Death by Dominion

[Jagdpanther]

I'm in the end-game phase of a SP game. I hold 2/3s of the territories. I have a temples in more than half of my territories and a half-dozen stone idols in enemy domains in land I hold. My total dominion keeps shrinking. Any ideas why?

Even my capitol, with a stone idol is slipping into enemy dominion.

(I am playing MA Ermor and the remaining opponent is Man.)

[sum1lost]

Stone Idols hurt dominion, period

[Jagdpanther]

Yes, I realize stone idols hurt all dominion. I have been putting them in provinces with enemy (black candle) dominion. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be knocking down the number of black candles.

[K]

If you are fighting a nation that can blood sacrifice, that may be your problem. Each slave sacrificed is a temple check.

[K]

Ps. If your base dominion is lower than theirs, even having a lot of temples won't help you.

[archaeolept]

Man has stealthy preachers, and inquisitors it can use in it's own lands, but more likely your base dominion is much lower and he has a good amount of temples.

[Psycho]

I've had very bad results with stone idols. Namely six scouts with stone idols in one of my provinces couldn't lower enemy dominion below 3 candles in several turns. He was certainly blood sacrificing, but still his dominion didn't spread so fast in other parts of the map.

[Loren]

I've had very bad results with stone idols. Namely six scouts with stone idols in one of my provinces couldn't lower enemy dominion below 3 candles in several turns. He was certainly blood sacrificing, but still his dominion didn't spread so fast in other parts of the map.

I think dominion spreads after the idols.

You probably have low dominion. You need to build temples and have preachers preach.

[Jagdpanther]

You probably have low dominion. You need to build temples and have preachers preach.

I have been building lots of temples. I guess I'll need to switch some of my researchers and animate undead to preaching.

[lch]

Temples by themselves don't do anything to spread your dominion. You still need somebody preaching. Just in case that wasn't clear.

[thejeff]

Um, Ich? Temples spread dominion. Preaching raises it in that province only.

[Tifone]

I dunno, I always thought too that you must have someone PREACHING inside a temple to make it work ^^ Right or wrong?

[thejeff]

Look in the manual for the exact formulas.

Briefly, each temple (and the prophet and god) causes a temple check, based on your original dominion. If this is successful a point of dominion is generated, this can then either raise the local dominion or propagate outward until it either raises dominion in some province or fails to lower enemy dominion somewhere. There is a check based on the current dominion in each province.

Preaching only raises dominion in the province being preached in. This is useful for provinces under enemy dominion or to boost dominion so temple checks are more likely to propagate into enemy dominion. Preaching only works up to a max of Holy level or Holy*2 if there is a temple, and you'll get a message to that effect when you start preaching in a province with higher dominion. That message would make no sense if preaching spread dominion to other provinces.

Blood sacrifice generates one temple check per slave. It can be brutally effective since, with a Jade Knife, you can get 4-5 checks from each province, allowing dominion spread to be focused against an enemy.

[Sombre]

I believe the manual is known to be wrong re: temples and spread checks.

It seems that when you raise your dominion level via temples, it doesn't count for dominion spread checks. You still use your original dominion. By adding 'temple checks' temples still help spread dominion, they just don't help exponentially.

[Dragar]

I think the only real impact of the increased dominion level from extra temples if for number of sacred units recruitable per city yes?

[Jazzepi]

I think the only real impact of the increased dominion level from extra temples if for number of sacred units recruitable per city yes?

Exactly.

Jazzepi

[thejeff]

And the max dominion level you can reach in each province, which affects lots of things. (I think temples raise that. I'd always assumed, but I don't know if I've actually checked.)

[Zeldor]

Yeah, 1 more max dom for 5 temples. But you can get over 10 sacreds a turn with enough temples.

And wasn't temple preaching priest lvl +1, while without temple it is just priest lvl?

[capnq]

Preaching only works up to a max of Holy level or Holy*2 if there is a temple, and you'll get a message to that effect when you start preaching in a province with higher dominion.Holy+1, not *2, according to the manual.

Note that the Preach order doesn't clear after the province's dominion maxes out.

[Edratman]

I've been following this thread for the 4 days since it was started and just had an astonishing thought. I haven't posted because I don't have any certain answers myself.

There is some doubt amongst us on the actual effects of temples!

Amazing. This is the most common and basic structure in the game.

[Zeldor]

Doubt? Nah. They give additional temple checks. And value of that checks depends on starting dominion, not current one [that includes additional levels every 5 temples].

Doubts can come when it comes to:
- does preaching have any effect even if dominion is way above priest level
- do multiple preachers in one province have bigger effect than 1 preacher

[Loren]

Preaching only works up to a max of Holy level or Holy*2 if there is a temple, and you'll get a message to that effect when you start preaching in a province with higher dominion.Holy+1, not *2, according to the manual.

Note that the Preach order doesn't clear after the province's dominion maxes out.

You wouldn't want it to--the enemy might be pressing dominion on you

[thejeff]

No real doubt there.
Preaching has no effect when dominion is above priest level(+1). Depending on the exact order of turn processing, it may still be useful to counter other things that might drop dominion during a turn, events, enemy stealth preachers or heretics or items, enemy temple check influence.

Multiple preachers generate separate checks and thus have more influence than a single one. (OK, I'm only about 95% sure of that one.)

[thejeff]

Note that the Preach order doesn't clear after the province's dominion maxes out.

You wouldn't want it to--the enemy might be pressing dominion on you

Hard to say. I would want to be able to preach again, but it might be nice to have them preach one turn then go back to defend if dominion was above priest level(+1). It's easy to not notice for several that your priests are happily preaching away for no effect.

[JimMorrison]

Multiple preachers generate separate checks and thus have more influence than a single one. (OK, I'm only about 95% sure of that one.)


Oh multiple priests certainly works. Often if I have Gift of Health up, and my army gets really banged up, I will stop for a turn and Preach. If I'm playing a nation with a lot of mage-priests that go as caster support, then I've seen a dominion shift of 10-12 points in one turn plenty of times.

[Loren]

Note that the Preach order doesn't clear after the province's dominion maxes out.

You wouldn't want it to--the enemy might be pressing dominion on you

Hard to say. I would want to be able to preach again, but it might be nice to have them preach one turn then go back to defend if dominion was above priest level(+1). It's easy to not notice for several that your priests are happily preaching away for no effect.

Maybe there should be two orders--preach until max and continue preaching.

I'd like to see the developers spend some time reducing the micro-management needed.

[Hoplosternum]

I am all for lessening the micromanagement but how is defend better than preach? Doesn't everything (unless in a Fortress) just defend if the province is attacked unless it's been given a specific order that stops them? I mean mages in a lab defend if the province is attacked don't they? Don't blood hunters 'defend' too and Patrollers? So what is the benefit of not preaching even if its not useful that turn?

Unless your stealthy but then your default would not be defend anyway.

[JimMorrison]

The benefit is that when you sweep for commanders without orders, using the 'n' key, the preachers who have maxed out a province will be highlighted. Then you automatically know they are ready to be moved, or used in some other way, other than sitting there doing absolutely nothing. :P