Am I the only one that feels like this?

[Joe Bamboo Wissmann]

I don't know about you guys, but in the Enlightenment Age, I feel offense is WAY stronger than defense. I am around 2500 medals right now, so most of the bases I see are maxed out, even with max walls. (cough, cheaters, cough) I have no trouble at all 4 or 5 starring ANY base if I bring everything I have to the battle, meaning full Merc Camp, War Tactics, and Generals. Even without any of that, I can usually get 1 Medal by rushing the TC. (this is the standard tactic for medal chasers it seems)

I think the game is much more balanced in terms of defense and offense at the lower ages, but as you get everything near maxed, and get your troops maxed out, I dont really think the maxed defenses can compete. I guess the challenge is to find a way to win against those bases without your generals and mercenary armies. Another point is that with 99% of my opponents only being worth 1 Medal, its not worth going all out anyway, just need to get the TC and get your quick win. (I would like to see if anyone has a base that thinks it can stop the TC rush.

Anyway, #Discuss #PlayDomiNations

 

[firedancer]

I'm in early Enlightenment (previously maxed-out gunpowder) and still find it difficult to take down other EA bases. What are your recommendations for army composition? Do you spend crowns to speed up training time? Thanx.

 

[Redgar]

Theoretically, if you play fair you can't have full perks all the time or you have to spend a lot, so this is kinda okay. Medal system combined with rush makes medal racing boring I agree. And I think it is not attack/defense balance which is designed for resources grind at the first hand (what is correct) but with victory condition/medals count. E.g. If they gave guaranteed 2-5 medals instead of one if 2nd star (50% of all buildings) is achieved, it could fix the issue, so medal racers are more motivated to go all-in. Regarding attack/defense I think it is broken for GP in favor of defense, while in the enlightenment (I have just three units upgraded and no cannons) it feels much better. Partisans/army size made a difference.

 

[Redgar]

Oh, I don't know how much crowns you have left, but I'd love to see your video playing germans ))) They look like the nation where skill may have even higher influence, so I am considering them as an option to switch.

 

[MadFury]

On this point I can definitely disagree with you. Even though it's easier to take out a fully maxed out base with completely maxed out troops, two max generals, war elephant mercs and maxed out alliance gate troops, how often do you launch such an attack? Without spending a significant amount of crowns this type of attack is launched maybe once a day considering the length of time generals take to recover. On top of which how often is such an attack worth so much in terms or training time and resources (after all canons aren't cheap to build at 20k a pop)? The answer to that question is not often at all. Hell I see a 6 medal win once I a blue moon and even then it doesn't always have enough resources to make such an attack worth it. Most importantly how many players, that aren't cheating, have 2 fully maxed generals and completely maxed out alliance gates, merc camps and maxed enlightenment age troops? All I can say Is your talking form the perspective of the top .1 % of the player base who's spending that much crowns and is that far advanced. Most players, specially those not in the enlightenment are struggling. And it seems to me defense is much stronger than offense at this point.

 

[mwedwards]

Well said MadFury. At 1400 crowns, low EA the game feels far too defensive. I simply don't have the time or patience to raid with a maxed out army with a high probability of taking 50-80% losses. Up until about a month ago I could raid for 1-2 hours straight not waiting more than 4 minutes between attacks, and only using mercs/blessings/tactics when raiding higher-level bases. It was a fast paced game, constantly upgrading. You are a solid attacker Joe, having seen your videos you lose a lot of units and use multiple tactics, which means you spend a lot of time re-training. If one doesn't throw a lot of crowns at it (roughly equivalent to $0.75 per battle), one must either baby-sit the game while waiting (20-30 minutes) or risk being attacked and losing the medals won after every attack. It's quite baffling to me why anyone would enjoy this, what am I missing here?

I've mostly switched to Rival Kingdoms and find the pacing there to be nearly perfect. No retraining time, guaranteed 5 hour treaties that don't expire when attacking, a matchmaking system that slowly increases in difficulty until one is hopelessly outmatched (great challenge), and plenty of loot to keep upgrades going non-stop. To be honest I'm only hanging around here at this point with fading hope that the next patch returns the former pacing. Despite the developer's restraint from injecting mechanics that "encourage" spending $$$ on consumables, I've spent twice as much $ over there as I have in Doms. Oh, and there's zero hacking or cheating going on over there.

 

[Redgar]

I tried rival kingdoms too, but their combat system is not even close to dominations even with broken AI. It's like semi-automatic where only units unloading makes an effect. Since my castle, temple and academy are upgrading, I am playing with plain army having 1-2 mercs. Basically, if you meet a max walls base, i may loose an army, but the loot I get makes it efficient even of you leave the game and get robbed. i think 1400 medals is a little bit too high for early enlightement. I just got to 1200+ and I feel it's maximum before cannons arrive.

 

[mwedwards]

I tried rival kingdoms too, but their combat system is not even close to dominations even with broken AI. It's like semi-automatic where only units unloading makes an effect.

That was my take on it at first too, but at the end of the day the 'battles' in these games are really just puzzles to be solved. The only question is should the player be put in the position of having to choose time vs money on the puzzle-solving aspect of the game, or defer that to the nation-building aspect? The scale is smaller in Rivals, sure, but there is much more to it than calculating an effective initial attack vector once you pick up a dragon and advance into the later ages. Effective use of ancient abilities (similar to tactics, but with at least 10x more variety vs Doms) becomes essential, and this requires constant decision making. At least one of the ancients introduces a rally ability (that combined with the increasing scale in later ages brings it closer to Doms). A few more things: once assured of victory one can speed up the battle (even less waiting), and having the ability to fully plan and customize each attack is awesome (and also essential at the higher levels), unlike Doms which forces a one-size fits all approach.

 

[MadFury]

I'm not sure that's accurate mwedwards. I have a stronghold level 15 in rival kingdoms and I can say with certainty that the gameplay/attacking in dominations is light years better. Once you get a max level epic dragon in rival kingdoms, walls no longer matter. All you have to do is spam your troops within the space your dragon clears and cast an epic ancient troop buffing spell and the match is over. Not to mention I'm not a big fan of the battle stone system which only gives you 5 battle stones every two hours. I can launch way more attacks in dominations within that time frame than I can in an entire day in rival kingdoms. With all its problems, it's the fact that dominations battle system is so much better than the other games of its type that keeps players around.

 

[mwedwards]

Ok, thanks Fury, I'm only at SH lvl 9 at the moment and about halfway through upgrades (maybe equivalent to late Medieval in Doms). At this stage it's still a good challenge, and don't expect to be anywhere near lvl 15 for another 2 months or so. Regarding the stone system, between kingdom raids, codes and chests, I am usually able to grab 1-2 hours of attacking in on any given day, and without having to retrain, that's 60-90 minutes of solid attacking, vs attack-and-wait here in Doms. To be fair before the update my attack ratio in Doms was better than it is in Rivals, but those days are behind us. Sounds like you are near maxed, having the same issue Joe is complaining about. As it's still a new title most folks won't have that problem.