Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[K]

Originally Posted by Agema

I think betting a strategy on a gem type or mage you can't easily access is a recipe for disaster.

I think we'll all have played games where we've had shockingly bad, or even no income, in certain gem types, including gems that are fairly integral to the nations (I've played EA Agartha, 30 provinces fully searched, total death income of 3). Finding mages is even worse: I want to weep when I read guides that blithely say things like "Get an indy X mage" (unless X = nature), because sure as hell I've played quite enough games where I can't find any.

Oh I agree. I can't tell you the number of times I've played an Air nation like Caelum only to find my provinces have no air income or played a Blood nation and found that all my provinces have like 2K people or that someone beat me to the unique demons and suddenly all my endgame plans are dust.

But some plan is better than no plan. It's a self-deception if you think you can just make a nation based on a few battle tactics and respond to the conditions of the game and pull out a win.

I guess that was the point I was trying to make. Is getting a decent bless with endgame uses and searching for Death gems with the plan of casting the Utterdark the "super-winna of all planz"?

No. But it does beat "and then I Bless Rush people and just have more stuff." Bless Rushes are fine if you are playing vs one opponent and once he's dead you win the game. Bless Rushes are also fine if you are playing on a very large map and can expect to own 30-40 provinces before you meet your next neighbor (and he'll own 10-15 by then).

But for any other situation, a Bless Rush is just an early game tactic and not a game-winning strategy.

It works like this. On a big map, a Bless nation starts taking a province a turn around turn 2 or 3. By turn 7-8, he's taking two a turn. By 15 he's taking 3 a turn(the rate slows as he needs to start backtracking and moving to the front). By turn 20 when he runs out of indie provinces he attacks his first enemy and he has a ton of crap and he grinds down lesser nations.

On a merely large or medium map, he runs out of provinces and attacks his first enemy on turn 12. Instead of having three or four times the provinces of his enemy, he has maybe 150% the provinces. If the enemy can smash his initial army, chances are good they can be on his doorstep before he can even build a replacement. Game over.

And that's your gamble. You have invested heavily in your early game in the hopes that it will bootstrap you into a strong late game.

But, it still won't win the game. A game-winning strategy sounds like this: "and then I do it, and start taking five or more enemy provinces a turn while losing almost no troops and none of my own provinces."

Casting the Utterdark when properly prepared can do that. Building badass SCs when other people can't can do that. Building a giant stockpile of Blood summons that costs no support and then unleashing them on enemies while you paralyze their troop production with ritual magic and execute armies with Horrors can do that. Building unbreakable armies like Blessed Gandarvas, or Mandaha-backed Demon armies, or armies backed by mages with gem-producing items who cast battlefield-destroying magic that they are immune to can win you the game. Putting up the Astral Nexus and getting a gem income in the hundreds and then using that to get piles of summons or ritual magics can do that too. Running around with ten tough armies who can Astral Travel or otherwise skip over enemy armies and dissect enemy empires can do that. Building Master Enslave mages who usurp entire enemy armies can do that.

The list is long, but "bless rush" is not on it.

So yes, I rate Death higher than Fire because it opens a tactic to winning the game you otherwise might not have. Opinions will vary.