LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions

[konming]

How do you deal with LA R'leyh if you want to go into sea at all?

Sure your troops are amphibious, but they also have low MR. Even with S9 bless, 14 MR (maybe 13 due to magic scale) will not last against mind blasters. Anti-magic both take time to research and only your (most likely) imprisoned god can cast it. You do not get quickness, so while you can kill all the chaff, you just do not do it quickly enough, giving plenty of time for mind blasters. Also your denfense is not high, leaving 16 protection (again E9 bless) as your only saving grace. 16 protection is good enough for R'leyh free spawn, but their slave guardians should have no problem killing them. Even all those coral spears can do enough poison damage.

Needly to say, your commander will go mad pretty quickly in R'leyh domain, and you cannot even forge amulet of antimagic yourself.

Without the water part, I just do not see how they match up against most of the stronger land nations. Maybe I am missing something?

[Dedas]

Magic 1 doesn't give -1 in MR.

[Baalz]

konming said:
How do you deal with LA R'leyh if you want to go into sea at all?

Sure your troops are amphibious, but they also have low MR. Even with S9 bless, 14 MR (maybe 13 due to magic scale) will not last against mind blasters. Anti-magic both take time to research and only your (most likely) imprisoned god can cast it. You do not get quickness, so while you can kill all the chaff, you just do not do it quickly enough, giving plenty of time for mind blasters. Also your denfense is not high, leaving 16 protection (again E9 bless) as your only saving grace. 16 protection is good enough for R'leyh free spawn, but their slave guardians should have no problem killing them. Even all those coral spears can do enough poison damage.

Needly to say, your commander will go mad pretty quickly in R'leyh domain, and you cannot even forge amulet of antimagic yourself.

Without the water part, I just do not see how they match up against most of the stronger land nations. Maybe I am missing something?

Well, I haven't gone up against a clever player in this matchup yet, but I have tested it out against large masses of mind blasters/chaff and all I can say is go ahead and try it out - 14 MR makes all the difference in the world. Arrsatut's absolutely *destroy* chaff, the front line disintegrates each turn and the small regen goes a long way towards offsetting minor poison damage. In my tests a group of about 50 Arrsatuts killed 200+ groups of chaff blocking 50+ blocks of mind blasters without breaking a sweat - a handful got paralyzed each round but never critical mass. I've yet to see somebody play LA R'yleh without sloth-3, so I'm not too worried about overwhelming amounts of slave guardians (who have an 8 defense and will on average be killed in one hit by Assatuts with a couple experience stars - which they rack up quite fast). Slave guardians also have an 8 moral and are *perfect* targets for the fear spam I mention above if your opponent is fielding any significant numbers of them. Terror/frighten spam + low moral + rapid casualties....I don't see them causing too much trouble.

[Jazzepi]

I don't think your pretender can go insane in R'yleh dominion.

Jazzepi

[Agema]

With 10MR, illithids paralyze with just under 50% effectiveness. At 14MR, they would paralyze with just over 10% effectiveness. (It's also worth bearing in mind it's not just the paralyze, but the 1AN MR damage over time causes enormous damage as well.)

If 50 illithids faced 50 arrsatuts with 10MR, virtually the whole squad would be paralyzed in a few turns. With 14MR, by the time the illithids had paralyzed half the arrsatuts the first paralyzed would be about to recover.

[Ming]

Against R'yleh LAm Atlantis might need to watch out more for shambler thralls than illthids. Illithids cost 2x that of arssartut (and 4x the maintenance) while shambler thralls cost the same 25 gold. Instead of fielding 50 illithids he can field 100 shambers or a combination, which could be quite effective (of course this assumes that R'yleh has a 2:1 advantage in gold income).

[Baalz]

must...not...get...pulled...into...playing...theor yminions. Dang, failed that savings throw. You go right ahead and field shamblers and see how they fare against mournful mixed in your Arrastuts. What's that? They can't scratch the size 3, 15 protection guys and get demolished by their halberds? Or was R'yleh fielding illthids and shamblers and chaff and slave guardians all at the same time? Come on, this is just silly, you've got the tools to fight the good fight not a silver bullet.

I must say, I'm getting a surprising amount of pushback on this guide.

1) Nobody said R'yleh is a pushover no matter what you do. Atlantis is much better equipped to fight them than any other nation in LA, and if you can take them out you are absolutely entrenched under water even more so than R'yleh was.

2) Atlantis is also at least as well equipped to take down LA Ermor as anybody else with net 0 encumbrance troops well protected enough that their small regen is mostly all they need vs chaff in order to live forever, backed by priests and all the best anti-undead spells. Plus Arrastuts hit hard enough that they kill Ermor's undead chaff even when they hit their tower shields. Try it out - they *demolish* practically unlimited amounts of undead and never get tired. I really can't see how a W bless is superior.

Those two points alone make this build worth considering seeing as how LA games often pan out. Add to it:

A solid initial expansion
A very low upkeep
(those first two more than make up for the death scales, by quite a lot)
Sacred infantry that is very effective at killing everything from chaff to SCs - with MR and resistance to be relevant the whole game.
A very good defensive position few want to attack - punishing scales & partially being underwater means it's both difficult and expensive to take you out.
Great mobility for heavy infantry coupled with sailing coupled by the fact you're focussed on operating around the water (unlike other sailing nations)
Recruitable holy thugs who can cast soul vortex and ironskin or mistform with full slots, an earth bless, can quicken self (goes great with soul vortex and earth blessing), and small regen.
Great summons with national mages
Good combat magic which is a bit different than what most people are equipped to handle
Strong death mages - great for end game
A strong astral pretender - great for end game
A strong earth pretender - great for mid/end game
Every magic path other than blood site searched, and everything other than air/fire/blood with a strong mage to use your income.

All in all a solid build for a solid nation. Certainly there are other ways to play them, but I have to say I'm a bit surprised so many people think my suggestions are weak.

[JimMorrison]

I think most people who are trying to shoot holes in this guide are just carrying their previous conceptions of the nation forward with them.

I have to admit, I don't think I'm alone in feeling kind of hesitant about a dual 9 bless (with a minor!) for capital only sacreds.

With just a capital only sacred, and no sacred summons, it just seems very iffy. I believe in your guide, if for nothing else than it espouses the prodigious use of a few of my favorite niche spells. Maybe that's the other sticking point for most people? If they don't see Ghost Grip as being particularly effective for example, who knows which of the other spells they discount, and thus don't see an "effective" strategy resulting from all of the pieces?

[Dedas]

I think a dual bless for capital only sacreds is good only if the sacreds in questions are:

A. Cheap in resources.
B. Good in battle against several kinds of enemy.
C. Decent map movement.

LA Atlantis' sacreds are all that and more. So yes, I do believe in a double bless for LA Atlantis.

[K]

Also note that your soulless are often Soulless of Atlantis and they might have Coral Spears(poison) or coral armor(poison).

It's kind of cute to see undead in pink armor.