[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I admit it, I'm still not certain that in an MP game I'd have any incentive to go over level 4 magic... and that, just for site-searching/construction. Bless effects are neat, but I hardly ever had any sacred troops in Doms 1, so...

Yeah. Starting at 3, incrementing every level, and getting a big bonus at 6 sounds pretty crazy to me, but starting at 3, incrementing every other level, and getting a big bonus at 8 still wouldn't convince me to buy a magic-rich god. So maybe somewhere in between... otherwise, making cheap sacred units more common might make taking magic a better bargain.

Well, the other reason to take high magic skills is so that you can cast powerful magic. Did you notice that Dispel takes research now? Maybe global enchantments will be a bit more viable than in Dom I. A lot of global enchantments require 5+, and some take 8 or 9.

Also, as Psitticine mentioned, high magic levels can be very powerful on the battlefield. Most spells increase in effectiveness with higher power, and all battlefield spells decrease in fatigue cost. Even level 4 can have a dramatic impact on a battle - and that's without gems, communion or booster spells.

On larger maps, this effect is weakened, because your god in general is less important - you only have one of him, while scales affect all your provinces. This is the kind of scaling issue that can't really be fixed by tweaks to the game system - maps with more and/or richer provinces will always tend to favor positive scales more than smaller, poorer maps. In that respect, I like the nerfing of positive scales compared to Dom I - it may lead to an incentive to put more points into the pretender himself, which I think will make things more interesting.

Yes, there is certainly a possibility that in some cases it will lead to god vs. god battles that can decide the whole outcome of a war. But I prefer that to the case where gods rarely appear on the battlefield at all, or even play a significant role (except through their dominion).


I personally would favor changing the bless system so it was based on magic and dominion strength. Let's say bonuses would start at level 6, with big bonuses at level 11 or so - but the level in question is your magic level plus your dominion strength in the current province. So if you have more than 2 candles, it would be easier to get strong bless effects; but if you have weak dominion, no dominion or (worst of all) hostile dominion, your bless effects would be weaker than presently, possibly even suppressed entirely in a strong enough dominion of a hostile God.

It never made sense to me that blessing was independent of dominion; with the new bless effects it makes even less sense than it does for a "generic" blessing.

Of course, with big bonuses at level 11, an archmage's blessing would be really killer in a 9-candle dominion. But I think that would be appropriate - only a fool fights in a 9-candle hostile dominion anyway. Especially if their God, prophet or (with this system) sacred troops are on the battlefield.

For dominion levels that are more reasonable for a battlefield (I'd say no more than 4 - above that you really should be trying to preach around the area before pushing the border any further), you'd need at least 7 to get a big bonus. Even more importantly (IMO), every level of magic can improve your bless effects on at least some potential battlefields.

For example, the God I'm currently using in single player (titles in my sig) is a Lord of the Desert Sun with Fire 4, Earth 4, Nature 4. I remember that I had spent most of my points and had Fire 4, Earth 3, Nature 4 with a few points to spend, and it was just enough to get either Fire 5 or Earth 4. I took Earth 4 because of the bless effect - none at 3, a big jump at 4. Although I think it's cool to sometimes take a path for its bless effect, I don't think it should be that "chunky". I certainly would have taken Fire 5, Earth 3, Nature 4 if the bless system had been something like I am proposing (or anything else that rewards every level of magic, instead of only rewarding certain numbered levels).