Dud nations

[Salamander8]

HoneyBadger said:
EA R'lyeh needs better troops-most of the troops they get are lousy and unnecessary. The only ones worth anything that aren't Aboleths are the Shambler Thralls, and they aren't great.

If they got slave trolls-even as a national summon-and "rogue" mindlords *do* get them when you find Aboleths in neutral provinces, they'd be much, much better.

It wouldn't hurt if there were some kind of a sacred version of the Aboleth/Mind-Lord, too, since there are young sacred Aboleths.

I'd also really like to see some better Province Defense for these guys, too-because they're a particularly slow nation, and need it.

The biggest problem with Aboleths is that the only good units they get are Mind-Lords. They're great units, admittedly, but they can't be a nation by themselves.

All very good points.

The PD only worked for me when backed up by mobile forces or for piecemeal attacks. The morale of the non-lobotimised slave troops is nominally 8 and being that most of the PD are such slave troops that doesn't help. MA R'Leyh's PD at least gets the Lobo Guards which don't rout.

The Shambler Thralls I had posted about earlier. I like them overrall and only needing 1 resource and having 50 morale is great, but they get eaten alive by arrow fire, and they are mindless so accrue no xp. Once I had empowered more of my Mind Lords with air and summoned an Air Queen I had Arrow Fend up quite often to help with this.

Mind Lords are really nice except for the lack of magic item slots problem. I had a ton of amulets of the fish made up for these guys. I'd hate to try EA R'Lyeh without having access to air magic though. I had started my Polypal Queen with heavy magic, including some air and through an event acquired an indy mage with air that I empowered a bit to help with item creation too.

There are several ways to bring air breathers down below the waves, but barring the self-only amulet of the fish, there is no way to bring the water breathers out. That severely cuts the effectiveness of the Gibodais and Giboleths.

I don't feel that EA R'Lyeh is a straight-up dud, but they were much more difficult to win with than the other nations I have won Dom3 with so far (MA R'Lyeh, LA Argartha, EA Lanka, EA Yomi).