Re: Sacred Troops
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You might call them 'Black Templars' and you might find them in the 'Iron Faith' theme.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Might you indeed? Very interesting…

Re: Sacred Troops
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You might call them 'Black Templars' and you might find them in the 'Iron Faith' theme.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hey, don't make my best ideas obselete before I even suggest them! Who's in charge of this game, anyway? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Sacred Troops
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, that's basically the way I wanted it to work, mechanically. But as for letting any priest sanctify - I think that would be a big problem. I would mass priests and make every unit sacred. As Ulm, for example, you can only produce about 8 units per turn in the capitol... so 4 priests (160 gold, 5 gold upkeep) would be able to sanctify all of them. Unless it was limited to the prophet, I imagine that all units would end up sacred. Also, limiting it to the prophet means that you have to decide between sanctifying with your second-most-important unit, or using it to spread dominion / cast courage or fanatacism / smite / be a supercombatant / annihilate undead, which is a major trade-off.

-Cherry

[ October 09, 2003, 16:42: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Sacred Troops
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, that's basically the way I wanted it to work, mechanically. But as for letting any priest sanctify - I think that would be a big problem. I would mass priests and make every unit sacred. As Ulm, for example, you can only produce about 8 units per turn in the capitol... so 4 priests (160 gold, 5 gold upkeep) would be able to sanctify all of them. Unless it was limited to the prophet, I imagine that all units would end up sacred. Also, limiting it to the prophet means that you have to decide between sanctifying with your second-most-important unit, or using it to spread dominion / cast courage or fanatacism / smite / be a supercombatant / annihilate undead, which is a major trade-off.

-Cherry</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You have a point… but on the other hand I think that limiting it to the prophet might be too much of a limitation. If you made priests a bit more expensive it might solve the problem - that is, you could still make a lot of troops sacred if you wanted to, but it would be a really expensive operation to do so.

Yet another option would be to have it be *half* the priest's level made sacred, rounded up. Then weak priests [lvl 2] would be able to sanctify one unit per turn; medium to powerful priests [lvls 3 & 4] would be able to sanctify two, and very powerful priests would be able to sanctify three. Even with this I think the cost of cheap priests should be increased some, say up to 100 gold. In this case you *could* [as Ulm] sanctify every guy produced, but at the cost of 4 or 5 priests who would cost a lot, and who would prevent you from making other commanders (such as researchers). So there would be the flexibility to go this way, but not without cost in other areas.

Or, on the other hand even just having prophets able to sanctify would be kinda cool. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Sacred Troops
 

I think a better formula would be priest level -2, excepted the prophet.

Re: Sacred Troops
 

There are a goodly number of sacred troops in Dom II. I'd be worried it would tip things out of balance if any troop could become sacred. What would the point be to Marignon's fragile flagellants then, for example?

I think it would also make god design too much of a blessing-engineering event as well. As it is, I think the balance is right between trying to get the right magic power, the blessings you'd like, and sparing points for a good strong dominion and the fortress type you want. Being able to sanctify troops would tip more importance towards blessing power during god design, and that would devalue other equally-interesting paths.

(Oh, and speaking of the random flagellant event, it happens a lot now. I get more of the little weirdoes than I care for, honestly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Sacred Troops
 

Maybe we need some more variation in the random troops. How about some migrating Raptors? More knights. Some light cavalry. Maybe crossbows.

Re: Sacred Troops
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can never have too many freaks that whip themselves bloody, and enjoy it! ...or at least, that's what I tell myself... it makes me think I'm living in a nice neighborhood http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Sacred Troops
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Unlike flagellants, these aren't driven by faith, but by greed. Raptors, knights, crossbows, all are already there - but as mercs ;-)

Re: Sacred Troops
 

I've seen Raptors as independents in Dom II, actually. I don't believe they are sacred though . . . I can't quite recall right now, and that particular game is a few weeks gone. It was fun being able to recruit them alongside my normal troops though.