Best Setups For Mictlan
 

I am having great difficulty in winning against AI in Difficult or better settting with Mictlan.
I am a decent player but cannot seem to make this Nation flourish.
Any suggestions out there form you hardened veterans would be appreciated.
1)Pretender Choice?
2)Scales/Dominion
3)Fortress Type?
4)Magic Choices?

Any other in-game tips would be greatly appreciated.
Glock

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have been having fun with the following settings as asked by you.
1)Lord of Night: Air 4, Earth 4, Death 4, and Blood 5
2)Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat 3, Growth 3 Luck 3, Magic 3
3)I use the normal starting fortress because it is cheap and quick to build so I can protect blood hunters and sacrificers.
4)By this do you mean choices on the pretender or research strategies?

Any questions about my choices please ask and I will elaborate on them or you can try it out and see for yourself if it fits your style. It is geared for never using national troops and generating income from rich provinces and converting gems to money as needed. Lord of Night is chosen to sneak nearest high population province by second turn and start assassinating commanders. I then use scouts on retreat to attack the province twice; once to see how many commanders exactly I need to assassinate and then second to take over the province on the Last assassination attempt since the attempt will take place before normal combat. Assassinations are slow going so any cutting on time corners is essential. I then do a search with the Lord and move on the next province and repeat. While this is going on I will alternate researching and summoning fiends till I have about 9-12 and start taking other independent provinces with them lead by my prophet high priest who can do fire searches for more money producing fire gem sites. Any other questions then let me know.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

I was using something like this:
I am going by memory so bear with me if it doesn't add up quite right.

Pretender:Fountain of Blood
Magic:Blood 5/Air2/Death2/Earth2
Scales:Heat+1/Growth+1/Order+1/Productivity+2/Magic0
Fortress:Castle
Dominion: 5

Something like that.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

I'm not the great expert but I prefer to go with a rainbow pretender in order to find a helpful site or at least provide some gem income to suplement your base income. Maybe a pretender with more girth if your indie's are high, focusing magic in fire/earth/ast for finding those sites.

definately have to have order 3. You only got the capital to provide you with your priests and you have to put one out as often as possible

[ June 21, 2004, 13:48: Message edited by: djtool ]

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Norfleet,

I noticed that you pick apart the assassin and then stated that there is a better setup for the Lord of Night. Now the question is - What is the better setup?!?

You stately very clearly how you would set the rest of it up and gave reasons why. Basically, what are the optimized paths for battle performance when using Lord of Night?

-Christopher

(Just a fellow blood god trying to sac his way to the top or I love micromanagement 101.)

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The only time I have had a Lord of Night get killed was when, on a lark, I snuck him into the abyssian capital and started assassinating commanders there. I was doing well until I ran across a warlock packing blood slaves and he spammed imps at me till I died (negative dominion had me at 18 hit points lol, like I said...it was just to see how he would do). Even in that case the fiends didn't run and I think I would be hard pressed to purposefully try and get them to run before they either win or flat out die due to their rock solid morale. If I come across an instance where the fiends run I'll let you know what happens to the pretender.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The scale choices are definitely controversial. I chose heat 3 to see just how bad an economic bind it would put me in and if it could be deal with by gold sites, luck scale occurrences due to Turmoil overdrive, and alchemy from fire gem sites.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I can see your point. My idea with the pretender choice was to have him in a province by turn 3 and assassinating all the commanders on average by turn 6 and conquering the province on that same turn. I guess this would be considered slow but I also am building a second army with fiends at the same time I am popping taxes to 200% while using the starting army to kill unrest creating burst income until my total population reaches around 25k at which time I drop tax down to 100%. Growth 3 usually brings it back to original numbers by about turn 35 or so. Around this time I have aquired around the amount of fiends to start taking other provinces I am not currently assassinating in with the Lord of the Night. You are right about the air and death being repeated on the excellent national heroes but they tend to be very irregular to rely on comming and I want to build an air/death gem income asap. My current game in single player is in turn 42 without any sign of a national hero but my pretender did uncover a mirror-wall palace that nets 3 air gems and allows recruitment of a 2 astral, 2 air, and 1 random mage for a good price of 180 and a Bowl of the Lost that allows a death mage to enter to summon Banes as regular troops. I think though that perhaps I could drop off all that blood and put up some fire instead for fire gem searches to help out the economy. I'll look into it.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I choose Turmoil 3 on purpose. Number one, just to see HOW bad it would affect things and if this could not only be overcome but overcome well. Number two, to see how using such as an accelerator combined with luck 3 would off-set the poor initial economy. In the three single player games I have tried this I have met with more success than failure from an economic point of view. For instance, on one game I had labs burn down 3 times but on like the 4th turn I had my gold income permanently increased in my home province by 40 gold. The gains tend to offset not only the bad scales but even, eventually, the bad events. These are from a limited amount of single player games so you have to take it all with a grain of salt. I have just found that with nations that you don't care to mess with the national troops very much a maxed misfortune scale crossed with max luck has yet to be very much of a problem and in fact is very fun. Again, this is single player games not multi-player and very experimental playstyle.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah everything you said is more than likely true. Having only played single player I would have to say that my choices are definitely not made with multi-player games in mind. I just figured him to be the best assassin in the game out of the box and tried to optimize that within the overall theme of Mictlan which is the nation I started playing first when I got this game and remains my favorite.

Thanks for your observations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edited to exchange the word misfortune with Turmoil as it would cause complete confusion if left that way.

[ June 21, 2004, 20:33: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, the assassin is perfectly viable. It's just a little slower. Certain concerns are no longer of importance if you assassinate everyone, as you don't need a full battle tweak to slaughter single people with a few guards.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, concerns of battle performance are the same as always: You want to stack as many defensive buffs as you can on your pretender as possible.

However, battle optimization is expensive, and will definitely not be done well with your present set of scales: You're going to have to take a hit. What you probably want: Earth 2(Ironskin, Earthpower+Invuln), Water 2(Quickness+BoW), Air 4(Mirror/Mist - Mirror gets better results with more air), and Death 3(Soul Vortex).

Wedge what you can into this, then spend the dangling points as you will on dominion and scales: I'd suggest a dominion of no less than 6, and you may have to just accept a hit from Luck to Misfortune-2 and not expect to see your national heroes - your pretender fills in the magic holes tolerably anyway.

The Lord of the Night is a particularly sweet chassis by midgame, particularly if you slap him a Wraith/Hell Sword or Thorn. His fatigue rating is quite good also, and you'll get some better starting dominion out of him. The assassination is fun, too. Whack somebody's pretender in a duel. Laugh at him.

However, in your original build, your LotN gave you some small low-level 4-blesses. You may still want to keep that, which is why I didn't immediately rip that apart, but merely pointed out that it wasn't really battle-tweaked....and doing this can be very expensive, so you may not want to. Although what you did looks expensive, too. Plus you took Turmoil. Yeck.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hrrmmm, are you addressing me or JDSCherrey? He isn't the one that originally put up the pretender chassis and weird scales earlier, I did. Nor did I ask what you would do to tweak it, JDS did. Seems like you have us two confused.

[ June 21, 2004, 20:27: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

[quote]Originally posted by Anglachel:

Quote:

Originally posted by Glock30: [qb] I have been having fun with the following settings as asked by you. 1)Lord of Night: Air 4, Earth 4, Death 4, and Blood 5

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Solid plan. The Lord of the Night is a good pretender, and he's an assassin....although his Fiends of Darkness may cause him to rout, like other accompanying towed rabble. At least fiends of Darkness are very MEAN towed guards. Oddly, I've never seen them rout the pretender in my usage of the LotN. Perhaps it has to do with that interesting bit about how if they all die, your pretender doesn't rout....fiends don't break, they always die....let me know what you find, okay?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mictlan only favors heat-1, and you'll suffer an economic hit for the excessive heat-3. I personally would go with heat-2, myself, due to the instability of temperature: Having a scale one-off hurts less than it appears.

Luck gives your very nice national heroes, which do a good job filling in missing magics, but your pretender has already covered the known Mictlan Earth/Air/Death holes. However, they're a little suboptimal for pure battle performance. You lose out on Quickness and Breath of Winter by lacking water-2, and BoW can clear out those pesky indies fast.

However: Turmoil BAD! That's going to absolutely MAUL your economy, reducing your ability to churn out priests like they're on sale.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I love the watchtower, too. Gotta protect those blood hunters, temples, magic sites, vulnerable exposed provinces. Bloody pesky raiders.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Assassination is very slow going. Although there's basically nothing in the way of an indy commander that can possibly stand up to the freaking Lord of the Night, this is definitely a horribly slow way of expanding.

While certainly acceptable in SP, this is probably a little too slow for competitive multiplayer. The Lord of the Night's fatigue is relatively modest, so in lightly populated provinces, with the magic paths you chose, you may be able to clear them out just by buffing Mirror/Mist/Ironskin/Attack Rear. Your paths aren't quite optimized for battle performance, though.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Maybe I did not state my original question well, or maybe I am just slow due to eating lead paint, but can you guys tell me what you would pick and why for the following:
1)Pretender-I choose Fountain of Blood due to the Blood Hunt Bonus and 0 cost-What would you choose and why?
2)Scales: I choose Heat1,Anglachel has a good point with heat2, more points with little penalty-just the type of tip I need! But what of the other scales-please state reasons for choosing your settings.
Fortress:I can also see the advantage in choosing watchtower-Thanks.

MagicPaths:My choices are something like Blood4 or 5, 2 in Water,Astral,Fire,Nature.
This gives me a broad range of spells in all areas that I get starting gems in.

Any more suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks In Advance.
Glock

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Norfeet,

I was considering the setup again with the Lord of Night pretender you suggested. If you take a watch tower, I can set up taking

3 Sloth
2 Heat
2 Growth or 2 Luck (I've seen the arguements do you really need growth at all...does it help.)
3 Magic

Or would you suggest other scales.

Christopher

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Norfeet,

I was considering the setup again with the Lord of Night pretender you suggested. If you take a watch tower, I can set up taking

3 Sloth
2 Heat
2 Growth or 2 Luck (I've seen the arguements do you really need growth at all...does it help.)
3 Magic

Or would you suggest other scales.

Christopher

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

You forgot Order. Order-3 can generally be considered mandatory for most living nations, and Mictlan is not an exception.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Lord of Night or Smoking Mirror. The reason for Lord of Night is because he is the best assassin in the game and if you commit to using him in the early game as such then you will slowly but 99.99% surely take even the most insanely defended independent provinces. He also has decent stats for fighting and can be used as an Super Combatant if you take the right magic paths with him but this will require a big expenditure of points on top of the 150 initial buy in which means, except for dominion, you would be better off with using a Vampire Queen if all you want is a Super Combatant.

I would use the Smoking Mirror for having a rainbow style mage because the initial cost of buying is 20 less than a Ghost King, has 1 in fire, death and blood off the bat, and the same 20 point cost for extra paths that the Ghost King has. He also can shape shift into a jaguar, which I think is cool.

I wouldn't use the fountain of blood personally because it feels too limited for my play style. Being immobile is just to big a pain for what little you get.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually it was Norfleet that suggested a heat 2 scale. I am all for heat 3 because in my experience (single player) it doesn't pull down on my economy all that much and also temperature tends to not remain rock solid across all provinces you have dominion in but you will have to decide whether it is worth the extra points to dip all the way to heat 3 v/s heat 2. I think it is but most people probably won't agree.

I have already gone over my reasoning for choosing Turmoil 3. It is not an optimal choice in almost every case. In single player games I have yet to find myself crippled by it but I like to play on large maps, which are more forgiving. I only do it to see what will happen and how it interacts with luck 3 as an accelerator to make up for the 30% income loss by lucky events that produce income to offset or even overcome this. So far my findings have been favorable but far from conclusive until I run many, many games using this extreme approach.

I like Growth 3 because it not only helps alleviate blood hunt loss and unrest management loss but works basically like an income accelerator that rewards province expansion and investment in keeping what you grab that is synergistic with castling strategy for protecting blood hunters and temples. The more provinces you have and keep, the more income generated above and beyond the 6% flat rate increase you get initially.

Magic 3 is kind of a no-brainer. If I am relying on magic to raise my armies then I better be getting my research done and done fast. I don't know if this setting is synergistic with Luck 3 on getting favorable results that would help a summoning strategy.

Sloth 3 for my strategy is almost as big a no-brainer. Since mages don't require big production and I can only buy one per castle/temple/lab setup up then I would find it rather impossible to use up production even on the weakest setting (sloth 3) in the worst production province imaginable. No matter what I do I will ALWAYS take sloth 3 for Mictlan given my playing-style preference for them.

I take Luck 3 because if I didn't do that to offset and work with Turmoil 3 then I would end up one sorry S.O.B. I like being experimental but taking Turmoil 3 without Luck 3 is just plain suicidal.

As far as conventional scales settings that are all about being maximally optimal and NOT experimental I would always take Order 3, sloth 3, misfortune 3, heat 2, and either some growth or at the very least NO death setting.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Conventional wisdom would say that you should take around 3-4 in magic paths that your national mages don't cover which for Mictlan would be death, air, and earth. You don't have to do this but it is conventional wisdom because it is optimal use of points. In other words, if you can buy a national mage that can cover a path of magic then why use points to get it on your pretender? However, you decide that you really want to fashion say, fever fetishes, for the fire gem income or something and since this requires a combination of paths (nature AND fire) that your national mages have but not in that combination then you could get both those paths on your Pretender so you can make that magic item. Additionally, if you want to make a Super Combatant pretender then specific magic paths are going to be manditory. Experiment with paths and have fun because tweaking out a pretender and seeing how it does is one of the most fun things you can do in Dominions 2.

Hope this helps some.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Either fountain gives you 3 pics in a path, and a dominion4. This allows you to get a 9/9 or a 10/10 pretender.

I play a Mictlan quite different from most others, and it must be one of the later Versions of Mictlan (ie, 2.08 will not cut it).

My preference, again, different than most - is to go with Astral/Water. (Side Benefit - research paths coincide pretender with moon/rain priests). So I use the Oracle.

I go with a dominion 6-7.

Game plan is to churn out hordes of jaguar warriors, and priests sufficient to bless.

I build eagle warriors only to tie up enemy pretenders in citadels. Otherwise my research path is typically mindslay.

I never build any of the other units.

In this configuration, jaguars will have defense 16 MR 15 IIRC. Upon a wound, they bump up to 16 strength, and regenerate. Hence, they tend not to get afflictions.

When blessed, they get a free hit (Twist Fate).

Cost is 20/4 - this is why you can afford to set the scales Turmoil:3, Sloth:3, Heat:3. After that, personal preference. I generally go with a drain dominion.

Again strength 5 indies, and using normal common sense, I tend to not lose a single jaguar warrior through turn 10 or so.

Since my dominion does not extend (much) without active effort, I will typically try to find an indy location to setup and do research from.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In my style of play, heat 3 is no question. I do it. Additionally, am cranking out the fort of your choice ever 4-5 turns - which allows for more jags to be produced.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I take whatever +Luck I can afford. Point shaving, best bang for the buck is +1.

SP this never fails to win, and .. at least among the people that I play around.. it wins MP.

Best

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

That's certainly one approach to Mictlan, the "My Dominion Sucks" Version, as Mictlan certainly can choke off the flow of nasty dominion easily enough simply by failure to perform regular sacrificing in certain areas, combined with stone idols to poke holes.

I also don't consider the Jags potent enough to really be worth basing a bless strategy around, but they ARE relatively cheap, and as of newer patches, no longer capitol-only. I personally favor the thinking which states that Mictlan troops are mostly crud, and thus neglect them in favor of going for the blood. Another thing worth noting is that because Jags really have very little merit on their own, they tend to hit obsolescence fairly quickly. When do you start replacing them with blood in your strategy?

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I am not mistaken it means that when a troop with death curse is killed it puts a curse on whomever killed it. If this cursed unit lives it will now be more likely to gain afflictions if it survives subsequent combats. Make of it what you will but in a general sense it seems of limited usefulness for the amount of points to gain blood level nine.

[ June 24, 2004, 13:59: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The curse is only placed if the attacking unit also fails a MR check.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Gotcha. Its usefulness seems to be even further into the rubber-crutch/poke-in-the-eye area.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

what is that blood-9 blessing (death curse) all about anyways?

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yep, thats the standard thinking on Mictlan. And honestly, it might even be right. However, I enjoy different flavors of the game and Mictlan lets you play a bless based strategy.

I *never* go the blood route.. its much more a swamp them with quality approach.
Remember, you are spending character actions to find bloodslaves, character actions to raise slave armies, character actions to patrol unhappy territories, character actions to summon your devils/demons and imps.

I choose to go an alternate route.. typically like the astral king or supercombatant. But some of the spells legions of steel, mass protection, etc are great too.

As described, believe it or not the jag warriors can go toe to toe with heavy calvary - units which cost twice as much to build - and 1/8th to maintain.

best..

Chris

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

[quote]Originally posted by Anglachel:

Quote:

Make of it what you will but in a general sense it seems of limited usefulness for the amount of points to gain blood level nine.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I played with death.. kind of cool to see a jaguar.. turn into a jaguar.. turn into an undead.
Turned out to be not effective tho.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, but if you don't go the blood route, dominion doesn't spread. Admittedly, your dominion is crud, but how do you avoid an unpleasant dominion-kill, since dominion doesn't spread unless the blood is sacrificed?

And yes, it does take character actions to do all this: Of course, it also takes character actions to shuffle your replacement jags to the front, and they're not THAT nimble, and they're not that cheap, either. Character actions can be performed as long as the character lives, which only costs his meager upkeep, as the aforementioned actions are performed by low-cost sacred commanders and slaves. So is having to spend "character time" really better than having to blow gold on something which will quickly die?

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Despite the reeking mediocrity of Mictlan's base troops (you should only be building Feathered Warriors, alone of all their national troops, just for you slave armies imo), Mictlan can make use of powerful blessings.

The best is probably Fire-9 for obvious reasons; and flying, sacred troops with 2 attacks and +9 damage can do nicely against a rearguard. Death, Blood, and Nature are all perfectly valid blessings for Mictlan.

Of course the 'perfect' blessing for crap sacred troops is always a maxed Phoenix 9-Air/9-Fire. Or is it 8-Air, i forget if going to 9 increases Air Shield percentage (i think it does despite the manual). Anyway that works like a charm for Mictan as its most powerful troops are most vulnerable to ranged fire. Same with Flagellents, Battle Vestals, ect.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Man, I have a hard time seeing a Blood 9 Blessing Working for anyone. At least in the fact that the blessing is the thing that created or added to the success. I'm sure someone somewhere has cursed a few units with this, but by and large this blessing is subpar in my book. Especially since it is not guarenteed.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Well i should have said Blood-4. In fact, its probably the strongest 4-Bless you can get. Its cost effectiveness quickly dimishes beyond that until its virtually useless compared to the others.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

Of the 4 Blessings, I would have to say Death 4 has the greatest impact. +2 Str is nice, but for me it doesn't fall into the same Category as mass fear. But to each their own http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

If Blood had even a mediocre level-9 effect I could see myself taking Blood for the blessing too. It works well with the javelin-wielders. Also, I would like to try equipping their holy commanders with Fire Bolas, Storm bows etc. They don't have the best possible magics for that task, but it would still be interesting thing to try. It is not the optimal one, though.

Re: Best Setups For Mictlan
 

[/quote]Yes, but if you don't go the blood route, dominion doesn't spread. Admittedly, your dominion is crud, but how do you avoid an unpleasant dominion-kill, since dominion doesn't spread unless the blood is sacrificed?

And yes, it does take character actions to do all this: Of course, it also takes character actions to shuffle your replacement jags to the front, and they're not THAT nimble, and they're not that cheap, either. Character actions can be performed as long as the character lives, which only costs his meager upkeep, as the aforementioned actions are performed by low-cost sacred commanders and slaves. So is having to spend "character time" really better than having to blow gold on something which will quickly die? [/QB][/quote]

Laughing.. Well, I think we're going over same ground. Yes, jag shuffle is a problem. Summoning Devils etc (Death by terror) is not that low char.

As for avoiding Dominion kill - typically I avoid it by killing all your men, storming your castles, and raping your maenids.

I have yet to die from Dominion kill - if i'm to that point, you're going to kill me militarily.
A mictlan sun preist prophet with a jade knife..in his capital is 9 temple checks per turn. Hard to imagine you having 5 neighboring terrains all maxed out and generating more than that.