Beginner Blood nations?

[Karsk]

I'm interested in learning them but I still haven't tried communions or Astral magic either. Is there a nation that might just dabble in blood magic so that you can learn the basics?

[Mormacil]

Mictlan forces you to use blood to just survive, gets you the basics on hunting.

[Bumc]

EA Hinnom if you want to just dip your toes in blood without being completely reliant on it.

[Imperialus]

Originally posted by Bumc:

EA Hinnom if you want to just dip your toes in blood without being completely reliant on it.

I'd add the Abyssia's to this as well. They have some really neat blood summons as well plus a really straightforward lineup of national troops and fire magic that would help keep you going while you figure out blood magic. The later ages also allow you to experiment with astral.

[Selgeron]

Abysia is hard to mess up on, early game they are mostly unstoppable so you can make a lot of headway with your troops, and not needing a lot of research, while you mess around with blood.

Bonus if you start in the caves, where it's harder for people to bother you.

[Bumc]

yeah, MA Abysia is probably even better for casual blood experience due to having a straightforward alternative of regular heavy troops + fire evocations/conjurations combo.

[Necroscourge]

Abyssia is a good "learn to blood" nation because your army is capable of functioning without help from blood summons at all; but gets even nastier when you mix them into your armies. This allows you to sprawl out and get the good blood hunting provinces first.

I'd suggest EA Abyssia, you get heavy infantry and fantastic fire access as well warlocks from your capital. You're going to want to vomit these guys out and send them to high pop provinces (10k+) along with commanders with patrol forces to manage unrest. put a Lab in the province so the blood goes straight into your accounts.

Once you have some blood, you can craft dowsing rods in order to up your income. Abyssia has a special crossbreeding spell that creates hellspawn and those add a lot of chaff and versatility to your armies. Fiends also make good summons.

[Zan]

Hi Karsk,

I'll have a tutorial series up in a month or so that will feature MA Abysia and blood hunting.
In the meantime, check out ChazzyBurger's video on blood hunting on youtube! Its a quick 10 minute guide on the ins and outs of bloodhunting.

[Swirler]

Originally posted by Zan:

Hi Karsk,

I'll have a tutorial series up in a month or so that will feature MA Abysia and blood hunting.
In the meantime, check out ChazzyBurger's video on blood hunting on youtube! Its a quick 10 minute guide on the ins and outs of bloodhunting.

Zan also has a great series of videos doing short looks at some nations.
Should be a good start point for newcomers.

[Karsk]

I appreciate the help! I am interested in Lanka bc they are seemingly a nation that is demonic and doesn't just summon generic demons

[Quillithe]

Lanka is definitely a good one, though you're probably going to want to do more than dabble

They're also a sacred blood nation pretty specifically, especially with a recruit-anywhere national sacred as well

[Scrapulous]

Lanka was my Baby Learns Blood Magic experience. I chose it because I had a lot of experience with death nations and so I thought the national reanimation would give me a facet to rely on that I understood well and that would provide some tools for interacting with a blood economy (cheap patrollers and chaff to run interference while I dropped Bloodletting and other big blood battle magic). That turned out to be mostly the case, although it's probably noteworthy that my experience was with the much more forgiving Dominions 4 version of Lanka.

Where Lanka offers additional complexity on top of other blood nations is in its unique turmoil domain (blood hunting is easier in turmoil and many of their demonic units have better stats in provinces with turmoil &/or unrest). But if you're willing to deal with the turmoil scales, I think it's nice to have a more rewarding blood hunting economy than usual for your first blood nation experience. And yes, the manifold national demons are great, and can kind of spoil the comparatively mediocre-feeling non-national demons.

Lanka also has a very Robert E. Howard, pulp fantasy feel to it in a way more than any other nation I've played except _maybe_ EA Ulm; necromantic demon-apes practicing spiritually unclean rites in the jungle is basically the setup to a lot of Howard's short stories. I enjoyed those stories when I was still a heavy reader of fantasy, so Lanka just feels cozy and thematically on-point to me in a way that the best nations in the game can. When the nation connects to your thematic tastes like a piston in a cylinder, it makes it pretty easy to learn the national mechanics.

[Andkat]

Hinnom is probably the opposite of what you want here; Hinnom's idiosyncrasies (i.e. all of its blood hunters popkill and raise unrest and thus both inhibit their own sustainability and increase effective economic and patrol costs) and baseline expensive blood mages kinda punish and strain the calculus of the blood economy in a way that doesn't make very reflective of native bkood nations. Gath or Bertyos would give you a lot of the same themes and options with a more standard template/cost-benefit although Bertyos has historically been noted and targeted in MP for its weak early game if you're intending your first serious blood experience to be in pvp,

[Karsk]

Originally posted by Andkat:

Hinnom is probably the opposite of what you want here; Hinnom's idiosyncrasies (i.e. all of its blood hunters popkill and raise unrest and thus both inhibit their own sustainability and increase effective economic and patrol costs) and baseline expensive blood mages kinda punish and strain the calculus of the blood economy in a way that doesn't make very reflective of native bkood nations. Gath or Bertyos would give you a lot of the same themes and options with a more standard template/cost-benefit although Bertyos has historically been noted and targeted in MP for its weak early game if you're intending your first serious blood experience to be in pvp,

No I am still learning the game so I am primarily singleplayer atm

[boozermonkey]

No question it’s EA Mictlan. It’s really the only nation that is all in on blood, and while jags can get you through early game, you won’t get far in mid game without going heavy into blood. For late game that nation is straight up crazy OP once it gets to blood 7+ and you’ve developed a strong blood economy.

Other nations like hinnom, Abysia, or xibalba also like to go heavy in blood, they can go other directions and still have a strong game. Mictlan really requires heavy blood to succeed.

[Ica]

Yeah I gotta agree, EA Mictlan is the best option. It forces you to learn blood to survive, and it doesn't have other weird traits like Lanka.

If you pick some minor blood nation to learn blood, you might end up just relying on other things instead. Try those nations after you've played Mictlan.