Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Is there an existing thread? Something less nation specific and more general? I know pretty much everything is situation dependent and diplomacy throws a huge twist on things but there must be some general advice from the veterans.

Assume medium map 15 prov/player (or give an example for small, med, large)

For example?

High prot units worth the resource cost in early expansion to have more leftover troops?

Secure a small/medium border, bulk up and hit with an unbeatable army? Or Keep poking/raiding and then overtax/pillage?

Send mages out early for xp and reduced losses or keep everyone at home for research early?

Mercenaries? worth it with the chance of a wasted bid? Obviously they're worth it short term but is the wasted bid worrisome?

sit tight and bulk or expand quickly and paint yourself as a target?

research site searching spells asap or wait till after either evoc 2-3 or const 2-4?

Play nice early or pick an early target?

Try to form a survivor type alliance or go for the largest alliance you can? Based on geographic or strength? Kill the strongest first or ally with em?

Yup, pretty much all situational... but is there anything that maybe steps outside of nation/age/pretender/dom? Maybe "never do xyz in multiplayer"?

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

What units you recruit, diplomatic options, and an early game rush are all going to depend on your nation.

Raiding is more important than hitting things with huge armies most of the time, taking castles is generally the only time when you'll want to have a large amount of troops in one place.

Early on mages aren't going to help you do much of anything since nothing is researched, so they should be searching or researching. Bless nations will have ot recruit priests for blessing though.

Mercs are great, but never put yourself in a spot where losing the bid will set you back a turn of expansion.

Early expansion is critical, and being too big means you have a stick to beat people with, which discourages alliances against you, being too small means you're just lunch for one (or more) of your neighbors.

I'm a fan of manual searching, but I'm about the only one I know that likes it, so I don't bother researching the search spells.

And having a good ally helps out a lot, grab one if you can, but I'd avoid a large coalition, since then they can all gang up on you if you get too large. Having just one ally provides a really good reason for them NOT to betray and gang up on you, since I know I'd devote all my energy to making sure my former ally didn't profit from his betrayal once it became clear that I was overmatched by an alliance agaisnt me.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Interesting, since I haven't got to the end game of an MP game yet most of my strats are based of SP which, well...just won't work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

In regards to raiding, is it generally considered "worth" it to be an annoyance? Taking a province, not defending it, jacking the tax rate, and moving on? Or is it "better" to take it, pillage the heck out of it and then move on if you do not have full scout intelligence of what the enemy will hit you with?

From the above, it seems that early expansion is worth it if you can get big enough to be scary. How about if you can only reach middling status, but in doing so you may provoke attacks?

Stupid, subjective question: how often do you find that people are betrayed by their own coalition? I would think the coalition would work to keep everyone relatively equal and take everyone else out before "resetting" the alliances? Not so?

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Depends if you have an expander pretender to pick up the slack in early expanding (it will be slower with high rec units).
You always want to maintain raiding if at all possible.
Keep anything that will keep mages away from research to a minimum.
It's usually very worthwhile to big on mercs, but keep in mind your bid must be higher on average if there are a lot of players.

As long as you don't get a long ways ahead of _everyone_ else in provinces you should generally expand at max speed.
It's generally pretty safe to go for the site search spells right away. Of course, if you see signs of an early war brewing be sure and take note.
Play nice - it's very hard for an early rush to pay off unless you are much more skilled than your opponent.
Ally with whoever you can unless you plan to attack them soon or doing so will more or less gauarantee their eventual victory.

Some misc tips:

*Use indy scouts and troop leaders wherever possible, saves fort slots for mages.

*Don't use most low level summons unless you are already in a desperate war.

*Don't try a recruitable assassin strategy, a couple is a great distraction, many is a waste of money.

*Don't use a human rainbow mage, they are quite weak base and difficult to make good use of besides.

*Use decoys - 1 unit far in front and to the side of your main force, to draw arrows and enemies.

*Don't put all your mages in a big clump on the battlefield, spread them around so something unexpected can't kill them all at once.

*Don't try to equip recruitable commanders with stuff to fight in melee unless you are playing a couple very specific nations.

*Pretenders are mostly for fighting in melee, there are very few cases where having them cast spells from the back is useful enough to warrant bringing them.

*Generally, don't use cavalry or low armor (prot 1-10) infantry.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

I'm not a super expert like QM is but...

Pillage it only if you don't plan on keeping it anytime soon... Usually I just up the tax rate and move on to raid more. Raiding is always useful because it puts them on the defensive and ties up troops they have. Often times you'll find that areas you thought they should just take right back they can't/won't.

Early expansion is extremely important in MP. More areas = more gold = more troops = stronger military = bigger stick. You should always be taking at LEAST one indy province a turn in the early game. Many nations will be taking 2/3 per turn. To answer your question: Middling status is always better than smallish status... you never want to have the smallest empire... it's just a target on your forehead because they know you don't have the gold output to match them troop for troop.

Totally depends on the group dynamic and personalities. The larger the coalition the harder it is for it to work. In my experience... once the immediate threat of "super-empire" is gone the coalition falls apart.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

I would even extend that to not using the pillage command under almost any cicimstances. If you have a military force in enemy territory, it is almost always more productive to simply take another province rather than hang around. 200% taxes works plenty well for disrupting the enemy and gaining a quick cash boost.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

agree on the pillage, never once used it in SP (or my limited MP)

Good tips.. couple questions on the miscellaneous tips:

Don't use cav or low prot infrantry - beyond the obvious chaff that you expect to die, could you elaborate? Even high prot cav with a lance/hoof?

regarding infantry I always thought spear/repel was good, recently there was a series of posts where they actually did the math and it looks like crap. What is generally regarded as better, glaive, broadsword, morningstar (few) or what? Is having a shield always better than not unless you have a 8+ or 9+ 2H?

Does the comment regarding human rainbows include lich/master?

regarding decoys...is more better? 1-5 clumps of 1-5 units to draw fire/melee?

Thanks for the tips folks, keep em coming... diplomacy bits are great too. Obviously everyone is different and group dynamics will rule, but general tips are still good.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Does this generally work? I like using decoy units myself, by I often find the battle AI ignores groups of less than five (meaning, they don't seem to shoot at that lone infantryman out in front, but at the big group further back).

Any opinions on the optimum use of decoys?

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Qm, about your comments on rainbow pretenders, I disagree.Isn't the following tru about rainbow pretenders

1) It will give you a big gem income at the beginng of the game, in all paths of magic, not just the ones your nation specializes in. Even if you have no use for gems in some of the paths, you can likely trade them for the ones that you need.
2) Even if you just had one of every path, that would still be enough to cast some battle changing spells such as wind guide, and fire arrows. These can be handy if your nation can not normally cast them.
3) Two of every path will allow you to build a number of path boosting items, to raise your pretender to 3 or 4 in the paths. And since you are also likely collecting gems that your nation can not noramlly use, it is easy to empower. Now you are at 5 or 6 in a number of path and your pretender has a lot of options in what it can do.
4) Isn't bringing a size 6 pretender into battle, painting a big target on it that says 'zap me with spells'. With a human size pretender you don't have to worry about being cursed, horror marked, soul slayed, or decayed, as long as you have some troops in front of you.


I find both rainbow's and large pretenders have their uses.For variety I try to have a different type of pretender each game.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Well, it's worth knowing that according to the manual pg. 61, target orders (Fire Archers, Attack Cavalry, etc.) except for Closest pick a random enemy and its squad. This means that a large squad will be picked most of the time, so one little archer decoy is almost never going to be selected by a "Target Archers" order. This has two implications:

1.) You can, if you wish, split a targetted group up instead of decoying. 1 decoy and 39 archers won't work, but 5 groups of 8 mean that if there's just one huge squad of enemy archers they'll keep firing at their chosen group until all 8 are dead, thus keeping your casualties down to 20% at most. I haven't tried this and I don't have time to test it right now, but it follows from the mechanics.

2.) Decoys work against "Attack/Fire Closest" because it is the closest squad which is attacked, not some random close unit and its squad. They might potentially work against Attack Rearmost except that the rearmost unit isn't reliably detected anyway (by design) so your decoy can get overlooked.

Against indies I have found that a single decoy five squares ahead of my main force often diverts fire. Seems like it's always worth at least trying a decoy if you know there will be missile troops, in case they *are* set to "Fire Closest."

-Max

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

If you're looking for multiplayer tips, then you might find Sheap's tips a useful read, if you haven't seen it already.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...mp;postmarker=

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Thanks vfb, appreciated although I had read that.

Looking for tips along the lines of "don't use cav or low prot infantry" and why or "its a really bad idea to get in a war and back off - push to the end" etc

One game I'm playing its still early and there have already been 2 or 3 war "starts" and then "stops". Interested on how it affects position.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Assuming neighbors that have the same skill level as you have, it is better to have wars as late as possible and have the other nations duke it out first while you build your research and gem income. Unless you can take out your opponent with relatively few losses I would avoid early wars as it decreases strength and may leave you open to other nations, and early in the game with similarly skilled players it is quite a long process to take an enemy capital down even with superior forces.

The exception to this is if you are relying on a heavy bless strategy (like F9/W9 bless), or if you have an awake SC pretender, then its better to have early wars. Grab as much land as you can while you still have the military advantage, but I would still fight one nation at a time only, and never another heavy bless nation.

In wars, I always enter it with a view to fighting to the end. Whose quote was it that goes something like "You can start a war anytime you like but don't expect it to end when you will" or something like that. So I don't attack any other player unless I am committed to see it to the end. If you are winning a war there is no reason not to push to the end, and if you are losing a war, there is no reason for your enemy to back off. If you are both losing in terms of troops lost, then it is a strategic error by the provoker and if I am the provoker, this would be the only time I would sue for peace. If I was the one provoked, I would definitely fight to the end unless I am compensated for my losses. All or nothing. =)

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Oh and I'm an even newer player than you, and I think I know the players in that "start and stop" war you are talking about hehe.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Well, it depends on why you are playing. I play to have fun. I have fun when the story of the nations in the game is interesting. It is not exactly the same story as the other players have created in their minds, though it is based on the events occurring in the game, so it may be similar.

If a neighboring nation is peacefully minding their own business, going about their research and gathering gems, it would be wise for a strong bless nation to invade them and disrupt that research. Especially if the strong bless nation has made peace with its other neighbors. But is it a good story if the magic nation is destroyed? What if you have accomplished your goal, at least temporarily? If you agree to a ceasefire, the magic nation may come up with a brilliant strategy and destroy you in revenge, when you least expect it. Now, there's a good story! And you even get to learn a new tactic as an added bonus.

Great, so you do enjoy a good story then! Strategically this can be an error. A third nation may exist that is stronger than either of the nations at war, and it may be a huge mistake to allow that war to continue. But: "That province belongs to our nation!" "You killed our pretender!" "We will not tolerate filthy your undead polluting this continent!" Irrationally pursuing a vendetta can make a very entertaining story too.

I don't expect to win many games. But I do expect to have fun playing them.

This doesn't mean I will neglect to develop the best nation I can. It is less fun if my nation is a totally inconsequential part of the story. So, I read the forums, run battle simulations, and yes, even sometimes slog through the drudgery of SP to discover what can be effective.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

You don't want to use a good spell or option. You want to use the best one.

This is the rule of competitive multiplayer. I can't offer any good examples, but you'll see it in action once you try out few games, e.g. blitzes in the #dominions irc channel. You can copy and/or adapt experienced players' tactics, or use your own. If you use your own, even though they aren't bad, they probably won't be enough to guarantee your win. I had lots of fun trying out my own subpar strategies when I had time to try some blitzing, though.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

To truly excel at Multiplayer seems to require the following.

Choose Helheim at the nation select screen.

Roll over nearest opponent if you can do so swiftly without compromising research and progress.

Research and cast a gem producing spell.

Research and cast forge of the Ancients.

Forge as many of the unique items as you can.

Research and cast as many of the king/queen elemental spells you can.

Create as many banelords as possible.

Raid with glamour units and squash armies with Banelords and equipped elementals.

Ally with 1 sea nation.

Done.

Before anyone gets upset, this post is more fact than farce. I am in one game where the Helheim player is dominating, and this seemed to be his path, except that he squashed two nearby players early with Helherdings.

In two more of my games, it is a bit early, but the spells have been cast in pretty much the same order as listed above. I am playing a water nation in both those games and I have been approached by Helheim in both games with peace agreements. In one of the games I am touching Helheim's border, in another game, I have no idea where Helheim is so I am thinking this has something to do with the Helheim victory formula http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

Btw, this is 3 different players playing Helheim the exact same way.

I did not mean for this to become a Helheim rant, but I am guessing if you followed this same strategy with Helheim in MP, you should be successful right out of the gate in your MP play. If three different people in games I am currently playing are using this exact same strategy, there must be something to it.

Another observation. I used to wonder why the race for the unique artifacts was so important, it seemed like you could focus on other things. Now I understand the real reason. At the end of the game, the stronger nations are pretty much on even grounds. If the players are of comparable skill level, the only advantage one player will have over the other is Unique artifacts and summons. That is probably why the race to grab up all the artifacts is so important beyond just having really cool items.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

A piece of advice I would offer is always attempt to diplomatically isolate your opponents... if you plan to attack nation X, make sure his other neighbors are either your friends, or indifferent to your conquest... this will help to make sure that your campaign can go forward without you having to worry about other nations getting involved.

Its also a good idea to quickly pick out who is the strongest of your rivals. Then you can start to support nations fighting that player, or even form a coalition against them...

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Foodstamp, that's kind of depressing. Probably part of the reason hel and van are discouraged in many games.

Interesting about the uniques, works the same as SP in that respect don't want the impossibles getting to many uniques..but when you do its pretty much game over if not before. Wonder how much of an advantage that will convey...will the super research/construction nation with most of the uniques be able to take on 2 other nations? 3?

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

I would like to agree with Foodstamp 100%.

This is currently my experience of MP at the moment and if it continues why I will stop playing any future MP's which have Helheim in them!

A ABC guide to playing Helheim has been developed which barring virtually all other nations allying against Helheim is very likely to result in a Helheim victory.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

The upcoming patch makes svartalfs cap only, which basically cuts their research potential in HALF outside of capital recruitment (svartalfs = 8 RP for 180 gold with magic 1, Helkarls/Vanherse = 4 RP for 160 gold...they're sacred and xp scales better for them, but they also take a temple on top of a lab to make). That alone should be enough to keep them away from at least half the uniques, worst case (summons or items). Plus there's talk of changing battlefield glamour, and the resource costs for their units are going up IIRC...things should be fixed soon. Hopefully not over-fixed.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Jute, don't get the wrong idea. MP play is awesome and a lot of fun. I suspect in the course of the next few months someone will find an innovative way of taking care of Helheim that may or may not include massive dogpiling on the the Helheim player. Also, we got a glamour fix on the horizon, this should help matters as well.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Well, as the Helheim player in question, I can't help but agree. My previous MP experience was/is with Ulm and Abysia (both MA), and while I dare say I didn't do badly with them, playing Helheim feels like a totally different ballgame.

It's not even about the dual-blessed helhirding, (though I'm sure they're formidable) as I'm playing with the human rainbow pretender that was discouraged earlier in this thread (I have to say that so far in my limited experience I'm liking them on big, magic-rich maps though) but the nation just has so much going for them...

* Unparalelled expansion ability. Obviously dual blessed Helhirding will tear through anything, but even with the modest bless I was playing with (4f4w - and 4a, but the bless was not the reason I had air) you can take on prity much any independents or early game armies with minimal losses.

* Research: with decently priced mages, and the ability to forge quills, skull mentors and lightless lanterns, you might not be the nr.1 research nation in the game, but there's nothing stopping you from entering a research race if you're so inclined.

* Mid-game power: Once the research starts ticking in, even your fabulous glamour boys won't win your battles single-handedly anymore, but there's no need to worry. With the ability to cast blade wind, magma eruption, shadow blast and skellie spam, Svartalfs don't lack for killing power. With thugable commanders, and the ability to summon the various undead thugs you have another option at your disposal at this stage of the game.

* Late game: With the ability to get 3A and 4D on your recruitable commanders you have a nice start in two of the powerful late-game magic paths. If you plan for a way to get air boosters (hence the 4A on my pretender, though there are other, less certain ways) you're set in both schools. You do lack astral though. (and the blood is quite marginal) All in all you might not have the greatest late-game potential of the game right out of the box, but you do have some starting options, and you can work them into your long-term planning.

*unparallelled mobility (well, unparallelled until late game astral mass teleportation at least), stealth, powerful raiding ability, allowing you to take control of the situation. You fight when you want, where you want. On your terms. This so far is actually the greatest difference to my Ulm and Abysia games, where I was stuck with my mapmove one armies.

Now, all the above wasn't meant as a discussion of Helheim (has been done enough in other threads, really), but to show you how a particular nation deals with the different phases/areas of the game. Expansion, Research, Mid-game, Late-game, and Mobility/Raiding. Obviously you can't be equally strong in all areas, but at least keep them in mind when developping your strategy. If you're weak in an area, try to find ways to compensate.

The importance of the Mobility/Raiding part was a lesson I (probably) learned too late to win my previous games. Neither of these two nations excel at this part of the game. Things I did, or should have done, or thought about too late, to try and compensate include:

* Outguess your oponent so he attacks a defended province, and gets his backside handed to him... Easier said than done obviously.

* Equip/recruit/summon some flying/stealthy stuff of your own. Abyssian demonbred with a devil squad, any kind of thug/sc equiped with boots of flying (or stymphalian wings), Draconians... even if not very powerful they can at least be enough to recapture the provinces your enemy took. Later in the game a squad of equiped thugs/SC's can take out many armies. There also are a couple of stealthy summons. A couple of ghosts led by a druid or a spectre might not be terribly impressive, but they can do something at least mildly annoying. And anything that keeps your enemy reacting to what you're doing is good. Thugs/SC with astral or air (or death, or nature, but that's more expensive in both research and gems) can attack any province on the map. Just be aware they can't teleport away again without lab... They can also teleport on top of that annoying raiding party that's been troubling you. Or on top of that annoying teleporting guy that just took out your raiding party. Or on top of that annoying teleporting guy that teleported on top of the teleporting guy you used to take out the annoying raiding party. Or... erm... you know

* Assessinate the leaders of raiding/flying squads, leaving the troops stranded in the middle of your territory. Easier with assessin spells, but you might try the outgessing trick with regular assessins too. Does not work on stealthy troops though. (As I found out to my great regret http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif)

* If you're not very strong in the raiding department (or even if you are) You can substitute long range attack spells for your raiding parties. Ghost Riders (6D) and Send Horror (3B4S) both have steep path requirements, but if you have a way to cast them (preferably with a scout in place to actually capture the province once the defenders are eliminated), they're awesome. After being on the receiving end of a Ghost Riding barrage taking anywhere between 6 and 12 provinces per turn I'm not sure I'll ever be able to sleep again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Injured.gif On the other hand, I have yet to see Call of the Winds be succesfully used in this way. It's a great spell to get a flying commander, or patrolling troops, but I can only imagine how many castings you need to take out even moderatly adequate PD. Once it was cast at a province of mine where I had forgotten to improve the PD past one, and even then the birds just fled.

... pant, pant...

See? This is the reason why I usually refrain from discussing tactical stuff, once I start writing I can't seem to stop... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Ah, well. Two more short points:

* Having many cool artifacts is fun, no doubt about it. But I think generally speaking the best ones aren't the cool and flashy ones, but the mundane pathboosting items. In the game in question I managed to grab Sceptre of Dark Regency 3D booster, which allowed me to get to 8D, which gave me access to Tartarians (7 is enough, but wasn't otherwise atainable to me) Even better, getting Dimensional Rod enabled me to forge Rings of sorcery (with independen 2S mages, or my 2S pretender), which in turn enebled me to forge rings of wizardry. Which again gave me a way to cast Tartarians. (4D commander with Skull Staff, Skull Face, and Ring of Sorcery. Obviously that's a lot of gems, and I don't have 17 of those running around, but it does give me another option again. The Ring of Wizardry again helped in summoning Fire and Water Kings/Queens which would otherwise only have been possible with my pretender. (though I was surprised no other nation had gotten them by that point, but hey, I'm not complaining) Without the Ring of Sorcery I also wouldn't have been able to boost a Lizard Shaman to the 3N1S needed to forge a Moonvie Bracelet And so on and so on. Now I will say this was not all meticulously planned out beforehand, but if I hadn't managed to get those booster items first my position wouldn't have been nearly so strong now.

* I never cast Forge of the Ancients in that game. I did want too, but I didn't have nearly enough earth income. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Aye Amhazahair, you were one of the people in question http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. In the two other games the Helheim player actually has FOTA up.

Honestly, I think the reason you are doing well in our current game isn't just because your playing Helheim. It is because you seemed to be the only player that took the initiative to forge those things.

As far as rainbow pretenders go. The only huge multiplayer game I won was with a rainbow pretender. It was a Pantheon victory in the end because the map was so massive the few remaining players decided to call it a day, but I was really surprised how well my Master Druid rainbow guy worked out in that game. I had a massive gem income, tons of unique artifacts and I could cast pretty much every enchantment in the game with him after I loaded him down with path boosters, including Astral Corruption, Utterdark, and the Looming Hell. Which I did cast that game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Some things I learned the hard way :

- having an early fast expansion in a line can be desastrous. At the end, your army is weakened by this expansion. If you meet no agressive opponent, everything is fine. But if you meet one, he will take all your new conquered provinces one by one since the PD is often not enough to repel him.
And all the gold you wasted on PD means less gold for buying new soldiers...

- finding a good ally is hard. Trying to convince people to crush the winning guy can be hard too. People are often involved with their own affairs/struggle.

- when the game reachs his mid-part, PD is almost useless since you can see 300+ people army wandering around. Spells unleashed are so powerfull at this time, you can see a 100 PD make only 20 deaths to the attacker's army. The PD can be good though to support any army of yours, especially on chock-point.

- underwater nations are usually a good way to not be rushed in the early turns (especially if you got the chance to be alone underwater). Unfortunately getting on land is usually very hard too. At least for me !

- diversify your troops or you may face a special counter.

- it may be good to not make early research and to make your early military expansion a priority.

- Don't play as Lanka near vfb because he will attack you just to make a good story and for fun !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Nice points, except for the last one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. And I'm going to blame that on K anyway.

Admit it though, it was fun for you too!

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

I agree with everything but this one (though I'm not sure what you mean by "too fast". In my experience it is almost never worth investing in more than 1 PD unless you plan on catching enemy spies/scouts or you *know* you will be attacked in that province. Spend the that PD money on real military units instead.

Also - most of your attacks against indy forces should go off with very minimal losses so it shouldn't really damage your troop count too much. Obviously, sometimes you can't help it but if you are losing significant forces to indy provinces regularly you might be doing something wrong...

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

I would say, whether it is pointless or not, that it depends on what the PD is composed of.

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Here's a basic tip for early game SP or MP:

Keep at least one commander (an indie is fine) behind your army(s) of expansion. If you do suffer some sort of setback (I've often captured a province, but had significant portions of my army rout back the way it came before the outcome was settled), it will minimize your "downtime" before you can get offensive operations back on track.

Pause a turn to recruit reinforcements with your main army, while your trailing commander brings up the stragglers/cowards, and then you're back on the move.

Actually works best on those risky "line" expansions, as your routers have only one way to flee http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

Score graphs: good or bad?

The impression that I'm getting is that unless you can get a very early, very large lead in provinces its best to just be in the top third? otherwise you'll get ganged? To small and you get gobbled up?

Research - do you generally find a huge research lead is grounds for a gang up?

Forts - probably not so much

Income - ?

gem income - ?

Seems like you almost have to play the graphs along with your diplomacy game. For example, I took my last expandable province in a game just to have my main army doing something... the previous province leader lost a province and it put me on top. Oh crap http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So then diplomacy comes into play.

---------------

Random - are elephants/mammoths worth it for the late game? Do you have to jack the morale significantly or does it not make a difference? Is there enough magic floating around that the investment and routing possibilities isn't worth it?

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

In order to win multiplayer games, you need three things. They are all of equal value and if you dont have any one of them, likely your nation will be destroyed by someone who does:

1) Technical skill
2) Diplomatic skill
3) A coherent Full-Game plan

Technical skill is largely a factor of experience and there have been plenty of technical tips above so I wont go into it.

Diplomatic Tips:
* Every MP dominions game is fought on two fronts: Military and Diplomacy. Respect diplomacy as much as you respect the military and you will go far.

* There is no mercy in MP play (unless you are playing an RP-style game). It is perfectly acceptable to invade someone for the simple reason of "you are weak" or "I need to invade you before someone else does"

* Unless you are absolutely gauranteed victory, make war pacts against an enemy instead of going in alone.

* Always join a war pact in the early game or you will quickly find yourself on the receiving end of one.

* Diplomactically "scout" your neighbors (and thier neighbors) often to see what thier alliances/wars are and how you can navigate them to benefit your nation

* Diplomacy is the strongest defense of the super-nation


Game Plan Tips:
* Before you even choose a nation, decide on an overall strategy you want to play.

* Select the key spells which will support your strategy.

* Choose the nation with the best units and magic paths to support your military and magical choices above.

* Design a pretender which specifically augments a strength or shores up a weakness of your nation.

* Make sure your setup has a specific strategy for killing indies and expanding quickly. Test it.

* Choose an overall battle-field strategy for your setup and always push for it.

* Make sure your nation has a way to trap/kill enemy SCs

* Make sure you can summon and equip your own SCs

Re: Basic Multiplayer tips wanted
 

1. Getting there
2. We'll see shortly
3. Wait..what?

Yeah, I only have kind of a general idea of what I like and think works. Seems things change too often to have a concrete plan.

Globals
 

Globals

Pump them up disgustingly to start so they stay up or just keep playing the GoH arms race?

Don't bother till later or earlier is better?

Dispel any others out there? Or try to overpower with your own?

Obvious generic good ones
GoH
Any gem producers (other than stellar)
FoTA
Gift of Nature(?)
Others?