Understanding Mictlan

[HoneyBadger]

Actually, you could play around and try to add some Earth to Smoking Mirror when you're creating him.

I personally wouldn't trade astral for earth, but giving him enough to forge a Dwarven Hammer will really help you out, and even 1 point of Earth is useful, because it can be hard for Mictlan to get an earth mage.

I'd rather empower him with Earth-even though it'll cost a lot of gems you don't usually have, but it is something to think about. Air magic isn't nearly as big of a deal because EA Mictlan has an air-mage hero, and because air isn't as directly useful for Mictlan as earth.

Hammer of the Cyclops isn't a terrible target for Wish, using a clam-spam and soul-contract-spamming strategy with Mictlan.

Oh and when you put a contract on someone, GUARD HIM!. Put 5 of your summoned devils on each contract-carrier, or atleast 5 good troops. It will keep him alive through atleast lesser horror assassination attempts, and if you fail to protect a contract-carrier, you're out 65 bloodslaves and 5 fire gems.

If the carrier is able to bless, give him 5 eagle warriors, and script him to cast bless, that way they can track the horror down and kill it before it can ice your carrier. Try to research Returning spells, as that is another good way to guard your carriers.

Ring of Warning is good too, because that's an extra 5 troops or devils or whatever guarding your carrier, with the added bonus to Patrol-another plus when you're Mictlan.

By the way, you'll also have the ability to create both fever fetishes and rings of regeneration with Smoking Mirror. It costs a little more, but equipping say a scout with a fetish and a ring will give you fire gems for a while, which will make your soul-contracts even easier to produce in large amounts.

If you're fetish-spamming, you probably want to research and cast Gift of Health at some point. Don't be afraid to wait on it, but it's a good spell, and it'll cure afflictions for both fetish-victims and your aged high priests.

[HoneyBadger]

You're right, Shovah, it's a good tactic if you can somehow get lots of stealthy commanders who can bloodsacrifice while they're hidden (I believe that's possible, please correct me if I'm wrong), or else just lots of provinces spread around the enemy's territory and damage the enemy Dominion that way. It's, as Gandalf would say "another tool in the toolbox", but it's really not something that's going to win the game by itself for Mictlan.

It can be better for Lord of the Night with a high Dominion, since he's got all the necessary requirements, and can assassinate enemy priests along the way.

[Shovah32]

I dont think thats possible as you need a temple to preform a blood sacrifice and i dont see the enemy lending you theirs... What i was trying to say is that i wouldnt expect that dominion to do much to your enemy because with max dom2 and no temple/prophet spread your dominion wont get far.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, I didn't think of needing a temple.

[Baalz]

One other thing, there are some really good blood magic sites if you plan on doing a lot of blood sorceries. There are a couple that reduce the cost by 40%, and one (I think) that reduces it by 60%. That's a huge difference if the bulk of your army is blood summons....

Whooo man, I'll say I'm way too scared of dominion death to go with a 2 dominion! A couple of stealthy preachers, or a stealthy/tough enemy god and it doesn't matter how tough your sacreds are. Is this something you use against other players, or against the AI?

As you say, different strokes for different folks, but I find I usually pour all my efforts to researching rather than blood hunting until I get up to the pretty good summons around blood-5 (I just feel like it's a waste of resources to summon bats...they're barely better than my nationals). For my play style at least, I've got plenty of time to get up at least 3 castles well before my blood economy gets going, and 25-30 jaguar warriors, even moderately blessed, coming out every turn go a long way towards buying me the time I need to get the good stuff. I'll take 25 fairly strong jaguar warriors over 2 uber blessed ones (or even 6) every time. Plus, as I mentioned, having extra castles lets you build up a whole lot of the cheapo priests which you can very rapidly switch from research to blood hunting when the time is right. PLUS having castles over a decent percentage of the provinces you plan on blood hunting in gives you a whole lote more resiliance to all the crap that the enemy is gonna try to do to your blood economy.

Interesting how different people's take on the same nation is.

[HoneyBadger]

Dominion of 2 is a risk, yes, but if you're careful, it can certainly be playable.

The thing about Dominion 2 is that it only has to last you through a turn or two, unless you're very unlucky and have a close human-run neighbor who happens to have a sneaky Pretender with a high Dom, and she decides to target you, specifically.

In an MP game, I definitely would devote atleast 3 Priest-Kings with jade knives to maintaining my Dominion, in and around my home province, and maybe have a well-guarded spare castle or two with a similar set up close by, just as a fail-safe, for a total of 6 core provinces with temples, but a well-maintained Dominion, even if it's 2, is pretty resilient. The key is to both maintain it, and to spread it out so it can't all collapse at once around you.

Once you've got your blood-economy up and running, concerns about Dominion are going to ease very quickly,

You'll even want other Dominions in outlying provinces you own, because they'll generally be better than yours, and as long as your borders are tight and you keep sacrificing, it'll become steadily harder for enemies to Dominion-Death you.

[Strages Sanctus]

I thought only 1 priest a turn could sacrifice at a temple? How do you have 3 doing it?

[Shovah32]

In and around his home province, not all in the one province. In theory badger that should work but, iirc, each slave sacrificed causes a temple check and at dom2 that dosnt mean much.

[HoneyBadger]

Baalz, you do have a good point about the value of early expansion. Especially in MP but in SP too, you would probably do well using your starting cash to suppliment your initial army with enough troops to form a hard core, and then recruiting Priest Kings and using them to capture slaves.
That way, you'd have the numbers in an average fight, and with enough real troops, you should be able to take a good sized expanse of territory.

You wouldn't really need tons of Sacred troops for that, though, just lots of feathered warriors to give your slaves some backbone.

Example Strategy: I'm playing a game now with gold, resources, and supply all set to minimum.
I combine my starting army and put them all at the right side of the screen so they can charge together when they're done firing slings. The Tribal King in charge I put in the back because he's expensive and I want to be able to use him to capture slaves in the future. I set Magic to Construction because I want those clams, fetishes, Sanguine Dousing Rods, Skull Mentors, and Brazen Vessels.

I'm only able to recruit a couple of Feathered Warriors per turn, and I want to move fast, so I'm only going to wait a couple of months before I send them out.

By the second turn, I've recruited a Priest King and have a total of 10 Feathered Warriors recruited or in the quewe. I choose the Priest King for 3 reasons-1 he can blood-sacrifice, 2 he doesn't start out old, and 3 he can always act as a back-up slave levier if my tribal king dies.

Additional funds go towards Sacred troops, for the first 3 months. After that, I'm buying Priest Kings as often as I can afford them, which will depend mostly on luck.

As soon as I recruit the first Priest-King, I set him to sacrificing. I'll do this for atleast the next 5 Priest Kings I recruit, but after that, additional Priest-Kings will become my core researchers.
One will stay at home, while the other five will spread to neighboring provinces. If I happen to have more than 5 provinces connecting to my home province, then I'll put a Priest-King and a temple in as many as connect to me. I'll raise the defense of those provinces to atleast 25, as quickly as funds allow. I'll set up two castles-as you suggest-close by and put a temple in each one, again with a sacrificing Priest-King. Defense for these, and for my home province, I'll raise to a minimum of 40. That should be enough to give me a nice stable Dominion.

Spreading my priests out makes my Dominion a little more stable, while keeping a bunch close by helps assure that any major loss can be quickly recovered. It also helps spread my Dominion. I just have to make sure my temples are protected, but what else are sacred demons for?

I've got 2 fire gems coming in every turn, that's an extra 30 gold if I alchemize them-and that 30 gold is completely independent of scales. I use that to purchase troops, province defense, and Priest Kings until my Pretender shows up and starts making Soul-Contracts. 12 alchemized fire gems equal 1 Priest King and change.

I don't worry too much about taking the early hit in gems, because I'm going to be setting up a fetish-farm soon enough, and because Mictlan doesn't use a lot of fire gems anyway. Large amounts will come in handy later on when I'm making contracts or casting globals, or when I need lots of cash for province-defense, and that's what the fetish-farm is for.

If I ever get my Pretender empowered in Earth, I'll set up an earth-blood factory too, but right now, fetish-farm is easier (and it sounds more evocative).

I'm surrounded by a lot of tough independents-I set Independent strength to 9-but it looks like the weakest is a local tribe of Lizardmen. I could really use those heavy troops, not to mention lizard shamans, so I send my scout in to get the lay of the land.

It's now mid-fall of the first year.
I've got two Priest-Kings (one of which I bought with alchemized fire gems), and a decent army of 10 feathered warriors, 2 jaguar-warriors (with more on the way) and 40 or so slave warriors. I now Prophetize my second Priest King.
Yes, I could wait and make somebody else my Prophet, but he'll do for now, and I can always get him killed off later on if somebody better comes along. Besides, he makes a decent commander, able to handle 120 troops at a time, and I'm playing a numbers game. It also won't hurt to spread my Dominion.

That's something else you can do to help ease a 2 Dominion-on the first round, make your Tribal King or your Scout your Prophet. You can always switch whichever one out with a better unit once your Dominion is more stable.

My Prophet can cast Divine Bless and Sermon of Courage, and that's what's important right now, because I have a handful of sacred troops and also because all my troops could use the morale boost.

I see an opportunity and I take it. A neighboring province is ruled by a Mound King and held by 30 or so undead horsemen. I've got 3 Priest-Kings by late fall, including my Prophet, and that means lots of banishment opportunities.

It takes me two turns to capture it, but I beat them and the first province is mine! YAY

[HoneyBadger]

Sorry Stranges Sanctus, et all. I wrote that last post wrong the first time. It's corrected now, atleast I hope it is. What I meant was I'd have atleast 3 in provinces neighboring my home province and 3 outside of that, but close by.