Mictlan , how to play it effectively

[Jim_Parker]

Huzurdaddi said:The real power of Mictlain is that you have the slaves for patrolling. If you are not partolling with Mictlain you are not getting the most blood / time that you can and that inefficient for THE blood nation.

Not sure I agree with that. Patrolling is very costly in population so it's really self defeating. You can counter it with growth but you can also counter having a few 0% tax 'feeder provinces' with order - and not have to suffer terrible unrest (therefore you have no need of patrolling).

If you take the patrol/growth route you'll have a larger standing army...if slaves can be called an 'army'. If you use a few feeder provinces at 0% tax you can run a proper empire elsewhere.

It probably works out fairly similar. The patrol/growth tactic is bound to end up taxing your economy quite badly. Slaves are cheap but not in the numbers you'd need to patrol every province. On the plus side, you should be able to get an awful lot of bloodslaves.

If you have a few feeder provinces and order, the tax revenue you lose is going to be more than made up for elsewhere. It's basically substituting growth for order. This empire will have more cash and less blood slaves...but how many blood slaves do you really need?

[Kel]

Keep in mind that you don't have to take growth to counteract population loss, you can just take more provinces

- Kel

[Jim_Parker]

Kel said:
Keep in mind that you don't have to take growth to counteract population loss, you can just take more provinces

- Kel

Good with Ermor, not quite so good with Mictlan...although I can definitely see the benifits of having an undead horde opposed to a bunch of awful troops.

This is probably why Mictlan doesn't have any death mages...kinda a no-brainer if they did.

[Huzurdaddi]

Not sure I agree with that. Patrolling is very costly in population so it's really self defeating. You can counter it with growth but you can also counter having a few 0% tax 'feeder provinces' with order - and not have to suffer terrible unrest (therefore you have no need of patrolling).

With patrolling you can blood hunt in every provicne with more than 5k pop. Those 12k pop provinces that make your economy go? Those can easily maintain 100% taxes and hold 2 or 3 blood hunters with 50-100 partollers. The cost? 5-10 gold in maintainance. That sounds like a bargin to me.

When you are playig Mictain the blood must flow. Every province should be blood hunted.

As an added bonus it's darn hard for other people to spy on you! Yay!

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
With patrolling you can blood hunt in every provicne with more than 5k pop. Those 12k pop provinces that make your economy go? Those can easily maintain 100% taxes and hold 2 or 3 blood hunters with 50-100 partollers. The cost? 5-10 gold in maintainance. That sounds like a bargin to me.

You've missed most of the cost there. Unrest from blood hunting is generated before taxation, and then the unrest is removed by patrolling. Your actual income is quite a bit lower than what it would be had you not blood hunted at all.

Plus, a few patrollers with 10 or so hunters will wipe out 5000 people in about 5 turns, while putting three or foud hunters in that same province would let it Last for the rest of the game. The best long-term strategy is to spread your hunters throughout many provinces.

[Soapyfrog]

Graeme Dice said:
You've missed most of the cost there. Unrest from blood hunting is generated before taxation, and then the unrest is removed by patrolling. Your actual income is quite a bit lower than what it would be had you not blood hunted at all.

Hmmm are you sure? That doesnt jibe with what I am seeing. Could be though...

Graeme Dice said:
Plus, a few patrollers with 10 or so hunters will wipe out 5000 people in about 5 turns, while putting three or foud hunters in that same province would let it Last for the rest of the game. The best long-term strategy is to spread your hunters throughout many provinces.

What? 1000 people a turn? No way... I searched with like 10 bloodhunters and patrolled with 100 troops in my capital one turn, snagging over 50 slaves and killing 100 points of unrest and I lost MAYBE 300 population, if that. If it was more I'd be very surprised.

With 3 bloodhunters going and 50 guys patrolling I dont see how you could lose more that 50-100 pop per turn...

[Graeme Dice]

The Panther said:
One of the problems with Mictlan is that you are pretty much forced to get growth if you expect the game to Last more than about 50 turns or so.

Even a province with only 3000-4000 people can still be good for bloodhunting in the late game.

[qote]With death scales + bloodhunting + patrolling, your provinces will look like Ermor was there in no time at all!

[/quote]

It's the patrolling that kills the population. The rest don't have a very large effect.

Another huge problem is the fact that after you pool slaves, you must go to ALL your sacrificing priests and put the 4 slaves (you have the jade knife on all your sacrificers, right?) back on them.

Don't use 'pool slaves' with Mictlan. Create control Groups from your bloodhunters in each province, then press 'Z' when you have them selected.