Water 9 Blessing

[Mardagg]

Hi all.
What exactly does quickness do?
I just started playing dominions again after a several years break and i seem to renember from Dominions 2 those quickened Priests,that were able to cast smite 2 times per turn.But in my current SP game,my atlantian level 3 priest only cast it once per turn,every turn?!?
Did it change somehow?
What about sacred melee units?

Thanks in advance.

Btw, i love most of the changes from dom 2 to dom 3.
A great game became even greater!

[Gregstrom]

Quickness from W9 bless is +50% to a blessed unit's AP, meaning they can move further and (on average) get another set of attacks ev ery second round. It isn't the same effect as the Quickness spell, which gives +100% AP (which does not stack with the W9 bless) and +3 Att/Def.

Spellcasters don't get additional casts from either form of quickness in Dom3.

[Tolkien]

Item-based spells however are affected by quickness.

So if you use a Flamebeau and slap on a boots of quickness, that commander will cast Holy Pyre twice a turn, compared to regular spellcasting which, even with quickness, will only cast it once.

[Gregstrom]

...although (IIRC) spells from Carcator and Nethgul shouldn't be considered item-based spells for these purposes.

[Mardagg]

thx guys.
Pretty interesting...so the water 9 blessing got nerved quite a bit.
Sacred high level Mage casting some mighty spell twice per turn has been pretty nice strat in Dom2 iirc.
I really think that the manual is missing accurate description of the bless effects here.

thx also for pointing out,that some item based spells are different here regarding boots of quickness.
Gotta do some tests with this soon.

[Tolkien]

...although (IIRC) spells from Carcator and Nethgul shouldn't be considered item-based spells for these purposes.
Forgot to mention that. Thanks for the save.:)

The item spell+boots of quickness strat is pretty popular (at least with my limited experience), especially with Standard of the Damned and it's Life Drain (for anti-thug/SC action).

[chrispedersen]

Quickness from W9 bless is +50% to a blessed unit's AP, meaning they can move further and (on average) get another set of attacks ev ery second round. It isn't the same effect as the Quickness spell, which gives +100% AP (which does not stack with the W9 bless) and +3 Att/Def.

Spellcasters don't get additional casts from either form of quickness in Dom3.

This is not correct. Water bless does confer the +1/2W defense bonus.

[thejeff]

Technically correct. The W9 bless only gives the +50% AP bonus. It is distinguished from the Quickness spell by being only 50% not 100% and not adding +3 Att/Def
The lesser water bless does add to defense.
I've forgotten, the defense bonuses from the lesser W bless and from Quickness do stack, right?

[Gregstrom]

They do AFAIK.

[MaxWilson]

IMHO it's misleading to talk about the water bonus in terms of AP bonus, because it's actually an *action* bonus. Getting two actions per turn means your AP is *effectively* doubled in the sense that yes, you can move twice as far in one turn, but it's not true that having twice as much AP (e.g. by wearing lighter armor) will increase your number of actions. AP is strictly about movement.

BTW, note that if you have two actions or more per turn, it is possible to participate in melee combat AND spellcast (although you can never cast more than one spell in a turn). This means that a W9-blessed priest will have an improved chance of casting spells in melee combat. That could be important if you were doing a Caelum-style [Attack, Shockwave, Attack, Shockwave] combo.

-Max

[Gregstrom]

Max, the manual disagrees with you (p74). The way the game handles changing a unit's armour obfuscates this, as a unit's 'base' AP is considered to be the chassis' AP score as modified by armour. Going from base 2AP to 4 AP by changing armour just means an attack costs 4 AP instead of 2.

[Sombre]

BTW, note that if you have two actions or more per turn, it is possible to participate in melee combat AND spellcast (although you can never cast more than one spell in a turn). This means that a W9-blessed priest will have an improved chance of casting spells in melee combat. That could be important if you were doing a Caelum-style [Attack, Shockwave, Attack, Shockwave] combo.

-Max

I'm not sure that's true. The spellcasting action is attempted at the start of the turn, with a 50% chance of being an attack instead. Seems separate from the 2 actions quickened units take - I would imagine if you don't cast the spell and attack instead off that 50% chance, then you get your second action as normal, but that wouldn't mean another 50% chance to cast imo.

[MaxWilson]

I'm not sure that's true. The spellcasting action is attempted at the start of the turn, with a 50% chance of being an attack instead. Seems separate from the 2 actions quickened units take - I would imagine if you don't cast the spell and attack instead off that 50% chance, then you get your second action as normal, but that wouldn't mean another 50% chance to cast imo.

Take any SC, or especially one with Heroic Quickness, and during his buffing cycle plop down a handful of units around him with Shift + 'U'. Frequently you will see him make an attack (or two, with enough Heroic Quickness), and then still do his buffing anyway. I just now verified this by going into my latest game and putting a bunch of 1509/Hirdmans around my Malik, and he made two attacks and then cast Personal Luck anyway. The next turn he cast Soul Vortex and made no attacks--I think spellcasting terminates the action cycle. Now it's possible that W9 quickness works differently, but for regular quickness and Heroic Quickness it's certainly possible to attack and spellcast.

-Max

[vfb]

I think I've just seen this recently when attacking Pan (harpy PD). It looked like quickened (admittedly true quickening, not the bless) units got in an attack as well as casting a buff, in a single round of combat. I can't look at debug logs currently because I'm on the road, but I'm pretty sure you'd see the attack and the spell cast together in the same round.

[chrispedersen]

I think this is likely a bug.

Consider the way the logic is supposed to work. *IF* you have have action points attacking is supposed to deduct the full cost of your attack.

So long as your ap's are positive, you still attack.

So, you have 15 ap. You move for 10. You can still attack - the attack sets the ap to a negative number. Next turn.. you add ap, are greater than 0, so you can still attack.

Now what has to happen to bugger up quickness and spell casting.
All that has to happen is that the AP cost to cast a spell has to be unmodified.

So for example - suppose a creature has 11 ap. Spell casting should cost 11 ap. Casting a spell should cost 11 ap... and so the creature should not be able to attack.

Suppose however that the recipient is now the beneficiary of a 100% quickness - so he has 22 ap. If the program for some reaon failed to update the 'cost' of the spell casting and only deducted 11 ap - then it would leave action points remaining to attack with.

I've never seen it enumerated - but it seems as attacks and spell casting *ought* to take a fixed amount of aps. This would allow units with heroic quickness etc to get multiple actions in a round.

Theoretically we could test this by taking an SCwith heroic quickness, and hitting it time and time again with a combat it cannot lose (blackhawks)- eventually, if I'm right you should see the actions creep up as the heroic bonus continues to creep up from experience.

[MaxWilson]

I've never seen it enumerated - but it seems as attacks and spell casting *ought* to take a fixed amount of aps. This would allow units with heroic quickness etc to get multiple actions in a round.

Theoretically we could test this by taking an SCwith heroic quickness, and hitting it time and time again with a combat it cannot lose (blackhawks)- eventually, if I'm right you should see the actions creep up as the heroic bonus continues to creep up from experience.

I don't follow this last part. I thought it was already fairly well-known that units with Heroic Quickness get extra actions. It's even in the right-click description. I know I dislike getting Heroic Quickness on non-undead SCs because it makes it easier for them to fatigue out and die when they start making multiple attacks.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

I've never seen it enumerated - but it seems as attacks and spell casting *ought* to take a fixed amount of aps. This would allow units with heroic quickness etc to get multiple actions in a round.

Theoretically we could test this by taking an SCwith heroic quickness, and hitting it time and time again with a combat it cannot lose (blackhawks)- eventually, if I'm right you should see the actions creep up as the heroic bonus continues to creep up from experience.

I don't follow this last part. I thought it was already fairly well-known that units with Heroic Quickness get extra actions. It's even in the right-click description. I know I dislike getting Heroic Quickness on non-undead SCs because it makes it easier for them to fatigue out and die when they start making multiple attacks.

-Max


Right. The question is - is the ability to spell cast & attack caused by an incorrect debit of action points.

Heroic quickness may work differently from quickness - it could be that increase in action points during combat is causing the problem.

But, supposing not, the reason that heroic quickess test would be interesting is that you should be able to see the evolution of behavior.

For example if you had Cast att attack Cast att att
as a script or perhaps attack cast atk atk cast
you could see how the behavior of the SC evolves as it gains action points.

Since lch has publish the algorthym by which aps increase you could see the number of action points required for extra actions. You could also see if variance between weapons and spells.