Blood magic nerfed in dom3?

[Huzurdaddi]

Blood magic is, basically, a method of reverse alchemy. It allows a nation with the proper mages to convert gold into blood gems.*

However near the end stage of Dom3 development the gold produced by provinces was doubled, yet the amount of blood slaves/gems produced was not modified ( note: the number of blood slaves/gems was changed to increase/decrease depening upon the number of magic sites ).

Perhaps it was determined that in Dom2 blood was far too powerful or maybe it was not considered. I don't know.

*the cost of producing blood slaves is equal to the sum of the following 3 costs:

(1) the cost of reducing the unrest caused by blood hunting, this is commonly, but not always done by setting the tax rate to 0.
(2) the cost of maintaining the blood hunters
(3) the amortized cost of purchasing the blood hunters.

[HoneyBadger]

I suspect it was done to keep gem and bloodslave production more or less in balance. It's easier for the right blood nation with the right lineup of mages to produce large quantities of bloodslaves than it is for a water nation for instance to produce water gems, and bloodslaves can be obtained from any province. Doubling bloodslaves would just make bloodmagic wildly over-powered.

[Edi]

It was already overpowered in Dom2 because the availability of blood slaves was fixed rate instead of tied to site frequency, so you can probably imagine what happened in large map games with low site frequency. Especially since anyone who had sorcery randoms would eventually get blood mages and empowering a blood mage or two from scratch was also plausible.

Edi

[HoneyBadger]

It does seem more powerful to me, but then it also takes more set up and more micromanagement, so I don't mind a little more bang for buck, so long as it's not completely scary.

[Endoperez]

Huzurdaddi said:
However near the end stage of Dom3 development the gold produced by provinces was doubled,

It wasn't done near the end stage.

the amount of blood slaves/gems produced was not modified

I don't understand your point. Are Blood Slaves now too easy to catch? Or should blood hunt have become easier, but it hasn't? Or are you talking about the fact that there are now much fewer gems compared to gold? I'm sorry, perhaps it's just that I haven't slept well, but I just don't understand your post.

[Edi]

Endo, what he means that gem and bloodslave income was not similarly increased by a factor of two. Which is just as well because a high site frequency already results in a ridiculous accumulation of gems.

Edi

[UninspiredName]

My main 'bloody' complaint is that the one really useful Blood Mage summon (Not including Demon Lords) to me is now a Marignon national. Marignon, of all nations! They only ever dabbled in the path!

[Shovah32]

Father illearth, heliophagi, ice/arch devils, devils, demon knights, storm demons, maybe fiends of darkness, mictlan nationals and lanka nationals are all good imo.

[NTJedi]

Huzurdaddi said:
However near the end stage of Dom3 development the gold produced by provinces was doubled, yet the amount of blood slaves/gems produced was not modified.

Dominions_2 was more centralized around the summoned creatures thus different nations only meant different mages on the battlefield while the armies were mostly summoned creatures. The change you mentioned was done so national units are a larger part of the game especially for early and middle.

[olaf73]

So what is the 'best' way to setup a steady supply of blood slaves? What is more important, population or magic sites? Do you rotate your blood hunters around? Or just build a lab in the spots you are hunting? How useful is the Sanguine Dousing Rod versus increased blood magic skill?