Blood Simple?!

[Rathar]

Howdy!

After extensive reading and searching I have noticed a tendency for folks to speak of blood as being an easy path to shoot up in. You speak of late games with hordes of soul-contracts and I look at the 80 blood cost and wonder how in the world..?

I've tried races that have blood as one of their "strong" magic paths as well as those who only get it on a random but I am missing something methinks..

It just seems to take so long to get anywhere with it. You can only search one area per turn, it creates a fair bit of unrest which hurts income, and while hunting, your mages aren't researching. Plus, even with dowsing rods, the return is pretty minimal until you have a high (3+) Blood mage which I find difficult to get to with a random pick.

Anyway, I would love some hints on how to use and play blood effectively!

Thanks!

[quantum_mechani]

Rathar said:
Howdy!

After extensive reading and searching I have noticed a tendency for folks to speak of blood as being an easy path to shoot up in. You speak of late games with hordes of soul-contracts and I look at the 80 blood cost and wonder how in the world..?

I've tried races that have blood as one of their "strong" magic paths as well as those who only get it on a random but I am missing something methinks..

It just seems to take so long to get anywhere with it. You can only search one area per turn, it creates a fair bit of unrest which hurts income, and while hunting, your mages aren't researching. Plus, even with dowsing rods, the return is pretty minimal until you have a high (3+) Blood mage which I find difficult to get to with a random pick.

Anyway, I would love some hints on how to use and play blood effectively!

Thanks!

Perhaps you are not paying enough attention to the population? Below 5000 or so the returns are much less. You can search a lot more than one area per turn, three blood mages per hunting province is normal (taxes 0%), more if you have patrolers to help out. You don't need a blood 3 mage to go hunting, blood one mages with sanguine rods are quite efficient.

[Oversway]

For soul contracts and other items, try to first forge a dwarven hammer (you'll need E3 and twenty earth gems for the first one) and use that to make it cheaper to build the items. If (when!) you make another hammer, use the first one while you forge it.

[Scott Hebert]

Rathar, when I started I had the same reaction you did: these people must know something I don't.

I guess what is so 'contrary' about mass-blood strategies is that, in a way, blood slaves replace gold as your primary resource. I'm not saying gold isn't important (you need it to buy your commanders/temples/forts), but blood slaves are the primary source of your armies.

As you may have learned from other threads here, non-summoned troops have a very limited usefulness period. After a certain point, they become more or less superfluous. Blood Magic is one of the better magics because it plays into this fact. You're using your troops for one of their few useful abilities at any point in the game (patrolling), and you will be commander-heavy and summon-heavy from a relatively early point in the game.

However, all of this is not in the least clear from the perspective of someone coming from more 'traditional' strategy games, where the summons are, at best, equal to 'normal' troops. To be quite honest, I don't like the obsolescence of national troops in Dominions II probably because of this fact.

The end result is that the Dominions mindset, especially vis-a-vis other similar games, rewards a different approach. Playing with Blood Magic basically _requires_ this approach. That is why new players are often baffled by Blood Magic. I know for a fact I was.

Anyway, I hope this helped.

[Endoperez]

I think the easyness comes from Sages. 1 in 8 sages have Blood, and with even a few of them your blood income can easily be twice that of any other path. And as you can generate more blood slaves using up population (=money), you can get absurd blood income. And the 80 slaves/contract gives you one Devil each turn. Each of those critters cost 7 slaves to summon, and would need a BBFF mage to boost. Using a Dwarven Hammer to make a Contract out of Blood Slaves may sound stupid, but it lowers the cost to 60. As you can see, Contracts cost the same price 8 Devils would.

Blood is easy to get, not with powerful mages, but with many.

In addition, after one high-level Blood mage, you can boost the level by Blood Athame, Brazen Skull and Armor of Souls, and possibly Earth Stone. I'd estimate that with 10 crimson Sages, empowering an Earth mage to Blood 3 and forging 4 boosters (or few Soul Contracts) can be done in 10 turns.

[spirokeat]

Blood income is fairly easy to get going.

Basic rules are, make sure pop is over 5000, pref about 8000. Set taxes to 0. Have a mage with blood level 1, forge a sanguine dousing rod and then blood hunt. Dont have more than 3 mages per province doing that unless your patrolling.

That being said. Blood spells can EAT through even a big income. The contract is good if you can build one fairly early as it takes about 8 or 9 turns to see a profit from them. So the first few tend to really profit you but depending on how long your game is, the returns diminish. Of course it means you dont have to keep mages summoning the buggers...but bleh.

I would probably say its harder to get the multipath blood stuff outside of the blood nations. Sages are easy to get as blood 1 to get an economy going. Getting mages capable of summoning blood stuff that have additional path requirments with your economy is slightly harder I would imagine.

Spiro

[shovah]

i took a high blood god with ulm and gave a hamer of the forge lord to my empowered smith 75% forge bonus meant that the contract made its cost back in 4 turns

[spirokeat]

Aye, there are ways of course to make it cheaper.

Of course, getting construction 8. Forging a fire 3, Earth 3 Unique, Choosing Ulm, Then a blood 5 mage or god is one of the ways.

I wouls say contracts are something you really have to want to use to make a big difference.

Spiro.

[Graeme Dice]

spirokeat said:
Basic rules are, make sure pop is over 5000, pref about 8000.

As long as the population remains over 5000, the population has no effect on the success of the hunt.

[Cainehill]

Yeah - which is why I really prefer to blood hunt provinces between 4000 and 6500, something like that. The more populous provinces I take the gold income from.