Frustrated...

[halfzware]

Howdy, I've been playing Dom2 on and off for ... maybe a year? Long time. Its a great game, and theres something about it that keeps me coming back again and again.

I tend to play on sorta hard settings against the AI. I tend to stick to the inland map using all the land based civs, I usually do something like 4 easy, 4 normal, 3 impossible AI, as this gives some weak 'feeder' civs to the AI, and gives the impossible AIs some additional forts - I modded the resources/gold/supply to be considerably higher - as I think the AI performs better under these conditions. I also use the recruitable rebalance, and the conceptual pretender mod. So introductions aside...

It seems like dominions 2 vs the ai ends up being this awful war of slow attrition. Again and again, I've found in my D2 games, that even though I win all the fights, I inevitably lose the war.

In my current game, at around turn 80 I simply cannot field enough armies to secure any kind of sensible border. I only have about 14 armies, although these win every fight with very low casualties (they're almost all wraiths/trolls/vine ogres/sea trolls), I still can't secure my empire.

Thankfully, my enemy put out Burden of Time...him being Pangea means he's getting punished to all hell for it, while meanwhile my 'desert tomb' c'tis is having a field day. Anyway, there is a chance I'm gonna win. Thats cool and all, but the very, very slow war of attrition required to make it work will be grueling, time consuming and dull.

Am I the only one who thinks that the best part of dominions 2 is the rare occurance when two truly powerhouse armies collide - or putting together the right balance of troops for a really kick *** army. Even putting together the right set of commanders with the right equipment and the right troops.

I don't want to put together 35 crappy armies each with one or two interesting elements that makes them not suck. I want each of my armies to have character, personality, and basically... to be fun.

I hope that Dominions 3 streamlines gameplay just a little bit - encouraging the clasing of fewer larger armies. Even just something like having to briefly 'siege' a province for a couple turns before taking it over would be a huge improvement - as it would force you to actually be able to HOLD enemy ground, and therefore actually.... win fights against other armies.

The Dominions games have such tremendous potential, its frustrating to all hell that seemingly minor gameplay mechanisms can take so much away from it.

[Saber Cherry]

The ability to build a "Fort" might help.

Fort:
1 Turn
100 Gold
20 Defense
20 Supply
No Towers
0 Administration
Does Not Allow National Troop Recruitment
Upgrades to National Castle


I completely agree, though. It's so hard to defend your territory. Even if you split your army in 20 to cover all border provinces (and thus allow inevitable defeat-in-detail), you are still vulnerable to Ghost Riders or Hordes from Hell throughout the interior.

Of course, making Province Defense substantially stronger (and also giving it better units when a province has a fort, castle, temple, or lab) will go a long way to swinging the balance around. The enemy can't MIRV their midsize army against your 5 border provinces if each has PD 16, a fort, and a temple if those investments give them a real defensive force. And with an "Attack Army" or "Defend Provinces Within Range" command for a defending army, the invaders can't simply slip by because you mispredicted their target. Realistically, the US Military units in Utah wouldn't let Canada take Washington without coming to help, simply because the invasion was not listed in the month's "List of things to do". Washington units might not bother helping Utah, though, because there's really not much there

Cheap forts, stronger province defense that improves with buildings, and a "Defend Provinces Within Range" command would all be very nice features for Dominions III. Defense can be almost impossible without them, often making it an "Attacker = Winner" type system.

[Arralen]

Yeah, armies would need some kind of "reaction move" in case they havn't moved this turn and a neighbouring province is attacked. Maybe this will be realized in DOM3.

There is a cure in DOM2 that works at least to some extend:
Do not use a map like inland that is basically one big grassy plain.
Use a map with islands and lots of impassable borders formed by mountains. Put up forts at strategic locations, and you are at least save from roaming armies. Doesn't help against ghost riders, though.

Most later maps actually have their fair share of impassable borders - because other players noticed the problem, too, and started to work around it.

Arralen

[shovah]

i generally try to work myself into a location with as small a number of border showing as possible and then since i always have too much gold late game i build a basic commander at each of these provinces and make them build a castle. i have a small force in each province while the castle is build and once completed i crank up the pd (unless im mict or something in which case i assign a few mages and put taxs to 0 and have them blood hunt)

[Truper]

Seems to me that the problem might be you're outnumbered 11 to 1... Somewhat fewer ai might give you closer to the sort of game you're looking for.

The only other thing that would help is hard to achieve, and that's changing your mindset. *Accept* the fact that the best defense in Dom2 is a good offence, and look for ways to take provinces cheaply - and then take more of them than your opponents can.

Or... turn some friends onto the game, and play multiplayer

[Morkilus]

There are some interesting maps with impassable borders... Check the Maps subforum for "Siltrock" for a small one, and the Illwinter site (www.illwinter.com) for the Middle Earth, which I think is pretty fun for a big map. It doesn't help SP that there is no diplomacy. Most of the players around here seem to be pretty good diplomats, though I'm starting to think SP is good for just messing around, or trying expansion strategies... and that's about it.

[Daynarr]

halfzware said:
Howdy, I've been playing Dom2 on and off for ... maybe a year? Long time. Its a great game, and theres something about it that keeps me coming back again and again.

I tend to play on sorta hard settings against the AI. I tend to stick to the inland map using all the land based civs, I usually do something like 4 easy, 4 normal, 3 impossible AI, as this gives some weak 'feeder' civs to the AI, and gives the impossible AIs some additional forts - I modded the resources/gold/supply to be considerably higher - as I think the AI performs better under these conditions. I also use the recruitable rebalance, and the conceptual pretender mod. So introductions aside...

It seems like dominions 2 vs the ai ends up being this awful war of slow attrition. Again and again, I've found in my D2 games, that even though I win all the fights, I inevitably lose the war.

In my current game, at around turn 80 I simply cannot field enough armies to secure any kind of sensible border. I only have about 14 armies, although these win every fight with very low casualties (they're almost all wraiths/trolls/vine ogres/sea trolls), I still can't secure my empire.

Thankfully, my enemy put out Burden of Time...him being Pangea means he's getting punished to all hell for it, while meanwhile my 'desert tomb' c'tis is having a field day. Anyway, there is a chance I'm gonna win. Thats cool and all, but the very, very slow war of attrition required to make it work will be grueling, time consuming and dull.

Am I the only one who thinks that the best part of dominions 2 is the rare occurance when two truly powerhouse armies collide - or putting together the right balance of troops for a really kick *** army. Even putting together the right set of commanders with the right equipment and the right troops.

I don't want to put together 35 crappy armies each with one or two interesting elements that makes them not suck. I want each of my armies to have character, personality, and basically... to be fun.

I hope that Dominions 3 streamlines gameplay just a little bit - encouraging the clasing of fewer larger armies. Even just something like having to briefly 'siege' a province for a couple turns before taking it over would be a huge improvement - as it would force you to actually be able to HOLD enemy ground, and therefore actually.... win fights against other armies.

The Dominions games have such tremendous potential, its frustrating to all hell that seemingly minor gameplay mechanisms can take so much away from it.

All this doesn't sound like AI or game problem at all. You use fewer higher quality troops while he uses more low quality troops with which he floods you. Sounds like AI uses correct tactics against you and you use wrong one against AI. For example, you want some way to prevent AI from taking your provinces instantly. That's what castles are for, you just need to use them properly.

Some tips - when you start game you are NOT at war everyone. There is no diplomacy screen but you get at war with some AI only when you attack his territory or when he declares war at you (you get a message). Assassinations count as attacks too. Chances that AI will declare war on you are partially random and partially based on your relative power vs his relative power.
Also, if there was no fight for some (undefined) time between two nations an 'uneasy' peace comes in effect, but you can never be 100% sure about it since there is no message about it (that's part of the games charm I guess). The point is, you don't have to fight everyone at once unless everyone declared war at you. Usually, its 2, 3 AI's tops that will attack you. The rest will fight each other.

Second tip is to buy castle that is suitable for the map. If you fight in open maps like Inland then you need to get cheap to build castle (wizards tower is probably best on that map) and build it all along your borders. Then you build up your local defenses where castles are. After that (this is important), you buy a commander in those castles and give him your best troops you can buy there. Generally, best troops for that task are heaviest infantry you can get there and lots of archers. Set that commander on constant patrol as he will reinforce your local defenses. Doing this properly will give you HARD border that only huge AI forces will be able to break through. Don't use those border castles to build up your forces, use those in the back (like your main castle). That has 2 effects; your will be able to build up armies without interruption there and those forces you build up in your rear can be used to deal with any incursions in your rear (bad events or spells). Once you have forces ready send them and harass enemy for a change.

Works like charm when used properly, trust me.

P.S. this is for single player only, in multi player its completely different story.

[halfzware]

Err... Just to be clear, I am not at war with more than one AI. The other 13 AIs are all dead (I use all land civs in my games). Me and Pangea more or less split the defeated pretender capitals.

I usually use a no fort building house rule - it only seems fair considering the AI can't build them. But even if I didn't have a no fort building house rule -- my border was about 25-30 provinces long maybe more -- are you really suggesting spamming out 30 forts? Am I the only one who thinks that feels gamey?

In regards the choke friendly maps - I used to use them, Paragnos was one of my favorites. Until I realized the AI can't really handle them. The AI has no strategic logic for handling complicated map configuration, and really performs poorly under these conditions. Just to double check, I put out another game on Paragnos (indie 6)- in under 25 turns I had taken two impossible AIs home forts. No idea why the ai was THAT weak early game, but I do know that you don't get early performance that wimpy on inland or eye of god.

The AI really shines on Wars of Orana, but that scenario is way too hard for me. I think the difference is the two starting forts.