[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by licker:
So a blood1 mage with SDR is ~4x more effective than a scout right? So if your blood1 mage is ~80gp its a wash? Interesting...

No, because I did not do a cost analysis. Holy bloodmages have 1/2 upkeep, but there is also the mage-time and blood-slave cost of the SDR. If you only care about relative initial searcher costs, it is a wash, but there are other costs...

The main costs, in approximate order of importance, are probably:

1) Patroller Upkeep (for soldiers; slaves and summons can be cheaper)
2) Lost Tax Revenue
3) Searcher Cost (plus interest)
4) Searcher Upkeep
5) Population Loss
6) Building Labs, if you dislike micromanagement

Better blood searchers (blood mages, and blood mages with SDRs) generate less unrest per slave taken (all things considered) and thus decrease costs 1, 2, and 5. But specifics depend on many variables like province size, mage cost, patroller type... it would need a 3d or 4d matrix to show the data.

[ February 13, 2004, 04:18: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]