Balance on small maps

[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.

[Sandman]

One thing which contributes to the unstoppable dual-bless is the proliferation of fortified cities as the starting fort. That 50 admin goes a long way to making sloth manageable and boosting the player's gold supply.

I'll stick my neck out and say that in the Early Era, fortified cities should be extremely rare, if not absent altogether. 10, 20 and 30 admin castles should be the norm. All those cities are anti-thematic for the tribal Early Era nations, anyway.