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Re: Worst Nations in Each Era

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baalz (Post 695511)

Question, what does EA R'yleh have to field against several Basalt Kings kitted with a 29-30 MR and other thug gear? With a E4 blessing & summon earthpower along with a girdle of strength they've got a 9 reinvig which will cover a lead shield and armor stacking on the iron will and amulet. Taking something along the lines of an awake ghost king with E4/N4 and whatever else you wanted would give you everything you needed including an early research jumpstart. Throw in some earth and water(ice) elementals for the big fights and I'm not really seeing a helplessness here against R'yleh. If you can get to ench-5 enlivened statues seem like they'd give R'yleh a whole lot of trouble also.

Even with an awake SC pretender, you're good as dead within 16 turns, when you're about halfway to the research needed to kit and buff said thugs. I'm not talking about level 4 research, I'm talking about what you can reach during the first year, which might include one level 4 school if you took a research pretender. Do you have a solution in that scenario?

I should note, I've played water nations four times. Once I started with 3 provs between our caps in an ocean. The second time, I had a 4 prov buffer in an open lake. Third time, 3 prov buffer in an open lake. The last time starts were hand-placed at opposite ends of a river, probably about 10 provs between.

I'm not saying you'll never get to several mid-level research schools, but it doesn't represent the average underwater game at all.

Re: Worst Nations in Each Era

Yes I have a solution - stall. In theory R'yleh can be at your gates in 12 turns, in practice you'll often have a bit more time than that and can also buy yourself even more. The thing about mind blasters is they have to have critical mass and they're expensive, R'yleh has some built in inertia which makes them a bit slower out of the gate than, say Neifelheim. Even with an expansion pretender it's a pretty tough proposition to clear out indies and mass 50+ mind blasters at 40 gold a pop plus some chaff blockers (while recruiting expensive mages) by turn 8 or so in order to head towards your capital and get there on turn 12. So, assuming they pile everything they've got into one army and rush you you've got the 3-4 armies you were using to clear indies to counter-raid R'yleh while they can't really split up their expensive critical mass group very effectively. Dance around, feint, skirmish and fall back and you can buy your self more precious turns. If they bull rush to your capital cut into their territories with those troops they're ignoring and bleed them while stuffing your capital with some of those low resource high strength guys you've got and let the squids spend several turns sieging you while you pump out the research and forgings. All in all I can't really imagine you'll be forced into a decisive fight until turn 20 or so unless the stars are really just lined up against you.

Re: Worst Nations in Each Era

I have a lot of fun playing MA Man in SP with an s/e/d Master Lich. Of course the AI cannot deal with even massed longbows.

I think I could adapt a strategy to MP utilizing that pretender and taking advantage of bards and some careful diplomacy. I think a strategy based around massing lots of bards with a great economy would be a funny "F#$% You" early to early-mid game.

It's always the late game that gets Man.