Blessings
In Dominions 3 the power of your Pretender God also shows in what effects your Sacred Troops get when they are blessed.
How Bless Works
For Bless to activate you need a Sacred unit and a Priest who can cast Bless. When the priest casts Bless on the Sacred unit the Sacred unit will get Blessed and thus gain the effects from your Pretender God's bless effects.
The spell Bless does nothing for non-sacred units.
Your prophet is always blessed.
The Bless Effects
The bless effects are tied to your Pretender God's starting magic paths. Dying, empowering or wearing magic boosting items has no effect on them.
- For all magic paths (or for none) - Morale +3
- Fire 4 - Attack Skill +2
- Fire 6 - Attack Skill +3
- Fire 8 - Attack Skill +4
- Fire 9 - Flaming Weapons (+6 Armor Piercing damage) & Attack Skill +4
- Fire 10 - Flaming Weapons (+6 Armor Piercing damage) & Attack Skill +5
- Air 4 - Air Shield (20%)
- Air 5 - Air Shield (30%)
- Air 6 - Air Shield (40%)
- Air 7 - Air Shield (50%)
- Air 8 - Air Shield (60%)
- Air 9 - Shock resistance (75%) & Air Shield (70%)
- Air 10 - Shock resistance (75%) & Air Shield (80%)
- Water 4 - Defense Skill +2
- Water 6 - Defense Skill +3
- Water 8 - Defense Skill +4
- Water 9 - Quickness (50%) & Defense Skill +4
- Water 10 - Quickness (50%) & Defense Skill +5
- Earth 4 - Reinvigoration 2
- Earth 6 - Reinvigoration 3
- Earth 8 - Reinvigoration 4
- Earth 9 - Armor value +4 & Reinvigoration 4
- Earth 10 - Armor value +4 & Reinvigoration 5
- Astral 4 - Magic Resistance +1 (Max 18)
- Astral 6 - Magic Resistance +2
- Astral 8 - Magic Resistance +3
- Astral 9 - Twist Fate (protection from first hit) & Magic Resistance +3
- Astral 10 - Twist Fate & Magic Resistance +4
- Death 4 - Chance to causes more afflictions in battle +100%
- Death 5 - Chance to causes more afflictions in battle +150%
- Death 6 - Chance to causes more afflictions in battle +200%
- Death 7 - Chance to causes more afflictions in battle +250%
- Death 8 - Chance to causes more afflictions in battle +300%
- Death 9 - Death weapons & Affliction chance +350%
- Death 10 - Death weapons & Affliction chance +400%
- Nature 4 - Regeneration +5%
- Nature 6 - Regeneration +10%
- Nature 8 - Regeneration +15%
- Nature 9 - Regeneration +15% & Berserk +2
- Nature 10 - Regeneration +20% & Berserk +2
- Blood 4 - Strength +2
- Blood 6 - Strength +3
- Blood 8 - Strength +4
- Blood 9 - Death Curse & Strength +4
- Blood 10 - Death Curse & Strength +5
Notes and Speculation
Air Shield causes many "weapon" missile attack such as bow arrows, crossbow bolts and sling stones to deviate away from the unit. It's not full protection though as the missile can land on your unit or some other unit.
Death and Nature blessings got changed and are subjects to speculation. For example the exact amount of the Armor Negating damage is unknown.
Bless Strategy
Some nations benefit and perhaps even require a bless strategy to work. As Bless effects require many points to be truely powerful such strategy is very design point intensive as Bless strategy requires in most of cases on or two Paths of magic with 9 in it though lower levels can work in some cases. You also need high level of Dominions to recruit as many sacred units as possible as you can recruit 1 Sacred unit per 1 level of Dominions in the province. When thinking of Bless strategy think of the following factors:
- Does the nation have sacred units?
- Are the Sacred units good?
- Can you build the sacred units in masses?
- Can you build the units out of your capital?
- Does the nation need the sacred units to be succesful?
- Do you have acces to Divine Bless priest spell with that nation?
- Can the nation afford to take neutral or even negative scales?
If the answer to majority of those questions is "yes" then a bless strategy can be succesful. Next you need to think of the following:
- Are the sacred units easy to get and cheap, or are they hard to get and powerful?
- Which makes the units more powerful: a bless that plays into their strength, or a bless that reduces the unit's weaknesses?
- What bless the unit needs to get to the goal you've set?
- Is there a pretender that can offer the bless or blesses you need in affordable forms?
- Can you use Dormant or Imprisoned options to get more points?
This is a very important part as one could say that a Bless strategy lives and dies by this point. A good example of a bless strategy is Marignon taking Fire 9 pretender. This gives the Flagellants flaming Weapons as well as an huge boost to the attack value. Blessed Flaggelants attack accurate (+4 to Attack) with their Flails that now also do 6 points of Armor Piercing damage on a hit. And a flail has two attack per round. Three Flagellants with such bless can do 36 points of AP damage at an optimal situation and this is before their base damage comes in. This strategy purely plays into the strength of the Flagellants which are their large number of attacks and human wave attack potential. It does nothing to alleviate their weaknesses.
An example of a strategy that goes to negate weaknesses is taking a pretender with 9 earth as Arcoscephale. This gives you powerful Reinvigoration which can also help your mages if you make them Battle Saint's Shrouds which makes them Blessed even if they aren't sacred. But this bless also gives the heavily armored Heart Companions even better protection and reinvigoration to keep fatigue (from the heavy armor) at bay. While perhaps not such a killer strategy as the aforementioned Flagellant strategy this one illustrates how to use Bless effects to negate weaknesses. Another nation with sacred units suffering from fatigue problems is Abysia, but their sacred units also greatly benefit from a Fire or even a Water bless.
There are great many different bless strategies which range from moderate to extreme. Part of the fun of the game is trying them out and finding a strategy that fits your style and needs.