Cost efficient blood hunting

[WraithLord]

So currently its common knowledge that:
A. Blood hunting is most cost efficient on ~5k provinces
B. SDR on your blood hunters is well worth it (makes non blood hunters count as having blood 1 or some such)
C. Most cost efficient blood hunter are:
1. ???
2. ???

now, a list of cost (cheap) efficient (with or w/o a blood pick) commanders would be nice but I'd settle for deciding which of the following is better: your common indie scout or warlock apprentice.
Some points to consider. scout has 2g upkeep vs WA 8.66g; scout has 0 B, WA has 2 B;
Also, does SDR make any difference in that respect?

Cost efficient is naturally defined as G/BS ratio, i.e. how much gold goes for hunters upkeep (I discard provinces income from this calculation since I'm not interested in optimizing province size as well) divided by avg. blood slaves income.

I would appreciate any input on the subject.

TIA

[atul]

I thought Sanguine Dousing Rod doesn't work with commanders without blood magic? Worked during Dom1, but they changed it already then.

IIRC of course.

[Endoperez]

SDR only work on Blood mages, yes. That makes even B1 mages with the rod 90% chance of catching slaves compared to the 10% chance of scouts.

[WraithLord]

Endoperez said:
SDR only work on Blood mages, yes. That makes even B1 mages with the rod 90% chance of catching slaves compared to the 10% chance of scouts.

ok, I was under wrong impression then. So this makes obvious the answer to my question with SDR involved.

[Loren]

It seems to me the most efficient one is the vampire. No upkeep at all and immortal within your dominion--they can't be taken out by raiders.

Admittedly, you need a decent blood income to get them, they're not going to be your first blood hunters.

[MaxWilson]

Is getting taken out by raiders really a problem if you set them to Retreat from the back row?

-Max

[WraithLord]

I recall something in that vain. But I also recall reading some post claiming SDR's improve results of non blood hunters. Now I'm really puzzled.

[ano]

It was LA Mictlan, not EA.
Also, does anybody have a real proof of the fact that effectiveness of blood hunt depends on magic site frequency?

[chrispedersen]

The real interesting result from that test has nothing to do with B2's or B3's.

Level 0's with sanguine dousing rods are LESS effective.

[Redeyes]

Couldn't it be, like conventional wisdom says, that rods have no effect for 0 blood blood hunters?

Randomness would account for the entire difference in the test, then.
100 tests is ultimately a fairly small sample size.