Nations that seem strong/weak

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:
The right provinces are any province with a population of around 5000, so that's not too much surprise. I think you're greatly overexaggerating how many slaves you get, however, since 6 B3 mages will average about 7 slaves each per turn. Those 6 mages also represent the total commander production of your capital for six turns, which is the real weakness of Abysia as a blood nation.

You need three apprentices for every province you conquer that has a population of about 5000 if you want to seriously invest in blood magic.

I usually average about 10-15 per hunter, sometimes more or less, but I blood hunt in provinces with pops of 10,000 or more, including my capital, and get better averages.

I use 2 hunters per province as it doesn't increase unrest so quickly and hurt my income and since I'm doing it in more populated provinces that produce more gold (not that gold is much of an issue if as Abysia gets more fire gems than I know what to do with so I alchemy them if needed), and since they capture more slaves per turn I don't need 3. You could always add a third later when you don't need the income as much.

The best part is less blood hunters are required for similar results if you're more picky about what provinces you're doing it in. You have to be or you'll be short on mages.

Blood hunting with warlocks and demonbred means that those units aren't available to cast rituals or forge items, or lead your summoned devils respectively. It also means that you've essentially devoted the turn that you recruited that mage at your capital to blood hunting, since you still have to recruit an apprentice to replace the expensive hunter. Then you have to constantly recruit replacement warlock apprentices as they die of old age. If you want 15 blood hunters to support a good blood economy, you'll be spending almost half of the first 30 turns recruiting those blood hunters and their replacements.

They can fill the blood hunter role when necessary and do other things when necessary until you get a replacement so you don't have to spend half of your first 30 turns recruiting blood hunters. Especially if you're doing it in high pop provinces, you won't need as many hunters thereby loosening your recruiting requirements at least early in the game.

How many nations have real difficulty moving their mages around? Most have serious problems recruiting sufficient quantities of their capital only mages, but that's a different problem from getting them where they need to be.

Well, for one thing mages that have to walk and don't have air or astral magic are probably going to move slowly and take several turns from when you recruit them to when they get to where you want them depending on how far it is, especially if they don't have forest or mountain survival. Any Warlock can be anywhere on the map the next turn if you can forge a Starshine Skullcap, some don't even need it. There's not many mages that can do that. A Demonbred will probably take a little longer, but then again there aren't that many flying mages either.

The point here is that yes, you can only recruit them one at a time, but the travel time is lower which helps makes up for it.

Keeping your blood hunting close to the capital is another way to say that you won't be seriously blood hunting.

I don't know many maps where there's not 5 suitable provinces within two or three sqaures of your capital, especially when you're doing it at 5000 pop. I suppose it would be a problem if you're stuck on or near a map edge or large ocean if it's not a wraparound. How about "as close as possible"?

Abysia should be playing with death 3, not a growth scale, and yet trying to take advantage of their death scale resistance hurts them more than almost any other nation thanks to their universally old mages.

Why? It adversely effects blood hunting and age, and income eventually because the population would increase over time and with it income. What are you gaining that's worth giving that up? A supply bonus and short term income an some pretender points? I don't agree with that at all.

You'll be buying a mage every single turn in every castle, so researching won't be benefitted that much from imprisoning your pretender, and you'd get twice as much gold to purchase your mages and troops with if you had a pretender to help you expand.

I don't really think that they need the pretender as a few turns of recruitment can yield a second army that can conquer provinces just as easily, and since most pretenders need a few levels of research in a school that's not particularly helpful to your other mages, like Alteration, I don't feel you're gaining much by having it awake except a few afflictions. You could take identical scales to what you have now, make the pretender dormant, and add Magic 3 and you'll probably be better off overall.

I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat. Their other statistics are nearly identical (except for hitpoints) to humans of half their cost. Compare them to Emerald Guard to see what they have to go up against for similar cost.

With their protection as high as it is, the nearly double hit points is huge, it's like getting hit two or three more times against average units. The radiant heat is worth it too. Just MA Abysias starting army, 9 times out of 10, can take all of the provinces around your capital without stopping for reinforcements and taking few losses, except knights and elephants really.


Either way, we play it different. I don't any more problem wiht old age and Abysia than I do with other nations, probably less problems with Abysia.

[Graeme Dice]

dirtywick said:
I usually average about 10-15 per hunter, sometimes more or less, but I blood hunt in provinces with pops of 10,000 or more, including my capital, and get better averages.

I suggest that you should re-read page 69 of your manual where it describes blood hunting. The only effect that the population of a province has is that the blood hunt can fail if the province has less than 5000 people. Population has zero effect on the number of slaves captured, which is d6+blood skill. Hunting in your capital is an extremely bad idea, unless it's the only province you have, and you need blood slaves very quickly at the start of the game. The rest of your arguments seem to be based on the misconception that high population provinces have an effect on how many blood slaves you gather.

Any Warlock can be anywhere on the map the next turn if you can forge a Starshine Skullcap, some don't even need it. There's not many mages that can do that.

In the middle age, the nations that can teleport given the same conditions are Pythium, Ermor, Arcoscephale, Man (Cloud trapeze only needs air 2), Marignon, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i (1/4 masters), Caelum, Vanheim, Bandar Log, Atlantis, and R'Lyeh. That's more than half the available nations.

It adversely effects blood hunting and age, and income eventually because the population would increase over time and with it income. What are you gaining that's worth giving that up? A supply bonus and short term income an some pretender points? I don't agree with that at all.

The death scale has zero effect on blood hunting, except for the minor population loss. At 0.6% population loss per turn for death 3, it takes 49 turns to lose a quarter and 116 turns to lose 50% of your population in your home province. Your other provinces will take even longer to lose their population, since your dominion takes time to spread to them. The winner of even a massive game is almost always decided by turn 50.

Abysia is supposed to be relatively unaffected by the death scale, which is why they do not lose any income nor supplies from it. The problem, is that those two effects are minor and are negated by the increased affliction rate suffered by your mages.

I don't really think that they need the pretender as a few turns of recruitment can yield a second army that can conquer provinces just as easily, and since most pretenders need a few levels of research in a school that's not particularly helpful to your other mages, like Alteration, I don't feel you're gaining much by having it awake except a few afflictions.

I don't think you understand how necessary it is to explode out of your home province. Ideally, you'd want to have captured 10 provinces by turn 10, although that can be difficult at times. If you're doing really well, you'll have captured 20 provinces by turn 10, especially if you took a dragon that can capture a province per turn starting at turn two.

You could take identical scales to what you have now, make the pretender dormant, and add Magic 3 and you'll probably be better off overall.

Magic 3 is a strategy for people who plan to survive to the late game, I'd prefer to survive the early game through a powerful pretender, then have extra gold to power research, instead of spending design points on it.

With their protection as high as it is, the nearly double hit points is huge, it's like getting hit two or three more times against average units.

Abysian troops have a protection of 16, attack and defense of 10, and 15 hitpoints (not 20). This is virtually identical to every other heavy infantry unit. The 15 hitpoints is 50% more than normal humans, but only 2 more than the emerald guard, which also have a 13 attack, 15 defense, and 17 protection. With the guard's higher base defense they will also actually get to use the 15 protection from the shield in close combat.

The radiant heat is worth it too. Just MA Abysias starting army, 9 times out of 10, can take all of the provinces around your capital without stopping for reinforcements and taking few losses, except knights and elephants really.

Just about every nations starting army plus the first turns recruitment can do that on independents 5.

[Wick]

NTJedi said:At least one unit is bugged where precision was incorrectly switched with encumbrance. {ouch}

This isn't a Dom 3 problem -- it's been there since Dom I for Lava Warriors. (Which proves that Burning Ones were built off a Lava Warrior template.)

I also haven't read any mention that Abysia's mage costs have dropped a lot. This should substantially offset the age problem, right?

[KissBlade]

Heh Graeme pretty much covered all the points about Abysia. Though I should point out ten provinces by ten turns is actually the bare minimum you should be aiming for.

[dirtywick]

Graeme Dice said:

I suggest that you should re-read page 69 of your manual where it describes blood hunting. The only effect that the population of a province has is that the blood hunt can fail if the province has less than 5000 people. Population has zero effect on the number of slaves captured, which is d6+blood skill. Hunting in your capital is an extremely bad idea, unless it's the only province you have, and you need blood slaves very quickly at the start of the game. The rest of your arguments seem to be based on the misconception that high population provinces have an effect on how many blood slaves you gather.

Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do. My mistake there though, and maybe it's just perception.

In the middle age, the nations that can teleport given the same conditions are Pythium, Ermor, Arcoscephale, Man (Cloud trapeze only needs air 2), Marignon, Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i (1/4 masters), Caelum, Vanheim, Bandar Log, Atlantis, and R'Lyeh. That's more than half the available nations.

So that makes it a negative? It's still half that can't too. Take away the Starshine Skullcap though, and you still have a 1/4 chance of using Teleport and still have flying mages, and I'm sure that list will get smaller.

The death scale has zero effect on blood hunting, except for the minor population loss. At 0.6% population loss per turn for death 3, it takes 49 turns to lose a quarter and 116 turns to lose 50% of your population in your home province. Your other provinces will take even longer to lose their population, since your dominion takes time to spread to them. The winner of even a massive game is almost always decided by turn 50.

Abysia is supposed to be relatively unaffected by the death scale, which is why they do not lose any income nor supplies from it. The problem, is that those two effects are minor and are negated by the increased affliction rate suffered by your mages.

You're neglecting to include that both blood hunting and patrolling kill population, so it'll be signifcantly sooner that you kill the population below whatever level you find acceptable to blood hunt, plus it'll never grow back as long as it's in your dominion. IMO Death is bad for any blood nation.

But, you know, at least we agree Growth is probably a better choice.

I don't think you understand how necessary it is to explode out of your home province. Ideally, you'd want to have captured 10 provinces by turn 10, although that can be difficult at times. If you're doing really well, you'll have captured 20 provinces by turn 10, especially if you took a dragon that can capture a province per turn starting at turn two.

You can have two armies fielded capable of taking provinces in 5 turns or less with Abysia, 20 Lava Warriors and a A. Dragon for divine blessing should mop up even knights easily. What you get for imprisoning your pretender is good scales and a good bless. You can get 10 in 10 turns easily, probably more if you took at least a moderate bless like B4F4E4 and use Lava Warriors, and be better off in the long run.

Not that I'm saying it's a bad idea to take an awake pretender and branch out early, especially if you're playing short games or small maps. Play how you want to, but other things work too.

Magic 3 is a strategy for people who plan to survive to the late game, I'd prefer to survive the early game through a powerful pretender, then have extra gold to power research, instead of spending design points on it.

Good scales will get you gold too and you'll probably be better off in the long run. It's two different ways of accomplishing the same thing.

Magic 3 adds up research quickly btw, you'd notice it when you have a couple of mages.

Abysian troops have a protection of 16, attack and defense of 10, and 15 hitpoints (not 20). This is virtually identical to every other heavy infantry unit. The 15 hitpoints is 50% more than normal humans, but only 2 more than the emerald guard, which also have a 13 attack, 15 defense, and 17 protection. With the guard's higher base defense they will also actually get to use the 15 protection from the shield in close combat.

Yup, nearly double hp. The Emerald Guard also has lower strength, a weapon that does less damage than most of the Abysian infantry, higher encumberance, a lower MR, half of Abysians have a higher battlefield movement, and EG costs more in both gold and resources (except when compared to Lava Warriors which are even more superior anyway), doesn't radiate heat and is vunerable to fire. Lava Warriors are universally better. Emerald Guards are great units, most heavy infantry is worse. That's supposed to be Abysias thing, great heavy infantry though, so no surprise that's exactly what they have.

Just about every nations starting army plus the first turns recruitment can do that on independents 5.

Just for comparison's sake, Abysia can do it on Indy 7 and sometimes 8 without even adding a mage or priest. Their starting army is really good. Most nations start out with a handful of ranged units and some of their weaker infantry and take a huge loss their first attack unless you beef it up a bit or send your pretender or a mage or something. Abysia doesn't need to do that.

[FrankTrollman]

Well then I can't explain why I average more than you do.

Isn't Blood Slave prodution tied to Magic Site Frequency? The progress report claimed that was going to be the case.

-Frank

[dirtywick]

FrankTrollman said:

Isn't Blood Slave prodution tied to Magic Site Frequency? The progress report claimed that was going to be the case.

-Frank

I have no idea. I usually play defaults and bump indy up to 7.

Of course, that'd make sense.

[Teraswaerto]

I think you might want to compare Abysia's troops to those available to other nations. Abysia pays double price for units that are immune to fire and radiate heat.

The heat radiation can make a big difference in longer fights, especially in hot lands. High encumbrance units will collapse in a few turns of fighting. Abysian units may still be overpriced though...

[Gandalf Parker]

Which brings up an important tactic. For Abysia, its important to keep track of where your domain has extended. And if you are fighting inside the reach of your domain then consider positioning your units to the far backside of the field (the far left of the positioning box) and have them wait there for the enemy to charge to you. The more armored and equipped that the enemy is, the more good this should do for you.
(this is an untested theory)

[Archonsod]

PDF said:
In my test game, even with Growth-1 I had 3 mages diseased by turn 13...

The first time I played Abyssia I managed to get to turn 20 without losing a mage to old age (one or two limps and someone suffering a battlewound) with no growth scale.
Perhaps the problem is more in the way the afflictions are applied rather than any particular nation. It seems a little too random - I've had old units contract a disease a turn or two after recruitment, while others quite happily exceed their old age score by a couple of decades with nothing worse than a limp.

And don't tell me "yeah, just cast GoH and make boots", Aby isn't supposed to cast GoH, and boots don't cure disease !

Well, it's your choice whether to work around a nation's disadvantage or not. Abyssia is one of the few nations whose only real disadvantage is rather trivial to bypass. I much prefer that than (for example) something like LA Ermor, where your restricted to playing the nation to a specific strategy because of it's flaws.