Starting Domain Score

[Legowarrior]

Is it me, or has the benefit of high Domain become nearly negligible in Dominions 5? It still impacts starting sacred recruitment, but Domain Pushing in general seems a lot weaker, and where in the past Domain 5 though 7 were the norm, I feel like Domain 4 is fine in Dominions 5 (with an awake pretender).

Because of this change, I feel like the cost of high Domain Pretenders seems unnecessarily high because you are paying to save at most 24 or 32 point (on pretenders that regular cost 40 to 60 points more).


It also makes the game less interesting thematically. Domain in the game Dominions is rarely, if ever considered in designing a pretender, except to recruit sacreds and reduces the number of interesting choices that you have during pretender design (RIP Dominions 2 Themes, we hardly got a chance to know you).

[Janohito]

It is not just you - indeed in current version of the game dominion score isn't important unless you are freespawn nation or need sacred recruitment. You rarely, especially in MP see dom kills anymore unless you are EA/LA Mictlan and get some unlucky early events.

[darion-neclador]

Good Luck playing MP with a Dom 2 pretender.

[Janohito]

Dom 2 might be a bit too extreme, but you can easily go with dom 4, maybe dom 3, depending on match up.

[Legowarrior]

It's that 50% minimum that everyone has. It makes it hard to care about Domain above 5 at all. And when your immobile pretenders start with 4 Domain to begin with, you are paying for something that has barely any use if you don't have freespawn or need sacreds.

Currently, its 50% +5%*Domain strength to spread a candle.
It used to 10%*Domain Strength, making a 6 or 7 Domain necessary to get the same results as 4 Domain Currently.
But maybe something like 25%+10%*Domain might be a good place to go?

And, while we are at it, beef up the strength of the unrest reduction that comes with higher domain scores.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

But maybe something like 25%+10%*Domain might be a good place to go?

More than 100% chance to get a candle per temple check at Dom 8+ seems a bit much to me, especially if that materializes as a chance for an extra candle on each temple check.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

But maybe something like 25%+10%*Domain might be a good place to go?

More than 100% chance to get a candle per temple check at Dom 8+ seems a bit much to me, especially if that materializes as a chance for an extra candle on each temple check.

That is a fair point, but the current set up is still to low.

Well if the problem is just reach over 100%
40+6*Domain
30+7*Domain
20+8*Domain
10+9*Domain

30 + 7* Domain reduces the floor to 37, instead of 55 (because you always have 1 Domain) and puts Domain 4 at a more reasonable 58%, instead of 70%, and makes Domain 7 at 79%, only slightly less then the current systems 85%.

[konon.ymir]

Dominion score also affects the maximum candles (from temple checks) in a province, and also affects how likely you are to reduce enemy candles when a temple check spreads to their provinces.

[Legowarrior]

It does, but then your opponent will have similar levels of domain to compete with.

In any case, I was doing some math on how the changes impact the different chassis.

In dominions 3 and 4, to get a 70% chance of adding a candle, you would need Domain 7. For a mage chassis that would cost 147 points.
For a Titan, with a starting domain of 3, that would be 70 points.
So, right there, Titan's have 77 points in savings if going for a slightly higher domain score, which gave them a niche.
In Dominions 5, to get the same 70%, you are looking at a Domain of only 4. (50 +4*5%)

To get domain 4, a Mage would need only to pay 42 points. A 105 point reduction.
For a Titan, that cost is reduced to 7, a 63 point reduction.
So, the change to how the candles work definitely favors the Mage Chassis, since it reduces the costs of what is reasonable, saving Mages 105 points versus a Titans 63.

Now, for me, I think one of two things should and could happen (But didn't).
1) Since a High Domain Score is far less important then previously, the benefits of a high starting domain score are much less. Therefore, Domain 3 and 4 chassis should have their price reduced to reflect the lessening value of domain (and a lot of mods do that).
2) The benefit of Domain should be increased in some other area. Not as much as was the case in Dominions 3 and 4 (I think the nerf was somewhere warranted) but perhaps the benefit could be given in terms of even greater unrest reduction. The current issue I have with Domain is only of benefit for a handful of nations.

[TheMage1]

Well, the problem with starting dominion is that it isn't all that impactful now. Previously, there was the bonus of your pretender getting awe with 9 or 10 dominion, which was great for making them more survivable. Additionally, each dominion check calculation was based on 10% per candle, rather than 50%+5% per candle. This meant that having more dominion was always better, because the limit how many candles the dominion can reach up to was proportional to the chance, which meant that even if your dominion went to max dominion in a province, you'd have not had those candles in the first place without that high of a score. The new 50% base formula means that you dominion can spread farther with lower dominion, which because of the benefits or punishments from scales, is much more influential.

The reason for this change was because having low dominion wasn't viable, and they wanted to make it more viable. However, it renders dominion killing someone much harder, to the point where it's just better to kill the person and then fill up the place with your dominion, rather than attempt to kill a person with a huge investment in your dominion, which doesn't benefit you much until you kill someone with it, and even then other people could easily steal the provinces from who you kill. Additionally the vast majority of the effect of dominion is with the first candle, and has very little impact for most purposes otherwise, other than globals, dominion summoning, pretender and prophet health. Yes, there is the fact that scales shift faster in higher dominion, as well as better unrest reduction, but you can get it to the most favorable state with only time, without needing large numbers of candles in the province.

However, I don't think that tinkering with the chances of a candle would be all that great, as if you are expanding on a huge map with very few players, you'll notice that with competent expansion, you will inevitably outrun your dominion, even without enemy dominion being involved, as well as with huge investments in improving your dominion. Even after you get to 10 dominion in the game, with something like 50 temples so have a 100% chance of spreading candles, this still happens. As such, dominion really needs to spread faster, as it doesn't pressure players enough to be a worthwhile investment, compared with getting better armies or mages, even if you had 20 total dominion(so automatically win dominion clashes), and temples in the majority of your provinces. After all, the vast majority of the time you'd want a 400 gold raiding party, or more elite mages, rather than a 400 gold temple.

As such, I'd think that either improving the number of candles each temple check and preach does(through multiple attempts at each check[presumably doubling number of checks]), or reducing the maximum number of candles allowed in a province(presumably being half of dominion, rounded up, max 5, with max preaching being the holy level plus one with a temple[and also redoing certain dominion sensitive math as well, such as dominion summon, pretender hp, and globals]).

Of these two solutions, I'd think that increasing the number of checks would be the simpler one to implement.

Theoretically, reducing the cost of priests and temples could help. However, I'd recommend against trying to solve it this way, as it would boost factions who require temples for their mages. It would also presumably cause temple spam everywhere, and reduce the specialness of temples, as well as the pain caused by enemies destroying them. Additionally, cheaper priests would cause people to spam them more, weakening undead factions, and increasing the amount of micro required for an optimal turn.

[Maerlande]

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Is it me, or has the benefit of high Domain become nearly negligible in Dominions 5? It still impacts starting sacred recruitment, but Domain Pushing in general seems a lot weaker, and where in the past Domain 5 though 7 were the norm, I feel like Domain 4 is fine in Dominions 5 (with an awake pretender).

Because of this change, I feel like the cost of high Domain Pretenders seems unnecessarily high because you are paying to save at most 24 or 32 point (on pretenders that regular cost 40 to 60 points more).


It also makes the game less interesting thematically. Domain in the game Dominions is rarely, if ever considered in designing a pretender, except to recruit sacreds and reduces the number of interesting choices that you have during pretender design (RIP Dominions 2 Themes, we hardly got a chance to know you).

It is you. There is nothing neglible about more sacred recruitment. Part of the reason for the changes was exactly what you are concerned with: more diversity of pretender dom. Almost no one took less than 5 but now you can play with lower. I mean, the complaints PRIOR to this change to dominion spread was everyone had to take high dominion so it was changed. Now you argue to go backwards?

Overall, I find the current system simply different. The most important change to pretender dominion was the more of Awe bless from candles to magic. That is far more significant. As I explained when you brought this up on Maer's Land, I still use various starting Dominions from 4 to 8 depending on build. Of course, we rarely see Dom 9 or 10 but we also rarely see magic level 8 to 10. The low level blesses are very cost efficient and the very high level blesses are not. That is in my opinion a related issue. General adjustment of design point costs would be interesting.

What I find difficult with these discussions is they pick one aspect and noodle it to death without considering the broader implications of such a change.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by Maerlande:

Originally posted by Legowarrior:

Is it me, or has the benefit of high Domain become nearly negligible in Dominions 5? It still impacts starting sacred recruitment, but Domain Pushing in general seems a lot weaker, and where in the past Domain 5 though 7 were the norm, I feel like Domain 4 is fine in Dominions 5 (with an awake pretender).

Because of this change, I feel like the cost of high Domain Pretenders seems unnecessarily high because you are paying to save at most 24 or 32 point (on pretenders that regular cost 40 to 60 points more).


It also makes the game less interesting thematically. Domain in the game Dominions is rarely, if ever considered in designing a pretender, except to recruit sacreds and reduces the number of interesting choices that you have during pretender design (RIP Dominions 2 Themes, we hardly got a chance to know you).

It is you. There is nothing neglible about more sacred recruitment. Part of the reason for the changes was exactly what you are concerned with: more diversity of pretender dom. Almost no one took less than 5 but now you can play with lower. I mean, the complaints PRIOR to this change to dominion spread was everyone had to take high dominion so it was changed. Now you argue to go backwards?

Overall, I find the current system simply different. The most important change to pretender dominion was the more of Awe bless from candles to magic. That is far more significant. As I explained when you brought this up on Maer's Land, I still use various starting Dominions from 4 to 8 depending on build. Of course, we rarely see Dom 9 or 10 but we also rarely see magic level 8 to 10. The low level blesses are very cost efficient and the very high level blesses are not. That is in my opinion a related issue. General adjustment of design point costs would be interesting.

What I find difficult with these discussions is they pick one aspect and noodle it to death without considering the broader implications of such a change.

I hate to disagree with you, but when you are wrong, well, I have to be honest and let you know, because that's what is important when it comes to friendships.

Sacred recruitment is top tier for a handful of nations, but there are plenty of nations that don't care one way or another. Come on @maerlande, you know that. Ulm, Shinu, Jomon, MA TC, Man, C'tis, and even more. A handful of nations need sacreds starting out, but they aren't the majority, and so you end with a handful of nations that will pay for high Domain just to get one set of recruits, and the rest of the nations can just ignore.

Honestly though, the nerf has done almost nothing to broaden diversity of pretenders in Dominions. It basically just changed what was acceptable. You went from 5 to 8 Domain in Dominions 3 and 4 (and 9 and 10 for nations that wanted Awe), and moved the numbers to 4 to 6, cutting out almost all the Immobles and Titans, in favor of Mages and Monsters, because, despite the Nerf of Starting Domain, there was no cost reduction when it came to the pretenders that started out with 3 or 4 Domain.

Say you want to get a decent push on your domain. In Dominions 3 and 4, a Domain of 7 would get you a 70% chance to push a candle. In Dominions 5, a Domain of 4 will get you the same.
A Mage Chassis with Domain 4 costs 42 points, and has a 70% chance of spreading domain.
In Dominions 4, that would be equal to Domain 7, and cost 147 points.
So, right there, a Mage has saved 105 points, or could afford more then 2 scales because the game punishes him a lot less.

Compared to a Titan with domain 4.
That costs 7 points.
Titans with Domain 7 - 70 points.
All told, the Titan saves only 63 points, so the difference in savings is about 1 scale.

So, the cheaper Mage, which already benefits from the new Rainbow Bless Mechanic, doesn't suffer from Incarnate Bless Penalty (Because they can spread their points around at no penalty) now also saves up to about 50 or 60 points by not needing to bother with Domain scores higher then 5 or 6.

On the other hand, the Titan doesn't benefit from the Rainbow Bless, is usually a good 120 or more points more expansive, is more likely to either suffer from the Incarnate Bless Penalty, or spend more points on a similar level of blesses, and doesn't even benefit much from having a starting domain of 3 because most nations are happy with again, 5 or 6 points.

Now, does this mean that Starting Domain is the biggest problem? Obviously, I've listed the other advantages that the game has for Mage Pretenders, so no, not on its own, but with the recent addition, the game of Dominions has truly shelves the concept of Domain as being important to the game.

As TheMage1 pointed out, Domain Kills aren't a thing anymore, and you only really need 1 domain in a province to get all the benefits. That aspect of the game is weakened greatly.

So, what is the solution?
I think giving Domain some more uses (i would like it to reduce unrest more, giving it more use for nations like Yomi or blood hunting nations), and nerfing the initial amount of Domain Spread down from 50% to something a little more manageable, like 20% +8*Domain.
But honestly, with all that I mentioned, I think Nerfing the Rainbow Bless would also be great, as would giving bless points on a scaling system, instead of a linear one.

[applenta]

Dom kill is still a thing, but you have to work harder than just getting high dominion score and build temle in the safety of your territory. You have to bring your priests and heretics out, and actively preach against foreign dominion. If dominion point's power were buffed, nothing would change, people would just buy a few more dominion points to balance things out, which is a no brainer, on the other hand, encouraging people keeping a low domain score will also create more opportunity for dom kill, and strategy specialization, instead of just an arm race deadlock of dominion pressure. In fact, i see that what had been ubiquitous like powerful dominion points or cheap 2 bless points magic weapon getting nerfed is the right thing as the game would be uniform with them as the standard bread and butter , faux option, choice but actually no choice.

Titan chassis is also more combat capable than mage chassis. Go for scale instead, most bless are not that useful anyway.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by applenta:

Dom kill is still a thing, but you have to work harder than just getting high dominion score and build temle in the safety of your territory. You have to bring your priests and heretics out, and actively preach against foreign dominion.

That doesn't seem like an alternative way to win, just killing your opponent with extra steps. Once you throw that many resources at it, why not go in and take the capital?

Which is not to say that Dom Kills should be easy, but from what you are laying out, it seems like there is no efficient way to do it.
If you take Dominion 10, and your opponent takes dominion 5, the difference in spreading a candle is 75% vs 100%. That's 147 points on an immobile pretender, and 196 points on a TItan

For 147 points, your opponent can take over 3 scales, or having a Sage Pretender take 3 in Astral, Death, Nature and Blood for the rainbow bless.
For 147 to 196 points, you don't get a lot out of.

By the way, having everyone take a few more points of Domain, that is and isn't the point. Yes I want a spread of Domain numbers, but there should be some risk to your domain if you opponent spends over 100 points more on starting domain then you do, just like their is some risk if you take an imprisoned Pretender instead of an awake one or if you take tank you Luck scales to get a better bless.

So, yeah, I want to see Starting domain have a little more impact on the game. We've seen what the current formula gets you, and it's not a real spread of Domain, just people more inclined to use the lower end of the scale.
Now, does not necessarily need to be candle spread? Yeah, I think that's part of it. Moving it to 20%+8*Domain or 30%+7*Domain seems reasonable, but it should be other things as well.

[applenta]

That's the point of specialization, it hurts, but you get the edge over everyone else in that matter, if it is so easy to get, then everyone would have it just like you and you will have little edge over them.

No, there is not suppose to be an (easy) effective way to do it, it will soon become a cancer.
Yup, if you think you can take your opponent's capital that easily, just go ahead and do it already, no need to beat around the bush. But when it is not that easy, dom kill will be your other option, whichever option that cost you less.

100 points difference is still not enough for an easy dom kill and victory. You should go for like 300 points. After all, soon everyone else will complain that they have spent hundreds of points in other stuffs too and still that stuff doesn't guarantee them victory.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by applenta:

That's the point of specialization, it hurts, but you get the edge over everyone else in that matter, if it is so easy to get, then everyone would have it just like you and you will have little edge over them.

No, there is not suppose to be an (easy) effective way to do it, it will soon become a cancer.
Yup, if you think you can take your opponent's capital that easily, just go ahead and do it already, no need to beat around the bush. But when it is not that easy, dom kill will be your other option, whichever option that cost you less.

100 points difference is still not enough for an easy dom kill and victory. You should go for like 300 points. After all, soon everyone else will complain that they have spent hundreds of points in other stuffs too and still that stuff doesn't guarantee them victory.

Note, I never said easy. It wasn't easy in Dominion's 3 or Dominion's 4, so asking for a change to undo some of the Domain change, I don't expect it to suddenly become 'easy' either.

But here are some idea of the level of impact on the game.

I am sure you have played game where players have not taken Magic 3, while other players have, and in those games, you do see a significant difference in terms of Research between the two nations, sometimes significantly.

If one nation spends 120 points in the triple resistance bless, like a Rainbow Archmage pretender and the other nation doesn't, I would expect a significant advantage for the Sacreds of the Archmage in the midgame.

3 production versus 0 production, I would expect an early advantage on the side with 3 production.

Again, these are all in the 100 to 120 point range. I don't see Domain given that range of benefit. At all.