To Blood Magic, Or Not To Blood Magic

[Goblin]

Both Soul Contracts and Lifelong Protection give the holder a Horror Mark - as such I have avoided these. How does one protect against a horror attack (infact - what actually happens - is it an assassination or a general battle)? For that matter how likely is it to occur?

Goblin.

[quantum_mechani]

Goblin said:
Both Soul Contracts and Lifelong Protection give the holder a Horror Mark - as such I have avoided these. How does one protect against a horror attack (infact - what actually happens - is it an assassination or a general battle)? For that matter how likely is it to occur?

Goblin.

Yes, they both do that, but it is more than worth it. The horror attacks work like assassinations, and with the contract marks they are quite rare. You will usually be putting them on cheap units like scouts anyway, so all you will have lost in the event of being unlucky would be the forgeing cost.

[Goblin]

Thanks Quantum,

I will give that a try and see how it goes (once I save up 80 slaves to forge the item). Any suggestions on the best Slave harvesting strategy? I currently look to use low level mage's with a Sanguine Dousing Rod, with a max of 3 in a province.

Goblin.

[quantum_mechani]

Goblin said:
Thanks Quantum,

I will give that a try and see how it goes (once I save up 80 slaves to forge the item). Any suggestions on the best Slave harvesting strategy? I currently look to use low level mage's with a Sanguine Dousing Rod, with a max of 3 in a province.

Goblin.

If you are using the soul contract strategy, you should at the least have a dwarven hammer to shave 20 slaves off of the cost. As for hunting strategy, depends very much on nation and other conditions. As a rule, always use SDRs on your hunters if you have construction 4, though it is more important for level 1 blood mages than higher levels. I consider any province of 4000 or so pop fair hunting game, particularly if I don't have to shuffle mages from where I recruit them. As for how many in one provinse, I tend to intensly hunt a few provinces with 3-6 mages, and drop taxes and patrol. For long term with a growth scale spreading the hunters out is probably a better idea.