LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions

[Maraxus]

Interesting, I had not thought of playing Late Atlantis with a bless.
*checks*
And I really can't see that working either. Just not enough points for these E9S9N4 and acceptable dominion and acceptable scales.
Don't forget, that the Arssatut are capiton only. On the long run they are not worth it.

I'd take a Magic diversifyer god. With only 2/160 chance to get a double earth or double air Angakok, these random picks are basicly wasted, unless you have much luck or a good that helps start the gem-flow here (And in case of eath forges the first hammer+earth boots).
And in fact, you can take a sleeping Crone with enough magic in Earth, Astral, Air and Nature and still have some really good scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 Magic 1 - I would not go without it. Your troops are good and any and every gold can go into more research centers. Cold 3 sounds good but I would not go all out in death or misfortune.

This probably makes the early game more dangerous but I see better chances on the long run.

[cleveland]

Awesome guide Baalz, as usual.

I'd like to point out one neat trick that few apart from LA Atlantis (and some of the Heims) can pull off. I'll preface it by mentioning that most raiding nations have a lot of trouble reinforcing after the initial raid, and almost no ability to break down castle walls.

The trick:
Surprise-attack a coastal fortress with sailing raiders while simultaneously hitting it with an amphibious Bane Venom Charm holder, or (later on) Black Death/Tidal Wave . The following turn, cast enough Carrion Reanimations (3D, so 1/4 of your Angakoks can cast it) to turn all those corpses into Soulless @ 100 per 10D. 500 Soulless will bring a mage-factory down pretty quickly. Now you've got a base of operations on your opponents side of the lake 3 turns into the war. Worse comes to worst, demolish it as you sail away.

P.S. Carrion Reanimation also gives you something to do with all those dead R'yleh chaff.

P.P.S Edited yet again in response to Max's comments.

[MaxWilson]

Cleveland,

Isn't that a trick that any Death nation can pull off? Stygian Paths + Black Death + Carrion Reanimation... all pure Death magic. Substitute Astral Travel for Stygian Paths if you've got it, or just use an SC + Teleport. It's a good trick, but available to many, many nations.

-Max

[cleveland]

Sure. But most Death nations don't have much raiding capability. Similarly, most raiding nations don't have much castle-breaking capability.

I'm presupposing that a "raiding nation" is one which has the ability to hit multiple fronts unexpectedly. Sailing grants that, stealth grants that, flying grants that, teleporting grants that.

I absolutely concede that any nation casting Black Death can also cast Stygian Paths. But slip a Bane Venom Charm & some swim trunks on someone who lands onshore at the same time as your sailors...that only takes Const4 & Ench7 (which you'll be going for to get those Leviathans), totally doable in year 3. Thoughts?

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm, okay, I think I see the distinction you're drawing. Nevertheless, I suspect that Niefelheim, Fomoria, and Ashdod (recruitable thugs w/ Teleport or Cloud Trapeze access) all have good reason to want castle-breakers handy.

I haven't played much with Bane Venom charms. How many corpses do they produce?

-Max

P.S. You're definitely making me want to try some bigger maps (400+ provinces), just so I can try attacking across the globe.

[cleveland]

I'd guesstimate that they kill ~5% of the population per turn. Not bad if it's an enemy capital...

[Baalz]

Maraxus said:
Interesting, I had not thought of playing Late Atlantis with a bless.
*checks*
And I really can't see that working either. Just not enough points for these E9S9N4 and acceptable dominion and acceptable scales.
Don't forget, that the Arssatut are capiton only. On the long run they are not worth it.

I'd take a Magic diversifyer god. With only 2/160 chance to get a double earth or double air Angakok, these random picks are basicly wasted, unless you have much luck or a good that helps start the gem-flow here (And in case of eath forges the first hammer+earth boots).
And in fact, you can take a sleeping Crone with enough magic in Earth, Astral, Air and Nature and still have some really good scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 Magic 1 - I would not go without it. Your troops are good and any and every gold can go into more research centers. Cold 3 sounds good but I would not go all out in death or misfortune.

This probably makes the early game more dangerous but I see better chances on the long run.

Yes, I tried to be clear that the nature component of the blessing was both optional and required some opportunity costs to afford. One reasonable build which fits - Imprisoned Monolith sloth -1, cold-3, death-3, magic-1, dominion of 8. Nature does give you a pretty good diversification as well as the regen blessing, but you can certainly make this work without it if you decide to spend the points elsewhere. Thing is, you can't even really get too much cheaper going without the nature component since the monolith is the cheapest chasis to get S/E with a high dominion.

As to the diversity, it's really not prohibitive at all to empower in earth to level 2, particularly as you'll be getting a earth income through voice of tiamat. After that you've got all the earth boots you need - no reason to wait for you god to break free. You've also got elemental staffs later on. The air boosters are so expensive it's very seldom worthwhile to give them to an A1 mage, though I feel the math works out differently with the elemental staffs since they serve so many purposes. Granted, a staff + 2 air boosters gets you up into some nice territory, but for that amount of gems you can practically empower a couple times.

So, without your pretender being awake or diversified you can shoehorn into earth, nature, and astral, while having strong water and death and token fire and air. That's a pretty decent diversity if you play it right. Then when your pretender wakes up you've got most of the best spells in the game with a powerful E/S pretender and powerful W/D mages.

This is certainly not the only way to play LA Atlantis, but I maintain that it is competitive. Arssatuts with that blessing are top notch dual blessed sacreds who are relevant through the whole game and more than make up for the opportunity costs it takes to deck them out.

[Twan]

Personnally I had good results with a simple bless + awake god (and total sacrifice of magical diversity - but I was lucky enough to find druids and sages early and later another s mages site).

As sacreds are cheap in ressources and cap only, the nation profits a lot of an high dominion, and it's sad to take one without an awake awe based SC.

So I've gone with an awake dom 10 W9 Dagon, and scales including luck 3 in hope to got some heroes/mages and high gold/items events (there is a so good one with death 3, I always take luck if I go death).

So I was taking one province / turn with the pretender + was able to create one assartut army sufficient to take provinces (eventually with the help of some indies arrow catchers) each turn the first year.

Amphibiousity + sailing meaning you can expand in all directions fast expansion is really fast. The only problem is to avoid to be ganged when you have about 40 provinces by turn 15 or 16.

Best way is to publicly start a crusade against Ermor (ideally) or Rlyeh (ouch harder), as others are happy to see someone doing the job.

Ermor has about zero chance in early game (and even up to third year, except you need to find some supply items), due to all the mages you recruited being also priests, your fast expansion meaning gold for temples, about all your troops having magical weapons to hit ethearal, and Ermor not having ranged troops (to exploit the big weakness of w9 assartuts). So if he is your neighbour (and everyone is with Atlantis blitz expansion) you can expect a nice +15d gems income very fast.

Then of course, you are at war with everyone (but the eventual very weak neighbour prefering to become your forge *****), but at this point you are really hard to stop.

(ps : on the other hand, my experience come from a game on Cradle = excellent map for sailing nations, with about 20 prov/player, without Rl'yeh = all the seas for me and with Ermor unluckily starting on same continent as me and Marignon ; may be a little harder with less favorable settings)

[JimMorrison]

Twan said:
Best way is to publicly start a crusade against Ermor (ideally) or Rlyeh (ouch harder), as others are happy to see someone doing the job.

Everyone likes a good crusade.....

And the Dagon is a pimp!

[WraithLord]

This guide is awesome and was so fun to read that I had started a new SP game with LA Atlantis to try it out. Works like a charm