ArcoBlood Mod Finished

[Arryn]

Good point. All Blood nations should be Unholy. That they currently aren't seems (to me) more than a bit unthematic.

[Scott Hebert]

Would you like me to make that mod, Arryn?

That would be quite easy, though I don't think you can make 'unholy sacred' units or commanders.

Mictlan would get a serious upgrade if this was done, I'd think.

[Graeme Dice]

Blood magic requires living sacrifices, while unholy priests are more concerned with digging up corpses. Also, I'd wonder what kind of balance issues would arise by making Abysia, Diabolical Faith Marignon (Who should never be unholy priests), Vanheim, Mictlan, Jotunheim and the other nations have unholy priests.

[Scott Hebert]

To be honest, Graeme? The 'balance' of Dominions II is so far out of whack, does anyone really care what kind of changes are made to it?

[Arryn]

Ahem. Methinks that Saber Cherry and Zen might take exception to that last statement about "not caring". They've put an awful lot of work into their respective mods, as have those players who've been giving them feedback. I think you're selling the Dom 2 community a bit short.

My comments were from a purely thematic (aka role-play) perspective. As with any changes to Dom 2, one should look at what effect it'll have on balance. However, where I might disagree with GD is in that I'll take thematic color over balance, whilst I doubt many others would (or should). Hence I'll withdraw any suggestion to change things to Unholy, so as to keep the peace, and to remain in line with all the other Holy-yet-bloodthirsty nations.

[Scott Hebert]

My point, Arryn, was that the idea of anyone making an argument that a given mod that does not touch the current spells in the game, or the balance between recruitable and summonable units, is in danger of 'unbalancing' the game is ludicrous.

I was not saying that Cherry or Zen or anyone else who is trying to balance the game does not care.

For the record, I use Cherry's and Zen's mods at all times now. And I only play SP (because I don't know anyone who'll play MP).

[PDF]

Arryn said:
Good point. All Blood nations should be Unholy. That they currently aren't seems (to me) more than a bit unthematic.

Huh ? Why that ? In Dom2 Unholy is for necromancing nations (it gives reanimation powers), and has nothing to do with Blood (Demonic) magic. Granted, for us judeo-christians Westerners all this fall under "Evil" but this is no reason to confuse everything

[Verjigorm]

Most of what I've seen in this thread (believe me, I didn't read the whole thing), seems to be a boiler-plate argument between the Freddie N's and the JC's. If, of course, you ascribe to the merits of "Relativism" you can wash away milleia worth of Dogma and logical thought and claim that everyone is correct, and no one group or faction can be more or less right than any other

As for the rules of Holy/Unholy magic.... Raising the dead is not necessarily a nefarious act. It is quite possible that the dead want to come back and serve a/the god. Obviously, those who raise the dead will want their followers to believe it righteous and those who do not will desire their followers to believe it blasphemous (Relativism raises it's ugly head oncemore). It is best to simply consider them empirically rather than using the connotation of their naming. We shall call "Holy" magic "Living" magic and Unholy, "Dead". Races that lean toward "Living" sacred units will be more thematically suited to "Holy" magic while those who tend toward "Dead" units or who require additional (low-rank) troops to flesh out their ranks will be benefitted more by "Unholy" magic.

If we examine the traits of blood magic, we find that it includes no sacred units, 3 types of undead units, and most of it's units have high morale, but are generally lower in population than say...Nature. Thusly, Blood magic finds its niche with "Unholy" because of a) little need for Courage magic, b) no need for Blessings on non-undead units, c) a need for rank-and-file troops (not, really, but one could make an argument), and d) an interest in using the general undead "buff" spells for vampires/bone fiends.

Thus, Blood magic is both empirically and thematically suited for Unholy

[quantum_mechani]

Verjigorm said:
Most of what I've seen in this thread (believe me, I didn't read the whole thing), seems to be a boiler-plate argument between the Freddie N's and the JC's. If, of course, you ascribe to the merits of "Relativism" you can wash away milleia worth of Dogma and logical thought and claim that everyone is correct, and no one group or faction can be more or less right than any other

As for the rules of Holy/Unholy magic.... Raising the dead is not necessarily a nefarious act. It is quite possible that the dead want to come back and serve a/the god. Obviously, those who raise the dead will want their followers to believe it righteous and those who do not will desire their followers to believe it blasphemous (Relativism raises it's ugly head oncemore). It is best to simply consider them empirically rather than using the connotation of their naming. We shall call "Holy" magic "Living" magic and Unholy, "Dead". Races that lean toward "Living" sacred units will be more thematically suited to "Holy" magic while those who tend toward "Dead" units or who require additional (low-rank) troops to flesh out their ranks will be benefitted more by "Unholy" magic.

If we examine the traits of blood magic, we find that it includes no sacred units, 3 types of undead units, and most of it's units have high morale, but are generally lower in population than say...Nature. Thusly, Blood magic finds its niche with "Unholy" because of a) little need for Courage magic, b) no need for Blessings on non-undead units, c) a need for rank-and-file troops (not, really, but one could make an argument), and d) an interest in using the general undead "buff" spells for vampires/bone fiends.

Thus, Blood magic is both empirically and thematically suited for Unholy

It is all fine and good if some nations have unholy and blood magic. But I don't think they should be linked together any more than say, astral and holy. You argument could just as well be used to say that nations with blood magic should all have earth magic, since they work so well together.

[Verjigorm]

Indeed, but I wansn't stating that the two should be inextricably linked. Simply that nations favoring blood should prefer Unholy to Holy.