Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

With the current interface I'd hate to buff 5 soldiers per turn with such spells.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Then make it very expensive and have it affect 20+ troops/a single commander.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Why bother? It can make some troops even more unbalanced and rigged. Or make new things rigged, it would only cause more balancing trouble then needed

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

If we left things out because we had to balance them, Dominions wouldn't be much of a game. Granted, this is harder to balance than many other things, but it's a neat idea, and I think it might well be worth the hassle. The most obvious solution (IMHO) is to simply make it so that commanders cannot benifit from anything more powerful that stat boosts. That still leaves Vanir or doom, but I'm sure that something could be worked out. Limits to the number of bonuses allowed on the same unit maybe. We should discard things because they're stupid, or conceptually flawed or whatever, not because they're difficult.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

This school isn't a good idea, I think, because it breaks some things that already balance the game. "Leaving things out because they need balancing" is very different from "leaving things out because they will unbalance things." The number and location of item slots is a definite balancing factor for determining the value of various heroes and pretenders; allowing universal buffs that circumvent item-slot limits will dislodge that pre-existing balance mechanism. Even stat boosts can make a big difference, especially for things like MR.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I concur, right now the only means to upgrade non-commanders permanently is through blesses (which aren't technically permanent but might as well be) or very expensive means (Gift of Reason + items/empowerment/etc). One of the core ideas behind Dominions, for better or for worse, is that your recruitable troops stay the same for the entire length of the game. Changing that would throw off the basic design of the game.

There's also the problem that balancing one or two effects is not too hard, but balancing an unlimited number of them is very hard. That's why items are so expensive, slots are limited, and finding items that do all the right stuff in the right slots for what you want is so hard.

Or think of it this way: Alteration is already one of the strongest magic paths. Does it need to be made stronger by allowing the effects to be made permanent? Look how strong blesses are, and this seems like it would be even stronger than that.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

For me the concept of dominions is to give priority to the quantity of content over (build in) balance so I think these arguements are not very relevant, Dominions would have less than 300 units and 100 spells with such a conservative philosophy. "How hard the implementation of such a school and its effects on units would be ?", looks like a better question IMO, and probably explain why we are not going to see this kind of magic (before an eventual dom4 or 5 perhaps).

In general, I also think that Dominions won't stay long the best and richest TBS fantasy game if all systems other TBS fantasy games have developped better are discarded because there weren't in dom-ppp or are supposed to create unbalances (like a good xp/heroes system with *choices*, a good gestion of magic buffs, possibility to design items with a budget instead of forging already made things, upgrade of national troops, non-magical buildings/research, etc...). With the success of dominions it's probable that some bigger companies will realise that a fantasy magic-heavy strategy game giving priority to content is a good concept but if they steal the good part of the dominion system (like how magical research works) they will also probably use the good ideas of MoM and AoW, and end with the game all a generation is waiting for.

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

I fail to see how blesses are any more permanent than, say luck. Luck can be gotten through cheap items, as can blesses (shroud of battle saint, pendant of luck, lucky coin, faithfull) In fact, it seems to me that blesses are one of the harder buffs to aquire, since you have to be sacred most of the time, or you need an item, or you need to be a prophet (limit of 1, very weak in strong enemy dominion) Luck OTOH needs astral 1 or an item. Empowerment to S1 , a cheap item, even an astral 1 mage beside you set to cast luck, luck, luck, spells. Ok, it needs research. But try blessing a banelord...

Very true. Is there a Dominions 4 wishlist thread yet? Balance seems unimportant to me (if the school starts with few spells, and they are carefully thought out, it seems quite reasonable to excpect no worse from it balance wise than we have from dom3 already. (which isn't _too_ bad...) However, I think that this would be prety darn hard to implement code-wise. I'm not too sure though. Also it would take up an awful lot of time from the devs (who, we mustn't forget actually do have lives)

Re: Devine bodies, Increased stats, Demonic powers
 

Most of the value of blesses is for recruitable non-commander troops. I say they might as well be permanent as any old cheap priest can bless, and few people will use sacred troops without priest(s) along to turn the bless on.

Anyway, the point of my original argument is just what you said. Very few troops can have blesses cast on them, which (tries to) balance the otherwise very good strength of the blessed troops.