Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I definitely won't play, Septimius, I'm just expressing my opinion. Popkill rate is huge and money demands are huge even without domkill. And all generated chaff also eats upkeep (10 units eat 1 gold). That's why soon you'll find yourself absolutely crippled and without money at all unless you manage to expand fast and\or kill your opponent(s) which is EXTREMELY hard with R'lyeh because absolutely all of their troops suck except the crab hybrids who are aquatic. R'lyeh needs either magic to win battles (but you won't have money for good research and especially for battlefield magery) or tons of generated chaff (that is generally much worse than skeletons). This makes virtually impossible to make a successful attack on a decent player early on.
That's why I'm talking about huge luck or fantastic skill. These two are the only things that may help this nation in the competitive game.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

People keep thinking LA R'lyeh is an uber power and even sometimes banning it for that but this is just ridiculous. It's a crappy nation even though it's thematically fun to play them. I had to ban them I'd do it because of their crappiness, not their powers.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

You are certainly free to voice your opinion and I respect the input of all players. And yes, I do know you don't like playing against the AI. :)

I think many players playing LA R'lyeh will just find an ally or the AI to assist them in killing off any unwanted units and reducing their upkeep costs. But I'll certainly consider LA Atlantis, or LA Ermor as a possibility in the role as well, as I said before. Though I'm still leaning toward R'lyeh.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Maybe give the water nation merc (if you decide on one) an island in the middle with a forging bonus site or other ritual site. Some trait of rainbowness would enhance the merc's service value too. I'm speaking under the influence of sleep deprivation high, so absolutely no thought went into those suggestions (just so you know).

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I would like more to see LA R'lyeh & Ermor as part of AI team. R'lyeh would probably look better thematically as a merc than Ermor.
LA Atlantis I think would be fine as an alien nation seeking any allies to break the power of their old enemies.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Some sort of goal or ends for the merc? I could imagine the motivation to play an active merc to be hard to maintain, as you don't really have any goal.

Maybe have 2 competing merc or something... or some way to introduce an agenda / win condition to the merc that makes sense... a random example might be merc wins if there is no clear winner by the end of year xxx, thematically that is because strife and conflict is good (and perhaps necessary) for the merc, this also give losing teams a slight boon as merc is more likely to give them a hand, so they can catch up easier and make for a closer game.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Sometime around 3.23 the domkill effect of LA ermor and La-Rlyeh was increased tenfold.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Hmm, still having the same issue, the game freezing at the "getting game info" screen. So I've so far been unable to download turns (though haven't let it sit for an hour). Gandalf suspects it might be due to another large game on his server eating up processor time/space. Once the issue is resolved we will be able to continue.

Final, the indy nation I'm planning for game 3 won't be a merc in the sense of the current implementation. No rules, neutrality, bonuses, etc. Just a single nation, free to do as they please. Even play off one team against another. A separate VP condition can be provided if the player should decide to go solo. And if they are eventually allied with the winning team, they can share the credit with the team. Haven't thought about other goals, also haven't decided on magic locations or not.

Edit: Gandalf says the game has been reset and should be working now.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Whoa! Was wondering why pop dies so fast playing La R'lyeh.

Atlantis may well be a good choice, once they get going their Arsaturts, Mournfuls, and Unsleeping units (though slow) seem pretty powerful.

LA Ermor may well be left out of the game entirely. Not sure how the AI handles it.

Just thinking, how much can taking a high growth scale compensate for this domkill for the R'lyeh player? Is a growth scale even needed by these nations? I wonder if there are guides written on LA R'lyeh after the patches and what they recommend for the potential R'lyeh player. Reminds me to have a look.

As for the effects on other players, I know I've been playing alongside R'lyeh for more than 60 turns in my other game and have only had a single commander go insane.

Also, regarding R'lyeh's useful crab hybrids (if aquatic only) they'd not be really usuable against anything other than water nations. Tell me, is there a magic item that allows a commander to bring aquatic only units to the surface? A sort of mass amulet of the fish. I know the ability exists the opposite way, but not sure about the reverse.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I think the G3 can counteract up to 3 candles I think? There's a post somewhere that tested how many candles G3 can counteract.

There's a guide around that advocates just going for Death 3 turmoil 3 and rely on luck, I have to agree. Though long term play is annoying and you eventually run out of pop / income, I get the impression that shifting to void specter and other summons is a must later in the game. Never played them MP however...

I don't think there's a way to bring crab hybrid out. I think the guide advocates using gold for mages / buildings mostly, and rely on your crazy amount of chaff to buy your mages time for casting (and hopefully get as much as your chaffs killed off too in the process...). I think you don't want gold-bought line troops as you already get too many lesser quality free stuff to do the same job.

My noobie take on it base on SP games.