how would you play Mictlan

[Gandalf Parker]

Based on discussions of "why take xxxxx scale" and "why take low dominion". I like testing the "who would ever choose this" stuff.

Smoking Mirror pretender
5/5/5/5/9/5/5/5 magics
dominion strength 2
43 research each turn
Watchtower castle

scales all -3 (well heat +3 in my case but either way, I just hate snow)


Generally I put the troops to patrol and crank the taxes to 200% on the first turn which will get me the gold you wanted. The concept here would be to gain ground and get beyond your dominion by turn 10 (when the really bad events can kick in). Creating labs outside of the domain, and not pushing domain, would be part of the plan. The biggest problem Im having so far is that the "holy" points keep me from making as many blessed troops as I can.

Obviously Im testing extremes but this isnt turning out so bad. Would play well vs people who are using strong AIs. Let them flood your provinces. Just maintain dominion at the capital and protect your pretender from random events.

I figure that after finding the breaking point on this design (looks like it might be late game) I will start trying to reach a balance between alot of blessings chosen for specifically for the nation, and SOME reasonable scales. Its actually not hard to get 44449444, Ive gotten 55559555 and 44449449 depending on the pretender you start with. Surprisingly 0 cost pretenders, and cost 10 to start new magic, arent necessrily the ones that get the farthest.

[ December 02, 2003, 18:18: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Kristoffer O]

It is widely believed that Gandalf is mad.

[Pocus]

Something along this line is perhaps less extreme, with the blessed units still very potent:

Smoking Mirror
dominion 5
Mausoleum (admin 20)
order +3 produc -3 heat 1 growth -1 luck -3 magic -3
give 177 gold at capitol
magic : fire 9, water 4, earth 4, nature 4, death 4, blood 4 (28 RP in drain 3)

the idea would be to set the research area outside the dominions, which is easily done with Mictlan.

You get 56 resources at capitol on first turn, you can buy 3 sun warriors and 2 Eagles. Rince& repeat. Complement your blessed units with demons, forget about the light infantry (which cost too much as others LI). As soon as you get at least 5 slaves a turn outside your capitol, have a moon mage summon a fiend of darkness a turn.

Just tried that a few turns. Not astonishingly potent, but seemed to works somehow.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
It is widely believed that Gandalf is mad.

And Ive never argued that.

Oh well, who in their right mind would want to be normal? Average?

[Pocus]

The Jaguar warrior is indeed of few uses. He is supposed to be a melee units which deal good damages, but as he has only 12 hits and 4 prot, he either dont survive the first hit, or if it does, he shapechanges into a jaguar wich is 90% dead, and generally with an affliction.

Ah Pocus joins the converted. Notice that little tidbit too?

The real sinker is they cost 20 gold for being nearly useless. I had hoped that they would have a 'pack' mentality that couldn't be gauged just by looking at them. I had about 50 together in an attack flank, and they still got slaughtered.

Oh well

[Saber Cherry]

I was going to say they have the best light infantry in the game, in terms of being super-cheap in gold and resources for their protection, while still having shields and missile weapons... quite awesome really... but then, I realized they are not light infantry, but medium infantry, and have 1 strategic move, not 2. They're still great, though, as light-medium infantry go, 9 gold, super-low resources, and shields (which protect against arrows). If only we could see how effective shields are=)

I would say their infantry were great if at least the lighter ones (spears, slings, and mictlan armor) had 2 strategic moves, but as it stands... hmm.

Anyway, I looked at the slaves. After some analysis, I determined the hidden cost of slaves: 2 gold! Not bad=) That means slave upkeep is a paltry .133 gold per turn, or a squad of 50 slaves costs as much upkeep as 11 warriors (and would probably destroy them). Their only problem is supply=)

[Pocus]

I think it is better to use slaves as patrollers, at least until you have cranked taxes to 130% in every province producing some significant gold.