Understanding Mictlan

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks for the information, Miyavan. It actually helps because it's just as efficient for Mictlan to produce Soul Contracts before or after obtaining a forge bonus.

Aleph, I was just thinking earth for the Dwarven Hammer. Miyavan, I think forging bonus still applies to gem-producing items, doesn't it? If so, then it's still a really good idea. I don't know where my manual is but if I did, I'd post the types and costs in path levels and gems of the various gem-producers and how these could be applied efficiently to Mictlan.

[Aleph]

Certainly the forge spell works for clams, it drove my whole LA R'yleh economy.

[HoneyBadger]

So boosting up to dwarven hammer is definitely worth the time, gems, and trouble.

[Baalz]

Here’s an alternative strategy, lean & mean. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, so it’s a rough sketch.

Take turmoil, sloth, growth, luck, magic (magic at least should be 3). An imprisoned pretender with one 9th level bless and one 4th level (your choice) and a dominion of at least 8 (higher is better). First turn get a cheap priest and make the tribal king your prophet, recruit maximum number of your favorite sacred troops (I like Jaguar Warriors). Second turn, prophet recruits slaves, priest begins blood sacrificing, get another set of sacred troops and about 10 cheapo warriors (note: do NOT buy more soldiers just because you haven’t spent all your resources, you’re saving every gold piece at this point). 16-20 sacreds should be plenty to start conquering indys with a screen of disposable warriors to catch arrows.

Continue this pattern, every turn recruiting as many sacred warriors as you can, with just enough non-sacreds to catch arrows. You should have an indy-conquering force every other turn, be expending very little gold (you’re recruiting an average of about 12 cheap units every turn, and almost all your troops are sacred so your upkeep is low). You should have enough for a second castle very quickly, put it up as soon as possible, then repeat sol you have a third castle, which should also happen very quickly (particularly if you’re lucky in your random events. At this point your research has been going kinda slowly because you’re only recruiting a researcher every other turn (the other turns your recruiting priest kings to lead your armies), but now you’re cranking out around 30 jaguar warriors a turn, and 2-3 researchers who are so cheap they’re practically free (but are giving 5 research points apiece because of your magic scale). Now your options start opening up, you’ve got a fairly tough offensive ability if any of your neighbors are looking shaky this early in the game, but all you really need to do is maintain a holding pattern as you leverage your low upkeep (your army is relatively small and sacred and your researchers as well) to plop down several more castles as you research straight towards construction-4. Put the castles on provinces with at least 5000 population.

If you manage to get the national hero with death (not unlikely with a heavy luck scale) forge some skull mentors, and if any of your neighbors has a weak dominion creating a few jade daggers will ruin their day, but the real prize here is the sanguine dowsing rod. Immediately upon hitting construction-4 forge as many of them as you have blood slaves for. In each of your non-capitol castles set up 3 of your cheap priests with sanguine rods to blood hunt, and put the tax rate to 0. At this point your income is going to drop a bit, but again you’ve got a nice, low-upkeep army. Keep recruiting cheapo priests every turn, as many as you can get, and switch all research to blood. You should have sufficient cheapo priests at this point (plus the capacity to recruit them every turn) that the research goes a lot faster, so your sacred national troops should be enough to defend your borders long enough for you to get to blood 4, 5 & 6, which you’ll hit with several hundred blood slaves in the bank. Make sure you have a couple dudes doing bowl of blood, as some of the blood sites really cut your casting cost by a lot.

At this point you’ve got too many options to list, but that’s when it gets fun.

[HoneyBadger]

It would be interesting to test several different styles of Mictlan against each other and find out how they play against each other.

[Aleph]

I'm in my first non-losing game as Mictlan, using a 9F 4S/W/B 2D Dom 5 Turmoil 3/Sloth3/Luck3 Growth 2 Magic 1 Heat 1 approach. Some things I've learned:

Around turn 40, Moon Priests have become my capitol only heroes of choice. Pop a starshine skullcap on one and ready to either teleport to your front line labs and start cranking out Tzitzimitl or send a lesser horror at an enemy province. Tzitzimitl only need B2 S2, so you can send the hat back and repeat next round.

Civateteos have become one of my favorite in field leaders, since they can control much greater amounts of demons than most Mictlan heroes, can reanimate fallen dead as Soulless, and have both Ethereal and Life Drain. Unfortunately, thus far only my Pretender can summon them, but I'm setting up staves for Tlahuelpuchi to take over.

[Dragonlord]

I have been reading this thread with great interest, as I just started my first SP game with LA Mictlan. (and my first taste of Blood). I think I went with a mix of the strategies listed above in terms of dominion/pretender design: Shadow Mirror, imprisoned, F9S4N4B4E1, Dom6, Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat 2 (should have been 3), Growth 3 (should have been 2), Luck 3, Magic 1 (would have liked Magic 3).

What still puzzles me from some of the stuff listed earlier in this thread:
What is a fetish farm?
How do you define a Blood economy ?
What is an earth-blood factory?
What is a Soul Contract? I searched the manual for a spell or item named liked that and didn't find it...
This thing with clams (?) and uber globals seems to be aimed at a very late game, which I never reach in SP but so far I have always won the game by year 6 or so...am trying to make it harder now with 10 AI's all set to Impossible, on Dawn of Dominion map.

[Jack_Trowell]

Dragonlord said:
[...]

What still puzzles me from some of the stuff listed earlier in this thread:
What is a fetish farm?

It's about massing the fever fetish (fire and nature construction item). The fetish diseases the commander you equip it with, but generate fier gem almost all turns.

In dominions 2 , it was usually equipped on undeads, as they don't die from disease, but to prevent that, now it still works on undeads but the gemsare produced less often than with a living commander.

Fetish farming is just trying to amass a large fire gemproduction by micro-managing fever fetish (don't forget to remove the fetish on diseased units with only 1 HP left as they will die the next turn)

How do you define a Blood economy ?

Choose a province with ideally 5000-6000 population, and no money producing site.

Drop the tax level for this province to 0 (to reduce the unrest to come)

build a lab in the province (so you don't have to move your commanders to get the blood slaves)

put 3-5 blood mages (with the item "dousing rod" equipped as soon as you're able to forge them) set to "blood hunt" in the province.

If the unrest grows too fast even with 0 tax, you eitheir have too many blood hunters in the province, or need to start using other commanders to patrol (fast or flying units are best for patrolling)

Warning : blood hunt lower the population (not much, but still ...), and patrolling too. That's why having at least growth 1 or better is good for blood nations. If you have enought income and province, just put less hunters on the province so 0 tax rate is enough to keep the unrest down, and create another blood hunting province.

A lone hunting province can be enought to produce ~20-30 blood slaves per turn, more thant what you probably get from any of your gem incomes.

What is an earth-blood factory?

Thee's an intem forged wth earth and blood magic (blood stone) that increase the earth magic of the wearer, and create one earth gem each turn.

If you have access to both earth and blood magic, it's a good way to create a massive income in earth gems (more stable that the fever fetish, as you don't have the diseases to manage, but earth + blood is a more rare combinaison)

What is a Soul Contract? I searched the manual for a spell or item named liked that and didn't find it...

Soul contract is an item (well, sort of ...) that once equipped on a commander (warning : it's cursed and can't be removed) start producing one devil / turn.

This thing with clams (?) and uber globals seems to be aimed at a very late game, which I never reach in SP but so far I have always won the game by year 6 or so...am trying to make it harder now with 10 AI's all set to Impossible, on Dawn of Dominion map.

This is because those tactics/strategies are mainly done for the late game in Multi Player (MP) games, where the increase incomeor units is what can give you the edge against other humans players.

But it can be fun too in SP games : you can make a nation that is harder to play from the start, but with the objective of a late game come back.

[Aleph]

Soul Contract also exposes your commander in question to horror attack, so be sure to hook him up with some bodyguards (Devils come to mind), and possibly some cheap survival items granting luck, protection, or an attack with paralysis (Vine Bow makes sense as a cheap item but I rarely hit with it at any range).

Playing against the AI on a large map, there's definitely a long lag between "I've effectively won" and "I've actually won." I tend to use this lag time as a sort of workshop for experimenting with SC combos (through Wish/Gift of Reason) and attack based globals. So far I find the most utility in the gem producers (especially Maelstrom, Well of Misery, and Arcane Nexus), Forge of Ancients, and Strands of Arcane Power, but get far more enjoyment out of Ghost Ship Armada and Lure of the Deep, at least until I own all coastal areas.

[HoneyBadger]

One area where EA Abyssia has a leg up over EA Mictlan is in the body of it's devil assassin commanders. They make ideal chassis for soul-contract, since they have long lifespans, can fly (retreating very quickly) and are relatively tough, for only 100 gold a piece. In addition to being contract-carriers, they also make great last-ditch defense for your home province, and they can fly with stealth, so you can quickly stash them anywhere, keeping your human enemies from targetting them.