Various Mictil questions

[Freyland]

Hello all

I decided to play as Mictil (sp?) because I wanted to experiment with the school and path of blood. I think I wanted my Pretender to do too much; a number of cool spells involve another magic Category, so I made my bat-winged Pretender have level 9 blood, level 4 death and level 4 fire. Needless to say, I had few points left for everything else and my starting fortress sucks. I may have 76 resources at best, and this is surrounded by mountains.

For starters, I find Mictil to require poop-loads of micromanaging. I need to find blood slaves (LOTS of blood slaves), I have poor researchers, I have to patrol provinces, I have to spend turns raising just a few slaves per guy, I have to tie up guys doing sacrifices and to top it off, if I have my Pretender do any spell casting, I lose more than half of my research potential. Furthermore, I am having a very hard time raising troops. What am I doing wrong? I do recognize that with my heavy magic distribution on the Pretender, Sacred troops are a must (Attack, strength, fear and curse bonuses), but money is tight. Speaking of recruiting sacred troops, I noticed for the first time on the recruiting screen there is a Category "Holy". This drops as I recruit sacred troops, so I assume it is limiting me somehow. Can I increase that with temples?

When performing blood sacrifices to raise dominion, does the level of the priest make a difference? Does proximity to the edge of your dominion border make a difference, or can you just do it all in your capital?

Despite my many shortcomings described above, I seem to be beating my opponents. I have Caelum, Arscopele and Jotun on my borders and I have nearly eliminated Aroscapel, pushed back Caelum and sent glaring looks at Jotun. I am playing the Eye of the Desert map on the "hard" difficulty (below impossible). It seems like I should be getting my butt handed to me, especially since Caelum and Jotun are ignoring each other.

The Call Lesser Horror spell requires 2 blood slaves and results in 200 fatigue. My Moon Priest, for 230 gp, has the required skills, but does not use more than two blood slaves to reduce his fatigue so he can run. Thus, I lose 230 gp and a few slaves to clean out an enemy province. I am stuck taking the loss of this priest each time I cast the spell, or do I have other options?

Okay, I apologize for the rambling text. Thank you for listening.

Jonathan

[Torvak]

Mictlan

[Freyland]

Lol. I got an email notifying me of a reply and I eagerly jumped to the post to bask in the informative glory of my fellow dominions players only to find..... a spelling correction. Be still my beating heart!

[Torvak]

Well i know nothing about Mictlan but it took me only a few seconds to start dominions and look up the correct spelling

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Freyland:
The Call Lesser Horror spell requires 2 blood slaves and results in 200 fatigue. My Moon Priest, for 230 gp, has the required skills, but does not use more than two blood slaves to reduce his fatigue so he can run. Thus, I lose 230 gp and a few slaves to clean out an enemy province. I am stuck taking the loss of this priest each time I cast the spell, or do I have other options?

Use a second Moon Priest to horror mark the enemy units for as many rounds your other mage needs to recuperate (this depends on the magic scale in the province you attack, and on the reinvigoration bonuses the first mage might have), then retreat.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Freyland:
I need to find blood slaves (LOTS of blood slaves),

Mictlan Priests with a Sanguine dousing rod are one of the most efficient blood hunters available. Put a few of them in a province with between 5K and 10K people, then reduce the taxes to 0. You can use a scout to transfer the slaves to a lab until you feel like building one in the province. After that, you can either use the "pool slaves" button on the gem screen, or you can select your blood hunters in a group and press 'Z'.

I have poor researchers,

Mictlan priests are quite effective as researchers if you have a magic scale, as they are both very cheap and sacred.

I have to patrol provinces,

You only have to patrol provinces if you want to blood hunt them very severely. Otherwise you can just set the taxes to 0.

Furthermore, I am having a very hard time raising troops. Speaking of recruiting sacred troops, I noticed for the first time on the recruiting screen there is a Category "Holy".

You are likely having gold problems because Mictlan goes through a lot of troops, and can produce a lot with limited resources. Order 3 is a very good pick for them for this reason. The "holy" number corresponds to your pretender's dominion rating + one fifth of the number of temples you have. It limits the number of sacred non-commanders you can recruit in a province per turn.

When performing blood sacrifices to raise dominion, does the level of the priest make a difference? Does proximity to the edge of your dominion border make a difference, or can you just do it all in your capital?

The level of the priest determines how many slaves can be sacrificed per turn. A jade knife will increase this number by two. The location matters, as each sacrificed slave counts as one temple in that province.

The Call Lesser Horror spell requires 2 blood slaves and results in 200 fatigue. My Moon Priest, for 230 gp, has the required skills, but does not use more than two blood slaves to reduce his fatigue so he can run.

Call lesser horror is one of the "suicide" spells that are out there. You could always try send lesser horror to save the gold costs.

[PvK]

Try summoning demons. You could have started out summoning Fiends of Darkness from the beginning. Enough of those, perhaps combined with blessed Eagle Warriors, set to hold and attack rear, can become very effective, especially coordinated with your other troops as decoys that don't have to do much fighting. Later, summon better demons and/or invest in a soul contract or two... then summon a flying demon leader such as with Horde From Hell (or others).

My Mictlan generally researches with Mictlan Priests equipped with research-boosting magic items.

Cross breeding can get some no-maintenance arrow-fodder and occasional interesting monsters.

Mictlan heroes are groovy. Don't accidentally set Mictlipoctli on fire with heat magic of any kind.

Mictlan has a nice variety of holy units.

There are some fairly powerful combat spells in Blood, too.

PvK

[Freyland]

@PvK

Agreed with the crossbreeding! I have used that extensively this game, with some neat effects, but it really eats away at that high BS need. Those Mictlan priests are the way to go for research, its just that you have to blow 80 gold every turn for just 3 research, and you can't recruit another commander from the province that turn. I have not had the research to devote to construction yet, emphasizing the Blood school for my Pretender. I have been experimenting with demons (that just sounds wrong) but again, the BS supply/demand.....

@Graeme Dice

Thank you for spending so much time to reply! I agree about the Sanquine Dousing Rod, but it is *very* high up the construction tree, and research for me has been slow. I will try your other tricks to get slaves and work it out.

I don't have the best Order and Magic scale because of my heavy Pretender picks for Magic. Perhaps next time!

@Nagot Gick Fel

I will try that when I reach that level of the research tree

@Torvak

I am glad you were able to meet your needs without much fuss.


Jonathan

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Freyland:
Thank you for spending so much time to reply! I agree about the Sanquine Dousing Rod, but it is *very* high up the construction tree, and research for me has been slow. I will try your other tricks to get slaves and work it out.

Any magic school can be researched to level 4 fairly easily for Mictlan. Recruit a priest each turn, and you will be at the required 220 total research by turn 12.

[Argitoth]

If you edit the first post, you can also edit the subject. Fix the spelling.

Originally posted by Torvak:
Well i know nothing about Mictlan but it took me only a few seconds to start dominions and look up the correct spelling

I have memorized the spelling of every nation. This is from Memory. I had to look at the flags to remember all of the nations.

Man
Ermor
C'tis
T'ien Ch'i (and in the book it is T'ien C'hi)
Pythium
Marignon
Jotunheim
Vanheim
Pangaea
Mictlan
Abysia
Caelum
R'lyeh
Machaka
Atlantis
Ulm
Arcoscephale (ooh i dunno if i spelled that right) [actually i spelled it right]

[ March 28, 2004, 02:07: Message edited by: Argitoth ]