Balancing the blesses

[MaxWilson]

I think the claim was that the affliction chance (not the 2 an,mr attack) does work with arrows, and possibly spells. In fact, we can check this.

[1 hour later]

It turns out that death blessings do affect both regular combat spells (Falling Fires) AND battlefield spells (Fire Storm).

I set up a battle between myself as Abysia (good battlefield spells) and Niefelheim (high hp, high chance of surviving wounds so we can see if afflictions hit).

#1. Personal battle spells. 2 Anointed of Rhuax, 30 PD, vs. 1 Niefel Jarl and 40 Jotun Huskarls. Abysia had a D9 blessing and nothing else. Both Anointed of Rhuax are scripted to <Falling Fires x2, Flame Eruption x3>. We compare the baseline scenario vs. a blessed scenario where there's an extra Anointed of Rhuax who does <Divine Blessing, Retreat>. I ran this five times for each scenario. I report the outcome from Niefelheim's perspective (victory/defeat, casualties, # of afflicted survivors).

Baseline:
1. Defeat, 26 killed, 1 afflicted
2. Victory, 24 killed, 4 afflicted
3. Victory, 10 killed, 8 afflicted
4. Defeat, 26 killed, 1 afflicted
5. Defeat, 19 killed, 4 afflicted

Abysia Blessed:
1. Defeat, 27 killed, 4 afflicted
2. Defeat, 20 killed, 7 afflicted
3. Defeat, 23 killed, 7 afflicted
4. Defeat, 24 killed, 7 afflicted
5. Victory, 24 killed, 7 afflicted

Clearly the death blessing is working. Many but not all of the casualties were dealt by the flame spells of the Anointed, so it makes sense that the number of afflicted isn't simply 450% in the blessed case (especially because the chance of an afflicted unit dying goes up). In the unblessed case, the only time 8 afflictions happen is when there are 30 survivors, a roughly 25% affliction rate. Compare this to 7 out of 16 survivors afflicted in a typical blessed case. This is a 43% affliction rate, clearly greater. The death blessing affects spells.

#2 Battlefield enchantments. I was really surprised to find that death blessings still worked on battlefield spells. I upped the number of Niefel Huskarls to 70, and used a single Anointed of Rhuax casting <Phoenix Power, Fire Storm, hold x3, Retreat>. As before, in the blessed scenario a second Anointed does <Divine Blessing, retreat>. The results were so clear that I only ran each scenario twice. Niefelheim always won, but got its army wrecked if death blessing was in effect.

Baseline:
1. Victory, 17 killed, 18 afflicted.
2. Victory, 18 killed, 13 afflicted.

Abysia Blessed:
1. Victory, 17 killed, 36 afflicted.
2. Victory, 8 killed, 42 afflicted.

Observe that if Abysia is blessed, fully 2/3 of the Niefel survivors are afflicted. I didn't count how many afflictions each one had, but my impression is that multiple afflictions were common. Even in the unblessed case, Niefelheim took many afflictions, but the blessing doubled or even tripled the affliction rate.

Does this make anyone re-evaluate the "best blessing" for magic-heavy nations?

-Max Wilson

[B0rsuk]

Death bless and casters: I guess it would depend heavily on what spells I'm going to use, and what enemies I am to face. Mass afflictions wouldn't be of much use against maenads or other chaff.

[Rytek]

I havent played any multi player games yet. But seems to me Death 9 bless would make for interesting multiplay diplomacy. Do you really want to start a war knowing even if you win your armies may be crippled?

On a side note, I am really enjoying my late era giant game with e9, nature8 Earth Mother. I recruit the level 1 sacred giant priests everywhere and thug them out. They have really impressive stats when equipped with a bracer of protection and ring of warrior. Team 1 up with their shapeshifted werewolf spell caster using a sacred shroud, ring of warrior and some kind of weapon. Stack them on top of each other. Script the Priest to cast bless then attack. Script the Skinshifter for quickness and attack.
One thing about the earth bless I noticed: If a Sacred is equipped with 2 bracers of protection the bless effect stacks. A blessed Priest has an Armor factor of 30 when using 2 bracers. I dont usually stack the bracers though. Earth gems are in too high of demand. A ring of the warrior fits so much better in the second slot.

[WraithLord]

MaxWilson said:

Python code attached.

-Max Wilson

Nice!!!

It should be possible to augment this to a full blown combat simulator. Would you mind if I take a shot at this, based on your code?

[Sir_Dr_D]

MaxWilson said:
I don't know about "deadly." It does increase the amount of protection a given SC needs against his attackers but even a quadrupled chance of afflictions doesn't matter if you can't damage him in melee in the first place, so it's a deterrent but not an absolute one. Except, I haven't played any MP. Do people feel worse about an afflicted SC than they do about a dead one? It might give you a psychological advantage.

-Max

What I meant was, even with a fire a bless it will take many hits to bring down a giant. With a high death bless most hits would cause an infliction, which means that with every hit the giant gets weaker. And because you usually have so many units ganging up on a giant, the giants defense means less, so the extra attack rating you get from a fire bless doesn't mean as much. I think fire bless is better against human sized troops, and death bless better against giants.

So the death infliction chance even effects spells. I wound't have figured that out, but that certainly makes death blessings a lot more usefull. Thanks for doing that research Max.

[MaxWilson]

WraithLord said:
It should be possible to augment this to a full blown combat simulator. Would you mind if I take a shot at this, based on your code?

Not at all. Do whatever you want with that code. I've actually thought about writing a combat simulator--the nice thing about games like Dom3 is that the rules are transparent enough that you could mostly replicate the battles--but I'm not sure how much interest there is. Be my guest, and email me if you need any help with Python.

-Max
[email protected]

[Sandman]

Does the death bonus affect map attacks as well?

[MaxWilson]

Rytek said:
I havent played any multi player games yet. But seems to me Death 9 bless would make for interesting multiplay diplomacy. Do you really want to start a war knowing even if you win your armies may be crippled?

Good point, although you'd want to change your play style to maximize afflictions instead of trying to keep territory. When I was running those tests, it occurred to me that a weak army would fail to take the province vs. 30 PD, and a strong army would get wrecked by the death-blessed Fire Storm. The obvious countermeasure is to send in a tiny little force and try to make Abysia waste gems casting Fire Storm, but it's non-obvious how many men you need to send to make the combat AI still think it's worth casting. Combine the D9 blessing with a "scorched earth" policy of pillaging your own provinces for extra gold vs. an invading army and you could become a really unattractive target.

(Of course the optimal situation is for everyone else to *believe* you'd pillage your own provinces, and thus avoid attacking you, while in reality you leave them intact and thus still have a chance of winning the game.)

-Max

[Foodstamp]

I just tried death 9 out with firestorm using EA Abysia. OUCH! Afflictions for everyone have a nice day.

[MaxWilson]

Sandman said:
Does the death bonus affect map attacks as well?

I think so.

Scenario: Anointed of Rhuax casting Fires from Afar.
Target: 70 Niefel Huskarls. Two runs of each scenario.

Blessed (D9 Prophet):
1 casualty, 8 afflicted.
0 casualties, 10 afflicted.

Unblessed (non-Prophet):
0 casualties, 1 afflicted
0 casualties, 5 afflicted.

I only ran it twice for each but it sure looks to me like it works. That probably also means that things like MR penalties from items and extra paths also work with map-cast spells.

-Max