Pure Dominion victory

[shovah]

Also try combining your super dominion push with a global that will damage the enemys invading (and if your dominion is far reaching non invading) armies. Also, as i said try to get a chokepoint and load it (or them, try to make it no more than 3 provinces) with longbowmen and atleast 1 or 2 vine ogre makers.

[Valandil]

You could also cast the wild hunt, using your high-nature pretender. Might help a bit.

[Ironhawk]

Saxon said:
Ok, it sounds like it is possible, but would it stand up in MP? It seems that MP is the real test of strategies. It seems to me that your enemy could fairly cheaply start putting up temples, PD and preists and hold you off. In the mean time, could them then stomp on you with some other strategy? How does this rank as a strategy versus many of the others?

You are correct: the dominion-only strategy does not hold up in MP. As you say, humans detect your dominion-attack far better than the AI and rapidly move to patrol and preach to counter you. Additionally they would take your moves as a declaration of war and attack you - at least to destroy your temples if not wipe you out entirely.

The only case of a dominion-attack strategy that I have heard of succeeding was with GE Arco - BUT - the player only used the dom-attack in conjunction with a regular military attack. Big teams of Skeptics were used to nuke enemy dominion to great effect (provinces going from dom 10 -> dom 0 in a single turn!). Backed up with very strong dominion to overrun the dom of these provinces. I'm sure Stone Idols were put into play as well as Arco is great at building those.

[Wish]

you could stealth preach, set up like 5-10 monks in each province, and only have them all preach once in place.

I am suprised no one is doing this in council of wyrms.

[Ygorl]

Who says nobody is?

Well, as the monk-man in CoW, I suppose it's safe to admit that nobody is.
Even with low-level patrolling (moderate PD or a small force of real troops) a force of 5-10 monks would be discovered in 1-2 turns. If someone noticed that they were finding monks in all their provinces every turn, they might get upset.

I think it would be about impossible to dominion-kill a human player without them knowing it was happening. I did take out Jurri (playing as BF Ulm) in one game (me as GE Arcoscephale) that way but I had the support of a massive army (first Ermorian, then Arcoscephalean) in his capital to keep him from patrolling my skeptics into oblivion. It was just easier and safer to do that versus sieging a well-defended fortress.

[Wish]

marignon can have stealth preachers too

thing is, since they are each individuals they are not considered a "large" army... however after even two get caught, maybe even one, they'd be on to you

shoot I catch scouts and assassins trying to cross my HEAVILY patrolled pythium border all the dang time.

[Ironhawk]

Ygorl said:
I think it would be about impossible to dominion-kill a human player without them knowing it was happening. I did take out Jurri (playing as BF Ulm) in one game (me as GE Arcoscephale) that way but I had the support of a massive army (first Ermorian, then Arcoscephalean) in his capital to keep him from patrolling my skeptics into oblivion. It was just easier and safer to do that versus sieging a well-defended fortress.

Ah, so that was you Ygorl. I'd heard the story but I couldnt recall who the player was. Did you use any Stone Idols? Or just skeptic teams?

[BigJMoney]

Isn't there a high level spell where you can create/conjure a creature that spreads dominion like a prophet? What if you planned to crank those out every turn in the end game? Even once they do detect it, wouldn't it be too late by that time? I want to say there are two spells that do something like that, but I can't remember for sure.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Saxon]

Oh yeah, it is Man and Panagea that are best suited to dominion victories with their cheap temples. I would think Mitlian is the worst, as you would need to put your blood slaves heavily into this, reducing your ability to do your other magics. On the other hand, if you were taking other magic paths and had a really good supply of blood slaves, they might be powerful. The water nations in SP would also do relatively well, as they can afford to build a temple right next to the enemy without fortifying too much. I have encircled enemies on the Britain map and it does seem to wear them down more than a regular frontal push does. However, that might be simply the effect of getting more temples out because I am avoiding costs on PD and forts.

[Saxon]

The Juggernauts look pretty cool and dominate the scene. It is not often that I call my wife to look at a screen in Dominions… However, they are pretty slow, so they never made it to the enemy ranks in the game I used them. If I remember, they are not terribly offensive in any case, so they may not have done much even if they did get there.