Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck

[moodgiesanta]

I'm a newbie to this game, and I was brought here by the Gamespot review. Anyhow, I just got the full Version, and have been playing it non-stop. I had to play Ermor, just so I could have a game where I annihilated the enemy, to build confidence. Then I tried Mictlan, with one of their unique pretenders.

Yeouch. By some miracle of nature, I was left alone by the enemy for a long time, I guess because I was playing on Normal AI, but eventually things came to a head. But it got me thinking, you know, there could be a real strategy here for Mictlan.

I'll use a blood fountain as my pretender, get some considerable blood magic going with a couple ranks of nature, and then crank up the luck full tilt. Then I am going to focus on their nature priests for cross-breeding and their low level priests for dominion increasing through sacrifices. I'll bring Drain all the way down to -3, because I can easily make sure my dominion never enters my main research province (which won't be my capital) by never sacrificing in that province. Order would be nice, but I need growth to replace the blood-slaving and patrolling I'll be doing throughout the entire game. I'm leaning towards picking up fire magic at the cost of production (since they need so little production) for Bless bonuses for the bajillion holy troops. I imagine I'll have Ermor-like hordes of cannon fodder troops, what with the cheap-o units they have and Cross-breeding. By land-grabbing a handful of provinces and slave-taking early OR by having strong independants, I'm thinking I can do OK, as long I raise an absolute army of low-level priests for blood slaves. I'm thinking also of picking a very cheap fortress, so I can build them en masse, in order to make lots of priests/ And of course, I'll need to make lots of jade daggers. (Wish I'd have known about that the first time around.)

I'm really trying to make Mictlan work. They seem to me to be the most fascinating in a large group of fascinating countries. And I think this game is the best strategy game I've ever played, so far at least, which immediately would make it the best game ever, as long as it holds up on the replay value, which I think it will.

If anyone has made Mictlan work well, please tell me, because they suck almost as much as Caelum or whatever it is on first glance.

[Argitoth]

Originally posted by moodgiesanta:
I'll bring Drain all the way down to -3, because I can easily make sure my dominion never enters my main research province (which won't be my capital) by never sacrificing in that province.

That's a damn good idea. With all those fodder troops PLUS giants from cross breeding, you might just be able to defeat my disintegration strategy with C'tis. Well actually, the easiest way to defeat me is having flying units.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by moodgiesanta:
I'll bring Drain all the way down to -3, because I can easily make sure my dominion never enters my main research province (which won't be my capital) by never sacrificing in that province.

You'll also have to make sure that you don't sacrifice in provinces that are nearby it, as each sacrificed slave acts as one temple.

[Teraswaerto]

Originally posted by moodgiesanta:
If anyone has made Mictlan work well, please tell me, because they suck almost as much as Caelum or whatever it is on first glance.

Caelum doesn't suck! Excellent mages, mammoths and flyers. It just needs a different approach than other nations. They are currenly bugged though.

[PvK]

I think Mictlan doesn't suck either, but is trickier to use than most. The game I started in a rather tough position (small map full of Difficult AI with two attacking enemies 3 provinces away early on, and no good provinces between me and them), and I think I'm going to win.

Taking the maintenance savings of the many Sacred units into account, their units are pretty good. Good for cheap blessable troops, and the cheap low-level priests. Very nice heroes complement the already rich selection of priest/mages (leaving a hole only in Earth magic, IIRC). National summons available from the start are potent - I think Fiends of Darkness may be more effective than blood summons (edit: I meant to write - more effective than cross breeding)(though not as diverse and interesting - do both), especially combining FoD with blessed Eagle Warriors, which can then all fly into the enemy rear to wipe out powerful armies.

One Soul Contract, followed by a Horde From Hell to get a Devil commander (whom to equip), results in evil potential. I've added a succubus for murdering and stealing enemy commanders, and have now wiped out my two enemies (including miasma C'tis, which was a challenge), and beaten off the other who surprise attacked me just as I was about to finish off C'tis.

Note the "weak" thrown weapons on the national troops become very deadly once you can cast Flame Arrows, Heat From Hell with a Devil army is a recipe for enemy annihilation (I assume - I haven't needed to try yet), and the apparently worthless slaves can actually be used well as cannon fodder and distractions (especially because they cost practically nothing - just be careful not to starve your main men by including too many slaves). I think the provincial defense is even fairly good, since each point gets both missile/infantry units, and slave cannonfodder, for each point.

Not easy, but fun, interesting, and potentially very strong once you have enough blood... more blood... slurp.

PvK

[ February 01, 2004, 18:35: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Chris Byler]

Fiends of Darkness ARE a blood summon. Blood (power) 2, Blood Magic (research) 2 IIRC. Mictlan just doesn't need the research. 5 slaves for 1 fiend.

Do you find Mictlan too dependent on the Fountain's blood hunt bonus? Has anyone had any luck with other gods for them?

What about battlefield magic? Those cheap priests could all cast Sabbath Slave while one of the more powerful priestmages casts Sabbath Master... but both Sabbath Master *and* Sabbath Slave cost a blood slave. That adds up fast compared to free communion. Without sabbaths, though, the priestmages seem somewhat lacking in magic options (we all know how good blood magic is on the battlefield ). It doesn't help that they're very expensive, and heat scale makes it difficult to benefit from Frost Fiends and even Ice Devils.

If Mictlan does need help, I'd do one of two things: remove the blood slave cost from Sabbath Slave (even if it is kept for Sabbath Master, you don't have to cast nearly as many Sabbath Masters) or give their priests a blood hunt bonus like Fountain of Blood (only not as big; they could hunt at 1 above their actual level). A national demon (like Harlequin) might help too, especially if it was sacred, but that would be more work.

[Teraswaerto]

What Mictlan could use/need is a price check on the better mage-priests, and/or a national spell that summons more than 1 fiend/spine demon per casting. Now it ties up one very expensive mage for the whole turn to get one demon.

[ February 01, 2004, 11:39: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[diamondspider]

Originally posted by Teraswaerto:
What Mictlan could use/need is a price check on the better mage-priests, and/or a national spell that summons more than 1 fiend/spine demon per casting. Now it ties up one very expensive mage for the whole turn to get one demon.

On the other hand, there is nothing that tends to hurt me more in the entire game then those darn fiends!

[PvK]

(I wish I would learn to NEVER use web forms to enter long Messages. Whenever IE screws up and forgets my entire message, I get so peeved... argh.)

The fiends seem plenty tough and cheap to me (and you just need to give a +1 Blood Power item to a 40-gold Mictlan Priest to use them instead of a high priest). However it would be nice if they had a unique national demon rather than a Fiend of Darkness, just for er, flavor. It's true though that I don't think the other low-level Mictlani blood summon options compare. Fiends, and Soul Contract Devils, are the best.

Chris, I meant to write that Fiends were probably better than Cross Breeding (not than blood summons, which was a typo that as you pointed out, made no sense).

My game uses the Smoking Mirror. I don't think you need the fountain bonus, though it would be useful. I think you just need to put a cheap-o Mictlan priest in every 3-7K population province (set 70-80% taxes), preferably each with a sanguine dousing rod, and with cheap-o leaders or scouts ferrying their slaves around, there is enough blood to do evil things.

Getting and using the blood liberally answers all the problems. Cheap-o Mictlan Priests and dousing rods are the way they get cheap blood slaves. Then they use slaves to get sabbath, and blood boosting items so they can cast Bowl of Blood, Hellbind Heart, Blood Lust and Agony.

The High Priests do seem quite expensive, but it might be because once you learn the tricks, Mictlan doesn't need a lot of gold, so this is an appropriate and balancing disadvantage. Those priests do offer great variety, especially combined with the national heroes (which give death, astral, nature, and even a bit of air and unholy!).

PvK

[ February 01, 2004, 19:13: Message edited by: PvK ]

The reason I like Crossbreeding for Mictlan is because of their fragile units. Even with masses of slaves, your units will take an unhealthy amout of loss. So swarming your opponent is the only real option you have to remain competitive. FoD are your anti-mage power (like devils). I would reserve them only for fights you want to capitalize on killing mages, as they too are fragile.

The core of my armies late game tend to be HfH Imps and Devils, since you can summon so many of them and they do work in greater numbers with Blood Lust. The main issue is trying to keep your domain strong enough so you don't get dominioned out while at the same time producing masses of the 'single cast' blood summons. Personally when the Mod tools are released in full I'll be changing some of all the summons to double the number and cost (Thus Bind Serpent Fiend will cost 10 Slaves, and get you 2 Fiends) to counter the huge amount of mages you need to use blood nations. (This will be true for a few other spells too)