Feeling excited about Mictlan

[aldin]

I need y'all to check my logic on this to see if I've made some glaring error. So far everything I've encountered in my first test game says things are okay. I was looking at the costs of bless-effect troops and I couldn't get over the idea that Mictlan has a lot of inexpensive, solid bless units. I knew I wanted a double 9; Fire to boost standard attacks to excellent ones and Water to boost average defenses to good ones and pick up quickness to boot. The way the numbers are working out is weird though:

-Pretender as researcher = Drain 3; 17 RP/turn is nothing to sneeze at, and the +1.5 MR is nice too.
-Rock bottom resource costs = Sloth 3; It's a minor gold hit but the production just isn't needed.
-Preferred scale = Heat 1; Just for the bonus points.

That's 280 FREE (mostly) points! And just for grins and giggles the cheapest F9W9 pretender available to Mictlan is the Moloch. The Eagle Warriors FLY when blessed. The Jaguar Warriors turn into were-Jags when hit, and the Sun Warriors are tough HI units BEFORE you tack on the bless effects. Add to that the fact that all the commanders are sacred and you've got some tough early armies.

My experience so far is that I can crank out fourteen Jaguar Warriors and a couple of banner bearers while I build a H3 commander and prophet him to H4. Combined with the starting units, this sweeps the "easy" str.7 independants adjacent to the castle while I crank out 7 Sun Warriors/turn. By the time the easy stuff is cleared a fair-sized sacred army is available.

So bring me back down to earth - I know I read a lot about how weak Mictlan is, but so far my experience is that they build a big, fast, good early army with lots of research and many excellent units.

~Aldin

[Teraswaerto]

Relying on capitol only units is not good on the long run, and Mictlan has poor troops overall. 17 research is good for start only, so 3 drain will be hard later on. Mictlan mages are expensive.

[ January 15, 2004, 17:34: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[Wauthan]

Well there's a trick to Mictlan. Since your dominion doesn't increase or spread if you don't perform blood sacrifices you can easily create a research and production center outside of your dominions negative influence.

If you are going to rely on blessed troops you need to create a system of commanders that keep running around with sacred troops reinforcements. If you find a site that allows you to create sacred troops, like the amazons, then guard that site well.

[aldin]

Thanks for the quick response Teraswaerto! To follow up on your responses:

Relying on capitol only units is not good on the long run

It seemed to me that Mictlan shifts very naturally into summoning troops as time goes on, am I mistaken?

17 research is good for start only, so 3 drain will be hard later on

.
I figured on burning pell-mell for CON6 and grabbing lanterns to give to the 80 gold priests (6 research per with lanterns). A lucky mercenary pickup could grant me owl quills or skulls too (and I'm hoping to find something to summon with 2D also).

Mictlan mages are expensive

Absolutely, but they're mage/priests which is nice, they aren't needed much early while the pretender is doing the bulk of the research, and a rapid advance tends to mitigate the high expense through increased gold income.

Are my responses reasonable? Or are there big glaring holes in my logic waiting to swallow me whole?

~Aldin

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by aldin:
I need y'all to check my logic on this to see if I've made some glaring error. So far everything I've encountered in my first test game says things are okay. I was looking at the costs of bless-effect troops and I couldn't get over the idea that Mictlan has a lot of inexpensive, solid bless units. I knew I wanted a double 9; Fire to boost standard attacks to excellent ones and Water to boost average defenses to good ones and pick up quickness to boot.

So far you reasoning is rock solid.

The way the numbers are working out is weird though:

-Pretender as researcher = Drain 3; 17 RP/turn is nothing to sneeze at, and the +1.5 MR is nice too.
-Rock bottom resource costs = Sloth 3; It's a minor gold hit but the production just isn't needed.
-Preferred scale = Heat 1; Just for the bonus points.

You will feel that Drain 3 later, believe me. It means your cheapest mages (mictlan priest) only has 1 research. You have no really cost effective researcher. Better pray you find a library, or you'll never keep up.

That's 280 FREE (mostly) points! And just for grins and giggles the cheapest F9W9 pretender available to Mictlan is the Moloch. The Eagle Warriors FLY when blessed. The Jaguar Warriors turn into were-Jags when hit, and the Sun Warriors are tough HI units BEFORE you tack on the bless effects. Add to that the fact that all the commanders are sacred and you've got some tough early armies.

The eagle warriors fly, but are weak, although your blessing helps them nicely. Both they and the werejaguars stay very vulnerable to missile fire, even blessed. The wereform of the werejaguar is a little stronger than the basic form, but not much. The Sun warriors were barely into medium infantry before the blessings. Of course, your blessings do make them much stronger...

My experience so far is that I can crank out fourteen Jaguar Warriors and a couple of banner bearers while I build a H3 commander and prophet him to H4. Combined with the starting units, this sweeps the "easy" str.7 independants adjacent to the castle while I crank out 7 Sun Warriors/turn. By the time the easy stuff is cleared a fair-sized sacred army is available.

So bring me back down to earth - I know I read a lot about how weak Mictlan is, but so far my experience is that they build a big, fast, good early army with lots of research and many excellent units.

As has already being mentioned, you won't get more than those 7 sun warriors a turn - and your other units are desperately weak. Pray for amazon territory ! (they have sacred troops)
You need some summons to keep your armies up, but you will have trouble keeping up in research.
You NEED to perform blood sacrifices to spread your dominion, so you have to setup a blood economy, which is very expensive (but brings its rewards later).
Oh, and your province defense sucks big time.

Still, Mictlan is very good for a blessing oriented game. So look for those amazons, keep cranking up the sun warriors, and start thinking about getting other decent troops (indies, summons) for the middle game. Here are a few challenge :
- how will you defeat an army with 60 longbowmen and 40 heavy infantry (15+ prot).
- how will you deal with big tramplers ? defense won't help...
- how will you deal with heavy losses ?
- how will you deal with hostile magic ?
- when your enemies are ready to cast, say, Burden of Time, will you be able to dispel it ?

You can do it. But it's not easy

[aldin]

Tremendous response General, just what I was hoping for. Mind if I try to answer your questions(in the hope of learning more from you)?

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
Here are a few challenge :
- how will you defeat an army with 60 longbowmen and 40 heavy infantry (15+ prot).
- how will you deal with big tramplers ? defense won't help...
- how will you deal with heavy losses ?
- how will you deal with hostile magic ?
- when your enemies are ready to cast, say, Burden of Time, will you be able to dispel it ?

Bowmen/HI and Tramplers seem to have the same solution to me - get into the rear. Eagle warriors on the flanks seems the best bet here, probably set back just a bit from the Sun warriors in the middle to make the SW the more obvious missile target. Is there (yes, still a n00b) an early fear-causing blood spell that would be useful to spook tramplers? That's be nice too.

Heavy losses are a big problem. I guess Mictlan really needs to find an alternate troop source so that something other that it's sacred units take the main damage. That dovetails nicely with solving the HI/Bowmen or Trampler issue as well.

Hostile magic... feh! I think I'm finally getting it. Mictlan MUST develop a secondary source of halfway decent cannon fodder or it'll lose too many sacred troops to be viable.

As for Burden of Time, well, it sucks. At least Mictlan has S2 mages. Ulm is REALLY screwed by BoT...

~Aldin

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
- how will you deal with big tramplers ? defense won't help...

Defense DOES help. Trampled units who pass a defense test will get only 1 point of damage. Although I don't remember how that test is done - guess it's DEF 10 = 50% chance?.

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by aldin:
Tremendous response General, just what I was hoping for. Mind if I try to answer your questions(in the hope of learning more from you)?

quote:

---

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
Here are a few challenge :
- how will you defeat an army with 60 longbowmen and 40 heavy infantry (15+ prot).
- how will you deal with big tramplers ? defense won't help...
- how will you deal with heavy losses ?
- how will you deal with hostile magic ?
- when your enemies are ready to cast, say, Burden of Time, will you be able to dispel it ?

Bowmen/HI and Tramplers seem to have the same solution to me - get into the rear. Eagle warriors on the flanks seems the best bet here, probably set back just a bit from the Sun warriors in the middle to make the SW the more obvious missile target. Is there (yes, still a n00b) an early fear-causing blood spell that would be useful to spook tramplers? That's be nice too.

Heavy losses are a big problem. I guess Mictlan really needs to find an alternate troop source so that something other that it's sacred units take the main damage. That dovetails nicely with solving the HI/Bowmen or Trampler issue as well.

Hostile magic... feh! I think I'm finally getting it. Mictlan MUST develop a secondary source of halfway decent cannon fodder or it'll lose too many sacred troops to be viable.

As for Burden of Time, well, it sucks. At least Mictlan has S2 mages. Ulm is REALLY screwed by BoT...

~Aldin

---

Right. Mictlan national troops can be used as fodder at the start of the game, a few feathered warriors will make sure they don't rout too quickly... but they simply are not strong enough to face the middle game as anything more than walking, single-use shields. As long as you plan for the transition with summons or good indies, you'll be okay. But do prepare. And make sure to find a way to do decent research, or you'll fell the pain also.

Your setup gave you a very good start, and you will need it to overcome your weaknesses in other areas...

P.S. to Nagot Gick Fel : I stand corrected...

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
- how will you deal with big tramplers ? defense won't help...

Defense DOES help. Trampled units who pass a defense test will get only 1 point of damage. Although I don't remember how that test is done - guess it's DEF 10 = 50% chance?.

---

I was going to reply, but you were faster . IIRC trampling attacks have 10 ATT rating.

[Endoperez]

Isn't Mictlan equipped with slave-producing commanders? And although their troops suck, I thought they were at least cheap. Just levy/buy some cannon fodder, some arrow fodder, some spell fodder etc.