Uses of Indie Soldiers?

[AhhhFresh]

How much does indy units affect your fortification strategy?

I'm playing around with my R'yleh strategies in an SP game... in this game I have a couple of coastal land provinces that border my capital that can produce knights... is it worth building a 40 admin fortess on the knight province that will suck resources from my capital (that I really don't use anyway), as opposed to moving to a more "strategic" province?

In general, how do you balance indie units vs. strategy vs. resources available in selecting where to put a castle?

[Arryn]

Playing as R'leyh, I don't find knights to be all that useful. Given a choice of spending gold on them versus buying more illithids, I choose illithids. For frontline grunt troops I prefer summons (sea trolls are my favorite, and vine ogres are always handy) or shamblers. For wetwork, hordes of cheap tritons are useful.

Being a magically strong -- and aquatic -- nation whose best units cannot be recruited on land, R'leyh doesn't benefit as much from a fortification-indies strategy as other nations do. The squiddies have more (and typically better) options open to them. IMO.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by Arryn:
Playing as R'leyh, I don't find knights to be all that useful. Given a choice of spending gold on them versus buying more illithids, I choose illithids. For frontline grunt troops I prefer summons (sea trolls are my favorite, and vine ogres are always handy) or shamblers. For wetwork, hordes of cheap tritons are useful.

Being a magically strong -- and aquatic -- nation whose best units cannot be recruited on land, R'leyh doesn't benefit as much from a fortification-indies strategy as other nations do. The squiddies have more (and typically better) options open to them. IMO.

Oh, I agree with you. That is how I generally do it as well.

However, Shamblers and Lobos and Illithids are all magic troops... as are all the summons from the void gate.

And while all R'yleh commanders can lead magic troops(except the scout I guess)... there is a relatively small upper limit per commander... hybrids and slaves are ok to fill in the gaps... but you have to balance between mind numbing squidies, stomping shambler thralls, and cheapie mindless arrow catching lobos... but I'm currently exploring whether indie troops might provide more "bang for the buck" in the normal troop department.

My current battle strategy doesn't seem to dovetail very well with cavalry's fast movement... but they intriuge me because of the possibilities of flanking... which is impossible with any R'yleh unit, except a Vastness... but you might not even ever get one of those, and there are far better uses for that badboy than pseudo-cavalry.

[Arryn]

The shamblers I was referring to are the *indy* shamblers (non-magical) ...

EDIT: vine ogres are not considered magical troops, which is why I think they are so handy.

EDIT 2: as the squiddies, I tend to not bother much with "flanking". I just put up a wall of tough grunts to fend off the enemy and let the squids in my rear area have at the foe with mind bLasts and spells like enslave. Charon is more or less doing in his AAR what I do myself in my SP squid games.

[ March 17, 2004, 18:52: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
EDIT 2: as the squiddies, I tend to not bother much with "flanking". I just put up a wall of tough grunts to fend off the enemy and let the squids in my rear area have at the foe with mind bLasts and spells like enslave. Charon is more or less doing in his AAR what I do myself in my SP squid games.

Flanking is useful with the Squiddlies: I like a good center block of Lobos, pasted to the front wall: They're the arrow fodder and anvil: Then I have a pair of shambler wings on the side, on attack rear, slightly behind them: They close as a set of pincers and mow through the enemy center with their trample attacks, and the squiddly blocks fire their mindbLasts into the fray to sow terror, paralysis, and confusion.

[PvK]

Variety is often useful to have. If your enemies are working on a solution to your Ry'leh troops, then it will be harder for them to also have to deal with knights.

Back to independents in general... just because a troop might be slightly inferior to something else available, doesn't make it useless.

PvK

[Psitticine]

Knights might be a rather useful addition to Rl'yeh, actually. The Illithids tend to have the most problem from enemy missile Users, I find, since enemy infantry tends to get mind-bLasted trying to cross the battlefield and enemy cavalry are easily stopped by a wall o' lobos. Knights can flank the enemy when coming from the side with Attack Rear orders and strike against the enemy spellcasters and archers, thus helping to deal with that potential menace.

[Arryn]

I use summoned flyers of various types to attack archers. IMO, R'leyh's gold is best spent on buying illithids. You can never have too many.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
Knights might be a rather useful addition to Rl'yeh, actually. The Illithids tend to have the most problem from enemy missile Users, I find, since enemy infantry tends to get mind-bLasted trying to cross the battlefield and enemy cavalry are easily stopped by a wall o' lobos. Knights can flank the enemy when coming from the side with Attack Rear orders and strike against the enemy spellcasters and archers, thus helping to deal with that potential menace.

That was my thought... the main problem I've found with it (so far) is that I generally play R'yleh with Sloth 3... and I've only found Knights on farmland provinces (ie low resources)... even with a 40 admin castle, whether you can get enough Knights together to do much (at 48? rescources a pop) is questionable.

Arryn was right to point to the Indie Shamblers... since they seem like a decent way to go for the non-magic unit replacement for the virtually worthless slaves... high gold low resource... perfect for R'yleh.

And they actually move slightly faster than Thralls do (11 vs. 10), so they could be mixed together to deal with that measley 11 morale they get... and act sorta-kinda like a flanking unit.

Vine Ogres, I'm not sure about... they can't be summoned underwater, and can only be summoned one at a time... and nature magic isn't exactly R'yleh strong suit.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by AhhhFresh:
Vine Ogres, I'm not sure about... they can't be summoned underwater, and can only be summoned one at a time... and nature magic isn't exactly R'yleh strong suit.

Vine Ogres can be summoned 2x with an Ivy Crown, 3x by Crown of the Ivy King, and 4x by an Ivy King himself. That's 4 ogres for just a single gem. A real bargain.

EDIT: PS - Knights cannot be bought underwater either, nor can most indies. The ogres are a suggestion for a tough, cheap unit that DOES NOT EAT, and is not a magic troop.

EDIT 2: Given that illithids are giant-sized, and expensive, you need to develop some nature strength anyway so that you can make supply-boost items (feed 'em) and also cast Gift of Health (keep 'em alive) ...

[ March 17, 2004, 22:04: Message edited by: Arryn ]