Tips for A newbie Playing as R'lyeh

[Theonlystd]

I tried a few races. Liking the R'lyeh so far..

The whole underwater thing seems to help me not get smacked around.

And i like the whole Ilithid *spelt wrong* Army.

The slaves go in while the Ilithids mind blast and im guessing thats what causing all the paralzying that happens.. Which allows me to kill stuff rout the army and kill more cause they get paralzyed as there running even. Handy..

Hardly taken any losses and such...


Any tips? I search there name but theres most many topics that mention R'lyeh i couldnt find a thread talking about strats maybe someone could point me that way.

And uh the first game i sent my pretender into the void gate and he came out stupid basicly as in no more magical powers and an afflication.. What do i do about that send in different mages?

[Ygorl]

The commanders you can recruit that have priest levels are much less likely to go insane if you send them into the void gate. They're maybe the only ones worth using.

[Saxon]

The summoning is a bit hard to get used to, but it can lead to some middle and end game powerhouses, so it is worth trying. The first thing to do is to run a search on summoning or, alternatively, my user name. A while back I asked the same questions and got some great answers. I will summarize what I remember, but for better information, check out the threads.

You need priest skills to summon. Each time you summon, your skill gets better and the power of what you recruit gets stronger. Use a cheap priest bought on turn one and do not move him until he goes insane, with one exception There is a national hero who has a very good summoning skill, so if you get him, you might have to try him/it out. Use your pretender for other things, he is valuable.

Some of the big things are very powerful. If you get the Gift of Reason spell (use thistle mace and something I forget to boost your nature magic) you can turn the big monsters into commanders, who will use spells and equip some magic items. They then turn into army eating machines!

Not sure, but I think many of the summons cause fear. Try to take advantage of this. While they are holy, the numbers are usually low, so I personally do not recommend designing a pretender just to get good holy powers.

Use your water movement well. Depending on the map and the other races, you can really get behind their lines and hurt them. The map of the UK is especially powerful this way. The seas are very large compared to the land provinces, so you can race down the sides and hit their rich provinces. Even if you do not hold them long, you will force them to spread their forces out while you concentrate yours.

Quickness is a great early spell for your casters, just be careful with fatigue. Learn more about Communion, as it can boost your power and lower fatigue. Join it with quickness and you can pump out a lot of spells quickly. Look at the related magic items, like crystal matrix, they help even more.

Have fun and eat the brains of the land creatures!

[Theonlystd]

ahhhh thanks for the tips ill try searching your name and such..


How fast should one expand?

[Endoperez]

As a Water nation and playing against AI only, you aren't in such a hurry. Take a few turns in the beginning so that you can take on those annoying flying Tritons. Then try to use that one army to take few surrounding provinces, all the while building more units in the capital and sending them in as reinforcements. Doing this, you should be able to conquer the provinces around your capital about one per turn once you start. (but only take land provinces if you can do so easily and they will be worth it). If your army is tough enough now, it can move forward; if not, wait for a turn or two and then continue.

You have to minimize losses you take, by either using units you can afford to lose (e.g. Lobo Guards and not Shambler Thralls - both die a lot, but LG are much cheaper) or by killing your enemies before they kill you.

Try to recruit one mage or priest per turn, and have them research Thaumaturgy. Mind Burn at Thaumaturgy 2 is already quite interesting, and later you will get Paralyze (spell-equivalent of Mind Blast), Soul Slay and then Enslave Mind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

The Starspawn priests are the only creatures who can enter the Void Gate with some possibility of getting back sane. Luck scale affects the amount and power of creatures coming back.

[Agrajag]

Another useful tip is using your void gate summonings to guard the summoning priest. The risk of losing a few summons in a horror attack doesn't compare to the loss of a highly skilled summoner.
Usually I assign the first summons to Guard Commander the priest, and then just replace them with stronger summons as they come, this has saved many a priest for me.

[Oversway]

You need priest skills to summon.



I believe you just need astral magic. But the R'lyeh national priests (who also have astral) have a less chance of getting feebleminded, as others have mentioned.


Usually I assign the first summons to Guard Commander the priest, and then just replace them with stronger summons as they come, this has saved many a priest for me.



This is a good idea.




Except for meterorite guards and traitor kings, R'lyeh is a mostly gold intensive nation. Definitely put order to 3. I'd suggest going for sloth scales. You can also get cold scales because temp. doesn't affect water provinces production.

You also don't really have much of a blessing strategy. (It can be *fun* to have a high bless like w9n9 - your priests lifedrain attack and of course the summons can be powerful, but priests arn't really tough enough and summoning doesn't give you enough troops to make it the best strategy.) So I would suggest going for an SC to help expansion.

[Peacekeeper]

Another way to protect your summoning commander is to research the level 2(i think) enchantment spell (returning is in the name somewhere). Have him cast it the first round of combat(since hes getting attacked, that means this gets cast first) and whenever he gets hit he will return safely to your home city...which happens to be where he is anyway. At the cost of 1 astral pearl per combat, you will never lose your commander to being attacked by void summons.

[Endoperez]

Until he becomes feeble-minded and loses his magic, that is.

[Agrajag]

And doesn't he get damaged even if he is "returned" to his home province?
A single blow could kill him.

[shovah]

yes, i generally have a few immobile void summons defending my summoner (what else can they do?). The best idea imo is an SC (astral/ astral+water wyrm is good, air is good too) pretender with not too much magic and good scales (if you get good income you can steamroll anyone with massed ilithids

[Ygorl]

Does Ritual of Returning actually work?
When I played R'lyeh, I tried scripting the spell that doesn't wait for you to get hit but immediately takes you home (Returning?), and the dang Starspawn never cast it.

[Endoperez]

Did you notice that a gem is required to cast it? Other than that - the spellcasting AI works in mysterious ways.

[Vicious Love]

Returning is a battlefield spell which instantaneously returns the caster to the home province. Ritual of Returning is a ritual spell which triggers Returning immediately after the mage is hit. Returning is a perfectly viable means of surviving even the high-end void summons. Ritual of Returning... not so much.

Now, the spell description does state that it won't work if the caster is already in the home province, but I'm pretty sure the game treats the void gate as a separate province, like the arena.

[Vicious Love]

shovah said:
yes, i generally have a few immobile void summons defending my summoner (what else can they do?). The best idea imo is an SC (astral/ astral+water wyrm is good, air is good too) pretender with not too much magic and good scales (if you get good income you can steamroll anyone with massed ilithids



Wouldn't he get feebleminded after two or three tries, at most?

[shovah]

sorry for being unclear (reading it i see my mistake). I meant to say that a good pretender for rlyeh, not summoney (badly worded i know)

[Oversway]

I tried an astral kraken for summoning. I figured hey, recuperation. It didn't work very well, though. Even with a decent summoning skill he was feeble minded too often to be worth it. Would have been better to expand first, maybe then use him for summoning.

[shovah]

any non starspawn priest isnt worth it for summoning imo, if your gonig to use a kraken sue it on a map with lots of water in one place (tyrande) to make use o its SC powers. (astral weapon+multiple high str attacks)

[Sandman]

R'lyeh tips:

Star Children can assassinate, but they're pretty hopeless at it. Worse than basic assassins, even. In other words, don't bother.

Unarmoured Illithids have a slightly more powerful mind blast than Illithid soldiers.

[Saber Cherry]

Sandman said:
R'lyeh tips:

Star Children can assassinate, but they're pretty hopeless at it. Worse than basic assassins, even. In other words, don't bother.



By "hopeless" do you mean "AWESOME"? As in, amphibious, high MR, mind blast, mind burn, soul slay, free ethereality and luck, and even the ability to assassinate low-astral Gods and SCs with Magic Duel? It's hard for me to imagine a Star Child losing an assassination attempt except versus a powerful mage, a high MR thug, or someone with many (or cavalry) bodyguards.

[shovah]

any fast enemy who gets lucky can kill them but i love them. The best part is, even if your not assasinating with then they can research or something (give them skull talismans, then they are very multipurpose)

[Sandman]

They have rotten stats - 10 attack and 9 defence. Body ethereal and personal luck will push them up to over 50 fatigue. You can make them good with items, I suppose.

[shovah]

the point is most enemies wont reach them, your not going to be scripting them to body ethereal and luck, your either going to script them to simply mind blast away or cast some offensive spells. If a unit has 0 attack, 0 defence and could kill any enemy at range would it be bad?

[Endoperez]

Body Ethereal and Mind Blast is a devastating combo - and I'd say that with just that, they have better chances against any cavalry commanders than any other (recruitable) assassins.

[shovah]

yes, against fast enemies ethereal is good but otherwise i'd leave it out (twist fate is also amazing, not to useful in most battles but in an assasination it will save you)

[Tharivol_Street_Prince]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif My starchildren's targets always seem to resist being killed by astral spells.

[Saber Cherry]

Also note that a Star Child can forge its own Spell Focus... I am not sure if that helps Mind Blast (but I think it does). It certainly will help Astral Shield, and if you give them a Starshine, Mind Burn or Paralyze. Astral Pearls are very cheap for Rlyeh, an Astral/Clam nation.

[shovah]

yes, try him with a focus and a few gems (or better yet, give him a focus and a clam to make his own gems) and blast away with spells (even those he couldnt use before. and yes, spell focus should help mind blast (as should a runesmasher)

[Graeme Dice]

shovah said:
yes, try him with a focus and a few gems (or better yet, give him a focus and a clam to make his own gems) and blast away with spells (even those he couldnt use before. and yes, spell focus should help mind blast (as should a runesmasher)



Magic Resistance penetrators don't affect mindblast.

[shovah]

you sure? mr negates so i dont see why not.

[Daynarr]

Beacuse mind blast is not spell. It's ability.

[Graeme Dice]

shovah said:
you sure? mr negates so i dont see why not.



Penetration boosting items don't affect anything that's not a spell, so they also have no effect on the Aboleth's enslave mind attack, nor do they have any effect on the various attacks that require a MR check to succeed.

[shovah]

dam, that sucks. There goes my plan for heart finder+spell focus. Even if they dont help with abilities, he can still use some spells (especially if he has clam)

[Arker]

The biggest problem I keep running into playing R'lyeh is that they suck supplies like nothing else. My armies always seem to start starving as soon as they go two provinces from a castle. With other races, I'll throw in a few nature priests when that's a problem, but the illithids don't get any nature priests. Unless I make a pretender with nature, I can't even forge endless buckets of slop and wineskins either, at least not until I find and conquer a land province with druids/amazons/lizards. I just did that in my present game, and I have some lizards up on one end and amazon sorceresses in que on the other, but I've pretty much lost one entire army to starvation induced disease getting to the lizards, and the second army is starving to death on the other as well. Seems a bit of a pain. I could make a nature based pretender, but that seems rather odd for R'lyeh, and even so, I've done it before, but it doesn't help much until later it seems. Takes a lot of time to develop much of a nature gem income with R'lyeh...

It's a good race, overall, just wish I could figure out some way to avoid so much starvation while getting established. Without having found a way, the best I can say is use those cheap lobo guards as cannon fodder, at least when they get diseased, crippled and worthless from starvation it doesn't hurt so bad. And keep a sharp eye peeled for neutrals with nature magic. The jade sorceresses are particularly nice, since they get water too, so they aren't stuck on one coastal area but can travel underwater with the rest of your troops. Druids are good for forging slop buckets and wineskin, if you can find the gems for them to do it with, but they're stuck on land without special measures. And the lizards can't forge much without empowerment, can't swim either, but at least they do give a supply bonus, and healing light is helpful.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
Unless I make a pretender with nature, I can't even forge endless buckets of slop and wineskins either, at least not until I find and conquer a land province with druids/amazons/lizards.



You should probably have plenty of starspawn with N1 to forge wineskins.


And the lizards can't forge much without empowerment, can't swim either, but at least they do give a supply bonus, and healing light is helpful.



I would never make a single enormous cauldrons of broth. For the same gem investment, wineskins give you twice the supply.

[Arker]

I have yet to see a starspawn with nature. Ever.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
I have yet to see a starspawn with nature. Ever.



Then you're just unlucky. You should see N1 about every fourth starspawn.

[Arker]

Hmm rough guess, I've seen maybe 60 starspawns. So that would be some incredible un-luck.

Another possibility would be that I didn't know enough to be paying attention and hoping for that until recently... possible I had some in early games and didn't even notice it. Either way, it does sound like some intense bad luck on that if it's supposed to be 1 in 4 though.

I'm playing with CB mod at the moment, though I wasn't always... possibly that changes it? I've noticed some definite patterns in what the random picks come out as, seems like it's not really random, but picks from a subset based on the unit, like my dwarven smiths when playing Vanheim never seem to get nature either. They get extra earth, fire, air, blood, water, undead and astral. I've had 30 of them sitting in my home province researching, but not one was nature.

[Ygorl]

It's a hair less than 1/4 (it's 15/64 to get at least N1).
Pretty sure these "patterns" are just our human tendency to find order even when there isn't any. I remember some people did some experiments a while back and it is actually random (as you'd expect - it would be harder to program them to be semi-random, it's not something you'd do accidentally)

If you've got 30 Smiths and you're looking for nature, the chance of finding 0 with nature is about 2%. Unlikely, sure, but nowhere close to impossible. Given the number of statistics just like that one that you can come up with (number of nature sites found, number of nature-gem events, number of...) it's likely that some of them will work out in an unlikely way.

If there are 50 different weird crappy unusual things that one might notice in a particular game (if they did by some freak chance happen), and each only has a 2% chance of happening, there would still be about a 2/3 chance that at least one of them would happen. Then the tendency would be to think "But... That's so unlikely to happen! There must be something funny in the way the game does this..." Then, next game, you'd be wondering why you didn't get any national heroes until turn 80... Then the next game, you'd be wondering why you had five barbarian attacks in the first ten turns... Then the next game you'd be wondering why you couldn't get a single frickin' sage with blood... There are just so many things that can happen in this game that some of them are bound to turn out weird.

[shovah]

In a game with atlantis i didnt get a nature king until after turn 50. Its over turn 60 now (nearly 70) and i still havnt got a blood king.

[Oversway]

The biggest problem I keep running into playing R'lyeh is that they suck supplies like nothing else.



Are you playing with growth scale(s)? That may help...

[shovah]

yea, also i almost always take some nature on my pretenders, its so versatile and useful. You can forge good items, cast gift of reason, cast battlefield buffs like mass regen and protection/single buffs like personal regen. You also have good summons like lamia queens and vine kings.

[Valandil]

"lamia queens, tartarians and vine kings."

Tartarians? Not with nature. Sadly.

[Wish]

well nature gives you: astral via lamia queens and coatls, Air via Fairy Queens, Death via Lamia Queens, Earth via treelords, blood via treelords and lamia queens. And of course more nature from ivy kings and treelords.

what you can't get from it is fire and water.

eventually through lamia queens, you can get tartarians. (which opens up basically all paths, en force)