Blood?

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Jasper:
you can get them by turn 20 without undue effort.

I would rephrase that to you might be able to get them by turn 20 with much effort. To get Ice Devils by t.20 has proved too much for me so far. Sure I haven't tried ditching development to get them but then its not worth it to do so. I'll have a whirl with my new Mictlan race today and see when I can get them by.

My present Mictlan race has done very well and could have got Ice Devil by t.33 if I hadn't had to side track to deal with the Burden of Time.

Comparing Ice Devils in Dom2 to Dom1 is not accurate. The ID's have changed from uber powerful to hard to get and vunerable. Oh and someone else can always beat you to them so you may only get a couple.

cheers

Keir

Cheers

Keir

[General Tacticus]

Let see, researching Blood 5 should cost 300 rp, a good research pretender can easily do that by turn 20 if he does very little else.

Now, you need to have 55 blood slave by turn 20. No problem. But what you really need is to have an income of 55 blood slaves, say at the very least every two turns, with enough over to still spread your dominion. That means, I would say, about 10 mictlan priests (let's use Mictlan) on permanent blood hunt, by turn 20. Plus a way to bring the slaves back, either labs or scouts on carrier duty. (I assume you are not blood hunting in your capital, which is your main source of gold)

I would put that setup at 1000 gold minimum, plus half the commander recruiting capability of your capital. As a rough guess, you have been spending 20% of your gold income on the setup. You would be hard pressed to do some serious site searching at the same time, so no gold from alchemy. And you still have to expand, without your pretender...

Yes, it looks like it can be done, on paper. Still, that 20% of your income will be missed elsewhere : for building additional fortress, province defense, even plain old armies... You also need more priest on sacrifice duties. Not to mention the fact that your good research pretender has cost you a lot of points, so your scales are not that good.

I haven't tried ice devils, so I cannot say how good they are, but would you say 1 Ice devil every two turns is worth investing 20% of your income for the crucial 20 first turns ?

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
Let see, researching Blood 5 should cost 300 rp, a good research pretender can easily do that by turn 20 if he does very little else.

I may be wrong but my understanding of how you make a blood economy work includes Sanguine Dousing rods and I certainly wouldn't miss out on early Jade Knives with Mictlan - these make a huge difference. So realistically you have to research con4 first. Build dousing rods with your early blood, empower someone to water3 if your pretender doesn't have it, and summon the Ice Devil and then equip the Ice Devils. Uneqquiped Ice Devils in a heat dominon are not that strong - work best for Jotun and Caelum.

Ice Devils are not strong enough that you can afford to cripple the rest of your development to get them. They must come out of a natural developing race or else you will be meat. My 8-9th turn ICe Devils with Caelum in Dom1 was not a strong race. It was just really cool. My powerful races in Dom1 using Ice Devils didn't get them up and runing till around turn 20 so its going to be a struggle in Dom2 to beat this - I'll give a whirl now and let you know how I go.

Cheers

Keir

[apoger]

>I may be wrong but my understanding of how you make a blood economy work includes Sanguine Dousing rods and I certainly wouldn't miss out on early Jade Knives with Mictlan - these make a huge difference. So realistically you have to research con4 first.

I never use SDR's in Dom2.
I see little point to Jade Knives unless I'm having extreme dominion scale issues, which has rarely been the case.

If I was planning on doing Con-4 and blood hunting, I'd skip the ID's and concentrate on Soul Contracts and Lifelong Protections. That way there would be some synergy to my plans.

[ January 05, 2004, 22:05: Message edited by: apoger ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
So realistically you have to research con4 first. Build dousing rods with your early blood, empower someone to water3 if your pretender doesn't have it, and summon the Ice Devil and then equip the Ice Devils.

What level of construction does the water bracelet require? That and two blood boosting items is what is required for the water mages to summon ice devils.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by apoger:

I never use SDR's in Dom2.

I know and I do mean to give it a try MM and all. However its sort of like basing a race design around the Blood of human guys with a two handed weapon and shield - its probably not going to be around long and IMO shouldn't be. Going on what Illwinter said they intended people to blood hunt with blood mages. Since you have done such a good job pointing out that this is not how its turned out I'm assumming they will fix this and so, I hope, building a blood economy around blood mages with SDR's will be of more long term learning value.

I see little point to Jade Knives unless I'm having extreme dominion scale issues, which has rarely been the case.

I like them heaps. Even with dom6 they put me at the top of the dominion curve and as my SP games are decided by dominon, and it takes along time to undermine well established dominion, I like them.

Cheers

Keir

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
What level of construction does the water bracelet require?

There is a water3 booster at con4 and a water2 booster at con6. Empowerment is ok for me - its just mean searching with a water mage early and I like to start my searching programme early.

Anyway must stop reading Posts and crank the Fountain of Blood.

I'm really enjoying making progress with Mictlan.

Cheers

Keir