[Twan]

I think the default game settings are not supposed to be balanced on very small maps and have no reason to. Dominions is a game about gods fighting for the domination of the world, not of the Luxemburg.

On maps of 50 provinces or less, try settings like 250% gold & ressources (or like 50% gold if you want less sacred instead of more normal), easy research and 70% sites, then the number of normal troops would probably be sufficient to counter high bless rush a sufficient time to make battle magic efficient and summons available (and to have good scales would be far more important).

PS : I dislike the idea of suppressing the bless effects before awakening, except for making a new awakening *option*, eventually coupled with a little less points for normal awakening. But I'd like to see this choice as a new one. Something like :
- dormant 125pts
- dormant out of this plane (no bless) 150pts
- imprisoned 200pts
- imprisoned out of this plane (no bless) 250pts (or even 300 as no bless during 36+ turns is a real handicap)