Paths of Blood

[Shovah32]

I dont play blood that often. I never play vanheim for blood and when i play lanka/mictlan i take a bless(earth and nature/fire, astral, water and minor blood respectively) so i tend not to have a mage on hand to summon demon lords/storm demons(or in lanka's case, my slaves are better spent ) but the few times i have used them they have been nice.

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Shovah32 said:
I dont play blood that often. I never play vanheim for blood and when i play lanka/mictlan i take a bless(earth and nature/fire, astral, water and minor blood respectively) so i tend not to have a mage on hand to summon demon lords/storm demons(or in lanka's case, my slaves are better spent ) but the few times i have used them they have been nice.

An F9B4D4 bless is great for Mictlan. And B4 is all you need to make a Vessel + Armour of Souls + Blood Thorn.

Throw in a Ring of Sorcery and you're set to summon the Demon Lords. It's nice to empower a Moon Priest in Earth to make blood stones, and he can pop out a crystal coin and star cap, so you only need to empower in astral once to make the ring.

The Demon Lords are more interesting than the Ice and Arch Devils, but since they lack slots they are not great as solo SCs (unlike the Ice/Arch Devils, which make pretty good SCs).

[Shovah32]

Arent demon lords B9?

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Blood 9 research, need a B8 caster to summon.

[Aleph]

Haven't been here in quite a while.

LA Ulm mixes decent blood magic, freespawn thralls, freespawn wolves, and incredibly potent spies to shut down enemy economies. They aren't anywhere near the blood nation that Mictlan is, insofar as they just aren't a heavy magic nation period, but the Counts are pretty decent all rounders who, as a previous poster noted, aren't so expensive that they shouldn't hunt. They also give you a credible bootstrap into death magic, since they (unlike Tlahuelpuchi) start out being able to forge skull staves.

One small magical edge that LA Ulm has over Mictlan is access to Earth magic, albeit at low levels. With some selective empowering of capital only priests (really easy with blood) you can kick off a nice Blood Stone economy.

Also, I forget who taught me this, but Vampire Counts casting Summon Lamashtas are incredible defensive troops in your own domain. You're immortal... who cares if they turn on you?

[jutetrea]

Agree with Baalz and Velusion, I'll almost always try to get a small blood income going...even if its only a few slaves/turn. Make a few rods and have 1 or 2 sites going for a 5-20 slave income every turn. If its not part of the main strategy it adds up pretty quick.

Then it allows you to forge some really great items, blood stone being the primary. If you get a head start to const 8 you can nab some of the great artifacts as well.

I usually have blood spells as low priority, but bowl, toads and occasionally crossbreeding for chaff work well. If you've got the extra research, getting up to blood 6(?) gets you infernal disease (good assassin spell) and 5 gates (28 slaves for 5 demons in one cast). None of which are huge cost and potentially useful.

For moderate loss in income (and a bit more micro) you can get some pretty nifty benefits late mid-late game.

[Shovah32]

Aleph said:
Haven't been here in quite a while.

LA Ulm mixes decent blood magic, freespawn thralls, freespawn wolves, and incredibly potent spies to shut down enemy economies. They aren't anywhere near the blood nation that Mictlan is, insofar as they just aren't a heavy magic nation period, but the Counts are pretty decent all rounders who, as a previous poster noted, aren't so expensive that they shouldn't hunt. They also give you a credible bootstrap into death magic, since they (unlike Tlahuelpuchi) start out being able to forge skull staves.

One small magical edge that LA Ulm has over Mictlan is access to Earth magic, albeit at low levels. With some selective empowering of capital only priests (really easy with blood) you can kick off a nice Blood Stone economy.

Also, I forget who taught me this, but Vampire Counts casting Summon Lamashtas are incredible defensive troops in your own domain. You're immortal... who cares if they turn on you?

I absolutely love counts. Throw lifelong protection on them and have them spam raise skeletons(swapping to summon lammashta's when you want to do damage/are near your capitol) and you can get an endless horde of chaff to wear down the enemy.

[Sombre]

I think Hell Power would work the same way too. You get a boost and if nasties turn up, who cares? You're immortal.

[JaghataiKhan]

By the way, why can't I transfer blood slavs immediately to the laboratory? My hands ache from sheer amount of clicking.

This sucks. I also need Blood Sacrifices directly from labs when available. I hate microing Mictlan.