Mictlan Pretenders ideas request

[Chazar]

Foom said:
With all due respect, I think people on this board have a bad habit of flaming others for giving less than perfect advice. If someone says something wrong, why not just correct him where you disagree and offer a better solution? I'm not only talking about Nagot here. It's keeping people away from the Boards, and ultimately hurting the game. Dom2 is strongest in multiplayer, so why scare away the newbies?

This is a very good point! However one should also be aware that written communication is extremly easy to be misunderstood (lack of intonation, body language, language translation, etc.) - which is why emoticons were invented. Therefore people should also not let themselves be angered by Posts too easily, for it might not have been intended that way (like in this case)...

[Foom]

You're right, I was too quick to jump on Nagot here. It's just that I have seen many people insult Cohen and Boron for no good reason, which made me judge too quickly.

Nagot, I offer you a binouse as compensation for my rashness.

Now give me some feedback on my pretender, I'm desperate to get Mictlan to work

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Foom said:
You're right, I was too quick to jump on Nagot here. It's just that I have seen many people insult Cohen and Boron for no good reason

Ad hominen insults are always unexcusable. Maybe I sounded a bit rude wrt Boron's opinions, at least you'll note I wasn't disrecpectful to him. Well, I hope anyway - English isn't my first language, and before I got accustomed to Usenet slang I did some memorable fumbles like confusing "moron" with "regular". When I replied to someone "you're obviously a moron in this newsgroup", he wasn't really happy.

Nagot, I offer you a binouse as compensation for my rashness.

Ah, that's my first encounter with this word, "binouse". Maybe I should check if I'm not allergic to this kind of beverage before I accept your offer?

Now give me some feedback on my pretender

Looks OK to me. The Wiz Tower is a great castle, just (IMO) not as great to Mictlan as it is to most nations, you can still do OK with a Mausoleum or Watch Tower. FYI, my Last Mictlan design pretender was:

LotN
Air 3
Earth 3
Death 5 (just for the increased fear factor you get at each 5-uple, and because I could afford it)
Blood 3

Dominion 6
Watch Tower

Order +3
Prod -3
Heat +1
Growth 0
Luck -2
Magic +1 (always was enough for me, and I never liked the MR malus you get vs hostile rituals when picking +2 or +3)

Leaves 120 unallocated design points, but it was for an handicap game (so you can pick up to 3 extra scales or a Wiz Tower if you want).

So quite close to your own design actually. I prefer the LotN to the VQ because I want my pretender to be able to fight outside his dominion early if required - but YMMV.

I'm desperate to get Mictlan to work

I guess it's more a problem with handling the nation than designing it.

[Vicious Love]

Just wondering, would a F9B6 Moloch be a waste of points? On the one hand, no access to Dwarven Hammers or death, air, & earth multipath blood spells.
On the other, ubercheap(But capitol only) eagle warriors with two flaming, high-strength, high-skill attacks per turn(Four if Quickened), that strike before ANY buffs are cast when defending, and after only one turn of buffs when attacking. And probably end up getting a hefty surround bonus when they attack lone ghost kings, or whatever. If there's a more cost-effective SC killer out there(Other than Carrion Woods goons or these same warriors plus Weapons of Sharpness), I'd like to hear about it.
Couple that with the not-at-all-shabby jaguar warriors you can recruit just about anywhere en masse(THREE for the price of one Ulmish black knight, and you can afford sloth 3, to boot), the combat machine that is the Moloch(Properly supported), and the ability to cast all pure blood spells with only a few path boosters, and methinks you've got an adequate setup, at the very least. Am I right?

[ckfnpku]

Något, no hard feelings I hope. Foom summed up what I was trying to say in an excellent way.

I suppose I should contribute something as well.

I've tried the Smoking Mirror in sp, but he just gets killed from random events, so no good. I wouldn't wanna go to the trouble of protecting him. (Btw, that line in the description about him divining the fates of men, what's with that? It's not like the Jade Emperor and Lady of Fortune, is it?)

I would agree with the ideas presented here. A pretender with a little blood and the paths that mictlans priests don't have. Also, he doesn't need to be a great fighter mid/lategame, since mictlan should scoop up a number of the blood uniques.

A Ghostking with air3 earth4 death3 blood4.
Order3 sloth3 heat1 magic3.
Watchtower.
Dominion ~6.

Something like that. Backed by several minutes of sp experience =)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

ckfnpku said:
Något, no hard feelings I hope. Foom summed up what I was trying to say in an excellent way.

No worries mate, you'll have to try really hard before raising my temperature - and anyway, I think in that case if someone has to apologize, it's me and nobody else.

I suppose I should contribute something as well.

A Ghostking with air3 earth4 death3 blood4.
Order3 sloth3 heat1 magic3.
Watchtower.
Dominion ~6.

Something like that. Backed by several minutes of sp experience =)

Looks OK to me. Besides, I like stealthy pretenders with Mictlan, for sneaking Fiends around - always a nasty surprise for the unwary enemy.

[Alneyan]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
No worries mate, you'll have to try really hard before raising my temperature - and anyway, I think in that case if someone has to apologize, it's me and nobody else.

Wouldn't your avatar be at a very high temperature? Ah, that doesn't qualify?

Slightly more on topic, would the Fiends of Darkness be helpful for early defence? Their flying might be helpful to bring down these SCs depending on their buffs to survive in melee; or is the current trend on strong combattants, with little magic support? I have some embarrassing memories of a Virtue being taken down by a handful of Fiends, as she wasn't that strong without her handy spells, so my view is probably quite biased.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Vicious Love said:
Just wondering, would a F9B6 Moloch be a waste of points?

You're paying a lot for these 6 levels of Blood Magic, but the idea has some merits. And a strong focus as well - in that case, adding punch behind multiple attacks that rarely miss. I'm not sure the +3 STR bonus is worth 230 extra design points (if I count right), but I like it anyway. Now add Rush of Strength to that, and I'd bet any hyper-prot, hyper-def SC will be in dire trouble.

Am I right?

Just try it and tell us how it works (when compared to a pure fire Moloch approach, I mean).

[Cainehill]

Vicious Love said:
Just wondering, would a
On the other, ubercheap(But capitol only) eagle warriors with two flaming, high-strength, high-skill attacks per turn(Four if Quickened), that strike before ANY buffs are cast when defending, and after only one turn of buffs when attacking. And probably end up getting a hefty surround bonus when they attack lone ghost kings, or whatever. If there's a more cost-effective SC killer out there(Other than Carrion Woods goons or these same warriors plus Weapons of Sharpness), I'd like to hear about it.

No blood expert here, but I'd suggest another nation and option for SC killing: Any Vanheim theme with Valkyries is an option for a nice bless effect. F9W4 for instance - they may not get as many attacks as your eagle warriors, but with a mirror image and high defense they're fairly sweet. Another option with them is death blessings, allowing them to rout archers and whatnot - again, the mirror image helps keep them alive long enough for the fear to take effect.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Cainehill said:
No blood expert here, but I'd suggest another nation and option for SC killing: Any Vanheim theme with Valkyries is an option for a nice bless effect. F9W4 for instance - they may not get as many attacks as your eagle warriors, but with a mirror image and high defense they're fairly sweet. Another option with them is death blessings, allowing them to rout archers and whatnot - again, the mirror image helps keep them alive long enough for the fear to take effect.

The problem is Mirror Image or a Water blessing doesn't help Valks to survive lethal auras like Breath of Winter or Soul Vortex, or even a big Fire Shield, and it's likely many high-end SCs you'll meet will use at least one of these. Fire-9 Valks may have a high attack rating, but their damage rating is still low compared to Eagle Warriors, and it may not be enough vs hyper-prot SCs with gobs of hitpoints for them to get the edge here. EWs have twice as many attacks, and if they can get a STR bonus on at least 2 of them on top of that (I believe the STR bless bonus doesn't apply the the extra 'holy' fire attacks - maybe I'm wrong), then all the better. Vicious' idea here is to kill these SCs ___FAST___, before they, or their auras, kill a significant number of your flying sacred troops.

Plus, EWs are considerably cheaper than Valks - 4 times less, so what's not to like?