Aggressive dominion strategy?

[Heironeous]

I recently played a 1-on-1 multiplayer game where going for a dominion-kill allowed me to break open a rather stalemated military situation (damn citadels!). I certainly wasn't planning to win by dominion when I started the game, but given the circumstances it ended up being the best solution.

Now I'm thinking about revising my Pythium setup to be more optimized for dominion aggression. Looking at the themes, both Ceremonial Faith and Restless Worshippers seem to fit this approach. Restless Worshippers looks great, but Turmoil 1 means less gold (I'd have Order 3 with CF), which in turn means fewer temples and/or priests.

Any thoughts on which theme would be more effective for an aggressive dominion approach?

[Zen]

Cerimonial Faith is much better than Restless Worshippers because of the Turmoil -> Order relationship. Along with the fact that Theurgs are reasonably cheap, magically decent and have a decent amount of priestly levels, this is probably the best of both worlds. Since you can't get into a stalemate and try to push dominion unless your military (magical or normal) is strong enough for that front.

Also considering that you are probably recruiting mostly Theurgs in 2 or more castles along with Communicants, it would allow you to switch your Research engine to a dominion pushing engine.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Heironeous said:
Any thoughts on which theme would be more effective for an aggressive dominion approach?

Marignon + CF.
Caelum + CF comes close.

[Cohen]

Marignon for sure.
Cheaper priests, inquisition bonus.
Don't forget that to benefit from CF bonus it should be already your dominion, so the inquisitors keep up your dominion if needed, meanwhile your sneaking Friars fries the enemy dominion.

But if you aim to a dominion push, try Abysya, Vanheim or Mictlan. Blood Sacrifice is very effective, far more than preaching, for what I know (assumed you've a good blood economy and a nice amount to scout to make a supply line from your temples and labs.).

[archaeolept]

you can also try marignon's "fires of the faith" which gives your sneaking priests the inquisitor's bonus, which should be very very nice for tearing down enemy dominion.

[quantum_mechani]

archaeolept said:
you can also try marignon's "fires of the faith" which gives your sneaking priests the inquisitor's bonus, which should be very very nice for tearing down enemy dominion.

Really? The bonus does not show up as an icon. I thought the theme just gave the equivalent of a level one preacher in all of your provinces.

[archaeolept]

"All priests of the nation are enrolled in the inquisition."

That's what it says - I can't swear that it works though.

[Heironeous]

Cohen said:
But if you aim to a dominion push, try Abysya, Vanheim or Mictlan. Blood Sacrifice is very effective, far more than preaching, for what I know (assumed you've a good blood economy and a nice amount to scout to make a supply line from your temples and labs.).

I'm not wild about Mictlan for this purpose as it's dominion is weak without blood sacrifice. In fact, it seems like Mictlan might be vulnerable to a dominion push in the early going. Abysia and Vanheim are more interesting, but their national holy-3 priests are relatively expensive... and I do not want to mass build holy-2 generic priests. In effect, they give up some preaching effectiveness in favor of blood sacrifice (which may in fact be a very good trade).

That's one reason why I like Pythium - theurgs are reasonably cheap and very flexible. If you are willing to build labs close to the front your theurgs can research, preach, cast rituals or take part in military action as necessary.

[Boron]

You can try Stone idols . They reduce enemy dominion .

And you can summon Juggernauts lategame to push your dominion .

Finally don't use a lot of Belphegors their dominion reduce ability is very strong in one of my games my 2 Belphegors reduced my lvl 10 dominion in a few turns to lvl 1 and i had to preach with 2 priests to keep it at +2-3 .

[archaeolept]

juggernauts were bugged. I'm not sure if they were fixed.
stone idols never seemed too effective for their price either.