Guide to EA Mictlan and bloodhunting

[JaghataiKhan]

Now I see why I get ***-run over when playing MA Mictlan. It sucks ***.

[Kristoffer O]

Are you sure? I'm just playing MA MIctlan. I lost my first important battle, and have fallen to bootlicking. Bootlicking is a viable tactic, especially if your nation is considered weak. I'm quite confident I will end up as ruler of the world

All Hail the Lawgiver!
ehm... eternal Servant of the Earth Monster.

[Baalz]

Yeah, very early game MA Mictlan plays just like EA/LA because it's all about the Jaguar warriors. The problem is they lose their most cost effective researcher as well as their blood power so there isn't really anything to transition to once the Jags become obsolete. They really have no good answer to massed archers, so you probably won't live long enough to get to the point that your realize their only cross pathed/strong mage is in a kinda weird path combo with no terribly effective combat or summoning spells.

[Cheezeninja]

Great guide Baalz. I was just wondering if, with all the bless strategy going on, you usually take a dormant/imprisoned God. Obviously sacrificing becomes supremely important if you do, and I read your opinions on that. I didn't see any specific mentions of whether you go with a awake/dormant/imprisoned god, though... maybe I just missed it.

[MaxWilson]

I should think sacrificing doesn't grow all that much in importance with an imprisoned god, since a god is only equivalent to three sacrifices or so per turn (with a low-ish dominion of 5), and your scales may be bad enough that you don't really care to push your dominion. As long as you keep your home dominion reasonably high (3 or 4 candles) you're not in any danger of a surprise dominion death. Basically, an awake pretender is worth a couple of priests and a sun priest in terms of pushing dominion.

-Max

[Micah]

And to elaborate on what Max said- buying some extra candles with the points you save on a non-awake pretender will also counteract the loss of your pretender's dominion spread. Mictlan has a slave income from their capital for a reason, you're expected to sacrifice from turn 2.

[vfb]

I think each sacrifice causes a temple check, and temple checks are only as effective as your starting dominion. Mictlan needs the recruitable sacreds in any case. So I wouldn't start with a Dominion less than 8 (unless I click on the wrong Pretender ). You can get a F9B4D4?1 Dom9 sleeping Smoking Mirror with usable scales, eg:

Magic: Fire 9 Earth 1 Death 4 Blood 4
Dominion 9
Scales: Turmoil 3 Sloth 3 Heat 2 Growth 3 Fortune 3 Drain 2
Dormant

This lets you hire 9 jag warriors and an H2 priest every turn (for the research, H1 will not cut it with drain until you can make skulls), assuming you make your scout a prophet and patrol with your tribal king on turn 1. Jags plus your starting army is enough to take indy 5s.