Nations that seem strong/weak

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:
The right provinces are any province with a population of around 5000, so that's not too much surprise. I think you're greatly overexaggerating how many slaves you get, however, since 6 B3 mages will average about 7 slaves each per turn. Those 6 mages also represent the total commander production of your capital for six turns, which is the real weakness of Abysia as a blood nation.

You need three apprentices for every province you conquer that has a population of about 5000 if you want to seriously invest in blood magic.

I usually average about 10-15 per hunter, sometimes more or less, but I blood hunt in provinces with pops of 10,000 or more, including my capital, and get better averages.

I use 2 hunters per province as it doesn't increase unrest so quickly and hurt my income and since I'm doing it in more populated provinces that produce more gold (not that gold is much of an issue if as Abysia gets more fire gems than I know what to do with so I alchemy them if needed), and since they capture more slaves per turn I don't need 3. You could always add a third later when you don't need the income as much.

The best part is less blood hunters are required for similar results if you're more picky about what provinces you're doing it in. You have to be or you'll be short on mages.

Blood hunting with warlocks and demonbred means that those units aren't available to cast rituals or forge items, or lead your summoned devils respectively. It also means that you've essentially devoted the turn that you recruited that mage at your capital to blood hunting, since you still have to recruit an apprentice to replace the expensive hunter. Then you have to constantly recruit replacement warlock apprentices as they die of old age. If you want 15 blood hunters to support a good blood economy, you'll be spending almost half of the first 30 turns recruiting those blood hunters and their replacements.

They can fill the blood hunter role when necessary and do other things when necessary until you get a replacement so you don't have to spend half of your first 30 turns recruiting blood hunters. Especially if you're doing it in high pop provinces, you won't need as many hunters thereby loosening your recruiting requirements at least early in the game.

How many nations have real difficulty moving their mages around? Most have serious problems recruiting sufficient quantities of their capital only mages, but that's a different problem from getting them where they need to be.

Well, for one thing mages that have to walk and don't have air or astral magic are probably going to move slowly and take several turns from when you recruit them to when they get to where you want them depending on how far it is, especially if they don't have forest or mountain survival. Any Warlock can be anywhere on the map the next turn if you can forge a Starshine Skullcap, some don't even need it. There's not many mages that can do that. A Demonbred will probably take a little longer, but then again there aren't that many flying mages either.

The point here is that yes, you can only recruit them one at a time, but the travel time is lower which helps makes up for it.

Keeping your blood hunting close to the capital is another way to say that you won't be seriously blood hunting.

I don't know many maps where there's not 5 suitable provinces within two or three sqaures of your capital, especially when you're doing it at 5000 pop. I suppose it would be a problem if you're stuck on or near a map edge or large ocean if it's not a wraparound. How about "as close as possible"?

Abysia should be playing with death 3, not a growth scale, and yet trying to take advantage of their death scale resistance hurts them more than almost any other nation thanks to their universally old mages.

Why? It adversely effects blood hunting and age, and income eventually because the population would increase over time and with it income. What are you gaining that's worth giving that up? A supply bonus and short term income an some pretender points? I don't agree with that at all.

You'll be buying a mage every single turn in every castle, so researching won't be benefitted that much from imprisoning your pretender, and you'd get twice as much gold to purchase your mages and troops with if you had a pretender to help you expand.

I don't really think that they need the pretender as a few turns of recruitment can yield a second army that can conquer provinces just as easily, and since most pretenders need a few levels of research in a school that's not particularly helpful to your other mages, like Alteration, I don't feel you're gaining much by having it awake except a few afflictions. You could take identical scales to what you have now, make the pretender dormant, and add Magic 3 and you'll probably be better off overall.

I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat. Their other statistics are nearly identical (except for hitpoints) to humans of half their cost. Compare them to Emerald Guard to see what they have to go up against for similar cost.

With their protection as high as it is, the nearly double hit points is huge, it's like getting hit two or three more times against average units. The radiant heat is worth it too. Just MA Abysias starting army, 9 times out of 10, can take all of the provinces around your capital without stopping for reinforcements and taking few losses, except knights and elephants really.


Either way, we play it different. I don't any more problem wiht old age and Abysia than I do with other nations, probably less problems with Abysia.