Sunday, 22nd January 2012, 01:40 by TwilightPhoenix
I think it might help to break things down again a bit.
Again, here's all the sacrificers: Ashenzari, Beogh, Elyvilon, Fedhas, Jiyva, Lugonu, Makhleb, Nemelex, Okawaru, Trog, and Zin.
Beogh, Fedhas, Jiyva, Lucy, Makhleb, Nemelex, Oka, and Trog all have corpse sacrificing. Jiyva and Nemelex just have it as part of a bigger whole. Beogh only wants orc bodies and Fedhas can pop all the corpses on the screen, as well as zombies with the same ability.
Ash, Elyvilon, Fedhas, Jiyva, Nemelex, and Trog have item sacrifices. Ash just wants some scrolls, Ely some weapons, and Trog books, and Fedhas fruit for some abilities. Jiyva and Nemelex want everything.
Looking at them individually now...
Ashenzari only wants Scrolls of Remove Curse and even then it's not for direct piety gain, but rather one-way resource conversion. It implements an interesting choice if you don't have tons of Scrolls of Remove Curse and you only do it on occasion, so Ash sacrifice is probably fine as is.
Beogh only wants Orc bodies, flavored as consecrating them and, conversely, dislikes it when you defile them in any way, such as butchering or raising them from the dead. Beogh sacrifice doesn't happen as often because Orcs are only very common for a small part of the game and, ideally, they'd be joining you instead of getting killed by you in order to be sacrificed. Beogh's other conduct for piety gain is killing everything, particularly enemy priests. Consecrating corpses is nice and flavorful, but perhaps could be done in a more interesting way than the standard pray over the dead body for piety.
Elyvilon wants you to sacrifice weapons in the name of pacifism. I don't play trunk, but I'm told it's going towards weapon sacrifices are really just there for early piety and cannot sustain a player. Ely's main form of piety gain will be pacification if trunk stays as it is now. If minor heal was granted for free, weapon sacrificing could be ditched altogether, though Ely followers would lose the ability to easily dispose of any dangerous weapons laying about.
Fedhas wants you to sacrifice corpses and zombies. Unlike other gods, Fedhas sacrifices everything in sight instantly and creates toadstools, which can be used for other abilities. These corpses are also an important resource for a Fedhas follow because, while they can't use them for necro-stuff, they can create spores using Reproduction, which can be quite powerful. This leaves an interesting choice of using the bodies for piety and toadstools or spending piety and the corpses for inducing explosive confusion on enemies. Fedhas has no other means to gain piety, which is a problem regardless if sacrificing stays or not because Fedhas has little to no ability to gain piety in places where there are few corpses and zombies. Some Fedhas abilities also require fruit, which can either be a very easy resource or very hard, depending on RNG, and there's no way to get more other than finding it on the ground or in a shop. But, as for Fedhas' sacrificing itself, probably fine as is.
Jiyva slurps up everything, whether you like it or not, whether it's on screen or not, whether it's even on the same floor as the player or not. Slimes spawn on their own and the player can call a Jelly at will too. Once they're on the level, sacrifice is pretty much automated without any input needed from the player. So automated that playing Jiyva means the player will miss out on loot. Followers can pray to make slimes in LOS stop slurping stuff up for a bit at the cost of piety. Because Jiyva sacrifice is automated and is a huge part of it's conduct and the choices to be made whether to worship it or not, Jiyva sacrifice is probably fine.
Lucy takes standard corpses and her only other way is to kill everything except Demons. Since corpses are rare in extended, this makes Lucy have a bit of trouble in Pan and Hell, sacrifice being present or not. However, last I heard there are plans to overhaul Lucy's conduct to corrupting altars and other stuff, so fixing up Lucy may very well already be underway.
Makhleb and Oka both like the player killing stuff and sacrificing corpses with little to no flavor attached to the latter. They have no other means to gain piety. As such, they are probably the biggest offenders here and can stand some looking at.
Nemelex I already covered above but, in brief, he wants everything. What the player sacrifices determines what kinds of decks they get, so there are some choices to be made about what to sacrifice and what to keep. Nemelex is also a good way to get rid of dangerous weapons and armor laying about the player doesn't want to fall (back) into enemy hands. Nemelex's other piety gain method is through using cards, but he doesn't gift a deck until the player sacrifices some stuff.
Trog has two sacrifices going on. First is the standard blowing up of corpses. As a god that disallows magic, the choice with a corpse is basically food or piety, unless you don't eat then it's just piety. Trog's corpse sacrificing is probably among the least interesting since if you're not hungry and don't need to run away, you sacrifice it. Now, on the other hand, Trog's other sacrifice method, burning spell books, is quite interesting and flavorful despite the fact a Trog follower isn't allowed to cast spells anyway. Not to mention tactically useful as they create clouds of fire and can be done from anywhere in the book's LOS. From killing stuff to blocking off a passage, burning books has many uses and all of them gain piety too. Corpse sacrificing here probably could use a look, but the spellbook sacrificing is probably fine as is.
And finally, Zin. Go to his altar and sacr... err... donate some gold. For much of the game, a player is going to want to keep gold for shops, so there's some decisions to be made. The downsides to Zin's sacrificing is having to trek all the way back to an altar and always sacrificing half of your total. Zin's alternative means is killing rotters, shapeshifters, and polymorphers, among a few others, and those are pretty uncommon for chunks of the game, so you'll want to give some gold sooner or later. Zin's sacrifice is mostly fine, but could use some tweaking so a player doesn't have to run from Zot:3 to Temple or wherever if they need a boost in piety.
So, in my opinion, it looks like this.
Probably fine as is: Ash, Jiyva, Trog spellbooks, Fedhas (though has other issues)
Needs some tweaks, but are almost fine: Zin
Could be made more interesting or, maybe with some tweaks to the god if needed, removed: Beogh, Oka, Makhleb, Ely, Trog corpses
Would need an overhaul: Nemelex
I think is already getting overhauled: Lucy
So, personally, I would be focused on Beogh, Oka, Makhleb, Ely, and Trog corpses in this discussion (though you may disagree). Nemelex, while he does apply, is a whole can of worms on his own and would need too much done (and done differently) to be covered in this broader topic.
Somewhat unrelated, I think that a lot of god's overall conducts could use a look at. There's way too much of "kill stuff and sacrifice other stuff and don't be idle for too long, otherwise you can do whatever". But, that's a whole 'nother topic.
The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.
