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Old January 14th, 2009, 09:13 AM

VedalkenBear VedalkenBear is offline
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Default Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying

KissBlade: Just a small thing, but I do believe that Jim was referring to MA Celestial Masters, not EA Celestial Masters.

On the more general topic of sacred/non-sacred commander costs (particularly mage costs), there was a definite correlation in Dom2, though that did not extend to the oft-believed +50%. While I have not done any extensive analysis on Dom3, I believe the correlation is even less.

I can understand Micah's point, provided he was simply discussing how an early death can disturb the break-even point between a Sacred and Non-Sacred mage.

Since a Sacred/Secular break-even point is at 15 turns (assuming +50% cost and equivalent abilities (thus meaning an equivalent base cost)), and that each turn the Sacred commander's total cost improves vs. the Secular Commander's cost by an amount equal to the Sacred commander's upkeep, it is easily shown that there is no time horizon short enough such that a Secular Commander's death would 'save' enough money to purchase another such Commander.

However, Micah's point is valid in principle, if not to the extent that he states. If you expect a commander to live less than 15 turns, then for equal economic utility, you should purchase the non-sacred commander. (As stated below, this analysis ignores the cost of the temple. Adding that as another fixed cost could validate Micah's point in full, though I have not seen where Micah makes that explicit connection.)

Note that this conclusion ignores non-economic considerations (particularly, the effect of your bless on the commander), and it assumes the +50% cost rule of thumb. It also ignores the cost of the temple required to hire sacred commanders. However, the formula can be modified so that a more general solution for the number of turns for the time horizon can be found for any given pair of commanders.
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