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| Also try to take out his temples via raiding, he's likely going to have a hard time replacing them between freespawn upkeep, pop death, and his actual mages and mind blasters if you can keep him from taking new provinces over. You'll want to keep his dominion out of your lands and if possible to push his back. Blood sac if you can.
8.30.3.3
1. I've just made a shocking discovery while playing R'lyeh in SP. (well shocking for me at least )
3: It takes two extra levels of magic skill to get +1 penetration, yes. I'm not sure if it's +1 for every two levels, or +1 for every two levels above the required level for the spell. 4: There's no MR roll with global enchantments. I think only gems and magic skill have an effect. 5: Astral 3 + 3 path boosters should count the same as a natural astral 6 mage. Again, I'm not sure if the +5 is per level or per level above the spell requirement. -> 1) I was horrified to discover recently that summons also cost money. Trolls cost a fortune! I guess freespawn is even more annoying though, since you didn't even choose to summon them. You could drown your water troops by bringing them on land somehow perhaps? I don't know how easy that is, I've never played a water nation. 3) Yep, that's right. 4) Yep. 5) I think so. 6) I think in another thread, the conclusion was that communion doesn't help, and neither do items. You can't make a crazily good magic dueller (outside of a high astral pretender, or a mad amount of empowerment). -> Void summons are free. Freespawn hybrids cost 9 or 11 gold per unit, hybrid troopers 14 and hybrid soldiers are more expensive. Mad priests, madmen otehr similar are 1 gold per unit, so every 15 cost 1 upkeep. As an aside, Mictlan slaves cost 1, most crossbreeding foul spawns cost 1 and BF Ulm thralls cost 2. Trolls cost 60, sea trolls 50, war trolls 80 and troll moose knights ~80. I don't have the unit DB (or Open Office, so it's a moot point) at work or I could check most of those numbers for accuracy. You'll get to see them once I get done, which won't be all that long anymore since #1-1475 are already done as are a good chunk of the remaining ones. Couple of weeks tops and the Unit DB should be ready. The only demon that costs upkeep is Buer the Goat Sun. He has a cost of 100 which translates to an upkeep of ~6-7. I have not seen ANY void summon that costs gold. Of the foul spawns/crossbred creatures, Ettin sosts 20 and the four-clawed big humanoid spawn is 15. Trolls, as mentioned above of course. Almost everything else is 0 goldcost. What might be throwing people off is that lots of national heroes have a gold cost and therefore also cost upkeep money. E.g. Shadul Ummush the Traitor King has a gold cost of 290 like the normal Atlantean Deep Kings, so he hits the pocket book for about 19 and change per turn. All of these are going into the bug list once I'm done. -> 2. Dreams of Rl'yeh has special uses against an enemy pretender, for when killing him just isn't enough (again, especially against immortal pretenders who aren't all that impressed by getting killed). You can use spells that age, curse, horror mark, or disease your opponent. Granted, you'll want your script to be something like "Horror Mark, Soul Slay" so that if you get a non-pretender you'll off them relatively quickly, but you can inflict severe nastiness on a pretender through Dreams. Remember too, that although Dreams allows an MR check to resist, once you're in it your MR is halved, so that horror mark is pretty much guaranteed to stick. As you mention, it's also a much safer spell if they have astral mages. And, hey, if you know they don't have astral mages, then you also know they won't be casting Returning or Soul Slay on you while in Dreams, so you've got yourself a captive audience.
I disagree with this strategy. I did about 100 experiments on Astal assasination spells few days ago as a R'leyh in a test game, gathering statistic when it makes sense to use it and wehn it doesn't. That included casting spells on pretenders. The thing is, once you lured pretender god into your dream, killing him with soul slay is a piece of cake, since his MR is halved. Why would you want to horrormark or curse him or whatever, when you can just kill him quickly? With even basic +4 penetration items R'lyeh's Astral 5 or astral 6 StarSpawn mage can kill anything with one, or very rarely 2 soul slay casted, once thier MR is halved. With bottle of water to distract opponent or to distract his summons, it is a pretty much bullet proof strategy, even aginst pretenders who carry gems to do battle summons. Now luring pretender into the dream is a very difficult task. Most of pretenders have 20-ish, sometimes high 20-ish MR, which makes it extremely hard to beat even with +penetration items. If, on top of it, they add a single MR amulet on his pretender, it would make casting astral assasin spells on him a complete waste of gems. [[resonse: Why use it instead of Soul Slay? Because I specifically stipulated using the strategy against immortals. If they are horror marked enough, their life will become 1. Take 1 step away from capital 2. Get killed by horror, increase horror marking. 3. Wake up in capital. 4. Repeat with larger horror. I'll admit, it's hard to do. But the OP was asking about when Dreams is better than Mind Hunt IF you know your opponent doesn't have astral mages (quick aside - if you know your opponent doesn't have astral mages, you can also be pretty such he doesn't have an antimagic amulet). This is one such situation. ]] ] 8.30.3.4 Questions regarding R'lyeh Dreamlands -> I am trying LE R'lyeh (Dreamlands) in SP. I haven't played much R'leh before, so I have several questions. I hope people well familiar with R'leh will be able to answer them. 1. What affects free R'leh spam? Is number of units spamed per turn in any given province in a direct correlation to the R'leh dominion strength in that province? So in province with dom 10 there are 10 times more spams than in dom 1? Or is it not such a direct correlation? (or perhaps no correlation at all?) 2. What affects types of unit spamed? Is it affected by the presence of the temple or a fort in the province? (as in case with Ermor) Is it affected by the geography of the province? (for example either coastal or landlocked province far from ocean) 3. Does the chance of the commander going insane depend on the strength of dominion? Does the (+insane) change to the "insanity icon" depend of the strength of dominion? Is the number "insane(N)" on unit's info is a percentage chance of unit acting on its own in any given turn? 4. Are units with high MR less likely to go insane? 5. Once unit is insane, it can start acting on its own. When it happens the unit's icon is "grayed out" and you can't change orders for the commander for this turn. But as long as insane unit is *not* grayed out during your planning phase, will it always perform what you ask him to do during that turn? Or can it still disregard your orders after you give it to him and act on its own? 6. In Dom2 IIRC when you have too high summoning skill you can't summon Vastness anymore. Is it still the case with Dom3? If so, what is the "threshold"? Should you replace you summoner once it gets too high summoning skill? 7. How does summoning skill affects the type and number of the creatures you summon? 8. IIRC sometimes various void beings are spammed outside of your capital and its void gate. Is it true? If so, what affects the chance of them being spammed? 9. After you give your insane commander orders to build Lab or to forge an item or to cast a ritual spell, can they disregard their orders and do some insane thing instead? (naturally it assumes that you are able to give them orders, meaning they are not ¿grayed out¿. Assuming for a moment that they can still disregard their orders and would do something different during the current turn, will you lose money and gems, or will it be reimbursed to you? -> 1-2. I believe it's dominion strength, + possibly temples give better spawn. Or maybe I just have better spawns on temples because the dominion is higher. Certainly for LA Ermor temples and forts give better freespawns. It is certainly not a direct geometric progression like 1 dom = 1 spawn, 10 dom = 10 spawns. 3. I believe the answer to all of these is yes. 4. I don't think so, but I don't know. Starspawn are immune, pretty much everyone else ends up insane sooner or later. 5. Nope. A commander is either insane for that round or not. If not, they'll do what you say. 6. Someone else posted 15-20 as the likely point of no return. In the same post, they said this was the kind of information that the designers like to not tell you, so that was just their experience. I would say yes, bring in someone new, since I like Vastness + Gift of Reason far more than I like bunches of othernesses. Plus once you get your clam machine rolling, you'll be summoning Void Spectres like mad to be Dreams of Rl'yeh assassins and to hold your clams (guaranteed S4, ethereal, no need to eat, no gold upkeep - sounds like a good solution for a dying nation with dwindling gold), and they have the summoning skill and are quite a bit tougher than normal Starspawn, so just swap them in as needed with a handful of freespawn bodyguards (I mostly use 3 immobile mind blasters and a couple greater othernesses or things that should not be). 7. I don't think anyone has the exact data you are looking for. Higher is better, although with the caveat of +6. 8. Absolutely - they come with your freespawns. You get lots of othernesses (mostly small ones), and a mix of the little psychic immobile mushroom guys, and the mobile and immobile green swirlies. You're never going to pick up a Vastness or Visitor. 9. That's pretty much what you asked for #5 if I'm getting you right. Special Bonus info - the strength of your dominion definitely affects the number of people killed per round by the dreamlands. I believe you can usually come out a little bit ahead with growth 3 and dominions of 5 or less. Once you start throwing down temples, though, your dominion will rise and your numbers will start to fall. You can hold it off for quite a while if you use your freespawn commanders for preaching (especially if you end up with loads of prophets), but eventually I always want to start pushing more actively into enemy domain. 8.31 Sarumatia 8.31.1 Sauromatia guide Article Author: Baalz Sauromatia is often overlooked when people consider the powerhouse nations, but when you really stop to consider what they've got going for them they are most definitely a contender for the spot of heavyweight champion of EA. Baalz, you've lost your mind. Have you ever seen triple blessed jaguar warriors? What the heck do you do when Eath/Nature blessed Niefels come knocking on your gate? What about Vans¿Vans!?! Ever heard of that little Lanka nation? That's just rushes, for the long haul you've got some serious magic powerhouses like Arcoscephale and T'ien Ch'i! Well, sit back my friend, and let me tell you about the Amazon Queens. First, let me lead with the obvious Sauromatia has absolutely the best archers in the game. There's not even a close second place gold & resource per pound, androphag archers are so ridiculously good I have a hard time convincing myself to spend gold on anything else until I've maxed out that recruit queue. To set this even farther over the top, they've got these archers in EA where armors are considerably lighter and archery is consequently more effective in general. If you put a couple infantry in front to catch the return fire, you'll handily be able to capture most indie province with very few losses and make an impressive initial expansion completely irrespective of what the rest of your strategy is. These guys will also single handedly neuter many, many of the rushes you'll face. From jaguar warriors and vans to elephants nobody is going to fare well fighting through your PD while dozens of androphags pelt them from the back row. There are a couple things which will require to do something different (Lanka and Niefelheim come to mind), but in general these guys will let you pursue whatever other strategy you want, comfortably handling your initial expansion and defense. Androphag archers are the exception to everything else though, in the fact that you'll basically always use them. Sauromatia suffers from the same "problem" that Lanka does there are so many really good options to choose from you run a very real risk of not focusing enough on one and dropping the ball. Before I start talking about overall strategy, let me discuss the different tools you've got at your disposal (I'll leave off mentioning the options I don't consider top shelf though its certainly possible you can play around with them and come up with some new clever ideas). Infantry. Contrary to pretty much every other nation you've only got one kind, but that's ok because they're good for the price. Real good. This is one of your weakest units and it would practically qualify for elite troops for some nations. Anyone who's tried to take an indie province from amazons should realize that though they lack the offense to punch through thick armor a couple extra points in defense and attack go a long way. These are going to be your best choice for blockers for your archers. Sauromatian Lancer - Sauromatia hands down has the best archers. For non-sacred cavalry they have to tie for having the best. These guys are often overlooked, but they're every bit as good as LA T'ien Ch'i's better known cavalry. Fighting their way across the battlefield into withering composite bow fire, what does your enemy win if they make it? Yeah! A first strike lance charge! Switch these guys forward for an immediate flanking charge when you need that sort of thing they're very capable switch hitters with a map move of 3. Cataphract These are basically the heaviest cavalry of EA and give you a very solid fist when you need a good heavy cavalry charge. The Sauromatian Lancers are more versatile, but if you know you definitely want the specialists these guys will give you a bigger hit when they connect. Sacred cavalry you've got two flavors and they're both pretty good. I prefer the Oiorpata for the extra defense, protection, and speed (which helps the first strike charge), but I won't think less of you if you go with the Androphag for the extra hitpoints and bonus lizard you get when they die. Either way, if you look at their stats, they're pretty close to Vans minus the glamour. They're not quite as versatile as the vans due to the lack of stealth, but with a good dual bless they're very close to as effective on the battlefield. A F/W bless is the standard choice for vans, and it'll work equally well for these sacred cavalry, but if you decide to go the dual bless route I prefer a less standard W/E bless for reasons I'll get into in a moment. Last but not least, hydras round out your strategic choices for troops. They make you essentially immune to any tramplers (it¿s comical if you haven¿t seen a huge force of elephants try to run over a small group of hydras), and make great kamikaze squads to lead the charge (well ahead!) for major battles. After fighting past hydras and getting good and well poisoned your enemy now must get through your PD (who conveniently sit around shooting bows rather than running into the hydra poison) before they can hit your skellispam to FINALY contemplate those Androphag archers raining death down on them from the back row. Not many things have the endurance and hitpoints to make it that far even in large numbers. Enarie - These are very respectable mid line mages and nice, cost effective researchers who can forge their own skull mentors. There are a few nations with better research, but not many. On the combat front there's the obvious skellispam which is quite effective en masse, and the not quite as obvious communion potential. Saruomatia doesn't have the raw firepower that comes from earth, air and fire schools, and their astral really isn't strong enough to frontline. What they do get though, lends itself very well indeed to small, easily managed and fielded communions. Picture this 4 slaves, 1 master. Master is equipped with a rune smasher (if you can get one, skull staff if not), eye of the void, and spell focus. Master is scripted to communion master, power of the spheres then shadow blast X3. With +7 penetration and the number of effects scaling with mage power this is every bit as devastating as the level 9 firestorm evocation except you cast it at level 5 and you managed it with a handful of research mages. You can pass out skull staffs and use a reverse communion (see my guide to communions) to get a swarm of D4 guys spamming anything from drain life or disintegrate to a combination of darkness and skellispam. And heck, remember I haven't even gotten to your good mages yet. Witch King - This guy is an amazingly powerful death mage. You'll get plenty of D4 ones which means cheap access to the really nice high end death magic like ghost riders and tartarians. If you've got them available where you need them (they're cap only) these guys are an easier choice for the death spam (drain life, disintegrate, etc) than communions of eraynes, but there's also no reason you can't combine them via Sabbath spells (again, see my communion guide for the benefits of a little blood in your communion). Finally, this guy has the right stuff to be a thug if properly equipped, casting soul vortex, barkskin, resist elements, personal regeneration, blood vengeance and (depending on randoms), quicken self/breath of winter. He can't self bless, but he is sacred so make sure you have somebody else bless him if you've got a nice one. Warrior sorceresses these guys are very cost effective recruitable thug chasises and are the reason I like the E/W bless. With just that bless and a frost brand (self buffing with barkskin) you've got an immensely cost effective thug. Set 4 Oiorpata to guard commander and now for 360 gold + 5 water gems you've got a force capable of tearing through almost any PD, or providing very capable flank support to a real army. You're not going to be able to solo them like this (without the Oiorpatas), but they are cheap and recruit everywhere so use them in pairs (or more) and as your gem supply grows throw a few extra items on them. With an amulet of resilience you can comfortably self buff regeneration, quickness, and breath of winter, and with a good shield (I like the shield of the accursed) and chainmail of displacement your defense will soar well into the mid thirties while your protection hits the high twenties definitely solo-able. Really though, you'll be amazed how far they can go with just a frost brand, this is the reason I always keep several in my laboratory and mix several WSes into my researches despite the fact they're not as cost effective for that you've got a very effective defense force in each castle. There are 4 possible random picks for WSes, with different best ways to use each: W These guys make the best thugs once you start having some extra gems to equip them. Quicken self is generally best reserved for the point you can equip them with more reinvig than their blessing gives them, but it's worth the gems to see this little buzzsaw tearing through the enemy ranks. Against particularly strong opponents (Neifel giants or Lanka's baddies or any thugs) forego the frost brands and dual wield serpent kryss or dusk daggers so long as you work in small groups your defense should be plenty high enough to give you time to work so long as no one is just surrounded. Against real SCs consider axes of hate there's not really anything that can stand up to several double quickened, dual wielded axes of hate attacking them from all sides. N These guys make casting the nature self buffs much more palatable. I seldom think personal regeneration is worth the fatigue hit for N1 mages, but with these guys it's even worthwhile to equip heavier armor and a thistle mace (dual wield something else as well, like a snake bladder stick) for fighting swarms of small guys where protection + regen is much better than higher defense. These guys are also the easiest way to get those N2 goodies like haurespex, thistle maces, vine shields, rings of regen, etc. B By and large these are all going straight to bloodhunting. Your capital gives you a small blood income, and con-4 is going to be a high priority for other obvious reasons, so by the time you're ready to start blood hunting these guys should all just forge themselves sanguine rods and have at it. Sauromatia is not going to be a top tier blood nation like Lanka or Mictlan, but it is fairly strong in blood, about on par with Abyssia in my opinion. More on this later. If you're unfamiliar with blood hunting strategies, make sure you check out my blood hunting guide included as a subsection of my Mictlan guide. D Well, I haven't found a real good use for these chicks because of the prevalence of larger death mages you'll have running around. These are generally who I leave to research and defend my heartlands. Don't get me wrong, they're still hellaciously scary chicks, just not quite as much so as their sisters. Alright, so now that we've got the notes what kind of song do we want to sing? The thing about Sauromatia is they can really pull off almost any type of strategy very competitively. Dual bless rush? Check. Scary SC pretender? Ever seen a dom 10 gorgon? Good scales? They've got the chops to fight off a rush with no SC or big bless. Turtling? With strong death and blood magic and a fairly easy way into astral (eraynes can cast arcane probing) they can have a very scary power curve. Recruitable anywhere thug swarming? I just covered that. Scary dominion push? Temple dom spread + blood sacrifices. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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