Some notes on MA Mictlan update

[llamabeast]

Casting fog warriors witrh A2 mages is very very hard work, it's not going to be happening very often unless it's the focus of a strategy, and even then not into mid game.

To my mind the presence of A2 mages is unlikely to boost MA Mictlan compared to the other ages as much as losing blood from all of the mages disadvantages them. They are still a nation of shoddy troops with no particular strengths except for their cheap sacreds.

[MaxWilson]

If you switch the cap-only restriction on the jaguar/eagle warriors, don't forget to switch PD too.

About Fog Warriors: one big difference between A1.2 and A2 is that A2 can cast site-searching spells, so you'll have a much larger gem income. Once you empower somebody up to A4 (105 air gems?), or if you have a pretender that starts at A4 or higher, you can forge a Bag of Winds and a Staff of Storms, then <Summon Air Power, Fog Warriors> by burning an extra air gem (it's A5 but only costs 300 fatigue). Seems feasible to me, and you get the fringe benefit of hampering missile fire at your jaguar (/eagle) warriors, and letting any other A2 priests boost to A3 so they can Thunderstrike and/or Orb Lightning.

That said, I agree with Megalobob that balance by *adding* things is much more fun than balance by nerfing, and I like the pending changes to MA Mictlan.

Edit: One more thing. About the "no particular strengths except for their cheap sacreds." What if the Mictlan Couatl were S3A3H2 or something? That gives them a good battlemage with some versatility and a ton of mobility, to make up for the lack of blood summons. It would play very differently from EA/LA Mictlan, but that's kind of the point.

-Max

[Shovah32]

Eagle warrior PD would be awesome although the lack of scriptable PD could make them slightly suicidal.

[MaxWilson]

Hey, PD's the best place for suicidal warriors. IIRC, they can't fly unless they're blessed so they won't die without doing some damage.

-Max

[jutetrea]

I'm playing an MA Mictlan game now, turn 37ish.

A2 would help a lot, but I don't think overly empowering. Possibly an A1N1 w/50% 1A chance, just need that 1 A2 for site searching and boots/displace early. Fog warriors is tough to cast consistently for most nations, adding it as a potential for late mid/late game shouldn't be a dealbreaker if the player wants to invest that way.

Making eagle's non cap would be great, although making jags cap only would suck. As mentioned earlier, you're still limited by your Dom count, so the "hordes" would be the same size, it would just open more strategic possibilities.

Adding heroes is always a great thing.

I'm pretty unimpressed with the nation so far, very linear, much more restricted in options than any other nation I've played. So far, just much less fun than any other nation i've played. Any "addition" changes are great IMO.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Brainfarts:

Putting recuperation on the Coatl would definetly be interesting. Feebleminded? Not the end of things.

I've always been wondering why the reign of the lawgiver isn't more 'ordered'. Give Guardian of Bridge as possible pretender?

Give feathered warrior a patrol bonus. Give Sun Warrior city defense bonus. They are elite guards dedicated to defending the temple.

Give non-blood flier national summon to accompany Coatl - though addition of air two provides some options. Currently you've got 80/85 normal/magic, but few things to spend on.
Make summon nature and/or astral, sync nicely with dragon master, which coatl is capable of casting.

Burning birds? Immortal mini-pheonix? Not-immortal, but fairly cheap- easy die- big bada boom. Replace Beast Bat. Jaguar Fiends - Jaguar Saints... Gets awe? not flying. Global - false order- decreases both dominion and unrest.

Add Wyvern Riders- with air mage, now capable of summoning them, so why not recruit from capital? Basically Eagle Warrior on Wyvern, with bonus of being able to fly strategically. Only Eagle Warrior Rider sacred, Wyvern not so.

[Chris_Byler]

All of this "with an air pretender you can forge boosters and do arrow fend" seems to be ignoring that with an air pretender, you *already have* an air shield bless (with no need for arrow fend). But you're spending pretender design points to get an air pretender, which is hard to do if you also want F9W9, high dom strength and any scales other than turmoil+misfortune+drain.

An A3, or maybe even A4, sky priest hero would be nice to put those air boosters a little closer to within reach. If you get him and if he doesn't die of old age. Mictlan already has an eagle priest hero, but he'd be kind of redundant in an age where sky priests are recruitable.

I don't think having two sacreds everywhere would be too powerful. You're still limited by dominion - you can build one or the other in any given fort+temple on any given month (or reduced numbers of both), and unlike some nations, all your sacreds are decidedly mortal. Sky priests' air magic would still be weaker than Caelum's and Man's - on par with Vanheim at most, I think (but with weaker national troops).


How about a Priest of the Law - no magic, but a L2 priest recruitable everywhere (other ages have to go to the capitol to find a priest who knows the difference between a chasuble and a thurible). Good leadership, patrol bonus, maybe inquisitor. Not old, it doesn't take as long to just learn theology as it does to learn theology *and* magic.

Contact Quetzal - a sacred bird with magical abilities (based on myths and legends about the actual bird, the resplendent quetzal). Flying, mainly air and nature magic (possibly a wider-ranging random) - weaker than a fairy queen, but also cheaper in gems and lower research and path requirements. Physically it's just a bird though, so low HP, low strength, few item slots.

Tien Chi-style conscription dominion would make some sense - it is a lawful age for Mictlan, right? - but not have too great an impact, considering Mictlan's rather pathetic PD.

I also second the idea of recuperating Couatls.

[Baalz]

Yes, I like the proposed changes, FWIW I think it'd be a better idea to switch the jaguar/eagle being cap only rather than having the ability to recruit both everywhere. This will be a bit of a boost, but I wouldn't worry that this would be overpowering as in practice the eagle warriors have a much higher attrition rate than the jaguar warriors so you're definitely giving something up. I love the idea of of how different this one change would make the nation feel. Also, without the plan to switch to a blood economy fairly early, several of the scale choices are different so in general you're going to have a weaker bless.

To those who are commenting that adding an air priest is too powerful you've got to realize that in comparison to MA/LA they're completely losing extremely strong access to blood magic and by extension access to some of the better national summons in the game. Yes, if you're clever you can do nasty things with the air power but you'll have to work hard to convince me this is more dangerous than the blood they're giving up. The blood magic is what changes Mictlan from being one of the best nations EA/LA into one of the worst in MA...well actually one of the worst in the game.

Now, having said that, it might be more interesting rather than adding an air priest to change the coutail to be 3S 1N 2H +2 N/A. I've always felt that there wasn't really too much interesting to use the coutail for, but having air magic there opens up some interesting possibilities, and also makes air magic rather expensive since it's only a random on a 400gp cap only mage. Only 25% of them would be able to cast auspex, and these would also be the ones highly coveted for combat.