Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

So the new bless effects sound quite potent. The devs have said that one of the reasons for this is to encourage people to take more magic on their pretenders. How much do you think this will change your pretender design?

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

So, is this post to be redone after we get DomII / demo? And after which ithis is done?

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I'm not really sure about the whole new sacred/bless paradigm.

The old system allowed many sacred troops to be made and gave everyone a good benefit for blessing.

The new system limits the number of sacred troops by dominion and only allows them from the capital (except by Marignon). Further, in order to get good bless effects, you will need a huge amount of magic on the pretender.

I suspect that a bless-pretender strategy will only be viable for Marignon, since they can get efficiency by making many troops that get the benefit.

I have not seen the game yet so I could easily be wrong, but my gut feeling is that the new sacred/bless system is fun, but not viable for competitive play.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm guessing this change in bless effects will have something of a ripple effect in how people play - so yes, it would be interesting to do a similar survey after people have gotten used to playing Dom II.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You may be right... It seems like it will be hard to come up with significant numbers of sacred troops. [incidentally this is why I was in support of the suggestion made a while back to make it possible to 'sanctify' troops, to allow a greater use of sacred troops.]

Then again apparently roving bands of flagellents are apparently just as common in Dom II as in Dom I - or maybe even more so...

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I'm a bit concerned too. Sure we shall wait for the demo (at least), but even simple calculation can let us evaluate the importance of blessed troops :

some potent holy troops:
Warden of Avallon 26 res
Temple Guard 43 res

It means that nations which can count on quality holy troops will have resources to recruit between 5 and 10 units in their capitol.

I dont know if the overall number you can get with this rate of drafting will be enough to warrant the spending of several hundred points in magic levels, but I doubt. True also that these magic levels give a benefit by themselves, but taking fire 6 for spell usage is not justified in my mind for example.

I have read some time ago that your blessed troops were recrutable in all provinces with temples, and limited to the number of candles present. Is this rule obsolete?

we will see...

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Unless I'm testing some special situation, I always go for a strong bless effect in my games, and I find that I always get my money's worth, no matter what nation I play. Since the effects are additive to the units, i.e. you get a bonus to your attack from a Fire magic blessing instead of just having your base attack stat replaced by the same one all blessed troops might receive, that's what keeps things in balance. The really expensive sacred units tend to have pretty good stats already, but blessings can either close gaps or boost those units to an amazingly high potency. The cheap sacred units, e.g. the flagellents, aren't that great without their blessings. The power of the blessings makes them into much more potent units, but they still won't be a match for, say, a blessed Warden of Avalon. Because of this, the relative costs for the units still keeps them in balance.

I don't want to raise the spector of "Supercombatents" because, well, there's a counterbalance for everything, but I find 10 blessed Wardens can take on just about any number of flagellents without too much fuss. It's the blessed Knights of the Challice they have to be careful of. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered, well, you do have to sacrifice in other areas to get them, and they will follow along certain lines due to their natures. For example, Abyssia doesn't have to concern themselves overly with the flaming weaponry given to blessed troops with a Fire magic 9+ pretender. You can plan accordingly, especially since the new titles give you a peak at what kind of magic the enemy gods are packin', and try to work out counters. I'd worry more about them being over-powered than under-powered, but I think they are pretty well in balance. So much comes from how well you design them, so it is hard to seperate innate power from design skill there, but so far, I haven't had any qualms with their cost or potency.

Now, the second tier blessings are different in that they are effects that are either there or aren't, such as flaming weaponry, but since (to continue this example) the damage for flaming weaponry is in addition to the unit's normal damage, it still works out the same way in most cases.

It all balances out in the end, IMO, although it does take skill (thankfully) to plan and prepare the right kind of blessing for your nation. Obviously, Ulm doesn't really need more Protection, so an Earth magic blessing isn't that useful. Giving them a Fear effect, however . . . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Likewise, the sacred undead usually already have a built-in Cause Fear ability (although blessing them with an additional one gives a cumulative result, if I'm not mistaken), but an MR boost via Astral magic (e.g. Banishment protection) is a marvelous thing.

Maybe I'm overstating my case here, but the blessing effects are one of my favorite parts of Dom II. They really bring the "godly" flavor of the whole thing onto the battle field. A blessing from Ceannthine, the Burning Soul, King of Every Flame is a very different thing from that of Lobheair, Mistress of Poison and Goddess of Decay. There's a dimension added by the blessings that I'd sorely miss if it weren't there, and the only thing I'd want to tweak about them is to have a summary for your god's blessing available without having to check out a current blessed unit. (I always have to go and check my prophet, as prophets are permanently blessed, if I forget exactly what my god's blessing does.)

Your milage may vary, of course, but I really do think y'all will find the blessings one of the very best parts of Dom II.

[ October 26, 2003, 20:06: Message edited by: Psitticine ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I don't think the new bless is intended to dominate the game. It's just there, like the reduced dominion benefits, to encourage sinking some more points into the god himself. That and, very definately, to add flavor! The sacred troops of an air & astral pretender may be inferior to the originals but they're different, and different then all the others. This is cool.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>Since the effects are additive to the units, i.e. you get a bonus to your attack from a Fire magic blessing instead of just having your base attack stat replaced by the same one all blessed troops might receive, that's what keeps things in balance.

Bless was "additive" in Dom I.
I don't see how this helps "balance".


>The cheap sacred units, e.g. the flagellents, aren't that great without their blessings.

Neither are the expensive ones... if you take thier costs into account.


>The power of the blessings makes them into much more potent units, but they still won't be a match for, say, a blessed Warden of Avalon. Because of this, the relative costs for the units still keeps them in balance.

I don't see this.


>I find 10 blessed Wardens can take on just about any number of flagellents without too much fuss. It's the blessed Knights of the Challice they have to be careful of.

Not in Dom I by any stretch of the imagination.
Sure a Warden is better than a Flag one on one, but Wardens cost 3.5X as much gold. If you had 35 Flags fighting 10 Wardens, the Flags would mop the floor with the Wardens (in Dom I).

As for Dom II, keep in mind that Flags will allow massive efficiency compared to Wardens. Consider 100 Wardens getting +3 Strength and +3 to Attack. This 100 instances of the bonus being attributed. Now consider that for the same gold cost we can make 350 Flags. Also consider that Flags strike twice, so they use their bonuses twice! This is 700 instances of a bonus being attributed. The Warden army gains +300 strength and attack while the Flags garner +2100.

I think you have dramatically underestimated the potency of flagellents.

My suspision that Marignon will be the only nation to benefit from the changes to blessings remains unchanged. We will have a better opportunity to judge when the demo comes out.


>On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered,

I worry about underpowered. I have absolutely no concern that blessings will be over-powered.


>Maybe I'm overstating my case here, but the blessing effects are one of my favorite parts of Dom II. They really bring the "godly" flavor of the whole thing onto the battle field.

Agreed. It sounds like a great way to add flavor.
My worry is that it won't be particularly useful.


>Your milage may vary, of course, but I really do think y'all will find the blessings one of the very best parts of Dom II.

I hope so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">First off, I'm also concerned about "underpowered", a bit. I think it would be nice if bonuses started at level 2 magic or level 3 magic instead of level 4 magic, or if blessings gave +3str +3mrl in addition to magic bonuses. But, we'll see how it works.

But as to your other point, uh... the math is wrong. With strength... yes, strength can be multiplied by number of affected units (and Flags have the advantage with their double hits). But for things like attack, MR, protection, and so forth, you can't simply multiply #units by #pts increase and get the overall improvement. Moving a flagellant from 0 protection to 3 protection, for example, does not really affect his survivability, while moving a Warden (dunno, say 15 protection) up to 18 protection would make him much less likely to be hurt when attacked by a flagellant.

Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.

Essentially, some blessings are better for some units, and some for others, but you can't really claim that all blessings are better for cheap, plentiful units, because it's not true.

-Cherry

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.


+50% Quickness would net 10 Wardens an extra 5 attacks. It would get 35 flags another 35 attacks! While the warden attacks are stronger, it gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of flag attacks. Easily.

Even for the stuff like regeneration, yes the flags don't get the benefit of the double attack, but they still get regen on 3.5X as many troops. In a one on one comparison a warden gets more regen than a flag. When you account for 1 warden versus 3.5 flags, the situation is much murkier.

For the bonuses that don't involve an attack the flags only get 3.5X as much bonus as opposed to 7X. I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Regeneration is much more powerful on armored troops like wardens. While flaggelants can easily be killed by a single blow this is rare for wardens so the chance that regen will have an impact on a warden is much higher. If you take the extreme case of the new Niefel giants this is even more pronounced.

Blessings might not be very powerful in the long run, but since early expansion is very important in most games powerful blessings will have an effect beyond just the blessing effect in itself, since it might allow for quicker expansion etc.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

The problem is that a flagellant will often die with a single hit, so regeneration does him no good... while heavy units often survive with minimal damage, which is then regenerated. Unarmored units also don't really benefit from protection, since they usually die in one hit anyway... and they don't benefit at all from reinvigoration, since they have low encumbrance (and die in a prolonged fight).

Extra attacks are useful for Wardens, because they do much more damage and have a much higher attack rating. So, against very heavy (18 prot Ulm) infantry, 10 Wardens with +3 protection, +3 strength, +3 reinvigoration, and regeneration would probably do much better than 35 flags with the same blessing. Double-strike doesn't help if neither hit does any damage... and 3 protection doesn't help when you're impaled on a pike.

-Cherry

Edit: JO posted about the same thing at about the same time.

[ October 27, 2003, 01:18: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

"I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile."

Flags are also the big losers -- strength and attack played right to their strength but several of the new bonuses don't.

I see the new blessing system as simiar to the old one, perhaps slighty weaker, but with more variety and adding a bias for pretender magic. I'm not sure what standard "worthwhile" you're using.
Worthwhile as in sacred troops will be less used then before? As in level 9 magic is just too expensive? As in making a magic path come out even is too expensive?

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>10 Wardens with +3 protection, +3 strength, +3 reinvigoration, and regeneration would probably do much better than 35 flags with the same blessing.

Can't compare same blessings, you have to compare best.

35 flags with +3 str, +3 att, def +3 (extra def would make quite an impact versus the wardens above), and 50% quickness would absolutely crush the wardens from the above example. [using the same amount of bless effect]

It's possible that flaming weapons would be even better than quickness, but I'm not quite sure what the flame effect entails yet.

Unless you are going to use sacred troops with missile attacks, the flags are going to come out ahead every time.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>I see the new blessing system as simiar to the old one, perhaps slighty weaker, but with more variety and adding a bias for pretender magic.

My fear is that it will be more than slightly weaker.

What about players who do not invest heavily in pretender magic? That renders any sacred troops much less useful. In Dom I, all nations had some ability to field serious sacred troops. In Dom II players will find their sacred troops to be junky unless they set up their nation specifically to take advantage of them. I'm not sure I like that new paradigm.


>I'm not sure what standard "worthwhile" you're using.

Competitive with other uses of nation points.


>Worthwhile as in sacred troops will be less used then before?

In multiplayer, it's almost certain that we will see less serious use of sacred troops.

[unless of course my suspisions are totally wrong]


>As in level 9 magic is just too expensive?

It generally is.


>As in making a magic path come out even is too expensive?

I have no idea what this means.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A trifle too dogmatic I fear, Mr. Poger. Much as I respect your veteran status I disagree with your conclusions in this instance.

Comparing best to best I would say that you could craft a group of 10 wardens that could destroy a group of 35 flagellants, simply by playing to the warden's strengths. If there was a specific 'counter' bless effect for every bless effect this wouldn't be possible. What I mean is that obviously if you raise the wardens' defense and the flags' attack, then it'll all balance out. However, there is no opposite to effects like reinvigoration, regeneration, flaming weapons, twist fate, etc. Accordingly it should be possible to craft a blessing effect which would play to the wardens' strengths.

The strengths of the warden (by comparison with flagellants) are high HP (13 vs. 9), high PROT (16 vs. 0), and higher attack and defense. Typically a flagellant will hit about 46% of the time (9 ATT vs. 10 DEF), do some damage 38% of the time (14 vs. 16 PROT), more than likely a very small amount. Typically a warden will hit a flag 89% of the time, and do damage pretty much every time they hit (0 PROT vs. 22) and mostly enough to kill the flag. suppose each is blessed with magic 9 in the most optimal path. For wardens I suggest nature: berserk +3 and regeneration (& poison resistance, but that doesn't relate here). For flags suppose water, for even more attacks, or blood (except I'm not sure what is meant by 'death curse') So let's suppose water.

The wardens will regenerate HP, meaning that if one is not killed in a single round he will likely bounce back and do more damage. In addition, getting wounded will give him +3 str, prot, and att, and -3 def. The defense reduction isn't a big deal because he's getting hit quite a lot anyway (7 attacks to his 1), so his defense is not where his strength is anyway. +3 str also isn't a big deal because he likely kills a flag with each attack anyway. same with +3 att. +3 prot will reduce the number of times the warden gets damaged to about 20% (14 vs. 19 PROT), and accordingly reduce the amount of damage he takes.

The flags get def +4, and quickness (50%), which is an extra attack every other round I believe. The defense boost will help a little, but the chance for them getting hit will still be 74%, so they'll get hit alot. since the other stats are unchanged they'll also get killed alot.

Now compare in a single round: warden with 1 attack, flags with an average of 10 attacks (3.5*2 + half again). Flags hit 7 times (68%), 20% of those cause damage; that's about 1.4, and those attacks will most likely just do a point or two of damage. 1 flag dead. Next round: warden regenerates up to full, same deal, 1 flag dead. It's just possible that every so often a flag will get incredibly lucky and roll several sixes - extreme damage. So it's possible that they might kill a warden or two if they got lucky. Of course the wardens are berserk so won't rout. More than likely the flags won't be able to do serious enough damage to the wardens to win, and it should only take 4 rounds for all the flags to be dead.

All that to say: I think you're wrong that flagellants would take down wardens if each were optimally blessed. Thus maybe sacred troops other than flagellants will be useful.

p.s. sorry about the length of the post.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

What you aren't taking into account is the very potent bonuses that the flags get for attacking in mass. By your math flags in Dom I would have just as much trouble. However any testing at all will show that the flags will blow right though the wardens.

The theory is all well and good, however real game testing often shows the flaws in theory. As soon as the demo comes out I will do a tremendous amount of testing. For now I can only tell you what happens in Dom I. In Dom I flags crush wardens. From what I see of the Dom II system, it doesn't look like anything has changed that, however once I do testing I'll be delighted to report the results and form my opinions from facts.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The only bonus that I am aware of is that each attack made against a single target lowers that target's defense score by 1. This is indeed a potent effect when you are facing 10 attacks to each 1 of your own, but the wardens in the scenario I sketched out are not relying primarily on defense, but on protection. The only thing I know that affects protection is fatigue, but if the battle only takes 4 rounds (and only 15 flags left after the first 2), this ought not to change things much. Suppose flags hit 10/10 instead of 7/10 times (due to lowering defense) - still only 2 of those are likely to pierce the armour of the warden, and them do a few points of damage each - very unlikely 13 points combined (which is how many HP the wardens have).

But it is not the same in this scenario as in Dom I, due to the factor of regeneration. In Dom I during the second round of combat the wardens would be low on hitpoints, and by the third round several, perhaps many, would have fallen. The factor of regeneration changes all this, because it allows the regenerating unit to recoup lost hitpoints during the battle. Thus the wardens do not die (as they would in Dom I) to an accumulation of low damage attacks - rather they regenerate the damage and this is what makes the key difference.

I also will test out this theory when the game comes out - but I bet you a large pizza with anchovies that I'm right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ October 27, 2003, 04:07: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, obviously some testing would be nice. But when you compare to the Dom I situation, I think you are ignoring the importance of regeneration and extra protection that the wardens are getting. How often (in the Dom I tests) do the wardens die from one hit, vs. dying from multiple hits? It would be much rarer to die from multiple hits if you have extra protection and regeneration - the one lucky fistful of sixes is about the only way.

AFAIK, the multiple attacker bonus only affects defense, which isn't that much of an issue in this example anyway. The flags would be better off with strength, I think. Fatigue might also be an issue for the wardens, but I would expect a warden vs. flag match to be decided before fatigue could have much effect (someone will be dead or routed by turn 5).


In any case, the example has a serious flaw: it assumes that 3.5 flags actually get to attack each warden. Wardens are size 2 or 3 (I forget), so 3 or 2 fill one space. Flags are size 2, so 3 fill one space. At most 1.5 flags per warden will actually be attacking at a time - the rest will be stuck in the back.

Small squads will reduce this effect somewhat in later rounds as the flags run around the sides, but by later rounds there won't be as many flags anyway.


Some more points that aren't being considered: although Marignon has level 4 priests, Man does not. They may have trouble blessing substantial Groups of wardens (assuming that they can field them in the first place). On the other hand, wardens have good protection and resist missiles pretty well (especially with regen and berserking). Flags have lousy protection and can get mauled by slingers, let alone bows. Hmm, can Man field bows? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

In fact, firing longbows into melee where your nature-9 blessed wardens are fighting would be really effective - if you do hit a warden by accident, you will probably (a) not kill him, and (b) drive him berserk. And (c) he will regenerate. And that's not even counting the effect on your enemies...

It may be difficult to test bless situations in Dom II - unless the battle sim has been significantly improved, you probably won't be able to edit god magic for each side before running the sim. So you'll get the generic bless.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was about to disagree and then I realised that I was the one who was getting confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif - You're absolutely right.

BTW you're probably right that flags would do better with blood, for the strength boost. The only thing that made me not want to use that was not knowing what the 'death curse' you get at lvl 9 is. Even in that case regeneration would make probably a big difference.

BTW2 apparently there is no battle sim in Dom II - much to my dismay I might add.

*edit - it was your stats, by the way, from the usenet post, that I was basing my calculations upon. A most helpful piece of research - thank you.

[ October 27, 2003, 04:23: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>BTW2 apparently there is no battle sim in Dom II - much to my dismay I might add.


It won't take long for some player to produce a reasonable testbed.

I think you guys are dramatically overestimating the value of regeneration. It works off the base hits of the unit. It's very impressive on a Wrym. Not very impressive on a human sized troop.

10 wardens backed by nature-9 will get whipped by 35 flags backed by fire-4 blood-6 [with a small savings in nation points]. And yes, I'd bet a pizza on that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ October 27, 2003, 04:36: Message edited by: apoger ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

">As in level 9 magic is just too expensive?

It generally is."

Yes... but the betas who don't seem to think so. I wonder if we still have only 500 points to play with? Even if we do, I suspect my usual growth +3 is going to become death +3, which will probably go into pretender magic which will get bless up about Dom1 levels. I'll probably also be taking order which means leaving my luck neutral is viable. I'm hopeful there may be enough points to make sacred troops work. We'll see.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I'd say it hinges on the chance the Flags will manage to overcome the Wardens' defense and armor, and also on how they line up in the field. If flail attacks rarely affect a Warden, and/or if they line up so the combat is fought more or less 1:1 in line, the Flags will probably die. If flails tend to get through and hurt Wardens, and/or if the fighters are spread out and mixed up so that they fight 3:1 or 4:1, the Flags will probably win.

Does someone (or some FAQ) know the formulae behind the combat system in detail?

In Dom II, do magic levels still directly add to the mage's combat abilities, as in Dom I? (e.g., does a level 9 fire mage still get Attack +9 himself automatically, in addition to bless effects?)

PvK

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I agree with Alex, although I've been biting my tongue up to this point. The bless effects completely underwhelm me, especially when combined with the limited production of Sacred Troops. It's simply way too much cost for little benefit.

Dominion and castles are far more important. The major benefit of getting additional magic skills is access to missing magics and gem income, and past skill 3 these benefits taper off steeply -- while the costs rise.

Harsh experience in Dom 1 taught me that it just didn't make sense to get more than 3 in a skill, unless it was Astral. Perhaps a 4 if you started with a 3.

The new bless effects are thematic, but at most might convince me to boost a 3 to a 4, and this is only for races that have really good Sacred Troops.

I'm eager to see the demo and try this out first hand; I hope I'm wrong about this aspect of balance.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I like making sacred troops regardless of bless effects, because they have low maintenance. Of course, some have artificially high prices to compensate, but for example, unblessed flags are still way better than militas. Sacred research-mages are especially nice in this way.

I wonder if commanders will count toward the sacred troop production limit? As in, a province with a temple and no dominion can't produce a priest to rectify the situation...

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I'll just post some of my experiences with Flagellants and Wardens. I used Earth 9 Pretender when I played Man and they would get +4 protection from blessing. Sure, Man has no high level priests, which is quite a disadvantage, but it has cheapest low level priests, which he can bring in large numbers on the battlefield. As far as numbers of produced units go, Man is restricted to his home castle to build it so logical choice of castle would be some with very high Admin value (Fortified city is the best choice here, probably). Since Man has tendency to start in forest provinces which have higher resources then wastelands or plains (actually only mountains have higher resources) they will get better production rates then other nations with high resource troops would (like Ulm). Logically, since you are aware that you can produce Wardens only in your home castle you will do that right from the start and since you invested in level 9 magic to get high bless bonus, you will try max out production of Wardens ASAP. That means you will try to get all neighboring provinces to get 50% resources from them, avoid building castles on those provinces and produce Wardens each turn as much as possible. Doing that, in my game, I had a steadily growing army of wardens that had significant numbers quite early. Since blessings give them +4 protection and their fatigue was practically non-existent (enemy didn't get more chance to penetrate their armor) I didn't lose a single Warden during whole expansion, effectively allowing me to expand with no loses (at least to my Warden troops) and doing it fast as well. Wardens also have no great weaknesses in any of the areas, meaning no weak defense or weak attack or weak strength or low hp or ... you get the picture. When I did run into Marignon later, all I had to do is employ lots of archers and a wall of Wardens (with 20 prot there was no significant friendly fire) to massacre the army of flagellants they had.

Lets talk a little bit of flagellants now. They are weak in every aspect except in number of attacks and the numbers that you can field them. Sure, they are less expensive then Wardens and you can produce several of them for each Warden (and not only in main castle) but on the field, if you use them you will lose them no matter what you face. With any blessing they die easily like any light infantry or better say militia would, so when you invest in producing them you are bound to lose a lot of that gold/time/resource in each battle. Can you make an attack on independent province with flagellants and have no losses? NO! So you will be LOSING more money per turn, per battle that way much more then Man will. Also, blessings usually cover some weakness sacred units have. They can add better defense or better attack or protect you some from missiles (some because - level 4 Air gives only 20% chance that missile that would normally hit you will miss), give you better protection, etc. But since flagellants have so many weaknesses you cant possibly cover all of them with blessing. If you make them stronger or give them better attack (fire or blood magic blessings) I will simply use missile troops and kill them all or most before they even reach enemy. Hell, they fall from arrows faster then undead. If you decide go for Air magic and protect them those arrows you wont be able to give them any other boost so they will die in close combat like all other militia troops would (light infantry has much better protection then flagellants).
If you want to use Arrow Fend spell and still go for fire/blood blessings you will have no mages to cast Arrow Fend since they have no air magic - fire is their specialty. Also, arrow fend is level 6 spell so you have to reach it and it costs gems which means you have to have air mage to find them. That means you have to take Air magic for your pretender and forget/weaken fire/blood blessings.

To conclude, flagellants are cheapest sacred troops in game but since they have so many weaknesses it’s EASY to use some of those and kill flagellants in huge numbers should enemy decide to rely on them. In my experience so far, they have never dominated battlefield. They can be valuable support troops but if you go on mass-producing them you are bound to lose a lots of gold (every unit you lose is gold/resource loss). And finally there is that balancing in dominion scales vs. blessing effects.

Oh, and BTW level 9 in any path of magic is NOT particularly expensive if you use right pretender (for example, use Cyclops for Earth). I still get excellent dominion scales, not weak dominion and level 9 Earth at the same time. Getting 2 of level 9 is another story, though.

[ October 27, 2003, 06:22: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Its still there. I think they use term "indirect magic" for it.

Here are the effects per level of magic:

Fire - ATT +1, LDR +5, Magic LDR +5
Air - PREC +1, Magic LDR +5
Water - Enter Sea, Magic LDR +5
Earth - PROT +1, Magic LDR +5
Astral - Magic LDR +10
Death - Undead LDR +20
Nature - Supply bonus +5, Magic LDR +5
Blood - Undead LDR +5, Magic LDR +5
Unholy - Undead LDR +10

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>I'll just post some of my experiences with Flagellants and Wardens.

Wardens backed by earth-9 can aid early game expansion while taking trivial losses.

See that? You whole post reduced to a single sentence. Sometimes "less is more". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I don't deny that such a strategy can be used to effect. I question is whether an equal gold/resource army of tower guard and longbow would be just as potent and much more cost effective in nation points.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Agreed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

But I like to use some of those rare opportunities and improve my English somewhat, so I go for such long Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif The day I can write that much, that perfectly in Japanese, I'll be a very happy person=) Well, actually, my avatar (Cherry) can, just I can't=)

Regardless, I liked the long post, it gave some insight as to why. A simple "I'm a beta, and Wardens are better" would not have contributed much=)

-Cherry

[ October 27, 2003, 06:48: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really? That's new I think. Do all the factions have similar tendencies in Dom 2?

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really? That's new I think. Do all the factions have similar tendencies in Dom 2? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I also rather suspect it's new, as I'm not entirely certain there were forests in Dom I http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Dominions's system of terrain-morphing in response to dominion was one of the conceptually coolest things I've seen in a game - especially, for example, when I put Ermor in by accident and I could see this sickening frost spread across the world, before I had "officially" spotted them. But, the Dominions 2 maps are so much better looking, and appear to be so much more interesting (terrain having a much greater impact on gameplay) that even though I suspect morphing is gone, it's a good tradeoff.

That said -

Any betas (not to mention any names like Daynarr) know whether the terrain changes in response to dominion scales? For example, do forests die and change to wasteland under a death scale?

-Cherry

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really? That's new I think. Do all the factions have similar tendencies in Dom 2? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Most of them do. C'tis will, for example, tend to start in swamp provinces, I believe Caelum and Jotunheim like Mountain provinces, Panganea likes forest as well, etc. Not sure every nation has a preference, but the map has great influence on starting province as well. No use if your nation likes forests and there are no or little forests on it.

As far as Ermor goes I have no idea what they like if they like anything since I've seen them in various locations.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Going from 3 -> 9 costs 168 pts! Four points less gets you Earth 4, plus a 3 and a 2 in magic your faction doesn't have. Or you could just go with Earth 4 and tip 4 dominion scales.

It doesn't seem worth trading these powerfull effects for more skill on your pretender than you can really use, plus +2 further protection and some reinvigoration for troops you can only produce in limited quantities. Even if you pay this many points, you still get a less powerfull bless effect than the default bless in Dom 1.


I very much like the intention of increasing the value of magic on a Pretender so that competitive players will actually take some, but I don't think this is enough. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to make changes in this area slowly to avoid overcompensating.

Perhaps this area will be tweaked later if people find it to be unbalanced. I think it would be cool to see some dominion scale like effects tied to magic skill, to let higher skill levels make more of a difference on spell casting power, or even a small cost reduction in casting ritual spells.

Of course, this is all without having seen Dom 2. Perhaps many of the new spells require or give significant bonuses to a strong caster, which could be a real boon.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's cool! I wonder what sort of impact this will have on balance? In general I'd be much happier starting near rich farmland, than near forests or swamps... Or does terrain have different value to different factions?

[ October 27, 2003, 07:39: Message edited by: Jasper ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No noticeable dominion effects on map. The dead forests you saw on some of those screenshots are usually a mark for wasteland, not winter or dominion effect.

Map don't change visual appearance dynamically so cold provinces will be noticed by cold scales, not by appearing white on screen. But it’s a good idea (for Dom 3 more likely - if they ever make it).

[ October 27, 2003, 07:45: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Going from 3 -> 9 costs 168 pts! Four points less gets you Earth 4, plus a 3 and a 2 in magic your faction doesn't have. Or you could just go with Earth 4 and tip 4 dominion scales.

It doesn't seem worth trading these powerfull effects for more skill on your pretender than you can really use, plus +2 further protection and some reinvigoration for troops you can only produce in limited quantities. Even if you pay this many points, you still get a less powerfull bless effect than the default bless in Dom 1.


I very much like the intention of increasing the value of magic on a Pretender so that competitive players will actually take some, but I don't think this is enough. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to make changes in this area slowly to avoid overcompensating.

Perhaps this area will be tweaked later if people find it to be unbalanced. I think it would be cool to see some dominion scale like effects tied to magic skill, to let higher skill levels make more of a difference on spell casting power, or even a small cost reduction in casting ritual spells.

Of course, this is all without having seen Dom 2. Perhaps many of the new spells require or give significant bonuses to a strong caster, which could be a real boon. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, here is the design I used in that particular game:

Cyclops pretender with Level 9 in Earth magic.

Fortified City

Dominion scales:

- Order +3
- Production +2
- Growth +1
- Misfortune -3
All the rest are neutral.

Dominion Strength 3; Note that Man has cheaper temple (100 gold) so getting higher strength during is quite easy for them.

Of course those scales can be a little different (+3 production and neutral growth, or –2 misfortune to get special commanders and neutral growth) but I like having positive growth since it gradually improves your income over time. Also, growth has larger effect on larger maps where having supply bonus from growth counts (large armies are more common) and having more provinces with growth means you get significantly more money from taxes over time then you would on smaller maps. This was large map with no Ermor player so I went for growth. I believe this is quite good dominion and it ensures that I get enough income and production to make lots of Wardens and get fast and efficient expansion with almost no losses at the start of the game. Also, my pretender will be able to empower himself later in air and nature magic while I will be able to find those resource/gold bonus sites with him. It was good combo, but not only one. I'm just pondering what possibilities I would have using other bless effects, like fire weapons bonus and improved attack, quickness and better defense, etc.

Bless does matter, but must be used carefully as not all bless effect will be beneficial to your sacred troops. For example, if you have sacred magic Users that you will employ often you will avoid nature blessing that will make them go berserk as soon as something touches them. Air or earth (or both) blessing will work better on them since they will be better protected from missiles (especially if they can’t cast air shield on themselves and you are up against nation that like archers) or reinvigoration, which will reduce fatigue significantly (getting level 6 or 8 in earth there seems good choice there since mages wont get much benefit from def+4).

O boy, another long post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ October 27, 2003, 08:31: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Regen effect :

IIRC the regen effect from blessing is a 10% regen, which lead to a 1 HP/round regen for the wardens.

Seems not that much interesting.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I have a question for the Dom I players. I've been a bit surprised while reading this at how many people prefer Pretenders with such weak magic skills. In Dom II, the really good stuff, like Arcane Nexus, Undead Mastery, Master Enslave, and so forth all require powers of 6-8. Is that a new thing, or do you just find other ways to meet the power criteria?

I can think of Empowerment, Communion/Sabboth, and magical items as ways to unlock those world-shakers, but they all have their drawbacks.

Empowerment can certainly boost one's Pretender up to a more godlike potency, but that would be so costly, and those gems can be used for so many other things! Communion and Sabboth are potent, but they only work on the battlefield and are no help at all for rituals. The magical items seem a good choice, but they are limited in how far they can boost you, plus they are expensive as well, and often also require a high level of power to forge in the first place!

I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>Is that a new thing, or do you just find other ways to meet the power criteria?

In Dom I'd say 75% of multiplayer games ended before anyone was able to cast such spells.

Frankly, I don't see this changing much in Dom II. You have to understand that multiplayer is vastly less laid back than single player. In single player you can lay back and generate all sorts of funky stuff. Against live players... if you don't maximize every turn, you will get savaged.


>I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

The change from Dom 1-2 is that in Dom II the scales are less potent, thus you are inspired to spend more on the pretender in Dom II.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Several spells are more difficult to encourage people to create more powerful gods.

We were surprised that players (especially competetive MP:s) created weak and ungodly gods. Feeling instead of efficiency was not a trade off they were willing to make.

The blessings, weaker scale effects and more difficult spells are all efforts to give boring http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif MP:s some reasons to increase their gods powers.

Spells were available through magic items and empowerment, but this cost was always low compared to the economical advantage that enabled you to early conquer enemies and take their gold and gems.

Divine titles are another way to encourage people to make interesting gods, but this feature is only a PR thing. I suspect that it will make overly competetive players avoid high magic skills as it gives a hint on what their gods are skilled at. Personally I would very much like to be known 'God of this World' by my opponents. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

[quote]Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Several spells are more difficult to encourage people to create more powerful gods.

We were surprised that players (especially competetive MP:s) created weak and ungodly gods. Feeling instead of efficiency was not a trade off they were willing to make.

IMHO it's more a kind of "operant conditioning"; making an inefficient Pretender in multiplayer is a very Pavlovian experience. I started my first few games making Pretenders with higher magic skills, but it cost me badly and I was only able to make up for it through lucky multiplayer dynamics.

It's fun to be thematic, but it's not fun to lose because your neighbors are _twice_ as big as you. This naturally convinces most players to try to find something that is still fun, but doesn't make you feel like you're doomed.

IMHO this is largely due to the exponential growth of early dominions games, where investment in wealth increasing scales quickly compounds. This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.

Spells were available through magic items and empowerment, but this cost was always low compared to the economical advantage that enabled you to early conquer enemies and take their gold and gems.

More accurately, these costs are fixed, while scale investments yield compound interest.

One way I've seen this addressed in other games is to split the points available into several pools only applicable to certain things. For example you could have a magic pool, a dominion pool, and a flexible pool that could be spent on anything.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In MP you can rely on items more than in SP, and stay at 4 for example. Mainly because you can generally trade with several other players the items you cant build initially. I never had a problem getting a ring of sorcery or a ring of wizardry, if I wanted one, and without any astral skill on my own eg.

Also, getting high levels in a magic field, just so eventually, one day, you can cast a cool high level spell is too much hypothetical in MP. You must be efficient somehow, and not only base your design choice on cool rpg concepts. This is not to say that sometime I dont indulge in tweaking a race toward a more roleplaying feel, but as I'm not very masochistic, I prefer often to be efficient, and not suffer dozen of gaming hours, being mauled badly by other players http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The balance problems are accutely felt in MP. In SP there is no big issues, you fight only AIs. Who care if you try Ermor with +3 growth? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

>This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.


I must agree with Jasper on this. I don't like the whole one province, then expand dynamic. It heavily favors strategies that involve brutal fast expansion. I'd rather see players setting up to fight each other rather than "speed trampling unowned provinces".

It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

I think this would be a good step forward for the game.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

I've noticed the same thing in Dom1 MP. When I started working on Pan I used some more expensive pretenders like Molochs/Princes of Death. After couple o' MPs I had moved into simple Fountain designs (namely Fountain of Blood w/ 4blood, 2air, 2water for the big demons with huge emphasis on scales).

I can also see the trend continue Even with reduced scale effects, every single bit of income is going to help since patrolling is no longer possible. Growth +3 might not seem too big of an issue with the initially low economy boost, but I find it's going to be an issue in the longer run.

I've played the demo for couple o' days now (mostly with Machaka, love them) and with the increased importance of Astral magic I've really found no other way but to have a cheap 4astral fountain with good scales and good dominion. Albeit going for astral 4 was mainly to get +1mr for the Black Hunters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif . Not worth it in any way but just felt like it, gets me some important summons (like guaranteed Air magic in the form of The Harbringder).

I _could_ consider going for earth 9 with some races (Wardens of Man and Heart Companions of Arco) and hope to cast some of the higher end stuff in the end (Army of Lead/Army of Gold, for example) but it's still unlikely to be worth it in the long run.

-Mikko Heikkilä

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This would be cool. I don't know if I'd want every game to start this way, but I see some definite advantages - e.g. faster games. My suggestion would be that a "nation" in the sense we're talking about would consist of the capital, and every adjacent province. That way the really strategic choices come into play from basically turn 1 onwards. It also makes your castle choice very important, because a high admin castle will start you off with plenty of resources!

The downside would be trying to make sure that each player gets a roughly balanced deal with regard to starting money (how many provinces doesn't so much matter as how rich they are). Nonetheless this is an intriguing suggestion.

If any of the Illwinter team is reading this, what do you think of the idea? Do you like it? and if you do how likely is it to be implemented?

-

With regard to the whole magic-on-pretenders question, In Dom I there were very few spells that required more than 4 in any one magic path - and those that did were levels 8 & 9 particularly. In Dom II there are still relatively few such spells, but a few more than in Dom I. Getting your mages up to lvl 4 in a magic path isn't that hard, depending on the path, and getting up to 3 is pretty easy, since you have items which boost power and spells which boost power.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree. I'm not too fond of 'early rush with stupid god' tactics. Interesting idea also with the presearched provinces.

*Edit: perhaps not a bad idea with 'earmarked' (is this a swedish expression or is it viable in english as well) design points *

[ October 29, 2003, 14:44: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Mikko: Just curious, in what ways do you feel astral magic is more important.

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It parses cleanly in English.

E. Albright

[ October 29, 2003, 14:59: Message edited by: E. Albright ]

Re: Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?
 

Just how many spells need level 5/6/7 in given magic? I just ask this because you need level 6(in fire and blood) to get bless effects of Dom1, and I was wondering is there any other bonus you would get from pumping you pretender up to that level. The Living Element -spells seem to fill this gap, and there are propably others, but how many spells of these levels do we have?
It seems like we should have many low-level spells, some of a little higher level and some uber-killer spells, or just very good ones, that are costly and force you to go without something else, like a scale or two.
I think there are enough cheap spells now, but I have no idea about the medium-level spells. Are they weighted towards any particular path(s)? I'm mainly asking someone who has a spell manual...