Miniblood nations - rates

[thejeff]

If all you've got is B1 on nationals, you're going to need to empower someone to do anything with all that blood you're collecting.

And the same version of CBM that took SDRs away also took hammers, so I was assuming no discount.

[Executor]

While giving blood boosters to B1 hunters sound like a good option when no SDR are present I see two problems;

1. Blood hunters would get rather vulnerable in open provinces, the fact remains you pull more gold from forts due to administration so open provinces are generally a better option to blood hunt, and I for one would target those provinces first for assassinations, remote spells and attacks. So you'd need forts or something in blood hunting provinces to protect your investment. We all know that it sometimes takes only one turn of war to halt or cripple a blood economy.

2. Every blood hunter will have to take about 4 turns at least to pay his items off before he starts hunting, not to mention that you have to use your rare B2 mages to start the initial hunting and get the slaves for the boosters, since hunting with a B1 mage is ineffective.
Also, rather than forging items, I'd much prefer empowering to B2 myself, after all it's only a 5 slave difference without the hammers.

I of course see no way around this since I think Vanheim is screwed regarding blood hunting personally.

Vampires Lords would blood hunt good, but using them for hunting means you're not using them to summon vampires, which is wasteful to me.

In regards to blood hunting power levels, I'd say around 7 blood hunting provinces is average.

Blood hunting under taxes is a bad idea too, regardless of patrolers, or scales for that matter. The only time I see this pay off is when you have a gold mine in a province so you can stack up the taxes and blood hunt.
Growth scales are usually meaningless in blood hunting provinces. The more pop you have they more you'll get and since blood hunting provinces tend to have 4000-7000 population usually the growth will be marginal. If you hunt, tax and patrol you'll kill that provicnes blood hunting abilities rather fast I feel. It's rather easy to lose 500 pop after a good blood hunting turn.

As for the fountain of blood, I have yet to see anyone use it for blood hunting.
You take it when you have a blood nation (is it restricted to blood nations only?), at which point having your pretender blood hunt isn't all that of a bonus, especially since you'd have to teleport him away as blood hunting in your cap is a fast way to drive your pop down, the more population there is, the faster they'll die, so you need to have either air or astral, to research teleporting, and build a second fort for the pretender if you don't take astral for returning. A hassle I think.

Oh, and as for summons, I'd go for ritual of 5 gates mostly. Summon some Ice devils or Heliopagi that can cast ritual of five gates in time of peace with some boosters (use them as SCs when you need to). Massing only storm demons can be countered easily with the right stuff, and it takes a lot of mages time summoning them one by one.

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by Executor

1. Blood hunters would get rather vulnerable in open provinces, the fact remains you pull more gold from forts due to administration so open provinces are generally a better option to blood hunt, and I for one would target those provinces first for assassinations, remote spells and attacks. So you'd need forts or something in blood hunting provinces to protect your investment. We all know that it sometimes takes only one turn of war to halt or cripple a blood economy.

Van has crappy forts so I wouldn't be too concerned with gold loss. Open provinces or forts can be protected by domes of solid air. You can also further ensure their safe keeping by giving them crystal hearts.

Originally Posted by Executor

Also, rather than forging items, I'd much prefer empowering to B2 myself, after all it's only a 5 slave difference without the hammers.

I'd rather have items as the items can be transferred whereas an empowerment cannot.

Originally Posted by Executor

I of course see no way around this since I think Vanheim is screwed regarding blood hunting personally.

maybe

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by Executor

Also, rather than forging items, I'd much prefer empowering to B2 myself, after all it's only a 5 slave difference without the hammers.

After running some expansion tests coupled with out of the gate blood hunting I now agree that empowering from the start is the way to go to get the economy rolling for van. Thanks!

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Slobby

Agreed, but with jade knives now unique I don't know how worthwhile blood saccing is.

I wonder about that myself, especially since Van only has H2s. Should still work for protecting your own dominion but I don't know that you'll be able to generate much of a dominion push.

Originally Posted by Slobby

Actually I find the hearts of life to be quite useful and am now planning on spamming the hell outta them for thugging/casting purposes. Without them thugging options for Van, eh not so much.

That's an interesting idea! I've never actually used hearts of life, I think because I hated the idea of giving up a misc slot on my thugs. And the idea of equipping communion slaves with them (maybe combined with a light earth bless and summon earthpower?) seems very interesting.

Originally Posted by Slobby

And speaking of empowering. A fun trick might be to put W and E on the pretender to summon Grendelkin. Empower the Grendelkin in blood, give maybe a blood thorn and definately hydra armor and ring of regen then script blood vengence/reinvigorate/attack. Will still need to test that one but on paper looks good...

Funny you should mention that. At one point I considered empowering bane lords in B and running a reverse communion. Of course I wanted to run more than just B buffs through the communion and fatigue built up quickly. In the end I decided it wasn't worthwhile. But grendelkin are of course much tougher than bane lords and could be worth the trouble. Fun idea, anyway.

Originally Posted by Slobby

All in all in terms of summons, there really is nothing there for Van until Blood 7 & 9, however with the scaling upward blood eco through forging boosters, forging hearts, empowering, and combat casting, I'm now of the opinion that there are definate uses of slaves in the early and especially the mid game of Van and can't really foresee too much stock piling going on.

All the more reason for the blood eco, inefficient as it is, to start sooner than later .

I agree with Executor that Van is screwed with regard to blood hunting but this has been an interesting conversation and I have to admit it makes me want to play Van despite the hits they've taken. I'll be curious to hear if you manage develop a strong blood economy despite having to spend all that effort to empower/forge boosters in order to get effective blood hunters.

[Slobby]

Originally Posted by Valerius

I agree with Executor that Van is screwed with regard to blood hunting but this has been an interesting conversation and I have to admit it makes me want to play Van despite the hits they've taken. I'll be curious to hear if you manage develop a strong blood economy despite having to spend all that effort to empower/forge boosters in order to get effective blood hunters.

Aye, it's really not too hard. I'm part way through making a guide for EA Van so hopefully I can demonstrate how they can be awesome sauce.