The most important Dominions skill
 

What in Dominions wins or loses games more than anything else?

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I choose diplomacy and outthinking your enemy.

Diplomacy can get you in the endgame and if you can then stay one step ahead or predict what your opponent can do at least 1 turn or preferably several turns ahead your a winner. Easy to say, very tough to do.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

You didn't list what I consider the most important.

Planning.

Nothing is more important than having a plan, and then adjusting it to your enemy's responses. Every turn you should be doing things that get you one step closer to winning.

Jazzepi

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

All these are important.

But to me the most important skill is to recognize your enemy's strength and exploit his weakness. i.e 'It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.' - to quote Sun Tzu.

But that's not listed so I vote for diplomacy.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I knew I would be leaving things out.. oh well.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Yes, Planning & Adaption would have my vote too.

Having both a big plan (maxing a strength of your nation or your pretender, focusing research on something, etc) and a short term one (for 2-3 turns in the future, so your key units go where you'll need them instead of wandering) + being able to adapt them to opposition (or ideally the capacity to manipulate your opponents, you can sometimes adapt opposition to your plans).

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

i choose forging because i play alot of sp and when the enemy strt with their huge chaff army a good ember/shadow brand dual wielding quickned frog on a bear is just funny to watch.
by the way what is the difference between firebrand and shadowbrand? a part of path and gem to make

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I chose diplomacy and research/forging, because your research strategy is so important. It's basically the planning option others have mentioned. Even if you outperform your enemy on the strategic map, if he has spells to beat your spells you can't win. If you are lucky, you might buy enough time to research something you should have researched before getting into trouble.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Agreed.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

An abundant amount of available time. And Diplomacy.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Well, in one of my previous MP I played Tir na n'Og and was on top of every aspects including research, had 3 globals up and a huge gem income. Nonetheless due to my judgment error my enemy out-maneuvered me and killed 40 of my best stealthy mages + pretender one at a time, canceled all my globals and stole all my items...

that's one example illustrating correct tactical judgment is just as important as having a good selections of spells.

In fact it was CU who fought me in that game which ensured his final victory, I believe? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I'm going to have to go with planning, too...particularly because it's what I have the most trouble with, and what seems to have the steepest learning curve.

(Maybe tied for first with battle scripting and troop placement) -- things like forging, thug equipping, pretender design, and early expansion strategy can be cribbed from posts and guides by more skilled players, but planning and the details of BF scripting can't, because that requires tactical and strategic thinking that can't be imitated.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Hehe, so true.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Diplomacy is the single most important skill. You can be the best planner or have the best knowledge of dom3, but none of this will help you when your 4 neighbors gang up on you and tear you to pieces.

In fact, I would say that if you are a good technical player and a bad diplomat that your skill actually works *against* you, in terms ability to win games. Because your nation will grow quickly and be strong... which will make all your neighbors nervous and ready to ally against you at the slightest provaction. Without diplomacy to defend you from this, you rely only on luck.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Fal - that was just bad luck, that event in that game.. it wasn't good maneuvering on my part.. I can't remember now exactly what happened, but I remember thinking I would be pissed off if that happened to me.. It was an unfair bug sort of thing.

Oh wait! I remember now...

You were stealthing to attack me, all your mages were stealthy, but I was patrolling.. and I caught your whole army with my whole army --- but instead of initiating a fight between us, instead it had my whole army fight each one of your commanders individually. There were like 30 battles in a row. It was rediculous.

Oh, and the plus side for me on top of defeating your army without a fight, basically, was that all my units immediately got like 3 experience stars from all those combats. I think you get experience for each combat you are in.. that should really be capped on a per turn basis, but whatever.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I 2nd Ironhawk and have also chosen diplomacy as the most important skill. My opinion is based on experience more than anything else. This skill of course doesn't work in non diplomacy games, what makes those games extra interesting and also much faster.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I think Diplomacy is the number one key to survival and victory.

I think also you cannot recover from bad pretender design. While outthinking your enemy is important you do also need the tools to do this, that is where the pretender comes in.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Lol yeah CU, it was a painful lesson that I could never forget, actually I attacked you with a small army, try to lure your out of the castle with my small army, then attack you off guard with my stealth army, but you also issued attacking me, so your entire army was stopped by mine and set to patrol.

It wasn't just bad luck on my part, it was a tactical error, I just didn't plan it through. Well played http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

That would have been one of the biggest and most important battles of that game, Fal.. it's sort of a shame we didn't get to see it. Who knows what would have happened. You may have well won that game if the battle actually had happened.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I think diplomacy has been overrated.

Diplomacy is important. However, we all cut our teeth on the SP game where diplomacy barely exists, and it's easy for a MP noob to overlook it, where it will cost them dearly. But I don't think you need to be particularly good at diplomacy to prosper.

Diplomacy is dependent entirely on how much power you have to back it up. No-one is going to support you in a war if you won't be an effective ally. Holding back a potential enemy with potential allies is no use if he thinks he can take you easily enough.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I really think people are overrating diplomacy. Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Bluffing only works so far, and eventually you have to be able to bolster your position with actual force. If you're the worst dominions 3 player in the world, but you're excellent at diplomacy, nothing is going to save you when push finally comes to shove.

Diplomacy is a force multiplier. It allows you win engagements with larger nations by putting you into an advantageous position, but it doesn't actually make you any stronger. If you don't have anything to multiply with it, you're mostly wasting your time.

Jazzepi

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

My most successful diplomatic maneuvers have only a little bit to do with alliances. Or with winning battles/wars - they have more to do with staying out of wars and with manipulating who is fighting who else while I stay out of it. Success mostly lies with the ability to convince another player that what is in *my* best interest is actually in *his* best interest.

Sometimes that is even true, which makes it easier.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Quite. One more thing about diplomacy: It is a good idea to cultivate good relations with people you don't war with, because if they go down, they are more likely to be charitable towards you just to strike back from the dead. That's not a trivial thing at all, especially if the one going down decides to make enough of a fight of it to give you a chance to build up and come ahead stronger while your future opponent is spending his strength in trying to finish your friend off.

Happened to me in LeafNosedBat, where my ostensible greatest ally rarely bothered to cultivate any relations (such as trading favors or information) with me while his largest enemy did because we had no border in common, and when a third player eventually as good as wiped me out, things weren't quite as clear as they could have been. Going out with a bang is fun!

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Diplomacy is by no means overrated - not even slightly. But I think people are confusing the issue. Certainly it is not neccesary to have good diplo just do decently or perhaps even prosper in a game. However, the OP asks us what is most critical to win a game, not just get by. And without question, it is Diplomacy that seperates the winners from the losers.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Diplomacy is important, no doubt about it. However, there are games that allow no diplo, the RAND game is the most recent one I believe, and they have winners too.

In the case of RAND the players who did the best showing were the ones hanging in the top spots of hall of fame and to me(at least) it says it's the player skill in other areas of Dominions, rather than skill in diplomacy, that separates winners from losers.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I think this is an example of where the problem is the question. To win an MP game you really need to have mastered several elements, not just one. I have survived to the endgame in almost every MP game with diplomacy but could not pull off a win because my endgame knowledge was totally inadequate.

I witnessed Ironhawk’s mastery of diplomacy in Epotara. His coalition of the willing led to him pulling off a challenging VP victory. Nevertheless, it was also his ability to put together a force that could win the final epic clash in Utgard that cinched his victory.

In contrast, I managed to stay in the race in Epotara with diplomacy and opportunistic conquests, but my first real endgame battle was a disaster and revealed how ill prepared I was to really pull off a victory. In my case, I think it wasn’t diplomacy I needed but a better understanding of what endgame battles look like.

So my two cents are you need diplomacy to get to the endgame, and you need to understand how to fight MP endgame battles to ultimately pull off a win. Because no matter how silver-tongued you are, eventually you have to fight. The challenge for noobs is that it can take several months to get to the point where you are fighting MP endgame battles. And you really need to see how those are fought to know how to develop your nation and strategy. So unless you have time for the fast learning blitz experience (which I usually don’t), you are in for a long harsh learning experience when the armies and nations you so lovingly crafted as a noob in a long MP game get obliterated by a horde of Army of Leaded Vine Ogres backed with Mistformed Tartarians etc.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

The old chicken and the egg http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I want a rematch!!!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

It will be interesting to see what the tart nerf in the next patch does to end games. What will be the (single) substitute or will there be dozens of end games scenarios.

-SSJ

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Luck

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

I hope end game scenarios get even more interesting! it will be great fun to see and I hope the patch is out soon.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

The new dominions end game will be....

Troll King Uber SCs of DOOM

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

HUM HUM HUddeti HUM!

- famous Troll King Killing song

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

Gold Gold Gold Gold!
Gold Gold Gold Gold!
Gold Gold Gold Gold?
Gold Gold Gold Gold!

- Famous Dwarf King killing song.

Re: The most important Dominions skill
 

That is a much better troll hymn. Sadly the lyrics are in French only.

Name is "Troll Farceur et Elfe farci" and roughly translate as "Joker troll and stuffed elf" (yes, he's going to eat it).

http://www.penofchaos.com/warham/download/