Dominion Vs Military

[tinkthank]

I am no master (although my grandfather, who taught me chess, actually was), but I can say this: controlling the center (or other stragetically important areas) in chess is *key*. It will cause you to win or lose. It is not obvious, it is not bombastic, it is not imposant, it is not "shock and awe"; it is none of these, but it will win (or lose) you the game.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Lex said:
If you have the choice to build a temple or recruit more troops, why do veteran players "always" seem to chose the temple?

Veterans don't, at least in MP. Troops are almost always a better choice, as long as you use them to grab new territories or to prevent the ennemy to grab yours. Still, don't neglect temples - just ask yourself "do I really need a temple here, and why?" before building one.

[Kel]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

Veterans don't, at least in MP. Troops are almost always a better choice, as long as you use them to grab new territories or to prevent the ennemy to grab yours. Still, don't neglect temples - just ask yourself "do I really need a temple here, and why?" before building one.

Not to mention "Can I protect it?"

- Kel

[Saxon]

One other point of note is that dominion spreads from the various points of dominion checking (temple, prophet, ect) and stops once it “finds” a place to effect. That is, it effects the provinces nearest the temple first, modified by a random choice of which nearby province to check. The general knock on expansion described in other Posts does work, but one can influence this. As such, one should also consider where your temples are built.

For example, a temple at the tail of your empire will spread dominion, but mostly in the tail of your empire. If you are fighting a two front war and on one front dominion is more important, the temple in the tail may or may not help you. On the other hand, a temple near the front lines of the important front will ensure that the effects are felt in the right place.

In addition, a high dominion is harder to overcome than a weak one. The idea of a “Wall of Dominion” to keep out enemy dominion does make sense and you can provide support to the “Wall”. If you build temples at the front, they will battle with the enemy dominion, hopefully defeating it or at least keeping it at bay. Ideally, your dominion will grow in strength, making it harder to defeat at the same time the temples keep pushing. This allows your back territory to expand undisturbed. If you instead chose to keep all your dominion generation in the center of the empire, counting on it to spread out, you will have very weak dominion at the edges (see other Posts) and the effects of your dominion will be spread evenly along the edges of your empire. This weak dominion will soon be defeated and you are splitting your defensive resources in trying to stop it.

In short, do not throw out Ceremony’s model. It has one error, but the guiding principles of that very well written article are still valid. It is also worth repeating what has been noted before, the article was written with developer input, so it has more insight than many of our general speculations.