Blood Kings: Lanka vs. Mictlan

[Shovah32]

Well f9w9s9 gives jags increase speed and twist fate so archers dont shred them quite as badly as other unarmoured troops, jaguar warriors also have a second form. A tough thug/SC out front can draw plenty of archer fire easily and mictlan also has multiple flying sacreds(eagle warriors, beast bats, jaguar fiends, summoned commanders ect)

[Huzurdaddi]

NickW, I thought that you were pretty solidly against the domination of blessed troops in Dom3. Guess I was wrong.

Anyway,

NickW said:
Jags are low protection and low HP compared to Vans and Giants

The low HP part is simply not true wrt. Vans. Jags have at a minimum 18 HP ( I do not know if the two HPs add, it is difficult to see on the battle map and I have not looked that hard, if they add they have 30 HP). Assuming 18 HP that is more HP straight out than Vans and more and x2 more HP/gold than Nifel Giants.

NickW said:
Mictlan has no high protection troops, no effective ranged troops, no cavalry for fast attacks, etc.

That is irrelevant. Their Jags are on a cost basis ( assuming heavy bless, we can factor in the cost of bad scales on Mictlan as well ) far superior to any mundane troop in the game. I doubt it is possible to construct an army composed of mundane troops (ie: archers, cav, and high prot troops ) supported by mundane leaders which can come close to defeating an army of jags where both armies have comparable gold costs.

NickW said:
Giants and Vans don't have an easy obvious counter like Jags do.

Agreed. Vans are gold for gold, probably the best troops in the game ( as I said I think that they have been well priced in CB mod, and in that mod I think that the Jag has gone to top gold for gold troop ). Giants at least have the limitation that they are only recruitable at the home province ( may or may not be a limit since they do not die commonly ).

f9w9s9 is one heavy bless! I was only thinking about the ubiquitous f9w9 bless.

[Baalz]

Yeah, I played Lanka a bunch yesterday (studying up for a new MP game), and I’ve got a much better handle on them now.

1) At least the way I play them, Mictlan will always have significantly more blood slaves for two reasons. First, as previously mentioned the blood hunters are 50% less expensive, this makes a big difference when you’re focusing on blood and plan to be paying upkeep on lots of blood hunters and maximizing the amount of provinces you can use for blood hunting (as in don't have much income). Secondly all the other units are much less expensive. Obviously this is a trade off as you’re getting pretty good units for your gold, but every game I’m playing Lanka I’m strapped for gold as I always want more brawlers, more of the very expensive (non-sacred, high upkeep) random path mages to increase my path coverage, more of the expensive demon kings to lead my demons, etc (you didn’t want to reanimate corpses did you?). Not only are you balancing the spending of new gold, but also the upkeep cost for Lanka I find is much higher. This cuts not only into how many/how fast you deploy blood hunters, but also how many provinces you can devote to blood hunting. Again, this is more the way I play it than anything else, but I find Lanka is harder to really focus on blood hunting because of the opportunity cost. At the end of the day though, even if everything else was equal you’ll have 50% more blood hunters with Mictlan.

2) I don’t think Lanka can blood sacrifice, can they? If they can I must have totally missed that.

3) Lanka’s national summons are indeed pretty good, probably about par with Mictlan’s. I might give an edge to Mictlan on the low end summons as flying sacreds is a nice complement to their forces and solidly help against Jaguar warrior counters, while Lanka’s low end summons don’t really add a lot to their versatility (wohoo, more brawlers!). High end summons are probably comparable in power…gotta love that blood vengeance!

4) I maintain my point about Mictlan having an advantage due to not having to rely on random pics for the simple reason of economics. Again, this may change with my play style, but I found I had no problem having the paths I needed with Lanka but the tradeoff was that I spent a decent amount of money on expensive, high upkeep mages. With Mictlan, you recruit exactly what you need, no waste, and everybody is sacred so your upkeep stays low. When you’re really focusing on maximizing your blood economy it’s vital that you pinch every penny you can. With Mictlan I regularly end up with probably 80-100% of the territories between 5k-10k set to blood hunting, with Lanka I can’t come anywhere near that much blood hunting before the rest of my economy stalls from upkeep and a few necessary purchases per turn.

5) One other thing not directly related to blood magic, but very useful nonetheless for guarding your blood hunters is that Mictlan gets Jaguar warriors for PD over 20. If you’ve got a good bless (which you better with Mictlan) this can be an amazingly effective surprise landmine. 30-40 PD aint cheap, but I’ve wiped out some surprisingly large invading armies with it when they weren’t expecting any resistance (and had no jaguar counters). And you guessed it…no upkeep. Makes it easy to defend high risk blood hunting sites when somebody tries to take out your blood slave flow.

Again, I’m really enjoying Lanka and they’ve got some significant advantages, but in my mind from a pure blood point of view Mictlan is hands down a better nation because of the economics. When focusing on blood, it all comes down to economics since you’re essentially trading gold for blood slaves so Mictlan’s much lower overhead maintains their title as undisputed best blood nation.

[Aleph]

1. Granted about the 50% more expensive Lankan bloodhunters - it is a fact. My point is that you're not getting 50% more usable bloodslaves for magical uses since a significant portion of them will go to dominion upkeep / expansion, which is an ongoing cost (10-15% sound like a good conservative estimate?) for Mictlan while temples are a one time cost for Lanka. So, while gross bloodslave production in Mictlan should be roughly 50% higher, net bloodslaves gained is somewhat less than that (assuming 10% sacrificial use, Mictlan would be left roughly with 35% more bloodslaves).

Furthermore, with Skull Mentors (and an inherent Death income, and mages to search for death sites, which even a heroed-up Mictlan lacks prior to Blood 6) Lanka can do more research with fewer mages much earlier than Mictlan, leaving more of your mage pool free to blood hunt. The percentage bonus this gives is entirely up to the user, and should even out after the Mictlan death enabled pretender wakes up or your empower your first Tlahuelpuchi to make Skull Staves and Skull Mentors, but it's a much longer road to Blood 6 then Construction 4 than it is Construction 4, adding Skull Mentors, and then reaching Blood 6.

I should point out that Lanka has no non-sacred random path mages - an oversight above.

Finally, not having your mages worry about aging means both no gold replacement costs and/or no blood expenditures on boots of youth/reinvigoration. Replacing a single Moon Priest will pay for the initial cost difference between the nations' bloodhunters 5 times over and have enough left over to pay the difference in upkeep for those 5 Lankan hunters for 2 months. Later, Boots of Youth are a more cost efficient solution - but at the cost of 10 blood and a wasted mage turn. Crippling? By no means. But still a Lankan edge to narrow the early-mid game gap.

It's the Tlahuelpuchi, though, I think reifies Mictlan's mid-late economic bloodhunting advantage. Once you can summon them in bulk, and no longer need them to run your Skull Mentor machine, they become exceptionally efficient bloodhunters. My thanks to the guy who praised the bloodhunting skills of Vampire Counts in LA Ulm in my Marignon / Abyssia post (Frank Tollman? I forget) for making me realize that about Tlahuelpuchi.

2. Nope, you're right... my bad, I thought Lanka could blood sacrifice. I never did it, but I thought it was listed. I am blatantly wrong on that one.

3. I like Lanka's low end summons, particularly the Rakshasa Warriors (available at level 4, the same time Mictlan gets its Jaguar Fiends). They, like the higher resource cost sacreds of the Lankan nation, benefit very well from an E9/N9 bless approach, and allow you to shift your resource limited troops away from brawlers and into longbowmen, who are just brutal in general and the more so in a nation with this much air magic flying around. Granted, you'll have to carry some wine bags/etc to feed large mixed armies, but you have the paths to pull that off no problem.

Even given my lack of experience in the game, I would confidently state that Lanka's high end summons are notably more powerful tactically than Mictlan's, which tend to have one or more strategic advantages. Lanka's national summons are the only true non-pretender SCs I've seen besides Gift of Reasoned Vastnesses and Niefel/Yomi capital only commanders, and certainly 50 blood for such a creature is too light. Onaqui are nowhere near as dangerous in combat, although their freespawns once more underline the excellent strategic advantages Mictlan's national summons.

In the end, though, I think you've helped me reach a conclusion I am more comfortable with. Mictlan remain the kings of the mid-late pure blood economy with regards to bulk output and the big picture. Lanka, however, may still be too close to Mictlan's blood potency given their non-blood synergies (better recruitable troops in the form of bulk longbowmen and superheavy sacred infantry, better non-blood capital only summons, additional 40 points at creation for Heat 2 preference instead of Heat 1... yeah I know it's not an unmitigated advantage, but it's an advantage nonetheless) and easier startup (the superheavy E9/N9 blessed infantry slices through indeps like butter, while you need FWS9 to replicate that with Jaguars).

[KissBlade]

Mictlan can get free points by controlling dominion. If you're talking about pros and cons between the two nations, I'd say that's a BIG pro for Mictlan.

[Aleph]

You're talking about taking crappy scales and not spreading them? NickW has words for you. If you're talking about something else, please elaborate.

[KissBlade]

Aleph said:
You're talking about taking crappy scales and not spreading them? NickW has words for you.

Yeah, except he's wrong since EA Mictlan fighting LA Ermor/Ryleh dominion isn't very likely to happen. Not to mention, controlling your dominion spread is a very tried and true tactic considering your jaguar fiends are like mini sc's with the triple bless points you get from it ...

[Aleph]

Although LA Mictlan might well, and I did bring them up in my initial post (as the Mictlan which seems better against Lanka, in fact).

I'm not experienced at all in multiplayer, so I can't weigh in on the pros and cons of that choice in the short, brutal realities of highly competitive mp game. I can say that those points don't seem free, though - you're trash at home and trash wherever enemy dominion is, since you're getting all of their downsides and no upside. Now, the upside for your blessed troops might overcome that - many posts by experienced people seem to indicate it does.

[quantum_mechani]

The position of Lanka vs Mictlan as 'blood king' is I think really close, and all things being equal they couple probably ramp up similar level blood economies.

Which is more powerful on a whole though, is a more interesting question. In this, I think it's pretty clear Lanka has the edge. Mictlan's sacreds are cheaper, but with the scales they take, they really have to be to afford them. Lanka sacreds tend to have a much lower casualty rate in the early game, and can threaten high prot SCs much better (Mictlan's work better vs high defense, but that tends to be less important). But what really blows Mictlan out of the water is Lanka's wildly powerful reanimation as opposed to capturing slaves with tribal kings.

Both methods provide about all the patrol fodder you could want, but with reanimation you have something that 1. costs no upkeep 2. will not route in battle 3. does not use population 4. has better armor and damage potential in battle. Even ignoring sacreds, reanimated swarms backed with decent battle magic is a scary force by itself.

Lanka also has somewhat better access to magical diversity, including the very handy air path.

Lastly, if for some reason they ever need to buy anything besides sacreds, reanimating priest, and mages, the bandar longbows certainly put Mictlan's non-sacred troops to shame.

On the issue of Mictlan with bad scales being a liability, I really have to disagree. With high base dom (for sacred production) it is very hard to dom die if you are paying attention.

To sum it up, both nations are extremely powerful (could easily be classed as overpowered, infact) but Mictlan's power is in some ways limited when compared with Lanka's across-the-board insanity.

[NickW]

KissBlade said:
Yeah, except he's wrong since EA Mictlan fighting LA Ermor/Ryleh dominion isn't very likely to happen. Not to mention, controlling your dominion spread is a very tried and true tactic considering your jaguar fiends are like mini sc's with the triple bless points you get from it ...

Mini SCs perhaps, but ones who are horribly vulnerable to archers. And of course playing the oh-so-finicky controlled dominion spread game means that the dominion is [censored] and Mictlan is playing without positive order scales, which means Mictlan isn't playing with as much money as everyone else.

Blood economies are expensive. Those mictlan priests might be cheap but the upkeep on lots of blood hunting priests and patrollers adds up fast and those Jags aren't exactly free either.

Trying to play games with Mictlan's dominion to keep it crappy and contained is ultimately self defeating. It's better to just take a livable dominion, something like order-3, heat-2(or 3), sloth-3 and then spread the hell out of it. Fighting in your own dominion is important for the morale bonus and it doesn't cost that much blood to keep the dominion spreading well.