Fire vs. Death heavy bless

[thejeff]

Yeah, hate to say it K, but your progression there sounds more like standard non-bless/SC pretender expansion.
A real bless rush strategy should let you send out a indy-clearing army at least every other turn. And on smaller maps, you're gunning for that first neighbor. (And hoping he isn't doing the same.)

I agree you need more of a plan than bless rush and win your first war, but don't underestimate how much of an advantage a fast start can be.

[K]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Yeah, hate to say it K, but your progression there sounds more like standard non-bless/SC pretender expansion.
A real bless rush strategy should let you send out a indy-clearing army at least every other turn.

You'll note I said "take a province" and not "send out an army". Practical matters such as being able to reach new indies or being forced to go around provinces with something crazy like 30 knights or six Dark Vines or something means you most likely won't be consistently hitting the benchmarks until the turns I outlined. Its more a matter of the geography of your map more than anything else, so you might be much faster if there are lots of connections on your map and no impassable mountains or special indies that require you to merge two or more province-taking armies.

But yeh, on very large maps where you can actually enter 48 indie provinces before meeting a neighbor, you don't need any other tactic. I totally said that. In fact, I wrote a page explaining that.

It is not a coincidence that people believe that Bless Rushing is very powerful AND people like to play on very large maps.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by K

You'll note I said "take a province" and not "send out an army". Practical matters such as being able to reach new indies or being forced to go around provinces with something crazy like 30 knights or six Dark Vines or something means you most likely won't be consistently hitting the benchmarks until the turns I outlined. Its more a matter of the geography of your map more than anything else, so you might be much faster if there are lots of connections on your map and no impassable mountains or special indies that require you to merge two or more province-taking armies.

But yeh, on very large maps where you can actually enter 48 indie provinces before meeting a neighbor, you don't need any other tactic. I totally said that. In fact, I wrote a page explaining that.

It is not a coincidence that people believe that Bless Rushing is very powerful AND people like to play on very large maps.

You are so wrong you have no idea.
Look the last game I won as Mictlan - I was fighting Marignon, starting turn 7. As mictlan you don't try to take fortresses - at least not at first - you have to destroy forces - demoralize the opponent. So I was raiding him for 10 turns or so. I attacked my second opponent around turn 15.

If you read any of my threads on mictlan - making a force that will *take* a province costs 235 gp. No more no less. For archers you tag on 3 slaves.

I'm not talking huge sparse maps. I'm talking maps where you have the standard 15 provinces per player.

Try it.

[K]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

You are so wrong you have no idea.
Look the last game I won as Mictlan - I was fighting Marignon, starting turn 7. As mictlan you don't try to take fortresses - at least not at first - you have to destroy forces - demoralize the opponent. So I was raiding him for 10 turns or so. I attacked my second opponent around turn 15.

If you read any of my threads on mictlan - making a force that will *take* a province costs 235 gp. No more no less. For archers you tag on 3 slaves.

I'm not talking huge sparse maps. I'm talking maps where you have the standard 15 provinces per player.

Try it.

Yeh, I totally want to trust you based on "that one game where I schooled everyone...."

I play Bless nations all the time. My experience is that on a normal-sized map the other players see your quick expansion and dogpile you before you can get any meaningful lead in provinces. My last three games as Lanka ended for me when 3-4 players attacked me at the same time. Sure, I averaged destroying one and crippling two others, but I did not reach the endgame.

And that's why it is not a game-winning tactic unless you play on a large map. Its a fine tactic for winning fights, but winning a game requires so much more and I'll put my eggs in some other basket.

It seems like you've been getting a free pass from the Dominions community if they are letting you expand on those maps, and I can't take account of "and maybe I get lucky and my opponents are chumps or buds of mine" in any tactical or strategic decisions I make.

On the bright side I now know why you think the way you do, so I don't have to keep arguing with you on the chance you have valuable insights. It's been fun.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by K

Yeh, I totally want to trust you based on "that one game where I schooled everyone...."

I play Bless nations all the time. My experience is that on a normal-sized map the other players see your quick expansion and dogpile you before you can get any meaningful lead in provinces. My last three games as Lanka ended for me when 3-4 players attacked me at the same time. Sure, I averaged destroying one and crippling two others, but I did not reach the endgame.

And that's why it is not a game-winning tactic unless you play on a large map. Its a fine tactic for winning fights, but winning a game requires so much more and I'll put my eggs in some other basket.

It seems like you've been getting a free pass from the Dominions community if they are letting you expand on those maps, and I can't take account of "and maybe I get lucky and my opponents are chumps or buds of mine" in any tactical or strategic decisions I make.

On the bright side I now know why you think the way you do, so I don't have to keep arguing with you on the chance you have valuable insights. It's been fun.

Sure, attack the player, instead of the points.

*IF* you play bless nations all the time, you would know that it does not take until turn 7 for a bless nation to conquer 2 territories per turn.

You say its not a game winning strategy except on a large map.
Fine.

How about we settle this on a small map. Say.. Albatha. I'll take EA mictlan. You take any EA nation you want (except grossly unbalanced hinnom). Of course to make your point you'd logically not have to choose a bless nation.

Plain vanilla game.
Standard settings.

You say large benefits bless- I'm giving you small.
You'll know I'm starting with an f9w9 bless at the minimum - you can keep yours secret.
You're even a better player than I. Still won't matter.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by K

You'll note I said "take a province" and not "send out an army". Practical matters such as being able to reach new indies or being forced to go around provinces with something crazy like 30 knights or six Dark Vines or something means you most likely won't be consistently hitting the benchmarks until the turns I outlined. Its more a matter of the geography of your map more than anything else, so you might be much faster if there are lots of connections on your map and no impassable mountains or special indies that require you to merge two or more province-taking armies.

Maybe you play on very different maps than I have. Or maybe we're talking past each other. Obviously there's a difference between taking provinces and sending out armies. I find that becomes more significant later in the indy clearing phase. I don't think I've ever been in a game where, with a little planning I couldn't reliably find provinces to take with at least the 1st and 2nd armies. By the time they have to start back tracking the 3rd army should have targets to attack. And every other turn is slow for a uber bless nation.

From your original post:

Originally Posted by K

It works like this. On a big map, a Bless nation starts taking a province a turn around turn 2 or 3. By turn 7-8, he's taking two a turn. By 15 he's taking 3 a turn(the rate slows as he needs to start backtracking and moving to the front).

I simply don't see how sending out an army at least every other turn can lead to progress like that. Sure there will be some backtracking and some indies you have to bypass or combine to take, but to do that badly most of those armies won't be attacking most turns. If you're that constrained by geography, skip the bless and just use regular troops. You should be able to do as well.

Originally Posted by K

But yeh, on very large maps where you can actually enter 48 indie provinces before meeting a neighbor, you don't need any other tactic. I totally said that. In fact, I wrote a page explaining that.

And as I said, you need more of a plan than just bless rush. I'm not disagreeing with that. But you're claiming an uber-bless is ineffective even at what it's good at.

[TheDemon]

More territory translates rather directly into more gem income and more blood income. You will agree that a more effective bless means faster territory gain? But that's only the first step, you need to follow it up with more forts and more sitesearching and more bloodhunting. There's no reason you can't pursue a so-called "game winning" strategy in addition to supercharged expansion with a strong bless.

So yes, a bless means you have "more stuff", but it does not mean simply "more sacreds".

[Frozen Lama]

K- just go and try a F9W9 bless rush. on turn 3, it is entirely possible to take 2 provs with jags. on turn 4, you can take 3, unless you happen to have a capital with only 2 neighbors. you don't circle you cap first of course. if you have 4 neighbor provs, turn 5 your taking 4 provs. just go try it. its insane to think a bless rush nation won't take 2 provs a turn until turn 7

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Frozen Lama

K- just go and try a F9W9 bless rush. on turn 3, it is entirely possible to take 2 provs with jags. on turn 4, you can take 3, unless you happen to have a capital with only 2 neighbors. you don't circle you cap first of course. if you have 4 neighbor provs, turn 5 your taking 4 provs. just go try it. its insane to think a bless rush nation won't take 2 provs a turn until turn 7

Connections isn't sufficient. I mean, unless jags are far more awesome than i think they are, a bloodhenge druid province will stop you cold. As will any number of other nasty independents. So if you see nothing but tribal warriors and militia/archer/infantry combinations, sure, i believe you. And while K might underestimate the speed a little, i think you vastly overestimate based on the assumption 1 turns production of jaguars can take *any* indie province.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Connections isn't sufficient. I mean, unless jags are far more awesome than i think they are, a bloodhenge druid province will stop you cold. As will any number of other nasty independents. So if you see nothing but tribal warriors and militia/archer/infantry combinations, sure, i believe you. And while K might underestimate the speed a little, i think you vastly overestimate based on the assumption 1 turns production of jaguars can take *any* indie province.

Squirrel, both you and K are *very* wrong. Jags are just as good as I say they are.
jags laugh at cavs, cat, elephants.

Its the *slingers* you worry about not the elephants. slingers and archers have a tendency to kill your blessing cleric about one time in three.

I'm not *assuming* anything - the last 4 games I have played as mictlan the low was 38 territories by the end of year 2. High was 50 something.

Sure BHD might cause you to leap frog around. But you *want* to leap frog. The idea is capture as many territories as possible and fill in later.