Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

So I've gotten to the point where I've effectively won my first Lanka game, and I'm stunned by how powerful they are. Their heavily armored sacreds, both capital and non-capital, and many of their heavy demon infantry are absolutely vicious with a N9 bless, and having that kind of melee punch backed up with longbows is sweet. The Dakini and Mandaha (let me apologize for my spelling, I'm doing it from memory) are both powerful SC bases with the right gear/spells. And their capital only warrior/mage unique is ready to Cloud Trapeze the minute he walks out the door.

So while I enjoyed the brute power of Lanka, it got me thinking that Lanka might actually be more powerful in blood than is Mictlan, which bothered me a bit since Mictlan is supposed to be blood incarnate since they give up so much to be that. I like Mictlan's unique summons as utility (they tend to be cheaper and more useful in a variety of roles vs. raw Lanka's combat power summons), Mictlan has broader magical options and the ability to choose what you're getting rather than relying on the right random picks, and their basic bloodhunter is cheaper, but Lanka's summons are exceptionally powerful, they don't have age problems, and they can use all their blood for spells and forging rather than spending a sizeable portion on dominion maintenance. And the Mandaha...

What about it - has Lanka gone too far into blood territory? Should Mictlan raid them until they back off? I'm not so worried about LA Mictlan, because they don't share the same age, LA Mictlan has more commanders for whom age isn't an issue, and LA Mictlan can clam spam. But I could easily see Lanka outblooding Mictlan, and that irks me.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Mictlans troops summons(and possibly commander summons, especially the one who generates free beast bats) are far superior to lankas imo, with jaguar fiends being flying, 3 attack, good stat sacreds with a reasonable cost. Mictlan is far better for a bless strategy due to its cheap and effective sacred troops and, while lanka is good(i personally like it) i dont think it can knock the blood crown off mictlans head.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Hmmm, I'm coming at it from the other angle having played Mictlan extensively and just picking up Lanka. Just starting out with Lanka, but here are a couple things that I seem to be missing coming from Miclan.
1) Bloodhunters are 50% more expensive
2) Everybody complains, but I like dominion pushes through blood sacrifices with level 3 priests and easily forgable jade daggers.
3) No easy way to spam "rain of toads". Priest king + armor of twisted thorns = very scalable ability to shut down enemy fortresses.
4) Mictlan national summons ROCK. Haven't got the Lanka ones yet so can't really comment, but the Mictlan ones are hard to beat.
5) No recruitable blood-3 mage (without hoping for lucky randoms). This is important because you need blood-4 to forge brazen vessles, and one empowerment is much more palletable than two. Plus, once you've got a brazen vessel with Mictlan, you can give it to a priest king, who forges an armor of twisted thorns, who gives that to another priest king, who forges an armor of twisted thorns, now the original forger gets an armor of twisted thorns in addition to the brazen vessel and can forge brazen vessels, etc. etc., so it is relatively cheap to get as many blood-5 mages as you care to (priest of the sun + 2 path boosters), and there are several very good blood-5 spells which are very suitable to spam casting (ritual of the five gates and infernal disease come to mind). Plus, your blood-5 mages can rejuvinate themselves so the old age issue isn't that bad.
6) Flying sacreds. Eagle warriors have saved my bacon on numerous occasions.
7) No easy way to summon Ice Devils (priest of rain + water braclet + brazen vessel)
8) No easy way to send horrors (priest of moon + astral cap + brazen vessel)
9) Less reliance on random pics. With Mictlan, I can adjust my strategy to what my opponent is doing. With Lanka, I'm more stuck using whatever happen to have with my random magic paths.

Don't get me wrong, Lanka has plenty of advantages, I'm just listing the ways Miclan seems to be better to me.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Aha, a thread about Mictlan and blood! Cool I hope I can get some questions answered here.. I just played my first SP game with a blood nation (LA Mictlan) and so far I like it. One thing about dominion: It seems as if, when I set a priest to sacrifice blood every turn to boost Dom, it will boost the dom to the max level in the province with the temple, and a little bit in a few surrounding provinces, then stop...I tracked it for a few turns and saw no more extra white candles appear even though sacrificing 4 slaves a turn.. how come ?

Another odd bit, the Mictlan priest, when recruited, has a variable number of research points? Between 1 and 4, something I havent seen on any other unit before ?!

The best summons is the level 4 ozelotl (flying demon), all the others I am not so sure about... same for items, though I like that death brand or such (single handed sword, const 6, needs fire and blood.. or was it fire and death?)

Anyway, what other units/rituals/items do other Mictlan players like? Soul Contract is nice. I also liked Father Illearth, makes a nice SC, but by the time I get him there are no more indies, he can kill PD and take provinces but not hold it against big armies...

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

AFAIK research points should be fixed for all units. The formula is something like:
Base value (2, I think) + sum of magic paths + experience + any special +/- the unit gets (e.g. sages & wizards get a bonus) + magic/drain scale effects + effects of magic items.

I don't think you should get less than 3 RP unless you have a drain scale or the unit has some innate penalty. RP do vary between units of the same type if one has more random picks or experience.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Arch Devils and Soul Contracts all the way. Not Mictlan specific as such, since it's best to have a pretender that can summon/forge them, Mictlan just is the best for hunting loads of slaves.

I like Infernal Disease a lot. Kind of like my old favourite, Manifestation, but lower research level. Somewhat hard to cast though, since a mage will need 2 empowering items to get to Blood 5.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Dragonlord, if you have a decent bless with mictlan(which you should) then jaguar fiends and maybe beast bats should be good national summons for you. As for non-nationals ice devils, arch devils and heliophagi all make fine thugs/SCs(as does father illearth). For your SCs/Thugs(such as father illearth) luck, ethereality, reinvigoration, fear, fireshield(or another way to kill alot of enemies), high defence, high prot, regeneration and quickness(and many other things from items or buffs cast by the commander) are all helpful things that may help them take on larger enemy forces. Also consider using them in groups or with your armies if they arent doing well alone.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

I'm definitely not extensively experienced in Mictlan, but I like them as much as I like any nation in the game (most enjoyment thus far - Yomi, EA/LA Mictlan, MA/LA Ermor, LA Rl'yeh).

1. I tried to cover this above in the "bloodhunters of mictlan are cheaper but mictlan needs to spend blood in dominion maintenance" point. Not saying that mictlan spends 1/3 of its blood in dominion maintenance, but I've often spent 30+ slaves in sacrifice a round in 150 province games.
2. Lanka can easily forge knives, and if they want to sacrifice then level 2 priests with jade knives in temples that do spread dominion are pretty much the same as level 3 priests in non-functional temples.
3. See point 5.
4. Mictlan national summons do rock - I love the Tlahuelpuchi and Civeteto as assassins and leader/reanimators respective, and the Onaqui is great. So do Lanka's summons, however, albeit benefitting more from defensive than offensive blesses. And Lankan high end summons are remarkably good SCs, able to cast Mistform and Mirror Image, being sacred, and one possessing Blood Vengeance while the other automatically shrouds the battlefield in Darkness while possessing a fatiguing aura. I've taken out 100+ unit armies with a single Dakini with a snake ring, snake bladder stick, horned helm, and vine shield (funded by an early game mother oak, in turn funded by an early game push to skull mentors - an option that Mictlan generally lacks unless they get lucky with their national hero, since your pretender will likely be imprisoned for the best bless).
5. I made a similar point above re: Mictlan's magic being in general more predictable, but this particular example doesn't hold water. Armor of Thorns requires a little more luck, but it's definitely doable. All it takes is a bramble mace (forged by a Yogini, guaranteed nature 2) and either a lucky BBB Rakshasi or an empowered BB Rakshasi (not particularly rare, roughly 50% of all Rakshasi are at least BB), which is the same thing you do with Priest Kings. Then your assembly line is up and rolling, and the random picks which were annoying in fact now potentially give you anywhere from N4 to B4 with Armor of Thorns alone, without empowering or further items.
6-8. Lanka's national rank and file summons are pretty heavy brawlers and can do quite well all the way up, and their B6 national is a flying AAABBBDHH with Blood Vengeance for 50 blood. I'm not saying that Ice Devils wouldn't be nice on top of that, but I didn't really miss them and wouldn't use many of them in preference to the Dakini.
9. I think you're overestimating the difficulty this causes - it has pros and cons, like everything. But since they can get past the Armor of Thorns/Brazen Vessel/Blood Thorn horizon without any real difficulty, it's not a stumbling block on their road to blood dominance.

I want Mictlan to be the best at blood, and I'm certainly not super experienced in either nation. Initially, however, Lanka seems like it has too much blood power for the other things it has.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

I don't know what Mictlan "gives up" to be the best blood nation. They have the most cost effective sacred troop in the game ( jaguar warror ) and it is recruitable everywhere. It is totally broken. Most people who play Mictlan build this one troop almost to the exclusion of all others so the argument that their conventional army is bad does not hold water.

The only thing that Mictlan does "give up" is automatic dominion spread. However, considering the very heavy bless that is commonly taken with Mictlan ( and the associated very bad scales ) this is not necessarily a bad thing. Mictlan can easily control when and where their dominion lies. The cost for this is very heavy micromanagement. But that is the cost of playing a MP game.

PS: The Jauguar warrior *may* not be as cost effective as the Van, although in the CB mod I think that the Van was correctly nerfed. Also in some cases Nifel Giants may be more cost effective, but they are not recruitable everywhere which somewhat limits them ( not a huge limit considering that they rarely die, but still limits them ).

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Mictlan has no high protection troops, no effective ranged troops, no cavalry for fast attacks, etc. Jaguar warriors are very predictable and predictable is bad. I can count the number of times as Mictlan I've watched my hordes of Jaguar warriors get hung on cheap summon trash from castings of Summon Sprites or Howl while ranged units shred them.

Giving up normal dominion spread can be really bad news, especially if one starts out neighboring, oh, say, Ermor or Rlyeh in late era.

The whole idea of micromanaging spread of one's own bad dominion is quite frankly a bad idea and I wish people would stop suggesting this as a reasonable way to play Mictlan. It's do-able but not a good idea. Mictlan needs the dominion spread in order to get free summons out of Onanqui (A great late game Mictlan trick) plus of course Mictlan can't benefit from their neighbors good dominion.

No, Mictlan needs dominion spread and is forced to spend blood to get it.

Giants and Vans don't have an easy obvious counter like Jags do. Jags are low protection and low HP compared to Vans and Giants and have no shields or other special defensive abilities so archers just shred them.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Well f9w9s9 gives jags increase speed and twist fate so archers dont shred them quite as badly as other unarmoured troops, jaguar warriors also have a second form. A tough thug/SC out front can draw plenty of archer fire easily and mictlan also has multiple flying sacreds(eagle warriors, beast bats, jaguar fiends, summoned commanders ect)

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

NickW, I thought that you were pretty solidly against the domination of blessed troops in Dom3. Guess I was wrong.

Anyway,

The low HP part is simply not true wrt. Vans. Jags have at a minimum 18 HP ( I do not know if the two HPs add, it is difficult to see on the battle map and I have not looked that hard, if they add they have 30 HP). Assuming 18 HP that is more HP straight out than Vans and more and x2 more HP/gold than Nifel Giants.

That is irrelevant. Their Jags are on a cost basis ( assuming heavy bless, we can factor in the cost of bad scales on Mictlan as well ) far superior to any mundane troop in the game. I doubt it is possible to construct an army composed of mundane troops (ie: archers, cav, and high prot troops ) supported by mundane leaders which can come close to defeating an army of jags where both armies have comparable gold costs.

Agreed. Vans are gold for gold, probably the best troops in the game ( as I said I think that they have been well priced in CB mod, and in that mod I think that the Jag has gone to top gold for gold troop ). Giants at least have the limitation that they are only recruitable at the home province ( may or may not be a limit since they do not die commonly ).

f9w9s9 is one heavy bless! I was only thinking about the ubiquitous f9w9 bless.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Yeah, I played Lanka a bunch yesterday (studying up for a new MP game), and I’ve got a much better handle on them now.

1) At least the way I play them, Mictlan will always have significantly more blood slaves for two reasons. First, as previously mentioned the blood hunters are 50% less expensive, this makes a big difference when you’re focusing on blood and plan to be paying upkeep on lots of blood hunters and maximizing the amount of provinces you can use for blood hunting (as in don't have much income). Secondly all the other units are much less expensive. Obviously this is a trade off as you’re getting pretty good units for your gold, but every game I’m playing Lanka I’m strapped for gold as I always want more brawlers, more of the very expensive (non-sacred, high upkeep) random path mages to increase my path coverage, more of the expensive demon kings to lead my demons, etc (you didn’t want to reanimate corpses did you?). Not only are you balancing the spending of new gold, but also the upkeep cost for Lanka I find is much higher. This cuts not only into how many/how fast you deploy blood hunters, but also how many provinces you can devote to blood hunting. Again, this is more the way I play it than anything else, but I find Lanka is harder to really focus on blood hunting because of the opportunity cost. At the end of the day though, even if everything else was equal you’ll have 50% more blood hunters with Mictlan.

2) I don’t think Lanka can blood sacrifice, can they? If they can I must have totally missed that.

3) Lanka’s national summons are indeed pretty good, probably about par with Mictlan’s. I might give an edge to Mictlan on the low end summons as flying sacreds is a nice complement to their forces and solidly help against Jaguar warrior counters, while Lanka’s low end summons don’t really add a lot to their versatility (wohoo, more brawlers!). High end summons are probably comparable in power…gotta love that blood vengeance!

4) I maintain my point about Mictlan having an advantage due to not having to rely on random pics for the simple reason of economics. Again, this may change with my play style, but I found I had no problem having the paths I needed with Lanka but the tradeoff was that I spent a decent amount of money on expensive, high upkeep mages. With Mictlan, you recruit exactly what you need, no waste, and everybody is sacred so your upkeep stays low. When you’re really focusing on maximizing your blood economy it’s vital that you pinch every penny you can. With Mictlan I regularly end up with probably 80-100% of the territories between 5k-10k set to blood hunting, with Lanka I can’t come anywhere near that much blood hunting before the rest of my economy stalls from upkeep and a few necessary purchases per turn.

5) One other thing not directly related to blood magic, but very useful nonetheless for guarding your blood hunters is that Mictlan gets Jaguar warriors for PD over 20. If you’ve got a good bless (which you better with Mictlan) this can be an amazingly effective surprise landmine. 30-40 PD aint cheap, but I’ve wiped out some surprisingly large invading armies with it when they weren’t expecting any resistance (and had no jaguar counters). And you guessed it…no upkeep. Makes it easy to defend high risk blood hunting sites when somebody tries to take out your blood slave flow.

Again, I’m really enjoying Lanka and they’ve got some significant advantages, but in my mind from a pure blood point of view Mictlan is hands down a better nation because of the economics. When focusing on blood, it all comes down to economics since you’re essentially trading gold for blood slaves so Mictlan’s much lower overhead maintains their title as undisputed best blood nation.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

1. Granted about the 50% more expensive Lankan bloodhunters - it is a fact. My point is that you're not getting 50% more usable bloodslaves for magical uses since a significant portion of them will go to dominion upkeep / expansion, which is an ongoing cost (10-15% sound like a good conservative estimate?) for Mictlan while temples are a one time cost for Lanka. So, while gross bloodslave production in Mictlan should be roughly 50% higher, net bloodslaves gained is somewhat less than that (assuming 10% sacrificial use, Mictlan would be left roughly with 35% more bloodslaves).

Furthermore, with Skull Mentors (and an inherent Death income, and mages to search for death sites, which even a heroed-up Mictlan lacks prior to Blood 6) Lanka can do more research with fewer mages much earlier than Mictlan, leaving more of your mage pool free to blood hunt. The percentage bonus this gives is entirely up to the user, and should even out after the Mictlan death enabled pretender wakes up or your empower your first Tlahuelpuchi to make Skull Staves and Skull Mentors, but it's a much longer road to Blood 6 then Construction 4 than it is Construction 4, adding Skull Mentors, and then reaching Blood 6.

I should point out that Lanka has no non-sacred random path mages - an oversight above.

Finally, not having your mages worry about aging means both no gold replacement costs and/or no blood expenditures on boots of youth/reinvigoration. Replacing a single Moon Priest will pay for the initial cost difference between the nations' bloodhunters 5 times over and have enough left over to pay the difference in upkeep for those 5 Lankan hunters for 2 months. Later, Boots of Youth are a more cost efficient solution - but at the cost of 10 blood and a wasted mage turn. Crippling? By no means. But still a Lankan edge to narrow the early-mid game gap.

It's the Tlahuelpuchi, though, I think reifies Mictlan's mid-late economic bloodhunting advantage. Once you can summon them in bulk, and no longer need them to run your Skull Mentor machine, they become exceptionally efficient bloodhunters. My thanks to the guy who praised the bloodhunting skills of Vampire Counts in LA Ulm in my Marignon / Abyssia post (Frank Tollman? I forget) for making me realize that about Tlahuelpuchi.

2. Nope, you're right... my bad, I thought Lanka could blood sacrifice. I never did it, but I thought it was listed. I am blatantly wrong on that one.

3. I like Lanka's low end summons, particularly the Rakshasa Warriors (available at level 4, the same time Mictlan gets its Jaguar Fiends). They, like the higher resource cost sacreds of the Lankan nation, benefit very well from an E9/N9 bless approach, and allow you to shift your resource limited troops away from brawlers and into longbowmen, who are just brutal in general and the more so in a nation with this much air magic flying around. Granted, you'll have to carry some wine bags/etc to feed large mixed armies, but you have the paths to pull that off no problem.

Even given my lack of experience in the game, I would confidently state that Lanka's high end summons are notably more powerful tactically than Mictlan's, which tend to have one or more strategic advantages. Lanka's national summons are the only true non-pretender SCs I've seen besides Gift of Reasoned Vastnesses and Niefel/Yomi capital only commanders, and certainly 50 blood for such a creature is too light. Onaqui are nowhere near as dangerous in combat, although their freespawns once more underline the excellent strategic advantages Mictlan's national summons.

In the end, though, I think you've helped me reach a conclusion I am more comfortable with. Mictlan remain the kings of the mid-late pure blood economy with regards to bulk output and the big picture. Lanka, however, may still be too close to Mictlan's blood potency given their non-blood synergies (better recruitable troops in the form of bulk longbowmen and superheavy sacred infantry, better non-blood capital only summons, additional 40 points at creation for Heat 2 preference instead of Heat 1... yeah I know it's not an unmitigated advantage, but it's an advantage nonetheless) and easier startup (the superheavy E9/N9 blessed infantry slices through indeps like butter, while you need FWS9 to replicate that with Jaguars).

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Mictlan can get free points by controlling dominion. If you're talking about pros and cons between the two nations, I'd say that's a BIG pro for Mictlan.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

You're talking about taking crappy scales and not spreading them? NickW has words for you. If you're talking about something else, please elaborate.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Yeah, except he's wrong since EA Mictlan fighting LA Ermor/Ryleh dominion isn't very likely to happen. Not to mention, controlling your dominion spread is a very tried and true tactic considering your jaguar fiends are like mini sc's with the triple bless points you get from it ...

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Although LA Mictlan might well, and I did bring them up in my initial post (as the Mictlan which seems better against Lanka, in fact).

I'm not experienced at all in multiplayer, so I can't weigh in on the pros and cons of that choice in the short, brutal realities of highly competitive mp game. I can say that those points don't seem free, though - you're trash at home and trash wherever enemy dominion is, since you're getting all of their downsides and no upside. Now, the upside for your blessed troops might overcome that - many posts by experienced people seem to indicate it does.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

The position of Lanka vs Mictlan as 'blood king' is I think really close, and all things being equal they couple probably ramp up similar level blood economies.

Which is more powerful on a whole though, is a more interesting question. In this, I think it's pretty clear Lanka has the edge. Mictlan's sacreds are cheaper, but with the scales they take, they really have to be to afford them. Lanka sacreds tend to have a much lower casualty rate in the early game, and can threaten high prot SCs much better (Mictlan's work better vs high defense, but that tends to be less important). But what really blows Mictlan out of the water is Lanka's wildly powerful reanimation as opposed to capturing slaves with tribal kings.

Both methods provide about all the patrol fodder you could want, but with reanimation you have something that 1. costs no upkeep 2. will not route in battle 3. does not use population 4. has better armor and damage potential in battle. Even ignoring sacreds, reanimated swarms backed with decent battle magic is a scary force by itself.

Lanka also has somewhat better access to magical diversity, including the very handy air path.

Lastly, if for some reason they ever need to buy anything besides sacreds, reanimating priest, and mages, the bandar longbows certainly put Mictlan's non-sacred troops to shame.

On the issue of Mictlan with bad scales being a liability, I really have to disagree. With high base dom (for sacred production) it is very hard to dom die if you are paying attention.

To sum it up, both nations are extremely powerful (could easily be classed as overpowered, infact) but Mictlan's power is in some ways limited when compared with Lanka's across-the-board insanity.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Mini SCs perhaps, but ones who are horribly vulnerable to archers. And of course playing the oh-so-finicky controlled dominion spread game means that the dominion is [censored] and Mictlan is playing without positive order scales, which means Mictlan isn't playing with as much money as everyone else.

Blood economies are expensive. Those mictlan priests might be cheap but the upkeep on lots of blood hunting priests and patrollers adds up fast and those Jags aren't exactly free either.

Trying to play games with Mictlan's dominion to keep it crappy and contained is ultimately self defeating. It's better to just take a livable dominion, something like order-3, heat-2(or 3), sloth-3 and then spread the hell out of it. Fighting in your own dominion is important for the morale bonus and it doesn't cost that much blood to keep the dominion spreading well.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Nick - why are you taking order scales instead of chaos if you're going with spread? If you're going to go to a nearly pure blood economy, aren't the chances for free cash and gems for every province (even those dedicated wholly to blood) better than slightly ramped up cash just in the handful of gold producing provinces, not to mention spreading Turmoil/Sloth 3 as a weapon against your more cash dependent enemies and the net zero cost of Turmoil/Luck 3?

Quantum -

Points against you:

1. Mictlan has five paths (astral nature blood fire water) to Lanka's four (blood air death nature), so I think the magical diversity award has to go to Mictlan, the moreso because the national summons of Lanka have the same paths while Mictlan adds Death through its nationals.

2. I do like reanimation of random undead monkeys with the Lankan priests (forget the name, picks are BHH?), although at 160 gold a pop I recognize that Mictlan can get equally good reanimators maintenance free in the form of the Civateteo. That is, I grant you, available quite a bit later on in the game, but Mictlan still has it.

Neutral Observations

1. I'm not morally opposed to Lanka being stronger than Mictlan, however, while I am opposed to Lanka being better at blood magic.

2. I also prefer for the clarity of the argument that you not bring in "the scales they take" for Mictlan - I'm not an authority, but some people with experience have come into other posts I've had and argued for mixed blesses (Smoking Mirror F9W4B4D4, for example) which leave room for a decent economy. Scales/blesses are choices, not racial attributes; while some work better than others for particular nations, I hope we haven't come to believe that there's one best way to play a particular nation (at least, that would make me sad, since the wide open range of options is what I like so much about the game).

Points for You:
1. On the power front, I can't really get my head around how Lanka deserves Longbowmen on top of everything else it gets. I'd never played with a nation with Longbowmen before Lanka, and their ability to shatter opposing archers was a pleasant surprise to me (not to mention the way the computer often positions commanders near enough to archer units to be wiped out in the deviation fire).

2. I find the durability of properly blessed Lankan heavy infantry absolutely shocking. They never get tired, never retreat, and never seem to die.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

I find them worthless considering their sacreds. 20 gold for a guy with a bow? Please gimmie some more of those sacreds.

They are almost exactly the same as Giant woodsmen except with slightly better skills, better prot, a little less damage, and for lower cost. Oh and they are size 3 instead of size 4 which is HUGE. They are excellent sacreds.

You nailed it.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

Magical diversity is in some sense better for Mictlan, but Lanka has better access to cross-path spells, and has a critical bit of diversity Mictlan lacks: Death and Air. One of Mictlan's biggest handicaps is the difficulty of getting undead/demonic leadership, particularly on a flying commander. Lanka has no problem with this, national demon or undead commanders with boots of flying let you lead all the demon raid forces you could want. So, perhaps a better way of stating it would have been to say they have a better magical selection. Air and Death certainly allow more useful things, particularly for a blood nation, than Water and Fire- in addition bless pretenders tend to bring Water, Fire and often Astral access anyway.
An expensive summoned commander that can reainimate doesn't even begin to hold candle to Lanka's skeleton hordes. The same commanders that work great for research and blood hunting can, at flip of a switch, start producing 100s of skeletons per turn as early as turn 25. Combined with incredible sacreds, even something as crazily powerful as Helhiem would be biting off a lot to try to fight them early. And by late game, gold recruitable reanimators can surpass even LE Ermor's undead armies.
Quite the opposite for me, I don't care at all whoever has a slight edge in blood magic, it's the balance of the game on a whole that concerns me.
One of my favorite ways to play, even in MP, is to take unusual blesses just to see if I can make them work. It's a lot of fun, but the vast majority of bless setups just aren't very optimal. The one you mentioned does seem better than most, but in the case of Mictlan a bless almost as extreme as possible is very hard to top for optimization. Regardless, it is certianly safe to say Lanka is not forced down the bless path as rigidly as Mictlan, having many other powerful areas to focus on (and lacking the special dominions spread that further optimizes extreme blesses for Mictlan).
As Huzzur points out, this is really the least of their advantages, given they have so many other greatly powerful things to pour gold into.

Re: Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan
 

I didn't find the Tlahuelpuchi all that expensive (25 blood is a notable expense, maybe 3 provinces, but not a heavy one for a blood economy, and it has no maintenance, while 160 gold might be 2 provinces with maintenance), but I can see some of your point - that gold recruitable reanimators are pretty potent as an early game weapon, and might be what tips Lanka from powerful to most dominant.

Let's leave LA Ermor out of this - the majority of your Lankan bloodhunters /researchers are going to be the 90 gold H1 priests, since the research differences with the H2 160 gold models are negligible when both are carrying skull mentors whereas the price is notably different, and the 90 gold is still more efficient at research on a cash-per-point basis. LA Ermor has all the H1 gold recruitable priests it wants to summon soulless in the wake of battle/domain kill, and it cares less about the downsides of ghouling your population as well (since it's not triple dipping for ghouls/blood/gold). While in the extreme late game (once a good gold/research conversion is no longer important) Lanka could readily have more people capable of summoning Longdead infantry than LA Ermor (although overcoming the domain summons as well is a high bar), Ermor's national priests can summon Longdead Horsemen, and their temples/forts summon Ermorian uniques, who are a vastly different level of useful.

I'm not playing MP, so the balance issues aren't so bothersome to me, and while Lanka is rock-hard it seems that EA already has a lot of radical power fluctuations (most of the Heims, for example). But one of the things I love about Dominions is how thoroughly it realizes certain concepts, such as "the undead nation" or "the Cthulhu nation" to an extent unseen in other games. Lanka intruding on Mictlan's brand identity of "blood nation", or Ermor's identity as "undead nation", threatens that aspect of the game's appeal. Therefore the framing of the original post, and therefore the defense of ermor.

Aside - Longbowmen, likely not such a big deal in MP. When you take out badly placed spellcasters in your deviation fire from archers in SP, pretty valuable.