[BigJMoney]

It's interesting this point is raised, because MA Mictlan was my favorite nation by far when this game released. When the Nahualli were nerfed, then they weren't my favorite any more (although I admit they were far too powerful).

The reason MA Mictlan was my favorite is because Mictlan has the best bless setup in terms of troops, which you can do one of two ways:

Take high dominion and benefit from having automatic dominion spread (other Mictlans don't have) and be able to recruit many varied national sacred from the capital.

OR

Take a medium dominion and simply rely on the Jaguars from forts and/or or summoned sacreds, leaving you more points for blessings.

Either way, having the automatic dominion means you don't have to spend cash on labs and spare mages who are doing nothing but blood hunting and sacrificing. This cash can be spent solely on sacred troops. I'm not going to defend the Couatl, because I don't think I even saw any reason to use it when I played before. However, the Nahualli is still a very good addition to Mictlan and is easier to afford and field with MA Mictlan simply because the gold economy is not distracted by supporting blood and religion.

Finally, the appeal of playing Mictlan without micro-management is more or less important depending on who you are. It's important to me, but someone who plays a very disciplined and focused game may be willing to accept the micro-management to acquire a small gain in advantage. Yes, I said "gain in advantage" because I can see how EA Mictlan has an advantage, but I think it's fairly small when you consider all things.

Also note something important which befuddled me for a long time. I used to think that the manual blood spreading of Mictlan was supposed to be their national advantage. I looked at the numbers in Dom II and saw that they could potentially be a powerhouse in Dominion. In Doms 3, their effectivity was greatly reduced, and I spied a comment in the game manual which implied that the correct notion is that Mictlan faces a disadvantage by having to spread their dominion manually.

So, this is traditional Mictlan in a nutshell: Superior Bless and Blood with the handicap of manual dominion spread. MA Mictlan would then be: Superior Bless without Blood, and non-handicapped Dominion spread.

=$= Big J Money =$=