0. 2 Description 3 Credits

Bandaraja(75 gold, 22 resources): Expensive with high leadership(120). Considering that castle commander units are at a premium, these don't get made much.

Bandar Commander(50 gold, 20 resources): Good price for the leadership (80). If you have to make a commander to lead troops out of your castle, these tend to be the ones.

Atavi Chiefton (40 gold, 8 resources): Weak commander(40) with stealth. Not bad if you want a stealth strategy.

Markata Scout (20 gold, 1 resource): Cheap super weak scout. Low HPs make it an ideal Fever Fetish victim.
Units:

Palankasha (55 gold, 17 resources, capital-only): The Tiger-heads are the work horse of the Lankan army. With a good Bless, a group of five can roll over an indie province with no losses.

Anusara (35 gold, 4 resources, capital-only ): While almost as strong as a Palankasha and much cheaper, these are a joke unit. Add them to your army only if you intend to use Wooden Warriors to boost their pathetic armor, are desperate for units, or need a little demon chaff to distract priests casting Banishment. They don't eat Supply, so if you made the mistake of choosing Death scales you might be stuck with these.

Asara (35 gold, 4 resources, capital-only): Almost as badly statted as the Anusara, but they carry javelins. They are interesting if you throw down Wooden Warriors to protect them, Wind Guide to improve their Precision, and maybe Blood Lust or Rush or Strength. With their high Strength, they hit hard with their javelins, but with only two shots these don't really do a lot of damage.

Kala-mukha Warrior (65 gold, 20 resources): The two most important things about these units is that they are not demons and they can be built at any castle. They are quite expensive and a little worse than a Palankasha in terms of stats, as well as more expensive in gold. In general they get made only when facing heavy priest opposition. They have helmets, which means a lot to some people.

Bandar Warrior (20 gold, 13 resources): These guys throw rocks that hit harder than shortbow arrows, but weaker than longbows. With terrible precision and range, you put them on the front and let them go to town. With good stats, high Strength and armor they survive reasonably well on the front.

Light Bandar Archer (20 gold, 7 resources): Weak armor and low precision combined with high cost. If they didn't have longbows you'd never use them.

Atavi Infantry (9 gold, 3 resources): Stealth infantry with rocks. Cheap guys with low morale and a next to useless rock attack.

Atavi Archer (9 gold, 3 resources): Stealth archers. The basic shortbow unit in your army.

Markata Archer (5 gold, 1 resources): Terrible unarmed archers perfect as chaff with their high Defense. Ideal for Flaming Arrows with their damage 6 Small Bow attack.

Markata (5 gold, 1 resources): Terrible and cheap chaff with a useless rock attack. High Defense makes them perfect to slow elephants down to be killed by other units.
National Summonable Commanders:

Mandaha (H3/A3/D3/B2; B8, 1 for 133 Blood slaves): These are the supreme unit in the Lanka arsenal. They auto-cast Darkness when they enter battle, and so turn demon and undead armies into unstoppable killers against non-demon/undead armies. With their Holy 3 they let you cast Divine Blessing and keep your Sacred units fully Blessed. Essentially, every army needs one.

Dakini (H2/A3/D1/B3; B2A1 at B6; 1 for 50 blood slaves): Essentially, they are the best summoned mage on the block. With powerful Air and Blood magic they do the things that Lanka does best and does it well. With natural Blood Vengeance they resist single-target battle magic quite well, and flight and Fear make them ideal thugs with Mirror Image and Mist Form, though they are also fine researchers.

Samanishada (B3/D1 at B7; 1 for 35 blood slaves): Demon assassins with base Moonblades and Dusk Daggers, they are fine killers. Also, one of the cheapest Blood commanders.

Davanas (B5 at B8; 3 for 75 bloood slaves): Powerful giants that have magic weapons that Halt Sacred, they seem to be custom-built to kill other sacred giants. With high HPs, they Regenerate quite well if Nature Blessed. They are H2/A1 if made commanders with Gift of Reason, and seems ideal for boosted Air for Mistform and Mirror Image.

Sandhayabalas (B2/D1 at B5; 3 for 30 blood slaves): Powerful Sacred demons with moonblades and Buckers, they get even better stats in Darkness. While expensive and tough to mass, they are very deadly. Basically, my dream army is full of these guys.

Rakshasa Warriors (B4; 5 for 25 blood slaves): The best summons you get with a good cost per unit and enough unit per casting. They hit a little harder than Tiger heads, have longer reach, and have no shields but are otherwise should form the backbone of your summoned army.

Asrapas (B2 at B3; 5 for 11 blood slaves): Beserking, so if they are sprinkled in with other units they will keep them from routing. They also have magic weapons that do partial lifedrain, so they make good ethereal killers but need Wooden Warriors or Mass Protection to make them effective. Note that they are the cheapest Sacred Bless you have. They have a B1 if made commanders with Gift of Reason.

Praghasa (B1/N1 at B2; 15 for 50 blood slaves): Feast of Flesh nets you a posse of these guys. They have little armor and giant Supply demands, so they work best when you need a pile of units quickly for battle and expect heavy losses, have a ton of blood slaves in the lab, and have access to Wooden Warriors.

Rakshasa (B1 at B1, 3 for 10 blood slaves): With two Claw attacks, low armor, and low units per casting this is a niche unit. F9 Bless would be my guess.

Vetalas (D2 at C5; 9 for 10 death gems): Basically, these guys are powerful ghosts that can be massed cheaply and quickly. A fine use of death gems, despite death gems being the best gems in the game.

Ganas (D1 at C2; 20 at 12 death gems): Ethereal undead with no Protection. While they do have magic weapons, they are negated by MR. Ideal as holding and blocking units, especially if you toss down Poison Clouds into their midst. They have minds, so can make good castle defenders if you need to mass them quickly.
PROVINCE DEFENCE:

Overview: Low morale and weak units. Chaff.

1-19: You get a Bandar Commander and a pile of Markata. On the plus side, they slow down real attackers like Elephants and Calvary, and can even fight off Black Hawk attacks. On the down side, don't expect them to stop any real opposition.

20+: You get Bandar Warriors which are decent, but not enough to matter.

Death: You don't get enough Death to really be called a Death power, as you usually only get D1s and D2s, which means that Death rituals are doable but death battle magic is generally out without a lot of work and only generally worth it for battlefield enchantments.

EARLY GAME

Bless strategy: In my opinion, this is the most important strategy choice you'll make all game and there are many different competing philosophies. Here is the breakdown:

Nature 8/9/10: With high HPs, all of your Sacred units benefit from Regeneration far more than anyone in the game, and can make a few units into killers. I also prefer the Beserking you get from N9-10, because one one unit in a squad Berserks, the rest of the squad is essentially unroutable as long as that unit lives and commanders are on the field(only Berserk units will keep fighting after a Rout). The down side is that your best mages are Holy, so having your mages lose it when they get damaged and running towards the front is pretty bad. I prefer N9, which gets you 5 HPs of Regen each turn on Tiger Heads and Berserking. N10 is a unnoticable amount of extra Berserking and 1 more HPs of Regen, so in my opinion is not worth it. For people concerned that Berserking

Water: After much testing, this is the ideal second 9 Bless. The speed gain means that retreating troops seldom escape, and troops like giants can get hit enough time in one combat round to die and with their aaverage Attack will miss several time due to the increased Defense of this Bless (which also means that Calvary will often miss their first hit and then get killed before the charge bonus gets used).

Earth: Lanka's troops biggest problem is that in long battles they fatigue out and get fatigue-smacked. The upshot is that Lanka is naturally designed to cast Relief. That being said

Fire: Your Sacreds attack quite well and hard, so the extra Attack and Fire damage and is not really needed. The fire attack on melee weapons is great for eating Ethereal units, but in general its not worth the high cost for this one circumstance.

Death: Like the Fire bless, the extra damage is not really needed. The extra afflictions also aren't needed since you kill things quite well and there tend to be few survivers.

Air: The Air Shield effect is useful in avoiding early losses due to arrows, and the Shock Resistance is only useful in the late game when lightning is falling all around. Considering how much lightning that Lanka can really toss down (which is not that much, in fact), this bless seems unreasonably expensive.

Astral: More MR will prevent Banishments from taking their toll, but in general the best killers of your Demons will not be checking MR or will be used by powerful mages with Penetration. While the computer is often foolish enough to not give Penetration item out to priests, humans will not.

Blood: Your demons do enough damage, so more Strength is not very useful.

Conclusion: N9/W9 and maybe E4 tend to give the best all-around surviverablity.

If you've been building Raksharajas, you will have a few D2 guys who can turn your Death gems straight into Skull Mentors, boosting your research through the roof. At this level you can also equip Thugs and SCs with Vine Shields, Reinvig equipment and one the Brand swords(assuming you got lucky with Amazons or sites). Thistle Maces, Skull Staffs, Soul Contracts, and Sanguine Rods are also key equipment for you.

At this level you can summon Rakshasa Warriors, which are as good as Tiger-heads and cost only blood slaves to summon. Storm Demons are also as good as a Lightning tossing battle mage, and they ignore the effects of Storms.

Due to the heavy demand you have for your mages, sending individuals to site search is not cost effective in terms of turn advantage. For that reason, you'll want to search via spells and just eat the gem hit. For reference, these are Conj2 for Death, Thaum 2 for Nature and Air, and Blood 2 for Blood.

Sadly, Lanka has poor early game battle magic. The winners are Thaum3 for Panic, Evocation 2 for Lightning Bolt, Evocation 3 for Sleep Cloud, Evocation 4 for Breath of the Dragon(weak, but better than nothing) and Thunderstrike(high fatigue, but nice), Evocation 5 for Poison Cloud and Shadow Blast, Alteration 5 for Wooden Warriors, Alteration 4 for Wind Guide, and Enchantment 3 for Raise Dead/Raise Skeletons. Blood 4 also has Storm Demons, which are essentially mobile Lightning Bolt platforms.

Your H2 mages can summon Longdead and some of those will be the strong and good Att Bandar, and even H1s can summon Ghouls and get the decent attack Pisasha. Once of your early goals should be to build a temple on an inddie priest province and pump out a Priest a turn, and then eat a low income swamp, mountain, or wasteland by turning it into ghouls (since these provinces produce around 5-15 gold a turn, losing them for a pile of non-mindless undead is not a bad deal). You can also send them behind armies to clean up corpses Soulless. This tactic is especially important because the only way Lanka can bring enough troops to crack castles is to bring a pile of undead.

You need Blood mages to blood hunt, Holy mages to reanimate, and expensive mages to research. As a priority, you'll want a second castle up and running to pump out more mages.

Not only does Alt5 have Wooden Warriors, but it also has Mother Oak which is cheap and easy to cast.

Thugs/SCs:

Raksharajas make fine SCs if you get them to cast Mistform and Mirror Image and Bless themselves. With a Brand Sword, some Reinvig and +MR equipment, and a Vine Shield, a Raksharaja is essentially unbeatable. Toss in a Soul Vortex at Alteration 6, and you've got a cheap and powerful killer of troops comparable to a Banelord but with a better kill ratio. Dakini are even better for this purpose with their flight and built-in Blood Vengeance.
Enchantment 5-6

Its a long way up a path thats not giving you much, so its a mid-game strategy. When you get to Ench5, you get Gift of Health and Foul Vapors. FV is the perfect battlefield destroying spell because your units Regen, but it requires that you've empowered a Nature mage in Water. Gift of Health has not only the effect of increasing your troops HPs up to double base and healing afflictions, but it can also potentially double Regen, which makes your powerful Sacreds dramatically more powerful. Enchantment 6 has the supremely useful Arrow Fend and useful Relief.

Whether you are using Storm from a Staff of Storms or are casting it each time, you are basically making missile attacks fail, which is a big benefit to the small number of Lankan troops you are fielding. Toss in a Wrath of God with lightning immune casters and you will destroy all the troops on the battlefield, which is a win if you gamble small numbers of troops and your enemy gambles large numbers. This is especially effective if you can keep enemy troops occupied with Lifelong Protection contracts, Skull Helmet Raise Deads, or other battle summons.

A few useful spells pop up here. Fog Warriors is the big winner at Alt7, but Mass Regeneration at Alt7 is also nice if you are fielding your non-Sacreds though its stacks with Sacreds Regen. Soul Vortex is also a nice little winner; combine SV with crap units on Guard Commander and you get cheap fatigue reduction for your mages.

Lanka has a powerful flying demon commander, the Dakini (and the commander Devil from ). Toss in Storm Demons, Devils, and other troops brought by Flying Carpets, they can have flying armies quite easily.

Using Hellbind Heart and undead screens, its quite easy to capture Bogus and his companions and gain their Attack Commander and Fire Magic User commands. Some players consider this ¿cheating¿, so be aware. I personally consider it an ability of any race clever enough to do it.

The Big Air Magics

Air magic is extremely powerful in the late game, but for Lanka to get it a lot of work must be done. Sabbaths and Communions are the only practical way, simply because Air Boosting items like Wind Helmets and Air Bags cost 25 Air gems each, and the other Lanka possibility is the Robe of the Magi for another 40 Air gems(and 40 blood slaves). The key spells you really want are Fog Warriors (Alt7) and Mists of Deception(Ench8). Other notable Air spells are Storm Warriors(Ench8), Mass Flight(Ench7), and Shimmering Fields(Evo7).
The Big Death Magics

Utterdark is a WIN magic for Lanka. Considering that they can blood hunt for troops, they can survive an Utterdark better than the vast majority of other nations, so casting this spell should be one of your goals. You can easily climb the death summons ladder and get Liches for D4, then toss in enough boosters to cast it. If thats possible, aiming for Tartarians and Well of Misery is just unnecessary. The big death battle magics are Wailing Winds(Evo6), Winds of Death(Evo7), Rigor Mortis(E6), Bone Grinding (Alt7). Due to your difficulty in gaining powerful Death magic and their only decent effectiveness, these tend to be luxuries.

Astral Corruption is one of the WIN spells. You can toss it with 999 blood slaves and it'll never be brought down, and you'll be able to summon troops and most people won't (it also makes any Horror spells you cast even bigger and nastier). Combined with Utterdark, you can paralyze any nation that doesn't do Blood in a serious way (Mictlan, Abysia and Sauromatia in the EA). Also summoning Mandahas at Blood 8 with their built-in Darkness makes them real winners in battles.

MORE STRATEGIES

Earth Economy:

Lanka can produce a lot of blood slaves, and if they can get enough Earth together they can start building Blood Stones at an amazing rate. Once they have a good Earth income going, they can start building Marble Warriors for raw combat and Mechanical Men for Lighning armies. Mixing Death and Earth also allows for Shadow Brands, a nice thug weapon.
Fire Economy:

If you can get even one Nature mage empowered in Fire, you can make Fever Fetishes and start a Fire economy going. Fire and Blood intersect nicely since you can then create Soul Contracts, and cast Blood Boil, Bind Archdevils, and Infernal Prison. Access to Fire magic also opens of the possibility of Flaming Arrows, a powerful spell for an archer nation like Lanka.

If you can get Crystal Mages or some other Earth and Astral Mages, you can build a number of key items. Crystal Shields are the best, since they can turn a H2 mage into an H3 so that you can cast Divine Blessing. Crystal Matrixes and Slave Matrixees also let you reliably put up Communions/Sabbaths.

Blood is defined by the Blood and Astral spells. Even massive armies can be destroyed by three castings of Call Horror, so it is in your best interest to find Astral mages and Empower them in Blood or Empower Blood mages in Astral.

Mini-Blood Guide

Blood hunting is a tricky process that requires finesse and timing, and there are several competing and conflicting philosophies. Here they are:
Set It On Fire: If you are playing a short 20-30 turn game, the common advice is to go Death scales and Patrol provinces you are Blood hunting. Population losses in those provinces will be massive, but the blood slaves will pile up. Sure, your empire will be a tomb by turn 30 and by turn 40 it'll be destroyed, but hopefully you'll have taken new lands to blood hunt.
Gardening: Go Growth 3 and lower taxes to 0. Set a few blood hunters on a spot and just draw a slow income from the spot. This strategy means that you'll have a long term and consistent income. Also, substandard 3,000 person provinces will grow into good bloodhunting provinces, providing gold income the whole time. For a 60+ turn game this is ideal.
General advice and facts:

-Blood hunting checks blood level of hunter(higher is better), then size of population (5,000+ is ideal) and then unrest of province(lower is better).

-Blood hunting creates unrest and reduced population , and unrest makes it harder to Blood Hunt.

-The following things reduce unrest: Reducing taxes(max -34 unrest for zero taxes), good events, patrolling(amount reduced by sized of army and kills 10 population for each unrest reduced), Fata Morgana, and the Lady of Love pretender.

-B1 is needed to get anything near a steady income of blood slaves, but B3 and 5,000 population and zero unrest guarantees that the unit will get slaves. A unit with no Blood magic and zero unrest and 5,000 population will generally find slaves 5% of the time.

-Unrest failure chance seems to be checked simultaneously, so a huge pile of blood hunters hunting on one turn can net more slaves than a few over a few turns.

-Sanguine Rods increase blood hunting as if you were +1 Blood. Vampires and some other national units also get a bonus.

-Building labs in every blood hunting province is not as cost effective as building two stealthy Scouts(20 gold each) to ferry blood slaves to and from a province and a lab (even after accounting for upkeep). Labs also can be used by attacking nations who might fly in. Keep hunters in back and on Retreat, and toss in province defense to deter raiders (flying or Ritual created).

-Blood magic has great summons, most of which are demons, but the battle magic requires a great deal of blood slaves and generally is only used in dire need because of the blood slave cost and high fatigue for even the simplest spells.

-Belphegor The Lord of Hell (a demon lord) is the only unit in the game that gets blood slaves each turn for free, making him the best battle caster for Blood in the game

-Communions and Sabbaths are the same spell(just different costs and magic type) and can be mixed and matched

-Flyers carrying blood slaves are the best way to bring blood slaves into battles. Just make sure your flyers appear next to your blood mages.
8.21.2 Lanka: unit stats, comments and tips

8.21.2.1 Guide

* Lanka is an Early Age (EA) nation, based on Bandar Log¿s EA Kailasa, so you¿ll get most of the regular Markata, Atavi and Bandar units and commanders; but instead of being ruled by Yakshas and Yakshinis, they¿re ruled by Rasksharajas and Rakshasis (rulers of the Rakshasas, who are demon ogres mastering Air, Death, Blood and Holy magic);

* Lanka is definitely a Blood nation: cheap blood-hunting troops (Raktapata: 90 gold, sacred, BH, which compares to Abysia¿s Sanguine Acolyte) and 9 (yes, nine!) national Blood summons;

* Lanka is a demon nation: best recruitable troops and commanders, as well as all Blood-summoned troops and commanders, are demons;

* All demon troops (recruitable and summoned) are sacred, so you will want to carefully plan a suitable bless strategy;

Advantages

* All priests can reanimate Undead;

* National archers with strategic move 2 and forest survival; Bandar archers have long bows (20 gold, 7 res), Atavi archers are stealthy (9 gold, 3 res), and Markata archers are really cheap (5 gold, 1 res);

* Great national Blood summons (troops and commanders);

* Lanka prefers Heat+2, so you get 80 free design points (or 120 if you go for Heat+3);

* Access to Air, Death, Nature and Blood magic;

Other nice features

* Summoned assassin (Samanishada, Blood-7)