Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

IMHO Lobo Guards are some of the best arrow fodders you can get. They are amazingly cheap and never rout. R'lyeh is a good candidate for sloth scale, with lobo guards and illithids using few ressources.
Early expension works especially well with Lobo guards, it does not matter if you lose some of them, and 40-50 lobo guards will beat even 80+ triton troopers because their morale never breaks (unlike that of the tritons).

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Something I found out recently is the results of Void Summoning varies with the Luck scale. Therefore, I see Luck+3 as almost required for any Rlyeh strategy that plans to use the Void Gate.

This leads to two other benefits. First, you get your Heroes very quickly. This is good, because at least two of them (the Aboleth and the Traitor King) are powerful mages. The other benefit is, if you can get a Nature/Blood mage, you can use Crossbreeding. As you point out, Rlyeh makes better use of fodder than most.

A Sloth scale is possible, but I generally don't take it. I like the Meteorite Guards too much for that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif My normal preference is to take a Temperature scale, since they don't affect underwater.

As for Voice of Tiamat, while nice, I prefer using Acashic for those who can easily use it. And Rlyeh is arguably the people with the easiest time of it.

For me, I see Rlyeh's bane in Pangaea. Even their Satyrs have like a 13 MR, which sucks for the illithids.

Anyway, just my 2 yen.

R\'lyeh Strategies
 

R’lyeh
I have read some sporadic thoughts and strategy guides to R’lyeh on this forum and since I like the nation a lot and would like a discussion on how to improve my game play I post my take on how to play R’lyeh. I have not had much experience with MP, so some of the tactical choices may not be good from an MP perspective. I also tend to play R'lyeh quite magic heavy, since I find them to have excellent astral mages.

Combat.
The main advantage for R’lyeh is the Mindflayers (Illithids) mindbLast attack. Therefore I find the best way to use this advantage is to place different mindflayer Groups at the far rear of the battlefield with orders to Fire. Before them in the middle I place a large force of suicide infantry. In the early game this is Shambler thralls (24 hp, trample) and Meteorite guards (protection 17) grouped with whatever cheap throw away troops that are available, Hybrid and Hybrid Troopers are very good “throw away” troops. For some reasons I haven’t had much success with Hybrid soldiers, perhaps their Protection (12) is too low compared to their costs and Hybrid Troopers. I want to view Hybrid Soldiers as Heavy Infantry, maybe that is my error.

The infantries job is simply to keep the enemy away from the Mindflayers long enough for them to start paralyzing the enemy. Because enemies seldom get to mindflayers I favour normal Illthids before Illthid soldier, they have a 12 dmg mindbLast instead of 10, but don’t have the soldiers high Protection and melee stats. Simply put, R’lyeh is a horde army with heavy artillery.

Mid- and Late game I prefer the infantry section core to be high hitpoints summons instead. Sea kings court (3w Conj 6) and Abomination (4A 2W Conj 9) tend to do the job well, and can also be summoned underwater. Also, if you have had any luck with void summons a few otherness and other strange creatures fits nicely into the infantry section. Later on one also needs to take enemy fliers and flanking cavalry into consideration. Putting one smaller block of infantry at the rear with orders to guard and expanding the large infantry block into 3 different large parts that covers the with of the battlefield usually solves this.

R’lyehs biggest problem when it comes to armies tend to be that their throw away infantry block needs to be replaced a lot, since it usually takes high casualties (well, that is kind of the plan…). Free troopers like hybrid in coastal fort provinces helps, but it’s not until the mid or end game, when high hp summons are available, that this problem is reduced. Therefore units with some heat, cold or poison area effect are best avoided, since they usually hurt R’lyeh more then their enemies in the long run. (An infantry block of only Summer lions or Devils is doable but relies on magic paths that isn’t R’lyehs strength.). I also find R’lyeh to have bigger problems with other horde armies like Ermor and Pangea, since R’lyeh rely on their Illthids to paralyze the enemy. If their commanders have low magic resistance R’lyeh can make short work of them with mindbLasts and Thaumatergy, but that is kind of universal for all armies.

Priorities
Early game R’lyeh has 3 priorities apart from the usual expansion plans to get gold, resources etc.

1)Get Thaumatergy 1 and a Stargazer with 2 in astral magic to be able to cast Returning, then give him two astral pearls. Set 'Cast returning' on battle orders, and start your void summons.

2)Get a coastal province and build a fort and temple if there is an easy opportunity. With a positive dominion this will give you free hybrid troops.

3) Research Conj 4 to get Voice of Tiamat for easy magic site locations underwater.

Mid game you need to make up your mind on what kind of strategy you are going to use in expanding into enemy territory, will you use summoned armies for infantry blocks (Vine Ogres, Drakes, Trolls etc), or use spellcasters in battle. Both options are ofcourse doable in the end game, but they require different research paths. For summoned armies Conjuration or Blood paths would seem the best. But R’lyeh have powerful astral mages and spells like Soul slay, gateway and enslave mind in the Thaumatergy path is tempting. Evocation 1 for star fires and Alteration 2 for Quickness are also important if you are sending your Starspawns into battle. A side note is that Blood magic, although viable, tend to be harder to use with R’lyeh then other nations because blood slaves cant be hunted underwater and Starspawns seldom start with Blood magic. Since R’lyeh tend to use a lot of throw away troops Area effect evocation spells (fireball etc) tend to kill as many of your own troops as it kills enemies.

Commanders and Equipment.
Since Illthid commanders tend to stay behind their troops and use Mind bLasts melee weapons are seldom used. However some kind of protection from enemy missile and magic fire could be useful. I have had some success in mid game with making heavily equipted Traitor princes and using them on the flanks. I am however unsure if the time and resources making their equipment couldn’t have been spent on summoning more troops instead.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I used to play with luck +3, but have since stopped... I haven't noticed much difference in my Void Summons or getting heroes. I'm sure it has an effect... but not enough to be worth all those points. Luck 0 seems to do me fine.

I think Magic +3 is far more wise place to put points. For two reasons:

1) It makes Star Children actually useful for something (85 Gold, 6 Research), as they were nerfed pretty hard when paralyze got fixed
2) It lowers MR in your dominion, making mindbLasts more effective

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Thanks for these tips.

Mind me asking these questions?

- Temperature scales don't have affect underwater? Really? Sure? I didnt know that.

- Wait for a 2-astral Starspawn, really? I sort of give him guards. When you get those immobile thingies (forget name) they make great guards, since you cant do a heck of a lot with them otherwise (or are they amphib? then you could gate them. Forget). I never thought of wait-for-returning, however.

- I still have a hard time with scales. I like meteroite guards, and thought

- Those shambler tramplers: I dont have success with them. They die way too fast, be it to arrows later or tritons sooner. HOw do you use them? Id like to use them, but it seems I never have enough money for what I feel I get out of them....

- crabs -- anyone use them?

- pretender: I am almost always tempted to go air, just so I can make some Staffs of Storms, and maybe for a 20% bless air shield. I think a staff of Storms is a great item coming naturally to Ryleh, since they can still mind bLast in a storm. Also, with an Air random pick and a crafter who can make + winged helmet + bag o winds, you can have a mage cast Arrow Fend in your armies, and I am addicted to this spell with every nation I play. That may be why I fail to succeed, however -- any thoughts on this?

- I also like magic scale -- but that leaves me nothing for Order, which I feel obligated to take for those expensive units. Is there any "official confirmation" (from a dev?) that Void Summoning relies on Luck?

- Illitid Soldiers I am sometimes tempted to get in the beginning because those darn tritons are so fast. I just wish they didnt have that damn Trident and instead had their great lifedraining tentacles. Any thoughts on that?

- Anyone use bless effects? I figure a Water-9 could be interesting and sort of comes naturally, but have never tried it.

Thanks much

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

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

Quote:

- Wait for a 2-astral Starspawn, really?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Don't wait, use what you got. If you're lucky enough to recruit one, keep him in the capital to replace your current summoner when you lose him - or when he loses his mind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Quote:

I sort of give him guards. When you get those immobile thingies (forget name) they make great guards, since you cant do a heck of a lot with them otherwise (or are they amphib? then you could gate them. Forget). I never thought of wait-for-returning, however.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Guards are OK. Returning is better, except you can't cast it when feebleminded, so you can still use guards with Returning scripted, with a gotcha: the bodyguards will be lost if the summoner actually 'returns'. Ritual of Returning + Returning is 99% safe for the summoner, and you don't need guards in that case.

Quote:

- I still have a hard time with scales. I like meteroite guards, and thought

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">... and thought... what?

Quote:

- Those shambler tramplers: I dont have success with them. They die way too fast, be it to arrows later or tritons sooner. HOw do you use them?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't.

Quote:

- crabs -- anyone use them?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I do. They're great vs Atlantis.

Quote:

- pretender: I am almost always tempted to go air, just so I can make some Staffs of Storms,

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I do just the same.

Quote:

you can have a mage cast Arrow Fend in your armies, and I am addicted to this spell with every nation I play. That may be why I fail to succeed, however -- any thoughts on this?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Arrow Fend is one of the best battle enchantments. I can't see why it would prevent you to succeed.

Quote:

Is there any "official confirmation" (from a dev?) that Void Summoning relies on Luck?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've never seen any official confirmation, but I'm strongly inclined to think they're unrelated.

Quote:

- Illitid Soldiers I am sometimes tempted to get in the beginning because those darn tritons are so fast.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fodder (lobo guards or lesser Void summons), and either Crab Hybrids or the scale mail/trident infantry is what I use. Illithid support also helps, but it means less shock troops to dispatch the tritons. Of course, nothing beats tritons of your own to beat tritons. A communion-backed Poison Ward on your better shock troops is also nice to have.

Quote:

I just wish they didnt have that damn Trident and instead had their great lifedraining tentacles. Any thoughts on that?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Life drain is great, but tridents are also excellent weapons. At least they avoid your Soldiers to impale themselves on poisoned spears and accumulate damage.

Quote:

- Anyone use bless effects? I figure a Water-9 could be interesting and sort of comes naturally, but have never tried it.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Water-9 is easily affordable and very nice to have on Greater Othernesses, but not required. A bit of air and/or earth magic (3-4) is more useful in the long term.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Ah, thank you.
I forgot to finish my sentence, excuse me smoked too much -- I thought meteroite guards would be worth the production points, but maybe Im wrong.

Nice to see, however, that I am not the only Arrow Fend addict out there.

Argh, more people saying Luck helps summons and Luck doesnt help summons. ARgh.

Maybe I dont have success because I either get greedy/panicky and think: "quick, run to land while the indies are still for the taking and build castles!" or because I still go down to tritons or because I still get my illithids killed or because I (foolishly?) purchase those armored Illithids or because I foolishly forget my fodder or because I use my mages to search instead of cast those search spells (I have *never* used them, any of them, ever, on any nation! I think that is because I suck, videlect: I play very conservatively and instead conquering province for province for province, I usually get a province + wait/search/send for reinforcements/purchase mercs turn, repeat, so I am slow. And I suppose I research wrong things too....)

Uh sorry for the ramble. Thanks much for the help.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Smoking is hazardous to your train of thought. *ahem*

That said, I believe there's a relation between Summoning and Luck. I appear to get a higher success rate at a higher Luck dominion, but since I usually always take luck 2 or 3 (because me likes), I might be subjectively biased.

I also like and use Shambler Thralls. They're quite good as a secondary attack force. Place your fodder to the front, and your Shamblers a few spaces behind with attack closest. The fodder takes the pain, the Shambler dish out. This is great against both tritons and barbarians.
Just keep them away from evil archers.

That's not to say I know anything about playing R'lyeh, but they were the first race I won Dom II against impossible AI with, completely without constructing anything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Crab hybrids seems to work the best for absorbing the initial triton attack, especially if you've taken sloth and can't afford many meteorite guards. Good protection and hps. Lobo guards would work but you'd have to keep replacing them.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Mind me asking another question?

When do you folks head for land? I am always tempted to do this very very early, because I feel
- if I do it later the free indy land may be gone and it is too crowded to get a foothold
- I can start getting freebie fodder from those coastal castles early
- gem sites are better on land (?)

But I feel I do this too soon too, because
- I always get licked on land

What do you people think?

Thanks much

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

I prefer to go to land in the midgame at the earliest, unless there's a small patch/peninsula that's largely surrounded by water and can thereby be easily protected by a fortress. Aside from Atlantis or possibly Ermor, there's no competition for water resources early in the game and you should therefore snatch them up as quickly as possible and mine them thoroughly with Voice of Tiamat/Akashic Record (depending on your preferences in research.)

The advantages of land (hybrid spawning, greater variety in magic sites) aren't overwhelming initially and the biggest problem I find with them is that, due to R'lyeh's generally slow speed, it's difficult to send reinforcements to land provinces given that your best units are recruitable only in water. I prefer to bide my time, build forts near the coastal provinces that I want to start my aggression outwards at, and even let my opponents conquer indy provinces first, as they'll often move their forces elsewhere, leaving only PD behind. PD, in most cases, is easier to crush than indies on a high setting. This way you have solid reinforcements coming from the water directly next to your landing point. After that, you might consider consolidating your land presence with a quick fort+lab build, as nobody loves to see squids on shore. The lab will be a huge plus as you'll now have Gateway potential to speed up reinforcements to land AND you'll now have access to all the land-only summons you've hopefully been hoarding gems for.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Thanks very much.

You mention something that I also have a question about: Tiamat/Acashic.

I have never used these spells. It just seems I never have the gems for them, I use them for forging and whatnot. Are they worth it? I tend to send my Mage starspawns out searching with the pretender. How viable / stupid is that?
I should say: I have NEVER used a gem-search-spell, ever, with any race, because I usually search. (I play quite a bit of Tien S&A, which has natural searchers.) Is this newbie-ness from me?
thanks very much

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Voice of Tiamat is very cheap, and very useful, since it gives you all elemental sites in a province.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Given standard game settings, your mages can search about twice as effectively by using the searching spells as by moving to a province, then searching.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

OK. I guess I tended to search with the mages who had a lot of different paths, and those "auspex"-type spells which only find 1 type of gem seemed like a waste: I would need to cast that 4x or so to find all of those of one type. And by the time I have enough gems for Acashic, I already needed to search everywhere (the prerequisite for getting the gems to cast it in the first place).
But Tiamat I suppose is different....
thanks much

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Voice of Tiamat is very cheap, and very useful, since it gives you all elemental sites in a province.

Quote:

I should say: I have NEVER used a gem-search-spell, ever, with any race, because I usually search. (I play quite a bit of Tien S&A, which has natural searchers.) Is this newbie-ness from me?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Given standard game settings, your mages can search about twice as effectively by using the searching spells as by moving to a province, then searching. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It depends very much on what mages you have. A mage who has most of his power in one path (like Anathemant Salamanders) is better off casting search spells, if you can afford the gem cost; it really does double his effectiveness. A Master of Five Elements searches five paths at once if he goes and searches on the ground, but only one per search spell. The M5E won't find high level sites; but high level sites are rare (but also more powerful). A Celestial Master will find some high level sites and a lot of low level sites, but his time may be too valuable to spend on searching. Other mages fall somewhere in between. A Mystic will find most astral sites and some elemental sites if he goes and looks, but will find all astral sites and no elemental sites if he casts Arcane Probing; but you can Probe twice as many provinces per 2 months, if you can spare the gems for it.

It's very much a tradeoff, especially if you get few other benefits from the Thaumaturgy research required for most search spells. I tend to favor ground searching until I have a pretty healthy gem income to support a "divination squad" while still doing other things. But since the original poster specified he played Spring & Autumn T'ien Ch'i - I'm not sure it's ever worthwhile for them to switch to search spells (except the Masters of the Dead and possibly of the Way). Their magical breadth makes searching on the ground more efficient - at least for the low level sites that you can actually find that way.

Also, don't search (by *any* means) provinces that you don't think you can hold. It just gives more gem income and possibly recruitment options to whoever takes it away from you, unless you get really lucky and get a free fortress.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

Hm.

I have also noticed that some of the higher level sites arent even particularly great (give 1 gem).

I have also noticed that some site listed as requiring lvl-2 to find (according to that spreadsheet) I have found with lvl-1 mages....

Well it's food for thought. Thanks, I'll try this all out.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Before the patch it was good to go to land early. Land independents were in general much easier to deal with than tritons. Now with paralysis nerfed, I'm not so sure. There's rarely a whole lot of competition for ocean provinces (if Atlantis and to a lesser degree Ermor aren't in the game) but if you wait long enough people will start taking them.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The level 4 sites are all really good. There are some mediocre level 3 sites, but most of the really good sites are at least level 2.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

The consensus of opinion is that the luck scale has no influence on summoning from the void gate. While the developers have not spoken in their deep, Moses-like voice, only two people have noticed better summonings with high luck. Notable is that one player has found that even with luck –3, they still get the big summons. If this has changed since the patch or has been discussed while I have been focusing on work instead of reading the forums, please point me to the link so I can catch up.

Check out the “Stop the Insanity” thread, it has some good information. The easy way to find it is a search for luck void

Speaking of which, this thread seems pretty focused on how to fight without getting many summons. I think that you should plan for just this outcome and treat any goodies that come your way as a nice sideshow. The gate is too unpredictable for my taste and planning a strategy around it can burn you. I avoid taking a bless strategy with this race, as you get relatively few holy units and have little control over how many you do get. Of course, if you do get good summons, you can change your plan, and, if you planned for not getting them, you have a solid foundation to build on.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

I always go ashore early with R'lyeh.

The main reason being that 90% of all summons can only be done above water... and I don't think you can wait until mid-game, when all the idies are gone, to set up an above water lab.

It's probably better to merely establish a "beach head" (as has been noted: it's hard to reinforce your above water troops- until Gateway)... with a few provinces, before going back and consolidating the sea ones. The best is if you can snag a forest with Amazons(best) or Druids(good) you can pretty quickly get a Vine Ogre factory up and running... which are definately superb meat(er vine) shields for Illithid.

Re: R\'lyeh Strategies
 

I must say that while i have not gotten any more or extra creatures with luck + void gate, i do seem to get alot LESS lobotomized summoners with high luck. In point of fact i have NEVER had a summoner get feebleminded with 3 luck, while it invariably seems to happen before i get my summon skill above 10 with no scale bonus. While this doesnt equate to a thorough study by any means, i believe luck does in fact help your summons, just by keeping your summoners un-enfeebled.