Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

Thanks Baalz and all. I'm having a lot of fun implementing these strategies from this thread. I started a Loemendor map game with independents 9 and 5 AI players at impossible. However, I had to try a bunch of starts to get the pretender right. This map and independents 9 makes the early game very tough. Still, once I fine tuned the pretender (RB dormant with almost straight 4's) it's ticking along well.

Again, thanks for some neat new ideas.

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

I really don't agree ... well pretty much at all.

If you have an air bless, you can put your air blessed archers close, behind a few awed warriors. Archers will try to target them. Leaving your monkeys at medium range to decimate them with sheer cheap numbers.

kailasa and mictlan are two nations I like air blesses on.
with mictlan its usually part of a triple bless...

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

While I see an air bless with kailasa as possible, on Mictlan it seems to just be a waste. Your jags already are immune to first hit kills, plus if you take an astral bless you can add another hit to the immunity list. If you give them W9S9F9 bless then you are guarenteed to survive at least 2 hits, will close very fast, and will cut through anything not fire-immune like a hot knife through butter. If you go W9F9A6 or something like that you MIGHT have a case, but I still think that high air on a pretender when you don't have good air nationals to be something of a waste.

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

yeah. Air Bless wins out for Kail for too many reasons

1. Makes your recruitable everywhere sacreds also be usable everywhere sacreds. Any Kail strat must depend on these guys. Also, the Apsaras are in principle the same as your recruits and benefit from the same blesses. Lastly, consider that Air magic and arrows are particularly fearsome in EA specifically.

2. The nature of the recruits makes bless usefulness breakdown as follows:

blesses that lessen the amount of damage received are useless because the sacreds have no armor to be effected, which in turn also means that they take so much damage from any hit that regen is worthless.
useless = earth, nature

blesses that buff offense are useful but if the sacreds are dead it doesn't matter. this makes defense blesses first priority.
not priority = fire/death/blood

The priority optional blesses are ones that add defense by preventing hits from occurring at all. Twist Fate prevents first damage and weak Water pumps their already high Defense to phenomenal levels, preventing melee hits from landing in the first place.
priority = Astral, Water(weak)

The key bless is Air because without it then then all the Awe, Twist Fate, and Defense in the world are useless.
key = Air

on top of the key and priority optional blesses it would be nice to have an offense bless; but it's not realistic because there just won't be points available, and any points for blesses are better spent on the priorities.


With the sacreds as the axiom of the strategy, Kail also has many ways to fit their other units around them and their blesses so nicely. They come together in an almost Nirvanic symmetry, making Kail one of my top favorite nations.

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

How can someone say that arrows are the bane of a nation, and that air bless is worthless, in the same post? Altho I wouldnt give up the cool Kailasa summons for it.

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

As soon as you have Arrow Fend, air bless becomes worthless, and as kailasa is a nation that is not so good early, but can get really strong later. I personally think that a strategy based on compensation their early game weaknesses with sacrificing later power is wrong. A good kailasa should aim to maximize the power of the nation, and not try to make it survive. And the effects of Air and Water bless you get from the spells Arrow Fend and Celestial Music, so you dont take them in the beginning because they will become useless. And for the Shock resistance i had never problems with wrathful skies, as you can finish battles very early, if you have a nice fire bless. (and will of fates :))

Also with S9 you can live long enough to conquer almost any indy you want.

Your sacreds survive 2-3 arrows on average when you get N4 bless you regenerate an arrow every 5 turns, and also make sure that it really needs 3 arrows to kill you.

And if someone is intending to kill you, with Conj 5 you get ghandaravas and they can kill lots of archers :). Also there are not so many nations that have strong archery and i dont think that a sane player would mass slingers, so that he can engage kailasa.

The only Nations that can field heavy archery early are:
Ulm (Mass Maidens)
Sauromantia (Always be nice to sauromatia they have way to much archery)
TC (they have nice archers)
Caelum (they have archers, but kailasa should not be too afraid from mammoths)
Yomi (Bakemono archers are very cheap)

So i would not recommend an air bless, except in a blitz against one of these nations.

I actually played a MP with an air bless, but the only thing that happened was that i got trashed by helheim.

And if someone really wants to play archery duel, you have always the possibility to recruit your own cheap archers. Or just use markate decoys. Or get Ghandaravas. Or Die (id rather use ghandaravas :D).

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

While I don't personally agree with THIS...

...point, as if you don't survive (survive well possibly) the early game you surely don't arrive to the "maximized" late game where you would shine... :D

...I must admit you have a point. Kailasa has very cheap units to use as decoys and don't really mind losing in squads of five/six for a couple of turns for distracting the archers (or just recruit shielded indeps). If someone really wants to play the archers game with quality archers (Sauromantia?) you can counter with a mass of recruitable anywhere extremely cheap archers.

With that you should have the time to bring your S9N4/6 sacreds to the enemy, one occasional volley of arrows would probably be twisted-fated or regenerated (and be unlikely to produce afflictions). C'mon, you don't really want your sacreds to take arrow fire anyway. And surely the MR and regeneration bonus will keep being useful till the late game while the Air Shield... and expecially that partial Shock Resistance... mmmh...
Not to talk about the difference between an S9 caster (expecially for an astral nation which will probably have many pearls in the mid-to-late game) and an A9 one... :smirk:

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

I obviously disagree with most of your post except your disagreement with Hadrian about early-late game power balance; i'd like to add to your point that a less than late-game-maximized Kailasa will outperform a late-game-maximized one in early game so much so that they arrive into late game with far more benefits and momentum. In late game things that are maximized through a particular bless become a lot less important while having a healthy economy is much more relevant; meaning the whole argument that an Air bless Kail isn't maximized for late game is really a fallacy, and just wrong.

I'd like to point out to you also that having an A9 pretender with Kail is very important for the magic path provided. First of all, it lets you begin searching out Air sites quickly so that you get a good Air economy built up and ready for when you reach the high-power Air magic and your national summons that can use this magic. Second, you will need this A9 mage to cast Dark Skies which synergizes splendidly with all of Kail's sacreds.

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

You only need A4 to site-search all air sites. Actually, you only need A4 to search plains, A3 is sufficient elsewhere. And the plains A4 site is both unique and very rare.

You only need A5 to cast Dark Skies, and A4 is enough to boost to A5. Can you please explain how Dark Skies works with Kailasa's sacreds? Sorry, I don't understand that.

Edit: Oh, I get it I think, lower morale = more failed Awe checks. Is that the plan?

As an alternative to an A4 god you could even empower an A2 summon to A3, make a Ring of Wizardry with your S9 pretender, make a Bag with your A3+RoW, and cast any A5 global.

Re: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?
 

you got it.

but not only is the Air bless worth it. I don't see any point in taking just enough Air on a pretender to cast some spells while not going ahead and getting the strong bless.