Feature Idea: out of combat bless command

[BNRON]

What would people think of having a way to have priests perform out of combat blesses?

At present, it feels a bit un-thematic that one can worship a fire god, have a bless of plus 15 fire resistance, claim the throne of flames, and have your in-combat sacred more or less immune to fire, to then enter into a war where an enemy nation starts raining artillery flames from the sky down on you, and then find your priests are useless, and have all your sacred die (as they are not blessed out of combat). In the face of such threats, I imagine the priest taking to the streets and doing bless patrols to ensure that key military targets (your sacred troops and commanders) are blessed.

The suggestion: create a new order for priests: "bless." The "bless" command would tell a priest to spend its turn blessing sacred troops and commanders (protecting them for a single turn).
- A level 1 priest set to the command could ensure that up to 20 troops are blessed this turn, and up to 2 commanders (plus itself).
- A level 2 priest could ensure that 50 troops are blessed, plus 5 commanders (plus itself),
- A level 3 priest could ensure that say 100 troops are blessed, plus 10 commanders (plus itself).

Thematically, I think this capability would make a lot of sense and (depending on numbers of units each priest can bless a turn) I think it could be balanced due to the opportunity cost of having priests set to bless (rather than e.g., research or reanimate, etc...).

[Mormacil]

Certain blesses only working in combat is a balance choice. Other blesses already work outside of combat.

[BNRON]

I disagree. I do not think certain blesses *only* working in combat is a balance choice.

I think instead that certain bless effects not always being on (and so requiring the priest to cast the blessing spell at the start of combat) is core to dominion (both balance-wise, thematically and mechanically). E.g., needing blessing to be cast means that sacred must be accompanied by priests to bless them, and introduces a key difference between H1 and H3 priests, etc... That priests bless units defines much of the priest *role*.

I think that combat blesses not working outside of combat follows from the logical consequence of this. For example, given that fire resistance requires a blessing spell to activate shows that units started the combat without fire resistance, hence they should not have fire resistance outside of combat. And if they were blessed with fire resistance outside of combat why don't they start combat with that resistance? etc...

By allowing priests an out of combat bless command (like the commands to preach, research, defend, assassinate) having units that are out of combat blessed makes thematic sense. Priest still a have a blessing role (and actually even more of one). There is also a cost to using priests for out of combat blessing, the priest turns not spent doing other things. The change might introduce a (very minor) advantage for a defending army though (as arguably if the priests spend their turn blessing troops those troops should maybe start combat blessed), but it would also make sense and be thematic.

[Mormacil]

What you describe is still balance, unit roles is part of balance. I still do not at all agree with your idea as blesses outside of combat already exist. Blesses that currently only work in combat are designed that way for balance.

[BNRON]

I refer to thematic role. Part of the identity of the priest is that they bless units. If units do not need to be blessed by a priest then that muddies the priest role.

I attempted the explain how not having active blesses out of combat follows as a consequence of having the blessing spell in combat. The blesses that apply outside of combat also do not require a bless spell to be cast to apply in-combat (e.g., larger). Did I make the argument clearly? I am happy to clarify it.

I just think having priests on bless patrols would be great! (and make things more immersive). But I can also totally see people not liking the idea, or not wanting to spend time implementing it, etc...

[amuys]

Just forge a shroud

[Ibis]

Or a flask of holy water. It doesn't apply to units but I'm personnally fine with that.

Otherwise with a out of combat bless feature, resistances bless would become even more important among other balance issues like mentioned above

[BNRON]

I agree priests having an out-of-combat bless command would introduce extra balance complexity. One could tune the balance by tuning the amounts of units a priest blesses, and (provided it is tuned), I think one might be able to balance the mechanic. As described there is an opportunity cost in a lot of cases (e.g. to protect a non-priest research core with 1 holy priests would take one third of all commanders being priests which would be a significant outlay and require logistics, pre-planning, etc...). I think one main balance concern would be that it would make priest researchers stronger than non-priest researchers (and so introduce additional nation asymmetry).

To clarify, I think the mechanic would serve a very different role from a shroud or a flask of holy water. E.g., it would be a way to protect troops from things like Fires from the Sky (via priests rather than Domes!)

Just to be clear, I am not upset about the current balance of in and out of combat blesses (although I am excited to see the new dom6 blesses!)

I just think priests having a bless command would be a nice feature. Happy if others disagree (seems a few do!). I am also happy if others would like the feature were it there but consider it not worth the effort it would take to implement. There more I think about it the more I see it as requiring a lot of fine tuning.