Balance on small maps

[alexti]

Truper said:
If on game creation you set the money multiple to 50% and research to easy, the balance will move close to what it was in Dom2. If you use the default settings, you're right, bless rushes are much more powerful than they used to be.

I agree. Maybe playing small maps with 50% gold and easy research and large maps with default settings is the answer.

[alexti]

DominionsFan is making a good point. Some nations have very good sacred troops, but not all of them. I wonder if it is a part of overall balance. How would Helheim do if blessed troops were banned? I think it would still be a decent nations - good access to magic, good battlefield mages and decent national troops. The only thing against them would be lack of cheap researchers.

[Arralen]

No-one will post such a plan, because there isn't any.

Those player you speak of are themselves rushing their enemies with SC-pretenders and/or overly-good blesses (which is F9, W9 and any N after the change) using overly-strong sacreds with multiple weapons/attacks (some even have light lances..), some of them even not capitol-only and most of them quite cheap ressource-wise.

They pay for this point-wise with Sloth:3, Death:3, Misfortune:1+ .
And it works, because Order:3 gives so much more gold that you 'grow' faster by your accelerated expansion than anyone with growth scale can. And order gets you rid of most events, therefore misfortune isn't a big problem. And even if disaster strikes in a provine - you have so much gold, so many provinces that it hardly matters.

As long as growth is negligible, order overly strong, some blesses double the combat value of sacred units, while other do next to nothing, this will not change.

[Ygorl]

On first thought, I *really* like the idea of a sleeping or imprisoned pretender not granting bless effects... It makes sense thematically, and seems like it would be good for game balance - you might even be able to boost the points granted for sleeping or imprisonment a bit, if you did this. I also agree with others that for a small map (i.e. a short game) easy research makes a lot of sense. You're still unlikely to see a lot of level 9 spells, but it opens up a lot more of the research map.

[KissBlade]

Totally agree with Arralen, it has been agreed by the vast majority of the dom channel frequenters that bless effects are a bit too strong at the moment and the idea of sleeping/imprisoned not granting blesses is interesting. Though might call for a bit of rebalancing of some nations that seems fine with an uber bless. S&A's W5e's are devastating with a f9/w9 bless but balanced by the fact that they are relatively fragile and capital only. Van's on the other hand...

[Daynarr]

Actually I like idea that dormant/imprisoned pretenders give no bless effect until they wake up. It would balance things nicely.

[Gandalf Parker]

I agree. It seems logical, and fixes what appears to be a problem.

There would still be other reasons to take dormant but to use it for bless means you need to be banking on a long game

[Ballbarian]

It would certainly make the impending awakening of dormant or imprisoned gods feel more ominous.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Gandalf Parker said:
I agree. It seems logical, and fixes what appears to be a problem.

There would still be other reasons to take dormant but to use it for bless means you need to be banking on a long game

I fail to see how dormant/imprisoned pretenders not resulting in bless effects is in any way "logical" in the Dominions game world.

It has been repeated time and again that the bless effects arise from the people's faith in their pretender and his divine attributes as directed towards those considered sacred in society, specifically, it is not an effect that is granted by the pretender to his people. This is most commonly trotted forward every time it is explained why the pretender does not count as sacred and, in fact, has no way to get the blessing effect - and it is manifest throughout the game design: your pretender can be feebleminded, a gibbering madman, or even dead - it does not affect the effects caused by people's beliefs in his divine attributes as carefully nurtured by your priesthood.

The ONLY thing that an alive and present pretender grants a nation is an increase in belief in the province he is present in and the ability to let the pretender physically interact with the world.

There is nothing "logical", in the Dominions world, about blessings not being present when pretenders are dormant or imprisoned or dead, for that matter. Such a tie-in would require a substantial change to a number of game mechanics and make the pretender a much, much, more important game-piece on the board than he is already, where it is optional in the pretender design phase whether he is to be important on the board - or important as a remote aspect to be venerated.

It looks much more like a case of a few nations having incredibly powerful sacred troops (we knew that already) which results in a power disparity in certain specific game setups (by no means in all game setups). Solving that isn't best done by changing the basics of blessing design which affects all setups - but by playing with other setups or to enforce house rules.