Mictlan Pretenders ideas request

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Foom said:
You're right, I was too quick to jump on Nagot here. It's just that I have seen many people insult Cohen and Boron for no good reason

Ad hominen insults are always unexcusable. Maybe I sounded a bit rude wrt Boron's opinions, at least you'll note I wasn't disrecpectful to him. Well, I hope anyway - English isn't my first language, and before I got accustomed to Usenet slang I did some memorable fumbles like confusing "moron" with "regular". When I replied to someone "you're obviously a moron in this newsgroup", he wasn't really happy.

Nagot, I offer you a binouse as compensation for my rashness.

Ah, that's my first encounter with this word, "binouse". Maybe I should check if I'm not allergic to this kind of beverage before I accept your offer?

Now give me some feedback on my pretender

Looks OK to me. The Wiz Tower is a great castle, just (IMO) not as great to Mictlan as it is to most nations, you can still do OK with a Mausoleum or Watch Tower. FYI, my Last Mictlan design pretender was:

LotN
Air 3
Earth 3
Death 5 (just for the increased fear factor you get at each 5-uple, and because I could afford it)
Blood 3

Dominion 6
Watch Tower

Order +3
Prod -3
Heat +1
Growth 0
Luck -2
Magic +1 (always was enough for me, and I never liked the MR malus you get vs hostile rituals when picking +2 or +3)

Leaves 120 unallocated design points, but it was for an handicap game (so you can pick up to 3 extra scales or a Wiz Tower if you want).

So quite close to your own design actually. I prefer the LotN to the VQ because I want my pretender to be able to fight outside his dominion early if required - but YMMV.

I'm desperate to get Mictlan to work

I guess it's more a problem with handling the nation than designing it.

[Vicious Love]

Just wondering, would a F9B6 Moloch be a waste of points? On the one hand, no access to Dwarven Hammers or death, air, & earth multipath blood spells.
On the other, ubercheap(But capitol only) eagle warriors with two flaming, high-strength, high-skill attacks per turn(Four if Quickened), that strike before ANY buffs are cast when defending, and after only one turn of buffs when attacking. And probably end up getting a hefty surround bonus when they attack lone ghost kings, or whatever. If there's a more cost-effective SC killer out there(Other than Carrion Woods goons or these same warriors plus Weapons of Sharpness), I'd like to hear about it.
Couple that with the not-at-all-shabby jaguar warriors you can recruit just about anywhere en masse(THREE for the price of one Ulmish black knight, and you can afford sloth 3, to boot), the combat machine that is the Moloch(Properly supported), and the ability to cast all pure blood spells with only a few path boosters, and methinks you've got an adequate setup, at the very least. Am I right?

[ckfnpku]

Något, no hard feelings I hope. Foom summed up what I was trying to say in an excellent way.

I suppose I should contribute something as well.

I've tried the Smoking Mirror in sp, but he just gets killed from random events, so no good. I wouldn't wanna go to the trouble of protecting him. (Btw, that line in the description about him divining the fates of men, what's with that? It's not like the Jade Emperor and Lady of Fortune, is it?)

I would agree with the ideas presented here. A pretender with a little blood and the paths that mictlans priests don't have. Also, he doesn't need to be a great fighter mid/lategame, since mictlan should scoop up a number of the blood uniques.

A Ghostking with air3 earth4 death3 blood4.
Order3 sloth3 heat1 magic3.
Watchtower.
Dominion ~6.

Something like that. Backed by several minutes of sp experience =)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

ckfnpku said:
Något, no hard feelings I hope. Foom summed up what I was trying to say in an excellent way.

No worries mate, you'll have to try really hard before raising my temperature - and anyway, I think in that case if someone has to apologize, it's me and nobody else.

I suppose I should contribute something as well.

A Ghostking with air3 earth4 death3 blood4.
Order3 sloth3 heat1 magic3.
Watchtower.
Dominion ~6.

Something like that. Backed by several minutes of sp experience =)

Looks OK to me. Besides, I like stealthy pretenders with Mictlan, for sneaking Fiends around - always a nasty surprise for the unwary enemy.

[Alneyan]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
No worries mate, you'll have to try really hard before raising my temperature - and anyway, I think in that case if someone has to apologize, it's me and nobody else.

Wouldn't your avatar be at a very high temperature? Ah, that doesn't qualify?

Slightly more on topic, would the Fiends of Darkness be helpful for early defence? Their flying might be helpful to bring down these SCs depending on their buffs to survive in melee; or is the current trend on strong combattants, with little magic support? I have some embarrassing memories of a Virtue being taken down by a handful of Fiends, as she wasn't that strong without her handy spells, so my view is probably quite biased.

[Zen]

If you are asking for the pain of playing Mictlan, my first bit of advice would be to play with reasonable VP's or a time limit. The biggest killer of Mictlan is it's own micromanagement, or more appropriately the need to use resources to circumvent some of that micromanagment. Creating Control Groups, making sure you have labs, etc, waste precious resources in order to stomach the icky micro.

Other than that. I have been very, very successful with my Mictlan games as long as I adhere to the rule of Sacreds.

Unless you plan on having some sort of silver-tongued diplomacy with pure and pristine, totally-honest and forthright neighbors, you are going to have to fight in the early game, if not for territory, for Dominion. The easiest way to spread your dominion is to kill other temples, gods and prophets .

Regardless of Scale Choices and Pretender Designs my first 3 armys in the first 10 turns look like this:

First Army: Starting Troops, +2-4 Feathered Warriors, As many Javelin Warriors as you can reasonably afford.

Second Army: Slaves from Initial Tribal King, 10-15 Eagle Warriors

Third Army: 10-15 Fiends of Darkness.

Using these armies either seperately (3 different armies) or combining a pair to take on different types of indies is the key to making the Mictlan Early game work. After the early game, you only need to worry about getting up 4-5 Blood Province Production centers. I almost always capitalize on the Magic 2 + Mictlan Priest spam, rush to Ice Devils and take a Pretender that can summon Ice Devils, worrying about equipping them later. I also tend to put at the very least 3 Air on my Pretender in such circumstances in order to forge what I need, when I need it. If I don't choose to put Air on my pretender I choose Astral, my second line of research is not Construction but Conjuration and I get a Harbinger.

All the time I have for now, but If I have time later I will offer a few more tendancies.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Zen said:
I almost always capitalize on the Magic 2 + Mictlan Priest spam, rush to Ice Devils and take a Pretender that can summon Ice Devils, worrying about equipping them later.

Or a pretender who can forge a Robe of the Sea (contruction 2). May look expensive at 20 gems, but if Blue Dragons are your style, it's still cheaper than giving blood magic to your pretender.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Alneyan said:
Wouldn't your avatar be at a very high temperature? Ah, that doesn't qualify?

Ahem, do you really think firing a flamethrower at a nuclear bLast will raise its temperature significantly?

Slightly more on topic, would the Fiends of Darkness be helpful for early defence? Their flying might be helpful to bring down these SCs depending on their buffs to survive in melee;

Fiends are great for many things:

(1) their claws are magic weapons, thus they're better than Devils vs ethereal targets.

(2) they're highly stealthy, thus hardly spotted even in mid-sized Groups, thus great raiders - give a Spectre flying boots and a dozen of Fiends, and give your enemies headaches.

(3) for the same reason, they're (with Hordes from Hell) the best tool in Mictlan's arsenal to capture fortresses - it's hard to reinforce one that seemed safe at some point, and gets besieged by 2 or 3 scores of Fiends the turn after.

or is the current trend on strong combattants, with little magic support?

Depends on how you define 'little'. Titan-sized pretenders with 2-4 levels in 2-3 magic paths - that's what you can expect from me, usually (not always), like it's always been.

I have some embarrassing memories of a Virtue being taken down by a handful of Fiends, as she wasn't that strong without her handy spells, so my view is probably quite biased.

Virtues are awesome early againts indeps. They're quite terrible at dealing with demons, undead, or berserk troops.

[Turin]

fire 9 red dragon with zens mod seems to be quite awesome. with enchantment 1 he can take every indie province solo on indie strength 9. And you can even afford order3 magic 3 growth 3 dom 6 with the usual sloth/misfortune/heat scales.

Only problem is that you don´t get good sitesearching, but since you focus on blood anyway, that´s not a big deal.

[Alneyan]

I hadn't noticed the flamethrower in your avatar before, and merely spoke of your avatar in general, nuclear bLast included.

Hmm, the Fiends have magic weapons. Annoying that. Thanks for mentioning that, though you should not give "your" PDF too many ideas. *Coughs* Well, I will be playing in the game where he will toy with Mictlan, so.

Oh, and I can only concur with your comment regarding Languages and small misinterpretations. One of our fellow countrymen innocently asking for a "douche" would certainly face an odd reaction. (A "douche" in French merely means a shower, which is not quite the same meaning as in English) But I am digressing once more.