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[Kagus]

For the first time ever, I have finally understood what the water magic path icon is supposed to look like... I always thought it was a funky looking wave before.  Now I see that it's a tiny little goblet pouring out water.

You just changed my life.

WHY DID THEY HAVE TO MAKE THE CUP THE SAME SHADE OF BLUE HRRRNGGHHH

It's probably an ice goblet pouring water out while underneath the sea, knowing W path.  Actually, it kinda resembles the Sea King's Goblet...

Also, it occured to me that the icon for blood is either a bowl dripping blood, or a literal red blood cell. I'm not sure which one I think it is.


Sometimes I think about Dom 4 in comparison to the original Dominions, and some of the various changes that have happened along the way.

Like, back then, clams made permanent gems and were only W2 (similarly, fever fetishes and blood stones were eminently abusable)... Forge cost reductions were percentage-based rather than a set number of gems, which could result in stuff like a 75% gem cost reduction.  Quickness allowed for double spellcasting.  You would pick a castle type during pretender creation, and that would be your nation's castle type in all areas and situations, with the cheapest requiring only 2 turns to construct...

One thing I really miss from Dom1 is the dynamic map though.

[sprinkled chariot]

I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.

[ThtblovesDF]

Well most of the other "more useful" gem uses need more mage turns then just summon & done.

[Shadowgandor]

I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.

Eater of dead can actually become an unstoppable juggernaut if you summon it and keep it on a province with plenty of dead bodies. Eventually it'll berserk and turn on you, but by then it'll be a near invincible super killing machine

[George_Chickens]

I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.

Eater of dead can actually become an unstoppable juggernaut if you summon it and keep it on a province with plenty of dead bodies. Eventually it'll berserk and turn on you, but by then it'll be a near invincible super killing machine

Ummm, that doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

[Shadowgandor]

I am kinda dissapointed at how tarrasque, eater of dead, swamp abomination and other super units seem not that much useful.

Eater of dead can actually become an unstoppable juggernaut if you summon it and keep it on a province with plenty of dead bodies. Eventually it'll berserk and turn on you, but by then it'll be a near invincible super killing machine

Ummm, that doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

It is when it gets released near your enemy

[Kagus]

Noticed some odd stuff during some recent testing. Had a jaguar warrior who lost his head and thus died, but since he died he just turned into a were-jaguar.  ...a headless were-jaguar.

Also, is it just me, or are jags a hell of a lot less impressive now than they used to be?

I also noticed that the Jotunheim Gygja had some rather bizarrely low attack values... Then I realized that the "slap" attack wasn't being counted as an intrinsic attack, so both the slap and the quarterstaff were penalized by the staff's length because of "dual-wielding" without ambidexterity.

I've also done a little reading, and learned about some of the weirdness regarding blood blesses... Namely, that trampling ignores blood vengeance. You can trample over as many B9 sacreds as you like without triggering the retaliation... Which is a bit odd.  On the flipside, it CAN reflect damage that's negated by luck, twist fate, etherealness or even air shield. So while the sacred itself won't take damage, the attacker will get hit with however much damage it would have dealt...

[Shadowlord]

But BV also has to roll against MR to do damage, too.

[ThtblovesDF]

I attempted to abuse the Holy boars with a blood, Nature and dead bless, resulting in 40 HP bags of self regenerating BV Bait (that hits hard, if they hit).


Its a gimmik, one that Counters some things hard and that can be stoped equally hard. Was fun thou.

[Shadowlord]

I've tried a lot of blesses (and in that game took a WDNB bless).

Water is a really good bless, and so is nature if your units won't die in one hit. Depending on the nation's sacreds' natural armor and defense, earth may or may not be better than water.

Death is mostly good for undead or regenerating troops, IMHO, and for giving sacreds the ability to hit things that can only be hit by magic weapons. Fire works better than death for magical attack-ness. I don't think blood is good at all, and I don't think astral is either.

I've also found that a nation with strong national troops and mages (for example, MA Marignon) can be better served by taking strong scales rather than a bless, to boost income, production, and give population growth. Massive amounts of troops, and good mages, can beat a lot of blessed troops (Agartha is probably best suited to thumb its nose at conventional armies).

[E. Albright]

I don't think blood is good at all, and I don't think astral is either.

I've never tried doing so, but I'm told it's quite effective for reanimation nations if they can intersperse some (preferably undead) sacreds with the chaff - it makes the chaff much, much harder to counter.

[Kagus]

I think bloody flagellants can be pretty nifty. Because of how they're recruited, you can get a LOT of sacreds massed up, and even with just the blood bless (which is pretty cheap) those flails (2 attacks, +2 attack vs shields) do a lot of damage with the extra strength, and they already have a good chance to hit stuff. Trying to counter with other melee troops will result in massive losses, countering with archers will also eat up a lot of those squishy bowmen, and trying to wipe them out with spells is a particularly bad idea... Sure, mages generally have much better MR than other troops, but their spells will generally hit a LOT of flagellants, which means that MR gets tested a bunch of times. And mages aren't generally known for their tankiness...

The minor bless effect also has some interesting effects with some sacreds, like EA T'ien Ch'i's heavenly fire demons. Throwing weapon damage and range is generally affected by strength values, so you can pump that up a little. Jomonese tengu also get their AN lightning attacks buffed by a few points, if that's important to y'all.

Outside of flagellants, another fun pick for a blood bless is someone with those ancestral spirit battle summons. Just pop a bunch of those out and let the enemy kill themselves by striking the spirits.


Speaking of ancestral spirits, a fire bless can be pretty funny on them since they generally don't deal any direct damage, but the fire bless applies the 6 AP damage to their paralyze attack.  Same deal for death bless, which also makes them hang around a lot longer (but doesn't give them the bonus attack value they desperately need).

[Jilladilla]

(Agartha is probably best suited to thumb its nose at conventional armies).

As an Agartha player, I agree with this so very much. (LA Agartha less so though. Why they don't have the ability to summon mercuries directly makes little thematic sense to me... Balance wise though?... Those guys (the mercuries) are far too receptive to being buffed...)

On the topic of blesses, some are worth it, some are not, I prefer minor blesses with good scales though.

[Kagus]

Death blesses can be pretty terrifying on ranged weapons, since it ignores armor and projectiles don't check against the defense stat to see if it "hits". So you've got lucky arrow shots on the one hand and diseasing 2 AN hits checking against MR on the other hand, which lets you rip up a surprising number of heavily armored enemies.

However, the game really doesn't have many sacred archers, and the folks who have them as national units generally only have them as cap-only, helping to reduce their massing potential.


And yeah, it really depends what kind of chassis you have available to you.  Some really need/make use of major blesses, others don't really care that much and do just as well with the statboosts of minor blessing.

[ThtblovesDF]

Bless effects (death, fire) don't apply in anyway to "repel" damage, i.e. a dude with a long spear vs a short range melee?