High Bless rush strategy :(

[DominionsFan]

Graeme Dice said:

Impossible? As a simple example, C'Tis in every age wouldn't have a hard time (Well, possibly where they are weakest in the middle age), since they don't take any significant losses while expanding, and only need to research to enchantment 3 to be able to deal with the sacred troops of any nation. Pythium certainly isn't going to use a level 9 bless effect, nor would Caelum, Machaka, R'Lyeh, Arcoscephale, or Man.

Heh try to play a blitz on a small map against uber bless Helheim, Niefelheim, Mitgard etc. with a nation without a proper bless strategy. In most of the cases you won't even reach research lvl3.

[Arameyan]

Thanks all for your really interesting answers!

I agree with Quietly and DominionsFan.

I think Big Bless Strategy can be beaten, but not really because they have flaws. It seems you have to try to be Stronger. Most Wendigo's ways aren't specific for High bless and are effective vs non-blessed nations also. I agree F9W9 is bad for scales, but with an imprisoned pretender F9 for vans of N9 for jarls dont force you to have really bad scales.

I played a 4 players Dom2 MP game with F9 Vans. When I fought against the last player (Jotun without bless) he where by far stronger than me. I just harassed him with groups of sailing-stealty-blessed Vans, raising taxes to 200 % and pillaging. After 10-15 turns he manage to catch one of my raiding party. The 15 vans involved in the fight, outnumbered, killed all jotuns easily. We then realized that my sneaking groups were stronger than his army. Disgusted, he left the game.

Small question: if you charm a blessed troop, will it keep its Bless bonus for the fight? Not useful early-mid game, but probably really fun late game

Just a crazy idea: maybe priests able to dispel Bless?

[Graeme Dice]

DominionsFan said:
Heh try to play a blitz on a small map against uber bless Helheim, Niefelheim, Mitgard etc. with a nation without a proper bless strategy. In most of the cases you won't even reach research lvl3.

I'm sorry, but that's an absurd exaggeration. There is no way that the forces those nations could gather on a 10 province per player map would be able to capture the C'tissian castle by turn 8. This is especially true with the imprisoned pretender necessary for a dual bless strategy.

[Ballbarian]

Just a crazy idea: maybe priests able to dispel Bless?

That is a great idea! Would be a nice 'rock' to the bless 'scissors'.

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe the dark priests should be able to unbless?

[Shovah32]

Or maybe just allow priests to unbless aslong as they are within their own dominion?

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:

I'm sorry, but that's an absurd exaggeration. There is no way that the forces those nations could gather on a 10 province per player map would be able to capture the C'tissian castle by turn 8. This is especially true with the imprisoned pretender necessary for a dual bless strategy.

Recent blitzes had quite a few pre turn 10 eliminations with bless rushes.

Vanheim + Helheim have a good chance at killing 1 player before turn 10 and then they can use their gold advantage to also use their excellent mages + slow down the remaining players with raiding.

Niefelheim's giants and jarls are strong enough to have a good chance to kill any SC.

And Mictlan and TC EA are quite scary too with their bless hordes.

Those nations might really be a little too good for blitzes.

[Gandalf Parker]

Someone will always be too good for blitzes. But others are "too good" for large maps, or many player games with alliances. Im not sure if it could be fixed for one game type without messing up the others. Maybe if a version of DOm was created just for small blitz maps.

This might be my fault. I pushed for big maps and large games. Balancing for that might have knocked the blitzes out

[Foodstamp]

Wouldn't these bless strategies perform well on large maps too? I mean the player has 9w9f so it is not like he is going to be lacking on high end late game spells right?

[Boron]

Gandalf Parker said:
This might be my fault. I pushed for big maps and large games. Balancing for that might have knocked the blitzes out

No need to apology Gandalf .
I myself e.g. love both, large maps in SP and occasional longterm MPs and small maps in blitzes.

Gandalf Parker said:
Someone will always be too good for blitzes. But others are "too good" for large maps, or many player games with alliances. Im not sure if it could be fixed for one game type without messing up the others. Maybe if a version of DOm was created just for small blitz maps.

Only time will tell, but at least some bless rush nations might do as well in longterm games too.

And if a blitz strat can kill another player immediately, unless the longterm mp map is very huge it can happen there too. And the advantage of getting a 2nd castle, extra gems, maybe some searched provinces etc. can be a nice boost. If you were lucky to have an ultrabless strat and neighbor someone who cannot counter it adequatly such a rush might boost your longterm potential a lot too in that game.

So maybe longterm games might not be that different .

There is more diplomacy of course, but at least those ppl who also play blitzes know then too well how scary an uberbless strat is in earlygame and thus are hesitant to gangbang the player who uses a blessrush in earlygame.

We have exactly this situation in the DDD-Pbem currently. Jurri took an uberbless, but all of his neighbors are scared and dare not to attack him. Will be definately interesting, i think Jurri has a very good chance of winning this game, especially because it is a VP game, so he doesn't have to continue till lategame where he might be more vulnerable.