No love for Holy??

[Trumanator]

Why is it that Holy power is so hard to boost? You can't communion, the only item that specificall boosts holy power is the artifact sword whose name escapes me, and while the crystal shield works if your priest is also a mage, you often want them doing magely things. I'm considering modding in a "Staff of Holy Power" if its possible.

[thejeff]

You can communion. Or more accurately, if you can communion it will raise your Holy level. A Crystal Matrix will work.

Those with astral magic can also boost holy with PotS.

All that said, I'd expect on a game balance level it's hard to boost because there's less need to. Nations are divided/balanced partly based on how strong the priesthood is, so making it easy to boost would weaken those differentiations.

Also there is less need for boosters. No ritual magic, a small range of spells that don't have a fatigue cost anyway.
Plus there is no gem equivalent to forge items with, so you'd have to balance any such item around another path of magic.

[rdonj]

Well, I can't say for sure it's the reason but holy has a pretty huge power curve. A h1 priest is nearly useless, h2 starts providing tangible benefits, h3 priests can bless entire armies by themself and throw attack spells, and h4 priests can embolden every unit on the battlefield. Since you don't need any research for priest spells, the only thing that limits a priest is their level. I guess another reason would be that a priest has their place in the pantheon of the faith, and you don't really get especially powerful priests - every priest of the same level is viewed with the same level of holy authority.

[Jazzepi]

I'm pretty sure that if a priest has at least one magic path besides Holy, you can boost their holy level with crystal shield.

H4 is ridiculous for certain nations. I'm using a H4 Epoch for Bogarus in Archaen and the +2 morale to everyone makes him amazing. He's also a great preacher.

I'm actually really impressed by how preaching works, I used to think it was a lot less effective.

Jazzepi

[Trumanator]

Does it make sense to mass priests in a province and start preaching, or do you usually just put one or two in the crucial provinces.

[Jazzepi]

Priests can only preach up to their level. So a level 1 priest can only raise dominion to level 1 positive.

It's more useful for clearing out bad dominion.

Jazzepi

[DeathDaemon]

Priests can only preach up to their level. So a level 1 priest can only raise dominion to level 1 positive.

It's more useful for clearing out bad dominion.

Jazzepi

+2 for a temple, so going from a big negative to +3 dominion can take quite a few H1 priests

[Jazzepi]

Priests can only preach up to their level. So a level 1 priest can only raise dominion to level 1 positive.

It's more useful for clearing out bad dominion.

Jazzepi

+2 for a temple, so going from a big negative to +3 dominion can take quite a few H1 priests

Yeah but it's still better then dominion spread naturally into negative dominion, which is far less likely to happen.

Jazzepi

[Gandalf Parker]

For lurking newbies:
Dont downplay the priests. They are easy to overlook but the name of the game is Dominions for a reason.

[thejeff]

Only one level higher for a temple, according to the manual.

Still mostly useful for getting rid of enemy dominion.

Actually then manual says "Preaching can only raise dominion as high as twice the level of the priest", so a H1 should be able to raise dominion to 2, 4 with a temple.
Is that right? Going from memory it doesn't seem to match when the game tells me preaching won't work.

[HoneyBadger]

Sneaky little priests undid my triple 10 (Earth, Water, Nature if I remember correctly-Niefel doesn't need a water bless, by the way...) bless Niefel giants in an MP game.

I wasn't winning, but I was holding my own against LA Ermor (it was the first all-nation game), for a little while atleast, until Pan's sneak-priests pulled my Dominion out from under me.

[ano]

Actually then manual says "Preaching can only raise dominion as high as twice the level of the priest", so a H1 should be able to raise dominion to 2, 4 with a temple.
Is that right? Going from memory it doesn't seem to match when the game tells me preaching won't work.
From what I know, level 1 priest can preach up to dom level 2, 3 with temple. Level 2 priest can preach up to dom level 3, 5 with temple. So the math is
dom = lvl + 1 or
dom = lvl*2 + 1 (with temple)
I always use this numbers and they seem true.

[Lingchih]

Sneaky little priests undid my triple 10 (Earth, Water, Nature if I remember correctly-Niefel doesn't need a water bless, by the way...) bless Niefel giants in an MP game.

I wasn't winning, but I was holding my own against LA Ermor (it was the first all-nation game), for a little while atleast, until Pan's sneak-priests pulled my Dominion out from under me.

You don't still hold a grudge, do you Honey?

[HoneyBadger]

Ofcourse not :angel: but I'll likely not forget it either...:evil:

[Epaminondas]

Sneaky little priests undid my triple 10 (Earth, Water, Nature if I remember correctly-Niefel doesn't need a water bless, by the way...) bless Niefel giants in an MP game.

I wasn't winning, but I was holding my own against LA Ermor (it was the first all-nation game), for a little while atleast, until Pan's sneak-priests pulled my Dominion out from under me.

How is it possible to have a triple 10 bless and still play the game?! Did you have negative 3 on every scale and 1 dominion? :)

[HoneyBadger]

Not quite, but pretty close...

[Jarkko]

For lurking newbies:
Dont downplay the priests. They are easy to overlook but the name of the game is Dominions for a reason.

Somewhat OT (blood sacrificing is not your normal priests preaching), but I saw in a 4-player blitz game played last week (I was eliminated first through "normal" methods though :P) an awesome dominion kill from Abysia. From practical zero (after the two first of us were killed off) to full dominion kill in 6 turns. He made an excellent AAR on our private forum with pictures and all, I hope he'd post it here too, quite educational :)


Even "regular" priests together with Dominion 10 can be a suprising killer in a game. This does not include LA R'lyeh or Ermor, as they have other huge bonuses with a dominion spread and Dominion kill is what they will attempt by default.


The following strategy is something I love with Pangaea (cheap temples and stealthy preachers), the sad point is of course that when people realise what you are attempting, they will forget all their internal quarrels and try to bring you down fast (you effectively become an Ermor or R'lyeh in their eyes) ;) It works better in single-play though, but nobody prevents one from occasionally trying it in MP :)

Send in the H1 (or higher, if you just have access to them :) ) priests in bunches to provinces without your dominion, build a temple and convert the province by preaching. Move on to the next to do the same. If you have stealthy preachers, send them in to hostile lands to preach the words of wisdom. With areas around your capital getting to Dominion 10, your dominion will start to roll until it reaches the avalanche point and nothing can stop it anymore (with dominion 10 provinces and plentiful temple checks the dominion has nowhere else to spread except to hostile dominion). If you also can blood-sacrifice (like EA Pan or Sauromatia for an example), just before the avalance effect becomes apparent, start blood-sacrificing like mad.

[Crevan]

Stealthy preachers? Huh, they`re quite good when you use them with attacking enchantments...but I like to use priests as battle mages
MA Marignon can summon angels and (!) seraphs - and powerful mage-priests in Capital. If you are playing against Oni, Ernor or any player, who using undead/demon commanders, just 2-3 priests with 2-3 lvl Holy can easily destroy everything on the battlefield. Banishment kill ANY undead (Pretender too) with single strike

[thejeff]

Banishment is unlikely to kill undead pretenders with a single strike. It does MR resisted hp damage. On a lucky roll it could kill a low hp pretender outside of it's dominion, but I wouldn't rely on it for killing any undead thugs or SCs.
It's great for blowing away hordes of undead/demonic chaff, especially if you've got high level priests. Powerful single undead require other measures.

[Crevan]

Banishment is unlikely to kill undead pretenders with a single strike. It does MR resisted hp damage.
Seraph with holy sword kills Ghost King on Deathmatch with single strike. Just yesterday. I lol`d

It's great for blowing away hordes of undead/demonic chaff, especially if you've got high level priests. Powerful single undead require other measures.

Great massacre: five priests l.3, one angel with guards and about 25-30 prov.def. vs 200+ undeads of Ernor. Enemy failed to capture my prov.

[SlipperyJim]

Still mostly useful for getting rid of enemy dominion.
That can be a very useful thing to do. Fighting under enemy dominion give a -1 penalty to Morale, while fighting under friendly dominion gives a +1 bonus. That two-point difference can be important in a close fight, or if you're dealing with troops whose Morale isn't unshakable.

(Think province defense.)

Then there are all of the other advantages that can come with friendly dominion, such as your scales. The effectiveness of various global enchantments also depends on dominion.

Like Gandalf said, the game is called Dominions for a reason. :)

[thejeff]

Of course it can also be useful to keep enemy dominion around.
I'm playing around in SP with LA Mictlan, terrible scales to finance the abusive bless. While you don't benefit from good enemy scales, even neutral scales can be better than what you've bought. Targeted preaching, or in Mictlan's case blood sacrifice, lets you bump your dominion up to reduce enemy scales that are bad, but leave your dominion low to keep neutral scales in place.

Does anyone know the mechanic for scales changing actually is?

[Edratman]

Crevan,

No need to apologize. You did very well.:up:

This a very friendly forum, so you won't have to waste any energy worrying about the grammer police. :)

[JaghataiKhan]

I have questions as well. I see a lot of priest spells well above holiness level 4, but I have no idea how to reach it. Can't I just make a holy book as an artifact and give it to a priest? Priests should have their levels upped per 2 levels of experience imho. A well literate priest with years of hard experience should know how to preach and pray.

Plus, I want a "Pimp my Religion" feature. Mine involves sacred Mass of Tuna Fish every Thursday, with the Tuna sandwiches SYMBOLICALLY become the flesh of my God(not literally), anime is sacred, and gay couples can marry as long as they swear to run a Tuna Fish farm and give tithes to priesthood.

We accept tithes and donations in silver coins, tuna fish, columbian coffee and anime in cbr. format.

It is a sin to harm kittens, even greater sin not to photograph a kitten in a weird situation and make a LOLCAT out of it.

[Gregstrom]

For H5...

Prophetise a Seraph. Or prophetise a H3 priest and use one of the artefact H boosters.

I like the 'Pimp my Religion' idea - but how about a ritual where the flesh of your god symbolically (or not) becomes tuna sandwiches? Much more interesting.

[Tifone]

My Wyrm can make tuna sandwiches out of the flesh of your Dagon whenever you want, no ritual required ;)

[Epaminondas]

For H5...

Prophetise a Seraph. Or prophetise a H3 priest and use one of the artefact H boosters.

I like the 'Pimp my Religion' idea - but how about a ritual where the flesh of your god symbolically (or not) becomes tuna sandwiches? Much more interesting.

What's the benefit of getting H5? H4 priest can cast all the battle spells, no?

[Jazzepi]

For H5...

Prophetise a Seraph. Or prophetise a H3 priest and use one of the artefact H boosters.

I like the 'Pimp my Religion' idea - but how about a ritual where the flesh of your god symbolically (or not) becomes tuna sandwiches? Much more interesting.

What's the benefit of getting H5? H4 priest can cast all the battle spells, no?

It'd make your banishment, and probably your smite/word of power, more difficult to resist, and in the case of banishment, have higher damage/AoE.

[Szumo]

Sneaky little priests undid my triple 10 (Earth, Water, Nature if I remember correctly-Niefel doesn't need a water bless, by the way...) bless Niefel giants in an MP game.

I wasn't winning, but I was holding my own against LA Ermor (it was the first all-nation game), for a little while atleast, until Pan's sneak-priests pulled my Dominion out from under me.

Ha, i remember that! Dryads are really nice for that kind of thing :)

[JaghataiKhan]

I read some H5 H6 h7 and H8 spells somewhere, am I mistaken?

[Trumanator]

i think you are unless you have some weird mod enabled

[JaghataiKhan]

Oops. I miscounted the chandeliers. Army setup.

[Poopsi]

Is word of power any good? I find it an annoyance. I tend to have few H4 priests, and having them spam word of power instead of smite irks me.

[Tifone]

Helps with SCs :)

[NTJedi]

Is word of power any good? I find it an annoyance. I tend to have few H4 priests, and having them spam word of power instead of smite irks me.


I agree "word of power" is definitely not worth casting and not worth the trouble of boosting a priest to that level to cast the spell. They should switch paralyze and "word of power".

[Poopsi]

the problem with world of power is that H4s tend to spam it even if there are no SCs. (and in SP, which is all I play, SCs are rare outside the player´s faction) Most of the time you´d rather have your high level priests spam smite, which can thin down a mass of enemies. Instead, they paralyze one enemy (each. If this is your prophet, this means that you are paralyzing one enemy overall) which hardly dents the incoming mass.

[Trumanator]

How are you getting more than 1 H4? Are they mages with Crystal shields?

[Crevan]

One way - yes. Another ways: summon Seraphs (fire 4, air 4, astral 4, holy 4), use Sword of Justice (+1 holy) or prophetize h3 priest
-
Anybody use Stone Idol to reduce enemy dominion? It works like "Holy Negator" - erase all dominions (slowly, sure...but unstoppable)

[Poopsi]

How are you getting more than 1 H4? Are they mages with Crystal shields?

Well, I was thinking of my prophet + my H4 Marignonian hero. I think, too, and, isn´t the Bogarusian patriarch H4 (not sure. Got to check)?

[Jazzepi]

Really I think word of power should be upgraded to an AOE paralyze effect. I think that would be /vastly/ more interesting then the current damage/paralyze effect split between smite and word of power.

Jazzepi

[Loren]

Also there is less need for boosters. No ritual magic, a small range of spells that don't have a fatigue cost anyway.
Plus there is no gem equivalent to forge items with, so you'd have to balance any such item around another path of magic.

It seems to me that the all-path boosters should affect holy also.

[Epaminondas]

One way - yes. Another ways: summon Seraphs (fire 4, air 4, astral 4, holy 4), use Sword of Justice (+1 holy) or prophetize h3 priest
-
Anybody use Stone Idol to reduce enemy dominion? It works like "Holy Negator" - erase all dominions (slowly, sure...but unstoppable)

Hmmm, I had no idea that Crystal Shields boost Holy as well. I ought to build them more often then :)

[Edratman]

As far as I know, crystal shield will only boost holy if the commander has additional magic paths.

[Epaminondas]

As far as I know, crystal shield will only boost holy if the commander has additional magic paths.

That's fine, because Arco is my favorite nation, and their priestesses do have the measly Nature 1 :)

[Crevan]

As far as I know, crystal shield will only boost holy if the commander has additional magic paths.

Well, just use mage-priests ;) Not as primary commander (they are too old and rarely have high leadership), but as second. Also you can give them some artifacts like Herald Lance (bonus - Standart) or Cauldron/Summer sword (supplies)

[thejeff]

Keep the shields high encumbrance in mind. Not a big deal if you just want a divine bless, but if you're spamming smites or banishment they'll tire a lot faster.

I'm not sure whether the extra AoE and damage outweigh getting fatigued out sooner.

[Epaminondas]

Keep the shields high encumbrance in mind. Not a big deal if you just want a divine bless, but if you're spamming smites or banishment they'll tire a lot faster.

I'm not sure whether the extra AoE and damage outweigh getting fatigued out sooner.

I tend to defend my casters well with body guards and often opt for high Earth bless for that reason :) (I tend to double max bless Astral and Earth, with minimum Nature required for regeneration).

[Crevan]

Keep the shields high encumbrance in mind. Not a big deal if you just want a divine bless, but if you're spamming smites or banishment they'll tire a lot faster.

I'm not sure whether the extra AoE and damage outweigh getting fatigued out sooner.

Artefacts with ability to cure fatique. And - you right - overpowered monks are usable for blessing, not for combat. Smite is mighty spell, but there are tons of spells with more deadly effects

[Trumanator]

Holy spells don't have a fatigue cost. At least I don't think they do.

[Crevan]

Holy spells don't have a fatigue cost. At least I don't think they do.

Whoa! Please, check (I can`t do it now)

[Gregstrom]

All holy spells have a base cost of zero. I believe that spellcasting encumbrance is added on to this to generate a final fatigue cost, though.

So you get a pretty low overall fatigue cost compared with mage spells, but not zero (unless you have a naked undead priest, in which case they can spam holy spells forever without caring).

[HoneyBadger]

It's my understanding that undead units-or any unit with 0 Fatigue-doesn't accrue fatigure, no matter what gear they're wearing. Has this been changed? Or am I mistaken? I know undead can become fatigued, I just didn't think from wearing equipment.

[thejeff]

Holy spells have a fatigue cost of 0.
But fatigue from encumbrance still applies.

This makes the Crystal Shield actually worse for Holy spells, since there's no base fatigue cost to reduce by having a higher path level.

Of course, if you only care about using it to cast Divine Blessing or Fanaticism that doesn't matter. If you want to use it to spam a higher level Banishment it might not be worth it.


Undead (or more accurately any unit with base 0 encumbrance) don't gain fatigue from battle regardless of armor encumbrance, but they still get fatigue from casting and armor/shield encumbrance adds to that.

[Trumanator]

Encumbrance-only fatigue is still pretty low though, but ofc it depends on how long the battle lasts. If you have an E bless though you could probably spam banishment even with a CS all day long.

[Epaminondas]

As far as I know, crystal shield will only boost holy if the commander has additional magic paths.

Hmmm, I tested and the Arco Priestess (who has Nature magic) does not receive a boost....

[Jazzepi]

Did you test it /in battle/?

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

It's my understanding that undead units-or any unit with 0 Fatigue-doesn't accrue fatigure, no matter what gear they're wearing. Has this been changed? Or am I mistaken? I know undead can become fatigued, I just didn't think from wearing equipment.

Something with 0 encumberance and heavy armor still has high spell-casting encumberance, which might or might not be added to the spell-casting fatigue. I don't know how it works.

[JimMorrison]

If a 0 Encumbrance unit is wearing, say, 5 Encumbrance worth of gear, what you will see is -

Encumbrance 0

However, if you click on that to open up the details, what you will also see is -

Base Encumbrance 0
Melee Encumbrance 0
Spellcasting Encumbrance 10