Dominions 3: The Awakening/God Design/Scales

The Scales of Dominion
Every province has a set of scales that measures how the land is influenced by divine might. In the beginning of the game all scales in all countries are randomly set. When your dominion spreads the scales of your newly conquered provinces will start to change. With stronger dominion the process goes faster. Eventually the scales in a province of your dominion will be exactly the same as the dominion of your pretender god.

Selecting your Scales
When designing your Pretender God you will be asked to select your Scales of Dominion. These scales set how your divine influence will affect the world. For example, if you pick Cold scales the lands under your Dominion will grow colder and if you pick Turmoil your people will be less productive.

The different Scales of Dominion are:

Magic/Drain
A pick in a Scale with positive effect (Order, Productivity, Growth, Luck, Magic) costs 40 points while picking scales with negative effects (Turmoil, Sloth, Death, Heat, Cold, Misfortune or Drain) gives you 40 design points.

National Preferences and Tolerances
When picking your scales it is critically important that you keep the following things in mind:
 * Does the nation have a Heat or Cold preference stated in the nation description?
 * Does your nation have other state tolerances of bad scales, such as Ulm's Drain tolerance?
 * What benefits can you get from scales that are important for your strategy?

For example, Caelum has Cold preference of Cold +3. This means you can get 120 free design points from taking three picks in Cold and the Caelian units will gain benefits from the Cold dominion. Since Caelum's troops require large amounts of resources and supplies, taking Productivity and Growth can be very beneficial. Taking picks in the Magic scale will help Caelum's inexpensive mages.

This is but an example of scale design and some people take negative scales to free up design points. Underwater nations can take picks in the Cold or Heat scale because the climate scales don't affect seas. A land of the dead has no need for Growth, Order, Production, or a pleasant climate. However, a nation whose troops use heavy armor might need the Production scale to have enough resources to field armies. Understanding your own style of play and the nations' strengths, weaknesses, and needs is important when picking scales.

Strength of Dominion
The Strength of Dominion, symbolized by the candles, is another thing you must set. The Dominion is the strength of your presence. If your Dominion dies you also die, but if you die and you still have Dominion you can be called back. Dominion changes the land by your scales and some nations have special dominions such as later Ermor's death and reanimation dominion. Dominion is also used by some global spells. Strength of Dominion also affects the number of Sacred units you can make as you can make one Sacred unit per Dominion strength in a province. Increasing Dominion strength costs design points.

Dominion Strength of 4 to 6 picks is general considered the norm, but depends on nation and map size/density. Any less will be insufficient and any more is generally reserved for special strategies. Note that each Dominions candle costs 7 design point *more* than the previous, so high dominion strength is costly, especially if starting from a low value (rainbow mages for example)