Best Setups For Mictlan

[JDScherrey]

Norfeet,

I was considering the setup again with the Lord of Night pretender you suggested. If you take a watch tower, I can set up taking

3 Sloth
2 Heat
2 Growth or 2 Luck (I've seen the arguements do you really need growth at all...does it help.)
3 Magic

Or would you suggest other scales.

Christopher

[JDScherrey]

Norfeet,

I was considering the setup again with the Lord of Night pretender you suggested. If you take a watch tower, I can set up taking

3 Sloth
2 Heat
2 Growth or 2 Luck (I've seen the arguements do you really need growth at all...does it help.)
3 Magic

Or would you suggest other scales.

Christopher

[Norfleet]

You forgot Order. Order-3 can generally be considered mandatory for most living nations, and Mictlan is not an exception.

[Anglachel]

1)Pretender-I choose Fountain of Blood due to the Blood Hunt Bonus and 0 cost-What would you choose and why?

Lord of Night or Smoking Mirror. The reason for Lord of Night is because he is the best assassin in the game and if you commit to using him in the early game as such then you will slowly but 99.99% surely take even the most insanely defended independent provinces. He also has decent stats for fighting and can be used as an Super Combatant if you take the right magic paths with him but this will require a big expenditure of points on top of the 150 initial buy in which means, except for dominion, you would be better off with using a Vampire Queen if all you want is a Super Combatant.

I would use the Smoking Mirror for having a rainbow style mage because the initial cost of buying is 20 less than a Ghost King, has 1 in fire, death and blood off the bat, and the same 20 point cost for extra paths that the Ghost King has. He also can shape shift into a jaguar, which I think is cool.

I wouldn't use the fountain of blood personally because it feels too limited for my play style. Being immobile is just to big a pain for what little you get.

2)Scales: I choose Heat1,Anglachel has a good point with heat2, more points with little penalty-just the type of tip I need! But what of the other scales-please state reasons for choosing your settings.

Actually it was Norfleet that suggested a heat 2 scale. I am all for heat 3 because in my experience (single player) it doesn't pull down on my economy all that much and also temperature tends to not remain rock solid across all provinces you have dominion in but you will have to decide whether it is worth the extra points to dip all the way to heat 3 v/s heat 2. I think it is but most people probably won't agree.

I have already gone over my reasoning for choosing Turmoil 3. It is not an optimal choice in almost every case. In single player games I have yet to find myself crippled by it but I like to play on large maps, which are more forgiving. I only do it to see what will happen and how it interacts with luck 3 as an accelerator to make up for the 30% income loss by lucky events that produce income to offset or even overcome this. So far my findings have been favorable but far from conclusive until I run many, many games using this extreme approach.

I like Growth 3 because it not only helps alleviate blood hunt loss and unrest management loss but works basically like an income accelerator that rewards province expansion and investment in keeping what you grab that is synergistic with castling strategy for protecting blood hunters and temples. The more provinces you have and keep, the more income generated above and beyond the 6% flat rate increase you get initially.

Magic 3 is kind of a no-brainer. If I am relying on magic to raise my armies then I better be getting my research done and done fast. I don't know if this setting is synergistic with Luck 3 on getting favorable results that would help a summoning strategy.

Sloth 3 for my strategy is almost as big a no-brainer. Since mages don't require big production and I can only buy one per castle/temple/lab setup up then I would find it rather impossible to use up production even on the weakest setting (sloth 3) in the worst production province imaginable. No matter what I do I will ALWAYS take sloth 3 for Mictlan given my playing-style preference for them.

I take Luck 3 because if I didn't do that to offset and work with Turmoil 3 then I would end up one sorry S.O.B. I like being experimental but taking Turmoil 3 without Luck 3 is just plain suicidal.

As far as conventional scales settings that are all about being maximally optimal and NOT experimental I would always take Order 3, sloth 3, misfortune 3, heat 2, and either some growth or at the very least NO death setting.

MagicPaths:My choices are something like Blood4 or 5, 2 in Water,Astral,Fire,Nature.
This gives me a broad range of spells in all areas that I get starting gems in

Conventional wisdom would say that you should take around 3-4 in magic paths that your national mages don't cover which for Mictlan would be death, air, and earth. You don't have to do this but it is conventional wisdom because it is optimal use of points. In other words, if you can buy a national mage that can cover a path of magic then why use points to get it on your pretender? However, you decide that you really want to fashion say, fever fetishes, for the fire gem income or something and since this requires a combination of paths (nature AND fire) that your national mages have but not in that combination then you could get both those paths on your Pretender so you can make that magic item. Additionally, if you want to make a Super Combatant pretender then specific magic paths are going to be manditory. Experiment with paths and have fun because tweaking out a pretender and seeing how it does is one of the most fun things you can do in Dominions 2.

Hope this helps some.

[chrispedersen]

I wouldn't use the fountain of blood personally because it feels too limited for my play style. Being immobile is just to big a pain for what little you get.

Either fountain gives you 3 pics in a path, and a dominion4. This allows you to get a 9/9 or a 10/10 pretender.

I play a Mictlan quite different from most others, and it must be one of the later Versions of Mictlan (ie, 2.08 will not cut it).

My preference, again, different than most - is to go with Astral/Water. (Side Benefit - research paths coincide pretender with moon/rain priests). So I use the Oracle.

I go with a dominion 6-7.

Game plan is to churn out hordes of jaguar warriors, and priests sufficient to bless.

I build eagle warriors only to tie up enemy pretenders in citadels. Otherwise my research path is typically mindslay.

I never build any of the other units.

In this configuration, jaguars will have defense 16 MR 15 IIRC. Upon a wound, they bump up to 16 strength, and regenerate. Hence, they tend not to get afflictions.

When blessed, they get a free hit (Twist Fate).

Cost is 20/4 - this is why you can afford to set the scales Turmoil:3, Sloth:3, Heat:3. After that, personal preference. I generally go with a drain dominion.

Again strength 5 indies, and using normal common sense, I tend to not lose a single jaguar warrior through turn 10 or so.

Since my dominion does not extend (much) without active effort, I will typically try to find an indy location to setup and do research from.

I am all for heat 3 because in my experience (single player) it doesn't pull down on my economy all that much and also temperature tends to not remain rock solid across all provinces you have dominion in but you will have to decide whether it is worth the extra points to dip all the way to heat 3 v/s heat 2. I think it is but most people probably won't agree.

In my style of play, heat 3 is no question. I do it. Additionally, am cranking out the fort of your choice ever 4-5 turns - which allows for more jags to be produced.

I take Luck 3 because if I didn't do that to offset and work with Turmoil 3 then I would end up one sorry S.O.B. I like being experimental but taking Turmoil 3 without Luck 3 is just plain suicidal.

I take whatever +Luck I can afford. Point shaving, best bang for the buck is +1.

SP this never fails to win, and .. at least among the people that I play around.. it wins MP.

Best

[Norfleet]

That's certainly one approach to Mictlan, the "My Dominion Sucks" Version, as Mictlan certainly can choke off the flow of nasty dominion easily enough simply by failure to perform regular sacrificing in certain areas, combined with stone idols to poke holes.

I also don't consider the Jags potent enough to really be worth basing a bless strategy around, but they ARE relatively cheap, and as of newer patches, no longer capitol-only. I personally favor the thinking which states that Mictlan troops are mostly crud, and thus neglect them in favor of going for the blood. Another thing worth noting is that because Jags really have very little merit on their own, they tend to hit obsolescence fairly quickly. When do you start replacing them with blood in your strategy?

[Anglachel]

Originally posted by djtool:
what is that blood-9 blessing (death curse) all about anyways?

If I am not mistaken it means that when a troop with death curse is killed it puts a curse on whomever killed it. If this cursed unit lives it will now be more likely to gain afflictions if it survives subsequent combats. Make of it what you will but in a general sense it seems of limited usefulness for the amount of points to gain blood level nine.

[ June 24, 2004, 13:59: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Anglachel:
If I am not mistaken it means that when a troop with death curse is killed it puts a curse on whomever killed it.

The curse is only placed if the attacking unit also fails a MR check.

[Anglachel]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
The curse is only placed if the attacking unit also fails a MR check.

Gotcha. Its usefulness seems to be even further into the rubber-crutch/poke-in-the-eye area.

[djtool]

what is that blood-9 blessing (death curse) all about anyways?