Musings on getting the most out of the early game

[quantum_mechani]

The thing that sets the expanding phase of Dominions apart from the rest is that it changes relatively little from game to game. Once you are warring with other players, there are so many possible strategies they might use, each situation is more or less unique. But when encountering only indies, it is actually possible to optimize it universally to a large degree.

While a Ghost King with full buffs may be able to walk through almost any independent provinces he wants, expanding with national troops you need to take more care in selecting your targets. It is almost never a good idea to attack on turn one. Instead, raise taxes and patrol with your starting army* and wait for turn two when scout reports about surrounding provinces come in. As a general rule, farm lands and lands with higher population are better defended by independents. Often you will want to pick the weakest (through possibly poorest) province for you starting army to take. If possible, plan for your army to circle your capital in such a way as they save the strongest province for last. This way, you can instantly ferry troops from your capital to your expanding army simply by sending a commander at the capital with the newly built troops to attack the same provinces as your original army. Additionally, put a very high priority on bidding for mercenaries whenever possible, they can double or more your rate of expanding. Of course circling the capital is many times not possible, and even when it is you may still want to save provinces containing heavy cavalry for your pretender or larger army to take to avoid unnecessary losses. A quick guide to the toughness of independents:

Easy: Tribal Archers, Tribal warriors; Militia, Archers, Light infantry; Woodsman (but avoid taking them with your pretender, a druid might get lucky casting sleep); Ghouls, Souless (bring a priest); Tribal Cavalry; Shamblers (only underwater)

Medium: Heavy infantry; Crossbows; Ichtyids and Ichtyid Warriors; Raptors; Tritons (underwater only, don't use your pretender without full resistance to poison); Barbarians (can be very difficult if you have no ranged troops and are unlucky with their morale not breaking); Slingers (if there are slingers that means there are wizards, you may want to have a scout set to retreat attack the province first to see what magic paths they have); Kraken, Sea Trolls (underwater only)

Difficult: Knights, Longbows; Heavy Cavalry; Triton Troopers (underwater only, don't use your pretender without full resistance to poison); Amazons; Dark Vines; Lizard warriors (similar to barbarians, also don't use your pretender or a shamen will curse it)

Very Difficult: Amber Clan Tritons; Unique Independents (great mother, lamias, paladins, etc.); Devils (this means a commander in the province has a soul contract and will continue to receive an extra devil every turn, often the only way to take the province is using assassins first)

Once you take a province, it usually has at least 5-10 unrest points for being the site of a battle. Often it is a good idea to take down taxes a couple of points for a few turns to get rid of the unrest, it will play off long term.

One tactic you should also keep in mind when expanding, and really for the whole game, is archer decoying. It is the practice of putting a small squad set to hold and attack (or even a single troop) slightly ahead and to the side of the rest of your army. Until those troops route or die, they should draw the fire of enemy ranged troops (mages are a bit smarter, they will aim for big clumps of troops). Some players consider this tactic cheesy as it is in fact exploiting the targeting AI, but you should be aware that in any given game many players are probably using it. Note that this is mostly of value only vs. AI nations and indies, since players that are aware of it may set their archers to something besides fire closest.

When you have your expansion rolling, normally you start looking at site searching. In general it is best to avoid manual searching in favor of long range site search spells like gnome lore. Of course there are many exceptions, it is very difficult research and it takes to long to get search spells, you have a pretender or mage with many different paths, or you lack the appropriate gem income to cast the spell. However by the time you are finished clearing independents, you should be doing almost all of your searching by spells. One search spell you should use very sparingly is achasic record, it looks very appealing but you can get almost the same effect for much fewer gems if you are thorough. Something else to keep in mind when searching is the terrain type. Farm provinces have the least sites, plains and ocean have more, mountains, forests and wastes have the most. Also certain types of sites are more common on certain terrain types, nature in forests, earth in mountains, water in mountains and forests, astral in plains, fire in wastes, air in mountains and wastes. Blood sites are rare in any terrain type, and the most common type (brigand lair) is mostly useless. Usually it is only worth searching for blood sites only if the unrest is increasing in a province for no reason you can see. Since holy sites are somewhat rare and cannot be remote searched, they often get ignored. But if you have priests with nothing better to do, don't hesitate to send them searching promising provinces. Unholy is even more difficult to search for, you have to make the tough choice between reanimating or the chance you might find a site.

*This provides an important jump-start for expanding, though you will eventually pay for it in reduced income from population lost. Exactly what level to set taxes depends on what nation you are playing. Nations that start with many units, fast units, flying units, or units with a patrol bonus all have an edge in patrolling, thus in how high they can go. On one end of the spectrum you have Abysia or Ulm that may only be able to manage 130%, on the other end Mackaka or Caelum which can usually do the full 200%.

[Ironhawk]

This is a pretty robust analysis of dom2 early game. I have only a couple of minor points to comment on.

-If your nation starts with a scout I "probe" promising provinces on turn 1 with it. This simply means attacking that prov with the scout (or any commander for that matter) set farthest back and ordered to retreat. This will reveal the exact composition of the indy force which can mean the difference b/w success or failure.

-Different nations value different terrain types more than others. This can effect in what order you capture the ring of provs around your capital (or if you stick with the ring at all). For example, Ulm with its high resource troops, might choose to attack Mountains and Forests before Plains so that it can boost production in the capital. On the other hand Ctis cares only about money and may ignore the capital ring for a time in order to exclusively attack high-value farm lands and plains.

-Mercs are always helpful, but keep in mind that the price of mercenaries effectively increases with additional players in a game. With more people bidding you will have to use more money to attain the winning bid. This in turn reduces the value of the merc somewhat, since you could have used that money for something else.

-Dont be afraid to use screens or decoys. They are invaluable in manipulating the combat AI to do what you want. With practice, this skill will become invaluable when you are able to orchestrate your troop layouts and orders to divert enemy attacks, trap/kill special enemy units, or bypass hard enemies to attack weaker ones.

-Sometimes it is more valuable to not capture a strong province than to capture it, if you believe the province may become a border with another empire. In this way, you forgo the gold/gem income of the province in exchange for a border province which you do not have to defend. Of course any real army can destroy any level of indies but it will force your opponent to make a choice: attack this indy knight province and possibly lose valuable men? or attack this regular border province of my enemy's? And if you can influence your opponent's behavior in this way, then you can fortify yourself appropriately.

[quantum_mechani]

Good points, particularly this one:

Ironhawk said:
-If your nation starts with a scout I "probe" promising provinces on turn 1 with it. This simply means attacking that prov with the scout (or any commander for that matter) set farthest back and ordered to retreat. This will reveal the exact composition of the indy force which can mean the difference b/w success or failure.

This has the added bonus of often giving your scout a heroic ability. That may not seem like much, but there is a variety of uses for heroic scouts. Quickness or precision ones are great for equipping with ranged/spellcasting magic items, awe or toughness can make them neat solo raiders, and of course almost anything on a Jotun scout makes them even more useful...

[Endoperez]

quantum_mechani said:
This has the added bonus of often giving your scout a heroic ability. That may not seem like much, but there is a variety of uses for heroic scouts. Quickness or precision ones are great for equipping with ranged/spellcasting magic items, awe or toughness can make them neat solo raiders, and of course almost anything on a Jotun scout makes them even more useful...

And when you take into account that Jotun Scouts have better stats than your starting Jotun Herse... And a Jotun Scout that has had Heroic Quickness for over ten turns is pretty powerful once you have researched Construction and give him few items, armor makes the most difference but other items are very useful, as well. And of course, if you prophetize him...

[Morkilus]

Thanks, QM. This is perfect for those stuck in n00bville like me. Does everyone do the tax-heavy thing at the beginning of the game until a stable army is built? I usually wait a couple turns while researching a good spell for my pretender to fire, but that hurts in those very difficult research games.

[quantum_mechani]

Morkilus said:
Does everyone do the tax-heavy thing at the beginning of the game until a stable army is built?

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I usually (unless, say, I'm surrounded by heavy cavalry provinces) move out my starting army plus whatever I built on the first turn to start conquering on turn two. With a combat pretender, he often stays behind at first to research buffs, then starts conquering solo.

[Ironhawk]

One point that I just thought of: The dilemma of whether to prophetize one of your starting commanders or to recruit one and prophetize that. What do you folks do?

[Truper]

Personally, I don't find patrolling for dollars on the early turns to be worthwhile. The loss in population can be significant, and you will eventually lose more than you gain - although there is certainly something to be said for having higher income *now*.

As for prophets, it depends entirely on nation. If I'm playing a nation with level 4 priests, you can be sure I'll recruit one on turn one, and prophetize him on turn 2. I love having a prophet who can Smite - it just feels so *right*. On the other hand, if I'm playing Man, which has no high-level priests, I'll ususally make the starting Castellan my prophet.

[quantum_mechani]

Truper said:
Personally, I don't find patrolling for dollars on the early turns to be worthwhile. The loss in population can be significant, and you will eventually lose more than you gain - although there is certainly something to be said for having higher income *now*.

As for prophets, it depends entirely on nation. If I'm playing a nation with level 4 priests, you can be sure I'll recruit one on turn one, and prophetize him on turn 2. I love having a prophet who can Smite - it just feels so *right*. On the other hand, if I'm playing Man, which has no high-level priests, I'll ususally make the starting Castellan my prophet.

The thing about turn one patrolling, by the time the expense catches up with you, it should have easily paid for itself with faster expanding.

I very much agree about prophetizing though, it all depends on the nation. If you are playing Niefelhiem, not many people are going to pass up a Niefel Jarl prophet. And if you are Man or Ulm with nothing particularly eye-catching to prophetize, you might as well do starting scout or commander. That is an interesting choice in itself though, scout prophets can stealth preach and spread dominion where you want it later, but they have a tendency to die when moral supporting early battles.

[WraithLord]

Very good thread.

Except for patrolling I'm using all the other tactics. By now they are routine for me, I hardly give them much thought by now

I have a couple of things to add.

-> Prophetizing. For nations with level four priests I usually wait a few turns before recruiting a would be prophet. Early on I prefer to use gold for mercs, troops and cheap researchers.

-> Assassins.. For nations with assassins, a possible expansion strat. is assassins with skull talisman (the one that makes skeletons). They are very useful vs. easy to medium level indies.

-> RB pretenders. I usually research evoc 1, alter 2 with pretender. Then script it to quickness, 4X fire arrows. Then I use in following pattern: search province (expansion army attacks another province); join army and attack new province; This way I end up both using the pretender for searching and the turn wasted for him to move to a new province is at least used for support.

-> Decoys. I use different ones depending on indie composition. For archers use high prot. troops. For xbows use fodder.

-> Site searching. w/o RB pretender always use the long range detection spells. They are most cost efficient choice between manual search and accashic records. With RB pretender, combine RB search and long range spells.

-> Patrolling. Like others I find the long term pop. (hence income) loss to outweigh to short term gains. However this is very general. For sure there might be specific cases when it's worth while to patrol.
I wonder what is (avg.) pop. growth rate for a province with 200% tax rate that is heavily patrolled to be kept in unrest level of 0.