Random questions

[Samhain]

On the subject of blood hunting, the classic strategy to deal with resulting population loss is to select Growth scales when designing your pretender. As Growth also helps with gold production and makes you a less annoying neighbor, it is an easy choice for most blood hunting nations.

And, not only does blood hunting cause unrest, but that unrest will make the blood hunting much less successful. I forget the math, but with one or two blood hunters I typically can keep unrest at or close to 0 by lowering taxes to 50 or even 0. More than that, I always use patrollers. And, for this task, the cheaper the better. Black Hawks summoned with the Call of the Wind spell are a good example for a nation with good air resources. You get quite a few for 5 air gems, they don't cost upkeep and, as they fly, are very efficient patrollers.

[JonBrave]

So (as a consequence of these blasted arrows) my Prophet has "lost his one & only eye", and has Att/Def/Prec=0. OK, I'm beginning to understand this game, I build "Eye Of The Void" --- that replaces an eye, so it must be right. Lo & behold... I'm still blind --- wtf

[sansanjuan]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

So (as a consequence of these blasted arrows) my Prophet has "lost his one & only eye", and has Att/Def/Prec=0. OK, I'm beginning to understand this game, I build "Eye Of The Void" --- that replaces an eye, so it must be right. Lo & behold... I'm still blind --- wtf

The eye of the void will always make an eye blind but gives the commander pen+2. Often a fine tradeoff as precision 100 spells always hit even when cast from a blind mage (they may be resisited though depending on MR..will help Smites cast by prophet) Was your prophet single eyed because of an earlier injury? You can heal units in the game in a number of ways that will cure blindness, etc. However the eye of the void is cursed and can't be removed.
-ssj

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by sansanjuan

The eye of the void will always make an eye blind but gives the commander pen+2. Often a fine tradeoff as precision 100 spells always hit even when cast from a blind mage (they may be resisited though depending on MR..will help Smites cast by prophet) Was your prophet single eyed because of an earlier injury? You can heal units in the game in a number of ways that will cure blindness, etc. However the eye of the void is cursed and can't be removed.
-ssj

The "one and only eye" refers to a single eyed unit, such as cyclopes, Agarthans, and a few others. If the unit had two eyes to begin with, it would be "lost the other eye as well" or something like that.

You can't see through any of the magical eyes - they just occupy an eye socket.

As sansanjuan says, being blind doesn't necessarily matter if you're casting either battlefield-wide spells (divine blessing, for instance) or precision 100 spells (soul slay, etc.)

[JonBrave]

He's an Agarthan "Oracle of the Ancients". Giant. I think they only have one eye coz of what it said, but I can't tell/see Now I'm stuck with EotV, as you say. But my Precision is still 0, coz I have no eyes. Which makes no sense, since it says EotV replaces an eye. And if you need 2 eyes and I haven't got them, at least warn me!?

[Olive]

I just ran a few tests, funny thing is you can equip one Cyclops with two magical eyes - even if the first one blinds him - or a Master Lich with three.

Btw, you can give a magical eye to a Granite Cyclops without blinding him - two eyed Cyclops, yay . But the game I used to make the tests uses an ancient version of Endgame Diversity, maybe it has been corrected recently.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

He's an Agarthan "Oracle of the Ancients". Giant. I think they only have one eye coz of what it said, but I can't tell/see Now I'm stuck with EotV, as you say. But my Precision is still 0, coz I have no eyes. Which makes no sense, since it says EotV replaces an eye. And if you need 2 eyes and I haven't got them, at least warn me!?

Oracles of the Ancients have death magic. You could have the unit cast Twiceborn (might need a death staff if it's only got 1D), and then get it killed in dominion to return it as a Wight Mage. You'd have more precision than an "off the rack" oracle that way, even if you decided to re-apply the eye of the void (not to mention two eyes, amusingly enough.)

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

He's an Agarthan "Oracle of the Ancients". Giant. I think they only have one eye coz of what it said, but I can't tell/see Now I'm stuck with EotV, as you say. But my Precision is still 0, coz I have no eyes. Which makes no sense, since it says EotV replaces an eye. And if you need 2 eyes and I haven't got them, at least warn me!?

Agarthans are decribed as being one-eyed.
And for a prophet, putting an eyye of the void gives better penetration, and smite doesn't need precision, so you can still use your prophet effectively.

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by Samhain

And, not only does blood hunting cause unrest, but that unrest will make the blood hunting much less successful.

That's, by the way, another reason to use bloodhunting deeper into your territories: provinces recently taken and/or with enemy Dominion usually have higher unrest - so hunting is less effective.
As for Blood magic in general: yes, Ermor threat was greater, even though MA Marignon also considered demon-worshippers an enemy.
Also, Blood magic per se does not mean your god is evil. It may be practiced by secular mages of the nation regardless of it's god having any particular opinion on the subject (Bogarus). God's evilness may be measured more by the fact of whether he/she accepts blood sacrifices. The most evil in this respect would be, of course, EA/LA Mictlan. As an interesting aside, in MA Mictlan we have the only case where the god clearly forbidden Blood magic. Unfortunately, game engine does not (for now?) enforce this. Another interesting bit is that EA Marverni's god accepts blood sacrifices, but the nation has no Blood mages.