Cost efficient blood hunting

WraithLord · #1 June 22nd, 2008, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Endoperez said:
SDR only work on Blood mages, yes. That makes even B1 mages with the rod 90% chance of catching slaves compared to the 10% chance of scouts.

ok, I was under wrong impression then. So this makes obvious the answer to my question with SDR involved.

Loren · #2 June 22nd, 2008, 06:54 PM

It seems to me the most efficient one is the vampire. No upkeep at all and immortal within your dominion--they can't be taken out by raiders.

Admittedly, you need a decent blood income to get them, they're not going to be your first blood hunters.

MaxWilson · #3 June 22nd, 2008, 09:47 PM

Is getting taken out by raiders really a problem if you set them to Retreat from the back row?

-Max

Loren · #4 June 23rd, 2008, 12:24 AM

Quote:

MaxWilson said:
Is getting taken out by raiders really a problem if you set them to Retreat from the back row?

-Max

Unless the retreat is cut off by teleport raiders or the like.

In MP I once lost a substantial army when the commanders were taken out by assassination and a flying unit cut off the retreat.

MaxWilson · #5 June 23rd, 2008, 03:59 AM

But do people actually bother to do that vs. simple bloodhunters? I realized when I wrote that that you *could* kill them, but is it really a problem? (The other consideration is that someone could attack you just to make your bloodhunters retreat and mess up your blood economy temporarily.)

How did that kill off your MP army? Were you in the water or something so you couldn't buy the 1 PD commander?

-Max

WraithLord · #6 June 23rd, 2008, 03:59 AM

I also usually set my blood hunter to retreat. However this makes them susceptible to assassination, so just take this into account.

Also, vampires as blood hunters, I assume you mean vampire lords (or whatever their name). Aren't they more useful auto-summoning, or fighting or casting spells. Besides, they come into play mid to end game, by then you either have an established blood economy or you'll probably never have one.

One last Q though, what if I want to use the Hinom priests as blood hunters (IIRC they are names "Kohen" with 1B). Are they going to eat the population like Rephaim and Baal?

WraithLord · #7 June 23rd, 2008, 04:08 AM

I do that when I can. However in most past MP games, when I was attacked by a blood nation, they were raiding me so hard I had a hard time hitting they blood economy.

Endoperez · #8 June 23rd, 2008, 06:13 AM

Quote:

WraithLord said:
One last Q though, what if I want to use the Hinom priests as blood hunters (IIRC they are names "Kohen" with 1B). Are they going to eat the population like Rephaim and Baal?

Yes, Kohen eat population.

WraithLord · #9 June 23rd, 2008, 08:10 AM

Well, this actually prevents Hinom from efficient blood hunt with Kohens and forces them to rely on indy scouts instead (or else burn out their blood provinces quite fast).

Another weakness in this supposedly too strong nation.

Aleph · #10 February 17th, 2010, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Also, vampires as blood hunters, I assume you mean vampire lords (or whatever their name). Aren't they more useful auto-summoning, or fighting or casting spells. Besides, they come into play mid to end game, by then you either have an established blood economy or you'll probably never have one.

Realize this is a deep resurrection of a post in a topic that was already necroed, but just getting back into Dominions after some time away and wanted to comment on this.

LA Ulm's Vampire Counts are the vampires I think of as blood hunters - 44 blood slaves for a B2 hunter, or 49 blood slaves for the equivalent of a B3 via an SDR. Granted, from a pure blood economy perspective they are notably less efficient than Mictlan's Tlahuelpuchi, however:

a. Mictlan's comes at Blood 6 while LA Ulm's comes at Blood 0, which makes them available at very different points in the game.
b. Vampire Counts are a spammable unit that can take on many roles throughout the game, while Tlahuelpuchi are likely only worth their cost as bloodhunters and in rare cases assassins (as they compete against Infernal Disease at the same blood level). In particular, on top of the advantages of immortality, regeneration, and slightly superior stats across the board, Vampire Counts make significantly better demon leaders than do Tlahuelpuchi.
c. the freespawn of the Counts plays an integral role in LA Ulm armies as chaff for Ulm's excellent Rangers. (However: does someone who knows the game better than I do know if thralls have gold upkeep? Used to have EDI's database bookmarked, can't find it now)
d. Vampire Counts are likely the best that LA Ulm can do for a bloodhunter, while the extreme efficiency of the Mictlan Priest makes him quite difficult to out-do (save for MA Mictlan, as mentioned elsewhere).

All that said, anyone better at math than I am want to throw in on efficiency of maintenance-free summons as bloodhunters? As more recent posts are looking at opportunity costs of bloodhunting, we should be able to calculate an average initial gold expenditure per bloodslave, then multiply that by number of bloodslaves spent to summon the creature. That will give us the total "lifetime" gold cost of the summons, which can then be used comparatively to see how long it takes a particular summon to surpass a non-summoned hunter, both in terms of his initial gold cost AND upkeep (earlier comparisons seemed to bypass the former, which does matter). How long, for example, would it take for a Vampire Count to out-efficient a Mictlan Priest? A decade? A century?