LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

LA Atlantis is another nation which people tend to avoid touching with a 10 foot pole. Their only real mages are capital only and they’ve got trouble with magic diversity. Their units are resource intensive and struggle out of their own dominion due to the temperature. They got kicked out of the water by R'yleh who has only got meaner in the mean time. They’ve just generally got a funky lineup with few obvious synergies.

Well, those of you familiar with my guides know where I’m going with this…Atlantis can most definitely be a sleeper nation who clobbers the crap out of the popular ones if handled with a bit of finesse. Many of their strengths are not the standard ones, but they are wicked effective properly deployed and almost all of their stuff works so well together you’d think it was designed to. Let’s take a look at the cast.

Seal hunter – Pretty average as far as chaff goes but they do have a rather unique harpoon ranged attack. Just a single shot, but it does entangle the target so this can be very useful in getting high defense troops/SCs to hold still for a round so that your heavy hitters can clobber them – and you’ve got some nice heavy hitters.

Snow warriors – what passes for light infantry in LA Atlantis, though of course that’s a relative term. As with most of your infantry your armor scales with the cold scale so you’re gonna be quite a bit weaker on offense most of the time. These guys also don’t have any shields so watch out for crossbows. Still, you’ve got magic weapons with a good repel, good protection in a cold environment, partial darkvision, partial cold resistance, true amphibiousness, above average strength and hitpoints. Overall, not bad units at all. You generally want to go with the glaive guys, those are magic weapons and they pack enough punch to even give giants a pause. Note, your heavy infantry has a mapmove of 2, so really the only reason you’d want to go with Snow warriors is to get more feet on the ground for the resources you’ve got. Keep in mind that’s not a terrible strategy when fighting things like giants where the extra protection doesn’t really help, go with more glaives!

Ice warriors – Skip them, most roles are better filled with Snow warriors or Ice Guards

Ice Guards – Very nice heavy infantry, particularly in a cold environment. Everything said about Snow Warriors is more true about Ice Guards. They’ve got outstanding armor in the cold, good hitpoints, good stats in general, 75% cold resistance and a choice between a good shield or a clobbering ice glaive, with of course magic weapons. You’re pretty much never going to have much excuse to have leftover resource points at the end of your turn, always spend anything leftover on these guys. Finally, these guys have an unprecedented 2 mapmove for such heavy infantry, combined with their amphibiousness this is a significant strategic mobility advantage.

Mournful – These guys are pretty decent for the price, but the moral is a killer. Still, they’re the best choice for several situations. They’ve got relatively low resource costs compared to your other units, so if you need feet on the ground fast this is the way to go. They also don’t melt in the sun, so consider them when you’re pushing outside your dominion. Finally, with a star or two of experience and a sermon of courage the moral issue is greatly reduced, and you can also mix them into groups with your higher moral troops – Arssartuts are a good choice as they have the same movement speed so they’ll stick together and of course have outstanding moral.

Arssartut - Wow, these guys don’t immediately jump out at you but once you start playing around with them you’ll be amazed at how good they are. They’re cheap as far as sacreds go, have good hitpoints, good protection, good attack skill, good encumberance, good strength, good movement, cheap resource requirements, and that glorious, glorious bone glaive. Out of that list (with the possible exception of the bone glaive) nothing jumps out at you, but adding them all together you end up with an amazingly solid unit. They’ve got the toughness and encumbrance for staying power combined with a magic weapon which is extremely effective against everything from chaff to SCs. They also have great synergy with the Mournful in attacking outside your cold dominion, not dropping in power and moving at the same speed. I do want to make special note of their glaive, its magic, deals 22 damage with their strength, and has an addition weakness effect. The weakness effect means anybody tough enough to live through a couple hits of that 22 damage will have completely permanent damage done to their strength. This will of course pile up on any really tough guys to the point that they’re useless in melee - you’re guys are all cold resistant and your mages can cast Fire Ward, so you don’t even need to worry about frost/firebrands.

Now, before I move on to talking about the commanders I wanted to talk about the bless choices for your Arssartut. One of the big advantages in your corner is your truly amphibious nature – I mean you’re Atlantis for crying out loud. You should be able to dominate any land nation underwater, and even the other amphibious nations are significantly weaker than you there. Unfortunately, there’s a big old tentacled turd in that punchbowl. If they’re in the game *everybody* needs to plan from the beginning about dealing with LA R’yleh, but Atlantis more so than anybody else. Fortunately, you’ve got the tools to do it. It’s absolutely imperative that you carve out a solid chunk of water *and* land, several of your national strengths are tied to being the best amphibians around.

I like an S/E bless, with a minor N component if you can afford it. The twist fate helps a whole lot in several situations - letting your Arssartuts close under archer fire, blunting the heavy cavalry charge, ignoring the SC’s first strike so you can whack the crap out of him with your bone glaives. Contrary to most of the time people take an astral bless though, the more important component is the MR boost. With +3 MR you bring the Arssartuts up to a respectable 14, and with an astral pretender you can drop an anti-magic on top of that making you effectively immune to R’yleh’s strongest weapons for the early and mid parts of the game. (strong MR also adds shadow brands and many other heavy infantry counters to the list of things you don’t need to worry about) The earth bless not only brings you up to a very nice 16 protection, it also gives you a net 0 encumbrance. Those two factors, along with your length 4 uber damage bone glaive and small regen make you *perfect* chaff killers, thus neutering the second prong of R’yleh’s dominance. Finally, this kind of goes without saying, but you don’t need to worry about R’yleh’s final prong – being entrenched underwater.

So, with such a blessing and a couple good buffs there’s not much the Arssartuts can’t handle in style – from chaff to SCs. You go right ahead and carve out a chunk of the water, the inexperienced R’yleh player is going to take a little convincing, but never let anybody convince you you’re not the other LA water power.

For scales, cold-3 is obviously a no-brainer. Death -3 also is not only thematic, but offers a good synergy of making invading armies get the double supply whammie so there is a good chance they’ll have trouble with starvation, while your own armies are going to be on the smaller side (due to resource constraints), you won’t suffer from the cold, and you’ll have castles to help supply you at home. You’ve got no old age units, so that’s a good place to pick up the points for an expensive bless. Your other scales are up to you, but Magic-1 is a very good deal considering how weak your non-cap mages are.

Speaking of... Tungalik are your only non-captial mage, and they are admittedly a bit underwhelming at first glance. Thing is, they’re quite cheap and holy, which is not the worst thing in the world combined with high resource troops. You should end up with an above average number of castles, and an above average number of mages – though admittedly weaker than most. Mostly you’ll be recruiting them to be your research base, but there are some clever ways to use them effectively in combat particularly keeping in mind their strength - strength in numbers.

Frozen heart spam. This is the obvious choice, and what your opponent will be expecting. Still, it’s the obvious choice because it’s often quite effective, several Tungalik spamming this will be devastating to the unprepared opponent.

Ghost grip spam. A bit less common, but this is also an obvious choice, though a bit harder for your opponent to counter. It also works very well with some of the other fatigue strategies I’ll be getting into in a minute. If your opponent has high encumbrance in the cold and needs to whack all day at your uber armored infantry, a couple guys casting ghost grip is all it takes to be terribly effective – with an earth bless your guys can cast this 10 fatigue spell all day long.

Frighten spam. Don’t underestimate this. Marching into a cold-3/death-3 dominion gives a good chance of catching invaders partially starving, and half a dozen frighten spammers is surprisingly effective if those starving guys started out with average moral and are also in your dominion. Make sure you cut off their retreat using your map move 2 amphibious infantry and sailing! Note, this tactic is much more effective in combination with some of the stuff listed below.

Mini-thugs. Heh, seems kinda pointless to thug out, huh? Not so fast there. These guys are holy and you’ve got a nice bless. You’ve got a 21 protection with the cheap black steel plate, and of course other options are available depending on what you’ve got available. You’ve got reinvigoration, and can self buff with quickness and breath of winter, and hopefully even a little regeneration from your bless. Of course twist fate doesn’t hurt either, nor your quickened high defense (add water shield if you’re underwater). Mix them in with some ice guards or wights set to guard commander and dual wield frost brands….against the right type of opponent this is going to be devastating.

Being able to self buff quickness has another large advantage - ranged weapons. If you get lucky and land an A2 Angakok, bows of war and thunder bows are great on a quickened commander. Other fun things you can easily forge are vision’s foes, the black bows, and banefire xbows. Again, you’ve got to think about using these guys in decent sized groups – 6 quickened banefire xbows are pretty devastating to troops without long lifespans, 6 bows of war will have the effect of over 150 archers, and 12 black bow arrows per turn will give even the toughest SC with bodyguards pause. Not a bad switch when your opponent was expecting some frozen heart spam.

A few other things to remember to pull out when the situation merits it – spirit curse (as if the SCs didn’t already have enough disincentive to attack), dust to dust (very effective cast en-mass against that prince of death or tartarians giving you a hard time), slime (not the best spell in the world, but can be effective en mass combined with your heavy hitting infantry and cold auras). Also, once you get up to con-6, cheap water bracelets will pull these guys up into ice strike, cleansing water, numbness, and desiccation.

Now, onto the main event. Angakoks are the heart of LA Atlantis. They don’t have quite the versatility of the MA Atlantis Kings of the Deep, but what they do, they do well. You’ll obviously want to recruit one every turn as soon as you can afford to.

Thugin’:

They’re holy and you have a nice earth bless with small regen. Buffs range from soul vortex to ironskin to mistform with quicken self and breath of winter on the side. Pretty standard thug layouts apply, but make sure to leverage your sailing ability. Depending on the map layout this can be even better than flying. With reinvig and soul vortex it often works well to leave the thug Angakok to cast spells – he’ll throw out skellispam (great with his breath of winter, really adds to his staying power while soul vortex does its thing), cold blast, and many of the fun stuff listed in the next section. Hey, don’t forget to cast twiceborn so you don’t even risk that much, and now you’ve got some mages who can more easily leverage rigor mortis.

Combat Castin’:

You’ll want to get some indie S1 mages for several reasons, one of which is to forge penetration boosters for you. Look for lizard shamen, mercenaries, sages, or if nothing else use your pretender to crank out some void eyes and spell foci – kinda drudge work for a pretender, but you really need them to round out your arsenal. You also shouldn’t have too much trouble getting 50 fire for an empowering (more below), which gives you fire skulls and then rune smashers. Note, if nothing else turns up you can summon some specters to get you weak astral mages, but you’ll want to save your death gems for other uses if you can.

Well, falling frost is the obvious goto spell, but I don’t like to depend on it because it’s too easy to counter. Cold resistance, high defense or high protection will all seriously hamper this one, though it does scale in power with the water mage level so a Angakok with a water pick and a water bracelet with sea robe will throw down a pretty impressive barrage.

Shadow blast –Penetration boosted shadow blast is a great switchup to the water magic stuff you’re mainlining. Haha, you thought frost resistance would be enough?!?!

Sailor’s death – With a penetration boost this spell is n*a*s*t*y. AN, AOE1 and a range of 30, 3 or 4 guys spamming this will blast the crap out of many different things which would otherwise give you difficulty. And it’s only Thau-3!

Numbness, desiccation, breath of winter, grip of winter, rigor mortis, ghost grip, curse of stones (penetration boosted!), curse of the desert (penetration boosted!). Combine this with great heavy infantry that take a lot of beating to go down. Mix in wights, winter wolves, ghosts, and anything else with a cold aura. Add in the encumbrance penalty for a cold climate, and friendly currents/quagmire. It’s frightening how many things LA Atlantis can pile onto causing fatigue – in fact it’s usually more important to remember not to pile too many things up that your own units are merely resistant rather than immune to.

Terror – everything I said about frighten goes triple for terror. Combine with ghosts and leviathans and anybody even thinking about starving doesn’t stand much chance. Oh, if you’re feeling showy, you can throw Wailing Winds in as well.

But wait, there’s more! Freezing Mist – don’t be misled by its small damage number, this is a serious offensive spell which works wonderfully with the rest of your arsenal if given even a little time to work. It’s hard to tell for sure, but this spell seems to scale up in damage with the cold scale. Regardless, it will do amazing amounts of damage in a wide AOE to guys standing around inside it. It’s AN and AOE, so nobody who is not completely cold immune is spared – this is your goto spell for the guys who are outfitted to scoff at your falling frost. Note: your infantry doesn’t have 100% cold resistance by default, so make sure you buff them with winter ward, or use undead or other summons when using this spell, trust me that AN damage is nasty and you don’t want even your 75% resistant guys inside it. Bonus – it’ll freeze your victims, thus flowing perfectly into your fatigue strategy. This spells works awesomely with….

Skellispam – you may not be able to field the same numbers of undead as the undead specialists, but that doesn’t matter because they have such synergy with everything else you’re using so you don’t need an overwhelming mass. Think about it, you’re laying down cold, fatigue, fear, and drowning – all things to which your skellispam is immune. You don’t need overwhelming amounts because you don’t have to tie your opponent up as long, you’ve got too many things working against him.

Quickening – you thought those Arssartut’s were intimidating before? Try laying down a quickening on them. Oooooh I love those bone glaives!

Now, with a cold, fatigue and fear based primary strategies, the obvious hole is swarms of undead, and LA has some of the nastiest. Fortunately, you’ve got access to every one of the best anti-undead spells – dust to dust spam for the powerful undead, wither bones and cleansing waters for the large groups of chaff, and undead mastery (death random + skull staff + skull helm) or solar brilliance (pretender) for the really big masses. You’ve not only got the perfect counter for R’yleh, you’ve got the perfect counter for Ermor to!

Now, you’ll also not want to neglect earth and air spells. You should have several pairs of earth boots, so with summon earthpower E3 spells are in easy reach. I mentioned curse of stones above, which works great with the rest of what you’re doing, but don’t be afraid to lay down some of the classic earth spells. Strength of giants and legions of steel work extremely well with your Arssartuts (don’t forget to quicken them if you have it! Now *there's* some nasty crap.). Destruction is always a welcome addition, and blade wind plugs the hole that lack of archers leaves. Marble warriors is also great (be careful as it’ll remove your cold resistance), and with an elemental staff you get up into weapons of sharpness and army of lead range. Rust Mist can work well in a pinch to, though it’s a bit hard to leverage (think: tying your opponent up with a skellispam screen while the rust mist takes effect, then marching in with your real troops)

For air, you’re quite a bit more limited with no boosters or self buff spell, but don’t neglect the options you do have. With an elemental staff and some creativity cloud trapeze, thunder ward, and arrow fend all become accessible and very nice to have in the right situation. Also, don’t overlook having a mage dedicated to casting aim on your main artillery players, it can make quite a difference.

For the higher powered fights you’ll want to look into darkness, bone grinding, niefel flames, and living water (yeah ice elementals!)

Lab Castin’:

Here’s where your lack of magic diversity hurts the most, but the things you can easily cast are so frickin cool (if you’ll pardon the pun) that every water and death gem is going to be put to a very good use, and even your air and earth will be quite precious though more for forgings. You’ll have a powerful astral pretender and hopefully enough S1 casters to power arcane probing, and enough fire for what you need, leaving just blood and nature as your glaring holes. Hmmm, did I mention you should really try to put nature on your pretender? Ignore blood and between your pretender and the free nature sites common underwater you should be able to eventually scrape up 50 nature gems. With one empowering you can now summon niads using water gems, so this gets you into nature in a big way.

Voice of Tiamat. Now that you’ve got a good sized water section to your empire (you did read the first part of this guide right?) you definitely want to make good use of it. Voice of Tiamat is going to not only get you a good flow of water gems, it’s also going to get you a modest income of earth and fire. You should forge some earth boots with you pretender, then more with the guy you give the first set to, E2 mages are where the fun’s at. Fire gems will more than likely go into an empowering, as mentioned above, then in addition to rune smashers you can start making the elemental staffs I referenced above. Also, kinda goes without saying, but dark knowledge is in the same school so you’ll want to hit that hard as well.

Send Tupac…er Tupilak. This guy is a rather weak assassin spell, but it’s also cheap, easy to cast, and relatively low on the research tree. He’s not going to take out any thugs or really even bodyguards, but with his hitpoints he is quite capable of killing most unguarded mages. This is not a mainline spell as it’s easy to counter, but it is a very good kick below the belt whenever you see your opponent fielding mages he forgot to put bodyguards with. Particularly right before a big fight.

Spirit mastery – let see, immune to all the stuff you’re throwing down, ethereal, cheap, and pretty much tailor made to tie up the bad guys. Yep, these are a very good choice as blockers. These guys are perfect to pair with freezing mist.

Ghosts – Like dispossessed spirits, only they add fear and cold of their own, how much better could it get?

Leviathan – You know what the problem is with iron dragons? They’re level 9 summons, and by that time everybody has good counters. How about a level 7 summon that’s almost as good for almost half the price? A single Leviathan buffed with quickness and gift of flight (give one of your air Angakoks an air gem) will destroy any PD and a couple together will even do a number on real armies which are unprepared. They’ve got great protection, massive hitpoints, are mindless (hint – another great thing to throw at R’yleh), amphibious, cold & fear immune so you don’t need to worry about friendly fire, and in fact even have a fairly significant fear aura themselves! Not to mention, quickened, they absolutely smear size 2 guys without racking up all that unseemly fatigue – it’s frightening how much damage they cause each round. Heck, the gift of flight isn’t really even necessary most of the time, but boy is it fun to watch. For big fights, make sure to leverage those S1 mages you’ve been scouring the globe for to lay luck and body ethereal down on them before sending your flying doomcastles to attack rearmost. Trust me, your opponent won’t have the luxury of worrying about all the fatigue you’re laying down in the mean time.

Monster fish – In case your opponents don’t just cede the water to you, and you need something to supplement your leviathans, buffed monster fish are just awesome. I don’t want to repeat what I laid out in my MA Atlantis guide, but definitely check it out that section if you haven’t read it. Between monster fish, leviathans, shark attacks, true amphibious uber sacreds, underwater PD and top notch undead counters nobody but R’yleh should be able to rival you under the water, and you should be able to give even them a run for their money. Plus, KO mentioned he was planning some new underwater goodies for LA Atlantis in the next patch….

Catoblepas – Heck, who needs archers? Two words: death gaze. Oh wait, make that 3 words, quickened death gaze. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Winter wolves – anything with a cold aura works great. Bonus points for etherealness.

Hidden in the snow – a bit on the expensive side, but the troops work very well with your strategy and the mages can flesh out your earth magic a bit. Cold auras all around!

Specters – as mentioned above will get you into astral if you don’t have a better way. They’re also stealthy, so really useful as mind hunt deterrents. Make sure you boost them up to S3 to give a 100% chance of catching the mind hunters!

Wolven winter – you want to always be fighting in cold-3 if you can help it. With this spell you don’t have much excuse to not help it.

Murdering winter – in the unlikely event a non-cold immune army is successfully invading you, this spell is expensive but fearsome in cold-3.

Leprosy (penetration boosted!) – did I mention that there are some disincentives to attacking LA Atlantis?

Black death, tidal wave, wolven winter (again), blight – cut off the economy of the bad guys. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but I pity the fool who attacks me.

Lure of the deep – this is the type of insidious global which is both unlikely to be dispelled, and also cumulates to significant casualties over time. You pretty much need to be in control of any coast you don’t want to be at war with, but it does add one more layer of disincentive in attacking you once you get entrenched around the coastline.

Maelstrom – great spell to shoot for, castable with 2 boosters and a water random.

Well of misery – likewise, two boosters and the right random.

Speaking of two boosters and the right random, lots of nastiness is available at D7. Legion of wights (great blockers considering what you’re throwing down), Ghost Riders, and a short jump to tartarians with the ring of sorcery your pretender forged.

Ice pebble staffs turn out to be rather useful to, they’d prove really, really nice with quickened Tungalik except they tend to spam skeletons and frighten once your script runs out, so instead leverage indie commanders and boots of quickness (once you have them). It’s surprising how fast 3 quickened numbness spammers can cover the majority of a good sized army, and how effective it is. In addition to the fatigue and all its side effects, the freezing immediately drops attack and defense by 3, add a few more minuses on as the troops gain some fatigue closing for melee and trust me it’s worthwhile even before the fatigue really mounts.

Of course all the classic undead nastiness works as well – bane lords, wraith lords, liches, etc.

Finally, I want to close with a mention about sailing. Atlantis has some rather unique strategic options related to their both having sailing and being amphibious. They can leave one water province, sail over the next one and land on a land province on the far side. Given the usual larger size of water provinces, this can lead to *huge* strategic freedom. It’s not unlikely that massing troops in a single province can leave dozens of places you can drop them in a single turn. Combine this with excellent raiding potential, solid thugs, excellent defensive entrenchment and you have the ability to dance all over anybody who wants to attack you, or to deliver a devastating sneak attack to anyone with a coastline.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Shouldn't you wait with that guide until patch with LA Atlantis improvement comes out?

And I think it is pretty safe to assume that most games will be played with R'lyeh banned, so Atlantis has Patala and Mictlan as main contestors in underwater fight. Ermor sometimes too.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I'll update it when the patch comes out, and no I don't think it's safe to assume that all games ban LA R'yleh. Besides, nothing I've said is not true without R'yleh in the picture, an astral bless is I feel still the best way to go because it fills in so many of the holes you need filled. Extra MR is *always* welcome.

I actually wanted to give my impressions before KO finalized any changes.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Another enlightening guide! Couple of questions/comments:

1) Death 3 seems pretty severe, especially considering your expansion rate will average at best. You probably know better than me, but I find Atlantis is always a high priority target for other players and Atlantis is usually on their back heels rather than gobbling up new high population territories.

2) How do you deal with early archer spam? The only shielded troops you recommended were the LA shamblers, but they have no synergy with cold 3 and are best used outside your dominion. Again, I find myself on the defensive ~75% of the time. Maybe that's the real question, how do you put yourself in a position where you are the aggressor considering your somewhat average expansion rate?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

E9S9N4 bless should work pretty well against archer spam, combined with smart tactical scripting.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I don't think there's any reason that Atlantis is relegated to a defensive role, though they have some serious home field advantages. Everyone has their own preferences for scales, but I think death has a very good synergy here. Because your troops and mages (other than one) are so cheap, you're a bit less desperate for gold every turn. Your reliance on cheap sacred units and mages means your upkeep will be very low, helping offset the decline from your death scales. You can fuel a very respectable expansion with dual blessed Arssartut, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to field a force every other turn capable of chewing through most indies with very few casualties using archer screens - that twist fate helps a whole lot at this stage. Additionally, with the ease of expanding into the water there's a lot of options on the table.

As to your question about massed archers, you've got several good options. Your shielded Ice Guards are very good against archers even in neutral scales (you'll have to be careful in heat scales). Mournful also do pretty well with a shield, 15 armor and good hitpoints. Clever archer screens make it hard to target the Arssartut as they're not large and twist fate will help a lot vs the stray arrow or two. Finally, if the archers are massed to such a point you don't think screens will be effective just fall back on the fact that you're a nation of heavy infantry....pull your Arssartut out of the fight and let your shielded heavy guys ignore the arrows - they're certainly fairly tough on their own strenghts, and if necessary they can be superb blockers while your mages do the killing.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Just a couple things - first, it seems Ghost Grip is one of those spells I've grown rather fond of, that most people seem to overlook. It's quite powerful when you can really spam it on large enemy forces - especially in this case, with so much cold based fatigue.

Also, the Winter Wolves, in conjunction with the Freezing Mist. Okay, this Mist is devastating! The Wolves make excellent blockers for it. What I've done a few times, is have some Wolves charge in while the rest of my troops Hold, and have several mages all cast the Freezing Mist 2x, then swap to something else appropriate based on the opponent. The Mist will fade before the rest of your line advances, and the enemy will have enormous gaping holes cut in their army.

It's worth to note, multiple Freezing Mist spells stacked on top of eachother, very much seem to stack damage. I've seen units hit for anywhere from 15-30 damage in a turn with even just 2-3 Mists overlapping.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Baalz,

Good guide. I have always struggled to make LA Atlantis work and your guide has some interesting suggestions. A few questions:

A high dominion is needed to make your C3D3 scale work. To do that you’ll probably need to forget about putting N on your pretender. Shouldn’t be a crippling issue though.

C3D3 would annoy your neighbours. More serious than the above but still not necessary crippling.

With D3 you’ll need to expand constantly to keep your economy afloat. Not sure if LA Atlantis has strong enough armies to expand outside of its C3 domain against active players and you don't have strong priests to spread your domain quickly. This could potentially be the single biggest drawback to your strategy – enemies don’t need to attack you in the early to middle game, just defend themselves against your attack and limit your territory growth. They can then attack you with overwhelming force later when you economy is floundering.

Am I missing something?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Come to think of it, if LA Atlantis could be made to prefer cold3 instead of cold2 (artic conditions should be much colder than mountain tops, no?), plus an extra MR or 2 for the sacreds(so S9 would not be necessary), enough design points would be released to avoid death3.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

You're killing me, Baalz!

Moral: of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.

Morale: emotional or mental condition with respect to cheerfulness, confidence, zeal, etc., esp. in the face of opposition, hardship, etc.: the morale of the troops.

Totally awesome guide.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Interesting, I had not thought of playing Late Atlantis with a bless.
*checks*
And I really can't see that working either. Just not enough points for these E9S9N4 and acceptable dominion and acceptable scales.
Don't forget, that the Arssatut are capiton only. On the long run they are not worth it.

I'd take a Magic diversifyer god. With only 2/160 chance to get a double earth or double air Angakok, these random picks are basicly wasted, unless you have much luck or a good that helps start the gem-flow here (And in case of eath forges the first hammer+earth boots).
And in fact, you can take a sleeping Crone with enough magic in Earth, Astral, Air and Nature and still have some really good scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 Magic 1 - I would not go without it. Your troops are good and any and every gold can go into more research centers. Cold 3 sounds good but I would not go all out in death or misfortune.

This probably makes the early game more dangerous but I see better chances on the long run.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Awesome guide Baalz, as usual.

I'd like to point out one neat trick that few apart from LA Atlantis (and some of the Heims) can pull off. I'll preface it by mentioning that most raiding nations have a lot of trouble reinforcing after the initial raid, and almost no ability to break down castle walls.

The trick:
Surprise-attack a coastal fortress with sailing raiders while simultaneously hitting it with <font color="brown"> an amphibious Bane Venom Charm holder, or (later on) Black Death/Tidal Wave </font> . The following turn, cast enough Carrion Reanimations (3D, so 1/4 of your Angakoks can cast it) to turn all those corpses into Soulless @ 100 per 10D. 500 Soulless will bring a mage-factory down pretty quickly. Now you've got a base of operations on your opponents side of the lake 3 turns into the war. Worse comes to worst, demolish it as you sail away.

<font color="brown">P.S. Carrion Reanimation also gives you something to do with all those dead R'yleh chaff. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

P.P.S Edited yet again in response to Max's comments.</font>

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Cleveland,

Isn't that a trick that any Death nation can pull off? Stygian Paths + Black Death + Carrion Reanimation... all pure Death magic. Substitute Astral Travel for Stygian Paths if you've got it, or just use an SC + Teleport. It's a good trick, but available to many, many nations.

-Max

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Sure. But most Death nations don't have much raiding capability. Similarly, most raiding nations don't have much castle-breaking capability.

I'm presupposing that a "raiding nation" is one which has the ability to hit multiple fronts unexpectedly. Sailing grants that, stealth grants that, flying grants that, teleporting grants that.

I absolutely concede that any nation casting Black Death can also cast Stygian Paths. But slip a Bane Venom Charm &amp; some swim trunks on someone who lands onshore at the same time as your sailors...that only takes Const4 &amp; Ench7 (which you'll be going for to get those Leviathans), totally doable in year 3. Thoughts?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Hmmm, okay, I think I see the distinction you're drawing. Nevertheless, I suspect that Niefelheim, Fomoria, and Ashdod (recruitable thugs w/ Teleport or Cloud Trapeze access) all have good reason to want castle-breakers handy.

I haven't played much with Bane Venom charms. How many corpses do they produce?

-Max

P.S. You're definitely making me want to try some bigger maps (400+ provinces), just so I can try attacking across the globe.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I'd guesstimate that they kill ~5% of the population per turn. Not bad if it's an enemy capital... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Yes, I tried to be clear that the nature component of the blessing was both optional and required some opportunity costs to afford. One reasonable build which fits - Imprisoned Monolith sloth -1, cold-3, death-3, magic-1, dominion of 8. Nature does give you a pretty good diversification as well as the regen blessing, but you can certainly make this work without it if you decide to spend the points elsewhere. Thing is, you can't even really get too much cheaper going without the nature component since the monolith is the cheapest chasis to get S/E with a high dominion.

As to the diversity, it's really not prohibitive at all to empower in earth to level 2, particularly as you'll be getting a earth income through voice of tiamat. After that you've got all the earth boots you need - no reason to wait for you god to break free. You've also got elemental staffs later on. The air boosters are so expensive it's very seldom worthwhile to give them to an A1 mage, though I feel the math works out differently with the elemental staffs since they serve so many purposes. Granted, a staff + 2 air boosters gets you up into some nice territory, but for that amount of gems you can practically empower a couple times.

So, without your pretender being awake or diversified you can shoehorn into earth, nature, and astral, while having strong water and death and token fire and air. That's a pretty decent diversity if you play it right. Then when your pretender wakes up you've got most of the best spells in the game with a powerful E/S pretender and powerful W/D mages.

This is certainly not the only way to play LA Atlantis, but I maintain that it is competitive. Arssatuts with that blessing are top notch dual blessed sacreds who are relevant through the whole game and more than make up for the opportunity costs it takes to deck them out.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Personnally I had good results with a simple bless + awake god (and total sacrifice of magical diversity - but I was lucky enough to find druids and sages early and later another s mages site).

As sacreds are cheap in ressources and cap only, the nation profits a lot of an high dominion, and it's sad to take one without an awake awe based SC.

So I've gone with an awake dom 10 W9 Dagon, and scales including luck 3 in hope to got some heroes/mages and high gold/items events (there is a so good one with death 3, I always take luck if I go death).

So I was taking one province / turn with the pretender + was able to create one assartut army sufficient to take provinces (eventually with the help of some indies arrow catchers) each turn the first year.

Amphibiousity + sailing meaning you can expand in all directions fast expansion is really fast. The only problem is to avoid to be ganged when you have about 40 provinces by turn 15 or 16.

Best way is to publicly start a crusade against Ermor (ideally) or Rlyeh (ouch harder), as others are happy to see someone doing the job.

Ermor has about zero chance in early game (and even up to third year, except you need to find some supply items), due to all the mages you recruited being also priests, your fast expansion meaning gold for temples, about all your troops having magical weapons to hit ethearal, and Ermor not having ranged troops (to exploit the big weakness of w9 assartuts). So if he is your neighbour (and everyone is with Atlantis blitz expansion) you can expect a nice +15d gems income very fast.

Then of course, you are at war with everyone (but the eventual very weak neighbour prefering to become your forge *****), but at this point you are really hard to stop.

(ps : on the other hand, my experience come from a game on Cradle = excellent map for sailing nations, with about 20 prov/player, without Rl'yeh = all the seas for me and with Ermor unluckily starting on same continent as me and Marignon ; may be a little harder with less favorable settings)

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Everyone likes a good crusade.....

And the Dagon is a pimp!

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

This guide is awesome and was so fun to read that I had started a new SP game with LA Atlantis to try it out. Works like a charm http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

How do you deal with LA R'leyh if you want to go into sea at all?

Sure your troops are amphibious, but they also have low MR. Even with S9 bless, 14 MR (maybe 13 due to magic scale) will not last against mind blasters. Anti-magic both take time to research and only your (most likely) imprisoned god can cast it. You do not get quickness, so while you can kill all the chaff, you just do not do it quickly enough, giving plenty of time for mind blasters. Also your denfense is not high, leaving 16 protection (again E9 bless) as your only saving grace. 16 protection is good enough for R'leyh free spawn, but their slave guardians should have no problem killing them. Even all those coral spears can do enough poison damage.

Needly to say, your commander will go mad pretty quickly in R'leyh domain, and you cannot even forge amulet of antimagic yourself.

Without the water part, I just do not see how they match up against most of the stronger land nations. Maybe I am missing something?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Magic 1 doesn't give -1 in MR.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Well, I haven't gone up against a clever player in this matchup yet, but I have tested it out against large masses of mind blasters/chaff and all I can say is go ahead and try it out - 14 MR makes all the difference in the world. Arrsatut's absolutely *destroy* chaff, the front line disintegrates each turn and the small regen goes a long way towards offsetting minor poison damage. In my tests a group of about 50 Arrsatuts killed 200+ groups of chaff blocking 50+ blocks of mind blasters without breaking a sweat - a handful got paralyzed each round but never critical mass. I've yet to see somebody play LA R'yleh without sloth-3, so I'm not too worried about overwhelming amounts of slave guardians (who have an 8 defense and will on average be killed in one hit by Assatuts with a couple experience stars - which they rack up quite fast). Slave guardians also have an 8 moral and are *perfect* targets for the fear spam I mention above if your opponent is fielding any significant numbers of them. Terror/frighten spam + low moral + rapid casualties....I don't see them causing too much trouble.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I don't think your pretender can go insane in R'yleh dominion.

Jazzepi

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

With 10MR, illithids paralyze with just under 50% effectiveness. At 14MR, they would paralyze with just over 10% effectiveness. (It's also worth bearing in mind it's not just the paralyze, but the 1AN MR damage over time causes enormous damage as well.)

If 50 illithids faced 50 arrsatuts with 10MR, virtually the whole squad would be paralyzed in a few turns. With 14MR, by the time the illithids had paralyzed half the arrsatuts the first paralyzed would be about to recover.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Against R'yleh LAm Atlantis might need to watch out more for shambler thralls than illthids. Illithids cost 2x that of arssartut (and 4x the maintenance) while shambler thralls cost the same 25 gold. Instead of fielding 50 illithids he can field 100 shambers or a combination, which could be quite effective (of course this assumes that R'yleh has a 2:1 advantage in gold income). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

must...not...get...pulled...into...playing...theor yminions. Dang, failed that savings throw. You go right ahead and field shamblers and see how they fare against mournful mixed in your Arrastuts. What's that? They can't scratch the size 3, 15 protection guys and get demolished by their halberds? Or was R'yleh fielding illthids and shamblers and chaff and slave guardians all at the same time? Come on, this is just silly, you've got the tools to fight the good fight not a silver bullet.

I must say, I'm getting a surprising amount of pushback on this guide.

1) Nobody said R'yleh is a pushover no matter what you do. Atlantis is much better equipped to fight them than any other nation in LA, and if you can take them out you are absolutely entrenched under water even more so than R'yleh was.

2) Atlantis is also at least as well equipped to take down LA Ermor as anybody else with net 0 encumbrance troops well protected enough that their small regen is mostly all they need vs chaff in order to live forever, backed by priests and all the best anti-undead spells. Plus Arrastuts hit hard enough that they kill Ermor's undead chaff even when they hit their tower shields. Try it out - they *demolish* practically unlimited amounts of undead and never get tired. I really can't see how a W bless is superior.

Those two points alone make this build worth considering seeing as how LA games often pan out. Add to it:

A solid initial expansion
A very low upkeep
(those first two more than make up for the death scales, by quite a lot)
Sacred infantry that is very effective at killing everything from chaff to SCs - with MR and resistance to be relevant the whole game.
A very good defensive position few want to attack - punishing scales &amp; partially being underwater means it's both difficult and expensive to take you out.
Great mobility for heavy infantry coupled with sailing coupled by the fact you're focussed on operating around the water (unlike other sailing nations)
Recruitable holy thugs who can cast soul vortex and ironskin or mistform with full slots, an earth bless, can quicken self (goes great with soul vortex and earth blessing), and small regen.
Great summons with national mages
Good combat magic which is a bit different than what most people are equipped to handle
Strong death mages - great for end game
A strong astral pretender - great for end game
A strong earth pretender - great for mid/end game
Every magic path other than blood site searched, and everything other than air/fire/blood with a strong mage to use your income.

All in all a solid build for a solid nation. Certainly there are other ways to play them, but I have to say I'm a bit surprised so many people think my suggestions are weak.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I think most people who are trying to shoot holes in this guide are just carrying their previous conceptions of the nation forward with them.

I have to admit, I don't think I'm alone in feeling kind of hesitant about a dual 9 bless (with a minor!) for capital only sacreds.

With just a capital only sacred, and no sacred summons, it just seems very iffy. I believe in your guide, if for nothing else than it espouses the prodigious use of a few of my favorite niche spells. Maybe that's the other sticking point for most people? If they don't see Ghost Grip as being particularly effective for example, who knows which of the other spells they discount, and thus don't see an "effective" strategy resulting from all of the pieces?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I think a dual bless for capital only sacreds is good only if the sacreds in questions are:

A. Cheap in resources.
B. Good in battle against several kinds of enemy.
C. Decent map movement.

LA Atlantis' sacreds are all that and more. So yes, I do believe in a double bless for LA Atlantis. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Also note that your soulless are often Soulless of Atlantis and they might have Coral Spears(poison) or coral armor(poison).

It's kind of cute to see undead in pink armor.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Baalz,

You are greatly mistaken if you are under the impression that I think your suggestions are weak.

If you recall, my first post in this thread was "I have always struggled to make LA Atlantis work and your guide has some interesting suggestions". That was meant to be a sincere compliment. I have tried - AND FAILED - to make LA Atlantas work and your guide is the first workable solution to playing LA Atlantis that I have seen. My subsequent comments should be seen within this context.

I do have some reservations on some of the points you made (but taken as a whole I think your suggestions are valid), and I presented them more out of a wish to better understand your thinking than because I have any conviction that they are definitely wrong.

Anyway, I apologise if I gave the wrong impression. I, and I am sure many others too, appreciate your sharing your insights on La Atlantas with us.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

As well I never said this guide was bad, just spoke about another build I had a good results with (all the spells use being about the same).

I even agree your double bless is probably better in most cases (especially with Rlyeh in the game, and if you are not lucky with indie mages sites).

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Minor thread necromancy, but I just have to share....

When playing as LA Atlantis, build an underwater castle as soon as possible. You get a whole new range of recruitable troops and commanders. It's like playing MA Atlantis and LA Atlantis at the same time. :angel

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Yes. This is new with the last patch.

Especially important if you're fighting R'lyeh. The commanders are resistant (immune?) to insanity.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

But they very vulnerable to magic duel :)

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

The new, dream resisting priests sound exactly the medicine Atlantis needed! Great! If only Seal Hunter harpoons worked underwater and had more ammo...

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Ok, so LA Atlantis is now fit to duke it out with Ermor and R'lyeh-so what about the rest of the LA nations that struggle against those two behemoths? How do they stack up?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

LA Pan doesn't stack up too badly. They have heavy duty troops, and can recruit a lot of priests quickly and cheaply. They can fight Ermor, though against R'lyeh they would probably still have a hard time.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I doubt Pythium with it's sacred hydras, or Ulm with it's sacred-stoppers, or LA Gath (eats everything) have too much trouble competing, either. Ofcourse Mictlan is strong in LA, too. I'm not sure about the rest.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Actually, LA Pythium does not stack up too well vs. LA Ermor. The sacred hydras can take out a lot of undead, but they eventuallu get overwhelmed. I have played this scenario out recently in MP. Against R'lyeh though, I think the Hydras would do ok.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Gath..... certainly doesn't eat everything. :p They're kind of sad really. Potentially competitive against other non Ermor/R'lyeh nations, but not outstanding in any particular way. :(


Marignon would be the cure for Ermor if they had any native Nature access. As it is, they can only kill what leaves the wasteland, and try to dominion push. :p

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

how about bogarus?

sounds like a bit of a david and goliath situation but done well.

think about it, Loads of high lvl priests, can natively acces undead slaying spells live solar brilliance, 5folds make exellent stealth preachers clearing the way in enemy dominion so troops don't starve, most major buffs accesible easily (this includes will of the fates, legions of steel, flaming arrows, fog wariors...etc), easily massed chaff (though they become more then chaff once you get some buffs down).

I think they might just be a great counter, the problem is offcourse they need time to prepare all these things and they aren't the best vs other non-ermor nations.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I am not sure. At least it didn't help me when I played LA Pan vs LA Ermor ;)

The problem Pan has is that it has no Priests over 1 Holy until it gets high up its summoning tree (Enchantment). Plus the vine beasties don't seem to work against hordes of undead chaff. Not sure if they were simply overwhelmed or their sleep vines simply don't work vs undead :confused:

Nor do they have much archery. So there is little in the way of dishing out damage without being in close combat and once that happens unless you have essentially untouchable Thugs or SCs (or AoE damage) you eventually get overwhelmed by the undead hordes sooner or later.

I would have thought Mictlan or something else like it with a combination of good Priests and easily massable missle troops would fair much better?

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I would be surprised by undeads falling asleep ^_^

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

I've had a fair amount of success using sabbathed/communioned preist mages with mictlan, actually.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

They do function against undead, they just aren't useful. Vine critters are great for taking out large things: 9 things making 6 attacks each for 33 fatigue will crush almost any SC. However, they simply aren't effective against chaff- if each enemy is only engaged by one vine critter, fatigue will never stack up enough to take them out.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

The Vine critters work against undead, yeah, they fatigue them out just like anyone else. You gotta have hundreds of them though against a fair sized Ermor horde, and then, if the player is smart, Ermor will just dust to dust spam them.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Since when are archers useful against ermor anyway? With the vast majority of their units carrying tower shields, I've always found them near invulnerable to archer fire. You can do a little damage, but a single holy 1 priest will kill more undead in one battle than 40 archers. And if you're trying to use said archery to take out soulless/longdead, LA Pan can always use bladewind for that. If you're going to use destruction etc to take out their shields, bladewind is still perfectly capable in that role. They also have some death magic, for the anti-undead spells.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Never, *ever* try to take even so much an Independent undead province solo, with a Carrion Dragon. Even if he's got great paths. Even if he's kitted out-I guess it might be possible with insane gear, but by the time you have good enough forged items, you shouldn't be soloing your Pretender, anyway.

A good (not great) Pan strategy for dealing with Ermor would likely be to mass Vine Ogres and stealthy priests, and turtle them to death. In MP, this would probably work well, because your Dominion-chaff, and the aforementioned Carrion Dragon, would be enough to keep you relatively safe against living troops, allowing you to commit as many resources as possible into spreading your Dominion, and holding what you've got.

Re: LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions
 

Baalz, I'd like to thank you for this guide. I used it, and to great effect, in my first MP game, which has just wrapped up. I decided to go all-out on the bless, with a E9S9N4 imprisoned monolith. The assartuts proved every bit as effective as advertised, and indeed were my primary troops for most of the game. Tore through almost everything. I can't speak too much to how effective the new underwater recruitables are, as the patch showed up well into the game, and I didn't get as much of a chance to use them.

I think the earth bless is definitely a must. I'd like your opinion, though: in a game without R'lyeh, what do you think of dropping the astral bless and going with a water bless instead? I was thinking an imprisoned Dagon with an E9W9 bless, and perhaps even a minor nature or fire bless. That would make for some nasty assartuts, and still leave you with a pretty strong combatant when it eventually woke up. Any thoughts?