Bad Monkeys; Or how to jump-start the blood game?

Carcaroth · #1 August 31st, 2007, 04:45 PM

I looked around through the strategy thread, but nothing looked especially appropriate, so I thought I'd start this one: It's common practice to use the pretender to jumpstart expansion into new paths, and I've done this pretty effectively with death and nature.

But how can you manage it with blood? You have to have blood mages to hunt effectively, so you can't use turmoil or a site to eventually pay for empowerment or a booster item to really begin things. In particular I'd like to get blood going with Patala, because they have access to Lanka's summons, while they lack good thugs, but I can't quite seem to get things going without any national blood mages. Any help would be appreciated.

Baalz · #2 August 31st, 2007, 05:01 PM

Bootstrapping a blood economy with no blood mages is definitely an uphill battle, and no, it is seldom efficient to have your pretender blood hunt. Not sure what you meant by turmoil, but there are a few magic sites which produce blood slaves, though they're few enough that you certainly can't count on them, and you're never gonna get too many slaves that way even if you're lucky.

The good news is, you can always start bloodhunting with any nation and never need to get your pretender involved. The great thing is that with traditionally blood nations you're not really reliant on blood for your bread and butter - you can just let your blood slaves stockpile for awhile to be used every now and then for something shiny.

There are three ways to do it. 1) Find an indie blood mage you can recruit (these are fairly rare, but keep your eyes open, the ones who can get a blood random are not nearly as rare) 2) If you're in a MP game trade somebody for 50 blood slaves to empower your first blood hunter (try to get them to throw in a sanguine dowsing rod). 3) The hard way: stick about 10 scouts in a province with more than 5000 pop and have them blood hunt for about 10 turns until you've scraped up 50 slaves.

Micah · #3 August 31st, 2007, 05:19 PM

Does anyone know how many brute-force hunters a province can support and keep the unrest manageable? I know 2 real blood hunters seldom get it to spike too high, and you can often cram 3 in a province, but does anyone have experience with brute-force?(at 0 taxes, no patrols)

Hadrian_II · #4 August 31st, 2007, 08:15 PM

I thin 3 blood hunters is the most you can get into one province, as even with 3 you need sometimes to pause the bloodhunting to let the unrest settle down.

Baalz · #5 August 31st, 2007, 09:09 PM

I use about 10 and it stays manageable until you get a couple lucky rolls and they actually pull in some slaves two turns in a row at which point its best to rotate them out to another province. Thing with the brute force is it's so variable its harder than it's worth to try and just smooth it out so you don't need to rotate.

Velusion · #6 August 31st, 2007, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Baalz said:
I use about 10 and it stays manageable until you get a couple lucky rolls and they actually pull in some slaves two turns in a row at which point its best to rotate them out to another province. Thing with the brute force is it's so variable its harder than it's worth to try and just smooth it out so you don't need to rotate.

This sounds about right as I've used 8 in a province with little problem.

DrPraetorious · #7 August 31st, 2007, 10:06 PM

It's worth noting that there are also some summons with a chance at a blood random.

Aside from national summons, I know that 1/4 in Lamia Queens and 1/4 Ether Lords have a blood random. Of course, those require death, which Patala and MA Mictlan do not get, except maybe on heroes. But Lamia Queens and Ether Warriors are both nice in and of themselves, so it's no loss to make a bunch of them.

Personally, I think bootstrapping into blood magic is a waste (of player time, not of actual wealth, which can be more or less negligible,) unless you have powerful national summons, including especially nationally summonable bloodhunters.

Once MA Mictlan or Patala can get the blood economy rolling, it can self-sustain eventually, and comes with some nasty, nasty stuff.

Sombre · #8 September 1st, 2007, 03:52 AM

It clearly isn't going to help you win the game - it's simply too ineffective. But it can be fun and it is doable. Couple of things I'd like to add:

1. If you're using Conceptual Balance Mod, the blood fountain generates two blood slaves per turn. If you take him awake and blood hunt with him as well, this mounts up.

2. Bloodhunting your cap isn't actually that bad an idea if you have something like freespawn patrollers. You can also use call of the winds and similar spells to produce very effective patrollers for relatively little cost. With a nice little patrol force you can keep taxes at 100 and bloodhunt quite a bit. You lose your pop, so in the long run it's bad for you, but then again in the long run you're going for a blood economy which won't need much in terms of gold, resources etc and will be able to take more provinces to blood hunt as it rolls along.

Call of the winds also nets you a flying commander who can nip about scooping up harvested blood slaves and winging back to a lab.

Velusion · #9 September 1st, 2007, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Sombre said:
It clearly isn't going to help you win the game - it's simply too ineffective.

In large MP games blood is much more economical and cost effective than gems in the late game - especially if Astral Corruption goes up (as it probably will if there is a blood nation still around). You are simply trading gold for blood slaves - a very good deal in the late game when gold is worth less and less.

In shorter games (80 turns or less) it probably isn't worth boot-strapping blood unless you find some good indy blood mages early.

Sombre · #10 September 1st, 2007, 01:56 PM

I totally agree that blood is powerful in the late game and for blood nations that's fine. But if you're looking for the win, you really don't want to be wasting resources trying to get into blood with a bloodless nation. It would take a lot just to get to the point that a nation with blood access starts the game at, let alone the kind of economy Lanka, Mictlan etc have set up. You'd also have to waste time researching the blood tech tree instead of freeing researchers up or going for the more traditional spells for your nation. If you're already in the late game before you even start going for blood, it's never going to arrive in time to help you out. If you start going for it in the early or mid game, you're going to weaken yourself in the short term which will prevent you building up and improving your late game. Plus if you end up hard pressed in the mid game it's all been a waste of time, since you won't see the late game to reap the rewards.