Blood Simple?!

[Ygorl]

I'm pretty much with Graeme on this one. I played Mictlan on Large Faerun, expanded into T'ien Ch'i, Machaka, and Atlantis' territory, and didn't need to spend more than 2:25 per turn in blood-related micromanagement. Given that turns could easily take an hour or more, this was a trivial amount extra.
One thing that helps reduce the pain a lot is to make sure that you don't use all your slaves in a given turn. If you keep a pool at least as large as the number of slaves being sacrificed, your sacrificers (the ones at labs anyway, which in my opinion should be all of them) will automatically replenish their stores. Also, I've found that three hunters in a zero-tax province can pretty much be ignored when it comes to unrest. It's a self-regulating process; when they're very successful, unrest can really jump, but this makes them less successful in successive turns and so overall you do okay. If you take growth, you also don't have to worry about the population loss, and things really become easy.
Different people have different play styles, certainly. The management involved in supporting mine is pretty minimal. If you like to play in a way that makes blood no fun, either don't play it or experiment with new tactics. At some point there is a tradeoff between being absolutely optimal despite the user interface and enjoying the game.
As a note, in maybe 3000 province-turns of blood-hunting (with three dowsing hunters per) I've *never* noticed all of them coming up empty. Since blood mages share virgins, you're pretty much assured of having enough to summon some imps if need be.

[NTJedi]

Graeme Dice said:
Theyn might be able to, but with 0 taxes it will take a few turns usually. Even at 20% unrest, that's just a 20% chance of failure.

Combined with the chance they will return with nothing even with 0 unrest raises the percentage beyond what I see as beneficial and tossing them into research will not only remove the existing unrest but improve research.

Graeme Dice said: those three hunters will either be enough of a defense, as they are against small attacks, or will be hopelessly defeated.

Unlike your games I've seen not only small attacks and huge defeats but very close magic casted and non-magic casted battles. Those close battles really are fun to watch.

Graeme Dice said:
If your opponent is spending gems on call of the wild, you will win the resources war fairly simply.

You're forgetting the Soulstone allows its wielder to cast call of the wild for free every turn... combined with madmen or a hordes from hell and you'll pray for those blood mages each have a pair of blood slaves.

Graeme Dice said:

That's a problem with the house rules you chose, not the game itself.

Players having to use castle-types more efficiently and strategically is a problem to you ... sounds like mass-castle building is more the problem since it's expected to be seen in multiplayer games.

Graeme Dice said:

You will be managing the unrest every five turns or so anyways.

The point is Mictlan has to have blood hunters, priests sacrificing and adjusting unrest just to push or keep alive the domain. All which brings extra micromanagement. This was mentioned long ago in previous topics as well.

[Endoperez]

Mictlan's whole idea is that they have to have blood hunters capturing and priests sacrificing slaves. If this brings micromanagement, it is a pity but hardly avoidable. Both the Z (pool all blood slaves from the chosen commanders) and the automatic refill of blood sacrificers are ways Illwinter tries to ease the burden with. I don't think the burden is big enough to warrant big chances, as the current one works quite well and doesn't increase the micromanagement too much.

[Graeme Dice]

NTJedi said:
Combined with the chance they will return with nothing even with 0 unrest raises the percentage beyond what I see as beneficial and tossing them into research will not only remove the existing unrest but improve research.

The chance that a hunter fails is 10% for B2 and 0% for B3.

Unlike your games I've seen not only small attacks and huge defeats but very close magic casted and non-magic casted battles. Those close battles really are fun to watch.

A small attack can be dealt with by moving your bloodhunters back to the province they retreated from to recapture it.

You're forgetting the Soulstone allows its wielder to cast call of the wild for free every turn... combined with madmen or a hordes from hell and you'll pray for those blood mages each have a pair of blood slaves.

The soulstone is an artifact and only gives you a single call of the wolves per turn. Your province defense of 10 should be enough to hold that off by itself. If your opponent has the astral income to cast multiple madmen spells per turn, then you have to have comparable income of some other kind or you've already lost. Hordes from hell is not going to be defeated by the six imps that three B1 mages will likely be able to summon.

Players having to use castle-types more efficiently and strategically is a problem to you ... sounds like mass-castle building is more the problem since it's expected to be seen in multiplayer games.

No, players complaining that their house rules mess up game balance is the problem.

The point is Mictlan has to have blood hunters, priests sacrificing and adjusting unrest just to push or keep alive the domain. All which brings extra micromanagement. This was mentioned long ago in previous topics as well.

I'm well aware of what you think the point is. The actual fact is that the micromanagement is not that much worse once you've built the basic infrastructure needed.

[NTJedi]

Graeme Dice said:
The chance that a hunter fails is 10% for B2 and 0% for B3.

And combined with a 20% from unrest is too likely in my book. You never have close battles anyway so there's no need for you to worry about it.

A small attack can be dealt with by moving your bloodhunters back to the province they retreated from to recapture it.

One turn lost blood-hunting/researching since it's a magic casted battle and another turn lost to recapture the province. And if the blood hunters were unable to retreat into a province without a lab then you're sending them into battle without blood slaves making them virtually powerless.

Graeme Dice said:
The soulstone is an artifact and only gives you a single call of the wolves per turn. Your province defense of 10 should be enough to hold that off by itself.

Call of the wolves v.s Mictlans 10 PD
way too risky in my book.

Graeme Dice said: Hordes from hell is not going to be defeated by the six imps that three B1 mages will likely be able to summon.

Summon imps casted by 3 blood mages is 18 imps... when casted again during battle that is 36 imps plus PD. And this has won battles for me against hordes from hell.

Graeme Dice said:
No, players complaining that their house rules mess up game balance is the problem.

House rules are set before a game starts... no one forces them to play these games with house rules. If they don't like the house rules they should host their own game.

Graeme Dice said:
I'm well aware of what you think the point is. The actual fact is that the micromanagement is not that much worse once you've built the basic infrastructure needed.

Guess you're just in a total different game experience compared to others since this has been mentioned before yet you deny the big micromanagement with Mictlan. Obviously you don't believe me or anyone whose complained about this before, as I've listed below:

Taqwus said:#329252 - 02/04/05 02:57 PM
Mictlan priests set to Sacrifice should not deposit slaves in the pool; or, they should automatically pull them from the pool; or blood hunters should by default deposit them in the pool if there's a co-located lab. Unless this has changed lately, managing this was a pain.

Huzurdaddi said: #312056 - 11/18/04 02:58 PM
Mictlan's negatives are that their troops are very fragile to missle fire, their excellent ( but costly ) casters are capital only, and their dominion costs an additional resource ( this also has the side effect of making their micromanagement quite difficult ).

The Panther said: #299007 - 09/29/04 02:58 AM
4. Mictlan has the highest level of micro-management of any race. I can fully attest to the truth of this, for I am currently playing 5 different races in 5 separate MP games. My Mictlan game definitely does, on average, take the longest time to move of the group.

PDF said: #359245 - 06/15/05 08:19 AM
But it was with Aby mainly, for Mictlan it's a real pain to *also* manage sacrificer fueling

Skolem said: #359271 - 06/15/05 11:09 AM
first have to "shift Z" all my bood hunters, then found every former sacrifier on the map, then put them enough slave to sacrifice, and the click the sacrifice commad (AFAIK there is no shortcut ). And I don't think I'm the only one who use all his slave in most of his turns, so there still is a lot of micromanagement (most of it is to found the commanders you want).

Zen said:#314419 - 11/30/04 02:49 PM
The biggest killer of Mictlan is it's own micromanagement, or more appropriately the need to use resources to circumvent some of that micromanagment.

As you can see these quotes CLEARLY indicate the extra micromanagement is not a small issue as you seem to believe. I'm sorry you disagree with all of us Graeme Dice... maybe you just play small maps to not notice this.

[Graeme Dice]

NTJedi said:
And combined with a 20% from unrest is too likely in my book. You never have close battles anyway so there's no need for you to worry about it.

The chance that all three blood hunters will fail approaches 2%. Why are you worrying about events that will only happen in 1 out of every 50 attacks, when your province is only likely to experience 5 attacks in a game.

One turn lost blood-hunting/researching since it's a magic casted battle and another turn lost to recapture the province. And if the blood hunters were unable to retreat into a province without a lab then you're sending them into battle without blood slaves making them virtually powerless.

This would be a problem for you with any blood nation thanks to your choice to perform unnecessary tasks.

Call of the wolves v.s Mictlans 10 PD
way too risky in my book.

You'd be better off to buy a single Tribal King and have him capture slaves than to worry about supplying blood slaves to your hunters. Your hunters are expendable, your play time isn't.

Summon imps casted by 3 blood mages is 18 imps... when casted again during battle that is 36 imps plus PD. And this has won battles for me against hordes from hell.

Of course, you could have just had your hunters retreat, then move them back in to retake the province the next turn.

House rules are set before a game starts... no one forces them to play these games with house rules. If they don't like the house rules they should host their own game.

You are complaining that Mictlan can't use castles to protect its blood hunters. That is micromanagement created solely by the house rules you chose, so you certainly can't complain about it.

Guess you're just in a total different game experience compared to others since this has been mentioned before yet you deny the big micromanagement with Mictlan. Obviously you don't believe me or anyone whose complained about this before, as I've listed below:

Maybe you should learn to read while you go about learning that repeating the same assertion does not make it anymore true. I have issues with your complaints about micromanagement. Please don't bring up irrelevant appeals to popularity.

[NTJedi]

Graeme Dice said:
The chance that all three blood hunters will fail approaches 2%.

I'm not saying they all will fail, but even 15% of increased failure compared with zero unrest is not a comfortable setting for me. And if they don't fail then unrest increases even more dropping population and decreasing chances even more.

This would be a problem for you with any blood nation thanks to your choice to perform unnecessary tasks.

Yes but those blood mages might not need to flee if they were originally setup with blood slaves at the start of a magic casted battle. 36 imps for holding a province is well worth the six blood slaves the mages hold... sorry you don't agree.

Your hunters are expendable, your play time isn't.

Three blood hunters each with 2 or 3 blood slaves adds good protection for a province... thus winning is worth my playtime.

Of course, you could have just had your hunters retreat, then move them back in to retake the province the next turn.

You know... keeping that province and killing the attacking force is better in so many ways then your retreat and recapture strategy.

Graeme Dice said:
You are complaining that Mictlan can't use castles to protect its blood hunters. That is micromanagement created solely by the house rules you chose, so you certainly can't complain about it.

The micromanagement exists with or without the house rules... did you not read the quotes from the other gamers?

Graeme Dice said: I have issues with your complaints about micromanagement. Please don't bring up irrelevant appeals to popularity.

NO... you've been saying the micromanagement wasn't that bad. These quotes from many other gamers CLEARLY indicate the micromanagement is painfully noticed with Mictlan. The only reason I see you not experiencing this is if you've been playing small maps with Mictlan.

[Reverend Zombie]

Somewhere amongst this argument I recall a post stating that blood sacrificiers for Mictlan are automatically replenished. Is that really true, and how does it work?

[Reverend Zombie]

Oh...and I demand that the vicious ad hominem attacks cease immediately!!!

[Graeme Dice]

NTJedi said:
I'm not saying they all will fail, but even 15% of increased failure compared with zero unrest is not a comfortable setting for me.

I'm not sure where you pulled out a 15% failure rate. The failure rate is about 28% for 20% unrest and a B2 hunter.

And if they don't fail then unrest increases even more dropping population and decreasing chances even more.

Unrest doesn't cause population losses, and the decreased chance of success will bring your unrest back down. At the map sizes you are complaining about I'd assume that you'd have maybe 20 hunting provinces. Most of the will succeed, making the occasional failure pretty much unnoticeable.

Yes but those blood mages might not need to flee if they were originally setup with blood slaves at the start of a magic casted battle. 36 imps for holding a province is well worth the six blood slaves the mages hold... sorry you don't agree.

You claimed that this was additional micromanagement for Mictlan. Given that it's a playstyle choice of yours that you would apparently use for any blood nation, it's certainly not a Mictlan problem.

Three blood hunters each with 2 or 3 blood slaves adds good protection for a province... thus winning is worth my playtime.

And yet, it's still not a problem isolated to Mictlan.

You know... keeping that province and killing the attacking force is better in so many ways then your retreat and recapture strategy.

Not really. Retreating allows you to trap your opponents.

The micromanagement exists with or without the house rules...

The micromanagment does not exist if you have your bloodhunters in a castle. You complained that your house rules prevented the use of castles. That's your own problem.

did you not read the quotes from the other gamers?

No, I didn't read the quotes, since they have no real purpose here.

NO... you've been saying the micromanagement wasn't that bad.

That's because it isn't compared to any of the other blood nations.

These quotes from many other gamers CLEARLY indicate the micromanagement is painfully noticed with Mictlan.

Actually, they indicate that you think that a popular belief is a correct belief.