.com.unity Forums - Bless nation recommendation, please

.com.unity Forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/index.php)

- Dominions 3: The Awakening (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=138)

- - Bless nation recommendation, please (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44974)

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

10+ jarls? It will take a lot of time to gather these. Which other early age nation has blessed units that will withstand such a 10-jarl attack? Mictlan jag warriors get frozen after 2 rounds of melee and salughtered, but they can hardly be called a weak sacred unit.
By the time Niefelheim can field 10 sacreds, T'ien Chi will have researched at least one school to level 3, and will be able to field some mage artillery to counter the giants, or have flaming arrows.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

10+ Jarls? Or 10+ Jarls & Neifel Giants together?

The first will be hard, the second is really just 3-4 expansion parties meeting up. Turn 5-6 if you're close enough together.

OTOH even 10 Neifel Giants is 1500 gold. 1500 gold worth of W5E or even Jaguars with FW bless will do a lot of damage before they freeze up.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

Yeah, not just jarls but jarls and giants. It's certainly a very expensive army, but since W5E are cap only, there's a point at which, with enough giants gathered in one place, you can never kill them with JUST W5E. That is all I am saying. Niefels will lose any sane matchup on a gold to gold basis, but on a basis of maximum production vs maximum production, they will win by fatiguing everyone out within 2-3 turns.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

Considering both Niefel and W5E are cap-only, after a few turns expanding and earning lots of gold, the limiting factor becomes the dominion value, which limits the number of sacreds. I tested such setups this afternoon, and W5E tend to freeze after 4 or 5 rounds, whereas jag warriors freeze after 2 rounds. The thing is, to assemble Niefel army, I had to spend all my money, whereas TC or Mictlan both had much more money left to spend on whatever they liked. Mostly wizards for research in the case of TC, and you could probably buy enough archers to make them painful enough for the giants (although I had picked E9N6 bless for the Niefel, so arrows wouldn't really be an issue unless flaming).
I thought the W5E would do better because I know they can shrug heat auras from Abysia fairly easily, but Niefel's cold is much stronger.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

If you're relying on capital only sacreds, you've probably gone for a high dominion, maybe not 9-10, but at least 7-8. Likely higher for TC than Neifel since it's going to be longer than a few turns before you have the gold to max out Neifel production.

With either Mictlan or TC you'll probably be maxed out from the beginning, or at worst after taking 1-2 provinces. Only 250 gold/turn if you went for 10 dominion and you have cheap mage-priests to lead them.

You won't be maxing out on Neifel giants for a long time. Even 7 giants and a Jotun Jarl to lead them is over 1000 gold a turn. That's a lot more than a few turns expanding. The gold cost is the main limitation for most of the first year.

I haven't experimented with actual W5E/Niefel Giant battles, but I'd expect them to do a lot of damage in those 4-5 rounds. If you've got 3-1 odds, which isn't unlikely given the 6-1 cost ratio, do they really freeze up before dropping giants?

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

At 3-1 odds, they freeze because there are 3 man-sized warriors per tile against 1 giant, so they're all frozen fast as they are all in the cold aura from the start. At 6-1, they'd fare better. It also depends on the exact bless you pick. For instance, W9S9 isn't very effective against Niefel, whereas W9F9 is. Minor earth bless helps too.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre (Post 732690)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebenweb (Post 732660)

I'm a NOOB

I actually find this offensive. Please edit it out of your post, or change it to 'newbie'.

Unless you really expect us to believe you are oblivious to the difference between the two terms?

Yep, oblivious. I think I saw a sticky on it--I'll go read up.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

Quote:

Originally Posted by sansanjuan (Post 732790)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebenweb (Post 732660)

Hi all,

I'm a NOOB and am having a hard time finding a nation to play with what the forum members consider units worthy of a bless strategy.

I thought Pythium would be alright--I figured a good Water bless would make their sacred units very difficult to hit and counterbalance their lack of armour--but have read guides that say they're not good enough to be focused on. I was playing with C'tis using a high water bless on their sacred serpents and that seemed pretty effective early-game, but again read conflicting strategy guides.

Can someone give some examples of GOOD bless strategies? I'd like to play a nation that doesn't use blook magic as I want to keep things simple, and I like the idea of a pretender who is mobile but am happy to make them dormant.

Cheers,

Eben

Eb,
Perhaps a bit of topic...
A good thing to remember is that blesses become less of a tilt late game. Many blesses become redundant and even superseded by mass battlefield spells (army of lead/gold, fog warriors, mass regeneration, will of fates, reinvig spells, etc.). You are trading that bless off for an early pretender and/or good scales. That's not to say bless strategies are worse than scales/research/rainbow strategies only that you'd better take advantage early with that edge you've purchased so dearly. I remember I had W9/N9 Jotuns which carved most everything till about turn 20ish. However my research sucked and by mid game my armies of blessed Jotuns were flaming pincushions and heat fatigued into oblivion. Lesson is to avoid being a one trick pony. The gold that comes with scales buys forts and researchers and all the later game options. Heavy blesses are fun and viable but have a mid game plan "B".
My $0.02
-ssj

Cheers, mate. In the end I went with Pythium MA and played my first "real" game. Took an E9/F5 forge lord and have waded through the enemy pretty easily on normal difficulty. Stacking up communicants with Theurgs and pumping out Thunder Strikes is lots of fun, although in hindsight I think the Earth bless may be redundant with Communicant Slave/Master spells--I haven't really done the math.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebenweb (Post 733300)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre (Post 732690)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebenweb (Post 732660)

I'm a NOOB

I actually find this offensive. Please edit it out of your post, or change it to 'newbie'.

Unless you really expect us to believe you are oblivious to the difference between the two terms?

Yep, oblivious. I think I saw a sticky on it--I'll go read up.

So I found a pretty lengthy thread here debating this topic. My experience of "NOOB" (at work, mostly) is as a slightly derogatory term for someone who doesn't know what they're doing and new to a particular field or endeavour, mostly related to IT.

To be frank, I find it pretty funny that this should be so hotly debated or found offensive by anyone. This is the Internet, after all.

I won't be editing my original post, mainly because I refer to myself as a NOOB, not anyone else. It's humour, and self-deprecating.

Re: Bless nation recommendation, please

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebenweb (Post 733303)

So I found a pretty lengthy thread here debating this topic. My experience of "NOOB" (at work, mostly) is as a slightly derogatory term for someone who doesn't know what they're doing and new to a particular field or endeavour, mostly related to IT.

To be frank, I find it pretty funny that this should be so hotly debated or found offensive by anyone. This is the Internet, after all.

Did you accidentally type 'funny' instead of 'normal', perhaps?