Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN

[Evilhomer]

If you have astral you can mind hunt the raiding forces. Also pd is not all, several nations has as bad pd (like the giants) and still manage to score wins in larger mp games.

I would rate the ape nations as average or slightly below average in total. Several nations has alot worse deal (Early age: marvereni, Middle age: ulm, late age: Abysia just to mention a few).

[HJFudge]

Another thing I think you forget is that an enemy investing in any amount of raiding forces (11 is 2200 gold total, NOT cheap) is investing in a one trick poney. They might be good for raiding but really what else use do they have? Any real army will roll over them.

Second point. A fort and lab and mages all have many uses outside of stopping a raiding force bonanza. After said raiding forces are stopped or at least controlled, you can turn to more offensive uses immediately. Its a much more quality investment.

[Lord_Bob]

And yet they never win. In any age.

[quantum_mechani]

What nations have won long term games is a pretty rough guide of the best nations. Considering _all_ the nations are roughly in the 0-3 wins range, a particular nation having 0 instead of the average is easily a statistical anomaly. And further, the winners are generally much more decided by player's skill then nation power (and I would not assume the best players pick the best nations- different people find different nations fun, and mot people get tired of playing the same set of nations).

Also, Jotunhiem is generally regarded as having some of the weakest PD, and has plenty of wins.

[thejeff]

I am curious, and don't have the game in front of me. Does Lanka use the same PD?

[sum1lost]

This is stupid. By Lord Bob's argument, a number of nations are worthless, yet I've seen machaka and agartha be powerhouses.

pd strength isn't why nations win or lose.

[Sandman]

Lord_Bob said:

I would like to emphasize that these forces are not "stealth" in any way and can very easily have an Astral Mage lying around. However, I wouldn't bother with that. Mind Hunt forces me, sob, to add another commander to the force. Total cost:230 gold. But if Bandar Log wants to use 4 astral pearls and 2 mage-turns, I'm sorry, 2 BOOSTED Mage-Turns in order to kill 230 gold, then I think he should. Or does it take 3 castings to kill two commanders? Well then, 6 Astral Pearls. I think that's great. Of course, if I get tired of this, I'll develop the nasty habit of teleporting high Astral Mages onto some raiding groups, thus hopefully feebleminding several extremely expensive mages.

If the Bandar Log player is going for a mind hunt strategy, they're probably going to have booster items lying about anyway. Risking high level astral mages to support a cheap-o incursion strategy strikes me as foolhardy.

In any case, Bandar Log's troops all have move-2 and forest survival, so they're going to be able to move swifty to counter improvised incursions. And don't forget the recruitable-anywhere sacreds.

[Hadrian_II]

I dont think that weak PD is something that counts in MP so the PD of the monkeys has nothing to do with their weakness.
btw. Lanka has the same PD and is not considered weak.

The biggest problem with kailasa is that they are very suspectible to arrows, they have no armor and only bucklers on the basic sacreds, so your powerful armies can easily be shot to peaces by very cheap archers.

But if you survive into the mid game, you can summon gandharvas, and they are about the strongest troop in the game. Sacred, heavy armoured, awe and only 18 pearls for 6 of them.

Also you can summon Kinnaras that are able to cast arrow fend, and then even your sacreds that are recruitable everywhere become useful again.

You have also a national spell that gives all your sacreds quikness.

Then you have some minor benefits like S3 and H3 mages that you can summon and the rudra that has d3f3a3 and makes a very nice SC chassis.

And to the last all your summons are astral based and you have national mages that are able to forge clams, so if you survive the beginning, kailasa will become very strong.

I played them twice in MPs, and in both i was not very succesful.
In one i decided to invade vanheim as he had almost no troops but in the province i invaded i was greeted by 3 E5 bladewind spammers (Worthy Heroes can suck sometimes), and took heavy losses that caused sauromantia to invade me, and i was not able to get back on my feet.
In the other one i started between Nifelheim, Lanka and Helheim and this is not very funny.

Kailasa is for a nation that starts with a dual bless very weak in the beginning, but in the middle game (after conjuration, thraumathurgy and enchantment up to lv 6) they can field f9s9 blessed prot17 troops that have awe +1 and quickness and the basic unarmoured troops have arrow fend and die not so easily either. (w9s9 bless might be better earlyer, but as it does not seem that the quickness stacks, f9s9 should be better after you can cast celestial music).

I think the next EA game that i have time to play, i will try to win with kailasa again.

[Sandman]

In my experience playing a MP game with Bandar Log, the main points of pain for Bandar Log are:

1. Crappy forts. Mostly fortified cities. Sometimes you want these, mostly you want something cheap.

2. Crappy priests. Combined with the above, it blunts the recruitable-everywhere-sacred edge.

3. Crappy searching. Bandar Log is a real gem-hog, with its summons and gem-heavy battlemagic. But the Rishis only have map-move 1, and remote searching spells may accentuate your gem shortage if you're unlucky.

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
The totally useless PD of these nations is why none of them have ever registered a single win in multi-player.

Is this some sort of running gag which I'm missing out on? My irony sensors are a bit perturbed at the moment.

If you honestly think that the PD strength makes that much of a difference then I would think that you are a MP newbie. By your reasoning, the Jotun giants would have to automatically win every game (zOMG GIANT PD!). If you'd actually engage in MP games you'd find out that players don't rely on PD that much, the more sophisticated players usually don't get any more than 1 PD. Because PD cannot be scripted, because PD becomes useless as soon as the nations get their magics/SCs in gear, and because the money you put into heavy PD is generally of better use elsewhere (buying more mages, for example). Caelum's PD impales themselves on the enemies' weapons as soon as they have the chance, BTW.

There is a difference in PD, this is done deliberately, and it can lead to different playstyles, that's the whole idea.

I have to admit that when I looked at the apes for the first time I was a little underwhelmed, too, but if you'd even bother to play with them you'd find out that they are awesome. Their national summons are really nice. Patala actually has some of the most awesome mages, especially for LA. As for the nations not winning any MP games that you know of, I wiped the floor with my opponents as Patala in a recent MP game of mine. Ask them if they felt like the apes were lacking and should be made stronger, if you want.