Cost efficient blood hunting
 

So currently its common knowledge that:
A. Blood hunting is most cost efficient on ~5k provinces
B. SDR on your blood hunters is well worth it (makes non blood hunters count as having blood 1 or some such)
C. Most cost efficient blood hunter are:
1. ???
2. ???

now, a list of cost (cheap) efficient (with or w/o a blood pick) commanders would be nice but I'd settle for deciding which of the following is better: your common indie scout or warlock apprentice.
Some points to consider. scout has 2g upkeep vs WA 8.66g; scout has 0 B, WA has 2 B;
Also, does SDR make any difference in that respect?

Cost efficient is naturally defined as G/BS ratio, i.e. how much gold goes for hunters upkeep (I discard provinces income from this calculation since I'm not interested in optimizing province size as well) divided by avg. blood slaves income.

I would appreciate any input on the subject.

TIA

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

I thought Sanguine Dousing Rod doesn't work with commanders without blood magic? Worked during Dom1, but they changed it already then.

IIRC of course.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

SDR only work on Blood mages, yes. That makes even B1 mages with the rod 90% chance of catching slaves compared to the 10% chance of scouts.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

I recall something in that vain. But I also recall reading some post claiming SDR's improve results of non blood hunters. Now I'm really puzzled.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

ok, I was under wrong impression then. So this makes obvious the answer to my question with SDR involved.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

It seems to me the most efficient one is the vampire. No upkeep at all and immortal within your dominion--they can't be taken out by raiders.

Admittedly, you need a decent blood income to get them, they're not going to be your first blood hunters.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Is getting taken out by raiders really a problem if you set them to Retreat from the back row?

-Max

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Unless the retreat is cut off by teleport raiders or the like.

In MP I once lost a substantial army when the commanders were taken out by assassination and a flying unit cut off the retreat.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

But do people actually bother to do that vs. simple bloodhunters? I realized when I wrote that that you *could* kill them, but is it really a problem? (The other consideration is that someone could attack you just to make your bloodhunters retreat and mess up your blood economy temporarily.)

How did that kill off your MP army? Were you in the water or something so you couldn't buy the 1 PD commander?

-Max

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

I also usually set my blood hunter to retreat. However this makes them susceptible to assassination, so just take this into account.

Also, vampires as blood hunters, I assume you mean vampire lords (or whatever their name). Aren't they more useful auto-summoning, or fighting or casting spells. Besides, they come into play mid to end game, by then you either have an established blood economy or you'll probably never have one.

One last Q though, what if I want to use the Hinom priests as blood hunters (IIRC they are names "Kohen" with 1B). Are they going to eat the population like Rephaim and Baal?