Question on Blood Sacrifice (and Mictlan)

onomastikon · #1 February 3rd, 2004, 06:12 PM

Thank you.

I am still confused about blood sacrifices being supposed to "spread dominion over the world" (the in-game popup description). Is that just a language problem of mine, or what?

In any case: do I understand correctly that a temple is just a building in which to perform sacrifices, and these raise the dominion in that province only and DO NOT "spread" it? That in the case of Mictlan, nothing will "spread" it? (Not so for Abysia.)

By "spread" I understand: move outwards from a point, much like a drop of water might cause ripples on lake's surface.

Thank you for helping me.

EDIT: I just tested, made a Mictlan God (the Mirror), with default dominion, and got no prophet, only recruited a scout. (Just made 1 AI on Urgaia). I did nothing but wait. After about 3 turns, my dominion spread to 1 neighboring province, after 4-5 then to the others. I did get one random event that faith increased in my own province, it went up to 2.
So something must be "spreading" the dominion, either the god, the temple, the home province, or something. The dominion did not "rise", however.

So still confused.

Side question: Is there a point in making the dominion very high during God creation?

[ February 03, 2004, 16:48: Message edited by: onomastikon ]

Truper · #2 February 3rd, 2004, 07:46 PM

ceremony put together an *awesome* guide to dominion and how it spreads. You can find it here: http://www.maladjustite.com/dominion.pdf

You can think of Mictlan temples as being like any other, except that it takes blood sacrifices to activate them. Since temples can spread dominion to nearby provinces, "spread dominion over the world" does make sense. In your test, your god was spreading dominion, which is the only "free" domionion spread Mictlan can get.

PvK · #3 February 4th, 2004, 03:22 AM

Yes, read the explanation article.

The Mictlani capitol and the pretender both increase dominion, and dominion increase has a chance to spread to neighboring provinces, which increases as the dominion in the source province increases.

What I still wonder, is whether independent priests can be used to spread dominion for Mictlan, without sacrificing a slave. I assume they can't.

I'm thinking of having my Mictlan invest in some false idols, to beat down neighboring dominions, to save me some blood.

PvK

quantum_mechani · #4 February 4th, 2004, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by onomastikon:

Side question: Is there a point in making the dominion very high during God creation?

Well, higher dominion can greatly increase god and prophet hit points. My main reason for using high dominion pretenders, however, is it that you can only recruit as many sacred troops as your max dominion. More dominion also makes you harder to kill with a preaching strategy.

PvK · #5 February 4th, 2004, 07:54 AM

Particularly for Mictlan a high dominion could be useful, since it reduces your need to use blood slaves to keep your dominion around.

Otherwise, it depends on what your dominion scales are like, and what your neighbors' scales are like, and what magic etc. you want to use that is affected by dominion. There are many many examples of effects of this - keeping harmful scale effects away, keeping the heat where your men like it (important for Mictlan, which prefers +1 heat), keeping miasmatic dominion away, determining where various global spells take effect (e.g. Gift of Health, Wrath of God, etc.), etc etc etc. Heaps o' meaningful side-effects of dominion strength.

PvK

onomastikon · #6 February 4th, 2004, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Truper:
ceremony put together an *awesome* guide to dominion and how it spreads. You can find it here: http://www.maladjustite.com/dominion.pdf

You can think of Mictlan temples as being like any other, except that it takes blood sacrifices to activate them. Since temples can spread dominion to nearby provinces, "spread dominion over the world" does make sense. In your test, your god was spreading dominion, which is the only "free" domionion spread Mictlan can get.

First of all, thanks.
Secondly, I cant get that link to work, keep getting the message "could not find acrobat" (although of course I have the reader installed). Does anyone have that .pdf somewhere else?
Thirdly, didnt Tacticus say that blood sacrifices raise dominion in *that province* (I will call this "raise" dominion, or when it happens, "rise"), but does not spread it to neighboring dominions ("spread")? So what you are saying is that it does both raise and spread?
And it seems that even the Mictlan home pantheon god "spreads" dominion (although he will not cause it to "rise")?
PvK: the dominion in my home province never increased.
OK well in any case, thank you all -- I am still confused, but maybe understanding more. Must finish my Pythium game first....

PvK · #7 February 4th, 2004, 11:12 AM

The file is there. Try right-clicking and downloading it to your computer. Then load Acrobat, and then load the file into Acrobat manually.

It explains dominion in great detail, with the exception of Mictlani details.

As we've alluded to, most forms of dominion increase have a chance of "spreading", affecting not the province of the source, but an adjacent province. According to the article, which seems consistent with my impressions from playing, the chance of spread goes up, the closer to the maximum the source province is. Note that you can't exceed your max dominion strength, and that max strength goes up by one for every five temples you have. The level in a province also has a strong effect on how hard it is for opposing sources to reduce that dominion.

PvK