Which nations need help?

[HoneyBadger]

Thematically, I love EA R'lyeh. It's my favorite nation, as far as role-playing goes. In practice, however, it's a big dud.

Yes, you've got nice SCs-nice and expensive-but not much else, and the SCs are difficult to use compared to many, because you can't upgrade them with items.

Your commanders, other than aboleths, are pretty sucky, you've got no national melee to back up your magic missle troops, and you're in the water. You've got nice tramplers, but they quickly become obsolete.

Yes, if you survive long enough, you can become very strong, but that can be said of lots of nations, if not all of them. They certainly don't have the ultimate end-game of later R'lyeh.

The position you start at is abysmally weak, and you don't have a fast track to power, like say Mictlan does.

Your one hero isn't even that great, nor are your Pretenders.

The free spawn you get are fine, but they do exactly 0 damage and on top of all that, your priests are immobile and you've got weak sacred troops upon who's shoulders a strong Bless is almost completely wasted.

And where are your national spells? I can't even remember them having any.

Finally, I forgot to mention that they lack the one true defining quality of R'lyeh. No Voidgate! If they had a Voidgate-and commanders with the skill to summon from it without going all "quirky"-they'd be a good, solid nation.

[Baalz]

As I said, you've got to play to their strengths. Obviously a Neifel Jarl is tougher for a toe to toe slug out, and if you play R'yleh like Neifelhiem it will be a total dud.

Don't do that. I've made the analogy before - Neflelhiem is a battleship, R'yleh is a submarine. Slugging things out toe to toe will be a dud every time. You've got to think more fade, dodge, and weave.

Here are some *significant* advantages EA R'yleh has to EA Neflehiem which you can use if you're clever.

1) Can recruit ready made thugs out of every castle, needing not a single item to take out most PD alone with a little research. Granted, you will need an amulet of the fish to attack the land, but strictly speaking they're effective out of the box.

2) All of the Mind Lords (capital only) and 25% of the aboleths (recruit anywhere) can teleport out of the box. This, combined with #1 means you can attack an absurd number of territories in a single turn against someone you don't even share a border with. Generally easy enough to forge crystal coins to get even more attackers.

3) As Meglobob mentioned, gateway is an excellent one-two punch to follow your initial teleportation wave with.

4) You can perform a brutal amount of mind hunting. This loses it's effectiveness late game, but can be stunningly effective midgame.

5) Most nations will be reluctant to attack you in the water early on. This is a powerful diplomatic tool as well as meaning you often don't need to sign NAPs, leaving you with lots of options once people start getting entangled in other affairs.

6) Voice of Tiamat + Dark Knowlege + Arcane Probing + Haurespex (+ Aschric Record for the land), R'yleh can quickly take a gem lead.