Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood game?
 

I looked around through the strategy thread, but nothing looked especially appropriate, so I thought I'd start this one: It's common practice to use the pretender to jumpstart expansion into new paths, and I've done this pretty effectively with death and nature.

But how can you manage it with blood? You have to have blood mages to hunt effectively, so you can't use turmoil or a site to eventually pay for empowerment or a booster item to really begin things. In particular I'd like to get blood going with Patala, because they have access to Lanka's summons, while they lack good thugs, but I can't quite seem to get things going without any national blood mages. Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Bootstrapping a blood economy with no blood mages is definitely an uphill battle, and no, it is seldom efficient to have your pretender blood hunt. Not sure what you meant by turmoil, but there are a few magic sites which produce blood slaves, though they're few enough that you certainly can't count on them, and you're never gonna get too many slaves that way even if you're lucky.

The good news is, you can always start bloodhunting with any nation and never need to get your pretender involved. The great thing is that with traditionally blood nations you're not really reliant on blood for your bread and butter - you can just let your blood slaves stockpile for awhile to be used every now and then for something shiny.

There are three ways to do it. 1) Find an indie blood mage you can recruit (these are fairly rare, but keep your eyes open, the ones who can get a blood random are not nearly as rare) 2) If you're in a MP game trade somebody for 50 blood slaves to empower your first blood hunter (try to get them to throw in a sanguine dowsing rod). 3) The hard way: stick about 10 scouts in a province with more than 5000 pop and have them blood hunt for about 10 turns until you've scraped up 50 slaves.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Does anyone know how many brute-force hunters a province can support and keep the unrest manageable? I know 2 real blood hunters seldom get it to spike too high, and you can often cram 3 in a province, but does anyone have experience with brute-force?(at 0 taxes, no patrols)

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

I thin 3 blood hunters is the most you can get into one province, as even with 3 you need sometimes to pause the bloodhunting to let the unrest settle down.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

I use about 10 and it stays manageable until you get a couple lucky rolls and they actually pull in some slaves two turns in a row at which point its best to rotate them out to another province. Thing with the brute force is it's so variable its harder than it's worth to try and just smooth it out so you don't need to rotate.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

This sounds about right as I've used 8 in a province with little problem.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

It's worth noting that there are also some summons with a chance at a blood random.

Aside from national summons, I know that 1/4 in Lamia Queens and 1/4 Ether Lords have a blood random. Of course, those require death, which Patala and MA Mictlan do not get, except maybe on heroes. But Lamia Queens and Ether Warriors are both nice in and of themselves, so it's no loss to make a bunch of them.

Personally, I think bootstrapping into blood magic is a waste (of player time, not of actual wealth, which can be more or less negligible,) unless you have powerful national summons, including especially nationally summonable bloodhunters.

Once MA Mictlan or Patala can get the blood economy rolling, it can self-sustain eventually, and comes with some nasty, nasty stuff.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

It clearly isn't going to help you win the game - it's simply too ineffective. But it can be fun and it is doable. Couple of things I'd like to add:

1. If you're using Conceptual Balance Mod, the blood fountain generates two blood slaves per turn. If you take him awake and blood hunt with him as well, this mounts up.

2. Bloodhunting your cap isn't actually that bad an idea if you have something like freespawn patrollers. You can also use call of the winds and similar spells to produce very effective patrollers for relatively little cost. With a nice little patrol force you can keep taxes at 100 and bloodhunt quite a bit. You lose your pop, so in the long run it's bad for you, but then again in the long run you're going for a blood economy which won't need much in terms of gold, resources etc and will be able to take more provinces to blood hunt as it rolls along.

Call of the winds also nets you a flying commander who can nip about scooping up harvested blood slaves and winging back to a lab.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

In large MP games blood is much more economical and cost effective than gems in the late game - especially if Astral Corruption goes up (as it probably will if there is a blood nation still around). You are simply trading gold for blood slaves - a very good deal in the late game when gold is worth less and less.

In shorter games (80 turns or less) it probably isn't worth boot-strapping blood unless you find some good indy blood mages early.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

I totally agree that blood is powerful in the late game and for blood nations that's fine. But if you're looking for the win, you really don't want to be wasting resources trying to get into blood with a bloodless nation. It would take a lot just to get to the point that a nation with blood access starts the game at, let alone the kind of economy Lanka, Mictlan etc have set up. You'd also have to waste time researching the blood tech tree instead of freeing researchers up or going for the more traditional spells for your nation. If you're already in the late game before you even start going for blood, it's never going to arrive in time to help you out. If you start going for it in the early or mid game, you're going to weaken yourself in the short term which will prevent you building up and improving your late game. Plus if you end up hard pressed in the mid game it's all been a waste of time, since you won't see the late game to reap the rewards.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Most non-blood nations that I've seen win larger MP games have branched into blood at some point, so I think your blanket assumption is incorrect. I'm not saying you have to have blood to win large games but that it helps.

Personally, if you are playing in a large MP game and are a land based non-blood nation with easy access to indy blood mages, I'd think you would be foolish to not start a blood economy - wars permitting.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Well not having experience of late game MP I'll concede the point. I personally still think trying to branch into blood without blood mages isn't a sound use of time and resources, if you're playing to win. I might do it myself however, because it's fun.

I don't take the fact that winning non-blood MP nations do it as a guarantee that it's effective either. Even the very best players will always do some things that aren't optimal on their path to winning. If you're a great player but you love,.. say,.. bog beasts, so in every game that you play (and you win a lot of these) you use them, does that mean bog beasts are effective units and a useful part of a winning strat?

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Can't keep away from the bog beasts can you Sombre? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Velusion is right, Blood Hunting even with just scouts can really pay off sometimes. Especially or large maps, or with any race that has a forge bonus (EA or MA Ulm, LA Caelum). I know you don't get your forge bonus on many Blood items, but it does work on sanguine rods, blood stones, the sceptre of corruption, soul armor, etc. With Ulm, blood stones (and also black hearts) are the entire reason I empower with blood, it is soo worth it. If I get any summons out of the deal, they are just icing.

Re: Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood ga
 

Its very tempting to try blood as Patala, so here is what you'll be facing:

To be a real Blood Nation you need three things:

1. Cheap blood hunters (blood 1 usually, but a dowsing bonus doesn't hurt).

2. Powerful Blood mages. Basic non-summoning blood magic required blood 4 or 5 if you want to cast more than one spell a battle.

3. Good Blood summons to round out the blood list. The hero time required to get a pack of demons out of the basic list tends to be prohibitively high.

Now, as Patala, you only meet criteria #3. The Lanka blood summons are arguably the best blood summons in the game(though Mictlan is very close). The downside is that they are great with a strong bless and since you'll need a blood god you won't be getting them in their most powerful form.

As for blood hunters, you have a few choices:

A. Lamia Queens. Many get blood, and even more have lots of death and nature.

B. The red demon women who come in at like Blood 3 or 4 have blood 1 if you cast Gift of Reason on them. With that expense in nature gems, you might just want to go lamia queens.

C. Dakini, Vampires, and Heliophagus/Mandahas come in at 6, 7, and 8 respectively, and all are good at blood to a greater or lesser degree. If you consider that Empowering a guy at blood 1 costs 50 slaves and a Dakini is like 66 and a vampire is like 77 or 88, you can easily see why summons are a good deal. The downside is the huge research required.

So now that we have the basic situation outline, here are your options:

-Rise of the Hidden Blood God. Make an awake powerful blood god with Blood 9 or so, and set him to blood hunting ASAP. He'll make 10 or so blood slaves a turn so you can empower a Scout in Blood every five or so turns(which shortens as blood hunters come on line). Focus research on other things like powerful battle magic and around turn 40 or so when you have a blood economy humming along start your blood research and start making demons.

-Late Corruption. Make an awake and powerful blood god and shoot for blood 6. Don't spend a single slave until you hit Blood 6 and then make as many Dakinis as possible (or 7 and Vampires).

-Uncovered Knowledge: Shoot for Alteration 5 for the Mother Oak(blowing all saved nature gems) and then Conjuration 6 for Lamia Queens and then blow all of them on Lamia Queens. Take all blood mages and hunt with them, turning your blood slaves into things like Bloodstones.

Other helpful notes:
-Don't build a lot of labs. Scouts are cheaper as a way to ferry blood slaves around( remember that few games go past 100 turns, and two 20 GP scouts cost as much as a lab after 177ish turns). Keep one lab within one move of a blood of a few blood provinces and then fortify it.

-Don't defend with Blood hunters. Between barbarians and surprise enemy attacks, its simply better to set hunters to Retreat and pick them up later, since even if you win the battle the extra unrest will make hunting nonviable for a turn anyway.

-Blood Stones. One of the best and cheapest items in the game. Make them in large numbers.

-Devil Contracts. Astral mages set to cast Returning can make devils indefinitely, regardless of Horrors. Live and learn.

-Astral Corruption. It ends the game for non-blood powers, and its one of the few spells that gets regularly cast with 999 gems. Nuff said.

More later....