Can't figure out what I'm doing wrong

[Sencha]

I've followed advice from the posters on this forum in a LA game playing Jomon. My armies were mostly filled with the lower end archers and samurai. I also used personal strategies I learned from earlier games. However, the AI continues to crush me and I can't figure out how its able to do it.

The enemy nations seem to outperform, outproduce and worst of all, horribly outnumber me. I was probably about halfway through the 2nd game year, controlled around seven provinces and my average army was around twenty units. I had three dedicated researchers (the Pretender, and two expensive research units). I had temples in almost every province (so in the Dominion area I was definitely doing alright). I also had a prophet as well, to help spread it.

My magic research pace was decent and my PD for every province was 20. Here's where I think I am really suffering: resources and production capacity.

Building a castle seemed to alleviate this somewhat, but it turned out to be short term solution. I saw one spike in my resources for that area and then that was it. While the AI is taking an army almost half a thousand strong, I'm struggling just to put a decent squad together, let alone two. It seems the enemy can afford to create hundreds of units where I might be able to queue up around ten per turn.

I don't bother taxing provinces whose income is too low, but my gold income was decent anyway. I simply can't figure out why I always seem to be near resource depleted. I'm not draining my funds every turn, I'm taking over every province I can, and I'm imposing higher taxes on the provinces that are worth it.

Other than those solutions, I'm stumped. Please help.

[SlipperyJim]

What scales were you playing?

[thejeff]

Taxing?

Raising taxes increases unrest and thus will lower income in the (not very) long run. Patrolling counters the unrest but kills population and so lowers income in the longer run. I usually only increase taxes on provinces I expect to lose and occasionally on my capital for the first few turns for an boost to fund initial expansion. (Use the starting army to patrol until you have enough to attack.)

Scales are certainly a question. If you're trying to build high resource troops, you need production scales.

More importantly, though: You're halfway through the second year and have 7 provinces? You should have twice that, at least. (Unless it's a crowded small map and you're hitting AI nations before you can get more, in which case you need a blitz strategy: a heavy bless or SC pretender.) I'm not very familiar with Jomon, so I can't really give specific advice, but you need to focus more on early expansion. Try for a province a turn and start moving turn 2 or 3 at the latest.

Don't worry so much about temples and high PD until you've got the expansion going.

How do you look in the graphs compared to the AI? Provinces and income especially.

[CharonJr]

And at what setting are the AIs ?

If you are playing on the higher AI levels they get fairly large boosts to gold/ressource production.

And I think you are way too "aggressive" on temples and PD, but since ressources and not gold seems to be your problem that might not play a very large role.

Trying to get more mercs in order to help with expansion might be helpful, too.

As has been remarked 7 provinces seem to be fairly low for the number of turns you played.

CharonJr

[Teraswaerto]

It sounds like you overtax your provinces, get unrest, and thus get less resources.

Do not raise taxes over 100 unless you are trying to cause unrest, or are patrolling the province.

[Actuarian]

It sounds like your problem is almost entirely due to you micromanaging the tax levels of provinces. In general, you shouldn't take control of the tax level of a province unless you have a specific reason (blood hunting province, pillaging, are there any others?). It does a good just of maximizing revenue while controlling unrest.

There is absolutely no reason to turn off taxing for provinces with low incomes. You're just hurting yourself. Let the computer manage the tax level and you will get something out of those provinces.

To the extent that your problem is resources, consider buying troops from conquered provinces to fill up your ranks. Heavy infantry, light infanty with javelins and archers are all pretty useful. Even if you can only buy one or two of these per province per turn they can be combined with your existing troops to make a big difference.

Summons can also help if you need more troops.

[Nick_K]

You don't actually /need/ research t beat the AI. If you're being beaten in the early game then consider investing less in research. You also don't need more than pd10 except in border provinces.

Try to keep the number of border provinces low. If you have 7 provinces and, say, 4 of them border enemies then you'll have a hard time concentrating troops in every one of them. At the beginning of the game pick a couple of bottlenecks and expand quickly to them and then slow your expansion. Of course, you should always have an eye on the next target. Dominions is a war game rather than a civ-building one so I'd recommend continual expansion.

Make sure you use mercs. They provide a big early game boost. Bid 1 or 2 more than they ask to be sure you get them. Most mercenary groups are well worth buyign at the beginning of the game.

[Sandman]

Jomon is a probably not a good choice for a beginner, all its troops are bitterly resource intensive and not that great.

A temple is every province is a terrible waste of money if you're struggling, you could buy forty basic human infantry for the cost of each one. The same is true for 20 PD in every province; it's a common mistake for novices to invest in huge PD forces, rather than researchers, forts and mobile armies. 20 PD is reasonable for key provinces, but it's a bit much for unthreatened interior areas.

Three researchers is very poor for the middle of the second year, although Jomon doesn't have good mages to begin with.

And your taxes will take care of themselves. Don't touch them unless you really have to.

[Graeme Dice]

Sencha said:
I was probably about halfway through the 2nd game year, controlled around seven provinces and my average army was around twenty units.

You have hardly any provinces for this late in the game. You want to be capturing a minimum of at least one province a turn for the first ten turns, and hopefully to have 15-20 provinces by turn 10.

I had three dedicated researchers (the Pretender, and two expensive research units).

By turn 20 you should have at least 20 researchers, especially with the cheap mages that Jomon has. Your pretender should also probably be out conquering provinces by himself, not rsearching in your capital where he can't affect your game much.

I'm not draining my funds every turn, I'm taking over every province I can, and I'm imposing higher taxes on the provinces that are worth it.

Never set the tax rate higher than 100% unless you need gold income immediately. It causes unrest and kills population.

For Late Era Jomon, your pretender should have order 3 and production 3. You should probably also pick misfortune 2 or 3. You'll also want a base dominion of 6. Once you make these standard starting choices, you can play around with the rest of the settings.

[Graeme Dice]

Nick_K said:
You don't actually /need/ research t beat the AI. If you're being beaten in the early game then consider investing less in research.

It would be hard for him to invest less in research than the two mages he currently has.