Cost efficient blood hunting

[BigDaddy]

Originally Posted by Gregstrom

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Empower does not cost ~35 slaves. Blood boosters cost 25 before forge bonus.

Waiting #20 turns for a return on investment is rarely worthwhile in MP. If you're talking about equipping, say, 20 blood hunters with thorns or skulls, the 500 slaves (~375 with hammers) you just burned could probably have been used to summon a demon army and conquer another player (or to prevent an invasion).

See above. And if you have a B6 warlock, why isn't he doing something like making Soul Contracts rather than blood hunting? If you've boosted all your warlocks to B6, why haven't you won the game yet?

They're vastly less attractive than dowsing rods, whatever you do. If for some reason you have an extremely limited supply of blood hunters, then maybe you can afford to blow your slave reserves into boosters for hunting use. Otherwise, the spend is less effective, especially in terms of return on investment, than having more hunters and only using rods.

Ya, whatever, I'm not going to deal with this whole thing you typed out, but just mention that empowering a guy who is a blood hunter costs the blood slaves he would have found that turn, so it costs ~35 slaves.

Yada, yada, yada...

[Benjamin]

Ah but the limitation on blood hunting is unrest... so it doesn't really matter whether you are hunting with b2 or b10.

I'd also point out that another big cost of blood hunting, at least early on is the commander slot it takes to produce the blood hunter.

Right so if you are having to keep 2 fort lab temple provinces occupied for 15 turns making blood hunters that is a cost.

[BigDaddy]

I have successfully necroed this thread. I think, and it seems to me, that each blood hunter, regardless of success, creates some unrest, so, what you want is a few high level blood hunters. With a blood font drawing 25 slaves a turn you can almost count on unrest even at 0% tax... yes, but the FoB is awesome at blood hunting... Also, this should make it so that you either need less turns to recruit blood hunters (less likely) or will be able to field blood hunters in more locations (more likely). You can use scouts to ferry blood slaves around, which can be really important in combat situations.

Also, the best blood hunters are ussually decent mages you want to have. And buffing their capacity to cast makes them even better, AND at some point the PD plus them might well be enough to consider the province defended (especially because they probably have blood slaves).

and remember:
"Undisciplined jailers have defiled some of your blood slaves."

[Maerlande]

What's a blood font? Gothic hand with a bit of drip?

[Gregstrom]

So you're ignoring the slaves spent in the empowerment? That seems odd. And how many blood hunters get 35 slaves/turn?

[BigDaddy]

It costs 30 slaves to empower a B1, say, Mictlan priest. He probably could have gotten 4-5 blood slaves with a dousing rod.

[Gregstrom]

That makes more sense. Why not compare the return on investment from spending the same number of slaves on dowsing rods for new blood hunters (again, assume Mictlan Priests)?

[BigDaddy]

That probably pays for itself the next 2 turns. 50% * 5 = 2.5/turn

The first turn pays for most of the SDR, and the next one pays more than it off, unless, as occasionally happens, they don't find any, in which cast it takes 3 turns. The probability of it taking 3 turns, for any specific priest is ~ (1 - ((.9)^3))

If he used a forging assist, it would likely be paid back the first turn. ~10% of the time it would not.

If you roll the numbers into an aggregate you'd endup with a ror of just over 2 turns without a hammer, and just over 1 with one.

The RoR is much longer with a B2 or B3 forger and lower if you use Forge of the Ancients and a forging item on a non-blood mage to make the item.

[thejeff]

Because it gets harder to compare. You have to figure in the costs of buying the priests, of having more provinces being hunted and thus producing less gold. The opportunity cost of using those castle slots to buy blood hunters instead of researchers or combat mages.
I agree in general, especially with nations like Mictlan who have cheap blood hunters, the other costs are generally low.
I can see two cases where you might want to empower hunters: Where you only have expensive B1 mages, like Vanjarls. Or capital only ones - Warlocks? Then the cost of getting more blood hunters is much higher.

Or when you are low on provinces to hunt. Few higher level blood mages seem to generate less unrest/slave than more low level hunters, so you might want to concentrate.

[BigDaddy]

Just keep in mind that you can "slave hoarde" by increasing the blood level of your mages, if you are in a position that makes it prudent to do so. There is a real RoR on each level you boost them. That third point of effective blood pays off fairly fast, especially with a decent forging discount.

Also, your slaves aren't doing you any good sitting in the dungeon, at some point you need to work harder to keep them working for you.

It isn't so much how many gems you have, as how fast and which ones you can spend.