Winning strategys?

[Tannath]

There are some strategys that have been considered abusive and almost unbeatable if corectly played (although boring for the gameplay) - I am talking about VQ, madcastling and clams, of course.

Now that the biggest fan of these strategys has been exposed as a cheater, I am thinking how "overpowered" they really are...

I would like to hear the opinion of the veterans.

[Arryn]

Zen has already, in various threads, quite succinctly expressed himself as to how effective these strategies are. I agree with him.

Of all the strategies, the one that's IMO the most blown all out of any semblence to reality is clams. They simply are not a make-or-break proposition. Other factors in your strategy are, by far, more important to winning. All clams do is make the rest of your strategy (assuming you have a viable one) a bit easier to accomplish. In my AAR, at ~turn 40, I'm building clams as fast as I can, yet they are not a deciding factor in how I'm conducting my campaign, despite providing (thus far) 2/3 of my per-turn astral income. As Zen said, they are something you do as an investment for much later on in the game. In the case of my AAR, they'll start to really matter around turn 45-60, yet I'm already almost at a point in the game where I cannot be stopped (by the AI), even if all the AI nations were to gang up on me. By turn 50 the game will be pretty much decided. After that it'll be a long (very long) process of mopping up the rather large Orania map. So, as you can see, by the time clams become a decisive factor, the decision has already been made without them. They just hasten the inevitable (assuming the rest of your plan works).

[Sheap]

Tannath said:
I am talking about VQ, madcastling and clams, of course.

Now that the biggest fan of these strategys has been exposed as a cheater, I am thinking how "overpowered" they really are...

I'm no veteran, but...

VQ definitely was overpowered. Now she seems about right - you can still make her a supersupercombatant, but at the cost of all your scales or dominion. Seems fair. At least relative to her closest counterparts, the liches, she now seems to be properly dominioned and costed.

Clamhoarding is not overpowered at all. It is a steep cost with a fair payoff. If you make a clam by alchemizing pearls into water gems, it takes 20 turns to pay for itself. Astral spells are more useful than water spells, for sure. (In general. There are situations where a water spell or summon could be exactly what you want). And if you have water gems already, and pearls are what you actually want, then it pays for itself in only 5 turns. And this still doesn't count the cost of the mage-time, or the fact that the clam carrier might die and lose his clam. If you aren't in the astral business (and many nations won't be) then clams just aren't a good buy, unless you have a big surplus of water gems, already have all the boots of quickness you can use, and don't need any sea trolls.

Madcastling doesn't even work, so it certainly isn't overpowered. The strategy of putting all your temples in castles isn't madcastling IMO, it's just good urban planning

But even then, you have to consider what you are doing. Even if you have a 300-gold castle and a 200-gold temple, only 40% of your investment is the temple, and 60% of it is the defense for the temple. And if you don't manage to rescue the temple during the 1 (sometimes more) turn window the castle buys you, you not only still lose the temple, but you end up giving your enemy a castle. If you aren't expecting a protracted defensive campaign, you might be better off just replacing the temples you lose to enemy raids and building castles where they are strategically valuable.

[Tuidjy]

One way of telling a wanna-be from a veterans is to
hear him talk about 'overpowered strategies'. This is a
sure sign that you are looking at a wannabe.

The veteran would either know a counter to the strategy,
or pretend that he does, so that he does not appear wimpy.
Now, if you need a way to tell a veteran from a fraud, I
cannot help you there.

As for the ones that you listed, they all have trade-offs.

The Vampire Queen is an very effective indy killer that can
take gambles inside her domain. It is a very safe choice
for a newbie, and it is a very good choice for someone who
intends to sacrifice early readiness for late game power.
After the recent nerf, the VQ is still a viable choice, but
in my opinion, not an optimal one. Her price is so high now
that pretenders like the Allfather, the ghost king, Natajara
and even the often overlooked Virtue are often a better
choice. I would not dream of playing a VQ with anything
but Caelum or Abysya.

The clams are a very sound investment, but they take a long
time to assume a major place in a nation's arsenal. By the
time they start truely matter, a good opponent would have
developed other weapons, no less powerful.

Madcastling is a strategy just like any other. A castle is
the only realistic way to protect a temple against a raiding
force, and by turn 20, everyone should be able to field
raiders that can easily overwhelm 11-21 PDs. Castles cost
money, and unless you pay a lot of design point for a wizard
tower, easy to build castles are not good for anything but
delay the destruction of your temple for one turn.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think the veterans tend to have favorite strategies, but nothing they would call a "winning strategy". What works for one person tends to work for that one person. There are so many variables in this game that trying to use someone elses strategies doesnt tend to have all that much success. In DnD I would describe it like this. It does no good to choose a wizard if you play like a barbarian. Running up and beating things to death with a dagger doesnt work well.

The winning strategy for Dominions is to figure out how YOU tend to play, then find the nation/pretender/scales/tactics which best support that method of play. Thats one of the reasons I love it.

[Maltrease]

As Gandalf was eluding to.

The best "Unfair Super Powerful Strategy" is to your maximize your strengths and exploit your opponents weaknessess.

Frankly when you do this there is not much that can be done to stop you.

[alexti]

VQ is not really a strategy, just a pretender which was used to be cheap for what it does. But now her cost seems adequate. Clams are not a strategy either, they're just a way to invest spare water gems.

I think that madcastling is only viable with the free forts (ones that don't cost you gold). Has anybody (except Norfleet) been successful madcastling in MP game?

[Vynd]

I think that castling can work, but only for some nations and only if you make it a major part of your strategy from the start. You need to plan for the fact that, at least temporarily, you'll be short of gold for building troops and commanders. That'll slow down your research and leave you vulnerable to attack by someone who is spending his money on troops. But you can mitigate this by taking a good combat Pretender and concentrating your early research on getting you research enhancing items. (Or by taking a good research Pretender and concentrating your early research on summoning spells.)

In any event, you shouldn't even think about this sort of strategy if you want to build large numbers of national troops or (to a lesser extent) commanders. Also, as Tuidjy pointed out, it only approaches being practical if you take a cheap castle. And while they will keep your temples from getting burned down, Watchtowers and Mausoleums aren't really much good at stopping determined attacks. Once the fighting kicks into gear you're going to need some sort of method to save your beseiged castles fast, before they fall. Fliers, teleporters, cloud trapezers... something. So your nation needs to be capable of that sort of thing.

In sum, madcastling with Ulm is probably a bad idea, but it could work with, say, Caelum, or Mictlan.

[Boron]

Vynd said:
In sum, madcastling with Ulm is probably a bad idea, but it could work with, say, Caelum, or Mictlan.

uhm with ulm the watchtower is imho a good idea :
you can build spies quickly or 2-3 mastersmith / turn early on .
this only works with a 300 gold castle .


i would say chosing the watchtower is with most nations a good choice because it costs 0 designpoints and you can build lots of .
the extragoldincome from admin 40 compared to admin 10 is lousy : +20% instead +5% for watchtower .
thats not so impressive because you soon build additional watchtowers and with a castle you would not have your second + third castle as quick which results in 2 / 3 mages soon / turn if they are cheap or 2 mages + e.g. one spy

so while not real strategies :
-watchtower is with most nations a good choice because of the above mentioned reasons
-clamhoarding is very profitable + lategame combined with wish very good .
-raiding + taxes to 200% in war in enemy territory is almost always good
-caelum: read the why no love for caelum thread , i agree there with stormbinder/cohen that caelum is probably overpowered a bit

gandalf put it very wise : you have to find the combination of nation/theme , pretender , research and scales what fits your playstyle best .

but my above mentioned 3 "ministragegies" can be used with almost every nation and help every nation that can use them.

[Vynd]

I held up Ulm as an example of a bad nation to try and castle with because I am assuming that anyone who takes Ulm wants to be able to build Ulmish troops. That's pretty much all base Ulm has going for it, IMHO (but that's a totally different thread).

Anyway, here is what I was trying to get across, without the nation-specific example: Don't plan on combining Watch Towers and madcastling and also building large numbers of troops. Especially not if the troops require large amounts of resources.