Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design? [Archive]

st.patrik

October 26th, 2003, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by Endoperez:
So, is this post to be redone after we get DomII / demo? And after which ithis is done? I'm guessing this change in bless effects will have something of a ripple effect in how people play - so yes, it would be interesting to do a similar survey after people have gotten used to playing Dom II.

Originally posted by apoger:
I suspect that a bless-pretender strategy will only be viable for Marignon, since they can get efficiency by making many troops that get the benefit.

I have not seen the game yet so I could easily be wrong, but my gut feeling is that the new sacred/bless system is fun, but not viable for competitive play. You may be right... It seems like it will be hard to come up with significant numbers of sacred troops. [incidentally this is why I was in support of the suggestion made a while back to make it possible to 'sanctify' troops, to allow a greater use of sacred troops.]

Then again apparently roving bands of flagellents are apparently just as common in Dom II as in Dom I - or maybe even more so...

Pocus

October 26th, 2003, 08:57 PM

I'm a bit concerned too. Sure we shall wait for the demo (at least), but even simple calculation can let us evaluate the importance of blessed troops :

some potent holy troops:
Warden of Avallon 26 res
Temple Guard 43 res

It means that nations which can count on quality holy troops will have resources to recruit between 5 and 10 units in their capitol.

I dont know if the overall number you can get with this rate of drafting will be enough to warrant the spending of several hundred points in magic levels, but I doubt. True also that these magic levels give a benefit by themselves, but taking fire 6 for spell usage is not justified in my mind for example.

I have read some time ago that your blessed troops were recrutable in all provinces with temples, and limited to the number of candles present. Is this rule obsolete?

we will see...

Psitticine

October 26th, 2003, 09:57 PM

Unless I'm testing some special situation, I always go for a strong bless effect in my games, and I find that I always get my money's worth, no matter what nation I play. Since the effects are additive to the units, i.e. you get a bonus to your attack from a Fire magic blessing instead of just having your base attack stat replaced by the same one all blessed troops might receive, that's what keeps things in balance. The really expensive sacred units tend to have pretty good stats already, but blessings can either close gaps or boost those units to an amazingly high potency. The cheap sacred units, e.g. the flagellents, aren't that great without their blessings. The power of the blessings makes them into much more potent units, but they still won't be a match for, say, a blessed Warden of Avalon. Because of this, the relative costs for the units still keeps them in balance.

I don't want to raise the spector of "Supercombatents" because, well, there's a counterbalance for everything, but I find 10 blessed Wardens can take on just about any number of flagellents without too much fuss. It's the blessed Knights of the Challice they have to be careful of. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered, well, you do have to sacrifice in other areas to get them, and they will follow along certain lines due to their natures. For example, Abyssia doesn't have to concern themselves overly with the flaming weaponry given to blessed troops with a Fire magic 9+ pretender. You can plan accordingly, especially since the new titles give you a peak at what kind of magic the enemy gods are packin', and try to work out counters. I'd worry more about them being over-powered than under-powered, but I think they are pretty well in balance. So much comes from how well you design them, so it is hard to seperate innate power from design skill there, but so far, I haven't had any qualms with their cost or potency.

Now, the second tier blessings are different in that they are effects that are either there or aren't, such as flaming weaponry, but since (to continue this example) the damage for flaming weaponry is in addition to the unit's normal damage, it still works out the same way in most cases.

It all balances out in the end, IMO, although it does take skill (thankfully) to plan and prepare the right kind of blessing for your nation. Obviously, Ulm doesn't really need more Protection, so an Earth magic blessing isn't that useful. Giving them a Fear effect, however . . . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Likewise, the sacred undead usually already have a built-in Cause Fear ability (although blessing them with an additional one gives a cumulative result, if I'm not mistaken), but an MR boost via Astral magic (e.g. Banishment protection) is a marvelous thing.

Maybe I'm overstating my case here, but the blessing effects are one of my favorite parts of Dom II. They really bring the "godly" flavor of the whole thing onto the battle field. A blessing from Ceannthine, the Burning Soul, King of Every Flame is a very different thing from that of Lobheair, Mistress of Poison and Goddess of Decay. There's a dimension added by the blessings that I'd sorely miss if it weren't there, and the only thing I'd want to tweak about them is to have a summary for your god's blessing available without having to check out a current blessed unit. (I always have to go and check my prophet, as prophets are permanently blessed, if I forget exactly what my god's blessing does.)

Your milage may vary, of course, but I really do think y'all will find the blessings one of the very best parts of Dom II.

[ October 26, 2003, 20:06: Message edited by: Psitticine ]

Wick

October 26th, 2003, 10:21 PM

I don't think the new bless is intended to dominate the game. It's just there, like the reduced dominion benefits, to encourage sinking some more points into the god himself. That and, very definately, to add flavor! The sacred troops of an air & astral pretender may be inferior to the originals but they're different, and different then all the others. This is cool.

apoger

October 26th, 2003, 11:55 PM

>Since the effects are additive to the units, i.e. you get a bonus to your attack from a Fire magic blessing instead of just having your base attack stat replaced by the same one all blessed troops might receive, that's what keeps things in balance.

Bless was "additive" in Dom I.
I don't see how this helps "balance".

>The cheap sacred units, e.g. the flagellents, aren't that great without their blessings.

Neither are the expensive ones... if you take thier costs into account.

>The power of the blessings makes them into much more potent units, but they still won't be a match for, say, a blessed Warden of Avalon. Because of this, the relative costs for the units still keeps them in balance.

I don't see this.

>I find 10 blessed Wardens can take on just about any number of flagellents without too much fuss. It's the blessed Knights of the Challice they have to be careful of.

Not in Dom I by any stretch of the imagination.
Sure a Warden is better than a Flag one on one, but Wardens cost 3.5X as much gold. If you had 35 Flags fighting 10 Wardens, the Flags would mop the floor with the Wardens (in Dom I).

As for Dom II, keep in mind that Flags will allow massive efficiency compared to Wardens. Consider 100 Wardens getting +3 Strength and +3 to Attack. This 100 instances of the bonus being attributed. Now consider that for the same gold cost we can make 350 Flags. Also consider that Flags strike twice, so they use their bonuses twice! This is 700 instances of a bonus being attributed. The Warden army gains +300 strength and attack while the Flags garner +2100.

I think you have dramatically underestimated the potency of flagellents.

My suspision that Marignon will be the only nation to benefit from the changes to blessings remains unchanged. We will have a better opportunity to judge when the demo comes out.

>On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered,

I worry about underpowered. I have absolutely no concern that blessings will be over-powered.

>Maybe I'm overstating my case here, but the blessing effects are one of my favorite parts of Dom II. They really bring the "godly" flavor of the whole thing onto the battle field.

Agreed. It sounds like a great way to add flavor.
My worry is that it won't be particularly useful.

>Your milage may vary, of course, but I really do think y'all will find the blessings one of the very best parts of Dom II.

I hope so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Saber Cherry

October 27th, 2003, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
As for Dom II, keep in mind that Flags will allow massive efficiency compared to Wardens. Consider 100 Wardens getting +3 Strength and +3 to Attack. This 100 instances of the bonus being attributed. Now consider that for the same gold cost we can make 350 Flags. Also consider that Flags strike twice, so they use their bonuses twice! This is 700 instances of a bonus being attributed. The Warden army gains +300 strength and attack while the Flags garner +2100.

>On the note of blessings maybe being over-powered,

I worry about underpowered. I have absolutely no concern that blessings will be over-powered.

First off, I'm also concerned about "underpowered", a bit. I think it would be nice if bonuses started at level 2 magic or level 3 magic instead of level 4 magic, or if blessings gave +3str +3mrl in addition to magic bonuses. But, we'll see how it works.

But as to your other point, uh... the math is wrong. With strength... yes, strength can be multiplied by number of affected units (and Flags have the advantage with their double hits). But for things like attack, MR, protection, and so forth, you can't simply multiply #units by #pts increase and get the overall improvement. Moving a flagellant from 0 protection to 3 protection, for example, does not really affect his survivability, while moving a Warden (dunno, say 15 protection) up to 18 protection would make him much less likely to be hurt when attacked by a flagellant.

Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.

Essentially, some blessings are better for some units, and some for others, but you can't really claim that all blessings are better for cheap, plentiful units, because it's not true.

-Cherry

apoger

October 27th, 2003, 02:30 AM

>Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.

+50% Quickness would net 10 Wardens an extra 5 attacks. It would get 35 flags another 35 attacks! While the warden attacks are stronger, it gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of flag attacks. Easily.

Even for the stuff like regeneration, yes the flags don't get the benefit of the double attack, but they still get regen on 3.5X as many troops. In a one on one comparison a warden gets more regen than a flag. When you account for 1 warden versus 3.5 flags, the situation is much murkier.

For the bonuses that don't involve an attack the flags only get 3.5X as much bonus as opposed to 7X. I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile.

johan osterman

October 27th, 2003, 03:13 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
>Similarly, quickness - 50% extra attacks by 10 Wardens would probably be similarly useful to 50% extra attacks by 35 flags, because their attacks are so much better. Reinvogoration would be more valuable to wardens than flags. Regeneration would be WAY more useful to wardens than flags... and flaming weapons would probably be more useful to flags because it is multiplied out like strength.

+50% Quickness would net 10 Wardens an extra 5 attacks. It would get 35 flags another 35 attacks! While the warden attacks are stronger, it gets overwhelmed by the sheer volume of flag attacks. Easily.

Even for the stuff like regeneration, yes the flags don't get the benefit of the double attack, but they still get regen on 3.5X as many troops. In a one on one comparison a warden gets more regen than a flag. When you account for 1 warden versus 3.5 flags, the situation is much murkier.

For the bonuses that don't involve an attack the flags only get 3.5X as much bonus as opposed to 7X. I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile. Regeneration is much more powerful on armored troops like wardens. While flaggelants can easily be killed by a single blow this is rare for wardens so the chance that regen will have an impact on a warden is much higher. If you take the extreme case of the new Niefel giants this is even more pronounced.

Blessings might not be very powerful in the long run, but since early expansion is very important in most games powerful blessings will have an effect beyond just the blessing effect in itself, since it might allow for quicker expansion etc.

Saber Cherry

October 27th, 2003, 03:16 AM

The problem is that a flagellant will often die with a single hit, so regeneration does him no good... while heavy units often survive with minimal damage, which is then regenerated. Unarmored units also don't really benefit from protection, since they usually die in one hit anyway... and they don't benefit at all from reinvigoration, since they have low encumbrance (and die in a prolonged fight).

Extra attacks are useful for Wardens, because they do much more damage and have a much higher attack rating. So, against very heavy (18 prot Ulm) infantry, 10 Wardens with +3 protection, +3 strength, +3 reinvigoration, and regeneration would probably do much better than 35 flags with the same blessing. Double-strike doesn't help if neither hit does any damage... and 3 protection doesn't help when you're impaled on a pike.

-Cherry

Edit: JO posted about the same thing at about the same time.

[ October 27, 2003, 01:18: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Wick

October 27th, 2003, 03:50 AM

"I'm still willing to bet that flags are the only troop that will be able to make the new blessing system worthwhile."

Flags are also the big losers -- strength and attack played right to their strength but several of the new bonuses don't.

I see the new blessing system as simiar to the old one, perhaps slighty weaker, but with more variety and adding a bias for pretender magic. I'm not sure what standard "worthwhile" you're using.
Worthwhile as in sacred troops will be less used then before? As in level 9 magic is just too expensive? As in making a magic path come out even is too expensive?

apoger

October 27th, 2003, 04:33 AM

>10 Wardens with +3 protection, +3 strength, +3 reinvigoration, and regeneration would probably do much better than 35 flags with the same blessing.

Can't compare same blessings, you have to compare best.

35 flags with +3 str, +3 att, def +3 (extra def would make quite an impact versus the wardens above), and 50% quickness would absolutely crush the wardens from the above example. [using the same amount of bless effect]

It's possible that flaming weapons would be even better than quickness, but I'm not quite sure what the flame effect entails yet.

Unless you are going to use sacred troops with missile attacks, the flags are going to come out ahead every time.

apoger

October 27th, 2003, 04:40 AM

>I see the new blessing system as simiar to the old one, perhaps slighty weaker, but with more variety and adding a bias for pretender magic.

My fear is that it will be more than slightly weaker.

What about players who do not invest heavily in pretender magic? That renders any sacred troops much less useful. In Dom I, all nations had some ability to field serious sacred troops. In Dom II players will find their sacred troops to be junky unless they set up their nation specifically to take advantage of them. I'm not sure I like that new paradigm.

>I'm not sure what standard "worthwhile" you're using.

Competitive with other uses of nation points.

>Worthwhile as in sacred troops will be less used then before?

In multiplayer, it's almost certain that we will see less serious use of sacred troops.

[unless of course my suspisions are totally wrong]

>As in level 9 magic is just too expensive?

It generally is.

>As in making a magic path come out even is too expensive?

I have no idea what this means.

st.patrik

October 27th, 2003, 05:22 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
>10 Wardens with +3 protection, +3 strength, +3 reinvigoration, and regeneration would probably do much better than 35 flags with the same blessing.

Can't compare same blessings, you have to compare best.

35 flags with +3 str, +3 att, def +3 (extra def would make quite an impact versus the wardens above), and 50% quickness would absolutely crush the wardens from the above example. [using the same amount of bless effect]

It's possible that flaming weapons would be even better than quickness, but I'm not quite sure what the flame effect entails yet.

Unless you are going to use sacred troops with missile attacks, the flags are going to come out ahead every time. A trifle too dogmatic I fear, Mr. Poger. Much as I respect your veteran status I disagree with your conclusions in this instance.

Comparing best to best I would say that you could craft a group of 10 wardens that could destroy a group of 35 flagellants, simply by playing to the warden's strengths. If there was a specific 'counter' bless effect for every bless effect this wouldn't be possible. What I mean is that obviously if you raise the wardens' defense and the flags' attack, then it'll all balance out. However, there is no opposite to effects like reinvigoration, regeneration, flaming weapons, twist fate, etc. Accordingly it should be possible to craft a blessing effect which would play to the wardens' strengths.

The strengths of the warden (by comparison with flagellants) are high HP (13 vs. 9), high PROT (16 vs. 0), and higher attack and defense. Typically a flagellant will hit about 46% of the time (9 ATT vs. 10 DEF), do some damage 38% of the time (14 vs. 16 PROT), more than likely a very small amount. Typically a warden will hit a flag 89% of the time, and do damage pretty much every time they hit (0 PROT vs. 22) and mostly enough to kill the flag. suppose each is blessed with magic 9 in the most optimal path. For wardens I suggest nature: berserk +3 and regeneration (& poison resistance, but that doesn't relate here). For flags suppose water, for even more attacks, or blood (except I'm not sure what is meant by 'death curse') So let's suppose water.

The wardens will regenerate HP, meaning that if one is not killed in a single round he will likely bounce back and do more damage. In addition, getting wounded will give him +3 str, prot, and att, and -3 def. The defense reduction isn't a big deal because he's getting hit quite a lot anyway (7 attacks to his 1), so his defense is not where his strength is anyway. +3 str also isn't a big deal because he likely kills a flag with each attack anyway. same with +3 att. +3 prot will reduce the number of times the warden gets damaged to about 20% (14 vs. 19 PROT), and accordingly reduce the amount of damage he takes.

The flags get def +4, and quickness (50%), which is an extra attack every other round I believe. The defense boost will help a little, but the chance for them getting hit will still be 74%, so they'll get hit alot. since the other stats are unchanged they'll also get killed alot.

Now compare in a single round: warden with 1 attack, flags with an average of 10 attacks (3.5*2 + half again). Flags hit 7 times (68%), 20% of those cause damage; that's about 1.4, and those attacks will most likely just do a point or two of damage. 1 flag dead. Next round: warden regenerates up to full, same deal, 1 flag dead. It's just possible that every so often a flag will get incredibly lucky and roll several sixes - extreme damage. So it's possible that they might kill a warden or two if they got lucky. Of course the wardens are berserk so won't rout. More than likely the flags won't be able to do serious enough damage to the wardens to win, and it should only take 4 rounds for all the flags to be dead.

All that to say: I think you're wrong that flagellants would take down wardens if each were optimally blessed. Thus maybe sacred troops other than flagellants will be useful.

p.s. sorry about the length of the post.

apoger

October 27th, 2003, 05:44 AM

What you aren't taking into account is the very potent bonuses that the flags get for attacking in mass. By your math flags in Dom I would have just as much trouble. However any testing at all will show that the flags will blow right though the wardens.

The theory is all well and good, however real game testing often shows the flaws in theory. As soon as the demo comes out I will do a tremendous amount of testing. For now I can only tell you what happens in Dom I. In Dom I flags crush wardens. From what I see of the Dom II system, it doesn't look like anything has changed that, however once I do testing I'll be delighted to report the results and form my opinions from facts.

st.patrik

October 27th, 2003, 05:51 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
What you aren't taking into account is the very potent bonuses that the flags get for attacking in mass. By your math flags in Dom I would have just as much trouble. However any testing at all will show that the flags will blow right though the wardens.

The theory is all well and good, however real game testing often shows the flaws in theory. As soon as the demo comes out I will do a tremendous amount of testing. For now I can only tell you what happens in Dom I. In Dom I flags crush wardens. From what I see of the Dom II system, it doesn't look like anything has changed that, however once I do testing I'll be delighted to report the results and form my opinions from facts. The only bonus that I am aware of is that each attack made against a single target lowers that target's defense score by 1. This is indeed a potent effect when you are facing 10 attacks to each 1 of your own, but the wardens in the scenario I sketched out are not relying primarily on defense, but on protection. The only thing I know that affects protection is fatigue, but if the battle only takes 4 rounds (and only 15 flags left after the first 2), this ought not to change things much. Suppose flags hit 10/10 instead of 7/10 times (due to lowering defense) - still only 2 of those are likely to pierce the armour of the warden, and them do a few points of damage each - very unlikely 13 points combined (which is how many HP the wardens have).

But it is not the same in this scenario as in Dom I, due to the factor of regeneration. In Dom I during the second round of combat the wardens would be low on hitpoints, and by the third round several, perhaps many, would have fallen. The factor of regeneration changes all this, because it allows the regenerating unit to recoup lost hitpoints during the battle. Thus the wardens do not die (as they would in Dom I) to an accumulation of low damage attacks - rather they regenerate the damage and this is what makes the key difference.

I also will test out this theory when the game comes out - but I bet you a large pizza with anchovies that I'm right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ October 27, 2003, 04:07: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

Chris Byler

October 27th, 2003, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
What you aren't taking into account is the very potent bonuses that the flags get for attacking in mass. By your math flags in Dom I would have just as much trouble. However any testing at all will show that the flags will blow right though the wardens.

The theory is all well and good, however real game testing often shows the flaws in theory. As soon as the demo comes out I will do a tremendous amount of testing. For now I can only tell you what happens in Dom I. In Dom I flags crush wardens. From what I see of the Dom II system, it doesn't look like anything has changed that, however once I do testing I'll be delighted to report the results and form my opinions from facts. Well, obviously some testing would be nice. But when you compare to the Dom I situation, I think you are ignoring the importance of regeneration and extra protection that the wardens are getting. How often (in the Dom I tests) do the wardens die from one hit, vs. dying from multiple hits? It would be much rarer to die from multiple hits if you have extra protection and regeneration - the one lucky fistful of sixes is about the only way.

AFAIK, the multiple attacker bonus only affects defense, which isn't that much of an issue in this example anyway. The flags would be better off with strength, I think. Fatigue might also be an issue for the wardens, but I would expect a warden vs. flag match to be decided before fatigue could have much effect (someone will be dead or routed by turn 5).

In any case, the example has a serious flaw: it assumes that 3.5 flags actually get to attack each warden. Wardens are size 2 or 3 (I forget), so 3 or 2 fill one space. Flags are size 2, so 3 fill one space. At most 1.5 flags per warden will actually be attacking at a time - the rest will be stuck in the back.

Small squads will reduce this effect somewhat in later rounds as the flags run around the sides, but by later rounds there won't be as many flags anyway.

Some more points that aren't being considered: although Marignon has level 4 priests, Man does not. They may have trouble blessing substantial Groups of wardens (assuming that they can field them in the first place). On the other hand, wardens have good protection and resist missiles pretty well (especially with regen and berserking). Flags have lousy protection and can get mauled by slingers, let alone bows. Hmm, can Man field bows? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

In fact, firing longbows into melee where your nature-9 blessed wardens are fighting would be really effective - if you do hit a warden by accident, you will probably (a) not kill him, and (b) drive him berserk. And (c) he will regenerate. And that's not even counting the effect on your enemies...

It may be difficult to test bless situations in Dom II - unless the battle sim has been significantly improved, you probably won't be able to edit god magic for each side before running the sim. So you'll get the generic bless.

st.patrik

October 27th, 2003, 06:20 AM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
In any case, the example has a serious flaw: it assumes that 3.5 flags actually get to attack each warden. Wardens are size 2 or 3 (I forget), so 3 or 2 fill one space. Flags are size 2, so 3 fill one space. At most 1.5 flags per warden will actually be attacking at a time - the rest will be stuck in the back. I was about to disagree and then I realised that I was the one who was getting confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif - You're absolutely right.

BTW you're probably right that flags would do better with blood, for the strength boost. The only thing that made me not want to use that was not knowing what the 'death curse' you get at lvl 9 is. Even in that case regeneration would make probably a big difference.

BTW2 apparently there is no battle sim in Dom II - much to my dismay I might add.

*edit - it was your stats, by the way, from the usenet post, that I was basing my calculations upon. A most helpful piece of research - thank you.

[ October 27, 2003, 04:23: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

apoger

October 27th, 2003, 06:35 AM

>BTW2 apparently there is no battle sim in Dom II - much to my dismay I might add.

It won't take long for some player to produce a reasonable testbed.

I think you guys are dramatically overestimating the value of regeneration. It works off the base hits of the unit. It's very impressive on a Wrym. Not very impressive on a human sized troop.

10 wardens backed by nature-9 will get whipped by 35 flags backed by fire-4 blood-6 [with a small savings in nation points]. And yes, I'd bet a pizza on that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ October 27, 2003, 04:36: Message edited by: apoger ]

Wick

October 27th, 2003, 07:12 AM

">As in level 9 magic is just too expensive?

It generally is."

Yes... but the betas who don't seem to think so. I wonder if we still have only 500 points to play with? Even if we do, I suspect my usual growth +3 is going to become death +3, which will probably go into pretender magic which will get bless up about Dom1 levels. I'll probably also be taking order which means leaving my luck neutral is viable. I'm hopeful there may be enough points to make sacred troops work. We'll see.

PvK

October 27th, 2003, 07:36 AM

I'd say it hinges on the chance the Flags will manage to overcome the Wardens' defense and armor, and also on how they line up in the field. If flail attacks rarely affect a Warden, and/or if they line up so the combat is fought more or less 1:1 in line, the Flags will probably die. If flails tend to get through and hurt Wardens, and/or if the fighters are spread out and mixed up so that they fight 3:1 or 4:1, the Flags will probably win.

Does someone (or some FAQ) know the formulae behind the combat system in detail?

In Dom II, do magic levels still directly add to the mage's combat abilities, as in Dom I? (e.g., does a level 9 fire mage still get Attack +9 himself automatically, in addition to bless effects?)

PvK

Jasper

October 27th, 2003, 07:46 AM

I agree with Alex, although I've been biting my tongue up to this point. The bless effects completely underwhelm me, especially when combined with the limited production of Sacred Troops. It's simply way too much cost for little benefit.

Dominion and castles are far more important. The major benefit of getting additional magic skills is access to missing magics and gem income, and past skill 3 these benefits taper off steeply -- while the costs rise.

Harsh experience in Dom 1 taught me that it just didn't make sense to get more than 3 in a skill, unless it was Astral. Perhaps a 4 if you started with a 3.

The new bless effects are thematic, but at most might convince me to boost a 3 to a 4, and this is only for races that have really good Sacred Troops.

I'm eager to see the demo and try this out first hand; I hope I'm wrong about this aspect of balance.

Saber Cherry

October 27th, 2003, 08:05 AM

I like making sacred troops regardless of bless effects, because they have low maintenance. Of course, some have artificially high prices to compensate, but for example, unblessed flags are still way better than militas. Sacred research-mages are especially nice in this way.

I wonder if commanders will count toward the sacred troop production limit? As in, a province with a temple and no dominion can't produce a priest to rectify the situation...

Daynarr

October 27th, 2003, 08:09 AM

I'll just post some of my experiences with Flagellants and Wardens. I used Earth 9 Pretender when I played Man and they would get +4 protection from blessing. Sure, Man has no high level priests, which is quite a disadvantage, but it has cheapest low level priests, which he can bring in large numbers on the battlefield. As far as numbers of produced units go, Man is restricted to his home castle to build it so logical choice of castle would be some with very high Admin value (Fortified city is the best choice here, probably). Since Man has tendency to start in forest provinces which have higher resources then wastelands or plains (actually only mountains have higher resources) they will get better production rates then other nations with high resource troops would (like Ulm). Logically, since you are aware that you can produce Wardens only in your home castle you will do that right from the start and since you invested in level 9 magic to get high bless bonus, you will try max out production of Wardens ASAP. That means you will try to get all neighboring provinces to get 50% resources from them, avoid building castles on those provinces and produce Wardens each turn as much as possible. Doing that, in my game, I had a steadily growing army of wardens that had significant numbers quite early. Since blessings give them +4 protection and their fatigue was practically non-existent (enemy didn't get more chance to penetrate their armor) I didn't lose a single Warden during whole expansion, effectively allowing me to expand with no loses (at least to my Warden troops) and doing it fast as well. Wardens also have no great weaknesses in any of the areas, meaning no weak defense or weak attack or weak strength or low hp or ... you get the picture. When I did run into Marignon later, all I had to do is employ lots of archers and a wall of Wardens (with 20 prot there was no significant friendly fire) to massacre the army of flagellants they had.

Lets talk a little bit of flagellants now. They are weak in every aspect except in number of attacks and the numbers that you can field them. Sure, they are less expensive then Wardens and you can produce several of them for each Warden (and not only in main castle) but on the field, if you use them you will lose them no matter what you face. With any blessing they die easily like any light infantry or better say militia would, so when you invest in producing them you are bound to lose a lot of that gold/time/resource in each battle. Can you make an attack on independent province with flagellants and have no losses? NO! So you will be LOSING more money per turn, per battle that way much more then Man will. Also, blessings usually cover some weakness sacred units have. They can add better defense or better attack or protect you some from missiles (some because - level 4 Air gives only 20% chance that missile that would normally hit you will miss), give you better protection, etc. But since flagellants have so many weaknesses you cant possibly cover all of them with blessing. If you make them stronger or give them better attack (fire or blood magic blessings) I will simply use missile troops and kill them all or most before they even reach enemy. Hell, they fall from arrows faster then undead. If you decide go for Air magic and protect them those arrows you wont be able to give them any other boost so they will die in close combat like all other militia troops would (light infantry has much better protection then flagellants).
If you want to use Arrow Fend spell and still go for fire/blood blessings you will have no mages to cast Arrow Fend since they have no air magic - fire is their specialty. Also, arrow fend is level 6 spell so you have to reach it and it costs gems which means you have to have air mage to find them. That means you have to take Air magic for your pretender and forget/weaken fire/blood blessings.

To conclude, flagellants are cheapest sacred troops in game but since they have so many weaknesses it�s EASY to use some of those and kill flagellants in huge numbers should enemy decide to rely on them. In my experience so far, they have never dominated battlefield. They can be valuable support troops but if you go on mass-producing them you are bound to lose a lots of gold (every unit you lose is gold/resource loss). And finally there is that balancing in dominion scales vs. blessing effects.

Oh, and BTW level 9 in any path of magic is NOT particularly expensive if you use right pretender (for example, use Cyclops for Earth). I still get excellent dominion scales, not weak dominion and level 9 Earth at the same time. Getting 2 of level 9 is another story, though.

[ October 27, 2003, 06:22: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Daynarr

October 27th, 2003, 08:16 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
In Dom II, do magic levels still directly add to the mage's combat abilities, as in Dom I? (e.g., does a level 9 fire mage still get Attack +9 himself automatically, in addition to bless effects?)Its still there. I think they use term "indirect magic" for it.

Here are the effects per level of magic:

Fire - ATT +1, LDR +5, Magic LDR +5
Air - PREC +1, Magic LDR +5
Water - Enter Sea, Magic LDR +5
Earth - PROT +1, Magic LDR +5
Astral - Magic LDR +10
Death - Undead LDR +20
Nature - Supply bonus +5, Magic LDR +5
Blood - Undead LDR +5, Magic LDR +5
Unholy - Undead LDR +10

apoger

October 27th, 2003, 08:30 AM

>I'll just post some of my experiences with Flagellants and Wardens.

Wardens backed by earth-9 can aid early game expansion while taking trivial losses.

See that? You whole post reduced to a single sentence. Sometimes "less is more". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I don't deny that such a strategy can be used to effect. I question is whether an equal gold/resource army of tower guard and longbow would be just as potent and much more cost effective in nation points.

Daynarr

October 27th, 2003, 08:41 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
>I'll just post some of my experiences with Flagellants and Wardens.

Wardens backed by earth-9 can aid early game expansion while taking trivial losses.

See that? You whole post reduced to a single sentence. Sometimes "less is more". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Agreed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

But I like to use some of those rare opportunities and improve my English somewhat, so I go for such long Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Saber Cherry

October 27th, 2003, 08:48 AM

Originally posted by Daynarr:
But I like to use some of those rare opportunities and improve my English somewhat, so I go for such long Posts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif The day I can write that much, that perfectly in Japanese, I'll be a very happy person=) Well, actually, my avatar (Cherry) can, just I can't=)

Regardless, I liked the long post, it gave some insight as to why. A simple "I'm a beta, and Wardens are better" would not have contributed much=)

-Cherry

[ October 27, 2003, 06:48: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Jasper

October 27th, 2003, 09:00 AM

Originally posted by Daynarr:
Since Man has tendency to start in forest provinces ...Really? That's new I think. Do all the factions have similar tendencies in Dom 2?

Saber Cherry

October 27th, 2003, 09:08 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Daynarr:
Since Man has tendency to start in forest provinces ...Really? That's new I think. Do all the factions have similar tendencies in Dom 2? <hr /></blockquote>I also rather suspect it's new, as I'm not entirely certain there were forests in Dom I http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Dominions's system of terrain-morphing in response to dominion was one of the conceptually coolest things I've seen in a game - especially, for example, when I put Ermor in by accident and I could see this sickening frost spread across the world, before I had "officially" spotted them. But, the Dominions 2 maps are so much better looking, and appear to be so much more interesting (terrain having a much greater impact on gameplay) that even though I suspect morphing is gone, it's a good tradeoff.

That said -

Any betas (not to mention any names like Daynarr) know whether the terrain changes in response to dominion scales? For example, do forests die and change to wasteland under a death scale?

-Cherry

Daynarr

October 27th, 2003, 09:35 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Daynarr:
Since Man has tendency to start in forest provinces ...Really? That's new I think. Do all the factions have similar tendencies in Dom 2? <hr /></blockquote>Most of them do. C'tis will, for example, tend to start in swamp provinces, I believe Caelum and Jotunheim like Mountain provinces, Panganea likes forest as well, etc. Not sure every nation has a preference, but the map has great influence on starting province as well. No use if your nation likes forests and there are no or little forests on it.

As far as Ermor goes I have no idea what they like if they like anything since I've seen them in various locations.

Jasper

October 27th, 2003, 09:35 AM

Originally posted by Daynarr:
Oh, and BTW level 9 in any path of magic is NOT particularly expensive if you use right pretender (for example, use Cyclops for Earth). I still get excellent dominion scales, not weak dominion and level 9 Earth at the same time. Getting 2 of level 9 is another story, though. Going from 3 -> 9 costs 168 pts! Four points less gets you Earth 4, plus a 3 and a 2 in magic your faction doesn't have. Or you could just go with Earth 4 and tip 4 dominion scales.

It doesn't seem worth trading these powerfull effects for more skill on your pretender than you can really use, plus +2 further protection and some reinvigoration for troops you can only produce in limited quantities. Even if you pay this many points, you still get a less powerfull bless effect than the default bless in Dom 1.

I very much like the intention of increasing the value of magic on a Pretender so that competitive players will actually take some, but I don't think this is enough. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to make changes in this area slowly to avoid overcompensating.

Perhaps this area will be tweaked later if people find it to be unbalanced. I think it would be cool to see some dominion scale like effects tied to magic skill, to let higher skill levels make more of a difference on spell casting power, or even a small cost reduction in casting ritual spells.

Of course, this is all without having seen Dom 2. Perhaps many of the new spells require or give significant bonuses to a strong caster, which could be a real boon.

Jasper

October 27th, 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by Daynarr:
Most of them do. C'tis will, for example, tend to start in swamp provinces, I believe Caelum and Jotunheim like Mountain provinces, Panganea likes forest as well, etc. Not sure every nation has a preference, but the map has great influence on starting province as well. No use if your nation likes forests and there are no or little forests on it.

As far as Ermor goes I have no idea what they like if they like anything since I've seen them in various locations. [/qb]That's cool! I wonder what sort of impact this will have on balance? In general I'd be much happier starting near rich farmland, than near forests or swamps... Or does terrain have different value to different factions?

[ October 27, 2003, 07:39: Message edited by: Jasper ]

Daynarr

October 27th, 2003, 09:42 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
- snip -

whether the terrain changes in response to dominion scales? For example, do forests die and change to wasteland under a death scale?

-Cherry No noticeable dominion effects on map. The dead forests you saw on some of those screenshots are usually a mark for wasteland, not winter or dominion effect.

Map don't change visual appearance dynamically so cold provinces will be noticed by cold scales, not by appearing white on screen. But it�s a good idea (for Dom 3 more likely - if they ever make it).

[ October 27, 2003, 07:45: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Daynarr

October 27th, 2003, 10:19 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Daynarr:
Oh, and BTW level 9 in any path of magic is NOT particularly expensive if you use right pretender (for example, use Cyclops for Earth). I still get excellent dominion scales, not weak dominion and level 9 Earth at the same time. Getting 2 of level 9 is another story, though. Going from 3 -> 9 costs 168 pts! Four points less gets you Earth 4, plus a 3 and a 2 in magic your faction doesn't have. Or you could just go with Earth 4 and tip 4 dominion scales.

It doesn't seem worth trading these powerfull effects for more skill on your pretender than you can really use, plus +2 further protection and some reinvigoration for troops you can only produce in limited quantities. Even if you pay this many points, you still get a less powerfull bless effect than the default bless in Dom 1.

I very much like the intention of increasing the value of magic on a Pretender so that competitive players will actually take some, but I don't think this is enough. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to make changes in this area slowly to avoid overcompensating.

Perhaps this area will be tweaked later if people find it to be unbalanced. I think it would be cool to see some dominion scale like effects tied to magic skill, to let higher skill levels make more of a difference on spell casting power, or even a small cost reduction in casting ritual spells.

Of course, this is all without having seen Dom 2. Perhaps many of the new spells require or give significant bonuses to a strong caster, which could be a real boon. <hr /></blockquote>Ok, here is the design I used in that particular game:

Cyclops pretender with Level 9 in Earth magic.

Fortified City

Dominion scales:

- Order +3
- Production +2
- Growth +1
- Misfortune -3
All the rest are neutral.

Dominion Strength 3; Note that Man has cheaper temple (100 gold) so getting higher strength during is quite easy for them.

Of course those scales can be a little different (+3 production and neutral growth, or �2 misfortune to get special commanders and neutral growth) but I like having positive growth since it gradually improves your income over time. Also, growth has larger effect on larger maps where having supply bonus from growth counts (large armies are more common) and having more provinces with growth means you get significantly more money from taxes over time then you would on smaller maps. This was large map with no Ermor player so I went for growth. I believe this is quite good dominion and it ensures that I get enough income and production to make lots of Wardens and get fast and efficient expansion with almost no losses at the start of the game. Also, my pretender will be able to empower himself later in air and nature magic while I will be able to find those resource/gold bonus sites with him. It was good combo, but not only one. I'm just pondering what possibilities I would have using other bless effects, like fire weapons bonus and improved attack, quickness and better defense, etc.

Bless does matter, but must be used carefully as not all bless effect will be beneficial to your sacred troops. For example, if you have sacred magic Users that you will employ often you will avoid nature blessing that will make them go berserk as soon as something touches them. Air or earth (or both) blessing will work better on them since they will be better protected from missiles (especially if they can�t cast air shield on themselves and you are up against nation that like archers) or reinvigoration, which will reduce fatigue significantly (getting level 6 or 8 in earth there seems good choice there since mages wont get much benefit from def+4).

O boy, another long post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ October 27, 2003, 08:31: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

Pocus

October 27th, 2003, 11:33 AM

Regen effect :

IIRC the regen effect from blessing is a 10% regen, which lead to a 1 HP/round regen for the wardens.

Seems not that much interesting.

Psitticine

October 29th, 2003, 08:18 AM

I have a question for the Dom I players. I've been a bit surprised while reading this at how many people prefer Pretenders with such weak magic skills. In Dom II, the really good stuff, like Arcane Nexus, Undead Mastery, Master Enslave, and so forth all require powers of 6-8. Is that a new thing, or do you just find other ways to meet the power criteria?

I can think of Empowerment, Communion/Sabboth, and magical items as ways to unlock those world-shakers, but they all have their drawbacks.

Empowerment can certainly boost one's Pretender up to a more godlike potency, but that would be so costly, and those gems can be used for so many other things! Communion and Sabboth are potent, but they only work on the battlefield and are no help at all for rituals. The magical items seem a good choice, but they are limited in how far they can boost you, plus they are expensive as well, and often also require a high level of power to forge in the first place!

I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

apoger

October 29th, 2003, 08:49 AM

>Is that a new thing, or do you just find other ways to meet the power criteria?

In Dom I'd say 75% of multiplayer games ended before anyone was able to cast such spells.

Frankly, I don't see this changing much in Dom II. You have to understand that multiplayer is vastly less laid back than single player. In single player you can lay back and generate all sorts of funky stuff. Against live players... if you don't maximize every turn, you will get savaged.

>I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

The change from Dom 1-2 is that in Dom II the scales are less potent, thus you are inspired to spend more on the pretender in Dom II.

Kristoffer O

October 29th, 2003, 08:55 AM

Several spells are more difficult to encourage people to create more powerful gods.

We were surprised that players (especially competetive MP:s) created weak and ungodly gods. Feeling instead of efficiency was not a trade off they were willing to make.

The blessings, weaker scale effects and more difficult spells are all efforts to give boring http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif MP:s some reasons to increase their gods powers.

Spells were available through magic items and empowerment, but this cost was always low compared to the economical advantage that enabled you to early conquer enemies and take their gold and gems.

Divine titles are another way to encourage people to make interesting gods, but this feature is only a PR thing. I suspect that it will make overly competetive players avoid high magic skills as it gives a hint on what their gods are skilled at. Personally I would very much like to be known 'God of this World' by my opponents. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Jasper

October 29th, 2003, 12:27 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Several spells are more difficult to encourage people to create more powerful gods.

We were surprised that players (especially competetive MP:s) created weak and ungodly gods. Feeling instead of efficiency was not a trade off they were willing to make.

IMHO it's more a kind of "operant conditioning"; making an inefficient Pretender in multiplayer is a very Pavlovian experience. I started my first few games making Pretenders with higher magic skills, but it cost me badly and I was only able to make up for it through lucky multiplayer dynamics.

It's fun to be thematic, but it's not fun to lose because your neighbors are _twice_ as big as you. This naturally convinces most players to try to find something that is still fun, but doesn't make you feel like you're doomed.

IMHO this is largely due to the exponential growth of early dominions games, where investment in wealth increasing scales quickly compounds. This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.

Spells were available through magic items and empowerment, but this cost was always low compared to the economical advantage that enabled you to early conquer enemies and take their gold and gems.

More accurately, these costs are fixed, while scale investments yield compound interest.

One way I've seen this addressed in other games is to split the points available into several pools only applicable to certain things. For example you could have a magic pool, a dominion pool, and a flexible pool that could be spent on anything.

Pocus

October 29th, 2003, 12:42 PM

Originally posted by Psitticine:
I have a question for the Dom I players.
I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost! In MP you can rely on items more than in SP, and stay at 4 for example. Mainly because you can generally trade with several other players the items you cant build initially. I never had a problem getting a ring of sorcery or a ring of wizardry, if I wanted one, and without any astral skill on my own eg.

Also, getting high levels in a magic field, just so eventually, one day, you can cast a cool high level spell is too much hypothetical in MP. You must be efficient somehow, and not only base your design choice on cool rpg concepts. This is not to say that sometime I dont indulge in tweaking a race toward a more roleplaying feel, but as I'm not very masochistic, I prefer often to be efficient, and not suffer dozen of gaming hours, being mauled badly by other players http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The balance problems are accutely felt in MP. In SP there is no big issues, you fight only AIs. Who care if you try Ermor with +3 growth? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

apoger

October 29th, 2003, 03:21 PM

>This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.

I must agree with Jasper on this. I don't like the whole one province, then expand dynamic. It heavily favors strategies that involve brutal fast expansion. I'd rather see players setting up to fight each other rather than "speed trampling unowned provinces".

It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

I think this would be a good step forward for the game.

Windreaper

October 29th, 2003, 03:28 PM

I've noticed the same thing in Dom1 MP. When I started working on Pan I used some more expensive pretenders like Molochs/Princes of Death. After couple o' MPs I had moved into simple Fountain designs (namely Fountain of Blood w/ 4blood, 2air, 2water for the big demons with huge emphasis on scales).

I can also see the trend continue Even with reduced scale effects, every single bit of income is going to help since patrolling is no longer possible. Growth +3 might not seem too big of an issue with the initially low economy boost, but I find it's going to be an issue in the longer run.

I've played the demo for couple o' days now (mostly with Machaka, love them) and with the increased importance of Astral magic I've really found no other way but to have a cheap 4astral fountain with good scales and good dominion. Albeit going for astral 4 was mainly to get +1mr for the Black Hunters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif . Not worth it in any way but just felt like it, gets me some important summons (like guaranteed Air magic in the form of The Harbringder).

I _could_ consider going for earth 9 with some races (Wardens of Man and Heart Companions of Arco) and hope to cast some of the higher end stuff in the end (Army of Lead/Army of Gold, for example) but it's still unlikely to be worth it in the long run.

-Mikko Heikkil�

st.patrik

October 29th, 2003, 04:33 PM

Originally posted by apoger:
>This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.

I must agree with Jasper on this. I don't like the whole one province, then expand dynamic. It heavily favors strategies that involve brutal fast expansion. I'd rather see players setting up to fight each other rather than "speed trampling unowned provinces".

It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

I think this would be a good step forward for the game. This would be cool. I don't know if I'd want every game to start this way, but I see some definite advantages - e.g. faster games. My suggestion would be that a "nation" in the sense we're talking about would consist of the capital, and every adjacent province. That way the really strategic choices come into play from basically turn 1 onwards. It also makes your castle choice very important, because a high admin castle will start you off with plenty of resources!

The downside would be trying to make sure that each player gets a roughly balanced deal with regard to starting money (how many provinces doesn't so much matter as how rich they are). Nonetheless this is an intriguing suggestion.

If any of the Illwinter team is reading this, what do you think of the idea? Do you like it? and if you do how likely is it to be implemented?

-

With regard to the whole magic-on-pretenders question, In Dom I there were very few spells that required more than 4 in any one magic path - and those that did were levels 8 & 9 particularly. In Dom II there are still relatively few such spells, but a few more than in Dom I. Getting your mages up to lvl 4 in a magic path isn't that hard, depending on the path, and getting up to 3 is pretty easy, since you have items which boost power and spells which boost power.

Kristoffer O

October 29th, 2003, 04:36 PM

Kristoffer O

October 29th, 2003, 04:40 PM

Mikko: Just curious, in what ways do you feel astral magic is more important.

E. Albright

October 29th, 2003, 04:59 PM

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
... 'earmarked' (is this a swedish expression or is it viable in english as well) ... It parses cleanly in English.

E. Albright

[ October 29, 2003, 14:59: Message edited by: E. Albright ]

Endoperez

October 29th, 2003, 05:05 PM

Just how many spells need level 5/6/7 in given magic? I just ask this because you need level 6(in fire and blood) to get bless effects of Dom1, and I was wondering is there any other bonus you would get from pumping you pretender up to that level. The Living Element -spells seem to fill this gap, and there are propably others, but how many spells of these levels do we have?
It seems like we should have many low-level spells, some of a little higher level and some uber-killer spells, or just very good ones, that are costly and force you to go without something else, like a scale or two.
I think there are enough cheap spells now, but I have no idea about the medium-level spells. Are they weighted towards any particular path(s)? I'm mainly asking someone who has a spell manual...

st.patrik

October 29th, 2003, 05:18 PM

Originally posted by Endoperez:
Just how many spells need level 5/6/7 in given magic? I just ask this because you need level 6(in fire and blood) to get bless effects of Dom1, and I was wondering is there any other bonus you would get from pumping you pretender up to that level. The Living Element -spells seem to fill this gap, and there are propably others, but how many spells of these levels do we have?
It seems like we should have many low-level spells, some of a little higher level and some uber-killer spells, or just very good ones, that are costly and force you to go without something else, like a scale or two.
I think there are enough cheap spells now, but I have no idea about the medium-level spells. Are they weighted towards any particular path(s)? I'm mainly asking someone who has a spell manual... You can check for yourself, if you want, by clicking on each school in the research screen.

licker

October 29th, 2003, 05:42 PM

A possible solution is to limit the amount of points available for scales (and dominion) based on the pretender chosen. This is an extention of the pooled points, but its tied onto each pretender so that you can further try to balance the combatants vs. the mages.

Or you can just make the design costs of pretenders higher, or give some pretenders lesser (or greater) costs for certain scales. Or you can specify a minimum amount of magic that a pretender must take (again this is like the pooled points approach, but it allows a little greater flexibility in how to not underspend the points).

There are a lot of ways to address this problem, of course in MP if you have a good group you can all agree on limits or restrictions before hand, though I figure that takes alot of fun out of it (short of handicapping players).

Sammual

October 29th, 2003, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by apoger:
>This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.

I must agree with Jasper on this. I don't like the whole one province, then expand dynamic. It heavily favors strategies that involve brutal fast expansion. I'd rather see players setting up to fight each other rather than "speed trampling unowned provinces".

It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

I think this would be a good step forward for the game. I agree. I'm not too fond of 'early rush with stupid god' tactics. Interesting idea also with the presearched provinces.

*Edit: perhaps not a bad idea with 'earmarked' (is this a swedish expression or is it viable in english as well) design points * <hr /></blockquote>Earmarked is an English expression as well.

I would LOVE to see this added.

Sammual

Windreaper

October 29th, 2003, 06:04 PM

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Mikko: Just curious, in what ways do you feel astral magic is more important. 1) Dispel becoming astral-only.
2) It has the only dome that can actually Last through a barrage of province-crippling spells (not including dome of corruption but it is partly astral, too). Every other dome either dissolves from successful hits or doesn't stop spells.
3) The transportation spells, even if nerfed, are still damn useful.
4) Acashic Record. Good luck finding enough astral sites with astral lvl 1 mages without this spell.
5) Astral just got plenty o' more power spells, Strands of Arcane Power, anyone? (ok I admit games are usually too short to get one off but there's always the danger as research is faster nowadays).
6) I hate seeing my expensive sacred units going down to massed Soul Slays. +1mr for astral lvl 4 actually seems like a rather good deal (can't recall the actual opposition number for magic resistance tests anymore [12?] but I recall every point above 10 helps a bunch).
7) The items, 'nuff said.

ywl

October 29th, 2003, 06:55 PM

Originally posted by Windreaper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Mikko: Just curious, in what ways do you feel astral magic is more important. 1) Dispel becoming astral-only.
2) It has the only dome that can actually Last through a barrage of province-crippling spells (not including dome of corruption but it is partly astral, too). Every other dome either dissolves from successful hits or doesn't stop spells.
3) The transportation spells, even if nerfed, are still damn useful.
4) Acashic Record. Good luck finding enough astral sites with astral lvl 1 mages without this spell.
5) Astral just got plenty o' more power spells, Strands of Arcane Power, anyone? (ok I admit games are usually too short to get one off but there's always the danger as research is faster nowadays).
6) I hate seeing my expensive sacred units going down to massed Soul Slays. +1mr for astral lvl 4 actually seems like a rather good deal (can't recall the actual opposition number for magic resistance tests anymore [12?] but I recall every point above 10 helps a bunch).
7) The items, 'nuff said. <hr /></blockquote>1) Agree.
2) Not really. The "Dome of Arcane Warding" has time limit. Other domes are good enough. You can stack one dome over another - can we still do it in Dom2?
3) Yes. But it's not so overpowerful anymore. "Farey Trod" seems to be better than "Gateway" now. Also, Death gets the "Stygina Paths" for travelling (Thaumatury 8). The level 9 "Astral Travel" is good but well, it's level 9.
4) Why? How about "Astral Probing" - only Evocation 2? "Acashic Record" has a very high gem cost. It is only useful when you know there are more than one uncovered sites (not the case in Dom2?).
5) I think "Strands of Arcane Power" is the reason to avoid Astral? It seems to be just a massive "Mind Duel" and only one Astral mage will survive without a feeble mind. So, only an Astral King or Queen could afford casting it.
6) Useful. But give them Lesser Fear (Death 4), Regeneration (Nature 9), Protection +4 (Earth 4) are not bad deal neither.
7) What items? I find the most useful items in Earth and Nature paths - "Boot of the Behemoth", "Ring of Regeneration".

I find both Nature and Death are also hugely upgraded. I haven't had enough time check on Blood yet. Astral is good but I don't really find it overwhemingly so.

LordArioch

October 29th, 2003, 07:18 PM

I think prot +4 is earth 9, otherwise you just get reinvigoration. And 4 in any other magic gives small boosts to the combat of sacred troops...but if they keep getting soul slayed that doesn't really matter anyway.

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 07:21 PM

Having designed a few gods and struggled to get any worthwhile bless bonuses at all... hmm.

Going from 8 to 9 is insanely expensive, even for gods that start at level 2 in something. It makes strong blessings only accessible to nations that get free design points (Caelum, Jotun, Abyssia, Ermor), or cripple themselves. I think setting the big bonus at level 8 and starting the incremental bonus at level 3 would be more interesting... plus... it would make rainbow mages much more fun.

-Cherry

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 07:23 PM

Originally posted by LordArioch:
I think prot +4 is earth 9, otherwise you just get reinvigoration. And 4 in any other magic gives small boosts to the combat of sacred troops...but if they keep getting soul slayed that doesn't really matter anyway. Yeah, you're right. I kept thinking Earth game incremental protection, but it gives incremental reinvigoration. Not bad for sacred mages, though.

Teleolurian

October 29th, 2003, 07:25 PM

I have, so far, found two games in which Bless effects were tremendously useful:

1. Ulm "Iron Faith" theme. Quality Black Templars buffed with Earth and Fire bonuses. I often mowed through strong independent armies with a quarter of the forces they had.

2. Jotunheim's "Nieflheim" theme. Those giants are *begging* for bless bonuses. In general, I like to delay creating a prophet until I can field an army of quality troops; changing the number of magic levels I take to accomodate certain bless effects is minor in relation to the bonuses, even if it's only *one* army that gets the effects.

ywl

October 29th, 2003, 07:25 PM

Trying to stick to the subject title.

I've only tested intensively with Ulm and Jotun. Without too many holy units, Ulm can't benefit too much from the bless effect. The "Iron Faith" is a possibility but I don't find it impressive.

But for Jotun, it's significant. The blessed Jotun Woodmen are very powerful. Jotun Scout is sacred, stealthy and cheap enough (50 gp). Being commanders, you can recruit them at any castle. You could, in theory, use them an a stealthy army. You will need a stealthy priest but that can be done by prophetize you first Jotun Scout. And of course, if you used the Niefelheim theme, the Niefel giants would be even more terrifying while blessed.

Teleolurian

October 29th, 2003, 07:27 PM

Wow, simultaneous post about the exact same thing. Somebody's been eating their telepathic Wheaties...

ywl

October 29th, 2003, 07:28 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Having designed a few gods and struggled to get any worthwhile bless bonuses at all... hmm.

Going from 8 to 9 is insanely expensive, even for gods that start at level 2 in something. It makes strong blessings only accessible to nations that get free design points (Caelum, Jotun, Abyssia, Ermor), or cripple themselves. I think setting the big bonus at level 8 and starting the incremental bonus at level 3 would be more interesting... plus... it would make rainbow mages much more fun.

-Cherry I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects.

Nerfix

October 29th, 2003, 07:46 PM

Originally posted by ywl:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Having designed a few gods and struggled to get any worthwhile bless bonuses at all... hmm.

Going from 8 to 9 is insanely expensive, even for gods that start at level 2 in something. It makes strong blessings only accessible to nations that get free design points (Caelum, Jotun, Abyssia, Ermor), or cripple themselves. I think setting the big bonus at level 8 and starting the incremental bonus at level 3 would be more interesting... plus... it would make rainbow mages much more fun.

-Cherry I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects. <hr /></blockquote>I agree that you should get the second tier blessing at 8 and i think its best to keep the first tier at 4. Every time i try to make a god with 9 in one path and 4 in another, i keep thinking how could the betas afford them?

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 07:54 PM

Originally posted by ywl:
I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects. The main problem with 4 and 8 is that then, at level 8, you get two big bonuses, and nobody would EVER want level 9. Also, all the odd levels are worthless.

Not to mention, you're just saying that because you Ph3@r my 1337 all-level-3 rainbow mage=)

-Cherry

P.S. As it stands now, I doubt anyone would ever, under any circumstance, pick level 10 in anything, even though you get an increment there. But if the big bonus was dropped to level 8, and increments were made even, you might increase the big bonus again at level 10... and still nobody would ever use it, but at least they would gaze at it wistfully.

-Cherry

[ October 29, 2003, 17:57: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

st.patrik

October 29th, 2003, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
As it stands now, I doubt anyone would ever, under any circumstance, pick level 10 in anything, even though you get an increment there. But if the big bonus was dropped to level 8, and increments were made even, you might increase the big bonus again at level 10... and still nobody would ever use it, but at least they would gaze at it wistfully.

-Cherry Maybe instead of changing incrementally the abilities should change exponentially! So with Fire at lvl 4 you get +1 att, lvl 6: +2, lvl 8: +4, lvl 10: +8. There would be some motivation to get really high levels - I mean, +8 anything is pretty impressive.

LordArioch

October 29th, 2003, 08:42 PM

I think 3 and 8 would be good, so 5 blood/fire is old bless (much more reasonable). Generally if i go for magic i get 3 at most in any given Category...and at 8 the powerful effects would still be expensive but not quite so bad. As it is it takes ALL your spare points almost to get a lvl 9 magic, and with sacred troops dependent on your dominion strength you'd need to take negative scales to get enough dominion to build many.

EDIT: Oooh....+8 str. Now that would be a worthy blessing indeed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ October 29, 2003, 18:43: Message edited by: LordArioch ]

ywl

October 29th, 2003, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ywl:
I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects. The main problem with 4 and 8 is that then, at level 8, you get two big bonuses, and nobody would EVER want level 9. Also, all the odd levels are worthless.

Not to mention, you're just saying that because you Ph3@r my 1337 all-level-3 rainbow mage=)

-Cherry

>snipped<

-Cherry <hr /></blockquote>Noby would EVER want level 9 - that's the point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . Level 9 is too expensive even for magic-loving players.

Lowering the first bonus level to 3 would make it very easy to get bonus. Some pretenders have their basic magic start at 3! It could be good but it will change the game balance a lot though it's not necessarily bad.

Jasper

October 29th, 2003, 10:02 PM

Originally posted by apoger:
It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.What would be really cool is the traditional board game "province draft". I've thought about doing this by editing a map, and then having the players draft on IRC or something, and get a certain amount of resources, income, and gems to purchase a small amount of starting stuff.

There are a couple of downsides however to doing this manually via scenario creation: Capitol locations are public knowledge, and the super randomization of province income/resources means some of the players will almost certainly get screwed badly. Plus it's a pain in the *** to get everything setup and make sure you avoid typos.

It would be really cool if the game could handle this... The mechanics behind it is fairly simple, although the GUI would take some work.

I'm imagining something like this: Players log onto the game host, and then draft a given number of provinces in random order, with the order reversting each time through. Players then secretly select one of their provinces as their capitol, and spend a given amount of gold and resources on troops and leaders, with a settable max number of starting leaders. A settable amount of research points could then be distributed as desired, and a settable number of turns of gem income could be used for rituals and forging.

A game would then be created based upon all of these values, with the sum value of each players provinces roughly balanced within a settable range.

Jasper

October 29th, 2003, 10:17 PM

[On the topic of varrying bless effects]

I suggest bonuses starting at +1 for level 3, and then increasing by one ever level after that. The special bonus effects would kick in at level 6.

This would be a more convincing incentive to have higher magic skill levels.

geo981010

October 29th, 2003, 11:32 PM

I think they (update:they = the bless bonuses) are too expensive, but can be a lot of fun for single player.

Maybe in special cases they could be worthwhile - Jotun's Niefelhem special and Nature 9 is expensive but potent. 150 gold gives you a monstrous Niefel Giant who when blessed gets Beserk +3 (+3 attack and protection, 99 morale, -3 defense), 50% poison resistant (nice if you have a Green Dragon pretender) and regenerates 15+ points a round. Almost like a supercombatant from the start, so you can get a pretty quick start. But your economy or magic will take a beating getting this, so for a longer game you may get outproduced.

Why doesn't the dominion candles in a province affect the blessing affect? If a god's power is so strong in a province that it is altering the weather and such, you'd think that his followers there would get increased power.

Maybe the effective starting magic skills could be modified by dominion strength in that location. So a 9 Nature god has his troop blessed in a neutral province, and they get bonuses like he was a 9 Nature pretender. But for each candle, they get a 10% effective starting magic bonus - so the same 9 Nature would count as a 14 Nature in a 5 candle province, and whooping 18 in a 10 candle. A 10 candle dominion with a 9 magic pretender is not very likely until very end game, and even then, only effective in your lands so not too overpowering (especially since in the late game, you probably had to seriously hurt your economy to get the 9 magic pretender). Makes the bonuses at least be an endgame perk, and creates another reason to maintain your dominion in your lands (which a lot of the time is not very important as long as your neighbor isn't Ermor).

[ October 29, 2003, 21:33: Message edited by: geo981010 ]

Sammual

October 30th, 2003, 12:47 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by apoger:
It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.What would be really cool is the traditional board game "province draft". I've thought about doing this by editing a map, and then having the players draft on IRC or something, and get a certain amount of resources, income, and gems to purchase a small amount of starting stuff.

There are a couple of downsides however to doing this manually via scenario creation: Capitol locations are public knowledge, and the super randomization of province income/resources means some of the players will almost certainly get screwed badly. Plus it's a pain in the *** to get everything setup and make sure you avoid typos.

It would be really cool if the game could handle this... The mechanics behind it is fairly simple, although the GUI would take some work.

I'm imagining something like this: Players log onto the game host, and then draft a given number of provinces in random order, with the order reversting each time through. Players then secretly select one of their provinces as their capitol, and spend a given amount of gold and resources on troops and leaders, with a settable max number of starting leaders. A settable amount of research points could then be distributed as desired, and a settable number of turns of gem income could be used for rituals and forging.

A game would then be created based upon all of these values, with the sum value of each players provinces roughly balanced within a settable range. <hr /></blockquote>This would not be all that hard to do in a map editor. All the needed commands are supported when creating a senerio.

Sammual

Sammual

October 30th, 2003, 12:51 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
[On the topic of varrying bless effects]

I suggest bonuses starting at +1 for level 3, and then increasing by one ever level after that. The special bonus effects would kick in at level 6.

This would be a more convincing incentive to have higher magic skill levels. I agree. The bless effects are too expensive right now (Not worth the cost).

Sammual

Saber Cherry

October 30th, 2003, 01:00 AM

I admit it, I'm still not certain that in an MP game I'd have any incentive to go over level 4 magic... and that, just for site-searching/construction. Bless effects are neat, but I hardly ever had any sacred troops in Doms 1, so...

Yeah. Starting at 3, incrementing every level, and getting a big bonus at 6 sounds pretty crazy to me, but starting at 3, incrementing every other level, and getting a big bonus at 8 still wouldn't convince me to buy a magic-rich god. So maybe somewhere in between... otherwise, making cheap sacred units more common might make taking magic a better bargain.

licker

October 30th, 2003, 01:03 AM

Saber Cherry

October 30th, 2003, 01:10 AM

Originally posted by licker:
Hmmm... and what is between 6 and 8? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

It's more a matter of "What's between incrementing every level, and incrementing every other level, without being confusing." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Psitticine

October 30th, 2003, 01:35 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
P.S. As it stands now, I doubt anyone would ever, under any circumstance, pick level 10 in anything, even though you get an increment there.I've usually stopped with 9, but I took 10 with my most recent diety, a white bull who leads Man with Nature 10. The map was too small and the game too short to reach the high level spells, but the Bull's casting costs were so low that he ruled the battlefield. He could cast heavy-duty magic over and over because his fatigue cost had been so greatly lowered.

I think it is good the game has so many preferred ways to play. It actually strikes me as a good sign of balance that people feel so polarized on this issue, as odd as that might sound.

Chris Byler

October 30th, 2003, 02:36 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I admit it, I'm still not certain that in an MP game I'd have any incentive to go over level 4 magic... and that, just for site-searching/construction. Bless effects are neat, but I hardly ever had any sacred troops in Doms 1, so...

Yeah. Starting at 3, incrementing every level, and getting a big bonus at 6 sounds pretty crazy to me, but starting at 3, incrementing every other level, and getting a big bonus at 8 still wouldn't convince me to buy a magic-rich god. So maybe somewhere in between... otherwise, making cheap sacred units more common might make taking magic a better bargain. Well, the other reason to take high magic skills is so that you can cast powerful magic. Did you notice that Dispel takes research now? Maybe global enchantments will be a bit more viable than in Dom I. A lot of global enchantments require 5+, and some take 8 or 9.

Also, as Psitticine mentioned, high magic levels can be very powerful on the battlefield. Most spells increase in effectiveness with higher power, and all battlefield spells decrease in fatigue cost. Even level 4 can have a dramatic impact on a battle - and that's without gems, communion or booster spells.

On larger maps, this effect is weakened, because your god in general is less important - you only have one of him, while scales affect all your provinces. This is the kind of scaling issue that can't really be fixed by tweaks to the game system - maps with more and/or richer provinces will always tend to favor positive scales more than smaller, poorer maps. In that respect, I like the nerfing of positive scales compared to Dom I - it may lead to an incentive to put more points into the pretender himself, which I think will make things more interesting.

Yes, there is certainly a possibility that in some cases it will lead to god vs. god battles that can decide the whole outcome of a war. But I prefer that to the case where gods rarely appear on the battlefield at all, or even play a significant role (except through their dominion).

I personally would favor changing the bless system so it was based on magic and dominion strength. Let's say bonuses would start at level 6, with big bonuses at level 11 or so - but the level in question is your magic level plus your dominion strength in the current province. So if you have more than 2 candles, it would be easier to get strong bless effects; but if you have weak dominion, no dominion or (worst of all) hostile dominion, your bless effects would be weaker than presently, possibly even suppressed entirely in a strong enough dominion of a hostile God.

It never made sense to me that blessing was independent of dominion; with the new bless effects it makes even less sense than it does for a "generic" blessing.

Of course, with big bonuses at level 11, an archmage's blessing would be really killer in a 9-candle dominion. But I think that would be appropriate - only a fool fights in a 9-candle hostile dominion anyway. Especially if their God, prophet or (with this system) sacred troops are on the battlefield.

For dominion levels that are more reasonable for a battlefield (I'd say no more than 4 - above that you really should be trying to preach around the area before pushing the border any further), you'd need at least 7 to get a big bonus. Even more importantly (IMO), every level of magic can improve your bless effects on at least some potential battlefields.

For example, the God I'm currently using in single player (titles in my sig) is a Lord of the Desert Sun with Fire 4, Earth 4, Nature 4. I remember that I had spent most of my points and had Fire 4, Earth 3, Nature 4 with a few points to spend, and it was just enough to get either Fire 5 or Earth 4. I took Earth 4 because of the bless effect - none at 3, a big jump at 4. Although I think it's cool to sometimes take a path for its bless effect, I don't think it should be that "chunky". I certainly would have taken Fire 5, Earth 3, Nature 4 if the bless system had been something like I am proposing (or anything else that rewards every level of magic, instead of only rewarding certain numbered levels).

johan osterman

October 30th, 2003, 03:45 AM

If the blessings need to be improved to be desirable I think it is better to lower magic cost rather than starting off blessings at lower levels. The blessings start of 4 for a reason, to encourage players to give their pretenders a decent magic score.

josh_f

October 30th, 2003, 08:21 AM

It may be too much work, but I would like to see the cost per level be relative to the intial cost to add the path. in pseudo code it would look like=

"cost per lvl"=(("cost of 1st level"/10)+4)+"cost of Last level"

Using the above formula a pretender with an initial magic level of 3 (the highest default level on any pretender) can reach level 10 for 112 points just short of what it would take to purchase a level 3 order scale. On the other hand it would take the same pretender over 360 points to reach level 10 in other magic paths. The nice thing is this makes the archmage classes a little more attractive, and keeps people from selecting a wyrm and loading it up with magic-- a strategy I expect will become popular if an across the board reduction in magic cost takes place.

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 10:32 AM

Originally posted by josh_f:
It may be too much work, but I would like to see the cost per level be relative to the intial cost to add the path. in pseudo code it would look like=

"cost per lvl"=(("cost of 1st level"/10)+4)+"cost of Last level"

Using the above formula a pretender with an initial magic level of 3 (the highest default level on any pretender) can reach level 10 for 112 points just short of what it would take to purchase a level 3 order scale. On the other hand it would take the same pretender over 360 points to reach level 10 in other magic paths. The nice thing is this makes the archmage classes a little more attractive, and keeps people from selecting a wyrm and loading it up with magic-- a strategy I expect will become popular if an across the board reduction in magic cost takes place. Now this is a good idea.

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 01:29 PM

can someone repost the complete blessing effects list that a beta posted somewhere? I cant find it again.

tia

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 01:37 PM

You could have found it at Dom X...

Anyway:

Bless Effects

In Dominions II, the effect of bless is dependent on the starting magic of your pretender.
You get first batch of powers at magic level 4, and the first batch power is updated at
magic levels 6,8 and 10, except for the air shield effect. You get a second batch power at magic level 9. The effects are
initial, empowering or dying makes no diffrence to the bless effects.

None - Morale +3

Fire 4 - Attack Skill +2
Fire 6 - Attack Skill +3
Fire 8 - Attack Skill +4
Fire 9 - Flaming Weapons
Fire 10 - Attack Skill +5

Air 4 - Air Shield (20%)
Air 5 - Air Shield (25%)
Air 6 - Air Shield (30%)
Air 7 - Air Shield (35%)
Air 8 - Air Shield (40%)
Air 9 - Shock resistance (75%)
Air 10 - Air Shield (45%)

Water 4 - Defense Skill +2
Water 6 - Defense Skill +3
Water 8 - Defense Skill +4
Water 9 - Quickness (50%)
Water 10 - Defense Skill +5

Earth 4 - Reinvigoration 2
Earth 6 - Reinvigoration 3
Earth 8 - Reinvigoration 4
Earth 9 - Armor value +4
Earth 10 - Reinvigoration 5

Astral 4 - Magic Resistance +1 (Max 18)
Astral 6 - Magic Resistance +2
Astral 8 - Magic Resistance +3
Astral 9 - Twist Fate (protection from first hit)
Astral 10 - Magic Resistance +4

Death 4 - Lesser Fear
Death 6 - Lesser Fear
Death 8 - Lesser Fear
Death 9 - Life after Death, Fear (Undead beings only)
Death 10 - Lesser Fear

Nature 4 - Berserk +1
Nature 6 - Berserk +2
Nature 8 - Berserk +3
Nature 9 - Regeneration, Poison Resistance (50%)
Nature 10 - Berserk +4

Blood 4 - Strength +2
Blood 6 - Strength +3
Blood 8 - Strength +4
Blood 9 - Death Curse
Blood 10 - Strength +5

BTW, if somebody knows the numerical values of the Lesser Fear/Fear blessing, could you please tell me those values?

[ October 30, 2003, 11:40: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 01:45 PM

Originally posted by johan osterman:
If the blessings need to be improved to be desirable I think it is better to lower magic cost rather than starting off blessings at lower levels. The blessings start of 4 for a reason, to encourage players to give their pretenders a decent magic score. I suggested starting at 3, but at +1 bonus, so the effect for 4 would be the same. The main difference would be to increase the benefit for higher levels, and that you'd get a bonus at every level rather than skipping the odd levels.

I suspect simply lowering the cost of magic won't help this issue, but instead free up more points to be spent on scales/castle, and an increased diversification in magic skills. Even halving the cost of magic would not convince me to get more than level 4 in anything, except possibly a 6 on a pretender that started with 3.

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 01:50 PM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by johan osterman:
If the blessings need to be improved to be desirable I think it is better to lower magic cost rather than starting off blessings at lower levels. The blessings start of 4 for a reason, to encourage players to give their pretenders a decent magic score. I suspect simply lowering the cost of magic won't help this issue, but instead free up more points to be spent on scales/castle, and an increased diversification in magic skills. Even halving the cost of magic would not convince me to get more than level 4 in anything, except possibly a 6 on a pretender that started with 3. <hr /></blockquote>I suspect it would help. Diversication or not, it could/would lead to players taking magic on their Pretenders. And that is your style of play. I can take 9 Fire with Moloch and get ok scales and a decent fort.

No wonder Sphinx and Fountains got so popular...

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 03:28 PM

Originally posted by Nerfix:
Why not? I don't consider 3 Order & Prod, Fortified City and non-negative Growth that bad.
Fear the Blessed Units of Flaming Death. Death by Lightning, for example. All of the factions have alot to gain from access to magic they normally can't use.

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 03:42 PM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Nerfix:
Why not? I don't consider 3 Order & Prod, Fortified City and non-negative Growth that bad.
Fear the Blessed Units of Flaming Death. Death by Lightning, for example. All of the factions have alot to gain from access to magic they normally can't use. <hr /></blockquote>Even if there would be but a single mage able to use those spells in the whole nation?

Chris Byler

October 30th, 2003, 04:37 PM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by johan osterman:
If the blessings need to be improved to be desirable I think it is better to lower magic cost rather than starting off blessings at lower levels. The blessings start of 4 for a reason, to encourage players to give their pretenders a decent magic score. I suggested starting at 3, but at +1 bonus, so the effect for 4 would be the same. The main difference would be to increase the benefit for higher levels, and that you'd get a bonus at every level rather than skipping the odd levels.

I suspect simply lowering the cost of magic won't help this issue, but instead free up more points to be spent on scales/castle, and an increased diversification in magic skills. Even halving the cost of magic would not convince me to get more than level 4 in anything, except possibly a 6 on a pretender that started with 3. <hr /></blockquote>The main problem, it seems to me, is the increasingly higher cost of higher magic levels - it's O(n^2), which is really painful. Getting a couple of extra levels is not that bad, but you reach a point where each level costs as much as a scale, which is quite a lot. High levels of magic are useless for site searching too.

Hmm, I just had an idea to reward high levels of magic - what if high level mages automatically search every province they enter with their skill level minus 5? That way a fire 9 god would automatically know when there is a fire site present - he wouldn't need to take a month searching. This seems appropriate for the Lord of Every Flame.

Another option would be auto-searching based on dominion and god's magic skills, but that would be even more powerful, so an auto-search based on presence would probably be a better first step.

Even so, it still seems that high levels of magic go up in cost too fast. Why not a flat 10 per additional level of magic (after the first for paths you don't already have)? Or 10 + 2/level above base?

josh_f

October 30th, 2003, 05:33 PM

The other possibility would be to have the cost per level decrease as the level increases. If it were cheaper to go from 4 to 10 then from 1 to 4, people would be more likely to specialize. I'd probable suggest making the total cost to get to 10 a 120 points with two-thirds cost being the levels from 1-4.
Another formula that might work would be a flat rate per level equal to the starting path cost with a minimum cost of 10. In other words an archmage would pay 10 points for every level; a molch would pay 10 points for every fire level, but 80 points for every non-fire level. Like my earlier suggestion this boosts the mages and makes it more cost effective to increase a pretender starting path than to add four levels of air. (unless you have a mage type pretender).

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 05:35 PM

Originally posted by Nerfix:
You could have found it at Dom X...
BTW, if somebody knows the numerical values of the Lesser Fear/Fear blessing, could you please tell me those values? thanks Nerfix.

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by Pocus:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Nerfix:
You could have found it at Dom X...
BTW, if somebody knows the numerical values of the Lesser Fear/Fear blessing, could you please tell me those values? thanks Nerfix. <hr /></blockquote>You're welcome.

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 05:41 PM

I like this idea of having auto search at your level minus xxx.

As much as I have tried, I have not found that investing 200 design points to get 9 or 10 in a magic scale was a good bet. Perhaps the demo limitations bias my results, perhaps not.

A pro argument for high magic levels : the scales dont give much now, far less than in doms I. We have perhaps the bad habit to value them too much. What is worth 120 design points now? (for growth +3, a 30.000 pop province, it is a meager +180 pop a turn, and +6% income IIRC). Perhaps it is worth to invest them in a high magic level.

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 05:42 PM

Originally posted by Nerfix:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Pocus:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Nerfix:
You could have found it at Dom X...
BTW, if somebody knows the numerical values of the Lesser Fear/Fear blessing, could you please tell me those values? thanks Nerfix. <hr /></blockquote>You're welcome. <hr /></blockquote>where? In Finland? Thats too cold for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Chris Byler

October 31st, 2003, 01:12 AM

Originally posted by Pocus:
I like this idea of having auto search at your level minus xxx.

As much as I have tried, I have not found that investing 200 design points to get 9 or 10 in a magic scale was a good bet. Perhaps the demo limitations bias my results, perhaps not.

A pro argument for high magic levels : the scales dont give much now, far less than in doms I. We have perhaps the bad habit to value them too much. What is worth 120 design points now? (for growth +3, a 30.000 pop province, it is a meager +180 pop a turn, and +6% income IIRC). Perhaps it is worth to invest them in a high magic level. Even so, it's practically impossible to get two 9s. I just tried it with C'tis, which (IMX) can afford some negative scales: to get Nature 9 Death 9 with a Father of Serpents (the most cost-effective choice despite his high base cost because he is skilled in both paths), I had to take Death 2, Sloth 2, Heat 1 and had no points left to boost dominion strength, get a castle or take any positive scales (like magic, which C'tis really needs). This is of course without the 200-point Desert Tombs theme - it's hard to even get two 4's with such an expensive theme.

Maybe Ashen Empire, Soul Gates or Carrion Woods can afford to take 12 negative scales and have the points to get a powerful bless. But most nations can't.

Either Gods that are skilled in paths of magic need a higher base skill (this would help A LOT for reaching high levels, because it would reduce the cost for each level by 8 and make you have to buy fewer levels - if the Father of Serpents started with Nature 3, Death 2 instead of Nature 2, Death 1 it would probably have saved over 150 points), or the costs to increase magic levels for Gods need to be sharply reduced (say, half as much per level except for the first level). Obviously the second proposal would also benefit archmages while the first would not (except for archmages that start out with one path, like Frost Father or Arch Druid).

It's not that I don't want to take stronger magic on my God at setup; it's that I can't afford to, even with few or no positive scales and a points-cheap castle. I don't like this, because I really like the idea of Gods having more powerful magic (and the bless system that ties into it). So why do they start with less magic skill than mortal mages?

Although I posted earlier that I'd like to see bless effects start lower, I'm recanting that position: what I really want is to see it become more affordable to have a magically powerful God. A magically mediocre God with good bless effects isn't nearly as much fun as a magically awesome God with good bless effects (even if I have to go up against stronger enemy Gods as well).

If this spells the demise of the no-magic, scale-pushing Wyrm, I won't shed any tears. I always thought it was a boring (though effective) choice in Dom I, both to play as and against.

PvK

October 31st, 2003, 01:41 AM

How many gems does it take to empower a pretender the Last few scales to reach level nine, during play?

Does using the various power-boosting magic items in the game contribute to the bless effect? Because those make it relatively easy to gain a raw +1 to +3 power in various fields.

PvK

licker

October 31st, 2003, 01:43 AM

I believe the bless effects are hard wired to your starting spell picks. Otherwise it would be too easy to cheese I think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Jasper

October 31st, 2003, 02:11 AM

Originally posted by Nerfix:
I suspect it would help. Diversication or not, it could/would lead to players taking magic on their Pretenders. And that is your style of play. I can take 9 Fire with Moloch and get ok scales and a decent fort.Only if you play a nation like Abysia and take 3 Death and 3 Heat. I still simply don't see the minor bless benefits as worth an investment equivalent to _4.2_ scales -- and that's in the best case scenario.

As another example for Abysia, IMHO you'd be clearly better off taking 4 Fire, 3 Air on a Moloch, which would also cost less -- despite Moloch's path cost of 70.

I agree everyone has their own style of play, but would you really take a Fire 9 Pretender in a multiplayer game?

Nerfix

October 31st, 2003, 02:45 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Nerfix:
I suspect it would help. Diversication or not, it could/would lead to players taking magic on their Pretenders. And that is your style of play. I can take 9 Fire with Moloch and get ok scales and a decent fort.Only if you play a nation like Abysia and take 3 Death and 3 Heat. I still simply don't see the minor bless benefits as worth an investment equivalent to _4.2_ scales -- and that's in the best case scenario.

As another example for Abysia, IMHO you'd be clearly better off taking 4 Fire, 3 Air on a Moloch, which would also cost less -- despite Moloch's path cost of 70.

I agree everyone has their own style of play, but would you really take a Fire 9 Pretender in a multiplayer game? <hr /></blockquote>I was able to get Fortified City, 3 Order & Prod and i didn't have to take the death scale.

If you don't take the minors, you only get +3 Morale...

Why not? I don't consider 3 Order & Prod, Fortified City and non-negative Growth that bad.
Fear the Blessed Units of Flaming Death.

[ October 30, 2003, 12:48: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

johan osterman

October 31st, 2003, 03:07 AM

Yes, bless effects are solely based on starting values. You cannot change them, by death empowerment or items.

Psitticine

October 31st, 2003, 05:00 AM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
The main problem, it seems to me, is the increasingly higher cost of higher magic levels - it's O(n^2), which is really painful.The actual cost to move up is only (current power * 8). To get a power of 10, assuming you start with 1, will cost 441 points. That's a lot, but it depends on your play style whether it is worth it or not. It also wouldn't normally cost that much, since one would be unlikely to start with a god whose basic power is only 1 in the path the player wants to maximize.

I don't like negative scales, usually take the 60-point Fortress, take a lot of magical power, and still manage to tweak the scales into a mildly benifical state. I agree completely that larger maps will tilt that balance so that the scales have more importance, but that would just make me aim for 6 or 7 in my primary path instead of 9 or 10.

Chris Byler

October 31st, 2003, 05:54 AM

Originally posted by Psitticine:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Chris Byler:
The main problem, it seems to me, is the increasingly higher cost of higher magic levels - it's O(n^2), which is really painful.The actual cost to move up is only (current power * 8).

<hr /></blockquote>Actually it's more complex than that - it's (power you are moving to - base power in that path for that form) * 8.

I wasn't quite clear in my earlier post - it's the cumulative cost to achieve a higher magic level that is O(n^2). For example, if you start with power 2 in a given path:

level 2 costs 0
level 3 costs 8, total 8
level 4 costs 16, total 24
level 5 costs 24, total 48
level 6 costs 32, total 80
level 7 costs 40, total 120
level 8 costs 48, total 168
level 9 costs 56, total 224
level 10 costs 64, total 288

You see how level 9 costs twice as much as level 7?

And that's if you start at level 2. Many things don't start with any paths above level 1 (great mother, phoenix, frost father, arch druid), and of course some don't start with any above level 0 (archmages, wyrm, manticore). Few god forms start with a path at level 3. Liches, maybe moloch and PoD, maybe the immobiles.

To get a power of 10, assuming you start with 1, will cost 441 points.

I don't see how you arrive at that figure - it isn't even a multiple of 8. I make it 360. Neglecting your god form's base cost, of course - many cost over 100 (and get only modest magical skill).

I'd like to see a cheap form with base level 3 in a given path (even if it was physically weak). That would at least make it practical to get a high level of that one path. But I can't think of any forms that meet that condition, other than the immobile ones. (Liches have level 3, IIRC, but have a base cost over 100.)

That's a lot, but it depends on your play style whether it is worth it or not. It also wouldn't normally cost that much, since one would be unlikely to start with a god whose basic power is only 1 in the path the player wants to maximize.

I don't like negative scales, usually take the 60-point Fortress, take a lot of magical power, and still manage to tweak the scales into a mildly benifical state. I agree completely that larger maps will tilt that balance so that the scales have more importance, but that would just make me aim for 6 or 7 in my primary path instead of 9 or 10. Oh, I don't dispute that 6 or 7 in one path is achievable (and still have either a form with some physical might, or a decent number of net positive scales). I wouldn't expect to see much in other paths, though.

I just think the high-level bless effects are cool, but the cost of reaching level 9 is prohibitive unless your form starts with 4+. No god form that I know of starts with more than 3. Thus the problem.

As an example, suppose we wanted to design a god whose bless effect would duplicate the Dom I bless effect. This requires Fire 6, Blood 6. I don't know of any form that starts with skill in fire and blood, so we will have to build one of them up from zero. Let's take the Fountain of Blood - it costs 0 and has a new path cost of 40, I don't think we can do better than that. It starts with Blood 3 (one of the few forms that starts with 3 power in a path), so it will only cost us 48 points to raise that to 6. Fire 6 will cost us 200 points, so we've just spent half our points.

That's not too bad - except that it's for an immobile pretender. Anything else would have been more expensive - a Moloch, for instance, has a base cost of 75, new path cost of 50 and starts with only Fire 2, so overall it would have cost us an extra 117 points (a total of 365).

Maybe it's just my expectations - I thought the intent of the new bless system was to make blessings more varied and more useful, not just more varied (and frequently less useful, unless you invest a lot in god magic). Furthermore I don't like the idea that a god with a 100 point base cost needs to have another 50 or 60 points spent on his magic skills so he will be as powerful as a mortal mage. Most of the titan/demigod forms cost 100+ for 2 or 2/1 (and their physical stats aren't that impressive, although they can generally manage to stay alive on the battlefield). And archmages have an even harder time reaching higher magic levels, because they start with 0 in everything (or everything but one).

I just don't want to see a situation where only Abysia, Caelum and Ermor can afford to take strong magic and strong blessings.

Saber Cherry

October 31st, 2003, 06:06 AM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I just don't want to see a situation where only Abysia, Caelum and Ermor can afford to take strong magic and strong blessings. I agree with everything you said, except that Last line, which is just plain wrong. WRONG!!! I just played a game with Jotunheim, and they can get good blessings too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

licker

October 31st, 2003, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I just don't want to see a situation where only Abysia, Caelum and Ermor can afford to take strong magic and strong blessings. I agree with everything you said, except that Last line, which is just plain wrong. WRONG!!! I just played a game with Jotunheim, and they can get good blessings too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif <hr /></blockquote>And anyway, one could argue that the blessings are another balance between nations, so there is no need to 'make' all nations have equal access to becoming a blessed nation. Though it does seem as though some nations (Marginon?) should get a special pretender that is more geared toward heavy blessings.

Psitticine

October 31st, 2003, 08:52 PM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I don't see how you arrive at that figure - it isn't even a multiple of 8. I make it 360. It's 441 if you accidentally add 81 because it is 1 AM and you've just spent 3+ hours trying to moderate a busy, busy board. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

IOW, just a silly mistake on my part. I'm not sure what exactly I did there.

I'm not sure what else to add (and excuse me for snipping your post; I'm not trying to ignore your points - I'm just not coming up with anything to say that I haven't said already.)

I think you make some intelligent comments; all I can say is that, FWIW, the blessing system has played very well for me. I hope they don't tinker too much with it for exactly the same reasons you hope they do: I don't want the game to lose any flavor or variety and the blessing scheme is one of my very favorite parts.

The best solution to things like this is usually to allow people their choice in the matter. A good idea might be to have a system where players could set how expensive magical power is to suit their own tastes. The problem there, however, lies in the UI: that choice would need to be made before or during god design, and yet the game and its settings are chosen after the god design is completed.

geo981010

October 31st, 2003, 09:37 PM

After more play and reading JO's thoughts on lowering the cost, I am starting to wonder about what that would do. The prices do seem out of whack in the demo and don't seem worth it, even if it is fun sometimes. But with the full Version I can think of some pretty nasty combos, so I'd like to wait to hack that out to see how it balances then.

First off - Ermor. Played by someone well (hi Pepe!), Ermor is already likely going to have 4+ magic in most everything and will tailor the bless bonuses to make some really nasty Knights right off the bat. Ermor gets almost 1000 points to play with for the pretender, so if it is cheap to get 9 in a path Ermor will be able to do it multiple times. Ermor with 9 water (quickness, +4 defense), 9 fire (flaming weapons, +4 attack) and 9 astral (+3 MR, Twist Fate), plus the minor bonuses would make very scary Knights of the S.

Next up - what about the Shroud of the Battle Saint on a supercombatant (or prophet supercombatant)? Construction 4 with Astral 1, it gives a constant bless with all the bonuses. So with a little tweaking I imagine we'll see some aggressive options to get all these bless bonuses on Ice Devils (Regeneration, Reinvig, + defense) and such. Ermor will likely be the first one to abuse this, and in this case the lower dominion from the cost of getting 9 level magic skills will allow better slave hunting. And a Prophet combat Bane in the second turn would be able to take many indy provinces by himself, especially in the third turn when he gets on the HoF and gets a special ability.

If you want to play risky, the shroud could be for your pretender - regenerating, impossibly armored+reinvig, etc etc Cyclops or Great Mother at a very, very early stage. Take some risks, but when most people are barely researching and still tossing lowend troops, you could make a early kill (just get him out of the foreign dominion quick or pump dominion yourself) or at least get a large head start.

Mostly conjecture until the game ships, however...

Nerfix

October 31st, 2003, 10:28 PM

Pretender Gods cannot be blessed by any means in Dominions II.

licker

October 31st, 2003, 10:33 PM

Originally posted by Nerfix:
Pretender Gods cannot be blessed by any means in Dominions II. ?

Pretender Gods are permanently blessed arn't they? Ok maybe you don't call it blessing per se, but they have the benefits of their magic paths non the less.

Nerfix

October 31st, 2003, 10:40 PM

Originally posted by licker:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Nerfix:
Pretender Gods cannot be blessed by any means in Dominions II. ?

Pretender Gods are permanently blessed arn't they? Ok maybe you don't call it blessing per se, but they have the benefits of their magic paths non the less. <hr /></blockquote>No they aren't permanently blessed. And every mage gets those secondary bonuses from magic paths.

licker

October 31st, 2003, 10:44 PM

Well my point is what's the difference between being blessed and getting the benefits anyway?

I guess the benefits could be different, but I didn't think so from what I saw on my thug pretenders with berzerking and added defense...

mr.white

October 31st, 2003, 11:23 PM

What exactly does the Blood 9 blessing "blood curse" do?

Chris Byler

November 1st, 2003, 12:15 AM

Originally posted by Psitticine:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I don't see how you arrive at that figure - it isn't even a multiple of 8. I make it 360. It's 441 if you accidentally add 81 because it is 1 AM and you've just spent 3+ hours trying to moderate a busy, busy board. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

IOW, just a silly mistake on my part. I'm not sure what exactly I did there.

I'm not sure what else to add (and excuse me for snipping your post; I'm not trying to ignore your points - I'm just not coming up with anything to say that I haven't said already.)

I think you make some intelligent comments; all I can say is that, FWIW, the blessing system has played very well for me. I hope they don't tinker too much with it for exactly the same reasons you hope they do: I don't want the game to lose any flavor or variety and the blessing scheme is one of my very favorite parts.

The best solution to things like this is usually to allow people their choice in the matter. A good idea might be to have a system where players could set how expensive magical power is to suit their own tastes. The problem there, however, lies in the UI: that choice would need to be made before or during god design, and yet the game and its settings are chosen after the god design is completed. <hr /></blockquote>I have a quick fix for that: instead of capping god designs at 500 points, just have each god record its total point value. Then when you start a game you would set the maximum point value of gods that are allowed in that game.

So if I want to see more powerful magic and blessings on everyone I could play with 600 or 700 point gods.

Of course, this would probably go better if the suggestion to record multiple gods per nation (in the newlords folder) were implemented.

Saber Cherry

November 1st, 2003, 12:23 AM

Over 500 points... hmm, that wouldn't change much, if points were still better spent on scales than magic. IMO.

I think making magic cheaper is the best solution. Though some of the other ones (like adding dominion strength to path strength, or starting bonuses at 3/8 rather than 4/9, or giving a bonus every level rather than every two levels, or putting in more low-level holy troops) are also good alone, or in additon to cheaper magic.

licker

November 1st, 2003, 12:35 AM

Another side effect of increasing points is to devalue points as a whole. This hurts the nations that take more disadvantages. Though it is arguable that those nations need to lose some of their edge.

I'd rather see pretenders come with *minimun* levels of required magic that you pick. Its one way to force up the magic on some pretenders. That is a pretender may start with 2 in fire and 1 in astral, but have a requirement to have a total of 8 picks in magic. You can decide where to put the other 5 picks...

Chris Byler

November 1st, 2003, 12:53 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Over 500 points... hmm, that wouldn't change much, if points were still better spent on scales than magic. IMO.

True, but that's variable depending on map size and nation.

It seems to me that most gods can't afford strong magic even if they don't care much about scales.

I think making magic cheaper is the best solution. Though some of the other ones (like adding dominion strength to path strength, or starting bonuses at 3/8 rather than 4/9, or giving a bonus every level rather than every two levels, or putting in more low-level holy troops) are also good alone, or in additon to cheaper magic. I don't think all magic should be cheaper - I think high level magic should be cheaper. I'd just like to see magic costs rise less steeply with magic level.

I already posted the current curve. What if we instead made magic cost per level (4 + 4*(level above base))? Then for a god who starts with 2 power in a path we have:

power 2, cost 0
power 3, cost 8, total 8
power 4, cost 12, total 20
power 5, cost 16, total 36
power 6, cost 20, total 56
power 7, cost 24, total 80
power 8, cost 28, total 108
power 9, cost 32, total 140
power 10, cost 36, total 176

High levels of power in a path are still expensive, but not ludicrously expensive. In particular if your god starts out with 2 in a path (few start with more than 2), reaching 9 is about as expensive as taking one scale to +3. The relative importance of a level 9 blessing and a +3 scale is hard to quantify, but under the current system one level 9 (in a path that you start out fairly strong in) costs almost as much as two +3 scales. That's what makes it look like high magic levels aren't worth it.

Note that with this rewrite of the cost system, level 7 (from a base of 2) costs as much as level 6 under the old system. Level 9 under the new system costs about halfway between the old level 7 and 8.

If you started with one level 2 and one level 1, you could raise them to 9 and 9 for 316 - which is a lot of points, but you could do it if you weren't doing much of anything else (a lot of god forms cost a base of 100 or so, and you'd probably like to have a castle other than watchtower too.) There's no question that this would be powerful for a nation that had good sacred troops. Would it be more powerful than spending 300 points on scales (say, Order 3 Prod 2 Luck 2, or Order 2 Prod 2 Luck 1 Magic 2)? Depends on the nation, map, nearby opponents... without positive scales, will you even be able to afford a lot of priests and sacred troops? Or supply them once you have them? A strong bless won't help you much in early expansion; a strong mage God might; Order and Productivity are guaranteed to.

This is of course neglecting the nations that get free design points (Abysia, Caelum, Jotunheim, Ashen Empire/Soul Gates/Carrion Woods). But as I already posted, I want strong magic and blessings to be viable for nations that can't afford to take a lot of negative scales.

Some point-costing themes introduce a new sacred troop (Iron Faith and Desert Tombs come to mind). What's the point of getting those if you can't get a strong blessing to go with them?

Keir Maxwell

November 1st, 2003, 03:32 AM

Hi all,

I play multi-player and I'm fairly excited about some of the bless potential. My understanding about mulit-player is that a quick start hides a multitude of sins and a berserk one is the greatest of blessings. If bless and high levels of magic can help you get you an insanely quick start most of the rest will flow from that. I have sacrificed long term power left, right, and center in a number of different mutli-player environments with great success and if taking nature 9 can turn my Niefel giants into early game supercombatents then yeehaaa! Did somone mention re-invigoration for blessed mages?!!!! Err, thats sounds pretty tempting to me.

The question really is how many races can make use of high magic/bless to good effect - I suspect many races will, like Chris's Machaka, take minor advantage of this feature and a few major. Looking forward to finding out.

I really appreciated Nyanarr's feedback and found the details and analysis thoughtful and useful - thanks. I also appreciate the value of not losing troops and find the thought of enhanced wardens well worth looking at.

So will I be playing with high magic to utilise bless in mutli-player - I imagine so. I played blood 9 Fountain of Blood in Dom I to get my first Ice Devil on turn 8 or 9 as Caelum so its not like there's no precedent. Sure I wouldn't try quite the same approach in Dom II but there should be others that are competitive. I wonder about water and increased defence for Van.

re starting with multipule provinces.

A poster said you can with the map editor - which I had assumed since you can do it in Dom I by editing the map at the start. I'm hoping people will setup balenced scenario's and then play them. All my Dom I game had preset starting positions as Stars taught me the importance of this. Hopefully this will be easier than in Dom I but even if its not its worth taking a bit of extra time at the start over a game which you will invest vast amounts of time in.

cheers

Keir

Wendigo

November 1st, 2003, 12:20 PM

Hey George, good to see you back old bud!

I am not as sure as you are regarding the uberness of a Bless strategy for Ermor, for the following reasons:

-Unlike live nations Ermor cannot really concentrate its recruiting onto the sacred troops (I am assuming this part stays as in Dom I) as it stays fixed: Ermor gets 0-2 knights per turn in each fort with a temple in normal richness settings, which certainly limits the number of unholy knights it can field when coupled with its income troubles.

-Unholy knights do not heal now!, so their 6 HPs can only take them so far.

-Wither bones: Fielding units of undead elites is always a risky business, there's no spell of comparable power to threaten live sacred troops.

I do agree with you regarding the Shroud though, that thing is extremely cheap & potentially unballancing with the current blessings.

Chris Byler

November 1st, 2003, 03:31 PM

Originally posted by Wendigo:
Hey George, good to see you back old bud!

I am not as sure as you are regarding the uberness of a Bless strategy for Ermor, for the following reasons:

-Unlike live nations Ermor cannot really concentrate its recruiting onto the sacred troops (I am assuming this part stays as in Dom I) as it stays fixed: Ermor gets 0-2 knights per turn in each fort with a temple in normal richness settings, which certainly limits the number of unholy knights it can field when coupled with its income troubles.

-Unholy knights do not heal now!, so their 6 HPs can only take them so far.

-Wither bones: Fielding units of undead elites is always a risky business, there's no spell of comparable power to threaten live sacred troops.

I do agree with you regarding the Shroud though, that thing is extremely cheap & potentially unballancing with the current blessings. The Shroud replaces your standard armor and prevents you from wearing armor (AFAIK there is nothing with two body slots). It provides no protection (IIRC) unless you have Earth 9, and then it provides a measly 4.

If you can cast Invulnerability this is less of an issue, but many things can't cast Invulnerability (Ice Devils for example).

If you want to make a supercombatant, I think making it your prophet is probably a better option than the Shroud for getting bless effects.

Unless it's your god - but I've heard the Shroud doesn't work on gods. (Haven't tested it though.)

Also, the standard theme for Ermor is no longer Ashen Empire. Ashen Empire may well cost points, which will cut into Dom I Ermor's traditional ton of points. And undead are vulnerable to various countermeasures (even relatively tough ones like Tomb Wyrms - which are hard to get).

Saber Cherry

November 1st, 2003, 06:50 PM

Was the shroud changed? It gave 5 prot in Dominions I.

Chris Byler

November 1st, 2003, 07:05 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Was the shroud changed? It gave 5 prot in Dominions I. Oh, I didn't know that.

In any case, 5 is probably lower than your standard armor (except maybe for mages), and certainly lower than other armors you could probably forge.

I don't think the Shroud will be too good. Few gods are going to have a bless effect stronger than Dom I's.

geo981010

November 1st, 2003, 09:39 PM

The Shroud no longer works on Pretenders! Used to in Dom1 - maybe the description should note that?

The shroud would still be great for some supercombatants though, especially for Ice Devils. Their base armor of 15, up to 20 in the cold, so the armor effect is icing. Getting regeneration, Beserk + 3, 50% poison res, and possibly other bonuses too (reinvig seems like a good choice and a Great Mother allows this) and you have a supercombatant that only takes 5 gems of equipment. I hacked a map and made an Ice Devils (I got Nycafor) with just the shroud, and he was really nasty even with the new tweaks to reduce supercombatants.

Ermor, well we'll have to see about. If Ashen Empire costs them enough so they have a slighly similar number of design points available, then they won't be too bad. If not, an Ermor Shrouded Ice Devil (or similar) would still be ridiculous. I forgot about the lack of healing for the undead Knights, though I wonder if undead creation rates were affected because of that (seem to get more with C'tis undead kings, not sure on dominion creation effects at all).I guess there is a lot of unknowns with Ermor right now...

But anyway, I still think that lowering the incremental costs of magic paths will be tricky (and may not be needed). You can't just blindly grab specials and expect them to pay off, but some of them may be powerful enough and will likely be abusable already. Two more weeks until the full Version!

I can't wait to play Pythium with an Earth +4 mage, too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ November 01, 2003, 19:41: Message edited by: geo981010 ]

Sammual

November 5th, 2003, 01:11 PM

After a lot of playtime with the demo I have had a change of mind. The Bless effects can be very powerfull as they are and changing the levels you get them at might make them too powerfull at the highest levels.

On the other hand has anyone EVER played with magic 10 in ANY skill? There is not enough incentive to do so. If the bless effects did not get verry cool powers at level 9 I would NEVER take higher than level 4 in any magic skill to start. I would like to see a formula for the cost of magic skills that was a bit less steep. The cost for levels 2 - 4 are fine but 5+ is a bit much, and adding the 9th and 10th level is just painfull.

Sammual

Psitticine

November 5th, 2003, 07:13 PM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Psitticine:
The best solution to things like this is usually to allow people their choice in the matter. A good idea might be to have a system where players could set how expensive magical power is to suit their own tastes. The problem there, however, lies in the UI: that choice would need to be made before or during god design, and yet the game and its settings are chosen after the god design is completed. I have a quick fix for that: instead of capping god designs at 500 points, just have each god record its total point value. Then when you start a game you would set the maximum point value of gods that are allowed in that game.

So if I want to see more powerful magic and blessings on everyone I could play with 600 or 700 point gods.

Of course, this would probably go better if the suggestion to record multiple gods per nation (in the newlords folder) were implemented. <hr /></blockquote>I like that idea. Possibly one setting for max. points allowed in the game and another for setting the proportion that needs to be for scales vs. Pretender magic? You could set up some very interesting games that way.

Aetius

November 7th, 2003, 01:26 AM

(long)

I was not aware of the revisions to the Dominions 1 blessing effect until I read this thread, in particular Nerfix's breakdown of the modifiers. Playing the demo I have had only one pretender that was successful with the blessing effects, this pretender was a red dragon leading Ulm with the Iron Faith Theme. I must admit that the black templars are devastating with flaming weapons. However, late game it remains to be seen how effective a potent blessing pretender will be.

As pointed out in Chris Byler's post the cost of creating the potent blessing pretender are very high. For my Ulmite pretender I had to take significant negatives in the drain (-2) and misfortune scales (-3),if I recall correctly. The misfortune was partly balanced out by the strong order scale (+3). However, I was shall we say magically challenged and R'leyh in particular caused my nation fits.

I have noticed that the Dominion increasing effect of purchasing temples increases the number of holy troops that you can have. This observation made me wonder if it would be appropriate to have the pretender's blessing effect increase if additional magical empowerment is performed. I think the gem cost alone would balance things. Lastly, I noticed that rival AI pretenders frequently had one magical area in the 9+ range to obtain the greater blessing benenfits.

November 7th, 2003, 01:48 AM

Originally posted by Aetius:
This observation made me wonder if it would be appropriate to have the pretender's blessing effect increase if additional magical empowerment is performed. I think the gem cost alone would balance things. I think that it would equalize things too much, as everybody would in the end get the same bonuses, and therefore diminish the variability inherent in the present system. Furthermore, it would make the sacrifices that you have to make while creating a pretender unneccessary, as you can always make up for it later. This way it's deterministic, and either you sacrifice the points to get a good bless or you don't, but there's no going back - a tradeoff that you have to live with. Also, it would put too much focus on empowering your pretender, as opposed to doing other things with the gems.

[ November 06, 2003, 23:49: Message edited by: HJ ]

Aetius

November 7th, 2003, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by HJ:
I think that it would equalize things too much, as everybody would in the end get the same bonuses, and therefore diminish the variability inherent in the present system. Furthermore, it would make the sacrifices that you have to make while creating a pretender unneccessary, as you can always make up for it later. This way it's deterministic, and either you sacrifice the points to get a good bless or you don't, but there's no going back - a tradeoff that you have to live with. Also, it would put too much focus on empowering your pretender, as opposed to doing other things with the gems. I disagree - your approach seems too deterministic. There are many things late game to pump gems into, powerful summons, global enchantments, even some of the more powerful battle spells. And thus there would still be tradeoffs late game as opposed to a one time only decision at the start of the game - maybe that approach suits you but for myself, no thanks.

Keir Maxwell

November 7th, 2003, 02:19 AM

Originally posted by geo981010:
The shroud would still be great for some supercombatants though, especially for Ice Devils. Their base armor of 15, up to 20 in the cold, so the armor effect is icing. Getting regeneration, Beserk + 3, 50% poison res, and possibly other bonuses too (reinvig seems like a good choice and a Great Mother allows this) and you have a supercombatant that only takes 5 gems of equipment. I hacked a map and made an Ice Devils (I got Nycafor) with just the shroud, and he was really nasty even with the new tweaks to reduce supercombatants.

I can't wait to play Pythium with an Earth +4 mage, too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I wouldn't quite describe extra protection for Ice Devils as icing. Close to essential in a province with heat scale as they can melt away before even feeble opponents and there will be tough stuff around by the time you can summon one. I agree the Shroud is a damn good idea - especially for the earth 9, nature 9 earth mother option of Jotun. The Ice Devil has alot of slots and with a limit on how many Ice Devil's you can use I would fill alot-to-almost all of the slots. With regeneration and a Wraith Sword the ability to recover HP's should be quite remarkable.

The reinvigorated sacred Pythium mages could be insane http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I want to try with Abysia, I have always had a prejudice against the Romans, but I don't think that side of the design will be anywhere near as impressive as Pythiums uses.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

November 7th, 2003, 02:43 AM

Originally posted by Aetius:
I disagree - your approach seems too deterministic. There are many things late game to pump gems into, powerful summons, global enchantments, even some of the more powerful battle spells. And thus there would still be tradeoffs late game as opposed to a one time only decision at the start of the game - maybe that approach suits you but for myself, no thanks. To me it seems that everybody would be getting the same bless bonuses later on, and therefore blur alot of things that make each game distinct now. In addition, it would diminish the incentive to try out new pretenders with different sets of bless effects.

I guess we'll have to agree that we disagree on this.

geo981010

November 8th, 2003, 04:46 AM

I'm glad this thread is still active - it's been fun!

Seems like the blessings are starting to be appreciated, and maybe only some tweaking should be done. Niefel is pretty nasty as long as you can keep things cold, and I've been having a lot of fun with the 9 Earth 4 Nature Sacred Serpent Pythium. I think that is a very good starting race, and the Serpent mages are really suited for to win a research war. Not as powerful as Arch Theurgs, but are recuitable anywhere, much cheaper (3 holy, 3 magics plus 1 random for only 190 GP), and half upkeep from holy. +magic scale and you will be Foul Vapouring by turn 10, and Beserking Hydras and SMs are immune to boot.

One area I don't think anyone has argued for though - Level 10 magics. Cost from raising 9 to 10:
80 - (initial magic strength * 8)

And what do you get? +1 Attack/Defense/Reinvig/etc! There effects are totally not worth that cost, and the highest spell only requires level 9 to cast, so I can't see this being anything but a trap for newbies to sink points into.

How about a second bonus for getting +10? There are some good potential specials that would be viable: Fire Shield, Charge Body, Water Shield, Stoneskin, Luck, Life Stealing Attack, Barkskin, Harm effect on hits, etc. OK, some of these would need balancing, but give me a reason to try a +10 pretender!

[ November 08, 2003, 02:53: Message edited by: geo981010 ]