Guide: LA R'lyeh or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dreamlands

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Wow, I'd forgotten how lousy the early game with R'lyeh is. And those scales make it even worse. 6 provinces is better than I did.

With those scales my biggest question is how could you afford a Mage a turn? I made do with Priest and maybe an illithid.

Am I doing something wrong for expansion? There's no point in mage support without anything researched and besides you're trying for a research lead so you don't want to pull mages away from that. Do you just wait for critical mass of the freespawn chaff & Void summons?

What about an expansion pretender? You really don't need a lot of magic on him to diversify.

Ok, here's what I did in the archmage game from page 2 of the thread:

First turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage, 2 crab hybrids, 2 slave atlantians, 2 resource 13 atlantians (i had the resources...), 1 lobo.

Second turn: Buy: Starspawn Priest; Military: capture province

Third turn: Buy: nothing; Military: capture province; Pretender: move

Fourth turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage; Military: capture province; Pretender: Search

Fifth turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage; Military: Die against independents (commander escaped, i thought i could squeeze out a marginal victory but the independents increased their military by a factor of 2 before the attack, and i was too far away to resupply easily); Pretender: Move

I had a decent set of gold events at least one of turns 4-5 (can't remember) (5-600 total gold)

Sixth turn: Buy: Starspawn Mage; Military: Summon Sea Serpent x2, move commander; Pretender: Search (Fortress!)

Seventh turn: Buy:Starspawn Mage; Military: Summon Sea Serpent x2, pick up freespawn and move commander home; Pretender: Build Lab

Note also at this time that i'd seen another 500+ gold in events and had 3 provinces with 6+ dominion (and therefore full luck scales) due to the pretender dominion spread. My prophet was in the last province searching i believe.

Eigth turn: Buy: 2x Starspawn Mage; Military: pick up capitol freespawn/4x sea serpent, capture province; Pretender: Move

I also saw the 3k gold event here.

Ninth turn: repeat 8th except pretender searches, I also see a 1k gold event.

So i ramp out the mages by getting a second fortress early, and getting my luck scales spread fast enough i get good luck-based income.

I also think buying no one was a mistake in turn 3 - i should probably buy a priest... but maybe not.

Also, every mage was put on research for year 1 from the moment i bought them, with the exception of casting Sea Serpents. The aboleth hero showed up by month 6.

I finished year 1 with ~4k unspent gold as well, because i wasn't interested in buying anything but mages.

Edit: 'Commander' is starting Illithid lord, might be off by a turn on some of that.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Micah

Illithids are suck, crabs are rawk. (troop-wise, the starspawn mages are also rawk)

Word. My empirical testing seems to support that.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Ok, new game, I'm going to try a couple of your suggestions:

(1) 8 starting mindflayers. Its more investment in initial expansion than I made, which means its not actually going to be a good measure vs. what I did, so i'll probably have to play another game where i invest 400 in slave troops or something.
(2) Remote searching. I wasn't attacking spending gems for remote searching, I just thought it was funny you were against spending on sea serpents when you were spending so much more on remote searching.

I'm still not sold on the void lurker though. Only two slots...

I'm going with a vaguely rainbow master Lich:
F1A3E4S4D5B4 Lk3 Mg3 all other bad scales Dom8

I took the S mostly so i could teleport with my pretender, still not sure how worthwhile this is when every other mage i have will be able to do so.

I want A because Perpetual Storm is actually a reasonably decent global for you since it will help protect *all* your troops from arrow fire on land, not to mention arrow fend, etc... and A3 gives you enough Air you can build the boosters after a RoW or Staff of Elements. (Bags of Air are good anyway because of the free air elemental - for mage teleport into PD squads).

F1 will allow him to cast magma eruption.

B4 is a +2 strength minor blessing for your void summons, and ability to forge Robes of the Magi when you can get some blood slaves. Also, I didn't feel i needed substantial fire or any water with remote searching, and nature wasn't high priority if he wasn't site searching either, so it was either Blood or be deeper in something else. Maybe deeper in something else was the right call, but Robes of the Magi are nice, and there are some other blood-crafts that are useful. Basically, its blood for forging.

The one thing this isn't going to do is find the free fortresses underwater, which is annoying.

Hey Squirrel: cool that you want to try a few of the ideas. When I'll get home, I'll try to give a more coherent write up of how exactly to do it - because this varies tremendously from what I actually suggested.

For example - you don't need air on the pretender - the visitor comes with it. You don't need blood.

Vfb mentioned one of the little tricks you can use to save 500 gold.

But I routinely get 8 Territories, first year.

[Squirrelloid]

Chris:
Given that game's assumptions, the only effect which magic paths i put on my pretender had on the first year was how much research he accomplished, so I'm not convinced it matters whether he had Blood or Air for the differences I noticed.

I think investing in some crab hybrids is also a far better use of your cash than illithids. If i dumped 400 (ok, 385) gold into crab hybrids I bet I could pull out 9 or 10 provinces pretty easily, assuming sufficient water provinces are available. (Has been true in every test game i've ran).

The big difference is staying at home means your dominion in your conquered provinces is lower, which means your luck scales don't spread as fast, which leads to substantially fewer beneficial events for you. This in turn leads to significantly fewer gems (even ignoring the lack of site finding in year 1), and significantly less gold (by a factor of 2 or more).

Also, not getting the free underwater fortresses from site searching means no easy early second lab for more starspawn mages/turn.

Manual site searching with a rainbow has a lot of secondary advantages even I didn't fully appreciate before.

(Assuming a purely underwater opening, your minimal rainbow chassis for site searching involves A3E3F1W3S3N2D2. Improve the ones you want involved in a minor bless for your void summons.)

[chrispedersen]

Ok... So here's my results using a not so very carefully constructed Lurker: File attached so you can see for yourself.

W4N4D4S8 Dom 9. Sleeping
-3-3-3+2+3+3

I forgot the death 5 was for the fear effect. I dropped points into growth as I really had more points than I needed. You could make him awake if you chose, add magic paths.

First a word about settings:

Map:Milkshake.
Indies all set to default.
AI's set to difficult.
Except for first couple of turns in capital, taxation was capped at 100. Yes, I would usually set it higher with dreamlands. However we need a consistent benchmark, and 100 provides about the only one you can, due to the vagaries of unrest.


Late Winter Year 1: 7175 gold. 118 gems 10 water provinces. (would have had more if I could have reached them). And I really should have purchased cmders to build forts yr 1.

Researched: Conj 4, Thau 1


At the end of year 2: 2000 odd gold. 4 Forts, 4 Labs, 4 Fortresses. 15 water, 6 land. Research 220 or so per turn.

Researched:
Conj5
Alt1
Evo2
Con4
Thau6.

6 Magic items.

I've started conquest of the second water. 30-ish starspawn mages.

Now a few interesting conundrums on this: During 2 years, I found not *one* death site, nor received any death gems. So I had to alchemize to do some searching. Still no hits.

Which, wouldn't be so bad except I *also* didnt find any water sites. Site distribution is site distribution, but clearly those are pretty bad luck.

I also didn't *find* any forts. Go figure. And only got one hit on void summoning.

Still the position is pretty strong, and would have been stronger with more usual luck with site searching. I have no problem replicating these results.

Again comparing the archmage vs the lurker:

lurker path cost :15. Immobile. Dom 2. 130 hp. Regens 37 hp/turn after you bring him home to recharge hp.

Archmage path cost 10.

The Lurker needs Dom 2 saves you 80 points for dom10? You get 13x the hitpoints. The lurker requires you to research conj and thaum (for voice of Tiamat and teleport) - two schools you are going to need anyway. And you have s7 (or 8)

Id also look at a w3E4S5D5N4, -3-3-3+1+3+3 Dom 9 Lurker. Earth + astral gives you immediate dwarven hammer at con2, astral coin, crystal shields.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Chris:
I think investing in some crab hybrids is also a far better use of your cash than illithids. If i dumped 400 (ok, 385) gold into crab hybrids I bet I could pull out 9 or 10 provinces pretty easily, assuming sufficient water provinces are available. (Has been true in every test game i've ran).

Personally, I know *everyone* thinks illithid suck. Why you want to blow 35 gp on a critter that has 2xAtk:8 beats me. Plus he's confined to water, whereas illithids will help you break into air.

But I don't particularly care what troops you choose. I reliably get 10 provinces with illithids. So it *hardly* sucks. And I think purchasing troops turn 1 is important for R.
Which was my point.

The big difference is staying at home means your dominion in your conquered provinces is lower, which means your luck scales don't spread as fast, which leads to substantially fewer beneficial events for you. This in turn leads to significantly fewer gems (even ignoring the lack of site finding in year 1), and significantly less gold (by a factor of 2 or more).

Yes, you will establish dominion in the province with your god. Two candles. However, the chance of a scale spread (such as luck, magic etc) is actually pretty minimal.

It is *far* more important to conquer territories. If I conquer 10 territories and you conquer 6 - I'm 66% more likely to get more favorable luck events. This far outweighs the effects of dominion or scale.

So again, I'm arguing that producing troops turn one, and having a void lord (reasons outlined above) allows better expansion and better scales (magic+3) - which dwarfs the effect of dominion spread by the pretender.

Also, not getting the free underwater fortresses from site searching means no easy early second lab for more starspawn mages/turn.

But theres nothing that says you *can't* get free fortresses. A 175 gp slave mage 25% purchase gets you a 2w1n - which will find you most of the fortresses.

Why blow design points when you can purchase it for 175 gp.
By the way.. I forgot to mention it. But in the above game, at the end of year 2, slave mage 1 had 4 insanity; slave mage 2 had none.

Neither lost any actions to insanity. Again, you overestimate the opportunity cost of insanity.

By the way, the R.'s Traitor prince hero *does* go insane.

Manual site searching with a rainbow has a lot of secondary advantages even I didn't fully appreciate before.

(Assuming a purely underwater opening, your minimal rainbow chassis for site searching involves A3E3F1W3S3N2D2. Improve the ones you want involved in a minor bless for your void summons.)

Most of your void summons aren't worth a bless. The ones that *are* worth a bless, regen (vastnesses, greater othernesses) is the best. A +2 attack, +2 defense, +2 strength just ain't gonna matter to a unit that has a 6-8 attack, no prot, and a move of 8.

Next best is probably S, for the MR.

[Squirrelloid]

You also seem to be using CBM, which I am not. I don't know what that changes, but I can't load the file at present.

[chrispedersen]

Sorry, I did state that I was using CBM in the original post.

Doesn't change a thing in R. pretender design, or unit costs.

CBM however does change the relative effects of some of the scales. Luck is somewhat stronger for example - and opposition's units got much better balanced. Many units were made more viable.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Yes, you will establish dominion in the province with your god. Two candles. However, the chance of a scale spread (such as luck, magic etc) is actually pretty minimal.

It is *far* more important to conquer territories. If I conquer 10 territories and you conquer 6 - I'm 66% more likely to get more favorable luck events. This far outweighs the effects of dominion or scale.

So again, I'm arguing that producing troops turn one, and having a void lord (reasons outlined above) allows better expansion and better scales (magic+3) - which dwarfs the effect of dominion spread by the pretender.

So, maybe I just don't understand what's going on, but doesn't the luck of the effected province determine whether and how good (or bad) of an event you experience? Ie, spreading your luck scales is at least as important as acquiring provinces. Otherwise why bother with province-specific luck/misfortune ratings?

Ie, if i have 6 territories with average luck/misfortune +2, and you have 10 territories with average luck/misfortune -1, shouldn't I do much better on events than you do?

[vfb]

Slave Mages: If you are hiring slave mages to do your N searching, you need to get really lucky during hiring. I've wasted a lot of time and cash as R'lyeh waiting for an N slave mage. I have enough trouble getting an S2 starspawn for being able to cast Returning and escape void gate disasters.

Why crabs are good even though they have 8 attack: They have two attacks, with a 30% and 46% chance of hitting respectively. Morale 14 makes them 75% immune to repel, so against def 10 indies they've got about a 60% chance of scoring a hit. Strength 17 pretty much guarantees a one-hit kill against normal UW indies except shamblers. Protection-14 on the crabs is excellent too, considering what they are up against. They're not going to take much damage from strength-10 spears or even strength-15 dam-0 shambler claws. Add in their nice HP, great morale, and low encumbrance, you've got a great unit.