Hello everyone, and I could use some advice.

[Maraxus]

The Prince of death is not immortal. His dominion is lower and each path costs 10 more.

Compare with the Lich queen. Basicly she has:
+1 magic, poor amphibious, other magic, other slots
The Ecclesiarch has:
30 points cheaper, +6 holy, Inquisitor, awe and fear.

The creature type is minor, the resistences somewhat balance out, pillage and patrol are minor, unless they are insanely high (like close to 100) and likewise fortune teller is minor unless it's really high (50 or more)

Still, this 6 holy and inquisitor are a serious combination, especially with a dominion 4 Pretender. You can get 8 or even 9 dominion strength quite cheap and then it's like:
-Step into provine
-preach a turn
-dominion is yours for sure.

This ability by itself should be quite expencive but next there is te synergy with immortality.

I would definitly say: Not below 150 points, or it might be better to reduce the holy to 4 points, just to be save.

[llamabeast]

I don't think the preaching is quite as good as you think, Maraxus. I believe holy-6 ness just guarantees a successful preaching, producing 1 candle. Inquisitor won't normally even make any difference, being as the probability will already be 100%.

[Saulot]

Well, he'd also get a second auto-preach by virtue of being a pretender. Anyway, the aspect of the synergies is quite accurate. That awe +2 could easily become awe +5. With his area effect weapon he could start taking provinces on turn 2. He doesn't have undead vulnerabilities, and he's immortal. Being in dominion isn't a problem.

He's sacred, and so can bless himself. With an astral bless he boosts his MR, which is the weakest link.

Anyway, balancing against a POD isn't that great an idea, since a POD is considered one of the strongest pretenders available.

[Luckmann]

Saulot said:
Well, he'd also get a second auto-preach by virtue of being a pretender. Anyway, the aspect of the synergies is quite accurate. That awe +2 could easily become awe +5. With his area effect weapon he could start taking provinces on turn 2. He doesn't have undead vulnerabilities, and he's immortal. Being in dominion isn't a problem.

He's sacred, and so can bless himself. With an astral bless he boosts his MR, which is the weakest link.

Anyway, balancing against a POD isn't that great an idea, since a POD is considered one of the strongest pretenders available.

First, what do you mean with second auto-preach by being a pretender? Does Pretenders automaticly preach is whatever region they are at any given time? Also, as far as I know, preaching only reaches a certain limit before it becomes ineffective(?).

While the point with Astral bless is valid, that was an aspect I hadn't considered. Although Astral Bless is, to my understanding (and personal opinion) one of the overall weakest in the entire game when it comes to blessing units.

I just wish I could actually remove "Sacred" without loosing the "Inquisitor". One is something I consider necessary to the character's flavour. The other is an inconsistant annoyance. ()

And yeah, I tried balancing it towards the Vampire Queen, originally. I just used the PoD as an example of widely considered "Stronger" (than most) pretender at a lower cost.

[Saulot]

Pretenders automatically spread dominion (you could consider it preaching, for free). It's on pg 92 of the manual.

Click on a temple in game to see what's spreading dominion, and by how much.

Also, since we're talking about a lvl 6 priest, he could raise to a theoretical maximum of lvl 12 dominion (13 with a temple). Though 10 is the actual limit of dominion.

Edit:

Offhand, the best comparison is probably another immortal, living pretender, a "Bakemono Kunshu" (unit 1428).

[Luckmann]

Saulot said:
Pretenders automatically spread dominion (you could consider it preaching, for free). It's on pg 92 of the manual.

Click on a temple in game to see what's spreading dominion, and by how much.

Also, since we're talking about a lvl 6 priest, he could raise to a theoretical maximum of lvl 12 dominion (13 with a temple). Though 10 is the actual limit of dominion.

Ach. I know you're not trying to sound condescending. It's like technical support. "Is the computer plugged in?" & "Is the monitor turned on?". I have been playing the game for a week or so. I was merely asking because of the way you said it, like it was a double-preach. As far as I know, the Pretender is more of a mobile temple (spreading the influence not only in the province, but outwards), while preaching only increases Dominion in the province in which it's done.

Second, are you sure that priest levels actually increase the pretender's inherent spread of dominion? Since pretenders weren't originally meant to have priest levels, I find such an effect highly doubtful.

Saulot said:Edit:
Offhand, the best comparison is probably another immortal, living pretender, a "Bakemono Kunshu" (unit 1428).

Thanks. I checked it out a bit and the only real similarity is that one fact that they are both living immortals. The Bakemono Kunshu have higher stats almost across the entire board, and have two seperate magic schools from scratch, which is important to take into consideration since it lowers the cost of raising said schools, wheras the Ecclesiarch only have one raisable school (by default).

[Saulot]

Luckmann said:
Ach. I know you're not trying to sound condescending. It's like technical support. "Is the computer plugged in?" & "Is the monitor turned on?". I have been playing the game for a week or so. I was merely asking because of the way you said it, like it was a double-preach. As far as I know, the Pretender is more of a mobile temple (spreading the influence not only in the province, but outwards), while preaching only increases Dominion in the province in which it's done.

Second, are you sure that priest levels actually increase the pretender's inherent spread of dominion? Since pretenders weren't originally meant to have priest levels, I find such an effect highly doubtful.

Er, sorry about it sounding condescending. When someone says new, it's hard to tell what that really means. Besides, there are lurkers who read the forums (a few who are very new), also I find it's better to answer as completely as possible, to limit follow-up questions. (Also, a weeks' worth of gaming can vary a lot as well. To some it's 5 hours, to others 50.)

Anyway, the priest level for the pretender wouldn't make his dominion spreading any more powerful, it would just mean that he could preach in addition to his normal spread, and in your case, with preaching would automatically raise dominion by 2 (or lower enemy dom by 2). He also wouldn't have any limit placed on how he high he could preach, other than the normal dominion limit of 10.

Luckmann said:
Thanks. I checked it out a bit and the only real similarity is that one fact that they are both living immortals. The Bakemono Kunshu have higher stats almost across the entire board, and have two seperate magic schools from scratch, which is important to take into consideration since it lowers the cost of raising said schools, wheras the Ecclesiarch only have one raisable school (by default).

This is true, he has nonhuman stats, but so does your guy. As for whether it's preferable to have two schools at lvl 1 or one school at lvl 2, that's entirely subjective, not the least of which is what the schools are in question. Furthermore, since each lvl you purchase is more expensive than the last, the difference between starting at lvl 2 vs. lvl 1 could be higher than the purchase cost of another lvl 1, if the end result you're looking for is a high lvl, such as 9, and the new pathcost isn't ridiculous like 80.

Anyway, the easiest way to balance something is to tweak a unit that already exists. Your unit is a bit too dissimilar to everything else, so that won't work. Other than me and others eyeballing it and coming to various conclusions (my own being that it's a bit overpowered). I'd suggest taking it for a test run. Or letting your friend play it in a MP game against you.

[Maraxus]

Ah, okay, I think I mixed up the preaching with the blood-sacrifice rules a bit.

I would say, he needs body etheral (and thus personal luck) to expand into indies but he still is an option as awake early-game pretender (btw I usually play with indi strength 7).

The question is, whether he is fixable overpowered (read: slightly to strong) or unfixable. I think, it's clearly the first, you just need to tune it down a little bit, or increase the price somewhat and it should work.

Decreasing the initial dominion to 2 would clearly be an option. Even base dominion 3 would make it "still powerful but probably okay", my guess.

[Luckmann]

Maraxus said:
Ah, okay, I think I mixed up the preaching with the blood-sacrifice rules a bit.

I would say, he needs body etheral (and thus personal luck) to expand into indies but he still is an option as awake early-game pretender (btw I usually play with indi strength 7).

The question is, whether he is fixable overpowered (read: slightly to strong) or unfixable. I think, it's clearly the first, you just need to tune it down a little bit, or increase the price somewhat and it should work.

Decreasing the initial dominion to 2 would clearly be an option. Even base dominion 3 would make it "still powerful but probably okay", my guess.

Ah, some solid advice. Yeah, I was thinking of simply lowering it to 2, since I do now realize that the potential spread of faith on a mobile unit can be quite powerful (I've primarily played with immobile pretenders, with high Dominion (6-8 minimum).

While it's entirely possible to do a potent pretender still, lowering it to 2 will be more or less the same as increasing the point cost. I'd even be willing to consider lowering it to 1, to put it on-par with other base human pretenders.

What would be the base cost of increasing Dominion from 2 to 4 and 1 to 4 respectively? I know it increases by 7 every time, but is that counting from 1 or from whatever base a pretender have?

[Luckmann]

Maraxus said:
The Prince of death is not immortal. His dominion is lower and each path costs 10 more.

Compare with the Lich queen. Basicly she has:
+1 magic, poor amphibious, other magic, other slots
The Ecclesiarch has:
30 points cheaper, +6 holy, Inquisitor, awe and fear.

The creature type is minor, the resistences somewhat balance out, pillage and patrol are minor, unless they are insanely high (like close to 100) and likewise fortune teller is minor unless it's really high (50 or more)

Still, this 6 holy and inquisitor are a serious combination, especially with a dominion 4 Pretender. You can get 8 or even 9 dominion strength quite cheap and then it's like:
-Step into provine
-preach a turn
-dominion is yours for sure.

This ability by itself should be quite expencive but next there is te synergy with immortality.

I would definitly say: Not below 150 points, or it might be better to reduce the holy to 4 points, just to be save.

Patrol, Pillage and Fortune Teller are all 20/each.

But yes, I see the point about the dominions. I wouldn't want to lower the priest level (because under all circumstances, I'd like it to be higher than any base commander, who's maximum is 5 (4 + 1 Prophet), but how about lowering initial Dominion to 2, instead of 4?

Note though, that the Ecclesiarch also have overall lower stats than the Lich Queen, with the only exception being Leadership.

Edit: Bah, spelling errors. I've been up for waaaay to long at the moment.