New empowerment strategy?

[SurvivalistMerc]

Thanks, Takwus,

Right now my only blood mage in some instances is my pretender. Which is not really all that impressive for the use of blood magic. He has better things to do that just walk around hunting blood slaves. Like finding magic sites or contributing to research or forging major magical items that only he can do with all his rainbow magic.

I wouldn't want to miss out on a nice site like that.

It's also good to know that there are priestly sites. I guess I'll still send those guys around looking even though they usually won't find anything.

Does anyone think that a nice idea for a theme might be one wherein taking blood slaves did not yeild increased unrest? Perhaps costing 40 points or so?

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
Has anyone ever found a holy or unholy site? I've had priests search but always come back having found nothing.

I find it especially nice to make a prophet from a holy mage, so that it can site-search at holy 4 as well as 2 other fields. I've found quite a few holy sites, although yes, they are rare... and I think most of them are above level 2, so cheap priests aren't too helpful. I've never found an unholy site, but some of them are very nice, from the descriptions.

[SurvivalistMerc]

With ulm, I'm not going to have any 4-holy priests. Especially not with order 3, unluck 3. I guess I can go search with my prophet, who is my smith with toughness.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
Does anyone think that a nice idea for a theme might be one wherein taking blood slaves did not yeild increased unrest? Perhaps costing 40 points or so?

You know, that might actually make the "Blood of Humans" theme worthwhile! I would say "half unrest", though, because no unrest for unlimited slaving in the capitol is a bit... omnipotent=)

[SurvivalistMerc]

Can you give me some examples of holy sites? Just to stir the imagination?

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
Can you give me some examples of holy sites? Just to stir the imagination?

Ancient Temple
Sanctifying Pool
Forgotten Crypt
The Ward
Hidden Monastery

[ November 20, 2003, 18:33: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[HJ]

The best thing for site searching is the spell Acashic record, which finds all sites in a province regardless of the school. Mountain, forest and wasteland provinces have higher chance to contain magic sites, so maybe you were searching in wrong places? Also, some really cool sites require level 4 to find, so your rainbow mage might not be powerful enough to do it. You can also use school-specific ritual spells to do the searching - they cost gems, but find all sites in that particular school if there are any in the province (it shows as search level 9, although all sites can be found with level 4 when searching without rituals). Rituals are also faster, since you spend 2 turns doing it on foot - one to get in the province and another to search, while you can cast the ritual every turn with sufficient gem income. I think that holy/unholy sites might not be that rare, just that often you don't have good searchers for them, i.e. not something that you would normally use your priests to do, and not many nations that have unholy priests. With Acashic record quite a few of them show up (at least on Orania map so far).

In addition to regular blood sites, Mictlan's home province has a site that gives you 3 blood slaves.

[ November 20, 2003, 20:46: Message edited by: HJ ]

[SurvivalistMerc]

Thanks, HJ.

Now...to go to my spellbook when I get home...and look up Acashic Record. I don't care if it costs gems, really. And if it were something I could do once a turn...that's better than going from site to site with a rainbow mage.

If 4 is required for a lot of sites though...maybe my rainbow should include a lot more 4's considering the positive bless effects.

[Taqwus]

Acashic Record does require Conjuration 5 (!), an Astral-3 mage (or an Astral-2 with a Starshine Skullcap / Crystal Coin; more widely available), and a whopping 25 Astral pearls per casting. Most of the single-field divination spells are easier to research (although they're in multiple fields) and often easier to cast (heck, Dark Knowledge is a Death-1). They're also far cheaper.
If you've bootstrapped your gem income to the point where 25 Astral isn't much (note: that's enough for a Juggernaut, or an Imprint Souls, or half an Angelic Host, or a quarter of a Wish..., or 187.5 gold after conVersion to fire gems, etc), and the magical site frequency is rather high, it might be useful to you. Or if you're playing single-player or against human players that are also playing less than brutally optimized, I suppose.
Hm. In Dom I, you sometimes used to be able to *know* that there were at least X magical sites in a province because there were four slots, and when one was found it revealed the site in the slot corresponding to an arbitrary order. If you lit up a site in Slot #4, you knew there were three other magical sites present, and thus it might be a good Acashic Record candidate especially if you lacked the mages to cast the single-site divination spells or you also wanted the holy/unholy sites. The new interface fixes that.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Acashic Record does require Conjuration 5 (!), an Astral-3 mage (or an Astral-2 with a Starshine Skullcap / Crystal Coin; more widely available), and a whopping 25 Astral pearls per casting. Most of the single-field divination spells are easier to research (although they're in multiple fields) and often easier to cast (heck, Dark Knowledge is a Death-1). They're also far cheaper.

I didn't say that it's the most cost-effective way, just that it's the best way to find them. The way the initial poster presented his case, it seems that he wanted to know what sites are there in the first place, and how to find them (I myself am still much in that phase). Of course there are optimal ways to find sites, but Acashic record is great for exploring the game's variety and all that, and also to get access to gem variety that you are not normally able to. And yes, I'm talking about leisurely paced SP games I play, where I want to see everything that game has to offer.

[ November 20, 2003, 21:38: Message edited by: HJ ]