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Starting a game with EA R'yleh
Topic Started: Jun 30 2016, 02:40 AM (3,821 Views)
athros
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Ultra n00b
So I've got 5 games under my belt against Easy, and mixed Easy/Normal AI's. I won 2 and lost 3, all land based. I just got the game last week. I've decided to try the race I asked about in a previous post on Reddit (here if you're curious), EA R'yleh to give myself a challenge. I am really enjoying the game!

  • Map: Pangeos (wraparound) - I might be wrong on the spelling.
  • 6 AI's - 5 random land, 1 random UW
  • Thrones victory at 11 points, 5 L1s, 3 L2's, 2 L3's.
Magic Research goals:

  • Construction 4 - Amulet of the Fish (1A1W, 5A 5W gems)
  • Thaumaturgy 4 - Mind Vessel (3S - I have no idea what this actually does, but it is a racial spell) and Paralyze.
Pretender:

  • Paths: At least 1A for forging, more realistically 4A for site searching, 1-4W for forging and site searching, some Earth and Astral for boosters, I got nothing for more magic paths.
  • Mobile and maybe Dormant.
  • No idea on chassis - they all look terrible to me right now.
  • 6Dom, 3 Order, 1 Cold, 3 Magic is my initial goal for scales. R'yleh is pretty gold hungry, less so on resources, though the slave troops need 10+ for anything moderately decent.
Basic turn plan:

  • Turn 1 - prophetize Scout, patrol on the Slave Prince, recruit 1 Aboleth and empty the coffers recruiting Lobos for UW expansion. Start research in Construction.
  • Turn 2 - load up Aboleth and take a UW province. Recruit Slave Mage for research, determine if a coastal province can be taken. If so, recruit slave troopers, if not more Lobos/Shamblers. Send scout out to land province and start scouting.
  • Turn 3+ - Continue expanding UW if possible, determine land expansion options and make the jump to land ASAP. Continue recruiting Slave Mages for research. Possibly pick up a Mind Lord/more Aboleths if needed.
Combat tactics:
I got nothing. Swarm with Lobos maybe. My initial testing shows me that the Slave prince and slave troopers are frickin worthless, but all I really get to expand to land early, and I barely know what to do with the magic troops.

Magic:

  • I need Air gems for forging. Desperately.
  • Uhh...paralyze spam?
  • Find out what Mind Vessel actually does.
  • Summons?
I figure I'm crazy and in over my head with this setup, but I wanted something to make me work hard for a win at an AI level that won't straight murder me (same statement for MP) and help me learn in the process.

Thoughts? Any advice (other than "you're a psycho")? Specifically for the Pretender?

I'm planning on documenting this game, and submitting it to have it looked at for other advice.

I also posted this on Reddit, and the one reply as of posting makes a lot of sense.
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Sai
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Trust me, I'm a doctor
Use the Shambler Thralls for expansion. Trampling is very good at clearing indies, which are usually Size 2. It's possible, with a bit of practice, to position them such that they always get the first hit off, but while you're figuring that out you can bring a screen of infantry units to take the enemy's hits and place the thralls on the side to ensure that they can then walk over the already engaged enemy. You can reliably expand with them against anything other than cavalry.

I'm not enamored with a site searching rainbow pretender, because voice of tiamat gives you full elemental site searching already and you natively have astral, death, and nature, which means that you can already find all of the UW sites without devoting your valuable design points to doing so.

I would consider a boring expansion pretender, which will help you get larger early.
Posted Image

I put this together just now, but the basic idea is that it can reliably expand UW and on land thanks to 19 prot and built in fear and regen and still forge fish amulets for your otherwise sea-bound aboleths. I dumped heat because you're limited to H1 underwater anyways which makes temp essentially 2 free scales if you turn it up all the way for UW provinces. I picked Heat over Cold because your amphibious armies can cross over thawed rivers. If you know you're against heat-loving enemies like Abysia, C'tis, and Agartha, it may be worth taking Cold just to disadvantage them. Order and Growth both essentially have to be maxed because of how expensive your mages are. I dumped a few scales in sloth because your slave troops have horrifically bad morale and your mindless troops cost only 1 resource. You can fiddle with magic/luck/sloth as you see fit, and I'm not sure what's actually optimal. While you don't need the resources, the small income bonus might still be worthwhile.

Also, if you feel like getting fancier with the magic, you can drop down another scale or two and get more air. A2 gives cloud trapeze, which might be worthwhile so that you can suddenly drop an RoS casting snake on things, and A4 gives you access to air royalty and elemental staves if you think you'll manage to get there and can think of a good use for them.
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Itwastuesday
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*Spicy* Crew
Hm, well against the AI you just kinda want evocation to clear it's massive armies of garbage. Falling frost, nether darts. Mind vessel upgrades your Androdai for 15 astral gems. You can use all-mindless armies with astral storm (dunno if its called that but is an s evocation).

Another research target could be conj-5, to summon water elementals and use voice of tiamat. This is what I rushin MP, because voice of tiamat allows a buildup of random gems, and w/ice elementals are your best shot of actually beating a player army.

With sloth it's hard to get a bunch of androleths, which is the only useful mind blaster after early game due to being amphibious. Magic isn't necessary, when your mages already have high RP, though it helps if you get the fairly common amber clan mages.

Build slave mages, the aboleths are kinda useless. Start mind lord production when you have enough slave mages for your first war and craft fish amulets for those only. Note that even while the flavour text describes slave mages losing W on land, it doesn't actually happen, so they're mostly better than aboleths.

I went with dom9 earth snake, o3s3h-3 l3 m0 E5. In SP he can spam earthquakes, which is great against nonflying AI's. Also he can cast Forge of the Ancients, which helps your forging ability quite a bit. Sloth isn't ideal for androleth production like I said, and a plenty of people advocate not taking luck with order, so those could be balanced. Personally, I'm a big advocate of luck for nations that have garbage troops as it helps your gem economy and thus allows you to summon better units.
Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
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alexsa2015sa
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Twiceborn Abodai
Gibodai are useful for clearing tough troops like Shark Knights during UW expansion (oh, and for rushing Atlantis), provinces with Krakens are especially vulberable. Aboleths are not totally useless: they are one of the strongest S mages in EA, and if you have reliable supply of Amulets of the fish/clams of pearls, they're pretty solid, and they don't die to a single RoS or stray arrow. Slave mages also have the drawback of usually being old, so they will often kick the bucket unless you take G3, and they aren't DV 100 so Darkness screws them over.

One thing to consider if you are bordering some kind of undead-spamming nation is templing the province and spamming several Polypal Mothers. It's also good for extra siege defense if you recruit them before finishing the fort. Though, the tactic is expensive enough that you'll need full-scales to make use of this tactics.

Abodai are sometimes more useful than Mind Lords, since D2 ones can be used as Sauromancers-lite with PoTS. That's not early game, but still.

The R'lyeh really needs high (5+) research to use its combat magic in fullest - and while S is good for communions, Nether Bolts/Darts, Stellar Cascades and the rest Soul Slays, their high S also means they can all use PoTS for cheap extra paths even without communions, and with communions Master Enslave will get real easy to cast. Essentially you have reliable access to D3, E3 and W5 combat levels, even if you need to spend time forging clams (expensive) / handing out pearls (not reliable and still expensive). That is: Gifts of the Heaven, Curse of stones, Earthquake, Darkness (even if your slaves are 50% dv it still helps in mage/archery duels - and that's one more of the reasons why I consider Aboleths to be useful), overpowered Falling Frost/Sailor's Death, etc...

Also, 1/4 Aboleths and Abodai and all Mind Lords can teleport. That's not something to ignore, in big games you'll want more teleporting raiders who aren't Golems, and they pretty inexpensive (even if Amulets are expensive),

About Mind Vessel: it's far too expensive to be more effective than Amulets of the Fish for your average mage. Granted, Slave Mages are far easier to send overlands, but D2 Abodai are usefuls. S4 Mind Lord can net you S6 Androdai with coin and skullcap, which is capable of flinging Master Enslave with mere two slaves. So it's useful for getting large mages, but if you don't need one 15 gems are better spent elsewhere.
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Alexsa's Modpack v0.97 29.06.2018 Slowly, painfully porting these nations to Dominions 5; 51 done. -- Just one nation left, Zel

27.11.2017 my Dominions 4 mod nations pack - v 1.31; total of 56 nations.
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Itwastuesday
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While one in four Aboleths are S3, they're expensive, nonsacred and require fish amulets to go on land. Well, I guess my game is coloring my view since I have a big sea to myself and the other water nation isn't in it. Then it depends on what spells you want to use UW, for example Soul Slay and Astral Geyser work UW but Cascades doesn't.

Well, your slave mages are casting elementals, buffs or falling frost. FF is such a big aoe spell that I'm unsure if losing some precision for it even matters. But sure, I guess in some cases you could argue that Aboleth DV matters.

The major strike against using them is simply that they're aquatic. Also 40 gold more expensive for the W3 ones than slave mages. I guess if you have multiple A/W mages and a gem income to support it then go for Aboleth land invasion? What I've found is that you don't have enough fish amulets for all your Mind Lords and thus you use different style than spamming cascades or something.

Polypal mothers are 100g sacred, so they're not gonna ruin your economy. Another thing, Grandmothers, you can potentially empower + coin + fish amulet one for a teleporting H3 if you need one for fast throne capturing. It's a pretty cornercase thing I imagine, but it's an option that might sometimes decide a game.

A cool thing about mind lords is their huge leadership combined with potential S4-5, meaning they can gateway huge forces around.

I haven't bothered with any Abodai, one in four is D2 and they cannot use skull staff. Mind Lords also have D2 potential, though less so, so I just empower Androdais instead (warning : insanity sucks major ass and you'll have them demolishing temples left and right when they should be doing things). The Abodai do always have D1 though, so you don't have to play roulette to cast Dark Knowledge and you can have a dust to dust caster / turn if you need it (for example against Tehrodos, as it's an anti-undead spell that works underwater).

It's true that R'lyeh needs a fairly high research to fight on land, and it tends to have a rocky start to get that research started due to it's expensive mages.

Mind Vessel isn't the same thing as Amulet of the Fish at all. You use 15 gems to upgrade an Androdai massively, who then can use normal equipment and is mindless and amphibious. Of course you also give out the fish amulets to your best mind lords (there's some risk using a Mind Lord linked to an Androdai of course). Androdai can also use for example E boots if you want to construct Golems. And finally, you always have the ability to use Mind Vessel, the same cannot be said of Amulets of Fish which you can nationally do only after empowering in Air, which you nationally search only with Voice of Tiamat and Acashic Knowledge.

Along with Manverni R'lyeh is the only EA nation who can with aligning randoms just have S5 and make the boosters for it too. Live the Master Enslave dream!

By the way, the AI tend to decide who it attacks as a function of army size I think, so a bunch of Mothers/Grandmother spawning little fish can mean the difference of fighting one AI nation and fighting all of them. Also the AI never casts Rain of Stones or Darkness I think, or anything that requires more than the single F1 mage it sends to do battle. With the AI you don't need to think too much on countering whatever magic it's using, because it's usually very little. What you need to think is how to have multiple armies that can destroy infinite numbers of trash (depending on the difficulty level).
Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
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athros
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Ultra n00b
Between this post and a post I made on Reddit, it seems like my basic plan looks ok, and I should be looking for the stuff below.

Spells
Conj:
Voice of Tiamat (Conj 5, 2W) rather than a rainbow pretender site searching
Power of the Spheres (Conj 3, 1S)
Thaum:
Communion [master|slave] (Thaum1, 1S) - costs gems (?)
Mind Vessel (Thaum4) Androdai only (?)
Master Enslave (Thaum 9, 8S)
Evo:
Stellar Cascades
Nether Bolt/Darts
Mind hunt (Evo 6, 4S)
Astral Tempest (Evo8, 5S)
Const:
Forge of the Ancients (Const7, 5E)
See Items...

Items
Amulet of Fish for best mind lords, S5 can teleport
If S5 and humanoid, rings of sorcery/wizardry (Androdai)
Clam of Pearls (Const2, 1W1N)
Crystal Matrix (const4, 1E1S) 5E5S gems -Communion Master
Slave Matrix (const4, 1E1S) 5E5S gems -Communion Slave
Astral Booster items

Pretender
Contemplate Awake + Expansion chassis
Dom 3-5, Order 3, Sloth3, Cold 3, Growth 3, Magic 3
A1-2
S2-4
E2-4
W2-4
N1

So I think my plan is going to be pump Thaumaturgy up to 4, switch to Conjuration to 5, then Construction to 4 finally Evo and Thaum for the rest, or until both are 9. Maybe swap Conj and Thaum.

I like /u/RougeRogue1's Pretender, and the suggestion for an Awake Expansion pretender here, so I'm looking closer at something that can help me early game and then retire to the forges.

Thank you very much for the replies!
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Sai
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Trust me, I'm a doctor
Depending on the map, taking too low Dom may be suicidal. Many maps give sea provinces a large amount of land connections, meaning that you'll end up with incidental dom push from land nations even with the reduced Land->Water spread. A blood-sac nation may find it easier to dom kill you than invade you, and taking a very low dom score makes you especially vulnerable to this.

Your fish can teleport onto land with or without amulets to let them breath, but they'll die after doing so (just like air-breathers will drown if they teleport into a water province).

You do not need to take astral or N1 on your pretender. Your slave mages already have that. The only paths that I'd say you really need are E2+ for that booster and A/W for amulets of fish.

One more spell to add to your arsenal there is Soul Drain. It's another battlefield-wide damage spell, so your own troops will be vulnerable to it as well, but it can kill the enemy army in the right circumstances. Also, communions do not cost gems, but it's often worth having the masters cast spells that cost gems since you're using additional mages to pump up their stats.
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athros
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Ultra n00b
Sai,Jun 30 2016
08:25 PM
Depending on the map, taking too low Dom may be suicidal. Many maps give sea provinces a large amount of land connections, meaning that you'll end up with incidental dom push from land nations even with the reduced Land->Water spread. A blood-sac nation may find it easier to dom kill you than invade you, and taking a very low dom score makes you especially vulnerable to this.

Your fish can teleport onto land with or without amulets to let them breath, but they'll die after doing so (just like air-breathers will drown if they teleport into a water province).

You do not need to take astral or N1 on your pretender. Your slave mages already have that. The only paths that I'd say you really need are E2+ for that booster and A/W for amulets of fish.

One more spell to add to your arsenal there is Soul Drain. It's another battlefield-wide damage spell, so your own troops will be vulnerable to it as well, but it can kill the enemy army in the right circumstances. Also, communions do not cost gems, but it's often worth having the masters cast spells that cost gems since you're using additional mages to pump up their stats.

I ended up making both Pretenders (yours and the one from Reddit) and I like yours better.

I managed to take a coast province turn 3, and started a fort turn 5/6. I've got screenshots - I need to upload them.
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Sai
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Trust me, I'm a doctor
Well, awake expanders are pretty much always better early than a rainbow. You won't necessarily see the real value in the build that he suggested until you want to do things requiring paths that you otherwise wouldn't have access to.

That said, I think that his build in particular is really bad. If you do want to take your pretender specifically for spellcasting and forging, I'd suggest first figuring out what spells/items you want access to, then checking to see if you can get with national mages, and only then make your pretender around getting you access to the stuff that you're missing. His looked more like just jamming all of the paths onto his god, including many that don't give you anything new.
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athros
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Ultra n00b
Ok, update with screenshots.

First, the map overview as I see it, and the Capital Armies.

There is 1 month left on the fort in Dark Woods. That's where the Slave Prince and all but 1 of the starting Slave Troopers ended up. I did a Site Search there - Came up with a 2 Earth Gem site.

The Throne I claimed is the Throne of Flames, so I'm getting +1 F gem, and blessed troops get Fire Resistance 5.

I don't know what turn it is - it says "Winter in the first year" So, turn 8?

Conjuration is 2, almost 3. I was using the Aboleth and Pretender to take that Coastal province and then the Throne.

I'm fairly certain I'm not expanding fast enough.

Formoria is just south of the Throne. The other water nation is Atlantis, and I'm pretty sure they're to the northwest of my capital. I've seen messages for T'ien Chen and Berytos as well.
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athros
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Ultra n00b
and I can't edit my post to take out those images. It pushes the edit button off screen.
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TreantHugger
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*Spicy* Crew
Adjust the magnification until you can see the button.


Edit: Also, it's winter and you've only taken three provinces. You need to be a lot more efficient, you should have 8 or 9 by now even as Ryleh. If you press f4 you'll get a list of all the nations in the game. Two water nations is going to be tough in such a small pond. But at least it's not Pelagia or Oceania; mindblasters will make short work of Atlantis. Rush them and destroy them before they can build up at all.
Other name you may know me as: Speleothing
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athros
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TreantHugger,Jul 1 2016
09:54 AM
Adjust the magnification until you can see the button.


Edit: Also, it's winter and you've only taken three provinces. You need to be a lot more efficient, you should have 8 or 9 by now even as Ryleh. If you press f4 you'll get a list of all the nations in the game. Two water nations is going to be tough in such a small pond. But at least it's not Pelagia or Oceania; mindblasters will make short work of Atlantis. Rush them and destroy them before they can build up at all.

I completely forgot about the magnification. Reminds me why I shouldn't post too early in the morning.

I figured I wasn't efficient enough, and now I'm realizing I probably shouldn't have made that Mind Lord. I'm having problems determining tactics/strength of Independent armies, so I think I'm over building, and waiting too long before attacking.

The Mind Lord army is going to head in that direction and flush them out.
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frondeur de rhodes
Chud
Hi athros,

Good choice, EA R'lyeh has a lot to offer. I am a little bit late but here is my thought about it. First of all you need to understand that EA R'lyeh is a nation of mages. Your units aren't specially bad but they can't win a serious battle by themselves. Your mages can.

Prentender

You have three options. An awake expander (arch mage), an awake rainbow (earth serpent) or an imprisoned scales pretender (floating mind).

Magic
- F2W2 gives you the rune smasher, a penetration item very useful for the mind hunter or for the big MRN spells like master enslave
- A1W1 gives you the amulet of the fish
- E2 gives you the earth boots (earth boots) and the crystal coin (astral boost). the pretender makes earth boots, a S2 slave mage makes a starshine skullcap and with both a E1S1 slave mage crafts the crystal coin
- E3 gives you the dwarven hammer. It's a good item for all the nations but especially for the astral nations due to the lots of small stuff you have to forge (eyes of the void, spell focus, amulet of antimagic, clam of pearls, crystal matrix, slave matrix, etc.)
- N2/S1N2 gives you the thistle mace and the moovine bracelet, two nature boosters. With one of these, a N1 slave mage can forge the vine shield, a well-known item for thugging

None is mandatory (including the amulet of the fish) but you shouldn't ignore all.

For site searching 2 is enough, 4 is almost always overkill.

Dominion
:or3 and :gr3 are mandatory for me. You need a lot of mages, specially the slave mages who are not sacred and who have old age.
:sl3 for the points but in the case of a scales pretender you can go for :pr (more money and the possibility to recruit independants on land).
:co3 or :he3 because you're an UW nation. :co synergises well with the water elementals but it's up to you (and the other nations in the game).
:mi1 for the points. You can think about :fo3 if you have :ma3 and a scales prentender (even with :or3), so much gems/items/mages events.
:ma2/3 is useful for the penetration bonus and the research bonus.

Expander pretender
I find EA R'lyeh has no problem to expand against independants, whether underwater or on land so I never play an awake pretender. I will let others speak for that. Just think about taking an amphibian pretender.

Rainbow pretender
Posted Image

Very solid late game. Tons of gems, you can forge all the boosters your nation needs, you can even forge the staff of elemental mastery, the ring of sorcery and the ring of wizardry.
According to the gems you will get you can easily splash into fire (skull of fire -> flame spirit -> flame helmet -> king of elemental fire), death or nature. But getting the air queens or the earth kings is also possible with a little bit of work.
And you can cast all the big astral spells.

Scales pretender
Posted Image

Very solid scales. The more money possible, the best tech rush possible and you can easily mass the armored slaves and/or independants.
Later, you can directly forge the ring of wizardry and so help the slave mages to craft the boosters they need.
And the big astral spells of course.

Commanders

The slave mages. They deserve love. They are your main researchers and your main combat mages. Because they are amphibian and because with a communion they are the perfect toolbox to solve all your problems.

The aboleths. The rising cost hurts them (since 4.23 they cost 215 instead of 200) and I prefer either the slave mage or the mind lord. That said, the E or D ones have a good thugging capacity due to the double life drain (ironskin/stygian skin + body ethereal + quicken self + maybe one other spell).

The mind lords. The big guys. Only recruit them when you can use the full potential and pay attention to their upkeep, one of these guys costs more than 100 slaves.

The abodais. They are useful for the death stuff. Undeads are amphibian like you and undeads have darkvision like your atlantian slaves, lobos and shambler thralls so you will certainly recruit some abodais (hi darkness). Technically they are cheaper researchers than the slave mages. They are your best and hardest response to a player thinking he can invade you with undeads (cleansing water doesn't work UW, wither bones/banishment do, don't forget to go out with communion).

The androdais. This is why you can do without the amulet of the fish. The mind vesseled ones are mostly useful for the big astral combat spells with a rune smasher, eye of the void and spell focus. The S2 ones are all indicated for the mind hunt duty (the mind vesseled ones can't anymore) with the same usual penetration stuff. Technically they are cheaper researchers than the slave mages (even with the fact they are insane 10).

Units

The slaves can absolutely expand UW by themselves. Turn one recruit as much tritons without armor as possible, turn two make a big blob and expand. Be careful with the shark tribe tritons and the amber clan tritons. The big blob is important because of the low morale of the slaves. Never use them in little quantity and if you want to use them for serious combats give a slave prince a whip of command (N1), a horn of valor (N1) and if possible a crown of command (S2).

The lobos are one of the best meat shields in the game. One the best besiegers too.

The shambler thralls are nice, specially since they cost 20 gold instead of 25 (4.20). They are perfect for dealing with the independants (UW and/or on land). Just buy 1 slave mage, 25 shambler thralls, and go get a couple of provinces. Avoid everything you can't trample et be careful with the barbarians and the bone tribes. They are also a good response to the elves.

The androleths are a tool useful in some cases. For exemple against independant cavalry or against an elephants rush. Do not buy more than necessary, they have a high upkeep (10 androleths costs more than 130 slaves).

As Sai said, you must learn to get the first strike, mainly for the UW expansion, and to set up arrow catchers, for the on land expansion.

Research

The most complicated and trickiest part of the nation. You have access to WESDN and all your mages have access to communion master so potentially you have access to all the WESDN combat spells.

I will not detail all possible spells. Instead, I propose a list of early/mid game (1-6), combat spells your slave mages and abodais should use, with or without communion.

Water spells :
- frozen heart (alt 6, W1) : against elite armies with good MR, protection and/or defence (for example vanheim/helheim bless rush)
- cleansing water (evo 6, W2) : against demons and undeads
- falling frost (evo 5, W3) : against large armies with few protection
- bone melter (alt 5, W3N2) : against almost all

Astral spells :
- communion master (thau 1, S1) : to set up a communion
- communion slave (thau 1, S1) : to set up a communion
- stellar cascades (evo 5, S2) : against almost all
- paralyze (thau 4, S2) : against elite armies
- astral geyser (evo 5, S3) : against large armies with good protection and few hp
- soul slay (thau 5, S3) : against elite armies
- enslave mind (thau 6, S4) : against elite armies (can be used against large armies to disturb the formation), penetration items are an interesting add
- power of the spheres (conj 3, S1) : all paths booster spell
- light of the northern star (conj 4, S3) : astral booster spell for all the mages

Earth spells :
- rust mist (evo 2, E2W1) : against armies with good protection
- earth meld (alt 2, E2) : against almost all
- summon earthpower (conj 3, E2) : earth booster spell, the reinvigoration effect is nice for the slave mages during a communion
- blade wind (evo 4, E3) : against large armies with few protection
- gifts from heaven (evo 5, E3S1) : against almost all (specially against ultra elite armies like sacred giants), an eye of aiming is mandatory if you want to hit something
- destruction (alt 4, E3) : against armies with good protection
- curse of stones (alt 4, E3) : against almost all
- maws of the earth (alt 5, E3) : against almost all
- iron bane (alt 6, E3) : against armies with good protection

Death spells :
- frighten (thau 1, D1) : against armies with low morale (for example against elephants rush)
- terror (thau 4, D3) : against armies with low morale (for example against elephants rush)
- shadow bolt (evo 3, D2) : against almost all
- bolt of unlife (evo 4, D2) : against almost all
- shadow blast (evo 5, D2) : against almost all
- blast of unlife (evo 6, D3) : against almost all
- summon lammashtas (conj 4, D2) : an underrated spell, perfect for harass (be careful with the script) against armies with no magic weapon and no or few mages
- wither bones (thau 6, D3) : the best spell to deal with undeads, specially sacred undeads
- darkness (alt 6, D4) : against armies without darkvision

Nature spells :
- eagle eyes (alt 1, N1) : to be casted before any other spell who need to hit
- swarm (alt 4, N1) : if you need more chaff
- sleep cloud (evo 3, N2) : against almost all
- wooden warriors (alt 5, N2) : a cheap buff for your naked units
- panic (thau 3, N2) : against armies with low morale (for example against elephants rush)

Firstly, focus on the water and astral spells, your main national paths. Treat the other spells as secondary spells. Once you will have learned how to manage the fatigue of the slave mages during a communion, you will be able to use E, D and N as your main spells if needed.

Secondly, think about the synergies. Between the spells, for example iron bane/destruction/rust mist + falling frost or stellar cascades + sleep cloud + curse of stones. But between the spells and your units too. Your lobos and shambler thralls are mindless so they are immune to frighten, terror, panic, sleep cloud and others spells like the game changers astral tempest and soul drain. Most of your units have no armor so there is no friendly fire with iron bane/destruction/rust mist. Darkness is a major buff for the lobos, shambler thralls and atlantian slaves who have darkvision, in addition to being a response to an army of archers.

Usually I go for alt 6 or evo 5 first, then I advise.

At last, a word about rainbow pretender vs voice of tiamat (conj 5) :
1) Voice of tiamat is a good spell, no doubt, but it can't cast or forge. It doesn't improve the magic diversity of the nation in itself. You still need a mage who can use all those gems.
2) It costs 8 water gems. The same cost as a bottle of living water forged with a dwarven hammer. The bottles of living water are an amazing add to EA R'lyeh, whether for the regular battle, for raiding, for counter-raiding, for counter-thugging, etc. And every voice of tiamat is one less bottle of living water.
3) EA R'lyeh has an excellent tech rush capacity. Slave mages have a research of 13, you take M2 or M3, in fact you can well have mid game spells while other nations still have early game spells. I usually reach alt 6 or evo 5 around the first tier of the second year and I want to capitalize on this advantage. To take a coastal capital for example. This is hardier if I go first for conj 5.

tl;dr : They are a high-risk high-reward nation. They don't need any mod. Just play them and enjoy the lore and the coolness of the blobfish.

P.S. : English is not my native tongue, so feel free to correct me.
rodriguezZzZZ
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athros
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Your English is great! The images aren't working however.

Thank you for the long, thought out post! I'll be reading it in chunks while I work today.

When I inevitably die in my current game, I'll have a lot more to digest.

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