Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?

[Psitticine]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
The main problem, it seems to me, is the increasingly higher cost of higher magic levels - it's O(n^2), which is really painful.

The actual cost to move up is only (current power * 8). To get a power of 10, assuming you start with 1, will cost 441 points. That's a lot, but it depends on your play style whether it is worth it or not. It also wouldn't normally cost that much, since one would be unlikely to start with a god whose basic power is only 1 in the path the player wants to maximize.

I don't like negative scales, usually take the 60-point Fortress, take a lot of magical power, and still manage to tweak the scales into a mildly benifical state. I agree completely that larger maps will tilt that balance so that the scales have more importance, but that would just make me aim for 6 or 7 in my primary path instead of 9 or 10.

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Psitticine:

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris Byler:
The main problem, it seems to me, is the increasingly higher cost of higher magic levels - it's O(n^2), which is really painful.

The actual cost to move up is only (current power * 8).

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Actually it's more complex than that - it's (power you are moving to - base power in that path for that form) * 8.

I wasn't quite clear in my earlier post - it's the cumulative cost to achieve a higher magic level that is O(n^2). For example, if you start with power 2 in a given path:

level 2 costs 0
level 3 costs 8, total 8
level 4 costs 16, total 24
level 5 costs 24, total 48
level 6 costs 32, total 80
level 7 costs 40, total 120
level 8 costs 48, total 168
level 9 costs 56, total 224
level 10 costs 64, total 288

You see how level 9 costs twice as much as level 7?

And that's if you start at level 2. Many things don't start with any paths above level 1 (great mother, phoenix, frost father, arch druid), and of course some don't start with any above level 0 (archmages, wyrm, manticore). Few god forms start with a path at level 3. Liches, maybe moloch and PoD, maybe the immobiles.

To get a power of 10, assuming you start with 1, will cost 441 points.

I don't see how you arrive at that figure - it isn't even a multiple of 8. I make it 360. Neglecting your god form's base cost, of course - many cost over 100 (and get only modest magical skill).

I'd like to see a cheap form with base level 3 in a given path (even if it was physically weak). That would at least make it practical to get a high level of that one path. But I can't think of any forms that meet that condition, other than the immobile ones. (Liches have level 3, IIRC, but have a base cost over 100.)

That's a lot, but it depends on your play style whether it is worth it or not. It also wouldn't normally cost that much, since one would be unlikely to start with a god whose basic power is only 1 in the path the player wants to maximize.

I don't like negative scales, usually take the 60-point Fortress, take a lot of magical power, and still manage to tweak the scales into a mildly benifical state. I agree completely that larger maps will tilt that balance so that the scales have more importance, but that would just make me aim for 6 or 7 in my primary path instead of 9 or 10.

Oh, I don't dispute that 6 or 7 in one path is achievable (and still have either a form with some physical might, or a decent number of net positive scales). I wouldn't expect to see much in other paths, though.

I just think the high-level bless effects are cool, but the cost of reaching level 9 is prohibitive unless your form starts with 4+. No god form that I know of starts with more than 3. Thus the problem.


As an example, suppose we wanted to design a god whose bless effect would duplicate the Dom I bless effect. This requires Fire 6, Blood 6. I don't know of any form that starts with skill in fire and blood, so we will have to build one of them up from zero. Let's take the Fountain of Blood - it costs 0 and has a new path cost of 40, I don't think we can do better than that. It starts with Blood 3 (one of the few forms that starts with 3 power in a path), so it will only cost us 48 points to raise that to 6. Fire 6 will cost us 200 points, so we've just spent half our points.

That's not too bad - except that it's for an immobile pretender. Anything else would have been more expensive - a Moloch, for instance, has a base cost of 75, new path cost of 50 and starts with only Fire 2, so overall it would have cost us an extra 117 points (a total of 365).


Maybe it's just my expectations - I thought the intent of the new bless system was to make blessings more varied and more useful, not just more varied (and frequently less useful, unless you invest a lot in god magic). Furthermore I don't like the idea that a god with a 100 point base cost needs to have another 50 or 60 points spent on his magic skills so he will be as powerful as a mortal mage. Most of the titan/demigod forms cost 100+ for 2 or 2/1 (and their physical stats aren't that impressive, although they can generally manage to stay alive on the battlefield). And archmages have an even harder time reaching higher magic levels, because they start with 0 in everything (or everything but one).


I just don't want to see a situation where only Abysia, Caelum and Ermor can afford to take strong magic and strong blessings.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I just don't want to see a situation where only Abysia, Caelum and Ermor can afford to take strong magic and strong blessings.

I agree with everything you said, except that Last line, which is just plain wrong. WRONG!!! I just played a game with Jotunheim, and they can get good blessings too

[licker]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I just don't want to see a situation where only Abysia, Caelum and Ermor can afford to take strong magic and strong blessings.

I agree with everything you said, except that Last line, which is just plain wrong. WRONG!!! I just played a game with Jotunheim, and they can get good blessings too

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And anyway, one could argue that the blessings are another balance between nations, so there is no need to 'make' all nations have equal access to becoming a blessed nation. Though it does seem as though some nations (Marginon?) should get a special pretender that is more geared toward heavy blessings.

[Psitticine]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
I don't see how you arrive at that figure - it isn't even a multiple of 8. I make it 360.

It's 441 if you accidentally add 81 because it is 1 AM and you've just spent 3+ hours trying to moderate a busy, busy board.

IOW, just a silly mistake on my part. I'm not sure what exactly I did there.

I'm not sure what else to add (and excuse me for snipping your post; I'm not trying to ignore your points - I'm just not coming up with anything to say that I haven't said already.)

I think you make some intelligent comments; all I can say is that, FWIW, the blessing system has played very well for me. I hope they don't tinker too much with it for exactly the same reasons you hope they do: I don't want the game to lose any flavor or variety and the blessing scheme is one of my very favorite parts.

The best solution to things like this is usually to allow people their choice in the matter. A good idea might be to have a system where players could set how expensive magical power is to suit their own tastes. The problem there, however, lies in the UI: that choice would need to be made before or during god design, and yet the game and its settings are chosen after the god design is completed.

[geo981010]

After more play and reading JO's thoughts on lowering the cost, I am starting to wonder about what that would do. The prices do seem out of whack in the demo and don't seem worth it, even if it is fun sometimes. But with the full Version I can think of some pretty nasty combos, so I'd like to wait to hack that out to see how it balances then.

First off - Ermor. Played by someone well (hi Pepe!), Ermor is already likely going to have 4+ magic in most everything and will tailor the bless bonuses to make some really nasty Knights right off the bat. Ermor gets almost 1000 points to play with for the pretender, so if it is cheap to get 9 in a path Ermor will be able to do it multiple times. Ermor with 9 water (quickness, +4 defense), 9 fire (flaming weapons, +4 attack) and 9 astral (+3 MR, Twist Fate), plus the minor bonuses would make very scary Knights of the S.

Next up - what about the Shroud of the Battle Saint on a supercombatant (or prophet supercombatant)? Construction 4 with Astral 1, it gives a constant bless with all the bonuses. So with a little tweaking I imagine we'll see some aggressive options to get all these bless bonuses on Ice Devils (Regeneration, Reinvig, + defense) and such. Ermor will likely be the first one to abuse this, and in this case the lower dominion from the cost of getting 9 level magic skills will allow better slave hunting. And a Prophet combat Bane in the second turn would be able to take many indy provinces by himself, especially in the third turn when he gets on the HoF and gets a special ability.

If you want to play risky, the shroud could be for your pretender - regenerating, impossibly armored+reinvig, etc etc Cyclops or Great Mother at a very, very early stage. Take some risks, but when most people are barely researching and still tossing lowend troops, you could make a early kill (just get him out of the foreign dominion quick or pump dominion yourself) or at least get a large head start.

Mostly conjecture until the game ships, however...

[Nerfix]

Pretender Gods cannot be blessed by any means in Dominions II.