Miniblood nations - rates
 

I'm playing around with EA Van with the 1st CBM that took away hammers. Now there's been some discussion as to miniblood nations, like EA Van, and how removing SDRs hits them hard.

So in my test game I have 2 B2 vandrotts blood hunting a province and they're pulling in ~25-30 slaves every 2 turns.

My question then is what is the ideal expectation of a blood income from a miniblood nation?

To me, having never played a heavy blood nation, 15 slaves/turn is pretty good, and I only have 2 mages doing it right now. I would think that for a heavy blood nation you would want as many as possible but is 100 for a heavy blood realistic? Too small? What then of miniblood in comparison?

Thoughts?

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Depends on how many mages you invest in it. Without sacrificing too much of anything else, you should be able to pull about 50 blood slaves a turn.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

The problem with removing SDRs is that blood slaves for nations with only B1 hunters suddenly became twice as expensive. Why? Because a B2 mage will find 120% more bloodslaves on average (guesstimate) than a B1 will and now they cant boost them cheaply. EA Vanheim has expensive capitol only mages with a chance for B2. But you can hardly hope to build a blood economy on those alone.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

The arguement for removing SDRs has been made already...this thread isn't for that purpose. I'm merely concerned with rates.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Strictly speaking, the price of blood saves is mainly determined by your scales, as you need to turn taxes to 0. The same 5000-population province can yield 40 to 80gpt. In the case of vanheim, it is usually higher (O3 scales).
If you hunt by four B1 Vans (cost again as much as 15 turns of lost income from blood hunting), the maintenance is around 37gpt.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

The price of a bloodslave is also affected by the magic site settings in the game. High settings = more bloodslaves. I think.

You should also remember the opportunity cost of recruiting a bloodhunter. A B2 bloodhunter will only require half as many mage recruiting turns/slots as a B1. And the freed recruit slot from a B2 can, for example, be used to buy a researcher in stead.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

15 slaves/turn is fine for forging and some blood sacrificing but you won't get too far with summoning. I'd say 100 blood slaves/turn for a heavy blood nation is too low. When playing MA Aby (good, but cap only, blood hunters) I'm looking for at least 150, preferably 200. With Mictlan (which I haven't played) I'd expect even higher numbers. When playing Van my goal has typically been 75-100/turn (if I can get GoNB up then Van's horribly cost-inefficient blood hunters become more tolerable and I aim for higher numbers ;)). Of course map size affects these numbers but this is roughly what I'd aim for in an 8-12 player game.

As for Van post-SDR, I'd suggest using all of your B2 Vanadrotts for blood hunting. Additional, you'll want some blood boosters around and when they are not being used in forging/combat give them to Vanjarls to get a few extra blood hunters. I haven't played any post CBM 1.6 games but I can't see using Vanjarls without a booster/SDR - just too cost inefficent at that point. So, if by turn 50 you've split your cap recruitment 40% dwarves and 60% Vanadrott's you'll have about 7 B2 Vanadrott's hunting and maybe another 3 Vanjarls with boosters. This doesn't seem that bad but the fact that you can't offload most blood hunting duties to Vanjarls means that those B2 Vanadrott's will have to stay focused on that and also be your main options for forging, summoning and combat use (blood magic does have some useful combat spells). I'd suggest summoning Vampire Lords as soon as possible to help with all this.

The thing with Vanheim is that while they are very inefficient blood hunters, and in that sense are a "miniblood" nation, blood magic is very important to them and I recommend making it a high priority and making the best of the current situation (which will hopefully be addressed in a future CBM release).

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

speaking about Vanheim, your pretender choice can greatly affect your numbers. a very solid choice is to go for a blood oriented pretender, Fountain of Blood being the most popular among them. this gives you a great blood hunting potential right from the start and allow for more heavy duty blood magic than relying on expensive inefficient hunters. this goes for all "mini" blood nations, if that's the strategy you choose to use.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

I can't see, however, how an awake FoB would be a good strategy for Vanheim. There's about nothing that blood slaves could be used early.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Well, it does give some RP points, and 36 early slaves. (in CBM the fountain generates blood slaves).

But, having a FoB in a province does unlock a rather nasty event:
"The wailing of the blood fountain has driven part of the population insane. Ten percent of the population has died."
10% poploss and +20 unrest.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

well, blood nations generally prefer luck scales over order, seeing that the "mini" blood nations can't go scorched earth like Mictlan/Lanka they can't go T3L3, but O1L3 for example is very doable for most of them. also, whenever I use the FoB myself I always put S4 on him to be able to teleport him around so I can hunt in good provinces(~5000 pop, preferably with income penalty) rather than my capital.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Thanks for the reply Valerius your post was the answer I was looking for. :D

Agreed the 15 blood slaves/turn is low, but before I started really playing around with what could be done I figured I'd get a bench mark first.

I slightly disagree with your post sdr analysis. I'm thinking more to start it up with as many B2s & B1s as soon as possible and get it going. Then get blood boosters (con4) and pass them to B1s to make them B2s so as to free up some of the B2s for summons, etc. and continue to scale upward. Perhaps an inefficient approach but I don't see much else. Even waiting for turn 50 with ~7B2 drotts, isn't ideal. And while I agree vamp lords would be a nice add on that's really pushing mid/late game with respect to research (blood7) when there are other tasty battle spells that could be researched up the alt/evo/ench trees.

Definately not counting either out, but imo the blood econ should already be pumping at a relatively good pace by that point (even if only 25 slaves/turn that's 1 booster/turn which will lead to more slaves, etc.), and in all likelihood I won't be putting blood on the the pretender so I'll need to empower one drott to B4.

I also agree that blood is important to Van, and should be exploited to it's fullest (def cloud trap jarl sabbaths sound sneaky and fun :p).

Curious though on your 75-100 blood slave eco, what exactly were you making/summoning? Item wise Vans choices are meh. Was it simply to field mass amounts of storm demons?

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Consider empowering B1s to B2. Its only 30b.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Not necessarily in EA Van's case seeing how they can easily get watchers. Combined with the right growth scales income loss would be minimal for a one time cost of air gems. Also consider with that application you can then leave the jarls in the fort they were recruited to blood hunt, thereby protecting your hunting grounds as well.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Cheaper to forge Brazen Vessels or Blood Thorns, once you've got the research.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

One extra hunter over the 'unrest neutral' case still results in a pop loss of ~100/turn from patrolling. Growth cannot even fully offset the pop loss from the average 0 unrest case (3xB2).

And patrolling cost is comparable to blood hunter maintenance, so the major cost is still the loss of taxes.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Those items requires B4 to make though. Witch means you have to take blood on your pretender. And the fountain cant use a hammer....

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Nah, it is easy to empower someone to B4.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

If all you've got is B1 on nationals, you're going to need to empower someone to do anything with all that blood you're collecting.

And the same version of CBM that took SDRs away also took hammers, so I was assuming no discount.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

While giving blood boosters to B1 hunters sound like a good option when no SDR are present I see two problems;

1. Blood hunters would get rather vulnerable in open provinces, the fact remains you pull more gold from forts due to administration so open provinces are generally a better option to blood hunt, and I for one would target those provinces first for assassinations, remote spells and attacks. So you'd need forts or something in blood hunting provinces to protect your investment. We all know that it sometimes takes only one turn of war to halt or cripple a blood economy.

2. Every blood hunter will have to take about 4 turns at least to pay his items off before he starts hunting, not to mention that you have to use your rare B2 mages to start the initial hunting and get the slaves for the boosters, since hunting with a B1 mage is ineffective.
Also, rather than forging items, I'd much prefer empowering to B2 myself, after all it's only a 5 slave difference without the hammers.

I of course see no way around this since I think Vanheim is screwed regarding blood hunting personally.

Vampires Lords would blood hunt good, but using them for hunting means you're not using them to summon vampires, which is wasteful to me.

In regards to blood hunting power levels, I'd say around 7 blood hunting provinces is average.

Blood hunting under taxes is a bad idea too, regardless of patrolers, or scales for that matter. The only time I see this pay off is when you have a gold mine in a province so you can stack up the taxes and blood hunt.
Growth scales are usually meaningless in blood hunting provinces. The more pop you have they more you'll get and since blood hunting provinces tend to have 4000-7000 population usually the growth will be marginal. If you hunt, tax and patrol you'll kill that provicnes blood hunting abilities rather fast I feel. It's rather easy to lose 500 pop after a good blood hunting turn.

As for the fountain of blood, I have yet to see anyone use it for blood hunting.
You take it when you have a blood nation (is it restricted to blood nations only?), at which point having your pretender blood hunt isn't all that of a bonus, especially since you'd have to teleport him away as blood hunting in your cap is a fast way to drive your pop down, the more population there is, the faster they'll die, so you need to have either air or astral, to research teleporting, and build a second fort for the pretender if you don't take astral for returning. A hassle I think.

Oh, and as for summons, I'd go for ritual of 5 gates mostly. Summon some Ice devils or Heliopagi that can cast ritual of five gates in time of peace with some boosters (use them as SCs when you need to). Massing only storm demons can be countered easily with the right stuff, and it takes a lot of mages time summoning them one by one.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

I agree with your approach - the turn 50 example was just a point of reference of what you might have ramped up to as you enter the late game. I would definitely start early, as you have planned. As each B2 Vanadrott is recruited put them right to work blood hunting. And even if you don't have an immediate need for the blood slaves there's something to be said for stockpiling them since you can't sharply ramp up your yield the way the major blood powers can. The only thing I'm not sure about is using B1 Vanjarls without a booster to blood hunt. Of course you'll want some around anyway for thugging and when not otherwise occupied there's no reason not to have them blood hunting (since they're almost equally bad researchers :p) but I don't think I'd recruit them expressly for blood hunting (unless of course I had a booster ready for them).

I also agree with your research priority. When playing Van I wouldn't focus that much on blood until I had key spells like rain of stones and fog warriors researched. Vampire lords and high level blood magic are long term goals. For me, blood is key for Van's late game but early/mid game I'm not relying on it the way I would when playing Aby.


Well, I really like the synergy between being able to push your dominion with blood sacrifice and using immortal units. At 66 slaves each, vampire lords can use of a lot of that income. Then blood sacrificing from multiple forts using jade knives could easily use up another 15-20 slaves. If I've researched blood 9 I'll also make use of the various spells that summon a batch of demons. If I think there's some still available I'll also go for the unique blood summons. And of course if you're regularly using spells like life for a life that adds up as well.

Actually, earlier in the game a lot of my blood income went into preparing for a late game blood economy. Invariably I'd empower an N mage so I could forge jade knives. I'd probably continue empowering that mage so he could forge armor of twisting thorns and that would open up the other blood boosters (as well as B/N spells if you want to use some of those).

I didn't make much use of the low level blood summons since Van has a good troop lineup (more so MA than EA). If I do use low level summons I aim for something that summons several units at once. While the idea of an upkeep free lightning bolt caster for 4 slaves is appealing, I never made much use of storm demons when they had to be summoned one at a time. I think because blood hunting is already costly and then I have to have a B2 Vanadrott or a Vanjarl with a booster do the summoning. Especially given the demands on those units in CBM 1.8, summoning demons one at a time doesn't seem worth it.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Van has crappy forts so I wouldn't be too concerned with gold loss. Open provinces or forts can be protected by domes of solid air. You can also further ensure their safe keeping by giving them crystal hearts.

I'd rather have items as the items can be transferred whereas an empowerment cannot.

maybe :)

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Agreed, but with jade knives now unique I don't know how worthwhile blood saccing is.

Actually I find the hearts of life to be quite useful and am now planning on spamming the hell outta them for thugging/casting purposes. Without them thugging options for Van, eh not so much.

And speaking of empowering. A fun trick might be to put W and E on the pretender to summon Grendelkin. Empower the Grendelkin in blood, give maybe a blood thorn and definately hydra armor and ring of regen then script blood vengence/reinvigorate/attack. :) Will still need to test that one but on paper looks good...

All in all in terms of summons, there really is nothing there for Van until Blood 7 & 9, however with the scaling upward blood eco through forging boosters, forging hearts, empowering, and combat casting, I'm now of the opinion that there are definate uses of slaves in the early and especially the mid game of Van and can't really foresee too much stock piling going on.

All the more reason for the blood eco, inefficient as it is, to start sooner than later :).

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

After running some expansion tests coupled with out of the gate blood hunting I now agree that empowering from the start is the way to go to get the economy rolling for van. Thanks!

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

I wonder about that myself, especially since Van only has H2s. Should still work for protecting your own dominion but I don't know that you'll be able to generate much of a dominion push.

That's an interesting idea! I've never actually used hearts of life, I think because I hated the idea of giving up a misc slot on my thugs. And the idea of equipping communion slaves with them (maybe combined with a light earth bless and summon earthpower?) seems very interesting.

Funny you should mention that. At one point I considered empowering bane lords in B and running a reverse communion. Of course I wanted to run more than just B buffs through the communion and fatigue built up quickly. In the end I decided it wasn't worthwhile. But grendelkin are of course much tougher than bane lords and could be worth the trouble. Fun idea, anyway. :)

I agree with Executor that Van is screwed with regard to blood hunting but this has been an interesting conversation and I have to admit it makes me want to play Van despite the hits they've taken. I'll be curious to hear if you manage develop a strong blood economy despite having to spend all that effort to empower/forge boosters in order to get effective blood hunters.

Re: Miniblood nations - rates
 

Aye, it's really not too hard. I'm part way through making a guide for EA Van so hopefully I can demonstrate how they can be awesome sauce. :)