Blood Slave/magic Questions

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Are you sure that your sacrificers still have slaves on them when you submit the turn?

C'mon, yes, I checked my sacrificers every turn to be absolutely sure... it's not my first test with dominions you know

Your pretender only has a single strength 10 check with Mictlan, so no, even with your numbers he's still weaker.

No, I've made 3 tests with a dom10 pretender (a Manticore IIRC, on a large map and one opponent with dom1, so he could not influence my own dominion). Started 3 new games, then did nothing for 20 turns (no sacrifice, no move, no recruitment). I had no "festival" events. After 20 turns I had 4, 8 and 9 candles.

Then I tried the opposite : the dom10 pretender goes far away (so he could not influence the capital) and I sacrifice only 1 slave/t with the first Mictlan Priest. After 20 turns the dominion = 6 candles. Then I tried the same situation with another pretender, this time with a dominion of 6. After 20 turns (and 20 slaves killed -- I could have made 4 Fiends instead) the dominion was only 3. Tried again, the dominion was 5. Tried again, it was 4. No doubt, with dom6 the pretender was more useful than the sacrifices!

I can't understand why the manual says (p. 22) that "The Blood Sacrifice will spread dominion in the same manner as a temple but more powerfully".
The power of a blood sacrifice seems very weak, unless you sacrifice tons of slaves...

Cheers

[Pocus]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
The ONLY way to find blood slaves is to perform a "blood hunt" (which is also a special action) (with ONE exception: Mictlan gets 3 blood slaves per turn). AFAIK there is NO "blood slave source" similar to a gem site (but I may be wrong).
Is this helpful?

There is also the damned merchant site (on top of my head)

[Pocus]

I have to backup (or is it bake up ) Sunray on the issue. If one blood slave sacrifice is supposed to be equivalent in power of the dominions spread of one temple, then, unless I have been totally unlucky during several tests, and in at least a pbem as Abysia, I must say there is a bug in the formula. The effect is much lower than expected.

Do the check yourself, you will see.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:

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Originally posted by tinkthank:
The ONLY way to find blood slaves is to perform a "blood hunt" (which is also a special action) (with ONE exception: Mictlan gets 3 blood slaves per turn). AFAIK there is NO "blood slave source" similar to a gem site (but I may be wrong).
Is this helpful?

There is also the damned merchant site (on top of my head)

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Also, at least one or two random events give blood slaves / virgins.

[Taqwus]

There's also a rare wizard academy sort of site which gives a blood slave per turn, and one of the Demon Lords automatically attracts blood slaves and arrow fodder. Or you could wish for blood slaves...

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Pocus:
I have to backup (or is it bake up ) Sunray on the issue. If one blood slave sacrifice is supposed to be equivalent in power of the dominions spread of one temple, then, unless I have been totally unlucky during several tests, and in at least a pbem as Abysia, I must say there is a bug in the formula. The effect is much lower than expected.

Do the check yourself, you will see.

I don't think you truly comprehend the awesome might of blood sacrifices on dominion spreading. Firstly, for maximum effect, you need strong dominion strength: Build a lot of temples, or take high dominion at creation.

Secondly, to avoid having the effect buried in background noise....sacrifice a *LOT* of blood slaves. In most of my Mictlan games, I generally drown my opponent's dominion in a sea of blood well before I ever face him, sometimes before I ever meet him, as my dominion strength can hit 10 in places 3 provinces out from the nearest border. I don't think you properly appreciate the power of the Sea of Blood.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I don't think you truly comprehend the awesome might of blood sacrifices on dominion spreading. Firstly, for maximum effect, you need strong dominion strength: Build a lot of temples, or take high dominion at creation.

Secondly, to avoid having the effect buried in background noise....sacrifice a *LOT* of blood slaves. In most of my Mictlan games, I generally drown my opponent's dominion in a sea of blood well before I ever face him, sometimes before I ever meet him, as my dominion strength can hit 10 in places 3 provinces out from the nearest border. I don't think you properly appreciate the power of the Sea of Blood.

Wow. Care to elaborate? How many is a lot? How many slaves are you sacrificing per turn nationwide? On a given front, do you use multiple sacrificers in multiple provinces? What level priests do you use?

Secondly, is it worth using all those slaves to do that, rather than, say, summoning demons or forging soul contracts? Or are you swimming in enough blood slaves to do both?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I don't think you properly appreciate the power of the Sea of Blood.

What I'm wondering is about how many searchers and patrollers do you like to put in a given province per thousand population? I'm never quite sure just how much the deaths from patrolling are offset by the growth scale.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Norfleet:
I don't think you properly appreciate the power of the Sea of Blood.

What I'm wondering is about how many searchers and patrollers do you like to put in a given province per thousand population? I'm never quite sure just how much the deaths from patrolling are offset by the growth scale.

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Number of searchers don't have much to do with number of population in bloodhunted province. As long as population is larger than 5000 it is irrelivent. The number of slaves produced by your sercahers AND unrest generated by them will still be the same. I always try to choose the least income-wise province from 5000-6000 pop range, to give some breathing space for population loss due to bloodhunting and patrolling, while avoiding crippling more populated and rich provinces.

Not sure about patrollers though.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
I always try to choose the least income-wise province from 5000-6000 pop range, to give some breathing space for population loss due to bloodhunting and patrolling, while avoiding crippling more populated and rich provinces.

The question is really about the interplay between the growth scale, unrest generated by bloodhunting, and population death caused by patrollers. There is likely to be some ideal combination that gives you the most benefits here.