Dominion Vs Military

[Agrajag]

Just wanted to report a bit on my findings in a 1on1 game I had against the AI
My dominion score (in the making of the pretender) was very low, I'd say around 1-3.
I lost due to no dominion when my furthest province from his nearest province was ATLEAST 5 provinces away.
Just thought you should know.

[Cohen]

The assumption that your domain spread to max 2 provinces away from the source is absolutely false.

How to see this?
Create a God with 10 Dominion, create a game with this god and another human god.
Make him hosting (without playing) for a lot of turns, and then check. So you'll see how the dominion with spread with capitol and god only, without moving them
I got 50 turns, and the domain was in provinces far away from my capitol. (5 provinces away it reached for now)

[deccan]

Even so and even in SP, pushing dominion can be important. As mentioned, the AI does tend to spam temples. In my current game, I didn't let that bother me, and I had negative dominion 2 or 3 provinces deep inside my territory. Then he cast "Dark Skies", and all of a sudden my troops has like morale or 7 and 8. Ouch.

[Boron]

Cohen said:
The assumption that your domain spread to max 2 provinces away from the source is absolutely false.

How to see this?
Create a God with 10 Dominion, create a game with this god and another human god.
Make him hosting (without playing) for a lot of turns, and then check. So you'll see how the dominion with spread with capitol and god only, without moving them
I got 50 turns, and the domain was in provinces far away from my capitol. (5 provinces away it reached for now)

yep very true . i tested it myself now too . probably the temple spreads work the same way too .
so far i too believed as Arryn the 2 province rule from the mentioned dominionguide.pdf .
hm this leads to new interesting possibilities :

only build as much temples until you reach dominionstrengh of 10 ( so 10 when you start with dominion 8 etc. ) .

furthermore i think when you have maximum dominion in a province the dominionspread check always wanders further to provinces with not maximum dominion strenghts .

so in theory playing as mictlan there should be no big difference when playing with max dominion when spreading dominion via 5 blood sacrifices near your capitol temples or in temples near the front .
only the center of maximum dominionstrengh should vary but total dominion strengh should be the same with both methods or ?


in general you can put up the rule then i think :
build as many temples as you need to reach dominionstrength of 10 and all additional temples are only optional when you can afford but not neccessary .

[Lex]

why does it say you can't preach in a province because its reached maximum dominion, but then you look and there's only 2-3 dominion on that province, and your Pretender's dominion is like 8. what gives? do provinces have a maximum dominion different then your Pretender depending on circumstance?

[Vynd]

Lex said:
why does it say you can't preach in a province because its reached maximum dominion, but then you look and there's only 2-3 dominion on that province, and your Pretender's dominion is like 8. what gives? do provinces have a maximum dominion different then your Pretender depending on circumstance?

A Priest can only raise dominion in a province up to his level in holy magic. So a basic indy priest can preach a province up to a positive 2 dominion, but no higher. This is what the message you're seeing refers to, not the max dominion that your nation is capable of. You pretty much have to rely on your Pretender, Prophet, and temples to truly max out your dominion in a province.

[Lex]

Vynd said:
A Priest can only raise dominion in a province up to his level in holy magic. So a basic indy priest can preach a province up to a positive 2 dominion, but no higher. This is what the message you're seeing refers to, not the max dominion that your nation is capable of. You pretty much have to rely on your Pretender, Prophet, and temples to truly max out your dominion in a province.

oh, yeah, that makes sense. so what do you do with all your L2 priests after they've maxed out your important provinces? do you ship them off to battle to cast courage nonstop, or do you keep them doing bugger-all until your pretender dies and you need to call god?

[Boron]

Lex said:

oh, yeah, that makes sense. so what do you do with all your L2 priests after they've maxed out your important provinces? do you ship them off to battle to cast courage nonstop, or do you keep them doing bugger-all until your pretender dies and you need to call god?

you can them always use against ermor / pan cw and other undead horde nations ( e.g. ctis desert tombs ).
or build new temples / castles etc in other provinces , shuffle troops ...

[Arryn]

Lex said:
so what do you do with all your L2 priests after they've maxed out your important provinces?

Give them Sceptres of Authority or Rods of the Phoenix and have them join your attack Groups as artillery.

[Cainehill]

Lex said:
oh, yeah, that makes sense. so what do you do with all your L2 priests after they've maxed out your important provinces? do you ship them off to battle to cast courage nonstop, or do you keep them doing bugger-all until your pretender dies and you need to call god?

Well, sadly, an L2 priest can't cast Sermon of Courage. Putting artillery items on them is an option, as Arryn pointed out, but the priests generally have crumby aim; only items with 100 accuracy or area of effect spells are particularly useful on them.

Personally, unless fighting an undead nation, I try to avoid building very many L2 priests; I don't find them particularly useful except for building temples and banishing undead, while they sap the gold income and clog the production queues. (So to speak - I'd generally rather build a scout, spy, or mage than a L2 priest.)