gold value of slaves and gems

[obama]

overcasts and dispells consider 2 blood slaves to be worth as much as 1 gem. in multiplayer, players seem to be trading gems for around 30-35 gold. from this, a slave is worth 15 gold. how would you price gems and blood slaves in gold? what would be the conversion rate between the two?
this could be important for accurate evaluation of blood hunters, spell efficiency and how good units are for their summoning cost.

[terve886]

gold value for gems and slaves is not fixed. It will vary greatly between early and late game, as they will have different value compared to gold. Different gems can also have different value depending on who you are selling them to, as different nations have different needs. It is pretty much up to diplomacy and players' ability to make deals between one another that sets the price.

Especially blood slaves are something that aren't usually traded around simply because those who want blood will most likely have their own blood economy with little to no need to supply it from other players who most likely won't have blood slaves of their own unless they are also blood nations in which case they would likely keep the blood slaves themselves.

The best way to model whether something is worth X gems is to usually compare the summon/ritual to another one and seeing how their real combat performance matches their gem cost. Lich for example are dirt cheap at 30 Death gems compared to Fire Spirits at 30 fire gems simply because D4 is much stronger than F3 and liches got immortality to boot. Of course the research levels are also different, 6 vs 8, so that is something to also consider.

Drakes on the other hand are generally considered far too expensive even if you have some form of dragon master to effectively double your summoning amount. This is because not only are the drakes undiciplined which makes them relatively hard to use for something so expensive, you can also only summon 1 at a time which is expensive mage turn wise when the mage could be easily be researching, waging wars or site searching instead.

[Big Dog]

Originally posted by terve886:

gold value for gems and slaves is not fixed. It will vary greatly between early and late game, as they will have different value compared to gold. Different gems can also have different value depending on who you are selling them to, as different nations have different needs. It is pretty much up to diplomacy and players' ability to make deals between one another that sets the price.

Especially blood slaves are something that aren't usually traded around simply because those who want blood will most likely have their own blood economy with little to no need to supply it from other players who most likely won't have blood slaves of their own unless they are also blood nations in which case they would likely keep the blood slaves themselves.

The best way to model whether something is worth X gems is to usually compare the summon/ritual to another one and seeing how their real combat performance matches their gem cost. Lich for example are dirt cheap at 30 Death gems compared to Fire Spirits at 30 fire gems simply because D4 is much stronger than F3 and liches got immortality to boot. Of course the research levels are also different, 6 vs 8, so that is something to also consider.

Drakes on the other hand are generally considered far too expensive even if you have some form of dragon master to effectively double your summoning amount. This is because not only are the drakes undiciplined which makes them relatively hard to use for something so expensive, you can also only summon 1 at a time which is expensive mage turn wise when the mage could be easily be researching, waging wars or site searching instead.

With some items and spells you can pump out an unfair amount of drakes that can crush armies that don't bring the proper resists to fight them.

[terve886]

Originally posted by < blank >:

Originally posted by terve886:

gold value for gems and slaves is not fixed. It will vary greatly between early and late game, as they will have different value compared to gold. Different gems can also have different value depending on who you are selling them to, as different nations have different needs. It is pretty much up to diplomacy and players' ability to make deals between one another that sets the price.

Especially blood slaves are something that aren't usually traded around simply because those who want blood will most likely have their own blood economy with little to no need to supply it from other players who most likely won't have blood slaves of their own unless they are also blood nations in which case they would likely keep the blood slaves themselves.

The best way to model whether something is worth X gems is to usually compare the summon/ritual to another one and seeing how their real combat performance matches their gem cost. Lich for example are dirt cheap at 30 Death gems compared to Fire Spirits at 30 fire gems simply because D4 is much stronger than F3 and liches got immortality to boot. Of course the research levels are also different, 6 vs 8, so that is something to also consider.

Drakes on the other hand are generally considered far too expensive even if you have some form of dragon master to effectively double your summoning amount. This is because not only are the drakes undiciplined which makes them relatively hard to use for something so expensive, you can also only summon 1 at a time which is expensive mage turn wise when the mage could be easily be researching, waging wars or site searching instead.

With some items and spells you can pump out an unfair amount of drakes that can crush armies that don't bring the proper resists to fight them.

That is literally just Dragon Sceptre and the "unfair" amount you are referring to is just +1 drakes per summon. Dragon Sceptre itself is Construction 6 research, so it would be silly to assume your opponent would not have counter to drakes by the time you have construction 6, especially when you will still need to spend the turns summoning them. How many sceptres are you exactly planning on building and how many mages will you use to summon the drakes? How many turns?. For a single Dragon sceptre to payitself back, you must use it enough turns to payback the 10 fire gem crafting cost in drakes.

Drakes are expensive even if you have dragon sceptre access, and by the time you have dragon sceptre access, drakes have already lost their relevant usage. You are better off using all those gems on elementals instead.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by terve886:

That is literally just Dragon Sceptre and the "unfair" amount you are referring to is just +1 drakes per summon.

There's also the Dragon Master ritual (Ench-8, N3, 30 gems), which gives Dragon Mastery 2 to the caster and stacks with the Dragon Sceptre, so if you have mages with the right paths you could get up to four drakes per summon. It's expensive and probably not practical for most potential drake-summoners, but it is something that could be done.

For a single Dragon sceptre to payitself back, you must use it enough turns to payback the 10 fire gem crafting cost in drakes.

Assuming all gems and mage-turns are created equal and including the gem and mage-turn cost of the Dragon Sceptre:
- Four Fire Drakes cost 24 gems and 4 mage-turns without or 22 gems and 3 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.
- Four Ice or Swamp Drakes cost 28 gems and 4 mage-turns without or 24 gems and 3 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.
- Six Cave Drakes or Sea Serpents cost 24 gems and 6 mage-turns without or 22 gems and 4 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.
- Eighteen Wyverns cost 27 gems and 9 mage-turns without or 28 gems and 7 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.

For the number of units generated, a Dragon Sceptre is mage-turn-positive the second time you cast Summon X Drake or Summon Sea Serpent and essentially gem-neutral on the second cast of Summon Fire / Ice / Swamp Drake or the third cast of Summon Cave Drake or Summon Sea Serpent. Using a Dragon Sceptre is a bit more iffy with Wyverns - it's "merely" mage-turn-neutral on the second cast and takes six casts to become gem-neutral for the number of units produced - but could still be worthwhile if you're summoning enough wyverns. If you have the gems and mages to do it and are going to be summoning drakes regardless, it's probably worth investing in Dragon Sceptres.

[terve886]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by terve886:

That is literally just Dragon Sceptre and the "unfair" amount you are referring to is just +1 drakes per summon.

There's also the Dragon Master ritual (Ench-8, N3, 30 gems), which gives Dragon Mastery 2 to the caster and stacks with the Dragon Sceptre, so if you have mages with the right paths you could get up to four drakes per summon. It's expensive and probably not practical for most potential drake-summoners, but it is something that could be done.

For a single Dragon sceptre to payitself back, you must use it enough turns to payback the 10 fire gem crafting cost in drakes.

Assuming all gems and mage-turns are created equal and including the gem and mage-turn cost of the Dragon Sceptre:
- Four Fire Drakes cost 24 gems and 4 mage-turns without or 22 gems and 3 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.
- Four Ice or Swamp Drakes cost 28 gems and 4 mage-turns without or 24 gems and 3 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.
- Six Cave Drakes or Sea Serpents cost 24 gems and 6 mage-turns without or 22 gems and 4 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.
- Eighteen Wyverns cost 27 gems and 9 mage-turns without or 28 gems and 7 mage-turns with a Dragon Sceptre.

For the number of units generated, a Dragon Sceptre is mage-turn-positive the second time you cast Summon X Drake or Summon Sea Serpent and essentially gem-neutral on the second cast of Summon Fire / Ice / Swamp Drake or the third cast of Summon Cave Drake or Summon Sea Serpent. Using a Dragon Sceptre is a bit more iffy with Wyverns - it's "merely" mage-turn-neutral on the second cast and takes six casts to become gem-neutral for the number of units produced - but could still be worthwhile if you're summoning enough wyverns. If you have the gems and mages to do it and are going to be summoning drakes regardless, it's probably worth investing in Dragon Sceptres.

Your math doesn't hold because Summon drake spells aren't even to begin with worth their gem cost. The drakes could be 50 gems a piece and dragon sceptre doubling the amount summoned does not turn into saving 40 gems just because you get 2 drakes instead of one with single cast. Summoning them can be mage turn neutral, but the drakes themselves aren't worth the cost. Drakes only have their breath going for them. Stats wise they are cumbersome and later research level summons beat them in stats and utility, especially because drakes scale really badly with battlefield buffs. Whether they be yours or your opponent's.

For example, Fall bears vs cave drakes (though cave drakes are kinda poor example since they are just blockers, no breath). You can get Fall bears much faster and much cheaper compared to cave drakes, and fall bears scale much better with earth buffs like Marble warriors
as they have innate ethereal and regen, but no protection.
Cave DRakes could also be compared to Hill giants, but those are another slow to summon unit with their own late game weaknesses, like being butchered by soul slay and other MR spells..

Dragon master is even worse for drake summoning than the dragon sceptre as enchantment 8 is so far into late game that single wizard is able to cast a battlefield wipe or protect army with multiple layers of spells. For drakes to be good, the dragon sceptre and Dragon mastery would both need to go down 2 research levels before drakes could be even considered as mid research goal and game plan.

In short: Drakes are too expensive and too slow to summon to make impact. By the time you have tools to boost your drake summoning, you already have better options available and the drakes are most likely countered anyway. Efficiency wise they are on the same levels as elephants. While they can expand and kill indie units well, they don't have use in batlefield with full on mage usage. All the turns spent on summoning drakes could be spent on something else.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by terve886:

Your math doesn't hold because Summon drake spells aren't even to begin with worth their gem cost.

Whether or not the drakes are worth summoning in the first place is irrelevant to the question of whether or not a Dragon Sceptre is worth forging in the scenario where you have the ability to forge it and are summoning drakes. If you would like to make the argument that forging the Dragon Sceptre is not worthwhile because drakes are not worthwhile, then by all means do so - I generally agree with you on that - but that is not the argument that you made in the post to which I responded.

[terve886]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by terve886:

Your math doesn't hold because Summon drake spells aren't even to begin with worth their gem cost.

Whether or not the drakes are worth summoning in the first place is irrelevant to the question of whether or not a Dragon Sceptre is worth forging in the scenario where you have the ability to forge it and are summoning drakes. If you would like to make the argument that forging the Dragon Sceptre is not worthwhile because drakes are not worthwhile, then by all means do so - I generally agree with you on that - but that is not the argument that you made in the post to which I responded.

Fair enough, but:

Originally posted by joeball123:

If you would like to make the argument that forging the Dragon Sceptre is not worthwhile because drakes are not worthwhile, then by all means do so

That literallly was my whole start starting argument to begin with:

Originally posted by terve886:

Drakes on the other hand are generally considered far too expensive even if you have some form of dragon master to effectively double your summoning amount. This is because not only are the drakes undiciplined which makes them relatively hard to use for something so expensive, you can also only summon 1 at a time which is expensive mage turn wise when the mage could be easily be researching, waging wars or site searching instead.