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?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

I do that when I can. However in most past MP games, when I was attacked by a blood nation, they were raiding me so hard I had a hard time hitting they blood economy.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Yes, Kohen eat population.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Well, this actually prevents Hinom from efficient blood hunt with Kohens and forces them to rely on indy scouts instead (or else burn out their blood provinces quite fast).

Another weakness in this supposedly too strong nation.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

I think most people consider the Mictlan Priest to be the most efficient Blood Hunter in the game. Now, if you want to consider the most efficient independent Blood Hunter, I _think_ it's the Garnet Priestess, should she receive a Blood pick.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Heh, Mictlan also has the most effective summoned blood hunter in the Tlehpuchi <sp>. 25 blood slaves to summon, a B2 (flying, stealthy, assassin) who can summon themselves and don't even need a sanguine rod. They can be used to get MA Mictlan into blood in a huge way.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Agreed--that beats the vampire. I've never done much with Mictlan, I didn't realize they had such a summons.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

And THAT's how MA Mictlan stops being nice and turns back into LA Mictlan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

No, it does so by summoning Rain Lords - who are normal summons, but have B3... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Does that imply that SDR doesn't benefit blood mages with more than 1 blood pick?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

It gives a B1 mage a 40% greater chance to find slaves (90 as opposed to 50) and a B2 mage a 10% greater chance (100 vs 90) so you get some serious diminishing returns, but it still helps. Also, according to the formula given in the book (which is at least partially incorrect, as I noted) every time you do find slaves each level of blood adds an extra slave before the random element, so even on a high-level mage an SDR will be worthwhile after 6 successful hunts, at least if that part of the formula is accurate.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Well, 6+x where x is the number of slaves you would have expected to collect the turn you forged - unless you are clever and just hunt until the first time that Unrest becomes an issue, then take a turn off to forge Rods while people calm down. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Speaking of unrest, does anyone know how it is *ACTUALLY* determined?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Hey all. Having played the game for awhile I decided to throw my two cents into the blood hunting economics/cost efficiency. So I made some statistics about blood hunting as was asked in the original post of this thread.

Before I start it must be said that all test were concluded with Late Age Mitclan in provinces with 10 000+ population, with growth 3 to keep the population from falling under 5 000 (very unlikely except for the rare random events that kill population), with commanders patrolling the province so that any unrest was eliminated immediately (and building a lab if needed) and the slaves were pooled every turn to prevent overload and therefore loss of slaves.

The hunters covered here were 0-level, 1st level, 2nd level and 3rd level blood hunters. 0-level test subject was your basic indy scout. 1st level test subject was Mitclan priest. 2nd level test subject was Mitclan Priest King. 3rd level test subject was Mitclan King of Rain.

There were 12 test subjects present in each test. 6 without Saiguine Dousing Rod and 6 with the Rod. Placed as seen below:

Province 1 has 1 test subject.
Province 2 has 2 test subjects.
Province 3 has 3 test subjects.
Province 4 has 1 test subject with rod
Province 5 has 2 test subjects with rod
Province 6 has 3 test subjects with rod

Each test runs for 100 turns.


Results for 0-lvl hunters
1 x 0-lvl - average of 0,54 slaves per turn - 88 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 0-lvl - average of 0,81 slaves per turn - 81 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 0-lvl - average of 1,28 slaves per turn - 74 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found

1 x 0-lvl w rod - average of 0,14 slaves per turn - 96 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 0-lvl w rod - average of 0,47 slaves per turn - 86 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 0-lvl w rod - average of 1,03 slaves per turn - 80 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found


Results for 1-lvl hunters
1 x 1-lvl - average of 2,05 slaves per turn - 55 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 1-lvl - average of 4,88 slaves per turn - 23 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 1-lvl - average of 7,45 slaves per turn - 13 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found

1 x 1-lvl w rod - average of 4,93 slaves per turn - 11 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 1-lvl w rod - average of 9,81 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 1-lvl w rod - average of 15,00 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found


Results for 2-lvl hunters
1 x 2-lvl - average of 5,07 slaves per turn - 8 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 2-lvl - average of 9,65 slaves per turn - 1 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 2-lvl - average of 14,07 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found

1 x 2-lvl w rod - average of 6,33 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 2-lvl w rod - average of 12,85 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 2-lvl w rod - average of 18,77 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found


Results for 3-lvl hunters
1 x 3-lvl - average of 6,44 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 3-lvl - average of 12,55 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 3-lvl - average of 18,79 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found

1 x 3-lvl w rod - average of 7,37 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
2 x 3-lvl w rod - average of 14,66 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found
3 x 3-lvl w rod - average of 21,67 slaves per turn - 0 turns out of 100 0 slaves were found

--------------------------

I have the cost efficiency chart for each Age but I'll post it on a later date. Hope this helps.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

What Site Frequency were you using?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

So your test is showing fairly clearly that a B2 (whether natural, or B1+SDR) will average over time, 5 slaves per turn, and each additional level adds 1 slave/turn average. That's pretty consistent with my non standardized tests.

However, Site Frequency setting is supposed to modify Blood Hunt results, so I'm also curious what frequency you used.

It would be interesting to see a similar set of test numbers at different settings, say 40-50-60, though if you were doing so at default settings in EA, then that's 45, and one could assume that the average over time would simply scale with the setting.

In any case, great work! :happy:

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

It was LA Mictlan, not EA.
Also, does anybody have a real proof of the fact that effectiveness of blood hunt depends on magic site frequency?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

The real interesting result from that test has nothing to do with B2's or B3's.

Level 0's with sanguine dousing rods are LESS effective.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Couldn't it be, like conventional wisdom says, that rods have no effect for 0 blood blood hunters?

Randomness would account for the entire difference in the test, then.
100 tests is ultimately a fairly small sample size.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

This is true, and it's funny to note the massive disparity between the 2 test groups.


Well somewhat, but bear in mind, in a way it's really 600 tests, compiled in batches of 100, 200, and 300 at a time. The fact that the tests with B1/B2/B3 all show fairly small levels of deviation, and a clear trend simply implies that using B0's is in fact just sporadic and unreliable at best, whereas we can come to expect a certain level of performance from real blood hunters, assuming Pop>5000 and Unrest<1.


And I missed the part where this was LA. Anyway my point was that if it is default SiteFreq, then we can extrapolate from there, and as long as we estimate cautiously, we shouldn't be too disappointed. ;)

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Once again, where is information that blood hunting depends on site frequency from? I also heard about it and probably it is so but is there anyone who can give a solid proof?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Maybe it's another bug and SDR not raises but lowers bloodhunting quality for those who have no skill in Blood magic?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Or maybe 100 tests is too small a sample size to get accurate numbers for an event with an expected occurrence of 1 in 10, especially when there is a 1 in 6 chance of the event producing extraordinary results when it does occur.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Gut tells me its statistically significant. Haven't had to do such calculations in 20 years.. but it seems so.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Hello again! Unfortunately I was unable to edit my previous post so I have to write a new one. First off with the questions and notes.

Site frequency used was the Late Age standard of 35

As JimM stated earlier, B1+SDR or B2 will give you an average slave income per turn of 5 with roughly 10% of the time coming up short (rounding up). There after it's pretty much 1 slave per level of blood so the clear benefactor of the SDR is B1 hunter.

Indeed the stats show that using a SDR with 0-level blood hunters seems to backfire the results. As for the reason I have no clue.

As you all seem to love stas, here some more results :)

Next we have the blood slaves found/upkeep cost calculations. the first number after each entry refers to cost without the rod and the second with the rod. The entries listed here are more or less available when playing the game but I decided not to list subjects that have a 10% of getting the first or subsequent level of blood. Keeping in mind that the site frequency for testing was 35.

Early Age

Mitclan

Mitclan Priest 1,0 - 2,5
Priest King 0,9 - 1,1
Rain Priest 1,0 - 1,2
Moon Priest 1,0 - 1,2
High Priest of Sun 0,6 - 0,7

Sauromantia

Witch King (1lvl) 0,2 - 0,5
Witch King (2lvl) 0,5 - 0,6
Warrior Sorceress 0,4 - 0,9

Abysia

Warlock Apprentice 0,4 - 0,9
Warlock 0,5 - 0,7

Pangaea

Pan (1lvl) 0,1 - 0,2
Pan (2lvl) 0,2 - 0,3

Vanheim

Vanjarl 0,2 - 0,5
Vanadrott (1lvl) 0,2 - 0,4
Vanadrott (2lvl) 0,4 - 0,5

Helheim

Vanjarl 0,2 - 0,5
Hangadrott (1lvl) 0,2 - 0,4

Niefelheim

Jotun Skratti (2lvl) 0,3 - 0,4
Jotun Skratti (3lvl) 0,4 - 0,4
Gygja (1lvl) 0,1 - 0,3
Gygja (2lvl) 0,3 - 0,4
Gygja (3lvl) 0,4 - 0,4

Hinnom

Kohen 0,4 - 1,0
Melqart 0,4 - 0,5
Ba'al 0,3 - 0,4

Lanka

Raktapata 0,7 - 1,6
Yogini 0,3 - 0,7
Kala-Mukha (1lvl) 0,4 - 0,9
Kala-Mukha (2lvl) 1,0 - 1,2
Rakshasi (1lvl) 0,2 - 0,4
Rakshasi (2lvl) 0,4 - 0,5
Rakshasi (3lvl) 0,6 - 0,6
Raksharaja (2lvl) 0,6 - 0,7

Middle Age

Abysia

Warlock Apprentice 0,6 - 0,7
Warlock 0,4 - 0,4
Deamonbred 0,6 - 0,7

Pangaea

Pan 0,1 - 0,2
Pandemoniac 0,2 - 0,3

Vanheim

Vanjarl 0,2 - 0,5
Vanadrott (1lvl) 0,2 - 0,4
Vanadrott (2lvl) 0,4 - 0,5

Jotuinheim

Vaetti Hag 0,6 - 1,3
Jotun Skratti (2lvl) 0,3 - 0,4
Jotun Skratti (3lvl) 0,4 - 0,4
Gygja (1lvl) 0,1 - 0,3
Gygja (2lvl) 0,3 - 0,4
Gygja (3lvl) 0,4 - 0,4

Late Age

Ulm

Membr of the Second Tier 0,2 - 0,5
Fortune Teller 0,3 - 0,8

Marignon

Diabolist 0,4 - 0,9
Goetic Master (2lvl) 0,8 - 1,0
Goetic Master (3lvl) 1,0 - 1,2

Mitclan

Mitclan Priest 1,0 - 2,5
Priest King 0,9 - 1,1
Moon Priest 1,0 - 1,2
Sun Priest 1,0 - 1,2
Rain Priest 0,4 - 1,1
King of Rain 0,6 - 0,6

Abysia

Sanguine Acolyte 0,6 - 1,5
Sanguine Anathemant 0,8 - 1,1
Slayer Sanguine 0,8 - 0,9
Warlock Apprentice 0,6 - 0,7
Warlock 0,4 - 0,4

Midgård

Galderman (1lvl) 0,1 - 0,4
Galderman (2lvl) 0,4 - 0,5
Vanjarl 0,2 - 0,5

Utgård

Jotun Skratti (2lvl) 0,3 - 0,4
Jotun Skratti (3lvl) 0,4 - 0,4
Norna 0,1 - 0,3

Gath

Kohen 0,4 - 1,0
Kohen Gadol 0,4 - 0,5

Bogarus

Fivefold Angel 0,8 - 1,1
Occultist 0,3 - 0,7
Master of Names 0,2 - 0,5
Starets (1lvl) 0,1 - 0,3
Starets (2lvl) 0,3 - 0,4

----------------

This is just to give you an idea of how useful each entry is in blood hunting. However keep in mind that certain characters have issues that cant be taken into account. Good example would be Late Age Mitclan Moon or Sun Priests which suffer from old age.

Cheers

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

I would suggest that you enter two games, one with site frequency at 0 and one with site frequency 75. The difference in blood hunting results is easily evident that way.

http://web.archive.org/web/200110270...1182781025.gif

From the series given, you can't meaningfully calculate standard deviation.

If you accept blood hunting at level 0 as occurring at a 10% succes rate, it isn't statistically significant (the results occur within two standard deviations).


And finally, to add to Tmoe's list:

Independents

Scout 0,3

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Yes
No

edit: also, nice tests there Tmoe!

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

This is really an excellent resource! Always knew Pans were pricey for Blood, but wow, poor Pangaea. :p

It's funny, with Lanka, I always use Kala-Mukhas for my hunters, as there are so many uses for the 75% that don't get their Blood pick.

It's a fun list, shows why EA+LA Mictlan are the "kings of blood", and there are several others who get around 1/1 sufficiency in their hunting, and most others with Blood access are really paying for it.

(Oh and one note for beginners who read this list - the Bogarus Five-Fold Angel looks like a great Blood Hunter, but they cause additional Unrest in any province they are in, so unless you have Patrollers, which cost more upkeep and kill more pop, you will have troubles.)

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Prophetize your blood hunter = )

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Rather than just saying no - you wanna provide a calculation?

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

a calculation as to your gut feeling? No.

it's pretty clear looking at the numbers for 1 lvl 0 hunter, there were 12 successes w/out the rod (out of 100) and ony 4 successes w/ the rod - when one would expect 10 hits, both of those are quite w/in normal expectations. The rod should not be affecting the chance of getting a result in the first place, and there has been no real reason to question this from these numbers.

the results w/ 2 sdr wielding lvl 0's were unlucky, and the results w/ 3 were about what one would expect.

but, if you wish to believe that giving level 0 blood hunters a useless item is harmful, feel free to not give them the useless item :D

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Yeah Pangaea got it pretty bad when you consider that even the independent scout has better blood slave/upkeep cost ratio :).

I didn't quite understand what you meant with the term Blood pick and why Kala-mukhas would be better? I would assume Raktapata is the natural blood hunter choice for Lanka since they get the most out of the SDR and have the best slave/upkeep ratio.

And to add some more data, here's the list for the most slaves captured in a single turn by the test groups.

Results for 0-lvl hunters
1 x 0-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 13
2 x 0-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 9
3 x 0-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 16

1 x 0-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 9
2 x 0-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 9
3 x 0-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 20


Results for 1-lvl hunters
1 x 1-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 10
2 x 1-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 18
3 x 1-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 24

1 x 1-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 17
2 x 1-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 21
3 x 1-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 39


Results for 2-lvl hunters
1 x 2-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 15
2 x 2-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 24
3 x 2-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 29

1 x 2-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 15
2 x 2-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 24
3 x 2-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 36


Results for 3-lvl hunters
1 x 3-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 17
2 x 3-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 29
3 x 3-lvl - Most slaves found in single turn: 31

1 x 3-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 13
2 x 3-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 32
3 x 3-lvl w rod - Most slaves found in single turn: 37

------------------

Unfortunately I cant attach the open office calc document where all the raw data and results are but if somebody wants it they can throw me a message and i can email it to you

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

If you want, a statistical analysis on if there is a significant difference in any of these numbers can be done.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Because the Kala-Mukha is 1B + 1NDB. I like the 2B as Blood Hunters, because then I can use them freely, without reliance on the SDR. Since they can reanimate, they can remote search Death, they Preach well as H2, and they get useful minor forging options (always need Bags of Wine!), I feel they are worth the investment. And I forgot it's 33% that get B2, so really they're a good option, depending on how you like to use them.

Also, you can shift to 2 B2+SDR per province, or do a little patrolling, and really start to milk your efficiency. At a certain point, Lanka is happy with enough gold to buy 1 Raksharaja and X Palankashas per turn, as long as you can pull in enough slaves to destroy your foe.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

one point to make about efficiency, is that even unsuccessful lvl 0 bloodhunters cause unrest, so all in all you will be getting rather less blood per province set aside for hunting. There is a greater monetary opportunity cost per blood slave gathered w/ scouts than w/ actual blood mage blood hunters.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

And another angle to consider is the loss in income from the province, not just the upkeep of the mage. Particularly because the more blood hunting provinces you use, the less and less ideal they are - as you start wanting more bloodslaves you start bloodhunting in higher and higher population provinces. The more concentrated your bloodhunters are, the cheaper the bloodslaves (not even taking into account defensive considerations)

For instance, consider two different ways to go using LA Abyssia as an example. Lets say I'm bloodhunting with 2 B4 Abysian warlocks. Lets also say for the sake of argument, that not only do they have SDRs, but they each also have one blood booster which was forged for summonings/forgings and is not being used this turn, so they're effectively bloodhunting at B6. Extrapolating the trend shown in the graph (and that each blood level is supposed to gain you +1 slave) those two bloodhunters are going to pull in 14.6 + 6 = about 21 slaves per turn.

Alternatively you're using sanguine acolytes with SDRs because they seem on the surface to be more cost effective. Nice, cheap, holy blood hunters. Thing is, to get 22 slaves per turn you need 4 of them (plus the same boosters and an extra rod). Problem is, you can't put 4 B2 bloodhunters in one province or the unrest skyrockets. How's that upkeep difference looking as you switch extra provinces over to bloodhunting? This can be an enormous difference if you (for example) have a bunch of wastelands with a few high pop farmlands. You bloodhunting yet another 10k population province, or would you rather have your hunters spinning their wheels in a 3k mountain?

BTW, this is also the real cost in bloodhunting with scouts. Their upkeep is usually cheap compared to the lost income from the province they're bumbling around to eek out a handful of blood slaves.

Oh, also those two extra castle turns to crank out two extra bloodhunters (Warlocks vs acolytes) are not worthless resources.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

However, using Pangaea as an example, it's probably a worthy strat to start a couple typical hunting provinces with Pans, and roll all of those slaves directly into Empowering cheap indies to B1 and having them forge their own SDR. Done right you will need to be more aggressive about hunting to get a really solid income out of it (because of the cost of 53 slaves per hunter), but your gold/slave will be low, and once the machine is in place your blood income will be great, and all of your Pans will be free to do more exciting things.

I had never thought to treat a Blood nation as a non-Blood nation in such a way, I think it has the potential to reach a better middle ground than that of spending 70g/province in upkeep for the 3 Pans in it. :p Compare to the 2g/province upkeep for 3 Scouts with SDR.....

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Would you.. I would really appreciate it!

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

CP: I don't think I'll be able to do it this week, as I have quite a bit of work plus a conference to attend, but I've just now had to review all of the statistical analytical techniques for hypothesis testing.

However, to do any of these, I need the variance of the samples, as well as the means.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

Well, seeing as the rod *says* it requires skill in blood to use - AND the results to date support that conclusion...

I think its pretty clear that SDR inhibit your chances of success. But if you wish to continue giving these rods to people that can't use them - feel free.

Pending a larger sample size, of course.

Re: Cost efficient blood hunting
 

This is actually the most important point about bloodhunting in Dom3 and is one of the big changes in bloodhunting from Dom2.

The increase in gold/province is a large boost (relative) to less elite blood hunting nations as the majority of the cost of blood hunting is the lost gold from taxes (assuming you blood hunt in stable state by setting taxes to zero, if you patrol it is difficult to compare).

Just for comparison consider two blood hunters:

Mitclan Priest (upkeep 2.66) average blood ~7
Jotun Skratti (upkeep 16.66) average blood ~8

It seems like the Mitclan Priest is far superior. Indeed from the chart above you are getting 2.5 slaves / gold with the Mitclan Priest and only 0.4 slaves / gold with the Jotun Skratti.

However if you blood hunt with 2 per province, in a 5000k pop province (~70 income) the numbers turn out quite different:

Mitclan Priest ~5.3 gold / slave
Jotun Skratti ~6.5 gold / slave

Mitclan still wins, but they are much closer.

PS: the increase in gold / province is actually a rather large nerf to all blood hunting nations, which was noted when Dom3 was released (there were actually multiple nerfs to blood in Dom3 vs. Dom2, most relegated to devils). Given that blood is still considered very powerful in Dom3 this was almost certainly a good thing (along with the nerf to life drain which was excellent).