Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Balancing Issue

Fire-9+ bless is exceedingly good for certain nations at least, worth about 2x than any other bless, and making the blesseable troops way too strong for their price (what all other blesses don't!)

Why?

The level-9 gives not only +4 ATT, moving most troops from the 40-50% to-hit range to 80%+. It also does:

So every single melee attack gets an additional flaming weapon hit - not only 1 attack per unit. This is even true for natural weapons, spider fangs and bites and claws at least - obviously, if a target spontaniously bursts into flames, it must have been hit by a flaming weapon.

Problem is obvious: Troops with multiple attacks get multiple additional attacks, too. Eg. Mictlan Jaguar Warriors are sacred and have 3 weapons (Bite (20), Claw (29) x 2) in Jaguar form .. they end up with 6 attacks per turn at ATT-15, which makes pretty much sure they hit mundane troops.

Compare that to sacred Jotuns:
- The Jaguar comes @20 gold and with 30hp (total). With ATT-15 it can hit the Jotun Woodsmen (DEF-10) with 89.2% (2.68 hits per turn). Each of this to-hit rolls results in a 18+2d6oe damage roll AND a 8(AP)+2d6oe. Against Furs, accordings to Cherry's tables this results in 2.68x(16.06+4.75)= 55.77 damage points after it turned into a Jaguar (and soaked up the first 24+ damage points that way). Even if all damage rolls are low one turn and the target is not killed, it still gets -6(!) DEF for the rest of the turn. Furthermore, excess attacks from multiple weapon may spread to other units in the same square ... to kill e.g. the Vaetti next to the Jotun as well. On top of it, the fire attack could cause burning (-1hp) for at least one turn.

- The Jotun Woodsmen comes @50 gold for 32hp. It's to-hit with ATT-12 against DEF-11 of the Jaguar result in 85.5%, or 0.855 hits per turn. Damage rolls are 31+2d6oe + 8(AP)+2d6oe, or (against natural prot-5) 0.855x(26+3.99) = 25.6 damage points.

So, with F-9 bless, both the Woodman and the Jaguar have roughly equal HP and DEF, but the "damage output potential" of the Jaguar is 2,2 times that of the Woodman, but it costs only 40% !!

To compare the results with those of N-9 or W-9 bless I'll leave as an exercise for interested reader... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Fire 9 might be better than other blessings, but I don't think it's as unbalanced as you think. Nature 9, as an example, isn't worth it for Pythium, but is very much so for Jotunheim, and especially Niefelheim. One could also consider Schools - Blood is very good for Mictlan, and Construction is good for almost everyone, but most nations benefit more from other schools.

Fire 9 is useful when you can have a sacred unit with good gold/number-of-attacks cost. It works for Flagellants, and for Jaguar Warriors. It's also good for sacred units that have good survivability, but have problems dealing damage, like Vanir and Sidhe.

On the other hand, Water can make high-defence units almost untouchable, Earth can multiply Pythium's Communicants' power, Regenerating Jotun and Niefel are very, *very* deadly... Most blessings have their place. I'd rather see all sacred unit become useful, with at least one spesific blessing, and preferably with many, without making other national units useless (or more useless than they currently are, if that's what you think). This can include toning down of Fire 9.

One thing I'd like to see are blessings that are enabled by combinations of spesific paths, or maybe even paths and scales. Fire 9 and Astral 9 could make your sacred units resistant to hostile magic, and all other current powers - but also make their flaming attacks work much better against Undead and Demons. The ultimate Marignon bless. And maybe Water 9 and Cold 3 would give your sacred units benefits in cold areas - more protection, maybe, or maybe their weapons could be considered magical. Astral and Nature could give a chance to curse any enemy hit by the blessed, OR that hurts one of the blessed, in addition to all the other effects.

Just my pile of cents blundered from a pirate ship.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Fire 9 might be better than other blessings, but I don't think it's as unbalanced as you think. Nature 9, as an example, isn't worth it for Pythium, but is very much so for Jotunheim, and especially Niefelheim. One could also consider Schools - Blood is very good for Mictlan, and Construction is good for almost everyone, but most nations benefit more from other schools.

Fire 9 is useful when you can have a sacred unit with good gold/number-of-attacks cost. It works for Flagellants, and for Jaguar Warriors. It's also good for sacred units that have good survivability, but have problems dealing damage, like Vanir and Sidhe.

On the other hand, Water can make high-defence units almost untouchable, Earth can multiply Pythium's Communicants' power, Regenerating Jotun and Niefel are very, *very* deadly... Most blessings have their place. I'd rather see all sacred unit become useful, with at least one spesific blessing, and preferably with many, without making other national units useless (or more useless than they currently are, if that's what you think). This can include toning down of Fire 9.

One thing I'd like to see are blessings that are enabled by combinations of spesific paths, or maybe even paths and scales. Fire 9 and Astral 9 could make your sacred units resistant to hostile magic, and all other current powers - but also make their flaming attacks work much better against Undead and Demons. The ultimate Marignon bless. And maybe Water 9 and Cold 3 would give your sacred units benefits in cold areas - more protection, maybe, or maybe their weapons could be considered magical. Astral and Nature could give a chance to curse any enemy hit by the blessed, OR that hurts one of the blessed, in addition to all the other effects.

Just my pile of cents blundered from a pirate ship.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

dont think f9 is overpowered? just wait for my f9+high air blessed flagelants with the sword of augmler to come for you . cheap, expenable, survivable out of combat and deadly in combat

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

dont think f9 is overpowered? just wait for my f9+high air blessed flagelants with the sword of augmler to come for you . cheap, expenable, survivable out of combat and deadly in combat

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

What can they do against Abysian infantry? Or against Blade Wind, which goes (IIRC) through Air Shield? Or Magma Eruption? Or Falling Frost? Or Devils (with which Witch Hunters could easily deal with, though)? Or W9-blessed Vanir? Besides, they aren't resistant to any element, or poison, or magic... They'll die in dozens against any enemy by the time you have researched Construction 8.

And, if you want to take Artifacts into account... Forbidden Light blinds all of them, as does Ark, Barrier and a decent armor makes almost any unit quite resistant to all their attacks, The Aegis, fire immunity from other source(s) and good protection would kill them even without attacking, and if I had the Flying Ship, your forces would never catch mine.


Granted, Fire 9 is very powerful for Marignon. That happens to be very thematic! Sacred, heretic-burning flames of faith should be powerful. And they work for Knights of the Chalice as well as they work for Flagellants. I'm just saying that some other nations can benefit more from different blessing, and that I'd like to see different blessings become a viable alternative more often that they currently are.

Powerful isn't overpowered unless all other options aren't worth considering, and Fire 9 is quite close to being overpowered for many nations. I'd rather see 8, or even more, powerful, different, multifaceted blessings than 8 decent, balanced, boring ones.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

actually the air shield+the sword of augmler makes them rather survivable and they are so cheap that even if they dont work on something its no big loss (get chalice knights out)

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

yah f9 is great for flags or jaguar warriors. I would say it is overall the best bless, but a lot of it is that many of the other blesses are underpowered...

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

If I paid for Fire 9 AND Air 6 (as an example) AND researched Constr. 8 AND forged S5 item for 80 pearls (or even for 60, if I had a Dwarven Hammer somehow)... I would expect it to work. But that's only one army. And if I used similar resources to something else, I could oppose your forces in multiple different ways.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

well, I think Shovah is referring to the currently running "Artifact Game"; not as a general point of strategy.

However, fire flags or fire jags are a very cheap way to dominate early. I like having junk national troops that can take down a full-fledged SC http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

im not refering to the artifact game as i do not believe pythium can get flagelants, im refering to a game im having vrs ashen empire and carrion woods on the urgia map (only sp of course) and ive found that taking 4 commanders with clams and someone to cast will of the fates is generally more cost effective

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

ah i see - yah I wasn't thinking.

its true that will of the fates is one of the best battlefield buff spells, though often I cast the smaller area effect version as it is much simpler to do.

The sword of augelmeir is rather pricey.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

will of the fates+warriors of mist+f9 bless=uber troops of army crunching doom

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

hmmm. actually, i don't find mistwarriors as good as one would think - by that stage in the game, its very common to be dealing w/ troops who have magical weapons.

OTOH, F9 + body ethereal you can do from the early game...

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Three attacks for -3 DEF. The fire is a weapon effect, no more an attack then a Wraithsword's lifedrain or a Star of Thralldom's false fetters.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Three attacks for -3 DEF. The fire is a weapon effect, no more an attack then a Wraithsword's lifedrain or a Star of Thralldom's false fetters.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

^ yes that's right. its still the same number of attacks; they just hurt a bit more ;p

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I think one of the things that makes the f9 blessing so good is that the Moloch saves 50 points compared with the Titan or Cyclops. Of general purpose pretenders (GPP)*, only the PoD can have a bless9 cheaper.

*Obviously, I'm using GPP to arbitrarily exclude the Divine Serpent, Nerid, and immobiles.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

AND in addition to that, Fire 9 gives access to few easy, deadly spells. Turn-two Fire Darts can be enough! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif
And later, Falling Fires, and any of the big, bad Flame spells... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

-Arralen

-Wick

As I understand it, Wick is correct; weapon-linked effects are additional attacks, but since they do not roll versus defense, they do not reduce defense. That's how I programmed my combat sim, but it could be wrong.

Fire-9 is the big equalizer. There are 6 primary ways in Dominions II for a non-commander unit to avoid death when attacked in battle:

1) Defense
2) Protection
3) HP
4) Ethereality
5) Elemental Resistances
6) Magic Resistance

Fire-9 greatly reduces 1 and 2, substantially reduces 3 (due to extra damage), and often eliminates 4. 5 is marginally effective (high defense, low armor fireproof units will still be cut down by high-attack F9 flags) and 6 is irrelevant. Thus F9 turns weak units into killing machines.

...and yet... weak units are just not very effective in Dominions II, and inexpensive, weak sacreds are very rare (mainly Marignon and Mictlan, though Pythium and LotT Man have expensive weak sacreds). Strong sacred units of Man, Abysia, Rlyeh, Vanheim, Machaka, Neifelheim, IF Ulm, SC Pythium, and so forth would benefit from an F4 or F9, killing more units faster at first... but much more important to them is staying power. If you flood Black Templars with militia, for example, they will generally kill 1 per attack regardless of blessings, until they fall asleep from fatigue after 20 rounds or die from multiple high incoming attack and damage rolls. In this case, reinvigoration and protection from E9, quickness (to kill more militia before they get their turns) and defense from W9, berserk (protection bonus outweighs the defense penalty) and regen from N9, and even Fear from D8 would be more effective.

I generally use strong sacreds, or none at all. But the different blessings are situational. Blood is just plain weak, and Death is awesome against mundane units except for D9 which is worthless. Air and Astral give inflexibly specific defensive boosts, and thus strictly second-tier IMO. But when they protect against the enemy's specific strength (e.g. A10 Mictlan versus "blade wind and lightning" Vanheim) they can be stunning. But Fire, Earth, Water, and Nature give potent and generic boosts with their low and high blessing, useful in almost any (combat) situation, and are almost equally useful; and of them, only Earth and Water are good for mages! Fire and Nature can grant the greatest difference in combat effectiveness versus unblessed troops (consider Flags and Black Spiders, respectively) - but the better choice for Marignon is E9W9, or just E9, due to Witch Hunters. Vanheim is tougher, but I'd rather give my Vans W9 (increasing survivability and decreasing time-to-target) and quicken the mages than merely boost Vans' kills-per-hit ratio.

How many nations would benefit more from F9 than anything else? I have always wished my troops had it, yet never been compelled to take it except to use an actual combat pretender - a F9A4 Phoenix can wreak havoc with Fire Darts from turn 2.

P.S.

I should note that strong sacreds do benefit greatly from F9 in the mid-late game when they have to compete with thugs, SCs, living statues, and so forth. But even then, they benefit from Water or Nature (not really Earth) just as often, and the mid-late game is when Astral and Air blessings start to become crucial (if they ever will). A SC with 6 attacks can kill 6 flagellants with any blessing except S9, of which it can only kill 3; and while F9 flagellants may get a +4 attack bonus versus a SC, every other turn W9 flagellants get twice as many attacks, reducing the SC's defense (if totally surrounded) by up to -96.

I honestly don't think that any of Water, Earth, Fire, and Nature can be said to be usually the best, though Earth is probably the worst unless you have sacred mages.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

heh. don't get carried away now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I'm not kidding. In some MP game a while back, my large(Abysian?) army - that would have won - was routed by Onyx Amazon undead mounts (that come with fear). They had a Death blessing, raising them to Fear +4 or Fear +5. I would have won against any other blessing...

Black Templars with Fear -1 or Fear +0 would be very effective against low-morale militia. Only Earth could be as good, as their only enemy is fatigue. But hopelessly outnumbered by militia, fear is the only hope. Ever seen a D10 Prince of Death with a Horror Helmet take on indies? Often they kill one enemy, and the rest rout...

Granted, Death blessings are situational (and generally bad). But they can be awesome versus low-morale troops.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

yah. i really need the extra help against militia.

sure, nightmares are one thing, but that's the exception. F9 is very good in very many ways. It will dispense w/ ethereality or mistform. And, against conventional troops, it will cause more fear than death due to the increased slaughter on the ranks.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Hmmm, does Twist Fate work against Mind Duel? Astral-9 could be very good for Marignon and R'lyeh. It's also good (using the Shroud) for assassins.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I highly doubt it. I had originally assumed it only worked against things that must roll versus defense (including projectiles) and thus had some possibility of missing, since conceptually, a twist of fate would not protect you against standing in the middle of a Thunderstrike, or having a lake of boiling sulfur poured on you. But then, I read that mirror images protect against area effect spells, and some "instakill" spells actually do 999 damage and can be survived by a sphinx in +10 dominion.

So I'm not really sure what the limits of "Twist of Fate" are, but I think that anything that does not declare a specific amount of damage is beyond them. For example, cold and heat auras, Charm, Blind, Curse, Paralyze, Foul Vapors... and Mind Duel. But it should protect against things like Earthquake, Bone Grinding, and Falling Fires.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I just ran a series of 20 vrs 20 shamans and twist fate made no notable difference.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I thought I read a while back that Fire was the weakest of the paths... at least in terms of spells. Doesn't this help balance it out? I think Death, Air, Blood, and Astral have the most powerful spells and summons, so it makes sense that their blessings suck.

I'm sure I'm wrong, but I thought to pipe in on the discussion. Now water on the other hand... my current favorite http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

No. Water is the weakest of the paths, especially w/ the CB mod. Fire is good for an SC as well, as each lvl gives you +1 attack.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

yeah fire has the best artillery and elemental spirits

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

air elementals are good

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I mean like the lions, hawks, bears, and wolves

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Fire has better damage spells early game, although water has quickness.

Later in the game I think water is actually better - falling frost and fozen heart are better than falling fires and incinerate. Although fire has flaming arrows, which is really nice.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Fire-9 blessing for nations with low-cost sacred troops *is* unbalanced (as in "much efficient than other choices").

I won't add a pile of arguments, just speaking from experience : just note how many Mictlan and Marignon players use it :roll: !

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

as ive said marignon with a f9 high air phoenix can do some godly things with flagelants, that bless with the phoenix casting warriors of mist is fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Actually it's designed for those races in the first place. What's so strange that they are good with it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

i wouldnt really say its designed for mictain...

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

It's designed for each nation with cheap holy troops. Mictlan actually needs F9 blessing to survive early phases of the game. Even more so if he starts near Ulm.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

ulm is a threat to mictlan????

F9 blessing solves mictlan's early game problems; but i daresay quickened jaguars and some imps would make short work of "let us all run away in our extremely heavy armor" ulmish troops.

even a death blessing would work against ulm. actually, pretty well anything would work...

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

I'd suspect Mictlan would need either fire-9 or a death blessing : without F9, they're not doing damage to Ulm, so no morale checks, unless they have fear from the death blessing. B9/N9 bonuses to strength don't seem like they'd be enough to get through the armor before Mict's troops were destroyed.

Although, Ulm not having any Sermon of Courage casters (aside from Prophet / random events) doesn't help them, at all, ever.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Generally speaking I think it can be said that Fire-9 is the best blessing of them all. Yeah there are certain cases where you might want a different one, but for the most part its the #1 pick.

Whether or not it needs rebalancing.... well maybe it does. But what I'm more intersted to see would be a balancing of the blesses that are never picked. Like Air9, Death9, or Blood9. Earth9 too maybe. Yes, yes! I know that everyone is now going to come up with some random game with some really speicifc conditions in which they used the Air9 bless or something. The fact remains that when thinking of a bless strategy no one ever thinks of those paths first.

edit:
Some for examples for new blessings:
Air9: Flying (in combat)
Death9: Decay weapons
Blood9: +10hp

Now, these are probably a bit overboard - but they stopped and made you think, didnt they?? With blesses like that you will not consider a bless strat and only think of F9/W9/N9 as the way to go.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

E9 is occasionally picked, like for the E9N9 bless strat with pan or niefelheim.
B9 is normally not picked but theoretically at least it might maybe worth a try mainly for the enchanced blood hunt abilities of a FoB and its cheapness. So the 4 extrastrength would be a nice secondary effect.

A9, S9 and D9 get extremely rarely used though for sure and B9 i would call a borderline case.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

It would be Blood 7-8. Much cheaper, and a pick or two in Growth makes a big different in how much you can hunt.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Ok, someone explain to me the whole blessing thing, or link to a tome that lists what is what. What is the difference between sacred and non sacred troops?

As far as balance is concerned, I think there is a little too much concern about balance. The world is not fair and some things just work better under some circumstances. You've obviously worked out a goos scheme for fire, but put the right combination togeather with another bless, or combo, and that does something killer too. But I think the whole point of becoming magically wealthy enought to do these weird things is to create an exploitable inbalance.

Or am I wrong?

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Try the FAQ stickied at the top of this forum; it will answer some questions. The game manual answers many questions, and the manual addendum answers some others... the addendum (and other downloads) are here:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/d2/6.htm

The sticky "Dominions II links" thread also has many useful links. Arryn's site, for example, probably contains all of the fan-made resources you might want...

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

f9 just makes all your attacks do an extra s8 or so ap damage which just rips through plenty of things (and etheral things) like butter and makes all the sacred troops that dont pack much punch (like fans and flagelants) into monsters

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Checked as much of the fan sites as I could, nothing that really defined in an understandable way the relationship of Pretender god spell levels and bless effects. An explicit table would be really nice..... Testing for effects in combat is tedious beyond words, and not really effective.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

There is a list in your manual.

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Table 1 on page 5 ...

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

Never had a manual, is it online somewhere?

Re: Fire-9 bless needs rebalancing !
 

The manual came with your copy of the game that you purchased.