Blood Magic

[Psitticine]

Just on a side note, the new nation of Mictlan has a starting site that gives it 5 blood slaves a season. They have to perform blood sacrifice to spread their dominion, so it balances out somewhat in the end, but it does give them more early-game flexibility.

I haven't used blood magic enough to know if it is balanced or not, so I'm keeping my mouth shut on the rest of the issue.

[-Storm-]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
You get a lot of your gold income from the home province... and unrest reduces gold income. Blood hunting increases unrest and kills population. Thus, blood hunting in your home province cripples your gold economy.

Yes but I never wanted to use my pretender for bloodhunt at all. I am using him to research/cast rituals, and I am using mages for bloodhunt.

[Saber Cherry]

Oh. I see. Well then, you're fine! Though you might go with an archmage/sage instead, as they get more research points, can have more constructions and summons, and you can always empower them in blood later... just start the archmage with enough blood to forge all the +blood magic items.

[Sammual]

Originally posted by -Storm-:

quote:

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Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
You get a lot of your gold income from the home province... and unrest reduces gold income. Blood hunting increases unrest and kills population. Thus, blood hunting in your home province cripples your gold economy.

Yes but I never wanted to use my pretender for bloodhunt at all. I am using him to research/cast rituals, and I am using mages for bloodhunt.

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The reason to take the FOB is that it gets bonues when Blood Hunting.

Sammual

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:

quote:

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Originally posted by apoger:

For this 3000 gold I got 420 blood slaves.

That comes to 7.14 gold per slave.
Think of it as 214 gold for a Horde from Hell or perhaps 392 gold for an Ice Devil.

OK. Neglecting research, as others have pointed out - and also neglecting the empowerment cost.

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My thought exactly - but more than that gold earned does not give a 1 for 1 return if invested in other areas. Gold spent on armies rather than lost to blood hunting is out there making more gold and helping you win the game. I think this is a huge point Alex.

The reason I don't find the results you are talking about scary is that in my experiance a fast expanding race will have make a great deal of use of the resources the blood race is consuming. Depending on the circumstances a fast race may well overrun the blood race before its returns come through.

My worry was the blood was going to be nerfed and I am greatly relieved that there are 7 Ice Devils. Blood requires serious effort which could be used on reinforcing expansion and has a narrow range of uses.

To ascertain the value of blood you should not be comparing it to air elemental summoning - one feature of a well rounded field - but to what you can achieve by investing the resources elsewhere.

Blood requires alot of investment and yields no immediate return thus the rate of return that comes through in time is higher and so it should be. Blood is a nod to players who arn't focused on winning through extreme speed and as such its nice that it works as often such strategies don't and it could se easily be nerfed.

I tried blood up because it distracted me from overrunning my opponents before they were prepared. Sure I then did horrible things to them when they were prepared but which do you think they would have prefferred? To die to a speed monster race that doesn't let you set up or be beaten by a race whose setup proved more deadly than yours?

I think many extremely powerful strategies exist in dom II and I hope and expect blood to one of them. As it should be.

As I posted on one of the supercombatant threads, I think there should be more battlefield spells that increase the effectiveness of regular troops, which would allow players to more effectively combat summons and supercombatants with conventional armies (backed up by magic).

What? I positive solution to a problem? hmm . . ok!

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

[Patrik]

Sorry for being late into this thread, but I just feel I must respond to Mr. Poger's initial statements. First:

Originally posted by apoger:


In comparison the blood magics had a cost increase of about 50%. While the cost did in fact go up, when considered in relation to the rest of the game the practical cost is effectively lower!

While 50% may be some sort of average, it doesn't say much about the actual changes. This is my list of the biggest Dom1 blood magic abuses (subjective of course)

1. Ice Devil - changed from 30 to 55 (= 83% increase). Limited numbers. No free water gems. +1 lvl research.

2. Pazuzuu - Now Demon Lord (I think, haven't actually summoned all DLs yet though). 150 slaves, 9th lvl research.

3. Father Illearth - Cost increase 50 to 75 (Yes that's 50%). Unique. +2 lvl research.

These were the big ones IMO. They have all been severely nerfed. The other big blood summons were much less of an issue, and were thus less changed (about 50% cost increase )

Now, blood hunting were also made harder to in Dom2 since only blood mages benefit from dousing rods. Here Alex makes a very strange statement

Originally posted by apoger:

Second the sanguine dowsing rod is no longer useable by non-blood mages. This is good since it will help keep some non-blood nations out of the blood business (more on this shortly) but it does nothing to slow down the potential abuse from the blood nations.

I can only interpret 'does nothing to slow down' as compared to Dom1. This is ridiculous!! Did ANYONE (I am certain you didn't Alex) use the native blood mages as hunters in Dom1? They were all (Demonbred, Skratti, Vanjarl, Pandemoniac) enormously more expensive than using cheap commanders with rods. Typically you would by one or two blood mages for the initial hunting (maybe) and rod forging.

Looking at the numbers for blood hunting on Sunrays page, a non-blood commander (with rod) brings in 3.2 slaves/round compared to 4.4 slaves/round for lvl 1 blood mages with rods. Thus, getting 50 slaves with a scout in Dom 1 would cost you 41 gold (cost + upkeep) whereas 50 slaves with a Vanjarl would cost 386 gold - 'nothing to slow down' indead...

Now, new cheap(er) blood mages are available in Dom2. Mictlan has one lvl 1 holy for 80 gold. Getting 50 slaves with him would cost 110 gold. Still, compared to the cheapest blood hunter in Dom1 that is more than 2.5 times as expensive. And Mictlan really really need those slaves.

For the 'second best' nation Abysia the Warlock apprentice cost 150 gold. I don't know the number for a lvl 2 blood mage, but let's assume it's 6 slaves/round (with rod). Getting 50 slaves is then 233 gold - almost 6 times as expensive as it would've been in Dom1.

It can of course be argued that cost + upkeep of blood hunters are just a part of the total cost for blood hunting. Still, I think that not addressing it properly when comparing to other changes from Dom1 was quite unfair and doesn't give an appropriate picture of the changes that has been done to blood magic. Altogether, it has been nerfed more than anything from Dom1 (possibly with the exception of lesser elementals).

[apoger]

I'm not going into a huge analysis of percentage change between Dom I & II. That was never the point of the test. The point was to offer my opinion that blood magic may be abusive in Dom II. I still think it will be.

>This is ridiculous!! Did ANYONE (I am certain you didn't Alex) use the native blood mages as hunters in Dom1?

Don't be so certain before putting words in my mouth. In fact I often used native blood mages to hunt with. While less efficient, they bring in results fast, and there is a LOT to be said for speed. Furthermore their blood income was MORE than I would get with SDR/scouts alone. The point of heavy blood hunting was to make it HEAVY. I used every resource possible. That included blood mages.

When I was dropping 12 hordes from hell on my enemies every turn, I never bothered to judge the gold cost. I was sure of it's value.

In Dom II I will probably be reduced to only sending 6 per turn. However in the lower gold enviornment this seems plenty abusive, and I don't see anything stoping it.

>For the 'second best' nation Abysia the Warlock apprentice cost 150 gold. I don't know the number for a lvl 2 blood mage, but let's assume it's 6 slaves/round (with rod). Getting 50 slaves is then 233 gold - almost 6 times as expensive as it would've been in Dom1.

The current rate for the warlock apprentice seems to be about 5 per round. I see this plenty fine. It's about the same as a blood-2 mage in Dom I. The apprentice is cheaper than Abysia's old blood-2 mages, but the gold enviornment is weaker. Seems about the same to me.

Where do you get the 6X figure from? That seems outrageous. I can assure you that blood hunting is not 6X as expensive in Dom II.

And how are you getting these slave versus number figures? You are submitting absolute values of slaves gotten by method. I must ask "over what time" are you doing the hunting? You can't just say X bring in Y slaves. It only has relevence if its X brings in Y over Z time. Without this it's hard to judge what you are saying.


>Altogether, it has been nerfed more than anything from Dom1 (possibly with the exception of lesser elementals).

On this we will have to disagree.
And even if true, I don't give a fig about comparisons between Dom I & II. What I care about is the balance of Dom II. I think blood hunting endangers that balance.

[Patrik]

Alex, the first half of your initial post was essentially about blood magic being more abusive in Dom2 than in Dom1. I have not seen anything like that in beta (Mictlan is good, but have so many other weaknesses). I think limiting sanguine rods to blood mages is a big part of the answer also for blood nations. Of course my examples were limited (I didn't think they would be that hard to understand though ).
The speed factor is very important, I agree - still even for Abysia in Dom1 I found it both much cheaper and faster!! to use blood mages primarily to forge sanguine rods for cheap commanders (which of course come in unlimited supply). I am sorry for thinking you did the same (out of curiosity though - was the majority of your hunters mages or cheap commanders?)

Now, I am really sorry that I don't have the time to do anything like the extensive tests you excell at. I do think that to prove to us sceptics that hunting with scouts is a valid strategy you must show that you don't lose to much speed in expansion. I saw that you conquered 36 provinces in 20 turns in Pocus test and consider 1500 gold income by turn 20 to be a standard for competitive play. What is the best you can do by turn 20 while reaching 420 slaves and blood 5 in research??

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Patrik:
This is my list of the biggest Dom1 blood magic abuses (subjective of course)

1. Ice Devil - changed from 30 to 55 (= 83% increase). Limited numbers. No free water gems. +1 lvl research.

2. Pazuzuu - Now Demon Lord (I think, haven't actually summoned all DLs yet though). 150 slaves, 9th lvl research.

3. Father Illearth - Cost increase 50 to 75 (Yes that's 50%). Unique. +2 lvl research.

These were the big ones IMO. They have all been severely nerfed. The other big blood summons were much less of an issue, and were thus less changed (about 50% cost increase )

Now, blood hunting were also made harder to in Dom2

All good points well made.

And here is another I hope:

Arco Hopilites cost the same in Dom I as in Dom II and as their gold cost is largely irrelevent for expansion their power early has not been meaningfully affected. I experimented with Arco in Dom I and I found that Arco Hopilites could provide the basis for appalling fast conquering armies which generally didn't take a casuality in the early expansion phase and with priestess didn't even build up afflictions. The result of this fast start certainly ecliplsed the fast starts I achieved with Abysia AND left heaps of gold free for mages etc so I don't sacrifice long term power. This in my opinion was the grossiest race (other than Caelum or Pythium which I didn't consider) I could have played in Dom I MP and so I did't - I tend to do well enough without choosing the grossiest races. Abysia on the other hand never seemed as powerful - so what has Arco lost if you follow my approach rather than the classic Hypastpist one?

When given the choice of long term power or short term power in mutli-player it is generally right to go for short term power because the faster expansion leads to long term power.

Alex you have been very concerned with strategies being nerfed and the loss of fun. IMO you are desperately arguing for the nerfing of one of the key alternatives to ridiculous speed. Ridiculous speed is so overpwoered in MP - the alternatives have to be gross and really appealling or no-one will even consider playing them.

Generally all the cool slow race designs in Stars! did was unbalence the game by providing easy kills to early game predators of the ilk of me and you.

This is ridiculous!! Did ANYONE (I am certain you didn't Alex) use the native blood mages as hunters in Dom1?

Ooops - take it all back. I'm a newbie and you can ignore everything I say.

Yes I used Demonbreds extensively for blood hunting in Dom I. Its a speed question - early fire gems = gold, gold = anathement dragons to lead the HI (fanatacism)and Demonbred with Moloch created Demons providing the fast start and lotsa gold to buy more demonbred to research conj 4. This leads to 2nd phase of summer lion abuse in which the Demonbreds leave the research to indie's and kick start the blood economy while impacting less on gold income than commanders with SDR's would helping to maintain the impetous at the front - I hate fighting wars in my own territory. The key point is that all the way through this gold was not the limit to building HI and demons so spending it on good, multi- use mages was a perfectly reasonably option and their research gives a quicker route to Conj 4 which, back then, was truly abusive.

Its all about speed - getting the key summons equipped and to the front a turn before your opponent has their main army able to counter you. Instead they are crushed and their lands go up in unholy fire - Muhahahahah!!

Sorry did I lose track of the point?

Oh yes - speed, speed, speed, speed, speed.

Blood is inherently a slower strategy now the FOB is no longer abusable (8-9th turn ID's with Caelum in Dom I - wohooo) so it is harder to play and should in the long term be more powerful than the faster approaches. I'm not saying blood races are slow but that the decision to invest in blood is the decision of when to slow your expansion race down and its a tricky one to get right in MP.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir