Demo Guide to Kailasa

[Ming]

I tried playing Kailasa for the first time recently and seem to have a somewhat different take from what has been written so far on this thread. I am only playing SP, so maybe that is the reason for the variance - but I suspect not and so hope that it would be helpful to present my views.

Kailasa really sucks at first glance. The problem with Kailasa is finding a way to survive in the early game. I would imagine that this could be even more acute in MP. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the starting army is woefully weak and the PD is also weak. The only recruitable troop with any protection is the Bandar Warrior with 10, and the Atavi Archer is worse than most indies in a straight fight - barely compensated by its 1GP lower cost and survival/stealth capability. To rely on it as a key strategy is to admit defeat in making Kailasa work.

So what does Kailasa have to compensate for its glaring weakness and how can these be make to help it survive in the early game? In my opinion Kailasa's strength - or at lease its key differences from other nations - lies in its sacreds, its national summons, and its mages. The last two won't help its early survival. So we are left with the sacreds to find a way to make Kailasa competitive in the early game. The possibility of an awake SC Pretender has been considered and rejected - and I shall address it later.

Kailasa's sacreds have the same glaring weakness as its other national troops - no armour (BTW, that means Legions of steel won't help). As it stands Kailasa has no answer to the standard enemy formation of archers screened by infantry with shields because Kailasa's own screens are inadequate even after taking into consideration of its cheap size 1 Markatas. It has been mentioned that researching "wind guide" and "flaming arrows" is the way to go but other nations can do it better and it becomes unstuck against "arrow fend". Kailasa has no answer to arrow fend as it has no recruitable air mages. So it can easily be overrun by the likes of Vanheim and Helheim - who happens to be strong in the early game. Some of you might have already guessed what I am getting at: air bless. To be precise, an A9 bless as the 70% protection is needed to compensate for the poor missile defense of its other troops and the lightning protection gives it needed "advantage" or improved survivability against air nations - like Vanheim/Helheim. Since Kailasa has no recruitable H3 mages, this does mean it needs lots of priests to field more than one effective major army. however, this should not be a problem in the early game - and early game survival is the key for Kailasa. Later on H3 mages can be summoned (S4 required). Another needed measure to improve survivability in the early game is to have good scales, since Kailasa needs superiority in numbers to augment the limited supply of sacreds.

This brings me to address the issue of an awake SC Pretender. The problem with an awake SC Pretender is that one has to give up on one or both of the following: A9 bless and good scales. In my opinion this would be too much of an handicap to its middle/end game, as well as failure to properly utilize its sacreds.

My choice of Kailasa's Pretender would be A9W4 at a minimum for magic to make the sacreds effective. For scales O3 and H3 and M1 (at least) are no-brainers. I would also use an imprisoned pretender to max out its early game ability (through blesses and scales) - you can see that I am obsessed with Kailasa's early game survival, and I do think that it is warranted. The rest of Pretender design would be trade-offs and depends on individual preferences and playing style. I have deliberately refrained from a specific recommendation as I have only just started trying to play Kailasa and have yet to come out with a definite "best" design.

The issue of the starting army also needs to be addressed. It is very weak in combat but not bad as patrollers. I would use them in the first few turns patrolling the capital and turning tax up to 140% to speed up the building of the second (real) army and hiring mercs for expansion Unless of course you are lucky enough to have a high income province defended by weak indies next to your capital and no mercs are available! I have also toyed with the idea of recruiting a Yaksha immediately and make it your Prophet but have not yet come to a final decision yet. Your initial "real" army should ideally be made up of Markatas (a few in front on fire archers as first screen and the rest in reserve guarding commanders), Yavanas on hold and attack or Yavana archers on fire closest as a second screen, Bandar swdsmen as main melee troops and final screen, backed up by light Bandar archers and Atavi archers as well as some Bandar warriors at the very back (so that it won't get into enemy missile range too soon).

Alone the same theme, Alt3 should be researched ASAP to get body ethereal, protection, and moss body - much needed to improve the survivability of your troops in melee. Unless, of course, you have a Yaksha with a W1 pick, in which case Evo2 (rust mist) is quicker. Thau4 (paralyse) would also be a top priority if you have giants or awake Pretenders as neighbours. Alt4 is nice (luck, destruction, swarm in addition to wind guide) and only a short way from Alt3, but if not in a war already or have one looming I would after Alt3 go straight to conjuration5 to get Gandhavas. After that you would be fully competitive.