Mictlan, Cross Breeding and Luck

[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)

[moodgiesanta]

Ah, yes, I downloaded the Cold Caelum mod and now they don't suck anymore.

Anyhow, I burned the midnight oils until 4:00 AM Last night playing away at my plan. It was going well, and I started next to a (then unmodded) Caelum, so I had a wimp to beat up on. It was going well, until Jotenheim cast Burden of Time or whatever that spell is. I only picked a single growth bump, as I really wanted fire magic. Soon, however, my provinces declined. Then the Ermor, Soul Gate Flavor, came through and literally ripped up my empire. My dominion dropped like mad, and my priests got slaughtered before they could get banish all those baddies. I'd relied mostly on the cheap ones and the Priest Kings. My hordes of cross-breeds, with the occasional big one, did very well, but they eventually lost out to the hundreds of shadow thingies that are completely immune to the primary weapon of the weak hordes, that is, the plague/disease stuff. The very thing that let me whip the independants around me cost me, and on top of all that, I'd focused so much on priests that I forgot to invest in archers. With Jotenheim on the right and Ermor on the left, and the rest of the world conquered, my little empire grew smaller until it was just me, my capital, and a couple of sattelite provinces that I had saved by summoning massive amounts of devils and imps. (I stopped the cross-breeding as soon as I got that spell, as it was more cost effective and I had a ton of blood slaves.) I then realized that with all the death world enchantments my Ermor and Jotunheim, my population was shrinking bigtime. So I really raised the blood hunting to cash in as soon as possible.

I'm not sure if it could ever work, but I had no choice, so I summoned a couple Heliophagus, after the first one could summon, and set them to auto-summon a horde of demons and summoned up Fallen Angels to summon up imps. I had no choice, as I was running out of people. After making some noise several turns later, I realized I wasn't going to win, what with zero people in my capital. So

Anyhow, I'm going at it again during the Super Bowl. I'll take what y'all you are saying into serious consideration.

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:

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

I am doing quite well with the Smoking Mirror, a good pretender for blessings. Cheap priests in numbers will do all the blood hunting you'll ever need.

In my Mictlan game, I am currently switching to all summons army : Improved cross breeding for arrow fodder and the occasional goody, devils for heavy hitters, whatever summons the site I found give me, and to lead all that a mix of Arch-devils, Ice Devils, Fallen Angels, Succubus for fun, and I'll have to try the Heliophagus and Demon Lord sometime.