Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[Agema]

A horde of F9-bless sacreds pouring across a battlefield at you is far, far more worrying than a horde of D9 blessed sacreds. The F9 bless is about smashing opponents relatively quickly and early. You might have a "better" magic path late on, but some people may have decided having an empire 2-3 times larger even more beneficial.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Agema

A horde of F9-bless sacreds pouring across a battlefield at you is far, far more worrying than a horde of D9 blessed sacreds. The F9 bless is about smashing opponents relatively quickly and early.

Why? Its the early game, AN will be much better against the indies that are actually tough to beat (eg, Knights) because it ignores their armor, and any that survive a hit or two will likely be crippled. For normal units, F9 vs. D9 seems to be a wash. So little to no advantage in the early game. Resistable doesn't mean much against you average independent units.

Of course, i even mentioned this in the OP. How is F9 substantially better early? Be specific.

You might have a "better" magic path late on, but some people may have decided having an empire 2-3 times larger even more beneficial.

Please tell me how a F9 bless turns into an empire 2-3x larger? I'm not seeing it.

Consider MA Marignon D9E9. First, its a great mage blessing, and most of your mages are sacred. Second, its great for knights of the chalice (D9 for kill speed, E9 for protection/reinvig). And its not terrible for flagellants (the D9 is useful at least). So its truly multipurpose. It also doesn't really hamper your expansion speed at all. (I've been testing with a Dom 6 D9E9 imprisoned Cyclops and sending out expansion parties on turns 3,6,8,10, etc....). It expands consistently through most non-elephant indies with no KotC losses (the first party is weaker, and should choose easier targets). Without interference by other players it can hit 20 provinces in the first year most of the time.

I doubt a fire bless would do better with them specifically. And I'm not sure i'd believe a fire bless nation would do much better. (In fact, the only way I can see to substantially improve on this would be to have a good expansion non-bless or rainbow bless army with an awake SC pretender).

[statttis]

Why do people favor the fire bless?
1. +4 attack is huge, often more important than the extra damage
2. The affliction bonus is weak.

I'd guess that a F9 bless gives about twice the offensive power of a D9 bless.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by statttis

Why do people favor the fire bless?
1. +4 attack is huge, often more important than the extra damage
2. The affliction bonus is weak.

I'd guess that a F9 bless gives about twice the offensive power of a D9 bless.

When do you need 2x the offensive power? And at what stage in the game is it 2x the offensive power?

Also, 350% afflictions is not weak against regenerating sacred giants (think ashdod) or similar, where your best hope is to inflict some crippling debilitations like chest wounds to reduce their effectiveness and ultimately fatigue them out. Nor is it weak when your mage pops in to cast firestorm/earthquake/etc... Or poison cloud...

[Huzurdaddi]

Originally Posted by statttis

1. +4 attack is huge, often more important than the extra damage

This is the correct answer. The +4 to attack means that your sacred units hit far more often which greatly increases the average damage per attack.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Resistable doesn't mean much against you average independent units.

Not true, vs 10 mr you have a roughly 50/50 chance of having the hit negated. So against most things the death bless damage is only about half as good as it looks, and even less effective against high mr targets.

So, while the death bless certainly has some advantages, the damage output is not really comparable.