Mictlan , how to play it effectively

[archaeolept]

no I think 3 hunters is the most effective. Sure, unrest will often creep up, but it is a self-balancing system, as failing to find slaves will allow the natural 0% taxation unrest reduction to operate.

think of it this way - If your unrest stays at 0, you're being inefficient... [well, 0% itself would be efficient]

This is part of why, say, 4000 pop is almost as good as 5000. Sure, you get a few misses, but that keeps unrest down, so it is almost as productive as 5000 pop. [i'd need the precise numbers for unrest generation to determine how low your pop can be and still be equally productive on average as 5000]

basically, 0% taxation yields a certain number of potential bloodslaves (without patrolling, which is a true killer), and you don't want to miss a drop of that sweet sweet sugar...

[Boron]

archaeolept said:
basically, 0% taxation yields a certain number of potential bloodslaves (without patrolling, which is a true killer), and you don't want to miss a drop of that sweet sweet sugar...

I haven't tested in 2.14 BUT in 2.12 patrol was no killer : 10 pop / 5 brigands killed .
This is not so heavy and in 8+k provinces probably even compensable with growth 3 .

Normally i am a fan of a death 3 scale only with bloodhunt i tend to take growth 3 : A 5k pop province stays at about 5k forever with growth 3 and bloodhunting .

With death 3 you lose each turn 0,006% pop + more pop by bloodhunt .
With 3 bloodhunters you lose about 50 pop per turn cause of bloodhunt and about 25 per deathscale .
So even without events normally a 5K province is down to 4k in about 12 turns and down to 3k in about 25-30 turns .

Since those 4-6k provinces are so common i really think growth is for bloodnations not too bad .
At about turn 50-60 the deathscale starts to really disturb your bloodhunting .
On a small map you have either long won or are long dead then but other games often Last until turn 50-60 easily .

[Kel]

If you can find someone with growth scale, just keep taking their territories and your death scale won't hurt so much

- Kel

[Boron]

Kel said:
If you can find someone with growth scale, just keep taking their territories and your death scale won't hurt so much

- Kel

Unfortunately enemy dominion causes a bit unrest so limits bloodhunting a bit too

[Kel]

So...convert their dominion ? I don't mean you leave it in their dominion, that wouldn't do you any good anyway. I mean, if you keep taking fresh provinces, your death scale won't matter as much since you always have a fresh supply of blood.

I only mentioned taking provinces from people with growth scales since their population should be higher than people with death scales. Really, taking new territory to hunt in is the point. It's just a bonus if the person you are at war with has growth.

- Kel

[Boron]

Kel said:
So...convert their dominion ? I don't mean you leave it in their dominion, that wouldn't do you any good anyway. I mean, if you keep taking fresh provinces, your death scale won't matter as much since you always have a fresh supply of blood.

I only mentioned taking provinces from people with growth scales since their population should be higher than people with death scales. Really, taking new territory to hunt in is the point. It's just a bonus if the person you are at war with has growth.

- Kel

Yeah sure but normally the war is not so easy and the victim damages normally your provinces quite a bit too and the war Lasts some time .

Or do you mean to steal away provinces as second / third opponent from already almost beaten / crippled opponents ?
This works better of course .

[archaeolept]

ok taking a 5k pop province

0% taxation will undo around 35 unrest approx, i think.
patrolling instead of having 0% tax will kill 10 pop per % unrest, so around 350 pop :O (i'm not sure if this goes down at all for smaller pop provinces)
death 3 will kill 30 pop
getting 13 bloodslaves a turn (guestimate as to average) will kill 26 pop.

so death 3 and 0% tax bloodhunting will kill around 55-60 pop/turn, letting one bloodhunt in the province for 30+ turns (since numbers lost to death will decrease as the pop decreases) before pop goes to 3K (which is still ok for bloodhunting, just not as good)

while growth 3 and 100% tax w/ patrollers for the unrest will kill over 300 pop a turn, letting one bloodhunt w/ similar effectiveness for about 8 turns tops...

summary: patrolling is murder.

and we see that Graeme's estimate of 1000 dead a turn from massively patrolling away the unrest from keeping taxation at 100% and bloodhunting w/ 10 hunters is, if anything, on the low side. besides being especially silly, since the massive patrolled-away unrest still affects your tax take.