February 11th, 2004, 11:09 PM
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Re: Tips for finding blood slaves appreciated here
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Originally posted by Chris Byler:
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...)
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Most = All except for Mictlan, DF. Even BF ulm gets a better buy out of Scouts.
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I think you mean not *fortress* only. Diabolists and Mictlan Priests aren't capitol only either.
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I ment castle, not capital. I think I mentioned later castle.
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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.
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I have had different experiances. Perhaps it was because of the luck involved, but over an average of 100 turns, 3 scouts will perform equal to 1 Mictlan Priest w/o dousing rod +- 5 Slaves. I have only done the test twice. Once with Mitclan Priest and once with a Vanjarl (I wanted to see if there were any hidden bonuses for blood hunting based on nation).
This may not be very apparent, because of the variety of turns. You can go through a dry spell with scouts, but also you can go through a gold rush.
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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.
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It was not intended to be while blood hunting. In my experience in most MP your are flooded with spells like HfH, CotW, CotWild, flying SC's or armies, stealth attacks, etc. Stealth on people outside of a castle is a significant advantage in my mind for a non-fighting utility unit simply because after they retreat (if you have set them to retreat) you could be cut off and die. Whereas when you retreat with a stealth unit, they go into 'hide' and can have the province taken out from under tham and be sitting on it.
Also once you're known to be using blood, or are a blood nation, you are more than likely to be scouted and attacked at your blood hunting provinces. With the exception of Jotun, most cast any province spells will knock out even 11ish PD. And most would cast 2 or 3 of the same spell in order to make sure your Blood Hunters are scattered and distracted and cut off a potential supply. And at times will cut you off of retreat to kill you (depends totally on the situation)
This may not be others experiences, which I freely admit, but it is nonetheless a very real threat in competitive MP with blood in my experience.
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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.
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This is assuming you can field a Mictlan priest for every province and take the significant hit to research that it would require in the early game where Blood is strongest. My arguements are not based on late game, have 6 castles being able to produce whatever you'd like, massive amounts of gold, no need for research, type of situations. But the more real situations of early game where you don't have the resources to do so or spread yourself that thin. Mictlan is not the issue, as scouts are only a bonus to them in their hunting. Unrest from scouts IMO is as managable as single priest, a few extra points of unrest doesn't really matter when you have the same situation where sometimes you don't catch very many slaves and thus your unrest rights itself.
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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.
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Well that categorizes us by having different playstyles  I have had massive success with scouts in the past and will continue to use them unless most nations are afforded a cheap blood hunter and I don't require research/forging/casting of that particular unit while at the same time having the advantages of the current system.
[ February 11, 2004, 21:10: Message edited by: Zen ]
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