Does this math work?

[deccan]

Graeme Dice said:
If you expect your mage to be hunting for more than 48 turns, then the demonbred is cheaper.

Heh, how does that work?

Apprentice base cost 150 gold, upkeep 150/15 = 10 per turn
Demonbred base cost 260 gold, upkeep 260/30 = 8.666 per turn.

Purchase price difference = 110 gold
Upkeep price difference = 10 - 8.666 = 1.334

Should take 80 turns to make up the difference, no?

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Whats so amazing about Abysian national troops ?
They are high protection but resourcewise extremely expensive.

Fire immune, superhuman stats, high MR, high morale, heat radiation. They have morningstars which are the best general purpose weapon available. They can also easily afford productivity 3 to make large numbers of troops.

With a Fire 9 Bless i personally consider mictlans troops even superior.

You shouldn't. Fire-9 blessed lava warriors will eat fire-9 blessed Mictlan troops for breakfast. A simple simulation shows that they win 99% of the time.

Imo any other bloodnation ( jotunheim , ulm , pangenea , marignon , vanheim ) has better troops than Abysia.

Jotunheim and Abysia have equal quality troops. The heat radiation and superior numbers mean that they can survive quite well. Ulmish troops are definetly inferior. They have fewer stats, less MR, aren't fire immune, and don't radiate heat. Abysian troops will win even at half the numbers. Marignon troops also suffer from the same problems dealing with Abysian troops. Einheres are also about the same as Abysian troops, and only a very expensive blessing will make Van's and Valkyries equal to Abysian troops when you spend the same amount of gold on them.

To add pain most of Abysia's troops have only stratmove 1.

Which doesn't matter when you are invading someone else.

Most of Abysia's heavy inf costs 20 gold / 30 resources.

And most of Jotunheim's cost 30 gold and 38 resources. Both require productivity to make sufficient numbers.

Marignon DF can build lots of x-bows which are useful later too by flaming arrows.

Sure they can, but those flaming arrows don't do anything to abysian troops.

With jotunheim i don't need to say a single word .

Actually, you definetly do need to explain this, since any experience would show you that giants and Abysian infantry are ramarkably evenly matched.

Vanheim is not really cheaper but Vans are really good and skinshifters/huskarls etc. can be useful too.

For the same cost, without an enormous blessing, abysian troops will defeat Van troops.

Mictlan can use a few slaves as fodder and blessed sun warriors or eagle warriors etc. do the job .

Mictlan's troops cannot stand up to Abysia's. They will end up on fire, and don't have weapons that can penetrate a protection of 18 with any regularity.

If you play abysia do you play them with a cheap castle or an expensive one?

The only two nations that doesn't get a castle by default is Mictlan and R'lyeh. From there I decide whether I want a wizard's tower for nations like Pythium, or a hill fortress for nations like Miasma C'Tis.

With something like a watchtower you won't get more than 3 HI / turn resourcewise. I personally have really not found a way how to use Abysian troops in large enough numbers that they are good.

Well, first off, you don't use a watchtower, you use a castle and productivity 3. You alchemize your fire gems early to keep your troop production high.

They have rather low morale unfortunately so routing is really always for me a problem with them.

They have a morale of 11 and have access to holy 4 priests. There's no morale problem there.

Btw : Does flaming arrows work with slingers etc. too ? that they hurl flaming stones ?

Yes, it works with all missile weapons.

[Cainehill]

Boron said:
Whats so amazing about Abysian national troops ?
They are high protection but resourcewise extremely expensive .
With a Fire 9 Bless i personally consider mictlans troops even superior .
Imo any other bloodnation ( jotunheim , ulm , pangenea , marignon , vanheim ) has better troops than Abysia .

You think that Ulm, Pangaea, and Marignon have better troops than Abysia? According to whom? Tom Clancy??? Unless you're talking vampires (Ulm theme) or carrion critters (Carrion Woods Pan), I'm thinking that you aren't eating enough fish. ( Marignon's KotC are capital only, incredibly expensive, and thus the fact they may be superior 1 for 1 to Abysia's troops doesn't matter. )

If you play abysia do you play them with a cheap castle or an expensive one ? With something like a watchtower you won't get more than 3 HI / turn resourcewise . I personally have really not found a way how to use Abysian troops in large enough numbers that they are good .
They have rather low morale unfortunately so routing is really always for me a problem with them .

Flood and flame, no kidding that with a watchtower you aren't going to get many a turn, especially if you're playing heavy sloth, which I'm guessing you are. If you want a lot of Abysia's decent national troops, you don't take much sloth (if any), and you take a decent castle admin-wise.

Or you take some sloth, take a 30-40 admin castle, and build castles strategically, to maximize production. But the bottom line is, just like many other nations with good but resource heavy troops - you decide before the game starts whether you want to use those good troops, or not.

[Boron]

Ok if you use a castle or similiar you may have bigger numbers . But how do you defend your bloodhunters then early-midgame ?
At least they will waste hordes of slaves they gathered to cast imps and you will lose your bloodhunters often .

I haven't seen this yet but i guess a typical caelum drop in with a few archers as decoy + false horror spamming wins even if your bloodmages summon a few imps .

[deccan]

Nice to see you up and about Boron! You slept, what, four, five hours?

[Boron]

deccan said:
Nice to see you up and about Boron! You slept, what, four, five hours?

4,5 hours
Now taking my turns
I enjoy atm being the Last or 2nd Last guy this way i can always do 2 turns in a row

[deccan]

deccan said:

Heh, how does that work?

Apprentice base cost 150 gold, upkeep 150/15 = 10 per turn
Demonbred base cost 260 gold, upkeep 260/30 = 8.666 per turn.

Purchase price difference = 110 gold
Upkeep price difference = 10 - 8.666 = 1.334

Should take 80 turns to make up the difference, no?

Eh, no one's replied to me, so I suppose I'm right? So, again, why use the demonbred instead of a plain warlock apprentice? Okay, I've just realized that warlock apprentices are capital only as well, so arguably demonbreds can fly to new bloodhunting grounds faster, but still 110 gold difference is awfully large. I think I prefer to spend it on two Lava Warriors.

[Boron]

deccan said:

Eh, no one's replied to me, so I suppose I'm right? So, again, why use the demonbred instead of a plain warlock apprentice? Okay, I've just realized that warlock apprentices are capital only as well, so arguably demonbreds can fly to new bloodhunting grounds faster, but still 110 gold difference is awfully large. I think I prefer to spend it on two Lava Warriors.

I tried to answer that about 5 Posts ago

Boron said:

Not only that but when something happens the demonbred still can summon a devil or be used as a mediocre battlemage while the warlock apprentice is just a blood hunter and perhaps an astralitem forger .
Furthermore a demonbred can build everything . If you fly in 2 demonbreds the one builds 2 turns the watchtower while the other one buids a lab + a temple meanwhile . then they can start bloodhunting in a fully protected and built up province

Warlock apprentices are really good too . If i have enough money i build a demonbred . If i lack money i built a warlock apprentice instead .

[PDF]

I don't play Mictlan much but rather Abysia : usually I put 3-4 hunters w/SDR and no patrol, and it works fine, except for some temporary unrest peaks.
I'm reluctant to patrol due to pop loss and the fact that unrest isn't a real problem for bloodhunting before it reaches approx 40 (10% chance it foils the hunt).

Even with my poor Mictlan experience I can't see how it can be more efficient at bloodhunting than Abysia BoH, sacred 100 gold B1 sacred mages recruitable everywhere, sacrifice possible but in addition to normal temple dominion, they get every advantage possible !

[Boron]

PDF Graeme said that sacrificing for Blood cancels the normal temple check .
I were your opinion but Graeme's points against it were really good . But you are a more experienced dominionplayer than i iirc you played even dominion 1 so here Graeme's main points perhaps you find something i overlooked and Graeme has forgotten

Graeme Dice said:

The effect of a temple is washed out by the effect of blood sacrifice. A mictlan priest with a jade knife, which is something Abysia has trouble forging, is the equivalent of 4 temples. An anathemant salamander costs 200 gold to get the same effect when blood sacrificing.

Sure, but blood of humans can't take a magic scale, takes an 5% gold hit in all their their provinces other than the capital, and can't summon devils without a fire magic booster.