Does this math work?

[incognito]

I usually put 4 bloodhunters (priests with SDW as Mictlan) in a province, although everything I read says other's stick with no more than 3. Anyone figured this out for fact ie that 3 is the best return for the gold?

FWIW, I also set taxes to 0 and have a patroller w/around 30 slaves mopping up unrest. Is there a better plan to be had? Something that will allow me to have unparalleled blood income and maybe keep a little gold?

Lastly, I almost always watchtower/lab/temple each province. No sense getting your bloodhunters wiped out by raiders..., but am open to other ideas.

Thoughts appreciated, especially concerning MP strategies here.

[archaeolept]

the thing is 3 works w/out patrollers, and using patrollers will very much speed up the population loss in a province. Its a strategy, but most people are more comfortable w/ minimizing pop loss.

[Boron]

Your strat is good .
I normally hunt with 2 bloodhunters without patrolling but i played abysia more often than mictlan .

Unrest per bloodhunter is about 3-5 + 1/slave captured but with some outliers .
0 Tax gives you -33 to -35 unrest .
So in theory 3 hunters could hunt without need for patrol with tax at 0 but because of the outliers this just works with 2 and even there every about 10th turn you get a real big outlier which gives you positive unrest .

Patrolling is 2 edged . It gives you further populationloss ( not so important ) but more important :
You reduce 0-number of patrollers unrest per turn where each value has equal chances .
So it is not really reliable .

The evil thing is with unrest >20 the event hordes of peasants left their home gets more likely .


With your 4 hunter strat + 30 slaves patrolling is this normally enough to keep unrest <20 ?

[Thufir]

archaeolept said:
the thing is 3 works w/out patrollers, and using patrollers will very much speed up the population loss in a province. Its a strategy, but most people are more comfortable w/ minimizing pop loss.

As you say, I'm reluctant to patrol since I'd prefer to reduce pop loss. What I've been doing as Abysia is to start out w/ 2 warlock apprentices, then move it up to 3 if/when resources permit. I find though that with 3, it still happens that unrest occasionally rises, so my current strategy is to go with 3 until unrest goes above 30, then put 1 of the WAs on research until unrest drops back down.

Does this method sound too wimpy for you blood veterans out there?

[The Panther]

I have found three hunters with SDRs as Mictlan to work quite well. You do not need to waste a hero on patrolling and the accompaning pop loss. Pop loss is not a big deal unless it drops below 5000, in which case your hunters are less efficient.

My current Mictlan strategy is to have 4 of the cheap priests in each province where there is 4500-8000 population. I set the tax rate at zero and let 3 priests with SDRs hunt virgins. More than 8000 pop, I would rather have the income. Less than 5000, the hunters are not as efficient. The fourth priest has a jade knife and sacrifices 4 slaves per month. The ideal population for hunting is exactly 5000.

It is uncommon to have the unrest rise with this, for the Mictlan hunters with the SDR are only 90% efficient. So when they miss finding virgins, the unrest dissapears due to the zero tax rate. Most of the time, I have zero unrest in all of my hunting provinces.

If I need more blood slaves, I just set up shop in a different province instead of putting another commander on hunting and yet another on patrolling.

As you said, you definitely want a cheap castle to protect your vulnerable hunting/sacrificing operations.

If you are hunting in a lower population province, like say below 4000 people, then 4 hunters may well work without patrolling since they find less slaves on average.

[Boron]

The Panther said:
I have found three hunters with SDRs as Mictlan to work quite well. You do not need to waste a hero on patrolling and the accompaning pop loss. Pop loss is not a big deal unless it drops below 5000, in which case your hunters are less efficient.

My current Mictlan strategy is to have 4 of the cheap priests in each province where there is 4500-8000 population. I set the tax rate at zero and let 3 priests with SDRs hunt virgins. More than 8000 pop, I would rather have the income. Less than that, the hunters are not as efficient. The fourth priest has a jade knife and sacrifices 4 slaves per month. The ideal population for hunting is exactly 5000.

It is uncommon to have the unrest rise with this, for the Mictlan hunters with the SDR are only 90% efficient. So when they miss finding virgins, the unrest dissapears due to the zero tax rate. Most of the time, I have zero unrest in all of my hunting provinces.

If I need more blood slaves, I just set up shop in a different province instead of putting another commander on hunting and yet another on patrolling.

As you said, you definitely want a cheap castle to protect your vulnerable hunting/sacrificing operations.

If you are hunting in a lower population province, like say below 4000 people, then 4 hunters may well work without patrolling since they find less slaves on average.

Those 3 hunters net you about 15 slaves . But you spend 4 for dominion .
I personally meanwhile like Abysia much much more for bloodhunting .
The SDR is not so much needed and you have normally a better start than mictlan anyway .
So you have i think good chances if you want to get the ice devils to summon them before mictlan if you have put 3 water and 3 blood on your pretender .
Hopefully mictlan doesn't even think when he sees that to try to get arch devils .
Probably BoH Abysia is the overall better blood hunter than mictlan .
100 vs 80 gold for a blood 1 sacred hunter .
But mictlan has always the blood spend problem for dominion spread which makes them a micromanagement pain .
And the blood loss for dominionspread is imo significantly early-midgame . About 20% early then 10% midgame .

[incognito]

Typically, I have no unrest at the end of a turn. That usually depends, however, on having 15+ slaves patrolling with a tribal chief. Often, I get two tribal chiefs in the early going - one captures while 1 patrols with the new found troops. Of course, the capture slaves function drives down population as well. Population loss is a problem. I like the point about more blood hunters (w/o patrolling) in a low pop province. How much pop loss does bloodhunting drive anyhow?

Boron - I note your point on arch devils - had not given it much thought, but am I hearing that you like ice devils more than arch devils? Is there hierarchy to the blood summons you prefer? Curious, since I typically go after a few ID's (all but icicle fists) and then move to arch devils, followed by Helio, and Lords. If I ever max these out, I move to vamps/angels/father illearth etc. If some of these are not worth the investment (ignoring research progression for a sec), I'd be curious to hear why.

What thoughts on having extra researching priests in a province. With a decent magic scales, these guys get up to 6 MR after a bit of bloodhunting. Not a great researcher, but they can be produced everywhere. Plus, opponents using assassination approaches to damage blood income will have that many more guys to chew through. You can also turn up the 'b'hunting' juice in any turn you need it.

Lastly, how many hunters can you have if you want to keep taxes peaked (or high)? A point was made in an old post that base population growth on a highly populated province is strong (as a % of the base). Given that patrolling unrest works on a fixed population basis (1 unrest = 10 pop), it seems that you could employ 2 BH's with a patroller and suffer minor population effects while keeping taxes close to 100.

[Boron]

I tested bloodhunting quite a bit .

The poploss is not that severe :

Code:

---

 

Bloodslaves captured	Populationloss

	

         0	              0

        1-5	              10

        6-10	              20

        11-15	              30

         etc.	             etc.

 

---

Same pattern with patrolling . Every 5 brigands killed = 10 poploss .
Each brigand killed = -1 point of unrest .

A growthscale of 3 gives you +0,6% pop / turn .
With 5000 pop this is 30 population .
So if you hunt with 2 lvl 2-3 bloodhunters you will normally find about 10-12 slaves in average which is 20-30 poploss .
So unless events happen a 5000 pop province basically stays forever at 5k or grows even a bit .

My point on archdevils was intended psychologically :
Mictlan normally techs to construction 4 first for SDR .
If it has no W3B3 pretender most likely even to construction 6 for water bracelet .

As Abysia you can start the other way round because the SDR is not so urgent for your demonbreds , only from 90% to 100% while it is for mictlan from 50% to 90% with their Blood 1 priests .
So as abysia you can tech to blood 6-7 first and then to construction if you have W3B3 on your pretender .
Then you should get most of the Ice devils before mictlan does . Then he will surely think if Abysia even summons the ice devils they will surely have the arch devils too and won't even try .

If you are lucky you don't need to summon all ice / arch devils : Bifrons the ice devil , Nycator the ice devil ( no hand slots !) and Magoth the arch devil are pretty useless as SCs because of their weaker base hp and their low Astral magic . So if you have all but these stop summoning .

You have to watch jotunheim/marignon more they are often more likely to catch away a few ice devils / arch devils from you as Abysia than Mictlan .


2 Bloodhunters but keeping Taxes at almost 100% doesn't work . This way you get about +10-30 Unrest each turn . 100 unrest give you already 25% less chance to find blood :

if 1d100 less than (10 + 40 x blood level ) and 1d5000 less than population and 1d400 less (I think it want to mean more. NDR) than unrest

effect is d6(oe) + blood level

[Kristoffer O.]

You could do the following though with heavy patrol :
Hunt with lots of hunters (5+) at 0 taxes and patrol .
I haven't tried this way practically but it should work and the populationloss/unrest should be not so significantly and it should take really lots of turns until a 15k province in which you do this falls beyond 5k population . But since i mostly played Abysia and lack cheap patrollers there i just hunt with 2-3 hunters at 0 tax with them in every province 4-8k or every significant poor province with slightly higher pop .

[The Panther]

I believe it goes like this:

Each hunting attempt causes unrest, from 0 to maybe as much as 35 (the outliers mentioned by Boron). Supposedly, it averages 3 per attempt. Each captured slave causes an additional 1 point of unrest plus, on average, a loss of 2 in population. A growth level of 1 (0.2%) is almost enough to stop population loss without patrolling.

For patrolling, don't forget that slaves are lousy patrollers since they are weak and slow. Plus both the chiefs and slaves cost you upkeep, so you must factor this into your equation. I prefer to use my free slaves as front-line fodder.

Each briggand killed is the same pop loss as the slaves: a loss, on average, of 2 in population per briggand. Of course, the killed briggand decreases unrest by one which cancels the 1 increase from the captured slave.

I have always thought that because the primary blood nation (supposed to be Mictlan) is actually WORSE at blood hunting than Abysia, then something must be terribly wrong indeed.

The fact that you have to sacrifice something like 20-30 slaves per turn just to keep your diminion in MP is a disaster for Mictlan. This is one reason you don't see very many MP experts choosing Mictlan whereas Abysia is typically one of the first nations grabbed.

[Boron]

I favour at the moment my "alternative" blood strat slightly more by playing a good airnation which can clamhoard ( Caelum/Pythium ) . Then i clamhoard and try to get at least 1-2 of the airqueens .

Later in the game i can wish for blood then and wish 1-2 of the demon lords i need . They can then chainsummon e.g. storm demons and do everything else i need with blood .
This way i have the blood really only very late but as compensation i have clamhoarded , more goldincome from provinces and probably more gemincome from provinces too because Abysia is not the best sitesearchnation/clamhoarder but rather bad there while mictlan would be but mictlan is so fragile earlygame and has to waste significant amounts of blood for dominion .

And with Air i hopefully get the probably best Summonable SCs / Airqueens as compensation for the ice / arch devils .
For creatures/miniscs i can use Death until i can wish for blood .

Blood gives imo the best troops , good unique SCs and with Blood thorns/Hellswords the 2 best allround weapons .
But the costs are high :
- The goldloss
- The mageloss (they could research/forge/fight)
- The poploss
- The hidden goldloss : you need at least a lab but you should build a castle too otherwise a clever enemy will annoy you with call of the winds or similiar

Finally thnx to random events , ermor/pan cw presence , the good raiding tactics , spies and a few good populationkillspells ( plague ) normally your bloodincome will reach its peak midgame but drop then slowly but surely .

Lategame the clamhoarder who wishes for blood will probably overhaul you .
But my more severe concerns go to the following neighbors :
-Ermor . This is worst case they may corrupt a few of your provinces already early with their dominion . They can raid you very well early-midgame .
-Ulm , other nations with instill uprising units .
-Uberraiding nations like vanheim/caelum .


As Abysia/Mictlan earlygame your only good defense when you try to get the blood running is your SC and perhaps a few merchants while a Pythium that intends to clamhoard is normally a lot saver but lategame extremely strong too if he invested in clams + got airqueens .

You shouldn't play caelum , they are Banned in lots of games because they can abuse the false horror strat too well