Dominion Spread
 

So I had a question. I'm playing Ti'en chi, and my army is large, but I think it could be about 150% larger if I had gone down a different route. Basically what I did was engorge myself on a large swath of territory. Then I erected a great deal of temples. I just hit 10, so I can produce two extra sacred units in my capital. I have a nice strong W9 bless which I like a lot.

My real question is, then, since I feel like I've sacrificed building more forts in lue of building these temples, how do you all spread dominion? Is there anything in particular you do? How important is it to you to spread your own beneficial dominion?

I have pretty good scales in these games, and I saw the income in the provinces where my scales took full effect about double. Now I'm struggling to get up enough forts to use the rather massive income I have!

Jazzepi

Re: Dominion Spread
 

There are two ways to increase your dominion spread:

Each temple automatically has a chance of causing a 1-pt dominion increase each turn. This increase can occur in the province with a temple or a nearby province. Provinces closer to the temple and provinces with lower friendly dominion are more likely to receive the spread.

Each preaching priest has a chance of raising dominion, but only in his province. Note that this can still raise dominion in nearby provinces, as increasing dominion in the priest's province increases the chance that a temple spread that would otherwise have occurred there occurs in a neighboring province instead.

Also, the higher your max dominion, the faster your dominion spreads, and every five temples (round down) increase your max dominion by 1 (to a limit of 10), so your current max dominion is now two higher than the level you selected in Pretender Creation (unless you originally set it to 9 or 10, in which case it's now 10).

Re: Dominion Spread
 

I think he knows /how/ dominion spreads, he's just wondering what other players do to make it spread. As in, what are their tactics in regard to dominion.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Exactly. And how important people think it is from a tactical standpoint to spread dominion. IE, how high a priority is it for people to get temples up and going? Or do they just rely on preachers to shore up dominion once they've conquered an area and use them like mobile temples?

Jazzepi

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Try stealthy preachers once.

I usually play with a very high dominion and only pay for a few temples, mainly to build more priests that preach other dominions away. I buld more temples with man or panagea or if the temples give special benefits, like with ashen empire + soul gate.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Stealthy preachers could be fun, though I haven't had a chance to try them out yet (I'm expecting to soon, however). I've been thinking it would be helpful to lower the enemy dominion in advance of my troops arriving.

I'm mostly focused on MP, but relatively new to it. One thing I can say is that my initial SP practice led me astray by undervaluing dominion on my pretender. For example, I like to play T'ien Ch'i with max luck, but in a recent game with only 3 dom on my pretender, I was very much at the mercy of everyone elses dominion in the early game.

That said, I still hate the idea of paying the pretender points for very high level of dominion (like 8-10). I feel that if I do that, then I'm weaking my end game since eventually I will get my dominion up to 10 anyhow, by buying temples. There are numerous exceptions to this "wisdom" (e.g. LA Ermor), but still I think the end game is strengthened by spending less on dominion and more on scales or magic for the pretender.

So, as a player that prefers low-ish dominion (and I'd never go as low as 3 again, I guess I'll favor dominion in the 5-7 range, going forward), I like to build temples and recruit preachers. I make it a priority to put the temples and the preachers on borders of nations that have very destructive scales, and then after that I try to put temples in my rear areas, where they are (hopefully) less vulnerable to attack.

Once I have a temple, I try to preach up to dominion 3 with one or more preachers and then move the preacher(s) on to some other province. If the hostile dominion is very strong and/or my dominion is still weak, I do sometimes leave a single preacher (but never more than one) in a dominion 3 province.

If you are using this kind of method in MP play, you have to expect that you're going to lose some of your temples to a skilled opponent. As such, I always build temples in forts, and as the game goes on I try to get an ever increasing number of forts. Personally, I like playing long term games on big, spacious maps, so I'm sure that affects my priorities. In this kind of game, cash has always been plentiful in the end game and its gems that are the critical resource. As such, I never feel too bad if I lose some temples to Ghost Riders, or whatever other attacks the opponent cooks up, and I usually find it easy to rebuild temples as I need them (preferably in newly conquered enemy territory!).

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Hellboy,

Boosted dominion doesn't affect temple spread, so your starting dominion matters late game, not the modded dominion number. Dominions isn't a game about late game potential anyhow...your late game potential is determined by your early game success and little else. High dominion spread from your temples, along with growth/death scales, are probably the 2 most important long-term considerations.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

On page 93 of the manual:
The chance of your dominion increasing in a province or spreading to an adjacent province partly depends on your god's initial dominion which you specified when you created your pretender. The chance is multiplied by your god's maximum dominion.

The example that follows in the manual makes this even more clear. So it absolutely is the boosted dominion that matters - unless there's been a rule change since the manual was printed?


I don't know what game you're playing but it surely isn't the same one I play! Now granted, I love EA games on big maps with big magic. In this kind of game it is true that early game expansion is a big driver, but to say "little else" seems to be over simplifying, imho. And for sure saying growth/death scales as one of the top 2 long term considerations does not apply to the MP games I've been seeing.

In the games I play the primary resource and source of power in the end game is gems and the troops/leaders that you summon with them. Any kind of troop you can buy with gold becomes irrelevant, eventually. And it that environment, having death scales really doesn't hurt you a whole lot. Now to the extent that early expansion gets you better access to gems and better funds to buy your researchers, yes the early expansion is critical. However, I do not believe that the #1 expander in the first 20 turns is guaranteed to be the winner (as one might conclude from your statement "your late game potential is determined by your early game success and little else").

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Yep the manual says a different way the game does.

Read my posts in the bug list:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...?Number=476748

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Wow, that sucks! And it still hasn't made it onto Edi's short list! Edi, what's it gonna take for this one to make it on the list?

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Hellboy,

The manual is wrong. It may be a bug, it may be a change, but temple spread is unaffected by dominion increases from having extra temples.

There is no scale for increasing your gem income, or it would obviously be a more important factor than growth. Gold isn't that important late game, but building temples, castles, labs, and mages is always useful. Troops are also still used for the purpose of beating down gates, so being able to buy more troops speeds sieges along, meaning you get the gem income of a province that much more quickly.

What would you say is a more significant long-term consideration than the gold boost from growth? Some possibilities would be the luck scale, E/N blesses, or a pretender that covers the holes of your national paths. Luck is a maybe, but most of the good events give gold, or an insignificant amount of gems. The blesses are nation-specific depending on what's sacred, so tht's a tricky one. I'd support saying that a pretender that covers holes in your magic paths might be the most important consideration for late-game, although depending on what indies you find it might not be a concern.

Mostly though, as I said, it's going to come down to how large your resource pool is, which is based on early and mid game success. A 5-gem income advantage (that's about 2 provinces on a high-magic map) on turn 10 adds up to 200 gems on turn 50...if you haven't found any indies by then you can easily burn some of those on empowering if need be and still come out ahead.

And no, the best expander on turn 20 isn't always going to win, but they have the best POTENTIAL to win, all else being equal.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

I've seen it now that it was reposted in the Bug Discussion Thread. I hadn't looked at this thread after the initial 3 posts in it. Contrary to what some here may believe, I am NOT all-seeing, all-knowing or infallible, nor do I spend all of my time forum-crawling in search of bugs that have not been reported yet. There are other things in my life besides Dominions 3 and even within the context of Dom3, other things than just the bug shortlist as even a cursory glance at my sig and the mapmaking/modding forum will reveal.

I think you didn't mean it, but that post came across as just short of an accusation of intentionally leaving this issue out of the shortlist and more widely neglecting the task of bug reporting. Not exactly very cheering, I assure you.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Well i play mp, sp everything with strenght9 indies and from what i can tell is, a high dominion to start with makes your game much easier.
Lowest dominion i would ever take is 6 and this really can hurt. You can build temples, but for most nations 1 of them cost 400 gold. Can be destroyed through unlucky raze events or the enemy quite easily. If you build fort everywhere a temple is its going to be very expensive. If turteling is your style this one is for you.
I prefere offensive armies and a lot of magic in each game, some cheap national troops to beat up the indies quite easily and support the magic of my god, usually the god has lots of hp too, like mother of lions, or simlar, abyssia has very nice lion titans for example.

At least 1 maxed out magic path to cast globals with heavy gem investment, mother oak and gift of health up can win games or any other nice global spells, releated to your nation and highest gem income.

SC and rainbowmages are rather a waste of time, except you can manage to make a SC with a high magic path and awake/dormant. SC you rather need to beat some indies but will die quickly against more diverse armies leaded by other players pushing their domain, and you waste a lot of resources in them too, that you better spend on magic paths or scales, i am more positive that diverse armies in high numbers win this games than just SC's.

Rainbowmages are not needed, you can recruit national and independent mages to do your site searching move them in several groups to cover a big area quickly.
Pretender is always to slow for that anyways and more useful casting the big rituals, big battle spells or do some research and stay away from beeing feebleminded, cursed, marked or killed.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

I'm currently in four MP games and 3 of them are in small maps. Having a small dominion in a small map is rather scary. Especially when you got 2 or 3 neighboors. So in most of mp games, I think a good dominion is expensive but necessary. And later on, the negative effects of your dominion (turmoil, sloth, death, etc.) can really be a thorn in your opponents's foot.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

(sarcasm on)
WHAT? I am so shocked to hear that you dont pursue this with the same ferver and put up with the same level of crap that you would a full job with overtime pay just like all of the moderators before you that hung on thru ... (looking around for missing moderators)... never mind.
(/sarcasm)

(when the cold syrup wears off I will probably delete my snide remark)
Gandalf Parker

Re: Dominion Spread
 

Never mind the sarcasm, Gandalf, it gave me a much needed laugh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

My own sense of humor is decidedly bent in a similar direction, so your post does not offend me in the least. So I hardly think it should offend anyone else either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Dominion Spread
 

You are correct, both in that the tone of my post was unduly negative/insulting, and also in that I did not mean it to be so. My apologies, Edi.

I take advantage extensively of all your free labor on the DB project, the Bug Shortlist, as well as other endeavours going back for years now. The last thing I want to do is to offend you, when you have added as much as you have to the fun I have playing Dominions.

Again, mea culpa, and thanks for all the work you do.

Re: Dominion Spread
 

It's all good then. I know how it is, I've suffered from the occasional bout of foot-in-mouth as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Thanks for the positive feedback. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif