Dominion strength

[Dovakhiin]

Hi, I was playing Helheim and it was going well (diff AI Normal), I just started to lose dominance in regions, I tried to change it and all the mages I could, I set up Preach and built some temples. It had very little effect and within the next 20 rounds I could no longer maintain it and lost. What did I do wrong, how can I avoid this situation for the next time? Thanks

[SaD-82]

What was your dominion scale to begin with?
A safe bet to start a game is usually having at least 6 candles in your pretender design.
(I say "usually" because there are exceptions to that.)

[way2co0l_2003]

In addition to what Sad was saying, every 5 temples increase your dominion scale by 1 so ultimately everyone can get there, but if you begin with low dominion scales then you're going to be at a disadvantage until you build the large number of temples necessary to change it. Having local temples helps in the area, but if their local dominion strength is higher than yours then you'll find yours pushed out. You can use multiple priests to preach in the area to help combat the spread of theirs which ultimately weakens and replaces yours. Sending your prophet or even your pretender can also both significantly help you combat their Dominion spread in that area. The simplest way to handle it is just to start with a higher Dominion scale during pretender setup to give you a head start and a stronger defense against it.

[Dovakhiin]

I had 4 or 5 candles in the beginning. In total I built around 5-7 temples in 20 provinces, before losing.

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by Dovakhiin:

I had 4 or 5 candles in the beginning.

So either their Dominion was higher than yours, somewhere between 6-8, or you were closer to their sources and further from yours. The things I mentioned that could help you combat it could have been working against you if they had multiple priests preaching or even their prophet and/or pretender there as well would have made it even tougher for you to hold ground.

[Dovakhiin]

Cool. Thanks a lot for the info, it's another aspect of the game to consider.

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by Dovakhiin:

Cool. Thanks a lot for the info, it's another aspect of the game to consider.

It's what makes pretender design so interesting! Like, if you have a ton of negative scales, it might actually be beneficial to have a weak Dominion so you can benefit more from your enemies stronger scales, but of course there are other issues to be considered when most of your core territory and capital still have to deal with the bad scales. lol. But yeah, Dominion scales tend to be cheaper than most other things unless you're trying to get it very high on a low dominion chasis. That's another thing to consider too though, going with a monument pretender or even a titan for the higher starting dominion makes it cheaper to get to the higher dominion scores.

[Chris]

One challenge you’re facing is that the AI loves to spam temples, and so their dominion can be quite strong. Whenever an opportunity arises, I like to go and capture the province, even if I don’t plan to hold it. Capturing it destroys the temple.

There’s usually something more interesting to spend your money on, which means that new players might not be building temples at enough of a rate to protect their dominion. Don’t restrict them to just the provinces you have forts in.

Also be wary of taking misfortune scales, as some of the negative events will completely wipe out your dominion in a province.

[Uncle Al]

It's very hard to preach down negative dominion, and it's very hard for enemy dominion to spread into your high dominion provinces. Getting priests out early to 'secure the borders', by preaching up the some of the provinces on the edge of your lands before they get enemy dominion in them works wonders.

I believe it mentions the 'wall of faith' strategy somewhere in the manual, but I forget where.

[Swirler]

Originally posted by Chris:

One challenge you’re facing is that the AI loves to spam temples, and so their dominion can be quite strong. Whenever an opportunity arises, I like to go and capture the province, even if I don’t plan to hold it. Capturing it destroys the temple.

Combine that with sometimes the AI will take 10 candles on their random pretender chassis and that could be the answer.
I'd love to be able to plug in some custom Pretenders the AI can use in some games if only to avoid weird stuff like that.

[1337Dude]

In my opinion, Dominion is the easiest way to win or lose a game. You can win or lose without even engaging in battle, and someone with significantly high Dominion can sweep the map before other players even realize what's happening.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Dominion is an easy way to win or lose small games - past a certain point the map fills out and it's just you and one guy dompushing each other, but in larger games 'domkills' basically don't happen, as even when somebody wins by thrones you can expect there to be four or five players and their dominion scores all diffusing each other.

[Draken]

Originally posted by Ddraig Lleuad:

Dominion is an easy way to win or lose small games - past a certain point the map fills out and it's just you and one guy dompushing each other, but in larger games 'domkills' basically don't happen, as even when somebody wins by thrones you can expect there to be four or five players and their dominion scores all diffusing each other.

Though if one player manages to go ahead in a big game, even a lot of enemies can fall quickly as each enemy you dom-kill, or normal kill, removes a ton of temples and priests working against that player.

[way2co0l_2003]

So I think I'm missing something on that front. What exactly is a dom kill?

[Chris]

Originally posted by way2co0l_2003:

So I think I'm missing something on that front. What exactly is a dom kill?

A nation is removed from the game if they have no dominion in any provinces. It’s a relatively common way to defeat someone in a multiplayer match.

It happens in singleplayer as well, of course.

[DasaKamov]

One important thing to note is that if your priests are preaching, they should be doing so in one of your Temples.

It's a lot more effective and influential to be preaching about the heathens that need smiting when you're surrounded by burning incense and ornate marble statues of your almighty deity, than to just be seen as some random crazy-person screeching about the godless fish-headed heretics on a random street corner. ;)