Are devils worth 7 blood each?

[Huzurdaddi]

It's really not fair to assume a hammer on one side (and not even count its cost or design points on a pretender to get one) and alchemy conVersion loss on the other. Imo, the comparison is flawed at it's very base.

Uhm ... the hammers are assumed on both sides. Removing them does not change the ratios which is what this is all about. Soul contracts yeild an effective gem supply which is 150% greater ( given the input ) than the other sources.

Not to count the Soul Contract guy get horror marked, and is victim of horrors, that find him even if he's hiding.

Do they? Not in any game I have played. In games I have played I somewhat commonly get the message "a horror attacked so and so" however I can not watch the battle ( "bad VCR" ) and when I check he is still alive. Perhaps someone has seen a Horror kill a scout with a soul contract before, but I have not.

[Kel]

Uhm ... the hammers are assumed on both sides. Removing them does not change the ratios which is what this is all about. Soul contracts yield an effective gem supply which is 150% greater ( given the input ) than the other sources.

You are adding extra factors to the equation. Barring extraneous factors, clams take 10 turns to pay themselves and soul contracts take ~ 11.5 .

Even that isn't really a great comparison because since there are so many different factors that differ between the two but assuming alchemical losses, the cost of speeding up clams beyond your natural water income, and not taking into account reduced gold, pop and research loss from speeding up blood income makes for a flawed basis of comparison.

Admittedly, it would be difficult to come up with the losses from speeding up blood production so the obvious thing to do is to not take into account rushed production on either side, in which case, clams pay for themselves faster than soul contracts.

- Kel

[Huzurdaddi]

You are adding extra factors to the equation. Barring extraneous factors, clams take 10 turns to pay themselves and soul contracts take ~ 11.5 .

Uhm if you are alchemizing ( note: soul contracts give essentially blood that makes this a totally valid comparison ) and you have no hammers then it takes *20* turns for a clam to pay for itself.

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Uhm if you are alchemizing ( note: soul contracts give essentially blood that makes this a totally valid comparison ) and you have no hammers then it takes *20* turns for a clam to pay for itself.

Clams actually take only 5 turns to pay for themselves with no hammer if you'd rather have astral pearls, or 10 turns if you want something other than than astral or water. It's only 20 turns if you want to convert them back into water gems to make more clams.

[nakomus]

Soul contracts don’t give gems; they don’t even give blood slaves. They give devils. They are only worth anything at all if devils are what you need. Its also not possible to set up a exponential growth situation with soul contracts, since you cant turn devils into soul contracts.

The soul contract can never pay for another soul contract for free (as is the case for the 20-turn clam with alchemy. This is a very important difference.

Clams give you astral gems, which through alchemy can be used to do almost anything, including get more clams.

Soul contracts get you devils, which are only good for flying around and smashing things. Granted this a pretty generally useful ability, but not nearly as flexible as a high astral income.

I like devils a lot, but I haven’t found soul contracts are a good investment in a close run game. I’d rather have my devils right now, keeping me alive, or killing off the other guy.

[Huzurdaddi]

The soul contract can never pay for another soul contract for free (as is the case for the 20-turn clam with alchemy. This is a very important difference.

I agree with that. 100% correct.

Soul contracts get you devils, which are only good for flying around and smashing things. Granted this a pretty generally useful ability, but not nearly as flexible as a high astral income.

Not as flexible true. However the soul contract produces the end product. You need not spend the caster time ( which is important ) to convert your gems into something that can smash things.

I like devils a lot, but I haven’t found soul contracts are a good investment in a close run game. I’d rather have my devils right now, keeping me alive, or killing off the other guy.

I would imagine that in close game you are spending your blood slaves on SC devils not on devils. It's very hard to actually summon devils in any quanity ( except once you reach blood 9 ).

[Tuidjy]

Once you commit to devils, you are stuck with them. Your opponent will
learn about what you are doing, and will have about ten turns to prepare
for them. As someone who was utterly destroyed the first time he faced
devils, and who has utterly destroyed any devil hoarding opponent since,
I will stick with clams and fetishes, thank you very much.

Thank you for bringing back the memory of decimating and routing more than
a hundred devils and abysyan intantries with two indy sorceresses and a
jade amazonne! And then doing it again, because the guy was stuck with the
soul contract strategy.

[CUnknown]

I think we should take another look at the numbers real quick.

Clam/fetish hoarding: Costs 10 gems, gives 1 a turn. This will repay itself in 10 turns.

Soul contracts: Costs 80 slaves, gives 7 slaves a turn. This will repay itself in.. what was it? 11.5 turns?

So, in reality (not including any additional bonuses), clams are actually a better investment, but the problem is they don't give you the finished product. You have to spend a character action to actually use what you get, as opposed to Soul contracts, which don't require this.

Yet, as others have pointed out, Soul contracts have the downside of inflexibility. Once the appropriate counters are in place, you might wish you had spent those blood slaves in another way.

So, Soul contracts have advantages and disadvantages when compared to clamming/fetishing. Seems balanced to me.

Whether devils are actually worth 7 slaves though, is a different question. They may be worth more...so possibly Soul contracts are unbalanced after all, even compared to clamming (a strategy many think is unbalanced). We'd have to compare stats of similar summoned units of the same research level for that.