Best way to push dominion?

[licker]

Options are build temples on the front, stealth preach, preach on border, preach at temples, move God/Prophit to border, ...

Am I missing anything? What works best?

Blood sacrifice as well at a temple if you have the national ability...

[Executor]

Stone idols are good, but expensive if you get caught.

[Endoperez]

Some nations can blood sacrifice, some have inquisitors.

The dominion chosen at the start of the game also has a big effect on dominion spreading power. Initial dominion values of 9 and 10 give the pretender Awe, which works great in early expansion when combined with protection and/or Fear. This is less feasible with pretenders that start with low dominion, like Dragons, because the cost of increasing dominion scales up with the number of increases (1 to 6 or 3 to 8 cost the same).

Temples stop spread of hostile dominion well, so temples near border can help hold back enemy dominion.


I've heard that Mictlan can spread dominion very fast by Blood Sacrificing with a couple of priests wielding Jade Knives (N/B item, increases the amount of slaves a priest can sacrifice to increase dominion). Other blood sacrificing nations could also do it, but Mictlan has lots of priests, jade knives and slaves any way, and probably rather high dominion (to allow the recruitment of more sacreds and to keep their dominion alive in the early game) so it's easy to pull off.

[thejeff]

There are also various heretic/skeptic units/items that reduce anyone's dominion. These can be used to reduce his dominion in advance of your push. Best if stealthy of course.

[Omnirizon]

Various nations throughout time have also noticed that torture is a very effective mean of pushing their dominion.

[Executor]

How about making a heretic your pretender, I think he would spread your dominion and damage enemy.
EDIT: And by pretender I mean prophet...

[OmikronWarrior]

To push dominion in the early game, you'll want high starting dominion combined with an awake pretender.

Once decent expansion (and dominion spread) is under way, I'd say there are only two efficent ways to spread your dominion: preaching and blood sacrifice (both assumming you have a decent current max dominion anyways). If you want to spread your dominion onto enemy territory... good luck. Your opponent gets to build temples and move preachers freely and set up patrols. Conquest first, spread dominion after.

[vfb]

Tearing down unprotected enemy temples is a good idea. Send (Lesser) Horror and Ghost Riders work well against most PD.

Popping up a new temple in a province you've taken in enemy dominion will help your priests convert it faster when they preach there.

Late game you can also build Juggernauts.

[chrispedersen]

telistic animation.