How to successfully utilize your "Dominion Wall"?

[KissBlade]

I've never had trouble with dominion with dominion 3 or 4. I'd much rather spend the extra points on scales/magic. There are rare times I can find dominion spread immediately important (such as VQ, Ermor etc) but those are more exceptions than rules.

[alexti]

Taking Dominion 3 or 4 is really risky. If you start near some high-dominion nation(s) you're pretty much doomed. Not necessarily because of dominion death, but by having to spend too much resources on priests and temples.

I think that the optimal dominion (if your strategy doesn't require high dominion) is 5 or 6.

[KissBlade]

If I start near someone who spend all their points in a high dominion, I'll be sure to take his free provinces with my vastly superior army + pretender.

[Graeme Dice]

KissBlade said:
If I start near someone who spend all their points in a high dominion, I'll be sure to take his free provinces with my vastly superior army + pretender.

Why don't you provide us with a pretender design then, since you obviously seem to have one figured out that you think makes better use of the 42 points it requires to go from dominion 3 to 6.

Here's a simple one that doesn't waste a bunch of extra points on magic paths or scales that you won't actually use.
C'Tis Ghost King.
A4 W4 E4 D5
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Magic 3.
Research straight to alteration 5, then enchantment 1, then conjuration 2, then contruction 4, then enchantment 3, then alteration 6. Once you reach alteration 3, your ghost king has a script of quickness, ironskin, mirror images, mistform. Add in breath of winter, switch in invulnerability, and add in soul vortex once it's researched. You also have everything you need for neverending skeleton spam with both drain life and raise skeleton researched.

What would you add in using the 42 points it cost to bring dominion to 6 from 3 that would overwhelm any opposition?

[Gandalf Parker]

I dont know what a good average would be, but in keeping with my own area of interest I have have fun proving the concept of both maximum and minimum dominion.

Thats what I love about this game. There are no "winning" strategies. And very few "majorly wrong to do" strategies. There is only "works ok for me" strategies.

Gandalf Parker

[Wish]

I find averaging around 5 is not overly expensive, and is sufficient to prevent most early AI dominions, which are sometimes very high, from overwhelming you.

[Ygorl]

One thing I noticed in the "Council of Wyrms" game was that my high dominion (8) combined with lots of early temples (cheap for Man) meant that my no-magic pretender was able to comfortably take out nearly any independent province, even those with knights and the like that other more magically-endowed pretenders were falling to. The difference between a 200hp Wyrm and a 400hp Wyrm, especially when you consider the doubled regeneration, is pretty significant.

Of course, there are plenty of pretender designs to which this does not apply nearly as much, and there are many bad things to be said about taking no magic on your pretender. Just another example where different strategies can all work pretty well.

[KissBlade]

Graeme Dice said:

Why don't you provide us with a pretender design then, since you obviously seem to have one figured out that you think makes better use of the 42 points it requires to go from dominion 3 to 6.

Here's a simple one that doesn't waste a bunch of extra points on magic paths or scales that you won't actually use.
C'Tis Ghost King.
A4 W4 E4 D5
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Magic 3.
Research straight to alteration 5, then enchantment 1, then conjuration 2, then contruction 4, then enchantment 3, then alteration 6. Once you reach alteration 3, your ghost king has a script of quickness, ironskin, mirror images, mistform. Add in breath of winter, switch in invulnerability, and add in soul vortex once it's researched. You also have everything you need for neverending skeleton spam with both drain life and raise skeleton researched.

What would you add in using the 42 points it cost to bring dominion to 6 from 3 that would overwhelm any opposition?

If I'm using designs such as Dragon or similar low dominion pretender, the extra points are vastly more than 42 to go from 3 to 6. Similarly if I'm using immobiles, obviously I would pump dominion a bit. My point is, dominion tends to be the least concern of where I spend my points when creating a pretender. I've already pointed out there are exceptions to this such as when I'm creating a VQ or using miasma, etc. Setting up a straw man for my argument is rather annoying, to say the least. Six is not a high dominion. A dominion of six will not overwhelm my provinces. Had they spent like something to dominion eight, I'm pretty sure the 80 odd points would tilt things in my favor instead.

[Graeme Dice]

KissBlade said:
If I'm using designs such as Dragon or similar low dominion pretender, the extra points are vastly more than 42 to go from 3 to 6.

That's one of the reasons you don't use dragons in the unmodded game. The other is that a wyrm is a better combat pretender, and starts with higher dominion.

Setting up a straw man for my argument is rather annoying, to say the least. Six is not a high dominion. A dominion of six will not overwhelm my provinces.

Yes, a dominion strength of 6 will overwhelm your provinces when I have 20 temples and your temples only work at a dominion strength of 3.

Had they spent like something to dominion eight, I'm pretty sure the 80 odd points would tilt things in my favor instead.

How so? You'd still have the ghost king that's capable of dealing singlehandedly with your armies, only he'll start with less extraneous magic.

[KissBlade]

Graeme Dice said:

That's one of the reasons you don't use dragons in the unmodded game. The other is that a wyrm is a better combat pretender, and starts with higher dominion.

Yes, a dominion strength of 6 will overwhelm your provinces when I have 20 temples and your temples only work at a dominion strength of 3.

How so? You'd still have the ghost king that's capable of dealing singlehandedly with your armies, only he'll start with less extraneous magic.

Actually dragons in the modded game starts with only dominion 1 as well.

And 20 temples = 4000 gold, if you spent 4000 gold on temples, not only is your dominion going to be higher than six, you'll be massively underfunded in battle mages of which I will use to raze all 20 of those temples to the ground.

As for the Ghost King, yes he's a good pretender chassis for combat but there are many ways to counter him even early game. Dust to Dust, my own pretender, or even plain just raiding where he's not. Furthermore I attempted to make the Ghost King you mentioned and came up several points short.