How Do You Stop Enemy Dominion Creep?

[David McMurdo]

Just lost a game as Middle Age Marignon. It was one of those situations where even though I was competing with my one AI opponents militarily, all I could do is watch is their influence crept across my territories until I simply lost the game.

I'm really not sure how to deal wth this. I try building more temples and recruiting holy men to preach (sometimes ten in a province), but nothing seems to help.

Advice would be appreciated. I lose a lot of games this way.

[Nrak555]

Whats your normal Base dom score you take as I never have this problem I usally take 6 min or more likly 7-8

[David McMurdo]

Originally posted by nrak555:

Whats your normal Base dom score you take as I never have this problem I usally take 6 min or more likly 7-8

Yeah I always go for eight myself. It's something I prioritise due to this problem, but while my dominion initially spreads extremely well, sometimes the AI seems to do something that just decimates it until I lose the game.

[George The Ork]

Priest and temples. But that feels like a slap in the face kinda answer.

Who were you fighting? Some nations can sacrifice in their temples which is said to be really effective for spreading dominion.

Enemy priests can combat your dominion in their lands, and if they are stealthy they can spread their vile heresy in yours, right under your nose. Stealthy priests of your own can be great at spreading your glorious religion behind enemy lines.

Thrones can also spread dominion I believe.

I try to employ a route of keeping a no mans land around my castles to keep the AI from building temples on my door step. Frequent raids and sweeps to keep the AI from building anything too near even without actually trying to take the land for myself.

[David McMurdo]

Originally posted by Specialist White:

Priest and temples. But that feels like a slap in the face kinda answer.

Who were you fighting? Some nations can sacrifice in their temples which is said to be really effective for spreading dominion. Enemy priests can combat your dominion in their lands, and if they are stealthy they can spread their vile heresy in yours, right under your nose. Stealthy priests of your own can be great at spreading your glorious religion behind enemy lines.

I was fighting C'tis. I'm not sure if they can sacrifice or not, but they sure seem like they might given the cultures that inspire them. I suspect that something like this is going on, because whatever they're doing, it seems unstoppable. It's definitely not "normal" dominion creep. The AI was also on "Normal" (me being a 100+ hour n00b) so I'm sure the AI wasn't getting insane bonuses or anything like that.

[Nrak555]

Last thing I can think of is that the enemy has signifcantly more temples then you on the order of 10 or more that can overwelm your temples and priests. Can happen in very long games aginst the AI. So the answer is more temples

[meglobob1]

There are thrones in game that have conflict +1 or +2 aren't there now? If the AI got 1 or more of them, it gives them a advantage whenever there dominion is against your dominion. I got 1 myself in a MP, where I had a lot of temples/thrones and from then on my dominion increased markedly every turn.

If they have a high dominion 9 or 10, lots more sources of dominion (temples/thrones) and blood sacrifice and/or dominion conflict bonuses in a long game they could snuff out your candles and thus your god.

[ulizez89]

One very late game solution is to spam juggernauts, they are a unit but behave as a "temple" and if you can have some 10ish in you capital, then there is very little chance of losing by dom kill. Also, they synergies beatifully with immortal units =) forcing the enemy to deploy resources in keeping your dominion at bay, and this is regarless of how small you become (a capital full of wolves, juggernauts and immortal units can be the bane of an stronger nation looking forward to kill you and eat your icome and gems!!!!!)

[terve886]

I guess you just need to build more temples than the AI is building and target enemy provinces that have temples in them.

[TheMage1]

Well, there really is only priests and temples in terms of dominion spread(well, circumstantially there is also heretic, and very late game juggernauts, but these are rare in terms of either nation or availability).

I would recommend that if you are being dominion killed to recruit Higher holy priests. Higher holy priest become much more effective at preaching, due to the three things. First is that they can preach past the point where lower holy priests cannot, making it less efficient for enemy domkill to reduce those candles. Next is that they are less effected by enemy dominion, as a reduction of 15% makes holy 1s 15%, but holy 2s are 45% chance. Third is that they are more reliable, causing both less overpreaching(which doesn't help), as well as absolutely failing less preaching checks, meaning that the preach limit is more reachable. Your nation's priests are even more effective because they have inquisitor, which means that they can preach better in enemy dominion.

Other than that, you can attempt to kill enemy temples, or build more of your own. My suspicion is that you aren't building enough of your temples early enough. I would say you want 4 more temples by the end of year 2(although I have little experience in multiplayer). Remember that dominion spreads scales, as well as reduces unrest, so early dominion spread can be very nice. Also remember that an early pretender can be an awful lot of dominion early on. In addition, it becomes harder to remove dominion from a province that already has it. You can also attempt to move your friars into enemy territory and stealth-preach in them, in order to get a bit of an advantage, although it doesn't help if they have a lot of dominion there.

Also, I believe that MA C'tis has a disease dominion, which diseases enemy troops, as well as reduces enemy income, but doesn't have a good way of spreading dominion. As such, it is more important than usual to keep up your dominion.

[olli]

Seems C'tis was much bigger and had way more temples than your nation. You had to destroy them and their temples in military way.

[Staythecourse]

One of the major flaws of the AI is its extremely stupid money spending algorithm. The AI dumps all of its money first into PD and unforted temples. If you run a test game, you'll find that eventually the AI will cover every single province in temples and 40+ PD.

This is, of course, handicapping the AI tremendously, as it will lag in forts and actual troops and mages, and all its unforted temples and PD are ripe for destruction.

However, it does mean that in an AI game, you cannot sit back. You need to be proactively attacking, conquering them and burning down their temples. In very large map, which some people like to play, staying passive for too long will indeed result in the AI's temple spam going out of control and flooding down more reasonable player dominion.