R'lyeh Strategies

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
- Temperature scales don't have affect underwater? Really? Sure?

Sure.

- Wait for a 2-astral Starspawn, really?

Don't wait, use what you got. If you're lucky enough to recruit one, keep him in the capital to replace your current summoner when you lose him - or when he loses his mind.

I sort of give him guards. When you get those immobile thingies (forget name) they make great guards, since you cant do a heck of a lot with them otherwise (or are they amphib? then you could gate them. Forget). I never thought of wait-for-returning, however.

Guards are OK. Returning is better, except you can't cast it when feebleminded, so you can still use guards with Returning scripted, with a gotcha: the bodyguards will be lost if the summoner actually 'returns'. Ritual of Returning + Returning is 99% safe for the summoner, and you don't need guards in that case.

- I still have a hard time with scales. I like meteroite guards, and thought

... and thought... what?

- Those shambler tramplers: I dont have success with them. They die way too fast, be it to arrows later or tritons sooner. HOw do you use them?

I don't.

- crabs -- anyone use them?

I do. They're great vs Atlantis.

- pretender: I am almost always tempted to go air, just so I can make some Staffs of Storms,

I do just the same.

you can have a mage cast Arrow Fend in your armies, and I am addicted to this spell with every nation I play. That may be why I fail to succeed, however -- any thoughts on this?

Arrow Fend is one of the best battle enchantments. I can't see why it would prevent you to succeed.

Is there any "official confirmation" (from a dev?) that Void Summoning relies on Luck?

I've never seen any official confirmation, but I'm strongly inclined to think they're unrelated.

- Illitid Soldiers I am sometimes tempted to get in the beginning because those darn tritons are so fast.

Fodder (lobo guards or lesser Void summons), and either Crab Hybrids or the scale mail/trident infantry is what I use. Illithid support also helps, but it means less shock troops to dispatch the tritons. Of course, nothing beats tritons of your own to beat tritons. A communion-backed Poison Ward on your better shock troops is also nice to have.

I just wish they didnt have that damn Trident and instead had their great lifedraining tentacles. Any thoughts on that?

Life drain is great, but tridents are also excellent weapons. At least they avoid your Soldiers to impale themselves on poisoned spears and accumulate damage.

- Anyone use bless effects? I figure a Water-9 could be interesting and sort of comes naturally, but have never tried it.

Water-9 is easily affordable and very nice to have on Greater Othernesses, but not required. A bit of air and/or earth magic (3-4) is more useful in the long term.

[tinkthank]

Ah, thank you.
I forgot to finish my sentence, excuse me smoked too much -- I thought meteroite guards would be worth the production points, but maybe Im wrong.

Nice to see, however, that I am not the only Arrow Fend addict out there.

Argh, more people saying Luck helps summons and Luck doesnt help summons. ARgh.

Maybe I dont have success because I either get greedy/panicky and think: "quick, run to land while the indies are still for the taking and build castles!" or because I still go down to tritons or because I still get my illithids killed or because I (foolishly?) purchase those armored Illithids or because I foolishly forget my fodder or because I use my mages to search instead of cast those search spells (I have *never* used them, any of them, ever, on any nation! I think that is because I suck, videlect: I play very conservatively and instead conquering province for province for province, I usually get a province + wait/search/send for reinforcements/purchase mercs turn, repeat, so I am slow. And I suppose I research wrong things too....)

Uh sorry for the ramble. Thanks much for the help.

[Karacan]

Smoking is hazardous to your train of thought. *ahem*

That said, I believe there's a relation between Summoning and Luck. I appear to get a higher success rate at a higher Luck dominion, but since I usually always take luck 2 or 3 (because me likes), I might be subjectively biased.

I also like and use Shambler Thralls. They're quite good as a secondary attack force. Place your fodder to the front, and your Shamblers a few spaces behind with attack closest. The fodder takes the pain, the Shambler dish out. This is great against both tritons and barbarians.
Just keep them away from evil archers.

That's not to say I know anything about playing R'lyeh, but they were the first race I won Dom II against impossible AI with, completely without constructing anything.

[Yossar]

Crab hybrids seems to work the best for absorbing the initial triton attack, especially if you've taken sloth and can't afford many meteorite guards. Good protection and hps. Lobo guards would work but you'd have to keep replacing them.

[tinkthank]

Mind me asking another question?

When do you folks head for land? I am always tempted to do this very very early, because I feel
- if I do it later the free indy land may be gone and it is too crowded to get a foothold
- I can start getting freebie fodder from those coastal castles early
- gem sites are better on land (?)

But I feel I do this too soon too, because
- I always get licked on land

What do you people think?

Thanks much

[JaydedOne]

I prefer to go to land in the midgame at the earliest, unless there's a small patch/peninsula that's largely surrounded by water and can thereby be easily protected by a fortress. Aside from Atlantis or possibly Ermor, there's no competition for water resources early in the game and you should therefore snatch them up as quickly as possible and mine them thoroughly with Voice of Tiamat/Akashic Record (depending on your preferences in research.)

The advantages of land (hybrid spawning, greater variety in magic sites) aren't overwhelming initially and the biggest problem I find with them is that, due to R'lyeh's generally slow speed, it's difficult to send reinforcements to land provinces given that your best units are recruitable only in water. I prefer to bide my time, build forts near the coastal provinces that I want to start my aggression outwards at, and even let my opponents conquer indy provinces first, as they'll often move their forces elsewhere, leaving only PD behind. PD, in most cases, is easier to crush than indies on a high setting. This way you have solid reinforcements coming from the water directly next to your landing point. After that, you might consider consolidating your land presence with a quick fort+lab build, as nobody loves to see squids on shore. The lab will be a huge plus as you'll now have Gateway potential to speed up reinforcements to land AND you'll now have access to all the land-only summons you've hopefully been hoarding gems for.

[tinkthank]

Thanks very much.

You mention something that I also have a question about: Tiamat/Acashic.

I have never used these spells. It just seems I never have the gems for them, I use them for forging and whatnot. Are they worth it? I tend to send my Mage starspawns out searching with the pretender. How viable / stupid is that?
I should say: I have NEVER used a gem-search-spell, ever, with any race, because I usually search. (I play quite a bit of Tien S&A, which has natural searchers.) Is this newbie-ness from me?
thanks very much