Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[thejeff]

Have you actually tried these tactics? Against an actual heavy bless strategy, not the AI?
Those sacred troops tend to be high morale and get a boost to morale from blessing, so they mostly ignore the repels.
And you tend to be fighting on a front, so you don't get that many more attacks on each enemy (10xtroops doesn't mean 10x attacks per round, just that you have more reserves for the front line.) So you don't hit(if high defense sacred) or hurt (if high prot sacred). (And of course if they're berserkers forget it.)

Try 10 W9F9 Van against 60-70 pikemen (roughly the same gold cost, but a lot more resources). I bet the pikes get slaughtered without a kill.

And mages used in the front line die. If your mage doesn't attack with his dagger (50% chance), he might kill a Van or 2 if he casts first. If he uses the larger close area effect spells (Shockwave, flame blast, etc) he'll kill as many of his own troops.
Even with stoneskin/luck, one good (AP?) hit, and he dies. Human mages just don't have the hp to survive.

Of course, some of the non-human mages can do this. They've got the stats to function as mini thugs. Sometimes those close combat spells work better than regular attacks.

[Covenant]

Sometimes you also get a nation with extremely weak Sacreds, and you just need to pass on the bless strategy. EA Ulm Steel Warriors, for example, are great fighters but poor chassis for turning into blessbombs. Using them to explosively expand is a very real strategy but much less so than several other nations. Depending on the MP game in question, several nations may simply be unable to do a blessbombs very well.

[Dedas]

I have tested my theories a bit. Not to the extent that you suggest however, but I will, because to me it sounds very plausible, something that could actually work. I got some experience with Agony and pikemen playing LA Ulm, and it really does work, taking out strength 9 provinces early in the game without taking more than a lost pikemen or two at most. I also fought a big AI army with some blessed troops - but that is the AI of course.

Tomorrow I will conduct some tests on the matter.

Anything that:

1. Adds fatigue to enemies (by more encumbrance for example). This will make it easier for the repelling units to repel, as you have to hit your target to be successful. Most pikemen have 10 in attack, and with a long spear that will make it 11. Every 10 points of fatigue on an enemy unit will make them lose 1 defense point. There are several cheap and also more expensive spells that will achieve this. Also, if they have, say 40 in fatigue (-4 defense) when they join in combat with the pikemen, they will surely get more from the prolonged combat repelling units can put up with low defense units with not extremely high morale. After some rounds they will get really worn out and they are ready to be slaughtered by the flankers or whatever.
Slime is another cheap spell that you can throw at the approaching enemy, as their defenses and AP will effectively be halved.
This tactic is mostly water based.

2. Add attack to the pikemen. The only spell I found that does this is berserk and its variations, it adds attack, protection and strength and decreases defense. And this is really something interesting because pikemen does not really need defense, as they can repel instead. It is of course good to have defense if you fail your repel. Maybe this is something to use on those high defense, high protection Arcoscephale Phalanxes. This only nature based as far as I can see.

3. Attack enemy morale. Here the level 2 blood spell Agony really impresses. You can actually make standard morale (10) flee at once if you use 5-6 slaves. This is not really needed though, when you have repelling units. Just to get their morale down to 10 is to make them vulnerable to repel (at least in my earlier games). So not many slaves are needed, use more wizards instead. Or, if you really have a lot of slaves you can of course widen the area of effect with just one. This is one of the thing that makes this spell so great, it is so dynamic.
This is an all blood based tactic of course.

So lowered morale means fear of the pikes, and that means more fatigue and lowered defense and more hits by repellers and so on. So you don't really need all of the above to succeed, but the more the better obviously - it will surely cut down any losses.

Lots of more to try, but right now I'm going to bed.

Cheers!

[Gandalf Parker]

Want some more? Here is my "I wonder if they tried everything" anti-Helheim list. It keeps growing every day. So far the best thing seems to be investing all of one days gold into PD on some important chokepoint. Of course that doesnt help the small-map blitzers.

Aim boosting spells and Bow of War? (volley of arrows, area affect?)

Awaken Sleeper for a strong commander, give him Thunder Bow (that uses strength boost) and Eye of Void (to see thru glamour). Does giving that Eye of Aiming make him blind or would he still be able to shoot? He has pretty good precision. Adding strength boosters would speed up the kill with that bow.

Do spells like Eagle Eyes help?

What about attacking equipment like the dancing trident or that dove?

Slingers broken up into many small units.

Snake Bladder Stick

Hydras

equipment: Wall Shaker

elementals seem to do well

Spirits of the Wood? Watcher?

[Velusion]

Gandalf Parker said:
Some people tend to play Dom3 with the same settings all the time. Same map size, same number of players, same victory conditions. That cant help but paint a "do this and always win every game" feeling.

And some people don't even play multi-player games but still paint a "MP in dominions 3 is perfect" picture...

And I don't play blitz. I'm not sure why you assume that everyone who critques the balance of Dom3 only plays on small maps with a few people.

[Tyrant]

For all the forum chatter about dual 9 bless i've so far only seen it twice in 6 net games. In both cases it was 9W9S. Once it worked great (MA Ermor), the other guy (Lanka) got clobbered straight away.

[Aleph]

It may be that the game simply does not take its main purpose for nation design tight balance for hyper competitive MP? Certainly, the manual itself suggests in the last paragraphs before the beginning of the Grimoire that there are units (and possibly even whole nations) that are in there to be neat, to provide fun and interest, rather than be min-maxxed into unstoppableness.

In this regard it is somewhat similar to many fighting games. There's usually about 20% of a fighting games roster that makes its way into serious tourney competition. The others are there for beginners, or for people who think that a character that looks cool or has an enjoyable theme is more important than frame advantage. Unless there is a much smaller ratio of actually usable characters, though, or one or two are massively overpowered, most in-the-know fans don't criticize game balance.

Edit: And I don't know crap about MP, but Lanka IMO is really better off with E9N9, not F9W9.

[Gandalf Parker]

Velusion said:

And some people don't even play multi-player games but still paint a "MP in dominions 3 is perfect" picture...

And I don't play blitz. I'm not sure why you assume that everyone who critques the balance of Dom3 only plays on small maps with a few people.

Heehee. Some probably do.
But I run most of the server MP games and have played in many MP games. Many of those with the beta-tester team (inluding the devs) which include many of the best players from the IRC channel. For a good year more than most others have had Dom3. I dont do all that badly in such games.
Dont think you can talk to me like Graeme or Quantum

[Valandil]

!
Gandalf, regardless of MP ability, at least responds to ad hominum attacks with a measure of equanimity.

Of course, it's not exactly necessary to play the game with the intent of winning. As some of you might remember, I played Yomi so that I could send cryptic messages in Japanese to all the pretenders. I died by turn 30. And it was fun. Oh, and being backstabbed by the treacherous Lankan dogs was probably my favourite moment of Dom3 thus far. Call me a masochist.

[Meglobob]

Valandil said:
Of course, it's not exactly necessary to play the game with the intent of winning.

Yes I agree, its perfectly ok for a person to join a MP game with no intention or expectation of winning. The aim should be to have fun, enjoyment and winning is just a bonus if it comes along.