Noob questions!

[DominionsFan]

I am very new to Dominions, so I have some strategic questions:

1. What is the best combination of magic schools to make a decent pretender? Take lot of astral levels? I read something about those magic duels but I don't understand it at all.

2. What is better? Recruit and summon the strongest armies what you can, or mass the weaker units?

3. Is it worth to take 6+ levels in a magic school -> Specialize? Or take 3-4 levels from more?

4. What is the purpose of Dominion strength?

5. How the supply is working exactly? Is it good to build castles in all provinces? Castles are sucking the resources away from other provinces???

6. How can I raise the amount of the resources in a province?

This is all so far.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
I am very new to Dominions, so I have some strategic questions:

Do you want Dom I answers? Or Dom II? Or both?

[DominionsFan]

Dom I, please. I will get dominions 2. so I will see the differences than.

[Truper]

1. "Best" is pretty hard to define A couple of strategies you can try: a) Give your pretender magic that your race doesn't otherwise have. Suppose you are playing Man - you might design a pretender with fire magic, so you can find fire sites, craft fire-based magic items and cast nasty fire evocations. b) Pick out a specific spell from the spell manual that you think would be fun to cast, and design your pretender to be able to cast it.

Magic Duel is pretty simple really - if an astral mage casts Magic Duel and the enemy has an astral mage present, they will "duel" and one of them will die. The greater astral skill your mage has, the greater the chance that he will win the duel. The relevance to Pretender design is this: suppose you decide to invest in a magic-heavy pretender (rather that putting the design points into dominion scales or castle), and you include a point or two of astral skill. Then an opponent who has a mage with 3 or 4 points of astral skill can duel your pretender, and all those design points are wasted. So the common wisdom seems to be that you either take no astral on your pretender, or you take a lot so that you will tend to win duels. A third way (as I belive Pocus pointed out) is to take moderate astral, but plan on keeping your pretender out of combat.

2. That's largely a matter of style. I personally tend to favor quality over quantity, but both work

3. If you're going to take 6+ levels in a school, be very sure that your strategy requires it - very few spells need 6 or more levels in a school, so unless you think those spells are very important, taking that many levels is a waste.

4. The stronger your dominion, the easier it is to spread it out into the world. Your troops get a morale bonus when fighting in your dominion.

5. The short answer - supply "radiates" from castles out to 4 provinces, IIRC. The further from a castle, the less supply. For the long answer, read the manual Build castles where there is something important to protect, or where you need more supply, or where you want to build more troops than the current resouces of the province allows.

6. Build a castle there. The administration value of a castle draws that % of resources from neighboring provinces that you control. There is also an Earth ritual called Riches from Beneath that will raise the resources of provinces under your dominion.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
I am very new to Dominions, so I have some strategic questions:

1. What is the best combination of magic schools to make a decent pretender? Take lot of astral levels? I read something about those magic duels but I don't understand it at all.

There is no best. There is only Pros and Cons. The game has excellent balance (the opposite of "best"). Each of the magic schools has some great points to it but it depends alot on your style of play. I might say that certain choices are "best" but it would only be best because I have a certain style of play (in my case a jack of all trades going for surprise and unusual slim-chance tactics). Do you play continually aggressive barbarian horde style? Sneaky assassin style? Defensive to do alot of research style? build-up and rush out style? Diplomacy?

As far as astral there is a fairly common agreement that if you take any of it, you need to take a really good amount of it because it makes you susceptable to some attacks.

2. What is better? Recruit and summon the strongest armies what you can, or mass the weaker units?

Again this depends on your style. And "better" would depend on also who you are going up against. One of the great things about this game (and one of the irriating things) is that no one tactic works the same against all of the opponents.

3. Is it worth to take 6+ levels in a magic school -> Specialize? Or take 3-4 levels from more?

There are those who prefer both of these. The 6+ levels usually means pushing fast for a particular spell that you use really well. The other usually means doing searching for sites. Both have pros and cons often depending on the size of the map, how many opponents, are the human or AI players, etc.

4. What is the purpose of Dominion strength?

Ahhh excellent question. The dominion is represented in the game by the candles which is really a good choice. If you turn on the dominion highlighting on the map while you play a game you will see the "light" in your strong dominion areas get bright, and a spreading darkness caused by enemy dominions. The dominion is the "light of your power" spreading across the land.

The stronger that light in a province, the more benefit it recieves. The choices you made in the scales will affect more. Your prophet and your pretender both receive benefits in things like hit points. Certain spells are stnger in your dominion and some wont work at all unless your dominion is strong there.

Notice that the strength of your dominion does not have to agree with what provinces you control. A darkness inside your provinces might mean a site is affecting it which you have not yet discovered. Or it might mean that another player is pushing in toward you. Your dominion extending past your owned provinces will give you information about them such as population and defences.

5. How the supply is working exactly? Is it good to build castles in all provinces? Castles are sucking the resources away from other provinces???

Not all provinces. Im not sure if there would be a working strategy around that. I do wish the two smallest castle options were cheaper since there are races where having alot of castles quickly would be good. Generally, you can place a few castles strategically to gain more benefits than just the admin stuff. Bottleneck positions, particular local troops that you wish you had more resource points for, protecting important sites/labs/temples.

6. How can I raise the amount of the resources in a province?

Building a castle that has admin bonuses. Having certain scales kicked up and putting temples or priests there to raise the dominion strength.

This is all so far.

So far is right! heehee. Sounds like you are getting into the first phase of it all.

Sorry if I overdid the answers. Im an out-of-work Customer Support person.

[ October 07, 2003, 16:16: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:

1. What is the best combination of magic schools to make a decent pretender? Take lot of astral levels? I read something about those magic duels but I don't understand it at all.

Most of the time you'll pick magic schools your national mages aren't proficient in.

Above all, if your nation sucks at air magic, pick air 3+, so you can protect your troops against lightning and shut down enemy fliers and archers by casting Storm or forging a Staff of Storms.

Earth 2-3 is useful to locate Firbog castles and forge Dwarven Hammers, and allows super combattants to cast Invulnerability on themselves (increases protection up to 30).

The air 3/earth 2-3 combo is cool as it allows you to forge Staves of Elemental Mastery, a nice enhancing item to have.

Fire and water magic have less to offer than the 2 other elemental schools - IMO. When I do choose them, I usually pick fire 3 (or only 2 if I have a bit of death magic), and water 2.

Astral magic is one of the most useful schools, if you're not afraid of being magic duelled.

Nature and Death are also interesting schools with powerful enchantments and conjurations, but nature and death independent mages (druids and Harab Seraphs) are not that uncommon, so you can skip these schools and still hope to find these in your starting area.

Blood magic is special, if you're not ready to commit to it seriously you'd better skip it completely. Since blood slaves aren't collected at magic sites, blood magic is more potent on maps with a low magic site frequency. Its main interest is the ultra-powerful summons you get at research level 4 and 6.

Magic Duel is an astral spell which have you confront an enemy astral mage. The most skilled mage usually wins, and the loser dies - plain and simple. That's why there's a race for astral supremacy in Dominions.

2. What is better? Recruit and summon the strongest armies what you can, or mass the weaker units?

Look at morale and protection first. Then look at the damage rating of your primary weapon - or at weapons with multiples attacks if your main enemy uses low-protection troops like flagellants.

3. Is it worth to take 6+ levels in a magic school -> Specialize? Or take 3-4 levels from more?

Usually the later, although I sometimes go with high astral (7+) because I'm a coward, or mid-high death to get the most out of reanimation and conjuration spells.

4. What is the purpose of Dominion strength?

(a) Without it you die.
(b) Higher morale for your troops in your dominion
(c) Increased stats for your pretender and your prophet.
(d) Keep Ermor in check! ;-)

With most nations a dominion of 3-6 is OK. A bit higher for cold/heat loving ones. Underwater nations often take it higher because it's harder for them to maintain a steady dominion unless they conquer several coastal provinces.

5. How the supply is working exactly? Is it good to build castles in all provinces? Castles are sucking the resources away from other provinces???

Supply is based on the population of the province you're in, its growth/death scale and its heat/cold scale. In addition nearby castles send supplies up to 5 provinces away, based on their administration value, as long as a friendly path can be traced to the province. Nature mages provide a few supplies to their troops. A few items and special creatures also do this.

6. How can I raise the amount of the resources in a province?

Lower unrest. Build castles.