Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Baalz, any tips on blood hunting when burden of time is up? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Well, now that you mention it...

Use a priest king to forge a thistle mace and armor of twisted thorns, stick them on a lizard shaman (fairly common), use him to forge a moonvine bracelet. Now forge a second armor of twisted thorns, place it with the other two nature boosters to a priest king and cast Gift of Health. Follow that up with Astral Corruption and place in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Mmmmm, screws over hard pretty much everybody but you....

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Most helpful.

One more question. You wrote about 3 priests with rods per province. Have you found that that is the best rate of return for you? I was playing last night and was wondering if/how multiple searchers in the same province worked out. If you put more than 3 per province, do you get reduced success?

Ok, another question. Is there a limit to the number of slaves one commander can have? Is there a rush to consolidate slaves? It seems that I kept getting 30 per priest.

As you stated, getting over 100 per turn was not hard, even on a medium map. I have a lot to learn about how to spend them well, but look forward to trying things out.

Thanks!

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

A single commander can only hold 30 slaves/gems at any one time. 3 basic priests with rods is the best way to get slaves without destroying your provinces.

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Well, if you have more than 3 priest bloodhunting in one province you need some way to reduce the unrest other than dropping the tax rate because you'll accrue unrest faster than a 0% tax rate will relieve it, and unrest reduces your ability to blood hunt (at 200 unrest you can't get any blood slaves). If you're desperate to concentrate your blood hunters (perhaps you're being aggressively raided) you can stack many blood hunters in a single province and have it patrolled by a large force. The downside here is that this will fairly rapidly deplete the population in that province.

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Very helpful again, thank you. I will avoid the patrolling.

If I have labs in each blood hunting province, I can pool the slaves nicely. However, if I do not, I have to shuttle them around with cheap or highly mobile units. If a lab costs 500 gold, it seems that a scout or flying turkey mage are really the most cost effective methods over quite long time horizons. Micromanagement saves cash…

However, what if my mages are full and still hunt? Do they not collect, because they have no place to store them? Then there is a higher cost to not having a lab.

Given that I usually have other things to do with my 500 gold, it does seem that buying extra scouts would be the cost effective way of handling this. Unless you have found a sneaky way around the problem you would like to share with us…

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

I think you should use indy commanders to shuttle your blood slaves when you cannot afford a lab. I do not like to take any turns where my home province does not build some sort of priest. Indy scouts are best, Horse tribe commanders work well too, and even the regular Commanders, Mounted Commanders, and Barbarian leaders are okay.

I think it may be best to build labs only where you are intending to eventually build a temple and a fort. I try to build forts where they are cheapest, in the forests and mountains. You need to build all of these somewhere in any case, to churn out even more priests. Might as well provide some protection for your hunters while you are at it. (If you're playing SP you might be better off to just take castles from the AIs.)

You can also build another temple instead of a lab, and sacrifice where you hunt. The sacrificing priest can take some of the overflow if your hunters get close to limit. This option is best if the province is in the plains and can recruit indy priests (for sacrificing with a jade dagger), since this frees up even more of your priests for hunting and researching.

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Nice one, I had not noticed the cost variation between locations. I normally go for strategic value, but cost will infulence that. If I find a blood site that lowers ritual cost, that has to be a strong candidate for a fort/lab/temple.

I was just thinking the call of the winds commander would make a nice transport unit. Once your empire gets a bit bigger, you need that strategic movment. I will take a look at the mounted commanders, as you suggest, as they are much more common.

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Now I see why I get ***-run over when playing MA Mictlan. It sucks ***.

Re: Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting
 

Are you sure? I'm just playing MA MIctlan. I lost my first important battle, and have fallen to bootlicking. Bootlicking is a viable tactic, especially if your nation is considered weak. I'm quite confident I will end up as ruler of the world http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

All Hail the Lawgiver!
ehm... eternal Servant of the Earth Monster.