Which nations need bennies?

[Endoperez]

Living Pillars have Basalt Armor (prot 18), natural protection (9), and they don't have a helmet. Because natural and armor protection don't stack straight, their final protection is Head (9) and Body (23). Legions of Steel and Earth 9 bless both only raise armor protection, and unfortunately, Living Pillars don't wear any head armor.

The protection value shown in the unit screen is only an approximation. You should always check the actual protection values.

[HoneyBadger]

I think I have, but you could be right. I'm glad it's not a bug. You'd think they'd get helmets though, having to hold up the basalt city on their heads like they do. I bet they get migraines.

[Cainehill]

Endoperez said:
Legions of Steel and Earth 9 bless both only raise armor protection, and unfortunately, Living Pillars don't wear any head armor.

Oh, goodie! Finally a blessing made almost totally useless for _some_ nations. God I love all the new mechanics in Dom3. [/sarcasmoff]

So now E9 blessing gives _no_ protection benefit to the sacred troops of a number of nations, and sacred priests/mages have to put on some armor to get the benefit.

I could see that (somewhat) with Legions of Steel, but the bleeding earth blessing?!? Feh.

[FrankTrollman]

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[HoneyBadger]

My opinion on the subject (for whatever that's worth) is that Earth Bless should affect the unit's base Prot value, regardless of what the unit happens to be wearing. After all-unless the unit is wearing that sacred shroud thing, it is the unit who is sacred, not the unit's clothing.

Armor upgrade (ala Legions of Steel etc.) is, obviously, a different matter entirely.

[DrPraetorious]

The problem with that is for the majority of sacred units, the earth bless prot bonus would then be half as big. And the remainder (shadow vestels, sacred serpents, werejaguars, yavanas, gibodai) still wouldn't care much - spending a nine-point blessing to boost your protection all the way up to 11 is not exciting. You could make the bonus +8 to base armor - a 15 protection sacred serpent starts to look interesting. I'm not sure if there are any sacred rhino lizards for which this would be ungamebalanced, though. Certainly it would make putting the throud of the battle saint on someone very interesting indeed.

[HoneyBadger]

I'll really be happy when we can mod the bless effects. How about a +6 to base armor? how does that look?

[FrankTrollman]

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[Tyrant]

Back to the original topic- EA Ulm needs help. Their troops are pretty crummy- only one unit has a shield, and it has only a short sword to go with it. Their mages, while not awful are earth/nature and therefore lack killing power. In a nutshell this nation has lots of "tools" (fast units, terrain bonuses, CR, stealth etc) but completly lacks raw power. The one thing i will say for them is that their inadequate units are reasonably priced. They need, at a minimum, either some good low level national summons or a better caster. I don't really have a good idea for a thematic summons though.

Other than KD, already mentioned, no other nation is really jumping out as underpowered off the top of my head. I will say that i have to disagree about Caelum- mammoths seem to me to be a great answer to hordes of scum ,their casters are excellent, and they get lots of free design points becasue of the cold.

[HoneyBadger]

How does EA Ulm's magic resistance compare to other nations? Thematically, it makes sense that they might have a boost to MR and if they don't that might be a good way to even them out, if it's felt to be needed.