Suggested Changes to Bless Bonuses

[Humakty]

Sombre : I think you're right, my pretender usually sits in it's keep, waiting for powerfull equipment. By the time he goes to battle, he will be empowered. I don't think it would change the way I play to change the A bless, but I only play on big (400+) maps.
On a small map, if the A/D/B blesses were as interesting as the F and W bless, wouldn't everyone select A/B/D ?

[Agema]

No. If A/B/D were as interesting as the others, people would play A/B/D/E/F/W/N pretenders.

Increasing action points is an interesting idea, but mostly that just gets you into melee faster, to no real point if you've got an arrow ward up. Well, okay, it'll help you chase down routing troops I guess.

[Kuritza]

Death bless is very strong as is. Maybe its worse against national troops than Fire, but it makes SCs nearly obsolete. Ever tried using an SC against a W9D9 jaguars?
Anyway, I'd like to see strong blesses weakened atm... Sacred troops dominate the environment too much, just as SCs were in Dominions 2. At least SCs required some research and planning, while sacreds are a no-brainer in many cases.

[KissBlade]

Kuritza said:
Death bless is very strong as is. Maybe its worse against national troops than Fire, but it makes SCs nearly obsolete. Ever tried using an SC against a W9D9 jaguars?
Anyway, I'd like to see strong blesses weakened atm... Sacred troops dominate the environment too much, just as SCs were in Dominions 2. At least SCs required some research and planning, while sacreds are a no-brainer in many cases.

Umm... SC's I design don't get hit by D9. In THEORY D9 should be the SC destroyer but a magic /negatable/ attack is laughable. Also, the very idea of bless troops against SC rarely happens since the entire point of getting a SC is that he's maneveurable enough to avoid armies you don't want to fight and squash the ones you do.

[Kristoffer O]

MR doesn't negate the increased affliction chance.

[calmon]

Death Bless is fine in my oppinion.

Its not the ultimate bless for your sacreds but the bless bonus is ok for your troops.

In addition you power up all your mage to do 100-500% more afflictions and this can be very good in battle with the right strategy even against SC's.

I tested spells like Flames from the Sky. This also work. In middle/late game some of my caster wear shroud of the battle saint just to bring affliction pain to big/nasty armies.

Air 9 is really crap. Don't touch it in moment.

Well Blood 9 could be good if there were a race with for example weak sacreds + bless commander as PD. I did some test games with the insectoid mod and it works pretty good against attacking SC's and other things. Sadly the mod MP game wasn't started so i can't test it more. Mictlan has sacred PD but other blesses are better here. Maybe Kristoffer can make a race of a lot of really crappy & really cheap sacreds which are also in PD to make this bless more interesting.

[Kuritza]

KissBlade said:Umm... SC's I design don't get hit by D9.

If you arent talking about turn 60+ or a medusa pretender, its more of an oversight by your opponents. There are ways to counter such an 'uncratchable' SC, like giving some cheap commander an eye of the void.

[In THEORY D9 should be the SC destroyer but a magic /negatable/ attack is laughable.

Arm loss and chest wound arent.

Also, the very idea of bless troops against SC rarely happens since the entire point of getting a SC is that he's maneveurable enough to avoid armies you don't want to fight and squash the ones you do.

It happens every now and then, when your opponent relies on sacred troops heavily and your nationals cannot do jack against them so you are forced to rely on SC instead.

[mathusalem]

and why not a D9 bless giving Deceased ?

[HoneyBadger]

Ideally, in a magical world where code dances to my whim, blessings would be based on your Pretender and his/her level of Dominion, not on anything else. It's silly to say "well, my Pretender is really good at fire magic, so all my sacred troops do magical fire damage" and call that a blessing. It's not a blessing, it's the result of a spell that the magical game-fairies cast for you when you're not looking.

It's equally silly to suggest that your Pretender can be X amount good/knowledgeable of fire magic and that's why his blessings are effective, but if he becomes X+11, that doesn't do a damn thing.

Much more sensible, fun, and opening-of-the-game-to-roleplaying-and-modding, if the bless is based on the form chosen and divine power possessed by the Pretender-including obtained divine power from temples built, since that would make for some very interesting strategy.

Naturally, it would be difficult to implement.