Lanka pretender design/strategy

[Gregstrom]

So I chose Lanka for an MP game because to my mind the only thing funnier than a nation of monkeys is a nation of demon monkeys... Now I have to think about strategy, and there's no guide on the forums (AFAIK) to kick me off.

I've looked at them a bit in SP and it strikes me that they have very nice sacreds, and lots available. So maybe some sort of Bless strategy is a good idea.

My rather fuzzy thoughts are:
Options for paths:
1: Get good blesses for the sacreds. Options I've considered here are E9 (might be a good one for survivability, especially for Kala-Mukha Warriors), F4W4 (the sacreds already have good Attack and Defence - adding even 2 should put them up with a lot of good summons), N6 or N8 (regen would stack with other blesses, but I'm not sure I want Berserk).

2: Go rainbow for the site searches in paths Lanka doesn't start with (Fire, Water, Earth, Astral). Going high enough in some of these could mesh with idea 1.

3: Go high in some of Lanka's national paths, to extract better value from summons they'd be using anyway. This doesn't give many good blesses though.

Secondly, Dominion. I have less ideas here.

A: It seems that a good Growth scale is beneficial for Blood nations, so G2 or G3 may be good.

B:I like Turmoil 3/Luck 3, and can see advantages in this for some Blood spells, but I suspect that Lanka will need all the income it can scrape together for their costly Sacreds. OTOH, Order 3/Misfortune 3 can be awkward with Lanka's poor PD not being much protection against the inevitable Barbarian invasions.

C: Productivity seems a better idea than Sloth, as Lanka's good units are demanding on Resources. Points have to come from somewhere though, and maybe Sloth is survivable...

Overall strategy I think has to involve lots of Blood, for the summons. I think, though, that one needs a good income at the same time for the Kala-Mukhas you can buy so many of.

Can anyone with experience of Lanka add anything to this, or resolve any of my dilemmas?

[coobe]

I like to play Lanka with an e9s9 oracle. but no idea how the good players think about that

e9 is obviously good for lanka sacreds and the s9 increases mr which is good for demons.....

just my 2 cents

[K]

Ok, here is the trick to playing Lanka(short version).

W9/N9 on your pretender. The quickness, regen and Berserk are are must haves to an unstopppable bless army. You seriously can take almost any indie province with 4 Palashankas if you do this. If you choose some other bless, they are basically just like normal(but good) units. Run a few test games if you like.

Get Growth, for the Blood hunting. Dump Productivity, as your resource heavy units are capital only and you capital takes in enough.

I like Magic 1 so that indie mages can research and even luck(0) because its not a hassle, but those are play-style choices.

Go Construction 4 ASAP for the Skull Mentors, then Blood 4 for the Rakshasa Warriors. Pick up the site searching spells as needed. Blood 8 has Mandahas and they are wicked awesome, and Blood 6 has a summonable national mage that is pretty awesome.

Your middle and late game will suck as your mages aren't powerful enough to power the good Death, Air, or Nature magics, so expect that you'll have to summon casters for that.

[Gregstrom]

I'm rather worried about N9 blesses in the late game. Earthquakes or other mass-damage spells sending all your decent national mages berserking into the enemy just seems like an expensive way to lose a battle.

[Evilhomer]

I tend to go with an s9w9 or s9e9 build with lanka. The added astral is good for demons and the speed and extra attack from water is good. Also you can get this build with better scales if you pick an imprissoned fountain.

[jutetrea]

Starting Lanka guide here:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...=&fpart=1&vc=1

[jutetrea]

I agree with K that the W9N9 bless rocks, especially since berserk stacks. Even the weak asura(?) 5 for 11 slaves, athame and berserk, kick with this bless.

The vast majority of your national summons are sacred, so a bless keeps on giving. Plus, both your cap only and your non-cap only tough sacreds are pretty tough.

The +1 research makes the little 3 research guys you get a lot of for 90g a bit more worth it, drain is obviously less so.

I personally like turmoil/luck (1 or 2 turmoil, 2 or 3 luck) for the extra cash and more importantly the extra gems.

Growth is great for longterm income and slave replacement although IMO its either growth 1 (minimal increase) or growth 3(max increase)...for some reason I never use growth 2.

I'm not sure if you can swing it (haven't tested), but if you can add a minor bless as well its nice.
F4 fixes the lack of fire magic, and allows empowerment in blood later for devils. +atk is always good
E4 is key imo - recup is always good, and means you may only have to empower one level on each blood stone maker. Father Illearth can help out a bunch here, 85 slaves for B4E4 methinks.
S4 - astral is always good, +MR vs banishment
D4 - even D3 is enough to easily bootstrap into a death mage path, revenent, mound(?), etc +affliction might be good with wrathful and such but minor

Even an A4 bless might help - 20% fend and you have someone to build your first air booster for all your 3A mages. The 20% fend might be nice for the demons with no shield.

just thoughts, i've got very little practical experience with Lanka in MP

[Shovah32]

I tend to play Lanka with a E9N9 bless(Imprisoned cyclops, makes a nice SC when he breaks out) but I've also tried and enjoyed W9N9 and W9E9.
I stick with E9N9 because it helps all of your sacreds survive - you get extra protection from both earth and berserk, regeneration from the nature and reinvigoration from the earth.
The berserking mages can be annoying but you can always just keep them away from priests you have scripted to bless so that they don't go berserk at the start(when spells like earthquake/rain of stones ect are most likely to be cast).

The E9N9 is also great on the late game Mandahas and Davanas - units who rely more on their toughness than their defence.

[K]

Gregstrom said:
I'm rather worried about N9 blesses in the late game. Earthquakes or other mass-damage spells sending all your decent national mages berserking into the enemy just seems like an expensive way to lose a battle.

Thats true, but since you don't get recruitable H3 casters until Mandahas(Blood 8), you'll be using Bless more often than Divine Blessing so you'll be able to keep mages unblessed if you like.

Also, in the late game you need to have your good mages (which are high hp) heavily armored and immune to bunch of things anyway because spells like Frozen Heart and Drain Life will preferentially target high HP units anyway, so worrying about battlefield attacks is a little redundant.

[Nappa]

Look at w9, f4, n4. with the high str almost anything your blessed troups hit die in one hit so with quickness your blessed troups will shred anything. The f4 helps make sure they hit and the n4 keeps them from getting afflictions and with their high hit points helps keep them alive.

I personally hate the n9 bless as mage after mage goes berzerk at the wrong times. There really should be a toggle to allow blessed units to go berzerk...