[PhilD]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

However, I've read in the past, but never really seen proven either way that low dominion may actually spread FASTER unopposed than high dominion and carpet out over the land at low levels before higher dominion does. This is unconfirmed, but either way, high dominion is much more stubborn and difficult to uproot without concerted effort, and leaves you less susceptible to dominion-kill by preaching. IIRC, a sufficiently high dominion can be impervious to preaching by low-level priests.

As for the resistance to preaching: if you believe ceremony's document, the higher your dominion, the harder it is to preach out.

For low dominion spreading faster: your maximum dominion acts as a "container", and your dominion will only start spreading out when that container is full. So, the higher your maximum dominion, the longer it will take for this new container to fill and start spreading further.

Of course, a higher max dominion means each dominion source (temples, pretender, prophet; I believe Priests have different mechanisms) has a better chance of actually raising/spreading dominion, but at least in the early game, your pretender and prophet should be your main source of dominion, so the "small container" effect should work better.

(Note this is just speculation, I haven't done any systematic testing to support my thoughts)