Understanding Mictlan

[Aleph]

Or, "thieves in the temple."

So I started a game with LA Mictlan, Imprisoned Oracle Turmoil/Sloth/Luck/Growth 3 Heat 1 S9W9. Turn 4, I die because merchants show up in my temple, decreasing faith and increasing profits.

I'd like some ideas on how to play Mictlan (and blood nations in general, but I thought I'd start there since it's so emblematic). Specifically:

1. LA vs. EA. I like the pretenders and mages available to LA a bit more, but the loss of blood income in the early game would seem to be of critical importance for dominion expansion.

2. When does one start blood hunting and sacrificing? I thought it could wait a while until I had a physical infrastructure to drive it, but apparently not.

3. Where does one blood hunt? Best to spread out or use one's cities with extensive patrols and tax cuts? I assume the latter but am willing to admit I don't have a clue.

4. EA Pretender. I like S9W9 with an Oracle for exceptionally durable troops and ready to go Wish for blood slaves when the pretender finally awakens, but it's not available in EA without sacrificing good scales (luck is fun with Crossbreeding and if I'm going to be lowering taxes would be a good source of income, growth because it helps address the income problems over the long term, will easily counteract patrolling losses, and large provinces = better blood hunts). I'm thinking any of N9/B9, S9/N9, B9/S9, or B9/W9. All of these have something I don't like as well as W9/S9, and in general I don't grok the usefulness of either Death Curse or Berserk (I don't doubt they are useful; I just don't get it).

[Olive]

1 - When you start serious bloodhunt, 1 vs 3 slaves in the capitol doesn't change anything.

2 - Sacrifice on capitol as soon as possible.

3 - The best are 5000+ pop provinces.

4 - Imho, F9 is a must have for Mictlan.

[thejeff]

2) Start sacrificing at the capital with your first priest. Even 1 slave/turn will help. This is vital if you start without a pretender, since you don't have him to spread dominion.
Mictlan's prophet spreads dominion normally right? If so, make sure one is appointed as soon as possible.

3)More specifically, population over 5000 doesn't help blood hunting, so using provinces close to 5000 minimizes income loss while maximizing blood.

[Aleph]

Mictlan's prophets don't spread dominion.

Thanks for the guidance on the pop size. Obvious, from the rules, yet I still missed it.

F9 more so than W9? I would think that the doubling of attacks would pay off more in the long run with sacred demons than the additional damage - you can only kill an opposing infantryman once, after all, and you're going to get through/survive missile fire a lot better with water. I pretty much have to pick one or the other in order to have even decent scales. My choices are the ones I listed above, plus I could sub fire in anywhere I have water. Thoughts?

[calmon]

You could also play with a F9W9S9 bless strategy. This works very well for mictlan. Imprisoned oracle, some spends on dominion and order and the rest negative scales and you've it.

If you keep your two 9-bless strategy with astral 9 i would go for F9 instead of W9. Mictlan has a better use from the better attack then from the defence bonus (jaguar form has 3 attacks, low defence in both forms).

[Shovah32]

True, the attack is more useful than the defence in most cases but your forgetting the 50% quickness. +50% move speed and a 50% chance to attack twice per turn? Yes please. With your oracle i would suggest either f9w9s9 or f9w9s3-4. If you dont plan on using your sacreds for expansion then i guess you could consider dropping f9 but i really think you should try to get it in.