Abysya - Blood Hunt/Research problem. For Developers especially.

[Cohen]

BoH is good at blood hunting, but lacks research totally, since it can't get Magic scale. This will end up to be outgunned by magic power.

Default Abysya instead has difficulties in both of them, since:

Researchers and Blood hunters are capitol only.

In secondary castles you can recruit only expensive mages (the cheapest costs 200 gold, the other 360), that have only 2 or 3 magic levels.
In capitol you can recruit for 270 gold the warlock, your best researcher, and warlock apprentice (best researcher/price and your blood hunter).
The demonbred has other purposes usually. It can research, blood hunt and cast in battle, adding with great mobility, but it's pretty expensive, and it's capitol only too!!!

So the problem is that you have to choose if go for research, or go for blood.
Usually going for blood means other Nation not restricted to blood hunters in capitol only got before you the blood research for the nice summons and since they're limited too you end up to be able of summoning troops.
Nations like Mictlan, Jotun(with the random Vaettir Hags), or BF Ulm can recruit blood hunters in other castles, and their researchers in capitol.
Even if Abysya take 3 magic is doomed to lose the battle for the Big Devils. Even if Abysya has the skill to forge easily the blood empowering items and the base for summoning Arch Devils (Demonbred + brenzen vessel and blood thorn), Heliophagy (Warlock +1/2 blood empowering items, depending from the random), and could reach easily the Daemon Lords too.
But other blood nation with non capitol only blood hunters will take them easily. (BF Ulm has to waste some slaves for a Fallen Angel usually, 66, but it comes with B3F3, and he needs and item only to summon Arch-Devils).

After this analysys, I'd suggest to add to Abysya default a blood hunter not restricted to capitol only. Warlock Apprentice should be fine, more costy than the BoH counterpart, not sacred, even if it comes with 2 blood. Keeping in mind that Abysyan are already very expensive I believe this would be balanced if the Anthemath Dragon (the best battle mage, 3F) would be limited to capitol only.

[SelfishGene]

It can't be as bad as Black Forest - the blood nation without any blood hunters. I guess scouts are your only option, post-nerf, as 160 non-sacred, 1 blood hunters, are as they say, not very kosher.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
It can't be as bad as Black Forest - the blood nation without any blood hunters. I guess scouts are your only option, post-nerf, as 160 non-sacred, 1 blood hunters, are as they say, not very kosher.

Blood 1 hunters with a sanguine dousing rod are exactly as effective as blood 2 mages without one, and only about 10% less effective than blood 2 mages. Scouts, as a comparison, are successful 10% of the time, while those blood 1 mages with a SDR succeed 90% of the time. At 9 scouts to equal the percentage chance of success the scouts will cost 180 gold to equal the blood 1 mage. Each scout also generates unrest, which decreases the amount of searchers you can put in any given province.

The chance of successfully finding slaves is 10% + 40%*blood. A 1d5000 must be less than the population of the province, and a 1d400 must be greater than the unrest level in the province. A Sanguine Dousing Rod adds 1 to the level when blood hunting. The number of slaves captured
is d6(oe)+blood.

Abysia is just fine. Maybe it's just not for you. Perhaps you should try different nations where you don't have the option to turn your research into army production.

[Pirateiam]

Hmmm.... from what I have seen Abysia in the hands of a good player is quite potent. Play a game against Gaeme or Zen with them playing Abysia and you will see how strong Abysia is!

[ June 22, 2004, 14:49: Message edited by: Pirateiam ]

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
It can't be as bad as Black Forest - the blood nation without any blood hunters. I guess scouts are your only option, post-nerf, as 160 non-sacred, 1 blood hunters, are as they say, not very kosher.

Oh, BF certainly does have its bloodhunters. Members of the Second Tier and 1/4 of your Fortunetellers. And that's not mentioning the Blood Counts, the bloodhunters who make their own patrollers.

OTOH, I would have to say that BF Ulm is the nation least-dependent on its Blood magic (except for perhaps Vanheim).

But yes, a 160g 1-blood searcher is not all that much fun. I'm using them, though.

Abysia, OTOH... yeesh. A 2-blood hunter for 150g is _nice_. And Abysia's mages, believe it or not, are not that overpriced. About 10-20g each, and when you consider their Fire Immunity and Heat auras, that's not all that bad. To put it another way, they're more expensive until someone starts frying your mages.

Abysia needs absolutely no help, IMO. They're scary enough as is.