Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

[JimKnopf]

Hi,

I am a frustrated Dominion Newbie. The reason for my frustration is that I am not able to win the Orania map when not playing Ermor (Each AI in Easy mode)
I experimented with Dom 1 some years ago and finally I bought Dom 2.
Winning with Ashen Empire Ermor was Easy;
1.) Create a pretender with a strong Dominion that kills the population.
2.) Grab some provinces and ensure your Dominion spreads.
3.) Bury the competion beneath your undead hordes.
Very easy.

But playing Arcoscephale I always lose. Made about 15 unsuccessful attempts.
Before I played civ 1-3, Moo 1-3, Mom, AoW1, AoW2, AoW2 SM, Heroes 3. Winning on Standard difficulty was never a challenge.

My problem with Dom 2 is the lack of diplomacy. Just an example: I have peace with everybody. But I notice that Ermor is spreading everywhere on the map and conquers everything.
I gather my troops and attack Ermor. About four turns later one of the AI idiots stabs me in the back.

The game is marketed as a Single-Player-also game. So I think I should be able to win on easy with each nation in Single-Player-mode.

What is your opinion ?

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

First suggestion: Leave Ermor out of the opponent pool. The other AIs can't handle 'em.
Or, if you insist: Make a Broken Empire Ermor (non-pop-killing style), play a few turns of them alongside the nation you actually intend to play out, then hand-off to AI.

[JimKnopf]

Etaoin Shrdlu said:
First suggestion: Leave Ermor out of the opponent pool. The other AIs can't handle 'em.
Or, if you insist: Make a Broken Empire Ermor (non-pop-killing style), play a few turns of them alongside the nation you actually intend to play out, then hand-off to AI.



Thanks for your answer, but I don´t think I should have to cheat to win on easy level. BTW: Ermor was just an example. Another problem for me is that the AI apparently never makes peace after declaring war once.

[Gandalf Parker]

Orania is a map large enough that the independents setting can be a big factor. Set it to 6 or 7. At the default setting of 3 the AIs will roll over you too fast. At the higher setting you should be able to make more sensible choices of who to attack and who to skip that the AI's wont make.

[Saber Cherry]

AIs will not attack you unless you attack them, or they declare war. Normally, they will not declare war unless you look weak. You can prevent yourself from looking weak by keeping your province defense on border provinces at 10+ (the higher the better, I think) and probably putting some units there too. I'm sure there are other factors as well, but I forget them.

The difference between Dominions and the other games you mentioned (I've played all of them, except AoW2:SM) is the the other games don't have magic, or don't require magic to win. You can win an easy game of Dominions (1-on-1 versus an AI) using troop strength, but to win a game versus multiple AIs or any multiplayer game, you will have to focus on a magical strategy (or, sometimes, a heavy bless strategy, but I'll ignore that for now). This means spending a substantial amount of money on research mages, possibly doing a lot of site-searching, forging some magical-path-boosting items like Thistle Mace, Earth Boots, or Skull Staff, and aiming your research toward specific spells. For example, if you did site-searching and found a magic site that lets you recruit Fire-3 mages, you would want to research Phoenix Power and Falling Fires, and buy one of those mages every turn until you can incinerate enemy armies before they get close enough to land a blow. But if you were Man (which has good archers) and found that site, maybe you would just spend money on archers, and cast flaming arrows (needing only one mage for the whole army), then annihilate the enemy.

If you ever play in multiplayer and field an immense army of Hoplites against an enemy (say, Vanheim) army a quarter of your size, you might be shocked to lose. Watching the replay, you might notice that 10% of your army routed or died from scary False Horrors, which are free battle summons; your entire peltast support wing was killed by Blade Wind; and the remaining 70% died in combat with inferior soldiers, because they had Fog Warriors (+mistform: nonmagical attacks usually do 1 damage), Weapons of Sharpness (+armor piercing), and Legions of Steel (+3 protection) while your troops were unbuffed.

Alternately, you would literally be shocked to lose to a lone Vanherse wielding a Staff of Storms, who casts Shimmering Fields for ~10 damage (armor negating) over area ~50 (which would be 150 hoplites, if they were packed).

In other words... play around with the spells. Flying Stones and Fireflies are not representative of their big brothers, Gifts from Heaven and Firestorm.

[Saxon]

Diplomacy doesn’t play much of a role in wars of religion, so don’t expect it here. Once you say the other guy is not a god, he is never going to forgive you.

Saber Cherry is right (as a note, SC probably knows more about DOMII than anyone outside the developers) the magic is key. Only one theme on one nation does not use magic, everyone else does and it is what makes them unique. The differences between nations are vast, it is not like Civ where you get some mild bonuses and one special unit.

The other thing I would mention is how long do you spend on a turn? If I try to play this game quickly, I get my butt handed to me and I am pretty good at all the games you mention. You have to take your time with this and look at everything. In terms of cards, this is Bridge and MOO is Go Fish. Really. Take your time, use the F1 screen, look at your taxes and unrest every turn. Plan ahead for spells, units and magic items. Learn your nation and how they work. If you are playing Arco, look at Astral magic very closely before you start, all of the spells. Learn the crystal matrix and understand fatigue. Power up your mages and cook the enemy with mind burns.

And have fun! I will be honest, not everyone enjoys this game, it is deep and you have to pay a lot of attention. I play MOO when I don’t want to work to hard and Dom when I want a challenge. If you want to win on easy with each nation in SP, you will have to learn more than in other games.

[DominionsFan]

Yeah Saber is absolutely right. Also, keep in mind..only use national troops in the early game, since they are kinda weak from mid game [I plan to make a Dominions 3 total conversion mod after the game is released -> you will be able to summon strong national troops in that, -> level 2/3/4 based -> better equipment and stats after each new level.]. Focus on spells/summons/crafting magic items/equipping comanders and SCs.

[JimKnopf]

Thank you all for your support.

Maybe some of you are interested in my efforts and pretender setup. The only non-Ermor nation I played until now was Arcoscephale because it was the nation I played in the Demo and I liked the high level of their priestesses.

I tried differnt ways to win.
First I tried the simple way. Building standard troops and building local defence until 10 and later 25. But that was not enough. I simply had not enough troops to attack a nation and keep the others from attacking me. In these games I lost quite early.
In later games I tried to be more peaceful. Trying to build a compact empire and abstaining from the conquest of provinces if the ratio of gained territory to additional borders seemed unfavouvorable to me. Instead I planned to increase my research and scan all provinces with Acashic record for magic sites to be able to build powerful armies of summoned creatures. But that didn´t work well either. Because the AI nations continued their wars and one or more of them usually grew big and powerful. And my empire was on their menu before I was ready.

Now to my curent setup.

I played as Welli the Oracle. Pretender God of (surprise,surprise) Arcoscephale.
Reasons for Oracle: cheap, high dominion, Astral magic lvl 3 (no need to reruit an Astrologer instead of a Mystic to cast Acashic Record. Ok this not really a big advantage.)

Magic: No changes

Dominion Theme: Restless worshippers.
Domion str.: 8 (I want my dominion stromg because it has so many benefits for me)
Turmoil: 1
Productivity/sloth: 0
Heat/Cold: 0
Growth: 3 (More people = more money = more troops, temples etc. Besides I like the thought of an empire of life as counterpart to Ermor)
Fortune: 3 (It would be a catastrophe for me if a strategic border province would revolt and another nation would conquer it before I could get it back. And the good events are really nice.)
Magic: 3 (I want fast research to get powerful summons and spells, and I want my spells to do much damage; besides priests are more effectiv against the undead units of a certai empire.)
Castle: Fortress (fits best to my other choices, because no points remaining)

Any stupid choices in your opinion ?

In the game setup screen I changed some settings to increase my chances of winning:
world richness: rich (the benefit for nations with high growth should be larger than for such with low growth or even death)
special site frequency 75: (I expected to be able to cast AR quite fast so this should be to my advantage)

As you can see I tried to be clever (Normally I would call this cheating).

Nevertheless. It looks bad again for me. It started promising. The neighboring provinces to my starting province were not too well defened. I made good progress. The first AI I met was Ermor in the west. Not too good. But I was lucky insofar that this happened the very turn I conquered the province I intended to make to my western border. So I installed enough defense to and went north to secure my northwestern border. Mercenaries liberated in the meantime remaining independent provinves with weak defences. While securing my northwestern and northern borders i encountered Abysia, C´tis and Ermor again, this time coming from the north. Additionally I could not resist to conquer two underwater provinces because they could potentially shield six other border provinces. Three of these I already had conquered Two others had strong independent defenders that decided to spare at the moment. The last province was independent but only reachable by sea at this time.
The neighbours of my Water provinces were R´yleh, Atlantis and again Ermor.
The trouble began when suddenly Jotunheim conquered a province neighboring to my home province in the east. This province had been well defended and so I had decided to wait with an attack until the easy prey would all be mine. Maybe that was a mistake. But on the other hand I now had almost 20 provinces in the west and north with very few border provinces.
Since in the meantime my business in the north was finished I moved my troops in attack position to attack the Jotun province. The war went well.
To protect my western and northen borders I increased local defence there each turn when necessary i.e. wenn it seemed to me the enemy forces in the adjactent provinces might have a chance to conquer one province of mine. To the south were my water provinces. These I filled with Shamlers and Ichtyds.
Suddenly C´tis declared war on me and started to build up forces near my northwestern border. Additionally I had reached the core territories of Jotunheim in the east and resistance got harder, So moving troops at a large scale to the west was no option. The Problem with the Jotun core territories was, that these were many little provinces with many interconnections, which made it hard for me to hunt his armies down. I tried to counter this with the building of local defences in each newly conquered province, and attacking lightly defended provinces with mercenaries. But even relatively small armies ofJotunheim were able to defeat local defenfes of 25 ord annihilate mercenary bands.
Besides that the strength of local defences in the nortwest had become up to 80 and 90 to counter the amassing of C´tis troops. So raising their strenghth had become very expensive. And finally they were able to capture one of my provinces. Strangely it took them mysteriouly long to break the gate of my fortress in this area. So I was able to move the Jotun legion just in time to the west to requonquer my territory before C´tis could make use of the breach in my defense belt of provinces with large local defence.
Unfortunately Jotunheim used this chance to recover and reconquered most of its core territories.
To make everything worse Atlantis had declared war on me, too. The first battle was a victory for me but on the long run i lost my sea provinces because I had not the money to replace the trops fast enough. And last but not least Ermor kept moving large stacks of troops along my borders ignoring the fact that are lots of AI provinces worse defended than mine.
That was the moment I decided to stop playing and instead start this thread.


Now my questions to you did I make some real stupid mistakes ?

[JimKnopf]

Gandalf Parker said:
Orania is a map large enough that the independents setting can be a big factor. Set it to 6 or 7. At the default setting of 3 the AIs will roll over you too fast. At the higher setting you should be able to make more sensible choices of who to attack and who to skip that the AI's wont make.



Until now I did not increase the strenghth of indies because of a comment on http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html
But I will try.

Thx for the advice.

--Quote---
Orania Nasty Edition
Peter Ebbesen has made a version of the Orania War scenario. In his own words:
As I really like the general Orania War setup, and especially the map, but despair because the AI nearly always loses to me in the magical site race, I have decided to write a new scenario based solidly on the old one but with each nation given certain initial advantages in the forms of sites or extra leaders, sometimes in line with their default theme, sometimes giving a unique boost for the hell of it. Independents have also been set to 9. In general, it seems that the AI performs better vs. humans at higher independent settings - possibly because rapid expansion as a human the first dozen turns is a bit harder.
Download: oraniane_1_0.zip.

[JimKnopf]

Saber Cherry said:


In other words... play around with the spells. Flying Stones and Fireflies are not representative of their big brothers, Gifts from Heaven and Firestorm.



Thank you Saber Cherry this was a very interesting and enlightenzng read. I already read before that magic plays the key role but until now I always focuessed on summons or big spells line Enchanted forest.

Thank you very much.

[JimKnopf]

Saxon said:
The other thing I would mention is how long do you spend on a turn? If I try to play this game quickly, I get my butt handed to me and I am pretty good at all the games you mention. You have to take your time with this and look at everything. In terms of cards, this is Bridge and MOO is Go Fish. Really. Take your time, use the F1 screen, look at your taxes and unrest every turn. Plan ahead for spells, units and magic items. Learn your nation and how they work. If you are playing Arco, look at Astral magic very closely before you start, all of the spells. Learn the crystal matrix and understand fatigue. Power up your mages and cook the enemy with mind burns.




Saxxon you hit my weak spot I am one of these impatient guys. I already learned that Dom II needs more diligence thanother games. But I have to admit that I still forget recruiting troops or casting a spell here and there.
I want to thank you especially for your honesty admitting that this game is a challenge for you, too.
I think most of my frustration came from feeling stupid.
Because most people always seemed to be complaining that the game is to easy. And I should not be able to beat it on Easy ?
That was more than I can take.

[JimKnopf]

DominionsFAN said:
Yeah Saber is absolutely right. Also, keep in mind..only use national troops in the early game, since they are kinda weak from mid game [I plan to make a Dominions 3 total conversion mod after the game is released -> you will be able to summon strong national troops in that, -> level 2/3/4 based -> better equipment and stats after each new level.]. Focus on spells/summons/crafting magic items/equipping comanders and SCs.



The probabilty that I will buy Dom 3 has risen considerably during the last 24 hours. So I am looking forward to yor mod and will in the meantime follow your advice.

[DominionsFan]

JimKnopf said:

DominionsFAN said:
Yeah Saber is absolutely right. Also, keep in mind..only use national troops in the early game, since they are kinda weak from mid game [I plan to make a Dominions 3 total conversion mod after the game is released -> you will be able to summon strong national troops in that, -> level 2/3/4 based -> better equipment and stats after each new level.]. Focus on spells/summons/crafting magic items/equipping comanders and SCs.



The probabilty that I will buy Dom 3 has risen considerably during the last 24 hours. So I am looking forward to yor mod and will in the meantime follow your advice.



Dominions 3. is a must have of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
I hope that you will like my mod, it wont be easy to make it, since I plan it as a "total conversion" mod, so basically everything will be changed in it compared to the vanilla game. The hardest part will be the balacing, but I already have some mathematical plans regarding the balancing question. I will basically add for each unit stat/ability and items a basic value, and the values will be added together. The spell/gold/resource cost will depend on those values.
OF course all units will have new graphics, I wont use the Dominions 3. races, but "normal" fantasy races, such as the elves, dwarves and so on.
As for spells, I have an idea there also, but I keep that for myself for now...I am still thinking about that method.

[Endoperez]

Most players here wouldn't choose Turmoil/Luck for competitive multiplayer, but I've found it's good enough, and very fun and enjoyable, in single-player games against the AI.

Restless Worshippers spreads your dominion faster. Dominion 6 or 7 should be enough, and I think it'd give you a scale more. Probably Production, to give you little more income and to help with your hoplites.

Astral 3 Oracle is fine, if you want to base your strategy around scales. However, relying on Fortune might be costly if you have a streak of bad luck - you won't have a pretender to help you through tough times. You might want to consider e.g. Manticore instead. As Arcoscephale, your Priestesses can heal any afflictions he might get, and if he has no magic you lose only time when you call him back to the realm of the living. Some items and spells also help immensely. Body Ethereal has AoE: 1, which means one square in the battlefield, which means it can be cast on nearby units. Even those that totally fill one square (size 6 monsters, like Manticore). He can't use many items, but e.g. Cat's Claw Talismans, Horror Helmets, Burning Pearls and Antimagic Amulets are worth their price. Amulet of Luck is also very, very good, and Ring of Regeneration would be even more important if you didn't have priestesses to heal wounds. Regeneration doesn't heal afflictions, but makes them less common.

[Graeme Dice]

Turmoil: 1



Never take turmoil unless your theme requires it. Similarly, do not take restless worshippers.


Growth: 3 (More people = more money = more troops, temples etc. Besides I like the thought of an empire of life as counterpart to Ermor)



Growth provides little to no benefit in the unmodded game unless you plan to play for several hundred turns. Order 3 provides a far greater boost to income.


But even relatively small armies ofJotunheim were able to defeat local defenfes of 25 ord annihilate mercenary bands.




Besides that the strength of local defences in the nortwest had become up to 80 and 90 to counter the amassing of C´tis troops.



These are mistakes. You spent hundreds or thousands of gold on province defense instead of building a castle or buying mobile troops with greater combat effectiveness.

[Gandalf Parker]

It seems awfully early to plan a complete changing mod for Dom3. But I guess I cant really speak since I will release a Dom3 version of my Poke_in_the_Eye scenario, and a randomize everything module, early after its release. And most likely a "play against every single nation in one giant game" scenario.
All of which tends to make Johan shake his head at me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DominionsFan]

Gandalf Parker said:
It seems awfully early to plan a complete changing mod for Dom3. But I guess I cant really speak since I will release a Dom3 version of my Poke_in_the_Eye scenario, and a randomize everything module, early after its release. And most likely a "play against every single nation in one giant game" scenario.
All of which tends to make Johan shake his head at me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Hehe, nah it is not early. We must design everything in our head before the game is out. I am playing with many ideas still, not to mention that I must start to work on the unit gfx also... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Saxon]

The provincial defense issue appears to be a big problem for you. A couple of points on that might help. First, the troops you get for the money are generally pretty weak. I think of them as a deterrent to keep out very small armies and some cannon fodder to support the real defense army when it arrives.

Second, look at the cost of those weak troops. For each step in provincial defense, you pay one more gold than the current defense. That means to upgrade from 3 defense, you have to pay 4 gold. Not to bad. But to upgrade from 22, you have to pay 23 gold. That is getting pricy, especially compared to what you can get for that kind of money at your castle.

Now, if you were pushing provincial defense up to 60 or 70, you were paying 60 gold for each weak unit. A lot of your resources were not utilized in the best possible fashion.

Sure, there is no upkeep, but you also can not use these troops for anything except the defense of one province. Regular units can move on both offense and defense and are much more flexible. I keep my defense at 11 unless it is a active boarder, where I try to put it to 21. You get an extra commander at these two cut offs, so it is worth going up from 10 or 20.

The money I save goes into mobile troops, temples, labs and castles.

My other comment is about the immobile pretender. I personally prefer a mobile pretender, as it give me more flexibility. For the “super players” they can plan turns in advance and handle tricky things. I get things wrong on many occasions and sometimes need to rush a pretender to battle to help out. Again, I am not saying it is not possible to do it, but for those of us who need extra help, a mobile pretender is a nice extra resource. They don’t need to be a Super combatant (SC), just their spell powers can tip a battle.

One Ermor tip is that Eyes of Aiming put into the normal priest make them pretty good at cleaning up large numbers of the lesser undead. The normal one misses a lot, but the boost to precision increases their kill rate.

You mention you didn’t want to recruit Astrologers. They are one of Arco’s trademark magic units, which in Dominions is usually a clue that you should pay extra attention to them. They are strong in astral magic. With a starshine cap and the banner of the northern star, you can boost these guys to five astral, which is huge. (speaking of which, small is big in this game. A single extra level of magic goes a long way, it is different than games with huge bonuses that don’t mean much) If you get lucky and get a mage with four astral to start, you can boost him up to six. Have a look at the crystal matrix and slave matrix. You can turn these mages into powerful killing machines that do not tire. I mentioned mind burn, but should have said soul slay. I have created a firing squad of about 20 astral mages that will kill just about anything and can teleport in to do it. Dominions has lots of ways to power up mages and some commanders and the more you find, the more you will win.

I like the other unit, the Mystic, but they can not be powered up as far. I would suggest building only Astrologers and Hearts Companions at your home castle and recruit your mystics at secondary castles. If you do not have a bless strategy, you might ignore the Hearts Companions. Sorry, I don’t remember their cost compared to the regular Hoplite units.

Finally, sure, lots of people say the game is easy. But usually it is the hard core who post and not the normal folks like you and I. The postings are biased. Also, it is a human thing. Most folks don’t like to admit they get their butt handed to them by a game, so they don’t post their failures, they post their successes.

[Morkilus]

I've failed plenty of times against the AI, usually when there's an AE Ermor or C'tis involved. Dunno why I lose to C'tis. I find that I have alot more fun playing when there ISN'T a death theme to have to deal with, since the other AI nations never have a chance. It's pretty much given that you'll be fighting Ermor and probably be crushed. It's not cheating to leave them out, but if you want to fight them you better beat them early in the game, and have a solid plan to do so. In multiplayer, it's not unusual to gang up on a death theme just so the dominion doesn't spoil the... spoils http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Sandman]

Dominion Theme: Restless worshippers



I'm not sure if this even works. Ceremonial faith is better, IMO.

[Ironhawk]

JimKnopf said:
Now to my curent setup

....

Any stupid choices in your opinion ?



You've made some odd scale choices for a Pretender which was clearly designed to be focused on Dominion. In particular, you note that you cannot keep your troop production up with the AI, and yet you have neither Order nor Productivity. Keep in mind that in head-to-head combat, Arco troops are better than average. So even if you went for a purely military victory vs the AI, you should have decent chances. To me, this indicates that you may be recruiting the wrong troops or be deploying your armies with bad makeups?

My suggestion for you is to use a "canned" setup and playstyle for Arco. Then, after you win a full game with that setup, you will have plenty of experience to continue on with any other SP game (as Arco or other nation). But first a few points when playing the AI.

1) The AI percieves low PD provinces as "weak" and will attack them. Keep good PD in your border provinces (say 11-15pd).
2) The AI percieves your overall strength only by number of troops. Consult the stats constantly and do not let yourself fall behind. Build garbage troops (like slingers or militia) to boost your numbers and keep yourself in the 2nd or 3rd rank of troop numbers.
3) AI never declares peace but may turn its attention elsewhere (like to fighting a different AI). Watch your neighbors carefully and if it looks like an AI is letting up on you, then you may be safe to let up on them for a while.

As for the canned setup, try something like this:
Inidies: 6
Sites: 75
A Strong Combat Pretender, like a Wyrm or Red Dragon to help with initial expansion.
Order 3, Prod 3, Death 3, Misf 3, Magic 3
(Order 3 minimizes Misf 3. Death3 is safe base dom2)

Early Game:
Build hypaptists and elephants in a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio and group them in the same squad (high hypaptist morale keeps the elephants from routing). Fill out the rest of your ranks with hypaptists or (if you are low on resources) the javelin-wielding inf that arco gets. Spearhead formation with the elephant/hyp squad at the front. Focus on your research and buy Mystics non-stop to try and get Mystic with 3 magic in a single path.

Mid Game:
Same troop loadout as before but augmented with Mystics to employ the Arco battlemagic. Research level 3 conj (i believe?) to get the combat magic path booster spells and then as much Evocation as you can. The spells you want are: Blade Wind (incredible vs. the ai), Falling Fires, Falling Frost, Fireball, etc. Use Gifts from Heaven or Lightning spells only vs heavy armor troops. Cast quickness if you can. Forge booster items for your 3magic mystics to get them to 4 and 5 (do not risk these mystics in combat!!).

Late Game:
Use your boosted Mystics to summon the Elemental Royalty and forge up equipment for them to be SCs. Additionally you should now be able to cast the mega artillery spells like Murdering Winter and Flames from the Sky. These spells in particular will devastate the ai which relys on troop numbers and cannot adapt its strategy to avoid bombardment.

[Vicious Love]

What, no astrologers? Magical versatility may be Arcoscephale's greatest strength, but raw astral oomph really isn't that far behind. And can be remarkably synergistic with their elemental magic.

[Ironhawk]

Astrologers are great, but he's playing vs the AI so he needs AoE spells, not single target. I suppose I could have covered some astral buffs but I was trying to trim things down to the bare minimum for a new player.

[Arker]

I'm having similar troubles. I can win Brittania pretty reliable, in a 3 nation game, with any nation I pick. But Orania kicks my butt.

Currently playing it as Ulm. My pretender is also an oracle, with 3-5-5 earth astral nature and 10 dominion. I tend to play pretenders like this, simply because they're easier for me to get value from. With mobile pretenders, I agonise over whether it's worth the risk to use him in this battle, worth the lost research to move him over here, etc. With an oracle, I can't move him, so I don't need to worry about it. I max the dominion, because my (admittedly limited) experience with the game tells me dominion is very important. How many times have I lost my entire army and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when I gave the storm fort order? But I've found if I just keep him under siege and use preachers and temples with a very high dominion pretender, he'll evaporate. This particular pretender was built so that he'd be able to cast some important spells, acashic record, gift of health, the firbolg summoning spell, I forget the other one... I research acashic record first, then gift of health, then throw research into construction.

Ulm seems to have a significant advantage in the home-guard too... 10 points of defense is pretty meaningless with, say, Mictlan, but fairly powerful with Ulms troops.

I tend to use two different types of armies. One will be a mounted commander and several of Ulms ultra-heavy knights. Moving quickly, it's good for defense or offense, as well as squelching unrest. The other will be a foot commander, backed up by one or more master smiths, preachers, and engineers. I use sappers for my archery section (they aren't quite as good as Ulm Arbalesters or Longbowmen that I sometimes get to build when I conquer the right province, but they are fairly good and really rock for sieges as well.) Up front, three squads of troops, heavy infantry with shield and flail that can soak up plenty of missile attacks without a scratch, axemen on a flank I *try* to get in a position to flank the enemy after they are tied up on the shielded men (sometimes works) and light infantry with javelins (obviously from a conquered province, but fairly common) on the other flank and forward a bit, they're cheap to replace so I'd rather see them get hit than my axemen. Sometimes both types of armies combine, then the horsemen get stuck on a flank and told to hold/attack rear.

Generally I do quite well with battles, it seems. Lots won without a loss. But, so far, every game eventually ends with another nation bringing in an army so much bigger than anything I can field that it becomes hopeless... or else I lose my pretender, loaded with enchanted items and on top of the hall of fame, to a storm-castle command that doesn't work despite outnumbering the enemy by 10 to 1 with heavier troops, in which case I throw up my hands in disgust and quit.

I've tried with R'lyeh, Arcosephale, Mictlan, and Man so far, lost with all of them. I've conquered other maps with them fairly easily. So any tips you more experienced players might offer will be thankfully appreciated...

Oh yeah, fortresses, I've mostly used wizard towers and fortified cities in the past, this time I went with hill forts, for more defense. I generally try to place them as efficiently as possible, given that (if I'm understanding this correctly) perfect efficiency would mean every province without a fort borders one and only one province with a fort. I also weight provinces that have special troops I want to build (druids, for instance, as Ulm are a great boost, they can do everything my priests can do and a lot more.) Anyone else have insights into what fortresses to use and where to place them?

[Sandman]

Try a rainbow pretender as Ulm - a human wizard with low levels (no more than 2) of every magic path, and use them to search for sites, and later, forging rare items.

[Endoperez]

Dominions is important, but dominion 10 is probably a bit over the top. With an Oracle, you can afford it, though. If you choose to go with good dominion, you'd better invest on good scales as well. Ulm doesn't need as much money as the other nations, so I take Luck with them. The math-guys (and gal) will tell you it isn't feasible, but I like the random element. You should also max Production. Remember to take Drain 3 - your pretender is affected, but your Master Smiths can research just as well even with the drain.

Your armies sounded fairly good. However, I wouldn't use Sappers that much - they cost twice the amount of normal archers. They do have mapmove 2, which allows you to use them with your Black Knights, but I don't use them in my normal armies. I recruit indep shortbowmen for that. They can't harm your own units at all, so friendly fire is much less of an issue as long as any crossbowmen you might have aren't ordered to Fire Closest.

Breaking sieges can be hard. Did you send lone commanders in first, to see the defending force? Knowledge is power.
Why did you lose? Powerful magics? Ulm does have access to some quite powerful spells, use them. Conjuration 3 for Earth Power, and your Smiths are Earth 3. Constr 4 and Earth Boots, and they all are Earth 4. Blade Wind and Magma Eruption are the two that have the most delightfully devastating effects.

As for forts - choose something with high Admin value. That gives you more resources. The one named 'Castle' is pretty good, but 'Fortress' also works if you're short on points.

If you go with Sandman's suggestion of a rainbow pretender (which can also be a good choice, especially with Ulm), you won't get that high paths. Acashic Record takes Astral 3, Gift of Health Nature 5 IIRC.
If you research Evocation 3 (Magma Bolts), then Conjuration 3 (Earth Power), then Evocation 4 (Blade Wind), then Construction 4 (Earth Boots, Thistle Mace) and then either Constr. 6 (Moonvine Bracelet, Ring of Sorcery, Starshine Skullcap, Staves of Elemental Mastery, Treelord's Staff) or Enchantment up to Gift of Health - you will get Gift of Health much later, but magical support much earlier. Also, initial Nature of 3 will be enough to cast the Gift of Health - Thistle Mace boosts N3 -> N4, Moonvine Bracelet N4->N5, and if needed, Treelord's Staff N5 -> N6 (as it replaces Thistle Mace, but gives +2 N).
Nature 3, Astral 3 is good for the general boosters. You want access to at least one of the Staves of Elemental Mastery - Earth/Air will take E2A3, Fire/Water F2W2. And of course, you want to be able to cast Forge of the Ancients. It will allow your mages to craft many more items. E5 is not too tough a requirement. Earth Boots and one of the Staves of the Elemental Masteries should be enough, so initial Earth 3 is enough.
Air/Earth has pretty nice items, and Earth/Astral as well, but the first Air booster is at level 3. Fire 1/Death 1 will allow for Flaming Skulls and +1 Fire, but Forge of the Ancients will let all of your Smiths to make those.

So, S3N3E3A3, D2 and/or W2 if you can afford it.
Monolith starts with S and N, and Dominion 4, but it doesn't have the slots to use the booster items, so we can't use that. And the human pretenders all have too low starting dominion values to boost it up to 10, or 9 or 8. With Great Sage, dominion of 6 allows for good scales, or for boosting one path to four, or for getting two new paths at levels 2 and 1. If you go just for scales, Production 3 and Drain 3 leave you enough points to get two other positive scales. You could go Order 3/Misfortune 1 for lots and lots of money and very few events, which will be bad more often than not but too rare to really harm you. You could go for Fortune 3/Turmoil 1 if you like to gamble, and receiving lots of good events. If you have supply problems (probably not, as Ulm builds its armies slowly, and you will get Enormous Cauldrons of Broth at Constr. 2 and Endless Vineskins at Constr. 4).

[shovah]

with ulm ive had success with a full rainbow pretender: f3a3w3d3s3n3e5(forge of the ancients ect) and possibly but usually not b3. This beast searching your provinces is almost as good as a spell costing 25 astral, he can also forge practically every avaliable item and can cast a huge number of spells (and with boosters...). If you can afford it try it on a freak lord, load him with defence and reinvig items and send him into battle casting alot of defensive buffs(and breath of winter). You can even make black lords into uber thugs like this, if its un-modde give them wraith sword, jade armour, horror helm, amulet of resilence and luck (not all of those are needed but they help) and he will carve up armies like you wouldnt believe. Since his strength isnt that high it should also be ok using CB.

[Sandman]

Personally, I'd rather get better scales than have a rainbow mage with 3 in several fields. The search advantage is minimal, and it'll be quite a while before you see any benefit.

[Endoperez]

Sandman said:
Personally, I'd rather get better scales than have a rainbow mage with 3 in several fields. The search advantage is minimal, and it'll be quite a while before you see any benefit.



I'd agree if I hadn't just posted a 4-times-3 rainbow pretender. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

2 is enough for most sites, but for the items, and the initial levels and equipment slots needed to get access to both Forge of the Ancients and Gift of Health, that's the best I can come up with. If you just want to find lots of sites and play with the gems, possibly with empowering as well, then 2 is enough in most paths, and 3 should only be taken for those you'd most want to have. Fire might be a good choice for Ulm, because their Master Smiths already get a pick and it will also let you forge a booster. Flaming Helmet is a poor battle booster, but better than F2 allows for Phoenix Power, and Fire 3 is already quite powerful.

[shovah]

I just lik the fact that 1 turn from my pretender basically saves 25 astral gems. Also my rainbow with only a few boosters can summon all elemental royalty and plenty of other nastys. I also like (in sp only) to kit out various black lords as thugs (rocks vrs ermor, give charcoal shield, amulet of reinvig, ring of regen, main gauche and if playing modded dragon scale armour)+ i like having all items avaliable (also i dont empower unless i really need to)

[Ironhawk]

Arker said:
Generally I do quite well with battles, it seems. Lots won without a loss. But, so far, every game eventually ends with another nation bringing in an army so much bigger than anything I can field that it becomes hopeless... or else I lose my pretender, loaded with enchanted items and on top of the hall of fame, to a storm-castle command that doesn't work despite outnumbering the enemy by 10 to 1 with heavier troops, in which case I throw up my hands in disgust and quit.



First, keep in mind that the AI focuses on quantity, not quality. So even if they field what appears to be an overpowering force, it probably isnt as powerful as you might think. And if you are really having manpower shortages, its like just because you are playing resource-heavy Ulm. Just build hordes of hoburgs or militia or something to take up space on the battlefield and ease the burden on your powerhouse troops.

Losing your pretender, or a prize SC, that is totally decked out is just the way things go. It happens even to veteran players and you shouldnt beat yourself up over it. Just call him back, rearm, and get out and fight again.

As for losing seiges with 10-1 odds, you really shouldnt be surprised. After all that is the purpose of walls, is it not? To allow few soldiers to defend against many. The trick with walls is that your ground troops must fight thru the Gate. And the Gate allows so few troops thru that even tho you have 10-1 odds, you are fighting the battle with only 1 of your men against 2 enemy while the rest of your army sits around and gets shot to hell. The trick to winning seiges is to negate the value of the Gate as much as possible. Some tips for doing so:

1) Put your absolute best troops in the attack position. If you can breakout here you will be able to employ your numbers. Heavy Cavalry work well cause they have high prot, high morale, and many strong attacks.

2) Use way, WAY more archers. During a seige you should have something like 2/3rds of your army as archers since they can fire over the wall and do not need to go thru the gate. Place them as far forward as possible.

3) Additionally, as above, use mages. A couple of well place fireballs or blade winds will clear a path for your vanguard.

4) Lastly, if you have them available, flying troops are incredibly valuable in a seige. If you are incredibly brave, they can attack on the first turn and possibly stop the enemy from even getting to its own Gate. Otherwise you can use them to flank or attack the enemy rear, regardless of the protection of the wall.

[Agrajag]

shovah said:
I just like the fact that 1 turn from my pretender basically saves 25 astral gems.


2 turns. One turn to move him to the desired province, and another for the search command.

[Arker]

On the castle storming, there are some good tips here. More archers, mages if I have the big spells ready to go (I usually don't get many of the spells mentioned before I get killed, but I'll try to prioritise them now) and put my cavalry up front.

So far I've basically had two ways to lose it, I'd put my SC prophet in front, he'd get whacked, everyone would run. Or I'd put a couple good squads of heavy infantry up front, they'd get bottled up at the gate, fight for many rounds, with everyone behind them getting cut apart by archery and spells, then finally everyone would run.

The only way I've managed to take a castle that had any serious defenses (i.e. a pretender) was just to keep it bottled up, covered with preachers, and build temples in the surrounding provinces. But I'll give this a try.

Thanks for the tips on Ulm. So far I haven't used the scales much, not totally understanding them I've pretty much just left them alone.

As to beating a big army full of crappy troops with a small hardcore one, yes, I've done that, but there's just a point where it no longer works it seems. I mean, with Ulm, I'm fielding maybe 60 men, top quality, maybe another 30 cannon fodder javelinists... and suddenly here's 700 Mictlan slaves, or Emor's undead hordes... and my troops hit 100 fatigue LONG before they can hack all the enemies apart, and then they die. If they aren't properly backed up I can route them I've found, and run off a huge army like that without losing a man, but when they've a bunch of priests behind them buffing their morale, I'm just toast.

I got the snot kicked out of me on my Ulm game last night, while trying to finish off the Mannish pretender I had bottled up in his castle, suddenly on the other side of my domain this enormous army out of Emor appears, I mean just unbelievably huge. Sieged my pretender before I could get any significant army near, my high defense fortress with +fortress defense troops garrisoning it still crumbled in one turn. I think there were about 800 undead... I tried to distract them with an attack by my prophet and a dozen knights in another province, and even there I lost... there was only ONE enemy, but he was a badass necromancer, and he kept raising dead faster than my guys could kill them until they finally all turned tail and ran... anyway I gave up at that point.

Trying again, this time as R'lyeh. So far so good. Think it's the longest game I've played so far at the moment. 52 Turns in. I have all but one underwater province (Ermor has the one I don't have, and I've avoided attacking them so far as I want to be completely built up and ready, I know they're by far the meanest under AI, especially against R'lyeh since the illithid mind blasts don't affect their troops.) Atlantis was destroyed by Emor before I ever got to them, not sure how, as their capital was not occupied, Emor only took one underwater province, and an Island bordering Atlantis. So I cleaned up the independents, got three free fortresses.

One AI declared war on me, not Mictlan, the other 'm' with the spiders. They only attacked once, though, and have left me alone since. I've focused on taking all the underwater provinces from the independents and building up a good base. Also expanded my terrestrial holdings a little, like 7 provinces with two fortified I think, but only at the expense of independents. Grabbed a couple shoreside provinces in random places that fell to independents too. So right now I have a HUGE army in the fortress next to Emor's capital. Forging stuff as fast as I can. Huge problem keeping these buggers fed, for some reason. I have gift of health up, and acashic record on every province I hold, so pretty good gem income. Really really hoping I can take out Emor with a surprise attack, if that works I reckon I might have a chance.

BTW, advice on Equipment? At the moment I've got two traitor princes with the endless buckets of slop and moon blades. The endless buckets are a pain, only my pretender can make them, but the wine just wasn't doing enough. In fact even with the buckets I still keep getting starvation warnings. I only have *maybe* 300 troops there... anyhow. I've been making the anti-fatigue items, the girdle and boots, I can't remember the names. Boots are easy, but a lot of my commanders can't wear them. Girdles I only have one or two mages that can make them. I have some spell focuses (do they help with priest-casters against undead?) and I've been making the spears that shoot solar flares and giving them to my starchildren since their mind blasts will be useless. Umm, the flameshooting helms - fire blasts should be good against undead, right?

[Vicious Love]

Arker said:
I have all but one underwater province (Ermor has the one I don't have, and I've avoided attacking them so far as I want to be completely built up and ready, I know they're by far the meanest under AI, especially against R'lyeh since the illithid mind blasts don't affect their troops.)



Erm... that's exactly what makes Ermor utterly useless against R'lyeh. Troops are mindless, so all of your mind blasts will target commanders (as long as they're in range). It's like having an entire regiment of assassins. Bear in mind that Ermor's troops don't rout, they disintegrate.

[Arker]

Undead commanders are not mindless?

This may be very doable then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Can't load it up and play again for a few hours still though.

[Ironhawk]

Arker said:
As to beating a big army full of crappy troops with a small hardcore one, yes, I've done that, but there's just a point where it no longer works it seems. I mean, with Ulm, I'm fielding maybe 60 men, top quality, maybe another 30 cannon fodder javelinists... and suddenly here's 700 Mictlan slaves, or Emor's undead hordes... and my troops hit 100 fatigue LONG before they can hack all the enemies apart, and then they die. If they aren't properly backed up I can route them I've found, and run off a huge army like that without losing a man, but when they've a bunch of priests behind them buffing their morale, I'm just toast.




Just 60 guys? Thats not enough if you are fighting a pure military battle. If you were evening the playing field with battlemagic or summoned creatures, perhaps. You should really invest in a LOT of the cheap shortbow archers. They work really well with Ulm since you can shower your own men with arrows and it really doesnt hurt them much. And why do you only have 30 fodder? You should have at least 2x the number of fodder as you do hardcore troops, so like 120-150.

As for fighting Ermor thats a totally different situation, which is why several people suggest that new players not combat the ermor AI. You need to focus on recruiting priests for Banishments. Get like 10-20 priests together and set them against the army of 800 undead and watch them just evaporate.

[Arker]

ulm troops are spendy, in resources as well as gold, and I haven't been doing very well with production, apparently. And not lasting very late into the game, either. So yeah, ~60+30 and maybe 5-6 leaders (1 or 2 actually functioning as leaders, the rest casters) was my main army last game when I gave up, somewhere around turn 25-30 I think. I think one problem was spending too much on local defense. But I'm not actually sure of that, it seemed a good idea at the time, and I'm not sure I can spot the error really... when I have three fortresses, two at least are pumping out troops as fast as their resources will allow, and I have spare cash, why not buff up the local defenses on border provinces?

The big limitation I ran into with ulm was resources. The troops are great, but even when gold is no problem there just aren't enough resources to pump them out at a rate above agonisingly slow. Playing the Brittania map against 2 opponents, I could grab a chokepoint or two and manage things so that my tiny little army just kept kicking butt, with minimal casualties that could be easily replaced, even get it growing slowly while continuously pruning back the enemies forces until I could finally move in and finish them. But on Orania, I couldn't get any chokepoints, any small defensible frontiers, so my army had to be split into 2 or 3 and then it was just too small to deal with the enemy assault when it came.

Doing better as R'Lyeh now, got to the place the turns are just taking sooo long I can't take anymore tonight though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Sandman]

Take max productivity, it's as simple as that.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
I think one problem was spending too much on local defense.



Was this the game where you had provinves where you had more than 20 defense? If so, then you spent too much.


when I have three fortresses, two at least are pumping out troops as fast as their resources will allow, and I have spare cash, why not buff up the local defenses on border provinces?



Buy mages instead of province defense. You should be buying a master smith in every single province that has a castle every single turn. If you still have more gold, buy more castles, they double the amount of resources available in a province, so you do not lose anything by putting them close together. (Unless you happen to want as many guardians as possible in your capital.) Buy temples and labs as well if you have extra gold.


The big limitation I ran into with ulm was resources. The troops are great, but even when gold is no problem there just aren't enough resources to pump them out at a rate above agonisingly slow.



This is why you want a high administration castle and productivity 3.

A pretender that can work against the AI with Ulm, but would be hopelessly weak in all but the longest multiplayer games is a great sage with 2 in every magic path, a castle, dominion strength of 6, order 3, productivity 3, misfortune 2, and drain 3. This pretender should start site searching as soon as possible.

An even better pretender to use against the AI is a Ghost King with Water 4, Earth 4, and Death 4. Pick a castle, dominion 6, order 3, productivity 3, misfortune 2, and drain 3. Then, research up to alteration 3 as quickly as possible. Have your pretender cast quickness, ironskin then attack archers. Forge him a cheap one-handed earth weapon. Then research enchantment 2 so you can add breath of winter to your script. Then research up to construction 4 for black steel plate mail (not full plate), a lead shield, and other items. Your early game research targets are thus alteration 3, enchantment 2, construction 4, conjuration 3 (Summon Earthpower), evocation 4 (Blade wind) and thaumaturgy 2 (Gnome Lore). After that, there are a number of spells that you can go for, such as invulnerability at alteration 5, and soul vortex at alteration 6. You'll also want to research magma eruption at some point. There are any number of ways to make this pretender even more powerful, but this is a good start.

[Arralen]

Arker said:
BTW, advice on Equipment? At the moment I've got two traitor princes with the endless buckets of slop and moon blades.



Ah, don't do that. Put 1 cauldron on a scout - a 2nd wouldn't do any good, "producing" items works only 1 per commander. Add a vineskin. Set the scout to sneak and let him move around with the army. While sneaking, he wouldn't get into combat at all (battle, assassines) and will be save from ranged spells, thereby making your gem investment much saver. You can even use him to hold magic gems for your battle-mages ... only have to remember to transfer the appropiate amount to the mages pouch each turn.


Umm, the flameshooting helms - fire blasts should be good against undead, right?



Undead are not paritcularly vulnerable to fire, but they aren't resistant neither.
The helmet is quite tricky to use, though: the range of the fireblast spell isn't that great, therefore you would have to script your commander to "attack, attack, "fireblast","fireblast","fireblast"; "cast spells") - and risk him in th e front line of the battle. Better use the heaviest armored commander with the biggest shield available - encumbrance doesn't matter as spellcasting from items is always "+5 fatigue" no matter how heavy the commanders equipment is.
Try using the "Sceptre of Authority" - while not so powerful, it lets you target the enemy from afar. If you give it to your priest (which you will have to buy to fight the ermorian hordes anyway), he'll gladly use the spells from the item, therefore being not totally useless againts mundane foes.
Later you might want to switch to the staff that lets you shoots fireballs - but you'll have to get a mage to fire-2 to forge them, and they are somewhat pricey.
With Ulm, you could even get the sceptre for 2 gems if you give a dwarven hammmer to a smith.

[shovah]

rlyeh slaughters ashen empire ermor, completely obliterating their commanders. As ive said, vrs ai hordes use tough SC's with reinvig. As rlyeh you should have access to golems, they (as i have said iirc) make good thugs/SCs (accursed shield+bloodthorn unmodded, wraithsword modded. give him quickness, luck and reinvig and let him loose)

[Arker]

Well I froze that game where it's at for now. I think I'm in a really good position, but I need to learn the game better before I screw it all up again.

So I'm back on the Brittain map with Pangea, trying to figure out how to control things better. There are just so many things I can't seem to figure out, like how scripting works. I script a guy to cast blessing, strength of gaia, eagle eye, tangle vine tangle vine tangle vine and attack. He has all these spells, and can cast them without gems. When he gets into battle he casts bless, strength, eagle eye... and then starts raising the dead every turn. A complete waste of what should be a very powerful unit. And I can't get my missile troops to quit killing my melees, no matter what I try. I read something that lead me to believe it was from putting them on 'fire closest' so I quit doing that and just put them on fire. Doesn't matter. I had 20 some odd harpies set to hold-attack archers. They hold, then attack the enemy commander. Well, there weren't any archers, so I guess that makes some sense, though I'd rather they just stay out of the way in that case. But then, when my javelinists get close, they take out every single harpy with a couple vollies of javelins that don't even scratch the enemy leader. It's just ugly.

I appreciate all the pointers folks have posted, I think it's helped a lot, I'm using a much more balanced pretender and I got a production bonus and it's all helping, but I'm still a long ways from figuring out how to get my troops to act like they're not completely retarded when it comes time to fight.

[Arker]

Heh, I just set him to bless-strength-attack closest. What's he do?

Strength, then raise dead. Again. This guy can move fast and he's a powerhouse combatant (a pan, made prophet, with heroic ability) and I'm trying to get him to wade in and fight, instead he keeps sitting back and raising a single soulless every turn, which wouldn't help much even if the battles weren't ending before they even reach combat.

[Arker]

Hahah I finally set him to cast strength then attack. So he casts strength, then casts another spell (earth-power booster, I forget the name) and attacks after that. This is hilarious.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
Hahah I finally set him to cast strength then attack. So he casts strength, then casts another spell (earth-power booster, I forget the name) and attacks after that. This is hilarious.



Which attack order are you using, and have you patched to the latest version of the game? I have never had problems with scripting as long as the conditions necessary for the spell are present. The only bug I know of in the scripting is that with a high level of heroic quickness and the quickness spell in early versions it is possible for extra unscripted actions to be stuck into the queue in between the scripted actions.

[Wick]

Arker said:
Heh, I just set him to bless-strength-attack closest. <snip> (a pan, made prophet, with heroic ability)



As your prophet he's already blessed, so he would only cast bless if there are other sacred troops.

[Arker]

Yes, I have the latest patch, well I hope I do, I checked earlier today. Scripting very rarely seems to work properly for me, I suspect it's mostly me not understanding it, but I'm not sure where to find information either... for instance the vine spell, presumably for some reason he couldn't fire it? Range, or something... but I don't know what. I'm assuming that they'll choose a different spell when a scripted spell is impossible, rather than just skip on to the next scripted action, that's what I seem to have observed at least, if true that explains the undead raising. It stopped once I removed all the vine spells. The bit where he added in an unscripted spell between a scripted spell and a scripted attack blew my mind though, no clue on that. And no, he doesn't have quickness. His heroic ability is the one that gives extra awe and leadership.

[Arker]

Oh, the attack order, with him, usually attack-closest, although I think I did attack with no target a few times too.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
Oh, the attack order, with him, usually attack-closest, although I think I did attack with no target a few times too.



Make sure that you use the attack orders below the divider line, and not the "attack one turn" that's above the divider line. If you put in the attack one turn, then your commander will start casting spells once that turn is over if he can cast spells.

[JepSan]

You are right about mages typically casting other spells when there are no appropriate targets for the scripted ones. Your bless spell will not be cast if there aren't any blessable troops around and the tangle vines has a short-to-medium range (about 25 squares i think). If there aren't any enemies within range your mage will use a different spell/action. He will not proceed to the next scripted spell until the next turn.

[JimKnopf]

This is really a great community here. I think it will take me quite some time to to check out all the advice I got from you .
In the meantime I was able to start a new attempt and it looks pretty good for me this time.
Although I am at war with Pythium, Ermor and C´tis I don´t see any danger for my empire. Once C´tis was the strongest Empire regarding troops and provinces.
That has changed after they declared war on me. Now I am the strongest. I own about 25% percent of the map with 7 nations (includung mine remaining)
Now to the bad news
It´s turn 131: So it will be no fast victory. (If I should actually win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )
I used a game setup that would hopefully be very disadvantageous to Ermor. (World richness rich + Independents 9). Apparently it worked.
All AIs are on Easy level.
So all in all it won´t be a glorious victory. But I think this time it will be a victory.

I will keep you up-to-date with my progress and will incorporate your advice into my strategy for my next game.

[Saxon]

Last night I played Oriana again. One thing that stood out was that you run into AI empires pretty quick and have fighting on all sides. Many of the suggestions on this thread are excellent, but most focus on how to build a stronger nation, rather than how to deal with the particular map.

Can anyone share how they deal with the multiple front war? It was mentioned that the AI tends not to attack when the PD is set around 11. That can help stabilize a front, but not stop a grumpy army. What other tactics and strategies have people found useful?

[Ironhawk]

Whatever map you are on doesnt really matter after a certain point as the tactics are pretty much all the same. Once you know how to handle the AI you should be able to do it anywhere. In your case, the best advice is the old adage: the best way to win a two front war is not to get in one.

-Keep your PD high on all AI or potential AI borders.
-Keep your troop numbers at #2 or #3 rank.
-When you do declare war on an AI (or they do on you) go straight for the throat! Take thier capital and crush thier production capacity and then mop up the rest of thier provs.

If you do find yourself in a two front war (as i agree is often the case vs. AI) the best things to do are to just get to the chokepoints and fortify them. Place good sized garrisons there and just let the AI impale itself trying to attack you every 5-10 turns there. It doesnt know any better. Keep the defensive posture until you are finished with your primary opponent. Only then come back and wipe out the secondary.

One other note about fighting the AI. Try to keep the size of your front to as few provinces as possible (like 2-3 if you can do it!). This will keep the AI from randomly breaking out and wandering around aimlessly in your backcountry. Use lulls in the fighting after big battles to capture territory and move the front forward thru wide areas (where you might need to defend 5+ front provs) and back to a more managable size.

[Tharivol_Street_Prince]

And never forget that one of the swiftest ways to subdue an enemy offense is raising Unrest to all hell in their home province. It won't win you the game, but it can sure as hell make it a lot easier on you if you have couple spies in each neighboring kingdom's capital (with a liberal sprinkling of disaster spells on their more lucrative provinces, of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JimKnopf]

Graeme Dice said:

Turmoil: 1



Never take turmoil unless your theme requires it. Similarly, do not take restless worshippers.


Growth: 3 (More people = more money = more troops, temples etc. Besides I like the thought of an empire of life as counterpart to Ermor)



Growth provides little to no benefit in the unmodded game unless you plan to play for several hundred turns. Order 3 provides a far greater boost to income.


But even relatively small armies ofJotunheim were able to defeat local defenfes of 25 ord annihilate mercenary bands.




Besides that the strength of local defences in the nortwest had become up to 80 and 90 to counter the amassing of C´tis troops.



These are mistakes. You spent hundreds or thousands of gold on province defense instead of building a castle or buying mobile troops with greater combat effectiveness.



You are right. It was really a mistake to raise local defense that high. During my last successful attempt to beat the map I nowhere had local defense higher than 40. Maybe even that was too high. This I reinforced with with a squad of good troops (about 20 to 30 heart companions or heavy infantry) and as many mystics I could produce. Later on I reinforced them with hordes of vine men from enchanted forest. That worked pretty good.

Regarding Growth vs Order: I planned to have a strong dominion that spreads fast. Thats why I chose the restless worshippers theme. So I had to choose turmoil 1.
I will check out your advice, regarding using Order instead of growth.

[JimKnopf]

Saxon said:
The provincial defense issue appears to be a big problem for you. A couple of points on that might help. First, the troops you get for the money are generally pretty weak. I think of them as a deterrent to keep out very small armies and some cannon fodder to support the real defense army when it arrives.

Second, look at the cost of those weak troops. For each step in provincial defense, you pay one more gold than the current defense. That means to upgrade from 3 defense, you have to pay 4 gold. Not to bad. But to upgrade from 22, you have to pay 23 gold. That is getting pricy, especially compared to what you can get for that kind of money at your castle.

Now, if you were pushing provincial defense up to 60 or 70, you were paying 60 gold for each weak unit. A lot of your resources were not utilized in the best possible fashion.

Sure, there is no upkeep, but you also can not use these troops for anything except the defense of one province. Regular units can move on both offense and defense and are much more flexible. I keep my defense at 11 unless it is a active boarder, where I try to put it to 21. You get an extra commander at these two cut offs, so it is worth going up from 10 or 20.

The money I save goes into mobile troops, temples, labs and castles.

My other comment is about the immobile pretender. I personally prefer a mobile pretender, as it give me more flexibility. For the “super players” they can plan turns in advance and handle tricky things. I get things wrong on many occasions and sometimes need to rush a pretender to battle to help out. Again, I am not saying it is not possible to do it, but for those of us who need extra help, a mobile pretender is a nice extra resource. They don’t need to be a Super combatant (SC), just their spell powers can tip a battle.

One Ermor tip is that Eyes of Aiming put into the normal priest make them pretty good at cleaning up large numbers of the lesser undead. The normal one misses a lot, but the boost to precision increases their kill rate.

You mention you didn’t want to recruit Astrologers. They are one of Arco’s trademark magic units, which in Dominions is usually a clue that you should pay extra attention to them. They are strong in astral magic. With a starshine cap and the banner of the northern star, you can boost these guys to five astral, which is huge. (speaking of which, small is big in this game. A single extra level of magic goes a long way, it is different than games with huge bonuses that don’t mean much) If you get lucky and get a mage with four astral to start, you can boost him up to six. Have a look at the crystal matrix and slave matrix. You can turn these mages into powerful killing machines that do not tire. I mentioned mind burn, but should have said soul slay. I have created a firing squad of about 20 astral mages that will kill just about anything and can teleport in to do it. Dominions has lots of ways to power up mages and some commanders and the more you find, the more you will win.

I like the other unit, the Mystic, but they can not be powered up as far. I would suggest building only Astrologers and Hearts Companions at your home castle and recruit your mystics at secondary castles. If you do not have a bless strategy, you might ignore the Hearts Companions. Sorry, I don’t remember their cost compared to the regular Hoplite units.

Finally, sure, lots of people say the game is easy. But usually it is the hard core who post and not the normal folks like you and I. The postings are biased. Also, it is a human thing. Most folks don’t like to admit they get their butt handed to them by a game, so they don’t post their failures, they post their successes.




In the meantime I started implementing strategies from this Thread and I am doing much better. I even won the Map once (OK, to be honest I quit the game, when I contolled about 50% of the map and was convinced I would win).
Currently my local defence values range between 25 and 40 supported by as many mystics as I can build. Besides that I add summons or normal troops. That works well in most cases.

Mystics vs. Astrologers
In the beginning when I used mages only to research and almost not in battle I chose Mystics because they are slightly better in research.
Even now I still prefer Mystics. Especially in the early game their fire and water mages are very useful in battle. The astral battle spells looked rather weak to me.
Nevertheless I will have a closer look on the astrologers.

And thanks for the tip about eyes of aiming, because in my current game a war with ermor is unavoidable.

[JimKnopf]

Morkilus said:
I've failed plenty of times against the AI, usually when there's an AE Ermor or C'tis involved. Dunno why I lose to C'tis. I find that I have alot more fun playing when there ISN'T a death theme to have to deal with, since the other AI nations never have a chance. It's pretty much given that you'll be fighting Ermor and probably be crushed. It's not cheating to leave them out, but if you want to fight them you better beat them early in the game, and have a solid plan to do so. In multiplayer, it's not unusual to gang up on a death theme just so the dominion doesn't spoil the... spoils http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif




You are right. Actually it was stupid from me calling it cheating to leave Ermor out. I would never play without Ermor because it simply makes me feel good to save the world from the undead.
What I do is to change the world setup in a way I hope is disadvantageous to ermor. (Independents: 9 + Richness: rich).

[Sandman]

Even 25 PD is probably too much.

[shovah]

yes, the best defence for anyone other than ulm is to mass indie archers/crossbows (or possibly others if you have longbows ect) with a few units up front to take damage and possibly more archers or a flaming arrows/wind guide mage. Vrs the ai mystics are better than astrologers except for mind hunting ect but in mp where people go for quality over quantity those astral spells become very viable.

[Agrajag]

Regarding PD, think about it this way, for each point you put in PD you get a unit that's worth... X gold (lets say 10), that means that if you got 11 PD you paid 11 gold for a unit worth 10 gold.
Obviously its more complicated than that (these units don't cost upkeep, and if they win the battle they get to regenerate), but that's an interesting approach to PD.

[Cainehill]

Of course, with nations with solid PD ( Jotuns especially, but also Ulm & Abysia, etc ) there are some interesting ways to use high PD values. For example, when I've been positive someone was about to attack a particular province I had a good army in, I've cranked the PD up to a very high value (35-50) just as I'm expecting them to attack.

The PD then soaks up the bulk of the casualties for me (troops are all moved to the rear) while mages are buffing the troops with all the good things like body ethereal, legions of steel, mass regen, luck, etc. The enemy troops and mages get tired going after the PD, and then have to deal with the real forces. In theory, this results in very light casualties for the army, and the PD regenerates after the battle.

[Daynarr]

Cainehill said:

Of course, with nations with solid PD ( Jotuns especially, but also Ulm & Abysia, etc ) there are some interesting ways to use high PD values. For example, when I've been positive someone was about to attack a particular province I had a good army in, I've cranked the PD up to a very high value (35-50) just as I'm expecting them to attack.

The PD then soaks up the bulk of the casualties for me (troops are all moved to the rear) while mages are buffing the troops with all the good things like body ethereal, legions of steel, mass regen, luck, etc. The enemy troops and mages get tired going after the PD, and then have to deal with the real forces. In theory, this results in very light casualties for the army, and the PD regenerates after the battle.



I use same tactic whenever possible. Actually I use it with nearly all nations as they can soak damage just as well. Those you mentioned are best for the job though.

[BigJMoney]

Agrajag said:
Regarding PD, think about it this way, for each point you put in PD you get a unit that's worth... X gold (lets say 10), that means that if you got 11 PD you paid 11 gold for a unit worth 10 gold.




That is certainly interesting. Has anyone made a chart containing approximations of what the nattion-specific PD units are worth? I think something like this would be a useful reference for people who want to play a Nation for the first time.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Ironhawk]

JimKnopf said:
Mystics vs. Astrologers



As you have seen, Mystics are good vs the AI becuase the AI just mobs all its troops together and sends them out. This makes excellent targets for thier large AOE spells like Falling Fires, etc.

But Astrologers have strong astral which is very powerful against single targets even at low levels (like Paralyze!). This is not so useful versus AI, but is incredibly powerful vs. humans who will use SCs against you. Also, some of the really high level astral spells are powerful, like Master Enslave. Doom and Will of the Fates are also great high level grief/buff spells.

[shovah]

true but one of the greatest anti SC's any one can employ is petrify, boosted/empowered mystics handle that well.

[Saxon]

If you are going after a SC, you generally need to worry about magic resistance. In cutting through magic resistance, that extra level of astral can sometimes make the difference. Also, the higher level of astral helps keep fatigue down, which is important if you are trying to cut through magic resistance through sheer volume of spells.

[shovah]

thats the thing, petrify kills if it isnt resisted and paralyzes even if it is resisted (so your vine ogre hordes can pummel the enemy)

[Saxon]

Ahh! Thanks for the tip, I will try that out. Hmm, I wonder if that is going to be nerfed in Dom III, as it seems too simple. Most very powerful things in Dom are a bit more complex.

[Gandalf Parker]

One of my favorite tactics involves PD. Using stealth armies of Pangaea I would take a province, crank the tax to the max, buy as much PD as I can and maybe recruit units if they are good, then fade my army back into the woods to move a few provinces off and do it again. By the time he kills the PD there he finds that they are too unhappy to allow building any units or tax.

I could tie up alot of his armies trying to stop me until he figures out to buy lots of PD. Its not really a winning strategy but its a very useful ally strategy.

[JimKnopf]

As the starter of this thread I have to thank you all. I was really frustrated with this game. I wasn´t able to win this map. But now I am able to do so.

Regarding the PD discussion: I think 10 should be the minimum. In border provinces I usually raise it to 25 (supported by mages) if my AI neighbour hates me and I´m not able to deal with him/her the way he/she deserves.

[Saxon]

Gandalf,

Are you sure that you don’t get taxes when unrest goes over 100? I was sure I was getting some in my current game. If you are right, I need to makes some changes…

On PD, I like 11 everywhere, as it will usually hold off Call of the Winds and Call of the Wild. I still argue that if you really need PD, you better get Mechanical Milita. If you have not tried that spell, you will be impressed. (At least in single player)

[Gandalf Parker]

I believe the taxes go down with unrest? Or population (and therefor taxes)? Generally 100% can be maintained but cranking it to 200% is quickly damaging.

I find it a particularly handy thing when seiging a home castle. Drive up the unrest so that even if he does manage to get it back he wont be able to develop a response force. Another quick rush often grabs it again.

[Saxon]

Hmm, I will check tonight. I know that when it hits 100%, you can not recruit, which makes your tactic very effective. I have found against the AI, they do not agressivly patrol when you drop a spy or two on the capital. I have found it so effective that it is almost an exploit. Against a human who knows what they are doing, I suspect the spy would have a short life span...

[Ironhawk]

Humans definitely react if you raise unrest on them. The trick there is to have a whole set of spies start raising unrest on the same turn. You can cripple someone in this manner if you hit thier capitol and gold-heavy provinces all together. Quite powerful.

[Saxon]

How many spies do you need to push it over 100 in one turn? If you catch them out and they can not recruit a patroling force the next turn, you could really disrupt things. Still, even pushing it up to 60 or so will disrupt income, it is a nice idea.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sometimes you have a chance to take someones home castle even though you know he has large armies that will rush to take it back. Cranking taxes to 200% and setting everyone to search for blood maidens can give a nasty blow to his economy and ability to create national units.

Sometimes I even leave as his armies approach. Dont even bothr making him fight to get it back. Particularly with Pangaea or some other nation where I can hide my armies nearby just waiting for him to try and move his main army back out to the front lines. Its a difficult winning strategy but its a great ally strategy.