Mictalan Setup-Please Help The New Guy [Archive]

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Glock30

June 8th, 2004, 12:04 PM

Any advice for setting up Mictalan pretender?
I have heard choosing fountain of blood, but are there any other hints:
-Best units to buy?
-Best army setups?
-Best blood spells to cast?
-Best Scale settings?
-Best magic settings?
-Best Dominion setting? etc.

Also, I noticed that on the French map, Mictalan is never given the temple that provides 3 blood slaves every turn. Strange, but a critical component to it's survival.

Any help is appreciated.

Mark the Merciful

June 8th, 2004, 12:58 PM

As another newbie who's only just starting messing around with Mictlan, I can't offer definitive advice.

But a couple of things I noticed.

Mictlan units aren't very demanding in resources, so you can probably safely put lots of scales in Sloth to get more points for your Pretender.

There are a lot of affordable Holy units, with some interesting extra abilities (can fly when blessed, or turn into Jaguars when blessed). Might be worth trying a Pretender with one or more high-level magic paths to exploit the bless effects you get from them. You might be able to build up an army that's mostly Holy, and massively boost it that way.

Mark

PDF

June 8th, 2004, 02:10 PM

Azhur,
Positive Magic scale LOWERS magic resistance, it doesn't increase it ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Nagot Gick Fel

June 8th, 2004, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by Azhur:
Magic2/3: It's just nice to get asap new spells (and more magic resistance isn't bad either..)Actually it's the reverse: your MR is LESSER in a magic dominion.

Graeme Dice

June 8th, 2004, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by Azhur:
Sloth3: Why do you need resources?You need resources because you will need lots of troops if you get attacked in the early game. You also don't want the 6% income hit from taking sloth 3.

Heat1/2: Some heat isn't that bad for mitclan.Only pick heat 2 if you want another 5% hit on your income.

Growth3: Bloodhunting kills people m'kay..?And growth does almost nothing to counteract this. Don't bother with it.

Misfortune3: Even the worst catastrophe is in the end quite small..Unless you happened to put air and death magic on your pretender, you'll want to leave this at the neutral point or even a bit positive.

Endoperez

June 8th, 2004, 03:49 PM

'SC', short for Super-Combatant. It is a commander which has nice natural abilities and enough items to let it slaughter whole armies of normal units.

With natural abilities I mean things like dozens of hitpoints, high attack and defence Ratings, maybe even some special abilities like regeneration, resistance of a particular element or innate Fireshield. An Arch- or Ice Devil is a good option for Mictlan.

The items depend on what you want to do and can make. Life-draining weapon (Wraith Sword, Hell Sword and a Blood 3-dagger at Construction 6 which also improves Blood by 1) is nice versus living troops as the wielder's fatique goes down and hit points stay high. If you used the dagger you can even give you combatant a shield, like Lucky Coin(gives luck) or Charcoal Shield(gives fire shield). Archdevils can cast Fire Shield on their own, so in most cases you would want to give them something else, like that Coin. Dragon scale mails and Chain mail of displacement are good.

For other slots, choose items to give him as much of this list as possible: regeneration, reinvigoration (fatique removal), luck (if not already), etherealness(rare), flying, quickness, resistances according to enemies (fire resistance vs Abysia etc.), magic resistance, fire-/astralshield. Remember to cast spells that give any of these abilities, like Quickness and Breath of Winter for Ice Devils.
Ring of Regeneration, Pendant of Luck, Amulet of Antimagic, Boots of Flying (or Quickness) and Starshine Skullcap are commonly seen. For reinvigoration, Amulets of Resilience, Boots of the Messenger (I think) and Girdle of Might.

The idea is that normal units will rarely hit him (defence over 18), even when they hit they will give him almost no damage at all( prot. 20+) and after he is hit he will regain it through regeneration or life draining in the same round. Mictlan should aim for summoning as many of the big unique monsters as it can. Ice Devils are available early, and are evil...

PrinzMegaherz

June 9th, 2004, 01:02 AM

If you compare Mictlan Were Jaguars with Vanheim Shapeshifters, which one is better?

Azhur

June 9th, 2004, 01:10 AM

Originally posted by Glock30:

-Best units to buy?


The sacred ones if you play with blessing tactic. That involves using SC, who has e.g 9N/9F. Other tactic is to buy only B2 priests who hunt blood and in the beginning summon Fiends.

-Best army setups?


6-8 Fiends should be capable to gain new indy provinces. Later move to devils and demons..

-Best blood spells to cast?


Mostly summons (fiends, devils, vampires, demons..), but also items (blood contract, black heart) and late blood enchaments.

-Best Scale settings?


Well in my opinion..

Order3: Need income for castle spamming, priests, labs and temples.

Sloth3: Why do you need resources?

Magic2/3: It's just nice to get asap new spells (and more magic resistance isn't bad either..)

Heat1/2: Some heat isn't that bad for mitclan.

Growth3: Bloodhunting kills people m'kay..?

Misfortune3: Even the worst catastrophe is in the end quite small..

-Best magic settings?


For SC you mean? Well it depends much of your pretender. If he fights, you can't really afford much into magic. Again if he researches and looks for magic sites variety is the word we're looking for. Of course you can also make a fighter/mage hybrid or a blood-hunter, but I wouldn't recommend making your prophet solely good in blood-hunting. They are capable of doing so much more..

-Best Dominion setting? etc.


High dominion if you use blessing-tactic, semi-high dominion when hunting for blood. Must remember that sacrificing and temples also help much...

Glock30

June 9th, 2004, 01:45 AM

Thanks for the help here.
I have only one question that is making me nuts:
What is "SC"? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

The new guy.

PhilD

June 9th, 2004, 07:23 AM

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Misfortune3: Even the worst catastrophe is in the end quite small..Unless you happened to put air and death magic on your pretender, you'll want to leave this at the neutral point or even a bit positive. <hr /></blockquote>What's the relationship between Air/Death magic and withstanding bad events?

Teraswaerto

June 9th, 2004, 07:46 AM

Mictlan gets air and death magic from heroes.

PDF

June 9th, 2004, 10:41 AM

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Azhur:
Magic2/3: It's just nice to get asap new spells (and more magic resistance isn't bad either..)Actually it's the reverse: your MR is LESSER in a magic dominion. <hr /></blockquote>Hey, I beat you by 5 min on this one ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
Nagot, I'm sure you have interesting ideas on how to play Mictlan - personally I don't have many more than trying to get a F9/A4 pretender at a non-ridiculously high cost http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

And does someone really understands how work the Mictlanese "non spreading dominion" ? Is it just that Temples don't spread dom ?
Then what is the "good" method to get it spread ? Sacrifice is tedious, costly and not that effective according to my own small test run.
Do Desert Sun and Restless Worshippers themes work with Mictlan and let the dom spread or not ?

Ohh so much questions .. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Nagot Gick Fel

June 9th, 2004, 11:31 AM

Originally posted by PDF:
Nagot, I'm sure you have interesting ideas on how to play MictlanMy best idea about Mictlan is to not play them at all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Frankly playing Mictlan is a MM nightmare I don't want to experience anymore. I'll change my opinion when IW adds a toggle on leaders that says don't poll gems/slaves

- personally I don't have many more than trying to get a F9/A4 pretender at a non-ridiculously high cost http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif I've tried high-level blessings when I still had fun playing Mictlan, but I always got better results with a dedicated SC or a multpurpose half-rainbow with something like ~3 in the paths the national mages don't cover.

And does someone really understands how work the Mictlanese "non spreading dominion" ? Is it just that Temples don't spread dom ?They don't. Only the pretender 'radiates' a bit, 2 or 3 times less than other nations's gods.

Then what is the "good" method to get it spread ? Sacrifice is tedious, costly and not that effective according to my own small test run.I agree on all points.

Do Desert Sun and Restless Worshippers themes work with Mictlan and let the dom spread or not ?I believe Desert Sun spreads heat only in provinces where you already have dominion, if it works at all. Restless Worshippers might work, but I haven't checked.