number of blood slaves in sacrifices and their success

[tinkthank]

Obviously I am too dense to figure out how the mechanics of blood sacrifice works.
Choosing Mictlan (so that I can make sure no dominion increase comes from extraneous effects), I give a Mictlan priest in a province with a temple three blood slaves and a lab and set him on "perform blood sacrifice". Host.
The next turn, I see he *still* has *three* blood slaves in his possession. The dominion has not risen. He is not set on defend, but rather still on "sacrifice". I am confused, try again. Host.
Next turn, he *still* has three blood slaves, but the dominion has risen by 1. Confused. Host.
Next turn, he has *one* blood slave, and the dominion has not risen.
Very confused. Not hosting.
I had thought: Me give priest X number of slaves. Priest kill dem good, one after de other (x-1 per turn). Sometimes dominion rise, sometimes no. When priest got no more, he stop.
Me be wrong. Right?
So....
- can a priest fail to perform a sacrifice at all? (i.e. not only not raise the dominion, but not kill any slaves)
- or is a slave only killed when the dominion rises?
- or do sacrificing priests get new slaves automatically from a lab if they have access to one? Or always, no matter whether access or not?
- or something completely different?
I would be happy to be pointed to a guide, which I have not found by searching, or simply a few friendly tips. Thanks tons.

[GavinWheeler]

I'm in exactly the same boat - playing Mictlan and currently trying to work out how blood sacrifice works. And trying to get another two player (both me) game to the point where I can see if 'enslaved' Theurg Communicants (via the spell Master Enslave, for example) could be used as troops (rather than commanders) who still have their built in slave matrix. But that is another story.

What I have understood on the sacrifice front is that:
1) a priest can only sacrifice as many slaves as he has priest levels. +2 if he has a jade knife. (+1 if he is at a temple? I forget)
2) He will sacrifice as many slaves as he has in his inventory, up to his max limit. This is a way of letting you choose how many slaves he will sacrifice, if you want to ration your priests.
3) If he is in a province with a lab, he will try to replenish his stock of slaves from the lab's supply
4) each slave sacrificed acts like a 'normal' dominion's temple. Possibly more powerful, from the manual, but that might refer to the fact that you can sacrifice several slaves.

So I would guess that your priest was happily sacrificing away (they stay on 'sacrifice' until they run out of slaves) until the stock of slaves ran down, so he could only replenish one slave. It would be curious to see if, the next round, he replenished the full three slaves from the lab or stayed at sacrificing one slave a round (which would be my guess).

[Norfleet]

Sacrificing priests appear to replenish their blood slaves from the temple, at least for Mictlan, as long as supplies permit: They'll sacrifice down to their sacrifice amount, which is equal to their priest level, +2 for a jade knife, and then just maintain that level of slaves.

Each blood slave sacrificed performs a temple check, which basically has a chance of spreading dominion in the current and neighboring provinces, on outwards. So if you sacrifice 6 blood slaves, such as for a Sun Priest with a Jade Knife, you'll perform 6 temple checks from the sacrifices: A temple check may or may not be successful in raising Dominion, but a sacrifice never really "fails": The priest will always successfully perform a sacrifice. The presence of a temple does not increase your priest's effectiveness at sacrifice: You simply can't perform a sacrifice at all unless you have a temple! Okay, maybe that's an improvement, from 0 to 1.

Search the forum for "temple check" to get formulas on how dominion spreads via temple checks.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:
And trying to get another two player (both me) game to the point where I can see if 'enslaved' Theurg Communicants (via the spell Master Enslave, for example) could be used as troops (rather than commanders) who still have their built in slave matrix.

They won't be able to, since only commanders can take part in magic.

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:
I thought that +1 sounded wrong. I think I was remembering the bonus for preaching with a temple.

One of the threads I saw in the past linked to a very helpful document explaining how (normal) dominion spreading worked, but I haven't found it with a quick search.

You might have meant this. It is helpful.

over here

[GavinWheeler]

I thought that +1 sounded wrong. I think I was remembering the bonus for preaching with a temple.

One of the threads I saw in the past linked to a very helpful document explaining how (normal) dominion spreading worked, but I haven't found it with a quick search.