How do you sustain a blood econemy?

[AreaOfEffect]

When I first played this game I tried the first thing that comes to people when trying to decrease the unrest caused by blood hunting...patrolling. The problem I had with patrolling is that I often found myself devoting more and more resources toward unrest control. Not only that, but I also saw the population of my provinces start to die, even with high growth scales.

Recently I have come to think that a better approach is to simply drop the taxation of the hunting province to zero. I find that it has a profound ability to lower unrest. I have yet to create more unrest then I can handle with this strategy. The advantages and disadvantages in my assessment are as follows.

Disadvantages:
1) A total loss of income at the blood hunted province.

Advantages:
1) Population growth can occur as along as you have one level of growth. The biggest killer of population while blood hunting seems to be patrolling.
2) Commanders and troops are free to do more important things, or you could simply not hire the troops and save yourself the upkeep of the patrolling army.
3) You can't count all income at the province as lost as the unrest caused by blood hunting means that you always give up some money.

I wish I could think of more disadvantages, but I can't.

The best part about this method has to be the sustainability of it. The loss of income isn't permanent and can be restored in full once you decide that your commanders need to do something other then blood hunt. A high population province will remain high and even grow with just one level of growth. This is important as your slave income is affected by the total population.

Personally, I also like the thematic. The tax collectors collect your children instead of your money.

Pleases, tell me how you handle blood hunting. Maybe there is an even better way if we consider the options.

[Foodstamp]

Here is a good starting point for you:

Guide to EA Mictlan and Blood Hunting

It is written by Baalz and is very detailed. It even includes such topics as transitioning from gold to blood. Even if you are not playing EA Mictlan, the guide can be useful for LA Mictlan as well as other blood hunting nations.

[AreaOfEffect]

Well, it doesn't seem like many other people have read that guide. Lately, every time I see a discussion about blood I also see people talking about patrolling. Clearly from the reasons I've stated above I think that tax control is a much better method.

As for the guide you directed me to, it does talk about tax control and about converting gold to slaves, but it doesn't really discuss the pros and cons of tax control over patrolling. In fact, the guide only mentions patrolling once as a thing you might be doing. Clearly Baalz favors tax control, but he doesn't say why.

[vfb]

I'm not a patrolling blood hunter. Probably I'm not aggressive enough to be taking enough new territory to replace provinces wiped out with patrols.

In provinces without labs I only hunt with 2 B2s (or 2 B1s with rods). Usually 20% tax can be sustained, but with some good hunting months, unrest can start to mount up. If there's a lab, I use more hunters, because they can cast Bowl of Blood or forge, when unrest gets too high from a good hunting month.

[K]

Patrolling is for people who don't want an endgame.

Considering that most provinces produce 40-50 gold at best and one of those provinces can produce around 12-15 blood slaves a turn which can be around 2-3 Storm Demons or Demon Knights or Vampires that are upkeep free, its totally worth it in the long run.

[kasnavada]

It would be a good idea to actually run some numbers and tests on that, depending on growth.

It would be very interesting to know how many blood hunters can be sustained by a growth 3 province without having the population shrink.

Then you would choose your strategy depending on whether you want to have 5000-person income permanently + moderate blood slave income (blood hunting countered by growth, gold income blocked by the price of patrollers), a growing number of persons but only part of the income (that should pay in the end, but how long with the tax control method ?).

I think I answered my own question already though. I doubt that patrollers costs less that the tax control method "costs" your gold income, and "tax control" does not seem (according to the manual unrest mechanism) to reduce the population, while patrolling does...

[HoneyBadger]

One thing to consider, with growth 3 and 10000+Pop provinces, is that you can, as you Kasnavada state above, sustain more bloodhunters without losing Pop. Yes, you lose more gold, but you can also, if you concentrate larger numbers of bloodhunters in smaller places, protect them more easily. The problem with that, ofcourse, is that eventually, if you overfarm a province, you'll make your population mad at you, which apparently causes more problems.