Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

National troops (most of them) became obsolete at a certain point in the game, and by that point you'll be switching to blood summoned troops, be it national summons like Mictlans or Lanka, or sinergetic summons like storm demons for Vanhaim, devils for Abysia, etc.
In any case, you'd ideally want to stop recruiting regular troops and indies altogether (except for mages) and completely switch to a blood economy, even blood forts are relatively cheap, 120 slaves I think.
Strong blood powers should play it so at least.

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

You still use national mages, and every blood nation worth the name ha some pretty good summons. You have Mictlan, and their capacity to mass armies of nasty jaguar demons, bats, and monster toads (that are basically hydras and elephants rolled into one). You have Lanka, and their gigantic demon that autocasts darkness in every battle, along with a unit that can have Mistform going while also having Blood Vengeance up.

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

Why do national troops become obsolete? Right now im playing Niefelheim, and the best demon summon i can do en-masse are frost fiends.

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

Frost fiends are great. Super stats, ranged attack, immune to one element, demon (both a plus and a minus, minus anti demon spells, plus, no need to worry about disease, darkness, or supplies), no upkeep.

And they get stronger in cold dominion.

And you should also be able to mass just normal fiends, which are also great. And the normal spine devils, and undead devils (forgot the name) have their uses.

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

National troops effectively get obsolete because at a certain point various thugs and super combatians that are capable of destroying large armies became available to everyone (Tartarians, Golems, Air Queens...). This usually happens around turn 40+. Protecting all those armies isn't really an option since you cannot possibly know what will get thrown at you and you might end up losing even more stuff.
So fielding and spending gold on various troop types becomes a disadvantage since they became all too counterable with every passing turn.
Certain troop types are always good of course, Mictlans jaguars, or Kailasa Yavanas and such, but that is usually limited to some gold effective (as in cheap) sacreds.

At a certain point troops are used mostly as chaff, something for the enemy mages to kill while you try and kill the enemy, and as siege weapons, breaking down fort walls of course. But keeping in mind that chaff still costs money and upkeep you don't want to have too much of them, which is why summons are often used to replaced recruitable troops, every gold piece you spend on troops is one less you have for mages and forts and that's what wins the game in the end.

Most common end game strategies consist of using various SCs and remote spells to raid and capture enemy provinces to weaken their infrastructure, and fielding a few large armies backed up by quite a few mages. But even when armies are used in the later stages of the game, they are always protected by various buffs that, and this is crucial, are always cast in the very first round to prevent tragedies like getting anhiliated by rain of stones (which is usually countedred by a mass protection or army of gold), or by master enslave (anti-magic) and so on.

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

It's just how the game is balanced. Troops and mages are at a fixed gold cost, and after you get 2-3 forts up gold is your limiting resource. Mages arn't as good at troops per-gold in the early stages of the game, but as magical research continues they become more powerful to the point of obseleting troops.

Things that affect this balance are the cost/effectiveness of troops, the cost/effectiveness of mages, and the rate of magical research. Setting magical research to difficult or very difficult makes troops relevant far later in the game. The relative effectiveness of troops vs mages for cost depends on nation and era.

Take for example MA Ulm. A Sapper has a Crossbow that fires an armor-piercing projectile every two rounds. At the start of the game, a Priest Smith can cast Flying Shards... which makes him about equivalent to 2-3 crossbowmen at most. With some research in Evocation, though, that Priest Smith can cast Iron Darts, a volley of several armor-piercing bolts each round for as long as the priest remains able to cast. This uprates him to being competitive with about 10 crossbowmen (roughly). With a bit more research, that Priest Smith can cast Iron Blizzard, a similar spell that throws 30 or more bolts, making him equivalent to 60 crossbowmen in sheer firepower....for as long as he remains conscious, of course.

A larger number of sappers still has some advantages, in terms of morale//endurance//being able to soak enemy fire. But it is that point at which you are considering your troops as chaff and your mages as doing the real work. An army with a couple more mages can beat an army that spent that money on troops instead, as long as you have a certain minimum of troops.

****

A good starter blood nation is MA Abyssia, IMO. The 'Soul contract spam' strategy using Demonbreds (it's in the index) really clued me into blood.

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

Deadly,
Quite well summarized...
ssj

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

But you can only build a single mage a turn per fort(and you cant even queue them), which is a pretty huge limiting factor (not to mention collecting them from all the forts), and they are so squishy they die to cavalry/flyers in melee. And you probably need to give them boosters to cast decent battlefield spells too.

Im surprised by how deadly frost fiends are though. With only protection 9, i expected them to die a lot...but im fighting Formoria with the "stop AI from building chaff independant troops" mod, and facing mostly Formoria giants...and im taking almost no casaulties at all despites being outnumbered 4-1 and not even using any buffs or battle magic at all. How is that possible?

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

How is that possible, indeed?

In the turns messages you will see an option to "view battle", I'd watch a battle and see exactly what those fiendish frosty demons do
;)

Re: What is the path of blood for?
 

If the limit on the number of mages you recruit per turn is anything other than your available gold, then you haven't built enough forts.

Except for the nations with the most powerful recruitable sacred troops, Dominions 3 endgame in MP is dominated by summoned troops backed up by massive number of mages, by thugs, by super-combatants, and by raiding.

Note that I said in MP. The AI is so poor that you can obtain victory on any difficulty level in SP using only national recruitable troops and a few mages, but that doesn't cut it against actual opposition.