Give me good reasons why R'lyeh is a balanced nation.

Jasper · #1 February 4th, 2004, 01:25 AM

One can also use high MR troops, especially since the the penetration of Mind BLast will probably drop into line once the spell Paralyze is fixed.

LordArioch · #2 February 4th, 2004, 02:18 AM

Actually I like R'yleh more with a high indy. They do have very good assasains. However, in general I don't think they are generally overpowered. MindbLast is MUCH weaker than the Dom 1 mindbLast was, IMO, now that it's not area. Arrows will kill the unarmored illithids, and if your opponent is building armored illithids he wont have the resources to build too much fodder in front. As long as your not Ermor or something, just give him lots of pointless targets to mindbLast. Keep in mind each illithid costs almost as much as a vaetti hag, and an army of vaetti hags or any other lvl 1 mage is much more dangerous.

Arryn · #3 February 4th, 2004, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LordArioch:
if your opponent is building armored illithids he wont have the resources to build too much fodder in front.

Another problem with the armored illithids is that they move much slower than the cheaper, unarmored variety. They're not terribly useful because as the lands under your control expand, they cannot keep up with the pace of that expansion. It's by far more efficient to build more of the "cheap" illithids and deal with the fact that you'll lose some to archers.

I handle this by setting my illithids to "fire archers". Tit for tat. I can kill the archers far faster than they can do me serious harm. And if you happen to have a Vastness (and have not given it Gift of Reason yet to make it a SC), it can rip up the archers in no time ...

AIs never seem to build archers in enough quantity to become a major threat. Human players are another matter ...

LordArioch · #4 February 4th, 2004, 08:06 AM

Actually I usually note too much shortbow archer use by the AI. It's his tendancy to aim at the front troops and have militia and other useless units in his army that usually defeats him.

incognito · #5 February 5th, 2004, 06:46 PM

Good points on R'yleh. Let's talk counter-counter strategies for a sec. Strikes me that using staff of storms becomes uniquely valuable vs human players to disable distance attacks. I think there is also a water based spell to prevent fire based magic use, something the illithids rarely use (unless you set your pretender up this way).

Are there other storm creating options besides the SOS? What good (and generally accessible) options are there for shutting down arrows? I like mass protection, but r'yleh seems unlikely to get nature 3 with appropriate numbers of casters to support anything more than a single army or two.

Also, what strategies do people have for the void? I have played multiple games with the R'yleh - most in early stages - and even with luck turned on have only managed to get some lower level stuff. I also have had several attacks on the starspawn (some victories, some deaths). One of my units got up to lvl6 summoning, but had nothing to show for the effort (got killed). Does swapping new starspawn priests in occasionally help? Also, what about starspawn mages? Are they better at summoning?

Thanks for the tips. This point-couter-point discussion highlights the depth of this game.

Gandalf Parker · #6 February 5th, 2004, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by incognito:
Thanks for the tips. This point-couter-point discussion highlights the depth of this game.

Even more is the fact that no one ever gets a clear win. Ive dropped multiplayer games in the past because certain strategys became recognized killer-strategys and it boiled down to who could get there faster.

Bowlingballhead · #7 February 5th, 2004, 07:18 PM

As Void Monsters are among my favorite elements in the game, I will fill you in on them.

Priests summon much better than mages. They both seem to summon more stuff, and they are vastly less likely to get feebleminded. By the time one of them GETS feebleminded, you may well have the chalice or gift of health, and be able to heal him. Thus, the sky is the limit for their summoning ability, although eventually it 'maxes out' and all you get are greater othernesses. Which should not be knocked.

Cthugul the Stargazer apparently has a slightly smaller chance of getting feebleminded than a regular priest. Whether you want to devote him to summoning is up to you.

Two strategies to deal with the occasional (well, frequent) monster attacks. Give your priest a squad of tough units set to 'guard commander' (and give him a ring of warning, too, so you can have 10 bodyguards!). Or you can have him set to cast that recall spell first turn of combat. I haven't tried it, but I'm told it will get him away scot free, even from horrors (which attack fantastically rarely, but do attack). I think there's a ritual spell he has to cast outside of combat to 'prime' the recall spell, though.