About the battle replays from my saved files

As stated in the About introduction, you can check the game through my save game files (links in the About section).

As already said, the files being from an older version, the battles won’t run exactly the same and the results can differ from what happened in the game. However it has been interesting for me to analyze the battles : I could replay the most decisive battles to see how much luck was involved. As is, every major battles had the same outcome, but with variations on the losses. The final battle for the Throne of the Moon fought during the game was the worst possible amongst every replay. In every other run, the Jotun wolves did most of the job against the golems and I lost overall less troops. So it wasn’t as tight as I thought, but that doesn’t remove the heroic intervention of Hleida 🙂

A critical review of my bless and sacreds

+6 def bless option

When I devised my bless I was almost sure that the only counter to a high defense was magical damage. Be it elemental damage or spells with magic resistance, I thought I could always craft items to protect my thugs against the enemy source of damage and that, if protected that way, they would be unbeatable in close combat.

However, I came to understand that things were more complex than that : any spell that prevent a unit from moving also reduces its defense by a very large amount (75% I believe). So, a simple N1 mage casting “entangle” can nullify any high defense unit. The spell can’t be resisted … and with a defense that much weakened the unit has every chance to be destroyed even by laughable PD units.

When I understood that I was really disapointed … my 40 defense hero could die like an idiot against troops he would have easily crushed in normal circumstances …

Also, despite their high defenses, the valkyries proved very fragile. Sure they easily destroyed weak troops but against magical damage they died like flies, and due to their rather average base damage, strongly armored units were a real problem (the battle against the Acid Queen was a disaster in that regard).

Finally, I met several enemy thugs with rather high attack ratings (>= 23). That meant that even with 30 defense, my thugs were vulnerable … and that meant also that my elite troops couldn’t hold them. That was quite a disapointment …

So I don’t think I’d try again a bless with that philosophy.

Magical weapons bless option

If a bless option is good, it’s that one. It nullifies both Ethereal and Invulnerability (including stygian skin), which can be otherwise very annoying.

Against Therodos, it was completely decisive as I could annihilate his spectral warriors easily with both my Valkyries and Jotun wolves. Without that, in Mireni, the time lost to get past his etherealness would have been the time for him to summon his hordes of air elementals (that, by the way, were also ethereal). It is very possible that I could have lost this battle without that bless option …

So, as every dominions player I can only say this : if you can take that bless option, go for it !

Solar weapons bless option

Sure it probably helped against therodos with a 9 AP bonus fire damage … but was it worth the cost ? No, definitely. Magical weapons was a hundredfold better in that regard.

So not much more to say, forget it, take additional MR instead and some Fire Resistance. As little as 5 FR would have saved the life of a lot of Jotun wolves against Agartha’s Magma children …

+2 attack bless option

Difficult to know how much it helped. It must have helped, surely, but may be some Fire Resistance could have helped better ?

Valkyries vs Helhirdings

Every player I see with Helheim favor Helhirdings over Valkyries. I can’t blame them : with 2 attacks and +2 defense, they are much better fighters !

However let me be the advocate of the flying ladies :

– they are cheaper (45 gold vs 65 gold)

– they are easier to recruit in numbers (29 recruitment points vs 48 recruitment points)

– they are as vulnerable (13 health points vs 14 health points and 11 protection vs 10 protection)

– they fly !!! (and they fly fast)

– they are the legendary battle maidens of nordic mythology 🙂

On a big map, having a very mobile flying force can be quite an advantage, that I used a lot. Either to surprise the enemy where unexpected, change strategy in the blink of an eye, or just redeploy lightning fast from one side of the map to the other.

Also, flyers still have an interesting tactical advantage if used properly (to kill the enemy commanders in the rear).

The only drawback is their low survivability and insufficient damage against heavy armor. May be a more intelligent bless could make them even better ? (example : imprisoned Frost father with Dom 7, Order 2, Cold 3, Growth 3, and F3, A3, W4, E3, S3, D3, N3, B4 for a +10 FR, +10 SR, +5 CR, +2 defense, +1 MR, Magical weapons, undying x 3, +10 PR, +2 HP, +4 Strength)

Jotun wolves

When I started the game I knew nothing about the Jotun wolves. When I finally began to understand their value, they became the powerhouse of my army and were decisive in every battle in which they were involved.

However, I was lucky to meet the kind of opponents on which they fared well. I subbed for a game as Niefelheim which is a nation that can summon Jotun wolves too. So I thought I’d use the same tactic that was so successful with Helheim and started to summon a lot of them. When they met their first battle, they were slaughtered while inflicting almost no losses, killed by battle magic and very high defense units.

Indeed, with their low protection they are quite fragile and there’s a very simple way counter to them : lot of chaff or even just skelespamming. Even though they will kill a lot of them, they will die in the process …

Also, given they are size 4, that means they only have 2 attacks per square. So against units with a high defense, they can be in a difficult position.

Anyway, despite these drawbacks, they are still monsters. High damage, berzerk, fear, sacred, decent MR, fast both on the battlefield and on the map … if used properly they can win wars, as they did in this game.

The keys to victory in this game

Good starting position

After my victory I talked with my former enemies. The player of C’ti, a very experienced player, told me that when he had studied the map he had considered the region where I spawned as one of the best to start for a nation. Indeed, there were a lot of large provinces of which could be expected a large population, meaning a good gold income. That can explain something. But if that wasn’t enough, the fact that there was no one between Helheim and the eastern ocean was also a big factor : a large chunk of territories just for me and no one to contest them ! That allowed me a peaceful expansion and the topmost economy early in the game.

However, due to my noobness and my nation, I traded that early expansion for a very low research. When we compare the score graphs between me and C’ti on that topic, the difference is abysmal, and quite important too compared to most of the major contenders. Thankfully, my big economy allowed me to recruit a lot of mages and reduce the gap with several players, putting me in 5th position by the end of the game (behind C’ti, Sauromatia, Marverni and Therodos). For more details all the research graphs published during the game are here.

Diplomacy

When the game started, I was pretty sure that an early conflict would probably mean my demise. So I did everything I could to have a peaceful neighbouring with any player I felt dangerous. It worked well, very well, as every other player seemed rather happy to be able to concentrate on their expansion elsewhere. As for me, it allowed me to grab the eastern provinces with confidence.

It worked so well that later in the game I was in a position to choose one enemy to conquer while being almost sure my other borders were secure. What happened to Agartha was more or less what I expected, even though the war was much longer than I thought. But what happened with Therodos was rather unexpected. I believed he could ally at least someone. Not only he didn’t, but I could ensure Ulm’s benevolent neutrality and an Atlantis intervention !

The Eyes of God played a role too. I believe that the fact that I was providing information to every single player in the game made me less prone to being attacked. Furthermore, the fact that every player knew very well I was the topmost nation possibly prevented some of them from attacking me too.

Overall, I was very lucky in that regard and that was a real key to my victory : I was never attacked and every war I waged happened because I had decided to wage it.

Prey the weak

Being a Vulture was a very good strategy. It may not seem honorable … but it gave me a lot of territories and ressources. Some of Xibalba, more of Machaka, a little of Oceania and plenty of Ur. That campaign against Ur was really dirty, I grabbed so much with fighting so little … I mean, Maverni was the one that destroyed Ur but I claimed at least as much territory, if not more, as he did. The fact that he did not have scouts to know what I was really taking probably helped, otherwise he may have been quite mad at me …

As for the war against Agartha, it was probably the weakest neighbour I had at the time and so the most logical target : lose as few as possible to take as much as possible.

Therodos was also in that position : thanks to the Eyes of God I knew very well that I was much stronger than him. He was really the highest quality target at that point in the game : one of the weakest in my neighbourhood with the greatest reward (7 points of thrones).

Information is Power

The Eyes of God were a really good tool that helped me in the topics I just talked about. Indeed, thanks to them I could see who was strong, who was weak and who was fighting who. As such, I could adapt my diplomacy and my wars to my best interest.

And, as the story already told about, it was the key to foresee a possible victory and plan for it. I could have never done that without it.

Also, talking from time to time to my neighbours sometimes really helped. For example, I hadn’t noticed that Tien Chi was building Golems until C’ti told me about it … and knowing about that threat allowed me to devise a tactic to help defeat them.

Never stop learning

Before this game, I knew rather well most of the game mechanics. That was a good thing, but that didn’t prepare me for all the subtleties of a Multiplayer game. Indeed, in such a game, every single spell can change something, every tactic is important, every detail can mean victory or defeat.

Thankfully, I had played 30 turns in another MP game just before this one and it had helped me to put aside some tactics I had devised to beat the AIs. So, when I started this LegendaryEA game, I was already in another mindset, conscious of my weaknesses and ready to learn what I didn’t know yet.

Agartha was the first one to teach me a lot. First Momephe that showed me the real power of battle magic. And then I had to think a lot, I mean really a lot, to devise an army to defeat the one he had built. That combination of Magma children, Earth elementals, Crystal sorceresses and Great Olms was a nightmare, like a mathematical problem to solve with so many constraints. In the end, I found the last key to solve that problem when I discovered that I could summon Jotun Wolves.

Later in the game I learnt a lot too by watching first Marverni, Ur, and then Tien Chi battles. Indeed, they gave me some keys to undertand the value of some very good battle enchantments, such as Howl or Relief. I later applied these into my armies with some success. But the experience I gained in my own battles was also invaluable, to understand which spell was better against which opponent.

I learnt also a lesson when Therodos sent to me the Queen of the Lake to slow me down. I didn’t know at the time how to handle the lone insanely powerful super combatant she was. So I had to think and finally found some solutions well known in the community (in that case thugs with big weapons such as Gate Cleavers or Moon blades) – though that’s not how I got her in the end.

My final lesson was given by watching C’ti armies crushing Marverni. At that point I saw a state of the art army, optimized in every possible way for complete victory. Devising an army to counter that one would have been a nightmare at least as terrible as the time I spent to understand how to defeat Agartha. But I was about to win, and I had already had my share of this game, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to do this …

However, beyond learning how to wage battles, there were also a lot of lessons to learn on how to use my gold and gems. That was too a big exhausting brainstorm on my part … thankfully I had plenty of ressources and could make some mistakes … in the end I had some decent strategy but was still doubting every turn whether I should buy this or that, or summon this or that … the fact that I had a plan to win helped a lot as I could make my choices according to that plan.

Luck, Luck, and more Luck

As I already pointed out, I was very lucky overall :

– I had a very good start position

– I had peaceful neighbours

– My first enemy was weak enough so that I could beat him, and strong enough so that I could learn a lot from him

– Nobody thought about casting the Eyes of God before I did it, nor tried to dispel it

– Therodos held 7 points of Thrones close to my territory in a rather small region easy to conquer. That was more than one third of the thrones required to win … that is pure, raw, badass luck.

During all the game it felt as if everything was falling into place to help me win. For example when C’ti and Marverni managed to wage war one against the other, it was such a relief, I could finish my things without having to fear anything from them for several turns ! Also, after the game the player of Therodos told me that he had put in the field some stealthy shamans to counter my mind hunters … I think I was really, really lucky not to mind hunt the provinces they were in, as a feebleminded pretender would have been a real setback (especially given I’d then have lost the Eyes of God) …

But well, even though you can take Luck in the Scales of your pretender, sadly, IRL Luck is not a game option …

Stick to the plan

After devising my plan on turn 55, the most difficult thing was to believe in it and stick to it no matter what. Several times I wondered whether I should may be attack Tien’Chi earlier, vulture the dying Niefelheim, help Marverni against the C’ti monster, …

But every time I repeated it to myself like a mantra “Stick to the plan, stick to the plan, stick to the plan …”. Had I diverted ressources on other conflicts, god knows what would have happened. That was almost like a life lesson for me : when I take a decision, stick to it until its full accomplishment, or failure … as for writing this huge AAR, I needed that philosophy !

Hide the tactics, surprise the enemy, be unexpected

During all the wars I waged during the game, I always tried to know the enemy tactics before he could know mine. This way I could have an edge, know the best thing to do while he would only try something without any certainty about the result.

Against Agartha, it helped me to annihilate his main army … I believe it helped too in Mireni for if he had seen my army in action he would have devised tactics to counter my valkyries and summon the horde of air elementals he had been planning for. And of course that was completely decisive during the final battles for the thrones.

However, that can’t be done all the time. First you need teleporting/cloud trapezing thugs to take the weak provinces your main army need to get through. Without that, any province defense can reveal important things about your tactics (not everything, but enough to lose the element of surprise).

Second it’s made easier if you can hide your armies on the strategic map, either with sneaky/glamourous troops, or with cauldron of the elven halls. The later option can be expensive 15 for 1 cauldron is quite expensive. Helheim has a natural discount of 3  and with the banefire forge + dwarven hammer I could get them for only 8 , which was really cheap. So it can help, but it’s not necessary.

Last but not least, you need a short conflict. The moment you reveal your army must be the moment you win the war. This way the ennemy has no time to devise a counter and you can re-use the same setup against another enemy (provided he did not see the battle …). This was the case for me in every war : Jelenia Gora was decisive, Mireni was decisive, all the battles for the thrones were decisive. However against Therodos, if he had finally counter-attacked the Shattered throne, most of the element of surprise would have been lost for me (though I had some new tricks, having discovered Army of Gold/Lead).

Being an experienced wargamer

Last but not least, I would have almost forgotten to talk about that if a friend had not reminded me that. I played a lot of wargames in my youth and have the proper mindset to understand a strategy game like dominions. Battle tactics are one thing, managing an economy is another, but knowing where to move which army for which purpose is also a skill. In that, my experience was invaluable, as I knew when to fight, when to retreat, and to righly assess the overall tactical situation to avoid making bad decisions.

The truth

Well what I wrote above is just a joke, here are the main reasons that made me win :

1) Helheim was province number 1. It had 1 chance on 450 to happen, that’s proof that it was my fate to win this game and ascend.

2) Valkyries rock. Dis too. (and don’t let anyone say otherwise)

3) Jotun wolves rock even more.

4) Helheim’s flag just have the best colors of all nations, no discussion. That pale violet is just amazing !

5) There were a lot of very experienced players in this game. That was not enough, every single player should have been … but even then, that would not have been enough 😀

6) I just wanted to win one big game and stop playing, so why try several times ? Just win the first, it’s enough !

7) I am the Pantokrator IRL …