Mictlan Help

[ToResonanceComesDeath]

Hmm, all of this has been of great help. It's put me a few steps closer to dominating my friends.

I think the f9e3d3b4 Smoking Mirror pretender appeals to me the most at the moment. So my first order of business should be researching construction and raising armies of Jaguar/Eagle warriors?

and if it's not too much trouble, I'd just like to check and make sure that my understanding of Blood Sacrifice isn't flawed. A blood mage can only sacrifice slaves equal to his blood magic level? are any additional slaves given to him wasted?

Sorry for all the newbie questions and thanks for being so patient, guys.

[Oversway]

A blood mage can only sacrifice slaves equal to his blood magic level?

Priests only, up to their holy level + 1 I believe (plus another two with jade knife magic item). Other slaves are not wasted, they will still be in the commanders gem box the next turn.

[shovah]

get to const 4 for dousing rods then get some blood. feel free to advance construction to 6 or 8 though. for how to use your slaves i suggest the following:
sacrifice
forge various items
a few battlefield spells (hellbind heart, bloodletting, harm, rush of strength and blood vengance for SC's are some of the better ones)
armies (made of devils, fiends of darkness, demon knights, vampires summoned by vampire counts and maybe some imps)
and for SC's (this bit will be longer) here are my thoughts:
Arch Devils: there are 5 of these badboys and they kickass. they are tough, strong and even lightly equiped (give them a wraithsword/hellsword+pendant of luck and later on add regen+magic resistance and boots of quickness. another option is a shield such as lucky coin and a bloodthorn since unmodded it is good) they are really strong. buffs for them are fireshield, phoenix pyre and a few others for the astral one.

Ice Devils: 5 of these guys too and i would say the same as I did for arch devils except these can cast quickness on themselves and cast breath of winter instead of fireshield and phoenix pyre. these are generally better than arch devils

Fallen Angels: gained from the spell reascendance these guys are strong with a decent magic base, equip them as you would any flying SC/thug.

Vampire Counts: gained from the curse of blood these are ethereal, immortal, life draining, stealthy, flying and have decent stats + unmodded they are cheap for what they do. they can also summon regular vampires. a rather nasty tactic is giving them absoloutly no equipment and only using them in your own dominion. with blood sacrifices you can spread dom quickly into enemy territory and then attack with these guys, with no equipment and no troops under ttheir command there is no problem in losing them in friendly dominion. they have d3 b3 so can cast raise skeletons, a group of 3 scripted to raise skeletons, raise skeletons, raise skeletons, attack archers makes a prefect reserve/ambush unit (alternatively fully kit htem out using their natural ethereal state, regen and lifedrain to best effect).

Heleophagi: there are 4 of them, they are stealthy, they can fly, they are naturally ethereal, they have good stats and they are pretty good mages. all round good guys

Father Illearth: e3 b3 high health and strength, average other stats, built in regen.

Demon Lords: can all fly, only 3 of them
Belphegor: f4 e4 b4 Huge health (give him regen) high strength (which is good for regen) decent other stats, generates blood slaves, reduces dominion in his province. hes the blood magic equivalent of a tank.

Belial: f4 n4 b4 high health, strength and decent other stats, stealthy and causes unrest in the province hes in. best all rounder (and possibly best) demon lord.

Pazuzu: a5 d3 b4 good health and good all round stats. cause more fear than others but no head slot.

[Vicious Love]

Saber Cherry said:

Because they have a smaller tax base, Order is more essential. Similarly, when a country's tax base shrinks, tax rates have to increase to maintain the same level of government.

That's precisely why I'd recommend focusing on fire site searching. Direr need, same bang for one's buck. Order may be more valuable, but it's also less effective.

[Oversway]

Order has the nice side effect of reducing misfortune.

Go for ice devils before arch devils -- they are better commanders and cost less blood and research to get. I'd ignore fallen angels, get arch devils once the ice ones are all taken up.

The other big thing to do is forge soul contracts!!! One devil a turn may not sound like much, but devils are very strong troops and it is not too difficult to get 30 or more contracts going. Use dwarven hammers to reduce the forge cost.

[shovah]

i thought ice devils were above arch in research? either way i agree (and said) they are generally better and yes, always focus on the unique blood commanders before the common vamps and angels.

[Alneyan]

Ice Devils are Blood 3/Water 3 and Research level 5, Arch Devils are Blood 4/Fire 2 and Research level 6. Their respective costs are 55 blood slaves and 77 blood slaves, if memory serves.

That would be unmodded, of course, as per the initial post.

[Graeme Dice]

Vicious Love said:
That's precisely why I'd recommend focusing on fire site searching. Direr need, same bang for one's buck. Order may be more valuable, but it's also less effective.

Order 3 produces 1.5 times as much gold as turmoil 3, which ends up being far more than a 50% boost in your net income after paying upkeep. You will not be blood hunting in your high income provinces anyways. I fail to see how searching for fire sites can make up for this lost income. The searching itself cannot be done effectively until you research thaumaturgy 2, which will set your expansion and research plan back by at least two turns. The lost income for not taking order will also likely put your expansion back by at least two turns (if not closer to 5). In the unmodded game, you take order 3 unless you are playing a theme that disallows it, or undead ermor. Any other choice produces less effect for more pretender points.

[Oversway]

I'd also mention that I would never put my taxes down to 0. Even if you don't patrol, ~50% taxes usually keeps unrest at zero, and you still benefit from the income boost to order.

[Vicious Love]

As I already stated two posts prior, Order is always the optimal choice in the unmodded game. Unless you're one of the dead themes, I suppose. I was simply saying it is less optimal for Mictlan than for most other nations.