Quote:
And I can't say I agree too much about LE Atlantis being so weak. I find the national units decent, and the best mages very durable and potent battle mages
|
I hate to semi-hijack your mod thread with individial nation balance discussions, but I may as well inject my thoughts regarding LA Atlantis anyway. Their Angakoks are good mages, with up to 3 levels of death and falling frost, but that is about where their usefulness ends. They cannot forge anything terribly useful with their 2 off picks except the odd feather or black steel item. Not having astral on the random list hurts a lot. No amulet of antimagic, no medallion of faith, no nether darts. You can get astral off of indies fairly easily, but the gem income will be slow and it comes later in the game. The Tungaliks, at WDH are frankly a terrible mage, for the most part good only as a researcher. They can lead 40 units, build temples and labs, and are cheap on research, but for 130 gold they are only used by default. Compared to other LA nation's secondary mages, they are easily overshadowed. Really only LA C'Tis's 120g Keeper of the Tombs is as poor, while LA nations such as Jotunheim get Seithkonas (NSD, 90 gold), Vamhiem get Volvas (SS, 120g) and Galdermen (AA?? 210g). These two are good examples because both are LA nations with free cold picks, and both have both better national troops and better secondary magic.
Blessings seem a no-brainer with LA Atlantis, as their sacreds (25g, 10 resources) are ideal for sloth. Additionally, Atlantis can take an extra cold pick and react well to a death scale for a total of 360 design points. Not using a bless strategy makes the sloth strategy much less appealing, as you will almost surely be forced to take order to support your high-resouece cost units. A strategy of massed mournfuls is possible, and can work under sloth, but as they are not resistant to cold, they are often taken out by the Angakok's falling frost, powered by their 8 precision of suckage. Additionally, neither the mournful or Arssartut have a shield, leaving the Ice warrior and Ice guard at 37 and 39 resources a pop respectively as the only LA Atlantis units with them. As an interesting side note, the Mournful's sprite has a shield, but the unit itself has only a halberd.
To wrap all this up, LA Atlantis is a good challenge. It can be an exceptionally powerful nation if it is allowed to control the seas... which it often can with only R'yleh (and ermor) as a challenge in the Era. Unfortunately, like Caelum, the heavy resource cost of it's best infantry units is a huge problem throughout the game. Unlike Caelum, LA Atlantis have 10-resource sacreds and the Dagon as a potential awake, awe-9, W9 trampler. This redeeming feature IMO was critical to the limited success I have had with them in MP.