How is LA R'yleh overpowered?

[Gandalf Parker]

In high-speed tests I find that the problem with LA Rlyeh is that they tend to own the oceans. The rock-paper-scissors balance takes too long to kick in. LA Ermor seems to be the balancing answer against Rlyeh. The problem (on large games) tends to be that Rlyeh takes out Atlantis and there is no Oceania. And the other land nations tend to take out Ermor before Rlyeh bursts forth from the oceans.

Id rather see an LA Oceania, maybe a stronger Atlantis. Maybe they could have some natural immunities to aid them against Rlyeh.

Altho the way that the many small-map blitz games tend to be played, and games with CBM, would not be helped by that so some sort of nerf might best be done by CBM for those players.

[thejeff]

A LA Oceania would be nice.

LA Atlantis should actually be able to do pretty well against R'lyeh and does have some natural immunities in it's underwater recruitables. I suspect that the AI just doesn't play to it's strengths. The AI is also much worse than any players at getting into the water, so it's natural that R'lyeh would do better.

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

I have seen that trick performed by MA Abyssia. When I have noticed that half my lands have many red candles in them, I've started recruiting priests and preaching my own dominion in my own temples, so domkill failed despite my meager Dominion 6. This is one of the reasons I dont believe in domkills anymore.
But of course, I had many provinces; with a smaller nation, one might notice too late.

The question is can R'lyeh really afford to spam temples (considering it does make you open to raiding you almost need a castle as well, or some guards)? You can of course make Juggernaughts but at their cost a blood nation still outdoes you easily.

[Kuritza]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

The question is can R'lyeh really afford to spam temples (considering it does make you open to raiding you almost need a castle as well, or some guards)? You can of course make Juggernaughts but at their cost a blood nation still outdoes you easily.

Building at least some castles with temples is a good idea in any game, for any nation. And LA Rlyeh is perhaps the hardest nation to raid, except maybe LA Ermor (because it builds castles in all provinces anyway).

[Illuminated One]

Well, I'd even go so far to build a temple in every castle, but that's still maybe 15 temples against 20 temples +20 bloodsacs. So your dominion can certainly be pushed back (while I still think that a real domkill is impossible since you have a big bunch of free h3 priests - if you are desperate put 10 into your cap and set them to preach - noone can force that much enemy dominion on it).