Question: Defense Dilemma

[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.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Originally posted by Ironhawk:
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.

More or less. If games are to end, ever, the game must be slightly favored toward offense. Otherwise, everybody would just hole up. A few points, though;

a. Firstly, you don't have to pay upkeep for you PD. He does. PD combined with a real army is more powerful than it seems, though not against huge armies.
b. If you can enclose his army and break it, even partially, he will lose those troops. Breaking (parts) of an army is usually not that hard. Enclosing big armies corks well. Also, see 2.
3. He will (probably) be fighting in your dominion. This is a huge handicap, especially since breaking quickly becomes a real troop killer. Cavary and/or flying units set to e.g. hold+attack rear do a terrific job in capitalizing on breaking.

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

The key here is TRAPS. Humans can also be tricked. Use baits (you pretender works well), partially concealed armies, hide your armies just beyond sight and so on. This is how dom was meant to be played, I think.

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.

Yeah, it works, and it sucks. I fervently wish that castle spamming is killed by a balance adjustment of some sort. I suggest an global earthquake like spell, that destroys 10% of all castles in the world. Mhu-hahahahahaha. I'll put castlespamming on my deathlist together with wish and the clam

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

As I said, it is important that offense is slightly favorable to defense. Also, it is easy to forget how expensive that pillaging-army-until-it-dies strategy is for the offensive player. Try doing it to the AI once, and see how well it works for you

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

That was just examples of 2 and 5

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!

All-offense is a catostrophy. Try it againt the AI if you please. No amount of offense is going to give you dominion, and dominion is a key to victory.

BTW, all of this advise is useless against the Vampire Queen-wielding camp. Against those, only a high dominion and extensive alliances help And you will still get beaten.

To quote an english author that rose to some esteem. "I'd rather be a canker in the hedge than a rose in his grace.": I'd rather lose every single game than stoop to micromangement. Too bad the best magic school (blood) cannot be used without mucho micromangement

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Ironhawk:
it breaks down the resource/production focus that (I believe) forts are designed for.

If you want to explain to me how there's a resource/production focus in an admin-10 castle, be my guest. The Watchtower is DESIGNED for castle-spamming, as it has basically no admin value of any worth.

The drawbacks are that spammable castles have crappy defense, and are thus only really meaningful as a brief delaying tactic.

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.

That's because castle spammers don't build troops, they build mages. As you can only recruit one mage per turn, regardless of how much gold you have sitting around, you have to spam castles in order to be able to increase your mage output bandwidth.

A strategy specifically centering around the spamming of castles tends to also involve the production of a buttload of mages.

There's also the minor problem that without castles, building temples is ultimately a futile endeavor as they constantly burn down in raids. Without the temples, you're liable to be dominion-killed very easily. I'm sure some people would argue the situation is not quite as drastic, but in one game, I spam castles everywhere and temple everything....I *STILL* have enemy dominion in my lands. Obviously, I'm not building enough temples.

[PvK]

Follow the raiders, and heavily defend only the valuable provinces.

A large raider army that gets cut off will starve (unless it doesn't need food), and one that is followed will only occupy one of your provinces at a time.

Small raider armies can be worn down efficiently by PD combined with small forces.

PvK

[Firebreath]

Raiders have always (historically) been a problem to those being raided, and they still are (spec. forces). The best way to beat raiders is not (as suggested) to follow them around until they starve and slowly die out (as this will cost you lost income and time) but to trap them. There are many ways of doing it. Uncastled temple provinces make an excellent trap. The enemy will be drawn to your uncastled temples like flies to honey. What the enemy doesn't know is that you're moving lots of flying units, or you're building lots of province defence, or you have lots of hidden units, or your pretender is flying in. Of course, one way to effectively beat raiders is to cripple their leadership. Seeking arrows (air 3) are optimal for this, as you know that the enemy doesn't have any dome of protection in a province without a lab. As mentioned by norfleet, ghost riders also work quite well against weaker armies (armies not heavily protected by priests, wizzards, SC's). Assassins also work well, as they force the enemy to divert some of his forces to 'guard commander' - which means that you will have fewer enemy units to fight on the front line. If you're fighting mages, equip your assassins with elemental protection. Raiding will always be a problem, so make more of a problem for the raiders than it is for you

[HJ]

Originally posted by 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

I wholeheartedly agree.