The dominion strength can save the day
 

In the Late Age, i was trying to fight against Ermor first with Mictlan then with Abysia.

But both time after a relative good start for my nation, at some point Ermor always had the advantage , as after losing several armies, they were then sending legions after legions of undeads (sometime supported by living militia/lizards troops to make it even less easy for my priests).

My numerous priests were not always able to destroy the enemy in time, as i noticed sometime they were launching their banishment in strange locations where nothing was present, and so the undead attacks were giving heavy loss on my defense line.

Magic research was then always stuck as my front always needed more priests/magic users and troops.
And not helping the situation, my gem/blood slave pool usually became very limited after several summons that unfortunately were often wasted next turn by the next incoming legion and those damned Dusk Elders leaders.

And after lot of turns of this kind, my economy was not sufficient enough to provide more reinforcement to the non stop undead assault, leading to my unavoidable defeat .

Then this time, i went to try Marignon to stop Ermor, thinking their religious themed nation would help me to banish more undead.
At first Marignon Inquisitors supporting my Virtue pretender, with a national Inquisitor hero that joined me as a prophet, and the basic infantry seemed to do a great job at dispatching undead armies (as they were not very numerous).

Research was coming well despite the Inquisitor i hired were not really the best researchers, but the amount of them (i bought nearly only Inquisitors as commanders) was getting the job done and gave me some summons.

At some point, as usual with every of my battles with Ermor, my progress was stuck in a static frontline but at least my empie was bigger than with my Abysia/Mictlan tries.
As the undead armies were then becoming legions that attacked each turn, attacking myself was catastrophic.

But this time the big amount of Inquisitors, with their few light infantry seemed to be enough to hold the line with re-inforcement coming regularly.

I guess setting an Order 2 dominion greatly helped by giving me so many extra money from the provinces, this time my economy was never crippled, allowing me to provide reinforcement when needed.

Then i noticed the seas were now full of Ermor flags, that was a bit of a surprise for me, as i never thought the AI was able to use the sea correctly, having never noticed Ermor doing that in my 2 previous battle.

Well, i should have not prevented myself to go to the sea , thinking it would give me an unfair advantage on the AI, as now Ermor was able to launch attack in every province of my empire without me being able to defend everywhere in the same time.

The situation of my static frontline was then horrible, as i couldn't move from there, but i had to hold back some reinforcement in away provinces in order to get back my own lands that some undeads coming from the sea just conquered.
Re-building destroyed temples was not really cheap too.

When i though everything would then go the same way as when i tried Mictlan or Abysia, as i was stuck in the front line and now the sea menace was preventing me to provide new troops to the front line, i noticed something in the map

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2408/fghfhbnsw7.jpg

Despite Ermor was everywhere around me, the AI only had 1 province in which its dominion was always active, the whole map was covered by my own Dominion despite i was not really in position to get more province than Ermor.

Finally, it was a good idea to give my Virtue pretender the maximum dominion strength and build a temple in each of my provinces (thanks again to the Order 2 dominion that provided me lots of money to afford that)

A turn later, the game was won, there was no trace anymore of the Ermor dominion and their pretender was then banished forever...

That is the first time , while i was obviously losing the whole battle (i think it was just a question of time before my crippled frontline collapsed) that i won a Dominions 3 game thanks only to the dominion strength.
Just when i wondered if the dominion could be really helpfull in a battle.

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

After all, the name of the game IS Dominions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Ive always felt that Marignon was "the answer" to Ermor, altho its not as automatic in Dom3 as it was in Dom2. Congrats on the win.

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

I am playing MA Ermor at the mo and fighting Marignon is pure 'evil', that spell holy pyre makes huge bonfires out of my undead horde. Thankfully I am playing MA Ermor so where my undead fail, my living legions can have a go.

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

You might try a reverse of my usual tactic. To keep Ermor from taking me out in large solo games I like to find out who is near them (hopefully Marignon) and send them helpful items such as anti-undead items. That way they can hold back Ermor and I know that such items wont help them much against me when I finally get there.

Maybe you can find out who is near Marignon and send them gold or gems to help them take out Marignon. Then you can take out your ex-ally easier than you would Marignon.

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

Seem to recall that Marignon really is intended that way -- the faithful against the darkness. Of course, things get a little wacky in the late era...

Might caution that overpowering LA Ermor dominion in an MP game might be trickier; while a human Ashen Empire player might go for a monstrously high dominion fueled by horrible scales, and build fort/temple complexes to push it out and get better undead, will an AI do as much? Not sure. It's particularly weak at maintaining dominion with EA/LA Mictlan.

OTOH, other human players tend to frown upon having their provinces permanently wrecked by an Ashen Empire dominion, so doing that makes diplomacy tricky...


Dominion will also be useful in certain less-extreme circumstances; Arcosephale automatically gets intel reports in its dominion, and there are certain global enchantments whose effectiveness is related, too. Plus it's useful for cranking out sacred troops.

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

I find victory-by-dominion a very useful strategy. It works great against ocean races -- why fight them on their own turf, when you can sit on land and dominionize them to zip? With regards to Ermor, Marginon is great for this too, on account of stealthy priests. Hide them in Ermor's territory, preach him down to nothing... it also reduces his reinforcements massively.

And yes, LA-Ermor is effectively a "sea" race, undead don't breathe. One of many reasons to hate Ermor (the biggest being that if you conquer his territory, you get dead lands with no value)

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

Of course, if your dominion is very strong against AI ermor, the fire spell Purgatory might be useful...

Re: The dominion strength can save the day
 

Most computer opponents can spend 70 or 80 turns without the knowledge of how to attack water provinces. A few nations have a better chance of moving into the water provinces because of their national units, but it's only a few nations. LA Ermor is one of the few.

Within Dominions_2 any water mage could enter water provinces thus we would see any nation with water magic eventually move and attack water provinces. When dominions_3 arrived water magic was weakened where this default water breathing for water mages no longer worked... thus most SP games should mainly have land and very little water.