Help Me Take Down a Vastness

Stryke11 · #1 February 5th, 2007, 09:59 PM

What is the deal with these guys? I'm playing LE Marignon and I knew that Ryleh becomes an unstoppable force in the late game so I was lucky enough to find a land based shambler province near my capitol. I immediately focused all energy into building a full independent sea army. I have since wiped Ryleh down to just their capitol and two land provinces but they keep moving their army of two vastnesses and their ghost king around and nothing I can stand up against them (early game, and Marignon has no access to high level water without empowerment and my pretender is a Baphomet with blood, astral, and fire). I routinely lose 100 guys or more to these three, and maybe if my swarm is lucky I take down about 10-20 hp from them before they rout. The real killer is the blood revenge or whatever that self damager is called. Getting mages into the water is hard. Any ideas?

Also, though you may not be able to recruit PD or build national troops, I see no roleplaying (or game rules) reason why you couldn't build a fortress underwater using an underwater leader which simply allows resource allocation for building more of what is already there (in my case, Triton Troopers, which are very resource intensive).

Micah · #2 February 5th, 2007, 11:28 PM

Cast antimagic, especially if Rlyeh's not expecting any astral mages and doesn't have magic duel scripted. That should help a lot with blood vengeance, and you can cast it easily with a skullcap and another booster (banner of the northern star held by someone else scripted to retreat is an idea, if you're tight on pearls). Any high MR troops are better choices here as well.

void · #3 February 5th, 2007, 11:45 PM

Get a number of your navigators lead by someone with a banner of the northern star. Have all S2 mages script soulslay and all S1 ones script paralyze.
Now sit down, get yourself a cup of coffee, and wait that works. It might take a few tries to get it to work, but it eventually did.

Stryke11 · #4 February 6th, 2007, 12:35 AM

Thanks all. The most frustrating thing is taking out water nations with a nation that isn't very water friendly.

Which reminds me...sailing is a terrible ability. Since the nations who have it (Marignon and Vanir) both approximate Spain and the Vikings, well, both groups of people crossed the fricken Atlantic...an ocean, and yet Marignon Admirals can only cross one water province, or the equivalence of a large lake? I think sailing should be able to go at least 4-5 provinces. Lets try to make it somewhat tactically useful.

Ygorl · #5 February 6th, 2007, 02:02 AM

Depending on the map, it can be enormously tactically useful. Remember, fliers can't cross water at all, so sailors can sometimes move farther even than fliers. The best of course is an amphibious flying sailor. They have move options that make my head hurt.
And, the way I picture it, by "large lake" you mean something on the order of the Black Sea. That's not too bad for one month with an army...
But you're right, it's not a hugely impressive ability. Vastnesses can move farther.

KissBlade · #6 February 6th, 2007, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Stryke11 said:
Thanks all. The most frustrating thing is taking out water nations with a nation that isn't very water friendly.

Which reminds me...sailing is a terrible ability. Since the nations who have it (Marignon and Vanir) both approximate Spain and the Vikings, well, both groups of people crossed the fricken Atlantic...an ocean, and yet Marignon Admirals can only cross one water province, or the equivalence of a large lake? I think sailing should be able to go at least 4-5 provinces. Lets try to make it somewhat tactically useful.

If I recall, you can actually "wrap around" the map with sailing. It's actually tremendously useful IMO if you're adept at raiding. Also you're having trouble against vastness because conventional forces don't work against it. Try spamming demon jesters or xbows with flaming arrow.

Stryke11 · #7 February 6th, 2007, 03:07 AM

Haha. Sorry about the sailing rant.

Spamming demon jesters and flaming arrows won't work due to all the action being underwater (unless I'm missing something). Right now while I'm researching up construction and am working my way toward Astral buffs, I'm just leaving them alone. They are seiging their own capitol, which I own, and aren't making a heck of a lot of progress. I am rolling over nearby land powers, and increasing my income.

By the way, this is totally unrelated, but is anyone else mystified how Marignon can both be evil demon summoners and holy angel summoners at the same time? I always assumed before playing them that they lost the angels when they went blood. It seems interesting that you can have angels and demons fighting side by side. Personally, I think a new LA Pythium should have the monopoly on angels, but that's just because I love the Emerald Empire, and since everyone turns pretty evil in LA, it would be cool to have one, even doomed, good empire left.

Still, Marignon is cool. I could see them being really useful in a map with a lot of small bodies of water (or province width rivers...hmmm). Old age is frustrating, but I just tend to empower my best guys with nature. I know it's expensive, but it's single player and I can make it happen.

All the races give this game incredible staying power. There's always something else to learn.