Leadership levels upped, I see?

[DominionsFan]

alexti said:

I've tried the game with the following restrictions:
- only national troops (and pretender can be used) and mercenaries can be used (no indy mages);
- no ritual summons;
- no creature generators (neither permanent, like devil generator nor battlefield ones such as living water, lifelong protection etc);
- no gem generators;

To my surprise I've won without much difficulty, which is probably because I've played Jotunheim. My plan was to use blessed woodsmen and later on use niefel jarls as mini-SC. Considering that research didn't look like a high priority I took drain-2. I've got monolith with E9W6S4 (dom 6) which left me with enough points for decent scales. Early on I wasn't buying mages at all - just woodsmen and jotun jarls to lead them. I had to wait a bit until I got enough woodsmen to keep a good line (to avoid being surrounded) before expanding, but then it went easy - I've steamrolled over indy and my AI neighbours (Man, Arco and Abysia). I only bought few mages to search for sites. After getting construction researched (mostly by pretender) I've bought some more mages and equipped them with skull mentors. I've tried to use Niefel Jarls as SCs, but it didn't work particularly well, they were only useful to take poorly defended provinces, so in the end I've conquered everybody mostly with woodsmen. Afterwards, I think it might be easier to play any other Jotunheim theme - I had virtually no mage support on the battlefield.

Though, I've played on small map without Ermor or water nations (with them things would be more difficult I think). I suspect this approach wouldn't be that successful (but perhaps still viable) on a large map, but I wanted to finish it before Dom3 anyway

This strategy will likely work with any other bless-efficient nation.

Yes this is very possible on a small map, however on a large map with impossible AIs...I don't think that it would work. I might give it a try.

[alexti]

DominionsFan said:
Yes this is very possible on a small map, however on a large map with impossible AIs...I don't think that it would work. I might give it a try.

I've tried a large map with Machaka (F9N9 sacred spiders) and things went pretty well again (even better than with Jotuns I think). I'm surprised how much different the game is when you're not allowed to use summons. Now I have tons of gems and now I understand why AI likes to give a lot of gems to every magic caster Drain 3 seems to be a way to go because there's no big rush to research anymore and later gems can be spent to forge research boosters. Amazingly, it seems that with this strategy it's actually easier to win vs impossible AI. I have never tried this strategy before, but it works really well. Once again I've easily run over 3 neighbours (Arco, Man and Pangaea) with my spiders (and they rarely die) and now (by turn 40) I have the largest empire with large spider army (ability to recruit them in capital only hurts a bit though) and I can afford expensive mages to provide serious firepower support, so effectively I've already overcome advantages impossible AI had. I'll try to play a bit further to make sure nothing unexpected happens...

Dominions doesn't stop to amaze me I used this tactics in MP blitzes, but why I've never thought that it may work in a larger game?

[NTJedi]

alexti said:
I used this tactics in MP blitzes, but why I've never thought that it may work in a larger game?

I'm also a fan of Machaka yet I play most large or huge maps... I moved to different nations because I hated having the worst province defense.

Maybe Dominions_4 will have a feature where gamers can cast spells and/or spend gold to upgrade the units of province defense.

[Endoperez]

NTJedi said:

I'm also a fan of Machaka yet I play most large or huge maps... I moved to different nations because I hated having the worst province defense.

Maybe Dominions_4 will have a feature where gamers can cast spells and/or spend gold to upgrade the units of province defense.

Err... What about the globals? You know, the one with mechanical men, and the other with underwater monsters defending your provinces, and the one with the dead being animated to fight as vine creatures?

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:

Err... What about the globals? You know, the one with mechanical men, and the other with underwater monsters defending your provinces, and the one with the dead being animated to fight as vine creatures?

The globals add new units to province defense they don't upgrade the existing units of province defense. I'm sure many gamers wouldn't mind spending X amount of gold or gems for upgrading province defense. Or perhaps some good events can be created to upgrade province defense in Dominions_4.

[alexti]

NTJedi said:

I'm also a fan of Machaka yet I play most large or huge maps... I moved to different nations because I hated having the worst province defense.

Does PD really make much differense? I've never paid much attention to it. Everybody can defend vs single scout and nobody can do anything vs decent army. Well, I suppose, Jotuns have easier time deflecting hawk invasions and such with smaller numbers.

[NTJedi]

alexti said:
[Does PD really make much differense? I've never paid much attention to it. Everybody can defend vs single scout and nobody can do anything vs decent army. Well, I suppose, Jotuns have easier time deflecting hawk invasions and such with smaller numbers.

Yes in really large maps I notice a difference. I've had good Machaka province defense lose to 'call of the winds'. Machakas province defense will die from tennis balls because of the zero protection. In SP the weak province defense is mostly an annoyance. In MP the weak province defense is more an issue... but again this is for really large maps.

[alexti]

NTJedi said:

Yes in really large maps I notice a difference. I've had good Machaka province defense lose to 'call of the winds'. Machakas province defense will die from tennis balls because of the zero protection. In SP the weak province defense is mostly an annoyance. In MP the weak province defense is more an issue... but again this is for really large maps.

I've played really large maps only in MP and in my experience for the most of the game (except early game) the normal way to take opponents provinces was through GR or raiding parties where PD doesn't make much difference anyway. Ok, maybe Pangaea or Caelum can give trouble to some raiding parties, but other than that, what were people attacking with so that PD mattered?

[NTJedi]

alexti said:
I've played really large maps only in MP and in my experience for the most of the game (except early game) the normal way to take opponents provinces was through GR or raiding parties where PD doesn't make much difference anyway. Ok, maybe Pangaea or Caelum can give trouble to some raiding parties, but other than that, what were people attacking with so that PD mattered?

My 15_PD was falling to 'call of the winds'.
The opponent with the soulstone could send the wolves which could then sneak into a nearby territory and attack some other location.
Once the farming of pearls becomes effective madmen would easily pounce a territory far behind the lines.
Late stages of the game I notice the bad province defense.

It's also an uncomfortable feeling for me knowing all the other nations have better province defense.

[DominionsFan]

alexti said:

I've tried a large map with Machaka (F9N9 sacred spiders) and things went pretty well again (even better than with Jotuns I think). I'm surprised how much different the game is when you're not allowed to use summons. Now I have tons of gems and now I understand why AI likes to give a lot of gems to every magic caster Drain 3 seems to be a way to go because there's no big rush to research anymore and later gems can be spent to forge research boosters. Amazingly, it seems that with this strategy it's actually easier to win vs impossible AI. I have never tried this strategy before, but it works really well. Once again I've easily run over 3 neighbours (Arco, Man and Pangaea) with my spiders (and they rarely die) and now (by turn 40) I have the largest empire with large spider army (ability to recruit them in capital only hurts a bit though) and I can afford expensive mages to provide serious firepower support, so effectively I've already overcome advantages impossible AI had. I'll try to play a bit further to make sure nothing unexpected happens...

Dominions doesn't stop to amaze me I used this tactics in MP blitzes, but why I've never thought that it may work in a larger game?

wow interesting. I will try it also. I've never used this tactic in the MP games to be honest, and usually we play on "small" maps. Hm..perhaps I should give it a try in MP also.