Hilarious R'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)

[Meglobob]

Nice screenshots, JaydedOne, R'lyeh dreamlands looks very interesting. Not sure if I like the idea of my underlings doing there own thing. Do they seriously mess yr turns up by doing something else instead?

The spreading of insanity thou., original in a computer game, I like it.

I suspect that R'lyeh dreamlands r not good for a newbie player to try?

[Nerfix]

I don't think R'lyeh is easy for beginners in general.

Most of your troops either have the protection value of a newborn kitten or are painfully s...l....o...w. The Void Gate which summons your Sacred troops is, well...IÄ IÄ FTAGHN! *rips off his clothes and runs around wildly while being hunted by a Horror*, errr, funky. Yes, it's quite funky.

Then you have trick units like the Crab Hybrids, Shambler Thralls and the Illithids. Illithids are very good, excelent in fact.

You have an S1 mage who is also an assasin, S1 and 100%WSED priest mage who is the ony who can use the void gate, um, semi-reliably and the crown jewel of your mages the 3S 1W 100%WSED (or was it two randoms? I forgot!) Starspawn. So you won't have much evocations. Instead you have to rely largely on Astral magic and perhaps stuff like Gifts from Heaven and Nether Darts for combat.

That's what I think. Perhaps some newbies find them easy to use but I'd vager they have hard, frustarting time trying to invade the land with the low-prot units who will get easily killed by archers. But they do have a solution for that, oh yes they do...

[JaydedOne]

I actually found it very forgiving for a newbie, at least in single-player. The AI responds poorly to enemies in the water (it takes it a while to figure out how to launch amphibious assaults), which gives you plenty of time to turtle up, gather resources, and figure out where the best strike point on land is. The paralyze ability offered by masses of illithids tears big holes in an enemy's offensive, allowing you to tear through them with your generally low-armored creatures. And Astral magic is great all-purpose stuff.

Granted, in multiplayer, it's different as players tend to recognize R'lyeh's weaknesses more readily.

[DominionsFan]

JaydedOne said:
The AI responds poorly to enemies in the water

Yep I just figured this out while playing with the demo. It was the same in Doms 2. However the AI is much better overall now, it is fielding huge armies in the demo, and building many castles also. Like I've said I was surprised that an AI player moved almost 700 troops to my border province. It was a strategical location, the north side of the map. 1 land province, and water below it.

[JaydedOne]

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the Ermor AI, on Difficult, PASTED me last night when I got careless at 2 AM.

I resisted about three waves of 300+ troops with my stalwart band of 100. And then the fourth wiped out my Pretender, my Prophet, and most of my Bless brigade. It wasn't pretty, but that's what I get for being sloppy. Those Dusk Elders hurt when they're arriving in groups of six with an accompanying army of hundreds.

[DominionsFan]

JaydedOne said:
I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the Ermor AI, on Difficult, PASTED me last night when I got careless at 2 AM.

I resisted about three waves of 300+ troops with my stalwart band of 100. And then the fourth wiped out my Pretender, my Prophet, and most of my Bless brigade. It wasn't pretty, but that's what I get for being sloppy. Those Dusk Elders hurt when they're arriving in groups of six with an accompanying army of hundreds.

wow, nice, hats off IW. The SP players will be very happy. Perhaps the Galciv2 fans won't whine too much now.

[Archonsod]

Had my own comic dreamlands moment last night. Recruited a wizard starspawn, sent it into the void gate on turn 2, and he got attacked by two otherness' on his first attempt at summoning.
In Doms 2, this would usually result in one dead starspawn, however not only did he manage to kill them both with nary a scratch, he managed it in hand to hand! Came out with four extra summoning skill and a heroic bonus.

[Nerfix]

Hahaha, that's awesome. =)

[ologm]

Just finished first game with dreamlands R'lyheh against a difficult desert tombs C'tis. Not much of a challenge as the AI had taken turmoil 2 and misfortune 3. The poor guy never got above 3 provinces in the entire game and ended up besieged in his home province by a barbarian horde.

Dreams of R'lyheh is an awesome spell. Enemy that fails to resist has to face the caster in the void with attack, defense and mr halfed.

[JaydedOne]

That's one thing I've noticed -- the manual lists all base spells and all national summons, but you pretty much have to look for the national spells that aren't summons. I didn't even realize there WAS a Dreams of R'lyeh. Where is it, Thaumaturgy?