blood noob question
 

I haven't played with blood at all, but it doesn't seem like national troops and summons should be exclusive. Does blood hunting really nuke your income to the point where you have to completely give up on normal troops?

Re: blood noob question
 

No, it doesn't. It will reduce income by what ever amount you'd get from the provinces where you hunt, but you'll still have gold.

Re: blood noob question
 

Yes, astral could be dropped, but it does have a lot of advantages. I really think that, with clam-spamming, spell diversity, and MR for demonic sacred summons, it's worth the cost.

No, blood-hunting doesn't totally destroy you or anything, you can do it and still have an income, and the sacred troops are nice, so you can do fine with a high scales strategy. I'm just suggesting my own personal strategies, and I'd rather get every last drop of blood-for soul-contracts, if nothing else, since that's a good way to do without national troops, also, and Mictlan certainly has what it takes to contract-spam.

Wreaking scales has another advantage too, in that it becomes more difficult for other nations to invade you, because their provinces-for a while, until they're fully in control-have the same scales you do, which means population could take many years to fully recover.

What I have listed above are ways to get around the fact that I'm totally wreaking my nation's economy in almost every way. You can instead choose to carefully nurture your blood-cattle (aka your population) and by the end of the game have a generous self-perpetuating blood supply.

You would just do things differently than I would, that's all. That's one nice thing about this game, there's always lots of choices and lots of different strategies.

Re: blood noob question
 

Your dominion shouldnt harm enemies too much. With a max dominion of 2 and only spread coming from blood sacrifices...

Re: blood noob question
 

Actually, you could play around and try to add some Earth to Smoking Mirror when you're creating him.

I personally wouldn't trade astral for earth, but giving him enough to forge a Dwarven Hammer will really help you out, and even 1 point of Earth is useful, because it can be hard for Mictlan to get an earth mage.

I'd rather empower him with Earth-even though it'll cost a lot of gems you don't usually have, but it is something to think about. Air magic isn't nearly as big of a deal because EA Mictlan has an air-mage hero, and because air isn't as directly useful for Mictlan as earth.

Hammer of the Cyclops isn't a terrible target for Wish, using a clam-spam and soul-contract-spamming strategy with Mictlan.

Oh and when you put a contract on someone, GUARD HIM!. Put 5 of your summoned devils on each contract-carrier, or atleast 5 good troops. It will keep him alive through atleast lesser horror assassination attempts, and if you fail to protect a contract-carrier, you're out 65 bloodslaves and 5 fire gems.

If the carrier is able to bless, give him 5 eagle warriors, and script him to cast bless, that way they can track the horror down and kill it before it can ice your carrier. Try to research Returning spells, as that is another good way to guard your carriers.

Ring of Warning is good too, because that's an extra 5 troops or devils or whatever guarding your carrier, with the added bonus to Patrol-another plus when you're Mictlan.

By the way, you'll also have the ability to create both fever fetishes and rings of regeneration with Smoking Mirror. It costs a little more, but equipping say a scout with a fetish and a ring will give you fire gems for a while, which will make your soul-contracts even easier to produce in large amounts.

If you're fetish-spamming, you probably want to research and cast Gift of Health at some point. Don't be afraid to wait on it, but it's a good spell, and it'll cure afflictions for both fetish-victims and your aged high priests.

Re: blood noob question
 

You're right, Shovah, it's a good tactic if you can somehow get lots of stealthy commanders who can bloodsacrifice while they're hidden (I believe that's possible, please correct me if I'm wrong), or else just lots of provinces spread around the enemy's territory and damage the enemy Dominion that way. It's, as Gandalf would say "another tool in the toolbox", but it's really not something that's going to win the game by itself for Mictlan.

It can be better for Lord of the Night with a high Dominion, since he's got all the necessary requirements, and can assassinate enemy priests along the way.

Re: blood noob question
 

I dont think thats possible as you need a temple to preform a blood sacrifice and i dont see the enemy lending you theirs... What i was trying to say is that i wouldnt expect that dominion to do much to your enemy because with max dom2 and no temple/prophet spread your dominion wont get far.

Re: blood noob question
 

Yeah, I didn't think of needing a temple.

Re: blood noob question
 

One other thing, there are some really good blood magic sites if you plan on doing a lot of blood sorceries. There are a couple that reduce the cost by 40%, and one (I think) that reduces it by 60%. That's a huge difference if the bulk of your army is blood summons....

Whooo man, I'll say I'm way too scared of dominion death to go with a 2 dominion! A couple of stealthy preachers, or a stealthy/tough enemy god and it doesn't matter how tough your sacreds are. Is this something you use against other players, or against the AI?

As you say, different strokes for different folks, but I find I usually pour all my efforts to researching rather than blood hunting until I get up to the pretty good summons around blood-5 (I just feel like it's a waste of resources to summon bats...they're barely better than my nationals). For my play style at least, I've got plenty of time to get up at least 3 castles well before my blood economy gets going, and 25-30 jaguar warriors, even moderately blessed, coming out every turn go a long way towards buying me the time I need to get the good stuff. I'll take 25 fairly strong jaguar warriors over 2 uber blessed ones (or even 6) every time. Plus, as I mentioned, having extra castles lets you build up a whole lot of the cheapo priests which you can very rapidly switch from research to blood hunting when the time is right. PLUS having castles over a decent percentage of the provinces you plan on blood hunting in gives you a whole lote more resiliance to all the crap that the enemy is gonna try to do to your blood economy.

Interesting how different people's take on the same nation is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: blood noob question
 

Dominion of 2 is a risk, yes, but if you're careful, it can certainly be playable.

The thing about Dominion 2 is that it only has to last you through a turn or two, unless you're very unlucky and have a close human-run neighbor who happens to have a sneaky Pretender with a high Dom, and she decides to target you, specifically.

In an MP game, I definitely would devote atleast 3 Priest-Kings with jade knives to maintaining my Dominion, in and around my home province, and maybe have a well-guarded spare castle or two with a similar set up close by, just as a fail-safe, for a total of 6 core provinces with temples, but a well-maintained Dominion, even if it's 2, is pretty resilient. The key is to both maintain it, and to spread it out so it can't all collapse at once around you.

Once you've got your blood-economy up and running, concerns about Dominion are going to ease very quickly,

You'll even want other Dominions in outlying provinces you own, because they'll generally be better than yours, and as long as your borders are tight and you keep sacrificing, it'll become steadily harder for enemies to Dominion-Death you.