Lower level priests and blood sacrifices.

[BigJMoney]

Think of my little icon for this topic as a caution sign. The caution is to beware playing Mictlan for now if it turns out that the blood sacrificing mechanic was not changed in light of all the priests in the game having their holy levels reduced by one. Before, the basic priest who sacrificed blood generated two temple checks per sacrifice (using two slaves). Unless something has changed, they will now only be able to generate one. I'm wondering if this was taken into account, and if there are new sacrificing rules possibly like "a priest may sacrifice n number of slaves where n = h + 1". h is, of course, holy.

Anyone with a manual have the scoop? Or a tester/developer? I'm mentioning this now in case things are already being considered for the first patch. Maybe I shouldn't assume this hasn't been considered, but it seems to me someone would have mentioned this at some point when talking about Dom 3 features. If I wait until I get the game, there is no way I will remember it.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Graeme Dice]

BigJMoney said:
Before, the basic priest who sacrificed blood generated two temple checks per sacrifice (using two slaves). Unless something has changed, they will now only be able to generate one.

I'm not sure I see the problem. This makes a priest without a jade knife roughly as effective as a normal temple for every other nation.

[BigJMoney]

You don't see the excellent balance between sacrificing versus automatic temple spread that was achieved in Dominions II? Should I explain it?

=$=

[Graeme Dice]

BigJMoney said:
You don't see the excellent balance between sacrificing versus automatic temple spread that was achieved in Dominions II? Should I explain it?

No, what I'm saying is that it's not a very big deal. Before it cost you 80 gold for the priest, then 2.7 gold and two slaves per turn too get two temple checks per turn. Now it costs you exactly the same in gold cost, but only one slave per turn for a single temple check. Mictlan never had too much trouble pushing their dominion. What this does is bring them down to about the same level as every other nation in a dominion war.

[Ighalli]

But Mictlan also has to buy temples. So now, instead of having a slightly more difficult time spreading dominion and getting a much more efficient effect, they get no advantage (unless they can do multiple slaves a turn) for a priest and a sacrifice each turn. What level are all the priests they can recruit now?

[Graeme Dice]

Ighalli said:
But Mictlan also has to buy temples. So now, instead of having a slightly more difficult time spreading dominion and getting a much more efficient effect, they get no advantage (unless they can do multiple slaves a turn) for a priest and a sacrifice each turn. What level are all the priests they can recruit now?

Requiring blood slaves for dominion spread is likely supposed to be an overall disadvantage, not the advantage for Mictlan that it was in Dom2. This is a balancing factor against their extremely efficient blood slave hunting and having mages that can easily cast the majority of the powerful blood spells.