Newbie questions

[Tuna]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

Of course you can do both, since they require different resources resources to summon, and you can't convert one (fire gems) to the other (blood slaves). X fire summons + Y devils will always beat Y devils.

Well, fire gems can be converted to fetishes/gold and that gold can be used to boost blood production. But anyway, I rather use fire for some items, flames from the sky and fetishes.

Caelum looks at least as straightforward as Abysia to me.

Well, it's easy to counter caelum's main hitting power in the late game, forcing the caelum player to seek another options, but devils and unigue blood summons stay tough all the way to the end.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Tuna said:

Well, fire gems can be converted to fetishes/gold and that gold can be used to boost blood production.

That's OK when you have time for these investments to pay off - but when you have to deal with an immediate threat, forging Fetishes or performing alchemy to be able to recruit an extra bloodhunter probably won't help you as much as using these fire gems to summon critters you can use immediately. The point is, blood being a more practical route than fire summons to develop medium or long-term muscle doesn't mean you should disregard the latter entirely: this weakness is compensated by the fact they are immediately available in numbers, while it take 1 mage/turn or 1 contract/turn to get a single Devil.

Say, one of your fortresses is on the point of being stormed and Baal Chozron is here to defend it. Will you have him summon a Devil or 5 Summer Lions - assuming keeping this fortress is of utmost importance to you?