Line #1 YMMV/Dominions


1	* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: If you get to the late game, expect everyone who isn't a popkill nation to be gunning for blood magic due to its status as a GameBreaker.
2	** Similarly, expect multiple units of thugs and supercombatatants to become commonplace, with thug-kilers and anti-supercombatatants becoming a necessity.
3	*** On thugs, it's common to use AOE weapons and some sort of crowd control to deal with province defense, the most common being Frost Brand and Fire Brand, the two cheapest ones, and the Vine Shield for entangling low strength units. This is often paired with Rings of Regeneration on big units and protection items on smaller units to make them nearly invulnerable to chaff units while still being incredibly powerful at killing.
4	** On mages, it's common to use tons of boosters to get effects one might not be able to get otherwise, such as leveling up a mage to summon higher level monsters or cast battlefield spells.
5	* GameBreaker: Generally, all forms of blood magic qualify as such, especially in Dom 5. This is because, especially in Dom 5, you can use a sizable army to negate the unrest caused by blood hunting, allowing you to keep hunting in a given province until your enemies reach it. Since blood hunting tends to give more slaves per hunt than sites give gems per turn, this can rapidly snowball out of control if set up properly. Adding to the fact that many blood sacrifices are very powerful in exchange for requiring many blood slaves, this can win you the game easily by simply overpowering all other forms of magic. There is a reason most multiplayer games end with mass blood hunts even in the Early Era.
6	* JerkassWoobie: Atlanteans in Late Age, possible AssholeVictim and HeWhoFightsMonsters. We will not ask what happened to the Caelian smiths who were kidnapped and forced to teach ice smithing, [[YouHaveOutLivedYourUsefulness but seeing they aren't around...]] Are those your relatives restarting the horrid blood rites of Mictlan overseas?
7	* LaserGuidedKarma: The Kindly Ones. Three horrific entities from Greek Mythology hunt down (e.g duel alone at night) everyone who remotely harmed an innocent virgin for her blood. Every month. Until they are all dead. Any blood-heavy rival is going to lose blood mages at an incredible rate every turn.
8	* MoralEventHorizon: Casting Burden of Time. InUniverse it's perhaps the most vile spell that is available to players. Out of universe, setting it off during a multi-player game is a sure-fire way to get ''everybody'' (aside from the [=AI=]) to gang up on you. Considering that it quickly ages ''the whole world'', increases unrest and about 2% of world population dies every month because of this spell, it's hard to argue with this reaction.
9	** A lot of (if not all of them) Blood Magic spells count as well, mixed with jet-grade NightmareFuel. Sacrificing an innocent girl for the smallest effect in the first place (which aren't always clean, some of them involve tying them to feast tables and let them be devoured alive by demons, skinning them alive, boiling them in cauldrons), later rituals make the caster sacrifice hundreds of girls in a beastly ritual and summoning incredibly evil demons who will seduce, rape, bribe and murder people for fun.
10	*** This is doubly true for the spell Astral Corruption, which literally makes all non-blood magic attract horrors, which tend to kill everthing they attack. Not only is this spell terrifying from a lore perspective, if you cast this in Multiplayer, everything that's not a Blood mage will die very rapidly, crippling anyone who doesn't have a blood economy set up, and all of those who survive (usually by having a blood economy to keep one spell source avaiable) will immediately gang up on the person who cast the spell.
11	* MotiveDecay: Hits over half of the planet as time goes by. Even in multiplayer games irrelevant of the plot, blood magic will be an inevitable source, it is senseless not to use it unless your factions autokills local population like Ermor. Doubles as GameplayandStoryIntegration and ComplacentGamingSyndrome.

Context YMMV / Dominions