Sacred Troops

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

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Originally posted by PDF:
I like SC's idea on "Sanctifying" troops
It makes sense, it will bring more variety in styles (cause even if you play Ulm you can eventually get a good blessing effect, and a Ulm Blessed Black Knight would be something akin to a M1A2 tank ) !
In addition I find that Prophets aren't that fun : good priestly nations have it cast Fanaticism, for other it makes a pumped-up commander, but I don't find them acting often "prophetically".

You might call them 'Black Templars' and you might find them in the 'Iron Faith' theme.

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Might you indeed? Very interesting…

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

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Originally posted by PDF:
I like SC's idea on "Sanctifying" troops
It makes sense, it will bring more variety in styles (cause even if you play Ulm you can eventually get a good blessing effect, and a Ulm Blessed Black Knight would be something akin to a M1A2 tank ) !
In addition I find that Prophets aren't that fun : good priestly nations have it cast Fanaticism, for other it makes a pumped-up commander, but I don't find them acting often "prophetically".

You might call them 'Black Templars' and you might find them in the 'Iron Faith' theme.

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Hey, don't make my best ideas obselete before I even suggest them! Who's in charge of this game, anyway?

[Saber Cherry]

My suggestion would be that any priest could 'sanctify' troops, so long as he's in a province with a temple, and he would only be able to sanctify as many troops as his priestly level. The way I would envisage it would be that when in a province with a temple the priest (or prophet) would have an option to "sanctify troops" much like the Arco Priestess option "heal troops". Then 2, 3, or whatever the priest's level is troops randomly would become sacred.

Yeah, that's basically the way I wanted it to work, mechanically. But as for letting any priest sanctify - I think that would be a big problem. I would mass priests and make every unit sacred. As Ulm, for example, you can only produce about 8 units per turn in the capitol... so 4 priests (160 gold, 5 gold upkeep) would be able to sanctify all of them. Unless it was limited to the prophet, I imagine that all units would end up sacred. Also, limiting it to the prophet means that you have to decide between sanctifying with your second-most-important unit, or using it to spread dominion / cast courage or fanatacism / smite / be a supercombatant / annihilate undead, which is a major trade-off.

-Cherry

[ October 09, 2003, 16:42: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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My suggestion would be that any priest could 'sanctify' troops, so long as he's in a province with a temple, and he would only be able to sanctify as many troops as his priestly level. The way I would envisage it would be that when in a province with a temple the priest (or prophet) would have an option to "sanctify troops" much like the Arco Priestess option "heal troops". Then 2, 3, or whatever the priest's level is troops randomly would become sacred.

Yeah, that's basically the way I wanted it to work, mechanically. But as for letting any priest sanctify - I think that would be a big problem. I would mass priests and make every unit sacred. As Ulm, for example, you can only produce about 8 units per turn in the capitol... so 4 priests (160 gold, 5 gold upkeep) would be able to sanctify all of them. Unless it was limited to the prophet, I imagine that all units would end up sacred. Also, limiting it to the prophet means that you have to decide between sanctifying with your second-most-important unit, or using it to spread dominion / cast courage or fanatacism / smite / be a supercombatant / annihilate undead, which is a major trade-off.

-Cherry

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You have a point… but on the other hand I think that limiting it to the prophet might be too much of a limitation. If you made priests a bit more expensive it might solve the problem - that is, you could still make a lot of troops sacred if you wanted to, but it would be a really expensive operation to do so.

Yet another option would be to have it be *half* the priest's level made sacred, rounded up. Then weak priests [lvl 2] would be able to sanctify one unit per turn; medium to powerful priests [lvls 3 & 4] would be able to sanctify two, and very powerful priests would be able to sanctify three. Even with this I think the cost of cheap priests should be increased some, say up to 100 gold. In this case you *could* [as Ulm] sanctify every guy produced, but at the cost of 4 or 5 priests who would cost a lot, and who would prevent you from making other commanders (such as researchers). So there would be the flexibility to go this way, but not without cost in other areas.

Or, on the other hand even just having prophets able to sanctify would be kinda cool.

[Pocus]

I think a better formula would be priest level -2, excepted the prophet.

[Psitticine]

There are a goodly number of sacred troops in Dom II. I'd be worried it would tip things out of balance if any troop could become sacred. What would the point be to Marignon's fragile flagellants then, for example?

I think it would also make god design too much of a blessing-engineering event as well. As it is, I think the balance is right between trying to get the right magic power, the blessings you'd like, and sparing points for a good strong dominion and the fortress type you want. Being able to sanctify troops would tip more importance towards blessing power during god design, and that would devalue other equally-interesting paths.

(Oh, and speaking of the random flagellant event, it happens a lot now. I get more of the little weirdoes than I care for, honestly. )

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe we need some more variation in the random troops. How about some migrating Raptors? More knights. Some light cavalry. Maybe crossbows.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
(Oh, and speaking of the random flagellant event, it happens a lot now. I get more of the little weirdoes than I care for, honestly. )

You can never have too many freaks that whip themselves bloody, and enjoy it! ...or at least, that's what I tell myself... it makes me think I'm living in a nice neighborhood

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Maybe we need some more variation in the random troops. How about some migrating Raptors? More knights. Some light cavalry. Maybe crossbows.

Unlike flagellants, these aren't driven by faith, but by greed. Raptors, knights, crossbows, all are already there - but as mercs ;-)

[Psitticine]

I've seen Raptors as independents in Dom II, actually. I don't believe they are sacred though . . . I can't quite recall right now, and that particular game is a few weeks gone. It was fun being able to recruit them alongside my normal troops though.