Re: Blessings balance?
 

Crown of Darkness (3 death gems, Thaumaturgy bonus 40, disease), Library of Time (4 Astral gems, allows recruitment of Shadow Seers), Prison of the Desert Sun (5 fire gems, increases Heat a lot) and The Factory (3 earth gems, an entering Earth mage will get one free Mechanical Man/turn) are some examples of level 4 sites.

Moonvine Circle is Nature 1. Horses Vale is Nature 0, so it's already visible when you conquer the province. The Citadel of Pyriphlegaton and The Glowing Hill are both Fire 2. These four are all Uncommon and Unique according to a list of all Dominions magic sites.


Rareness doesn't always mean the more rare site is better, either. Level 4 sites are all pretty good, but there are some level 3 sites that only give you one gem, and as you found out, there are lots of very good level 2 sites. As an example, Well of Pestilence is a common Death 3 site. It increases Death scale, which makes provinces with abnormal Death scale usually a good investment for a Dark Knowledge (which finds all Death sites) even if you only have Death through random picks, but a common Death 2 mage can't find it with normal searching even if you knew that something strange was going on. However, there are other sites, even non-Death ones, that could also cause Death scale.

One or two in most paths, 4 in one or two, works. In Dom3, you can't have that pretender in the early game. C'tis with Sauromancers is Early Age in Dom3, and has Heat Preference 2, so you'll have few more points to play with. Frost Father has Water 1 and Air 1. Because even one pick in a path makes a difference when you go to higher levels, he is probably the cheapest option for Water 4, and I didn't find any competitors who had 10-point paths and either Fire or Blood.
With only Heat 1 and otherwise same scales, and only Dominion 5, you could have four paths at 4, and one at 2. With 40 points from Heat 2, which you'd have, you could get F4A4E4W4B4. However, you don't necessarily need Earth blessing, and Air is quite weak. You could get F4W4B4, and spend the other points on A3E2S3N2. Now you have access to much higher Astral and Nature that you normally would (well, Nature isn't particularly high, but Nature/Astral has one more path booster, Moonvine Bracelet). E2 is enough for a booster, S2 and S2E2 get you two Astral boosters, etc. Nature 2 is also what is needed for the first Nature booster, and with a Thistle Mace, your Shamans can cast Haruspex, the site-searching spell for Nature sites. It finds every nature site in the chosen province.

This still isn't optimal, but it's pretty good. It's more cost-effective than your build. Of course, there are other builds which could use paths similar to those you used. Fountain of Blood, as an example, could be used for B4 or maybe even 6, and summon some demons with those varied paths. Demon Knights, Storm Demons, plain old Devils, Blood items... Fire, Water and Blood would help you a bit in the beginning, giving you more powerful sacreds. Earth also has its uses, if you use Shamans in communion, or as battle casters with path boosters.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

where is the list of all sites?

found it

Re: Blessings balance?
 

www.freewebs.com/dominions2 has one. Fourth link/file in the Game Info section. It's based on Dom2 info.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

Cheers Endoperez. Lots of great info here. Will after study pretender selection some more I see. Hurry up Dom 3 then I can explore the high level stuff.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

I posted some examples of extreme bless. I was able to get all 4's and 1 or 2 9's depending on the pretender. You tended to take low dominion stregth and tried to stay outside of your dominion since it was all harmful scales but for some nations that wasnt so bad either.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

That sounds insane. I hope I don't see that happening too often in my MP games. Troops with every level 4 blessing seems....well, retarded to me. At least the pretender doesn't come out for ~36 turns to rainbow search.

=$=

Re: Blessings balance?
 

You mean the sleeping-god start?
I did that in Dom2. Im not sure what I can get in Dom3 using the new sleeping rules.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

That kind of pretender is OK for ashen empire. as every gem may be alchemized to death to spawn more commanders.
its a standard to me in those themes.
in Dom3 you are not forced to have a sleeping god.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

I wouldn't worry- level 9 blessings are generally quite a bit more effective.

Re: Blessings balance?
 

That's a bit off-topic, but I always wondered...

What effect does Blood blessing have on Mictlan Sun Warriors ? They have javelins, you know. And both range and power of javelins are based on strength. If I remember correctly, range is strength/2.
The question is: does Blood blessing actually make javelins better ? It should increase their range, but does it have negative effect on accuracy or what ? I ask because it would make sense that it's harder to hit a target that's further away, and units tend to throw javelins from max range. So would Blood blessing work in my favor when using javelins ?
I assume Sun Warriors are still present in Dominions3.