Mictlan Help

[ToResonanceComesDeath]

Hello everyone.

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.

[Saber Cherry]

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.

[ToResonanceComesDeath]

Thank you very much, that's exactly the kind of I needed.

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.

[shovah]

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)

[Oversway]

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.

[Vicious Love]

Saber Cherry said:
2) Growth and Order are good, since you'll be doing a lot of blood hunting.

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.

[shovah]

order is good due to its effects on unrest.

[Alneyan]

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.

[shovah]

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.

[Saber Cherry]

Vicious Love said:

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.

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.