Does this math work?

[incognito]

I usually put 4 bloodhunters (priests with SDW as Mictlan) in a province, although everything I read says other's stick with no more than 3. Anyone figured this out for fact ie that 3 is the best return for the gold?

FWIW, I also set taxes to 0 and have a patroller w/around 30 slaves mopping up unrest. Is there a better plan to be had? Something that will allow me to have unparalleled blood income and maybe keep a little gold?

Lastly, I almost always watchtower/lab/temple each province. No sense getting your bloodhunters wiped out by raiders..., but am open to other ideas.

Thoughts appreciated, especially concerning MP strategies here.

[archaeolept]

the thing is 3 works w/out patrollers, and using patrollers will very much speed up the population loss in a province. Its a strategy, but most people are more comfortable w/ minimizing pop loss.

[Thufir]

archaeolept said:
the thing is 3 works w/out patrollers, and using patrollers will very much speed up the population loss in a province. Its a strategy, but most people are more comfortable w/ minimizing pop loss.

As you say, I'm reluctant to patrol since I'd prefer to reduce pop loss. What I've been doing as Abysia is to start out w/ 2 warlock apprentices, then move it up to 3 if/when resources permit. I find though that with 3, it still happens that unrest occasionally rises, so my current strategy is to go with 3 until unrest goes above 30, then put 1 of the WAs on research until unrest drops back down.

Does this method sound too wimpy for you blood veterans out there?

[The Panther]

I have found three hunters with SDRs as Mictlan to work quite well. You do not need to waste a hero on patrolling and the accompaning pop loss. Pop loss is not a big deal unless it drops below 5000, in which case your hunters are less efficient.

My current Mictlan strategy is to have 4 of the cheap priests in each province where there is 4500-8000 population. I set the tax rate at zero and let 3 priests with SDRs hunt virgins. More than 8000 pop, I would rather have the income. Less than 5000, the hunters are not as efficient. The fourth priest has a jade knife and sacrifices 4 slaves per month. The ideal population for hunting is exactly 5000.

It is uncommon to have the unrest rise with this, for the Mictlan hunters with the SDR are only 90% efficient. So when they miss finding virgins, the unrest dissapears due to the zero tax rate. Most of the time, I have zero unrest in all of my hunting provinces.

If I need more blood slaves, I just set up shop in a different province instead of putting another commander on hunting and yet another on patrolling.

As you said, you definitely want a cheap castle to protect your vulnerable hunting/sacrificing operations.

If you are hunting in a lower population province, like say below 4000 people, then 4 hunters may well work without patrolling since they find less slaves on average.

[Boron]

The Panther said:
I have found three hunters with SDRs as Mictlan to work quite well. You do not need to waste a hero on patrolling and the accompaning pop loss. Pop loss is not a big deal unless it drops below 5000, in which case your hunters are less efficient.

My current Mictlan strategy is to have 4 of the cheap priests in each province where there is 4500-8000 population. I set the tax rate at zero and let 3 priests with SDRs hunt virgins. More than 8000 pop, I would rather have the income. Less than that, the hunters are not as efficient. The fourth priest has a jade knife and sacrifices 4 slaves per month. The ideal population for hunting is exactly 5000.

It is uncommon to have the unrest rise with this, for the Mictlan hunters with the SDR are only 90% efficient. So when they miss finding virgins, the unrest dissapears due to the zero tax rate. Most of the time, I have zero unrest in all of my hunting provinces.

If I need more blood slaves, I just set up shop in a different province instead of putting another commander on hunting and yet another on patrolling.

As you said, you definitely want a cheap castle to protect your vulnerable hunting/sacrificing operations.

If you are hunting in a lower population province, like say below 4000 people, then 4 hunters may well work without patrolling since they find less slaves on average.

Those 3 hunters net you about 15 slaves . But you spend 4 for dominion .
I personally meanwhile like Abysia much much more for bloodhunting .
The SDR is not so much needed and you have normally a better start than mictlan anyway .
So you have i think good chances if you want to get the ice devils to summon them before mictlan if you have put 3 water and 3 blood on your pretender .
Hopefully mictlan doesn't even think when he sees that to try to get arch devils .
Probably BoH Abysia is the overall better blood hunter than mictlan .
100 vs 80 gold for a blood 1 sacred hunter .
But mictlan has always the blood spend problem for dominion spread which makes them a micromanagement pain .
And the blood loss for dominionspread is imo significantly early-midgame . About 20% early then 10% midgame .

[incognito]

Typically, I have no unrest at the end of a turn. That usually depends, however, on having 15+ slaves patrolling with a tribal chief. Often, I get two tribal chiefs in the early going - one captures while 1 patrols with the new found troops. Of course, the capture slaves function drives down population as well. Population loss is a problem. I like the point about more blood hunters (w/o patrolling) in a low pop province. How much pop loss does bloodhunting drive anyhow?

Boron - I note your point on arch devils - had not given it much thought, but am I hearing that you like ice devils more than arch devils? Is there hierarchy to the blood summons you prefer? Curious, since I typically go after a few ID's (all but icicle fists) and then move to arch devils, followed by Helio, and Lords. If I ever max these out, I move to vamps/angels/father illearth etc. If some of these are not worth the investment (ignoring research progression for a sec), I'd be curious to hear why.

What thoughts on having extra researching priests in a province. With a decent magic scales, these guys get up to 6 MR after a bit of bloodhunting. Not a great researcher, but they can be produced everywhere. Plus, opponents using assassination approaches to damage blood income will have that many more guys to chew through. You can also turn up the 'b'hunting' juice in any turn you need it.

Lastly, how many hunters can you have if you want to keep taxes peaked (or high)? A point was made in an old post that base population growth on a highly populated province is strong (as a % of the base). Given that patrolling unrest works on a fixed population basis (1 unrest = 10 pop), it seems that you could employ 2 BH's with a patroller and suffer minor population effects while keeping taxes close to 100.

[Boron]

Your strat is good .
I normally hunt with 2 bloodhunters without patrolling but i played abysia more often than mictlan .

Unrest per bloodhunter is about 3-5 + 1/slave captured but with some outliers .
0 Tax gives you -33 to -35 unrest .
So in theory 3 hunters could hunt without need for patrol with tax at 0 but because of the outliers this just works with 2 and even there every about 10th turn you get a real big outlier which gives you positive unrest .

Patrolling is 2 edged . It gives you further populationloss ( not so important ) but more important :
You reduce 0-number of patrollers unrest per turn where each value has equal chances .
So it is not really reliable .

The evil thing is with unrest >20 the event hordes of peasants left their home gets more likely .


With your 4 hunter strat + 30 slaves patrolling is this normally enough to keep unrest <20 ?