LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I noticed there was only one real guide for playing LA R'lyeh, and it was an MA/LA guide (see here) whose LA advice was basically: "Play LA R'lyeh like MA R'lyeh, and take growth to mitigate your dominion's dreamlands effect." Its a good MA guide, and some parts of it (like the early game synopsis, and Baalz post in the thread about R'lyeh as a submarine, for examples) are still relevant, at least to degrees, to LA R'lyeh, but burning 120 design points to mitigate the dreamlands seems wasteful, and otherwise trying to play LA R'lyeh like MA R'lyeh is probably not optimal.

Table of Contents
1. The Dreamlands as a strategic asset
2. Scales
3. Pretender Design
4. Units: Micromanagement Hell
5. Commanders
6. Research
7. Some Additional Strategy Notes

1 - The Dreamlands as a strategic asset
As LA R'lyeh, your dominion is toxic. You will kill off your population amazingly quickly. While this will impact your income and supplies, it will also make taking lands that you have held for any length of time a poor proposition because they simply aren't worthwhile for other nations anymore. This is an advantage - fighting LA R'lyeh is like fighting an opponent with a scorched earth defensive policy, leaving nothing for the invaders. Furthermore, enemy armies that enter your dominion will see their commanders slowly go mad and begin behaving erratically. Pushing your dominion into your opponents' lands will reduce their assets and drive commanders even outside of your borders to madness. The dreamlands is your first line of defense against invasion and an offensive weapon against your neighbors.

2 - Scales

Since spreading your dominion will also spread your scales, you want to choose scales that maximize the toxicity of your dominion.

Death 3 is an obvious first step - since you've already accepted that your population is going to die, they might as well die faster. Its 120 basically free points. (And its not like your starspawn have to worry about old age).

Sloth 3 is even more obvious for LA than MA R'lyeh. Most turns you will only ever purchase a commander in any given territory.

Cold 3 is another obvious choice. You will be mostly unaffected underwater, and your water evocations will benefit on land.

Turmoil 3 and Luck 3 are an advantageous combination for you. On the one hand, your income from holding provinces is going to be poor. There are, however, a large number of events which will give you additional cash. These include the relatively common 100-300 tax, temple donation, and similar events, and scale up to the 1000-3000 gold events. This is an important source of income that doesn't care what your population is, just how many provinces you have (more chances at events).

Good events will also supplement your gem income, which is even more important to you than your cash income in a lot of ways.

Magic 0 is perfectly acceptable - you'll be buying a large number of mage commanders. Anything higher than Magic 1 is unnecessary.

3 - Pretender Design

So, our preferred scales are Tu3 Sl3 De3 Co3 Lk3 Mg0 for the reasons given above. This nets us a massive 360 extra points for our pretender.

Regardless of what chassis you ultimately decide on, the first thing you're going to do is increase your Dominion to 10. Spreading the dreamlands as far and as fast as possible is to your advantage.

R'lyeh has no early bless strategy. Our only purchaseable sacred unit is the priestly Starspawn, who is not immune to insanity and therefore of limited use to us (for the void gate, generally). All our void creatures are sacred, but their availability is unpredictable at best and as such they won't be able to be fielded in any numbers until the mid or late game. At best, a moderate rainbow bless is all we're going to want out of our pretender for this.

We are going to care immensely about our gem income though, which suggests an Awake Rainbow pretender for manual site searching. Despite being aquatic only, I prefer the archmage. With a little bit of air he'll be able to forge himself an amulet of the fish to get onto land later, and has easy access to new paths of magic while having a low chassis cost. A lich or master lich could also work, but the chassis will eat a substantial number of points.

You should definitely prioritize at least N1 so you can find underwater fortifications - they're common and will multiply the number of Starspawn mages you can buy, given cash. A1 will let you make an amulet of the fish if you need it. While you can send out some of your mages to help with site searching, i find having water and astral on your pretender makes your site searching more efficient (although forgoing astral and doing that remotely is certainly an option). Ultimately, having every (non-blood) type of magic in the 1-4 range will help you find a large number of sites quickly and ramp your gem income up. Since Blood is really hard to get into underwater (can't bloodhunt in sea and ocean provinces), it may be best to skip it (although having blood on your pretender can allow you to use bloodhunting for crafting purposes in the midgame - for example, making Robes of the Magi is certainly not a bad idea).

4 - Units: Micromanagement Hell
This is usually the place where a guide writer reviews all your units available for purchase and makes recommendations. Instead, I have a simple analysis: ignore every single non-commander unit you have for purchase. Ok, you'll buy some in the first few turns for early expansion, and the MA/LA guide is perfectly adequate at covering that. But after your second army is out the gates, don't bother.

Reason number 1 is the freespawn. You will get ridiculously large numbers of them. You will need commander units to ferry all these freespawn around and get them to the front so you can sacrifice them en masse. Armies of 500+ units are not implausible. This is, however, micromanagement hell. But you will need to manage the freespawn because they do cost upkeep, and the more of them you can get killed the less of them you have to pay for.

Reason number 2 is you need every available penny for commanders and upkeep. Your battles will be hordes of freespawn backed up by mages and summoned creatures. Having sufficient mages to maintain research and run your armies is critical.

Your freespawn come in a few varieties. Underwater they can use multiple chassises (merman, deep one, triton), and on land they tend to be human or hybrids. They can be Dreamers (regular troop) with good morale and daggers, or Mad Ones (magic troop) with no weapon and unbreakable morale (50!). Additionally, creatures MA R'lyeh can only void gate summon will sometimes appear as freespawn in your provinces, possibly effected by high luck and local dominion strength. These can include such gems as Formless Spawn and Greater Otherness, but I have not observed a Vastness that freespawned yet.

Yes, i know illithids are good. No, you can't afford to keep 50 gold troops around. Get over it (or go play MA R'lyeh where you can enjoy your illithids).

5 - Commanders

Starspawn Mage: 280/1 W1S3 +2 @100% WESD +1 @10% WESD
This is almost where discussion about purchased commanders stops and ends. As your only commander unit (other than your god) who is immune to insanity, these are immensely valuable not only for their spellcasting ability, but for their ability to be able to act every turn as you desire. Many of your freespawn are also magical creatures, so your mages will make decent battlefield commanders as well. They come in a number of distinct flavors, so lets review the most useful ones.

W1E2S3: Your best dry land battle mages, they can cast Summon Earth's Power -> Gift from the Heavens without boosters, and slapping crystal shields and/or rings of wizardry on them will make them even more efficient. Empowering to 1N will give them Eagle Eye, and 1F will give them Magma Eruption.

You'll also want to empower one of these to E3 (can't wear boots, but you'll have the earth gems) so you can make early hammers to help reduce forging costs, especially for astral crafts. This same mage can later be boosted into casting Forge of the Ancients with a RoWizardry and an Elemental Staff.

W1S3D2: Capable of Skelly Spam and some value as artillery support with nether darts. Not the most useful, but useful enough. If you want undead chaffe summons they can provide, although given how much chaffe you have available this is only useful on the front lines to replace losses if you're having logistics issues getting your freespawn there in time, so if/when you capture a laboratory you might make use of this capability.

W1E1S3D1: good as a communion slave to a mixed master pool, or with a crystal shield capable of being versatile between the previous two set ups. You'll put many of these on research duty, but a few as additional support mages scattered across your armies won't go too far wrong.

W3S3: Good summoner early on with pretty decent battlefield evocations once you get spells like ice strike.

W1S5: Good forgers for high level astral crafts (like RoW) and Mindhunters.

Starspawn Priest: 150/1 S1H2 +1 @100% WESD
Unlike their Mage brethren, they are not immune to insanity. However they do come with some Summoner skill, and so are useful for entering the void gate and calling creatures. You probably won't want to buy one until you get Thaum 1 for Returning so you can save him from attacks and getting lost in time and space. (S2 can cast it naturally, S1X1 can cast Power of the Spheres first). Since insanity and getting Lost in T+S will make them inactive for various time periods, eventually having 2 to keep the void gate active is probably a good idea, but this is not a priority.

Starchild: 85/1 S1 stealthy
Despite being prone to insanity, they're a cheap communion slave option and available for purchase at coastal fortresses. You might buy some.

Illithid Lord: 80/39
With 40/40 magical/normal leadership, they're a good chassis for moving troops around. Unfortunately, they do go insane. But they're cheaper than designating mages for ferrying duty.

Slave Mage: 175/1 W2S1 +1 @100%WESN
They can go insane, they aren't that much more efficient than your starspawn at researching (certainly not once you factor in turns lost to insanity), and they lose power on land. However, they do get a chance at nature. Empowering a W2S1N1 to W3 will let them forge clams and summon a Naiad, so you might consider trying for one with a nature pick (although empowering a 3W3S starspawn to 1N will allow the same and is superior, but you're less likely to see a 3W starspawn early. Alternately, if you can spare your pretender from site searching he may be able to summon a Naiad with the right magic paths).

Cultist: H1 +1 @?% S
Freespawn commanders (also available for purchase in coastal forts), they come in two flavors. The underwater one is amphibious and looks like a deepspawn. The land one is human-looking. Both are priests and can have astral magic. Only the land version is purchaseable, although you're unlikely to want to do so. They start insane, and will often take actions like become prophet (even if you have one), allowing you to have many H3 priests. Useful against nations like Ermor who rely on their undead, and for blessing your void troops. Since they can freespawn just about anywhere, they're also useful for ferrying troops around (admittedly without the best magical leadership).

None of the other commanders are even worth considering, and most of the ones discussed above have primarily niche uses. The backbone of your nation is your starspawn mages.

6 - Research
Conjuration 2 is a good early priority because it will let you start eating your water gems summoning a few early sea serpents to quickly dominate any nearby ocean.

Thaum 1 will give you returning for your void gate summoner.

After those Evocation 4 provides Gift from the Heavens (among other useful spells), Enchant 2 allows for skelly spam, Construction 2+ will allow you to start forging things like clams and hammers (with a little empowerment here and there), and Alteration 3 will open up Ethereal Body and the like. More Conjuration is also desirable because your only real access to good troops is summoning them, and you'll have the gem income to do so. Enough Thaumaturgy to get spells like teleport and gateway is also an excellent idea. How you prioritize these is subject to personal preference and what your local opposition looks like - evocation is less useful in an underwater war (with say a nearby Atlantis), whereas it will be critical for any serious land expansion.

Your emphasis on purchasing lots of high quality mages puts you in good position to dominate the research game, so you have a good shot at getting unique summons like the elemental rulers first, or getting your choice of global enchantments - and you'll have the gem income to do either. Once you get the necessary early research done, you may consider focusing your efforts on one of these two goals.

You have a unique commander summon at Conj 6: Contact Void Spectre. Absolutely any Starspawn Mage can cast this spell, and it gives you an ethereal undead starspawn commander who is stealthy, has S4, and causes insanity in the province he's in. Summoning and infiltrating large numbers of these can be a great way to get a dreamlands-like effect deep in enemy territory, improve your information advantage, and possibly quickly capture lightly defended territories. Sitting one or more of these on your opponents' research centers will eventually cause him to lose a lot of research/crafting/ritual casting time, and he may not even think to check and see if they've gained an insanity score. And between astral buffs and some half-way decent gear they can solo typical levels of PD.

7 - Some Additional Strategy Notes
The first thing to note is that LA R'lyeh retains all the magical strength of MA R'lyeh, so the MA/LA guide is a good place to start for this. Mindhunting, information advantage via scrying, using R'lyeh as a 'submarine' (see Baalz response in the MA/LA guide), and more are still excellent ideas. In fact, you're likely to have even more mages than an MA R'lyeh player would.

The challenge with LA R'lyeh will be capitalizing on your two strengths, both of which will require lots of micromanagement. You will have a large number of powerful mages to use, and a large number of weak but steadfast troops scattered across your provinces.

You will have exceptional gem income, especially in N, W, and S with decent E and D. Don't be afraid to use your N gems to empower some battle mages - Eagle Eyes will be quite useful in getting the most out of your evocation spells. Churning out 10-20 mages worth of summons (like Wolves of Winter) in one turn is also a fairly effective way to build a decent midgame upkeep-free army from scratch.

Do put some mages on forge duty. Crystal Shields, Robes of Invulnerability, Rings of Wizardry, and other gear to protect and enhance your mages are all excellent ideas, and you can afford them in numbers to kit out your battlemages.

I like to turn my initial scout into a prophet and use him to search for holy sites - underwater temples are a common feature with S gem income.

Steer clear of summons which will cost you gold in upkeep. You will need to support a heavy upkeep burden without willfully taking on Troll summons or the like, don't make it worse than it already is.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I have seen Vastnesses freespawn.
It can happen pretty early on, when they are really hard to counter.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Why would I empower a W2 slave mage to reach W3 ? A simple ring can do the trick (costing 5 gems without hammer), avoiding the 50 gems empowerment if you go the starspawn way.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Seeing as how you will most likely get a pretty decent F and E income, I think that the Alchemist stone would probably be a surprisingly useful artifact for R'yleh. It will probably take some effort to get the paths, but after that you won't need to worry nearly as much about money in the late game.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Some thoughts:

1st) I agree on the scales mostly.
However take Magic 3 - this has a good synergy with Luck for Magic Gem/Item events (and I think the 3000 gold + item event).
Additionaly with your income going to below zero sooner or later this will help keeping your research up. And, what's more all the nasty things that you can unleash on someone rushing you is mr negates, while m3 decreases mr.

2nd) Your crappy scales afford you a "rainbow SC" (especially if you take dom 10). I'd say take air and earth (since you'll have a hard time into that), the rest is up to you.
I'd definitely take something combat oriented, as your armies are even worse than the worst crap sane minds can imagine. The main problem is that they can't damage anything. Someone to use the offensive earth buffs might be worth it, although with some gems some of the illithids can do it, and for most of the time it's to dangerous to have your god hang around only protected by dreamers.

3rd) Your illithids can be thugged out to some extend and can all teleport. Your S2 illithid priests can even be blessed and teleport with a starshine cap.
Neat trick - get to the artifacts before anyone and forge the pocket lich and the pocket knight. Give it to an illithid scripted to (returning).
Teleport him into a province, the illithid will return taking the items with him, but the pocket creatures will stick around and fight the defenders.

4th) Make use of your national spells.
The illithid spectre is stealthy, flying and turns people insane.
Dreams of R'lyeh is about the coolest assassination spell ever.
Especially when someone attacks you uw - his troops will just drown.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Tempo. You can't afford that much construction before you want to start pumping out the clams, and you can use all the astral pearls you can get your grubby little tentacles on.

Its not just a question of 'can i get to W3N1 eventually?' Its 'Can i get to W3N1 before the end of year 2?' And you'll have a lot of water and nature gems, don't be shy about spending them.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Yes, dreams of R'lyeh is frustratingly effective and almost free for 4S. Penetration items and Soul Slay will kill almost any commanders without MR items (MR getting halved).

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

No, no no no no!

Take a void lurker with W2+N4+S7+D3+. Only positive scale to consider: Luck +3. Magic +3.

You will get tons o free spawn mages. Useful in communion or researchers with +2 magic.

Research priorities: Conjuration, (voice of tiamat). Thaumaturgy (teleport, gateway, telistic animation, ritual of returning).
Construction: Whip of command, Sceptre of authority, crown of command. CLAMS. Starshine skullcaps.
Evocation: Astral projection to scout. If you're the cautious type.

Make your start build all mindblasters. Last troops you will ever buy.

Forget sea serpents. You need your water gems for water boosters (to let your slaves make clams), clams, shark attack.

Voice + tiamat + your pretender search will let you find any mage sites.

After you have shark attack, teleport, and gateway: Teleport into a possibly hostile water. Build a lab, PD, troops, and a commander (so have cash). Gate troops in, cast telistic animation to get a temple and spread dominion.

Speaking of gating:

sure you can gate with 15+50 or so troops. Or you can tag on all those equipment I named, and gate with around 200 troops - and have awe. You need to spend the gems on cmd items in order to save astral gems - which you *will* be short of.

your voices of tiamats are going to run you tons of extra earth, fire. I suggest you empower a mage with fire for the scepters of authority.

get one foot on land fairly soon. Cast a couple of black servents. Soon they will go crazy and prophetize themselves. Use them to raise undead - which your dominion is going to be killing off like crazy.

Body guard an S2 void summoner until you get returning.

You will also want nature items to make cauldrons etc to prevent starvation. Huge double bonus- makes your underwater provinces even more difficult for your opponents to storm.

Regarding mages: you fairly quickly have to make some choices.
Go with the priests that are 150ish with 6 rp, or the go with the pure mages that are around 280 for 8 rp.

With the +2 rp from magic scale, your $/rp upkeep is WAY lower on your sacreds. They are your go to guys for research.

But your mages recruitable everywhere are your goto guys for D2. Plus your S4, S5 etc.

Sooner or later you will get a visitor. Save your air gems to empower him for arrowfend.

Another reason for land: Your slave mages have feet. Soooo you can give em earth boots for a dwarf hammer.

***Pay attention**** to your first prophet. Its your last chance to actually know who is spreading dominion. Only your real prophet will. However, the battalions of fake prophets are worthwhile for preaching, smiting, and communions.

Many nations have astral mages. None of them are as good as you. Magic duel is your friend.

Lastly: Cold 3 is preferable to Heat 3. However, if the temperature scales strongly favor your competitors reverse the field.

So, abysia, mictlan, machaka in the game: go cold:

Caelum, Niefle, vanheim: go heat.

I *never* search with an intial prophet unless he *truly* has nothing to do. (hard to imagine). You have crazy guys that will holy search, without your input. let em.

Star children: Some of the *best* assassins in the game. What are you going to do: Mind hunt them?

Lastly: Be slightly aware that sea nations need to have a slightly elevated dominion compared to land nations due to the ratio of land to water. Usually I play 7-10 dominion with LA-R, but I would consider 5 the minimum. I would dare 4 with some land nations.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Maybe I have a very different idea of what LA R'lyeh is doing, but I think you are actively wrong on a number of points. I've tried to cover what I consider the vital differences of opinion below.

I really dislike a pretender who is immobile for this. Manual site searching will net more gem income and not waste gems doing so, and the only way remote site searching can even compare to a rainbow pretender manually searching is by casting Acashic Record, which requires a whopping 25 astral gems and researching Conj 5.

Which isn't to say you can't make a Void Lurker work for you, but its hardly optimal.

Edit: What the heck does your pretender need S7 for anyway? You can get S9 on a W1S5 Starspawn mage with boosters (coin, RoW, cap to S8, Blood allows Robe of the Magi and there are also artifacts you could use). Its not like your pretender needs to make up for an astral deficiency. Astral is probably your pretenders *least* important magical path.

Is that an effect of scales? So magic 3 improves the number of free spawn mages you get? I'm pretty sure this is actively untrue.

I did a little more looking at the freespawn commanders. They are either Cultist or Mad Cultist (Mad Cultists have S1). Based on the purchaseable variety, that's just a flat 20% chance. Now, someone else has already provided a more plausible argument for taking better magic scales (better chance at the 3000 gold + magic item + gems event), and a more relevant one, since your caster freespawn are actually less useful than your non-caster freespawn. The reason is that freespawn units come in magical and non-magical varieties, and you already have a lot of magical leadership in your starspawn mages, so what you are short on is normal leadership. Mad Cultists only have 10 leadership, Cultists have 40. The difference between picking up 10 and 40 is huge for your micromanagement woes, and while you can forge scepters of authority if your pretender has fire... he honestly has better things to be doing.

This is incredibly stupid for LA R'lyeh. You cannot afford the upkeep on them. Would you rather have 5.5 illithid troops or another starspawn mage? I'd rather have the starspawn mage - he'll be far better in combat than 5.5 illithids. And that's the real trade off, both in terms of initial purchase and in terms of upkeep. And that starspawn mage can be forging or researching while he's not off providing tactical casting support - what are those illithid troops doing other than eating your money when they aren't fighting?

Ok, first I just have to point out that it's hilarious you're against a few sea serpents in year 1 or early 2 at 8 water gems each, but you're in favor of many many castings of Tiamat's instead of manual site searching, also at 8 water gems each. Trust me, 4-5 sea serpents (40 water gems for 5) isn't going to restrict your forging capability nearly as much as 80-160 water gems burnt on site searching.

Second, that water booster requires Construction *6*. How soon do you expect to have that online? Better to empower someone so they can start making clams at construction 2, and can summon a Naiad (also possible earlier than Conj 6) who can summon more naiads and make clams herself. By the time you actually get those water boosters online you'll have so many water gems in my proposed method of doing things that you could spend 100 in a turn and not even notice.

Finally, your pretender search? Didn't you just advocate a Void Lurker? You know, immobile. Will need to build a lab to cast teleport. Pain in the *** and will cost you 500 cash every 3rd turn? And will cost you gems to move. I've even tried this. It sucked. A lot. I can't believe anyone advocating this has actually tried it in practice.

(snipped teleporting stuff)

Remote attacking is good. I left that as an exercise to the reader. (Or you could just read Baalz wonderful post in the other guide on the subject).

While utilizing insane commanders for troop ferrying is a necessity (just because so much ferrying needs to be done, and insane commanders are there and might as well do something), having strategies which involve getting to actively use insane commanders leads to disappointment. This will become a theme below.

Alternative: Get returning month 2 (your pretender is doing research for the first two months - get Thaum 1 right away). Then buy your starspawn priest. Problem solved.

Cauldrons are nice, but at some point I just stopped caring. Who cares if they starve? You're just going to get them massacred by the thousands. Starving will not make them notably worse in combat. And every cauldron you make is a clam you didn't make. I'm going to side with Marie Antoinette on this one: "Laissez-les mange le gateau."

Sure, rp/$ is way lower. Until you realize that *only* the starspawn mages are immune to insanity. So eventually your starspawn priests go insane and start losing research turns. Eventually they become so insane you never get to give them an order again. So their average rp/$ is actually worse than the starspawn mages. And that's just considering their value for research.

Starspawn mages are also far better for combat and crafting purposes. So if you go with the priestly starspawn you'll have to build all your mages for those other purposes from scratch whereas you'll have a ready pool of workers who can be diversified into all your vital projects. Acquiring a mage task force early will also start generating various magic path combinations on your mages so you'll have the mages you want on-hand for particular crafting or combat applications. Basically, you pay more for them, but you get a lot more out of them and will have the capabilities you need as soon as you need them, not 5 months down the road.

Starspawn priests are a trap. Just get two for playing in the void gate and then forget about them.

I don't understand how this helps. At best a slave mage has E1. Boots -> E2, Hammer requires E3. Your Starspawn mages can have E2. Both will need empowering to make a hammer. Your starspawn mage won't ever go insane. Winner: Starspawn.

The only use for a slave mage is the Nature pick, and even then its pretty marginal because you're buying a commander who can go insane. Despite the lower likelihood, trying for a W3S3 starspawn and empowering to N1 is probably better for you. Especially since you're going to buy a lot of starspawns anyway.

I can't emphasize enough how bad commanders other than the starspawn mages are for you. It won't seem bad early on, but as they get increasingly insane you'll find yourself losing months of time waiting for them to become sane again. Making your research dependent on characters who could all decide to start calling god instead of researching is a recipe for disaster.

What does your prophet have to do in the early game again? Oh right, nothing. He should join a main army with a good number of void summons so he can divine bless them with whatever rainbow bless benefits you have.

Star children are *also* prone to insanity. And Every ~3 of them could have been another starspawn mage. That starspawn mage can simply mindhunt or dreams of r'lyeh a province (with higher success rate against more targets) without having to move there first, making a single starspawn mage vastly more effective at killing enemy commanders than three star children at the cost of a pittance of astral pearls. They have a niche use as slaves in communions, nothing more (and i'm even starting to regret buying some for that in my current game).

Summary:
Your conception lacks understanding of some basic principles.

Tempo. You realize you can get something eventually, but you never think about how long it will take you to get it. Getting things early is important.

Relative gem throughput. You criticize ~40 gems spent in the first 2 years on summons, and advocate spending 4x as many in that period on remote site searching.

Insanity. Only one (living) commander unit type is immune - the Starspawn mage. This is such an advantage over every other option that it trumps virtually any considerations of efficiency, because insanity is a hidden efficiency cost of those other options. And he does absolutely everything you need a commander to do, including lead large numbers of troops (higher than Illithid Lords out of the box, admittedly biased strongly towards magical troops). Basically, the Starspawn mage is hugely efficient by any metric except gold cost, and once you figure insanity into the equation, he's at least equal in efficiency with the other options.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

That's some very nice work indeed Squirrelloid. Many thanks for your time and effort.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Are all R'lyeh pretenders immune to insanity?

I know for certain that enemy pretenders are not immune.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Well, as long as I have insomnia...

I started a new game as LA R'lyeh with a random medium map with 10 total players. Pretender:

Archmage awake Tu3 Sl3 De3 Co3 Lk3 Mg0 Dom9
A4E4F4W4N4D4

This results in 0 unused points. So i'm willing to step back from Dom10 as an absolute - Dom9 is probably plenty strong enough and a lot more rainbow friendly. I really want to squeeze some Magic in there, but I keep feeling like I don't need the extra research points since my mages already generate a good number, and thus it feels inferior to rainbowing my pretender.

Its probably possible to cut down the magic a little bit (most sites will be found with X3 instead of X4), and since your early site searching will be entirely aquatic you can base it off the possible sites in oceanic provinces, but I like the ability to give a decent rainbow bless to my void creatures, and getting to 4 also enables virtually all the boosters.

You'll note an astral absence - i have plenty of astral without giving it to my pretender, and why tempt anyone to try and mage duel him?

At the end of year 1 I've only got 6 provinces (mostly due to some unlucky battle results and/or independent compositions - shamblers absolutely destroy most of your troops and i've seen two provinces with them), but i've site searched all my provinces and have reasonable gem income, have seen one 3000 gold event rather late in the year (still using that cash, >2000 remaining), and have 3 fortresses (2 from site searching), 2 labs, 11 starspawn mages, 1 starspawn priest, and a national hero (the aboleth). I researched Conj 2/Thaum 1/Evoc 2/Conj 3 in that order, and am header to Conj 4. Have 4 sea serpents as (part of) my main expansion force, and am realizing that rapid expansion isn't critical here - provinces are really only as good as my ability to site search them.

With a little less risky play and less annoying independents, I'd probably have 8 provinces trivially. I'm also way up in the research game because I'm only buying starspawn mages, and haven't bought a non-commander unit since turn 1. (More attention to units and early expansion could certainly have netted me more provinces at the cost of research, which i decided was more critical).

Important tip: Rename all your mages to their magic paths. This'll make finding the right mage *much* easier.

Edit: Also, not being attacked by stupidly strong independents when you have Luck 3 would be nice.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I'm reasonably sure they are. At least, my archmage has never gone insane in any of 3 games, and i see no reason why he'd have special immunity.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Are the heroes immune to insanity?- Cthugul and Auluudh?

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

You know, i never really checked. However, as one of my games went through a few *years* of turns with both Cthugul and Auluudh sitting in my capitol, and neither of them was ever insane, my guess is yes.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

That's not true, starspawn priests can go insane yes, but they will never from your dominion - at least I've yet to see it.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I think Master Lich is a better choice for the almost same price. With dom10 he is even cheaper.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

So Illuminated One, how would the starspawn priests go insane if not from the insanity dominion?
And what are you basing that claim on, manual, tests?
Do you make that claim only for the priests or also for some of the other commanders as well, like the starchilds?

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I've seen a starspawn priest go insane. Ok, I don't know for certain it was from dominion, but what else would it be from?

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Starspawn priests can go insane from the summoning void beings, or from "lost in time and space" event.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

So, even accepting that Starspawn priests are immune to dominion-based insanity, I still feel you want to be pumping out mages. You need to start generating different path combinations early and often, and those mages will be far more useful at a variety of tasks, not just researching. Effectively, you need your workforce to be capable of multi-tasking, and need to have the necessary magical capabilities already lined up before you actually need them.

It does suggest that once you have what you consider enough magical might (imho, somewhere in the 30-50 mage department is probably sufficient for awhile) you should purchase the priests for research duty (which will help free up some of those mage assets for other tasks even when those tasks aren't critical).

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Sorry for not being clear, it's as Napty says, but they don't get insane just for hanging out in your Dom, only based on having a good bunch of illithid priests for 40+ turns.
Everything else (Starchild, Freespawn) goes insane.

I'd go the other way round, I'd first build a research base from the cheap mages you have around and then start building some combat mages.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Here's the problem I have with that theory: you won't get the starspawn mages you need reliably, and that's a problem. There are a lot of possible combinations, and only a few of them are really desirable (many of the others are pretty interchangeable). W3S3, W1E2S3, W1S3D2, and W1S5 are your preferred combinations for most purposes, and to get those in any numbers you need to buy a lot of mages.

Further, starspawn mages are more efficient turn-wise with research, and are more efficient capability-wise as well. I'll pay the extra upkeep/purchase price for that versatility alone. That they are better than the priest starspawn at any activity isn't something to be looked down at. Only after my versatility needs are met would I start to think about specialist researchers. (If you could purchase the exact paths you wanted when you bought a mage my opinion might be different, but the random element means I want to have those mages before i need them so i do have them when i need them and don't need to spend 4+ turns buying mages to try and get the one(s) i need).

Its not like you need to buy troops. You're trading gold efficiency for other kinds of efficiency, and advantages like research tempo and crafting tempo.

Edit: Want efficient cheap research? Craft skull mentors.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Hmm... edit period expired. Consider this an addendum to the previous post.

On specific mage path demands: When you get construction 2 the items you most want are dwarven hammers, clams, and crystal shields. This requires you have a W3S3 mage ready to be empowered to N1 (preferable way to get clams), and a W1E2S3 mage ready to be empowered to E3 for the hammer (also minimal mage to make the shields before empowerment, so you may want more than one). The odds of getting both picks in the same school is 1/16, but with a 10% chance of +1WESD getting either of those is more like 1/15. That's an expectation you'll have to buy 15 mages to see the one you want. Don't wait to start buying.

Assuming no 3rd random pick, distribution of mage paths are as follows. Especially desirable combinations are marked with an asterix.

W3S3* : 1/16
W2S4 : 1/8
W1S5* : 1/16
W1E1S4 : 1/8
W1E2S3* : 1/16
W2E1S3 : 1/8
W1S4D1 : 1/8
W1S3D2* : 1/16
W2S3D1 : 1/8
W1E1S3D1 : 1/8

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I never suggested Acashic record - complete waste of gems.

You are completely right, that this is a game of tempo. But you are completely wrong in suggesting that the only way remote site searching can compare is with acashic record.

Check out the other thread, where I show what the distribution of underwater sites are. Realize that by casting Voice of Tiamat *every* turn, you will on average have a *higher* gem production, and a higher total research by turn 12 than you will by manual site searching with your pretender.

You suggest later on that I don't know the game. To make the above statement really reveals *your* lack of knowledge.

I am not saying that Magic 3 improves the number of free spawn mages you get.

I'm saying that without M3 they are 3-4rp each. With M3 they are 5-6rp. (I forget which). And as you will have literally 100-200 of these by endgame, the M3 scale will be earning you hundreds of rp.

You have obviously never used a communion.

I said your starting build. 8 troops. Which you can support the upkeep on. And which will help your initial expansion tremendously. And by the time you get to mid game they are dead.

Hard to see how 8 troops can be *incredibly* stupid. Especially since it works.

You can build a starting mage, if you wish. But there about a 25% chance that your starting troops will be unable to take a province turn two.

I'd rather ensure I take a province turn two, than gamble on it.


I am not against manual site searching. I'm against buying a rainbow pretender for site searching.

However the more salient detail is this: My approach, which you ridicule trades water gems for research. Ie., by turn 12 if you follow my approach, you will have higher research and higher gem production on average. Just no sea serpents.

You think water boosters require Con6? Have you checked recently?

Try listening. In most maps you will have remote waters that are *not* connected to your original starting position.

The ability to take those locations early game and project dominion is critical.

You will be building a castle and a lab there in *any* event. You know, for things like mage recruitment.

What my pretender design allows you to do is teleport and take those locations that you *cannot* do with your build.

Aka: you can move to them, as the archmage can't go on land. And you can't teleport to them, because you're not strong enough to beat the indy defender.

Factually not true. It makes me wonder if you have actually played the race.

I have never seen more than 1-2 of either type go insane from dominion.

Personally, I buy mages until I get the combos I need and priests thereafter.

So much of this is just flat out wrong. Your priests realistically, don't go insane. And its a MR roll for your slave mages to avoid going insane. Yes slave mages will go insane. At the end of year two, most recent game, I had purchased three early slave mages. Two had no insanity at the end of year two. One had 9 insanity.

Go luck at the probability charts at the front of the book. Look at mages mr, and see the chance of going progressively insane.

I'd rather spend 600 gold for 4 slave mages with a 25% nature pic - and a variety of other useful picks (like water, for voice of tiamat) than 90 design points for N4 on an archmage.

You have a 1/16 chance of getting a e2 or d2 mage. I can not tell you the number of times I have gone 2 years without getting either. I did a statistical calculation after one of my games. (I'm sure someone will do it again in an attempt to disprove the point). But after the end of year two you still have a significant (40%?), chance to not have gotten *ANY* d2 mages.


Seems like now you're telling him to do what I have him do: Accompany an army. I usually smite more, as in the early game the sacred spawns are few, and the weaker types.

Alternately, if you prophetized your scout - you are using him to project dominion in an enemy land. Or your own. The strength of the free spawns in your land is directly tied to your dominion strength.

There are twelve? (again going by memory) holy sites. Don't get me wrong - I will happily site search with free spawn priests. Or let them do it themselves. Your prophet has better things to do.

And what do you do against an opponent that has astral mages, before you have dreams? Mindhunting marignon, ermor, lizard shaman is a rapid invitation to feeblemind.

Against many of these nations, an 85 gp starchild is a good trade. Especially since its the only thing you can build *on land*.

I don't quibble that I would *rather* build a mage or priest, most of the time. However, you ignored a unit that is useful 25-30% of the time. It deserves mention.

Just wrong. For all intents an purposes, mages and priests are both effectively immune.

A priest with M3 is 8 rp for an upkeep cost of 5. A mage is 10 for an upkeep cost of 10. Thats a 60% advantage for priests - and you are unwise to ignore it. (I'm going by memory, so if anyone wants to correct the math, feel free).

Lastly: Cauldrons/wine skins are more than worthwhile for the increase in combat efficiency. Sure, its not my first priority either.

Dragging around hundreds of diseased (and starving) units means that they have lower hitpoints. They die easier, and route faster requiring more leadership for the same combat effectiveness. Healing spells (no, I'm not a fan) are not effective, and they aquire afflictions which reduce their effectiveness further. Crippled, blind, etc.

As for not understanding key concepts, I'd be happy to play a game or two to demonstrate my lack of understanding.

Look, generally, I agree with a lot of your guide - and I think its valuable and a pretty solid.

But you are wrong on several key points:
1. Priests, effectively, don't go insane.
2. Mage+3 scale is perfectly viable, and probably the best way to go.
3. Freespawn mages are *useful*.
4. And I quibble on some of your design choices. Blood on your pretender, for example. I believe the extra hp for the void lurker, astral picks, and extra dominion more than make up for immobility and 20 path cost.

Fundamentally, you are saying that it is better to buy FxWxExAx on your pretender, and site search every other turn, than use the design points for Magic3, and site search every turn with Voice of Tiamat with a 150 gp mage.

Personally, I don't agree with you - but I wouldn't say you're choice is ridiculous, or demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the game.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

It seems to me this approach trades off early game for mid/late game potential.
You might be able to get away with this, because there's no direct competition for water in the Late Age. 6-8 provinces in the first year will put you dead last in expansion. That may be okay if no one else is able to get into the water effectively, you can finish taking water provinces at your leisure. It'll certainly work in SP.

In MP, what do you do when you run into Atlantis and Mictlan and don't have any expansion after the first year without an early war that you really don't want? Ermor may be trying to grab some water as well. Not sure who else.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

I agree that my approach has better endgame potential.

However, I don't concede that it costs anything in the early game.
The archmage with no research is of no use in early expansion. In my opinion 8 mind blasters paralyzing closest adds as much combat effectiveness as your archmage pretender.

Of course if ermor, or mictlan get into the sea, you do whatever it takes to take the seas. Including sea serpents, if necessary = ). I just dont' think it should be a tactic against indies.

Against opposition - it depends on setup. Connected waterways? Chokepoints?

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

My comment was about Squirreloid's approach.
Thus the 6-8 provinces by the end of the first year. For that to even begin to viable, you have to be unopposed in the seas.

Sure, you do whatever it takes to take the seas, but it's much better to take most of them from indies, not wait and take them from opposition.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Agree completely.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Jomon. They'll be pretty motivated, I think.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

That's right. I'd forgotten about Jomon's new underwater units.

They're not guaranteed to start by the coast and lack an easy way into the water, though.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Yeah. That recruitable dragon mage is good motivation though.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

In CBM cast Sea of Ice. By the time he can react you should have almost all of the water provinces.

I still have to disagree - you should be able to get at least one mage to S9 for rituals with artifacts(*), and combat S9 is not really a problem.

Considering that the void lurker has no slots to take skullcaps (so RoS is a necessary booster) or mr penetrating equipment it should be only worth it if you plan to cast multiple wishes each turn - and if it's that the 100 pearls you gain at best are weighting a lot less.

(*) And I'd say trying to claim those is exactly what you should do.
With your powerful research and skull mentors it's possible and since you can't get any uniques (well, water queens, but then after securing the waters you are the only one that can get them, so no worries right?) there's no need to rush other schools. Pick up the death artifacts on the way, and then let the most badass SC/army rush your 600 chaff army backed up by the ankh and mist warriors while your gargoyles fly in to cut off retreat routes. Death through turn limit.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Well, that was also with a total lack of resources devoted to early expansion as well. One turn of buying units for expansion. You can do much better and still stick pretty much to what I was advocating by buying regular units for 3-4 turns. I basically decided to sit down and play a game where i bought just mages all game. You'll note I said the MA/LA guide was an ok place to start for early expansion, I just wanted to see how a pure mage set-up fared, for theoretical purposes.

(1) Crazy amount of research in year 1 without the pretender doing most of it.
(2) Plenty of gem income, even with few provinces.
(3) Had a clam forger (W3 empowered to N1) and an earth forger (empowered to E3) mage by the end of year 2. (Almost didn't have the second one. Odds of getting an E2 are actually ~1/15 because of the 10% chance at an extra +1 WESD, but that still means you could look at a lot of mages before getting one).
(4) About 6k gold from Lucky 3 over the course of the first year alone. Now, that includes a 3k event, which you don't expect to see, but i'm guessing your first year expectation with lucky is >4k gold from events even with a half-dozen territories. That's rather... substantial.

Basically, my LA R'lyeh build could afford not to expand very fast. While I haven't tried this in MP, I imagine this is useful if people are going to get disturbed should you make a push for land provinces. (You want to secure water faster than that, but you probably don't want to snag ~20ish provinces advocated for indie expansion rate since that will necessitate a large land holding that might provoke a war before you're really ready for one).

Edit
And to my advantage, I already had the research and the mages for combat support by the middle of year 2. (3 W1E1S3D1 mages with crystal shields). Evoc 5 by the middle of year 2 for Gift of the Heavens was both rather early and quite devastating for my move to land. So a 'pure' mage build is looking at being slow out of the gates, but rapidly catching up when its mages come online early. Since you'll also have ramped up the freespawn production by then with increasing dominion in many of your territories, its also far easier to find the chaffe to field for those mages.

More Edit
Ok, maybe i'll try a remote site searching version of the same to see how my gem totals compare at year 1 and year 2 end, and how my research compares. Also, how my dominion spread compares, since a mobile pretender will spread dominion more widely (which helps with generating those freespawn).

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Ok, new game, I'm going to try a couple of your suggestions:

(1) 8 starting mindflayers. Its more investment in initial expansion than I made, which means its not actually going to be a good measure vs. what I did, so i'll probably have to play another game where i invest 400 in slave troops or something.
(2) Remote searching. I wasn't attacking spending gems for remote searching, I just thought it was funny you were against spending on sea serpents when you were spending so much more on remote searching.

I'm still not sold on the void lurker though. Only two slots...

I'm going with a vaguely rainbow master Lich:
F1A3E4S4D5B4 Lk3 Mg3 all other bad scales Dom8

I took the S mostly so i could teleport with my pretender, still not sure how worthwhile this is when every other mage i have will be able to do so.

I want A because Perpetual Storm is actually a reasonably decent global for you since it will help protect *all* your troops from arrow fire on land, not to mention arrow fend, etc... and A3 gives you enough Air you can build the boosters after a RoW or Staff of Elements. (Bags of Air are good anyway because of the free air elemental - for mage teleport into PD squads).

F1 will allow him to cast magma eruption.

B4 is a +2 strength minor blessing for your void summons, and ability to forge Robes of the Magi when you can get some blood slaves. Also, I didn't feel i needed substantial fire or any water with remote searching, and nature wasn't high priority if he wasn't site searching either, so it was either Blood or be deeper in something else. Maybe deeper in something else was the right call, but Robes of the Magi are nice, and there are some other blood-crafts that are useful. Basically, its blood for forging.

The one thing this isn't going to do is find the free fortresses underwater, which is annoying.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

S is nice on your pretender because you can script it for returning when you are out site-searching.

Why don't you get rid of the B4 and take N4 instead? You get regen for your sacreds, regen on anyone you give a shroud to, and you get to find those forts. You won't find any blood sites underwater in any case.

You can wish for blood slaves to get into blood. With luck-3 you'll get Cthugul the Stargazer by the time you want to wish, and he's S5 with 3 misc slots (and a head, of course :)).

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

End of Year 1 Synopsis:

Gem Income: Significantly lower (Tiamat just coming online at the start of year 2)
Income: Significantly lower (not province related - see below)
Provinces: About the same (8 instead of 6, but weaker independents overall - ichthyids instead of shamblers and tritons is a big difference)
Research: About the same (Conj 3 1/2 / Evoc 2 / Thaum 1 not in that order)
Fortresses: Significantly lower (1)
Temples: Significantly more (3) - but i needed them to start boosting dominion (did not need in other set up).
Laboratories: No new labs (vs. 1 in the other set up).
Commanders: Significantly fewer mages (no second recruitment center)

Lets talk about a big difference between a mobile pretender and a static pretender - dominion spread. Most of my provinces had 5+ dominion in the other set up because the pretender visited all of them and got 2 turns of dominion spread checks in each one.

Why is that so important for this set up? Because you really need to spread those luck scales. I saw substantially fewer events than in the other game, and substantially less cash and gems from events because I didn't have the luck scales in most of my provinces. A mere 1k gold and two death gem events for a whole year.

About those 8 illithid troops:
They didn't help the army expand for longer. 3 provinces and they needed to be resupplied with troops (chaffe screen entirely gone). Indeed, one could probably say that I took more provinces because this map made resupply easier. In fact, I think they took *more* losses than my initial expansion squad from the other game while taking those first 3 provinces against *weaker* opposition, with only the illithids surviving. (Other game's expansion squad was initial troops + 2 crab troops, 2 atlantian slave troops, 2 13 resource atlantian troops, 1 lobo - 120 gold worth of troops because i also started with a mage).

In virtually all ways this start was worse by a substantial amount.

(oh, for what its worth, starspawn priests are research 6 in Mg3, while starspawn mages are research 10 or 11 (1/10)).

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Wow, I'd forgotten how lousy the early game with R'lyeh is. And those scales make it even worse. 6 provinces is better than I did.

With those scales my biggest question is how could you afford a Mage a turn? I made do with Priest and maybe an illithid.

Am I doing something wrong for expansion? There's no point in mage support without anything researched and besides you're trying for a research lead so you don't want to pull mages away from that. Do you just wait for critical mass of the freespawn chaff & Void summons?

What about an expansion pretender? You really don't need a lot of magic on him to diversify.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Because i'm not (aggressively) manual site searching, remember? ;) I suppose N would let me cast Haruspex at least. Eh, the first year is already sufficiently worse that I'm not sure it matters.

And S might be nice, but its also a liability when someone decides to pimp a mage and go mage dueling for you. Not having S makes you immune to mage duel, and when every other mage you ever build will have S...

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Illithids are suck, crabs are rawk. (troop-wise, the starspawn mages are also rawk)

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Ok, here's what I did in the archmage game from page 2 of the thread:

First turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage, 2 crab hybrids, 2 slave atlantians, 2 resource 13 atlantians (i had the resources...), 1 lobo.

Second turn: Buy: Starspawn Priest; Military: capture province

Third turn: Buy: nothing; Military: capture province; Pretender: move

Fourth turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage; Military: capture province; Pretender: Search

Fifth turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage; Military: Die against independents (commander escaped, i thought i could squeeze out a marginal victory but the independents increased their military by a factor of 2 before the attack, and i was too far away to resupply easily); Pretender: Move

I had a decent set of gold events at least one of turns 4-5 (can't remember) (5-600 total gold)

Sixth turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage; Military: Summon Sea Serpent x2, move commander; Pretender: Search (Fortress!)

Seventh turn: Buy:Starspawn Mage; Military: Summon Sea Serpent x2, pick up freespawn and move commander home; Pretender: Build Lab

Note also at this time that i'd seen another 500+ gold in events and had 3 provinces with 6+ dominion (and therefore full luck scales) due to the pretender dominion spread. My prophet was in the last province searching i believe.

Eigth turn: Buy: 2x Starspawn Mage; Military: pick up capitol freespawn/4x sea serpent, capture province; Pretender: Move

I also saw the 3k gold event here.

Ninth turn: repeat 8th except pretender searches, I also see a 1k gold event.

So i ramp out the mages by getting a second fortress early, and getting my luck scales spread fast enough i get good luck-based income.

I also think buying no one was a mistake in turn 3 - i should probably buy a priest... but maybe not.

Also, every mage was put on research for year 1 from the moment i bought them, with the exception of casting Sea Serpents. The aboleth hero showed up by month 6.

I finished year 1 with ~4k unspent gold as well, because i wasn't interested in buying anything but mages.

Edit: 'Commander' is starting Illithid lord, might be off by a turn on some of that.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Word. My empirical testing seems to support that.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Hey Squirrel: cool that you want to try a few of the ideas. When I'll get home, I'll try to give a more coherent write up of how exactly to do it - because this varies tremendously from what I actually suggested.

For example - you don't need air on the pretender - the visitor comes with it. You don't need blood.

Vfb mentioned one of the little tricks you can use to save 500 gold.

But I routinely get 8 Territories, first year.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Chris:
Given that game's assumptions, the only effect which magic paths i put on my pretender had on the first year was how much research he accomplished, so I'm not convinced it matters whether he had Blood or Air for the differences I noticed.

I think investing in some crab hybrids is also a far better use of your cash than illithids. If i dumped 400 (ok, 385) gold into crab hybrids I bet I could pull out 9 or 10 provinces pretty easily, assuming sufficient water provinces are available. (Has been true in every test game i've ran).

The big difference is staying at home means your dominion in your conquered provinces is lower, which means your luck scales don't spread as fast, which leads to substantially fewer beneficial events for you. This in turn leads to significantly fewer gems (even ignoring the lack of site finding in year 1), and significantly less gold (by a factor of 2 or more).

Also, not getting the free underwater fortresses from site searching means no easy early second lab for more starspawn mages/turn.

Manual site searching with a rainbow has a lot of secondary advantages even I didn't fully appreciate before.

(Assuming a purely underwater opening, your minimal rainbow chassis for site searching involves A3E3F1W3S3N2D2. Improve the ones you want involved in a minor bless for your void summons.)

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Ok... So here's my results using a not so very carefully constructed Lurker: File attached so you can see for yourself.

W4N4D4S8 Dom 9. Sleeping
-3-3-3+2+3+3

I forgot the death 5 was for the fear effect. I dropped points into growth as I really had more points than I needed. You could make him awake if you chose, add magic paths.

First a word about settings:

Map:Milkshake.
Indies all set to default.
AI's set to difficult.
Except for first couple of turns in capital, taxation was capped at 100. Yes, I would usually set it higher with dreamlands. However we need a consistent benchmark, and 100 provides about the only one you can, due to the vagaries of unrest.


Late Winter Year 1: 7175 gold. 118 gems 10 water provinces. (would have had more if I could have reached them). And I really should have purchased cmders to build forts yr 1.

Researched: Conj 4, Thau 1


At the end of year 2: 2000 odd gold. 4 Forts, 4 Labs, 4 Fortresses. 15 water, 6 land. Research 220 or so per turn.

Researched:
Conj5
Alt1
Evo2
Con4
Thau6.

6 Magic items.

I've started conquest of the second water. 30-ish starspawn mages.

Now a few interesting conundrums on this: During 2 years, I found not *one* death site, nor received any death gems. So I had to alchemize to do some searching. Still no hits.

Which, wouldn't be so bad except I *also* didnt find any water sites. Site distribution is site distribution, but clearly those are pretty bad luck.

I also didn't *find* any forts. Go figure. And only got one hit on void summoning.

Still the position is pretty strong, and would have been stronger with more usual luck with site searching. I have no problem replicating these results.

Again comparing the archmage vs the lurker:

lurker path cost :15. Immobile. Dom 2. 130 hp. Regens 37 hp/turn after you bring him home to recharge hp.

Archmage path cost 10.

The Lurker needs Dom 2 saves you 80 points for dom10? You get 13x the hitpoints. The lurker requires you to research conj and thaum (for voice of Tiamat and teleport) - two schools you are going to need anyway. And you have s7 (or 8)

Id also look at a w3E4S5D5N4, -3-3-3+1+3+3 Dom 9 Lurker. Earth + astral gives you immediate dwarven hammer at con2, astral coin, crystal shields.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Personally, I know *everyone* thinks illithid suck. Why you want to blow 35 gp on a critter that has 2xAtk:8 beats me. Plus he's confined to water, whereas illithids will help you break into air.

But I don't particularly care what troops you choose. I reliably get 10 provinces with illithids. So it *hardly* sucks. And I think purchasing troops turn 1 is important for R.
Which was my point.

Yes, you will establish dominion in the province with your god. Two candles. However, the chance of a scale spread (such as luck, magic etc) is actually pretty minimal.

It is *far* more important to conquer territories. If I conquer 10 territories and you conquer 6 - I'm 66% more likely to get more favorable luck events. This far outweighs the effects of dominion or scale.

So again, I'm arguing that producing troops turn one, and having a void lord (reasons outlined above) allows better expansion and better scales (magic+3) - which dwarfs the effect of dominion spread by the pretender.

But theres nothing that says you *can't* get free fortresses. A 175 gp slave mage 25% purchase gets you a 2w1n - which will find you most of the fortresses.

Why blow design points when you can purchase it for 175 gp.
By the way.. I forgot to mention it. But in the above game, at the end of year 2, slave mage 1 had 4 insanity; slave mage 2 had none.

Neither lost any actions to insanity. Again, you overestimate the opportunity cost of insanity.

By the way, the R.'s Traitor prince hero *does* go insane.

Most of your void summons aren't worth a bless. The ones that *are* worth a bless, regen (vastnesses, greater othernesses) is the best. A +2 attack, +2 defense, +2 strength just ain't gonna matter to a unit that has a 6-8 attack, no prot, and a move of 8.

Next best is probably S, for the MR.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

You also seem to be using CBM, which I am not. I don't know what that changes, but I can't load the file at present.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Sorry, I did state that I was using CBM in the original post.

Doesn't change a thing in R. pretender design, or unit costs.

CBM however does change the relative effects of some of the scales. Luck is somewhat stronger for example - and opposition's units got much better balanced. Many units were made more viable.

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

So, maybe I just don't understand what's going on, but doesn't the luck of the effected province determine whether and how good (or bad) of an event you experience? Ie, spreading your luck scales is at least as important as acquiring provinces. Otherwise why bother with province-specific luck/misfortune ratings?

Ie, if i have 6 territories with average luck/misfortune +2, and you have 10 territories with average luck/misfortune -1, shouldn't I do much better on events than you do?

Re: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands
 

Slave Mages: If you are hiring slave mages to do your N searching, you need to get really lucky during hiring. I've wasted a lot of time and cash as R'lyeh waiting for an N slave mage. I have enough trouble getting an S2 starspawn for being able to cast Returning and escape void gate disasters.

Why crabs are good even though they have 8 attack: They have two attacks, with a 30% and 46% chance of hitting respectively. Morale 14 makes them 75% immune to repel, so against def 10 indies they've got about a 60% chance of scoring a hit. Strength 17 pretty much guarantees a one-hit kill against normal UW indies except shamblers. Protection-14 on the crabs is excellent too, considering what they are up against. They're not going to take much damage from strength-10 spears or even strength-15 dam-0 shambler claws. Add in their nice HP, great morale, and low encumbrance, you've got a great unit.