Guide: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands

[Radio_Star]

Originally Posted by vfb

With the default sites in the game, you just need to search these paths underwater:
F1A3E3W3S3D2N2H1. You might want to adjust your Kraken's paths to take this into account, if you can afford it. It's better to wait for a W3S3 rather than manually search with a W2, because then you can skip casting Tiamat on the province later.

The advantages of conquer/search/conquer/search are (1) it's more efficient than conquer/conquer/.../conquer/search/move/search/move/search, because you skip the 'moves'; (2) you find your UW forts much earlier; (3) you can get earlier gem income; (4) you buff your HP by sitting in higher dominion before venturing off; (5) your newly taken provinces have your positive luck scales. With horrible scales, most of your income will be from your capitol in any case.





edit: In an amusing turn of events, my Kraken got an amulet of the fish off a dead enemy. I kept him in the water to keep the test results sound, but it entertained me to no end.

I don't like Shambler Thralls much because I think you need a critical mass to steamroll opponents or they take too many losses, and you're not going to be able to take Shambler or Sea Troll provinces with them.

Duly noted on the underwater paths. That means you can put everything but astral on your pretender and remote search that with your starting astral income.

Conquer/search/conquer/search is certainly more efficient in the long run, but it limits you in the crucial early stages. The trade off is less early gem income vs. nearly doubling your early expansion rate. It's my opinion that the latter is the better option.

As for the shambler mass, you're right there as well. You'll find that the necessary mass is lessened considerably when the enemy AI is focused on whacking away at your Meteorites and chaff. As to the trolls in sea provinces, that's what you've got a Kraken for.


I just ran a 1 year trial with Chris's settings and results are as follows: 20 (7 land, 13 water) provinces, 18 gems per turn, 134 gems stored. Research is slow at Thau 1 and Evo 2, Conj 1 with 55 RP generated. I did manage to make 2 castle/lab/temples through, bringing my total to 3 at the end of the year.

Expansion was firing off the Kraken at a province a turn. First turn was Meteorite guards and Shamblers - no commander. Subsequent recruitment was guards and shamblers with a starspawn mage per turn until Thau 1 was reached, at which point I recruited priests until I got a 2S. (I agree that void summoning without returning is a waste of resources). I ferried recruits from the cap out to my prophetized starting commander once to replace the inevitable shambler losses.

I've got a hunch that this was a lucky test and I'll see if I can run a few more in the near future to normalize the numbers a little.

[chrispedersen]

Radio,

Would you consider trying something like a E3S3D3-5N4?

My thinking is as follows:

A. D3-5. D3 allows mound fiend boot strapping in death. D5 either gives you or improves your fear.
B. E3 Eliminates all the hassle of trying to get an E2 mage.
Allows dwarven hammer at con2 (FAST) for clams. Also summoning troll court.
C. e3s3 Allows crystal coins, crystal shields
D. S3 allows teleport. Downside: makes you vulnerable to mind duels. Don't get seen, domes?
E. N4 Useful for the bless, and for possibly getting globals.

Edit: Wish we could standardize magic sites to better compare variables

[Radio_Star]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Radio,

Would you consider trying something like a E3S3D3-5N4?

My thinking is as follows:

A. D3-5. D3 allows mound fiend boot strapping in death. D5 either gives you or improves your fear.
B. E3 Eliminates all the hassle of trying to get an E2 mage.
Allows dwarven hammer at con2 (FAST) for clams. Also summoning troll court.
C. e3s3 Allows crystal coins, crystal shields
D. S3 allows teleport. Downside: makes you vulnerable to mind duels. Don't get seen, domes?
E. N4 Useful for the bless, and for possibly getting globals.

Edit: Wish we could standardize magic sites to better compare variables

Getting into death via pretender is possible, but at best you're saving yourself 30 death or 40 water gems to empower a mage or summon a naiad. The Kraken comes with fear 0 which is really enough for the early expansion that it specializes in. E3 is an absolute must, but I'm not sure how quickly you can conceivably get into clams. You'll need some sort of empowerment and that takes time. Taking astral on the pretender is mighty tempting for the forging coins but as you mention, the downside is significant.

Dom9 with full negative scales except luck and magic + all the paths for underwater sites (F1A3E3W3S3D2N2) leaves you with 2 remaining points. It's my gut feeling that if you try to take the Kraken away from its job (early expansion and site searching) you'll end up marginalizing it. That being said, I'll futz around with some higher death (forego air, maybe? how useful are air gems to ryleh?) and possibly astral builds.

[chrispedersen]

Try playing with only the paths indicated. I view him as a vehicle for early expansion; after which searching; after which forging.

You get air on the visitor, you can empower although he will vanish. still, more generally useful, I think

[13lackGu4rd]

warning: major thread necromancy!

now that we're done with that, this is still the only real guide I've found for LA R'lyeh(as opposed to the MA/LA R'lyeh guide on wiki which Squirrelloid refers to) so I'm resurrecting this thread. now that CBM 1.6 has become the standard, thus clams are no longer an option, pearls aren't as easy to get as they used to be, which greatly effects your late game strategy Imho, as you can't get as many wishes and stuff as you've been used to. also you don't need all those nature mages for clam forging, only 1-2 for manual searching UW provinces for free forts.

a common thing in both your guide and chrispedersen's opinions is that you both agree that R'lyeh has a hard time expanding early on. to solve that I always an SC pretender seems like the best choice. now LA R'lyeh only as 3 solid SC Chastises that can expand safely right from the get go(even blindly on turn 1), those are the Wyrm, Octopus and Void Lord(not Lurker). out of these 3 only the Void Lurker starts with any magic, and unfortunately it's S+W which R'lyeh gets plenty of on its Starspawn Mages, however the other 2 lose their usefulness very very fast(basically once initial indy expansion is over). the Void Lord, while not having terribly useful paths, is still a solid SC and has all slots so he can be useful later on as well, and of course S is great for SCs, however it comes at a very high price of 125 DPs. fortunately for you, your build gives you plenty of DPs, even going with M3, so you can afford to put quite a bit of magic on an awake Void Lord with Dom9(10 is just overkill). with the Void Lord to help you expand, and to be a nice warning flag for potential invaders, you improve your early game by a lot while still keeping your pretender useful all the way to the late game, which in my book is worth the extra design points. but no, you won't have your rainbow pretender. I do have a unique alternative to it though, that will solve some(not all) of the problems which the rainbow pretender would have solved.

this guide does a good job of abusing your harmful dominion. I've been wondering about another way that could do it very well, and that I've never actually seen used before. I'm thinking of rushing to Evo6 before anything else, this opens up Mind Hunt very early on(but no Mind Burn/Soul Slay yet) but it also opens up a seemingly devastating global that you're in a perfect position to abuse. yes I'm talking about Strands of Arcane Power! assuming I understand its description perfectly(started a SP game with LA R'lyeh to test it in action, will report the results when I get to that point), it's easily achievable with S7(easily reachable on your Void Lord) and 40 pearls(easily achievable by just capital income, you probably won't get it in year 1, so you'll have the pearls). in return you get free site searching in all your provinces as well as free magic duels(I assume, as opposed to Mind Hunts) throughout your dominion, which your S7(or 8/9 to be extra safe) pretender should easily win against anything but an S9 Oracle... so you're basically delaying your gem income but once you get it(most probably somewhere in year 2) you'll get everything searched at once, and in the process saving the gems that would otherwise be used for remote searching or pretender turns(if rainbow) used for manual searching while using your pretender for much needed early expansion instead. also it means that there shouldn't be any opposing astral mages in your dominion unless it's an enemy S9 pretender, so you can safely Mind Hunt the remainder of his commanders without risk.

now, all this is under the assumption that Strands of Arcane Power actually works that way, both in terms of magic duels vs Mind Hunts as well as the site searching being all at once vs random provinces and that "mage power" refers to astral level, not level in each specific path. a lot of assumptions, which is why I'm wondering(and in the process of testing) about it, not claiming it's a fact, yet. almost sounds too good to be true and the fact that I haven't seen it used yet might mean I'm way too optimistic about it, on the other hand my MP career is very short so it could have been used successfully and I just don't know about it...

but anyway, great guide, and still the only guide for LA R'lyeh, good job on it Squirrelloid, and hopefully you'll update it a bit to take into account the changes CBM 1.6 brought. and heck, if Strands of Arcane Power actually works the way I think it does, than I think LA R'lyeh is the perfect nation to abuse it to the core

[chrispedersen]

I'm not at all impressed by strands.

[BlanketThief]

Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd

...
now, all this is under the assumption that Strands of Arcane Power actually works that way, both in terms of magic duels vs Mind Hunts as well as the site searching being all at once vs random provinces and that "mage power" refers to astral level, not level in each specific path. a lot of assumptions, which is why I'm wondering(and in the process of testing) about it, not claiming it's a fact, yet. almost sounds too good to be true and the fact that I haven't seen it used yet might mean I'm way too optimistic about it, on the other hand my MP career is very short so it could have been used successfully and I just don't know about it...

...

Tested it a short while ago, the site-searching function just relies on the paths the mage has (And searches up to level-3), so a 1AEFWDENB 9S pretender would be ideal to maximize strands. Hopefully saved you some time testing it

[13lackGu4rd]

well, that sucks, makes this sort of strategy completely unreliable for site searching purposes, and will probably still require voice of tiamat, in which case a rainbow pretender would just be better...

still wondering about the offensive capabilities, cause feeblemind is usually the bane of mind hunters, but with magic duel it shouldn't cause feeblemind if you meet another astral mage, instead it should destroy him with your superior astral level. however, if it does function like mind hunt somehow, than it purely sucks...

[BlanketThief]

Originally Posted by 13lackGu4rd

well, that sucks, makes this sort of strategy completely unreliable for site searching purposes, and will probably still require voice of tiamat, in which case a rainbow pretender would just be better...

still wondering about the offensive capabilities, cause feeblemind is usually the bane of mind hunters, but with magic duel it shouldn't cause feeblemind if you meet another astral mage, instead it should destroy him with your superior astral level. however, if it does function like mind hunt somehow, than it purely sucks...

From what I've heard it functions like a mind-hunt in the sense that it's MR-negates (Except it's worse then a mind-hunt due to penetration boosters not affecting it) but other then that it's a magic-duel with the penalty for losing is gaining the feeblemind affliction, assuming I'm understanding your question correctly.

[13lackGu4rd]

I assume that it specifically targets astral mages, so a magic duel can actually occur... and well, most regular astral mages don't have a huge MR, just standard, so I guess it's around a 50/50 shot, than with at least S7 you should win almost all magic duels. but ahhh, you don't actually kill the enemy mage, just feeblemind it heh? well, that totally sux... I guess it's still viable to open the door to mind hunts(no astral cover) but not much else, unless you're facing a strong astral nation, in which case you can put a major hurt on them.

also, at what frequency does it occur? once per turn, once per turn for each enemy province under your dominion, totally random, etc?