Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

Is this confirmed? It's not in the shortlist and I swear I've seen Ancestral Vessels fire twice in a round. They seem to prefer to move forward then possibly shoot.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

It's erratic. They can shoot twice but often shoot move instead.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

This is a silly argument. The in game value of magic paths has little to do with the bless effects. High Death is most useful for nations with high Death already (Mictlan, for example, couldn't pull off a heavy death strategy until very late in the game, especially with an imprisoned god).

The conclusion I see from this thread so far is that in a straight, melee sacred comparison (the area that attracts the heaviest blesses) fire is better. If you are playing a nation that cannot depend so completely on its melee sacreds (meaning most nations) this kind of comparison is meaningless.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

Not even true. Even a nation that does not natively get Death can easily alchemize gems, Empower one guy with D1, have that guy cast Dark Knowledge, and have a huge stockpile of Death gems by the time his Pretender arrives. It's not even hard considering the lack of really good uses for gems in the early game. Since this would be your gaming-winning tactic and synergizes hugely with a Blood-heavy nation like Mictlan, it's not even a bad idea.

But, I do understand how people's strategy to winning the game is often just "win more battles", making more complex strategies seem impossible.

Well, if you cannot depend on sacreds then discussing the relative merits of any bless is pretty useless since it plays little to no part in your overall strategy.

That being said, an amount of Fire Resistance or just armor to essentially cancel the Fire Weapons effect is pitifully easy to get in the middle and late game, so a Fire bless is basically just an attack bonus by then. By comparison, the Death bless is weaker in the early game but it never goes out of style; MR tends to ramp up slightly overall as people use summons, but the AN damage will still be useful even into the late game.

Add that to the increasing importance of Thugs and SCs in the middle to late game and the affliction bonus becomes dramatically more useful.

So if you want to take anything away from this thread, take this: Fire for early game, Death for late, and both are not that useful in either if you are using a nation that hits really hard already like Lanka or Neifleheim.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

Basing a strat around alchemizing 200 gems to empower someone up to D1 to site search so your pretender has D gems is pretty absurd.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

No more absurd than spending the same amount of gems equipping five thugs or casting a single global that won't win you the game, and that's a staple of Dominions play. Spending gems to set in motion a plan that will win you the game is a far better choice.

And 200 gems is just a worse-case scenario. With Astral gems, a little luck from random events, or just some lucky site searching by finding a mixed-type site and the actual number of gems might be a lot less (and that doesn't even count the chance that you might get a Death random on a Wolf Shaman or some other indie recruitable mage or site mage).

I'm surprised that you consider it absurd. Afraid people might actually win games where you have the superior army and lands?

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

It's not like Utterdark = you win. If you're facing Ermor, the darkness will be irrelevant to them for instance, and they may not worry about the income loss either. Blood nations will be happy with it too. Spending hundreds of gems to empwoer someone so your pretender can cast a spell which is not a game-winner by itself looks a bit excessive, but it is a strategy. I'm not sure it's necessarily a better strategy than rushing your neighbour with sacreds and killing them before turn 32 and then use a bigger army, gold and gem income to win.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

Ever fought a blood nation in a post-Utterdark game where you have a real army and they only have summons?

I'm not saying that you auto-win. By turn 35 or 40 a few well-scripted mages or thugs/SCs can still turn your armies into goo, but I'd put it in the top three tactics that let you steamroll nations or break the hearts of your enemies and cause them to go AI.

As for Bless Rushes, they are not the top three tactics. Having broken the back of more than one bless rush with such exotic tactics as "archers" or "level 2 magic", I don't rate it terribly high.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

Now that really is absurd.

Re: Fire vs. Death heavy bless
 

If you have a real army and they only have summons, why do you need Utterdark?
Why wouldn't they have an army? Many blood nations have units that don't care about darkness (abysia, lanka's kalamukha and Mictlan moon or rain warriors). Furhtermore Agarthans, undead hordes from Ermor or Pangaea, R'lyeh autosummons and mind blasts, that's a lot of units that won't be affected a lot by the Utterdark.