Various Mictil questions

[PrinzMegaherz]

Every turn you gather about 2-3 slave warriors, which while dubiously known as perhaps the single worst unit in the game, is completely free to raise. I'm just about certain Slave warriors have no upkeep cost either, though ill have to check.

Hm, they are for free? I always thought they reduce population like blood hunting. But maybe I'm wrong about that

[GavinWheeler]

I'd definitely reconsider your pretender. Mictlan has a cool variety of sacred mages, so you can rely on them to allow you to cast lots of funky spells.

Mictlipoctli, for example, is a very accomplished necromancer, and can summon more, so why have a pretender with death magic?

Personally, I like a pretender with Earth and Blood magic. Earth is one school missing from those normally available to Mictlan, and the ability to (eventually) summon demon knights plugs the lack of heavy cavalry in a nicely thematic manner. Additionally, the reinvigoration blessing from Earth magic is far more useful to your sacred mage than Death's fear aura effect. If you want fearful troops, just summon them.

Edit: I forgot your other questions, and I thought I'd add that even if your starting fortress sucks badly, you can save up to cast "Three Red Seconds" or "Wizard Tower" to get another kind of fortress on a particularly juicy or vulnerable province.

When sacrificing, the level of your priest limits the number of slaves you can sacrifice. Each slave sacrificed spreads Dominion like a temple, so sacrificing two slaves is twice as effective as sacrificing one. The priest will sacrifice as many slaves as he has in his inventory, up to his maximum level - so a level 4 priest will sacrifice 4 slaves if he has at least 4 slaves in his personal magic gem supply. If he only has 3, he will only sacrifice 3. The nice thing is that if he is in a province with a laboratory, he will then replenish his supply of slaves from the ones stored in the laboratory. So a level 4 priest who is started off sacrificing with three slaves in his inventory will continue to sacrifice three slaves every round until you tell him otherewise or he runs out of slaves (there are none in the lab, or you use the 'pool' facility to pool all bloodslaves, including his).

Dominion will spread symmetrically (more or less) out from where the sacrificing is taking place. So if you want to push dominion into a particular area, sacrifice in or near that area.

Search on this bulletin board and you should find a very informative document about how dominion and dominion spreading works.

[ March 28, 2004, 16:30: Message edited by: GavinWheeler ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:
Mictlipoctli, for example, is a very accomplished necromancer, and can summon more, so why have a pretender with death magic?

What if Mictlipoctli doesn't show up in your game? I wouldn't advise someone to not pick a particular magic school for his pretender if it's available only on heroes. I like to pick death, air and earth on my Mictlan pretenders for this reason.

[GavinWheeler]

Well, I tend to go for Turmoil and Luck with nations where I really really want the Heroes to show up. Also, a (reasonably good)chance of getting a hero with Death magic, or even independant death mages, is still better than (as far as I recall) no chance of getting a hero or recruitable unit with blood and earth.

Nor is the availability of Death magic elsewhere the only reason I like Earth magic on a Mictlan pretender. The reinvigoration of my sacred mages is probably the biggest bonus.

[SelfishGene]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
Hm, they are for free? I always thought they reduce population like blood hunting. But maybe I'm wrong about that

Just checked - they do take 5 pop for every slave. Since i always max growth with Mictlan i didn't notice. It does mean though, even if you take growth, to focus slave raids on high pop provinces. Levying slaves causes no unrest and densely settled provinces can recover pop faster.

[SelfishGene]

Originally posted by Freyland:

Ooh, ooh! An ORDER! Let me see..... no.

...

I am truly speechless. My jaw is agape. Not because I am impressed, but because the implications on your social life and priorities (that you felt compelled to share that) simply overwhelm me.

BTW original poster. Come on a forum asking for help than personally insulting a respondent for having more knowledge than you is, as the Koreans say, "bad manner". If you went on a political forum writing Bush as "Busch" and refused to edit it (which only takes 5 seconds) you'd get called on it i think. Manner plz.

[ March 28, 2004, 20:44: Message edited by: SelfishGene ]

[Freyland]

SelfishGene, this forum is no less mine than it is his. To "order" me to fix some aspect of my post is demeaning and suggests he holds some superior position over me, and neither of us holds anything of the sort over the other. Please reconsider who you are calling rude, as I was not the first to throw a stone. Thanks!

I did not know that recruiting slaves cost population, but I suspected it. Just not enough time in the day to test all the depth (or, not well documented) aspects of this game!

As for the first game, I eventually had to ditch it. I stopped receiving stern looks from Jotun and instead was stabbed with a strong drive through my territory, all the way north of my position to Arcoscephale's old fortress! Those giants were starving, but still nigh unstoppable. In one turn, Jotun was seiging two of my bases and Caelum was seiging the third one! Fortunately, I was able to break two seiges and repel the storming on my main (weak) watchtower the next turn. However, despite my best efforts, I kept losing ground. The Last straw was having all three of my Mercs leave me for other nations on the same turn. I guess they saw the writing on the wall too.....

The next game was with the same Pretender 'class' but only Blood 6, Death, Fire and Astral 2. My fortress was better off, as was my dominion, but my starting position was on the small island continent on the Eye of the Desert map. Now I had resources, but gold was slow in coming. Plus, the Atlanteans were essentially *right next to me*, and they kept assaulting my coast with no way for me to retaliate. Naturally, I am closely surrounded by three other nations as well. What is saving my bacon is: 1)I got a lucky tax break with 500 gold! 2) My Pretender can summon Fiends in battle (I know, I know... it says that in the text, but I misunderstood) and 3) finally, I took a province to my south with a DemonGate! It gives me a fiend each turn (with a blood mage occupying it) for free. I am slowly building up that province both for defense and to recruit the Ichthyids which inhabit the province, so I can stick it to the Atlanteans. I still have lots to learn with this Nation, but I am feeling a bit better about this round!

Thanks for all the help thus far!

Jonathan