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| Give jade daggers to 3 or 4 of your priests (the more priestly the better). Bring them to your border and have them all build temples and start blood sacrificing. As your dominion score will probably be high for recruiting sacred units the effect will be drastic, sudden and (hopefully) unexpected by your opponent. Use this to get a quick dominion kill if you see a neighbor with a weak dominion. For example, 4 priests of the sun blood sacrificing with jade daggers will have an effect similar to 20 temples, with the bonus that those 20 temples are concentrated right on your border rather than spread out. It can sure push your dominion in a hurry if you¿ve got a 10 dominion score!
Astral corruption, look into it. You¿ll probably need your pretender to have the paths to cast it, but it¿s one of those game-winner spells with the bonus that you should have enough blood slaves to make it practically un-dispellable. Make sure you forge some boots of youth for all those old dudes you¿ve got running your kingdom. Mictlan province defense is mostly worthless up until 20 (though they are slingers, so they can inflict some damage on certain kinds of enemies), but every point above 20 gives you a Jaguar warrior, which will (hopefully) benefit from your righteous bless. 30-40 province defense isn¿t cheap, but it does produce a credible threat with a good bless. This is certainly not going to stop a real army, but you can use it as a nasty surprise when an opponent is trying to attack your blood hunters or an apparently weaker army of yours. Plus, province defense doesn¿t take any upkeep which really helps once you start blood hunting. 8.26.2 MA Mictlan 8.26.2.1 Assortment of tips -> One advantage of ME Mictlan is that the dominion spread without blood sacrifice. Another is that the mages aren't old aged and the units still good for blessing. Sure i miss blood magic, but i wouldn't say its a weak nation now just different. -> Well, to play devil's advocate I'll argue the points raised. a) Dominion spread without blood sacrifice is only an advantage compared to Mictlan of other eras, not an advantage compared to other nations. If this is what they gain at all those other losses from other erras, I'll have to go ahead and say they're very underpowered in this comparisson (the rest of these I'll take as Mictlan's strengths relative to other ME nations, as that's who they're actually going up against) b) Mages don't have old age. That's because they're not very powerful. I think age is auto calculated based on how many paths of magic a mage has. This is not an advantage, its just a result of the fact that their mages are now sucky. c) They have good, cheap, sacred troops. True, as I mention I think this is the only thing they have going for them and I think it's too one dimensional to be the sole strategy in multiplayer. The AI won't adjust, but just try riding that one trick pony against a group of humans... d) Ease of site searching. I guess you could say this is a mild advantage vs some nations, but because their mages are all single path and only recruitable from the capital it takes a big hit in production time to get a group searching...at which point you've got a big group of wandering mages NOT researching. Between trying to recruit mages to search sites, mages to research, and leaders for your armies of expendable lightly armored troops, you've got quite a bit of production competition in the early game. You could use site searching spells I guess, those single path mages ARE perfect for that, but that's hardly a huge advantage to have access to 4 paths of magic gems with no good mages to use them. e) Take a blood magic pretender and get access to national spells. Sure, except you've got no blood slave economy to cast those nice blood summons... So, I still don't see how they're not far below average. The only thing they really have in the plus column is good, cheap sacred troops, but with the crappy mages, crappy non-sacred troops, and nothing special about their dominion (miasma, heat/cold spread, auto spawn troops, etc), they're basically stuck with only one stragegy. Plus, the sacred troops though good, are lightly armored and more expendable than plenty of the other good sacreds, so you're gonna be quite limmited if you're trying to use solely sacreds to carry your conquest as you can only recruit a handful per turn from each temple-upgraded castle. I dunno, I've still got quite a few more to try in Dom 3, but I can't think of a single other nation in any era which is worse off then ME Mictlan. I always felt Mictlan was nerfed in other ways because they were so powerful in blood magic. ME Mictlan loses that strength, and just keeps the nerfs... -> ME Mictlan is a communion power. You have better astral than other eras. You buy a lot of nahuali and they power a communion for your coatls, who cast enslave mind and junk. You're utterly inferior to Pythium (or Bandar Log) at this trick - but you also have powerful sacred troops, including Jaguar Warriors which grow everywhere. So, there is a point to ME mictlan. That said, I think this is one of the few game balance complaints that is really legitimate. Here are a couple of proposals: a) Give all of their mages an order dependent bonus on research. Lawgiver, right? Ought to encourage order somehow. Right now, the stuff is so cheap you're probably a turmoil/fortune player. b) Better magic. Compare ME mictlan to mictlan in other eras. The only thing ME gets for -2 blood on all their mages is -30 gold cost - except the Priest King, who *pays* 25 gold to trade 2 blood for 1 holy. If all these guys got a 100% FSWN (and boot the nahuali entirely) that'd help a lot. c) Mages everywhere. Just make those mages not-capital-only. All of a sudden you have an entire army of perfectly sized, inexpensive zot mages for when your sacred start to lose their sparkle. -> t's interesting this point is raised, because MA Mictlan was my favorite nation by far when this game released. When the Nahualli were nerfed, then they weren't my favorite any more (although I admit they were far too powerful). The reason MA Mictlan was my favorite is because Mictlan has the best bless setup in terms of troops, which you can do one of two ways: Take high dominion and benefit from having automatic dominion spread (other Mictlans don't have) and be able to recruit many varied national sacred from the capital. OR Take a medium dominion and simply rely on the Jaguars from forts and/or or summoned sacreds, leaving you more points for blessings. Either way, having the automatic dominion means you don't have to spend cash on labs and spare mages who are doing nothing but blood hunting and sacrificing. This cash can be spent solely on sacred troops. I'm not going to defend the Couatl, because I don't think I even saw any reason to use it when I played before. However, the Nahualli is still a very good addition to Mictlan and is easier to afford and field with MA Mictlan simply because the gold economy is not distracted by supporting blood and religion. Finally, the appeal of playing Mictlan without micro-management is more or less important depending on who you are. It's important to me, but someone who plays a very disciplined and focused game may be willing to accept the micro-management to acquire a small gain in advantage. Yes, I said "gain in advantage" because I can see how EA Mictlan has an advantage, but I think it's fairly small when you consider all things. Also note something important which befuddled me for a long time. I used to think that the manual blood spreading of Mictlan was supposed to be their national advantage. I looked at the numbers in Dom II and saw that they could potentially be a powerhouse in Dominion. In Doms 3, their effectivity was greatly reduced, and I spied a comment in the game manual which implied that the correct notion is that Mictlan faces a disadvantage by having to spread their dominion manually. So, this is traditional Mictlan in a nutshell: Superior Bless and Blood with the handicap of manual dominion spread. MA Mictlan would then be: Superior Bless without Blood, and non-handicapped Dominion spread. -> "When the Nahualli were nerfed, then they weren't my favorite any more (although I admit they were far too powerful)." Ah, see that's why I love this game so much. I had no doubt that someone would have a diametrically opposite opinion to mine. I still disagree with you though, Big J. Jaguar warriors are good but they¿re far from the best sacreds in the game, and they¿re not enough to carry you all the way through the game by themselves (thank goodness!). What do you do (for example) against a good sized mass of archers? What about when SCs and good combat mages start showing up? Eagle warriors can help with the archers, but you can¿t defend a whole nation with capital only (low protection/hp) sacreds. Also, I¿m not familiar with what numbers you¿re looking at for the blood sacrifice, but anecdotally I can tell you that with a high dominion 3 or 4 high priests with jade daggers can push a dominion kill like nothing else and they can do it as a surprise before your opponent can react. That¿s an advantage, in my book. Can you explain why you think the Nahualli is so good? I never use them myself, I think they¿re SNN non-sacred, right? What can they do that your priests can¿t do better? You mentioned communion slave, but I¿d rate them as fairly mediocre in that capacity. I don¿t follow your logic that removing the blood affinity is a good thing because now you don¿t have to blood hunt so you can have more money for sacreds. You can certainly choose to forego blood hunting in either of the other ages, the amount of blood slaves you need solely to keep up a medium-ish dominion is trivial. In most cases you can do it with just the blood slaves you get automatically from your capital if you¿ve got a high dominion score. But, be that as it may, the real question is not how ME compares to Mictlan of the other eras, but rather how they compare to other ME nations. I¿m just not buying that they¿re powerful just because of the jaguar warriors. Lots of other nations have sacreds as good or better plus other advantages. Can you give me an example of any other ME nation which is not stronger (or from any era for that matter)? I guess that¿s a pointless question since you seem to feel that ME Mictlan is more powerful than most, but I just still can¿t see that. 8.26.2.2 Guide to Middle-Age Mictlan Introduction: Middle-age Mictlan is very different from early and late. Many aspects will appear the same. All three ages have level three priests and cheap recruitable sacred units everywhere. All ages have the same national spells. The non-sacred recruitable uints are also the same with exception to a lack of moon warriors in late-age. You can even recruit the Nahualli (mages who shape-change into turkeys) in all three ages. This aside, their are some fundamental differences. The other two ages have an overwhelming amount of blood magic compared to middle's rare random on a single mage. The two also have a dominion that only spreads with blood sacrifice. There are a multitude of other differences, such as pretender selection, but these two differences are ultimately what matter most. The 'dying dominion' allows the player more precise control over the spread of Mictlan's dominion. This allows Mictlan to take horrible scales and yet control it's spread to a limited number of provinces. This also allows them to surprise attack opponents with a sudden dominion kill by placing the equivalent of multiple temples in a concentrated area. The easy access to blood magic allows Mictlan to leverage their horrifyingly effective zero-upkeep sacred demons, and also eat up the other unique demons before anyone else can. These two reasons alone are why many will claim that middle-age Mictlan is weaker then the other two. Some will even go so far as to say that they are actually weak as a middle-age nation. Mind-set: The first hint I can give you is to not compare middle-age to the others. (Granted, I just did that.) It is much better to simply look at what they do have. Second, middle-age will need neutral to positive scales. They don't need to be great, but you don't want to be killing your population. (More about scales is covered in pretender design below.) I've determined that there is two ways one could play Mictlan. The first is to, of course, leverage your sacred power. The second is to actually play the nation like it were any other. Most people, I feel, underestimate Mictlan's regular troops and their access to free non-mindless chaff. Making the sacred aspect of your strategy a second to good scales and a thought out pretender allows a more solid late-game position in my opinion. I'll do my best to cover strategies for both. Pretender Design: As mentioned above, you'll want to avoid a damaging set of scales. Your dominion spreads on it's own like any other nation and taking things like drain and death will hurt your chances of winning. If your looking for design points for a bless strategy, sloth 3 is the place to start as your recruit-anywhere sacred is only 3 resources each. Heat 1 is absolutely free and helps the cold-blooded couatl. Imprisoning your god after all that should leave you enough points for a dual bless and a high dominion with points left over in some cases. Taking more heat for order also won't be a bad trade as you won't need the food supply (nature mages and small elite armies) and it will net you more gold overall. It's really up to you after that. Personally, I favor taking at least magic 1. As for which bless combination to take, I suggest giving your eagle warriors increased attack and damage, which a fire bless can do on it's own. My preference after that is an astral bless as it provides a level of protection that is enough to get them to at least round two. Example Pretender for Dual-Bless: Imprisoned Oracle, Fire 9, Astral 9, Dominion 8, Sloth 3, Heat 1, and 130 points left. 95 with dominion 9 and 53 with dominion 10. Great for eagle warrior effectiveness with well-rounded attack and defense, mildly weak against missile damage. If your going for a good scales strategy then I'd suggest trading out sloth for some production. Your armored warriors are cheap enough and good enough that you'll want to spam a lot of them. I'm confident that Mictlan, even without a dual-bless, doesn't need an awakened god in order to survive. I say you should keep the god imprisoned and reap the design points. Really, this approach is all about the long-term strategy in the first place. Focusing on a little earth, death, or blood magic will expand their options. Mictlan really benefits from a rainbow god and magic scales in my opinion. Example Pretender for Good Scales: Imprisoned Master Lich, Earth 4, Astral 4, Death 5, Dominion 6, Heat 1 and 290 points left, enough for 7 positive increases to your scales. Production is highly suggested. This will open up the world of death magic and be a reliable source of astral five mages for 21 gems using the dwarven hammers and crystal coins you can now craft. Units: Most nations have a racial advantage which is templated to just about all their units. Examples would be Machaka's unusually low base encumbrance and Marignon's above average moral. Mictlan's racial advantage seems to be their forest survival and below average gold cost, a solidly average unit will cost 9 gold rather then 10. Warrior (Spear and Sling): Mictlan has slingers in two varieties. They all have spears, slings, hide shields, and a map move of 2. Though slings are less effective in the middle-age then in early-age, they still have their uses. They also double as regular troops as they have average stats across the board, including morale. The unarmored version is easy to spam in high numbers, which is ideal for Fire Arrows, which Mictlan can naturally cast with little effort. Warrior (Spear and Javelin): This warrior along with the heavy slinger is the heaviest regular available to you that still has a move of 2. It's a solid spear chucker for a cheap cost, not much else to say. The shield could be better, but it's better then nothing at all. Warrior (Mace and Javelin): This unit gives up a little battlefield movement and a point of map movement for additional protection and a shorter weapon that does only a bit more damage. The real advantage of this unit is that it is roughly the same as the feathered warrior, meaning a group of warriors mixed in with the feathered warriors will move along the field as one, maximizing the effect of the standards. Feathered Warrior: This unit has the same armor and weapons as the mace and javelin warrior. However, it is more experienced with a higher attack, defense, and moral score. It also has a standard of 4 which is a real boon to your non-sacred warriors. They cost twice as much as a regular warrior, but are worth every penny in my opinion when going for a good scales strategy. Moon Warrior: This is an amazing cost-effective regular. For 3 gold more then a warrior you get a better attack, defense, hit point maximum, moral, and magic resistance. On top of all that you also get 50 dark vision. Its heavy obsidian sword packs the punch needed to get past heavy armored soldiers. This unit helps supplement a few of the draw backs to avoiding a bless strategy. Unlike other warriors it lacks even a hide shield. Leveraging your limited access to air magic can solve this minor problem. Eagle Warriors: The first of the sacred warriors and the only one middle-age can make everywhere they set up shop. The eagle warrior is an ambidextrous spear and dagger warrior that flies when blessed. They've got a good moral score and map move. They are lightly armored and have no shield, however this also translates into a absurdly low resource cost of 3. With two attacks and the ability to fly the eagle warrior is designed to strike first and hopefully not get struck back. As the game progresses into late-game the eagle warrior will begin to outshine the other sacred units. Their ability to fly allows them to hide in the corners of the battlefield and close with the enemy before they are wiped out by mages. Sun Warrior: These are the heaviest sacred warriors available and you can only make them at your capitol. They are practically the same as the feathered warrior stat-wise except there Hatchet does a bit more damage then a mace and the Mictlan copper scale they wear has a higher encumbrance. I do find it strange that armor special to Mictlan's sacred units are slightly worse then the armor they give to their run-of-the-mill warriors. Anyhow, these sacreds are best for when the enemy starts to throw lots of mundane damage at you, such a mass of archers or rain of stones. However, since they are hard to amass and since the faster hit point machine known as the Jaguar warrior is available instead, you'll find these warriors rarely employed. Jaguar Warriors: The most expensive warrior Mictlan has to offer, and some would argue as equally being the most effective. The rather hardy sacred unit is, like the eagle warrior, lightly armored and has no shield. Unlike the eagle warrior, it can't fly. Instead it has an extra life as a sacred Were Jaguar. Once killed it is replaced by a stronger and faster unit with a lot of hit points and three attacks. This feature makes the unit impossible to destroy with a single evocation spell. In normal form the unit carries an obsidian sword which deals barbarian style damage. This unit can only be recruited in your capitol. (Personally, I favor the eagle warrior over the jaguar warrior. Though not as hardy, the eagle warrior can end battles faster and are cheaper to maintain. The eagle warrior also seems to need less of a bless in order to be as effective in the early game, which sort of fits with what middle-age needs. For this reason I like that middle age can make them everywhere they go. Now to examine the commanders.) Scout: It is indeed a scout. Tribal King: 80 leadership, sacred, forest survival, and the ability to gather slaves for 40 gold. Furthermore the king isn't too bad of a warrior himself. I wouldn't send him to the front lines as he's not much more effective then any other sacred unit, but it might matter to your other commanders when the enemy breaks past your lines. Mictlan Priest: Unlike the priests of other ages, this version's magic level is completely random. The priests of other ages supplied a reliable blood income while this one supplies you with a mage-priest you can make without a laboratory. There random path in my opinion isn't all that helpful in combat. Their role is best limited to cheap research. Nahualli: This sorcerer is the only caster Mictlan has that isn't sacred. However, the Nahualli make up for it in a number of ways. The first is by being reliable communion slaves. Each one is guaranteed one level of astral. They also have two levels of nature, which for me becomes the breaking point where nature magic become worth it. Nature 2 allows for sleep, sleep cloud, panic, berserkers, storm of thorns, wooden warriors, and more. It also is what you need to make the cheapest nature booster, the thistle mace. Let's not forget that astral + nature also grants curse, the irresistible spell that makes all super combatants sad. Furthermore, astral 1 and nature 2 is exactly all you need to site search both paths. I could go on, but we haven't even got to the randoms. Two of the randoms, death and blood, aren't normally available to middle-age Mictlan. If you get either then you can start down the path of both with some steady investment, a ring of sorcery might help. The Nahualli also have the ability to turn into a turkey, which doesn't seem great until you notice that they don't lose any magic paths and that they now can fly. This allows your communion slaves to keep up with your communion masters, the couatl and your high priests of the sky, who also fly. In regards to cost, 110 gold for a mage with 5 base research is good for any nation. Surely I agree that a Mictlan priest of more cost efficient, but there isn't much to do with them after researching. My suggestion is to hire these mages whenever you can. When your army needs a push they can respond almost instantly because of their ability to fly. On top of that their ability to communion allows them to cast nasty spells and overcome MR checks, which most of the good nature and astral spells require. Their practically built to communion spam charm and sleep while wearing a thistle mace, spell focus, and arcane eye. Sky Priest: The alternative to the Mictlan priest. For 10 more gold you get a consistent path in air, a patrol bonus, and slim chance at a random magic level. The following commanders can only be recruited in your capitol. Moon Priest: I can see a number of uses for this commander. Though they have a higher initial cost, the upkeep is cheaper then that of a nahualli. The real unfortunate thing is that their are just too many capitol only commanders that I think are worth more to Mictlan. Still if your looking for an effective caster to spam solar rays against a Prince of Death, this is your guy. Sun Priest: Effectively the same caster as the moon priest with fire instead of astral. If your planning on a good scales strategy, I would look to recruiting a few of these. With phoenix power this commander can cast falling fires, or with phoenix power and 2 fire gems, this commander can cast flaming arrows. That would be a costly way of casting flaming arrows, yet still it is better to at least have the option available. Also, good site searcher for fire. Rain Priest: Probably not as effective as the sun priest in battle. It does give you a reliable water mage and water 2 can always craft it's own boosters all the way to water 4. They are also all you need to cast your national water spells. Water site search to boot. Sky Priest: Your most reliable source of air magic and one of two holy 3 priests available. The sky priest comes with an innate ability to fly, lead a regular sized army, and has a nifty patrol bonus. One out of four will be able to communion. One out of four will not be old. This is also the caster you look to site search air sites. My favorite aspect of these casters are their ability to cast cloud trapeze. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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