Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

I'm a newbie to this game, and I was brought here by the Gamespot review. Anyhow, I just got the full Version, and have been playing it non-stop. I had to play Ermor, just so I could have a game where I annihilated the enemy, to build confidence. Then I tried Mictlan, with one of their unique pretenders.

Yeouch. By some miracle of nature, I was left alone by the enemy for a long time, I guess because I was playing on Normal AI, but eventually things came to a head. But it got me thinking, you know, there could be a real strategy here for Mictlan.

I'll use a blood fountain as my pretender, get some considerable blood magic going with a couple ranks of nature, and then crank up the luck full tilt. Then I am going to focus on their nature priests for cross-breeding and their low level priests for dominion increasing through sacrifices. I'll bring Drain all the way down to -3, because I can easily make sure my dominion never enters my main research province (which won't be my capital) by never sacrificing in that province. Order would be nice, but I need growth to replace the blood-slaving and patrolling I'll be doing throughout the entire game. I'm leaning towards picking up fire magic at the cost of production (since they need so little production) for Bless bonuses for the bajillion holy troops. I imagine I'll have Ermor-like hordes of cannon fodder troops, what with the cheap-o units they have and Cross-breeding. By land-grabbing a handful of provinces and slave-taking early OR by having strong independants, I'm thinking I can do OK, as long I raise an absolute army of low-level priests for blood slaves. I'm thinking also of picking a very cheap fortress, so I can build them en masse, in order to make lots of priests/ And of course, I'll need to make lots of jade daggers. (Wish I'd have known about that the first time around.)

I'm really trying to make Mictlan work. They seem to me to be the most fascinating in a large group of fascinating countries. And I think this game is the best strategy game I've ever played, so far at least, which immediately would make it the best game ever, as long as it holds up on the replay value, which I think it will.

If anyone has made Mictlan work well, please tell me, because they suck almost as much as Caelum or whatever it is on first glance.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a damn good idea. With all those fodder troops PLUS giants from cross breeding, you might just be able to defeat my disintegration strategy with C'tis. Well actually, the easiest way to defeat me is having flying units.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You'll also have to make sure that you don't sacrifice in provinces that are nearby it, as each sacrificed slave acts as one temple.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Caelum doesn't suck! Excellent mages, mammoths and flyers. It just needs a different approach than other nations. They are currenly bugged though.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

I think Mictlan doesn't suck either, but is trickier to use than most. The game I started in a rather tough position (small map full of Difficult AI with two attacking enemies 3 provinces away early on, and no good provinces between me and them), and I think I'm going to win.

Taking the maintenance savings of the many Sacred units into account, their units are pretty good. Good for cheap blessable troops, and the cheap low-level priests. Very nice heroes complement the already rich selection of priest/mages (leaving a hole only in Earth magic, IIRC). National summons available from the start are potent - I think Fiends of Darkness may be more effective than blood summons (edit: I meant to write - more effective than cross breeding)(though not as diverse and interesting - do both), especially combining FoD with blessed Eagle Warriors, which can then all fly into the enemy rear to wipe out powerful armies.

One Soul Contract, followed by a Horde From Hell to get a Devil commander (whom to equip), results in evil potential. I've added a succubus for murdering and stealing enemy commanders, and have now wiped out my two enemies (including miasma C'tis, which was a challenge), and beaten off the other who surprise attacked me just as I was about to finish off C'tis.

Note the "weak" thrown weapons on the national troops become very deadly once you can cast Flame Arrows, Heat From Hell with a Devil army is a recipe for enemy annihilation (I assume - I haven't needed to try yet), and the apparently worthless slaves can actually be used well as cannon fodder and distractions (especially because they cost practically nothing - just be careful not to starve your main men by including too many slaves). I think the provincial defense is even fairly good, since each point gets both missile/infantry units, and slave cannonfodder, for each point.

Not easy, but fun, interesting, and potentially very strong once you have enough blood... more blood... slurp. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[ February 01, 2004, 18:35: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Fiends of Darkness ARE a blood summon. Blood (power) 2, Blood Magic (research) 2 IIRC. Mictlan just doesn't need the research. 5 slaves for 1 fiend.

Do you find Mictlan too dependent on the Fountain's blood hunt bonus? Has anyone had any luck with other gods for them?

What about battlefield magic? Those cheap priests could all cast Sabbath Slave while one of the more powerful priestmages casts Sabbath Master... but both Sabbath Master *and* Sabbath Slave cost a blood slave. That adds up fast compared to free communion. Without sabbaths, though, the priestmages seem somewhat lacking in magic options (we all know how good blood magic is on the battlefield http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif ). It doesn't help that they're very expensive, and heat scale makes it difficult to benefit from Frost Fiends and even Ice Devils.

If Mictlan does need help, I'd do one of two things: remove the blood slave cost from Sabbath Slave (even if it is kept for Sabbath Master, you don't have to cast nearly as many Sabbath Masters) or give their priests a blood hunt bonus like Fountain of Blood (only not as big; they could hunt at 1 above their actual level). A national demon (like Harlequin) might help too, especially if it was sacred, but that would be more work.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

What Mictlan could use/need is a price check on the better mage-priests, and/or a national spell that summons more than 1 fiend/spine demon per casting. Now it ties up one very expensive mage for the whole turn to get one demon.

[ February 01, 2004, 11:39: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On the other hand, there is nothing that tends to hurt me more in the entire game then those darn fiends!

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

(I wish I would learn to NEVER use web forms to enter long Messages. Whenever IE screws up and forgets my entire message, I get so peeved... argh.)

The fiends seem plenty tough and cheap to me (and you just need to give a +1 Blood Power item to a 40-gold Mictlan Priest to use them instead of a high priest). However it would be nice if they had a unique national demon rather than a Fiend of Darkness, just for er, flavor. It's true though that I don't think the other low-level Mictlani blood summon options compare. Fiends, and Soul Contract Devils, are the best.

Chris, I meant to write that Fiends were probably better than Cross Breeding (not than blood summons, which was a typo that as you pointed out, made no sense).

My game uses the Smoking Mirror. I don't think you need the fountain bonus, though it would be useful. I think you just need to put a cheap-o Mictlan priest in every 3-7K population province (set 70-80% taxes), preferably each with a sanguine dousing rod, and with cheap-o leaders or scouts ferrying their slaves around, there is enough blood to do evil things.

Getting and using the blood liberally answers all the problems. Cheap-o Mictlan Priests and dousing rods are the way they get cheap blood slaves. Then they use slaves to get sabbath, and blood boosting items so they can cast Bowl of Blood, Hellbind Heart, Blood Lust and Agony.

The High Priests do seem quite expensive, but it might be because once you learn the tricks, Mictlan doesn't need a lot of gold, so this is an appropriate and balancing disadvantage. Those priests do offer great variety, especially combined with the national heroes (which give death, astral, nature, and even a bit of air and unholy!).

PvK

[ February 01, 2004, 19:13: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

The reason I like Crossbreeding for Mictlan is because of their fragile units. Even with masses of slaves, your units will take an unhealthy amout of loss. So swarming your opponent is the only real option you have to remain competitive. FoD are your anti-mage power (like devils). I would reserve them only for fights you want to capitalize on killing mages, as they too are fragile.

The core of my armies late game tend to be HfH Imps and Devils, since you can summon so many of them and they do work in greater numbers with Blood Lust. The main issue is trying to keep your domain strong enough so you don't get dominioned out while at the same time producing masses of the 'single cast' blood summons. Personally when the Mod tools are released in full I'll be changing some of all the summons to double the number and cost (Thus Bind Serpent Fiend will cost 10 Slaves, and get you 2 Fiends) to counter the huge amount of mages you need to use blood nations. (This will be true for a few other spells too)

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Ah, yes, I downloaded the Cold Caelum mod and now they don't suck anymore. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Anyhow, I burned the midnight oils until 4:00 AM Last night playing away at my plan. It was going well, and I started next to a (then unmodded) Caelum, so I had a wimp to beat up on. It was going well, until Jotenheim cast Burden of Time or whatever that spell is. I only picked a single growth bump, as I really wanted fire magic. Soon, however, my provinces declined. Then the Ermor, Soul Gate Flavor, came through and literally ripped up my empire. My dominion dropped like mad, and my priests got slaughtered before they could get banish all those baddies. I'd relied mostly on the cheap ones and the Priest Kings. My hordes of cross-breeds, with the occasional big one, did very well, but they eventually lost out to the hundreds of shadow thingies that are completely immune to the primary weapon of the weak hordes, that is, the plague/disease stuff. The very thing that let me whip the independants around me cost me, and on top of all that, I'd focused so much on priests that I forgot to invest in archers. With Jotenheim on the right and Ermor on the left, and the rest of the world conquered, my little empire grew smaller until it was just me, my capital, and a couple of sattelite provinces that I had saved by summoning massive amounts of devils and imps. (I stopped the cross-breeding as soon as I got that spell, as it was more cost effective and I had a ton of blood slaves.) I then realized that with all the death world enchantments my Ermor and Jotunheim, my population was shrinking bigtime. So I really raised the blood hunting to cash in as soon as possible.

I'm not sure if it could ever work, but I had no choice, so I summoned a couple Heliophagus, after the first one could summon, and set them to auto-summon a horde of demons and summoned up Fallen Angels to summon up imps. I had no choice, as I was running out of people. After making some noise several turns later, I realized I wasn't going to win, what with zero people in my capital. So http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Anyhow, I'm going at it again during the Super Bowl. I'll take what y'all you are saying into serious consideration.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I am doing quite well with the Smoking Mirror, a good pretender for blessings. Cheap priests in numbers will do all the blood hunting you'll ever need.

In my Mictlan game, I am currently switching to all summons army : Improved cross breeding for arrow fodder and the occasional goody, devils for heavy hitters, whatever summons the site I found give me, and to lead all that a mix of Arch-devils, Ice Devils, Fallen Angels, Succubus for fun, and I'll have to try the Heliophagus and Demon Lord sometime.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Hi,

The Heliophagus makes a pretty good SC with decent equipment. I haven't played a blood nation yet, but I've piddled with blood magic and called one up, once.


Ciao,
V'ger gone

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

to General Tacticus:

With the improves crossbreeding, how many commanders are usually leading one of your main armys ? because just a few breeds usually come with MANY lesser breeds you must have several commanders. Or are you using a experienced leader with 2+ exp levels ? Because i cant figure out how to lead those bloody breeds, they allways seem to end up guarding my capital..
ty

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

you need a crown of command

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Dear Moodgiesanta:

Welcome to the agony of Burden of Time, one of the few spells I think should be removed from the game. Unless you're Ermor or Desert Tombs C'tis (I guess Carrion Woods might be okay, too. Then again, Pangaea does heal.) it rips the snot out of you, and does it so fast that if you can't destroy the enchantment in short order you're just... lost. Wounds compound upon wounds and your units crumble to dust in a matter of a few turns. It's gruesome!

Jotunheim probably paid dearly for being stupid enough to cast that spell, but with Ermor tromping through your backyard it didn't make much difference to you.

I really, really hate that spell. Any spell that all by itself can leave an opponent helpless and beaten I have grave reservations about.

Of course, in a multiplayer game, you've just got to be ready to dispell it if you're playing against an undead-user. But if you guess wrong and haven't researched enchantment yet, or don't have the astral...

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Fiends and Devils get hurt only rarely, when you have 10 or more of them, especially combined with numbers of Eagle Warriors and/or Imps. Once they get over a certain number (somewhere over ten), they change from mage-killers to army-annihilators. 25 devils led by a Devil commander from HfH, is quite awesome.

For demon/devil leaders, other options also include high priests (who can pitch in with battlefield spells), a few cheap Mictlan Priests leading 5 each, and/or with items, or undead commanders (a nice cheap option to lead a large force).

PvK

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Well most of the time you don't have the ability to field too many armies with 20+ Devil/FoD. I'd prefer to have 3 or 4 Armies hammering away from different directions and each having the ability to null enemy mages than one (or 2) Big ugly armies that can be shut down by a Storm.

Just a personal preference but this is from a MP aspect. The AI rarely uses storms or storm items to their full effect.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Ya, I'm against the AI, haven't had much storm problems, and since I have a Soul Contract, I happen to have such an army, and when lead by a Devil, they can fly and attack any province within 3 hops every turn. My Mictlani infantry is mostly elite, unafflicted, and rarely has to do much serious fighting against enemies who aren't about to be routed by devils.

I imagine competetive human opponents would find ways to deal with the tactic, at least if they got to me before I got a huge devil production going. Such as, storm follwed by lots of banishing and anti-demon magic.

PvK

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Indeed, the Heliophagi are great. I managed to summon three before my country died out completely. One was just a wonderful commander, but one, aside from being a kick *** commander with good magic, also could summon a fiend every turn cost-free, and the other could summon two Bone fiends things with no cost every turn. I dunno about the fourth, but I assume he is equally awesome. It was the only way I survived, with no blood slaves due to having no people.

Bowlingballhead, yes, Burden of time is broken, in my opinion. It costs far too little for the extreme effects it has. It absolutely kills me, and not being an astral mage or interested in enchantment, I'm utterly screwed. So I have a couple choices:
1. Go out of my way at creation to take four astral and research dispel AND somehow get ahold through alchemy (at tremendous cost) enough astral pearls to dispel it. Which utterly sucks.
2. Take three on the growth scale, and mass produce cheap human units to replace my ever-dying legions.

I haven't played a nation that uses mostly elite troops yet, but I'd imagine things would be doubly worse if I didn't field an army of expendable cross-breeds as fodder for my equally expendable horde of sling-using warriors, but rather a crack team of elites that are hard to replace. I mean, that seems VERY broken to me. Heck, it deserves its own thread.
Someone asked this:
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I dunno about other countries, but I pumped out Tribal Kings en masse with Mictlan. They're only 40 gold and minimal resources and command 50 soldiers right off, so there is no reason not to just hire one every turn you need one don't hire something else. With several forts (which so far has been my strategy, not that it has done all that well . . .) you can pump out serious quantities of them.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you ignore enchantment research, then quite frankly, you're almost asking to get bLasted by various enchantments. That's the point of the dispel spell.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dispel is enchantment 5, astral 3, not astral 4. Enchantment 4 can be reached in 10 turns from a start with no research points whatsoever. Enchantment 5 is only about 3 more turns after that. For a nation with enough research to get to Heliophagi enchantment 5 is about a three or four turn effort at the very most.

From the rest of your thread, I assume you were playing Mictlan. That means that you already have an astral 2 mage, who only needs a starshine skullcap to cast dispel whenever necessary.

A list of the nations that have at least an astral two mage, and thus have a fairly easy time to cast dispel.

Abysia, Atlantis, Pythium, Arcoscephale, Broken Empire Ermor, Marignon, R'Lyeh, Jotunheim (Utgard), Mictlan. That's 9 out of the 17 nations that can get rid of it fairly easily.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Yes the Mictlani commanders are wonderfully cheap (sacred, for half upkeep cost) for cannonfodder leadership and generation too (free slave spear-carriers).

PvK

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Burden of Time isn't broken. It's just something that will force you to deal with it visibly instead of the invisible threat of giving an opponent a massive gem income (which is a common misconception).

Every Global Enchantment has an impact on the game if you allow it to remain unchecked. So having the ability to deal with, or counter them is something you must do even in SP. If you play the game without having the ability to deal with either letting the enchantment stick, or kicking it out/dispeling it, you are asking to be burnt.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, do remember that I am playing on the World map (very big) : by now I have something like 50 provinces, 500 gold income after upkeep, and I am not building troops with that gold... I have all the leaders I need.
As a general rule, I never put only one leader with my armies, even a scout or a cheap priest helps as extra insurance during battles. I'd say that right now, when I mean business, I put together 4 armies of 100-200 troops each, and each of the armies has 2 to 5 leaders... Of course, I made do with less at the start, but even on turn 2 I usually have two leaders with my armies...

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

I dont have all that much experience with blood, but I know the battlefield spells are not the point. The summons are... horde from hell, bind ice devil for example. And you can get a LOT more blood slaves than other gems if you have lots of blood hunters.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True. Too bad they have nothing half decent to lead. It would be nice if the Slaves could distract your opponent's troops while your good troops hit him in the flank or rear - but Mictlan doesn't HAVE any good troops.

I'm particularly disappointed by the Jaguar Warriors - they seem like a good idea, but in practice, they rarely even survive the first hit to become were jaguars, and almost never survive more than one round in were jaguar form. They have bad defense, worse protection and low hit points - for 20 gold!

Maybe if Mictlan had a god that could get to Air 6+, Water 9 for reasonable cost, Jaguar Warriors could survive for more than one or two rounds - but who wants to invest heavily in Water magic while taking a heat scale (or at all, for that matter)? And in any case, Mictlan has no troops whatsoever that can damage prot 15+ without a strong Blood blessing. They need falchions, or glaives, or tridents, or SOMETHING that can damage a Hoplite. Why don't they have some of the copper-armored warriors using Obsidian Swords? It wouldn't be much, but a Mictlan Warrior with copper armor, javelin, and Obsidian Sword instead of spear would be worth making.

I've seen armies of 100+ Mictlan troops (ok, that's counting the slaves, but still, 500+ gold worth of actual troops) get routed by ten Heavy Cavalry, and kill only 1, maybe 2 of them. Slings, javelins and spears just aren't going to cut it against Prot 19 - but if you can't come up with something against HI and HC even in small numbers, you can't even expand against low indy strengths, unless you luck out on the types of indies.

Ultra-slow expansion (take one province, spend 3-4 turns making another army because the first one was wiped out in the battle, repeat) is not a good way to build up a blood economy (already more difficult in Dom II than it was in Dom I).

To make Mictlan a bit more playable without taking away too much from their uniqueness:
* Lower the cost of the 4 main priests. Mictlan relies heavily on its priests and they are fantastically expensive. Compare the Theurg, Witch Hunter, and Avalon witches for example - all of which come from nations with average or above average military units.
* Warriors with Obsidian Swords in addition to the spear-carrying ones. Great Clubs (like the ones shamblers and trolls use, don't those have about 7 damage?) would be nice too, without breaking the low tech theme.
* Jaguar Warriors need higher skills, especially defense, to have any chance of being useful. Even against an army with no missiles they die very quickly.
* A national summon that is a cheap demon that can be summoned for 1 blood/1 slave, like DF Marignon's Harlequin (not necessarily flying though - something like a weaker Spine Devil would be good too). The current pre-researched summons are OK, but costs and requirements are too high to allow them to be used in early expansion.
* If Mictlan is going to be stuck with very weak, extremely vulnerable troops, at least let them have a lot of them. More starting troops (at least 50) and lower gold costs on the troops they do have (6 for the no-armor, 7 for the light armor and 8 for the copper armor - maybe 11-12 for feathered warriors).

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blood is not to be used on the battlefield though Sabbath Master and Slave are not bad.

All the summons from Blood is ultra-powerful after Level 3. Around ten devils (blood 3) can usually hold up an army of several times its size. Storm Deomns (blood 4) can fly and attack even in storm. Horde from Hell (blood 5) can strike anywhere and gives you a flying commander afterwards. Ice Devils (blood 5), Archdevils (blood 6) are all god-like uberunits. And there are even higher summons.

Well, you got the idea yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ?

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

Summons are definitely the point of blood magic. Don't let the first couple of summons fool you - fiends and spine devils are not that tough, and bone devils are easily dispelled. It's when you get to third and fourth level that blood magic begins paying off. Devils and demon knights are cheap to summon, the former are powerful units, and the latter dominate a battlefield. I've sent eight demon knights up against twenty black knights, and won. Four or five demon knights will roll over independents.

And blood magic gets some stunningly forgings, too. Probably more items to enhance blood skill than any other magic discipline. Blood stones. The dreaded soul contracts. Slave collars.

And you can cast Send Horror. I haven't gotten to do that yet, but I understand it works now, and I'm... wholly impressed by the power of the horrors I've run into.

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

I'm playing another game, with Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Luck 3, Magic 3 (quite the opposite of the Drain 3) and Growth 3, along with healthy blood and fire magic for my Blood Fountain pretender. It is working a lot better. For weaker troops, you can send in a buffer army of slaves and weak cross-breeds to take damage while your incredibly cheap slingmen rip apart the infantry. For tougher enemies, the summons work very well. Luck 3 also almost assures you of sometime getting their undead hero, which lets you summon a free army of undead. The growth assures your blood economy of being good in your capital, which is vital when your pretender can't move. Magic 3 gets me a veritable army of extremely cheap (and sacred) researchers at 80 a pop in the low level priests that also can command a decent amount of troops.

My complaints against Burden of Time weren't that valid. I'd completely forgotten about the astral priests Mictlan has. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif My complaint should have read like "players who kinda suck like me do poorly against Burden of Time." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True. Too bad they have nothing half decent to lead. It would be nice if the Slaves could distract your opponent's troops while your good troops hit him in the flank or rear - but Mictlan doesn't HAVE any good troops.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I use blessed/cheap Sun Warriors (85% maintenance cost of an indy HI) as my main army body. Slaves on distraction detail with a feathered warrior or two with them to keep them in the field longer. No really good troops to hit flank and rear? Meet my blessed Eagle Warriors, fiends of darkness, and/or my growing horde of Devils led by an item-bedecked heroic devil commander.

Quote:

I'm particularly disappointed by the Jaguar Warriors - they seem like a good idea, but in practice, they rarely even survive the first hit to become were jaguars, and almost never survive more than one round in were jaguar form. They have bad defense, worse protection and low hit points - for 20 gold!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't like the Jaguar Warriors that much, but I might if I tailored my blessings for them. I prefer Sun Warriors and Eagle Warriors, but even the 20-gold Jags are only as expensive to maintain as a normal indy HI.

Quote:

Maybe if Mictlan had a god that could get to Air 6+, Water 9 for reasonable cost, Jaguar Warriors could survive for more than one or two rounds - but who wants to invest heavily in Water magic while taking a heat scale (or at all, for that matter)? And in any case, Mictlan has no troops whatsoever that can damage prot 15+ without a strong Blood blessing. They need falchions, or glaives, or tridents, or SOMETHING that can damage a Hoplite. Why don't they have some of the copper-armored warriors using Obsidian Swords? It wouldn't be much, but a Mictlan Warrior with copper armor, javelin, and Obsidian Sword instead of spear would be worth making.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fair point, and a good idea. I've been doing fine (though against the AI) with what I've been up to, though. I haven't had to try to fight many well-armored troops without using demons. Blood blessing does increase strength (IIRC - I know my blessed units get a good strength bonus from something) which does give harder-hitting blessed units.

Quote:

I've seen armies of 100+ Mictlan troops (ok, that's counting the slaves, but still, 500+ gold worth of actual troops) get routed by ten Heavy Cavalry, and kill only 1, maybe 2 of them. Slings, javelins and spears just aren't going to cut it against Prot 19 - but if you can't come up with something against HI and HC even in small numbers, you can't even expand against low indy strengths, unless you luck out on the types of indies.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I managed to beat indies pretty easily, by having blessed Eagle Warriors and Fiends fly into the enemy rear and panic them and/or wipe out their commanders.

Quote:

Ultra-slow expansion (take one province, spend 3-4 turns making another army because the first one was wiped out in the battle, repeat) is not a good way to build up a blood economy (already more difficult in Dom II than it was in Dom I).

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Was not a problem for me, as I just mentioned. What kept me in my corner was C'tis and Pangaea attacking me at the same time early in the game, having no good indy provinces nearby, and being unwilling to get my main army diseased by miasma as I figured out what the working techniques were for Mictlan.

As mentioned before, Mictlan is tricky but not weak. It is definitely not Ulm, nor is it Arco. Yes it doesn't work to just hire its non-sacred HI and march it directly forward, but other things can work.

Quote:

To make Mictlan a bit more playable without taking away too much from their uniqueness: * Lower the cost of the 4 main priests. Mictlan relies heavily on its priests and they are fantastically expensive. Compare the Theurg, Witch Hunter, and Avalon witches for example - all of which come from nations with average or above average military units.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes the priests are very expensive. However, I'm not sure that isn't intended as a balance.

Quote:

* Warriors with Obsidian Swords in addition to the spear-carrying ones. Great Clubs (like the ones shamblers and trolls use, don't those have about 7 damage?) would be nice too, without breaking the low tech theme.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sounds good to me!

Quote:

* Jaguar Warriors need higher skills, especially defense, to have any chance of being useful. Even against an army with no missiles they die very quickly.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I haven't been tempted to use them, though I haven't analyzed them and the bless possibilities. Seems like they would be better if they were more skilled (and they could be more expensive). Maybe if they were base-skill (before equipment) Attack-11/Defense-13 and cost say 25... or whatever they "should" cost at that skill level.

Quote:

* A national summon that is a cheap demon that can be summoned for 1 blood/1 slave, like DF Marignon's Harlequin (not necessarily flying though - something like a weaker Spine Devil would be good too). The current pre-researched summons are OK, but costs and requirements are too high to allow them to be used in early expansion.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'd like to see that sort of addition, too.

Stil, I found 2-4 fiends combined with blessed Eagle Warriors, and some standard Mictlan troops and slaves to feint, was effective defeating indies in the early game (available by turn 2-3).

Quote:

* If Mictlan is going to be stuck with very weak, extremely vulnerable troops, at least let them have a lot of them. More starting troops (at least 50) and lower gold costs on the troops they do have (6 for the no-armor, 7 for the light armor and 8 for the copper armor - maybe 11-12 for feathered warriors).

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">More starting troops would be welcome. Compared to other Dominions troops though, they are pretty cheap (9, or 15/17/20 sacred), considering a lot of them are sacred (half maintenance), including the cheapo commander and priests.

I do agree with your costs, but only in the context that ALL Dominions light/medium infantry seems to be ineffective for the cost. So I would apply the same kind of cost reductions to all light/medium infantry in the game, AND/OR change the game mechanics to make them better at avoiding getting killed by heavy forces, AND/OR change the AI so that light/medium troops tend to avoid heavy enemy mobs and sneak around to rear or effectively skirmish or something. That is, I think the balance comment applies to all light troops in the game.

PvK

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

What is so great or even good about the Blood path? I mean this honestly, I don't get it. All the spells require many slaves (which usually get burnt by their own Abyssian owners in the times I have tried it), and I just don't see them doing much bang for the buck. Can someone list some of their more favorite spells (and favorite circumstances to use them in)?

Re: Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blood is not to be used on the battlefield though Sabbath Master and Slave are not bad.

All the summons from Blood is ultra-powerful after Level 3.

Well, you got the idea yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Got it. OK I got fooled by the low level stuff. Saw a few imps and thought: why should I spend 40+ slaves (whcih I hated getting, causing all that unrest) getting improved imps? I thought Blood would be good for hurting people, but noticed the mages just suck on the battlefield. Ok summons, will try em out.