Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[Teraswaerto]

I always play to win, but I don't let that stop me from trying weaker nations or non-optimal pretender designs.

[Sombre]

If you enjoy competing you usually enjoy challenge too. Sometimes that means you enjoy putting some 'artificial' limitations on yourself - after all these limitations are really no different from the rules of any game.

I personally enjoy forcing myself to use a certain ratio of weaker troops, for instance.

[Archonsod]

Sometimes they aren't artificial limitations. The danger with falling into the "best strategy & counter" line of thought is that someone cropping up with a completely wild strategy, even if not usually considered a victorious one, can catch you completely off guard.

[Baalz]

I don't have the vast experience some of you do, but it does seem to me that luck has as much to do with who will be the winner as skill. Don't get me wrong, a good player obviously has a much better chance of doing well, but as far as who is going to do good enough to beat everyone else in the game it's going to be the player that is good AND has the best luck. Factors you may or may not have much control over and may significantly effect your chances of winning:
1) What nation you're playing
2) Who your neighbors are (How aggressive/good are they). If you attack player A do players B and C take that opportunity to attack you, or are they fighting with each other?
3) What random events hit your capital during the early turns
4) Who you're able to ally with (this is as much a function of the situation as your diplomatic skills)
5) Who allies against you (if you take a strong early lead you're likely to be ganged up on. Taking a nation perceived to be stronger, or being perceived as a strong player is likely to have people gang up on you as well)
6) What type of provinces are close to your capitol (do you have resources for your resource intensive troops? Suitable blood hunting sites? Enough gold income?)
7) Are you able to trade for some good path boosters?
8) What indie mages are you able to recruit?
9) What magic sites do you find? Do you get the gem income that fits your nation? Any good ritual discounts?

etc. etc.

So, I guess my point is that you've got to "play to win" with a certain lack of intensity because if you're playing against any significant number of players remotely near your skill level you're probably not going to. There is enough variation from luck that many, many different strategies are competitive and offer a different play experience. Obviously Dominions isn't perfectly balanced, look at how hard it is to balance games like Warcraft and consider the difference in scope. So what if <nation 1/setup 1> is definitely stronger that <nation 2/setup 2>, I can take <nation 2/setup 2> and have almost as much of a chance of winning assuming I play a good game.

Graeme, your bleak depiction of the game doesn't correspond to my experience. Your implication is that you either don't know what you're doing or you're not playing to win if you do something different than the things you list as being optimal (dual bless, death scales, etc), and that the game is almost completely determined in the first 20 turns so the rest is just going through the motions. Perhaps that is the case if you're playing one on one competitively with the primary purpose to win, but that doesn't sound to me like you're playing a very fun game.

[Graeme Dice]

Baalz said:
Your implication is that you either don't know what you're doing or you're not playing to win if you do something different than the things you list as being optimal (dual bless, death scales, etc),

If you play optimally, and your opponent doesn't, then you will win, all other things being equal. The reason I refer to dual-blesses is because they are something that makes national troops completely obsolete from the first turn of the game. People complained that troops became obsolete too quickly in Dom2, yet Helhirdings make every other purchasable unit obsolete on the first turn. If your opponent comes at you with one of the effective types of dual-blessed sacreds, and you don't have at least a three to one numerical advantage in gold spent on your army, then you are almost certainly going to lose the battle.

and that the game is almost completely determined in the first 20 turns so the rest is just going through the motions.

Have you ever seen any games of Dom3 where the eventual winner was not one of the top nations at turn 20? Thee eventual winner of _any_ 4X game is decided in the early turns of the game.

Perhaps that is the case if you're playing one on one competitively with the primary purpose to win, but that doesn't sound to me like you're playing a very fun game.

It's not anywhere near as fun as Dom2. The neutering of magic, and presence of a morale system that's just as broken as Dom2's provides little reason to play the game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

Your kidding, right? Ive seen tons of games that werent decided by turn 20. Surely thats playing on a map where there is only like 10-20 provinces per player?

If that were true then there would never be games where Arcos won by holding out and researching heavy magic, or Jotunheim by taking the expand slow and defend strongly strategy, or Pangaea/Caelum/Man checkerboard strategy. Much less any of the water nations. Its a good thing that the game supports maps up to 1500 provinces and victory conditions other than rush-kill.

Graeme Dice said:
It's not anywhere near as fun as Dom2. The neutering of magic, and presence of a morale system that's just as broken as Dom2's provides little reason to play the game.

Ahhh that explains alot.
Thank you for sticking around to let us all know that.

[Evil Dave]

Gandalf Parker said:

If that were true then there would never be games where Arcos won by holding out and researching heavy magic, or Jotunheim by taking the expand slow and defend strongly strategy, or Pangaea/Caelum/Man checkerboard strategy. Much less any of the water nations. Its a good thing that the game supports maps up to 1500 provinces and victory conditions other than rush-kill.

I think I understand how to play the defensive and checkerboard strategies, but I've never had much luck with Arco. Could you say a little more about the research strategy for them?

[Endoperez]

Gandalf Parker said:

Your kidding, right? Ive seen tons of games that werent decided by turn 20. Surely thats playing on a map where there is only like 10-20 provinces per player?

Actually, he was saying that a nation that was in a bad position at turn 20 couldn't win the game. By his theory, in, say, ten nations left in the game by turn 20, and 4 of them have conquered another nation and have two capitals. If magic resources including research, and the amount of military power left, and the composition of the armies, and the dominion strengths etc aren't rather extraodrinary, one of the four nations would win. Of course, strength of a nation isn't directly related to just the resources available to it, but let's use this as an example.

If diplomacy, multi-front wars, really successful surprise attack/tactic etc are left out, one of the four would win. Even when diplomacy and all other uncontrollable things are considered, the four nations are in a much better position to win than any other nation, even though there are six smaller nations.

However, if the four nations in good position are in the good position because they are controlled by the players with most optimized strategies, Graeme's description is totally accurate. The best players' skill shines through in the early game, and will let them control the late game against less experienced players (who learn from them and become more skilled).