[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Bowlingballhead:
Now to put this in contrast with the new blood nation - Black Forest Ulm. Ugh. Painfully weak. Your blood mages aren't that good, so they really don't blood hunt too well.

Ulm's blood searchers are not that much worse than warlock apprentices when given a sanguine dousing rod.

Your armies are more expensive and not as strong as Abysia's, so you don't conquer provinces as well to get your blood economy going.

Black forest's rangers are capable of taking on independents every bit as quickly as Man's longbows. They build quicker than Abysia's troops, and also have precision 14, which makes them quite accurate.

Yeah, the vampire count is nice, but he's not THAT nice.

He's immortal, and can be produced one per turn by turn 22 using nothing other than vampire counts and a blood fountain as searchers. Add in other blood mages, and you could easily get more than that.

If the world is rich, maybe you can afford to play those ghoul guardians, but if it's not, you're utterly dependent on vampires that will only take you so far.

And research? Forget it. You don't have the money for mages, because everyone's dying and your troops are ugly upkeep.

Black forest Ulm can easily afford to build a second tier mage every single turn. Their troops are half as expensive as Abysia's, and they have free, zero-upkeep patrollers from the wolfherders.

Abysia, on the other hand, can easily afford a nice +2 growth with its +3 heat, and watch blood-farmed provinces actually *grow*.

They will grow so slowly that the effect will only be noticed in the _very_ long term.

Thus I register my feelings on the ongoing 'who makes the best blood race' debate.

That would be Mictlan. Sacred, 80 gold blood searchers, low resource costs on their troops, and their other mages give them the ability to catch massive amounts of slaves.

Oh, and Abysians even get all-important Astral magic.

So does Black Forest Ulm. They also get protection from misfortune through the fortune tellers.