Understanding Mictlan

[HoneyBadger]

Oh yes good point, I should add that Smoking Mirror with starting Dominion 2 gives you just a little edge on the normal Dominion 1 rainbow pretenders, for free, helping you avoid Dominion-Kill for the first round or two, so you can start blood-sacrificing.

Baalz, I tend to avoid national troops for just that reason-because you're going to lose population and income eventually anyway due to blood-hunting, no matter what scales you have, so you aren't really hurting youself badly if you dump most scales and aim for summons which are independent of gold income.

By the middle of the game, you should actually have less of an ability to generate new national troops due to attrition than you will the stronger summons, if you choose to concentrate on troops instead, especially compared to someone clam-spamming with Mictlan (and you should be, because Wish becomes very important, especially since there seems to be a bug with blood-hunting and Mictlan where you stop getting bloodslaves even when you're supposed to, after a while-and the ability to summon up a few Lords of the Night (and Gorgons and Ancient Krakens, etc.) by end-game doesn't hurt anything, either).

And they will be FAR weaker on a 1-1 basis, both as basic chassis and from bless.

[Shovah32]

Badger, i really think you could drop astral there. Doing so should let you get some extra dominion (maybe up to 4-5) and maybe a slightly better death scale so the blood dosnt stop running too quickly.

[Micah]

I haven't played with blood at all, but it doesn't seem like national troops and summons should be exclusive. Does blood hunting really nuke your income to the point where you have to completely give up on normal troops?

[Teraswaerto]

No, it doesn't. It will reduce income by what ever amount you'd get from the provinces where you hunt, but you'll still have gold.

[HoneyBadger]

Yes, astral could be dropped, but it does have a lot of advantages. I really think that, with clam-spamming, spell diversity, and MR for demonic sacred summons, it's worth the cost.

No, blood-hunting doesn't totally destroy you or anything, you can do it and still have an income, and the sacred troops are nice, so you can do fine with a high scales strategy. I'm just suggesting my own personal strategies, and I'd rather get every last drop of blood-for soul-contracts, if nothing else, since that's a good way to do without national troops, also, and Mictlan certainly has what it takes to contract-spam.

Wreaking scales has another advantage too, in that it becomes more difficult for other nations to invade you, because their provinces-for a while, until they're fully in control-have the same scales you do, which means population could take many years to fully recover.

What I have listed above are ways to get around the fact that I'm totally wreaking my nation's economy in almost every way. You can instead choose to carefully nurture your blood-cattle (aka your population) and by the end of the game have a generous self-perpetuating blood supply.

You would just do things differently than I would, that's all. That's one nice thing about this game, there's always lots of choices and lots of different strategies.

[Shovah32]

Your dominion shouldnt harm enemies too much. With a max dominion of 2 and only spread coming from blood sacrifices...

[HoneyBadger]

Actually, you could play around and try to add some Earth to Smoking Mirror when you're creating him.

I personally wouldn't trade astral for earth, but giving him enough to forge a Dwarven Hammer will really help you out, and even 1 point of Earth is useful, because it can be hard for Mictlan to get an earth mage.

I'd rather empower him with Earth-even though it'll cost a lot of gems you don't usually have, but it is something to think about. Air magic isn't nearly as big of a deal because EA Mictlan has an air-mage hero, and because air isn't as directly useful for Mictlan as earth.

Hammer of the Cyclops isn't a terrible target for Wish, using a clam-spam and soul-contract-spamming strategy with Mictlan.

Oh and when you put a contract on someone, GUARD HIM!. Put 5 of your summoned devils on each contract-carrier, or atleast 5 good troops. It will keep him alive through atleast lesser horror assassination attempts, and if you fail to protect a contract-carrier, you're out 65 bloodslaves and 5 fire gems.

If the carrier is able to bless, give him 5 eagle warriors, and script him to cast bless, that way they can track the horror down and kill it before it can ice your carrier. Try to research Returning spells, as that is another good way to guard your carriers.

Ring of Warning is good too, because that's an extra 5 troops or devils or whatever guarding your carrier, with the added bonus to Patrol-another plus when you're Mictlan.

By the way, you'll also have the ability to create both fever fetishes and rings of regeneration with Smoking Mirror. It costs a little more, but equipping say a scout with a fetish and a ring will give you fire gems for a while, which will make your soul-contracts even easier to produce in large amounts.

If you're fetish-spamming, you probably want to research and cast Gift of Health at some point. Don't be afraid to wait on it, but it's a good spell, and it'll cure afflictions for both fetish-victims and your aged high priests.

[HoneyBadger]

You're right, Shovah, it's a good tactic if you can somehow get lots of stealthy commanders who can bloodsacrifice while they're hidden (I believe that's possible, please correct me if I'm wrong), or else just lots of provinces spread around the enemy's territory and damage the enemy Dominion that way. It's, as Gandalf would say "another tool in the toolbox", but it's really not something that's going to win the game by itself for Mictlan.

It can be better for Lord of the Night with a high Dominion, since he's got all the necessary requirements, and can assassinate enemy priests along the way.

[Shovah32]

I dont think thats possible as you need a temple to preform a blood sacrifice and i dont see the enemy lending you theirs... What i was trying to say is that i wouldnt expect that dominion to do much to your enemy because with max dom2 and no temple/prophet spread your dominion wont get far.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, I didn't think of needing a temple.