Lower level priests and blood sacrifices.

[Graeme Dice]

Ighalli said:
But Mictlan also has to buy temples. So now, instead of having a slightly more difficult time spreading dominion and getting a much more efficient effect, they get no advantage (unless they can do multiple slaves a turn) for a priest and a sacrifice each turn. What level are all the priests they can recruit now?

Requiring blood slaves for dominion spread is likely supposed to be an overall disadvantage, not the advantage for Mictlan that it was in Dom2. This is a balancing factor against their extremely efficient blood slave hunting and having mages that can easily cast the majority of the powerful blood spells.

[Endoperez]

29th march
* blood sacrifice now more efficient.

[BigJMoney]

I'm going to assume that dominions spread info is not in the the manual (it doesn't seem the type of thing they'd put there), and we know this is going to come up as a question by some poeple in the future, so I'd like to go ahead and request, if any of you testers know how it is more efficient, please post some info. This thread has a good title for people doing "blood sacrifice" "priest" searches on the search engine.

Graeme, I have probably been wrong about Mictlan, but like Ighalli, I too interpreted Mictlan's sacrificial abilities to be a potential dominion advantage, if the player was willing to spend just a little more in gold. If a Mictlan player can have an equal amount of sacrificing priests as an enemy nation can have temples, they gain double the amount of temple checks. This is not easy to do, though. Having a priest regularly sacrificing in every province takes effort, as I'm sure you are aware. Now, however, Mictlan must put forth the same effort, but this time, he is generating exactly half the number of temple checks. You may see that as being on the same level as everyone else, but I see it in comparison to what it was in the previous game: 50% effectivity. But, like I said, you've been playing this game longer than I have, and you're more likely to know how it's supposed to be. If Mictlan is supposed to be at an overall disadvantage to other nations, then... hey, this thread is still appropriate because people who think like me will be forewarned.

=$=

[Endoperez]

Jurri just confirmed that manual has something for both dominion spread and blood sacrifice.

So, let's wait and see.

[Morkilus]

Page 93:

Blood Sacrifices To conduct a blood sacrifice, a priest of the appropriate nation can sacrifice a number of blood slaves up to and including to his priest level. The province he occupies must contain a temple. For each blood slave thus sacrificed, one temple check (described above) is generated. Thus, blood sacrifices can be a powerful method of spreading dominion.

I can't say anything about Mictlan's priests, since they're not specifically tabulated into the manual (yay, something for the Wiki, finally!)

[BigJMoney]

Um, that's the exact same as it was in Dom II. I'm just a scratchin ma' head, here.

Thus, blood sacrifices can be a powerful method of spreading dominion.

I really don't like debating here, but I have to point out that it's statements like these that caused me to believe that Mictlan is not supposed to be in any way less effective when it comes to spreading dominion. Maybe I'm creating fantasy for myself, of course.

=$=

[BigJMoney]

I'm going to display a little math here for the sake of Mitclan.

Example1:
A nation with 10 temples generating dominion for 20 turns.
Cost: 2000 gold (1000 for Pangea and Man)

Example2:
Mictlan with 10 temples and priests, generating the same dominion for 20 turns.
Cost: 3475 gold

That's the cost for Mictlan to equal the ability of the other nations, assuming their basic priests still cost 80 gold. My game will probably arrive tomorrow and I can see if the priests still cost 80 gold, and to confirm that they have actually been reduced a level in h like all the other priests. I will say again that in Dominions II, example2 had the same cost, but doubled the amount of dominion Mictlan was spreading versus the other nations. This was the way Illwinter designed Mictlan, and I never heard anything from anyone about them needing to be nerfed, so I am still presuming this was an oversight.

=$=

[Ygorl]

Well, Jade Knives aren't that hard to forge, nor are more powerful priests all that hard to hire.
It is true that they're not as good at it as they used to be, but they used to be *really* good. A crappy priest with a jade knife is still three times as effective as a normal temple...