Kailasa VS Lanka
 

So... in the interests of a very quick blitz, HJFudge and I started up a blitz in the IRC chatroom called Planet of the Apes. It involved Kailasa vs. Lanka on a small map.

Neither of us had played either nation before.

I lost. (Big surprise, right?)
That leads me to three questions:

1). Why are Kailasa's only, ONLY priests capital only, holy one, and 360 gold?

Needless to say, banishment was not much of an option, let alone smite demon. It also made it very hard to bless my sacreds. (I coulda used my air bless to keep off those archers)

It's also worth noting that the demonic nation of Lanka has ready access to more holy magic, including Smite Demon (ironically enough on demons and demonic-half-breeds) than Kailasa, with actual divine beings.

2). If monkey pd causes a player to lose a game, and there are two monkey nations, what happens? Does the universe implode?

3). In a close range deathmatch like this, what and how might Kailasa win against Lanka? Anything?

The only ideas I have are air bless and earth meld.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Kailaisa is pretty kick-*** at blesses as well. Also, rush Thaum5. Double-Blessed+quickened 25 hitpoint troops with awe and 2 s15 attacks per round (4 when quickened) can do a whole lot of damage. I played against myself, and they were easily a match for vanheim and helheim's best(and with that damage output, presumably neifelheim as well). Use them in small groups with an indy preist per 10 yavanas for decent effects.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Ha ha ha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif LOL at (2).

And (3) is easy. Just have me play Lanka, and then Kailasa will win.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

There's nothing stopping you from Prophetizing a Yogi and busting out a Communion for mad H5 Banishments. Toss in an SC god like the Great White Bull, and you could have been knocking on Lanka's door on turn 10.

Lanka is also vulnerable to archers until its gets Arrow Fend or Storm, and you've got a holy Archer with a Precision of 12(Death Bless anyone?) and rocktossing Bandar.

Lanka also fields small armies in the early game, so anything that slows down small armies is key. Earth Meld would be deadly.

Close range deathmatches are all about SC gods and blesses and bad scales, and magic you can get within the first 2 or 3 path levels.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

You could always try an awake, F9 dragon with dom10, order 3, sloth2, heat 3, misfortune 2, drain 2.

The dragons awe+breath should be able to handle indy troops easily. Your sacreds will be deadly, even on Lankas sacreds(although an E9 bless would still make Lankas sacreds tough), and your sacreds+pretender will be extremely effective if Lanka summons a few of those lovely, 50% fire weakness nationals.

If you manage to research up to either Conjuration 5 or Evocation 5 you will be in a great position. F9 Gandharvas are deadly and still tough if you take conjuration, where-as your national mages casting gifts from heaven, falling frost and(against chaff mainly) earthquake/bladewind can do alot of damage. Your F9 Dragon casting falling fires should also decimate just about anything Lanka has.
You could also head for alteration 4 instead, for destruction(destruction+F9 Yavanas=dead enemies).

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Eh,.. I don't think going full on for a H5 banishment is actually going to be a sensible strategy against Lanka. If they even work out you're using it all they have to do is use their non demonic sacreds (they aren't that much worse).

I haven't heard anything about the Great White Bull being a good monster SC before. In what way is it better than/comparable with a wyrm? I'm not doubting, just asking.

From quick tests, death bless affliction bonus doesn't actually help archers that much. I mean you afflict some stuff, but a better bless on melee troops that costs about the same would allow you do deal far more damage. It might be effective if the archers were cheap and numerous, but Kailasas sacreds aren't either of these things. Also bar in mind the lankan sacreds are probably rocking a strong nature bless, so cut down chance for afflictions and far less chance that arrows will wear them down.

Those low resource Bandar light infantry with their cheap and fairly effective rock tossing might be an idea, though I doubt they'd fare too well against the nature blessed good hp lankans.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

I ran a quick test of 10 turns of gold-equivalent:

atavi archers, yogi (Mind Burn), warriors, awake pretender casting Flaming Arrows then summoning skeletons/dead, prophet casting 2 * courage then banishment,

versus

50 N9E9 Palankashas with a prophet casting bless then smite, imprisoned god.

Lanka won, with about 10 losses. Probably could have gone with less yogi (I made 10), they just made the Palankas mad.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

I probably would have used meatshields of markata. The Def 14 and low costs means that the Rakshasa will actually kill them slower than the armored Bandar, and cost a whole lot less.

Also, rather than enchantment 4, I'd aim for Evocation 5. If that pretender had been spamming Shadow Blast and instead of Yogis you toss down the E3 or W3 guys, I think you'd have seen more Lanka deaths.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Lanka are strong early on, while Kailasa is strong late game. This makes a blitz very unbalanced in favor of Lanka imho.
It you manage to last till you can summon Gandharvas and build lots of mage priests, Kailasa can win, but not against a rush.
I once played a Ramayana game myself, and Kailasa won because I wanted to see how the late game summons were, Lanka happened to have a crappy starting location, and I toyed a lot. So the game lasted longer than it should have due to 'let's try seducing with rakshasi' and 'I want to see all national Summons', which led to a big advantage for Kailasa late game. Early on, they suffered more than a little.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

The bigger part of Kailasas defence in close combat comes from awe on the units, but as lanka is fielding morale 16 troops (blessed palanksha) this wont work very well.

Vfbs example is a bit biased, if you would fight the palankshas with the equivalent of yavanas Blessed with S9F9 lanka should take bigger losses than with a army of archers. Also mostly when you use archers with kailasa, they do more friendly fire than harm to the enemy.

Later on when kailasa has Gandharvas and Celestial music, lanka will be in pretty much trouble.

The problem with kailasa is, that you need arrow fend (or armys of gandharvas) to fight against enemy archery before that their arrows will just kill you. Also units with high morale (skellyspamming) can kill your units easy.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Thanks for the tips, K! Actually I was using Atavi warriors in the test, not Bandar, I thought it would take longer to kill them. I didn't even think about using the little monkeys. Too bad the little guys have 14 move, it would be nice if they ran slower so that the Palankas could waste more time on them.

I ran it again, this time with 200 Markata archers as the "meatshield", 100 atavi archers in the backfield, and 1 Bladewind caster, 2 Falling Frost casters, god Shadow Blasting. It looked promising, but the Bladewind was less effective than Falling Frost, and the atavi didn't do much damage without Flaming Arrows.

So I tried one more time, 200 Markata only, 5 Falling Frost casters, god Shadow Blasting. Worked well until turn 6. Then the god decided to start buffing and the mages decided to banish instead of frosting. Bleh.

But if I research both Enchant 4 and Evoc 5, then Lanka dies to the combo of spells and flaming arrows.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Pretenders aside, I'd never think Kailasa would ever be a good match against Lanka. Lanka is one of the strongest nations, from what I've heard.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

And now give Lanka some mages and thugs too, and cry as your monkeys bite dust. I dont understand why is everyone saying 'side A has much stronger troops, but side B can even that with magic'. Magic works for both sides.
Anyway, Lanka has a potential to become very strong, yes, but so far it seems its much weaker than Mictlan so you can go against Langa and win 1 vs1. Monkey demons are harder to amass than Jaguar, early summons are weaker etc.
In one of our games Kailasa actually rushed Lanka early with a Deva god. Defense boosted over 30 and an eye shield took care of the demons easily, while Lanka didnt think of using same eye shields on its commanders against Deva. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

As someone suggested, I can use Markata archers as archer decoys. The problem is those fast low-resource herbivore demons mess up my targetting plans. I did take an awake air pretender for a reason, but place him too close to my chaff. There's nothing to gain by casting aim on Atavi. Because of our close proximity, not much research can be gained. I 'spect alteration 2, maybe.

I think if I replayed the same match, I'd be much more cafeful to have a prophet ready, cut back on the sacred recruits in favor of earlier Earth-Melders and play more defensively, resisting the temptation to rush their castle. Maybe I'd raid their nearby provinces though to cut down on resources, gold. I'd use some monkey PD as a very small speedbump while casting Earth-meld with enough durable bodyguards to prevent an auto-route, and then maybe throw in some archers. I would take that same low air bless, but actually have a prophet on hand..

I expect I might be defeated again, but at least not in such a laughable matter. Because of their runner demons, I ended up targetting the wrong guys altogether.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

In our "fight club" scenario, we are looking at ways to defeat the Lanka rush which they do so very well on turn 10.

Frankly, Lanka's main weakness is that they lag in early game research because they have so many competing things to make like blood hunters, Reanimating priests, and Blessing Priests for Tigerhead Armies. On turn 10 they might only have a 1 or 2 in one path.

Kailasa, on the other hand, can start heavy research on Turn 1, and have a 5 on turn ten.

So in our scenario, we are looking at Kailasa's strengths vs Lanka's weaknesses, since we already know that on the flipside Lanka's strengths naturally trump Kailasa's weaknesses.

On turn 30, I'd say it was anyone's game. Player skill, position, and just plain luck in site searching matter more than what nation you are playing, but at turn 10 it seriously is a finite problem of "what did you build and what did you research."

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Interesting way to phrase things, K.

I think I do need to look at it in another light. Although this is a very cramped map, I may consider refocusing. While we both have equivalent stealth forces, a focus on their national sacreds left them with one army about 80 strong. If I focus on my expansion, research, and enough raiding to slow them down, I may be able to change the balance of the game.

Suppose I take one magic scale, do about 8 research a turn from those earth sacred mages.

Go with trying to survive to turn 11... it's worth noting that stealth troops can go into a sieged fortress to reinforce it, or go out to raid/eat.

think of research starting on turn 2, putting sacred troops as a low priority... (8+80)/2*10 = 440 RP. On standard, looking at the aggregate research total 40, 100, 200, 360. That's level four easy, with a little leeway, and if I had went with the standard blitz easy research, even more.

Hmm... that'll give me a lot to think about next time someone wants a "quickie" and I want a Planet of the Apes rematch.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

For a beforementioned Deva SC you just need construction 2. Quite possible to have on turn 10, right? Awe + fear + eye shield should disperse Lanka's main army.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

This should be etched in stone as the top line of the forum.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Except the problem is infinitely complicated by the "what did they build and what did they research" problem. Which makes it a game. If there was only one way to do this, it would be a broken game.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

I was trying to come up with a solution that actually used monkey troops though. I do think Kailasa needs an awake pretender to counter Lanka. And Lanka needs an imprisoned pretender to get E9N9 (or W9N9 or W9E9 etc)

Kailasa can research const 4 by turn 10 with an awake pretender. But one problem with using an SC god solution is that there are counters. Lanka can research const 2 by turn 10, and Yogini can make Eye Shield thugs too. Lanka can Spirit Curse by then too.

If you use an AOE weapon like a Frost Brand, do you still lose an eye? Maybe not if you miss the actual hit and only do AOE damage, I'm not sure.

And Awe+0 or Awe+3 is not effective against blessed Palankas, since when blessed they have Morale 16. Fear is that not effective either against Morale 16, and if a N9 Palanka gets wounded but not killed (Frost Brand AOE hit), it berserks.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Next time just try to out obnoxious bless him. Imprisoned Fountain of Blood with B10,W10,N4. order3, sloth 3,heat 3,Death 3, luck 0, drain 2.

Blood bless is not as good as a fire bless. But the Kailissa sacreds really benefit from it. Shooting their Strength to 20. This affects both their kick (Dam 20) and their falchion (dam27) The Water (Def19) makes them immune to normal troops, and if the Lanka doesnt include a Fire or water (W9 for the quickness)bless his sacreds will have trouble hitting.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

On turn 30, many nations still cant do jack against massed w9d9 Jaguar warriors backed by horrors and sacred demons, especially when Mictlan already controls twice as much territory than anybody after having rushed its neighbour.
Just an example.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Enough with the Mictlan already http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.
You could try to take a single level 9 bless(F9 or W9 would probably be best) and head straight for destruction.

Even when berserked, a Palankasha with destroyed armour has what, about 7 protection? At that level, your sacreds, mages, archers and light bandar stone-throwers will all rip them to pieces.

Destruction, being at level 4 Alteration, is easy to reach and should you start right beside Lanka, you have Earth Meld at level 2. If you take alteration 1 level further, you can even make your Yakshas into thugs.

The astral Yaksha in particular are useful, particularly since Lanka has no national astral mages(not even via randoms) and rarely has an awake/dormant pretender.
With invunerability, body ethereal, personal luck and possibly resist magic/astral shield they are very tough and the awe takes care of makarta. After Alteration 4-5 a 3 point dip into conjuration is worth-while for summon earthpower, both to provide thugs with reinvigoration and mages with extra power.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

So I've been trying to replicate a situation where a Lanka player can have 80 Palashankas by turn 10, so I can test various Kailasa defenses (and Lanka counters).

Basically, it seems like you need at least a 1000 gold event to get it going, a minimum Holy of 9 and high production scales, and you need to be really close to your opponent (3-4 provinces at the max).

Around 40-50 seems more reasonable, and then only if Lanka has almost no research and no bad events.

I've also found that they fall easily to an Awake pretender and an Evocation of 5 (which is possible on turn 10 as long as your money isn't screwed by a bad event). You need around 6 Yakshi (Falling Frost, three Yaksha(Rust mist, Gifts from Heaven), and some decent screen troops(W9 blessed Holies and markata work well enough).

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Have you tried destruction +W9 or F9? Lower research, so you can also put more effort into expanding or research something else.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

W9 adds a lot of raw survivability to the Kailasa sacreds, and makes for a nice super-Falling Frosts from your pretender. The downside is the Falling Frosts aren't that good in the Heat 3 that Kailasa favors, but it does the job even when Lanka has a screen of longdead.

Alteration is basically useless, including Destruction. You just don't get enough damage in before you are mobbed.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Destruction certainly is not *useless*. Cast it and *then* cast falling frost (or storm of thorns or whatever.)

I greatly dislike W9 as any flavor of the good monkeys, because you get the Music of the Spheres and they don't stack. I think you're better off taking a SC pretender and no bless at all than taking a redundant quickness.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

We're talking about small map, two nation, turn 10 fights here. In those situations, you don't have both Destruction AND Falling Frost. You've got one or the other, and between the two Destruction just doesn't have legs. Talk to me about it on turn 20 or 30.

You aren't EVER going to get Music of the Spheres if you don't survive the first Lanka Rush.

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

If you can get falling frost, you can get the Music- both are level 5. And music is far better, IMO

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

Celestial Music is Thaum 6, so there is no way you'll have it by turn 10.