Looking for tips from the pros

[Edi]

Nothing that I could see. You just started from a position that is too wide open for Mictlan, because you need a lot of infra for expansion (temples for dominion spread etc) and your troop quality aside from sacreds sucks.

You should also play with independents set on 7, that will slow down the AI a bit more so that you can expand without needing to worry about an immediate AI rush. Another problem with the AI is that it uses huge hordes of independents instead of its own national troops. That problem can be mitigated with the Better Independents mod linked in my sig.

[Juzza]

I'll give you one tip that may very well save your life one day, it is something many pros have said to me again and again. "Don't listen to Juzzas advice"

[atul]

"He gets a few of my province defense 1 border areas."

A tip that works only against the AI: It seems much of their decision who to attack depends on the apparent power and difficulty to attack bordering provinces. Setting PD to 1 on border province basically invites an AI nation attack. 11 or so should prevent some, I've noticed that with PD of 21 or higher AI rarely attacks.

Anyway, only in SP. In MP, PD above autopatrol (10) is usually waste of money, many times PD of 1 is perfectly viable.

[darkchampion3d]

atul said:
"He gets a few of my province defense 1 border areas."

A tip that works only against the AI: It seems much of their decision who to attack depends on the apparent power and difficulty to attack bordering provinces. Setting PD to 1 on border province basically invites an AI nation attack. 11 or so should prevent some, I've noticed that with PD of 21 or higher AI rarely attacks.

Anyway, only in SP. In MP, PD above autopatrol (10) is usually waste of money, many times PD of 1 is perfectly viable.

Even with Mictlan? I'm getting a Jaguar warrior for every point above 19. Seeing as they cost 25gold anyways, it doesn't seem to be too bad of a deal to get up to 30ish PD for the Jags that don't count towards my normal production limit. AI is smart enough to bless too with the free priest even if my divine blesser moves on.

But I will try the suggestions given later on. Thanks

[Endoperez]

It's good if you're going to fight a lot in that province, and keep on winning. Human players probably won't assault it many times with forces that aren't good enough to beat you. If it's a chokepoint, go for it. If it's not, he'll go around it. If he goes around it, or you take a few provinces and the front of the war moves, you can't move the PD elsewhere.

For some nations, it's worth the money, but it's always situational.

[sector24]

Two very good suggestions already made:

1) The computer will only attack you when it perceives the gain of at least 1 province. If you pump the PD on your borders and/or leave small armies in those provinces, it goes a long way towards keeping the peace.

2) I think you went into blood research too early. I noticed you have 0 conjuration which generally means no thugs. If you are going to have a smaller army graph by recruiting higher quality troops, then you need to quickly move to thugs and SCs. If not, then it's in your best interest to get lots of slaves and 10/4 archers and other cheap units to pump up your graph.

For what it's worth, I have lost lots of promising games in the same way you did. The trick is to either change the map options (harder independants, higher mountain %, different map dimensions like a tower map) or quickly advance your magic because you can't beat their massive chaff armies unless you build equally large chaff armies yourself, which you typically don't want to do.

I think the people on the forums that say that AI is a joke change the map options in the player's favor, like lots of magic sites or only having 4 opponents. It's very easy to divide and conquer when there are so few nations. I play small maps with 20 opponents and usually default settings, and this type of thing happens all the time because everyone gets crunched up against each other quickly, and you always have the smallest army graph. These types of situations are winnable, but you have to have the thugs/SCs summoned and equipped before the 3rd nation declares war on you or you typically can't recover.

[Folket]

sector24 said:
Two very good suggestions already made:

1) The computer will only attack you when it perceives the gain of at least 1 province. If you pump the PD on your borders and/or leave small armies in those provinces, it goes a long way towards keeping the peace.

2) I think you went into blood research too early. I noticed you have 0 conjuration which generally means no thugs. If you are going to have a smaller army graph by recruiting higher quality troops, then you need to quickly move to thugs and SCs. If not, then it's in your best interest to get lots of slaves and 10/4 archers and other cheap units to pump up your graph.

For what it's worth, I have lost lots of promising games in the same way you did. The trick is to either change the map options (harder independants, higher mountain %, different map dimensions like a tower map) or quickly advance your magic because you can't beat their massive chaff armies unless you build equally large chaff armies yourself, which you typically don't want to do.

I think the people on the forums that say that AI is a joke change the map options in the player's favor, like lots of magic sites or only having 4 opponents. It's very easy to divide and conquer when there are so few nations. I play small maps with 20 opponents and usually default settings, and this type of thing happens all the time because everyone gets crunched up against each other quickly, and you always have the smallest army graph. These types of situations are winnable, but you have to have the thugs/SCs summoned and equipped before the 3rd nation declares war on you or you typically can't recover.

I have won four front wars aaginst impossible AIs without using bless strategies and I allways play default settings. But I would say that blood magic is a little to slow for that.

Long time since I played the AI I should do that some time.

[Velusion]

darkchampion3d said:

Even with Mictlan? I'm getting a Jaguar warrior for every point above 19. Seeing as they cost 25gold anyways, it doesn't seem to be too bad of a deal to get up to 30ish PD for the Jags that don't count towards my normal production limit. AI is smart enough to bless too with the free priest even if my divine blesser moves on.

But I will try the suggestions given later on. Thanks

Yep - even with Mictlan. PD manipulation is the best way to control where the AI will attack. In SP pumping up your PD to crazy levels (20+) *usually* keeps the AI from attacking. The PD/AI handicaps are one the main reasons I lost interest in SP and moved on to MP.

You have a challenging open position being very exposed on so many fronts. I would expect you to lose quite number of provinces before you leveled out and came back.

[Shovah32]

Also, when playing as Mictlan you should really the Jaguar Demons rather than beast bats.

[PyroStock]

Why the blood fountain? You get Dom7 with those scales & paths, but with the same scales & paths:

Imprisoned Morloch 9F9W4B, 6Dom = mobile SC;
Imprisoned Mirror 9F9W4B1D, 6Dom = mobile and extra path.

I know the blood fountain has a small hidden bonus for blood hunting, but with those paths wouldn't a fountain spend it's time better elsewhere? 7Dom is slightly better which (I guess?) makes sacrafices better, but that seems offset by your pretender being immobile (limiting it's dominion influence). Once broken free the death path or SC I think would help more.