Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood game?

[DrPraetorious]

It's worth noting that there are also some summons with a chance at a blood random.

Aside from national summons, I know that 1/4 in Lamia Queens and 1/4 Ether Lords have a blood random. Of course, those require death, which Patala and MA Mictlan do not get, except maybe on heroes. But Lamia Queens and Ether Warriors are both nice in and of themselves, so it's no loss to make a bunch of them.

Personally, I think bootstrapping into blood magic is a waste (of player time, not of actual wealth, which can be more or less negligible,) unless you have powerful national summons, including especially nationally summonable bloodhunters.

Once MA Mictlan or Patala can get the blood economy rolling, it can self-sustain eventually, and comes with some nasty, nasty stuff.

[Sombre]

It clearly isn't going to help you win the game - it's simply too ineffective. But it can be fun and it is doable. Couple of things I'd like to add:

1. If you're using Conceptual Balance Mod, the blood fountain generates two blood slaves per turn. If you take him awake and blood hunt with him as well, this mounts up.

2. Bloodhunting your cap isn't actually that bad an idea if you have something like freespawn patrollers. You can also use call of the winds and similar spells to produce very effective patrollers for relatively little cost. With a nice little patrol force you can keep taxes at 100 and bloodhunt quite a bit. You lose your pop, so in the long run it's bad for you, but then again in the long run you're going for a blood economy which won't need much in terms of gold, resources etc and will be able to take more provinces to blood hunt as it rolls along.

Call of the winds also nets you a flying commander who can nip about scooping up harvested blood slaves and winging back to a lab.

[Velusion]

Sombre said:
It clearly isn't going to help you win the game - it's simply too ineffective.

In large MP games blood is much more economical and cost effective than gems in the late game - especially if Astral Corruption goes up (as it probably will if there is a blood nation still around). You are simply trading gold for blood slaves - a very good deal in the late game when gold is worth less and less.

In shorter games (80 turns or less) it probably isn't worth boot-strapping blood unless you find some good indy blood mages early.

[Sombre]

I totally agree that blood is powerful in the late game and for blood nations that's fine. But if you're looking for the win, you really don't want to be wasting resources trying to get into blood with a bloodless nation. It would take a lot just to get to the point that a nation with blood access starts the game at, let alone the kind of economy Lanka, Mictlan etc have set up. You'd also have to waste time researching the blood tech tree instead of freeing researchers up or going for the more traditional spells for your nation. If you're already in the late game before you even start going for blood, it's never going to arrive in time to help you out. If you start going for it in the early or mid game, you're going to weaken yourself in the short term which will prevent you building up and improving your late game. Plus if you end up hard pressed in the mid game it's all been a waste of time, since you won't see the late game to reap the rewards.

[Velusion]

Sombre said:
I totally agree that blood is powerful in the late game and for blood nations that's fine. But if you're looking for the win, you really don't want to be wasting resources trying to get into blood with a bloodless nation. It would take a lot just to get to the point that a nation with blood access starts the game at, let alone the kind of economy Lanka, Mictlan etc have set up. You'd also have to waste time researching the blood tech tree instead of freeing researchers up or going for the more traditional spells for your nation. If you're already in the late game before you even start going for blood, it's never going to arrive in time to help you out. If you start going for it in the early or mid game, you're going to weaken yourself in the short term which will prevent you building up and improving your late game. Plus if you end up hard pressed in the mid game it's all been a waste of time, since you won't see the late game to reap the rewards.

Most non-blood nations that I've seen win larger MP games have branched into blood at some point, so I think your blanket assumption is incorrect. I'm not saying you have to have blood to win large games but that it helps.

Personally, if you are playing in a large MP game and are a land based non-blood nation with easy access to indy blood mages, I'd think you would be foolish to not start a blood economy - wars permitting.

[Sombre]

Well not having experience of late game MP I'll concede the point. I personally still think trying to branch into blood without blood mages isn't a sound use of time and resources, if you're playing to win. I might do it myself however, because it's fun.

I don't take the fact that winning non-blood MP nations do it as a guarantee that it's effective either. Even the very best players will always do some things that aren't optimal on their path to winning. If you're a great player but you love,.. say,.. bog beasts, so in every game that you play (and you win a lot of these) you use them, does that mean bog beasts are effective units and a useful part of a winning strat?

[llamabeast]

Can't keep away from the bog beasts can you Sombre?