Dominion Killing

[Ironhawk]

Just a couple of questions for any players out there about using Dominion as a weapon. What are the general strategies associated with it? What nations are the best to use if you plan to try dominion killing? Is it possible to dominion-kill another player without resorting to traditional combat?

[quantum_mechani]

Ironhawk said:
Just a couple of questions for any players out there about using Dominion as a weapon. What are the general strategies associated with it? What nations are the best to use if you plan to try dominion killing? Is it possible to dominion-kill another player without resorting to traditional combat?

It is possible to kill without normal combat, but extremely rare. Most often it is just used to finish off players when you have them cornered, but they still have lots of researchers, etc., in their last few forts. Nations with mage-priests tend to often do this because it is very easy for their sieging mages to switch over dominion squishing duty. By the same token, nations with mage-priests are quite hard to dominion kill as the sieged researchers can counter preach.

Of course Marignon has a natural advantage dominion killing with inquisitors. Undead nations usually have very high dominion strength, but without preaching they cannot direct it as well. Aggressive temple building can still result in a dominion kill though.

Basically, dominion killing is not really a tactic by itself, but simply a shortcut when you are already winning and want/need to speed things up.

[spirokeat]

Pretty much what QM said really.

I've started using dominion much more aggressively in my games. But its quite hard to kill off an enemy capital, but it is possible, though Im not sure how easy with most races.

The mage priest thing is as QM said, makes it easier.. blood sacrifice nations have an advantage in this area though.

Preaching will never directly increase the spread of dominion for neighbouring regions. It can only ever increase the dominion inside the region being preached. When a temple is built within a region it causes a special chance to increase dominion based on the current level of dominion there. It is this 'temple' check that can spread dominion to adjacent provinces. When a temple check successfuly does get an increase in its region there is a chance it will be in a random adjacent one. As preaching can help increase current region dominion only it just helps along the chance that a temple might spread nearby.

Thats the basics as i understand them, although there are quirks to dominion spread, Your god sends it out in all sorts of odd ways and it seems to travel in wierd direction sometimes too. Not sure how that one works at all. Is it based on population size ? or region type ? so its harder for worship to spread over impenetrable mountains etc ?

Either way if you want to slay enemy dom. Build temples around a capital and get them preached up to as high as you can as fast as you can and hope the temples do the work for you.

SPiro

[Arralen]

For info about dominion spreading, look here : Thread 'Dominion Spreading effects'

[Ironhawk]

I wasnt particularly interested in the mechanics of dominion spread but rather how dominion was used as a weapon. And whether that could be used solely to defeat another player. From what people are saying here, its just an auxiliary weapon so you cant use it alone. I did hear one story of a player using Arco GE Skeptics to dominion-kill another player, but I didnt ask if it was as part of a larger war.

On a side note, I believe that the stealth number for Skeptics is wrong. I've been playing around with them a little and they get caught far less than I would expect of a st(0) unit. IMO, they act more like bards or spies in terms of intel and stealth. Anyone else experienced that?

[spirokeat]

The mechanics are integral as to how its possible to use it as a weapon. I suppose the top and bottom of it is.

If the enemy is holding his capital blood nations would have the best chance of flattening his dominion provided you could maintain temples around his capital.

If you have his capital seiged. Then Inquisitors and Skeptics etc would work well.

Spiro

[Sammas]

One of the people I play with has a very effective dominion-killing strategy with Ctis(Miasma). Pretty hard to stop a dominion push when your preachers/sacrificers are dying from disease.

[shovah]

miamasa with a temple and 1 or 2 juggernaughts per province 25 or 30 gems for something hard to kill that spreads dominion like a prophet seems good to me

[Endoperez]

But if a player can have 1 or 2 Juggernaughts per province, he doesn't have to dominion-kill his opponent. With that many pearls, he could do some insane things like empower mages for Nether Gate and summon hordes of Nether Warriors.

[Boron]

I think Pan CW can use Dominion as a weapon best.
You get your 100 gold temples and your dryads and your dominion is almost as good as Ermors in terms of pop killing .
The only problem is that Pan CW is imho weaker than Ermor and has more problems to get cash.
In Small-Medium-Size games, i.e. not bigger than Inland i think dominionkill strategies are worth it with Ermor and Pan CW.

You will do a bit of combat/raiding also but mainly rely on your dominion.

In Lategame a dominionkill attempt is also promising with the nations able to blood sacrifice imo. Iirc only Vanheim, Mictlan and Abysia may Bloodsacrifice. I think that Vanheim is suited best for a lategame blood sacrifice dominionkill approach.