Question: Defense Dilemma

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
You generally have 5 options:

1) Blanket the area with armies, each large enough that local defence+army will be enough to defeat
2) Use traps or guessing methods to predict the next move and squash his army with your biggie.
3) Spam the you provinces with castles
4) Use a magical attack spell to jump the defence (the ghost spell seems effective for this)
5) Counterattack, devasting the oponents provinces just as he devastes yours.

Playing catchup is almost never worthwhile.

Disclaimer: I'm certainly no veteran.

Esben have described it well. What he said can be applied to both SP and MP. Since you didn't mention what type of game you are playing, I'll add 2 more options that are very effective for dealing with AI but much less usefull for MP.

6. Passive defence against AI:

"channel" the enemy forces by using your PD and local defenders. The enemy hoard will almost always attack the most weakly defended province (based upon total number of defenders there including PD). By using it you can make them attack specific province, but before they arrive, you can orginize "welcome comette" by moving all your nearby troops into threatened province. (remeber your movement between friendly provinces will happen _before_ enemy's movement).

7. Active defence against AI:
The best defense is a good offence. If you have enough armies, go after enemy's capital. When you'll arrive most of AI's troops will drop whatever they are doing (most likely raiding your countryside) and will run to rescue their besieged capital. Just make sure you have enough forces to withstand their continious attacks and/or can bring more reinforcements when needed.

[Gandalf Parker]

Use real world tactics. If he is at the edge of your domain then boost defences in two provinces and build units there (archers are usually helpful to defence militia) while leaving the middle one weak. Attack the middle one and see if he doesnt attack it also in the same round.

[PDF]

There's one simple solution : play the Cradle map, it has lifelike bottlenecks and access routes, it makes the game more enjoyable than the usual "runner wars" where you chase the crappy IA armies invading from everywhere

[Wauthan]

As it sounds like you too favor singleplayer then I can also recommend creatinf a mod were you upgrade the province defence a wee bit. It's an easy and fun mod to make.

Machaka and Pythium, my favorite nations, are a lot more relaxing to play when their frontline defence don't rely on militia.

And I agree with PDF that the map makes a big difference. The Cradle of Dominion rewards a good defence but it can also be very frustrating when it's the AI who's turtling. Kingdom of Karan is a bit more open but still sports various bottlenecks that can fought over. So does the Middle Earth map.

[Ironhawk]

Thanks for all your Posts yall, I appreciate the info. Sadly I still don't feel like there is a good strategy - see below for responses to each point:

1) Blanket an area w/ army+defense:
This tactic basically means I have to deploy far more troops (and spend on defense) a great deal more than the enemy has to spend to build an attacking force. This implies that the game is offense favoring.

2) Traps and Guesswork:
As I said in the original post I already do this - I'm looking for a better way :}

3) Castle Spam:
Technically, this solves the problem, BUT at the cost of ruining the fort resource gathering. This is turn (while costing a fortune) would also mean a terrific amount of MicroManagement since all your troop building could no long be focused on key forts due to resource shortages.

4) The Ghost Spell:
I looked thru the spell list and couldnt find this spell. Is it a nickname for something?

5) CounterAttack:
A valid strategy. But it sidesteps the fact that there appears to be no good way to defend.

6 + 7) AI Strategies:
Those are good strategies for the AI, but I am looking for MP strategies in the long term.


The only thing that I've seen so far that might really address the fact that offense has the advantage are these new maps that people are talking about. But it saddens me that this effectively means that Dominions 2 at the base level favors an all-offense strategy!

Please if anyone can think of a way I have listed, post it! I personally would be very disappointed if this was the way dom2 was built. Hoping I'm missing something somehow...

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Ironhawk:
3) Castle Spam:
Technically, this solves the problem, BUT at the cost of ruining the fort resource gathering. This is turn (while costing a fortune) would also mean a terrific amount of MicroManagement since all your troop building could no long be focused on key forts due to resource shortages.

This isn't as huge a drawback as you'd think, particularly if you took either the Watchtower, knowing that you WERE going to do this, and as a result, have no resource-gathering to ruin anyway because the watchtower's admin sucks, or your nation's troops are either undesirable and/or have very low resource costs.

It should be noted that heavy, high-resource troops generally lack the strategic mobility to do anything useful anyway, because they move too slowly to actually reach a conflict: This is alleviated if your nation is astrally powerful and can gateway, but otherwise, heavies are simply too slow and useless, and cannot be produced in anything approximating reasonable quantity even if you have a solid admin grid.

4) The Ghost Spell:
I looked thru the spell list and couldnt find this spell. Is it a nickname for something?

Ghost Riders: D4, Conjuration 9. In combination with #3, Castle Spamming, you can easily keep the enemy off your back: When he shows up to bang on the gates, bury him in Ghost Riders. The Ghost Riders will slaughter his forces, but since you hold the fort, and the Ghost Riders evaporate after the battle, the province instantly reverts back to your control without having to send a cleanup crew. Your temples remain intact as well. This strategy is really synergistic with #3.

5) CounterAttack:
A valid strategy. But it sidesteps the fact that there appears to be no good way to defend.

Against an AI, a castle will mire him down until he can take it, making his moves predictable, because an AI never aborts a siege willingly. Against a slash and burn pack run by a human, however, this is totally futile: Enemy armies inside formerly friendly territory always move first, even if they're attacking a new territory. The only way to catch them is to second-guess them, or intercept on the magic phase.

The only thing that I've seen so far that might really address the fact that offense has the advantage are these new maps that people are talking about. But it saddens me that this effectively means that Dominions 2 at the base level favors an all-offense strategy!

You'd think that, but then why does my incredibly defensively-oriented castles+SCs style gather so much flak?

[Ironhawk]

Don't get me wrong - I didn't try to argue against the usefulness of castle spamming. I agree that it solves the strategic problem perfectly BUT...

it breaks down the resource/production focus that (I believe) forts are designed for. Effectively with castle spamming I would be reduced to building like 2-4 units in every province and then running around to collect them all into a central location. I simply *will not* spend the majority of my turn time micromanaging my troops like that.

As the game stands now it is fun (wack-a-mole syndrome aside), but if I have to MM my troops every turn I know that my desire to play will evaporate quickly.