[lachniet]

Awesome synopis - thank you very much for taking the time. you clearly know your stuff. I knew my dominion sucked, but I figured I could clear the map of others before it became an issue. I did not know that you could lose on dominion if you still had yellow candles. I thought, erroneously it would seem, that as long as you had *some* dominion, you could die and be called back w/out problem. I guess its more like CIV where you can lose due to a "flip"? What confused me is that I seemed to have lost the game while still having yellow candles.

Originally posted by Gateway103:
Let's see... Ah, notice all the black candles in your territory? You only have white candle in Elderhill #29 (str 1 out of possible 10), Ireme #28 (str 2), and Ministra #50 (str 1), despite having 32 provinces... Even you capitol has -ve dominion!!! White candles are good, as they are your dominion; black candles are bad, as they are foreign dominion. So in your case, this is very very bad...

Now I let the game ran for two turns, only Ireme has positive dominion left (+1), despite all your temples... Let's run another turn, oops, you and Manchaka are vanquished. The Last +ve dominion in Ireme must have been extinguished for you, similar for Manchaka.

Let's re-load the save files, and try again... Oops, you died in 2 turns but Manchaka lives.

One more try... Manchaka died in turn 1... and you died in turn 2, both from Dominion domination.

So in short, you (and Manchaka) died because you have no positive dominion anywhere in your owned provinces. As no one under your control believe in your Pretender, you Pretender goes bye-bye ^_^

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Now let's see why this is happening...

Your fortress choice is a Castle. You are playing Carrion Wood, which has a minium requirement of Growth 1, Magic 1. It seemed like you were using Vanilla Carrion Wood to me after looking around your provinces, especially those with positive dominions.

Now checking Pretender attributes...
Arch Mage, 2F2A1W1E3S3D5N1B. Lots of magic... Not sure if you have empowered him... Doesn't look like it giving your small gem reserve and income, as well as Pretender travelling with army (so less likely to spend time in province with Lab).

What about Convserion Rates...
16 from God 16, 3 from Prophet, 3 from home province, and 30 from Temples. You have a total of 10 temples. Indeed quite low on dominion...

I think it is evident why you lost due to dominion dominance. Let's do a final check.

Trying to recreate your Pretender...
Pick Castle, vanilla Carrion Wood, and the Magic path as above assuming no empowerment... Now we have 6 points left, and Dominion Strength of 1!!!!!!!

Just as I feared. Your God's Dominion Strength is simply too low. And despite having 10 Temples, this only bring it up to effectie strength of 3, out of possible 10. This means you will have a very hard time of maintaining your own dominion in face of foreign dominions (as can be seen from all the red candles and very little, and short, white candle in your territory). In your case, Pythium probably have a fairly high dominion Strength, as it was able to push you and Manchaka out of existence.

Here is a guide by Ceremony on Dominion, you may find it useful http://www.maladjustite.com/dominion.pdf

Suffice to say, you lost because your God's Dominion strength is way too low, and you didn't have enough temple to augment it (every 5 temple brings the effective strength up by 1), and priests to help out at specific locations.

It is feasible to play with dominion strength of 1 or just low strength on Pretender design, and augment it with Temple and priests ASAP. But you would have to make temple building a top priority in all your provinces to survive against foreign dominion, unless you can expand and conquer faster than your dominion decline, and kill all others before your own dominion extinguishes...

For your next game, I suggest tone down on Pretender magic path... and increase dominion a bit. Even just taking one level out of Nature give you enough point to boost initial Dominion Strength to 4, a significant improvement over your 1. And could've saved you when augmented by those 10 temples...

Taking it a step further. Reduce magic to 1F1A1W1E3S2D4N, basically reduce all except Astral by 1 level, and took out blood. This gives you a dominion strength of 6, even better (to get those path back, except Blood, forge a Ring of Wizardy perhaps). Alternatively, you can take maybe Misfortune 1, Sloth 1, or some Heat/Cold scales (undead aren't affected by Heat/Cold... so just your mages and living troops may have slight fatique trouble) to get the same effect.

Just some suggestions. I have not played Carrion Woods yet, so some of the ideas on magic/scale adjustment may be deterimental. But you do need to address the Dominion Strength problem, regardless of which nation/theme you play.

Hope this helps.

-Gateway103