O.K.
Here comes some very very short form of AAR. How the game developed in my eyes, and my questions to it:
My Pretender is a rainbow great enchantress with F3A4E2S3 and good scales for income. I figured my nationals would give me enough nature. My idea was to roughly follow Baalz guide. Expanding rather fast and build lots of fortresses. Additionally I wanted to use my Foresters to overtax all my provinces rto 110%
It worked quite well, as I was leader in money or nearly so most of the game.
I started in Province 79. I started immediately south, to block entrance to my lands at the lake. I met the Ulm PoD and nearly killed him with Longbowmen. I agreed with Ulm on a border at the lake and secured it with fortresses. That gave me a somewhat smaller than medium realm with no access to the center. But my lands were very defensible, and I built lots of forts to strengthen that, and to collect more income.
The problem was my lack of access to the smaller nations, so I tried some diplomacy to prevent Ulm and Pan eat them up. Tried to play those other two against each other. Pan finally ended all my efforts by beating down Arco which resulted in the world war with Man and Ulm against Pan and Eriu, that decided the game. I still had access problems to Pan. I was not able to conquer Giants Rest in reasonable time. And behind it there was Rethia with its Plaguewater stream, diseasing my armies. It really took some time until I mustered enough slingers to tear down the walls. Same goes for Livenmark in my heartland, which Pan conquered with a feary trod. It was costly, but Pan held it for a long time.
I tried some tricks to get past the choke point in Giants Rest, going by sea, or by magic and it worked to some degree.
Pan started to send out scouts with banevenom charms, which I found to be very effective, diseasing lots of my many Mothers of Avalon. I sneaked too with Wardens and Lord Wardens. They were quite effective.
But in my opinion what did the trick were the Bards. They are just very, very effective at crippling an economy. And with very expansive Pans, Pan just needs its money.
So to speak of my war against Pan:
What decided it was the absence of the Gorgon and my Bards.
What could have turned the tide were more Pan Thugs/SC's. The last one (Thenetos?) was even stronger than Ares, as he had more MR (28?). He alone was not enough in the end, but 3 or 4 of them could have driven me back.
If I look at my armies now, there is not so much left. Most died from Disease. Only the Knights of Avalon are nearly immune, which makes them even greater units than they are anyway.
Now some questions from me:
What is an effective counter to Bards spreading unrest?
I would like to know some things about Eriu:
-Why did they fare so badly in the beginning? They had a similar starting position as me, with a nice backyard and a very defensible acces to its realms.
Was there an early war between Eriu and Arco?
What happened later to Eriu? Why did he suddenly beat bqack Ulm on large scale? Eriu even reached my southern border. And Ulm gave Gems to me because he thought he wouldn't stand much longer. What was Erius strategy in that successful campaign?
What ended that campaign, and why in turn couldn't Eriu put a stop to Ulms advance afterwards?
I have to say I learned a lot in this game, and I really learned to love Dom as an MP game. Thats why that Eriu comeback fascinates me. In most of the strategy games power scales almost exclusively with size. And if you have a certain size advantage you almost certainly win, because the smaller one has lesser resources every time. But in Dom this seems not to be so strict a case. The smaller one has his chance with good tactics and strategy. And thats really great.
Thanks to all and I am looking forward to the Gorgon
Re: Nations - MA, CBM 1.6, max lvl 6 magic, NI, Assimilation mod - Running
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