Late age R'lyeh vs Ermor

[Nightblade]

Hello,

I am currently learning how to play R'lyeh in the late age in a better way.
While i won 2 games in the past as LA R'lyeh(i enjoyed casting the Dreams of R'lyeh repeatedly) and so think i begin to understand R'lyeh concept, i decided to try to face my nemesis on Silent Seas : Ermor Ashen Empire.

As i am not really experienced enough with R'lyeh on the possible game openings Rlyeh can follow without compromising itself in the long term, i decided to put 2 more AI nations, so Ermor should not just crush me in the first year.

Of course, i was very wrong and in the middle of the 2nd year, Ermor had crushed one AI, had nearly got rid of the 2nd with its dominion, and had invaded most of my sea provinces leaving me without any gold :
Without enough provinces, the upkeep was then killing my economy as my bad choices of scales was already cutting the income and population.

The free spawns were never enough to face the neverending undead hordes, and adding more PD were out of question, the income being already negated.

An error i got was to wait a bit too many turn before moving, as i was researching as much as possible to cast better spells, and the enemy province level was a bit too strong in my judgement for my pitifull "army".
I should have got more troop too in the beginning, instead of magic users as it really put my economy low.

So i come here for some help.
In such circumstances :
-map Silent Seas warparound
-me as LA Rlyeh
-AI LA Ermor
-2 minor other LA nations (random selected) that will crushed by Ermor anyways
-the province strenght should be just a bit more than default.

What could be a good pretender, its magic paths, and what could be good scales to not lose so many gold and get enough priestly power to counter a bit the undead hordes ?

Then in such situation, what is a good opening for LA R'lyeh to avoid losing badly later , especially with the LA Ermor undead machine.

As in that setup my dominion was really not enough (i had put it to 6 , i wanted to reserve points for some increased magic path) to help me in that game (bad luck, Ermor got a stronger dominion in that game), i guess an imprisonned pretender is totally out of question so less bonus for the creation.

So i suppose with Ermor as the main opponent, having a very strong dominion should be one of my goal when building the pretender, as making the undead commanders insane could help to limit their impressive quick expansion.

Any suggestion about the strategy to use in such case ?

[Nick_K]

Ermor is not a nation you want to allow time to build up. Not only do they become very powerful once their dominion is strong, but they can continually summon zero-upkeep priests who can reanimate more troops. In the long run this can outproduce anyone.
I have not played against them in situations like those you mention above, but I'll give my advice...

I recommend an aggressive attitude. Take all the sea provinces straight away and gain a foothold on the land. Once you've done that make a move against your nearest enemy straight away. Recruit masses of independant human priests. Not just a few but dozens. Position them behind a solid front guard of high-morale high-prot troops (crushers or living statues would be great... but it's better to use, say, heavy infantry, than to risk waiting). Back these up with illithids and/or archers.
Give the army enough wine bags so they can survive in 0 supply provinces.
Send it to attack Ermor's capital. Once you seige that, they'll focus their armies on liberating it. Hold them off while you deploy other armies to take their provinces and destroy their temples.

Having a strong dominion could well be useful against ermor as their dominion is an important weapon for them. I'm not sure how AI ermor designs its dominion. If it has any sense then it will also take a high dominion. This means that it won't suffer much from insanity unless it's taking your provinces, by which point you're already probably doomed.

Your freespawn are probably no match for ermor's. Ermor is the king at this type of warfare - you can't hope to crush them with hordes of chaff. I'm not convinced that Rl'yeh is a great choice against Ermor. Ideally you want access to nature magic, affordable priests, decent missile troops (Rl'yeh is ok here) and some solid front line infantry. Being amphibious does help, but in general if you can take the land Ermor is doomed anyway even if it takes a while for you to conquer their undersea provinces.

That said, I think that an undersea nation (atlantis) was the first I beat Ermor with in Dominions1. I remember I was so weakened by the war that the ungrateful land nations slaughtered all my armies and drove me back into the sea - one of the few times the AI has engineered a major victory against me. I still won the game though, of course.
The ashen empire is perhaps the hardest nation toplay against in SP. It took me a long time to be able to beat them, hope you have better luck!


Oh, why did you choose silent seas *wraparound* when playing as Rl'yeh? Doesn't the normal version have more sea provinces?

[Nightblade]

I recommend an aggressive attitude. Take all the sea provinces straight away and gain a foothold on the land. Once you've done that make a move against your nearest enemy straight away. Recruit masses of independant human priests. Not just a few but dozens. Position them behind a solid front guard of high-morale high-prot troops (crushers or living statues would be great... but it's better to use, say, heavy infantry, than to risk waiting). Back these up with illithids and/or archers.
Give the army enough wine bags so they can survive in 0 supply provinces.
Send it to attack Ermor's capital. Once you seige that, they'll focus their armies on liberating it. Hold them off while you deploy other armies to take their provinces and destroy their temples.

You are right for this, it seems being aggressive since the very beginning is my only hope to avoid being crushed by never ending undead hordes.
In my previous attempts, i waited too many turns thinking more about researching new magic spells instead of conquering province, and so when i got my armies started i couldn't get a real beachead on the continent, as the undead were numerous enough to throw me back into the sea at any turn.

Having a strong dominion could well be useful against ermor as their dominion is an important weapon for them. I'm not sure how AI ermor designs its dominion. If it has any sense then it will also take a high dominion. This means that it won't suffer much from insanity unless it's taking your provinces, by which point you're already probably doomed.

About this point, in the manual (page 130 i think), it is said that LA R'lyeh dominion kills population, similar to the LA Ermor one.

So if i get a too strong dominion and so finally spread it in some nearby province, will this not in fact be helping Ermor to raise even more undead army with the corpse while creating fewer income for me (adding a difficulty to maintain the illithids troops)

Your freespawn are probably no match for ermor's. Ermor is the king at this type of warfare - you can't hope to crush them with hordes of chaff. I'm not convinced that Rl'yeh is a great choice against Ermor. Ideally you want access to nature magic, affordable priests, decent missile troops (Rl'yeh is ok here) and some solid front line infantry. Being amphibious does help, but in general if you can take the land Ermor is doomed anyway even if it takes a while for you to conquer their undersea provinces.

That said, I think that an undersea nation (atlantis) was the first I beat Ermor with in Dominions1. I remember I was so weakened by the war that the ungrateful land nations slaughtered all my armies and drove me back into the sea - one of the few times the AI has engineered a major victory against me. I still won the game though, of course.
The ashen empire is perhaps the hardest nation toplay against in SP. It took me a long time to be able to beat them, hope you have better luck!

Ermor is more than a challenge for R'lyeh, that's certain, the only time i beat LA Ermor was with LA Marignon and hordes of Inquisitor that were +/- successfull at blocking the undead horde in some "chokepoints", while my very strong dominion was spreading through all the map, winning the game for me.

When taking R'lyeh, at first i thought the dominion spread would be even easier, as the Silent Sea wraparound map allow this kind of strategy from several sides as the sea is all around the main continent .
But in practice, i just forgot that Ermor undead can just go into the sea without a problem, while i have some difficulty in going to the land myself.

So basically from your suggestion i should be heading to conquer the land as soon as possible to have a chance, and ignore the sea until the land from Ermor is done for the count ?

Oh, why did you choose silent seas *wraparound* when playing as Rl'yeh? Doesn't the normal version have more sea provinces?

The normal version has more sea provinces, but it is "closed"
In the case of the R'lyeh vs Ermor it certainly does not make the whole situation easy for me, but i appreciate the feeling of having a round world, and the new strategy possibilities having a non closed map can allow.
Even if in that case, it is allowing Ermor to attack me from more angles in the same time.

[thejeff]

Don't forget that your mind blast attacks will ignore the mindless undead.

If the AI sends armies of undead freespawn against you, your illithids will target the commanders and potentially rout the army quickly.

Other than that, the key is getting on land and recruiting cheap indie priests quickly.

Or SCs, but I'm not sure what R'lyeh has access to for SCs.

[Nick_K]

Are all the freespawn mindless? I'm not sure about ghouls.

SCs should generally work against all AI nations, but LE Ermor is harder to hit with them than most.

A hue downside to R'lyeh is that your indep priests will go insane and be difficult to deploy. As for your dominion killing population... this won't help Ermor that much. Their dominion is more deadly than yours anyway and they won't get freespawn in provinces with your dominions, so this should more than compensate for any extra soulless they might reanimate.

The sea provinces are useful to give you income. You should be able to defend them quite well as undead are poor amphibians... but you'll need to strike a killer blow from the land which means you need a solid base there to recruit priests and (maybe) archers.

As for pretender design... I'm not sure. Sloth is probably fine for R'lyeh. Order is always useful. Taking heat 3 or cold 3 is ok if you plan to get most of your income from sea provinces, but I'm not sure if the map has enough of them.

You might benefit from some nature magic on the pretender, in general I don't think you can make much use of a bless strategy so keep costs low. Perhaps an awake combat pretender such as a high-dominion wrym might give you a boost with early expansion.

[SelfishGene]

LA Rlyeh is one where it seems (imo) better to max your scales than your Pretender or Blessings.

Pretty much Growth-3, Order-3, Luck-3 are requirements, imo. Magic-1 at least, Magic-3 Preferably. Sloth-3 is also a must.

Growth-3 all but counteracts the death dominion, and helps feed your freespawn, and it also provides needed Supply since the real issue with Ryleh is freespawn generation of Triton water only troops. You don't need armored Illithids with that much chaff, so having money is more useful than having armored troops.

[Nightblade]

So the best i can do in such setup should be :

-maximising the scales that provide bonus to me.
-getting a very strong dominion.
-and more than all : attacking as soon as possible the land to get quickly the horde of priests that are usually a good Ermor counter.
-marching on Ermor main fortress in the fewer turn possible to besiege it.
-not buying expensive (upkeep) troops to prevent the income bankrupt but getting anyways some non armored illithids for the "commander mindblast" in case the enemy has mindless troops.

About magic research,
As i need to be very aggressive quickly, it will not really be possible to get research going high before a lot of turns, as there will be a need of everyone on the front lines.
But should i try to get at least a minimum of research going, even if it means less magic user on the beacheads ?

[Nick_K]

Research /can/ be very useful. Magic is one area where you can get a huge edge over the AI. However, on small maps I've often defeated several AIs (On normal or difficult) before my research bears major fruit. Effective use of magic could give you a huge advantage, but I think you'll get a bigger edge from focusing on expansion at first. Independant heavy inf, priests and archers (pref longbows) backed up by illithids and (lots of) wine bags should be perfectly adequate to beat AI Ermor with, as long as you have enough of them and can field one or more big armies without being overrun.
Battle mages, summonings, SCs... these could all help a lot, but you don't /need/ any of them.

[Belcarl]

Don't forget a few of the cheap forged ranged items that you can put on your freespawn commanders. The ones that can't cast banish initially anyway.

Herald lance, judge mans cross etc all helps reducing all the undead chaff.

[Nightblade]

That's a very good suggestion, in all my games i usually do not bother with the lesser items, trying always to get some better ones available before building them for my best commanders.
But in the case of Ermor on such small map,as i must confront them quickly to have a chance later, anything can help.

Independant heavy inf, priests and archers (pref longbows) backed up by illithids and (lots of) wine bags should be perfectly adequate to beat AI Ermor with, as long as you have enough of them and can field one or more big armies without being overrun.

About that independant armies, i know that priest is a must have to prevent Ermor just rolling over my armies, but for the cannon fodders, should i give priority to heavy infantry or to archers when getting them from newly conquered provinces (as ressources are usually not very high in newly conquered provinces).
Should lots of native infantry with few archers more effective against an average Ermor horde, or lots of native archers with few infantry should be prefered ?

In fact my question can be sum up as : are the archer usefull against undeads as they can be when i face a different nation with "living" armies ?