Can a low base dominon be helpful?

[Vynd]

OK, as I understand it, when the game does a temple check (or pretender check, etc.) in a province and it determines that dominion should go up, then it will always boost the dominion of that province unless it is at max. If it is maxed out, then and only then will your dominion (possibly) be pushed into a neighboring province.

If I have this correct, then I wonder if anyone has had success playing with a low-ish starting dominion and trying to get it to quickly spread beyond their borders rather than building up to very high levels within their nation.

[Cainehill]

I've seen a number of things written about this, and yes, some were saying that it could be a useful / viable strategy. I think it depended on the game settings, but it was one way to offensively push dominion - either a nasty death / miasma dominion (Ermor or C'Tis), or simply to push friendly dominion so immortals, prophets, etc, could fight there with an advantage.

Think I saw it working myself, but it was some time, as I decided that wide but shallow dominion was just asking to get dominion killed, especially by blood sacrifice nations.

One thing that I think might work well though - a relatively low dominion on the two nations that can build cheap temples. In theory, Man and Pangaea can pick a low dominion and either build temples in the center, or on the edges.

In the center would, I think, help generate a higher dominion but still spread quickly at the edges. At the edges might spread spread a little less rapidly outward, but could leave the central area at a weaker dominion, for those themes that might want this. (Killing dominions mostly; CW Pangaea might well want to leave it's capitol population dying less quickly, for instance.)

On a large map I don't think this would work so well, as others would build up enough high level dominion to nail yours. On a relatively small map, you might be able to spread your dominion widely enough to have a shot at a quick ending before others high dominion really came into effect.

But that's all mostly theoretical (which some might call BS ), as it's been a -long- time since I took a dominion less than 5 or 6 in MP games, and SP don't count.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Vynd:
OK, as I understand it, when the game does a temple check (or pretender check, etc.) in a province and it determines that dominion should go up, then it will always boost the dominion of that province unless it is at max. If it is maxed out, then and only then will your dominion (possibly) be pushed into a neighboring province.

If that was true, in the first turn your dominion wouldn't spread outwards before it is maxed in the capital. Anyone who has played more than a couple games should know it doesn't work like this. Did you really never notice that surrounding provinces might have a positive dominion in turn 2 while you capital was still below its optimal value?

[Cohen]

Starting with a low dominion doesn't mean it spreads quickly ... even ...

If you've dominion 3 you've a 30% for each dominion check (temple, god, prophet, capitol) that 1 point of dominion is "created".

So probably your dominion will spread far slowly that someone picking dominion 7.

[PDF]

As NGF says : dominion spread is quicker when dominion level is higher, there's no such "rule" than "max territory first then spread", both are done simultaneously .
So the only remaining use that I know of a low dominion are
- to voluntary *slow* the spread of crappy scales you've taken (for example mandatory Sloth of some themes)
- to get unnoticed when you sneakily conquer "distant" provinces, Gandalf said it used that as a strategy
- to have more design points for other things - Pretender, scales, castle..

[Rainbow]

As I understand Vynd's question, and proposed strategy, you don't really care if you have a 10% or a 90% chance per God/Prophet/Temple etc., when you can have 10 cheap priests praying in your border province, and any dominion points they generate past your pretenders dominion value will spill into other provinces. This might be _very_ effective if combined with the special theme that lets your priests pray at their holy level +2.

The fact that dominion can spread into adjacent provinces without having reached the max. dominion in province that generates the dominion points is interesting. Perhaps there is a random chance that the new dominion point(s) go into adjacent provinces instead of increasing the dominion towards the max. of the province in which it is generated. That also raises the question if dominion points might be wasted if they are generated in a province that already have max. dominion.

/Rainbow

[Saxon]

For a very good explanation of how dominion spreads, check out this link. It is the best documentation I have seen for Dominions ever and it is a shame that the individual did not finish the strategy guide. I believe that a number of the earlier posters would be interested to compare their understanding of dominion to this guide.

http://www.maladjustite.com/dominion.pdf

Two quick things from the guide.

Preaching with priests only effects the province the priest is in, it can not spread outward.

Low dominion would spread faster than high dominion at first, but will spread more slowly when it encounters enemy dominion and tries to overcome it. Further, low dominion is more easily pushed back than high dominion. This is a combination of both your pretenders dominion and the dominion of the province in question.

From my own thoughts, you should consider how big the map is and how many temples you plan to build. In a huge map, you may build 25 castles, which would boost your dominion five points. On a small map, you would not be able to do the same.

If you go for a fast spread dominion, perhaps as part of a rapid expansion plan against indies with an immortal or SC, you will probably want to ensure you are building lots of temples before the mid game. This is to ensure that your dominion spreads faster and boosts it later, so you do not lose the dominion you spread early on.

When picking your starting dominion, you need to bear in mind that you can raise it, and then decide how important it is to you. Also, I believe that dominion maxs out at 10. I could be wrong, but if I am right, you probably do not want to start any higher than 8. After all, most people will build at least ten temples. If anyone can confirm this, please let me know.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Saxon:
When picking your starting dominion, you need to bear in mind that you can raise it, and then decide how important it is to you. Also, I believe that dominion maxs out at 10. I could be wrong, but if I am right, you probably do not want to start any higher than 8. After all, most people will build at least ten temples. If anyone can confirm this, please let me know.

That's correct. Unless you absolutely need high dominion early or are going to make a lot of holy units (since the number you can make doesn't max at 10), 10 is viable only on the tiniest Maps (Urgaia maybe), 9 for something like Aran, and in general you'd probably want at most 8.

[Rainbow]

Thanks for posting that Saxon. Some very solid info on dominion in that pdf.

That -10% hit points per level of dominion must be a good way to discourage pretender SC's from going rampaging in your core provinces.

As far as I can tell from the guide, the only way a dominion point can be 'wasted' is if it is spread from one provinse into another (randomly chosen) province, which already has max. dominion.

The explanation of what the Restless Worshippers theme actually does is worth gold. Great info!

/Rainbow

[Vynd]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

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Originally posted by Vynd:
OK, as I understand it, when the game does a temple check (or pretender check, etc.) in a province and it determines that dominion should go up, then it will always boost the dominion of that province unless it is at max. If it is maxed out, then and only then will your dominion (possibly) be pushed into a neighboring province.

If that was true, in the first turn your dominion wouldn't spread outwards before it is maxed in the capital. Anyone who has played more than a couple games should know it doesn't work like this. Did you really never notice that surrounding provinces might have a positive dominion in turn 2 while you capital was still below its optimal value?

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You're right of course. And yeah I'd seen this many times but somehow just didn't think of it when I was framing my original post.