Miniblood nations - rates

[13lackGu4rd]

well, blood nations generally prefer luck scales over order, seeing that the "mini" blood nations can't go scorched earth like Mictlan/Lanka they can't go T3L3, but O1L3 for example is very doable for most of them. also, whenever I use the FoB myself I always put S4 on him to be able to teleport him around so I can hunt in good provinces(~5000 pop, preferably with income penalty) rather than my capital.

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by 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).

Thanks for the reply Valerius your post was the answer I was looking for.

Agreed the 15 blood slaves/turn is low, but before I started really playing around with what could be done I figured I'd get a bench mark first.

I slightly disagree with your post sdr analysis. I'm thinking more to start it up with as many B2s & B1s as soon as possible and get it going. Then get blood boosters (con4) and pass them to B1s to make them B2s so as to free up some of the B2s for summons, etc. and continue to scale upward. Perhaps an inefficient approach but I don't see much else. Even waiting for turn 50 with ~7B2 drotts, isn't ideal. And while I agree vamp lords would be a nice add on that's really pushing mid/late game with respect to research (blood7) when there are other tasty battle spells that could be researched up the alt/evo/ench trees.

Definately not counting either out, but imo the blood econ should already be pumping at a relatively good pace by that point (even if only 25 slaves/turn that's 1 booster/turn which will lead to more slaves, etc.), and in all likelihood I won't be putting blood on the the pretender so I'll need to empower one drott to B4.

I also agree that blood is important to Van, and should be exploited to it's fullest (def cloud trap jarl sabbaths sound sneaky and fun ).

Curious though on your 75-100 blood slave eco, what exactly were you making/summoning? Item wise Vans choices are meh. Was it simply to field mass amounts of storm demons?

[Squirrelloid]

Consider empowering B1s to B2. Its only 30b.

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by 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.

Not necessarily in EA Van's case seeing how they can easily get watchers. Combined with the right growth scales income loss would be minimal for a one time cost of air gems. Also consider with that application you can then leave the jarls in the fort they were recruited to blood hunt, thereby protecting your hunting grounds as well.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Consider empowering B1s to B2. Its only 30b.

Cheaper to forge Brazen Vessels or Blood Thorns, once you've got the research.

[P3D]

One extra hunter over the 'unrest neutral' case still results in a pop loss of ~100/turn from patrolling. Growth cannot even fully offset the pop loss from the average 0 unrest case (3xB2).

And patrolling cost is comparable to blood hunter maintenance, so the major cost is still the loss of taxes.

Originally Posted by Slobby

Not necessarily in EA Van's case seeing how they can easily get watchers. Combined with the right growth scales income loss would be minimal for a one time cost of air gems. Also consider with that application you can then leave the jarls in the fort they were recruited to blood hunt, thereby protecting your hunting grounds as well.

[Corinthian]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Cheaper to forge Brazen Vessels or Blood Thorns, once you've got the research.

Those items requires B4 to make though. Witch means you have to take blood on your pretender. And the fountain cant use a hammer....

[llamabeast]

Nah, it is easy to empower someone to B4.

[thejeff]

If all you've got is B1 on nationals, you're going to need to empower someone to do anything with all that blood you're collecting.

And the same version of CBM that took SDRs away also took hammers, so I was assuming no discount.

[Executor]

While giving blood boosters to B1 hunters sound like a good option when no SDR are present I see two problems;

1. Blood hunters would get rather vulnerable in open provinces, the fact remains you pull more gold from forts due to administration so open provinces are generally a better option to blood hunt, and I for one would target those provinces first for assassinations, remote spells and attacks. So you'd need forts or something in blood hunting provinces to protect your investment. We all know that it sometimes takes only one turn of war to halt or cripple a blood economy.

2. Every blood hunter will have to take about 4 turns at least to pay his items off before he starts hunting, not to mention that you have to use your rare B2 mages to start the initial hunting and get the slaves for the boosters, since hunting with a B1 mage is ineffective.
Also, rather than forging items, I'd much prefer empowering to B2 myself, after all it's only a 5 slave difference without the hammers.

I of course see no way around this since I think Vanheim is screwed regarding blood hunting personally.

Vampires Lords would blood hunt good, but using them for hunting means you're not using them to summon vampires, which is wasteful to me.

In regards to blood hunting power levels, I'd say around 7 blood hunting provinces is average.

Blood hunting under taxes is a bad idea too, regardless of patrolers, or scales for that matter. The only time I see this pay off is when you have a gold mine in a province so you can stack up the taxes and blood hunt.
Growth scales are usually meaningless in blood hunting provinces. The more pop you have they more you'll get and since blood hunting provinces tend to have 4000-7000 population usually the growth will be marginal. If you hunt, tax and patrol you'll kill that provicnes blood hunting abilities rather fast I feel. It's rather easy to lose 500 pop after a good blood hunting turn.

As for the fountain of blood, I have yet to see anyone use it for blood hunting.
You take it when you have a blood nation (is it restricted to blood nations only?), at which point having your pretender blood hunt isn't all that of a bonus, especially since you'd have to teleport him away as blood hunting in your cap is a fast way to drive your pop down, the more population there is, the faster they'll die, so you need to have either air or astral, to research teleporting, and build a second fort for the pretender if you don't take astral for returning. A hassle I think.

Oh, and as for summons, I'd go for ritual of 5 gates mostly. Summon some Ice devils or Heliopagi that can cast ritual of five gates in time of peace with some boosters (use them as SCs when you need to). Massing only storm demons can be countered easily with the right stuff, and it takes a lot of mages time summoning them one by one.