I think you are right in saying it's limited, but not totally limited. The Fortune Teller is your friend I think her random is only Sorcery (astral, death, nature, blood) so she in and of herself doesnt have alot of leeway. The Counts are decent (2 Death, 2 Blood) but overall they don't have very much mage variety. And I'll be the first to admit that Blood doesn't have very many combat spells.

If they did ... eh?

Also most of their mages are recruitable outside of their capital (Illuminated Ones, Member of the Second Tier) so it works well with they hyperexpansion and later the uberraiding of the theme.

I just can't seem to get past how quickly you can get a factory of the counts rolling while almost totally ignoring researching Blood. Combine it with a strong foundation of armies (again, xbows and free patroller/fodder) it seems that Black Forest was given all the cards while some nations/themes are sitting in the trailerpark watching it on TV.

I don't know how abusive the Ice Devil strategy was in Dom 1, but if the sacrifices (Getting a Pretender with Blood/Death, forced Misfortune (no big deal)) allow you to win the game then it should be addressed if not *For* Black Forest, *for* all the nation/themes that don't have an easy way to deal with Supercombatants (I.E. Paralyze, Blindness).

[ January 13, 2004, 20:51: Message edited by: Zen ]