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=====EA Xibalba – By Cybertron2=====

===What is the draw to this nation over other nations (mechanically)===

EA Xibalba is probably the hardest scaling nation in EA beyond Mictlan. It has fantastic raiding and stealth pressure with fliers – one of the best cap only mages in the game in the onaqui – and is the only flavor of Xibalba that can easily summon Ozelotyls at earlyish research. Otherwise, it has solid sacred summons, is an elf nation and can be built a lot of ways

You also have scorpion recruits. These units are better than they look – and the 15g variant and 1g variant both have uses – the former for being quite efficient, the latter for being the only 1g size1 unit in dominions – and as such very abusable mechanically.

===What are your ‘anchors’ in troops===
Broadly – your sacreds are your main anchor, with a potential secondary being scorpions. In theory you can do some bits and pieces with the armored xibalban fliers – but really – your troops are always weak as Xibalba but for sacreds

===What are your workhorse mages===
All of them. The entire EA xib mage roster has a lot of use – from the B1 holy mage (which works well on communion blesses/builds), to the mighty onaqui – all the mages pull their weight. Probably the most significant mages however are the ah-itz and the onaqui – the former for being general purpose, the latter for being a mid-lategame powerhouse.

===Are your sacreds worth building around===
It’s the main reason to play the nation. They have lots of attacks, good stats and good damage. In theory the non-sacred scorpions are ok and the mage core puts in work – but ultimately this is a nation that lategame spams sacreds.

===What are your core research targets===
Conjuration 3 is an important ‘emergency button’ as it lets you rush out sacred scorpions and jaguars. Blood 4 gives Ozelotyl access, and ench 4-5 allows for skelespam raiding. The priority of these will vary based on your build – but these are the three ‘core’ Xibalba pathways – conj summons early, blood summons, and skelespam. 
===Typically what sort of pretender does the nation want? Why===
There’s a lot of contention here – and Xibalba can really do a wide variety of things. The basic philosophies are do you go hellscales or keep some order/magic (for scorpions/research), and do you go for an awake, dormant or imprisoned. Personally, I find the awake lines a bit underwhelming, and like the more powerful blesses of dormant and imprisoned. Although expensive, quickness is the most significant incarnate on the nation by far. Rainbow blesses also work quite well however.

I’ve heard of most everything working, but broadly – quickness blesses, rainbow stat blesses, rainbow resist blesses and finally rainbow reinvigoration blesses (for communions) all work. Personally, I prefer the stat blesses and quickness blesses for the early power – since xib scales well regardless. 
===What are your expansion troops/formations===
There’s a guide on underground expansion here [[https://illwiki.com/dom5/guides/xibalba_expansion_guide]]
===What magic do you want for early wars===
See your research targets. There’s a lot of places you can dip into on Xibalba, but your core remains the same. Your sacreds should be doing a lot of lifting in early wars.
===What are your biggest weaknesses. ===
You have no real troops outside of sacreds (arguably the 15g scorpions), and really struggle in early wars. If you play Xibalba – be ready to get rushed, and your build/research timings should take that into account.
===In broad-brush terms – what is your midgame and lategame plan===
You have stealth, flying and blood, moreso than anyone. You can still struggle with big doomballs (before skelespam communions are fully online at least), but you can happily elf a player down in a turn or two. The Xibalba playstyle is actually quite passive – it’s generally turtle/research, elf someone, turtle/research etc. 
===What are some ‘national traps’ players are likely to fall into (mistakes)===
Your unarmored bats die more easily than you’d think. Don’t throw them at actual armies

Onaqui aren’t great thugs – they’re better as big casters

Your lategame is good enough – generally your build on Xibalba should be focused on not dying as much as it is the eventual scaling

It’s easy to forget if you tank order – you can’t really mass scorpions

Seeing the nation as ‘only’ hellscales. As it turns out – you can use order at the least - and an argument can be made for more armored bats (production), better research (magic) and plain old gold. There's a few ways you can build it (albeit you typically do want a big bless so you'll be dumping at least a few scales)

Chilleans are fairly awkward unless you need the specific paths (forging ./ summoning scorpions) and are usually weaker than ah-itz

Your B1 mage that generates unrest isn’t your best blood hunter. Unrest is bad. The Ah-Itz is generally better – some are B2 to hunt, some are D2 to raid, and the rest can sitesearch

===What are some important national ‘tricks’===
You can recruit up siege chaffs from caves at a incredible pace. Similarly – if you need raiders, you can recruit from every cave system at once so its not hard to commit a lot of gold very quickly to the warfront.

Your scorpion trainers are unarmored and have high mapmove

If you use a longdead horseman commander (ench2), you can ferry troops further underground than otherwise, since the mapmove penalty is lower if the fliers are landlocked (Thanks Arco)

You often have a bunch of leftover vanilla commanders at the end of expansion. Set 5 fliers to guard commander on them, then do holdX5 attack rear, and you’ll ‘bypass’ a lot of troops and have a 5 turn window to buff the squad. Very nasty for mage sniping. 

Stealthed units can sit on thrones to not be patrolled out. It’s a good ‘holding point’ just before a war.
You can use the baby scorpions to mess with pathing / army counts since they’re only 1 gold apiece and can be massed.
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