Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

I tried Atlantis for the first time with the thought of using clam hoarding. I had a nice astral economy and empowered a mage to cast wish. I thought I had the game in hand until I realized my upkeep had greatly exceeded my income to the point I had to wish for gold just to keep my head above water. Also, Atlantis' troops use a huge amount of supply, so much that forging cauldrons of broth was not enough. I will lose this game due to losing all my dominion. Any tips on dealing with Atlantis' supply and upkeep issues? Do you rely on summoned troops?

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

i'm not a big atlantis player, but I have to say i'm puzzled as to how/why atlantis especially has supply problems? perhaps you were buying too large standing armies of chaff troops? But even so, how was it that you weren't able to pay upkeep - was ermor's dominion marauding over your own, or were you just losing prime territories in a war?

also, the cauldron of broth sucks. only make bags of neverending wine.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Yes, I was losing dominion to someone, but how does that affect income? Also, isn't upkeep based on troop size? Atlantis' troops are sizes 2+, so they require a lot of upkeep. Any why do cauldrons suck? They provide more supply than bags of wine.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

1. enemy dominion decreases your income by i believe 1% per pt (and your own dominion likewise improves income by the same amount). However, undead dominion (ermor especially, but also carrion woods pangaia) will cause all of your population to die, thus rather affecting income from said provinces ;-)

2. upkeep is based solely on purchase cost and sacred status. upkeep is 1/15 of purchase, or 1/30 of purchase cost for sacred units. Supply used by units is based on unit size.

3. Cauldrons provide 50 supply for 20 nature gems. Bags of wine provide 25 supply for 5 nature gems. Thus, bags are twice as efficient as cauldrons. If you use dwarven hammers, the bags (@3 gems) are two and a half times as efficient as cauldrons (@15 gems).

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Enemy dominion doens't affect your income straight, with the exception of C'tis Miasma IIRC, but Ermor's dominion kills population *very* fast. Pangaea: Carrion Woods does that also. And if that nation's dominion takes your provinces' scales to negative, that will hurt you. I think enemy dominion also increases unrest, and that in turn lowers income.

Upkeep is not based on troops' size, but recruiting price. 1/30 for most units, 1/15 for sacreds. So remember to watch the number of those mages! Supply use is based on troops' size, and you might have confused it with upkeep.

Wineskins are more cost effective. 5 gems for 25 food is worse than 20 for 50, but You can forge 4 wineskins for 20 gems and get 100 supply points... If you give them to four commanders, that is. Wineskins don't stack with wineskins, cauldrons won't stack with cauldrons, but wineskin and cauldron on the same commander will work fine.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Yeah, I confused the two. I still need tips on reducing upkeep costs and running out of supply though. I think part of the problem is I get tired of micromanaging taxes and have a lot of unrest reducing my income. What sorts of troops do you normally recruit for Atlantis?

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

As arch says, supply is based on size: your lobsters eat as much as 5 size2 troopers, and your shamblers eat twice as much.

Solve your upkeep problems with a better economy: better economic scales (order, production, growth & luck), a higher admin fort, building forts in your best provinces income-wise, searching for fire-earth gems & alchemizing them with an alchemist stone)

Solve your supply issues with a growth scale (increases supply inside your dominion +20% per pick, and with further increases over time because of population increases), and by picking a good admin fort & building it in those provinces you have supply problems (forts have a supply radius).

A lot of people play nowadays with low admin forts & a death scale, maybe that just doesn't suit you (it's definitely not a 'must do' as far as I am concerned).

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

War lobsters are size 5 and shamblers (which I mainly used in the game) are size 3. So how do shamblers eat twice as much?

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Twice as much as a normal man, he meant. Supply consumption = max(1, size - 1). Except for troops that 'need not eat', of course. [Edit: and Celestial Servants, who eat more].

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Supply consumption is

MIN(size-1, 1)

That's why. Size 2 humans and those ever-hungry Hobb^Hurgs eat 1 supply, but shamblers (size 3) eat 2, and war lobsters, if they're size 5, eat 4. All assuming the lack of the need-not-eat flag.

BTW, if you can Wish but you lack the nature mages to forge, I -think- you can wish for "food" and get some supply items in a hurry. Haven't cast it to find out how much it actually gives you, 'tho. Also, if you -do- have nature mages... look for a nature/earth mage who can get you Summer Swords, as they do stack with wineskins.

Regarding unrest, it might be good to drop taxes ~10% for every 5 points of unrest or so, if you've already dealt with the cause of unrest -- including restoring your own dominion over it, as enemy dominion causes unrest. Some provinces are better off with a permanently < 100% tax rate, namely provinces with unrest-generating sites.

If you need to get rid of non-amphibious units in a hurry, consider Gatewaying them into a province where they can't survive.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Yup, I meant twice as much as a normal trooper for shamblers (2 supply per shambler) and missremembered regarding lobsters thinking they were size6 when they are size5, so it's indeed 4
supply per lobster and not 5.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

MAX, not MIN. Or else, I'd play Jotunheim every time - or maybe the Hoburg mod: huge hoburg armies that don't consume anything, who can beat that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

I think I see the source of my upkeep problem. I kept casting Sea King's Court and each troll costs 10 gold in upkeep!

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Nope, only the Sea Kings cost that much, ordinary Sea Trolls cost 3 times less. That's not the source of your supply problems anyway, since these critters don't eat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

OK, but still after you cast it 10 times that's 600 gold in upkeep.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

yeah, no doubt that's quite a bit. on the other hand, you'll have 10 sea kings and 150 trolls. those have got to be good for something http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

I have always considered it totally ludicrous that sea trolls and trools cost upkeep while all other summons are free. It really destroys the ability to use water gems for summons. It is one of the many things that make water gems less useful than other types of gems.

You can improve your gold upkeep problem by using Mother Guards, who are half the upkeep compared to the other Atlantis national troops. MGs, especially with a water 9 bless, are powerful critters indeed.

Of course, the MGs at size 3 are the worst possible thing for your supply problems. It is a HUGE increase when going from 1 required supply for your spearmen to 2 for the MGs. You are on the right path, though, building wineskins, cauldrons, and even summer swords, all which stack on a single commander. Just bring along 4-5 scouts always on hide and sneak carrying these items and your troops will never starve. The scouts will not die in battle while hiding so you don't risk losing your needed supply bonuses with the death of the wrong leader (per Murphy's law).

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Upkeep is based on purchase cost. Supply usage is based on unit size. The upkeep for a unit is 1/15 of its gold cost per turn, or 1/30 if the unit is sacred.

Cauldrons provide 50 supply for 20 gems, winebags provide 25 supply for 5 gems. Winebags are twice as cost-effective.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Yeah, typo w/ MAX/MIN.

Once you have the construction research for bags, aye, go with the bags unless you have extremely few nature mages but a glut of nature gems (in which case, why aren't you summoning Lamia Queens and -getting- more nature mages) or need the supply ASAP. Slots aren't a huge issue since scouts can carry the bags... and the scouts can also carry gems/slaves for rationing purposes or items you may want to withhold based on the situation (say, Staff of Storms, although Atlantis with its lack of missile/flying troops will rarely have a reason to not like Storms unless meeting an air nation with units getting storm bonuses... and in that situation it's not like the storm isn't going to happen anyway.)

Using more scouts/slots also somewhat reduces the impact of a spell remotely killing one of your scouts.

The sea troll summons might still be interesting for the Sea Kings; what are the requirements for Quickening, for instance? The trolls themselves, hm... perhaps not that impressive. Perhaps clams, then Abominations for something still vaguely thematic (more R'lyeh ish 'tho) after you're done equipping the Elemental Queens of Water. Or Wolven Winter + Murdering Winter...

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

So you benefit from supply items carried by scouts and other units that aren't commanding the troops themselves?

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Sea trolls and normal trolls both cost upkeep for a very good reason: both are site recruitables from Troll Pit (normal trolls for the earth site, land only, sea trolls for the sea-only water site). Sea trolls cost 50 gold, hence 3 and fractions upkeep, normal trolls cost 60 gold and 4 upkeep.

Both sea kings and troll kings cost 150 gold, hence 10 upkeep. Sea trolls in general are completely worthless. They only have fist as weapon, thei have an abysmal attack and poor defense rating and relatively poor morale. Their only redeeming quality is not needing supplies, and that doesn't compensate for their weaknesses. They are better in Zen's spell mod, have claw for attack and an improved attack rating.

As a side note, other creatures that are summonable and cost upkeep are black hawks (5 gold, so 3 of them cost one upkeep), thralls, Mictlan slave levies, madmen and mad deep ones (1 gold each), as well as mad priests and holy deep ones. I'm not sure about Draconians, I need to check that.

Edi

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Yes, splooger, you do. All that you need is having the supply present in a province. Summer Sword + Wineskin on a non-combat commander such as a scout does wonders for the supply problem.

Edi

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Cool, that's good to know. I'll have to revise my tactics for the next game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

On a vaguely related note, if I have a sneaking, hidden scout carrying the Chalice, will the healing effects still work?

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

It should.

Edi

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

The Chalice definately works on a hidden unit - had 2 afflictions removed from my pretender the same turn she moved into the province a scout was hiding out with the Chalice in.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

That is a truly lame reason for making summoned trolls cost upkeep. The summoned ones ought to be free, and they could make the recruitable ones cost upkeep or not. I suppose this might be a tricky programming task, and that is perhaps why the developers took the easy way out on this.

Having some summons cost upkeep while most are free is not very balanced. It is a sad tribute to the weakness of water gems vs. other gem types that the best amphibious water summons are abysimally weak and even cost gold to maintain. At least there are many, many good earth summons besides trolls, and earth trolls are a Last resort summons to be used only in extremis when you need a quick army but don't have the superior earth summons researched yet.

Either ALL summons should cost or NONE should. A half-baked measure is not a good idea. Myself, I favor the idea that all summons should cost upkeep so as to make national troops a bit more attractive for use beyond the early or mid game.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Shouldn't even be tricky to program - just like there are already multiple "flavors" of militia, each with its own unit type, there could be 2 separate unit IDs for water and earth trolls - recruitable ones could then cost upkeep, summoned ones be free, and otherwise they could be identical to one another.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

That would render AshenEmpire and SoulGate probably unplayable. But there should be at least an icon that makes one aware of upkeep-freeness, similar to need-not-eat!

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

I'll never understand why so many people believe this. There's absolutely no relation between summoning and upkeep.

Even longdead and souless? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

There must be a problem with using the English language here, Nagot. I don't understand what you mean by 'many people believe this'. Believe what exactly?

And you are wrong about one thing. There definitely IS a relation between summoning and upkeep. When you cast Sea King's Court, you will see a major spike in your upkeep costs. That is a CLEAR relation between the two. But for most summons, the statement about no relation is true, which is prescisely my point as to the gross imbalance in the various types of summons (expecially trolls).

As for the idea of ALL summons costing upkeep, I suppose it does hurts the undead Ermor themes, even if a soulless cost basis were something like 2 gold. However, it would have the nice benefit that Ermor armies would no longer be able to grow nearly to infinity like they can do now.

Perhaps it would be better if NO troops and NO summons cost upkeep. Let your commanders be the only troops which costs upkeep. The commander upkeep costs would, of course, have to be raised to balance the game properly. This would make building armies a GOOD thing for the entire game, unlike they way it is now.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

He is saying that being a summoned unit does not and should not automatically mean that that unit does not want to be payed. consider Draconians, for example. They are living units , race unlike any others, ready to serve if they are contacted but surely not for free.

And Ashen Empire's armies can only grow to infinity" as long as they manage to gather more provinces under their rule and keep their reanimators safe. And their armies will die very quickly to all kinds of priests, and if they don't have infinite amounts of time they can't have enough units to properly defend themselves...

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Even at the cost of 1 gold per unit, that would mean every 15 soulless/longdead would cost 1 upkeep, which is untenable for Ermor.

I don't see a problem with certain types of summons costing money (e.g. trolls, they tend to be greedy), while the black hawks was a sort of "WTF?" revelation because other animals are free. And as for Sea King's Court, can anybody give me a single good reason to summon one other than a desperate stopgap measure when you have no other options? Without the changes to the sea troll that come with Zen's spell mod, the spell is useless unless you need a W3 mage you want to buff up to cast a ritual, but then you could just as well empower a W2 mage to W3 for the same price.

Edi

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

If I understand you correctly, your main issue (when you write "Either ALL summons should cost or NONE should") is one a game balance, and that's OK with me. Yet I know many people who genuinely believe that, since almost all summonable don't cost upkeep, then Trolls (eg) shouldn't cost upkeep - as if there was a rule that ties summonability to (lack of) upkeepness. And thus they call that a bug, or an oversight, or an inconsistency - or, at best, a misfeature.

Misunderstanding here: what I say is each unit in the game has a cost (which may be zero) and thus an upkeep value (derived from its cost and its holy status). Then there are mechanisms (summoning rituals, 'call allies' or 'reanimate' ability on leaders, dominion/unit/GE auto-ummoning) that give you specific units. But none of these mechanisms alter these units' cost and upkeep values. In your example, the spike is due to the Trolls' upkeep, and only to that: it would be just the same if you had recruited these units at a site - so it's not related to the summoning ritual itself. It could be demonstrated another way: mod Trolls and Troll Kings so their base cost is zero, then cast the ritual: the spike isn't here anymore - therefore the spike isn't related to the ritual.

The real imbalance is one of magic vs economics. When you compare PPP to Dom 2, the most obvious change is the economics took a major hit while the magic system remained the same. In PPP, the most competitive approach was to max economics at the cost of your magic scale (drain 3 was pretty common then - actually it was the default choice for most PPP players I know), and field huge national armies of elite troops with a snowballing effect. In Dom 2 your recruitable troops still cost the same, but your econ is about ~2.5 weaker, so you need to push research more to compliment your forces with summonable troops ASAP. And Lastly, both faster access to summonables, and the bigger hit of unaltered upkeep over a toned-down econ, tend to make national troops obsolete much much sooner than it used to be in Dom 1.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Too true. On the other hand, Draconians are supposed to be sentient allies rather than tamed pets, IMO they should cost upkeep just like Trolls do. Similarly, I thind it odd that some animal pets (Hydras, Sacred Serpents) cost upkeep, while some (Drakes, Wyverns) don't. It makes sense for elephants or mooses, though (crew).

Maybe one thing that could be done to upkeep-free summons, to help the upkeep/no upkeep debate cooling down, is to give some of the free simmon a chance to disappear in special circumstances. A few ideas:

- Wolves could get a 10% chance to return to wildlife habits each turn they're in a forest.

- Each lesser demon (Devil, FoD, etc.) could get a 30% chance to return to Hell when the blood mage who bound him dies (assuming they bring back the mage's soul to their infernal master). This could also apply to Soul Contract holders.

- Soulless and longdead could get a 5% chance to have the unholy energies that animate them dissipate. Likewise, Vine creatures could turn back to moss and roots.

- Mechanical constructs could get a 20% chance to de-construct (maybe giving a few gems back if there's a lab in the province) when their "assembler" dies.

Well, the numbers may have to be fiddled with, but you get the idea. Maybe the units' experience could be accounted for when these checks are made, eg a 5-stars wolf has certainly been tamed for a long time, and would be less likely to listen to the 'Call of the Wild': 10% - (2 * exp)% chances to desert, say.

They do a great job in sieges, and I use them mainly for that (although not only). In one game I summoned 3 Sea King's Court in 2 turns just because it was the fastest and safest way for me to crack a seemingly-unbreakable enemy capital's open. I have to admit I did summon them at a site that gave me a huge discount on Conjurations, though (it was called Ultimate Gateway, IIRC).


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Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Why? Is there any particular reason why this should be the case. Some units costing upkeep is not a balance issue in itself, although it might be a balance issue that Sea Trolls in particular costs upkeep.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

I suppose that this is a personal pet peeve on my part. Having played Atlantis twice in the Last month, I do not like the fact that sea trolls are a terrible summons, primarily because they cost upkeep while most other summons do not. It is a huge disadvantage to Atlantis.

But, unfortunately, sea trolls are really the only amphibous water summons which can give you a quick army. However the upkeep kills you, and this makes water gems less useful for summoning than pretty much any other type.

That is another reason why many people convert their water income to astral income through clams.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Indeed, many players don't like the way that water magic has very few good mid to high level spells, the worst summoning spells in the game, very few high end magic items, and perhaps most frustrating of all - doesn't even function as well as air magic for underwater combat.

(The fact that water has a few very potent lower level spells / items such as quickness, BoW, boots of haste, etc, doesn't take away the fact that there are very few reasons to desire more than 2 or 3 points of water magic : Water blessing, extra Claymen (dubious), Water Queens, and Murdering Winter or Niefel Flames.)

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

Falling Forst can also get quite powerful with enough Water magic, and Breath of Winter benefits from high Water magic rating as well.

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

And wasn't there also thread recently where people demanded the nerfing of frozen hearts? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I quite like my water magic!

Re: Atlantis and upkeep/supply
 

A water tactic with Atlantis are bottles of water. Stick a couple on your priests/ commanders and you can build up quite an effective supply/upkeep free force, that will still be with you next battle even if they die... Dwarven hammers to help create them cheaper of course helps. Only troops I normally recruit are the coral guards, and a few lobsters for early undersea expansion.

Need to watch out that in cold provinces they freeze, and can kill your own forces due to the cold cloud around them. Also don't count to seiges AFAIK, though they do take part in the storming