Suggested Changes to Bless Bonuses

[Taqwus]

'zerk seems more Blood than Nature, to my weird sense of it.

[Forrest]

You guys missed it.

Unlockable units.

Could be bless 9 to summon or bless 9 before the race could buy. Don't even show till the Pretender gets there. Something according to race. What is their strong suite?

Fire for Marignon.

Nature for druids.

Air and astral for amazons.

Maybe special heros to unlock or special enemies. Depending on luck. Maybe a random special enemy when Ermor goes astral 9 or when a air race goes earth 9. Something nasty to make you think twice about opening the gates or a SC for just the right bless. Make luck and bless more important.

Greed, I want to unlock the ancesteral dragon hero. Fear, I released the dread that moves from my province to my province killing 90% of the population till you stop it. The life champion that causes massive growth and good fortune. Does astral or nature 9 cause a growth bonus C'tis's enemies.

The Ermor 30% spell fat. penalty merc offers his service to all but Ermor.

Do you unlock special merc's devoted to your doom because you crossed the threshold. Do the special salvation merc's offer you their service?

Does solar disc have a special enemy or friend just waiting for him to empower to much. Will declaring war on the bless 9 scholar cause his enemy to offer you is service?

Weird bless units that can only be bought at the castle the 9 bless Pretender is at.

[Sensori]

Forrest said:
Unlockable units.

Go away. The last thing we need is making blesses absolutely necessary for everyone. Even folks without solid sacreds.

In my opinion, blesses should be reduced to what they were - a 2 morale bonus. Nothing else!

[Chris_Byler]

Blesses were never *just* a 2 morale bonus. In Dom1 they gave +3 att +3 str, the equivalent of a F6B6 under the Dom 2/3 system. (Nearly everyone who cares about their sacreds has a stronger bless than that, often *much* stronger, which is one reason blesses dominate the game so much more than they did in Dom1.)

IMO, the main problem with blesses is the ability to rush with them: why not weaken blesses in enemy dominion? For every 2 candles you get -1 to each path of your bless, or something like that. Rushing people's capitols would be far less effective since the first thing you lose is the quickness and flaming weapons. If you take it slow and push their dominion back while keeping your sacreds in friendly, neutral or near neutral dominion, then they have time to research some counters.

[Sensori]

Oh, you're right. Jogged my memory a bit. But still, the thing is, the 3str/att/2 morale was something that EVERYONE got, so it wasn't ever an issue of any kind. And the fact that I happened to forget the exact bless effects of the good old days doesn't change my point, which is, making blesses even STRONGER from the crazy point they are NOW would be a baad baad idea. Sure, some of the blesses suck and probably could use a boost of some kind, but if some of them suck, why also upgrade the better ones?

Makes no sense, does it?

[jutetrea]

I like the reduced bless in enemy dominion idea.

There are 6 steps to a bless right (some effects stay per 2 lvls (fire, water, etc), some are per level (air, death).

Max of 10 dominion.

Personally I think losing the lvl 9 bonus first would suck, but it could be up for discussion. I'd say lose the incremental minor blesses for lower candles and only lose the lvl 9 bless for enemy dominion of 6 or higher.

Using Fire as an example
0: candles, no change to bless
1: -2 attack
2: -2 attack
3: -3 attack
4: -3 attack
5: -4 attack
6: -4 attack, loss of flaming effect
7-10: -4 attack, no flame, -2 morale

So a dominion push would always be able to slow down a bless rush.

Beyond that, upgrade air, death, blood major bless at least to something useful. Death and Blood to a lesser extent then air.

[Cheezeninja]

One of the things I truly love about Dominions is that it is wildly, flagrantly unbalanced. Balance is just a euphemism for boring sameness. In the end the only way to TRULY balance the game would be for everything to be identical.

In my opinion you should only be re-balancing for thematic reasons, or when something is so powerful it's practically a necessity (VQ's), or so weak it's never used at all.
With that said, I wouldn't mind seeing Blood/Air blesses changed to something more fun. Maybe if Blood 9 made your units mindless, or the aforementioned precision boost from air, which I especially like since it might make a ranged sacred focus viable. Death is fine as is, I think. Apart from being an awesome path, I still don't think we've seen the possible Affliction % benefits when stacked with global/overland casters fully mapped out.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Points to Cheezeninja.
In random idea field - (for fun, not balance)
Charge Body replaces SR (note - charge body hurts both the attacker and defender)
Harrying Winds (acts like Stone Bird, but weaker- gives every unit an extra, but weak, attack. Functions like Slave Warrior's bite- not powerful, but size two units can bring down the defense values quickly)
Phantom Weapon - causes cnfusion

Blood Hunger - unit gets small lifedrain, but loses health every turn - or a one use Leeching Touch