Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

Well, you could hardly have been assumed to guess that I had not looked up the Acolyte in the unitattributes.xls recently and thus was discussing based on an incorrect assumption http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

So. The verdict in this point in time is that the Sanguine Acolyte does indeed come close - very close - to the effectiveness of the Mictlan priest. You now have a 100% victory on the original question (does anybody come close to the Mictlan priest?) and at least 50% on the combined Acolyte+Diabolist ticket. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I am more doubtful of the Diabolist, since the arguments regarding him were based more on overall economic performance and savings on temples, which is alleviated by Mictlan being able to earn much more money per moneyearning province via the order scale.

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

I don't believe that you can select either of those themes with Mictlan.

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

no, you can't.

as to the debate, personally I hate the diabolists. not being sacred, combined w/ bloody mary's forced turmoil really ratchets up the economic pain. I far prefer the wonderful goetic masters, who have pretty well the same upkeep, are good for hellfire, research, bloodhunting w/out a sanguine rod even, and get a random. their versatility and power more than makes up for the initial expenditure, IMO.

Sanguine acolytes are good, but that is payed for through the relative troop weakness of the theme, and, especially, the inability to take magic scales. Blood of humans is good for rushing the arch devils, or some such, but early expansion is more difficult and research will always heavily lag.

Mictlan has good magical diversity, to my mind excellent sacred troops, and the best combined economic/research/blood ramp-up in the game. what's not to love? (other than their early game crap dominion)

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

I would say that head-to-head the Blood of Humans theme has much better troops than Mictlan.

Mictlan has plentiful scared troops I do not know if I would call them excellent.

Don't forget that the magical diversity of Mictlan has a couple of limitations: all of those wonderful casters are capital only and they have no randoms at all. That is a pretty heavy price.

Mictlan's negatives are that their troops are very fragile to missle fire, their excellent ( but costly ) casters are capital only, and their dominion costs an additional resource ( this also has the side effect of making their micromanagement quite difficult ).

To compensate for these negatives they get the best blood hunter in the game ( by a percentage which I think has been painfully calculated by now ), the ability to take both the magic and order scales, and the excellent, terrific, awesome Tribal king.

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

What Im seeing is that we have 2 nations which are built for blood being compared. But one which works for people who prefer to take armies to war, and another for people who prefer a more defensive/research path? Sounds like decent balancing

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

Unfortunately i didn't read forum a lot the Last week . So sorry if already answered above cause i only skimmed the current discussion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Have the slaves needed to be sacrificed as mictlan been included in the comparison of costs between mictlan priest + BoH alcolyte ?

Abysia BoH has heat 2 instead of heat 1 as mictlan + they can go death scale if they want to so they can take magic + order scale even easier + do a better SC pretender then mictlan cause their troops are a bit better .


I never used the slaves as mictlan personally so could you please explain why the tribal king is so excellent ? For using slaves to patrol ?

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

He's cheap! He has a great command rating! He's sacred to boot! If it were just that he would be a fine leader. But he can also levy slaves and patrol like a mad man for little cost. What's not to love!

He allows you to blood hunt in those farm provinces with a minimal loss of gold ( I *think* that the order is bloodhunt->unrest from blood hunt->get gold income->patrol so you do lose some gold but it's better than what you would lose without the patrolling ).

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

With how many blood hunters do you hunt in a farm province ?
How many slaves do you use for patrol ?
A slave costs 0,067 upkeep iirc .
And finally does a slave count as normal or poor patroller ?

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

Well I can tell you what I did but I never figured out if what I was doing was the most efficient. I simply loaded up a Tribal King with 50 slaves and patrolled. They were easily able to keep two B2 hunters going with 0 increase in unrest while keeping 100% taxes. Is it worth it? Well the upkeep is only ~ 5 gold for that patrolling force and you still get most of the income from the farm province so it *seems* to me to be a pretty good deal.

Now of course your patrollers can be jacked pretty easily by your neighbors if they are into that kind of thing so it's not concequence free, but what is?

I thought that only mindless and some animals were poor patrollers but perhaps these slaves are lobotomized ( if so it was a piss poor job they still have poor moral damn it! ). Anyway 50 of them covers the unrest from 2 blood hunters.

I've always thought that it was the tribal king who was/is the unsung hero of Mictlan. The cheap blood hunter is nice no doubt but being able to have 2 blood hunters in every province and still get ( maybe? ) 80% of your normal taxes seems damn nice to me. And it worked out quite well in the one multiplayer game where I tried it, but to be honest we were all n00bs so it does not really count.

Re: Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?
 

Mictlan is a blood super-power.
By turn 60 in a favorable MP game I've had over 300 blood income by using 4 hunters with rods and 90+ slaves patroling.
For 10 gp upkeep in each province, my empire is free of spies, Assassins and wolves. (100 slaves will find spies)
-Yc

Oh, and the Sacred troops are Excellent! Try a fire 9 blessing on the flying guys who cost 15 gp 3rp. They have two attacks and are deadly the whole game.

r try a Rainbow hag with 4 in most paths with the other holy troops!