Hilarious R'lyeh Dreamlands moment (SPOILER)

[JaydedOne]

So... tonight I sit down to my first game of R'lyeh Dreamlands and LOVE it. I can't begin to tell you how great that Domain effect is at Dominion 10. Fodder aplenty with tons of Void Gate spawns showing up all over your Dominion free of charge (without Summoning mishaps even!) You also get a ton of free commanders, albeit insane ones who Ftaghn a lot.

But HERE is the REALLY cool part...

...


...


wait for it...


...

So, one of my insane hybrid cultist leaders was sitting around, doing insane things, when he decides to "Become Prophet". "Aw, how cute," I say. But I already have a Starspawn Prophet, so I figure it's just a wasted action. Then, the next turn, I see a proclamation stating that said cultist has become my Prophet! WHA? I go and check out my Starspawn Prophet. Yep, still there.

So, yes. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but R'lyeh Dreamlands is capable of having multiple Prophets.

They win. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Mortibus]

That's the side I cannot wait to play! Is there a pretender like C'Thulu to go along with the R'lyeh?

I've never played D2 except for the demo version, so I'm really itching for that game to arrive.

Maybe tomorrow... or the day after... grrrr.

[JaydedOne]

Well, there's no Cthulhu-type Pretender per se (although the illithid starspawn troops more than make up for that) but the Void Lurker looks more than a bit like Nyarlathotep. ;-)

[Theonlystd]

Mortibus said:
That's the side I cannot wait to play! Is there a pretender like C'Thulu to go along with the R'lyeh?

I've never played D2 except for the demo version, so I'm really itching for that game to arrive.

Maybe tomorrow... or the day after... grrrr.



r'lyeh where meh favorite from dom2..


If prolly take a miracle for it to show up tomorrow. Darnable slow bank..

i wanna play tooo

[Sindai]

I always liked to name the ancient kraken pretender Cthulu. He's got all the really essential features.

[Taqwus]

Interesting.

Y'know, my warped mind is wondering whether it's still possible to have multiple prophets through either Enslave Mind + Gift of Reason, or Hellbind Heart -- if memory serves, the prophet flag was not cleared by such spells in Dom II.

Granted, an insane prophet that spends most of his time dreaming may not be a very valuable commodity, but still.

[Nerfix]

Sounds buggy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sindai]

I wonder if mages will decide to randomly empower themselves while you're saving up for globals...

[Theonlystd]

Sindai said:
I wonder if mages will decide to randomly empower themselves while you're saving up for globals...



lol currupt mages ftw

[okiN]

Sindai said:
I always liked to name the ancient kraken pretender Cthulu. He's got all the really essential features.



Except the torso and the limbs and the wings and the...

[DominionsFan]

*edit*

Reply was removed, because I misreaded the original post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[Daynarr]

What multiple pretenders?

He was talking about multiple prophets.

[DominionsFan]

Daynarr said:
What multiple pretenders?

He was talking about multiple prophets.



Argh I just woke up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif I tend to misread things because of that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif
..anyways this still sounds like a bug. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Johan K]

It is not a bug. R'lyeh is allowed have multiple prophets as long as they are insane.

[DominionsFan]

Johan K said:
It is not a bug. R'lyeh is allowed have multiple prophets as long as they are insane.



Oh! Interesting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[okiN]

Johan K said:
It is not a bug. R'lyeh is allowed have multiple prophets as long as they are insane.



Neat. Do enslaved prophets still retain the prophet attribute? It was fun to keep them as trophies in Dom2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

So Late R'lyeh gets freespawns? Can they recruit anything?

[JaydedOne]

Late R'lyeh gets freespawns, from what I've seen, in terms of mad hybrids, mad mermen, mad deep ones, and mad human cultists, depending on what sort of province you're in. Higher Dominions also have a better chance of giving you freespawning Void Gate summons (and I've gotten some good ones such as Formless Spawns and Elder Things), which is fantastic, given they retain access to the Void Gate AND these freespawns come at zero summoning risk.

As for recruiting anything, I'm not sure I follow the question. R'lyeh LE gets to recruit pretty much the same units as R'lyeh ME (which, in turn, is pretty much the R'lyeh you already know). Also, you'll have commanders occasionally freespawn. They're insane, so that limits your ability to reliably control them, but they do come with some fun perks such as being sacred and occasionally having level 1 in either Holy or Astral magic.

Good times!

[Nerfix]

Interesting, interesting.

Do temples/luck/turmoil/magic/whatever apart from Dominins strenght affect the chance to get a free void summon?

[DominionsFan]

I will have to try out R'lyeh. I never bothered myself to play with them too much in Doms 2, but these changes are interesting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Nerfix]

R'lyeh is one of my faves, I just love Lobo Wave Tactics. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[JaydedOne]

Imagine how huge the lobo waves are with doubled gold.

It's pretty impressive.

[Nerfix]

Great, now I can make my own Battles of Ulmgrad with R'lyeh... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

JaydedOne said:
Imagine how huge the lobo waves are with doubled gold.

It's pretty impressive.



And doubled rec screen (up to 100 units), and with Shift-click adding ten units per click, you can create huge lobo waves very fast.

[Nerfix]

Hmmmm what's the Illithid Lord's commander values now?

[Kristoffer O]

Nerfix said:
Sounds buggy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



It is perfectly unbuggy!

[JaydedOne]

And there was much rejoicing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:It is perfectly unbuggy!

Now that I've heard it's working as designed I am inclided to...Ftaghn ftaghn!

[Sindai]

okiN said:
Except the torso and the limbs and the wings and the...


No no no. You've got it all wrong. All that really matters is...TENTACLES!

[Nerfix]

Well, the Void Lord has a huge pink tentacle.

[Taqwus]

Hrrrrrrrm.

Does the existence of an insane self-proclaimed prophet affect your ability to manually designate a prophet?

Weirder question: how about if you manually designate prophets among the insane? IOW, is there a difference between a manually-selected insane prophet and an self-proclaimed insane prophet?

[JaydedOne]

Excellent questions. I'll have to do some investigating to find out as, obviously, that wasn't the case in my experiment. I love all things R'lyeh, however, so I imagine I'll get the opportunity to find out sooner than later.

I'll need to load up my file once I get home to see if the self-proclaimed prophet got priest levels. I think he might have, although it may have only been one. I can't recall. He did, however, most certainly have the prophet icon. And, as the O's have verified, the fact that it isn't a bug (as I suspected) only contributes to the awesomeness that is R'lyeh.

IA!

[B0rsuk]

Wait, you can still make your _pretender_ insane, right ? Is this possible without R'lyeh Void Gate ? Is there a guaranteed way to make your pretender insane ? Gimme gimme !

[Taqwus]

I know I'm going to be experimenting with insanity when my order arrives. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

So far we know that the insane can spend time dreaming, calling gods, entering magic sites (the Void Gate), and becoming prophets. I haven't seen any references to anything costing gems, involving troops, or movement yet, but...


Well now, what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well, he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country. Well let me finish, Dmitri. Let me finish, Dmitri.

Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri?


From one of the funniest conversations in cinema, from one of the finest movies ever made, IMHO. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[JaydedOne]

Well, in terms of costing gems, troops, movements, etc., the commanders function pretty much as expected in that they're normal commanders who just sometimes decide to ignore your orders. They can gather up troops spawned by the Dominion effect and shuffle them around quite nicely. You just have to be prepared for them to potentially misbehave while helming such troops. While I haven't seen it myself, I'd think twice before entrusting my insane hybrid cultist with 50 or so mad deep ones in my capital or another significant province. After all, what if they randomize to pillage or decide to step next door into a vast enemy force?

But, given that they can develop priest and Astral 1 abilities as they gain more insanity, these guys -can- cast spells, forge magic items, etc.

There's an insanity score, btw. It generally starts low (many of my mad cultists start off at 7) but it goes up as time progresses (I've seen it at 50). Also, your normal commanders can go insane in time within your dominion as well, as some of my enslaved Atlantean magi began to wig out and do unscripted orders as well. I have no idea as to whether this can happen to your Pretender as my Void Lurker was happily Imprisoned throughout my entire playthrough -- which may be a strategic element to consider as well for R-Dreamlands, as you gain massive scales/Dominion plusses for Imprisonment while getting the side benefit of not scoring Insanity in the early game, assuming it applies to your Pretender...

[JaydedOne]

Dig the Strangelove quote, btw.

[Nerfix]

And it's soooo fitting. Stars being right, sleeping etc. So lovecraftian...

Messenger of Fear in sight
Dark deception kills the light

Hybrid children watch the sea
Pray for Father, roaming free

fearless Wretch
insanity
He watches
lurking beneath the sea
great Old One
forbidden site
He searches
Hunter of the Shadows is rising

immortal
in madness You dwell

Crawling Chaos, underground
cult has summoned, twisted sound

Out from ruins once possessed
fallen city, living death

fearless Wretch
insanity
He watches
lurking beneath the sea
Timeless sleep
Has been upset
He awakens
Hunter of the Shadows is rising

immortal
in madness You dwell

Not dead which eternal lie
stranger eons Death may die
drain you of your sanity
face The Thing That Should Not Be

fearless Wretch
insanity
He watches
lurking beneath the sea
great Old One
forbidden site
He searches
Hunter of the Shadows is rising

>:3

[JaydedOne]

*grin* I miss the old Cliff Burton Metallica that would reference Lovecraft every album.

[Nerfix]

JaydedOne said:
*grin* I miss the old Cliff Burton Metallica that would reference Lovecraft every album.

I quite like old Metallica too, not because only of the Lovecraft references but because it sounds good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But I also like the newer Metallica too. And a lot of other music.

Speaking of Metallica, music and Dominions...a finnish band called Apocalyptica is worth checking out. Lots of Metallica covers...played with...cellos! It's wonderful stuff, one of my favorite bands. Their version of Nothing Else Matter is the most beatiful song I've ever heard.

And their own songs fit Dominions...heck, they even have a song called Harmageddon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[JaydedOne]

I prefer older Metallica, but that's just a preference. I liked the epic, thrashy, 8-minute long compositions and prefer them to the more conventional structures they started using as of the Black album.

And I'm familiar with Apocalyptica. IIRC, they even did a soundtrack or two. Maybe a Neil LaBute film. But yes, that version of Nothing Else Matters rules. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Nerfix]

I'll try to play Apo as background music for Dom 3 sometime. Some of their songs are too fast and metally to be anything else than a battle theme but they have also more ambient works. They also have made their own version of Hall of the Mountain King which is a classic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But ah, this is getting off topic. But I just try to promote Apocalyptica since I enjoy the band's music greatly. Kinda like I try to promoto Dominions series to other people.

And then I have to apologize to them when I start to ramble about Basalt Kings. BASALT KINGS!

[PDF]

Taqwus said:
Interesting.

Y'know, my warped mind is wondering whether it's still possible to have multiple prophets through either Enslave Mind + Gift of Reason, or Hellbind Heart -- if memory serves, the prophet flag was not cleared by such spells in Dom II.
...



Yes, it was possible, but only to insane players such as Nagot Gick Fell or such ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[PhilD]

Nerfix said:
Speaking of Metallica, music and Dominions...a finnish band called Apocalyptica is worth checking out. Lots of Metallica covers...played with...cellos! It's wonderful stuff, one of my favorite bands. Their version of Nothing Else Matter is the most beatiful song I've ever heard.




Absolutely true. And shows that Metallica have (had?) pretty good music, too - it's not just played loud and fast.

[Endoperez]

PhilD said:Absolutely true. And shows that Metallica have (had?) pretty good music, too - it's not just played loud and fast.



Bad fate would befall me if I said "if it weren't play too loud and fast", right? I'm listening to wha tI think is it right now, with a strangest search result ever. A page with nothing to do with Metallica or Apocalyptica, that plays some kind of cello music in the background, and which turned up in a search for 'apocalyptica "nothing else matters"'. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif Eh?

It is very nice, I have to admit.

[DominionsFan]

Hm I never heard about Apocalyptica. However I prefer dance music, and as I see this is a metal band. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Taqwus]

If you want thematic music, there's always the Cthulhu Carols sung by members of the HP Lovecraft Historical Society.

http://www.cthulhulives.org/solstice

I sent a copy of their "A Very Scary Solstice" to my sister one Christmas. It's possible that she's forgiven me for that by now, but my sending "Alien" for her birthday probably didn't help.

[Mortibus]

I just got D3 today, now I have to sit and work while looking at the desktop icon for 8 hours or so.

Of course I had to install it and start up a game to make sure it works... looks great, already have a Kraken (named C'Thulu, of course) slumbering in the deeps waiting for my labors to end.

The goal for the first game is to have the kingdom self-implode in chaos and insanity. I'll consider that a victory.

[Endoperez]

To get this thread back to its tracks:

http://www.cthulhulives.org/solsticecarol.html

Taqwus, thanks SO much for that link. I've seen the cd's on a shop once but didn't like their unprofessional looks; oh, what I've missed! I'm buying this whenever I can. In the meantime, listen to a msemerizing song of horrors! "Stars brightly burning, boiling and churning, bode a returning season of doom" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Here's another, shorter one. The style in these is just unbelievable. The singers are great, although they pronounce few words funnily Kathulu and Fong Re Lay? But... "oh, tidings of madness and woe, madness and woe, oh tidings of madness and woe (and great woe)..."
http://www.cthulhulives.org/Solstice/mp3s/Awakesample.mp3

[JaydedOne]

EDIT: I see that Livejournal cares not for the image-linking. Well, you can follow the URLs for the moment. Again with the too tired and full of work to fix the issue. If someone wants to help me correct this, I'm all for it.


A few pics, as I'm too tired and full of work to do an AAR this evening:

Goodness. Look at these guys who're turning up all over my kingdom:
http://pics.livejournal.com/jaydedone/pic/0000h3tw
http://pics.livejournal.com/jaydedone/pic/0000q007

Just to give you an idea, by Turn 10, I had this little group of buddies show up in one of my provinces:
http://pics.livejournal.com/jaydedone/pic/0000r0p4

All told, I'd say by Turn 13, I had roughly 60-70 deep one/merman dreamers spawned with my Dominion 10 Void Lurker imprisoned and my Prophet dead for half those turns due to a stupid Arena scripting mistake.

By the way, hey... This looks... new...

http://pics.livejournal.com/jaydedone/pic/0000kqt1

Why, yes. Yes I do believe that's new.
http://pics.livejournal.com/jaydedone/pic/0000pqtp

BTW, the random map generator's really pretty good. Here's a map I generated with about ten minutes of fiddling with the controls:

http://pics.livejournal.com/jaydedone/pic/0000cw87

[alexti]

DominionsFan said:
Hm I never heard about Apocalyptica. However I prefer dance music, and as I see this is a metal band. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif


Then you may want to check Korpiklaani http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Meglobob]

Nice screenshots, JaydedOne, R'lyeh dreamlands looks very interesting. Not sure if I like the idea of my underlings doing there own thing. Do they seriously mess yr turns up by doing something else instead?

The spreading of insanity thou., original in a computer game, I like it.

I suspect that R'lyeh dreamlands r not good for a newbie player to try?

[Nerfix]

I don't think R'lyeh is easy for beginners in general.

Most of your troops either have the protection value of a newborn kitten or are painfully s...l....o...w. The Void Gate which summons your Sacred troops is, well...IÄ IÄ FTAGHN! *rips off his clothes and runs around wildly while being hunted by a Horror*, errr, funky. Yes, it's quite funky.

Then you have trick units like the Crab Hybrids, Shambler Thralls and the Illithids. Illithids are very good, excelent in fact.

You have an S1 mage who is also an assasin, S1 and 100%WSED priest mage who is the ony who can use the void gate, um, semi-reliably and the crown jewel of your mages the 3S 1W 100%WSED (or was it two randoms? I forgot!) Starspawn. So you won't have much evocations. Instead you have to rely largely on Astral magic and perhaps stuff like Gifts from Heaven and Nether Darts for combat.

That's what I think. Perhaps some newbies find them easy to use but I'd vager they have hard, frustarting time trying to invade the land with the low-prot units who will get easily killed by archers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But they do have a solution for that, oh yes they do... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[JaydedOne]

I actually found it very forgiving for a newbie, at least in single-player. The AI responds poorly to enemies in the water (it takes it a while to figure out how to launch amphibious assaults), which gives you plenty of time to turtle up, gather resources, and figure out where the best strike point on land is. The paralyze ability offered by masses of illithids tears big holes in an enemy's offensive, allowing you to tear through them with your generally low-armored creatures. And Astral magic is great all-purpose stuff.

Granted, in multiplayer, it's different as players tend to recognize R'lyeh's weaknesses more readily.

[DominionsFan]

JaydedOne said:
The AI responds poorly to enemies in the water



Yep I just figured this out while playing with the demo. It was the same in Doms 2. However the AI is much better overall now, it is fielding huge armies in the demo, and building many castles also. Like I've said I was surprised that an AI player moved almost 700 troops to my border province. It was a strategical location, the north side of the map. 1 land province, and water below it.

[JaydedOne]

I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the Ermor AI, on Difficult, PASTED me last night when I got careless at 2 AM.

I resisted about three waves of 300+ troops with my stalwart band of 100. And then the fourth wiped out my Pretender, my Prophet, and most of my Bless brigade. It wasn't pretty, but that's what I get for being sloppy. Those Dusk Elders hurt when they're arriving in groups of six with an accompanying army of hundreds.

[DominionsFan]

JaydedOne said:
I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the Ermor AI, on Difficult, PASTED me last night when I got careless at 2 AM.

I resisted about three waves of 300+ troops with my stalwart band of 100. And then the fourth wiped out my Pretender, my Prophet, and most of my Bless brigade. It wasn't pretty, but that's what I get for being sloppy. Those Dusk Elders hurt when they're arriving in groups of six with an accompanying army of hundreds.



wow, nice, hats off IW. The SP players will be very happy. Perhaps the Galciv2 fans won't whine too much now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Archonsod]

Had my own comic dreamlands moment last night. Recruited a wizard starspawn, sent it into the void gate on turn 2, and he got attacked by two otherness' on his first attempt at summoning.
In Doms 2, this would usually result in one dead starspawn, however not only did he manage to kill them both with nary a scratch, he managed it in hand to hand! Came out with four extra summoning skill and a heroic bonus.

[Nerfix]

Hahaha, that's awesome. =)

[ologm]

Just finished first game with dreamlands R'lyheh against a difficult desert tombs C'tis. Not much of a challenge as the AI had taken turmoil 2 and misfortune 3. The poor guy never got above 3 provinces in the entire game and ended up besieged in his home province by a barbarian horde.

Dreams of R'lyheh is an awesome spell. Enemy that fails to resist has to face the caster in the void with attack, defense and mr halfed.

[JaydedOne]

That's one thing I've noticed -- the manual lists all base spells and all national summons, but you pretty much have to look for the national spells that aren't summons. I didn't even realize there WAS a Dreams of R'lyeh. Where is it, Thaumaturgy?

[ologm]

Yes. Level 6 thematurgy.

[Nerfix]

Sounds sweet. =)

[DominionsFan]

ologm said:
Just finished first game with dreamlands R'lyheh against a difficult desert tombs C'tis. Not much of a challenge as the AI had taken turmoil 2 and misfortune 3. The poor guy never got above 3 provinces in the entire game and ended up besieged in his home province by a barbarian horde.

Dreams of R'lyheh is an awesome spell. Enemy that fails to resist has to face the caster in the void with attack, defense and mr halfed.



Ouch, perhaps there should be some code in the game, what wouldn't allow the AI to take such bad scales.

[Taqwus]

Played a bit with R'lyeh last night. Well, maybe more than a bit.

...zzzz...

Now where was I...

Ah, interesting bit: learned that commanders getting lost in the Void was not necessarily a one-way trip. Veeeeeeeery interesting.

Also watched the gibbering cultists for a while, and was reassured to learn that they never chose to demolish buildings. *That* would be annoying. It's harsh enough when you have to delay an offensive because more than half your local army group is led by those busily doing research or preaching.


And yes, archers hurt. Having some troubles fending off Jomon samurai archers right now; in two major fronts (Ermor and Jomon), one relatively minor (Marignon), other AIs undiscovered, and Jomon is causing the biggest headaches by far -- somewhat wide front, big casualties on both sides. Marignon might be bothersome if they still have massed xbows, but the combination of low-supply swamp and some very strong independent forces is slowing down engagements there.

Having a bit of trouble remembering not to fear tritons so much, now that they don't actually insta-attack-rear.

[Mortibus]

I spent all night playing R'lyeh myself, had a blast.

GREAT GAME.

A couple of times the void "pulled" my starspawn somewhere I think, only to come back at some other place on the map and get butchered. Or maybe they went crazy and just decided to attack, I'm not sure. My first starspawn lasted a long time (about 4 years game time)and summoned some really cool beings whose names I can't remember.

No one went insane that I could see. When do they start going crazy? Am I doing something wrong? I have a slave priest preaching and starspawn researching in each province.

I'm playing a long game it looks like, I'm pretty dug in now and researching construction 9 to go on land with the water amulet. I haven't fought any opposing kingdom yet as I'm hiding out in the water. I'm in second to last place, but it's my first try at this game.

My only complaint is the processing down time in between turns while generating (a couple minutes?), though I did pick the largest map possible with the maximum amount of players. It's very stable, not even a hiccup, something that is rare these days with games and appreciated.

[Taqwus]

The insanity is only late-era, based on dominion strength... and possibly MR, astral magic, or both. I've noticed that my Starspawn mages and priests rarely go mad; my mundane Starspawn commanders occasionally do; and the cultists frequently do. Void creatures like the Void Lurker and Void Lord are immune, or should be.

'Go mad' is actually two-stage. It increases an insanity score -- probably when some check fails. That score presumably affects the probability of a commander going insane each turn -- they can shift between lucid and random from turn to turn. Insanity also accumulates for enemies within your domininon.

If you get a fellow who returns from the void, and lives long enough to return to the capital, check his summoning score.

[VanderVecken]

Hehehe, I can just see it.

"Thats a Prophet? Ya know .. I wanna be one too !"
... from the dreams of a R'lyeh Commander.

[Taqwus]

This does, incidentally, make R'lyeh Dreamlands quite dangerous to AE Ermor; all those not completely sane H1 cultists have a tendency to prophetize to H3 gibbering cultists. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

So not only is there the usual mindblasting against the commanders (mitigated by using ghouls and generic living militia), but there's yet more banishment spamming...

Void Spectre is, so far, the only non-Pretender, non-Gift-of-Reasoned void commander I've found so far. Nasty pieces of work, them.

That national dream-hunting spell... is not in the manual. Looks to be a far safer version of Mind Hunt, 'tho, in that you can still nail astral nations with it, and you can equip your mage accordingly (hm: can he enslave and bring him back?).

[Nerfix]

I'd spam Horror Mark in Dreams of R'lyeh, but that's just me. Sweet, sweet HORRORS.

[freykin]

In my game last night as Dreamlands my starspawn managed to summon this:

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/6849/visitorhm5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

He came already as a commander, no gift of reason needed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Was summoned by Cthugul, the hero Stargazer, with a summoning skill of around 12-13 at the time.

[Endoperez]

The Visitor is summoned! I thought it was a hero!

[Daynarr]

Nasty thing I say. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif
Wouldn't want to meet him in battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[Nerfix]

Cool!

[DominionsFan]

Hehe, interesting sprite. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Nerfix]

I believe it is based on Flying Polyps from Lovecraft's works.

[Taqwus]

Hm. I saw a Visitor once, but only when it sent one of my starspawn into the void... for a while, anyway.

Eyeballing... extra magic and holy compared to the Void Spectre, and FAR more speed -- but the latter has stealth and a full set of 'humanoid' slots other than feet, and appears to be a powerful income-reducer if you drive an enemy's home province insane.

Cthugul, alone of all the Starspawn, still has feet. Interesting.

Also, Illithid Lords do go insane. Hm, odd.

[ajr]

Taqwus said:
Granted, an insane prophet that spends most of his time dreaming may not be a very valuable commodity, but still.



I just played my very first game of Dom3 as Dreamlands last night, and if I understand the rules correctly, it was amazingly helpful...

I set up a random small map game against three mighty AIs; I wasn't sure if dominion strength mattered, but I decided to try with 10 to see the effects. I took out Abysia with no trouble, and I was eventually able to grind down Patalia, but by that time Caelum held half the map and had fortressed off much of it. My armies were bigger, but Caelum's were much better, and I was trying desperately to find something that would work when I realized that my dominion was spreading incredibly rapidly through the map - I had been averaging maybe a prophet every other turn since the midgame, and by this point I probably had more temple checks each turn than there were provinces to build temples in. Four turns of just hitting "next turn" later and I ascended; Caelum just couldn't compete with that much spread. This wouldn't matter in a multiplayer game, but it was very funny to watch.

[B0rsuk]

freykin said:
In my game last night as Dreamlands my starspawn managed to summon this:

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/6849/visitorhm5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

He came already as a commander, no gift of reason needed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif




No heroic ability ! BoOoo !

[curtadams]

I tried R'lyeh for my first game and was SHOCKED how strong it is. I took a Dominion/Bless strategy and I had units coming out my ears. I was having serious trouble building enough leaders to command them all, and basically stopped building troops after a while. There was one small island with two provinces and in 15 turns it generated about 200 freespawn. It felt like playing Ermor with the AI unable to recruit priests - I had that much. I had about as many troops as 5 AI's put together.

My biggest problem was what to do with all the freespawned triton dreamers. I had a stack of about 150 wandering around - I was trying to get them killed off but they beat a Kracken/Sea Troll independents. I was maneuvering them to the last ocean independent and if that failed I guess I'd just have an ever-growing stack of them chewing up supplies (do they have upkeep). I couldn't figure any way to kill them.

Has anybody checked Gateway for functionality? I had a Starspawn put on a Crown of Command and try to gate all those island freespawns over. He went over but they stayed. No way to check the prior turn to make sure I'd cast "Gateway" but I'd swear that's what his icon said.

[Nerfix]

Gateway style spells are broken at the moment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Late R'lyeh is powerful and the pop death doesn't seem to be that bad to me. I also had leadership problems, and then freespawns would stack on huge piles and starve.

[Taqwus]

The freespawn masses do let you wage a war of attrition. While without backup from real troops, they'll die in droves (archer-heavy nations in particular can carve them up -- if you're fighting Jomon samurai with just dreamers and madmen, you can expect heavy losses due to large differences in equipment and training...), but there will be replacements.

Blade wind would also be ugly, methinks. But massed archers are an obvious weakness.

Be careful not to let your freespawn starve your illithids into disease. The supply allocation routines are non-deterministic, if memory serves.

[Theonlystd]

Illithid Lords going insane really hurts..Heck of a time keeping everyone moving with even them going insane.

And the freespawn are pretty horrible vs nations tho the hybrds with the armor piercing tenactles arent so bad imho but they pretty much die in droves.. 400 vs 80... Losing 200 or more units was common and that where battles i won with em.. I mostly used the free spawn armies as scouts and raiders throw em at the enm to see the makeup of the enm and hopefully do some damage. I didnt really care if they lived or not might as well disrupt the other dudes income and armies.


And hard to get nature magic plus large armies with population declining supplying armies was fun.

But was my funnist game so far.