Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

I am in turn 60 of one MP where I am Mictlan. Started with a fire 9 blessing, moved onto heavy duty Blood magic.

As for success, well, I'll let you know in a few days. The **** is about to the hit the fan, so to speak. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

I rather like Mictlan in MP: The key to remember is that the blood must flow: Get those blood sacrificing going early and fast, or you'll have no dominion and die easily. Mictlan has a highly versatile collection of magics: Its national mages have basically every kind of magic covered, except Death and Air.....both of which are covered by its national heroes, Mictlipoclti and the Eagle Warrior guy, respectively. You can also easily cover them on your pretender.

The drawbacks being that the troops, while relatively cheap, suck hard. Unless you're playing a strong bless effect, you may as well forget about them. Graeme argues that the troops aren't so awful, but the ones that don't suck cost more resources than you can reasonably afford as Mictlan.

I like to take the cheap 0-pt watchtower, build them everywhere as anti-raid protection so my blood hunters aren't killed by random irritances, and then pump out the cheap priests and hunt ze blood everywhere. Between a wash of sacrifices and a horde of devils, vampires, ice devils, arch devils, and what-have-you, Mictlan is a great nation: Don't let the cruddiness of the trops fool you. Just think about it as money saved by not building them.

success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Anyone have it? My degree of suckiness with Mictlan is still extremely high, and I'm talking SP. How are others faring with them in MP, and what do they do? Does anyone play them in MP at all?

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Nor, is there any drawback to your Micky strat? I sounds like your gold income would suffer heavily by keeping down unrest caused by hunters, either because patrollers would depopulate or because you need to lower taxes to reduce unrest. Does this work well with the relatively high gold to resource ratio units? Can you get away with not using any Mic troops at all in the middle to late parts of the game? Do bless effects play a big role in your plan? What's your preferred blood summon? (I personally find cross breeding, Demon Knights, and Frost Fiends very attractive, and no, not the "attractive" that you're thinking of) What's your preferred scales with Mic (I would probably think some sloth 3, order to some degree, growth 3, and luck 3 for breeding, magic would also be helpful, but that's a bit much and might kill your points.) What does Mictlan have that other bloody nations don't have (Abysia seems like a very good blood nation, along with Marignon's Diab faith)? Any suggested pretenders (don't say VQ)?

edit: Graeme tolerates Mictlan troops? I'd like to see him defend them.

[ May 11, 2004, 05:39: Message edited by: HotNifeThruButr ]

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

I've been playing Mictlan and Abysia Blood of Humans in MP a lot the Last couple of months and I have to say that I prefer Mictlan a lot better as a blood nation (except for the mico managing the priest blood sac every turn which makes my turns take too long for blitzes).

Mictlan has cheap blood hunters. 80 gold sacred 1 Blood priests with the diving rod are the best gold to bloodhunt ratio there is. Use them, and use them often. They are also the best researcher per gold for Mictlan. I recruit them every turn because they are so versatile. They can be built even at your non-capitol castles.

As Norfleet has said you need castles to protect your bloodhunters or they'll die easy to SC's. I've beaten big armies with just my standard bloodhunters casting Summon Imp over and over but I wouldn't rely on that. You also won't be getting much gold from your provinces since you should be bloodhunting all of the ones that are population 4000-6000, so Watchtower is the best way to go for defense.

My strat is generally to use mercenaries and a SC Pretender to expand and not the nation troops. I really really hate Mictlan's troops. I only recruit the priests and independant scouts as units. Using devils and fiends as a base army works fine because they don't cost upkeep. You won't be getting much gold, but you won't need much gold either. If you get a more expensive tower or if you recruit a lot of troops you'll be screwed due to the unrest caused by your bloodhunters.

What my core of combantants are: Fiends and Devils, along with Ice Devils, Arch Devils, and Heliopolii eventually. Maybe a few succubi if I'm feeling frisky. That's more than enough to beat most armies, even in MP. As long as you are blessed with close provinces that are 4000 Pop+ you can start the blood economy early. The priority is to build a cheap castle (preferably Watch Tower) quickly so you recruit blood priests in two provinces a turn.

Mictlan's priests are super province searchers. Water, Astral, Nature, Blood, Holy and Fire are easily searched out with them. Use that to your advantage as well. However, after I get 1-3 in some paths of magic I totally focus on Blood Magic to summon the Devil Commanders before anyone else. Keep them alive and geared up and you can corner the game with the unique Devils since nobody else can summon them once they are in the game (except with a Wish I think).

Well, that's my general strategy. I have one game where I'm blood searching 6 provinces and getting 100+ slaves a turn. I'm summoning a demon leader per turn with a High Priest with some +blood gear and I can easily empower him up if I need to summon other demons since I don't use my gems for much else aside from forging gear.

Also, Mictlan gets the Fiend summon by default so use that to your advantage. Once you get your first blood province working with 4 priests searching, summon 2-4 fiends per turn and you'll have a huge flying demon army before anyone else is at the point of summoning anything on that scale. I've wiped out huge Ulm armies with many crossbowmen and infantry easily with 20 fiends. About the only national units that can stand up to fiends that early are the Paladin, heavily armormed lanced units or possibly a bunch of fire blessed units. If you notice a fire bless coming at you, switch to building Demonic Contracts (80 slaves to summon 1 demon per turn) instead of summoning fiends. Fiends are great early on but you will want to switch to Devils later on because of the fire protection.

Sorry if this was a bit rambling http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Good luck with Mictlan, it's really the best bloodhunting nation in my experience.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

the drawback to this strat btw, is basically if you are stuck next to a really agressive opponent with a fire-blessing army or if you get screwed with bad neighbor provinces or you can't get mercs early on due to poor mercs becoming available or if other people outbid you. If you can't get your blood economy working by turn 10 you are in big trouble if someone decides to take the provinces around you. You can easily become trapped and since you national troops are so weak you won't be able to field much offense without blood slaves or good mercs.

However, most MP opponents are docile or quick to make peace treaties (because usually the people that get mired in a drawn out battle early on leave themselves open to attack from another front and get destroyed easily) so you can usually overcome a bad start once you get 2 or 3 blood provinces coming in. There isn't much in the way of an anti-devil horde start that I know of. Once you get to the point that you have a bunch of Devil Commanders and lots of soul contracts pumping out Devils every turn you are in a position to win. It's just a matter of getting to that point, and playing smart diplomatically and placing castles as quickly as you can to discourage enemy attacks.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Hmn.

Not purchasing troops as a central element to success in MP -- I suppose this makes total sense, and explains also my complete failures (even in SP) --- it just feels so.... wrong. Has there been any talk of somehow increasing the cost of blood magic summoners while somehow strengthening Mictlan's troops? (This is not really a "balance" question, just one of flavor and feel: I think all units in the game should have a use and be used, at least sometimes, and if some things are never used, that is bad -- but a whole nation's troops almost never being used? Argh...)

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Mictlan can use troops. The sacred ones are quite good with a blessing, especially early on. The cheap (in both gold and resources) warriors with slings can be boosted with Flaming Arrows and Mass Protection, for example.

They'll never be more than a side dish to Blood magic, but that's just the way Mictlan works. It can't be changed without making it into a whole new nation (though a no blood theme "Reign of the Lawgiver" would be interesting to see).

[ May 11, 2004, 16:53: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">All of Mictlan's normal troops are very low cost in gold. The 8 resource ones can fill much the same role as C'Tis elite warriors. The 14 resource troops have enough survivability to take an arrow without necessarily dying, which is mostly what you need early game. The sacred warriors are all quite useful, although the sun warriors are too slow to move to the front. Jaguar warriors make decent flankers, and can take down high protection units fairly easily. Eagle warriors are great for swarming archers. Slaves come in huge numbers once you get a couple dozen tribal kings capturing them, and they make a great cannon fodder layer to protect your more expensive troops. Mass protection is also highly useful, since it boosts their protection to the point where they won't die quite as quickly. I tend to take a Mausoleum with Mictlan, but mostly for the gold bonus from administration.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Well since Mictlan both gets +3 blood slaves a turn and the Bind Fiend spell to start off, you can think of the Fiends as the national unit of Mictlan. Even just using the +3 innate slaves a turn you can summon a Fiend every other turn just using a Blood 2 Mage. You can choose to recruit some slaves with a King but I find that they route right away and that it's not much use to round them up from the neighboring provinces. They aren't useless, but I choose not to use them for early expansion.

I'm not big on blessing strategies usually, but I could see Mictlan being used that way. There are probably better nations if you just want to just use sacred units, like the Tuatha Man or Marignon flagellants though.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You're giving too much weight to the comments of people who speak as though "not the best" is the definition of the word "useless". Not buying any troops is a possible approach I suppose, but definitely not the only one, nor one I would recommend. Mictlan troops are not all that bad, especially if you buy and use them appropriately. They can certainly be used to take out weaker independents, and a flying demon army is stronger when combined with flying Eagle Warriors, for instance.

PvK

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, actually, a flying devil army isn't stronger when combined with flying Eagle Warriors, because Eagle Warriors are not capable of strategic flight, and thus your army's mobility is hamstrung. Furthermore, in combat, the Eagle Warriors are likely to catch fire from proximity to the devils' heat auras.

As a result, the Eagle Warriors end up becoming an expensive and bothersome fiasco. Did I mention that they are capitol only, and not as mobile as the devils or fiends? That same cash could have been spent on another priest to hunt for more blood slaves or summon more devils.

While it's certainly possible to enhance the effectiveness of the Mictlan sacreds through the use of a strong bless, this is expensive in points, and has a short obsolescence date, as Mictlan troops quickly fade from effectiveness when blood summons become available in force, and cannot be easily adapted to other roles as better units, such as Vanir, can. Thus a blessing choice for Mictlan is a very short-term decision which you may come to regret.

Basically, I feel you are better off sticking with blood summons to back your army, and using only slaves to patrol provinces you are hunting in so you have to give up less in taxes, so you can buy more priests and hunt more blood.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Well as I think I said, yes you can try to go 100% blood summons.

I don't think I would, though. Mictlan Priests are 80 gold and sacred, so very cheap. In my Mictlan game, I have almost never had to choose between hiring a priest, and hiring any troops. The troops are cheap.

Yes one has to be careful about combining devils with units that aren't immune to heat. I lost my unique mummy death mage that way (heh). However if I started them out in different areas so they aren't dying during a Hold stage, I didn't see many Eagle Warriors catching fire during battles combined with devils - maybe one or two per battle, and the fire generally went out.

At any rate, Eagle Warriors can make a big difference in the early stages, when you don't have devils but Fiends of Darkness, who have no heat aura anyway, and so it's better both for the Fiends and the Eagles to combine them in a different army besides a devil one. Having enough numbers is important to the success of fliers, and so Eagle Warriors can make the difference for a Fiend force that is just building up enough strength to rout an enemy without getting beat up.

PvK

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Hey, that's a good idea to use the slave soldiers as cheap patrollers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Do the conscripts cost gold upkeep? That would negate the slightly higher tax rates you would get if they do.

The way I play Mictlan is this simple equation:

Gold = Blood Hunters = Blood Slaves = Demon Horde

By adding in the troops you take away from the demon horde result. The only things I use gold for are Mercs, Priests of all flavor, Sages or other Indie Researchers, Scouts, Watch Towers, Temples, Laboratories. Possibly Province Defense if I'm being harrassed by weak raiding forces.

The high mobility of the flying Demon army lead by a Arch Devil is that you can defend your watchtowers easily with it due to their strategic movement. Flying 3 provinces a turn in any direction allows you to hit an army as soon as it enters one of your provinces. You may lose a Watchtower here and there but it's not like they are hard to conquer back.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They do, but far, far less than regular mans: A slave has the gold upkeep of a $1 unit. Compared to patrolling with normal units, this cost is negligible and pays for itself by the fact that a single loaded Tribal King, equivalent in upkeep to a scout and 5 mans, can more or less entirely suppress the unrest caused by 2 priests hunting with SDRs.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Then you are not building enough towers. Towers enable to you hire more priests, hunt more blood, protect your blood hunters from raiding, and protect your provinces from raiding. You should put one in every major province as soon as possible. This costs money, money you won't have if you waste them on worthless troops that die nearly instantly.

A force of 5 FoDs can do more damage than an entire commander's worth of your regular troops, and costs no upkeep.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Fire and Death are both valid blessings for making Mictlan's normal troops relatively effective. Mass sacreds work well with Fear, and of course +9 damage is more useful when you have 50 units than when you have 10.

Jaguar Warriors are one of the few sacred units in the game that can be mass produced. If they're protected from Death by Archer they're reasonably effective as sacred troops go.

Eagle Warriors + Body Ethereal + Fear make for a nicely mobile flanking force that can break indies with moral checks. Eagles tend to get repelled alot, and a Nature Blessing wouldn't be bad either for the Bezerk. But all the Mictlan sacreds are cannon fodder in the end.

Feathered Warriors are essential, probably the most essential Mictlan standard unit, since they help make slave armies have at least a measure of durability against breaking. They still don't seem to work that well, because of, i believe, the way they radiate an 'aura', but how still the slave armies tend to outrun them.

Mass Protection is an awesome if not essential Mictlan spell. Mictlan is rather item dependent as well as Summons/Blood dependent, and need a decent gem income on top of their blood.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

just a hint:

NEVER use Spells like Protection/Mass Protection on units with Heat Aura(like Devils ).
These units lose there 100% Fire Resistance and afterwards they hurt themselves with their own Aura http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I had this Problem with Abysia some days ago,because I mistakenly sent a Warlock with 1 Nature together with my army,who then happily casted Protection on all my Abysian Infantries and Spell Casters...this was very,very ugly and I lost some important commanders because of this:(

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, they "can", but it can also happen that you lose some FoD's if they go in alone.

If you send 10-15 blessed Eagle Warriors with the 5 FoD's, then you are much less likely to lose any FoD's, and much more likely to win the battle with only a few Eagle Warriors lost.

Moreover, if you include some slave decoy fodder and a group of regular troops with slings and/or javelins who are just starting to engage the enemy main body when you fliers hit, you have an almost guaranteed chance of defeating a computer-led force in detail, with minimal losses. In my Mictlan SP game, my Mictlan human troops have been quite long-lived, as have my demons, because the humans almost never have to fight a pitched battle to the end, although they do participate and help.

Blessed Sun Warriors can fight pretty well, too, especially after they have experience.

PvK

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

mictlan is one of my favorite nations, but of course i'm not the great dom2 scientist and struggle with them as well

I'm wondering if y'all start right out the gates trying to produce fiends/spine devils quick as possible? it seems that would paralyze your production with the blood-hunting, or killing it off with heavy patrolling. Maybe growth 3 counteracts that???

...or do you make a slow transition from standard units to blood summons?

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

I do a mixed/balanced approach, rather than going all out for anything. The troops are good enough to handle weak independents. I use FoD's early, but not "as soon as possible".

The pre-research though is wasted if you don't use it before you research the spell anyway.

There isn't really much conflict between blood hunting and FoD production, though, at least in the sense that basic Mictlan Priests can't summon FoD without a power boost, and they're the most efficient ones to do blood hunting anyway.

The question about how much hunting and patrolling to do is a seperate issue and has a little to do with your general style/approach, and a little to do with what provinces are available and what the situation is like.

I'm not saying it's the best approach, but what I did in my SP game was, since provinces were mostly pretty sparsely populated, I would have one Mictlan Priest with a dousing rod in many provinces, and I just turned the tax down to 80% when and if the unrest occasionally started to rise. No patrollers.

The other approach, of course, may likely be more effective, and that is to go all out for blood slaves. Crank out priests with dousing rods and patrol with slaves to maximize blood income. Eventually the blood power will make the lack of population not so meaningful, hopefully.

PvK

[ May 17, 2004, 01:19: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

I can't get a "build order" for typical games of indy strength 5+. In recent tests, even weaker indy provinces repelled my Warriors and early demons (FoD and Spine Devils) I can't seem to work the Mictlan dominion-spreading system, and I find myself unable to make enough Mictlan priests fast enough and have not enough cash for enough of the 2 blood priests to get a decent army generator going.

Anyone have a build order they'd like to share?

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Sounds like maybe the battlefield orders are the problem. Against indies, you should be able to win if you set up your army so your main body peppers the enemy with slings and javelins and then only has to fight for zero-to-two turns before the enemy routs because Fiends of Darkness and Eagle Warriors (on Hold and Attack Rearmost) have flown over and hit them and/or their leaders in the rear, causing panic and rout. The priest who leads the demons into battle and blesses the eagle warriors can also cast a juicy blood spell or two to help with tougher indies. Summon Imp on turn 3 is a well-timed accompanyment to the above, for instance.

PvK

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

I've always viewed gem expenditure in minor battles as a serious waste, especially for a spell like Bleed. You've also lost 2 turns waiting for enough slaves to get a fiend (even though the first turn is wasted anyways getting recon on neighbors). But thanks, I'll try that.

BTW, what scales do you usually get? What type of Pretender? I'm guessing a Wyrm or Nataraja (smurf) for an early game powerhouse to help you get over this roadblock.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Some battle spells do seem like they would often be a waste of gems or slaves. Bleed seems like a good example, unless you're using it to kill some very good enemy units. Blood mages also seem to LOVE to massacre blood slaves for any spell. However, some of the blood spells can be very effective, so as long as you ration the slave use (particularly with the sneaking scout technique), and choose which battles to use them in, it can be useful. For a major mid- or late-game battle, consider using a mass of Mictlan priests as Sabbath Slaves (and/or Hell Power) to invoke almighty blood terror.

Summon Imp is a good low-level one.
Agony is also good for getting the enemy to rout - time it with your demon strike.
Blood Lust is cheap and good with a demon army against particularly tough targets.
Hellbind Heart is fun.
Heat From Hell is a spell which I think isn't in the printed manual but Mictlan has, and is potentially a battle-winner if used with heat-tolerant units against heat-intolerant ones. (E.g., a devil army combined with a blood priest.)

Quote:

BTW, what scales do you usually get? What type of Pretender? I'm guessing a Wyrm or Nataraja (smurf) for an early game powerhouse to help you get over this roadblock.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I guess a fighter would be a reasonable approach. I went with the national mage pretender, myself. I would recommend Luck, because the heroes are good. I personally did quite well with heat +2, Luck +2-3, and moderate others, against the AI.

PvK

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's under enchantment 6, page 107.

Re: success with Mictlan in MP?
 

Hrm...

Personally, I have two favorite Mictlan approaches.

Using the water fountain as a god I go either

10 water, 10 astral, or
9 blood, 9 water, 9 astral,

I go -3, -3, +3, 0, 0, -3 on the scales and get at least dominion 6.
First turn build is a sorceror and 6 jag warriors.

I have never seen this first turn build, properly blessed.. fail to take out any but special hex indies.

In fact, mass produced, they rock eveyr standard troop. Twist of fate, Defence 15?, MR 14, and +50% move.. plus if wounded they regenerate.. Very hardy troops..and cheap.....