Mictlan Pretenders ideas request

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
[snip]

What about giving advice that's actually usable in multiplayer for a change? If I know my PDF well, I guess that's what he's looking for.

[PDF]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

What about giving advice that's actually usable in multiplayer for a change? If I know my PDF well, I guess that's what he's looking for.

Uh, yes, but why don't you think Boron's advice to be usable in MP ?
Looks great to me (if not particularly original)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

PDF said:
Uh, yes, but why don't you think Boron's advice to be usable in MP ?
Looks great to me (if not particularly original)

Do you think in a reasinably competitive MP you'll get enough time/find enough earth gems (from 10-12 searched provinces) to "first" forge 10-15 Hammers (why "first" BTW? Does it means, even before SDRs?) and have Forge up? While we're at it, like any other blood nation Mictlan does best on site-poor maps (the poorer the better), so that's the kind of game setup you should look for - and consequently, it'll make a site-searching rainbow pretender even less desirable.

Clamming with Mictlan, why not - if you like to turtle? But I'd bet an MP game will be decided long before you can empower and equip an astral-4 GK to the point he can wish for more blood. The fact that Mictlan needs to push its research in Blood Magic as well as the other schools doesn't help here. I'd say the "Focus on that" (ie, clamming) advice is a recipe for disaster in MP.

Empowering a death mage in blood to get Vampire Lords - what a waste of blood slaves, especially if you want "to get Conjuration 6 or even 7 quickly". If you can't get the undead hero, Lamia Queens are bot cheap and effective death mages with 2 sorcery picks. I'd rather burn 15 nature gems/turn until I get one with a blood pick or 2, rather than empower a necromancer.

"And the only non-capitol only mage is the B - priest which is for nothing else useful than bloodhunting + bloodsacrificing". Under Boron's magic+3 scale, he's a damn good magic researcher as well, cost-wise. If Boron doesn't use them for research duty, I wonder how he ever get Wish, Vampire Lords, Ivy Kings, etc. Or I must assume he's incredibly lucky with Sage sites.

[ckfnpku]

How about giving some yourself instead of whining? I realize I'm doing the same, but being an utter noob I don't feel I have any advice to give. Nagot on the otherhand is obviosly an expert.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

ckfnpku said:
How about giving some yourself

Actually I (and many others) already replied to this very question in the past and I was trying to locate these older Posts and provide a link to them - but it seems the Boards' search engine isn't that good. What about trying yourself, maybe you'll be more lucky than me?

instead of whining?

Whining, me? Oh, dear!

[Foom]

With all due respect, I think people on this board have a bad habit of flaming others for giving less than perfect advice. If someone says something wrong, why not just correct him where you disagree and offer a better solution? I'm not only talking about Nagot here. It's keeping people away from the Boards, and ultimately hurting the game. Dom2 is strongest in multiplayer, so why scare away the newbies?

Now that I'm done complaining, here's a suggestion. Which, I might add, is probably not perfect, and hasn't been tested in MP, but I hope you'll let me live anyway.

Vampire Queen
3 Air
3 Earth
3 Death
4 Blood

4 Dominion
3 Order
3 Sloth
2 Heat
1 Growth
1 Misfortune
2 Magic

Wizard's Tower

(You might have enough points for another good scale, not sure)

The pretender's paths complement the national mages nicely IMO and give access to most of the usual SC spells (air shield, mirror image, mistform, *skin, invulnerability, soul vortex). You can probably make a dwarven hammer for cheaper soul contracts if you want to pursue that path.

Alteration-3 gives you spells to expand with the pretender. Construction-4 gives you dousing rods for blood hunting. After that, research Blood and consider Alt-5 to beef the VQ further and Const-6 for the path boosting items.

The national troops are crap, but slingers can be fun if you have a lot of them, since their hail of stones gives them a good chance of routing independent enemies.

I like to forge thistle maces and have priest kings summon dark vines, but that's partly because I think tentacles are cool.

Edited for clarity and great justice

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Foom said:
With all due respect, I think people on this board have a bad habit of flaming others for giving less than perfect advice. If someone says something wrong, why not just correct him where you disagree and offer a better solution? I'm not only talking about Nagot here.

Fair point. I now realize I sounded a bit harsh or petulant, while my intent wasn't to flame anyone. I think I know PDF well enough to understand he was looking for MP advice (although he didn't say anything about it in his initial post - but he confirmed later, anyway), and Boron, unaware of that, was kind enough to provide some ideas. I merely wanted to point out his advice, while OK for SP games, would fall short in multiplayer - IMO of course .

[PDF]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

Fair point. I now realize I sounded a bit harsh or petulant, while my intent wasn't to flame anyone. I think I know PDF well enough to understand he was looking for MP advice (although he didn't say anything about it in his initial post - but he confirmed later, anyway), and Boron, unaware of that, was kind enough to provide some ideas. I merely wanted to point out his advice, while OK for SP games, would fall short in multiplayer - IMO of course .

Yes, you were right (about the fact that I wanted MP advice). I realized myself that Boron's strategy advice for 15 hammers was not MP-oriented, but didn't see that the whole pretender theme (search-oriented) was not either.

Funny thing is that I was looking for original ideas, and currently I have a GK and a VQ ... Well, I didn't ask for inefficient design, so ...

[archaeolept]

Nagot was correct, however impolitically he may have presented himself.

Foom: Vampire queens are still good, but quite expensive. you'll be solely relying on her pretty well for expansion. and 4 dominion is a likely death sentence in multiplayer, and wizard's tower is nice but too pricey.

its true that Boron is more of a turtler, at least when i played him, but i'm not so impressed w/ vampire lords and soul contracts. sure, they're good, but no big deal.

the sacred troops are just ok, nothing great IMHO

well, it all depends on settings, but w/ an extreme bless strat, Mictlan has the best sacred units in the game. even w/ just a fire 9 bless they are quite useful and definitely cost-effective. I like an F-9 A-4 Moloch, though i'm used to dealing w/ it's tendancy to "run away". a few indy archers in the back will usually work, until i'm able to solve the problem more permanently...

using zen's pretender mod i've had very good success w/ an ultra-dragon (dual bless), however I don't think this will still be viable under the scales mod.

[Chazar]

Foom said:
With all due respect, I think people on this board have a bad habit of flaming others for giving less than perfect advice. If someone says something wrong, why not just correct him where you disagree and offer a better solution? I'm not only talking about Nagot here. It's keeping people away from the Boards, and ultimately hurting the game. Dom2 is strongest in multiplayer, so why scare away the newbies?

This is a very good point! However one should also be aware that written communication is extremly easy to be misunderstood (lack of intonation, body language, language translation, etc.) - which is why emoticons were invented. Therefore people should also not let themselves be angered by Posts too easily, for it might not have been intended that way (like in this case)...