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| I usually build quite a few of these guys for underwater expansion, but not too many. I recommend that you try to balance how many you need with the fact that they are only effective under the waves. I build far more Ilithids as MA/LA R'Lyeh than these guys for EA R'Lyeh, simply because they cannot be used in land battles. Having 200 Giboleth's looks cool, and makes a lot of noise in battles, but once you are prosecuting a long land campaign, that is a lot of cash tied up underwater.
Scouts: Pretty standard scout type. He's amphibious and has darkvision 50, which help, but he has no special capabilities other than those. If sent out just for recon, I stick them on retreat orders so they take off if discovered and survive for more scouting if they can get away. Slave Princes: These guys aren't too bad as thugs or to bring larger amounts of standard troops to battle as the Aboleth leaders have high magical leadership, but poor normal leadership. A default magic resistance of 12 begs for +MR items and buffs, but they are reasonably strong and fairly well-equipped out of the box, and have 50 darkvision and are amphibious. I keep a couple of these guys around, but I usually don't build many. Slave Priests: Amphibious and sacred, but not much else to crow about. Holy 1 is all they come with. I use them mostly to build temples behind my armies. For those accompanying my forces, they are they to do a bit of holy casting, and to carry gems for my real mages and items like cauldrons of broth. Slave Mages: These guys are not too bad overall. They come with 2 Water and 1 Astral as well as 1 random pick of Earth, Water, Nature, or Astral. While vulnerable to mind duels, they can bring some diversity to your magic as the Aboleths and Mind Lords do not get a chance of Nature magic. They lose a water magic level when they venture onto land, and get the standard Merman poor amphibian penalty when on land. I rarely use these for battle casters. They make acceptable stopgap researchers, and the chance of some nature magic can be a boon, but I prefer Aboleths and Mind Lords for most of my magic needs. Polypal Mothers: These are quite odd. They are sacred, blind, have 100% poison resistance, create free Polypal Spawns in friendly dominions, and have Holy 2 magic, but they can't move. I like having a couple here and there to bulk up my aquatic forces with freespawns (I'll go into the Polypal Spawn more later), but I don't advise building too many of these girls. They really are not that bad at helping defend your provinces if you are getting attacked underwater, but their immobility is a major limitation. You normally do not want that many Polypal spawns either. Aboleths: They come with 2 water and 2 astral as well as +1 to either death, earth, water, or astral. These are decent mages and have good stats overall (100 darkvision, 54 hit points, 18 MR, 150 magical leadership, mind blast attack, etc). Being size 4 makes them fairly large. The main problems with these otherwise excellent units are the aquatic only limitation and only having 2 misc magic item slots. They are still quite decent and I tend to build quite a few in my non-capital underwater forts. Mind Lords: I admit it. I love these guys. 3 water and 3 astral magic +1 to either water, earth, astral, or death and a 10% chance of another +1 to either of earth, astral, water, or death, makes them excellent mages. They are not cheap at 420/1, but that's a lot of magic power, they have good stats (such as 84 hit points, 100 darkvision, 165 magical leadership, and 20 MR) and their ranged attack is enslave mind! These guys are huge at size 6, which is bad for supplies and being a target, but you get a small recompense at the fact that they are hard to trample. The main problems with these guys is that they are, like is too often the case for EA R'Lyeh, aquatic and only 2 misc magic item slots, and on top of that, they are capital only. I still find these very good leaders. Both the Aboleths and Mind Lords do get a strategic move of 2 when you give them their amulets of the fish, which gives you surprising strategic speed for a nominally aquatic nation. Polypal Spawns: You can't build these little things, but the Polypal Mothers and the Queen can spawn them for free in any water province where you have positive dominion. Another aquatic-only unit, they are not very strong and their low hit points hamper them, but they have decent combat skills, are size 1 which helps with the supply issue when you have many of them, they have decent protection, and their MR is slightly above average. Having some can be very useful for fighting in the waves, but I do not feel you would be best served by having too many. You really do not want to go overboard with the Polypal Mothers. This is going to be huge looking at how far I have gotten already. I'll start a new post for the next section to make it easier to read. Available Pretenders: EA R'Lyeh is very limited in it's choices for pretender chasses but they can use the following: Monolith: I have to be honest, I've never really used this one. I've had a lot of success with immobile pretenders, but have not tried Monolith. Wyrm: A popular SC pretender. The Wyrm is an excellent choice for an active combat pretender. No starting magic is a drawback, but it has some nice advantages with it's regeneration, 100% poison resistance and basic fear. Son of the Sea: More magically inclined (water 3 default) than the Wyrm but not as good at straight up combat, the Son of the Sea can also bring land-dwellers below the sea safely. Lich and Master Lich: These are standard broad spectrum magic pretenders. Both start with death magic, but the Master Lich has cheaper access to other magical paths, while the Lich is more robust in battle. Void Lurker: One of my personal favorites for MA R'Lyeh, but less so for EA R'Lyeh. The Void Lurker has cheap access to magic paths beyond it's starting astral 3, is ethereal and has a mind blast attack. It is immobile. It is also surrounded by a poison cloud, so watch where you place him in battle. It also does not eat. Ancient Kraken: Another good SC Pretender. He starts with no magic but is slightly cheaper to pick magic up than the Wyrm (40 as opposed to 50). He has 100 Darkvision, 50 poison resistance, and has recuperation. Polypal Queen: This is my personal favorite EA R'Lyeh pretender, although much of this is from her whole concept as the mother of the entire aboleth race, I feel she is still a solid if immobile pretender chassis. With some nice abilities such as: Blind , poison resistance of 100, and she creates freespawns of Polypal Spawns when in a friendly aquatic dominion. Her magic starts at astral 1 and water 1, with new paths costing 25. She has 3 mind blasts when pressed in battle, and does not eat. Ghost King: A classical favorite, the Ghost King is expensive, but his high fear, combined with being ethereal and sneaky can help with reduced casualty conquest of neutrals. Extra magic path cost of 20 is a nice feature as well. Arch Mage He rides a trampling lobster (payback for all that seafood!) and while he starts with only water 1, buying him additional paths cost only 10 points. Scales: These can be (and usually are) hotly debated and everyone has certain scales they love/hate, but I will give a basic rundown. Order/Turmoil: I am not a fan of Turmoil as losing money and having more random events is not my cup of tea. However, if you take high Luck, turmoil can certainly give you a lot of good events. Order gives some money back and can reduce the effect of misfortune. I normally leave this neutral, or slide it to order. Productivity/Sloth: I again found Evilhomer's advice to be spot on and highly recommend Sloth 3 as EA R'Lyeh. In fact, I recommend it more for EA than MA or LA R'Lyeh as we don't even get the Meteorite guards that MA and LA have (decent slave troops with extra MR). Most of the units we will be using cost just 1 resource. The gold loss is only 6% at Sloth 3 and other scales can make up this loss if you wish. Heat/Cold: Cold does not effect the income (although it still does effect the supplies) of underwater provinces so you can take it fairly easily. I used to always hold this neutral as R'Lyeh, but taking some cold is not too terrible for your land campaign later, and has only minor effects on your water campaign. Growth/Death: Growth is a good scale for almost anyone. The extra income can help balance your Sloth3, the extra supplies can help with Cold/Heat, and extra growth means even more money and supplies! While our main mages are not really in any danger of old age (barring spells like Decay anyway), I cannot recommend Death as EA R'Lyeh. Growth is even more attractive and Death less attractive in a longer game. Growth of any level is good, but if you can wring out Growth 3, it is highly recommneded. Luck/Misfortune: I strongly advise against taking Misfortune if you also take Death, which I recommend against taking Death in the first place, if you do, do not take Death 3 and Misfortune 3 as this opens up some downright devastating events. Luck+Turmoil is interesting. I usually leave this neutral or give myself some luck. Magic/Drain: R'Lyeh is infused with magic so Drain is not only not thematic, it is counter-productive. Your main forces will be based on Mind Lords and Aboleths which are very heavy magic-users. A little magic can help quite a bit. It makes all your researchers more efficient, you already have many units with high MR (Aboleths and Mind Lords have 18 and 20!) so Magic's reduction of MR is not as bad for you as many others, and makes all that magic you will be throwing less exhausting. I have done well with a straight zero, but taking some is certainly not a bad idea. Magic Paths: Picking the paths your pretender will have is always an important step in your pretender creation process. One thing you must shoot for as EA R'Lyeh is so important I'll bold it below: You need to be able to make Amulets of the Fish! Without these items, your Mind Lords and Aboleths cannot leave the seas. Air 1/ Water 1 is the minimum needed for these. This is a critical aspect of your pretender design. None of our national mages can make these, so that leaves summons, luck on sites, or your pretender. I always take at least air 1 on my pretender, and always take water (and astral as well) as default as any R'Lyeh. EA R'Lyeh does not lend itself to a bless strategy. We only have the prophet and 3 national sacred units total. 1 of these nationals is aquatic and immobile (Polypal Mothers), 1 is aquatic and capital only (Gibodai), and the last is the Slave Priest. I do not build my pretender around any sort of bless capabilities, although I tend to go fairly deep into water and astral and get a small bless by default. But do not build your pretender based on any sort of bless strategy. Air: As previously stated, you want at least 1 air on your pretender. Amulets of the fish are just too critical to not do so. Most of the pretenders we can choose from come with water, so it's not hard to be able to at least make these items. Taking more air levels will let you make other nice toys like amulets of missile protection. I try for 2-4 depending on the type of pretender I am making. Astral: R'Lyeh is heavy with astral magic in all ages. Our national mages are heavy with it, and some of our pretenders start with it, or can get it cheap. The SC pretenders may skip astral as they need water 1 and air 1 to make the amulets, but for a more magic-orientated pretender, astral is a good fit. I try for at least 4 astral on my heavy magic pretenders. If you get Astral 6 or more, you can make the expensive but powerful Rings of Wizardry. Blood: An important aspect of blood magic is that you cannot blood hunt underwater. I do not normally take blood magic on my pretender, although in some longer games, I did empower them with it and had a small blood economy running. But that was more to test it out for EA R'Lyeh than anything else. You probably could take some on your pretender and try for some decently sized population land provinces to get a blood magic economy rolling, but it's difficult for EA R'Lyeh to use as our main strength is below the waves where we cannot get blood slaves. I do not recommend you get too much blood magic on your pretender, but a little bit can give you access to some of the astral+blood spells and items. For an excellent article on Blood Hunting (and Mictlan of course!) See Baalz's guide here: Post#http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=503458&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1 Death:
Aboleths can have death 1 and Mind Lords can get up to death 2 (but that is quite rare as it requires the 100% pick to pick death and then get the 10% pick to give death as well). A little death on a pretender with many paths can certainly work well. I usually get some death, but not too deep into it. Death+water gives access to Streams from Hades which is a nice mixed magic summons, and also gives Hidden in Snow which is a rather good summons for us as they enhance our land forces. Death+astral gives the Ether Gate which is expensive, but I use them from time to time. All 3 of these spells only require 1 death magic, so even a a little death can give you some nice bonuses. Earth: Our various mages have some access to earth magic, and our home site makes 1 earth gem per turn. Earth magic gives the forge of the ancients and the dwarven hammers for cheaper magic items. Earth magic also gives some solid defensive and reinvigoration items with construction research. On a rainbow pretender, I try to get some earth. Fire: None of our national mages can get fire magic. Most fire spells don't even work underwater. If you are going for a rainbow pretender, fire magic can give you more items to choose from and some powerful spells for dealing with the surface dwellers, but it's not a priority for us normally. Nature: Only our Slave Mages can get nature from our national mages, and it's a random pick so not really common. I do tend to grab nature magic on my pretender along with water for the fact that I need nature magic (on top of water magic) to make Clam of Pearls. These items can really bolster your astral pearl economy and come highly recommended. Nature gives access to some nice reinvigoration and regeneration items and supply items as well. I try to take some on my pretenders whenever I can. Water: We live in the water, so taking some is an easy decision normally. Water works well with astral and you need water 1 (with air 1) to make amulets of the fish which we need badly. Water 3+ Nature 1 gives the pretender the ability to make clam of pearls too. Water 4 is my normal minimum as EA R'Lyeh, and I often take more. Magic, Dominion, Wakefulness, Pretenders, and you: A limited path SC pretender should shoot for air+water normally. You don't want to burn too many points on too many magic branches when the paths are costing you 40-50 each, but air and water access is critical. EA R'Lyeh needs a pretender with at least these 2 paths unless you want to gamble on finding air sites to empower or those rare indy mage sites, which I cannot recommend. Gambling can be fun, but if you don't get access to amulets of the fish, you can cripple yourself. Awake SC pretenders have the advantage of aiding our expansion early, when we are somewhat weak. EA R'Lyeh is more of a late bloomer nation, but taking a low magic SC pretender hurts our magic item construction and magical capability as well. On the other hand, magic-heavy pretenders (whether rainbow or simply deep into only a couple of paths), are not as effective early as the SC ones, but long-term they give us a lot of magical power in return. Evilhomer recommends an SC for MA and LA R'Lyeh and this applies to EA R'Lyeh to a point as well, but I tend to take a Polypal Mother with heavy magic instead. If you get rushed in an MP game, you will want an SC, but if through geography or diplomacy you have some breathing room, a heavy magic pretender can work wonders in the longterm. The worst part of all this is that you won't really know which situation you will be in until you have already started the game! The choice of an SC or a magic guru is largely personal choice. I tend to use my pretenders more for their ability to cast high path requirement spells than for expansion. I have tried both and an Ancient Kraken or Wyrm can really put some hurt on enemies. Which you prefer is up to your playstyle and the people you are playing against. SP games allow a lot more flexibility in pretender construction as the AI is not very 'threat aware' compared to other human players. Awake, Dormant, or Imprisoned? This is a very hard decision and I have to say that while I do not like waiting so long for my pretender to be usable, you get a ton of points with imprisoned, and a fair chunk if they are sleeping. If you take an SC, I would take awake for sure as early expansion is the main reason to have an SC. An immobile heavy magic type gives a nice amount of research early if awake, but you can eke out a lot of points if they are dormant or in jail. As mentioned above, your decision here should be heavily influenced by the game you are playing and the personality of the other players. An awake SC may just be enough to keep that aggressive guy off you to let you build your strength, while having neighbors that are not so interested you lets you be a little more relaxed about this. Dominion: A very important part of god construction. Most of our choices here start fairly low, but it's a simple matter to bump it up. If you have really nasty scales, having a low dominion can let you sponge off other peoples better scales, but this makes you more vulnerable to being prayed out of existence. Taking a very high dominion can keep your scales in control and helps in the breeding of free Polypal Spawns. I try to get at least 5, and preferably more as I am pretty conservative on my scales so don't have too much damage from my own dominion. Getting 9 or 10 here can give an SC that extra edge with the Awe ability. Pretender Summary: EA R'Lyeh has very limited choices for our chasses, but we don't have any real problem ones like the Lord of Fertility either. Getting air 1+ water 1 is critical for us, but beyond that it's really up to your preferences. I always take water, astral, air, and nature on my heavy magic users. And dabble in the other paths most of the time. Many of our pretenders can benefit from amulets of the fish to enter land based labs to cast land-only spells. A few of our pretenders do not need them to do so, and this increases their appeal. Pretender construction is an extremely interesting, critical, and fun part of the game. I freely admit to a strong bias to the Polypal Queen. She just fits as the nation's goddess so well, and I like strong magic pretenders. The freespawns are a little extra. If they get out of control, I can always have her grab an amulet of the fish from the lab and port to a friendly land lab. This lets me halt freespawn production if it's getting too large and I can cast some of those land-only spells to boot. Magic: EA R'Lyeh is a very heavy user of water and astral magic, less so in death and earth, and a rare small amount of nature. We start with the Gorge of Ancient Cities, which produces the following gems: 3 astral 2 water
1 earth Getting more sites quickly is always important. Starting research for us is usually Conjuration 4 for Voice of Tiamat. This was another of Evilhomer's recommendations that I fully endorse for EA R'Lyeh. It reveals all elemental sites in an underwater province that we control. This can give your gem economy a boost quickly. Conjuration 5 gives acashic Record, which some people love and others hate. If you like the spell, getting it right after Voice of Tiamat is not too hard of a decision. If you don't like acashic record, you can move to other branches after getting voice of tiamat. Conjuration gives some excellent summons, and we don't even mind the aquatic ones. Asp Turtles are downright nasty for example. And if you have enough death, you can get the ubiquitous Bane Lords or even tartarians if you squeeze out that much death. As Belcarl pointed out, our Mind Lords normal ranged attack is enslave mind, so we don't need to push thaumaturgy right away, but it is a very important line of magic for us. All the Astral relocation spells (Teleport, Gateway, and Astral Travel) are from the thaumaturgy line. And the strategic mobility of these spells cannot be stressed enough. The threat of having 12 Mind Lords and their armies suddenly port almost anywhere can keep your neighbors honest. Construction gives the essential amulet of the fish at construction 4, and no matter what paths you take, magic items are always things to hand out to important commanders (and not so important commanders if you have the time/gems available). I normally leave blood for last. No blood hunting underwater is a major hindrance for fully exploiting this path. And we have no national mages that have access to it. Spells I try to push for as EA R'Lyeh, depending on magic paths available: Antimagic (Lobo Guards have lousy MR, and our other slave troops are below average as well) Voice of Tiamat Bane Lord Gift of Health Maelstrom Arcane Nexus (Although I would be wary casting this in an MP game) Teleport Gateway
Astral Travel (Very deep in thaumaturgy, so hard to actually 'push') Arrow Fend or Storm (depending on air available and what casters I have in the field that can cast these) Communion Slave/Master Returning Personal Luck Luck
Battle Fortune We start with Twist Fate, and there are other spells I love to get, but take very heavy paths so I do not 'push' them so much (i.e. Call Abomination). Amulets of the Fish are your land force bottleneck normally. Getting indy mages with air and water or empowering mages with one or the other can help cut this bottle neck down some. Normally only the pretender can make these and only if you have them available to do so. A lot of our pretenders and our 2 more powerful national mages lack hands so cannot benefit from dwarven hammers. Forge of the Ancients can mitigate that somewhat. Nethgul is a ton of fun to give to a Slave Prince. He often gives his bearer etherealness though spells and does a large amount of horror marking, soul slaying, and mind enslaving at the enemy. I can't even remember the number of times I'll notice that I now have horror-marked troops that used to be enemies. If only he would mind enslave before horror-marking. Mind Lords and Aboleths can only carry 2 misc items, and this will have you gnashing your teeth as they cannot not even don a simple astral cap! Being handless means they cannot use some of the excellent path boosting weapons. The first item to enable them to go landward is of course the amulet of the fish, but the second item is less cut and dried. Ring of wizardry is very nice, but extremely expensive. Amulets of missle protection aren't bad if you don't have any field commanders to cast arrow fend, or have a commander with hands (I know it sounds odd, doesn't it?) to hold a staff of storms. I'm loathe to hand them supply items if I need them as the 1 slot is just to valuable for such an item. I hand the +supply items to less important sub-commanders, like slave priests. Clam of Pearls should be high on your magic item list for researchers. Getting a lot of these can really boost your astral income. It takes them awhile to pay for themselves, although less time is needed to 'break even' if you have access to dwarven hammers (Accursed hands! How you elude us!), access to sites that cut the construction cost of items down, and/or forge of the ancients. Even without all these, the clams are welcome. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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