Guide: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?

[ano]

Baalz
I didn't really say I don't believe in what you described. All this is quite possile but you really need a lot of luck to win. Luck to find enough nature sites to summon Yakshas/Yakshinis (nature games are, IMO, one of the most valuaable and rather rare in addition to that), luck to have enough astral income or enough water to clam. Gems are the most obvious luck aspect but there're many others. Of course every nation needs luck, but the build you described seem more luck dependent than skill dependent to me and I really don't like being dependent on luck. It's just an opinion, nothing else. Also, I can't say for sure that my suggestions or thoughts are more viable as I didn't try them in the real game, I just think that relying on blood from the very beginning and planning your strategy around this, aiming for Dakinis as main thugs and using Conjuration summons as a support for them is much more reliable because with blood you only depend on magic site percent value, not luck in having stable gem income.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by ano

Baalz
I didn't really say I don't believe in what you described. All this is quite possile but you really need a lot of luck to win. Luck to find enough nature sites to summon Yakshas/Yakshinis (nature games are, IMO, one of the most valuaable and rather rare in addition to that), luck to have enough astral income or enough water to clam. Gems are the most obvious luck aspect but there're many others. Of course every nation needs luck, but the build you described seem more luck dependent than skill dependent to me and I really don't like being dependent on luck. It's just an opinion, nothing else. Also, I can't say for sure that my suggestions or thoughts are more viable as I didn't try them in the real game, I just think that relying on blood from the very beginning and planning your strategy around this, aiming for Dakinis as main thugs and using Conjuration summons as a support for them is much more reliable because with blood you only depend on magic site percent value, not luck in having stable gem income.

Hmmm, I don't know. I suppose if you were extremely unlucky you might not have the gems you need, but I haven't found this to be a problem in the games I played as they're very reasonably priced summons at 25 gems. You start out with nature income from your capital, and I find if you give site searching the priority it's due with this nation (high!) I generally have the gems to summon 3 or so as soon as they're researched, and even a very modest income at that point will let you summon one ever third turn or so. You can certainly put as many as you can get to use, but you don't strictly *need* a large amount. In a pinch just one per army will cover the critical stuff.

Granted, you could theoretically have terrible luck and just not land the sites you really want, but if you're aggressively site searching I don't think it's terribly pressing to worry about not landing astral, water, or nature! Yeah, you'll be hard pressed if you don't have a significant amount of any of these, but that's pretty unlikely. Additionally, part of the thesis for a rainbow pretender is that you can alchemize for what you need if you have the bad luck to not land it naturally.

If you're site searching with a rainbow pretender, and S/N Rishi, you will have a gem income, and it'll be skewed towards S/N. If you've got more clams in one game and more Yaksha in another it isn't a deal breaker, you just need a little flexibility. You could also worry that all the provinces you conquer have less than a thousand population, but it's probably not reasonable to design your nation expecting that.

That said, I fully agree that one of the benefits of blood is it's predictability - though you still have a different randomness on a turn to turn basis as to how many slaves you pull in.

[K]

Don't forget that while Bandar Log is chasing the research for Ghandarvas, they also get access to Akashic Record. I use it only for Mountain/Forests and other high frequency provinces and have not been disappointed, despite the fact that you have other things to spend Astral on.

I also favor the Nature bless and like Wooden Warriors for BL, so the Mother Oak is almost always mine. That seems to keep a steady supply of summonable mages.

[Olive]

I've tried a game with a E4/N4 bless :

Ancient Lich, imprisoned, dom7.
A2 E4 D6 N4 B2 ( half rainbow )
Ord 3 - Prod 1 - Heat 3 - Gro 3 - Misf 2 - Mag 1.

Pretty decent for early expansion imho, mixing elephants and blessed white ones, more for the morale than their battle skills, elephants having usually won the battle before the white ones have reached the frontline.

But I've really big issues with misfortune. I lose a lot of provinces with event attacks. And investing in PD doesn't help, 20 doesn't seem more efficient than 1. What would you cut to reduce misfortune ?

Order is required to recruit the expensive elephants.
Prod is also needed imho ( 17 res. for white ones, 20 for elephants, 23 for bowmen ).
Growth : I never feel comfortable with death, and growth 3 is good for an eventual late game blood economy.
Magic is not an option, you don't have early Air / Death / Fire gem income or mages to forge research boosters and all the astral mages may cast spells with MR check.

What would you change ?
Turmoil 1 Sloth 1 Luck 3 maybe ?