Blood?

I have gotten an Ice Devil with a Wraith Sword and Boots of Flight by turn 16. Then turn 17 Alteration 2.

It is more than possible with some nations; and it isn't that disruptive to your economy as you need your economy to build the slaves and research needed.

The primary issue is you need a nation that is naturally strong and has significant surviviability in their normal units.

They key is not to overexpand. Though personally I don't like putting all my eggs into one type of basket Which is what you are doing, however that Ice Devil crippled 1 opponent and allowed me to be much larger and stronger than any of the other players by turn 25.

[Keir Maxwell]

Just knocked off an Ice Devil by turn 20 doing it via construction. Got Nycator who can't take weapons and is extremely sensitive to temperature - not good for Mictlan.

Did it affect my development? Hugely. I got hammered - but I got an Ice Devil.

Skipping construction I could go significantly quicker but to what affect? Not an efficient option for Mictlan with their heat dominion - more a Caelum/Jotun thing with their cold Dominion. Ice Devils are not *that* good unless you are a cold nation. Geting them t.8-9 with Caelum in dom1 was freak show material - Caelum was vastly more powerful played conventionally.

I think for Mictlan if you want to go blood early its as Alex suggested - Contracts utilsing your con research and then I'd follow up with a bit of conj, then alt6 for Mass Protection. I hate watching my guys get trashed by real troops. Going con2 then alt6 is what I'll try next and then see how the blood is looking.

One thing I would say - Mictlan can sure get alot of slaves! The Mictlan Priest is pretty amazing as a blood searcher with an SDR and with magic3 the research flies. I'm not so sure SDR's are redundant. At least not for Mictlan with their ultra cheap blood mage.

Cheers

Keir

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Jasper:
This may be the crux of our disagreement. If scouts weren't so good at hunting summoning Ice Devils would be a much bigger investment.

So from that may I take it that you agree that early blood could do with a boost (perhaps more multi-summons) when Illwinter fix the glich making scouts good blood hunters?

Cheers

Keir

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:

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Originally posted by Bowlingballhead:
As a GREAT fan of blood magic, I promise you that none of the 'boss' demons are so tremendously powerful in combat.

Are you seriously suggesting that Super Combatants are ineffective?! I have seen and done otherwise, and from what I've read my exerience is common.

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I don't think his comment was about SC's in general but "boss" demons.

In Dom1 Ice Devils and Illearths were great SC's but the others weren't really set up for SC. In Dom2 with only 1 Illearth and 7 Ice devils its not exactly a huge pool of SC's to go after - especially if other players are also looking at demons.

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
So from that may I take it that you agree that early blood could do with a boost (perhaps more multi-summons) when Illwinter fix the glich making scouts good blood hunters?

I've always thought the low level summons needed a boost, although I actually think the blood ones are better than many of the lower level Conjurations. I'd vote for lowering the cost of things like Cave Drakes slightly, and doubling the cost/output of the low level demon summons.

However, I don't think it's a glitch that scouts are good blood hunters, as they've always been that way (worse with dousing rods). I'm not sure whether/how to rebalance them, as most of the races with blood magic rely upon them to get anything out of it. Besides, IMHO Scouts themeatically make sense for the job.

One thought is to only allow blood mages to hunt for slaves -- or anyone with a dousing rod. This makes more sense to me thematically, but is a very drastic change.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I don't think his comment was about SC's in general but "boss" demons.

IMHO there is no way to avoid the comparison, as the big demons make the best Super Combatants, with the occasional exception of Pretenders.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Zen:
I have gotten an Ice Devil with a Wraith Sword and Boots of Flight by turn 16. Then turn 17 Alteration 2.

That's pretty scary! I'd hate to run into such a nation without access to Paralyze. Were you using Jotunheim?