Blood Question
 

So I want to forge soul contracts.

Hammers don't seem to reduce the number of slaves needed.
Sites with a Construction bonus do not seem to reduces the number of slaves needed.
Sites with a Blood magic bonus do not seem to reduce the number of slaves needed.

I'm guessing there is no way to achieve a discount on forged blood items?

I was looking for a general blood collecting thread and I can't seem to locate one.

Scout Ferrying seems to be the best way to go.
Multiple collectors?
Go to a large Province and take the financial hit?
Is there a consensus "Best" way to collect blood slaves?

Re: Blood Question
 

1- Soul contracts are specifically hard coded to not benefit from const bonuses
2- All other forged blood items can be made w/hammers no problem.
3- Scout ferrying is usually the best way, though certain nations might like to have labs in their bloodhunting provs so their hunters can cast on demand (MA-LA Abysia for example)
4- In general, you want no more than 2-3 hunters per province. 2 if they are b3 or higher, 3 if they are lower seems to be a useful rule of thumb. This is assuming you aren't patrolling
5- IIRC, the most efficient bloodhunting provinces are those w/5k pop, making less than 100g per turn. Less than 5k pop reduces the number of slaves you will get, while going higher does not gain you any more. However, if you are a major blood nation you will usually end up hunting in 70%+ of your provinces anyway regardless of population.

Re: Blood Question
 

2. Lifelong Protection and hearts (black and of life) also don't get discount iirc.

Re: Blood Question
 

Baalz' blood-hunting section of his EA Mictlan guide is pretty general, and can be applied to most heavy blood hunting nations. It's linked in the strategy index (stickied at the top of this forum.) There are some more blood-related guides in there too that you may want to look at and possibly adapt.

Keep in mind if you're using CBM 1.7x that sanguine dousing rods are made unique, and so can't be used as a general strategy to improve blood hunting success (so either use more hunters, recruit ones with higher blood or dousing bonus, or empower your hunters to > 1B.)

Re: Blood Question
 

Hmm, another way of looking at it would be:
the dousing rod got changed to cost 30 Slaves no Forge bonus needs to apply and you cant send them with the scouts out.
And its an cursed item, but doesnt require an slot.

OK, OK its a litte of an stretch... :rolleyes:

Re: Blood Question
 

Or you can use a 25 slave booster. Though that does take a B4 mage to forge. You may not have enough of those to spare.

Interesting that many seem to feel it's still worth boosting the B1 hunters. What's the payoff time on those 30 slaves, anyway?

I wonder if boosting the cost of SDRs would be an alternative to making them unique. Would they still be overpowered and spammed at B3/15 slaves? At B4/25 slaves you'd just empower or use Brazen Vessels instead.

Re: Blood Question
 

While I have pretty limited experience, I feel like even increasing them to B2 would have a significant effect on their dynamic. A major feature of the SDR as it stands is that whatever crappy B1 bloodhunters you churn out can manufacture their own SDRs, so there's pretty much no reason ever to be hunting at B1 except to get the first five slaves. B2 or the suggested B3 would make them an investment of actual mage turns - still worth cranking out, but no longer an entirely automatic self-upgrade for your entire bloodhunt armada.

Re: Blood Question
 

Pay off on 30 slaves for empowering b1->b2 is about 10 turns, probably. I'd have to work out the math precisely, but just consider.

50->90% chance of finding any slaves
+1 slave every time you do.

So in 10 turns, that's 4 extra turns of finding slaves, +5 slaves on the turns both would've found slaves anyway. (x+1)*4 probably averages over 25.

Re: Blood Question
 

Is there a faster way to move blood slaves from a mage that has hunted them to your general pool without sitting there getting carpal tunnel syndrome spamming leftclick?

Re: Blood Question
 

if you go to your gem treasury there's a 'pool' button that moves that all of that type of gem from commanders to your treasury. naturally it only works in provinces with labs.

bloods kinda unplayable without that :)

Re: Blood Question
 

and there is the z key, for the active commander, moving his slaves to the lab only. But transferring them from hunters to whatever ferry you use mean a lot of clicks.

Re: Blood Question
 

Oh thank you so much.