Why whould you ever choose Mictlan?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Peter Ebbesen said:

Be nice. You have not done anything to show that the Acolyte should have a longer average life expectancy than a priest save the hypothetical "if an average Priest lived 10 turns shorter than a 30 turn average Acolyte due to fires from afar",

My mistake, I didn't because I thought that's what you were implying yourself. First you assume a bloodhunter's life expectancy is 30 turns, then you write

To take your Sanguine Acolyte example, it does not make much sense to me to state that they only cost 20% more (100 gold vs 80 gold) for their extra (admittedly good) effects, when even a mere 10 round life expectancy changes the relative costs to 107 vs 167, or a cost of 56% more.

...and here I assumed you were comparing both types' costs over 20 turns (thus the 20 vs 30 confusion) - but I was wrong: 107 is actually the cost of a Mictlan priest over only 10 turns. It makes your 56% figure look even more unfair to the Acolyte. What do you mean with these 56%? That a Mictlan priest who's alive for 10 turns and dead for another 10 turns is 56% more useful than an Acolyte who can harvest slaves for 20 turns? This comparison doesn't make sense to me.

I reject the 30 round vs 20 round until I see some voodoo mathematics to support it.

Your fault - you shouldn't have brought these voodoo 56% into this debate first.

No it isn't - bad math, that is.

Fair enough, pardon the poor wording. I should have written "good maths put to bad use".

I was not saying it was a 36% differential of your upkeep compared to income (the calculations you are making), but a 36% differential of blood per gold. I.e. I was measuring the relative usefulness of investing gold in order to get blood (which can then be scaled by however much gold you want to invest), not the impact relative to your income.

I understand what you were saying, but it doesn't make it any more relevant as a factor to consider when comparing Mictlan's bloodhunting to other nations'. Well, to me at least . And that's because this differential is only marginal when compared to your income, and you pay new bloodhunters with your income. Basically you're telling me I should stop smoking because the price of matches has raised by 36%. I can imagine far better reasons to stop smoking - eg, tobacco prices raised by 36%, or: smoking shortens my life expectancy by 36% - these ones aren't marginal effects.

Your actual income does not factor into the blood/gold relationship

Of course it doesn't. Where did I say that? I'm just saying that as Mictlan, your gold savings haven't a big enough impact on your upkeep (thus, indirectly, your income) to support your claim that 'noone else comes close'.

True. On the positive side, it gets some research done that would otherwise have required somebody else (who also cost money to recruit and maintain) to do it, so it is certainly not wasted.

Of course it isn't wasted - but the situation is exactly the same for Diabolists, and they're better researchers than Mictlan priests. The disadvantage seems to be Mictlan's here.

In fact, under magic 3 the Mictlan priest is one of the best researchers in the game in terms of RP/gold,

True, so what's new here? Nothing, it's still the same upkeep issue: Mictlan priests vs Diabolists (for instance), whether they bloodhunt or research. The fact remains that, when both are forced to research while unrest is brought down to bearable levels, the blood/gold differential narrows, and the Diabolist is still worth 1 more RP.

Why should they? Nagot Gick Fel makes some very good points regarding income reduction that I have conveniently ignored. Of course, that cuts both ways. Just as I ignored the long term income reduction from hard blood hunting early in the game, he ignored that Mictlan can run Order 3 while Diabolical Faith has a forced Turmoil 1.

Of course - but it's not due to the merits of Mictlan's priests. Order 3 isn't required for Mictlan anyway, I know a few players who are enamoured to Mictlan's heroes enough to pick Luck+3 instead. Not that it's a strategy I'd recommend, but still...

In all likelyhood, not only is it cheaper to get priests in the early game for Mictlan, but Mictlan will also have more money to do so and will continue to have a massive advantage in provincial income until such time as provinces are laid waste.

In all likelihood... Hmmm, I've run dozens of tests with both Mictlan, Diabolical Faith, and both Abysias themes, and never found evidence Mictlan had the sharp edge over the other nations you want us to believe it has. My own experience tells me all of these are rather well matched when it comes to bloodhunting. Initial conditions (the map, neighbours, easy early expansion or not) have a far greater impact than the nation itself. Even Diabolical Faith's forced turmoil isn't that painful when compared to an Order 3 Mictlan. Mictlan will have to divert resources (sacrifices, temples) to push its dominion and reaps the benefits of its order scale in other provinces than the capital - a painfully slow process in my experience. DF on the other hand can alchemize its early fire gems for a +60 gold early income, almost matching Mictlan's initial income - and use its 200 'free' design points to buy other goodies.

(The thrust of this discussion is so funny because both of us started out only discussing unit vs. unit, but as it is obvious that the entire theme is important for a thorough investigation, we have both begun selectively to use the facts that support our case. Hey, it happens, and the nice thing is that I learn things about Marignon that I hadn't thought of, since it is not a favourite nation of mine.)

It's a favourite of mine, especially DF. OTOH, I really hate Mictlan because of the MM issues (don't pool these sacrificial bloodslaves - PLEEEASE!)

This will to some degree be countered by the "but Marignon will preach via inquisitors instead of building temples" issue, though an inquisitor is 110 gold (plus upkeep of 3.67 gold/turn) vs a temple's 200 gold cost and 0 upkeep (and requires a lab, a temple, and a fortress to be recruited just like the Mictlan priest). Of course an inquisitor is mobile and a more useful general purpose unit than a temple, but then again, he does not count towards boosting the maximum dominion either.

No, so what? Unless I'm playing with dominion VCs (which I never do), why would I want to increase my max dominion as long as my Inquisitors negate the enemy's just fine? For pushing my dominion farther into enemy territory to get the morale bonus? Marignon doesn't really need that: its sacred troops have awesome morale already, its crossbowmen don't have to check morale as often as melee troops, and for DF - its demonic troops don't care.

So while using inquisitors instead of temples is certainly a useful advantage for targeting of dominion, I am not certain that it is a great saving in money and doubt that it is enough to make up for the significant difference between turmoil 1 and order 3.

It depends widely on the circumstances. Sometimes you need lots of Inquisitors, sometimes you don't - in that case, the gold savings can be everything except negligible. Sometimes I DO build a few extra temples, besides the ones I need to recruit my priests, but it's extremely rare. Heck, with DF I'll pick Luck +3 and just wait for these temples to pop up!