Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?

[Wick]

I don't think the new bless is intended to dominate the game. It's just there, like the reduced dominion benefits, to encourage sinking some more points into the god himself. That and, very definately, to add flavor! The sacred troops of an air & astral pretender may be inferior to the originals but they're different, and different then all the others. This is cool.

[apoger]

>Since the effects are additive to the units, i.e. you get a bonus to your attack from a Fire magic blessing instead of just having your base attack stat replaced by the same one all blessed troops might receive, that's what keeps things in balance.

Bless was "additive" in Dom I.
I don't see how this helps "balance".


>The cheap sacred units, e.g. the flagellents, aren't that great without their blessings.

Neither are the expensive ones... if you take thier costs into account.


>The power of the blessings makes them into much more potent units, but they still won't be a match for, say, a blessed Warden of Avalon. Because of this, the relative costs for the units still keeps them in balance.

I don't see this.


>I find 10 blessed Wardens can take on just about any number of flagellents without too much fuss. It's the blessed Knights of the Challice they have to be careful of.

Not in Dom I by any stretch of the imagination.
Sure a Warden is better than a Flag one on one, but Wardens cost 3.5X as much gold. If you had 35 Flags fighting 10 Wardens, the Flags would mop the floor with the Wardens (in Dom I).

As for Dom II, keep in mind that Flags will allow massive efficiency compared to Wardens. Consider 100 Wardens getting +3 Strength and +3 to Attack. This 100 instances of the bonus being attributed. Now consider that for the same gold cost we can make 350 Flags. Also consider that Flags strike twice, so they use their bonuses twice! This is 700 instances of a bonus being attributed. The Warden army gains +300 strength and attack while the Flags garner +2100.

I think you have dramatically underestimated the potency of flagellents.

My suspision that Marignon will be the only nation to benefit from the changes to blessings remains unchanged. We will have a better opportunity to judge when the demo comes out.


>On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered,

I worry about underpowered. I have absolutely no concern that blessings will be over-powered.


>Maybe I'm overstating my case here, but the blessing effects are one of my favorite parts of Dom II. They really bring the "godly" flavor of the whole thing onto the battle field.

Agreed. It sounds like a great way to add flavor.
My worry is that it won't be particularly useful.


>Your milage may vary, of course, but I really do think y'all will find the blessings one of the very best parts of Dom II.

I hope so.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by apoger:
As for Dom II, keep in mind that Flags will allow massive efficiency compared to Wardens. Consider 100 Wardens getting +3 Strength and +3 to Attack. This 100 instances of the bonus being attributed. Now consider that for the same gold cost we can make 350 Flags. Also consider that Flags strike twice, so they use their bonuses twice! This is 700 instances of a bonus being attributed. The Warden army gains +300 strength and attack while the Flags garner +2100.

>On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered,

I worry about underpowered. I have absolutely no concern that blessings will be over-powered.

First off, I'm also concerned about "underpowered", a bit. I think it would be nice if bonuses started at level 2 magic or level 3 magic instead of level 4 magic, or if blessings gave +3str +3mrl in addition to magic bonuses. But, we'll see how it works.

But as to your other point, uh... the math is wrong. With strength... yes, strength can be multiplied by number of affected units (and Flags have the advantage with their double hits). But for things like attack, MR, protection, and so forth, you can't simply multiply #units by #pts increase and get the overall improvement. Moving a flagellant from 0 protection to 3 protection, for example, does not really affect his survivability, while moving a Warden (dunno, say 15 protection) up to 18 protection would make him much less likely to be hurt when attacked by a flagellant.

Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.

Essentially, some blessings are better for some units, and some for others, but you can't really claim that all blessings are better for cheap, plentiful units, because it's not true.

-Cherry

[apoger]

>Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.


+50% Quickness would net 10 Wardens an extra 5 attacks. It would get 35 flags another 35 attacks! While the warden attacks are stronger, it gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of flag attacks. Easily.

Even for the stuff like regeneration, yes the flags don't get the benefit of the double attack, but they still get regen on 3.5X as many troops. In a one on one comparison a warden gets more regen than a flag. When you account for 1 warden versus 3.5 flags, the situation is much murkier.

For the bonuses that don't involve an attack the flags only get 3.5X as much bonus as opposed to 7X. I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by apoger:
>Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.


+50% Quickness would net 10 Wardens an extra 5 attacks. It would get 35 flags another 35 attacks! While the warden attacks are stronger, it gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of flag attacks. Easily.

Even for the stuff like regeneration, yes the flags don't get the benefit of the double attack, but they still get regen on 3.5X as many troops. In a one on one comparison a warden gets more regen than a flag. When you account for 1 warden versus 3.5 flags, the situation is much murkier.

For the bonuses that don't involve an attack the flags only get 3.5X as much bonus as opposed to 7X. I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile.

Regeneration is much more powerful on armored troops like wardens. While flaggelants can easily be killed by a single blow this is rare for wardens so the chance that regen will have an impact on a warden is much higher. If you take the extreme case of the new Niefel giants this is even more pronounced.

Blessings might not be very powerful in the long run, but since early expansion is very important in most games powerful blessings will have an effect beyond just the blessing effect in itself, since it might allow for quicker expansion etc.

[Saber Cherry]

The problem is that a flagellant will often die with a single hit, so regeneration does him no good... while heavy units often survive with minimal damage, which is then regenerated. Unarmored units also don't really benefit from protection, since they usually die in one hit anyway... and they don't benefit at all from reinvigoration, since they have low encumbrance (and die in a prolonged fight).

Extra attacks are useful for Wardens, because they do much more damage and have a much higher attack rating. So, against very heavy (18 prot Ulm) infantry, 10 Wardens with +3 protection, +3 strength, +3 reinvigoration, and regeneration would probably do much better than 35 flags with the same blessing. Double-strike doesn't help if neither hit does any damage... and 3 protection doesn't help when you're impaled on a pike.

-Cherry

Edit: JO posted about the same thing at about the same time.

[ October 27, 2003, 01:18: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Wick]

"I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile."

Flags are also the big losers -- strength and attack played right to their strength but several of the new bonuses don't.

I see the new blessing system as simiar to the old one, perhaps slighty weaker, but with more variety and adding a bias for pretender magic. I'm not sure what standard "worthwhile" you're using.
Worthwhile as in sacred troops will be less used then before? As in level 9 magic is just too expensive? As in making a magic path come out even is too expensive?