Foray into Bandar Log

[atul]

After being dealt Bandar Log in upcoming 60-player game I've realized there isn't much love being given to the nation of white furries in different strategy threads. Apart from demo guide to Kailasa and KB's quite controversial guide to Patala, all attention is centered on the bloody juniors of Lanka.

However, the purest of all, Bandar Log, hasn't been that much discussed.

With that prelude, dear forumites, I turn to your collective wisdom. What makes the astral apes tick?

I'm mostly looking for opinions regarding Pretender design; being such a nice guy I rarely can take scales bad enough to be competitive without outside influence. Here is what I've thought so far, it isn't anything others wouldn't have come up with so I'm not afraid my prospective opponents reading it:

BL lack access to the Pretender chassis that's standard answer for a good pick, PoD. On the other hand, they've got Cyclops and Wyrm if you insist on being boring. I keep wanting to put four-armed titans into the fray, but always get the feeling I can't make them cost-effective. Final honorary mention goes to Mother of Rivers, as she would get automatic Water Gems to facilitate BL's national summons. But still, cost effective?

Their magic is characterized by recruitable everywhere SSSNN110%? Rishi, i.e. strong astral followed by medium nature. Cheaper mages just basically mimic Rishi with less picks, but with heavy investment into Conjuration come national summons that diversify BL magic a lot. Therefore, while BL might gain from Pretender expanding magic variety, it isn't requirement. Unless one wishes to utilize many Blood spells inherited from Lanka.

BL has sacreds in both recruitable everywhere and summonable varieties, but White Ones are too weak and Gandharvas come too late to warrant overly heavy bless. Priests are mere H1 outside Conjuration, thus making bless-relying strategy even less desirable. Ordinary troops of note include Elephant and Bandar Archer (compared to other Bandars loses only Buckler but gains Long Bow).

So, early thug? Dormant mid-game monster which relies nationals (i.e. Elephants) for initial protection? Weak(ish) bless or scale facilitator?

Speaking of scales, money's always good, so Order3 is given. BL can pay that off with taking Heat3, with only a minor hit thanks to preference to Heat2. Productivity can go either way thanks to both lightly armed troops and Elephants on Sloth side, and high resource Bandars on Prod side. Taking anything lower than Sloth1 without awake combat pretender eats into your margins too much as you're unable to recruit even 3 elephants per turn in early turns that are most vital.

The researchers are more of the cheap, sacred and with few magic picks kind, so drain is no-no and Magic1 a good trade-off between cost and benefit. In a blitz I'd have no qualms with taking Death3 with these guys since no-one's old and they have nature magic, but since the upcoming game's bound to last I'd hesitate to go lower than neutral scales. With Luck, maybe Misfortune1, anything less is still invoking Murphy.

So, 390 points for awake Pretender, or 540 for a sleeping one with a baseline of Order3 Sloth1 Heat3 Growth0 Misfortune1 Magic1. What kind of stuff would be viable in hard-research rush-prone environment? What I've overlooked, in the sense of squeezing even more points out of scales? Or would more scales benefit the apes more than extra magic on Pretender? E9 would turn White Ones into elite Heavy Infantry with encumbrance of LI and aid later summons, but would there be any other blesses even worth considering?

Please pimp my apes. Thanks in advance.

[Hadrian_II]

I played Bandar Log in EHII and i used W9S9 dualbless, whiteones are quite strong for expanding. 9 whiteones + 1 bandar archer and a indy priest are able to take on most indy troops, so you can start one expanding party per turn. (The archer is there so that you can set your priest on stay behind and he does not charge along with the white ones).

In my testgames for expansion, i reached 20 provinces in a year without an SC, so Bandar Log has very rapide expansion.

Also Gandharvas are ultra elite summons and able to fight back almost everything, and E9 would give them 20 protection and 0 enc what would be really nice.

And Tiger riders are very nice cavalry so a good bless pays good with bandar log.

I would try to rush one enemy with elephants & whiteones at the beginning, then kill the next with ghandaravas after that you should have construction and conjuration researched to get your national thug/SCs rolling.

Btw, you will have access to every important army bless from summons, so your armies can stay competitive in a time where every other nation only can field expensive chaff.

[Karlem]

Main problem with magic diversity for BL is death.

Best bless for thugs is earth 9.

So a dormant Cyclops with E9D4Dom7 and your scales seems a good option. It will not have AWE, but a very high prot and good fear range.

[K]

I've found that the best Bless is an E9/N9 on an Earth Mother. It creates the most survivable Bandar Log overall. Avoid the Tiger Riders. For the price, you can get four White Ones and four of them beat single Tiger Riders hands down.

Shoot for Conj5 for Ghandarvas and you'll have an elite squad of almost unkillable units with the E9N9 Bless.

Also, the precision on the Longbowman is pretty bad so avoid them until you can cast Wind Guide consistently. The Atavi Archers are nice stealth archers.

Remember that you get Lanka's good Death and Blood summons, so breaking into these economies as soon as possible boosts your overall survivability quite a bit. Since its an MP game, trade and bargaining is your best best, though I've gotten lucky with Akashic Record before.

If you went with the N9 Bless, tossing down Foul Vapors and poison immunity on casters means that you can eat through lesser armies.

[Natpy]

I tried to play BandarLog with strong bless, but there was a serious problem - absence of good priests. In my opinion the good variant is awake SC with air and blood for Lanka summons in the midgame. A4E4B4 Dom10 awake Deva Order 3, Sloth -3, some Heat, some Death, Mistfortune -2 Magic 1.
Research Alt 3 for buff your Deva, Thaum 2, Evo 2 for siteserching and Blood 6 for Dakini.

[K]

Natpy said:
I tried to play BandarLog with strong bless, but there was a serious problem - absence of good priests. In my opinion the good variant is awake SC with air and blood for Lanka summons in the midgame. A4E4B4 Dom10 awake Deva Order 3, Sloth -3, some Heat, some Death, Mistfortune -2 Magic 1.
Research Alt 3 for buff your Deva, Thaum 2, Evo 2 for siteserching and Blood 6 for Dakini.

Bandar Log is in the position of being able to get to H3 pretty easily if they summon a Yaksha or Yakshini and Communion up and/or use a Crystal Shield to boost. Its a little work, but worthwhile

[Hadrian_II]

Siddhas are H3 from the beginning and only cost 35 pearls

[Baalz]

I haven't formulated the universal theory of Bandar yet, but a couple points about them which stand out to me:

You've got some *realy* good national summons, most (all?) of which are holy. True, you can't base your initial expansion on them, but I wouldn't discount taking a strong bless primarily justified by summons. Your tiger riders are pretty respectable at any rate, and of course I doubt I need to convince anybody of the effectiveness of elephants in the opening turns so you don't even need your bless as a crutch initially anyway.

Think about this, I don't remember their names, but if you summon those holy heavy infantry non-commanders and one of those powerful earth mages to lead them, you've got high hp, high armor, high defense, dual blessed, awe carrying guys buffed with legion of steel, strength of giants. The research requirements for this isn't high, you can start fielding them around when elephants become obsolete.

With your summons you gain strong access to earth and water to compliment your default strong astral and nature. Your higher level summons are some of the best SC chasis available, particularly with 4 arms and a dual bless...and they're non-unique so eat all you want!

Note: for Kingmaker in particular clams have been nerfed, but your W/N national summon can forge them and I'm hard pressed to think of a nation which benefits more from lots of astral pearls than Bandar Log.