Frustrated...

[Saber Cherry]

The ability to build a "Fort" might help.

Fort:
1 Turn
100 Gold
20 Defense
20 Supply
No Towers
0 Administration
Does Not Allow National Troop Recruitment
Upgrades to National Castle


I completely agree, though. It's so hard to defend your territory. Even if you split your army in 20 to cover all border provinces (and thus allow inevitable defeat-in-detail), you are still vulnerable to Ghost Riders or Hordes from Hell throughout the interior.

Of course, making Province Defense substantially stronger (and also giving it better units when a province has a fort, castle, temple, or lab) will go a long way to swinging the balance around. The enemy can't MIRV their midsize army against your 5 border provinces if each has PD 16, a fort, and a temple if those investments give them a real defensive force. And with an "Attack Army" or "Defend Provinces Within Range" command for a defending army, the invaders can't simply slip by because you mispredicted their target. Realistically, the US Military units in Utah wouldn't let Canada take Washington without coming to help, simply because the invasion was not listed in the month's "List of things to do". Washington units might not bother helping Utah, though, because there's really not much there

Cheap forts, stronger province defense that improves with buildings, and a "Defend Provinces Within Range" command would all be very nice features for Dominions III. Defense can be almost impossible without them, often making it an "Attacker = Winner" type system.

[Arralen]

Yeah, armies would need some kind of "reaction move" in case they havn't moved this turn and a neighbouring province is attacked. Maybe this will be realized in DOM3.

There is a cure in DOM2 that works at least to some extend:
Do not use a map like inland that is basically one big grassy plain.
Use a map with islands and lots of impassable borders formed by mountains. Put up forts at strategic locations, and you are at least save from roaming armies. Doesn't help against ghost riders, though.

Most later maps actually have their fair share of impassable borders - because other players noticed the problem, too, and started to work around it.

Arralen

[shovah]

i generally try to work myself into a location with as small a number of border showing as possible and then since i always have too much gold late game i build a basic commander at each of these provinces and make them build a castle. i have a small force in each province while the castle is build and once completed i crank up the pd (unless im mict or something in which case i assign a few mages and put taxs to 0 and have them blood hunt)

[Truper]

Seems to me that the problem might be you're outnumbered 11 to 1... Somewhat fewer ai might give you closer to the sort of game you're looking for.

The only other thing that would help is hard to achieve, and that's changing your mindset. *Accept* the fact that the best defense in Dom2 is a good offence, and look for ways to take provinces cheaply - and then take more of them than your opponents can.

Or... turn some friends onto the game, and play multiplayer

[Morkilus]

There are some interesting maps with impassable borders... Check the Maps subforum for "Siltrock" for a small one, and the Illwinter site (www.illwinter.com) for the Middle Earth, which I think is pretty fun for a big map. It doesn't help SP that there is no diplomacy. Most of the players around here seem to be pretty good diplomats, though I'm starting to think SP is good for just messing around, or trying expansion strategies... and that's about it.