Suggestions?

[vanedor]

This is my current situation. I started in a very bad starting point with no real natural border, on the Aran map. Usually, I was just restarting the game when I began in a such situation but this time, I wanted to see how good I would fare with Marignon.



At first, I had R'lyeh for northern neigbbor and they were using massive armies of illithids. I feared them. But fortunatly(I would say it's fortunate, since I'm playing Marignon), they got conquered by Ermor. Anyways, I have always been at peace with my northern neighbour and I wish to keep it this way for now.

The problems come from the south. The first and only empire I truly attacked up to now is Caelum. I had them almost defeated( I was besieging their capital) when an unexpected attack from lizardmen forced me to halt my offense and forced me to retreat to my initial borders. Worse, I did not have sufficient troops to create an efficient front line so I'm plagued with lizard troops deep in my territory.

So I'm curious about what the experienced dom2 players you are could suggest me to do. Try to finish Caelum as quickly as possible? Try to concentrate on defensive and establish a solid line of defense? Something else?

[Tals]

I set my defense between 10 and 20, still new to this game and haven't quite got the hang of defense, it seems for a relatively low outlay you get a set number of defenders until they are routed.

Be interested in what others do though, Also was wondering about fortresses, whether you should set these up, but persumably they have to be spaced 2 squares apart from each other and care taken whether they will take the resources from an ajacent square?

Tals

Unless you send a stopgap force at wherever he is incoming from you won't be able to stop his flood of troops that will wreak havok with your economy. If you have them, use provincial summons (Call of the Wild, etc) to take back provinces while you hammer into his army provinces with your real armies. I wouldn't let Caelum get to much of a foothold back, though if you can, keep his dominion where C'tis is invading from, as it's Cold and the Lizards are Cold Blooded.

I'd be slightly more worried about Arco from the north starting their invasion to your Castle.

[ March 01, 2004, 05:56: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Wauthan]

As long as you present a "bait" province, the AI will prefer to attack it above any else. This means you can use a mix of indepentants and provincial defence to funnel C'Tis into a position where you can attack his force as well as cut off his retreat. The lizards have a lot of trouble standing up against Marignons heavy troops and crossbows. So if you can get a small, no more than two commanders and 40 units perhaps, but determined force advancing into his territory you should be able to divert the attention away from yourself.

Since you got Ermor next door I recommend massing cheap priests, around 20 will do fine, and plow right into him. Ermor will pretty soon be able to overtake arcosephale so presenting a diVersion might distract them long enough for you to deal with the lizards.

[Gandalf Parker]

Caelum likes to drop "call of the winds". If you are seeing this then I would raise defense from 7-11 in any important provinces. Instead of trying to protect everything look for important choke-points you need to hold.

You are fire, they are cold. Keep the dominion pumping strong.

Marignon usually has no money problems (if you havent discovered the hoy of converting fire gems into gold then definetly try it). So you can afford to enter caelum territory again and NOT plan to hold onto provinces. Turn the taxes to 200 percent, pillage, gather blood slaves, and keep going until that army is completely used up. Mercs can be good for that. Unrest over 100 cant produce troops so you procude troops in every one of those provinces until the unrest stops you. Even if Caelum gets the provinces back you will have made things hard on them. They will have to patrol awhile to get anything from those provinces.

If you can get an army into the province with a castle then hold it. Use that province to the max as laid out in the previous paragraph. Taking the province does at least as much damage to them as actually taking the castle. Dont be in such a rush to get inside that you lose the province.

[ March 01, 2004, 13:52: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[vanedor]

Thanks for the tips.

In truth, I'm not much worried about Arco. They have their hands full with Ermor who got huge armies(not shown on the graph). But I admit, if they do attack, I'm in major trouble.