How do I recruit more blood hunters?

[DeathDaemon]

I'm looking for blood slaves, lots of 'em. Recruiting a couple of hunters a turn and using the same amount of forgers for SDRs isn't fast enough.

Playing Mictlan, Abysia BoH are not a problem with mass B1 SDR hunters.

Jotunhiem - expensive skratti are B2. Good hunters, but tough to build more than a couple per turn. Expensive forgers to do nothing but make SDRs.

Vanheim - similar problem with Jotuns, yet only lousy B1.

Pangaea (Base) - I just can't see Pangaea really using much magic at all, the mages are too expensive. OK nature has its cool stuff, but blood in Pangaea base?

Abysia (Base) - Warlock Apprentices for nearby hunting grounds, Demonbreads can fly and reach distant hunting grounds faster. DBs expensive, and both are capitol only so only 1 a turn.

Pangaea (CW) - Someone please provide info here... I'm not a fan of the mass death nations like CW or Ermor.

Any other nations capable of blood that I'm missing?

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So what should I do? I currently use 2-3 hunters in 5-15k population provinces, trying to avoid the high income ones if necessary to build more hunters. I raise/lower the taxes to play with unrest until it usually settles around 20-40% tax and then eventually 0 tax when I get to 80+ unrest. Then I research for a bit as I put a lab in every hunting province. This a decent strategy?

What about these ideas?

1. Stick it out with the high cost/upkeep hunters and forgers. Make as many per turn as you can. Seems like you spend your empires money on blood. Not the best idea I think if you aren't a powerful blood nation.

2. Empower cheap commanders to hunt and forge. 50 slaves for low upkeep. Whats the ROI?

3. Get lucky using non blood commanders. Does that unnecessarily increase unrest?

4. Put more hunters in a province and start with tax at 0.

Thanks for the help. My God threatened to start sacrificing his servants if help isn't found. Im not sure what good our blood would be... He said something about fodder...

Originally posted by DeathDaemon:
Playing Mictlan, Abysia BoH are not a problem with mass B1 SDR hunters.

Marignon DF is another.

Jotunhiem - expensive skratti are B2. Good hunters, but tough to build more than a couple per turn. Expensive forgers to do nothing but make SDRs.

Depending on what you need the Blood Slaves you need, I have found the yield doesn't really differ much between Blood2+SDR and Blood2. And especially might not need the SDR if it requires a single turn of non-blood hunting + 5 Slaves to forge. Jotunheim as a generality does not need a huge Slave Income in order to utilize it effectively. Most of the time 9 Skratti on hunting duty will do what you need.

Vanheim - similar problem with Jotuns, yet only lousy B1.

I tend to stay away from blood hunting for anything but specific item/spell with Vanheim due to the cost/mage of Vanjarls and often their duties don't allow them to sit about.

Pangaea (Base) - I just can't see Pangaea really using much magic at all, the mages are too expensive. OK nature has its cool stuff, but blood in Pangaea base?

Bloodgea! Pangaea does blood hunt well, but they tend to have nothing to use it on except mass xbreeds. If you have a use for xbreeds and perhaps a usage of the good xbreeds (like Chimeras, Cocks and Grotesques) it can supplement the normal magics of Bloodgea and anti-SC's (Usually high end Lamia armies and Firbolgs)

Abysia (Base) - Warlock Apprentices for nearby hunting grounds, Demonbreads can fly and reach distant hunting grounds faster. DBs expensive, and both are capitol only so only 1 a turn.

I usually use WA's for blood hunting and Demonbred for casting spells (in general). As long as you have another source of research using and planning your mage production from your capital to be switched to Blood is an advanced Abysia strategy.

Pangaea (CW) - Someone please provide info here... I'm not a fan of the mass death nations like CW or Ermor.

They don't have any blood mages so it has about as much blood hunting capability as Ermor, only that population die a little slower.

Any other nations capable of blood that I'm missing?

A surprising and fun fact with two other nations: Ulm: Iron Faith and T'ien Ch'i (all). Because of their random magic picks on their low cost mages (Master of the Way, Black Priest) they often (seemingly more often than you'd imagine) have a high number of Blood random priest/masters. And since their cost/mage ratio if you build your empire with a heavy concentration of multiple recruit centers, you can make blood work for both of those nations and quite well.


How Zen Blood Hunts (normally):

At least 3 Blood Hunters (Blood 1+ SDR or Blood 2+) in a province at least 5k+ (As close to 5k as I can get usually). Drop tax to 0, build lab, build fort, at least 10 PD.

If I am planning on using a significant amount of blood (not any nation that is pure Blood, like Mictlan, etc) I will have at least 3 blood provinces in order to have a 40+ Blood Slave/turn economy.

Of course there are special circumstances and other situations based on enemy/diplomacy/hunters (Sages) but this is a pretty standard blueprint.

[Boron]

Originally posted by DeathDaemon:

Any other nations capable of blood that I'm missing?

ulm BF are ok bloodhunters too . you have b1 hunters but you can summon some ulm vampire counts to do better bloodhunting early game this is at least upkeepfree . ulm BF can afford e.g. a vq so you can go on vampire hordes .


i think mictlan is the best bloodhunter . but all nations with 2 random picks have high chances getting often b1 randoms so they can bloodhunt too. sages are good for this too.

finally lategame the clamhording races can reach a for any blood nation expect mictlan hard to reach blood income per wish .

[alexti]

Originally posted by DeathDaemon:
Jotunhiem - expensive skratti are B2. Good hunters, but tough to build more than a couple per turn. Expensive forgers to do nothing but make SDRs.

I like vaetti hags with SDR for blood hunting, 1/4 of them comes with B1, but all other are needed anyway (for research, forging and for flexibility in combat). And they're only 55 gold.