Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

I'm trying to figure out the best way to blood hunt as MA Abyssia in an unmodded game. Here are their blood mages with the stats I think are pertinent to blood hunting ability (all cap only.)

Warlock Apprentice
130g, B2S1, old

Warlock
270g, B3S2?1, very old

Demonbred
260g, B2F2H2, sacred, flying, not even close to old

Obviously the warlocks are your heavy lifter blood mages, not bloodhunters.

So the competition is between Warlock Apprentices and Demonbred. For 130g extra (sacred so upkeep is equal) you get flying and don't have to worry about old age. That said, once you get to const 6 you can have the apprentice forge boots of youth his first turn for 10 slaves (7 w/hammer) which removes the old age issue.

I'm thinking apprentices in the beginning since early on 130 gold can be alot. But once you get more gold coming in and have const 6 researched I'm not really sure.

Some other issues:
Sanguine dowsing rods? I'm not sure if these are worth the slaves+turn spent forging when your hunters are B2.

How many hunters per province. When playing as Lanka I'd use three, but again I'm not sure when the hunters are more expensive and B2.

Should I build labs in blood provinces? I'm thinking that depending on luck it will take a hunter 3-5 turns to fill up on slaves, so if you didn't build a lab you'd be spending 2/5 to 2/7 of your time walking back and forth to your deposit province (and that's if they can make it in one turn.)

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

It really depends on your scales. If you, for thematic reasons, massively take death, then Demonbred would be your go-to option. If you have some growth, then the Apprentices become viable, as with good growth, you generally won't lose too many to disease.

Finally, SDRs are definitely worth it. Along with the +10% chance on your blood 2 hunters, you also get +1 blood slaves per turn guaranteed. Forging with a hammer, it pays for itself in 7 turns (just with the +1 blood slave and with a Dwarven Hammer).

As for labs: you can if you have the gold (because they do cut down on micromanagement, alot). Personally, I use indy commanders and scouts to ferry blood slaves around for me if I'm tight on gold. 30g/20g and 2-1 upkeep means that they're economically more cost-efficient then labs; unless of course the game drags on for 235 turns, of course.

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

Two things.

1. Use the apprentices and give them dousing rods. You'll want either 2 or 3 in a province. 3 will require a bit more micro, turning the tax down to 0 if they all get a big hunt find. 2 should be fine with auto-taxes on.

2. Don't build a lab. Hire a commander to walk back and forth. Generally you shouldn't be blood hunting too far from a fortress + lab to make this round trip take more than 2 turns. Even if it does, you can just hire a second commander. The upfront gold cost + minor upkeep won't come close to building multiple labs in your blood hunt provinces.

Jazzepi

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

I can't believe I didn't think of this.

Thanks for the responses. Death seems pretty bad for Abyssia even if it doesn't hurt their income. I went growth 1, so do you think I can ignore the old age issue on apprentices?

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

I wouldn't take growth as Abysia. Someone did an interesting study with lots of mages who had old age over 100 turns. The difference between G3 and D3 wasn't HUGE but it was significant. The difference between G1 and G0 was very small.

Since you don't get any income bonus for having the growth scale, the only thing it gives you is longer living mages. I think in the long run, you'd be better off spending points somewhere else.

I'd focus on production, order, and maybe an awake pretender. Cyclops seems like a good choice. You could give him a bit of earth, and then some air to give him mistform. I've found A2E3 awake cyclopes to be extremely inexpensive for what you're getting. Though, at the end of the day, I'd rather have an A4E5-6 if you can afford it. The extra protection, and the ability to sitesearch for level 4 sites, makes a big difference.

Jazzepi

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

I agree with Jazzepi, except once you get into the mid game you should have switched to demonbred from apprentices, since they have more uses. I prefer to take an N-4 bless and give shrouds to the apprentices if they get sick, rather than spend a turn forging boots in advance. Only my warlocks get boots.

A pop-5000 province will give better results if you leave taxes at 20 or 0, I think. The extra slave income makes up for the small gold income you get from auto-taxing. Watch out for gold mines and gem sites though, don't hunt there.

And hire scouts to walk back and forth, if possible, not regular commanders. There's less chance of sneaking units losing slaves in events or attacks when your slave bus is sneaking. I hire two for each blood hunting province, so there is always one coming and one going. Depending on magic scales and luck, it's possible that you could get slave overflow with just two hunters, if you're running just one scout bus per blood hunting province.

Warlocks are good for blood hunting too, if you don't have anything else useful for them to do the current month, maybe because you're casting a couple of huge summons that eat up all your slaves for the turn.

Once you're at blood-7 you should be casting Curse of Blood for Vampire Lords, especially if you're playing CBM, and they can hunt too.

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

I wish demonbred were recruitable at every fort. MA Abysia has such poor options for mages outside of its capital.

I suppose a low level blood spell to summon Demonbred for Abysia would be more thematic (how many slaves? 20-30-ish?).

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

That's fair. N4 on a pretender is nice for personal regen and resist elements. Though, a cyclops with N4/E3-5/A2 would be rather expensive.

Jazzepi

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

Summoning a Demonbred for 30 slaves sounds like it would really help Abysia a lot, in a fair and balanced fashion.

I haven't done MA Abysia in MP, but in SP, what I've ended up doing, is 2 Apprentice per province (3 per until you get SDR), get them boots ASAP. I use Apprentices exclusively for hunting, because they get useful randoms, and I set the "special" ones aside in my capital for forging purposes. I only recruit Demonbred for combat duty, never for hunting.

Oh, and I take 2 Death. You have no income penalty, and 2D is quite survivable, you just can't sit inactive for huge lengths of time.

Re: Blood Hunting as MA Abyssia?
 

Apprentices don't get randoms, just Warlocks do. And any unit out in the field hunting is automatically on combat duty. :) You can script Apprentices for Leech or Hellbind Heart, but that won't help against Gargoyles or Golems, etc.

Demonbred in the field scripted for Infernal Prison (they can cast it with 2 slaves) is a pretty nice disincentive for raiding SCs.