General Tipps / Things not to do / Scripts

[Ironhawk]

Acenoid said:
Since Dominios offers a great level of details, maybe you can give me as beginner some "no no'es" some useful things to do at the beginning of a game, important spells, and generic / useful scripts for your commanders / troops and what items to create.

Sure thing - to cover the entire set of things you should and shouldnt do in detail would take forever. So I'm just going to throw some random tips and you can just take whatever you want.

Buy mercs - they will drastically increase your early capture rate

Get an H4 (holy level 4) prophet if you can

Use mostly national troops (from your forts) - only supplement with indy troops when they have some ability your nationals lack

Dont try and use the low level summons

Buy archers

Use chaff against Heavy Cavalry to absorb Lance attacks

Stay away from using Blood magic or Communions until you have more experience with dominions

Random useful lower level spells: Raise Dead, Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Call of the Winds, Blade Wind

Use the site search spells instead of manual searching - its faster.

Random useful upper level spells: Mother Oak, Well of Misery, Tartarian Gate, Gift of Health, Warthful Skies, Master Enslave, Astral Nexus

SC Buff Spells: Personal Luck, Quicken Self, Mistform, Mirror Image, Body Ethereal, Ironskin, Invulnerability, Fire Shield, Breath of Winter

As for items... again the list just goes on. In general you will probably want magic path booster items and SC gear.

[Gandalf Parker]

I might also mention...
A common first turn involves
A) set your starting army to patrol
B) turn taxes to 200%
C) buy mercs (increase the base amount by about 7 gold if you are playing against AIs)
D) set pretender to research, if no magic then patrol
E) since your army is sticking around for a turn.. check and see if the leader can lead more than he has. See what he needs (some cavalry for flankers, more archers, maybe a priest/mage to go along for early searches?)

Most people will NOT attack blindly on the first turn.

On turn two you can choose a neighboring province to attack. Hit the "8" key and turn on the map arrows to show you who is and isnt a neighbor. Check them and make sure that you can move from there to the next neighbor. Plan your route so you can move from neighbor to neighbor without having to return to the home castle and waste 2 turns going around a blockage. Keep in mind that you will be able to buy more mercs and troops, and send them to reinforce for the next few battles as long as you are doing the loop of the provinces that neighbor the castle. BE SURE TO TURN THE TAXES BACK DOWN. Your patrollers are about to leave. 200% taxes have drawbacks and should be sued for a very short time in your capital.

Disclaimer: as for everything in Dominions, nothing is an absolute "always a good idea" thing. There are some nations and situations which can change the above suggestions.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Another common first turn involves 140% taxes + patrol.
The unrest is usually much more manageable - and if you're unlucky, you're not going to end up at as huge level of unrest.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Either that is done, or the starting commander is made into a prophet.