Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[Baalz]

I don't have the vast experience some of you do, but it does seem to me that luck has as much to do with who will be the winner as skill. Don't get me wrong, a good player obviously has a much better chance of doing well, but as far as who is going to do good enough to beat everyone else in the game it's going to be the player that is good AND has the best luck. Factors you may or may not have much control over and may significantly effect your chances of winning:
1) What nation you're playing
2) Who your neighbors are (How aggressive/good are they). If you attack player A do players B and C take that opportunity to attack you, or are they fighting with each other?
3) What random events hit your capital during the early turns
4) Who you're able to ally with (this is as much a function of the situation as your diplomatic skills)
5) Who allies against you (if you take a strong early lead you're likely to be ganged up on. Taking a nation perceived to be stronger, or being perceived as a strong player is likely to have people gang up on you as well)
6) What type of provinces are close to your capitol (do you have resources for your resource intensive troops? Suitable blood hunting sites? Enough gold income?)
7) Are you able to trade for some good path boosters?
8) What indie mages are you able to recruit?
9) What magic sites do you find? Do you get the gem income that fits your nation? Any good ritual discounts?

etc. etc.

So, I guess my point is that you've got to "play to win" with a certain lack of intensity because if you're playing against any significant number of players remotely near your skill level you're probably not going to. There is enough variation from luck that many, many different strategies are competitive and offer a different play experience. Obviously Dominions isn't perfectly balanced, look at how hard it is to balance games like Warcraft and consider the difference in scope. So what if <nation 1/setup 1> is definitely stronger that <nation 2/setup 2>, I can take <nation 2/setup 2> and have almost as much of a chance of winning assuming I play a good game.

Graeme, your bleak depiction of the game doesn't correspond to my experience. Your implication is that you either don't know what you're doing or you're not playing to win if you do something different than the things you list as being optimal (dual bless, death scales, etc), and that the game is almost completely determined in the first 20 turns so the rest is just going through the motions. Perhaps that is the case if you're playing one on one competitively with the primary purpose to win, but that doesn't sound to me like you're playing a very fun game.