Can normal army take out Sphinx pretender?

[Endoperez]

The dominion value you start with affects the speed your dominions spreads with. Every 5 temples give you one more point, but IIRC it only helps to stop enemy dominion from invading, not to spread your dominion, or has some other similar limitation. If you took low dominion, your dominion won't go above your borders, but with lots of temples you can have your whole empire under positive dominion.