Blood Slave Gathering Data

[Saber Cherry]

...for Dominions 2. Seems to be a little different from Dominions 1, though not much.

My analysis is not as complete as Sunray's.

Setting: Mictlan, neutral dominion except for +3 luck and +3 growth. I captured 6 provinces, of the following populations:

3.5k, 4.5k, 6k. 8k, 10k, and 15k, for a total of 47k. I set taxes at 0 and patrolled each with 65 units (mictlani slaves). In addition to the tribal chief with 65 soldiers, each province had a lab, 6 scouts, and 2 mictlan priests.

Running from turn 39 to 59 (most times), I set either all the scouts, all the priests, or all the priests with SDR's to blood hunting.

Data:

code:

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Unit Type          Units/Province   Harvest (turns)   Slave/Unit-turn

.

(Six provinces)

36*scout           6                790  (20)         1.10  

12*priest          2                487  (20)         2.03

12*SDR-priest      2                1029 (20)         4.29

12*DualSDR-priest  2                1068 (20)         4.45

.

(One 8k province)

6*scout            6                238  (40)         0.99 

12*scout           12               238  (20)         0.99 

18*scout           18               341  (20)         0.95  

6*SDR-priest       6                522  (20)         4.35

.

(One 25k province)

4*L10-blood+SDR    4                510  (10)         12.75

.

Maximum harvest in a single province:

~110/turn average, using 12*(L7 to L12) blood mages and 36 scouts.

---

In summary:
Scouts are ideal. Never use blood mages without SDRs. Blood mages get more bloodslaves per unit of unrest, in general, so you can get more slaves from a given province. The upper cap seems to be about 110 slaves per province, no matter how big the province is, but below about 4000 people the harvest starts to drop. In other words, I was getting ~100 slaves/turn from a province that started at 9k, and dropped to 600 people, but the blood harvest did not suffer until it hit about 4000 people. I cannot make any declarations about the cheapest way to get blood, since that depends on many factors.

Oh: And generally, expect 1 blood slave per unit per turn, plus 1 per level of blood. That means Armor of Souls takes 40 turns to pay off in blood hunting. And from my testing, SDRs have no effect (or maybe a negative effect) on non-bloodmages.

-Cherry

[ February 12, 2004, 23:08: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

And Cherry comes to my rescue

You should also note the cost per/slave as well (this is where Mictlan pulls ahead with Sacred Hunters).

[licker]

So a blood1 mage with SDR is ~4x more effective than a scout right? So if your blood1 mage is ~80gp its a wash? Interesting...

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by licker:
So a blood1 mage with SDR is ~4x more effective than a scout right? So if your blood1 mage is ~80gp its a wash? Interesting...

No, because I did not do a cost analysis. Holy bloodmages have 1/2 upkeep, but there is also the mage-time and blood-slave cost of the SDR. If you only care about relative initial searcher costs, it is a wash, but there are other costs...

The main costs, in approximate order of importance, are probably:

1) Patroller Upkeep (for soldiers; slaves and summons can be cheaper)
2) Lost Tax Revenue
3) Searcher Cost (plus interest)
4) Searcher Upkeep
5) Population Loss
6) Building Labs, if you dislike micromanagement

Better blood searchers (blood mages, and blood mages with SDRs) generate less unrest per slave taken (all things considered) and thus decrease costs 1, 2, and 5. But specifics depend on many variables like province size, mage cost, patroller type... it would need a 3d or 4d matrix to show the data.

[ February 13, 2004, 04:18: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[mnoracle]

I played for Abyssia for a long time now, and experimented with hunting pretty much.
It'll be without numbers but...
SDR greatly enhances number of captured slaves, for blood mages. But level in blood magic is pretty decisive factor too. For example I had 3 SDRed Warlock Apprentice in 9k Pop province(+3 Luck, -1 Death), and they got 24 blood slaves/turn. In other words 8 blood slaves per turn per warlock. But in had to hunt sometimes in my capital with 4th level warlock, and he got something like 15 slaves per turn.
Another important thing, it's better don't use patrolling troops, sinse they kill population too fast. It's better to give peoples a break, for one or two turns and then continue blood hunt.
But one question still remains who is better 1 4th level Warlock, or two 2nd level Warlock Apprentices.

Originally posted by licker:
So a blood1 mage with SDR is ~4x more effective than a scout right? So if your blood1 mage is ~80gp its a wash? Interesting...

Dont forget to take unrest into acount. 20 scouts all hunting in the same province will make about ... 80 unrest points/turn ! That is huge.
5 hags with a Rod will make about 35 unrest/t, not a big problem if you lower taxes to 0 and ask for some patrollers.
Plus, the micromanagement of 20 scouts is a pain too.

Cheers