Mictlan Help
 

Hello everyone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I've lurked around this forum for a while but I finally decided to sign up for an account because I desperately need help with Mictlan. Who better to ask than the experts?

Anyway, I need any advice or strategies that anyone is willing to offer. I have a reasonably good grasp on the game but I'm completely clueless as to how to make Mictlan work. I'm playing a fully patched version without the conceptual balance mod.

Specific points I need help with are designing an effective pretender and spreading my dominion. I know blood sacrifices are required but that's it.

Thanks in advance, I look forward to any insight provided. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Mictlan Help
 

1) High dominion strength is good. Very good. Maybe 6.
2) Growth and Order are good, since you'll be doing a lot of blood hunting.
3) Heat 1.
4) Cheap castles are nice, since the troops are low-resource, and Jaguar Warriors are non-capitol. (Watchtower)
5) Sloth is good too for that reason.
6) Magic 1+ is good, since you need Blood and Construction research, and have cheap weak mages.

I suggest Earth on the pretender so you can get Dwarven Hammers. With Death and Blood also, you can get Blood Stones and Father Illearth and Vampire Lords.

With a Smoking Mirror (depending on the Conceptual Balance exact numbers, which I don't have right now) you can probably achieve:

Dom 6

Order 1
Sloth 3
Heat 1
Growth 1
Luck 0
Magic 1

Fire 9
Earth 3
Death 3
Blood 4

...for a Demons + Blessed Troops strategy.

You can also go Fire-4, Earth-4, Death-4, Blood-4 for a weaker bless and stronger economy... and so forth.

I suggest not blood-hunting in the capitol, and not taking a Fountain of Blood.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Thank you very much, that's exactly the kind of I needed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I learned a lot more as well once I figured out how to correctly search the forums.

If anyone else has any advice or input, I'd still love to hear it.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

standard blood hunting squad is 3 lvl 1 blood mages with dousing rods in 5000+ pop province (preferably wityh a lowish income) and 0% taxs. build a lab to pool your gems and possibly a temple to spread dominion in each of these provinces. as said f9 is nice and remember you start with the fiend of darkness spell, these guys have good stats and 2 attacks so use them. if you want a combat pretender try a lord of the night or whatever that bat guy is, he starts with death and blood and i tend to add f9 (then his fireshield rocks) and e3-4 (knights, father illearth and protection upgrades)

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Here is a fun one FoB with f9w9b9. Dominion 6 or 7
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 3, Death 3, Misfortune 2, Drain 3, watch tower.

Don't do too much sacraficing -- get your capitol high enough to avoid dominion kill but otherwise don't spread it.

Build lots of jaguar warriors and/or eagle warriors -- as many as you can every turn. Once you get a 2nd castle built, you can build jags there and eagles in your capitol. If you can keep your dominion out of your 2nd castle, do research there.

Recruit and prophetize the nature mage (priest king I think), not the fire one - smite is nice but you really just need divine blessing for your troops, and you'll want to save gold early on.

Expand like crazy - your troops will kill pretty much anything. You'll lose some but they are cheap and easily replacable. Meanwhile, summon fiends, they are great troops.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Order is always good in the unmodded game, but how does blood hunting make it any better? If anything, it'd be worse, since you'd be setting a whole bunch of provinces to 0 taxation. Besides, all of Mictlan's mages and worthwhile troops are half upkeep.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

order is good due to its effects on unrest.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Order has no effect on unrest in Dom II (Dominion has a marginal effect on unrest, though). Order/Turmoil did affect unrest in Dom I, but such is no longer the case now.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

since when? o well, my order games seem to have less unrest anyway (maybe the way i play them?) and if nothing else it increases the income from lands you do tax.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Because they have a smaller tax base, Order is more essential. Similarly, when a country's tax base shrinks, tax rates have to increase to maintain the same level of government.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Hmm, all of this has been of great help. It's put me a few steps closer to dominating my friends.

I think the f9e3d3b4 Smoking Mirror pretender appeals to me the most at the moment. So my first order of business should be researching construction and raising armies of Jaguar/Eagle warriors?

and if it's not too much trouble, I'd just like to check and make sure that my understanding of Blood Sacrifice isn't flawed. A blood mage can only sacrifice slaves equal to his blood magic level? are any additional slaves given to him wasted?

Sorry for all the newbie questions and thanks for being so patient, guys.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Priests only, up to their holy level + 1 I believe (plus another two with jade knife magic item). Other slaves are not wasted, they will still be in the commanders gem box the next turn.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

get to const 4 for dousing rods then get some blood. feel free to advance construction to 6 or 8 though. for how to use your slaves i suggest the following:
sacrifice
forge various items
a few battlefield spells (hellbind heart, bloodletting, harm, rush of strength and blood vengance for SC's are some of the better ones)
armies (made of devils, fiends of darkness, demon knights, vampires summoned by vampire counts and maybe some imps)
and for SC's (this bit will be longer) here are my thoughts:
Arch Devils: there are 5 of these badboys and they kickass. they are tough, strong and even lightly equiped (give them a wraithsword/hellsword+pendant of luck and later on add regen+magic resistance and boots of quickness. another option is a shield such as lucky coin and a bloodthorn since unmodded it is good) they are really strong. buffs for them are fireshield, phoenix pyre and a few others for the astral one.

Ice Devils: 5 of these guys too and i would say the same as I did for arch devils except these can cast quickness on themselves and cast breath of winter instead of fireshield and phoenix pyre. these are generally better than arch devils

Fallen Angels: gained from the spell reascendance these guys are strong with a decent magic base, equip them as you would any flying SC/thug.

Vampire Counts: gained from the curse of blood these are ethereal, immortal, life draining, stealthy, flying and have decent stats + unmodded they are cheap for what they do. they can also summon regular vampires. a rather nasty tactic is giving them absoloutly no equipment and only using them in your own dominion. with blood sacrifices you can spread dom quickly into enemy territory and then attack with these guys, with no equipment and no troops under ttheir command there is no problem in losing them in friendly dominion. they have d3 b3 so can cast raise skeletons, a group of 3 scripted to raise skeletons, raise skeletons, raise skeletons, attack archers makes a prefect reserve/ambush unit (alternatively fully kit htem out using their natural ethereal state, regen and lifedrain to best effect).

Heleophagi: there are 4 of them, they are stealthy, they can fly, they are naturally ethereal, they have good stats and they are pretty good mages. all round good guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Father Illearth: e3 b3 high health and strength, average other stats, built in regen.

Demon Lords: can all fly, only 3 of them
Belphegor: f4 e4 b4 Huge health (give him regen) high strength (which is good for regen) decent other stats, generates blood slaves, reduces dominion in his province. hes the blood magic equivalent of a tank.

Belial: f4 n4 b4 high health, strength and decent other stats, stealthy and causes unrest in the province hes in. best all rounder (and possibly best) demon lord.

Pazuzu: a5 d3 b4 good health and good all round stats. cause more fear than others but no head slot.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

That's precisely why I'd recommend focusing on fire site searching. Direr need, same bang for one's buck. Order may be more valuable, but it's also less effective.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Order has the nice side effect of reducing misfortune.

Go for ice devils before arch devils -- they are better commanders and cost less blood and research to get. I'd ignore fallen angels, get arch devils once the ice ones are all taken up.

The other big thing to do is forge soul contracts!!! One devil a turn may not sound like much, but devils are very strong troops and it is not too difficult to get 30 or more contracts going. Use dwarven hammers to reduce the forge cost.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

i thought ice devils were above arch in research? either way i agree (and said) they are generally better and yes, always focus on the unique blood commanders before the common vamps and angels.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Ice Devils are Blood 3/Water 3 and Research level 5, Arch Devils are Blood 4/Fire 2 and Research level 6. Their respective costs are 55 blood slaves and 77 blood slaves, if memory serves.

That would be unmodded, of course, as per the initial post.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Order 3 produces 1.5 times as much gold as turmoil 3, which ends up being far more than a 50% boost in your net income after paying upkeep. You will not be blood hunting in your high income provinces anyways. I fail to see how searching for fire sites can make up for this lost income. The searching itself cannot be done effectively until you research thaumaturgy 2, which will set your expansion and research plan back by at least two turns. The lost income for not taking order will also likely put your expansion back by at least two turns (if not closer to 5). In the unmodded game, you take order 3 unless you are playing a theme that disallows it, or undead ermor. Any other choice produces less effect for more pretender points.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

I'd also mention that I would never put my taxes down to 0. Even if you don't patrol, ~50% taxes usually keeps unrest at zero, and you still benefit from the income boost to order.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

As I already stated two posts prior, Order is always the optimal choice in the unmodded game. Unless you're one of the dead themes, I suppose. I was simply saying it is less optimal for Mictlan than for most other nations.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

oops, must not have noticed. another thing though is that a high priest of the sun with a blood booster can get arch devils but its more difficult to get the ice devils without const 6/water pretender.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Huh. I always took that to mean I wasn't blood hunting enough. Have you considered dropping taxes all the way to zero and recruiting another hunter or two per hunting province?

Re: Mictlan Help
 

It's just as optimal for Mictlan as everyone else, as you have just as much use for gold as every other nation. You'll be spending 780 gold for every province (Castle, temple, lab and sacrificing priest), and want to be able to buy one of your capital only mages every single turn, so you could easily use more than 1000 gold a turn.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Oh good point, that is only with just one blood hunter. I usually patrol if I have more than one, for some reason.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

well generally i use 3 and 0% tax's rarely gets unrest even without patrollers

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Shovah, thanks for all the SC info, I'm going to make good use of all of it.

I had a little blood experience because I played as Abysia all of the time in the demo so I was already using three blood hunters per province and such. You guys have done a great job enlightening me on the finer points of blood and such, though.

Ok ok, two more questions and that's it. I promise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I was only getting about three slaves a turn with the "Capture Slaves" command, is there any way to increase the amount of slaves captured?

Also, would taking a little Misfortune be terrible for any reason? Like, anything potentially crippling?

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Give blood hunting mages sanguine dousing rods, don't let unrest get too high where you are hunting.

Misfortune can give you problems... but not usually much more than 'natural' bad luck would inflict. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Mictlan Help
 

"Capture Slaves" is different from "Blood Hunt". That's for Mictlan commanders to gather worthless cannon fodder. I don't recommend it unless/until you have "Mass Protection" or something, or just want a few arrow decoys.

Anyway, different commanders gather different amounts - the Priest Kings are the most efficient (but too expensive to use like that). Basically, it scales with commander cost.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Capture Slaves is for crating free units. They are worst than militia and are called slaves

Re: Mictlan Help
 

But the slaves are cheap (free with very low upkeep) and Mictlan often wants lots of patrollers...

Re: Mictlan Help
 

A lot of people only pick misfortune 2, not 3. I believe it is because there are some particularly bad events that you only get with misfortune 3.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Also, with 2 you still have a 1% chance per turn of getting a hero. With 3, that chance drops to zero.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Yeah, I know all about how "Blood Hunt" and "Capture slaves" are different, I was just curious because I can't seem to get a very good wall of fodder going with only three slaves per turn.

I think maybe I'll go for misfortune 1 for a slightly better chance for the heroes. or maybe I'll leave in neutral because I really want to see all of Mictlan's heroes. I've only seen Quetzacouatl so far.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

theres also mictopi or whatever his name is who is b3 d3 unholy 3 mage and some eagle warrior mage priest. 3 slaves is all you need for arrow fodder and slaves make poor melee fodder due to low morale (although throw in a fgew feathered warriors and its a bit better)

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Sorry, I misread your question as about blood hunt. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

The main things about capture slaves, don't waste priest kings time with it, and use forts with no temples or labs to spam tribal kings.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Ahh, thanks for the advice. I was using my Priest kings for it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Mictlan Help
 

thats a complete waste of a valuable mage..... you have much to learn.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

What exactly are the priest kings good at? I found myself only using them to craft Rings of Regeneration and Jade Knives. I had my High Priests of the Sun commanding my armies. Is there something I'm missing with the Priest kings?

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Well, being your only national mage with nature counts for something. I always have at least one to haruspex, and you can use them to forge thistle maces and armour of the twisting thorns -> treelord staff which pretty much opens up all of nature magic. And it's not inconceivable you might use them to summon darkvines if you have some nature boosters lying around.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Priest King: Relief Spam in battle. Equip with a Thistle Mace, cast Relief, and you get unlimited mage energy... so a few Blood Priests can cast Summon Imps over and over without wasting slaves on Reinvigoration, Sun Priests can cast Falling Fires without going sleepy-bye, and so forth. Normally people use Druids, but you don't find Druids every game.

They also have the advantage of Eagle Eyes if you want to do Banishment or Sermon of Courage.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Also, use 'em to summon Lamia Queens for convenient access to death, astral, and earth magic, plus a few convenient combos such as fire/death.

Re: that eagle priest hero, by the way, try to keep him alive if you get him. Storm Demons are decent summons, but what he's really good for is forging Robes of the Magi. Pricey, but more than worth it for some ubercasters and self-buffing SCs.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

I don't get that part. I get the Sorcery part just fine, since Lamia Queens are all about cheap Sorcery, but how do you get Fire+Death on a Lamia Queen without empowering?

That, or you wanted to add Spectres somewhere in here.

Re: Mictlan Help
 

I really do have a lot to learn. Thanks guys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Mictlan Help
 

Silly me. Yeah, the first thing I do with my lamias queens is summon a spectre or two, unless I'm playing Machaka, dead Ermor, etc.