Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Nice screenshots, JaydedOne, R'lyeh dreamlands looks very interesting. Not sure if I like the idea of my underlings doing there own thing. Do they seriously mess yr turns up by doing something else instead?

The spreading of insanity thou., original in a computer game, I like it.

I suspect that R'lyeh dreamlands r not good for a newbie player to try?

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I don't think R'lyeh is easy for beginners in general.

Most of your troops either have the protection value of a newborn kitten or are painfully s...l....o...w. The Void Gate which summons your Sacred troops is, well...IÄ IÄ FTAGHN! *rips off his clothes and runs around wildly while being hunted by a Horror*, errr, funky. Yes, it's quite funky.

Then you have trick units like the Crab Hybrids, Shambler Thralls and the Illithids. Illithids are very good, excelent in fact.

You have an S1 mage who is also an assasin, S1 and 100%WSED priest mage who is the ony who can use the void gate, um, semi-reliably and the crown jewel of your mages the 3S 1W 100%WSED (or was it two randoms? I forgot!) Starspawn. So you won't have much evocations. Instead you have to rely largely on Astral magic and perhaps stuff like Gifts from Heaven and Nether Darts for combat.

That's what I think. Perhaps some newbies find them easy to use but I'd vager they have hard, frustarting time trying to invade the land with the low-prot units who will get easily killed by archers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But they do have a solution for that, oh yes they do... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I actually found it very forgiving for a newbie, at least in single-player. The AI responds poorly to enemies in the water (it takes it a while to figure out how to launch amphibious assaults), which gives you plenty of time to turtle up, gather resources, and figure out where the best strike point on land is. The paralyze ability offered by masses of illithids tears big holes in an enemy's offensive, allowing you to tear through them with your generally low-armored creatures. And Astral magic is great all-purpose stuff.

Granted, in multiplayer, it's different as players tend to recognize R'lyeh's weaknesses more readily.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Yep I just figured this out while playing with the demo. It was the same in Doms 2. However the AI is much better overall now, it is fielding huge armies in the demo, and building many castles also. Like I've said I was surprised that an AI player moved almost 700 troops to my border province. It was a strategical location, the north side of the map. 1 land province, and water below it.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the Ermor AI, on Difficult, PASTED me last night when I got careless at 2 AM.

I resisted about three waves of 300+ troops with my stalwart band of 100. And then the fourth wiped out my Pretender, my Prophet, and most of my Bless brigade. It wasn't pretty, but that's what I get for being sloppy. Those Dusk Elders hurt when they're arriving in groups of six with an accompanying army of hundreds.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

wow, nice, hats off IW. The SP players will be very happy. Perhaps the Galciv2 fans won't whine too much now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Had my own comic dreamlands moment last night. Recruited a wizard starspawn, sent it into the void gate on turn 2, and he got attacked by two otherness' on his first attempt at summoning.
In Doms 2, this would usually result in one dead starspawn, however not only did he manage to kill them both with nary a scratch, he managed it in hand to hand! Came out with four extra summoning skill and a heroic bonus.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Hahaha, that's awesome. =)

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Just finished first game with dreamlands R'lyheh against a difficult desert tombs C'tis. Not much of a challenge as the AI had taken turmoil 2 and misfortune 3. The poor guy never got above 3 provinces in the entire game and ended up besieged in his home province by a barbarian horde.

Dreams of R'lyheh is an awesome spell. Enemy that fails to resist has to face the caster in the void with attack, defense and mr halfed.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

That's one thing I've noticed -- the manual lists all base spells and all national summons, but you pretty much have to look for the national spells that aren't summons. I didn't even realize there WAS a Dreams of R'lyeh. Where is it, Thaumaturgy?

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Yes. Level 6 thematurgy.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Sounds sweet. =)

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Ouch, perhaps there should be some code in the game, what wouldn't allow the AI to take such bad scales.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Played a bit with R'lyeh last night. Well, maybe more than a bit.

...zzzz...

Now where was I...

Ah, interesting bit: learned that commanders getting lost in the Void was not necessarily a one-way trip. Veeeeeeeery interesting.

Also watched the gibbering cultists for a while, and was reassured to learn that they never chose to demolish buildings. *That* would be annoying. It's harsh enough when you have to delay an offensive because more than half your local army group is led by those busily doing research or preaching.


And yes, archers hurt. Having some troubles fending off Jomon samurai archers right now; in two major fronts (Ermor and Jomon), one relatively minor (Marignon), other AIs undiscovered, and Jomon is causing the biggest headaches by far -- somewhat wide front, big casualties on both sides. Marignon might be bothersome if they still have massed xbows, but the combination of low-supply swamp and some very strong independent forces is slowing down engagements there.

Having a bit of trouble remembering not to fear tritons so much, now that they don't actually insta-attack-rear.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I spent all night playing R'lyeh myself, had a blast.

GREAT GAME.

A couple of times the void "pulled" my starspawn somewhere I think, only to come back at some other place on the map and get butchered. Or maybe they went crazy and just decided to attack, I'm not sure. My first starspawn lasted a long time (about 4 years game time)and summoned some really cool beings whose names I can't remember.

No one went insane that I could see. When do they start going crazy? Am I doing something wrong? I have a slave priest preaching and starspawn researching in each province.

I'm playing a long game it looks like, I'm pretty dug in now and researching construction 9 to go on land with the water amulet. I haven't fought any opposing kingdom yet as I'm hiding out in the water. I'm in second to last place, but it's my first try at this game.

My only complaint is the processing down time in between turns while generating (a couple minutes?), though I did pick the largest map possible with the maximum amount of players. It's very stable, not even a hiccup, something that is rare these days with games and appreciated.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

The insanity is only late-era, based on dominion strength... and possibly MR, astral magic, or both. I've noticed that my Starspawn mages and priests rarely go mad; my mundane Starspawn commanders occasionally do; and the cultists frequently do. Void creatures like the Void Lurker and Void Lord are immune, or should be.

'Go mad' is actually two-stage. It increases an insanity score -- probably when some check fails. That score presumably affects the probability of a commander going insane each turn -- they can shift between lucid and random from turn to turn. Insanity also accumulates for enemies within your domininon.

If you get a fellow who returns from the void, and lives long enough to return to the capital, check his summoning score.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Hehehe, I can just see it.

"Thats a Prophet? Ya know .. I wanna be one too !"
... from the dreams of a R'lyeh Commander.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

This does, incidentally, make R'lyeh Dreamlands quite dangerous to AE Ermor; all those not completely sane H1 cultists have a tendency to prophetize to H3 gibbering cultists. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

So not only is there the usual mindblasting against the commanders (mitigated by using ghouls and generic living militia), but there's yet more banishment spamming...

Void Spectre is, so far, the only non-Pretender, non-Gift-of-Reasoned void commander I've found so far. Nasty pieces of work, them.

That national dream-hunting spell... is not in the manual. Looks to be a far safer version of Mind Hunt, 'tho, in that you can still nail astral nations with it, and you can equip your mage accordingly (hm: can he enslave and bring him back?).

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I'd spam Horror Mark in Dreams of R'lyeh, but that's just me. Sweet, sweet HORRORS.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

In my game last night as Dreamlands my starspawn managed to summon this:

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/6849/visitorhm5.jpg

He came already as a commander, no gift of reason needed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Was summoned by Cthugul, the hero Stargazer, with a summoning skill of around 12-13 at the time.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

The Visitor is summoned! I thought it was a hero!

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Nasty thing I say. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif
Wouldn't want to meet him in battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Cool!

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Hehe, interesting sprite. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I believe it is based on Flying Polyps from Lovecraft's works.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Hm. I saw a Visitor once, but only when it sent one of my starspawn into the void... for a while, anyway.

Eyeballing... extra magic and holy compared to the Void Spectre, and FAR more speed -- but the latter has stealth and a full set of 'humanoid' slots other than feet, and appears to be a powerful income-reducer if you drive an enemy's home province insane.

Cthugul, alone of all the Starspawn, still has feet. Interesting.

Also, Illithid Lords do go insane. Hm, odd.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I just played my very first game of Dom3 as Dreamlands last night, and if I understand the rules correctly, it was amazingly helpful...

I set up a random small map game against three mighty AIs; I wasn't sure if dominion strength mattered, but I decided to try with 10 to see the effects. I took out Abysia with no trouble, and I was eventually able to grind down Patalia, but by that time Caelum held half the map and had fortressed off much of it. My armies were bigger, but Caelum's were much better, and I was trying desperately to find something that would work when I realized that my dominion was spreading incredibly rapidly through the map - I had been averaging maybe a prophet every other turn since the midgame, and by this point I probably had more temple checks each turn than there were provinces to build temples in. Four turns of just hitting "next turn" later and I ascended; Caelum just couldn't compete with that much spread. This wouldn't matter in a multiplayer game, but it was very funny to watch.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

No heroic ability ! BoOoo !

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

I tried R'lyeh for my first game and was SHOCKED how strong it is. I took a Dominion/Bless strategy and I had units coming out my ears. I was having serious trouble building enough leaders to command them all, and basically stopped building troops after a while. There was one small island with two provinces and in 15 turns it generated about 200 freespawn. It felt like playing Ermor with the AI unable to recruit priests - I had that much. I had about as many troops as 5 AI's put together.

My biggest problem was what to do with all the freespawned triton dreamers. I had a stack of about 150 wandering around - I was trying to get them killed off but they beat a Kracken/Sea Troll independents. I was maneuvering them to the last ocean independent and if that failed I guess I'd just have an ever-growing stack of them chewing up supplies (do they have upkeep). I couldn't figure any way to kill them.

Has anybody checked Gateway for functionality? I had a Starspawn put on a Crown of Command and try to gate all those island freespawns over. He went over but they stayed. No way to check the prior turn to make sure I'd cast "Gateway" but I'd swear that's what his icon said.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Gateway style spells are broken at the moment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Late R'lyeh is powerful and the pop death doesn't seem to be that bad to me. I also had leadership problems, and then freespawns would stack on huge piles and starve.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

The freespawn masses do let you wage a war of attrition. While without backup from real troops, they'll die in droves (archer-heavy nations in particular can carve them up -- if you're fighting Jomon samurai with just dreamers and madmen, you can expect heavy losses due to large differences in equipment and training...), but there will be replacements.

Blade wind would also be ugly, methinks. But massed archers are an obvious weakness.

Be careful not to let your freespawn starve your illithids into disease. The supply allocation routines are non-deterministic, if memory serves.

Re: Hilarious R\'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)
 

Illithid Lords going insane really hurts..Heck of a time keeping everyone moving with even them going insane.

And the freespawn are pretty horrible vs nations tho the hybrds with the armor piercing tenactles arent so bad imho but they pretty much die in droves.. 400 vs 80... Losing 200 or more units was common and that where battles i won with em.. I mostly used the free spawn armies as scouts and raiders throw em at the enm to see the makeup of the enm and hopefully do some damage. I didnt really care if they lived or not might as well disrupt the other dudes income and armies.


And hard to get nature magic plus large armies with population declining supplying armies was fun.

But was my funnist game so far.