Sacred Troops

[st.patrik]

So it seems that the new 'bless' effects in Dom II can be pretty powerful, which raises a concern (which involves a question) about sacred troops.

The concern is that nations which do not have regular units (i.e. non-commanders) which are sacred are at a bit of a disadvantage, and similarly, nations that have powerful sacred troops are better off than nations which have weaker sacred troops. So for example, it seems like Marignon has a pretty good deal with the new 'bless' effects - they have the Knights of the Chalice (which are already pretty good only with Dom I 'bless' effects), as well as the flagellants, which are very cheap and mass-produceable. In the middle seems to be a nation like Pythium, whose only sacred troops are the battle vestals, or C'Tis, with their sacred serpents. Finally nations like Pangaea, Ulm, R'lyeh, Abysia, and Arco seem to have the worst deal, because they don't have any sacred troops (aside from commanders).

So the question then is: Are all these nations the same as in Dom I specifically with regard to having/not-having sacred troops? or has the 'vanilla' theme of some nations been changed to include some sacred troops if they didn't have them in Dom I? Do some of the other themes of these latter nations have sacred troops, if so, could you tell us a little about them?

By the way, I do realize that 'blessing' works on commanders too, but there are a lot fewer commanders on the battlefield than there are regular troops, so that's why I'm asking about regular troops.

Right now (Dom I) Marignon has a pretty good deal with sacred troops; Vanheim is also doing pretty good with their valkyries and van being blessable. Caelum, Jotunheim, Man and Atlantis each have a single elite troop type which is sacred (Man of course being hampered by only being able to build the wardens in his home province ). C'Tis & Pythium have slightly less elite sacred troops. Finally the five I mentioned above (Pan, Ulm, Abysia, R'lyeh, and Arco) have no regular sacred troops. Ermor I don't play - and it's a little strange anyways, so I don't know about it.

[ October 09, 2003, 04:21: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

[Argitoth]

TIME TO MASS PRODUCE COMMANDERS!!!!!!!

[Kristoffer O]

All nations except Ulm has sacred troops. Ulm has it in a theme. Only Marignon and Vanheim can produce sacred troops outside their home province. There is a limit based on dominion to the number of sacred troops that can be produced in a given province. Thus only flagellants will actually be possible to produce in masses (vanir being rather expensive).

[Saber Cherry]

I've been thinking about sanctifying normal troops into holy troops. The best way to do it, I think, would be to use the Prophet. Similar to the way a commander enters a "training" special site with his troops, and they all slowly gain experience, when the prophet is at a temple, he could gain the "Sanctify" command. Each (intelligent, mortal) unit under the prophet would have a percent chance per turn of becoming sacred.

The rate would be dependant on several factors:

1) The province dominion (+)
2) The prophet's holy level (+)
3) The prophet's experience (+)
4) The number of units under the prophet (-)

The first three would increase the conVersion probability, while the Last factor would decrease the conVersion probability. Ideally, the Last factor would be adjusted so that at first, adding more units under the prophet increases the conVersion rate (successes per turn) linearly. But then decreasing returns begin, so that the rate starts to plateau around 50 units or so, and above 100 units, adding 1 more unit (1% more) will decrease the conVersion probability by 1%, so that the net conVersion rate is static above 100 units. Thus, a prophet sanctifying 50 people would create sacred units almost as fast a prophet sanctifying 500 people, but nearly twice as fast as a prophet sanctifying 25 people. Make sense? I'm trying to model the large classroom / small classroom differences here, and prevent abuse.

At the absolute maximal rate (level 7 prophet, 5 holy, 10 dominion) I would expect a maximum conVersion rate of maybe 5 units per turn, while in normal circumstances (level 2 prophet, 3 holy, 5 dominion) 2 units per turn would be more likely.

This doesn't really solve the problem - but then, it's not really a "problem", just a difference between nations. It does add some flavor to the prophet, though. I would certainly like the "Flagellants" random event to be more common, as well.

Those are my thoughts...

-Cherry

[LordArioch]

Seems like marigon would be a good nation to pick magic for maximal bless effects.

[PDF]

I like SC's idea on "Sanctifying" troops
It makes sense, it will bring more variety in styles (cause even if you play Ulm you can eventually get a good blessing effect, and a Ulm Blessed Black Knight would be something akin to a M1A2 tank ) !
In addition I find that Prophets aren't that fun : good priestly nations have it cast Fanaticism, for other it makes a pumped-up commander, but I don't find them acting often "prophetically".

[Pocus]

Originally posted by PDF:
[QB]I like SC's idea on "Sanctifying" troops
It makes sense, it will bring more variety in styles (cause even if you play Ulm you can eventually get a good blessing effect, and a Ulm Blessed Black Knight would be something akin to a M1A2 tank ) !

you mean old and not up to date?

[licker]

NOOOO!!!!

Lets not start that tedious usenet debate about which country has the best tank...

Oh by the way, it's so *not* GB

(waits for the military wonks to wonk that Last statement )

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by PDF:
I like SC's idea on "Sanctifying" troops
It makes sense, it will bring more variety in styles (cause even if you play Ulm you can eventually get a good blessing effect, and a Ulm Blessed Black Knight would be something akin to a M1A2 tank ) !
In addition I find that Prophets aren't that fun : good priestly nations have it cast Fanaticism, for other it makes a pumped-up commander, but I don't find them acting often "prophetically".

You might call them 'Black Templars' and you might find them in the 'Iron Faith' theme.

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I've been thinking about sanctifying normal troops into holy troops.



Those are my thoughts...

-Cherry

I really like this idea too, but I think it could be done much more simply that what you were suggesting.

My suggestion would be that any priest could 'sanctify' troops, so long as he's in a province with a temple, and he would only be able to sanctify as many troops as his priestly level. The way I would envisage it would be that when in a province with a temple the priest (or prophet) would have an option to "sanctify troops" much like the Arco Priestess option "heal troops". Then 2, 3, or whatever the priest's level is troops randomly would become sacred. Note this would be instead of preaching, etc., and would be a relatively slow process, unless you had masses and masses of priests, because you're only sanctifying 2 or 3 troops at a time (for most nations).

Note that this *would* perserve the weaknesses and strengths of different nations when it comes to things priestly, because someone like Ulm could make troops sacred only much slower than a nation like Marignon, because he can only make level 2 priests - which is only 2 troops turned sacred per turn per priest (as opposed to 5 or 6 for Marignon). [although you might want to boost the cost of lower-level priests a little to prevent mass sanctifying ]

You could limit it to the prophet, but that seems like a too limited conVersion to make any difference at all.