Temple Location

[JonBrave]

Does it make any difference where temples are built (purely in terms of domain spread)? Are they all "pooled", so you may as well build them safe in your heartland, or do they "push outward" from where they are situated (like, I assume, your pretender & prophet at least do, and maybe your capital too)?

[thejeff]

Dominion pushes outward from the temple.

[OmikronWarrior]

Every temple generates a "temple check," which has a chance of either improving the Dominion Score in the province its located, or choosing a random neighboring province and raising its dominion score or choosing a random neighboring province and... etc. etc.

So, yeah, Dominion spread does come from temples, so it makes sense to build temples along borders. However, a temple outside of a fortress is a huge target for opponents (though not the AI). Raiders, stealth troops, or regular armies if they get close enough, will attack the province and bye-bye 400 gold investment! Still, when it comes to pushing Dominion near borders, a small attachment of priests will work wonders.

[Ragnars Wolves]

So if you use a Jade knife...the 'extra temple checks' it gets will extend your domain from the place you sacrificed the Blood slave?

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Ragnars Wolves

So if you use a Jade knife...the 'extra temple checks' it gets will extend your domain from the place you sacrificed the Blood slave?

Never checked this myself, but that was the common wisdom, yes.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

Every temple generates a "temple check," which has a chance of either improving the Dominion Score in the province its located, or choosing a random neighboring province and raising its dominion score or choosing a random neighboring province and... etc. etc.

So, yeah, Dominion spread does come from temples, so it makes sense to build temples along borders.

Let's go through this in a touch more detail, if I may. Say that all of my owned provinces are already at my maximum dominion level. Does that mean that any successful checks bubble all the way out to my borders? And then at that point I might as well build a new temple back home, on that basis?

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

Let's go through this in a touch more detail, if I may. Say that all of my owned provinces are already at my maximum dominion level. Does that mean that any successful checks bubble all the way out to my borders? And then at that point I might as well build a new temple back home, on that basis?

Yes.

Once your dominion is maxed in the province with a temple, the temple check will necessarily expand outwards, so if your whole lands are at max dominion, you can pretty much build new temples wherever you like, they will spread far.
However, I don't think anyone has managed to provide a valid formula for how the temple checks expand outward and when they fail to expand.

[thejeff]

Yes. The only thing a Jade Knife changes is that it allows you to sacrifice 2 more slaves. The mechanics work just like regular blood sacrifice, which works just like 2 regular temple checks for each sacrifice. Thus temple with an H3 priest with a Jade Knife can produce 11 temple checks per turn for most nations. This is considered overpowered by some.

[archaeolept]

it certainly is OP if you know how to use it, but so are many many things

[thejeff]

There's a formula in the manual. It seems to be correct. The thing that's in dispute is whether checks that fail to settle in enemy dominion propagate or die. The manual is unclear.

It's rare to actually max dominion in all your provinces and even if you do you want dominion to spread into one enemy's lands so it's still often better to place temples near the desired target.