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

Oh yeah, as I mentioned I like the white ones and I've seen them used very effectively. I guess in general I try to avoid trying to do something that somebody else does better, and while white ones are fairly good I don't think they compare well to the real top notch sacreds. Opportunity costs, and a real good blessing is expensive. I wouldn't argue with anybody who would base a strategy around them though.

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

I would never ever go overboard with sloth no matter the nation. When people say that regular troops are worthless they are probably playing with sloth 3 and thus never getting enough of them.
I would recommend sloth 1, maybe 2 at the most, for BA.

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

Baalz
I didn't really say I don't believe in what you described. All this is quite possile but you really need a lot of luck to win. Luck to find enough nature sites to summon Yakshas/Yakshinis (nature games are, IMO, one of the most valuaable and rather rare in addition to that), luck to have enough astral income or enough water to clam. Gems are the most obvious luck aspect but there're many others. Of course every nation needs luck, but the build you described seem more luck dependent than skill dependent to me and I really don't like being dependent on luck. It's just an opinion, nothing else. Also, I can't say for sure that my suggestions or thoughts are more viable as I didn't try them in the real game, I just think that relying on blood from the very beginning and planning your strategy around this, aiming for Dakinis as main thugs and using Conjuration summons as a support for them is much more reliable because with blood you only depend on magic site percent value, not luck in having stable gem income.

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

Isn't W9 a bit of a waste, because you get it with the national BF enchantment?

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

W9 bless is a waste with BL, and i find even a weak water bless arguable. On the face it looks good, because it buffs already high-ish defense scores. However I think that an E9 bless is more valuable for BL, and mixing W and E blesses is a little ineffecient becuase it is mixing two types of damage prevention. If you ever prevent damage from the extra defense, than the extra prot is just dead points. It is most efficient to just use the always useful extra prot.

Apsaras are MUCH less valuable for BL than for Kailasa, because BL should not take an Air bless since they don't need it. For Kailasa Apsaras are a backbone unit, even when Gandharvasa are available; simply because they are so cheap, very defense oriented, and provide another body for Celestial Music. Now, if you opt for the E9 bless (which I highly recommend), then that bless is just dead points on the Apsaras, even if you have Arrow Fend.

BL can focus totally on blesses that optimize the performance of Gandharvas, Siddhas, Rudras, and all mages. E9 for starters. S9 is a good choice, so is weak N. I prefer to avoid offensive blesses, because the sacreds are already so offense oriented. It is good to invest points in making them more robust. The above units are BL's most powerful, and are optimized with E9 blesses. Further, these units allow for the most efficient research strategies... I explain why in the next paragraph.

A W8 bless IS an option for BL, but to optimize it requires a certain research strategy. With it, BL could theoretically only research to Conj 3 for Apsaras, and lean on White Ones until it gets to Ench6 for Arrow Fend. Now it can unleash a mass of Apsaras with something like 19 Defense (once blesses) and Awe3; the Arrow Fend protects them from missile fire. Now shoot straight for Thau6, and you have 22 Def Awe3 Quickened Arrow Fended Apsaras. Do you see WHY Kailasa and BL are so bad-***? What other nation has a mid-game tool to match that? You wouldn't need to research higher in the Conj tree to find things to spend your pearls on with those. Also, you only NEED pearls, and every gem alchemizes into them on a 2:1 basis. You can really benefit from all gem incomes without needing to do lots of trading. But here's the catch... You need Conj6 Kinnaras to have commanders to cast the Arrow Fend, and you lose any benefit of this strategy (namely, the ability to research other trees than Conj early on). This said, you're better off with an E9 bless and shooting for Gandharvas. I think Apsaras are an absolutely bad-*** unit, just not for BL given their options; they are more suited for Kailasa's needs and blesses.

I prefer to avoid anything more than sloth-1, because the White Ones are a bit resource intensive. Since I like big bless strats, it is important that resources not limit the amount of sacreds I can produce. In fact, a high prod might be a good thing for BL... read on.

Turmoil/Luck is a hard choice. Gold is very useful for BL, but so are all gems since they all turn into pearls easily. If you opt for this route, than a high prod is a good choice. Why? It provides a little extra gold, but more importantly it allows you to focus on gold efficient troops; the ones that are resource intensive but more robust.

I personally find rainbows to be a dubious choice for BL becuase I like strong blesses and they also have access to a lot of summons that increase their diversity. strong W, A, E, S, and N are going to be reasonably easily available. The only thing they miss are death and fire. I'm willing to take a strong double bless and decent scales while losing out on death and fire.

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

Hmmm, I don't know. I suppose if you were extremely unlucky you might not have the gems you need, but I haven't found this to be a problem in the games I played as they're very reasonably priced summons at 25 gems. You start out with nature income from your capital, and I find if you give site searching the priority it's due with this nation (high!) I generally have the gems to summon 3 or so as soon as they're researched, and even a very modest income at that point will let you summon one ever third turn or so. You can certainly put as many as you can get to use, but you don't strictly *need* a large amount. In a pinch just one per army will cover the critical stuff.

Granted, you could theoretically have terrible luck and just not land the sites you really want, but if you're aggressively site searching I don't think it's terribly pressing to worry about not landing astral, water, or nature! Yeah, you'll be hard pressed if you don't have a significant amount of any of these, but that's pretty unlikely. Additionally, part of the thesis for a rainbow pretender is that you can alchemize for what you need if you have the bad luck to not land it naturally.

If you're site searching with a rainbow pretender, and S/N Rishi, you will have a gem income, and it'll be skewed towards S/N. If you've got more clams in one game and more Yaksha in another it isn't a deal breaker, you just need a little flexibility. You could also worry that all the provinces you conquer have less than a thousand population, but it's probably not reasonable to design your nation expecting that.

That said, I fully agree that one of the benefits of blood is it's predictability - though you still have a different randomness on a turn to turn basis as to how many slaves you pull in.

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

Don't forget that while Bandar Log is chasing the research for Ghandarvas, they also get access to Akashic Record. I use it only for Mountain/Forests and other high frequency provinces and have not been disappointed, despite the fact that you have other things to spend Astral on.

I also favor the Nature bless and like Wooden Warriors for BL, so the Mother Oak is almost always mine. That seems to keep a steady supply of summonable mages.

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

I've tried a game with a E4/N4 bless :

Ancient Lich, imprisoned, dom7.
A2 E4 D6 N4 B2 ( half rainbow ;) )
Ord 3 - Prod 1 - Heat 3 - Gro 3 - Misf 2 - Mag 1.

Pretty decent for early expansion imho, mixing elephants and blessed white ones, more for the morale than their battle skills, elephants having usually won the battle before the white ones have reached the frontline.

But I've really big issues with misfortune. I lose a lot of provinces with event attacks. And investing in PD doesn't help, 20 doesn't seem more efficient than 1. What would you cut to reduce misfortune ?

Order is required to recruit the expensive elephants.
Prod is also needed imho ( 17 res. for white ones, 20 for elephants, 23 for bowmen ).
Growth : I never feel comfortable with death, and growth 3 is good for an eventual late game blood economy.
Magic is not an option, you don't have early Air / Death / Fire gem income or mages to forge research boosters and all the astral mages may cast spells with MR check.

What would you change ?
Turmoil 1 Sloth 1 Luck 3 maybe ?

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

I don't like death either, but I wouldn't say growth 3 is essential. If you trim it back to 1 you can remove misfortunate altogether

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

I tried that, game is much more quiet. And I got cool Yashka / Yashkini heroes. Thanks. I gonna keep those scales. :)