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

^ Best gaming analogy I've ever heard!! :laugh:

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

Thats good and true, but so far now 'most' players fail with this nation; all of them do. Which really makes me think that this nation is a little bit toooooooo far on the 'elegance' side and too thin on the 'power' side.
Elegant apes are too much in my opinion anyway.

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

As a Texan, I like the use of "yep" in this thread

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

The fact that I never mentioned apes or monkeys but you still interpreted my post as talking about apes demonstrates the problem players have when approaching Bandar Log. The problem is most severe for them because they are the 'monkiest' of all monkey nations, whereas with Kail and Patala it is obvious that they are supposed to be support.

How is it that Gandharvas are the premier mid-game unit in many peoples opinions (and at least a first-order mid-game unit in most's minds)... and BL has terrible units? and apparently 'not real' units? how are they thin on power? You misread my musings on elegance as something exclusive to power, when I was saying that elegance IS power for this nation. And BL is the _best_ setup to use these units, much more so than Kailasa.

How are Siddhas the essence of mobility: "can be (almost) anywhere at anytime with (almost) no conditionals. bringing divine blesses and really good battle magic OR thug-ability", and BL has no combat magic? ("Hell, I can even jump into the middle of your empire, then jump back out to a border skirmish, then to my own empire to defend or recapture a raided province, then back into the middle of your empire" says the Siddha that pops into your mind, then back out again as easily as it arrived). I mean, once you've got these guys, the massive logistical problems that are, in fact, BL and Kail's main challenge is solved. And once again, BL is better situated to use Siddhas and higher end summons compared to Kailasa

That's only the tip of the Kail/BL toolbox...
and what other nation has that _type_ of toolbox?

People don't think of BL as a nation that must depend on its summons. They see Kail = Celestial summons and BL = Monkeys, and this is why Kailasa has had victories before BL.

As far as the track record goes... well... Kailasa had their FIRST victory only two months ago, and then their second right after that, two weeks ago. They went from off the bottom to average in a couple of months, and Dominions has been out for two years now.

As people are realizing where the strengths lie and how to unlock them, they will start to win. BL is a very similar nation to Kail, and perhaps almost more powerful (maybe, its a hard call). We will see victories soon...

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

Kailasa has very good recruitable mages and better sacreds. This guide describes heavy usage of summons which are recruitable in Kailiasa, and Kailasa has won two games recently. Coincidence? :)
Also, how Bandar Log is 'better' at using its troops than Kailasa when it needs to summon support mages instead of just recruiting them is beyond my understanding.

Ghandarvas are a decend mid-game unit, and?.. Your recruitable troops are still terrible. Some rather expensive summons dont make your army shine.
Siddhas, a high-end summon, can offer you air magic to cast some essential spells like arrow fend, not to spam combat spells. Two or even three thunder strikes arent that big by the time you can summon siddhas.
Once again, I'm completely puzzled how Bandar Log is better suited for using Siddhas.
I agree that Bandar Log depend on their summons... because summons are the only good thing about Bandar Log. And Kailasa has some of them as recruitable troops.

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

After playing my first ever Bandar game (SP or MP), I must say they have potential but serious weakness.

Typically Bandars are played with either good bless or good scale. Good bless is much weaker for Bandar than for Kailasa, since Bandar's sacred is not nearly as powerful as Kailasa. While Kailasa's sacred has some obvious weakness, it can be mitigated with bless. I have not seen anyone pointing out a great way to bless white ones. Sure with the right bless they smash indies quick, but elephants are just as quick against indies. Against decent human player, who uses arrows, low level evocations,heavily armored troops and so on, they are at disadvantage against most of the middle age nations.

Now about their mages. First, many of their summoned mages cost money to maintain. This is bad after paying 20N, you now have to pay 12G per month for a mage. Second, summons are less numerous than recruits. Can you get as many Yakasha as in Kailasa? And nature gems have many great use, like GOR and GOH. So if you use all your nature gems on summons, you lose out in other important area. Third, all their mages require lab+temple to recruit, wasting lots of money plus valuable time on your summoned mages, since none of your recruited mages is priest.

And there is their PD. Even backed up by Yakasha casting destruction (shouldn't he have better things to do?), 20 PD would be hard pressed to stop a similar cost invasion force. Against small raiding forces, esp. stealth ones, you have pratically no way to counter.

Then there is this ridiculous animal tag on all their troops and commanders. For god's sake, how can an almost transcend rishi be an animal where lowly peasants are "human"? In game term, it make sieging and defending against siege pointless for Bandar. You better recruit a lot of indies if you want to take any castle. And what happened to yogi's 7 morale? Even indy militias are better motivated. Oh, and what's the reason for guru's 2 combat movement? Since only immobile units (like a fountain) has combat movement of 2, are gurus made of stone?

Bandar do have potential in their summon department. But relying only on summon against others who can both recruit powerful mages and troops as well as summon, will not get you very far.

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

I'd say that blesses can be incredibly valuable in BL's late game, simply because their summons are almost always sacred.

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

There is a glaring lack of understanding on this siege issue, I've seen this repeated a few times lately.

Let me clarify - Animal (and Mindless) tags ONLY reduce your ability to defend. Animals and the Mindless can't rebuild walls effectively. They can, however, tear them down just fine. Bandar has no problem taking castles without indie troops. No trouble at all.

Defending is indeed another story. ;)


(Edit: Also, they do have severe drawbacks, that's why they're considered harder to play. However, direct comparisions to Kailasa do not hold water, as Kailasa faces entirely different threats in EA than BL faces in MA. They also have a different but overlapping set of tools to use against those threats. Yaksha and Yakshini are not primary mages for BL, but they are powerful methods to diversify magic, and so should be summoned. If I could summon Rishi with Kailasa, I think I would go for it as well.)

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

Just out of curiosity, where in the league of Ma nations would people place Bandar Log?

I have no experience of Bandar Log, I have never played them in SP or MP but I have just started a SP game with them out of curiosity, probably will never finish it but there you go.

From what I remember of Bandar in the Ma MP's I have played in they tend to do somewhere around average. Usually make the mid game and then are eliminated.

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

I'm quite fond of this thread. Can't resist reading the latest comments :)

I'm a bit puzzled. Astral is often considered the strongest path. Nature among the stronger. BL has them both. BL also have strong summons in astral which is otherwise rare.

On the other hand you will probably go into conjuration rather than other astral heavy schools at first, making your astral skills evolve slower than for other astral nations.