How difficult is this game?

[llamabeast]

What nation are you playing?

[Fenris99]

llamabeast said:
What nation are you playing?

I started a game as Marignon.

I don't see the pretenders as being powerful enough to conquer an indie by themselves. I got the Wyrm in my first game killed on turn 3 by attacking a province by himself.

[Torin]

you have to give the wyrm dominion 8 or more(the more the better)
it will gain awe ability.
and will be difficult to kill unless fighting the lizardmen shaman indies.

[Fenris99]

Torin said:
you have to give the wyrm dominion 8 or more(the more the better)
it will gain awe ability.
and will be difficult to kill unless fighting the lizardmen shaman indies.

How do you raise the dominion stat?

[thejeff]

In pretender design only. Dominion of 9+ gives awe.

He should be able to handle anything but knights and heavy cavalry. Avoid the lizardmen because they'll curse him.

[Shovah32]

At pretender creation. Dominion strength 9 gives awe+0, I think thats a 50% chance for a 10 morale unit not to attack you. At dominion 10 you get awe +2.

I personally like earth magic on my Wyrms. You can get the protection buff spells(20 protection from ironskin is nice. Later 25 from invunerability is great) from alteration and reinvigoration from summon earthpower in conjuration.

[llamabeast]

An alternative is to put a cool bless on your pretender. Or rather, you pick strong magic for your pretender so that your troops get a strong bless when they are blessed by a priest.

For Marignon, try F9S9 (fire-9 astral-9). The Baphomet is an ideal pretender for this. This will make your flagellants vicious, and your knights even more powerful. You can bless an entire army at once (well, all the sacred troops in it - non-sacred troops can't be blessed) using your holy-3 recruitable priests.

[Fenris99]

I didn't see where at pretender creation you can raise the dominion stat.

I'll try a new game tonight and I'll try to give my pretender a high dominion.

[Ironhawk]

Its under the Dominion section Fenris. Same place as the Scales. At the top of the dialog there are some candles and the text "Dominion Strength". Just click on that. Costs are similar to extra picks in magic paths.

[Nikolai]

Fenris99, there are many pretenders that are "powerful enough to conquer an indie by themselves", but they need research spells to use. For example, a ghost king with water, air and astral can go:

Air shield, personal luck, mirror image, quicken self, attack closest.

This is very powerful, enough to anihilate at least most indies, and takes only Alteration 2. At other paths/levels you will get other great self-buffs like Ironskin, Mistform, Body Etherial, Summon Earth Power, Fire shield, Personal Regenration, Soul Vortex, etc...