[Nagot Gick Fel]

Peter Ebbesen said:
Looking at it from another angle, Diabolists cost twice the maintenance of the Mictlan priests for the same blood hunting results: If that isn't a huge difference to you, what is?

Compared to what? Two times zero equals... a rather unimpressive number in my book.

Doubling upkeep cost is not a marginal effect - when taking over long enough time.

I won't buy this, never. Marginal effects scale up to marginal effects - unless you assume your income over a long time is the same as your income over a single turn, which of course is wrong.

It much depends on how long time you expect to be bloodhunting, which again is likely to depend on map size. On a medium to large map, unless you are eliminated early you can probably expect a blood hunter to hunt on average a good 30 turns (your experience may vary),

It does - I'd make these 30 turns 15-20ish. But that's unimportant.

then the Mictlan priest will cost you 160 over time while the Diabolist costs you 240, so you gain 50% more blood over time for the same cost as Mictlan

Whatever, these numbers numbers aren't as meaningful as you imply, since this extra 50% apply only to a small fraction of your total expenses each turn. I'm a diehard smoker, and I couldn't care less if I had to pay my matches 50% more as long as tobacco prices remain unchanged.

BTW, if you want to scale everything up, remember you need temples to recruit more Mictlan priests, that's 200 gold Diabolical Faith can save when setting a new Diabolist production center up.

Ah, equations... I like equations.

[...]

So, given that the Fires from Afar cost you at least 150 gold (10 fire gems that could have been alchemised), and given that even with this extra money spent on protection Mictlan would still be running a +38% blood hunting economy for the same gold, I would deem it uneconomic in general to spend gems on Fires from Afar in order to kill off his blood hunters;

In a perfect world, maybe. But I guess you won't tell me you always have these 40 Mictlan slaves ready in the right place for each bloodhunter pack? It takes time to raise them. It takes time to move or relocate them to new bloodhunting grounds because of their low mobility. It takes time to gather them again after they routed to nearby provinces. As long as they aren't all where they're supposed to be, at least part of your bloodhunter parties collect slaves with a Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

As such, Fires from Afar should only be used against Mictlan as a harrying spell to ensure that the Mictlan player DOES devote the resources to guard his priests,

Are you saying that, if the Mictlan player refuses to do just that, Fires from Afar failed to achieve its goal and thus shouldn't be used?

Really, the strategical aspect of spells like Fires from Afar far outweights these economical concerns. In this case its primary goal is to disrupt the bloodhunting if the targeted player is lazy and doesn't defend his bloodhunters. If the same player isn't lazy (eg, uses 'troop buffering' - or resistance gear), then Fires from Afar becomes irrelevant and won't be used - thus costing no gems. This is proof enough that including the 'cost' of Fires from Afar in the 'equation' is, at best, a specious argument. You simply forgot the THREAT of Fires from Afar doesn't cost anything.

The original point was Fires from Afar WILL be used against a 'lazy' Mictlan (as long as it efficiently dispatches the bloodhunters), and not otherwise (after the Mictlan player realized he'd better divert valuable resources to protect his bloodhunters - but then, he actually diverted these resources). BoH hasn't this concern.

I have not played a game where the average life expectancy of priests was so low that any nation but Mictlan gained the upper hand in blood for money

I never argued against that, on the contrary I even agreed with you here. But remember, you said - 'nobody else even gets close'. And you failed to convince me on this particular point. I never argued about anything else.

(I am a sucker for madcastling when playing blood nations to protect the hunters from raiders)

Same here!