Offensive Rituals vs Summoning?

[Dedas]

SlipperyJim said:

Yes, but ... there's still a cost to your target. Patrolling kills people while it lowers unrest. That's a permanent hit to the income & resources for that province.

Also, there's the opportunity cost of patrolling. How many people patrol their capital provinces just for the heck of it? That patrolling army cost either gold (if regular troops) or gems & mage-turns (if summoned troops) to create. Either way, that's gold and/or magical resources that your opponent isn't using to smite you.

Screwing with your opponent is always worth doing in Dominions.

Patrolling your capitol and other important places against spies and spells do not need to cost very much, sometimes nothing at all. The reasons are holy troops (low upkeep and sometime low cost as well), effective patrollers (patrol ability, fliers and high AP + high prec units) and of course the "free" spawns. The best patrollers are of course a combination of all these.

I really believe it is worth to patrol your borders, high income provinces and army building sites. The payoff may not come immediately, but in the long run your are at an advantage as your opponents won't have any details on your plans and thus cannot disrupt them very much. And if the enemy don't have any patrolling units himself you really have the upper hand.

Any nasty surprise attacks with stealth armies that the enemy might try to pull off can also be countered with dedicated or dynamic patrolling units. Because province defense on its own won't stand much chance on finding an all stealth 20 army. The main reason to this is that they don't have any minuses on stealth strength in regards to numbers. An example would be the EA Pangaea's Satyr Sneaks.

If you fear that your patrolling units don't really stand a chance against the enemy they might find, just set them to retreat, and they will live to patrol another day. If you have horse archers (very common) they can fire and flee which can cripple a good stealth army some (as they probably have no armour or shields as they are stealthy instead).