[Patrik]

Sorry for being late into this thread, but I just feel I must respond to Mr. Poger's initial statements. First:

Originally posted by apoger:


In comparison the blood magics had a cost increase of about 50%. While the cost did in fact go up, when considered in relation to the rest of the game the practical cost is effectively lower!

While 50% may be some sort of average, it doesn't say much about the actual changes. This is my list of the biggest Dom1 blood magic abuses (subjective of course)

1. Ice Devil - changed from 30 to 55 (= 83% increase). Limited numbers. No free water gems. +1 lvl research.

2. Pazuzuu - Now Demon Lord (I think, haven't actually summoned all DLs yet though). 150 slaves, 9th lvl research.

3. Father Illearth - Cost increase 50 to 75 (Yes that's 50%). Unique. +2 lvl research.

These were the big ones IMO. They have all been severely nerfed. The other big blood summons were much less of an issue, and were thus less changed (about 50% cost increase )

Now, blood hunting were also made harder to in Dom2 since only blood mages benefit from dousing rods. Here Alex makes a very strange statement

Originally posted by apoger:

Second the sanguine dowsing rod is no longer useable by non-blood mages. This is good since it will help keep some non-blood nations out of the blood business (more on this shortly) but it does nothing to slow down the potential abuse from the blood nations.

I can only interpret 'does nothing to slow down' as compared to Dom1. This is ridiculous!! Did ANYONE (I am certain you didn't Alex) use the native blood mages as hunters in Dom1? They were all (Demonbred, Skratti, Vanjarl, Pandemoniac) enormously more expensive than using cheap commanders with rods. Typically you would by one or two blood mages for the initial hunting (maybe) and rod forging.

Looking at the numbers for blood hunting on Sunrays page, a non-blood commander (with rod) brings in 3.2 slaves/round compared to 4.4 slaves/round for lvl 1 blood mages with rods. Thus, getting 50 slaves with a scout in Dom 1 would cost you 41 gold (cost + upkeep) whereas 50 slaves with a Vanjarl would cost 386 gold - 'nothing to slow down' indead...

Now, new cheap(er) blood mages are available in Dom2. Mictlan has one lvl 1 holy for 80 gold. Getting 50 slaves with him would cost 110 gold. Still, compared to the cheapest blood hunter in Dom1 that is more than 2.5 times as expensive. And Mictlan really really need those slaves.

For the 'second best' nation Abysia the Warlock apprentice cost 150 gold. I don't know the number for a lvl 2 blood mage, but let's assume it's 6 slaves/round (with rod). Getting 50 slaves is then 233 gold - almost 6 times as expensive as it would've been in Dom1.

It can of course be argued that cost + upkeep of blood hunters are just a part of the total cost for blood hunting. Still, I think that not addressing it properly when comparing to other changes from Dom1 was quite unfair and doesn't give an appropriate picture of the changes that has been done to blood magic. Altogether, it has been nerfed more than anything from Dom1 (possibly with the exception of lesser elementals).