Leadership levels upped, I see?

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:

Err... What about the globals? You know, the one with mechanical men, and the other with underwater monsters defending your provinces, and the one with the dead being animated to fight as vine creatures?

The globals add new units to province defense they don't upgrade the existing units of province defense. I'm sure many gamers wouldn't mind spending X amount of gold or gems for upgrading province defense. Or perhaps some good events can be created to upgrade province defense in Dominions_4.

[alexti]

DominionsFan said:

wow interesting. I will try it also. I've never used this tactic in the MP games to be honest, and usually we play on "small" maps. Hm..perhaps I should give it a try in MP also.

What strategies did you use in small MP games? To my knowledge, fast bless strategy is one of the top methods in such settings...

[alexti]

NTJedi said:

I'm also a fan of Machaka yet I play most large or huge maps... I moved to different nations because I hated having the worst province defense.

Does PD really make much differense? I've never paid much attention to it. Everybody can defend vs single scout and nobody can do anything vs decent army. Well, I suppose, Jotuns have easier time deflecting hawk invasions and such with smaller numbers.

[DominionsFan]

alexti said:

What strategies did you use in small MP games? To my knowledge, fast bless strategy is one of the top methods in such settings...

Well "small" map for us means 120 land provinces for a 4 player game, 180 for 6 players and 240 provinces for 8 players. [Water provinces are between 16 and 42] Usually I've never used any fast strategies, since imho I couldn't win a game this way against the lads who I am playing with. I doubt that it will work, but I will try it tomorrow, we will have a 4 player TCP/IP game.

[alexti]

DominionsFan said:
Well "small" map for us means 120 land provinces for a 4 player game, 180 for 6 players and 240 provinces for 8 players. [Water provinces are between 16 and 42] Usually I've never used any fast strategies, since imho I couldn't win a game this way against the lads who I am playing with. I doubt that it will work, but I will try it tomorrow, we will have a 4 player TCP/IP game.

That's not really "small". Usual small map for 4-player blitz is Urgaia (AFAIR, approx 60 provinces). 120 provinces for 4 players is more like "sparse medium" map. Fast bless strategy can still work, but I'd expect MP-specific problem.

If your opponents play slow strategy you'll likely quickly steamroll one of your opponents and after that remaining 2 will quickly forge alliance against you. You may try to make something like the following: expand quickly toward opponent A. When he sees your scary early armies he will get concerned, but you can offer to stop expanding any further in that direction in exchange either for defensive treaty vs opponent B or aggressive pact vs opponent B. In the first case you can expand like mad toward B, be unreasonable in negotiations, leave your provinces open and make sure you cut-off all his paths for expansion. In the latter case you just attack B. But, of course, it's just a feint and you won't be dedicating much forces to that war. Your real goal is quickly conquer opponent C. By the time the dust settle you should be able to take over C and make good inroads into B (who has to fight 2 fronts). At this stage opps will probably realize what's happening and A will change sides, but he'd still need to reprofile his army vs you, so you should have a chance fighting vs both of them for the rest of the game.

[NTJedi]

alexti said:
[Does PD really make much differense? I've never paid much attention to it. Everybody can defend vs single scout and nobody can do anything vs decent army. Well, I suppose, Jotuns have easier time deflecting hawk invasions and such with smaller numbers.

Yes in really large maps I notice a difference. I've had good Machaka province defense lose to 'call of the winds'. Machakas province defense will die from tennis balls because of the zero protection. In SP the weak province defense is mostly an annoyance. In MP the weak province defense is more an issue... but again this is for really large maps.

[DominionsFan]

alexti said:

That's not really "small". Usual small map for 4-player blitz is Urgaia (AFAIR, approx 60 provinces). 120 provinces for 4 players is more like "sparse medium" map. Fast bless strategy can still work, but I'd expect MP-specific problem.

If your opponents play slow strategy you'll likely quickly steamroll one of your opponents and after that remaining 2 will quickly forge alliance against you. You may try to make something like the following: expand quickly toward opponent A. When he sees your scary early armies he will get concerned, but you can offer to stop expanding any further in that direction in exchange either for defensive treaty vs opponent B or aggressive pact vs opponent B. In the first case you can expand like mad toward B, be unreasonable in negotiations, leave your provinces open and make sure you cut-off all his paths for expansion. In the latter case you just attack B. But, of course, it's just a feint and you won't be dedicating much forces to that war. Your real goal is quickly conquer opponent C. By the time the dust settle you should be able to take over C and make good inroads into B (who has to fight 2 fronts). At this stage opps will probably realize what's happening and A will change sides, but he'd still need to reprofile his army vs you, so you should have a chance fighting vs both of them for the rest of the game.

Yeah, that isnt really a "small" map, I thought so. However we always play with these settings. Anyways I will surely try some "blitz" strategy, its funny that I've never tried it. Btw we never set up alliances after the game is live. We set up the alliances before the game, so for example a 4 player game can be 2v2 or 1v1v1v1.
Actually I've never played with you lads, since [in Doms 2.] I had too many TCP/IP games with the fans here. [I meant my country fellas]
Most of us are already preordered Doms 3., but I will surely gonna play against you guys. Well at least I hope so, because I don't have too much time to play in these weeks.
I am focusing a lot on real life. [training, girlfriend, parties..oh and school]

[alexti]

NTJedi said:

Yes in really large maps I notice a difference. I've had good Machaka province defense lose to 'call of the winds'. Machakas province defense will die from tennis balls because of the zero protection. In SP the weak province defense is mostly an annoyance. In MP the weak province defense is more an issue... but again this is for really large maps.

I've played really large maps only in MP and in my experience for the most of the game (except early game) the normal way to take opponents provinces was through GR or raiding parties where PD doesn't make much difference anyway. Ok, maybe Pangaea or Caelum can give trouble to some raiding parties, but other than that, what were people attacking with so that PD mattered?

[NTJedi]

alexti said:
I've played really large maps only in MP and in my experience for the most of the game (except early game) the normal way to take opponents provinces was through GR or raiding parties where PD doesn't make much difference anyway. Ok, maybe Pangaea or Caelum can give trouble to some raiding parties, but other than that, what were people attacking with so that PD mattered?

My 15_PD was falling to 'call of the winds'.
The opponent with the soulstone could send the wolves which could then sneak into a nearby territory and attack some other location.
Once the farming of pearls becomes effective madmen would easily pounce a territory far behind the lines.
Late stages of the game I notice the bad province defense.

It's also an uncomfortable feeling for me knowing all the other nations have better province defense.

[alexti]

I didn't know it's that bad that 15 loses to COW. Otherwise, I think it's the same for most of nations - PD vs wolves or madmen is impractical. And I agree that those wolves are annoying because they're hard to catch. With a suitable national (Caelum, C'tis) etc it's usually more practical to park a spammer in every worthwhile province.