Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree with everything you said, except that Last line, which is just plain wrong. WRONG!!! I just played a game with Jotunheim, and they can get good blessings too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree with everything you said, except that Last line, which is just plain wrong. WRONG!!! I just played a game with Jotunheim, and they can get good blessings too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And anyway, one could argue that the blessings are another balance between nations, so there is no need to 'make' all nations have equal access to becoming a blessed nation. Though it does seem as though some nations (Marginon?) should get a special pretender that is more geared toward heavy blessings.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's 441 if you accidentally add 81 because it is 1 AM and you've just spent 3+ hours trying to moderate a busy, busy board. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

IOW, just a silly mistake on my part. I'm not sure what exactly I did there.

I'm not sure what else to add (and excuse me for snipping your post; I'm not trying to ignore your points - I'm just not coming up with anything to say that I haven't said already.)

I think you make some intelligent comments; all I can say is that, FWIW, the blessing system has played very well for me. I hope they don't tinker too much with it for exactly the same reasons you hope they do: I don't want the game to lose any flavor or variety and the blessing scheme is one of my very favorite parts.

The best solution to things like this is usually to allow people their choice in the matter. A good idea might be to have a system where players could set how expensive magical power is to suit their own tastes. The problem there, however, lies in the UI: that choice would need to be made before or during god design, and yet the game and its settings are chosen after the god design is completed.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

After more play and reading JO's thoughts on lowering the cost, I am starting to wonder about what that would do. The prices do seem out of whack in the demo and don't seem worth it, even if it is fun sometimes. But with the full Version I can think of some pretty nasty combos, so I'd like to wait to hack that out to see how it balances then.

First off - Ermor. Played by someone well (hi Pepe!), Ermor is already likely going to have 4+ magic in most everything and will tailor the bless bonuses to make some really nasty Knights right off the bat. Ermor gets almost 1000 points to play with for the pretender, so if it is cheap to get 9 in a path Ermor will be able to do it multiple times. Ermor with 9 water (quickness, +4 defense), 9 fire (flaming weapons, +4 attack) and 9 astral (+3 MR, Twist Fate), plus the minor bonuses would make very scary Knights of the S.

Next up - what about the Shroud of the Battle Saint on a supercombatant (or prophet supercombatant)? Construction 4 with Astral 1, it gives a constant bless with all the bonuses. So with a little tweaking I imagine we'll see some aggressive options to get all these bless bonuses on Ice Devils (Regeneration, Reinvig, + defense) and such. Ermor will likely be the first one to abuse this, and in this case the lower dominion from the cost of getting 9 level magic skills will allow better slave hunting. And a Prophet combat Bane in the second turn would be able to take many indy provinces by himself, especially in the third turn when he gets on the HoF and gets a special ability.

If you want to play risky, the shroud could be for your pretender - regenerating, impossibly armored+reinvig, etc etc Cyclops or Great Mother at a very, very early stage. Take some risks, but when most people are barely researching and still tossing lowend troops, you could make a early kill (just get him out of the foreign dominion quick or pump dominion yourself) or at least get a large head start.

Mostly conjecture until the game ships, however...

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Pretender Gods cannot be blessed by any means in Dominions II.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">?

Pretender Gods are permanently blessed arn't they? Ok maybe you don't call it blessing per se, but they have the benefits of their magic paths non the less.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">?

Pretender Gods are permanently blessed arn't they? Ok maybe you don't call it blessing per se, but they have the benefits of their magic paths non the less. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No they aren't permanently blessed. And every mage gets those secondary bonuses from magic paths.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Well my point is what's the difference between being blessed and getting the benefits anyway?

I guess the benefits could be different, but I didn't think so from what I saw on my thug pretenders with berzerking and added defense...

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

What exactly does the Blood 9 blessing "blood curse" do?

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's 441 if you accidentally add 81 because it is 1 AM and you've just spent 3+ hours trying to moderate a busy, busy board. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

IOW, just a silly mistake on my part. I'm not sure what exactly I did there.

I'm not sure what else to add (and excuse me for snipping your post; I'm not trying to ignore your points - I'm just not coming up with anything to say that I haven't said already.)

I think you make some intelligent comments; all I can say is that, FWIW, the blessing system has played very well for me. I hope they don't tinker too much with it for exactly the same reasons you hope they do: I don't want the game to lose any flavor or variety and the blessing scheme is one of my very favorite parts.

The best solution to things like this is usually to allow people their choice in the matter. A good idea might be to have a system where players could set how expensive magical power is to suit their own tastes. The problem there, however, lies in the UI: that choice would need to be made before or during god design, and yet the game and its settings are chosen after the god design is completed. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have a quick fix for that: instead of capping god designs at 500 points, just have each god record its total point value. Then when you start a game you would set the maximum point value of gods that are allowed in that game.

So if I want to see more powerful magic and blessings on everyone I could play with 600 or 700 point gods.

Of course, this would probably go better if the suggestion to record multiple gods per nation (in the newlords folder) were implemented.