Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Too much, IMHO. 8 Protection would make Earth far and away the best bless for too many units. Take the Niefel Giant, for example. 66 hit points, Prot 14, Def 13. Most units of the era have an Attack of no more than 12 and do not more than 15 points of damage per hit. They'll usually get in 1 or 2 swings because the cold aura freezes them solid. Say there are six of these opponents attacking per Niefel Giant. My Monte Carlo says they'll do about 11 points of damage per turn. A +4 water blessing would cut this to 7.3 points per turn. An E9 blessing as it now stands would cut this to 4.3 points per turn, in addition to keeping fatigue low to avoid crit-hits. An E9 blessing that give Prot +8 would cut this to 1.4 points per turn. It's true that an N9 blessing would also net 1 point per turn after counting 10 points of regeneration, but it wouldn't do anything about fatigue and it wouldn't scale as well. (Give each of those attackers 2 stars and it goes up to 12.75 - 10 = 2.75 points per turn for N9, and 1.5 for E9.)

Obviously this isn't true for low-Protection units. Interestingly enough, E9 appears to add to your armor protection and not to your basic protection, so it doesn't work at all on units without armor (Machakan spiders) and it doesn't completely stack with bonuses from Berserk. I suppose you could make it a natural Barkskin instead of a +4 armor bonus; I don't know exactly what the formula is but it makes Niefel Giants go from Prot 9 (14/8 head/body) to Prot 12 (17/12 head/body), so it would help the unarmored warriors without boosting high-end units much. Stoneskin would actually be more thematic than Barkskin but it might be too much. Either is better than a flat +8 to armor Prot.

-Max

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Here's one more thing: a comparison of death and fire weapons. Again ignoring attack/defense rolls, here are the (Monte Carlo) break-even points. That is, in general fire weapons do more damage than death weapons, but for a given Protection there is a certain MR at which death weapons becomes a better bet. Here's the breakdown for Prot 1-20 and how much expected damage is dealt per-hit at each level. (For Prot 9 and below, fire weapons are always better but I show the expected damage for MR 10 for comparison's sake.)

Prot 1 MR 10 Fire dmg 6.40 Death dmg 1.44
Prot 2 MR 10 Fire dmg 5.70 Death dmg 1.46
Prot 3 MR 10 Fire dmg 5.70 Death dmg 1.42
Prot 4 MR 10 Fire dmg 4.70 Death dmg 1.62
Prot 5 MR 10 Fire dmg 4.65 Death dmg 1.48
Prot 6 MR 10 Fire dmg 4.08 Death dmg 1.46
Prot 7 MR 10 Fire dmg 3.81 Death dmg 1.45
Prot 8 MR 10 Fire dmg 3.20 Death dmg 1.41
Prot 9 MR 10 Fire dmg 3.19 Death dmg 1.51
Prot 10 MR 5 Fire dmg 2.68 Death dmg 2.57
Prot 11 MR 6 Fire dmg 2.68 Death dmg 2.38
Prot 12 MR 8 Fire dmg 2.21 Death dmg 2.15
Prot 13 MR 9 Fire dmg 1.99 Death dmg 1.88
Prot 14 MR 10 Fire dmg 1.63 Death dmg 1.54
Prot 15 MR 10 Fire dmg 1.66 Death dmg 1.53
Prot 16 MR 11 Fire dmg 1.44 Death dmg 1.14
Prot 17 MR 11 Fire dmg 1.40 Death dmg 1.15
Prot 18 MR 13 Fire dmg 0.97 Death dmg 0.82
Prot 19 MR 12 Fire dmg 1.06 Death dmg 0.91
Prot 20 MR 14 Fire dmg 0.71 Death dmg 0.66

Again, take these numbers with a grain of salt since they're empirical. Nevertheless, "he who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense," and number-crunching is an old tradition for wargamers. For instance, it's apparent that death weapons are a better bet in LA than in EA.

One thing this doesn't take into account is that it's *possible* that death/fire weapons still take effect on shield-hits. Fire weapons will do negligible damage on a shield-hit, but death weapons are AN, so it's possible that death weapons are a better bet against shielded units. Maybe I'll test this if I learn enough about modding to create a low-def, heavily-shielded unit.

-Max

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Your smart

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

With the death weapons, don't forget about the higher affliction chance, too.

Cheap, high- or multi-attack, death-blessed units (flags?) might make good cripplers. A blessed commander with a Bow of War might be really, really annoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Death bless and arrows
Does it really work ? I mean, you can perforate light infantry anyway. As for heavies, especially with shields, they're not likely to get more that 2-4 damage anyway. We know affliction chance is based on damage dealt compared to creature's max health. So 2 damage arrow isn't very likely to cause an affliction. How much does death compensate for this ?

Replacements for Blood9
1. I'd call it Pain Mirror. It would work much like Blood Vengeance, except it mirrors damage instead of redirecting it. Sacred unit still takes damage, it's just likely to cause automatic harm to attacker.

2. Hp increase ! For example max(3, totalhp/5). It would be roughly +15 percent extra health, or +3 hp, depending on which is higher. It would feel a bit like Earth bless, except it would help against some spells/poisons more. In cases where totalhp/5 is more than +3, it wouldn't matter much anyway because big high hp creatures usually have low protection.

3. How about Rotting instead of Curse/Horror Mark ? It wouldn't work at all against many creatures, but would cause serious harm to most living creatures.

Gandalf: unless it's a Horror Mark, Shroud of the Saint wouldn't be of much use on an assasin. I think regular Curse really isn't all that scary on a regular commander, or even priest or mage. He's not likely to go into melee.

Maxwilson: very interesting research. Also thanks for the Python code, I'm trying to learn the language because it puts fun back into programming for me.

Keep in mind that Fire/Death damage probably interacts much better with multiple attacks, because each attack gets +6 damage. As far as I know +1str = +1 damage, potentially.
Also, some of weapons have'strenght of the wielder not added' property. This is actually quite common. All kinds of sacred animals and cavalry have hoof, bite, peck etc attacks. Then there are strange wieldable weapons which don't benefit from extra strength. (20+6ap Lance is an overkill...)
Why is Sling a 'strength not added' weapon, anyway ?

Is the Lance wasted if it doesn't hit ? If true, Fire bless would be even more valuable.

I think that Fire reacts especially well with Water. Fire is a synergy with itself. Water is +50 percent attacks on average, and each of these attacks will get +6ap.

I would look into Earth bless, too. How about
+4 for units with 15+ protection total
+5 for units with total prot between 10 and 15
+6 for units with total prot between 1 and 10*

* total 0 prot means the unit doesn't wear any armor so Earth bless won't help.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Sling is a "strength not added" weapon because we there's no #clear command for weapons, and when I had time I didn't have Edi's list which shows all units armed with slings. I'd have modded it a long time ago otherwise.

#selectweapon 22
#clear
#name "Balearic sling"
#dmg -2
#att -2
#ammo 15
#range 33
#end

If I could remove the "strength not added" tag (e.g. with a non-existant #clear tag), this would do str-2 points of damage, so 8 (instead of 9 the sling currently does) in most cases. Enough experience would add to damage, the +str spells would add to damage, and the range is long enough to make slingers useful against archers.

As it is, the most I'll be able to do is a Jotun Slinger. In fact, I'll do that. You better go check the mods subforum.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

For those who don't check the mod forums, here's a mod that puts the strength based sling into the game. No Jotun slingers in this one though.

It's attached. Enjoy :]

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Wouldn't a death bless because of the increased infliction chance be deadly against SC's and giants?

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I don't know about "deadly." It does increase the amount of protection a given SC needs against his attackers but even a quadrupled chance of afflictions doesn't matter if you can't damage him in melee in the first place, so it's a deterrent but not an absolute one. Except, I haven't played any MP. Do people feel worse about an afflicted SC than they do about a dead one? It might give you a psychological advantage.

-Max

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

It does? Hm. Then either it's buggy, or the description is wrong, 'cause the description says:

Death Weapons (2 an+mr damage)
All enemies hit by a melee weapon will suffer extra damage from the death bless effect if they fail a magic resistance roll. The damage is magical and will be effective versus ethereal beings.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I think the claim was that the affliction chance (not the 2 an,mr attack) does work with arrows, and possibly spells. In fact, we can check this.

[1 hour later]

It turns out that death blessings do affect both regular combat spells (Falling Fires) AND battlefield spells (Fire Storm).

I set up a battle between myself as Abysia (good battlefield spells) and Niefelheim (high hp, high chance of surviving wounds so we can see if afflictions hit).

#1. Personal battle spells. 2 Anointed of Rhuax, 30 PD, vs. 1 Niefel Jarl and 40 Jotun Huskarls. Abysia had a D9 blessing and nothing else. Both Anointed of Rhuax are scripted to <Falling Fires x2, Flame Eruption x3>. We compare the baseline scenario vs. a blessed scenario where there's an extra Anointed of Rhuax who does <Divine Blessing, Retreat>. I ran this five times for each scenario. I report the outcome from Niefelheim's perspective (victory/defeat, casualties, # of afflicted survivors).

Baseline:
1. Defeat, 26 killed, 1 afflicted
2. Victory, 24 killed, 4 afflicted
3. Victory, 10 killed, 8 afflicted
4. Defeat, 26 killed, 1 afflicted
5. Defeat, 19 killed, 4 afflicted

Abysia Blessed:
1. Defeat, 27 killed, 4 afflicted
2. Defeat, 20 killed, 7 afflicted
3. Defeat, 23 killed, 7 afflicted
4. Defeat, 24 killed, 7 afflicted
5. Victory, 24 killed, 7 afflicted

Clearly the death blessing is working. Many but not all of the casualties were dealt by the flame spells of the Anointed, so it makes sense that the number of afflicted isn't simply 450% in the blessed case (especially because the chance of an afflicted unit dying goes up). In the unblessed case, the only time 8 afflictions happen is when there are 30 survivors, a roughly 25% affliction rate. Compare this to 7 out of 16 survivors afflicted in a typical blessed case. This is a 43% affliction rate, clearly greater. The death blessing affects spells.

#2 Battlefield enchantments. I was really surprised to find that death blessings still worked on battlefield spells. I upped the number of Niefel Huskarls to 70, and used a single Anointed of Rhuax casting <Phoenix Power, Fire Storm, hold x3, Retreat>. As before, in the blessed scenario a second Anointed does <Divine Blessing, retreat>. The results were so clear that I only ran each scenario twice. Niefelheim always won, but got its army wrecked if death blessing was in effect.

Baseline:
1. Victory, 17 killed, 18 afflicted.
2. Victory, 18 killed, 13 afflicted.

Abysia Blessed:
1. Victory, 17 killed, 36 afflicted.
2. Victory, 8 killed, 42 afflicted.

Observe that if Abysia is blessed, fully 2/3 of the Niefel survivors are afflicted. I didn't count how many afflictions each one had, but my impression is that multiple afflictions were common. Even in the unblessed case, Niefelheim took many afflictions, but the blessing doubled or even tripled the affliction rate.

Does this make anyone re-evaluate the "best blessing" for magic-heavy nations?

-Max Wilson

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Death bless and casters: I guess it would depend heavily on what spells I'm going to use, and what enemies I am to face. Mass afflictions wouldn't be of much use against maenads or other chaff.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I havent played any multi player games yet. But seems to me Death 9 bless would make for interesting multiplay diplomacy. Do you really want to start a war knowing even if you win your armies may be crippled?

On a side note, I am really enjoying my late era giant game with e9, nature8 Earth Mother. I recruit the level 1 sacred giant priests everywhere and thug them out. They have really impressive stats when equipped with a bracer of protection and ring of warrior. Team 1 up with their shapeshifted werewolf spell caster using a sacred shroud, ring of warrior and some kind of weapon. Stack them on top of each other. Script the Priest to cast bless then attack. Script the Skinshifter for quickness and attack.
One thing about the earth bless I noticed: If a Sacred is equipped with 2 bracers of protection the bless effect stacks. A blessed Priest has an Armor factor of 30 when using 2 bracers. I dont usually stack the bracers though. Earth gems are in too high of demand. A ring of the warrior fits so much better in the second slot.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Nice!!!

It should be possible to augment this to a full blown combat simulator. Would you mind if I take a shot at this, based on your code?

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

What I meant was, even with a fire a bless it will take many hits to bring down a giant. With a high death bless most hits would cause an infliction, which means that with every hit the giant gets weaker. And because you usually have so many units ganging up on a giant, the giants defense means less, so the extra attack rating you get from a fire bless doesn't mean as much. I think fire bless is better against human sized troops, and death bless better against giants.

So the death infliction chance even effects spells. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif I wound't have figured that out, but that certainly makes death blessings a lot more usefull. Thanks for doing that research Max.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Not at all. Do whatever you want with that code. I've actually thought about writing a combat simulator--the nice thing about games like Dom3 is that the rules are transparent enough that you could mostly replicate the battles--but I'm not sure how much interest there is. Be my guest, and email me if you need any help with Python.

-Max
wilson.max@gmail.com

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Does the death bonus affect map attacks as well?

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Good point, although you'd want to change your play style to maximize afflictions instead of trying to keep territory. When I was running those tests, it occurred to me that a weak army would fail to take the province vs. 30 PD, and a strong army would get wrecked by the death-blessed Fire Storm. The obvious countermeasure is to send in a tiny little force and try to make Abysia waste gems casting Fire Storm, but it's non-obvious how many men you need to send to make the combat AI still think it's worth casting. Combine the D9 blessing with a "scorched earth" policy of pillaging your own provinces for extra gold vs. an invading army and you could become a really unattractive target.

(Of course the optimal situation is for everyone else to *believe* you'd pillage your own provinces, and thus avoid attacking you, while in reality you leave them intact and thus still have a chance of winning the game.)

-Max

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I just tried death 9 out with firestorm using EA Abysia. OUCH! Afflictions for everyone have a nice day.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I think so.

Scenario: Anointed of Rhuax casting Fires from Afar.
Target: 70 Niefel Huskarls. Two runs of each scenario.

Blessed (D9 Prophet):
1 casualty, 8 afflicted.
0 casualties, 10 afflicted.

Unblessed (non-Prophet):
0 casualties, 1 afflicted
0 casualties, 5 afflicted.

I only ran it twice for each but it sure looks to me like it works. That probably also means that things like MR penalties from items and extra paths also work with map-cast spells.

-Max

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

P.S. AFAIK, Seeking Arrow, Fires From Afar, Flames From the Sky, and Murdering Winter are the only map spells that damage military units and can take advantage of a D9 bless. Am I missing any?

BTW, Leprosy actually looks like a really interesting spell to use with Eye of the Void, Rune Smasher, etc. I wonder how many MP games feature diplomacy along the lines of "Leave me alone and I'll afflict one enemy army of your choice with disease. Otherwise I'll afflict you." Note to self: try out MP as soon as I graduate...

-Max

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Leprosy was a very powerful diplomacy tool in an MP game I played recently.

I was playing as Pangaea and Tien Chi invaded my lands. As they invaded my lands, Atlantis followed behind and gobbled up the Tien Chi lands and ventured into mine. In attempt to hold some of my former provinces, Atlantis massed quite a few troops in my former provinces even though we were at peace with one another.

I casted leprosy and on the same turn followed it with a message telling Atlantis to leave my rightful territories. To my surprise it worked pretty effectively. If Atlantis would have pushed the issue, I would have been hard pressed to stand against him after recovering from the war with Tien Chi.

So in that instance Leprosy worked pretty well as a message short of war. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

about de D9 bless, don't forget the magic scale reduce MR of every body

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Oh yeah, it works pretty good. If you have 400% affliction chance, then that 2 points of arrow damage to a 10 hp human is an 80% chance of an affliction.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Good info in this thread!

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Death bless afflictions would be pointless against Pangaea. Depends on who your friend(s) is playing as well i think.

And even with Man, by mid game the bulk of my armies are KOA(heal afflictions) and longbows(do not heal but harder to target with mage).

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

Actually death bless wouldnt be pointless, even if the enemys elites are only afflicted for a few battles it could be a big help.

Re: Balancing the blesses
 

I'm of the mindset that says that afflictions are a form of psychological warfare. Not all afflictions are damaging in combat, and even those that are aren't always crippling. The AI likes to invade me with armies of Niefel Huskarls that it can't feed, and they all wind up diseased, but it doesn't make them noticeably worse at taking down undersized armies. But I know I hate to see that ugly red heart on my commanders (even if it's something harmless like battle fright), and I don't like it on my shiny new armies either.

Anyone who plays Pangaea is probably immune to this feeling. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max