The most important Dominions skill

[Ironhawk]

Diplomacy is the single most important skill. You can be the best planner or have the best knowledge of dom3, but none of this will help you when your 4 neighbors gang up on you and tear you to pieces.

In fact, I would say that if you are a good technical player and a bad diplomat that your skill actually works *against* you, in terms ability to win games. Because your nation will grow quickly and be strong... which will make all your neighbors nervous and ready to ally against you at the slightest provaction. Without diplomacy to defend you from this, you rely only on luck.

[CUnknown]

Fal - that was just bad luck, that event in that game.. it wasn't good maneuvering on my part.. I can't remember now exactly what happened, but I remember thinking I would be pissed off if that happened to me.. It was an unfair bug sort of thing.

Oh wait! I remember now...

You were stealthing to attack me, all your mages were stealthy, but I was patrolling.. and I caught your whole army with my whole army --- but instead of initiating a fight between us, instead it had my whole army fight each one of your commanders individually. There were like 30 battles in a row. It was rediculous.

Oh, and the plus side for me on top of defeating your army without a fight, basically, was that all my units immediately got like 3 experience stars from all those combats. I think you get experience for each combat you are in.. that should really be capped on a per turn basis, but whatever.

[Fal]

Lol yeah CU, it was a painful lesson that I could never forget, actually I attacked you with a small army, try to lure your out of the castle with my small army, then attack you off guard with my stealth army, but you also issued attacking me, so your entire army was stopped by mine and set to patrol.

It wasn't just bad luck on my part, it was a tactical error, I just didn't plan it through. Well played

[CUnknown]

That would have been one of the biggest and most important battles of that game, Fal.. it's sort of a shame we didn't get to see it. Who knows what would have happened. You may have well won that game if the battle actually had happened.

[Agema]

I think diplomacy has been overrated.

Diplomacy is important. However, we all cut our teeth on the SP game where diplomacy barely exists, and it's easy for a MP noob to overlook it, where it will cost them dearly. But I don't think you need to be particularly good at diplomacy to prosper.

Diplomacy is dependent entirely on how much power you have to back it up. No-one is going to support you in a war if you won't be an effective ally. Holding back a potential enemy with potential allies is no use if he thinks he can take you easily enough.

[Jazzepi]

I really think people are overrating diplomacy. Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Bluffing only works so far, and eventually you have to be able to bolster your position with actual force. If you're the worst dominions 3 player in the world, but you're excellent at diplomacy, nothing is going to save you when push finally comes to shove.

Diplomacy is a force multiplier. It allows you win engagements with larger nations by putting you into an advantageous position, but it doesn't actually make you any stronger. If you don't have anything to multiply with it, you're mostly wasting your time.

Jazzepi

[RonD]

My most successful diplomatic maneuvers have only a little bit to do with alliances. Or with winning battles/wars - they have more to do with staying out of wars and with manipulating who is fighting who else while I stay out of it. Success mostly lies with the ability to convince another player that what is in *my* best interest is actually in *his* best interest.

Sometimes that is even true, which makes it easier.

[Zeldor]

Luck

[Cerlin]

I hope end game scenarios get even more interesting! it will be great fun to see and I hope the patch is out soon..

[Ironhawk]

The new dominions end game will be....

Troll King Uber SCs of DOOM