[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Zen:

quote:

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Originally posted by licker:
Scouts suck period. I find it hard to believe that it is more cost effective to use 4+ scouts than 1 decent mage with blood on them (and the dousing rod, which if I recall correctly doesn't help non blood powered commanders anymore). Beyond that your blood mage can switch to summoning demons when needed, the scouts can't do squat, well they have their value as scouts, but that's only useful outside of your provinces...

Scouts can be useful to ferry slaves from hunting commanders in provinces without labs though...

Scouts have quite a few benefits over most nations blood hunters.

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Assuming that by "most nations" you mean "nations/themes without a good blood hunter". (Unfortunately this includes Abysia at the moment. Warlock Apprentice would have been just what they needed - if he had been cheap and not capitol only instead of another big-ticket mage. Maybe in a future patch...)

1.) They are not capital only. Any province with a Scout can make a blood hunter cheap and effectively.

I think you mean not *fortress* only. Diabolists and Mictlan Priests aren't capitol only either.

2.) With the variance of the blood hunting process, 5 scouts (100 Gold) will hunt up more slaves than 1 Mictlan Priest, though it may be sporatic (meaning one or two turns you might get only a few, and another turn you could get 20+).

Mictlan Priests are sacred (half upkeep). Aside from this, I don't think 5 scouts will outperform 1 mictlan priest. Scouts fail a lot. Most of the time with 5 scouts, no more than one will find ANY blood slaves (IMX anyway). And more hunters means more unrest, even if they are unsuccessful.

3.) Scouts are stealthy, most blood priests are not.

If you could hunt while sneaking (in enemy territory), then this would be useful; otherwise not. Anyone on hunt orders isn't sneaking if an enemy army happens to show up, and they're not going to live long enough to switch to sneaking.

4.) Scouts can hunt in a province you are still taxing and not get unrest because of the variable system in which they are used. Thus if you want to have 1-2 scouts in every province 5k+ in population and set the tax to 90% you can do so, without reciving much in the way of a unrest hit. This also provides a way of hunting across your empire and not getting your blood hunting interrupted by a CotW or CotWild that hits your hunting provinces.

One mictlan priest in every province accomplishes the same thing.

A smaller number of more skilled hunters will always produce less unrest per slave found than a large number of unskilled hunters. Even if the unskilled scouts can match the blood mages' slave output through sheer numbers, slave hunting unrest is determined partly by slaves found and partly by number of searchers.

Scouts are far superior in my mind, as well as being able to blood hunt earlier. While getting and placing hunter with Blood Magic and Dousing Rods is something you do to increase your Blood Hunting Capability, more often than not, I'd rather just make a bunch of scouts in 3 or 4 provinces and make a new mage in my castle provinces.

I almost never hunt with unskilled hunters - too much unrest for too few (often no) slaves. Only if I'm playing a nation whose blood mages are RIDICULOUSLY expensive (Pangaea, Vanheim, maybe Jotunheim) will I resort to hunting by the unskilled - and even then, only until I find independents or site-based mages or something like that.