[Dragar]

There is something a bit messed up with the quoting there, those were Baalz's comments

I agree with the sentiment about demonbreds and the efficacy of the tactics you describe, but it isn't feasibly that achievable that quickly. Abysia isn't exactly a research powerhouse. Unless perhaps you have a high research rainbow awake and hitting the books straight away, with all of your demonbreds either blood hunting or casting blood spells, and even then..

20 devils = 140 blood and 20 casting turns. Summon imp costs a slave, and you won't be casting much hellfire/agony/bloodboil without a heap of slaves for fatigue. Remember also that demonbreds have awful precision, so a lot of these spells don't work well early when you are only fighting against small armies and have no way to boost precision. They are only really combat effective with the later blood spells, and in casting battlefield wide spells like blood lust and blood rain.

I believe that blood is the key for MA abysia in the mid game and onwards, but in the early game you need your mages researching and site searching a bit, and using non-blood casting in combat support. Thaumaturgy, evoc, constr all get a look in before I start on blood, which then becomes the driver. You will need to rely on your excellent infantry through the 1st year minimum unless you have to pull something out against an early SC or trample rush.

In terms of blood summons I don't think summoning devils is worth it, I only grab them through soul contracts. Even demon knights are a bit iffy for a mage's turn, you will be really struggling to keep up the research. Only the higher level blood summons are really worth it except in emergencies.

Efficiency is key for abysian mages, and to compete you have to maximise your mage turns, so:
- alchemising fire gems early if you need it to keep producing a good mage each turn
- soul contracts to build up some good troops without taking heaps of turns
- lanterns for efficient research
- SDRs for efficient blood hunting
- using indy commanders to ferry your infantry around to the front lines

The ideal is to find a nice indy site with good research mages, which can turn your game around, but that's complete luck and with your limited paths for site searching don't bet on it!