Re: Blood Simple?!
 

Step2 can be easily done with F1 screen, and won't be needed every turn. Once in a few turns is enough, and I prefer to do that any way with any nation.
Step3: I thought hunt happens before movement and battles. That would mean that if the hunters catch anything, they can summon the imps. This is most often the case, so I don't worry about leaving the hunters any slaves.
Step 4: Only needed in border provinces, really. Although as it is provinces bordering enemy dominion instead of enemy territory, it can sometimes be hard to notice. This is second step that really has to take time when playing Mictlan, and only if you don't have specialized priests that Blood Sacrifice continuously.
Step5: Isn't that much harder than sitesearching without spells, or for holy/unholy magic, so I don't find it particularly infuriating.

All of these do add micromanagement, but I don't think they increase it as much as you think.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

TRUE, BUT.... as a result you'll be visiting/adjusting many more provinces then other nations since as a nation you're forced to blood hunt to survive.

From what I've seen it does happen before regular battle movement, but not spell casted battles. And to leave them without blood slaves because they usually find some is way too risky in my book. I have more peace of mind sending my turn knowing each low level blood mage can cast summon imp twice during battle.



Unless you're dealing with enemy nations that have stealthy priests. They sneak and sometimes fly in... heavily preach for two turns and move. I've felt this pain.
And even when it's border provinces only, it's extra management not needed by other nations... especially felt for large maps.

True but it's an extra duty which needs to be done instead of having them just sit on research or mass casting some summon spell. I'd much rather have my commanders searching for sites or researching then killing slaves and moving to kill more slaves.


For small maps of 120 or less... it's not noticed that much.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

There's no need for that. The population effect is that if a number chosen between 1 (maybe 0) and 5000 is less than the population, the hunt passes the check. So even 4000 people is 80% as effective as 5000.

Don't pool your blood slaves. Go to each bloodhunting province, make a selection group of your hunters only, and press ctrl+z.

A dousing rod raises your blood skill by 1 for the purpose of hunting if you already have 1 blood skill. The base chance that a hunter will succeed is 10%+(bloodskill*40%). So a blood 1 Mictlan priest with a dousing rod will succeed 90% of the time in a province with 0 unrest and 5000 people. Unrest is a percentage failure chance. The blood slaves you find are 1d6+bloodskill.

That would be the equivalent of about 8 temples in that single province, so that's kind of overkill. A single H2 Mictnal priest without a jade knife sacrificing two slaves a turn should be good enough if you picked a high dominion (7-8).

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

You don't need to check every turn since three bloodhunters will take quite a few turns to bring unrest up to the point where you have to worry about it.

Bloodhunting happens before combat caused by. Your bloodhunters will supply their own slaves for any battles that happen. Magic combat will either be weak enough that even Mictlan's province defense will work against it or will be so overwhelmingly powerful that no amount of imps will stop it. You will probably also have your hunters behind castles. Mictlan only needs to spend gold on priests, capital based mages, and buildings unless you took a powerful bless effect.

Leave one priest on permanent sacrifice duty in each temple. You want your dominion pushing against your enemies.

This is part of any blood nation.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

The more unrest the less likely your hunters will find blood slaves... and three low level blood hunters can easily raise unrest into the teens with one turn.

In the perfect non-walgreens world bloodhunters will supply their own blood slaves every turn. Since they do not find blood slaves every turn I see it's important to give them 2 or 3 blood slaves.

Unlike your experiences I've had CLOSE magic casted battles from Call of the Wild and even the Madmen... and without blood slaves for each of my mages the result would have resulted in a loss for me.


In some of the more recent games I've played we agree to only building a fixed amount of castles which causes players to use castle-types more efficiently and strategically instead of watching most people jump into mass-castle building. As a result the hunters are not always behind castles.


Yes this is one strategy and to supply those priests one hunter will be needed per temple. And managing the unrest for those hunting provinces is the extra management. On large maps a player will definitely notice this.


It's still extra management.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

Well, I have to say, having a far clearer understanding of how Dominion spreads and then changing accordingly, I find that as Mictlan I am capable of outstripping the other nations in the SP game I am in easily. Whereas before I was constantly at the bottom of the pile.

Knowledge is a wonderful thing. Thanks Zen.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

Theyn might be able to, but with 0 taxes it will take a few turns usually. Even at 20% unrest, that's just a 20% chance of failure. 4 out of 5 turns the province will produce normally. Avoiding micromanagement is done by not trying to optimize every possible thing.

Blood hunters in a proper hunting province will succeed 90% of the time. With three hunters, you are almost certain to have some success, and as stated, those three hunters will either be enough of a defense, as they are against small attacks, or will be hopelessly defeated.

If your opponent is spending gems on call of the wild, you will win the resources war fairly simply.

That's a problem with the house rules you chose, not the game itself.

You will be managing the unrest every five turns or so anyways.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

Damn, I gotta answer this when I'm awake. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

That amount of slaves captured cant be right. I've had B1 and B2 mages pull in 10-15 slaves on a really good day.
Or... is that 1d6oe? I suppose that would be reasonable.

Re: Blood Simple?!
 

yah, its OE