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| 5) One other thing not directly related to blood magic, but very useful nonetheless for guarding your blood hunters is that Mictlan gets Jaguar warriors for PD over 20. If you¿ve got a good bless (which you better with Mictlan) this can be an amazingly effective surprise landmine. 30-40 PD aint cheap, but I¿ve wiped out some surprisingly large invading armies with it when they weren¿t expecting any resistance (and had no jaguar counters). And you guessed it¿no upkeep. Makes it easy to defend high risk blood hunting sites when somebody tries to take out your blood slave flow.
Again, I¿m really enjoying Lanka and they¿ve got some significant advantages, but in my mind from a pure blood point of view Mictlan is hands down a better nation because of the economics. When focusing on blood, it all comes down to economics since you¿re essentially trading gold for blood slaves so Mictlan¿s much lower overhead maintains their title as undisputed best blood nation. -> Response: 1. Granted about the 50% more expensive Lankan bloodhunters - it is a fact. My point is that you're not getting 50% more usable bloodslaves for magical uses since a significant portion of them will go to dominion upkeep / expansion, which is an ongoing cost (10-15% sound like a good conservative estimate?) for Mictlan while temples are a one time cost for Lanka. So, while gross bloodslave production in Mictlan should be roughly 50% higher, net bloodslaves gained is somewhat less than that (assuming 10% sacrificial use, Mictlan would be left roughly with 35% more bloodslaves). Furthermore, with Skull Mentors (and an inherent Death income, and mages to search for death sites, which even a heroed-up Mictlan lacks prior to Blood 6) Lanka can do more research with fewer mages much earlier than Mictlan, leaving more of your mage pool free to blood hunt. The percentage bonus this gives is entirely up to the user, and should even out after the Mictlan death enabled pretender wakes up or your empower your first Tlahuelpuchi to make Skull Staves and Skull Mentors, but it's a much longer road to Blood 6 then Construction 4 than it is Construction 4, adding Skull Mentors, and then reaching Blood 6. I should point out that Lanka has no non-sacred random path mages - an oversight above. Finally, not having your mages worry about aging means both no gold replacement costs and/or no blood expenditures on boots of youth/reinvigoration. Replacing a single Moon Priest will pay for the initial cost difference between the nations' bloodhunters 5 times over and have enough left over to pay the difference in upkeep for those 5 Lankan hunters for 2 months. Later, Boots of Youth are a more cost efficient solution - but at the cost of 10 blood and a wasted mage turn. Crippling? By no means. But still a Lankan edge to narrow the early-mid game gap. It's the Tlahuelpuchi, though, I think reifies Mictlan's mid-late economic bloodhunting advantage. Once you can summon them in bulk, and no longer need them to run your Skull Mentor machine, they become exceptionally efficient bloodhunters. My thanks to the guy who praised the bloodhunting skills of Vampire Counts in LA Ulm in my Marignon / Abyssia post (Frank Tollman? I forget) for making me realize that about Tlahuelpuchi. 2. Nope, you're right... my bad, I thought Lanka could blood sacrifice. I never did it, but I thought it was listed. I am blatantly wrong on that one. 3. I like Lanka's low end summons, particularly the Rakshasa Warriors (available at level 4, the same time Mictlan gets its Jaguar Fiends). They, like the higher resource cost sacreds of the Lankan nation, benefit very well from an E9/N9 bless approach, and allow you to shift your resource limited troops away from brawlers and into longbowmen, who are just brutal in general and the more so in a nation with this much air magic flying around. Granted, you'll have to carry some wine bags/etc to feed large mixed armies, but you have the paths to pull that off no problem. Even given my lack of experience in the game, I would confidently state that Lanka's high end summons are notably more powerful tactically than Mictlan's, which tend to have one or more strategic advantages. Lanka's national summons are the only true non-pretender SCs I've seen besides Gift of Reasoned Vastnesses and Niefel/Yomi capital only commanders, and certainly 50 blood for such a creature is too light. Onaqui are nowhere near as dangerous in combat, although their freespawns once more underline the excellent strategic advantages Mictlan's national summons. In the end, though, I think you've helped me reach a conclusion I am more comfortable with. Mictlan remain the kings of the mid-late pure blood economy with regards to bulk output and the big picture. Lanka, however, may still be too close to Mictlan's blood potency given their non-blood synergies (better recruitable troops in the form of bulk longbowmen and superheavy sacred infantry, better non-blood capital only summons, additional 40 points at creation for Heat 2 preference instead of Heat 1... yeah I know it's not an unmitigated advantage, but it's an advantage nonetheless) and easier startup (the superheavy E9/N9 blessed infantry slices through indeps like butter, while you need FWS9 to replicate that with Jaguars). -> The position of Lanka vs Mictlan as 'blood king' is I think really close, and all things being equal they couple probably ramp up similar level blood economies. Which is more powerful on a whole though, is a more interesting question. In this, I think it's pretty clear Lanka has the edge. Mictlan's sacreds are cheaper, but with the scales they take, they really have to be to afford them. Lanka sacreds tend to have a much lower casualty rate in the early game, and can threaten high prot SCs much better (Mictlan's work better vs high defense, but that tends to be less important). But what really blows Mictlan out of the water is Lanka's wildly powerful reanimation as opposed to capturing slaves with tribal kings. Both methods provide about all the patrol fodder you could want, but with reanimation you have something that 1. costs no upkeep 2. will not route in battle 3. does not use population 4. has better armor and damage potential in battle. Even ignoring sacreds, reanimated swarms backed with decent battle magic is a scary force by itself. Lanka also has somewhat better access to magical diversity, including the very handy air path. Lastly, if for some reason they ever need to buy anything besides sacreds, reanimating priest, and mages, the bandar longbows certainly put Mictlan's non-sacred troops to shame. On the issue of Mictlan with bad scales being a liability, I really have to disagree. With high base dom (for sacred production) it is very hard to dom die if you are paying attention. To sum it up, both nations are extremely powerful (could easily be classed as overpowered, infact) but Mictlan's power is in some ways limited when compared with Lanka's across-the-board insanity. Reply With Quote -> Response: Points against you: 1. Mictlan has five paths (astral nature blood fire water) to Lanka's four (blood air death nature), so I think the magical diversity award has to go to Mictlan, the moreso because the national summons of Lanka have the same paths while Mictlan adds Death through its nationals. 2. I do like reanimation of random undead monkeys with the Lankan priests (forget the name, picks are BHH?), although at 160 gold a pop I recognize that Mictlan can get equally good reanimators maintenance free in the form of the Civateteo. That is, I grant you, available quite a bit later on in the game, but Mictlan still has it. Neutral Observations 1. I'm not morally opposed to Lanka being stronger than Mictlan, however, while I am opposed to Lanka being better at blood magic. 2. I also prefer for the clarity of the argument that you not bring in "the scales they take" for Mictlan - I'm not an authority, but some people with experience have come into other posts I've had and argued for mixed blesses (Smoking Mirror F9W4B4D4, for example) which leave room for a decent economy. Scales/blesses are choices, not racial attributes; while some work better than others for particular nations, I hope we haven't come to believe that there's one best way to play a particular nation (at least, that would make me sad, since the wide open range of options is what I like so much about the game). Points for You: 1. On the power front, I can't really get my head around how Lanka deserves Longbowmen on top of everything else it gets. I'd never played with a nation with Longbowmen before Lanka, and their ability to shatter opposing archers was a pleasant surprise to me (not to mention the way the computer often positions commanders near enough to archer units to be wiped out in the deviation fire). 2. I find the durability of properly blessed Lankan heavy infantry absolutely shocking. They never get tired, never retreat, and never seem to die. Reply With Quote -> Response to response: Quote: Aleph said: 1. Mictlan has five paths (astral nature blood fire water) to Lanka's four (blood air death nature), so I think the magical diversity award has to go to Mictlan, the moreso because the national summons of Lanka have the same paths while Mictlan adds Death through its nationals. Magical diversity is in some sense better for Mictlan, but Lanka has better access to cross-path spells, and has a critical bit of diversity Mictlan lacks: Death and Air. One of Mictlan's biggest handicaps is the difficulty of getting undead/demonic leadership, particularly on a flying commander. Lanka has no problem with this, national demon or undead commanders with boots of flying let you lead all the demon raid forces you could want. So, perhaps a better way of stating it would have been to say they have a better magical selection. Air and Death certainly allow more useful things, particularly for a blood nation, than Water and Fire- in addition bless pretenders tend to bring Water, Fire and often Astral access anyway. Quote:
An expensive summoned commander that can reainimate doesn't even begin to hold candle to Lanka's skeleton hordes. The same commanders that work great for research and blood hunting can, at flip of a switch, start producing 100s of skeletons per turn as early as turn 25. Combined with incredible sacreds, even something as crazily powerful as Helhiem would be biting off a lot to try to fight them early. And by late game, gold recruitable reanimators can surpass even LE Ermor's undead armies. Quote:
Quite the opposite for me, I don't care at all whoever has a slight edge in blood magic, it's the balance of the game on a whole that concerns me. Quote:
One of my favorite ways to play, even in MP, is to take unusual blesses just to see if I can make them work. It's a lot of fun, but the vast majority of bless setups just aren't very optimal. The one you mentioned does seem better than most, but in the case of Mictlan a bless almost as extreme as possible is very hard to top for optimization. Regardless, it is certianly safe to say Lanka is not forced down the bless path as rigidly as Mictlan, having many other powerful areas to focus on (and lacking the special dominions spread that further optimizes extreme blesses for Mictlan). Quote:
As Huzzur points out, this is really the least of their advantages, given they have so many other greatly powerful things to pour gold into. -> I didn't find the Tlahuelpuchi all that expensive (25 blood is a notable expense, maybe 3 provinces, but not a heavy one for a blood economy, and it has no maintenance, while 160 gold might be 2 provinces with maintenance), but I can see some of your point - that gold recruitable reanimators are pretty potent as an early game weapon, and might be what tips Lanka from powerful to most dominant. Let's leave LA Ermor out of this - the majority of your Lankan bloodhunters /researchers are going to be the 90 gold H1 priests, since the research differences with the H2 160 gold models are negligible when both are carrying skull mentors whereas the price is notably different, and the 90 gold is still more efficient at research on a cash-per-point basis. LA Ermor has all the H1 gold recruitable priests it wants to summon soulless in the wake of battle/domain kill, and it cares less about the downsides of ghouling your population as well (since it's not triple dipping for ghouls/blood/gold). While in the extreme late game (once a good gold/research conversion is no longer important) Lanka could readily have more people capable of summoning Longdead infantry than LA Ermor (although overcoming the domain summons as well is a high bar), Ermor's national priests can summon Longdead Horsemen, and their temples/forts summon Ermorian uniques, who are a vastly different level of useful. I'm not playing MP, so the balance issues aren't so bothersome to me, and while Lanka is rock-hard it seems that EA already has a lot of radical power fluctuations (most of the Heims, for example). But one of the things I love about Dominions is how thoroughly it realizes certain concepts, such as "the undead nation" or "the Cthulhu nation" to an extent unseen in other games. Lanka intruding on Mictlan's brand identity of "blood nation", or Ermor's identity as "undead nation", threatens that aspect of the game's appeal. Therefore the framing of the original post, and therefore the defense of ermor. Aside - Longbowmen, likely not such a big deal in MP. When you take out badly placed spellcasters in your deviation fire from archers in SP, pretty valuable. 8.21.4 Beginner's guide to Lanka Lanka: Demon monkeys for the masses Overview: Lanka is a nation of monkeys, like Patala etc., but instead of silly Gandharvas and stuff they get bushels of demons. Kewl. Troops:
Marketa: These guys are usable against large units with little or no armour, but that's about it. They're too weak to get through even medium armour, even though their good defence means they're survivable in melee and their small size means they'll get hits in. They'll crumble against archery of any quality. Atavi: Think of Atavi infantry as a slight improvement on militia and the archers as slightly cheaper indy archers. They have stealth, which could make them raiders, but they're less effective than many nations' PD. Bandar: Great big apes with some strong points - the archers get longbows, which is pretty darn good for EA even with 9 precision. The infantry are heavy infantry with no helmets and bucklers. They have Str 15 and 18 HP, which may make up for their vulnerability to archers. Problem is, Bandar cost a hefty 20 gold each. All monkey infantry get an interesting secondary weapon: Sticks and Stones. These have a damage and precision penalty, but... they also have 2 attacks and 30 ammunition! In the hands of the Bandar infantry, they're probably better than shortbows and I'd rate them well above javelins. Next up are the sacreds. Kala-Mukha Warriors are elite sacred heavy infantry. High strength and a Falchion mean they'll punch through any armour and frequently kill the armour's occupant. They have good EA armour and a helmet, which helps when arrows get past their measly buckler. 50% darkvision means you won't mind using them in the late game, and they're not demons - this is actually rather useful in Lanka sacreds. And they're recruitable anywhere, to boot. 65 gold and 20 resources are a heavy price to pay for these guys, but you may well end up biting the bullet. You also get 3 capital-only sacred demon recruitables: Asara are unarmoured demons with a apear and javelins. With 20 range and 8 precision, the javelins have pretty negligible effect unless you mass silly numbers of Asara together. Don't bother to do this. The spear they use isn't exactly the world's best weapon either, by the way. Anusara (heh-heh, you said 'anus', dude ) are also unarmoured, but have a nice chunky mace to complement their high strength. These are safer than you might think against archers, because they have 20 AP (melee range is reached quickly) and a buckler that will take the edge off arrow salvoes. Palankasha, the third capital sacred, are very nice. Strong, heavy armour, falchion... shame about the buckler and no helmet, but these guys are still very survivable. They can one-hit kill humans through most EA armour, and take a good deal of punishment on the way. With a couple of stars under their belt, you'd be hard-pushed to find a better sacred troop in the EA. Leaders:
Atavi chieftains have stealth +0, which is their only benefit over indy commanders. You're unlikely to recruit the other two pure commanders, to be honest. Raktapata are a nice B1H1 priest, making them your blood hunter of choice. That's about the limit of their abilities, though. Yogini should be your primary researchers. They're about as efficient as anything else you can recruit, and they have good paths too. The D1 lets you spam Dark Knowledge to find Death sites and N2 lets you do the same with Nature. This may be important, as you don't have reliable access to D2+ or N3+ for manual site searching. A booster or two lets these guys do the grunt work of Blood summoning instead of a Raksharaja or Rakshasi, too. And the final reason you should hire lots of these is that once you're done researching every single Yogini you've ever hired can be put to work spamming Storm of Thorns on the battlefield. Kala-Mukha are a workhorse priest. H2 lets them summon Longdead, and 1 in 4 get B2 and can cast Bowl of Blood. They can blood hunt in a pinch, and of course they'll spread your Dominion as and when you need it. You get two capital-only sacred commanders, too: Rakshasi have nice magical diversity, but in-depth access to any path is unlikely. They have a second shape which can use the Seduce command, letting them act as assassins if you need that function. Sadly, being a jack of all trades means they aren't very good at any of these functions. And they cost 350 gold, too. You'll end up buying these if you want N3 or D3, because they're the only way you'll see that on a national unit. Rakharaja are likely to be your preferred capital purchase. A2D1B2?1(ADB) means they'll all have a useful spell or two to cast. Their 10% chance of an ANDB random means you might get an A4 or B4 mage in time to be useful, too. Summons: Lanka get a host of national Blood summons. Most of them are pretty useful, too. Rakshasa are like slow Anusara, and there are normally better uses of Blood Slaves. Praghasa (Feast of Flesh) are only a little superior to the likes of the Anusara. However, you get to summon them in groups of 15. If you need numbers in a hurry, these can be very handy. Asrapas are only a bit better than humans, stat-wise, and don't seem to gel well with your other sacred units. Their partial life drain athame helps a little, but probably not enough to make them look worthwhile. However, they are berserkers. Put a few in a squad of other troops, and you won't have nearly so many morale problems. Rakshasa warriors are likely to be a staple. Good stats, body armour and a great big maul make them a force to be reckoned with in combat. By the time you have these, their vulnerability to arrows (no shield or helmet) may not be much of a problem anyway. Sandhyabala are lovely. Armour, buckler, great in a fight, and Dark Power to boot. Dark Power is a big deal, by the way, for reasons you'll see later. Davanas. Giants with 4 arms and 92 hp. I need hardly say more. These guys are the business, really. They are a bit costly though, at 75 slaves for 3. It's a price worth paying, as they GoR up to make a nice SC chassis. Most Lanka summons have fire vulnerability, which can upset you against some nations. It's worth planning ahead to deal with this, so that Abysia and the other fire powers don't give you a reaming. National Summon Commanders: Dakini are going to be a staple. At A3D1B3, they've got better magic than Raksharajahs - they can all cast Thunder Strike and the like. They're also zero upkeep, which will be a benefit. Samanishada are nicely equipped assassins, but that's all they are. You have other options for thuggery, so there's not much reason to summon them. Mandaha on the other hand are going to be popular. They auto-cast Darkness, which is pretty nifty to start with. Any of your undead and demonic hordes with one of these guys in the area is going to have a huge advantage over mundane troops. They are at least a thug quality chassis (flight, nearby enemies get fatigued), and have A3D3B2 for casting buffs on themselves. Soul Vortex is a nice starter, for example. They have 100% fire vulnerability, so you will want several booster items. NB: Mandaha have an upkeep of 20. Summon a lot and you'll want to make sure you have a decent income. NB: It appears that Solar Brilliance doesn't work near Mandaha, which is just icing on the cake if it's true. It certainly fits with the flavour text. Pretender Design: You're likely to want a bless for Lanka. Earth, Nature and Water are the usual candidates, and splashing Astral might be worthwhile to protect against Banish. Your sacreds are good enough to warrant a strong bless, and most choices will be pretty effective. I like to go with E9W9, for a variety of reasons. N9 is risky in the late game, when a Rain of Stones could send all your lovely sacred battle mages haring off into the teeth of the enemy. N9W9 is IMHO bad news, with berserk hasted demons hitting 50 fatigue after 6 rounds of combat. E9N9 is okay (barring unexpectedly berserk mages), but I think you get better combat power with E9W9. Also, it diversifies you into two useful magic paths you wouldn't have otherwise. W9E6N6(and maybe even S6) might be an option, too. It can be done with a rainbow pretender, but isn't eactly cheap. As for scales, something like Order, Sloth, Heat, Growth, Misfortune, Drain. Order is a definite benefit in the early and mid game, possibly even late game because you need slightly less provinces to keep your income up (and can therefore blood hunt more). Heat is a requirement, and Growth is a big boost for sustainable long-term blood hunting. The other negative scales are survivable - even Drain, since you don't need as much research as other nations in the early game. You have a bless instead... Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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