Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Hi everyone, i just made a small game where i got a mage to level 25 void summoning skill, i must say im quite dissapointed.

All summons look, well....bad, the only good one is the vastness, ALL other summons i was able to get where quite weak or immobile.

Thing of many eyes, vile thing, elder thing, stuff like that, they looks nice and special, but once you actually USE them you notice how weak they are.

Is there any reason in actually summoning from the void UNLESS you have Gift of Health ? Because usually no commanders get more than summoning 5 without being febleeminded... Even the Stargazer isnt THAT much better at summoning..

Give me your opinion !

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Greater Othernesses are good. I think you've just had a run of bad luck with the feeblemindedness.

Anyway, even if all the other void beasts sucked, the Vastness more than makes up for that.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

They're your national sacred units, too. Greater Othernesses with a heavy Fire or Water bonus might be interesting.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have used GOs with Water-9 and they are ... intriguing. Fire-9 would make them impressive.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Well the Otherness where those big slimethings which had a trample attack right ? Whats so good in getting one or two big trampler which could attack your own mage ?

Honestly, i didnt like them. It isnt worth taking high magics for blessing to waste those summons. You wont get more than 2 or 3 each turn, maybe even less, and most are immobile or aquatic. Is there anything BETTER, BIGGER than the vastness ? some giant blob thingy which has area of effect death or something ?

....

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

I so far have 2 vastnesses and a number of greater othernesses and othernesses. These are fine for free units. Some of them seem to replace cavalry.

Most have mind bLast. That's like free illithids even if they're immobile.

I only have an astral-4 blessing since this is my first ry'leh game. High water for bless effects would indeed be very interesteing. I even think death would be nice since it would let you forge skull mentors and access death gems plus give you a fear blessing. I love that so many of the summons regenerate.

Vastnesses are amazing. It's fun to watch the AI's units attack the vastness and damage themselves due to the blood vengeance.

Best thing is all these units are almost free once you have your starspawn priest at astral 2. If you use returning and don't count the cost of the astral gems or replacing the feebleminded.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

[quote]Originally posted by Arryn:

Quote:

Originally posted by Taqwus: I have used GOs with Water-9 and they are ... intriguing. Fire-9 would make them impressive.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fire 9 would do nearly nothing for them. Trampling units only use their normal attacks against units the same size as themselves or larger.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The Greater Otherness is a mindless creature. It can't rout.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The vastness is one of the most powerful single creatures available. They have blood vengeance +2, which is the ultimate damage shield. Have a strategic movement of 10, and are only weak against masses of units and mind duel if gift of reasoned.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

What goes bump in the void, by courtesy of Sunray_be:

Elder Thing (First you can't move and then it starts messing with your head.)
Formless Spawn (All the crushing action of an otherness times two.)
Greater Otherness (Big blob crush you good!)
Lesser Otherness (Tiny blob poke your knee!)
Otherness (Medium blob errh... pummels the opposition?)
The Dweller In The Deep (It paralyzes, it weakens, it kills! The ultimate mobile missile turret.)
Thing from Beyond (Green dead mans hand wants man dead)
Thing from the Void (If it ever gets there the enemy will get the slapping of a lifetime)
Thing Of Many Eyes (R'lyeh Version of an evil garden gnome)
Thing That Should Not Be (But it is. And what's worse it's coming your way.)
Vastness (It's a bird? It's a plane? No it's the evil snooker balls from hell!)
Vile Thing (The void summoning consolation price)

It's not that summoning is that good. In fact the irregularity and risks involved can be mighty frustrating. It's the fact that R'lyeh gets their sacred units for free and got the chance to churn out something really nasty when you least expect it.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Greater othernesses are giant tramplers, regenerating, completely immune to fire, cold, lightning AND poison, very high hp, good protection, unroutable, fast and *sacred*.

Sooo - what exactly is the problem here ? ;p

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Vile Thing
You make my heart sing
You make everything SPOOKY
Vile Thing

Vile Thing
I think I fear you
But I gotta know for sure ...


Sorry, one too many trips to the Void Gate,
V'ger gone

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The ultimate acid trip ...

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Uh, oh. It looks like Vger's been feebleminded. No more Void Gate for him.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Given that Starspwn have only a 5% chance of feebelmindedness, it's not a bad deal. Once their summoning skill increases, they really start pulling in the good spawns.

What's more likely and dangerous than the feeblemindedness is the outright attacks on your summoner. What you can do is assign the immobile summons to act as bodyguards for the summoner. If the summoner gets attacked, the "Guard Commander" units defend. I also like to slap a anti-magic amulet on my summoner, because the biggest threat is from Mind Burn attacks. My Starspawn beat a Vastness once in one-on-one combat.

[ March 03, 2004, 17:39: Message edited by: Master Shake ]

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I generally use Crab Hybrids until I get useful void creatures.

EDIT: Another tip is to add a Ring of Warning so you can have 10 bodyguards.

[ March 03, 2004, 18:17: Message edited by: Zurai ]

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

huh, the usual starspawn has a chance of 5% to get feebleminded ? You must be wrong, thats TOTALLY out of way. That would mean each starspawn could get 20 summon tries in average, thats DEFINITLY not how it is right now.

Even the Stargazer himself has a bigger chance, im almost 100% sure.


Edit: Major typo

[ March 03, 2004, 19:06: Message edited by: Ragnarok-X ]

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

I believe it's 5% for the Priest Starspawn (may be 10%) and 2% for the Stargazer.

[ March 03, 2004, 19:06: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

uh Zen has spoken. I have to admit Zen is well known and really into the game, he is right most times.

Anyway, i tried 2 games with luck 3 to the Stargazer and both time he got feebleminded after 4 Summon tries (3 were succesfull), so he even got the summoning 3 skill .


5 % ?

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Correct.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

okay, so i must have been doing something really wrong.

2% lol, thats what i call bad luck.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's 5% per turn spent summoning I believe, not 5% per summoning event.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Don't let it get you down, I'm having the same bad luck. I tried this race for the first time and my void summoners got feebleminded 5 times in the first 7 attempts. They usually summoned a couple of things so it wasn't a total loss, but my first attempts left a lot to be desired. I ended up looking at the void summons as a bonus. I built my empire around the regularly available units and if I managed to get anything useful from the summons, I counted myself blessed.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

My Last R'lyeh game, my Starspawn priest made it all the way to summoning level 19 before feeblemind. By that time, he had a chalice, too. He quickly got better, and went all the way to 25.

Priest has a %5 feeblemind chance. Mage, also called Starspawn, big diff, has a %20. Thats a big chance, and might be why you are feeling its so common.

Stargazer is practically immune.

And I also recommend the spell returning. At 2 astral gems every 8 turns or so, its practically free.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

In my Last game as Rl'yeh, I combined Gift of Health (via an empowered and artifact-enhanced lizardman shaman) with Ritual of Return. That was the key to keeping the summons coming.

I had a pair of Starspawn Priests in the capital. One would summon until feebleminded, and then his partner would take over while Gift of Health healed the first one. The Ritual of Return protected them to some degree from those ambushes by void creatures.

It worked out really well, even given the cost of researching Gift of Health (which was actually a side-effect of going for something else) and boosting the nature mage up. Since the nature mage provided many other benefits as well, it was a good system. I think I might use a Pretender with nature magic next time, however, as that would remove the problems of finding and training/forging for an independent nature mage.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm wondering why you used a shaman instead of a starspawn with 1 nature, or a jade sorceress, or a druid.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

I couldn't seem to 'draw' an appropriate Starspawn, and the attempts were getting expensive. Just some lousy luck there. I didn't have access (at the time) to any other guaranteed nature-Users, so I went with what I had. It wan't so much a deliberate "let's use a lizardman!" choice as a "man, I can't keep shelling out 280 gold a pop" thing.

One would expect, however, to normally be able to get a Starspawn with nature magic a bit easier.

Re: Use for R\'lyeh void summons ?
 

Just an FYI, if something has a probability of 5%, it does _not_ have an expected value of 20. IIRC, the standard Expected Value formula is .7/p, where p is the probability of the event. Therefore, if p=.05, then the Expected Value is 14. For p=.02, the EV should be 35.

(The Expected Value is the number of trials expected before a true result occurs.)

Bayushi Tasogare