Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Also, when playing as Mictlan you should really the Jaguar Demons rather than beast bats.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Why the blood fountain? You get Dom7 with those scales & paths, but with the same scales & paths:

Imprisoned Morloch 9F9W4B, 6Dom = mobile SC;
Imprisoned Mirror 9F9W4B1D, 6Dom = mobile and extra path.

I know the blood fountain has a small hidden bonus for blood hunting, but with those paths wouldn't a fountain spend it's time better elsewhere? 7Dom is slightly better which (I guess?) makes sacrafices better, but that seems offset by your pretender being immobile (limiting it's dominion influence). Once broken free the death path or SC I think would help more.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I tried a better mobile pretender at first, but I noticed each point of dom that I lose really adds up a lot later when I'm making Jaguar Warriors in 4-5 forts (I try to get 5 temples up if I have the extra $$$ for that extra point). I didn't even know there was a blood bonus with the fountain... where would these hidden bonuses be listed?

Also dominion spread usually isn't a big deal. My scales are trash and as long as there is no risk of dominion death I just let everything but the core of my empire have whatever dominion happens to be there.

I'm usually very close to summoning my first Ice Devil by the time my pretender wakes up anyways and his main job is to make a blood booster and then make disease demons for a couple turns while I get con6. Then once I get con6, a rain priest makes a cheap water booster, I give him the blood booster my pretender was using to make disease demons and he calls an ice devil. He gets various easy to make items: demon whip, shield of the accursed, the cheap nature helmet w/ an extra attack, bless shroud, boots of the messenger, luck amulet, amulet of regen. Research alteration while the items are being made/he is being summoned (so he can quicken self), and send him out to wreak havoc.

After that I go for blood 7 then evo 7. Once I get those then I can summon phoenix pyring arch devils and those guys are hardcore http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

In my current game (with that independents mod installed) I'm doing much much better. Going f9/s9/b4 this time. The w9 seemed less important later Move doesnt matter when you fly w/ no lance right? large portions of my armies fly later on and the s9 protects my summoned devils from banishes and the big guys from annoying stuff like blind. There's also the bonus of being able to cast astral corruption, which seems to be devastating for everyone but me. If my pretender is s10/b7 when he casts it with 200 slaves, does he get the +5 bonus for each point he is above the spell requirement in each school or is it averaged?

Also, is there any way to get more messages at the start of each turn? (items crafted, troops trained, etc)

And for early thugs from conjuration, which ones should I go for? Normally I just get a devil or 2 from "hordes from hell" and they seem to do ok, and as an added bonus they can lead a big contingent of demons too. Normally I just ignore conjuration until later, maybe getting up to conjuration 3 for voice of aspu. Of course if I'm fighting someone from the water then that changes and I go straight for school of sharks/shark attack (those 2 together seem to be really really powerful)

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I think the only thing you did wrong was to start in the middle. You have too many border provinces, open too many opponents. That is your problem. I hate to start in the middle because I never could figure out how to avoid the same problem you have.

I have always found the AI to be a capable opponent when you move away from normal difficulty and if the computer doesn't generate an absurd pretender and scales for them.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Quick aside: for multi-path spells, extra levels only matter for the primary path (the first one listed). In this case, only blood magic.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Basically you had a bad position and I think you made it worse by spreading yourself too thin. You need to concentrate on the core provinces while sending out smaller armies to raid the enemy, moving around in their territory grabbing a province, setting 200% tax and hopping on to the next. Don't chase the AI, make them chase you while your armies and larger PD protect the more important inner provinces. Once war starts you can afford to lose the outside ones, provided you are taking 1 or 2 a turn from any attacking AI and taxing them 200%.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

I have won four front wars aaginst impossible AIs without using bless strategies and I allways play default settings. But I would say that blood magic is a little to slow for that.

Long time since I played the AI I should do that some time.

Re: Looking for tips from the pros
 

Yeah, the thing is suggestions for SP games basically break down into two categories.

1) General strategy. You seem to have this down and suggestions you get are going to be along the lines of tweaks, not overhauls. You've laid out a very viable EA Mictlan early game strategy. Unfortunately, playing against the harder AIs means you're not playing on a level field, you can't just be better you need to be much better so you can kill off many times what you lose just to push even. This unfortunately means playing a good game is often not enough to win, particularly if you get placed in a bad position.

2) Tricks to exploit the AI - use a lot of PD for no purpose other than to fool it, create thugs that the AI can't cope with, etc.

Unfortunately category 2 is really what you usually need to do to fight against multiple harder AI's - by the time they team up on you they just field too many troops to "fight fairly". This is unfortunate because once you learn a few tricks that the AI just can't deal with it does become way too easy.