How to successfully utilize your "Dominion Wall"?

[KissBlade]

Graeme Dice said:

Why don't you provide us with a pretender design then, since you obviously seem to have one figured out that you think makes better use of the 42 points it requires to go from dominion 3 to 6.

Here's a simple one that doesn't waste a bunch of extra points on magic paths or scales that you won't actually use.
C'Tis Ghost King.
A4 W4 E4 D5
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Magic 3.
Research straight to alteration 5, then enchantment 1, then conjuration 2, then contruction 4, then enchantment 3, then alteration 6. Once you reach alteration 3, your ghost king has a script of quickness, ironskin, mirror images, mistform. Add in breath of winter, switch in invulnerability, and add in soul vortex once it's researched. You also have everything you need for neverending skeleton spam with both drain life and raise skeleton researched.

What would you add in using the 42 points it cost to bring dominion to 6 from 3 that would overwhelm any opposition?

If I'm using designs such as Dragon or similar low dominion pretender, the extra points are vastly more than 42 to go from 3 to 6. Similarly if I'm using immobiles, obviously I would pump dominion a bit. My point is, dominion tends to be the least concern of where I spend my points when creating a pretender. I've already pointed out there are exceptions to this such as when I'm creating a VQ or using miasma, etc. Setting up a straw man for my argument is rather annoying, to say the least. Six is not a high dominion. A dominion of six will not overwhelm my provinces. Had they spent like something to dominion eight, I'm pretty sure the 80 odd points would tilt things in my favor instead.

[Graeme Dice]

KissBlade said:
If I'm using designs such as Dragon or similar low dominion pretender, the extra points are vastly more than 42 to go from 3 to 6.

That's one of the reasons you don't use dragons in the unmodded game. The other is that a wyrm is a better combat pretender, and starts with higher dominion.

Setting up a straw man for my argument is rather annoying, to say the least. Six is not a high dominion. A dominion of six will not overwhelm my provinces.

Yes, a dominion strength of 6 will overwhelm your provinces when I have 20 temples and your temples only work at a dominion strength of 3.

Had they spent like something to dominion eight, I'm pretty sure the 80 odd points would tilt things in my favor instead.

How so? You'd still have the ghost king that's capable of dealing singlehandedly with your armies, only he'll start with less extraneous magic.

[KissBlade]

Graeme Dice said:

That's one of the reasons you don't use dragons in the unmodded game. The other is that a wyrm is a better combat pretender, and starts with higher dominion.

Yes, a dominion strength of 6 will overwhelm your provinces when I have 20 temples and your temples only work at a dominion strength of 3.

How so? You'd still have the ghost king that's capable of dealing singlehandedly with your armies, only he'll start with less extraneous magic.

Actually dragons in the modded game starts with only dominion 1 as well.

And 20 temples = 4000 gold, if you spent 4000 gold on temples, not only is your dominion going to be higher than six, you'll be massively underfunded in battle mages of which I will use to raze all 20 of those temples to the ground.

As for the Ghost King, yes he's a good pretender chassis for combat but there are many ways to counter him even early game. Dust to Dust, my own pretender, or even plain just raiding where he's not. Furthermore I attempted to make the Ghost King you mentioned and came up several points short.

[Graeme Dice]

KissBlade said:
And 20 temples = 4000 gold, if you spent 4000 gold on temples, not only is your dominion going to be higher than six, you'll be massively underfunded in battle mages of which I will use to raze all 20 of those temples to the ground.

The number of temples you have only affects your maximum dominion strength and the number of holy troops you can recruit. The probability that dominion will spread from a temple is set at pretender creation and never changes. You also seriously underestimated the amount of gold I'd spend, since every temple would also have a castle built before the temple goes up. Which is why I wouldn't be particularly worried about raiding parties killing temples.

Furthermore I attempted to make the Ghost King you mentioned and came up several points short.

Then you had better turn off your mods. Or get rid of a couple of levels of magic, since he's got way more than he would need anyways.

I'm still waiting to see how you would spend an extra 80 points in a manner that would completely crush such a pretender, which already has the optimum scales for C'Tis in the unmodded game.

[KissBlade]

I don't play unmodded since then I'd change my scales (since you have A LOT more points to play with from unmodded) and probably be willing to pump dominion up a bit. Also unless you're talking about late game, I can't even fantom how you'll get the time to amass that much extra gold for castles and temples in any MP game. Considering you're talking about the cost of well over 20 extra mages had I not sunk the resources in them. And in terms of crushing your pretender, I'll be perfectly willing to duel you anytime.

[Agrajag]

If you two play a game against each other, please make sure to save all of your saves, I'm sure everyone would like to see how this one turns out
My guess is Graeme will win, because I agree with him that dominion-3 is suicide.

And KissBlade, if he builds 20 temples, and you spend the same amount of money on mages, than you built absolutely no temples - you'll be gone before you know it.