Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

I play a very fun high bless strat with arcosphale, and I really disagree that bless strats are prohibitively cost-intensive.

Not only are there more points to go around this time, but I don't think it's excessive to say that initialy money spent on sacred troops can be better than twice as good as the same money spent on standard troops... most nations with high bless strats can work it so they can advance without losing units, thus gaining high experience.

Not only do you have to spent less on troops to get an equivalently powerful force, the real kicker is that sacred units/commanders are half upkeep... which is quite a sizable income boost, long-term, probably more an impact on income than order scales. (if you are playing a nation lucky enough to be able to dump its money almost totally into sacred unit/commanders)


My main problem with the pre-eminance of bless strats, is how poorly the starting pretender magic paths are distributed in relation to this. The difference in getting a 9 bless with a pretender with 3 in a category, and one with 1 (or even 0) is 105 design points (or 168 + the extra magic path cost), but magic paths seem thrown around, somewhat at random for nations. The blesses also vary widely in quality, and none of this is reflected in the cost of the pretender.... an innate magic path seems to cost in design points, about what it would cost to buy the first level of it... for example frost father costs 55 with 2 paths and a minor ability, compared to archmage with 35 and 1 path... the extra magic seems to cost around 20... however if you are going bless strat, the difference between 2 starting magic paths, and none, is more than 150 points, depending on initial magic path costs...

I wish some nations had better options for bless strats, but I also wish the cost of innate magic paths for pretenders was rebalanced...

Most pretenders suck horribly given the new design system... for example the god of war vs the cyclops... cyclops is cheaper for bless strats, and stronger to boot. SC's are much less a factor in this version, and blesses much more-so, but the cost system doesn't reflect this. I almost always play with an imprisoned god, and high bless/scales... gives me lots of money, and troops capable of taking down any early-game SC. If you buy an SC-capable pretender, not only do you have to pay for their inflated initial costs, but you also forgo the points for imprisoned/dormancy, as you'll likely want to quicken your expansion by using your pretender.

If I play imprisoned frost father with w9 e9 n6 jotunheim, no pretender you buy will be able to stand up to even a handful of blessed giants early game. btw drain and cold scales pretty much pay for even this overkill of a blessing (I forget but I think it needs sloth too, but jotun is gold intensive, so it hardly matters)... while sc's may scale up well with research and items, the army of giants scales up with income... and the thugs also scale up with items.

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

I quite like the Lord of War, but for Marverni only. Costs only 50, can easily get E4 bless for the Druids, can whack some early stuff to death in EA, especially if you hammer a Black Steel shield for him. With Marverni's magics it's possible to make a semi-SC out of him with Luck pendant and ring of regen + some other equipment. And you can get okay good scales with him, too.

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

Heh try to play a blitz on a small map against uber bless Helheim, Niefelheim, Mitgard etc. with a nation without a proper bless strategy. In most of the cases you won't even reach research lvl3.

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

Thanks all for your really interesting answers!

I agree with Quietly and DominionsFan.

I think Big Bless Strategy can be beaten, but not really because they have flaws. It seems you have to try to be Stronger. Most Wendigo's ways aren't specific for High bless and are effective vs non-blessed nations also. I agree F9W9 is bad for scales, but with an imprisoned pretender F9 for vans of N9 for jarls dont force you to have really bad scales.

I played a 4 players Dom2 MP game with F9 Vans. When I fought against the last player (Jotun without bless) he where by far stronger than me. I just harassed him with groups of sailing-stealty-blessed Vans, raising taxes to 200 % and pillaging. After 10-15 turns he manage to catch one of my raiding party. The 15 vans involved in the fight, outnumbered, killed all jotuns easily. We then realized that my sneaking groups were stronger than his army. Disgusted, he left the game.

Small question: if you charm a blessed troop, will it keep its Bless bonus for the fight? Not useful early-mid game, but probably really fun late game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Just a crazy idea: maybe priests able to dispel Bless?

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

I'm sorry, but that's an absurd exaggeration. There is no way that the forces those nations could gather on a 10 province per player map would be able to capture the C'tissian castle by turn 8. This is especially true with the imprisoned pretender necessary for a dual bless strategy.

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

That is a great idea! Would be a nice 'rock' to the bless 'scissors'. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

Maybe the dark priests should be able to unbless?

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

Or maybe just allow priests to unbless aslong as they are within their own dominion?

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

Recent blitzes had quite a few pre turn 10 eliminations with bless rushes.

Vanheim + Helheim have a good chance at killing 1 player before turn 10 and then they can use their gold advantage to also use their excellent mages + slow down the remaining players with raiding.

Niefelheim's giants and jarls are strong enough to have a good chance to kill any SC.

And Mictlan and TC EA are quite scary too with their bless hordes.

Those nations might really be a little too good for blitzes.

Re: High Bless rush strategy :(
 

Someone will always be too good for blitzes. But others are "too good" for large maps, or many player games with alliances. Im not sure if it could be fixed for one game type without messing up the others. Maybe if a version of DOm was created just for small blitz maps.

This might be my fault. I pushed for big maps and large games. Balancing for that might have knocked the blitzes out