Blessed Sacred Troops: what is YOUR view/favorite?

[Ravagemk2]

Or views and favorites, as the case may be.

First off, I apologize if there is a topic about this kind of thing already.(lousy at finding stuff x.x)

Truth be told, I'm fairly new to the game, and I've been wondering what seems to be popular or at least personal favorites in regard to blessings on your stuff.

I'm trying my hand at a Fire, Water and Astral (all 9's) setup for (Early Age) Mictlan at present. First time I've ever given a bit of thought to blessings, but the non sacred stuff in that empire isn't exactly efficient.

Feel free to give feedback on my above setup.
Yes, you may ridicule it or even tear it to pieces, but at least tell me WHY you'd do it differently.

Note that I am NOT looking for JUST Mictlan blessings specificly, I'm more interested in a general view and/or for various empires.

So please, share some of your views and or favorites.
Of course, I can understand if you'd prefer to keep your secret weapons a secret

[Sawyer]

One of the things I like about Mictlan is you don't seem to need a great bless to make the jaguar warriors formidable. They're so easy to mass that you don't need a crazy 9F/9W bless or anything. This is compounded with the jaguar transformation.

But then again I don't seem to be doing too well in the MP game I'm playing, so I could be off here.

[Gregstrom]

Mictlan are one of the only nations that can cope with a triple bless like that, for a whole raft of reasons.

Most nations can only sustain a double bless, and many of those don't have any reason to.

As a general rule, to go for a double bless you want a nation to have very capable sacreds. Lanka's Palankashas and Tir's Tuatha are examples. You can also go for a dual bless if you have sacreds which are of above-average quality and recruitable everywhere.

If a nation has weak sacreds (C'tis' sacred serpents and Marignon's Flagellants are good examples), a strong bless isn't worthwhile.

Paths for blesses vary. Some rules of thumb:

If the sacred has high strength (15+), it's probably not worth going for F9 - the AP damage isn't needed.

If the sacred has high defence already, or other good defensive abilities, W9 is a good way to make them nearly invulnerable. If they're very weak defensively, W9 won't do too much for them and may not be worthwhile. The 50% haste off W9 is a nice perk for most sacreds.

If the sacred has over 30-40 hits, a high N bless will add a lot of staying power to them - N9's berserk can be pretty hard to survive if you don't regenerate a lot of hits per round.

Sacreds with very heavy armour like E9, both for the extra armour and for the reinvigoration that keeps them going longer. Sacred spellcasters love an Earth bless too.

Astral-9 bless is a late-game thing, mostly. The MR boost helps low-MR sacreds in mid to late-game against nasty high power spells. Also, S9 means your pretender is built to cast Wish and Master Enslave.

Death blesses are pretty niche use - if you're sure you'll be facing ethereal hordes it might be worthwhile. Sacred casters who can cast mass damage spells might like a Death bless - it'll boost the effect of something like an Earthquake by giving surviving victims of the spell nasty afflictions.

Don't take Blood 9 for the bless - it's worthless. The extra strength from lower blesses is probably a bit niche too.

Really don't take Air for the bless.

[chrispedersen]

I was the first person that used to argue that Mictlan is an incredibly formidle nation, when it was commonly held to be weenie.

You are using one of the top 3 blesses that I like; I also like a F9, A9, N9, and F9 N9, Ax, where x>=4.

Personally, I think bless strategies are unbeatable (and unbalanced) in Dominions. However, I'm playing my first mp with Dominion pros - sooooooo I may be completely wrong.

My favorite nations for bless strategies are
TienChi, Ermor, Marignon, Mictlan, and Lanka, more or less in that order.

[sector24]

One thing I like about the bless concept is that the paths with the most powerful magic (Blood, Death, Astral to a point) typically have the worst blesses, and the paths that are great for blesses don't have end game spells. For example, nothing in the Earth, Fire, Nature, or Water path requires higher than 6 to cast or forge. There's only 1 Air spell that requires A7.

Air and Astral are a bit of an anomaly, but it holds true for the elemental magic paths. I actually think the Air bless should be significantly improved for this reason.

I think my favorite bless nation is either EA Niefelheim or EA Lanka. When I don't feel like strategizing or heavy micromanagement, I love wiping out the AI with hordes of Niefel Giants. I like Lanka because the sacred bless extends far beyond the capital troops into regular forts, and blood summons.

[archaeolept]

I was the first person that used to argue that Mictlan is an incredibly formidle nation, when it was commonly held to be weenie.

that's a rather strong claim. Serious bless strats for mictlan date back almost four years.

[VedalkenBear]

For myself, I seem drawn to high-Earth blesses to use with Sacred Mages or Astral Mages. E.g., an Earth-9 Pretender for any version of Arco is cute since you can manufacture the Shroud of the Battle Saint for all of your Mystics/other mages. Get 12 Prot and 4 Reinvigoration with no encumbrance and 5 astral pearls is a cute trick.

[Lingchih]

Yes, the Niefel Giants are probably the most fun to uber-bless, and then watch them kill entire armies on their own. They are good, quick, easy fun. Bless 'em, buff 'em, and then send them out.

My personal favorite though, is MA Ermor's Shadow Vestals. With the right bless, they are almost unstoppable (there are ways to stop them, but the AI never figures it out, and many players do not either). It's great fun to watch a handful of them take out a strong Indie, and also fun to watch the first time an unsuspecting player attacks them.

True, they are capitol only, but they are cheap, and they hardly ever die, so you can actually build a good bless strategy around them.

[Endoperez]

archaeolept said:

that's a rather strong claim. Serious bless strats for mictlan date back almost four years.

His first post was on June 16th 2004, suggesting double bless for Mictlan. It was in a thread Tinkthank made about Mictlan being very weak, and in which Graeme Dice, PvK and Norfleet (of posters with 2000+ posts) didn't mention double-bless spesifically. Teraswaerto used a F9 single bless.

It seems he's actually right!

[Ninave]

My favourite blessed troops are LA Tien'Chis Ancestor Vessels. They are good as-is, but with something like quickness, little defence/protection and offencive (fire/death) they are just lovable.