It’s amazing how often people overlook what lies at the very roots of this game: dominion.
More often than not, I see players looking at it as a way to boost the number of sacreds they can recruit per turn and no more, as if no veteran player in his right mind should ever consider it as a sound strategy towards victory.
Yes, it IS possible to domkill even an aware and knowing opponent. Yes again, it is possible to leverage your dompush before the kill to gain a substantial economical & military edge, without bankrupting yourself in the process.
Pros :
- a way to win that can be faster than any other
- a way to fight a militarily superior opponent and come out the winner
- a way to fight several opponents at once
- a way to boost your economy while crippling your opponent’s
Cons :
- become Public Enemy n°1 in no time. Diplomacy is your only friend.
- cripples your blood economy, forget about those nice summons.
- Faith is fleeting. Before you reach the critical mass, nothing’s ever certain.
- You need to play a blood sacrificing nation in order to use this strat. Refer to the 5th section of this guide
1/How does it work?
Dominion war is an altogether different way to wage war on your opponents. It’s a lot akin to the modern world in that way : we have NAPs and alliances all around while the economical wars rage underneath, secret services spread our influences and battle underground while the countries are at peace and our armies stay at home.
This is the story of the Cold War, won by the USA with ideology and economy rather than guns.
To learn the basics of dominion spread, you should start by reading the manual page 92 as it explains a lot, albeit with some errors. I also highly recommend you read that thread with vfb tests on temple checks and blood sacrifice:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43356
The bottom line is that temple checks from temples, blood sacrifice and juggernauts are based on your
starting dominion while those from your pretender and prophet are based on your
current dominion. Also, your home province and each blood slave sacrificed generate two temple checks and not one as stated in the manual. A H3 priest wielding a jade knife is sacrificing 5 slaves/turn for a grand total of 10 temple checks + 1 for the temple itself!!!
So, there are 2 ways to spread your dominion, both inside and outside your territory: preaching and temple checks (mainly from temples, pretender/prophet and blood sac), the latter being by far the most reliable and powerful. As your opponent will use the same tools, it will eventually come to comparing raw dominion strength at the right place.
There’s nothing here as sophisticated as the careful scripting of dozens of mages in the right order and precise placement of units around the battlefield. No. It’s as simple as reaching a critical mass in domspread that exceeds that of your opponent in a given province.
To quote Patton: “War is simple, direct and ruthless”. Dominion war is that.
There’s a bit more of course, else everybody would use it ad nauseum, but critical mass is the way.
The manual is also wrong on something else: you don’t have to wait for a given province to be at fulldom to see your dominion spread to nearby provinces. All you need for that is a friendly dominion.
It would need some serious testing but my gut feeling is that you have about as many chances to see it trying to spread as trying to increase dominion in your province. I’ve seen countless times my dominion spread to 2 or 3 provinces away in a single turn with each province on the way remaining at 1 to 3 candles max.
Also, it’s nowhere near as difficult as the manual says p.93 to reach fulldom in a given province. It states that your chance is 30% minus (3% x friendly candles) for a temple check to make an actual increase. If it were true, you’d need an average 33 temple checks for the 10th candle in any dom9 province!?! And that’s without your enemy trying to lower it in the meantime. Not even close to reality.
But you still have a lot more chances to see it spread if your province is already at fulldom since all temple checks will then spread outward.
In fact, your dompush will really start to kick in when most of your own provinces will be at fulldom which should be one of the basements of your strategy.
Items and Rituals to help your dompush CBM 1.6:
Jade knife (N1B1 construction 4): Allows you to sacrifice 2 more slaves per temple. Absolutely necessary to reach the critical mass in close quarters.
Stone Idol (E2S2 construction 6): Equivalent to carrying a lvl3 heretic in your backpack. What’s really interesting is it’s independent from the carrier so you can have its effect on the turn you arrive in the province. Quite good on a scout, especially if flying.
The Ark (F5S5, construction 8): Turns the carrier in a kind of prophet. Don’t build it for the sole purpose of dompushing, that would be way too expensive.
Melancholia (6E, Thaumaturgy 6): Lowers the dominion and the prod scale to sloth 3 in the targeted province. Thanks to Lingchih for pointing out that this spell bypasses domes without a check. Very nice spell to spam at your opponent’s capital.
Juggernaut (15S, construction 9): Acts as a prophet and spreads your dominion, albeit based on your starting dominion. Expensive.
Baleful star, Blight, Rain of toads, Raging Hearts etc…: any ritual that raises unrest in a target province is a bless for your stealthy preachers as well as a curse for your opponent’s economy. Use them liberally on the forts where you stack your stealthy preachers.
What happens when you finally domkill your opponent?
All his provinces turn neutral at the end of the turn you domkilled him. On the turn you have the message announcing his defeat, his armies will still appear on the map but it’s an illusion, ghosts from the past turn and even a scout can take these provinces unchallenged. The forts still have to be besieged but as empty forts.
In order to claim your prize you should have readied scouts and flyers to reach all your opponent’s lands on that very turn, lest you find the others grab it before you (even then…)
2/Side effects of your dompush ::
- Your scales will be maxed in most of your provinces. It might be a good idea to take nice ones.
- Your scales will replace your opponent’s, but only their bad effects will apply. It might be a good idea to take extreme scales. Order 3 Sloth 3 Cold3 Growth 3 Misfortune 2 Magic 1 nets you a +6% gold/growth, few bad events and even 40 design points. It really is Order 0 Sloth 3 Cold 3 Growth 0 Misfortune 2 Magic 0 to your enemy. That’s a lot of bad events, low magic and -24% gold. Sounds good? It is.
*Edit* Thanks to Chrispedersen for pointing out that growth takes effect even under enemy dominion.
- You benefit from a lesser version of “Eyes of God”
- Your pretender and prophet hps go through the roof while your opponents’ plummet.
- You will love immortal raiders under friendly dominion
Globals that benefit from your dompush CBM 1.6:
Enchanted Forest (35N Conjuration 6)
Spawns vinemen in the forests under your dominion, depending on your growth scales and dominion strength. If you need some free chaff and have means to buff them, this is the way.
The Wrath of God (70S Evocation 6)
Domlvl x10% to cast a 10AN lightning bolt on each enemy inside your dominion, even underwater. Human equivalent troops? Bye. Roughly half the mages of this game? Bye bye. Very potent.
Strands of Arcane Power (40S Evocation6)
Gives the caster a chance each turn to find lvl 1-3 sites at random under your dominion. He must be able to manually search the site to have a chance to find it. It will also show at which lvl your mage searched it as per manual search. Also gives you a chance to magic duel to feeblemind any astral mage inside your dominion or mind burn other mages.
I’d love to try that with a high astral pretender with dompush, maybe F9S9 dom10 mictlan pretender? You’d need the chalice or someone to heal him if you lost your magic duel though.
Gift of Health (50N Enchantment 5)
Domlvl x10% bonus to all your units’ health and a chance to heal any affliction. It usually is used for its healing ability and as a defensive global. What about raiding deep inside your enemy’s kingdom at x2 health?
Gift of Nature’s Bounty (50N Enchantment 8)
Domlvl x20% income bonus to all lands under your dominion. That’s x3 to all lands income at fulldom. Beware that it also affects your opponent’s lands, though he’ll suffer from the side effects of your scales at the same time. Still very potent. Look at the graphs in the InversionsRedux MP game file attached.
Haunted Forest (60N Enchantment 9)
Life after Death for all units killed under your dominion, including your opponent’s. Great spell if you plan on having your dominion everywhere.
Dark Skies (30A Thaumaturgy 5)
Enemy units suffer from a -1 morale malus per candle, hence -11 at fulldom if you also factor -1 for hostile dominion. Nice spell against huge armies (non undead) or in combination with awe or fear.
Purgatory (40F Thaumaturgy 7)
LA Ermor’s bane. Domlvl x10% chance to cast a 18AN fire damage spell on each enemy undead inside your dominion. At fulldom, 100% chance, only thugs/SC survive. Look at the Corydalis file attached.
Lure of the deep (50W Thaumaturgy 7)
Very situational but the usual drawback is to put you at ill with everyone as long as they have a shore. Since you’re going to be at war with the rest of the world anyway, it might be interesting. Never tested it though.
The Looming Hell (60B B Blood 5)
Very disappointing even with a huge dominion. I tried it in InversionsRedux with an overwhelming dominion and meh.
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