Atlantis strategy

[apoger]

War Shamblers are often the troop of choice for a variety of reasons:

1- Low resource cost allows more firepower to be generated at speed (at a loss of gold, but speed is often worth it).

2- Size 3 prevents being trampled by size-3 tramplers like minotuars and shambler thralls.

3- The high damage is one of the only Atlantean methods of beating high protection values, often used by players.


The combat program is great, and I love it, but it doesn't tell the whole story.


As for my own Atlantean advice:

War lobsters rule underwater (except versus Rlyeh).

For land battle make War Shamblers if constrained by resources. Make Coral Guard if resources are plentiful. Even though they take heavy losses, always consider the potential of mobs of Atlantean Spearmen.

Spells to keep in mind are: Quickness, Frozen Heart, Paralyze, Soul Slay, and Light of the Northern Star.

For a pretender I prefer the Dagon.

I am not a fan of the Mother Guard, and don't feel that going for a bless effect pretender is worthwhile for Atlantis.

Taking heat/cold +3 was very useful in Dom1 but is FAR less useful in Dom2. In Dom1 most water nations could carve out a huge and wealthy empire in the water. Not so in Dom2. Taking heat/cold +3 will be harsh economically, and I don't suggest it.

Sailors death needs to hit, and then offers a saving throw. It looks great on paper, but fails to impress in practice.

I would never take a god that can't leave the water (Kraken, Nereid).

For long term summons consider winter wolves or sea trolls.

Later in the game if you are doing well, make Kings of the Deep in order to expand your magic paths.

A King that comes in with water-5 can cast Murdering Winter. Always a late game consideration.


Hope this helps someone.

[Potatoman]

I kinda like the Ancient Kraken with an amulet of the fish, but thats just me.

[Wauthan]

Good advice Apoger. But, as usual, playing styles diverge and experiences differ. Ain't this a great game or what? Just wanted to toss my comments in to show just how differently two players can look at the same feature.

"There's no such thing as an optimal strategy."

War Lobsters are top of the list of R'Lyeh busters. Why? Well it's not because of the ineffective trampling. It's because every dead War lobster turns into an ordinary lobster essentially having an extra life. This allows lobsters to tie up the mindbLasters long enough for the tritons to finish them off.

Dagon is as tough as pretender comes but is so expensive that you'll be giving up both magic and scales in return for slightly faster expansion, than say a Kraken. Don't get me wrong. I've seen Dagons wipe out good armies all by themselves but they tend to be on their knees from afflictions afterwards.

Since both Neried and Kraken got an extra misc slot they are easily fitted with an amulet of airbreathing, usually available at the time they are needed on land.

Mother Guards are a slow bunch and not exactly blessing material, thus explaining me favoring the plain Kraken. But they can take one heck of a beating, which I've been unfortunate to experience myself in my latest MP game. A powerful blessing simply makes them worse. And waters quickening is the best way to move the sluggers around. Not to mention hitting twice and high defence. Lousy developers favoring atlantis over C'Tis *grumble grumble*.

Sea trolls are a bit less useful for atlantis than for the ones who are fighting them. They are basicly thougher shamblers that cost more in upkeep. Having a horde of angry Sea Trolls show up outside the coral gates is a good way to ruin the Atlantean spirit of invulnerability. It's how I beat my opponent by the way. Guess he didn't count on lizards having such deep pockets eh?

This has been a good thread so far. Should make one about every faction really. But it would propably just drop from view just in time for the next wave of newbies.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by apoger:
I would never take a god that can't leave the water (Kraken, Nereid).

A king of the deep with his random in air can easily make an amulet of the fish for either of these pretenders though, and since the Kraken has three misc slots (Too bad he doesn't have 8 or 16 arms) he can take one pretty easily.

[PvK]

I've seen shamblers fight very well in Doms I, especially underwater. Not all that great on dry land, but underwater they can be very effective (that is, against typical opponents). As was mentioned, they're expensive but if you have the cash, you can raise many quickly.

PvK

[Saber Cherry]

Keep in mind that the mercenary War Shamblers are highly experienced, and fare much better than ordinary War Shamblers. I have found plain shamblers to be annihilated quickly when facing Tritons, largely due to their low protection and usage of length-0 weapons against poisoned-weapon-wielding enemies. In fact, low protection is their primary problem, and their high damage output has never seemed very useful to me, underwater, where most enemies are unarmored anyway.

[LordArioch]

I've done pretty well with a Dagon with no additional magic. I gave him flying boots, luck amulet, and etheral and just had him quickness/breath of winter/ attack archers. Usually he'd take care of the archers and any nearby commanders while my mages knocked the main army unconcious so they couldn't run.

This was against the AI however, so it probably won't work as well against humans.

[WraithLord]

Hi, I'm about to start an MP game using atlantis.
I have never played that nation.
I am asking people that have already tried playing atlantis to dispense some much needed advice.

A few points.
-> pretender design.
-> troops.
-> How to handle land based expansion?
-> worthy spells.
-> known strengths/weaknesses.
etc.

TIA.

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wauthan:
Atlantean infantry is pretty durable, but expensive in resources, so quickly add tritons and summons to the main force. Shamblers are too expensive and hungry to use in large numbers, but mixing them into the main force gives you a little extra punch against heavy critters.

From the combat simulator, it seems that Shamblers are totally worthless. A War Shambler generally loses to 2 normal infantry, even really weak ones - the 3 resource Atlantian infantry, triton guards, independant 5-resource infantry, etc. Plain shamblers do even worse. I would not recommend shamblers, and only War Shamblers versus very heavy armor. They do as well against Ulm heavy infantry as against indy light infantry.

---

IMO they are useful primarily against heavy armor and size 3 tramplers (being size 3 themselves they cannot be trampled by minotaurs, shambler thralls, etc.) They might be good against size 4 tramplers too - they would take relatively little damage for high fatigue cost to the size 4 trampler (since both damage and fatigue cost are based on the size difference).

Also, 1 war shambler vs 2 infantry isn't an accurate simulation - because even if there are 50 war shamblers and 100 infantry, the actual line of battle will have something like 20 war shamblers vs 30 infantry. War shamblers get relatively more punch into your frontline.

[diamondspider]

Here's what I did Last time I played Atlantis that worked pretty well:

-Took Kraken with no magic and put all into scales.

-Focused on pumping out Deep Seers and putting them into research while using Coral Guard and Kraken to take the sea zones (I had no opposition at sea).

-Powered forward as quickly as possible in Evocation to Level 5 in order to get Falling Frost.

-Meanwhile raiding the coast and preparting to set down Groups of about 4 Deep Seers and 30 Coral Guard lead by a Coral Queen. I keep all of the units near the back so that the Seers have plenty of time to get their spells off.

I like Atlantis since it is a real challenge and seems to depend so much on the map and what the landlubbers are up to

Shamblers? They eat too much for my taste...

[ January 30, 2004, 13:28: Message edited by: diamondspider ]