Nations that seem strong/weak

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
I usually average about 10-15 per hunter, sometimes more or less, but I blood hunt in provinces with pops of 10,000 or more, including my capital, and get better averages.

I suggest that you should re-read page 69 of your manual where it describes blood hunting. The only effect that the population of a province has is that the blood hunt can fail if the province has less than 5000 people. Population has zero effect on the number of slaves captured, which is d6+blood skill. Hunting in your capital is an extremely bad idea, unless it's the only province you have, and you need blood slaves very quickly at the start of the game. The rest of your arguments seem to be based on the misconception that high population provinces have an effect on how many blood slaves you gather.

Any Warlock can be anywhere on the map the next turn if you can forge a Starshine Skullcap, some don't even need it. There's not many mages that can do that.

In the middle age, the nations that can teleport given the same conditions are Pythium, Ermor, Arcoscephale, Man (Cloud trapeze only needs air 2), Marignon, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i (1/4 masters), Caelum, Vanheim, Bandar Log, Atlantis, and R'Lyeh. That's more than half the available nations.

It adversely effects blood hunting and age, and income eventually because the population would increase over time and with it income. What are you gaining that's worth giving that up? A supply bonus and short term income an some pretender points? I don't agree with that at all.

The death scale has zero effect on blood hunting, except for the minor population loss. At 0.6% population loss per turn for death 3, it takes 49 turns to lose a quarter and 116 turns to lose 50% of your population in your home province. Your other provinces will take even longer to lose their population, since your dominion takes time to spread to them. The winner of even a massive game is almost always decided by turn 50.

Abysia is supposed to be relatively unaffected by the death scale, which is why they do not lose any income nor supplies from it. The problem, is that those two effects are minor and are negated by the increased affliction rate suffered by your mages.

I don't really think that they need the pretender as a few turns of recruitment can yield a second army that can conquer provinces just as easily, and since most pretenders need a few levels of research in a school that's not particularly helpful to your other mages, like Alteration, I don't feel you're gaining much by having it awake except a few afflictions.

I don't think you understand how necessary it is to explode out of your home province. Ideally, you'd want to have captured 10 provinces by turn 10, although that can be difficult at times. If you're doing really well, you'll have captured 20 provinces by turn 10, especially if you took a dragon that can capture a province per turn starting at turn two.

You could take identical scales to what you have now, make the pretender dormant, and add Magic 3 and you'll probably be better off overall.

Magic 3 is a strategy for people who plan to survive to the late game, I'd prefer to survive the early game through a powerful pretender, then have extra gold to power research, instead of spending design points on it.

With their protection as high as it is, the nearly double hit points is huge, it's like getting hit two or three more times against average units.

Abysian troops have a protection of 16, attack and defense of 10, and 15 hitpoints (not 20). This is virtually identical to every other heavy infantry unit. The 15 hitpoints is 50% more than normal humans, but only 2 more than the emerald guard, which also have a 13 attack, 15 defense, and 17 protection. With the guard's higher base defense they will also actually get to use the 15 protection from the shield in close combat.

The radiant heat is worth it too. Just MA Abysias starting army, 9 times out of 10, can take all of the provinces around your capital without stopping for reinforcements and taking few losses, except knights and elephants really.

Just about every nations starting army plus the first turns recruitment can do that on independents 5.

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:

I suggest that you should re-read page 69 of your manual where it describes blood hunting. The only effect that the population of a province has is that the blood hunt can fail if the province has less than 5000 people. Population has zero effect on the number of slaves captured, which is d6+blood skill. Hunting in your capital is an extremely bad idea, unless it's the only province you have, and you need blood slaves very quickly at the start of the game. The rest of your arguments seem to be based on the misconception that high population provinces have an effect on how many blood slaves you gather.

Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do. My mistake there though, and maybe it's just perception.

In the middle age, the nations that can teleport given the same conditions are Pythium, Ermor, Arcoscephale, Man (Cloud trapeze only needs air 2), Marignon, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i (1/4 masters), Caelum, Vanheim, Bandar Log, Atlantis, and R'Lyeh. That's more than half the available nations.

So that makes it a negative? It's still half that can't too. Take away the Starshine Skullcap though, and you still have a 1/4 chance of using Teleport and still have flying mages, and I'm sure that list will get smaller.

The death scale has zero effect on blood hunting, except for the minor population loss. At 0.6% population loss per turn for death 3, it takes 49 turns to lose a quarter and 116 turns to lose 50% of your population in your home province. Your other provinces will take even longer to lose their population, since your dominion takes time to spread to them. The winner of even a massive game is almost always decided by turn 50.

Abysia is supposed to be relatively unaffected by the death scale, which is why they do not lose any income nor supplies from it. The problem, is that those two effects are minor and are negated by the increased affliction rate suffered by your mages.

You're neglecting to include that both blood hunting and patrolling kill population, so it'll be signifcantly sooner that you kill the population below whatever level you find acceptable to blood hunt, plus it'll never grow back as long as it's in your dominion. IMO Death is bad for any blood nation.

But, you know, at least we agree Growth is probably a better choice.

I don't think you understand how necessary it is to explode out of your home province. Ideally, you'd want to have captured 10 provinces by turn 10, although that can be difficult at times. If you're doing really well, you'll have captured 20 provinces by turn 10, especially if you took a dragon that can capture a province per turn starting at turn two.

You can have two armies fielded capable of taking provinces in 5 turns or less with Abysia, 20 Lava Warriors and a A. Dragon for divine blessing should mop up even knights easily. What you get for imprisoning your pretender is good scales and a good bless. You can get 10 in 10 turns easily, probably more if you took at least a moderate bless like B4F4E4 and use Lava Warriors, and be better off in the long run.

Not that I'm saying it's a bad idea to take an awake pretender and branch out early, especially if you're playing short games or small maps. Play how you want to, but other things work too.

Magic 3 is a strategy for people who plan to survive to the late game, I'd prefer to survive the early game through a powerful pretender, then have extra gold to power research, instead of spending design points on it.

Good scales will get you gold too and you'll probably be better off in the long run. It's two different ways of accomplishing the same thing.

Magic 3 adds up research quickly btw, you'd notice it when you have a couple of mages.

Abysian troops have a protection of 16, attack and defense of 10, and 15 hitpoints (not 20). This is virtually identical to every other heavy infantry unit. The 15 hitpoints is 50% more than normal humans, but only 2 more than the emerald guard, which also have a 13 attack, 15 defense, and 17 protection. With the guard's higher base defense they will also actually get to use the 15 protection from the shield in close combat.

Yup, nearly double hp. The Emerald Guard also has lower strength, a weapon that does less damage than most of the Abysian infantry, higher encumberance, a lower MR, half of Abysians have a higher battlefield movement, and EG costs more in both gold and resources (except when compared to Lava Warriors which are even more superior anyway), doesn't radiate heat and is vunerable to fire. Lava Warriors are universally better. Emerald Guards are great units, most heavy infantry is worse. That's supposed to be Abysias thing, great heavy infantry though, so no surprise that's exactly what they have.

Just about every nations starting army plus the first turns recruitment can do that on independents 5.

Just for comparison's sake, Abysia can do it on Indy 7 and sometimes 8 without even adding a mage or priest. Their starting army is really good. Most nations start out with a handful of ranged units and some of their weaker infantry and take a huge loss their first attack unless you beef it up a bit or send your pretender or a mage or something. Abysia doesn't need to do that.

[FrankTrollman]

Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do.

Isn't Blood Slave prodution tied to Magic Site Frequency? The progress report claimed that was going to be the case.

-Frank

[dirtywick]

FrankTrollman said:

Isn't Blood Slave prodution tied to Magic Site Frequency? The progress report claimed that was going to be the case.

-Frank

I have no idea. I usually play defaults and bump indy up to 7.

Of course, that'd make sense.

[Teraswaerto]

I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat.

The heat radiation can make a big difference in longer fights, especially in hot lands. High encumbrance units will collapse in a few turns of fighting. Abysian units may still be overpriced though...

[Gandalf Parker]

Which brings up an important tactic. For Abysia, its important to keep track of where your domain has extended. And if you are fighting inside the reach of your domain then consider positioning your units to the far backside of the field (the far left of the positioning box) and have them wait there for the enemy to charge to you. The more armored and equipped that the enemy is, the more good this should do for you.
(this is an untested theory)

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
You're neglecting to include that both blood hunting and patrolling kill population, so it'll be signifcantly sooner that you kill the population below whatever level you find acceptable to blood hunt, plus it'll never grow back as long as it's in your dominion. IMO Death is bad for any blood nation.

Blood hunting only removes as many people as the blood slaves you capture. Patrolling doesn't kill anybody in blood hunting provinces because you shouldn't patrol blood hunting provinces. The check on unrest to see if it's too high for blood hunting to succeed happens before patrolling. This means that with many hunters, they'll drive unrest up, cause blood hunts to fail, then the patrollers will kill large numbers of your population. You end up spending a bunch of gold to kill your population faster, then having to move your hunters out of their provinces with a castle and a lab to new provinces.

But, you know, at least we agree Growth is probably a better choice.

I would never take a growth scale in any game unless I knew beforehand that the game was going to last for at least 100 turns. Otherwise the benefit is miniscule.

What you get for imprisoning your pretender is good scales and a good bless.

Order 3, production 3, heat 3, death 3, drain 3 with a dominion 10, fire 8 Moloch will expand even faster, and still has good scales. Then you can be capturing three provinces per turn if there's room.

Good scales will get you gold too and you'll probably be better off in the long run. It's two different ways of accomplishing the same thing.

The pretender posted above _has_ good scales for Abysia.

Magic 3 adds up research quickly btw, you'd notice it when you have a couple of mages.

Sure, but the problem is that you won't have spells researched that will change the course of battles till turn 20 even with a magic scale, by which point the game will be mostly decided.

Yup, nearly double hp.

50% more hitpoints than a normal human is _not_ nearly double. It's 50% more.

The Emerald Guard also has lower strength, a weapon that does less damage than most of the Abysian infantry, higher encumberance, a lower MR, half of Abysians have a higher battlefield movement, and EG costs more in both gold and resources (except when compared to Lava Warriors which are even more superior anyway), doesn't radiate heat and is vunerable to fire.

The emerald guard has a strength of 12, compared to abysia's 13. The broadsword has a damage of 6, compared to the axe which is 7 but drops the unit's attack down to 9. Battlefield movement is completely irrelevant to infantry units, and the cost difference arises because the emerald guard is a better unit than abysian heavy infantry.

Lava Warriors are universally better.

Lava warriors are also capital only. The emerald guard is recruitable everywhere. Of course, you don't need the emerald guard to beat abysian heavy infantry. Principes by themselves with standards mixed in are more than sufficient.

Just for comparison's sake, Abysia can do it on Indy 7 and sometimes 8 without even adding a mage or priest. Their starting army is really good. Most nations start out with a handful of ranged units and some of their weaker infantry and take a huge loss their first attack unless you beef it up a bit or send your pretender or a mage or something.

No, most nations do _not_ take huge losses on the default of independents 5 unless you don't use their troops correctly. Pangaea does, but that's because their starting troops are the unbelievably crappy satyrs.

[KissBlade]

Graeme, I think you would rather mod those scales to drain 2, misfortune 1. Or perhaps Drain 2, Misfortune 2, Death 2. Otherwise I would take somewhat the same thing save I usually end up taking the PoD, less death magic, dom 10, and skip the whole death scale altogether currently for Abysia. Though death 3 is supposed to be "built" for them, it certainly isn't at the current moment. There's also the old recycled, dom 10 cyclops chassis ...

[Graeme Dice]

KissBlade said:
Otherwise I would take somewhat the same thing save I usually end up taking the PoD, less death magic, dom 10, and skip the whole death scale altogether currently for Abysia.

I love the Moloch because his attack and defense stats become astronomically high once you give half-decent equipment. With Mictlan and construction 6, a F9 Moloch can get his attack and defense into the 30's. He's like an archdevil on speed.

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:
50% more hitpoints than a normal human is _not_ nearly double. It's 50% more.

And the Lava Warrior is 70%. Close to double. It's semantics anyway, they have more hp by a good margin.

The emerald guard has a strength of 12, compared to abysia's 13. The broadsword has a damage of 6, compared to the axe which is 7 but drops the unit's attack down to 9. Battlefield movement is completely irrelevant to infantry units, and the cost difference arises because the emerald guard is a better unit than abysian heavy infantry.

Weren't you just naming off a bunch of 1 or 2 point differences? And it's not a better unit simply because they have very similar stats but lack radiating heat/fire immunity while costing more, and it's probably the best human heavy infantry for the era. So even if we could agree that the Emerald Guard was a better unit overall than Abysian Infantry, Abysian Infantry is still better than 99% of similar priced HI.

No, most nations do _not_ take huge losses on the default of independents 5 unless you don't use their troops correctly. Pangaea does, but that's because their starting troops are the unbelievably crappy satyrs.

The point is if Abysia's starting army can perform well in 7 or 8 they peform even better in 5. You'll take heavy losses (ETA: on indy 7 or 8 that is), if you even win, on turn 2 with most starting nations armies, but not Abysia. Abysia starts with 30 good heavy infantry and an assassin. Shinuyama, Bandar Log, Tien Chi, Mictlan, Machaka, C'tis, and to a lesser extent Arco, Man, and Vanheim all start worse armies as none of them start with heavy infantry but have ranged units, and most have less than 30 units. The rest of them either start with worse units or less of them, for instance Ulm has comparable units but only starts with 16, Marignon will probably do well too.

For simplicity though, Abysia has a really good starting army, agree or no?