Blood Magic

[Jasper]

Originally posted by apoger:
As per Pocus's "20 turn challenge", it seems that competitive play yields a turn 20ish income of about 1500.

This seems completely broken to me, especially considering that this is a strongly handicaped testbed, without even access to blood magic. 7 gold per slave is an extremely good deal IMHO, even without considering that the ratio continues to drop over time.

An average income of 75 slaves per month is freaking ridiculous; am I right in guessing the actual income at turn 20 is around 150?

[HJ]

Originally posted by Serpico:
Hi, I have some questions.

If I am blood hunting, the unrest will grow. How can I decrease the unrest?
Blood magic is the best?
Is it worth to make a pretender with 10 in blood magic?
My scouts won't find any blood slaves. I must enpower them in blood magic?

What is a good startup for a blood magic nation?

1) Decrease taxes, or patrol the province (the latter will kill off the population, as will the blood hunt, so you'll lose money as well)
2) Depends on what you're aiming for. For summoning, yes. For direct damage spells, e.g., no.
3) Depends on what you want to do, how you want to play, and who you are playing. Same as 2).
4) The higher the skill in blood magic, the more likely the commander is to find blood slaves. It also depends on the population size of a province, and unrest (more pop & less unrest = higher chance). You might consider empowering mages instead so as to get nbenefits from other things as well, such as combining the magic paths and magic & undead leadership that come with blood skill (scouts cannot command).
5) I'm not sure what you mean, but if you're looking for an advice in pretender design etc., I guess there are people here who can give a far better advice on that than me.
Hope this helps.

[MStavros]

All right I am not a big blood magic fan, but I try to help.
Abysia is a very good choice for a blood pretender. I guess the Fountain of Blood is a perfect choice with Abysia. That pretender and that nation seems like a very good combo.

[Saber Cherry]

Hmmm. I think blood hunting increases unrest more than it used to, and with lower gold income, a fountain of blood with gold-hungry Abyssia might be pretty painful... unless you could move it to another province... which, supposedly, you can no longer do with immobile pretenders.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Hmmm. I think blood hunting increases unrest more than it used to, and with lower gold income, a fountain of blood with gold-hungry Abyssia might be pretty painful... unless you could move it to another province... which, supposedly, you can no longer do with immobile pretenders.

quite right. As of now you can buy a blood/Astral fountain, and teleport it outside your capital, but with the first patch I suppose it will be fixed.

You can try a blood 9 death 2 fountain, and use it to summon scores upon scores of immortal vampires (a spell which give you more creatures if your level in blood is high).

[-Storm-]

What's the problem with the immobile Fountain? I think its a prefect choice for Abysia. I am using this pretender as well. What is the point to move it to other province at all? I mean the Fountain is not a SC.

[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.

[apoger]

The point would be not to create unrest/pop loss at your capital via hunting with the fountain, which it does well.

I'm not sure how much I like the Blood Fountain in Dom II. Need more tests.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by apoger:
The point would be not to create unrest/pop loss at your capital via hunting with the fountain, which it does well.

I'm not sure how much I like the Blood Fountain in Dom II. Need more tests.

Maybe there should be a slightly more expensive God, the blood spray bottle. With its smaller volume it would have a cap of maybe level 8 blood magic, but be portable, with 1 strategic move. Or maybe a blood port-o-potty or something, or even an enchanted walking Sanguine Dowsing Rod, or a talking bloodhound, "Evil Lassie". I wouldn't want a FOB hunting in my home province until the home province was less than a third of my gold income - say, turn 10.

Speaking of bloodhounds, that would be a neat blood summon or even National unit - you could put them under a commander to increase his blood hunting ability. They'd be expensive and bad in combat, though.

Oooh!!! I got another one!! The Giant Leech, for land, and the Giant Lamprey for water. Both would have life-drain attacks and be good blood hunters. "Knock-knock... hey, it's me, Lord Leechy Lewis. I'd like to talk to your daughter, please... no, nothing serious. No, I'll pass on the coffee, I'm in a hurry, but thanks..."

[ November 04, 2003, 20:28: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[HJ]

IIRC, there is a demon prince who has an effect of automatically gathering blood slaves. I think that the description from the devs was something along the lines of "fathers give their daughters to him willingly, but the god's dominion suffers".

edit: I really hate my typos...

editedit:found it; quote from Johan K

One of the Demon Lords is Belphegor the Lord of Hell. He spreads gold around him and fathers sell their children and their souls to the demon. They are then used as soldiers and blood slaves in Belphegor's growing army. This practice is quite bad for your pretender's dominion however.

[ November 04, 2003, 20:54: Message edited by: HJ ]