Guide: Beginner's guide to Lanka

[Gregstrom]

Ano, thanks for the correction. As for your other points, I think it's down to a difference in play style.

I like Rakshasa Warriors for a series of reasons over Palankasha (when I can summon them). They have an extra point of MR over Palankasha, helping against Banish, and they do fractionally more damage per hit. You can create more than a maximum of 10/turn, and you don't have to pay upkeep on them. This is quite nice, given that 20 Palankasha cost roughly the income provided by a blood-huntable province. As far as Asara go, definitely a matter of personal preference. Javelins with a net precision of 6 at a range of 20 aren't to my taste.

In similar vein, while I certainly summon a lot of Dakini I don't believe they're the only valid use of the hundreds of blood slaves I can pull in per turn. Sure, Samanishada aren't much use but Davana are a very nice SC chassis and possibly on par with Tartarians. They're not insane, for a start. And ignoring Mandaha is bad. A leader who halves the attack and defence scores of most enemy units in the game gets my vote.

As far as bless/scales go, I prefer the benefits of E9W9 over S9W6F4N4. It's a little difficult for me to compare the melee benefits of Twist Fate, +4 def, +2att and 2 hp of regen against those of +4 def, +4 armour, 50% haste and noticeably less fatigue. I think in the late game my choice is better - Lanka's sacred SCs have 18 MR base and you can cast Fog Warriors, which is pretty much Twist Fate but effective against more than one melee hit. OTOH bless haste, armour and extra reinvig are gifts that don't stop giving.

My pretender build was a sleeping Cyclops, E9W9, with Order 3, Sloth 2, Heat 3, Growth 1, Misfortune 3 and Drain 2. I can only blame my newbie status for that, but it worked well enough. The scales are bad, but not quite catastrophic - I should perhaps have taken Sloth3/Misfortune 2 and suffered a few less barbarian attacks early on. Having a mobile sleeping pretender instead of an immobile imprisoned one is yet again a matter of taste - while Lanka may not need an SC god, one who can quickly site search for 2 paths you otherwise lack is a nice bonus.

I think Drain 2 is survivable for a heavy bless nation, because you don't need so much research early on. I trailed badly in research until the late mid-game, at which point I forged research boosters like mad and more than rectified the situation. Drain necessitates a tight focus on achievable goals in research, and having hordes of thug-level sacreds means you don't need quite as much battle magic as other nations in the early and even mid game. Oh yes - a minor perk of Drain 2 is the bonus MR for your troops.

Your experience with Enchantresses matches my own pretty exactly. They seem to provice a huge boost for Lanka, and it seems that they're pretty likely to be available since Whispering Woods isn't a unique site.