In a death match, with $1000.00 on the line

[TirAsleen]

No Gorgon Tactic?

Why just MA?

Usually play LA a lot.

[Graeme Dice]

Xietor said:
What is your race, god, and exact set up?

Middle or late Age R'Lyeh. Order 3, cold 3, luck 2, magic 3, dominion 10. Take an imprisoned void lord with no extra magic. Research to voice of tiamat, then to construction 6 and start making clams till you have at least a hundred. You now have an almost unlimited gem supply.

[Xietor]

To win, you have to kill the other human. The other races are in the game you only to act as a buffer, and allow the game to develop a bit before the 2 humans lock horns.

Since abysia can be annoying with fire generating troops, I think trampling them with elephants may be the best way to break up his front wall quickly.

And if he plays ermor, there will be a ton of ethereal units, so i want the fire bless. Plus those ma ermor sacred units have a very high defense, so f9 could be real useful.

We do have a couple of "house" rules. No immortal gods, and no burden of time.

[Xietor]

Selfish, what pretender could you use to get f9, w9, dominion 10 pretender for Pangaea or vanaheim?

[Ironhawk]

If you really want to irritate the Abysians, why not take a nation with strong cold dominion? They will all keel over from exhaustion halfway through a cold battle.

Using a fire bless vs. ermor is not efficient. You are better off just using the standard tactic of mass-producing priests and Herald Lances.

[Graeme Dice]

The delay due to the other AIs is why I picked a nation that has water/nature mages. If you think you can hold out for 50 or so turns before having to deal with your human opponent, then building Clams of Pearls is probably one of the best strategies.

[Xietor]

Interesting thought on MA ryleh,

Since I have seldom played Ryleh, a couple of questions:

Why take cold 3, they have no cold protection? Cold 3 adds extra encumbrance when casting and cold 2 does not?

Why take order 3 and luck 2? The random events will be set on rare, and with order 3, do you think there will be enough random events to spend 80 points on luck?

Given that there are only 25 water squares, I will have to dispose of the other 2 water races in short order. What is a good Ryleh MA strategy early in the game with your SC imprisoned? What troops do you crank out? One of the other water races has a very good mr, will this make them rough to mind blast?

[Edi]

Cold scale does not have any effect underwater, so it will onlybecome anissue when he goes on land, in which case the armies should be on the leading edge of the dominion anyway. Order 3 because R'lyeh really needs the cash.

Luck 2 will help some, especially to get the heroes, in which case send Cthugul the Stargazer to the Void Gate to get a surfeit of void monsters. Though I'm not sure if this is the motive for it.

[TirAsleen]

I often play Ryleh as i like Lovecraft.

I would take sloth3, order3, cold3, and positive luck.

Take ghost king, if master lich is not allowed as immortal pretender, and use his diverse magic paths to find lots of magic sites and get a gem income very quickly.

Research Thaumaturgy5 quickly and use Gateway in lab near you in a water province, with a lot of Ilithids set to fire closest and fire archers from back row and additional cast darkness with Ghost king. Maybe additional starspawns will join the party casting Soul Slay and Enslave Mind.
Ghost king will also have nature to forge some bags of wine after constr.4 is researched.

Usually do like a bit smaller maps, i would take then a SC Kraken with some air, water and astral.

[SelfishGene]

I think either way is a valid choice; although, be careful if you choose a water nation that he isn't thinking to do the same thing!

I don't know which map you'll be playing on though.

Basically it's taking an Uber-bless strat to kill the AI faster than your friend, so you can have a much larger nation when you bump heads, vs. taking a water nation and camping the depths until you have enough magical resources to crush everyone with "tech". Either way should work alright as long as your friend is not too clever or does something really off-the-wall

I'll need to get home to remember which Pretender to use with Vanheim; you can pick the Father of Winter i believe... Take 3 Cold, 2-Drain, 3-Sloth, Imprisoned, and that should get you to 9f/9w. Yea, +3,-3,-3,0,-2,-2, will get you Dominion 9 and 9w/9f with a Father of Winter. Although this sucks a bit because you have 32 points unspent, and no way to spend them... but you get the idea.