Mictlan Pretenders ideas request

[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 ...

[Foom]

You're right, I was too quick to jump on Nagot here. It's just that I have seen many people insult Cohen and Boron for no good reason, which made me judge too quickly.

Nagot, I offer you a binouse as compensation for my rashness.

Now give me some feedback on my pretender, I'm desperate to get Mictlan to work

[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.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Foom said:
You're right, I was too quick to jump on Nagot here. It's just that I have seen many people insult Cohen and Boron for no good reason

Ad hominen insults are always unexcusable. Maybe I sounded a bit rude wrt Boron's opinions, at least you'll note I wasn't disrecpectful to him. Well, I hope anyway - English isn't my first language, and before I got accustomed to Usenet slang I did some memorable fumbles like confusing "moron" with "regular". When I replied to someone "you're obviously a moron in this newsgroup", he wasn't really happy.

Nagot, I offer you a binouse as compensation for my rashness.

Ah, that's my first encounter with this word, "binouse". Maybe I should check if I'm not allergic to this kind of beverage before I accept your offer?

Now give me some feedback on my pretender

Looks OK to me. The Wiz Tower is a great castle, just (IMO) not as great to Mictlan as it is to most nations, you can still do OK with a Mausoleum or Watch Tower. FYI, my Last Mictlan design pretender was:

LotN
Air 3
Earth 3
Death 5 (just for the increased fear factor you get at each 5-uple, and because I could afford it)
Blood 3

Dominion 6
Watch Tower

Order +3
Prod -3
Heat +1
Growth 0
Luck -2
Magic +1 (always was enough for me, and I never liked the MR malus you get vs hostile rituals when picking +2 or +3)

Leaves 120 unallocated design points, but it was for an handicap game (so you can pick up to 3 extra scales or a Wiz Tower if you want).

So quite close to your own design actually. I prefer the LotN to the VQ because I want my pretender to be able to fight outside his dominion early if required - but YMMV.

I'm desperate to get Mictlan to work

I guess it's more a problem with handling the nation than designing it.

[Vicious Love]

Just wondering, would a F9B6 Moloch be a waste of points? On the one hand, no access to Dwarven Hammers or death, air, & earth multipath blood spells.
On the other, ubercheap(But capitol only) eagle warriors with two flaming, high-strength, high-skill attacks per turn(Four if Quickened), that strike before ANY buffs are cast when defending, and after only one turn of buffs when attacking. And probably end up getting a hefty surround bonus when they attack lone ghost kings, or whatever. If there's a more cost-effective SC killer out there(Other than Carrion Woods goons or these same warriors plus Weapons of Sharpness), I'd like to hear about it.
Couple that with the not-at-all-shabby jaguar warriors you can recruit just about anywhere en masse(THREE for the price of one Ulmish black knight, and you can afford sloth 3, to boot), the combat machine that is the Moloch(Properly supported), and the ability to cast all pure blood spells with only a few path boosters, and methinks you've got an adequate setup, at the very least. Am I right?

[ckfnpku]

Något, no hard feelings I hope. Foom summed up what I was trying to say in an excellent way.

I suppose I should contribute something as well.

I've tried the Smoking Mirror in sp, but he just gets killed from random events, so no good. I wouldn't wanna go to the trouble of protecting him. (Btw, that line in the description about him divining the fates of men, what's with that? It's not like the Jade Emperor and Lady of Fortune, is it?)

I would agree with the ideas presented here. A pretender with a little blood and the paths that mictlans priests don't have. Also, he doesn't need to be a great fighter mid/lategame, since mictlan should scoop up a number of the blood uniques.

A Ghostking with air3 earth4 death3 blood4.
Order3 sloth3 heat1 magic3.
Watchtower.
Dominion ~6.

Something like that. Backed by several minutes of sp experience =)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Vicious Love said:
Just wondering, would a F9B6 Moloch be a waste of points?

You're paying a lot for these 6 levels of Blood Magic, but the idea has some merits. And a strong focus as well - in that case, adding punch behind multiple attacks that rarely miss. I'm not sure the +3 STR bonus is worth 230 extra design points (if I count right), but I like it anyway. Now add Rush of Strength to that, and I'd bet any hyper-prot, hyper-def SC will be in dire trouble.

Am I right?

Just try it and tell us how it works (when compared to a pure fire Moloch approach, I mean).

[Cainehill]

Vicious Love said:
Just wondering, would a
On the other, ubercheap(But capitol only) eagle warriors with two flaming, high-strength, high-skill attacks per turn(Four if Quickened), that strike before ANY buffs are cast when defending, and after only one turn of buffs when attacking. And probably end up getting a hefty surround bonus when they attack lone ghost kings, or whatever. If there's a more cost-effective SC killer out there(Other than Carrion Woods goons or these same warriors plus Weapons of Sharpness), I'd like to hear about it.

No blood expert here, but I'd suggest another nation and option for SC killing: Any Vanheim theme with Valkyries is an option for a nice bless effect. F9W4 for instance - they may not get as many attacks as your eagle warriors, but with a mirror image and high defense they're fairly sweet. Another option with them is death blessings, allowing them to rout archers and whatnot - again, the mirror image helps keep them alive long enough for the fear to take effect.

[The Panther]

Having played Mictlan once in MP (and losing handily), I can one thing about them: they are abysmially weak in the beginning. Because of the intense need to sacrifice slaves early if you want dominion spread, my VQ did not work very well at all. Maybe I was too scared to fly into enemy or neutral dominion with her, but the dominion spread was so horrid early on that I was unable to properly expand with my VQ.

I therefore came to the interesting conclusion that the VQ was much too expensive for Mictlan. The Ghost King would be the superior choice if you want a pretender SC. But I would never take so many different schools as Boron proposed, since you need more than 4 dominion and also some decent scales. My GK pretender for Mictlan probably would not get more than air, water, and earth. This, along with the inherent death, is enough to make a powerful SC pretender anyway.

However, I think a fire 9 or water 9 bless on a cheaper pretender would work quite well because of all the inexpensive sacred troops. But be sure and save some pretender points to get a high starting dominion, though. I think 6 is rock-bottom minimum and 7 is better. You want your sacrificed slaves to work hard for you early on to try and decently expand your dominion.

Another problem with Mictlan is that it MUST blood hunt the entire game to stay alive. Other blood nations, like Abysia and Vanheim, hunt by choice. Not Mictlan, as he hunts for survival. This means a death scale is particularly harsh on Mictlan. When your population is dead, so are you, for your temples are totally useless without blood slaves to sacrifice in them. Taking a death scale means that you are relying on expanding into your neighbor's territory who took growth. This is not a very pleasing strategy to me.

One big advantage to Mictlan is the ability to take sloth 3 without blinking an eye. Their sacred troops don't need resouces in the slightest. They are also cheap, plus you are getting free fodder with the slaves, so Order 3 is not an absolute requirement like it is for most other nations. This means that a turmoil/luck strategy just might work for them. I was thinking of testing that out, but have yet to do so.

The cheap Mictlan Priests are pretty good at researching, they are cheap, and you get them everywhere. Magic 3 is therefore also not an absolute requirement like it is for the poor researching nations.

One thing about my Mictlan game was that I first researched Alteration 3 for my VQ (not needed for a non-SC strategy), then Construction 2 for the essential Jade Knives, then on to Construction 4 to get the required SDRs and Brazen Vessels. I then put everything into blood research and managed to get all 6 Ice Devils before Abysia could. I also got 2 of the Arch Devils before he could.

So, what does this all mean? I dunno...

[Nagot Gick Fel]

ckfnpku said:
Något, no hard feelings I hope. Foom summed up what I was trying to say in an excellent way.

No worries mate, you'll have to try really hard before raising my temperature - and anyway, I think in that case if someone has to apologize, it's me and nobody else.

I suppose I should contribute something as well.

A Ghostking with air3 earth4 death3 blood4.
Order3 sloth3 heat1 magic3.
Watchtower.
Dominion ~6.

Something like that. Backed by several minutes of sp experience =)

Looks OK to me. Besides, I like stealthy pretenders with Mictlan, for sneaking Fiends around - always a nasty surprise for the unwary enemy.