Terrible Player.

[paarfi]

I'd like to second the suggestion of reading Baalz's guides. I started out playing Marverni, loading up on boar lords and carnute nobles, and throwing them straight into battle with a heavy bless. I'd avoid the druids for the most part because the old age scared me off. Of course I got beat down regularly by the AI.

Then I read Baalz's Marverni guide, and it was like discovering a whole new game. All those different ways to use a druid! Different ideas and strategies that seemed to fit that nation so well.

I read the rest of Baalz's guides, and some from others in this forum with great interest. I would never have thought to fit out Shide Lord thugs for Eiru or Tir like that. Amazing. The game stopped seeming like a bland bunch of nations with basically similar units and different themes just for flavor. The ways some seemingly minor spell or unit could transform the way you play a nation made me want to dive in and try them out. It also made me think about the possibilities, and how alter those strategies with my own ideas.

I thought the manual was very well written. But it wasn't until I started reading Baalz's guides and some of the others here that I really started to understand and appreciate Dominions. Highly recommended to all newbies and strugglers.

[Gandalf Parker]

It sounds as though you consider yourself a "thug" player. Not stealth, research, turteling (defensive), horde, or super-combatant.

Altho I also like to use PD more than average I would rarely use it that much. Generally (depending on what nation you are playing) I would buy 1 PD every time at least and try to get it to 6 (which means I dont have to sweat drop-attacks from werewolves or birds), 11 if its connected to my capital or has a high population or an important site or important lab, 21 if I build a castle. And thats only for solo games on mid to large maps (not recommended as a habit if you plan to play multiplayer games anytime soon)

[Conq]

I believe he was implying that you were "trolling" the forum looking to get a response out of people (look it up on wikipedia or urbandictionary).

I'm still playing dominions2 so im not sure how much help my advice would be but here's some of the things I did when I started out.

At the beginning get a good sized army together (roughly 25 or so "good" troops or around 50 "alright" troops depending on what you can afford and what nation you are etc) start taking the independents around you with that army, I usually put only 5 pd on each conquered province, 25 on any castles I build. Keep recruiting mages to research until you need to replenish some troops (note: while you are recruiting mages you can go ahead and recruit troops at the same time). You'll have to look at some guides to see whats best to research. Dont worry so much about defending your provinces, the computer (in dom2) tends to recruit a bunch of crap troops in all of their provinces and then snowball them together, so when you are facing a couple really big armies you should realize that behind them there is mostly open range for your stealth/flying/thugs/remote spells so if you can hold off the big armies you can trash their backyard.

Or if you are still getting stomped you can always download a mod and then go in and start editing some units so they are essentially unstoppable (but thats nots really much fun) if you take this approach I suggest editing a pretender only (give them all kinds of magic and abilities and all the bells and whistles) that will make it kinda more sporting for the AI because your pretender can only be in one place at a time.

Hope this helps.

*This is at lease 10 times longer than any one of my posts so far

[thejeff]

As I alluded to above, the AI looks at PD. I believe it looks at PD in distinct levels, basically 1-10,11-20, 21+. I generally will put either 11 or 21 in provinces that border a so far peaceful AI. This helps convince them not to bother with me.

The reason upkeep is killing you is that you're not expanding fast enough. You don't have enough territory to to earn enough income to afford mages for the research you need. Though if you're burning that much money on PD and forts, some of it could go towards mage upkeep. Also remember that sacred mages are half upkeep. You're going to want the big guns anyway, but may affect which mages you buy for research.

This is a common problem early on. It seems like it should be easy, but figuring out what troops and formations to use to take indies with minimal losses, but without using more resources than needed is an art.

Also some of the tactics in the guides work better in MP than in SP. A lot of the raiding thugs (Sidhe Lord w/ E9N4 bless, Frost Brand & Vine Shield, for example) are designed to be cheap and effective against low PD and small forces. They'll get overwhelmed against the 100s of troops the AI has wandering around its backfield, much less its main armies.

[Squirrelloid]

I dunno, a sidhe lord with 4 reinvig, a frost brand, and a vine shield can kill a remarkably large amount of troops. I've seen one beat a veteran army (2-3 xp stars/unit) of ~200 demons and elite troops. Or you could ask Namad about his experience. =) Its epic. (Seriously, ballads should be written).

[Tollund]

The reason you can't afford mages is likely because you aren't expanding fast enough, and you aren't expanding fast enough because you are spending 8000 gold on province defense instead of hundreds of troops that can get you more provinces and more gold.

[Joelz]

For newbies playing in EA, I'd suggest taking Abysia, and researching mostly Evocation. You get great battle spells which don't hurt your fire immune troops.
Also, most of your infantry is heavily armored, so they can take arrow fire, which is particularly bothersome in EA.

[chrispedersen]

Um..

I'm an ok player =). I rarely put 20 Pd. I build 1 castle every 4-5 provinces - and I'm considered an aggressive castle builder.

Try starting with sauromatia, hinnom or niefle. These are 3 very strong races. Read Baalzs guides if necessary, but these nations can conquer with their starting troops, and only need to field 5 (niefle) to 30 troops (sauro) to conquer most indies.

[Bananadine]

I never had major trouble with the Normal-level AI, even starting out... but personally, I rather like the 125 PD thing in games against harder AI's. A maxed-out PD is a maintenance-free grinder that the foolish AI will throw large armies into, one after another. It can pay for itself by wasting enormous amounts of enemy gold, even though it's a hugely expensive investment for you! (But I don't mean to say that turtling behind extreme PD is the BEST strategy to use against the AI, or that Ivy would do well to focus on it--I'm just saying that it does work.)

Surely six or so D2 or better necromancers, with a modest number of guards, can defeat most armies that a Normal-level AI would use? Surely it isn't too hard to blast across the map early with EA Abysia's sacred units and a strong blessing in nature, water, etc. Many, many things can defeat Normal-level AI....

[Gandalf Parker]

With PD, particularly in the early learning-the-nations days, its best to keep in mind that not all Province Defense is the same. Recruiting the locals to help out is a good idea. Especially if its not just guard duty but actually a spot that is likely to get attacked by a strong force. Key chokepoints and such.

I find that "lots and lots" of PD isnt as good as just one "lots" with one unit of added support. Some PD just needs a couple of extra commanders. Some do fine but really lack some heavy hitters such as a few mounted knights. And many of them can really do two or three times as effective if they only had more archery support. If that province, or one nearby, can provide just one full-time force with instructions added to the PD it can make all the difference. And of course casters but that tends to be a whole different subject.

Also keep in mind that the PD seems to fight like an unpracticed local militia. They all just seem to start in the middle and charge forward. So its the other formations I concentrate on. A strong front line. Or flanking fire set to concentrate on a certain group such as archers. A large fast group set to attack rear. Or a heavy mounted flanking group set to hold-&-attack rear.