Miniblood nations - rates

[Slobby]

I'm playing around with EA Van with the 1st CBM that took away hammers. Now there's been some discussion as to miniblood nations, like EA Van, and how removing SDRs hits them hard.

So in my test game I have 2 B2 vandrotts blood hunting a province and they're pulling in ~25-30 slaves every 2 turns.

My question then is what is the ideal expectation of a blood income from a miniblood nation?

To me, having never played a heavy blood nation, 15 slaves/turn is pretty good, and I only have 2 mages doing it right now. I would think that for a heavy blood nation you would want as many as possible but is 100 for a heavy blood realistic? Too small? What then of miniblood in comparison?

Thoughts?

[SirMu]

Depends on how many mages you invest in it. Without sacrificing too much of anything else, you should be able to pull about 50 blood slaves a turn.

[Corinthian]

The problem with removing SDRs is that blood slaves for nations with only B1 hunters suddenly became twice as expensive. Why? Because a B2 mage will find 120% more bloodslaves on average (guesstimate) than a B1 will and now they cant boost them cheaply. EA Vanheim has expensive capitol only mages with a chance for B2. But you can hardly hope to build a blood economy on those alone.

[Slobby]

The arguement for removing SDRs has been made already...this thread isn't for that purpose. I'm merely concerned with rates.

[P3D]

Strictly speaking, the price of blood saves is mainly determined by your scales, as you need to turn taxes to 0. The same 5000-population province can yield 40 to 80gpt. In the case of vanheim, it is usually higher (O3 scales).
If you hunt by four B1 Vans (cost again as much as 15 turns of lost income from blood hunting), the maintenance is around 37gpt.

[Corinthian]

The price of a bloodslave is also affected by the magic site settings in the game. High settings = more bloodslaves. I think.

You should also remember the opportunity cost of recruiting a bloodhunter. A B2 bloodhunter will only require half as many mage recruiting turns/slots as a B1. And the freed recruit slot from a B2 can, for example, be used to buy a researcher in stead.

[Valerius]

15 slaves/turn is fine for forging and some blood sacrificing but you won't get too far with summoning. I'd say 100 blood slaves/turn for a heavy blood nation is too low. When playing MA Aby (good, but cap only, blood hunters) I'm looking for at least 150, preferably 200. With Mictlan (which I haven't played) I'd expect even higher numbers. When playing Van my goal has typically been 75-100/turn (if I can get GoNB up then Van's horribly cost-inefficient blood hunters become more tolerable and I aim for higher numbers ). Of course map size affects these numbers but this is roughly what I'd aim for in an 8-12 player game.

As for Van post-SDR, I'd suggest using all of your B2 Vanadrotts for blood hunting. Additional, you'll want some blood boosters around and when they are not being used in forging/combat give them to Vanjarls to get a few extra blood hunters. I haven't played any post CBM 1.6 games but I can't see using Vanjarls without a booster/SDR - just too cost inefficent at that point. So, if by turn 50 you've split your cap recruitment 40% dwarves and 60% Vanadrott's you'll have about 7 B2 Vanadrott's hunting and maybe another 3 Vanjarls with boosters. This doesn't seem that bad but the fact that you can't offload most blood hunting duties to Vanjarls means that those B2 Vanadrott's will have to stay focused on that and also be your main options for forging, summoning and combat use (blood magic does have some useful combat spells). I'd suggest summoning Vampire Lords as soon as possible to help with all this.

The thing with Vanheim is that while they are very inefficient blood hunters, and in that sense are a "miniblood" nation, blood magic is very important to them and I recommend making it a high priority and making the best of the current situation (which will hopefully be addressed in a future CBM release).

[13lackGu4rd]

speaking about Vanheim, your pretender choice can greatly affect your numbers. a very solid choice is to go for a blood oriented pretender, Fountain of Blood being the most popular among them. this gives you a great blood hunting potential right from the start and allow for more heavy duty blood magic than relying on expensive inefficient hunters. this goes for all "mini" blood nations, if that's the strategy you choose to use.

[P3D]

I can't see, however, how an awake FoB would be a good strategy for Vanheim. There's about nothing that blood slaves could be used early.

[Soyweiser]

Well, it does give some RP points, and 36 early slaves. (in CBM the fountain generates blood slaves).

But, having a FoB in a province does unlock a rather nasty event:
"The wailing of the blood fountain has driven part of the population insane. Ten percent of the population has died."
10% poploss and +20 unrest.