Here we are at last, talking about units. Units are the heart and soul of it all, and without their brave sacrifices your war campaign would be zilch. So, let's show some respect by building a domain that utilizes the units properly.

Personally, I think of units like I think of dinner options: the more unique and special kinds you can have, the better off you are. (In the case of food, for both health and enjoyment. With units, for the purposes of demolishing anything in your path.)

Now I'm going to tell you something very important for both unit usage and domain construction in general: don't be simple-minded. Conquest is different from the games you've played before. Not only is each and every unit potentially useful, but your domain will be stronger whenever you mix it up with a variety of troops. Don't get me wrong—the core strategy still has to be there, but you don't want to be so wedded to that strategy that you can't defend against what your opponent throws at you.

My words are growing tedious, so let's look at a sample domain and see how we can improve it based on unit usage.

Domain Sample
The stuff we can modify:

• 3 Prevan marksmen

• 3 Prevan protectors

• 3 Leftwyn guardians

• 3 leafy barbarians

• 3 Prevan vandals

• 3 ambushes of tigers

The stuff we need to know, but won't change:

• 3 sets of traverler's gear

• 2 imprison

• 1 withdraw

• 2 engulf

• 1 resurge

• 8 cities

• 2 villages

• 8 mines

• 2 unstable sifters

• 3 channels

The strategy of this deck, in essence, is to build powerful mounted units and dominate the battlefield with archers. Nothing wrong with the strategy, nothing wrong with the resources used. However, I see some fundamental flaws with this domain:

1. No small units—this leaves the domain vulnerable to early attack.

2. Too many archers—even though they are a part of the core strategy, you don't want overkill.

3. Too many costs to sustain—this domain will quickly become bogged down with all the costs each term.

4. Too many copies of each—diversity is best.

5. Failure to utilize alignments—there's a bit of Air in here, and pretty much all Natural.

Let's see if we can refine this domain a bit...

Domain Sample v2
The stuff we can modify:

• 1 Prevan marksman

• 1 Prevan vandal

• 2 Leftwyn guardians

• 2 leafy barbarians

• 2 forest elk

• 2 skeletal hounds

• 2 razortail falcons

• 2 woodland scouts

• 2 disciples of the moon

• 1 Prevan lookout

The stuff we need to know, but won't change:

• 3 sets of traverler's gear

• 2 imprison

• 1 withdraw

• 2 engulf

• 1 resurge

• 8 cities

• 2 villages

• 8 mines

• 2 unstable sifters

• 3 channels

My key changes were as follows:

1. Reduce the number of archers—nobody could afford to keep them all around term after term.

2. Add some diversity—skeletal hounds are a great addition, since they are beasts and can serve as mounts. They also offer direct damage once ruined, which complements the direct damage dealt by snipe.

3. Add some smaller units—the razortail falcons and woodland scouts act as units without cost to sustain, and can also establish early dominance. Most importantly, you're not wasting a term or two just building up income, as the previous version would have been.

4. Cut back on the big spenders—sporting 3 Leftwyn guardians (6g to sustain!) in a 50-resource domain is overkill. In addition, there were a lot of smaller units that still had high costs to sustain, such as Prevan vandals (2g), Prevan lookouts (2g), and Prevan protectors (3g). That quickly puts you into a situation where a few well-timed smolders could leave you helpless and unable to pay for your soldiers.

So what do you think? Would you have changed the unit layout as I have, or in another way? What further changes would you make?

Or, if you really want to get off topic, how would you adapt the non-unit resources I originally chose to the new domain? Shoot an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .