Fomoria

[Endoperez]

The only INHERENTLY ethereal sacreds (that don't have to be summoned), probably. However, for the cheap, cheap Alteration 3 you get Body Ethereal... For some nations, that's even worse. Thankfully, the nations with cheap astral mages rarely have access to the worst sacred offenders. Can you imagine Niefel Giants with LA Jotunheim's Seithkona and overall research ability?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

First, Unmarked Champions can bless themselves, but unless you have the bless self mod, that can pile up. Druids are the better blessing choice for Unmarked (troops), especially since a good bless makes them fairly effective in small amounts.

The info here has been a result of discussions, limited tests, not multiplayer experience.

I haven't played thug-bless nations before, so I'm a bit noobish. Feel free to correct me.

First, the extremes of each path
Divine Serpent (50 Points), Nature 10 (224 points)
A 20% Regen is nice, but the Berserk has its drawbacks.
You could go with nature 8 for a mere 120 points, giving you 15% regen, and a lot of free points, but I didn't try it this time.

You'll want scales that will allow you to recruit 5 Unmarked a turn, as a Druid conveniently leads ten of. 300 gold, 135 resources, plus occasional 150/3. You get 7 regen, lessened afflictions, protection/attack/strength bonus, but some defense penalty. Teams of ten cleared out quite a few provinces. No real drawback to nature yet. You won't get many afflictions, but you will get them sometimes thanks to uneven bless coverage.

The Fomorian Giants/Kings benefit from this as well, but berserk runs counter to mistform, mirror image. You get 13 hp/turn regen. The regen makes them rather effective at clearing underwater provinces, since they can shrug off a full green bar of poison. I thought I saw some funny fatigue numbers, but it seems its a positioning issue, where some of the Giants didn't make it to the fight, pathfinding combined with kills, I suppose. A Fomorian King leading 5 Fomorian giants is quite effective at clearing underwater provinces, which is good, because this is a very expensive combination. Depending on the independent level, they can clear maybe half of the underwater provinces on their own. The rest will slaughter them, though not at a cost. If you do want to expand underwater, I suggest taking a team into the weakest shore province you can find and then use them only as support for whatever tritons/whatever you can find. They'll add the punch that will let you take out kraken and sea trolls, but are too expensive. With the poor amphibian penalty as well, they are still powerful, but very unreliable dodgers/attackers. And you rocket to 8 encumberance.

While Fomorian Giants aren't superior to Niefel jarls, they also avoid the two weaknesses, fire and hot provinces. Be sure to use the Javelins, as well, _only_ if they are on the frontline. You'll be very unlikely to hit anything between your low precision and greater strength=range, but if you don't have to worry about friendly fire, it'll do enough damage to kill that one lone cavalry you did manage to hit out of two salvoes. Whoopee. While I think you'll often, especially earlier on, be better off recruiting Unmarked, the whole move-three thing is worth noting. Sometimes, you can attack from two provinces away. You needn't be on the border to attack your enemy. If you find yourself outnumbered while _raiding_ lightly defended provinces, Dark Hounds or Barghests can keep up, while saving on the gold costs. A pity your giants don't have darkvision, but then you can't have everything.

Need to restart, test bless with summons, Barghest should benefit nicely, Morrigans, less so, but that's theory. Probably won't do it though, quite willing to have someone else do so.

Fomorian Kings don't really see much benefit from a high nature bless. You've got the inexpensive mirror image and mistform keeping your damage down for as long as they last. In fact, the bless doesn't help until mirror image fails, which is less than ideal.

Earth Mother (75 points)
That same n10 bless costs you an additional 360 points.
N9, 288. N8, 224. Twin level nine blesses are possible, but definetly not recommended. You've got sacreds who will not benefit completely from the protection, but Fomoria is a nation who benefits greatly from net positive scales. No point blessing what you can't build. I'll go with N6, E6 for my pretender. For the moment, easy AI opponent, easy research, 5 dominion, 2 order, 2 producivity, 1 growth, and 1 magic. You probably can find better scales, but this should be sufficent for testing the bless. Worth noting is four national heros- no misfortune 3 if you want to see them.

Four hps/turn and three reinvig on the Unmarked isn't that awesome, but more then enough to deal with even Cataphracts. 10 and a druid still make excellent indie clearing teams. Sign, perhaps, that the N10 bless earlier may be overkill.

The bless opens up an interesting option on the Fomorian Kings with a water random. Rainbow armor, while not the best, gives MR and reinvig. Combined with a weightless shield and the bless, you get six reinvig a round with three encumberance. You can cast quickness for double the attacks, with a very nice +3 att/def bonus. Throw on the boots of the Messenger, and your fatigue will go down at a good clip.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

As an aside, at least against the AI:
A N6, E6 Fomorian King (prophet) with
Lightning Spear
Weightless Tower Shield
Rainbow Armor
Boots of the Messenger

Divine Blessing, Holy Avenger, Mirror Image, Mistform, Quickness-> attack

can solo armies quite well. EVEN when I was careless and raided deep into enemy dominion, I survived even starting the battle with 17 hp. Not something I want to repeat, however.

My prophet SC had a whopping 17 hitpoints (whoops), 20 attack, 20 defense, 10 reinvigoration. Hehe... I'll update the stats somewhere a little more friendly. And a prophet doesn't require blessing...

That's more like it. In friendly dominion, I've got a nice 170 hitpoints. Combine those six mirror images with a very nice defense, and I'm set.

Now it's time to try some other blesses.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Fire Dragon 8.

Fire isn't a natural bless for Fomoria, but it makes 10 unmarked killers of indies as well. I suppose it may have something to do with repel, in addition to a higher kill count.

Water comes a bit more natural to Fomoria, with both the Fomorian God King and Lady of Springs.

Lady of the Springs, Water 9, Nature 6.
I would have rather had another scale than that last point of water. This bless works nicely, as well. Counting Shield parry, you have 18 points of defense on your Unmarked, and 4 points of regen. I consider this bless superior to the earth-nature combo. At least in my limited tests, but especially because it benefits all of your sacreds, not merely the fully armored.

My last experiment isn't designed for MP. I'll see what I can learn from it, though. It's an imprisoned Fomorian Sorceror with 5 dominion, 4 FAWEDN blessing. I really don't need the air, what with my mages, but...

whoops, posted a little early. Will edit the rest in shortly.

Hmmm... it appears even unblessed Unmarked can clear quite a few provinces in mere 10 unit squads. This most of my conclusions off the mark.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

It turns out I need a new frikkin baseline or an entire game to judge the results of my bless.

Any suggestion for a good non-random lab/baseline?

And I thought I was so clever with water/nature. Anyways... it seems like its a pretty good plan to send out a team of unmarked every other turn, Champion, Unmarked Champion, OR Druid. It'll allow you some research time as well. I was having trouble figuring out where to fit in the research/nemedian sorceresses with this nation.

Anybody have any triple nine bless experiments to share?

[sector24]

Well technically Niefel Giants don't need a bless to crush indies either. I tried a 9 nature 9 earth bless with Fomoria and totally destroyed the AI. I'm not really sure what would be the most appropriate bless though. The lack of a chill aura really makes Fomorian giants prone to getting swarmed, so maybe several light blesses rather than two big ones. Fire, Nature, Water for starters. But I don't know about MP of course.