Blood SCs

[Samhain]

JonBrave,

I've see the same difference between blood and non-blood casters and "gem" usage. I assume this is because the non-blood castors fatigue out before depleting their gem stockpile while blood mages cast Reinvigoration to allow themselves to keep casting. I haven't really watched that closely (or read the logs) to determine if this is correct.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Samhain

JonBrave,

I've see the same difference between blood and non-blood casters and "gem" usage. I assume this is because the non-blood castors fatigue out before depleting their gem stockpile while blood mages cast Reinvigoration to allow themselves to keep casting. I haven't really watched that closely (or read the logs) to determine if this is correct.

After I posted I wondered too whether that might well be a factor.

While talking about the "Summon Imps" my blood mages seem to like, what are imps for, what do they do well, and how can I help them?

[Samhain]

Originally Posted by brxbrx

What happens if your caster is an Abysian warlock or has a stronger aura of another sort? Bye bye, blood slaves.

True, the difficulty of employing blood magic on the battlefield without killing your own blood slaves is one of the significant challenges of playing Abysia. They also burn indy recruits and nearly all summons and have horrible magic diversity, nothing but fire mages from non-cap forts. And yet, EA Abysia is one of my 2 most favorite non-mod nations. Go figure.

Originally Posted by JonBrave

While talking about the "Summon Imps" my blood mages seem to like, what are imps for, what do they do well, and how can I help them?

As lab summons, imps' bread and butter is the removal of poorly armored units from the battlefield, such as archers or mage communes. If they go hoof to toe with infantry, they are generally toast. Non-fire area affect spells are not their friend either.

When I am concerned about keeping them alive, my preference is to mix them with something beefier to demand the attention from whatever they are fighting. Flying thugs are the best. But, devils work OK too.

They also make effective, 0 upkeep patrollers for blood hunting. Especially nice is that they don't die when patrolling for EA Abysia and an enemy scout discovery triggers a battle where they mix with that nation's heat aura radiating PD.

The main utility of the battlefield spell, Summon Imps, in my practice is to tie up an assassin so the mage has a few turns to take him down with Blood Burst or another attack spell. When used via AI, I find it generally to be a means to finish off any leftover blood slaves so you have to replenish before the next fight. Just hope you don't have two battles the same turn.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Samhain

JonBrave,

I've see the same difference between blood and non-blood casters and "gem" usage. I assume this is because the non-blood castors fatigue out before depleting their gem stockpile while blood mages cast Reinvigoration to allow themselves to keep casting. I haven't really watched that closely (or read the logs) to determine if this is correct.

I assume the reason is that blood casters don't have much else to do.
In other paths, even if you have gems, there are likely to be a bunch of other spells you can cast that don't use any. Almost all blood spells use slaves. Since the mage will try to cast every turn, the Blood mage will probably use slaves every turn while the other mages will find something else to do.

[Immaculate]

nope.

If the caster doesn't deem the threat worthy of using gems, then they'll just cast sabbath master, sabbath slave without using slaves. Its sort of funny. I had it happen very recently in one game where my patrollers in my blood hunting province recently caught an enemy scout. All my blood hunting units just cast slave/master than the scout got hit with a few arrows an died. No blood slaves were harmed during filming.

[krpeters]

Originally Posted by Immaculate

If the caster doesn't deem the threat worthy of using gems, then they'll just cast sabbath master, sabbath slave without using slaves.

In CBM, master/slave doesn't cost any slaves. In vanilla, *every* blood spell costs slaves. So my guess is that in vanilla the blood mage will keep casting "summon imp" as it feels it has to cast something and sees this as the least worst choice.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by krpeters

In CBM, master/slave doesn't cost any slaves.

Thanks, didn't realise that change (am playing my first CBM, SP). That makes a difference. On that topic, in CBM what is the deep significance of sabbath master/slave being Fatigue "99-" instead of "100-", please?

[rdonj]

The fatigue cost determines the gem cost of a spell. Each 100 requires an additional gem. So 99 is high enough that the casting cost difference is irrelevant, but allows you to cast without needing a slave.

[Bat/man]

That 99 fatigue cost seems like an improvement but it is really a terrible nerf.

It means that the AI can (and now - will) cast slave and master and fatigue himself out of a fight.

this can happen if
a). the blood mage has few spells researched.
b). No spells in range.

So, this makes scripting more difficult

It gets worse.

Even though the spell theoretically consumes no slaves - intermittently, it will in fact consume a slave.

This makes slave management more difficult.

Finally, it truly bolluxes up communions, reverse communions, and linebacker communions (qv).

if one of the mages that you intend to be communion slaves casts master it can prevent all slaves following it to *not* cast a spell. (remember all slaves cease casting upon the first cast by a master).

So, all in all, that 1% fatigue change is pretty huge change.

[Shardphoenix]

While talking about the "Summon Imps" my blood mages seem to like, what are imps for, what do they do well, and how can I help them?

Imps are great decoy for drawing enemy evocations away from your real troops. They have good def, so trampling them isn`t that easy. And, as all demons, they love Darkness.