Mictlan , how to play it effectively

[jarenko]

Earlier, I gave Mictlan a shot.

It was a fun experience, and different.

Dominion is hard to keep up, what with all the sacrifices needed.

What I am not understanding is blood magic. I researched it, and cast out some spells, but none seem very effective, and I don't see the lure of Mictlan.

The troops are weak, the priests are expensive(but powerful).

With blood magic, I tried using send horror, but it doesnt seem to have any effect.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

What tactics are usable with this great country, and what am I doing wrong? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[archaeolept]

researched it, and cast out some spells, but none seem very effective, and I don't see the lure of Mictlan.

lol http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

the battlefield magic is difficult to use, and the remote summons are only somewhat useful. but the ritual summons, otoh,...

ie. bust out dah debbil bomb!

/threads/images/Graemlins/icon33.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon33.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon33.gif
/threads/images/Graemlins/icon30.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon30.gif /threads/images/Graemlins/icon30.gif

we have a winnah111

(for instance, mictlan can cast summon fiend from the very beginning. blood hunt blood hunt and try out a small army of them set on hold and attack)

[Cheezeninja]

Mictlan starts out with the eminently useful spell bind fiend, so you really want to get your blood economy going fast because once you get about 10-12 of these babies you can mop the floor with indeps. Mictlan has the best blood hunter available in the mictlan priest. The fact that he's sacred (reducing upkeep) and recruitable everywhere can make mictlan a real blood powerhouse. Plus the tribal kings can create and lead slaves which are low upkeep patrollers for provinces where you blood hunt. I try to get a castle/lab/temple, 2 priests hunting with SDR, 1 priest sacrificing 2 per turn, and a tribal king patrolling in every province with >5000 population. With its rainbow mages mictlan can puruse almost any blood strategy you would like to try.

The real downside to mictlan is that it requires incredible micromanagement once you get larger, having to constantly balance taxes/unrest and constantly keep putting slaves on your sacrificers to spread your dominion.

[jarenko]

I didn't get a chance to try one. I was going to try to summon an arch devil or one of those other ones. I forget the name..it needs 150 slaves, I think and its like level 8 or so.

My dominion was destroyed before I got the chance. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sheap]

Blood magic is all about the summons. The combat spells of blood, while decent, have a lot of overhead in the form of the blood slaves, who are often killed by enemy action (sometimes without even trying), and even if not killed, get in the way.

Blood summons, however, are extremely strong. Ice Devils, Arch Devils, and Demon Lords are very powerful units who are better SCs than many pretenders, and often require minimal equipment to do their job. And, they are unique. All the blood nations need to race to get the powerful blood summons, and the limiting factor for this is usually blood slave income, rather than research. Mictlan's enormous bloodhunting capacity is a big advantage here.

Mictlan dominion, while micromanagement-intensive, has a lot of advantages. You can "aim" your dominion very precisely with Mictlan. If you take a hostile dominion, such as drain scale, you can simply avoid putting your dominion in certain provinces, for instance, carving out a low dominion area to do your research in. You can also push your dominion, suddenly and effectively, into enemy territories. This makes vampires (another blood summon) extremely effective. The ability to move your dominion (combined with low cost temples) also allows you to get away with slightly lower base dominion than you otherwise could. Mictlan is also highly resistant to being dominion-killed.

Send Horror is a powerful artillery spell, with an extremely low cost for what you get. It's not quite as popular as Ghost Riders, but this may be due to the difficulty of casting it. Horrors are extremely powerful against some types of armies and extremly weak against others. If you saw no effect at all, you must have done something wrong, as you do get to see the battle.

The in-combat Call Horror spells aren't quite as good, because whoever conjures the horror up is likely to be killed by it.

[jarenko]

That's odd.

It would say:

<priest> has cast Send Horror.

But nothing after that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[archaeolept]

though I should say that in the only Mictlan game i've ever played, currently underway, I've used mostly troops and have only a minor blood income. As always, there are a lot of possibilities, but just pumping out a couple armies of fiends will do you well.

research construction 4 for the sanguine dousing rods.

mictlan troops are only good, however, w/ a significant bless effect.
t would say:

<priest> has cast Send Horror.

But nothing after that

perhaps the province was empty even of PD.

[jarenko]

I do not think it was, i was sending those little devil armies in, and it had some PD and some sages. Thats why I was trying to destroy his army there.

He had sages there conducting research. [or does having only leaders not count as an army?]

[Thufir]

Sheap said:
The in-combat Call Horror spells aren't quite as good, because whoever conjures the horror up is likely to be killed by it.



I have a slightly OT question, but one I've been wondering about for a while. That is, in SP play I've got an SC pretender who is using a "Shield of the Accursed" and when using this, everything in sight seems to get horror marked. Would it work as a tactic, to take an SC attacking the rear, armed with this shield while a mage in your own rear is casting the Call Horror spell? And/or is it helpful to have this shield in play while casting any of those spell that incur a risk of horror attack?

I guess I should test this on my own, but it would take me a while to setup a gamere where I have the in-combat Call Horror spell.

[Graeme Dice]

jarenko said:
That's odd.

It would say:

<priest> has cast Send Horror.

But nothing after that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif



This is because you have either not patched the game yet, or you are casting it on a province with a castle and no patrolling troops.

[jarenko]

I play with v 2.02. I like it more than later patches.

I keep a separate install patched to 2.12 for MP purposes however. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[PDF]

Well, you've to choose *either* to play Mictlan *or* play effectively http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif !
More seriously, Mictlan is hard to play and not that powerful : it screams for some high Bless strategy with the were-warriors, and requires full power to Blood economy to get hordes of Devils. Blood and dominion management requires serious micromanagement, with eventual frequent mistakes ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Overall Mictlan is rather disappointing ...

[Boron]

PDF said:
Well, you've to choose *either* to play Mictlan *or* play effectively http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif !
More seriously, Mictlan is hard to play and not that powerful : it screams for some high Bless strategy with the were-warriors, and requires full power to Blood economy to get hordes of Devils. Blood and dominion management requires serious micromanagement, with eventual frequent mistakes ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Overall Mictlan is rather disappointing ...


yeah i agree .
i wanted to try something new and now i play mictlan in my 3! new mpgames . was a serious serious fault http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
each with other pretender / tactics but so far none is satisfying .
the sacrificing for dominion is bad .
i think i like abysia more when i wanna play blood http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NTJedi]

Mictlan is definitely the most challenging to play. Anytime Mictlan is setup in a game as a computer opponent he almost always dies early.

[archaeolept]

easy strat 101 for Mictlan:

1. design a stanadard supercombatant for indy expansion
2. research alt 3 and enchant 1 (most probably)
3. research const 4 for dousing rods
4. cover as many 4-8k pop terrritories w/ packs of 3 bloodhunting priests w/ dousing rods
5. summon

or, if you're playing competitive MP, ignore construction, bloodhunt anyways, have blood and 3 water on your pretender, and rush the ice devils.

[Cheezeninja]

Mictlan starts with the bind fiend spell, so no research is really needed to start conquering provinces, just a few bloodslaves. Conquer 1 province with troops, bloodhunt like crazy and summon fiends.

[Truper]

archaeolept said:
easy strat 101 for Mictlan:

1. design a stanadard supercombatant for indy expansion
2. research alt 3 and enchant 1 (most probably)
3. research const 4 for dousing rods
4. cover as many 4-8k pop terrritories w/ packs of 3 bloodhunting priests w/ dousing rods
5. summon

or, if you're playing competitive MP, ignore construction, bloodhunt anyways, have blood and 3 water on your pretender, and rush the ice devils.



Un-equipped Ice Devils are good, but not that good. Unless you intend to rush to them and then use em as researchers until you can equip them, I'd advise going with construction first.

Oh, and you really want to hunt in provinces with at least 5k population, not 4k, since there is a formula breakpoint that comes at 5k.

[archaeolept]

well, the point of a rush is to grab them before someone else does. equipping comes later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

and while above 5K is optimal, a 4K province will return 80% of what a 5K province does. Actually, a bit higher than 80%, if you hunt like i do, w/ 3 priests w/ dousing rods, since that will, on average, drive the unrest up slightly.

so 4K is ok, while 6K (since it can Last a long time), is optimal. But, for instance, in my current game I have no 5-8K provinces, so my choice is between doing 4K provinces or 9K http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[Jim_Parker]

Been trying out Mictlan in a futile attempt to get it to work.

One tactic I hit upon is sending in your prophet/high level priest with your attacking army and immediately blood hunting the turn you take it. If you drop the tax to 0% that turn, you'll mostly do away with the initial resistance factor and get a 'free' bloodhunt, allowing you to up the tax to 100% next turn.

Can't quite get used to the non-spreading dominion though. I thought a 5th level priest was supposed to be able to sacrifice 5 blood slaves a turn? That doesn't seem to be the case in my experience.

[Soapyfrog]

Why not patrol with 50 or so slaves wherever you happen to be bloodhunting? It doesnt take that long to generate a nice big whack of slaves, and patrolling with them will let you hunt with 2 or 3 blood hunters/province with essenitally no unrest.

[archaeolept]

no unrest, but serious population loss...

[Soapyfrog]

Pretty minimal if you have growth scales, or dont think the game will be super long.

[archaeolept]

growth scales? what are those?

;p

[Cainehill]

Sadly, many players seem to agree that a point or two of death is far preferable to growth, to the point where a common complaint of Last of the Tuatha is "But I _have_ to take growth (and luck)!"

That's why there at least one or two balance mods out there that rejigger the scales, so that there aren't so many "no brainers".

[Kel]

Growth scale is measured by the size of your army http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

[Jim_Parker]

In the latest game I've got 3 priest kings in a feeder province and I usually bloodhunt with 2 while slaving with the other. The population is only about 6000 but I'm getting around 4-8 each per turn which is alright I suppose. I'm not bothering with patrolling because I don't want the population falling any lower than it is. At 2 bloodhunts per turn and 0% tax rate, the province is stuck firmly on 6 unrest and that's with a bandit camp.

It's all working out fairly well this game actually.

[The Panther]

One of the problems with Mictlan is that you are pretty much forced to get growth if you expect the game to Last more than about 50 turns or so. With death scales + bloodhunting + patrolling, your provinces will look like Ermor was there in no time at all! With 3 hunters per province, zero tax rate, and no patrolling, you can just about balance the pop loss from hunting with 2 growth. Without population, you get no more slaves and you are totally dead. Just see how fast your dominion dies when you have no slaves to sacrifice anymore!

The other problem, pointed out above, is that the blood battle spells simply aren't useful at all. All those annoying blood slaves die in the battle, and you MUST have them because every blood battle spell uses a slave or two. Not to mention the intense micromanagement of getting the correct amount of slaves to the correct mages scripted to cast the correct battle spells. You are typically far better off using your slaves to make another devil/vampire or 2 (or 10 or 50)!

Another huge problem is the fact that after you pool slaves, you must go to ALL your sacrificing priests and put the 4 slaves (you have the jade knife on all your sacrificers, right?) back on them. Every darn turn! And you will always miss this a few times throughout the course of the game. Plus you will put your tax rate back to 100% inadvertently in the F1 screen and get instant high unrest more than once!

My strategy as Mictlan is to get 1-2 growth and put a set of four Mictlan priests in every single province between 4K and 8K population. One guy has the jade knife and a clam and sacs four slaves per turn. The other three have the SDR and a clam and hunt continously. With the tax at zero and the hunters only 90% successful, you almost never have the unrest go above 20. This nets you around 9 slaves, 4 temple checks, and 4 pearls per such province per turn indefinitely with 2 growth. Also, don't forget to get a cheap castle and put it in every single one of these hunt/sac provinces.

On all the low pop provinces, like below 2-3K, just hunt them to death and move on. Don't bother with a tower/temple/lab in those unless they have a gem income that you don't want to lose.

[Jim_Parker]

Actually I was working on a strategy of hoarding slaves and then mass sacrificing them at strategic points. I'm doing ok in a military and magic sense (I lead both gem and cash income and have a mid-ranking 'army'). Also, my dominion appears to be getting stronger on it's own - I haven't sacrificed any slaves for dominion so far (I've got the grand total of 2 temples). The whole sacrifice and dominion thing seems a bit different from what the rulebook suggests.

No jade knives yet but I'll have some for the sacrifices. I'm not sure on your point about the population dying btw - the province I'm using for blood slaves is not dropping noticably in population and has no growth scale. I'm basically getting between 5-15 blood slaves per turn for the loss of 26 gold. It has a -2 dominion (right next to Caelum's capital) so maybe thats a factor.

[Huzurdaddi]

With 3 hunters per province, zero tax rate, and no patrolling, you can just about balance the pop loss from hunting with 2 growth.




The real power of Mictlain is that you have the slaves for patrolling. If you are not partolling with Mictlain you are not getting the most blood / time that you can and that inefficient for THE blood nation.

And getting back to the original post for a second. Mictlain has basically, 2 options:

1) Make a bless pretender and expand using your decent sacred troops.
2) Make an SC pretender and expand using your SC

The advantage to #1 is that you do not have to research alteration-3 which is nice. The disadvantage to #1 is that you have to make troops which cost money which could have been spent on more mages for blood hunting and using that blood.

The downside to #2 is that you *need* to take Blood-3 ( or ) and Water-3 on your pretender since you just *have* to have the ice devils. This may be difficult to take on an SC pretender and not break the bank.

[Jim_Parker]

Huzurdaddi said:The real power of Mictlain is that you have the slaves for patrolling. If you are not partolling with Mictlain you are not getting the most blood / time that you can and that inefficient for THE blood nation.



Not sure I agree with that. Patrolling is very costly in population so it's really self defeating. You can counter it with growth but you can also counter having a few 0% tax 'feeder provinces' with order - and not have to suffer terrible unrest (therefore you have no need of patrolling).

If you take the patrol/growth route you'll have a larger standing army...if slaves can be called an 'army'. If you use a few feeder provinces at 0% tax you can run a proper empire elsewhere.

It probably works out fairly similar. The patrol/growth tactic is bound to end up taxing your economy quite badly. Slaves are cheap but not in the numbers you'd need to patrol every province. On the plus side, you should be able to get an awful lot of bloodslaves.

If you have a few feeder provinces and order, the tax revenue you lose is going to be more than made up for elsewhere. It's basically substituting growth for order. This empire will have more cash and less blood slaves...but how many blood slaves do you really need?

[Kel]

Keep in mind that you don't have to take growth to counteract population loss, you can just take more provinces http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

[The Panther]

Jim_Parker said:
Actually I was working on a strategy of hoarding slaves and then mass sacrificing them at strategic points. I'm doing ok in a military and magic sense (I lead both gem and cash income and have a mid-ranking 'army'). Also, my dominion appears to be getting stronger on it's own - I haven't sacrificed any slaves for dominion so far (I've got the grand total of 2 temples). The whole sacrifice and dominion thing seems a bit different from what the rulebook suggests.

No jade knives yet but I'll have some for the sacrifices. I'm not sure on your point about the population dying btw - the province I'm using for blood slaves is not dropping noticably in population and has no growth scale. I'm basically getting between 5-15 blood slaves per turn for the loss of 26 gold. It has a -2 dominion (right next to Caelum's capital) so maybe thats a factor.



I have to agree about the sacrifice thing. It seems to work odd at best. The dominion spread from sacrificing does not seem to be the same as the dominion spread from temples for other races. Four slaves sacrificed in a single province is supposed to produce 4 temple checks, but it seems less than this in practice. I wonder if the devs can explain this for real. In my current game, I am sacrificing 20 slaves per turn and still not gaining any dominion.

I also wonder about your mass sacrificing at strategic points thing. A huge problem is that only one priest at a time can sacrifice in a province with a temple. I simply cannot see how mass sacrificing will work at all.

As for the population loss thing, your pop is dying if you don't have growth. Write down the population in a provimce from one turn to the next and see how much it goes down each month. Every blood slave you create results in a loss of a minimum of 2 people per slave. The virgin and her mother perhaps???

So, 3 hunters in a single province over 5K population will lose you 30-35 people each turn for the 15 slaves on average that you get. Add in a -0.4% loss from death 2, and you would be losing 50+ pop per turn.

The patrolling thing makes your population drop slightly more than twice as fast as without, for each bandit killed also results in a loss of at least 2 pop per bandit. Plus you have to kill the 3 bandits (on average, but open ended) who come with the mere attempt to hunt whether successful or not. Patrolling with the above scenario means a loss of about 90 people per turn. In 11 turns, your 6K province becomes a 5K province for an average of 165 total blood slaves. Once you get down to 2K population, it is close to useless to hunt anymore, for you are getting only 2 of slaves per turn on average for a 5 increase in unrest.

As long as you can continue to expand by killing someone, this raping strategy works. On a smaller map, if you have to hunker down, fortify your borders, and race to the ice/arch devils, you better hope your initial attack wins. If it does not, then you are dead because your population is delining far too rapidly. You cannot get slaves without population except by wishing. If you have to resort to blood hunting in your capitol, then you are probably dead.

By the way, I did have my level 5 prophet with the jade knife successfully sacrifice 8 slaves per turn, just as it is supposed to be. Even then, though, I could not get my dominion to expand. Probably because I am squeezed between a 10-dominion Ermor and a rapdily expanding Caelum...

[Jim_Parker]

Kel said:
Keep in mind that you don't have to take growth to counteract population loss, you can just take more provinces http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel



Good with Ermor, not quite so good with Mictlan...although I can definitely see the benifits of having an undead horde opposed to a bunch of awful troops. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

This is probably why Mictlan doesn't have any death mages...kinda a no-brainer if they did.

[Jim_Parker]

The Panther said:I also wonder about your mass sacrificing at strategic points thing. A huge problem is that only one priest at a time can sacrifice in a province with a temple. I simply cannot see how mass sacrificing will work at all.



What I was assuming was a constant 5 slave sacrifice over a few turns would really start to turn the dominion around. That's why I was saving up rather than just sporadically cutting a few throats.:)


As for the population loss thing, your pop is dying if you don't have growth. Write down the population in a provimce from one turn to the next and see how much it goes down each month. Every blood slave you create results in a loss of a minimum of 2 people per slave. The virgin and her mother perhaps???

So, 3 hunters in a single province over 5K population will lose you 30-35 people each turn for the 15 slaves on average that you get. Add in a -0.4% loss from death 2, and you would be losing 50+ pop per turn.



Hmmm, I'd better look more closely at the figures I'm seeing. Is there another factor involved, like migration perhaps? I've seen a few migrations from my lands before due to misfortune events...do those people actually go elsewhere? Even if they do, I can't quite understand why they'd choose my empire instead. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


By the way, I did have my level 5 prophet with the jade knife successfully sacrifice 8 slaves per turn, just as it is supposed to be. Even then, though, I could not get my dominion to expand. Probably because I am squeezed between a 10-dominion Ermor and a rapdily expanding Caelum...



I dunno...there must be a constant effect thing in progress surely? The province I'm currently blood hunting/slaving in had a -1 dominion (as I said, it's right next to the Caelum capital) to start with. It rapidly fell to a -3 but went straight to -2 the turn I built a temple. It's now -1 and I haven't sacrificed a single slave all game or 17 turns overall. A clarification on how Mictlan's dominion worked would be a good place to start I think.

[Cainehill]

The Panther said:
I have to agree about the sacrifice thing. It seems to work odd at best. The dominion spread from sacrificing does not seem to be the same as the dominion spread from temples for other races. Four slaves sacrificed in a single province is supposed to produce 4 temple checks, but it seems less than this in practice. I wonder if the devs can explain this for real. In my current game, I am sacrificing 20 slaves per turn and still not gaining any dominion.




I'm likewise dubious that it's working the way it should be. In one game with Vanheim, I had about 25 temples, 15 of them on one border. All of them I got to neutral or friendly dominion but one in the corner. So - four turns of having a Priest/Blood Van-leader with a jade knife doing sacrifices. Dominion remained stucked at -1 the whole time, with my prophet (dominion strength 10) in the next province, plus all the temples.

[Huzurdaddi]

Not sure I agree with that. Patrolling is very costly in population so it's really self defeating. You can counter it with growth but you can also counter having a few 0% tax 'feeder provinces' with order - and not have to suffer terrible unrest (therefore you have no need of patrolling).




With patrolling you can blood hunt in every provicne with more than 5k pop. Those 12k pop provinces that make your economy go? Those can easily maintain 100% taxes and hold 2 or 3 blood hunters with 50-100 partollers. The cost? 5-10 gold in maintainance. That sounds like a bargin to me.

When you are playig Mictain the blood must flow. Every province should be blood hunted.

As an added bonus it's darn hard for other people to spy on you! Yay!

[Graeme Dice]

The Panther said:
One of the problems with Mictlan is that you are pretty much forced to get growth if you expect the game to Last more than about 50 turns or so.



Even a province with only 3000-4000 people can still be good for bloodhunting in the late game.

[qote]With death scales + bloodhunting + patrolling, your provinces will look like Ermor was there in no time at all!

[/quote]

It's the patrolling that kills the population. The rest don't have a very large effect.


Another huge problem is the fact that after you pool slaves, you must go to ALL your sacrificing priests and put the 4 slaves (you have the jade knife on all your sacrificers, right?) back on them.



Don't use 'pool slaves' with Mictlan. Create control Groups from your bloodhunters in each province, then press 'Z' when you have them selected.

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
With patrolling you can blood hunt in every provicne with more than 5k pop. Those 12k pop provinces that make your economy go? Those can easily maintain 100% taxes and hold 2 or 3 blood hunters with 50-100 partollers. The cost? 5-10 gold in maintainance. That sounds like a bargin to me.



You've missed most of the cost there. Unrest from blood hunting is generated before taxation, and then the unrest is removed by patrolling. Your actual income is quite a bit lower than what it would be had you not blood hunted at all.

Plus, a few patrollers with 10 or so hunters will wipe out 5000 people in about 5 turns, while putting three or foud hunters in that same province would let it Last for the rest of the game. The best long-term strategy is to spread your hunters throughout many provinces.

[Soapyfrog]

Graeme Dice said:
You've missed most of the cost there. Unrest from blood hunting is generated before taxation, and then the unrest is removed by patrolling. Your actual income is quite a bit lower than what it would be had you not blood hunted at all.


Hmmm are you sure? That doesnt jibe with what I am seeing. Could be though...


Graeme Dice said:
Plus, a few patrollers with 10 or so hunters will wipe out 5000 people in about 5 turns, while putting three or foud hunters in that same province would let it Last for the rest of the game. The best long-term strategy is to spread your hunters throughout many provinces.


What? 1000 people a turn? No way... I searched with like 10 bloodhunters and patrolled with 100 troops in my capital one turn, snagging over 50 slaves and killing 100 points of unrest and I lost MAYBE 300 population, if that. If it was more I'd be very surprised.

With 3 bloodhunters going and 50 guys patrolling I dont see how you could lose more that 50-100 pop per turn...

The Panther said:
I have to agree about the sacrifice thing. It seems to work odd at best. The dominion spread from sacrificing does not seem to be the same as the dominion spread from temples for other races.



After some tests on Mictlan some time ago I came to the conclusion that the chance to gain a white candle with a sacrifice is 4 times less than an ordinary temple check.
If the chance to get a candle is 10% * maximum dominion, the chance to get a candle with a slave is only 2,5 % * max dominion.

I dont know if the devs are fully aware of this, I think I've never seen an official post on that question...

Cheers

[PDF]

Sunray_be said:

The Panther said:
I have to agree about the sacrifice thing. It seems to work odd at best. The dominion spread from sacrificing does not seem to be the same as the dominion spread from temples for other races.



After some tests on Mictlan some time ago I came to the conclusion that the chance to gain a white candle with a sacrifice is 4 times less than an ordinary temple check.
If the chance to get a candle is 10% * maximum dominion, the chance to get a candle with a slave is only 2,5 % * max dominion.

I dont know if the devs are fully aware of this, I think I've never seen an official post on that question...

Cheers



It makes sense - as a bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif : isn't sacrifice supposed to be 4 times MORE efficient than Temple check ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Boron]

PDF said:
It makes sense - as a bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif : isn't sacrifice supposed to be 4 times MORE efficient than Temple check ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif


Yeah makes sense . I remember in my first mp game i was ermor and Aku was mictlan . Only 1 of my provinces bordered one of his provinces and he sacrificed with a jade knife in all provinces close to my border and i had only 2-3 temples close + my prophet and still the dominion stayed at +1 for me for 10+ turns .

[Yossar]

Here's some advice I learned the hard way. Don't attack Marignon early. Holy Pyre > Fiends of Darkness.

[Boron]

Yossar said:
Here's some advice I learned the hard way. Don't attack Marignon early. Holy Pyre > Fiends of Darkness.


Hm i think unless you are abysia attacking marignon early is always extremely dangerous http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif .

[cydius]

quick question for mictlan.

when selecting scales, does mictlan gain any benefit from Restless Worshipers???

thanks

[Graeme Dice]

cydius said:
when selecting scales, does mictlan gain any benefit from Restless Worshipers???



They don't, which is why you can't select it.

[The Panther]

Some more random thoughts on the subject of Mictlan.

1. It seems the above consensus from several folks is that a slave sacrifice is worth 1/4 that of a temple from any other race. In my experience, this seems correct to me. Whether it is a feature or a bug, I can't comment of that one. But it sure seems to work this way, for spreading dominion as Mictlan seems almost impossible to achieve against any decent player. Most especially Ermor.

2. The population loss from blood hunting is supposed to be fairly simple. For each captured slave, you lose a minimum of 2 population. For each killed brigand from patrolling, you also lose at least 2 population, and this is compounded on top of the blood slave loss. I believe the way it works for real is that you lose 10 population for 1-5 of either brigand or blood slave, 20 population for 6-10, 30 loss for 11-15, and so forth.

3. Losing 1000 people in a single turn is farfetched to me. I think there is an accidental added zero in there. Using the Huzur method of having your free slaves patrol with lots (meaning more than 3) of blood hunters, you lose on the order of 100 pop per turn, just as he has stated above. So, if you intend to rape your capitol, it will Last quite a while indeed. But I believe that you really need the capitol income to spread your watch towers in order to protect your other hunters and sacrificiers, and also pay upkeep for all your priests.

4. Mictlan has the highest level of micro-management of any race. I can fully attest to the truth of this, for I am currently playing 5 different races in 5 separate MP games. My Mictlan game definitely does, on average, take the longest time to move of the group. All games are approximately in the mid-game phase with 1 closer to the latter stage of the game.

5. In my next MP move as Mictlan, I will conduct an experiment. I will sacrifice only ONE slave per temple on this next turn and see if my dominion drops down on the graph. I will report the results in the next few days. I am hoping that 1 sacrificed slave works as well as the 4 I have been doing each turn, for I have invested a ton of slaves in this game for so little apparent benefit in dominion spread.

Cheers

I am hoping that 1 sacrificed slave works as well as the 4 I have been doing each turn


Unless your base dominion is high, the chance to get +1 candle with one slave is very small. For exemple if you've a max_dom of 6, the chance is probably 15%. Curiously, I've sometime seen a new candle in an adjacent province and not in the sacrifice province /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif! So it's very hard to compute. If you want an higher %, build more temples... you get +1 max_dom for every 5 temples.
And remember that your pretender gets a free temple check every turn, and this one is a "true", standard check. Personaly I dont sacrifice slaves in the beginning of the game, the pretender alone is enough to reach 4-5 candles in the capitol.
Cheers

[The Panther]

OK, I have tested this sacrifice thing. And I believe there is no bug. It works exactly as advertised - each sacrificed slave equals one temple check.

What I did was start a game with Marignon and Mictlan on the map Symmetry. That map is a tiny two-player map where there are 11 provinces on each side of a central one. The two sides start on opposite ends. I gave both sides the same 5 base dominion.

I didn't do anything with Marignon, just let him stale every turn. I took three provinces with Mictlan and built 3 temples and labs in them. I built some priests, did some blood hunting to get slaves and built 3 jade knives.

It took maybe 12 turns to get this all going. By that time, the Marigon dominion was spreading deep into Mictlan territory because of the 3 extra temple checks per turn (2 for the god and 1 for the temple). Meanwhile, Marignon got the event which increased dominion in his capitol, so he got bumped to 7 dominion at home. This seemed to have no real effect on the overall dominion spread, though, for the god and temple checks were still listed at the base 5 level.

Once I got the blood slaves rolling and the 12 sacrifices per turn going, it was very easy to reclaim the Mictlan dominion towards the Marignon side of the map. When the dominion spread hit the middle province, I quit doing the 12 per turn.

I then proceeded to experiment with 1, 2, 3, or 4 sacrifices per turn. And the 3 seemed fully balanced, exactly as it should be. The middle province changed hands a time or two, went up, then down, exactly like a good random number generator ought to behave.

At 4 slaves per turn, Mictlan started winning the dominion fight for the central province. And the dominion even eventually started to lower in the adjacent province on the Marignon side. It was clearly working, albeit very slowly.

I then sped up the process by going to 12 sacrifices per turn. Within maybe 20-30 turns, Marignon died to dominion. It definitely seemed to work exactly as the developers have said.

In my Mictlan MP game, my problem must simply be the fact that I started right next to Ermor who had 10 dominion and built temples right off the bat. Bad luck, in other words, for all my provinces adjacent to him are dead now, even two of them which border my capitol.

Did you removed your Mictlan pretender from the game ? If not, he still made an extra temple check every turn...
Cheers

[The Panther]

I did not. Both sides had a pretender.

Except for Mictlan, each pretender gets 10 dominion spread plus 2 temple checks at your max dominion level. The Mictlan pretender has the full 10 dominion spread also but zero temple checks. Plus, the Mictlan home province with a temple does not get the extra temple check like all other races do. Thus, the 10 pretender spread of Mictlan cancelled the 10 pretender spread of Marigon and left the difference at 3 (or is it 4?) missing temple checks.

Which seemed exactly to match my testing. Both 3 and 4 slaves sacrificed per turn seemed close to balanced as far as the random number generator would allow over a short term.

[Jim_Parker]

Overall, it's a pretty bad deal for Mictlan though. In real game scenarious you are going to be fighting off hostile dominions all over and not just against one enemy. The amount of blood required for that cannot possibly be viable.

On top of that, you've got to build temples to increase your maximum dominion (and to actually sacrifice) but they don't do anything else positive...Mictlan is on a hiding to nothing dominion-wise I fear. Not to mention the time spent hunting for slaves when other dominions can be actively preaching against you.

I'd recommend 1/2 price temples which increase the max dominion and the ability to sacrifice without a temple in the province. As things stand, those temples look like a huge waste of cash that you are unlikely to be able to afford considering you'll be running blood provinces. Mictlan is weak and needs too much micromanagment to be viable. Even the AI gets mullered with it most games :- I've seen one strong Mictlan AI in about 100 games.

[Graeme Dice]

Jim_Parker said:
The amount of blood required for that cannot possibly be viable.



It certainly is viable, and Mictlan actually has to be careful to not overwhelm the dominion of your neighbours.


Not to mention the time spent hunting for slaves when other dominions can be actively preaching against you.



No dominion can actively preach against you unless they've already conquered your provinces. Preaching does not spread dominion outside of the province that it happens in.


As things stand, those temples look like a huge waste of cash that you are unlikely to be able to afford considering you'll be running blood provinces.



They are easy to afford once you've stopped purchasing troops and switched over to Mictlan Priests and capital-based mages.


Mictlan is weak and needs too much micromanagment to be viable.



Mictlan ain't weak, and the micromanagement consists of little more than selecting your hunters in each province and pressing 'Z'.


Even the AI gets mullered with it most games :- I've seen one strong Mictlan AI in about 100 games.



That's not a surprise, since the AI doesn't play blood nations effectively at all.

[The Panther]

Graeme Dice said:

Jim_Parker said:
The amount of blood required for that cannot possibly be viable.



It certainly is viable, and Mictlan actually has to be careful to not overwhelm the dominion of your neighbours.




I must greatly disagree with the Dice Man here. This overwhelmence is late game only. You are SO darn far behind spreading dominion early that it lingers well into the middle game. There is essentially zero chance of overrunning your neighbors with dominion for at least 40 turns into the game. You must fight like crazy for a long, long time just to try and hold your own dominion from getting crushed. The only solution to this early on is getting 9 or 10 base dominion, which is typically a misuse of pretender points.

And you really, really want to spend your slaves on anything but wasting them on dominion spread. Like IDs, ADs, devils, vampires, etc, and etc, and etc. Being unequivocally forced to sacrifice on the order of 20 slaves per turn JUST TO STAY EVEN with any other race is no fun at all. I can assure you that this hurts bad in my current Mictlan game.


Graeme Dice said:

Jim_Parker said:
Not to mention the time spent hunting for slaves when other dominions can be actively preaching against you.



No dominion can actively preach against you unless they've already conquered your provinces. Preaching does not spread dominion outside of the province that it happens in.




The Dice is mostly correct here, though there are races with stealthy preachers. Getting 10 PD everywhere, while expensive, puts a stop to the stealthy business. But the point is that other races passively spread dominion into Mictlan territory just by building temples on your border. Mictlan cannot do this passively. He is forced to waste the blood slaves anywhere he wants to push dominion.


Graeme Dice said:

Jim_Parker said:
As things stand, those temples look like a huge waste of cash that you are unlikely to be able to afford considering you'll be running blood provinces.



They are easy to afford once you've stopped purchasing troops and switched over to Mictlan Priests and capital-based mages.




Jim Parker has a good point here. Just because you can maybe afford them later on in the game does not change the fact they temples are pretty much a COMPLETE waste of gold for Mictlan. And just because you need them to recruit the Mictlan priests does not change this fact either. I mean, you will NEVER be able to afford to build a priest in every single province with a temple that you are forced to sacrifice from. If not for the requirement of needing them to sacrifice slaves, I doubt any Mictlan player would build very many temples at all. They would put them in grudgingly only when they want to get to the next set of 5.


Graeme Dice said:

Jim_Parker said:
Mictlan is weak and needs too much micromanagment to be viable.



Mictlan ain't weak, and the micromanagement consists of little more than selecting your hunters in each province and pressing 'Z'.




This is both right and wrong.

Mictlan does suffer from more micro than any other race. And it it not as simple as selecting your hunters and hitting 'Z'. I tried that and it simply does not work. It is a start, but you must also baby every single hunter based on the current unrest level in each hunting province. With less than 5 unrest, you can have 3 hunters. With about 10 unrest, you need to put one hunter temporarily on research. And when you get one of those outliers of high unrest or a bad event, or get attacked by knights or barbarians, then they all hunters in the province must go to research while you either wait with zero tax and/or patrollers to clear it.

You must move your patrolling slaves around where needed the most. You also must switch hunting provinces around as you use up population. You also must decide each and every turn on exactly how many slaves you can afford to sacrifice this time.

But I will certainly agree with Dice on one thing here: Mictlan is not weak. If you can survive through the harsh middle game, it can be very strong in the end game with its IDs, ADs, devils, vampires, and the ability to crush other peoples dominions almost at will.


Graeme Dice said:

Jim_Parker said:
Even the AI gets mullered with it most games :- I've seen one strong Mictlan AI in about 100 games.



That's not a surprise, since the AI doesn't play blood nations effectively at all.



Amen to this. You really can't base the true strength of the races based on how the AI plays. I mean, the AI plays Caelum probably worse than any other nation (beside Mictlan, I mean). And Caelum is actually the best nation, based on the results of that informal poll in another thread. The play of the AI is mostly based on how strong the national troops happen to be, since that it what it uses the most by far. Ermor is an exception here because, while the AE/SG troops are weak, the AI can get so darn many of them and micro the heck out of them.

[Graeme Dice]

The Panther said:
Mictlan does suffer from more micro than any other race. And it it not as simple as selecting your hunters and hitting 'Z'. I tried that and it simply does not work. It is a start, but you must also baby every single hunter based on the current unrest level in each hunting province. With less than 5 unrest, you can have 3 hunters. With about 10 unrest, you need to put one hunter temporarily on research.



10 unrest has only about a 2.5% chance of causing a blood hunt to fail. A 1d400 is rolled, and if it's greater than the unrest level the hunt goes to the next part of the check. The unrest has to get to 100 or more before it starts to be really noticeable.


You must move your patrolling slaves around where needed the most.



Don't patrol. Never, ever patrol for unrest reduction unless you want to kill your provinces off as early as possible. With 0% tax, and three or four hunters, your provinces will Last for the entire game.


You also must switch hunting provinces around as you use up population.



Why bother? Three priests with SDR's cost only 8 gold per turn. Just buy three more if you want to set up a new province, and leave the old ones there, since that province wouldn't give you any gold anyways anymore.


You also must decide each and every turn on exactly how many slaves you can afford to sacrifice this time.



Two per priest is easy enough.

[Cainehill]

Graeme Dice said:
Don't patrol. Never, ever patrol for unrest reduction unless you want to kill your provinces off as early as possible. With 0% tax, and three or four hunters, your provinces will Last for the entire game.




3 or 4 hunters? With 2 good hunters a province (Each with 2+ blood magic + Sanguine rod) I'm finding the unrest creeps up at 0 taxes. Admittedly, I don't have growth scales, but I'm simply hoping for the provinces to Last the entire game, but expecting a "lucky" event to wipe them out if blood hunting doesn't. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[archaeolept]

no I think 3 hunters is the most effective. Sure, unrest will often creep up, but it is a self-balancing system, as failing to find slaves will allow the natural 0% taxation unrest reduction to operate.

think of it this way - If your unrest stays at 0, you're being inefficient... [well, 0% itself would be efficient]

This is part of why, say, 4000 pop is almost as good as 5000. Sure, you get a few misses, but that keeps unrest down, so it is almost as productive as 5000 pop. [i'd need the precise numbers for unrest generation to determine how low your pop can be and still be equally productive on average as 5000]

basically, 0% taxation yields a certain number of potential bloodslaves (without patrolling, which is a true killer), and you don't want to miss a drop of that sweet sweet sugar...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Boron]

archaeolept said:
basically, 0% taxation yields a certain number of potential bloodslaves (without patrolling, which is a true killer), and you don't want to miss a drop of that sweet sweet sugar...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



I haven't tested in 2.14 BUT in 2.12 patrol was no killer : 10 pop / 5 brigands killed .
This is not so heavy and in 8+k provinces probably even compensable with growth 3 .

Normally i am a fan of a death 3 scale only with bloodhunt i tend to take growth 3 : A 5k pop province stays at about 5k forever with growth 3 and bloodhunting .

With death 3 you lose each turn 0,006% pop + more pop by bloodhunt .
With 3 bloodhunters you lose about 50 pop per turn cause of bloodhunt and about 25 per deathscale .
So even without events normally a 5K province is down to 4k in about 12 turns and down to 3k in about 25-30 turns .

Since those 4-6k provinces are so common i really think growth is for bloodnations not too bad .
At about turn 50-60 the deathscale starts to really disturb your bloodhunting .
On a small map you have either long won or are long dead then but other games often Last until turn 50-60 easily .

[Kel]

If you can find someone with growth scale, just keep taking their territories and your death scale won't hurt so much http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

[Boron]

Kel said:
If you can find someone with growth scale, just keep taking their territories and your death scale won't hurt so much http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel


Unfortunately enemy dominion causes a bit unrest so limits bloodhunting a bit too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[Kel]

So...convert their dominion ? I don't mean you leave it in their dominion, that wouldn't do you any good anyway. I mean, if you keep taking fresh provinces, your death scale won't matter as much since you always have a fresh supply of blood.

I only mentioned taking provinces from people with growth scales since their population should be higher than people with death scales. Really, taking new territory to hunt in is the point. It's just a bonus if the person you are at war with has growth.

- Kel

[Boron]

Kel said:
So...convert their dominion ? I don't mean you leave it in their dominion, that wouldn't do you any good anyway. I mean, if you keep taking fresh provinces, your death scale won't matter as much since you always have a fresh supply of blood.

I only mentioned taking provinces from people with growth scales since their population should be higher than people with death scales. Really, taking new territory to hunt in is the point. It's just a bonus if the person you are at war with has growth.

- Kel


Yeah sure but normally the war is not so easy and the victim damages normally your provinces quite a bit too and the war Lasts some time .

Or do you mean to steal away provinces as second / third opponent from already almost beaten / crippled opponents ?
This works better of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

[archaeolept]

ok taking a 5k pop province

0% taxation will undo around 35 unrest approx, i think.
patrolling instead of having 0% tax will kill 10 pop per % unrest, so around 350 pop :O (i'm not sure if this goes down at all for smaller pop provinces)
death 3 will kill 30 pop
getting 13 bloodslaves a turn (guestimate as to average) will kill 26 pop.

so death 3 and 0% tax bloodhunting will kill around 55-60 pop/turn, letting one bloodhunt in the province for 30+ turns (since numbers lost to death will decrease as the pop decreases) before pop goes to 3K (which is still ok for bloodhunting, just not as good)

while growth 3 and 100% tax w/ patrollers for the unrest will kill over 300 pop a turn, letting one bloodhunt w/ similar effectiveness for about 8 turns tops...

summary: patrolling is murder.

and we see that Graeme's estimate of 1000 dead a turn from massively patrolling away the unrest from keeping taxation at 100% and bloodhunting w/ 10 hunters is, if anything, on the low side. besides being especially silly, since the massive patrolled-away unrest still affects your tax take.

[Boron]

Archeolopt i have run tests during 2.12 and per 5 points unrest reduced you lose 10 pop !
And i would keep taxes at 0% and bloodhunt and patrol .

35 unrest kill not 350 pop but 70 !

I personally don't patrol either but it is not as bad as you write .

[archaeolept]

hmmm i was going on earlier reports that patrolling 1 pt of unrest kills 10 pop. this may be dependent upon population size though, or may have been changed, or may always have been wrong ;p

even w/ only 2 pop killed per point of unrest, growth 3 + patrolling will kill pop as fast or faster than death 3 + no patrolling. and, frankly, I like the 240 design points...

though that does explain why its taking so long for me to kill off my pop in my stupid swamp goldmine province http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[The Panther]

On the subject of unrest, you must try to keep it clear, not because of the possible failure to find slaves, but because of the bad events that will happen. Like barbarian or knight attacks, which has happenned to me about every third turn in my Mictlan game. Or the worst of all, the peasants might leave to find a better home when unrest hits 20. That is a killer event, but I have had that only once when the knights seiged my castle and unrest hit 40 before I cleared it. Maybe this is because I got 3 misfortune, but I think 90% of the Mictlan MP players will take 2-3 misfortune also.

Cainehill is right. You can only keep the unrest always at zero in a 5K+ province with a maximum of 2 hunters. Doing this would certainly decrease the micromanagement. But it seems better to work hard to keep that third hunter as productive as possible and spend the extra time each turn on each and every hunting province to do this.

As for the sacrificing 2 slaves per priest, that is another trick to reduce micromanagement but at a high cost. I think you must give a jade knife to each sacrificier in every province with a temple. This allows you to sacrifice up to 4 slaves any time you have the available slaves or need them in a particular sector. And you can choose between 0 (researching), 1 (probably a waste to do so when you could get research done instead), and 2-4 which are all useful to do.

As for the death scales, this works well on shorter games. But in a long game, death 3 is certain death to Mictlan. No blood hunting means you will die extremely fast to a diminion kill in the late game. The only alternative from dying is building up to wish by having a hundred or so clams working for you.

[Kel]

The Panther said:The only alternative from dying is building up to wish by having a hundred or so clams working for you.



Like I said, take more provinces. Population usually comes with em.

- Kel

[archaeolept]

no death 3 is not certain death lol. the losses are moderate. I'm currently on turn 58 in my mictlan game, and have only had to leave one province due to pop loss. my blood income is 160 on a very bad turn, and more likely over 200. my dominion is on par w/ the strongest in the game. my income is fine. And i've had one barbarian attack all game - that's w/ misfortune 2. I think taking misfortune 3 is definitely a no-no though. As well I have no soul contracts and only one vampire lord, who is actually patrolling not summoning allies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Now, Storm knows the endgame much better than I do, so I may well lose, but that will not be the fault of Mictlan.

And, again, while you can keep unrest at 0 w/ 2 bloodhunters, that does not in and of itself make it the most effective use of your resources. so what if my unrest hovers around 40-50? that's a 10% blood slave loss only from what it would theoretically be if I patrolled.

Mictlan is about the least likely nation to experience dominion kill in the late game. And even early it is easy to avoid unless you're a total moron.

[incognito]

How do you protect the vulnerabilites of a blood economy? Strikes me that it is damn easy to use unrest producing spells to make blood hunting difficult or kill off population en masse. Playing non-blood hunting races, I usually don't care about this issue, but here it really matters.

Certainly one method is a really 'deep' economy ie tons of blood hunting sites, but here you are just increasing tolerance for damage, not actually stopping it. Another method may be the virtual blood economy ie summons that in turn summon allies, soul contracts, special sites, etc that enable you to reap the fruits of blood income without the blood slaves coming in each turn. If you trace the turn-by-turn devil producing capacity back to the spell costs, you can generate a very high equivalent blood slave total this way given time. This is one reason I believe soul contracts are not imbalanced. They are necessary to balance the fragility of blood economies. What other ideas do people have?

[Boron]

The Panther said:
As for the death scales, this works well on shorter games. But in a long game, death 3 is certain death to Mictlan. No blood hunting means you will die extremely fast to a diminion kill in the late game. The only alternative from dying is building up to wish by having a hundred or so clams working for you.


Yeah this is the true power of mictlan imo . You have both worlds , clamhoarding AND blood http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
You are horrible fragile earlygame but then if you aren't totally unlucky with sitesearching you can bloodhunt and soon start clamhoarding too .
Since you don't need so many gems you can clamhoard probably even a bit better than e.g. pythium http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
If mictlan is left alone long enough it is frightening .
Earlygame it is weak so this is the biggest problem .

[cydius]

Original post:



when selecting scales, does mictlan gain any benefit from Restless Worshipers???




Graeme Dice said:

They don't, which is why you can't select it.



just wanted to let you know you can select both Restless Whorshippers and Ceremonial Faith as Mictlan.

[archaeolept]

you can't select ceremonial faith, but you can select restless worshippers. dunno whether it works or not though.

[Graeme Dice]

archaeolept said:
and we see that Graeme's estimate of 1000 dead a turn from massively patrolling away the unrest from keeping taxation at 100% and bloodhunting w/ 10 hunters is, if anything, on the low side. besides being especially silly, since the massive patrolled-away unrest still affects your tax take.



Well, it was a direct observation from the duel game I played against Argitoth, where I had something like 100 wolves patrolling while I had more than a dozen members of the second tier bloodhunting in a single province. They dropped in population from 10K to less than 1K extremely quickly.