Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

Neither of us had played either nation before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

versus

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

Re: Kailasa VS Lanka
 

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

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

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

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