what worked for me. Pick one nation and read up on it in the forums. Learn how it works and you will learn a lot of mechanics of the game. Try that nation out a few times, don’t be afraid to experiment. The learning curve on this game is very high, but it is worth it.

I would also suggest asking questions on the forums, but I suspect most of the activity is going to be over on Dom 3, now that it has been released.

Re: Request for assistance
 

I disagree about magic as I rely heavily on regular troops well into the game. It's not at all unusual for me to end a single-player game with my regulars still providing most of the force of my assault. Magic is killer but the AI can be beat with regular troops.

First off, I think cavalry is probably an error. My experience is that cavalry is distinctly less efficient than medium or heavy infantry both in recruitment costs and support requirements. You can generally buy and support 4 infantry for the cost of 1 cavalry and infantry will win 4 on 1. I suspect this is what's happening to you. Your 15 cavalry will just get totally squished facing 60 medium infanty.

The only unboosted cavalry I've ever thought makes a good backbone is the Tien Chi Barbarian Kings heavy bow cavalry which is cheap and has great combat stats - but it's a bear to use well and it took me a dozen games to get it right. Black Knights and Knights of Avalon are both very much on my "not worth it" list. The exception is that sacred cavalry can be worth it with a good bless effect.

If you do use cavalry, you need to set up your troops precisely for each battle so that your cavalry hits the enemy at full charge, which is tricky and requires moving them around on the battlemap depending on the speed of your opponent. A good shock will frequently break the enemy, meaning you have no losses. With your huge numerical disadvantage once melee starts, only good use of the shock can make cavalry worthwhile.

My normal army is about 50/50 medium infantry/archers with mage artillery support. I set infantry on hold and attack in front of the archers. I make sure I have at least as large an army as the AI with fortress supplies and the nature supply boosters. This will totally wipe any normal army the AI fields and most magical ones. I do supplement my armies with summoned troops as the game goes on.

I'm also skeptical on Akashic record. It's a very expensive spell, and I prefer to search with either rainbow pretenders or groups of mages with suitable random picks. Searching to 1 gets you about half the sites; you don't need perfect coverage to win. Akashic record on 20 provinces is what, 500 pearls? You can get a LOT of angels and lucky coins for that. Even worse if you have to alchemize other gems, as I suspect you do. For that price you could have huge armies of Fall Bears as Ulm or lamia/Vine Ogres as Man that would annihilate an endless series of chaff armies.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Acashic record is usually not worth the gem cost. If you find one gem producing site, it will only pay off 25 turns later for an astral site, and 50 turns later for any other site. Use the individual school searching spells or level 1 mages for those schools that you can't cast the searching spells in.

Recruit a mage at every castle every single turn. Use the spells that target large numbers of troops such as blade wind to destroy unarmoured AI troops.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Blade wind is level 4 evocation.

Re: Request for assistance
 

I've had some moderate success with cavalry. I like to keep a good strike force of all cavalry available, set them as far forward on the field as possible and attack immediately, they can move quickly to cover unexpected threats, make good patrollers, and can quickly crush a relatively weak army that pops up making trouble in an unexpected place, which can save a lot of trouble when the only other way to deal with it would mean pulling a large, powerful army away from an urgent task and wasting several months getting them into position.

The large, powerful army, however, is going to have a lot of heavy infantry. Possibly archers too, depending on the race, but heavy infantry without fail.

The cavalry army and the main army can combine. When they do, the cavalry gets set back a bit and set to outflank. They do pretty well in that role, but honestly, the ability to split them off into an independent force that can move much more quickly is the only reason I build them at all. Infantry flankers work, and they're much less expensive.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Well, in your original post you implied cavalry was your main strike force and that could make you fall behind. Even as fill-in I usually prefer move 2 foot armies because of the cost advantage, although cavalry does have that strat move advantage. Why do you lose? Do your actual main armies get overwhelmed or do you just have too many armies to squish?

Re: Request for assistance
 

Usually my armies can squash the AI without too much trouble, but the AI fields too many armies to squish them all. They get behind my front lines, and once that happens, I can't stop them.

Information thus far has definitely been helpful. If there's any other pearls of advice to offer, please feel free! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Request for assistance
 

Ulm has terrific provincial defense. Those Arbalests shine especially against smaller armies with heavy troops, and aren't that effective against big armies of light units without indep support. Marignon's Crossbowmen and Jotunheim's Jotun Militia work better.

You might also want to try a map with more chokepoints (mountain gaps, seas, rivers that limit movement etc). The maps might be too open for your playstyle.

Re: Request for assistance
 

I know what you mean about handling a zillion armies. I have some techniques but they fall under the category of "stupid AI tricks". First is that the AI always like to attack the currently weakest adjacent province. So 1 army bouncing back and forth can hold 2 provinces indefinitely and wipe a lot of AI armies in the process. Second is that the AI almost never abandons a siege, so if you have abundant fortresses in your territory that will make them stop so you can clean them up. Often my armies are "too good" and could be split up but I know that's hard and the smaller armies do get smacked from time to time.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Ahhhh the AI is good with sending suicide armies to slice into the heart of an empire and eventually causing fatal wounds. Here's what I suggest:
To stop the AI from breaking deep into your heart look for bottleneck points on the map and hold them. Try to expand while remaining in contact with as few AIs as possible. If 10 AI opponents are able to attack and they are around the same strength as you then things could get scary fast.
If playing ULM summon the Enliven Statues and Mechanical Men!(Earth Construction spells) These fellas are very impressive in battle. Once you try them you'll recognize they are worth the gem cost. If playing MAN summon the Vine Ogres a special forged hat will bring in one extra Vine Ogre as well. Find the good summoning spells such as the ones I mentioned because this will make winning more of a reality. Some summoning spells are a waste of gems.(fire_drake anyone? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif)
If you find a library summon the sages for increased research and have the blood sages hunt for blood slaves. The long term benefit will allow you to develop some powerful armies for middle/late game.
Don't play games against ERMOR until you feel confident, he is probably the toughest computer opponent.
I wouldn't advise casting Acashic record unless the province is mountain/forest or some other good combination.


Another spell you could cast to help stop AI opponents from drilling thru the heart of your empire are global spells like Haunted Forest or Mechanical Milita... these become available at the higher levels.

Re: Request for assistance
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Well, at least I've been doing something right! I always use sages to do my research; they're quite cheap and have a fair number of research points to use.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif This I have learned the hard way! After playing them once before and being annihilated by absolutely massive armies that I had no chance of stopping, I stopped playing against them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Request for assistance
 

As you can see, there are as many ways to play this game as there are people. No one mentioned the Super Combatant (SC), but it is something you might want to experiment with. It does not come naturally to those of us who’s first impulse is to buy lots of heavy infantry, but that is one of the fun parts of the game.

In essence, you equip and power up one magical unit so far that it trashes armies all by itself. Many of the high level summons can be used and many people design their god to do this. They use things like life drain and regenerate to ensure they can not be killed and then give then some nasty weapons. Take it to the extreme and you get amazing results. Really, one unit that kills an entire enemy army of 100 or more. If you can get that tactic down, you will find things easier.

Sure, you can beat the AI with only normal troops, but why play Dom if you want a historical battle. Total War covers that rather well. This is a fantasy game, so play with the magic, make it the heart of your army.

Re: Request for assistance
 

I can tell you my first tactics. I believe combat is rather standard.

TACTICS

Front: Heavy infantry(any cheap armored infantry) at hold & closest. If you make two groups of them few enemies will come trough since enemies are lured to engage hand to hand if they are fairly close.
Don't use light armored troops if you can afford heavy as they cost the same gold.
mages that buff your troops are welcome here.

Immediatly behind: Missile troops (maybe indy crossbowmen if you don't get longbowmen), javelineers can fit here too and then get archers a little behind.
They will soften the enemy and if they are close will hit more often.

Cavalry: If you fit cavalry or anything faster than your heavy troops (light infantry or militia or flagelants) put them on the flanks to hold and attack rear (or archers) if you are lucky they will pass the main army and hit archers but if it's a luxury type like knights put them on flank and very rear so they meet battle only to chase units that rout so few of them escape.
Example: if you get light units of an event treat them as your first flankers to aid your heavy centre and your cavalry (use heavy and never light cavalry) just to chase.

You can make this armies fairly good if you build castles on good resource provinces like mountains so most of your force is cheap armored soldiers.

using magic is a little trickier but as you conquer you can divert some gold to do it.

Oh, there's another dirty trick. Put a very armored slow troop with feew units at hold and attack rear placed on flank and very foward. They will atract missile fire and survive (with shields of course) if they are wounded better, some wounds slow them down (crippled for example) and they will never see hand to hand because your faster troops cover by the time enemy gets there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Request for assistance
 

SRATEGIES

Don't start a war.
Let them do it for you. If you are in peace you can prosper and let them fight each other.

If you have 2 enemies that are next to each other let one of them conquer that region alltogether so the other will have no road into your country unless he attacks the new owner (this will eliminate one enemy without even a fight)

Every one know the cheap tactic of leaving a province without defence so you know enemy will attack that one.
Just move a good army there and kill them all.

As you play games you can foretell what the game will be so you will design your pretender better.

If you dislike magic play Pangaea with oracle (zero cost and dominion 4) and rest of your points on a cool castle (wizard tower for example) and good scales. With enough gold you can make centaurs or armored minotaurs en masse. and if you want more gold set taxes in a populated province to 200% and patrol with harpies.

Re: Request for assistance
 

I was wondering how possible it is to use the "flight" spell to affect the troops you want it to be cast on. If I placed a mage and a group of cavalry way off in the rear, away from my other troops, do you think I could get away with setting the mage to cast flight on the cavalry and then telling them to "attack rear" with the intention of killing the mages/archers? It's hard to do specific tactics like this bcause the AI is in control.

=$=

Re: Request for assistance
 

you would want to script it as hols and attack rear, which gives your mage three rounds to get the flight spell right.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Yeah .. the mage will cast flight on himself and any archers in range. Alltogether they'll fly off then towards the next enemy SC to get themselves slaughtered http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Request for assistance
 

I used to use akashic record a lot myself. I discovered Auspex/Haruspex/Dark Knowledge etc. through posts here and have been using them. It does cut some gem costs down, but on the other hand it means a lot of mages not researching for a round instead of just one. But I think I can get more efficient with it. For instance, I seem to remember someone posting earlier that there are certain types of sites that never show up underwater? But I searched and couldn't find the post.

Re: Request for assistance
 

There are no blood sites underwater.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Arker means spells that can`t be cast on an underwater province, Auspex, the air searcher can´t search underwater. But Aruspex, is that it´s name?, the nature searcher can search underwater.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Haruspex, IIRC.

Re: Request for assistance
 

No, I think he means exactly what he wrote, which was a question about what kinds of sites can't show up underwater. He said absolutely nothing about what site searching spells don't work on underwater provinces, or can't be cast from underwater provinces.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Yeah, Graeme understood me properly.

I know Auspex, also Augury, you have to have a land lab to cast from. And Voice of Tiamat, you have to have a water one. But I was thinking I'd heard that Death AND Blood sites were land only. If it's just blood then my memory was wrong, so good that I asked.

Still and all, you lose so many months of researcher spells searching with the smaller spells, I think Acashic Record might well be worth it if you have a good astral income to do it with.

Re: Request for assistance
 

You can find death sites underwater.

Depends... lots of variables to consider on whether or not casting the spell is useful. Variables such as current nearby opponent threats, should/can the gems be used to summon Juggernauts instead, how many magic sites are currently known for the province, should the astral gems be saved to dispell a possible future/existing bad global spell, the list goes on and on.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Personally, I like Acashic record, but I usually play with a high site frequency. Usually I cast several single path site searches, but if I can't find any sites in a province I often use acashic record to see if i've missed something. Also, when site searching, check province unrest and scales. A high unrest often indicates a death/blood site and weird scales can indicate other sites (i.e. hot provinces might have plains of perpetual drought)

Re: Request for assistance
 

Isn't there a limit to how many sites there can be? So that if you find that number, you can know to quit searching for more?

Re: Request for assistance
 

Yes, no province can have more than four sites, and many sites are terain limited (most underwater ones are underwater only, and vice versa, though many have other weirder restrictions)

P.S. Can you get the Caspar of the cave event (adds E1 site) in a province w/ 4 sites? wouldn't think so but you never know... hard to prove a negative.

Re: Request for assistance
 

Yes within Dominions_2 no province can have more than 4 magic sites... which is why I listed that as one of the variables.
High site frequency would be another variable to consider when making this decision.

Re: Request for assistance
 

4 sites per province

Re: Request for assistance
 

I'm sure I've seen a lot more than 4 sites in a province, I'm guessing some of them 'don't count.' Mines, for instance?

Re: Request for assistance
 

No, domes don't count. They appear just under sites and may seem like province has more then 4 sites on a first glance.