How is LA R'yleh overpowered?

[Kuritza]

1) 280 gold, sacred? I've seen more expensive mages. Especially with a nation that doesnt have to recruit anything but mages most of the time.
2) Send them to die, then. Free chaff that kills enemy and dies costs gold to your enemy, not to you.
3) Well, no one is perfect.
4) Nothing is an overstatement. I have been rushed by hordes of Rlyeh chaff recently; all I can say is 'HURTS LIKE HELL'. Tramplers, void spawns, paralyzing illithyds... my quickened SC God couldnt kill all the spawn due to turn limit and had to flee, again and again. Twice, he failed MR roll with magic resistance of around 30 and racked some afflictments as well. I was able to hold Rlyeh long enough, with my God and tons of archers, so he lost that game eventually (not before I did, though). But it was a nightmare.
I dont believe he used any spells in that game. Maybe some unscripted casters to lead the troops, but thats all.
5) Who doesnt? Mictlan maybe?
6) Who needs legs anyway. Communion ftw.
7) Yea, and LA Ermor on top of it. Zeldor... seriously... I think I know at least one game where 'nation that has to be ganged' concept didnt work. 'Both Mictlan and Atlantis rush you' is a very unlikely condition.
6)

[Illuminated One]

1) They are not sacred. 280 gold is not much, but you will have to get them with 1/10 of the others income (after upkeep), so you are always outnumbered magewise. You can take very good scales to offset your domkill to a point but I get the feeling these are wasted points.
6) Same thing - besides your communion slaves go insane.
4) Yeah, but it illustrates the weakness of the chaff quite well. They can't kill anything with a good prot - even if it's are paralyzed. So they are really just there to die in droves while someone else does the job, and it's almost a weakness that they turn up (since if they didn't you had the gold to recruit better stuff). Sending them to die is a chore, 1 province water movement, lack of sane commanders, etc.

[Agema]

LA Rlyeh's sea domination may be much overstated.

Jomon has some pretty brutal underwater units, well capable of giving Rlyeh a bloody nose. LA Ermor could at least make Rlyeh pay by fielding its own vast armies of freespawn chaff, even if they are a little feeble underwater. Mictlan should be able to field some brutal thugs and sacreds.

However, there is absolutely no way LA Atlantis can't take out Rlyeh underwater if they want. In fact, if the LA Atlantean player is in a game with LA Rlyeh, I expect he will have prepared a bless specifically against Rlyeh.

The key are Assartuts - add an S bless to make mind blast not very effective, an E bless so they can kill all day without tiring (their armour is low encumbrance), and an N bless just so they're really hard to kill. They are astoundingly destructive.

Nearly all the Atlantean troops massively outclass Rlyeh's freespawn. Ice Guard (also low encumbrance for the protection) will make mincemeat out of them, the others less so, although you will run into fatigue problems if you're that badly outnumbered. What's even better, Atlantis gets reasonable astral mages underwater, which means Antimagic for even less worry from mind blast. Besides, just cart around an Angakok with +MR and put him at the front, to be overtaken by the army - let's see all that mind blasting wasted on a regenerating unit with high natural MR (plus Amulet of magic resistance, astral bless, iron will) Finally, think Angakok thugs - you can do a lot with a few of them.

[chrispedersen]

Agema's point about LA-Atlantis is spot on; I would say it is understated. LA-Atlantis ever since the patch can absolutely destroy Rlyeh.

Why do you think they are never sleeping mages....Dreams don't work on them.....

[Kuritza]

My God didnt only have high protection btw. He was ethereal, lucky and mirror imaged. And even then, he was lucky to flee the battlefield alive when some void-things broke through mirror image.
Angakok wont last nearly as long. Though as a mind-blast magnet, it might be a very good idea indeed.

[Agema]

You wouldn't take on whole armies with single or dual Angakok thugs: just beat PD and small batches of freespawn lying around. Fewer provinces = less freespawn and less money.

To take on a whole Rlyeh army, you'd need quite a few Angakoks, but it wouldn't be that hard via bless, items and spells to get each Angakok Quickened, lucky, 20 or more protec, 25 or more MR, reinvigorating, regenerating, 20 Defence. Add AoE weapon, useful shield (vine/eye/charcoal/awe). Then extras depending on the Angakok's magic paths like Soul Vortex, Mistform, Iron/stoneskin, etc.

Set half a dozen such Angakoks loose with a couple of Assartut each on guard commander orders to draw a few attacks (but not so many as to cause a rout if they die). Or just mix a few into a small army.

[AreaOfEffect]

Even before the increase to popkill, I thought that LA R'yleh was a weaker version of MA R'yleh. A lot of new players just have problems dealing with hordes of units initially I think, even if those units are just trash.

[Kuritza]

Weaker version of MA Rlyeh?

Kekek. Thats why LA Rlyeh is second only to LA Ermor in the hall of fame. Did you ever play against a good LA RLyeh by the way?

[chrispedersen]

Those stats were massed before the nerf.

[AreaOfEffect]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

Weaker version of MA Rlyeh?

Kekek. Thats why LA Rlyeh is second only to LA Ermor in the hall of fame. Did you ever play against a good LA RLyeh by the way?

The Hall of Fame, like the graphs of any game, are easily skewed. For example, a belief that a nation is stronger then another increases its popularity, thus increasing the number of times its picked to be played, which in turn increases its chances to win more often. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think one of the actual reasons why LA R'yleh has more wins is because everyone wants to be play the only water nation within an age because they'll get less competition. Weather that's true or not is another story.

In the end. LA R'yleh is essentially the same nation as MA R'yleh (Same recruits, summons, gem income) except they get weighed down with loads of chaff and population death. This means they can afford fewer mages, quality soldiers, and fortifications. Insanity is the only thing that gives LA R'yleh any real advantage over MA, and even that is a double edged sword.