[sector24]

Thematically, I don't think Dominions is an everyone vs. everyone game. To me it seems more like an ambitious pantheon. Yes you're trying to become the God of gods, but it gets lonely at the top without other deities to pay homage to you, sleep with, and cause shenanigans in the mortal world.

Think about it this way. The world won't function without a fertility god or goddess. So if you banish all the fertility deities to Tartarus, the world will wither away and die. That might be ok for a select few pretenders, but the rest of them are going to have to force at least 1 fertility deity to submit to his/her divine authority.

As the winner of a game of Dominions, you get to decide which pretenders get banished, which ones get released from a previous imprisonment, etc. I don't think you sit on your divine throne all by yourself destroying anyone who attempts to gather any power, like some kind of immortal Stalin figure. Even the pankrator needs his celestial general and lord of war.

In an ambitious pantheon it makes perfect sense to send your resources to a rival in the hope of helping him defeat your sworn enemy. If your sworn enemy wins, he's definitely going to chain you up against a rock where an immortal vulture eats your liver every day. But if someone else ascends to godhood you may be given a position as lord of all janitors or the god of biscuits.