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MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
Introduction
I have played R'lyeh in several mp games (currently playing them in discordia and perpetuality games) and after reading several guides by other players on other nations as well as seeing many posts asking for help when it comes to R'lyeh i decided to add this guide. I'm sure there are around older versions for dom2 since R'lyeh is pretty similar but what the hell this is my take on them. Generally speaking for any nation when it comes to strategy and the build you pick the early game expansion must be considered. I would say that if your build cannot support an expansion rate of 10 provinces at turn 10, you have to start over. For R'lyeh this is even more crucial since they are heavily gold dependent. In this guide i will not spend so much time going over the units instead trying to focus on the build as well as the in game strategies. I have mostly targeted a approach that will allow people to play and win multiplayer games. It will work in single player games as well of course, but you might want to experiment and go a bit more wild for the fun of it there. ------------------------------------------------------- Units slave troopers/guardians - I seldom build these, in a few rare cases you need fast flankers to attempt to take out commanders, or if you have excess resources (less than 30) you can build a few. lobo guards - actually good units. They cannot kill anything decent but they have a very low recruiting cost and a high morale. These should form a large part of your army for early and mid game, especially as MA R'lyeh. The basic idea in using them is preventing your good units from being outnumbered as well as buying mage time in fights. Their main weakness is area damage and arrows, see later section on advice how to deal with this. As LA R'lyeh the basic "chaff" need that these units fill are not needed since you will receive a lot of freespawns. meteorite guards - Excess resources are put here simply. shambler trall - I seldom build these, at 25 gold pieces and with their low protection and a size 3 trampling (trampling gets better with size) they are a pretty bad unit, except for a few rare cases. crab hybrid - 2 attacks, good armor and hp, simply a good unit for underwater fighting. Early on these are very efficient at expanding, and they last for alot more fights than an equivalent lobo army. Don't get carried away with hiring these if you are the only water nation (LA) or if you expect peace with your neighboors since they cannot be moved onto land. illithid - Good at freezing tough opponents. They basically pay off over time, but at the same time they cost alot so do not go overboard hiring these guys. Especially early I would spend my money on other units. illitid soldiers - worse ranged attack than the illithids, basically do not build these (better buy an illithid + meteorite guard instead). Also they have a strategic move of 1, which can be annoying when moving on land. Independent troops when you get your feets/tentacles up on dry land you will probably want to add ind troops into your armies. You are mainly looking to add archers/crossbows for the ranged damage and armored troops (however you look at it most of your troops are weak and to have something to draw fire and be able to stand some beating is very decent). ------------------------------------------------------- Commanders scout - I tend to have more important commanders than these to build. traitor prince - basically commanders that can serve as good thugs with slightly high encumberance, they can be useful but I seldom build these. slave priest - basically a priest, nothing special about them. slave mage - there are only one reason to build these basically, and thats the 25% chance to get N on them. They will unlock nature access and serve as clam forgers if needed. Using the other picks in battle: S - mainly cast stellar cascade or paralyse. E - Since slavemages grows feet when they come ashore, you can slap on a pair of earth boots, cast earth power and cast gifts from heaven with them. W - A w3 mage can cast a number of water spells, don't forget however that they get -1 water when they go onto dry land. illithid lords - another commander that can serve as a thug (better encumberance even). It has a good ranged attack as well. star childs - Build these if you cannot afford starspawns(mage). With good magic scales they are priceworthy researchers, and they can serve as assasins. Their main use in combat however are as communion slaves. If you decide to use them as assasins script body ethereal/astral shield before firing away. starspawn(priest) - At some point you hire one and put it to "enter the void". For rare cases where you battle large armies of undead you might hire a few more, other than that they have few uses. Notice that they have a 5% chance per turn to get lost in space and time, while the national hero cthulgul has only 2% chance. I tend to wait until turn 10 before hiring one for the void (yes you can get nice things from the void but I simply need the gold for expansion instead). Early on give it 5 body guards and pray for luck, later on you want to give it some pearls (astral gems) and script it to cast "returning" (this might only work for the ones that has s2, someone knows for sure ?) starspawn(mage) - Awesome mages simply. With a base magic of w1s3 and 2.1 random picks in WEDS they give rlyeh a large variety of spells, and combined with communion master/slave their late game potential is amazing. As LA R'lyeh im even more biased towards building these since all other commanders becomes insane pretty easily. ------------------------------------------------------- A high gold/low resource nation A normal turn in peace times (after all indies are conquered that is) i tend to hire 1 starspawn and 2 or so meteorite guards at each fortress, and thats it. The thing about a nation like R'lyeh (that has many decent 1 resource units) is that they can very quickly produce large armies if gold is available. For this reason there is simply no point in peace times to have large standing armies (especially costly units like illithids) eating up your money in the form of upkeep. When war becomes an issue, each fortress can easily produce 100+ units per turn without much problem. So instead of hiring alot of illithids and chaff like loboes in peace-time consider just saving the money, and keep it as a "switch to war time" reserve (if the saved money becomes to large consider adding more fortress/labs/temples however). ------------------------------------------------------- My usual scales order 3 - R'lyeh is very gold dependent, this is a very easy pick really. sloth 3 - Another easy choice, all decent troops costs almost no resources. cold 3 - The income of underwater provinces are not dependent by the temperature scale, and since the majority of your early expansion is going to be underwater the extra design points are worth this pick. The reason you want to go cold instead of heat is that many of rlyehs spells are cold based. Growth 3 - This depends on the map size and other factors really. MA can afford to go both way while LA really needs the extra food to feed the huge freespawn armies - also the growth offsets some of the death from your dominion. I tend to stick with growth 3 either way since i usually go with misfortune (mixing misfortune and death unlocks some really nasty events). Misfortune 2 - The number of bad events is capped, so later on the misfortune won't really matter, and since order decrease the number of events this is a good pick in average. You will be giving up on some decent heroes, but the extra 80 design points are simply worth it. I tend to not go with mis 3, but that might just be my own preference/paranoia. Also you still have a slight chance to get some of the heroes of R'lyeh (all great except the visitor in my opinion - yes he is decent as well, but he is clearly worst). magic 1 - R'lyeh will be able to tech fast even with drain, but I tend to like magic. It decreases the magic encumberance as well as allowing for fast tech to unique summons/forgings. ------------------------------------------------------- Pretender design - basic example wyrm - dom 10 / earth 4, awake. Rlyeh is best served with an awake pretender that allows for fast expansion as well as acting as a deterent for other nations. The wyrm is not the only choice, but with its fear, regen and amphibious nature it will be a good choice. Earth is my pick for many reasons. It will give extra protection from turn 1 to your wyrm (as well as protection spell like iron skin etc later). It will give rlyeh earth access above 2 (something that the starspawn has troubles with due to no feets), combined with the large earth income present in the water this is nice. It will allow the forgings of earth hammers as well as other good earth items. You could go with e3 and increase mis to only 1 in the design instead- then you will have a better chance of seeing some of the heroes as well as having fewer bad events. My second and third favourite choices is the kraken - A good pick in large water masses where you expect to fight alot underwater - and the void lord - A powerful mid/late game SC with all slots as well as inbuilt life leach. ------------------------------------------------------- Tips for the first few turns. I have found that the majority of players hires 1 mage and a bunch of units for the first couple of turns. This is an error in my view and it results in a less than optimal expansion rate. Therefore I will give an suggestion on how to play early on. turn 1 - Put taxes at 150, patrol with your illithid lord. Make your scout into a prophet, and research with your wyrm. This is the only way you can get a prophet (smite caster, his low hp wont matter much since there are no archers in the water), the extra gold from patrolling and research in the first turn. You could attack with the wyrm, it should win but I usually never want to risk it. Hire 20 lobo guards and put the rest of the money into crab hyrids and a few slave guards (the same version you start with). Yes this means no wasting of money on mages, your priority the first turns should not be to start researching, it should be aggresive expansion. turn 2- Send the lord and the prophet out to take one province. Put everything at the back and to hold, use the prophet to smite and the lord to blast - have the crab hybrid placed so they will engage the brunt of the attack they are tough and wont go down easy. Have the rest of the troops placed so they will flank and support the crab hybrids and prevent them from being outnumbered. Sent he pretender out to take another province. In your fortress hire 15+ crab hybrids and put extra resources into slave guards. You might want to hire another scout, but dont blow money on mages. turn 3 and later on - Continue expanding with your forces. Hire a lord and some additional troops at turn 3. At turn 4 you should have 3 forces capturing indies, continue adding more troops and an occasional lord - you might want to cut down on the crab hybrids depending on the map and the number of water provinces around you. Your basic goal for the first 5-8 turns is simply to get as many forces out there as possible capturing provinces. A rapid expansion and a large gold income is key in securing a good mid/late game position. When income allows start adding fortresses/labs and temples in positon of high income and/or strategic value. Also start hiring starspawns at all your fortresses in order to get research going. So won't I get seriously behind on research ? Initially yes, but maximizing your gold income will lead to more fortresses, more labs and eventually more starspawns. This will mean you will actually win the research race in a longer perspective. To be behind on research can be a bit dangerous (in fact it is seldom so since underwater wars early is all about the number and quality of troops), but I would say that this approach pays off in 9/10 cases. I cannot stress enough how important it is for R'lyeh to secure a good gold income! (well this is true with many nations, but R'lyeh cannot fall back on low gold/high resource units basically, they need the gold to buy a constant supply of mages later on, since these tend to do all the killing). ------------------------------------------------------- Turning a good start into a good mid game So i have managed to survive the initial phase, I have alot of fortresses/labs and im adding several starspawns per turn, now what research should I aim for ?. Well initial two priorities needs to be considered, they are defense and gem income in that order. This is an example of how i usually research early on (if im using the suggested pretender design). Point 1 and 2 might be skipped all together if you feel confident about the defense issue. 1. Alteration 3. Notworthy spells for your awake pretender are stone skin at 2, and iron skin at 3. Another spell worth noticing is body ethereal with area 1. Simply put a starspawn/child close to your pretender and have him cast the spell on your wurm, it will add greatly to his performance. 2. Construction 4. Equip your wurm with a pendant of luck and a girdle of might (one alternative might be amu of antimagic if you fear mr attacks). Also give him helmets (horror helm if you lucked out and got a d2 starspawn). Other than that you might want to pick up a wavebreaker trident - gives the battlefield effect of 'friendly current', a level 5 enchantment spell at construction 4 is pretty nice and can be very useful in large underwater fights. 3. Conjuration 4. Spells worth mentioning are voice of tiamat ("the" site search spell for underwater nations), school of sharks (numbers do matter and they will distract the enemy), voice of apsu and dark knowledge. If you are desperate for added defense early on sea serpents are a good bet. 4. Evocation 2. Mainly for arcane probing. If you end up fighting a fire dependent nation like abyssia in mid/late game don't neglect the easily overlooked spell rain. After this point the situation and your own playing style should determine what spells to research. If im at peace i tend to aim for conjuration 8 and construction 8 to snatch the elemental royals (that is the fire/earth kings and the air/water queens) and the unique items. Other reserach goals should be thaumaturgy (communion slave/master, teleport spells and paralyse/soul slay as well as LA unique spell dreams of R'lyeh), evoc 7 (netherdart) and alteration 6 (darkness). ------------------------------------------------------- Branching into other magic paths Oki, so I followed your guide and I ended up with alot of gems from voice of tiamat my pretender and mages cannot use, what now ? Well at some point you want to branch of and get access to other magic schools, therefore i have added a short section on how this can be done. fire: really tricky for R'lyeh, better hope to find some indies. You will most likely have to empower 1 of your starspawns in fire twice. You will be wanting to forge rune breakers at one point, the rest of the fire gems from income can be spent on lightless lanterns. air: fairy court and if you get lucky and need it you might get an air queen later on (just put a ring of wiz on the fairy queen and forge an air booster). See nature on how to get the fairy queen. water: you will have access to w3 on many mages, forge the robe of the sea the water bracelet at lvl 6 and with a ring of wiz you will have water 6. If you need more you can summon up a water queen. earth: You will most likely have e2 starspawns, with an ring of wiz you can get a troll court and then equip it with earth boots and possibly earth kings later on. astral: you will likely get starspawns with s5 as base, enough said. death: high death can be achieved for example through streams of hades and various death boosters (skull staff and skull face for example). nature: slave mage to cast summon naiad. From there build various nature boosters (thistle mace then a treelords brance, and moonvine bracelet together with ring of sorc/wiz gives you very high nature) blood: This should not be a priority. With the exception of fire and blood R'lyeh has a very good chance of getting a large variety of magic at high levels and that is another reason why they are alot better of with an awake sc for expansion that a sleeping/imprisoned rainbow variation. ------------------------------------------------------- |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Specific spells for LA rlyeh Contact void spectre: (conjuration 6, needs s3 to cast cost is 25s. See manual for specific stats.) I can add that he spreads insanity fast in the enemy provinces he is visiting. This in combination with stealth(+25) enables some fun strats where you sneak him into enemy armies/mage centres. Also, he has the summon +5 at start for the void gate. He can also be used as a raider with some decent gear and scripted to cast luck + twist fate + attack. Dreams of R'lyeh: (Thaum 6, needs s4 to cast cost is 4s.) Haven't been able to play around with this much, but it seems to give an mr check, after which an assasination atempt occurs (with attack/defense/mr halfed for the target). ------------------------------------------------------- Clams Early on all water gems should be saved to be used for voice of tiamat plus the occasional voice of apsu (unless you are about to fight someone underwater then you want too summon with them). Later on if there are no immidiate threat to your position investing your water gems in clams is a nice idea. use slave mages with the nature pick and equip them with forge hammers. ------------------------------------------------------- Ritual attack spells and other benefits of high astral R'lyehs high astral combined with their easy access to astral gems makes spells like mind hunt, vengence of the dead as well as their own LA spell - Dream of R'lyeh excellent spells to target pesky enemy commanders. Note that the success of these spells are greatly improved by penetration items such as spell focus, rune smasher and the eye of the void. Other benefits of high astral is the fast mobility. Lone mages can be quiclkly teleported to the front lines (perhaps carrying valuable gems to help in the war effort), also forts under siege can quickly be boostered by gating in armies. It is worth it to read Baalz excellent post later on where he suggest an rather unorthodox warfare technique that involves heavy use of these spells. ------------------------------------------------------- Fighting on land How to deal with pesky archers : Basically MA/LA r'lyeh will field huge armies of low protection units, i.e they die fast to massed archers. There are several good answer to this. The first answer before magic can take care of the situation is to use screens. This means that small sized group are put ahead of the larger armies, the point being that archers put to "fire closest" will only fire at them and miss the majority of the arrows. Later on you might want to get your hand on a staff of storms (through trade) that will also shut down fliers or get access to air magic of your own (fairy queen, with equipment it can also do storm, arrow fend, fog warriors - very potent spell for your masses!). In the late game communions casting army of lead/gold will also take care of archers (and also make your lobos pretty great actually). Another answer is darkness; Darkness: Many players new to r'lyeh doesn't realise the potential of having 100% DV on all their units (this is not true for some of the LA freespawns but darkness is great for LA anyway) and combining this with darkness. Darkness cuts your opponents attack and defence values in half and precision by 75% (both archers and opposing mages will be greatly hampered by this spell). Other buff spells for the endgame Through communion a lot of spells are available to cast. Do not feel limited to experiment on your own but some of my favourites include army of lead/gold, antimagic, darkness and will of fates. Not only will they greatly improve your fighting, they will make fights look pretty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/2310/bild1gn0.jpg http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/5774/bild2iq5.jpg Spells to kill with This really depends on what you are up against. For the standard armies, I tend to use the starspawn that has death on them to do the fighting (should be around 50% that has death). I script them to cast nether darths, a spell they can cast almost endlessly. For tougher foes, paralyse/soul slay/enslave mind or against groups of heavy foes i tend to use starspawns with some earth and cast communion + summon earth power + gifts from heaven. What spells to use really depends on what you are up against and what spells you can cast at that point. ------------------------------------------------------- Underwater fighting Underwater fighting is not so much about offensive spells, instead the outcome tend to be heavily influenced by the quality and quantitity of troops. Specific underwater spells to aim for if you fear an attack by atlantis/oceania are school of sharks, shark attack, friendly current and water ward as well as any other buff spell you can get your hands on. Equiping your mages with water gems and spamming out some water elementals can make a difference in how well the fight ends up as well. ------------------------------------------------------- More info if you are playing MA/LA rlyeh http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/rlyeh.html ------------------------------------------------------- All ideas, feedback, question, flames or general thoughts on new sections that would make for interesting reading in this guide feel free to post them here |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Thanks for taking the time to post this Evilhomer. I appreciated our discussion on R'Lyeh the other day in the IRC channel, and have been trying some of what we discussed in a MA R'Lyeh SP game I just started as well.
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Pretender choice is one of my favorite decision-making parts of the game. I use a sleeping or imprisoned Void Lurker with heavy magic quite often, but like to experiment with other types as well. In my new SP game I tried an awake Ancient Kraken with a small amount of magic to try to rush some of the nearby water provinces. The prophet strategy you list you had mentioned before. I used to make my starting lord the prophet, now I tend to use a 280/1 starspawn I build early to do so. I now also have the lord take all the starting forces to patrol the capital with higher taxes on the first turn or 2 as you have outlined here. I am very curious as to your bless strategy for R'Lyeh. On the one hand, we only have the 150/1 Starspawns for troops we can build that are sacred. However, everything that comes out of the void gate is also sacred, and some of those things are already effective, even before being blessed. I usually have high water/astral myself as MA R'Lyeh. Some of the void summons are just insane with good blessings, but hard to mass them before able to teleport or gate around. I'm not sure how useful the hybrid forts (coastal R'Lyeh forts in friendly dominion that make free spawns and allow hybrids to be hired) are to LA R'Lyeh, with your freespawns and all. For MA R'Lyeh, they are fairly decent. The Hybrids you get from these are not stellar, but neither are they actually bad. They have decent morale and are amphibious as well which makes them pretty handy to have. I do not build the hybrids via normal production instead I rely on the free ones to supplement my forces. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
VERY nice guide homer, i think you covered all the basics and some extras. The only think i can think of that could be added is how to use the magic(ie useful spells and late game strategies) but a very nice guide all the same.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
To shovah:
Thank you very much for the praise. I will add more sections when I have the time and can think of something good. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
You think rlyeh is a worse bless nation than MA Ulm? Do you fear my all powerful generic 50 gold priests of doom?
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
You should note that in LA, Growth-3 stabilizes your population against the effect of your dominion. Cancelling population loss is a bigger deal than increasing population growth http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
I've never noticed a difference for the two turns less of paralyze damage, and have found Illithid Soldiers to be quite effective troops. Note that LA R'lyeh can also recruit units on land. The various lesser hybrids - are dreadful. You'd rather have independent infantry. OTOH, the hybrid assassin *is* a nice unit, and since you can't recruit real illithid on land, you might as well grab them. Void cultists are at least cheap, and can help lead piles of freespawn around. Have you checked MA R'lyeh on land? Do they get land units? |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Great guide Evilhomer. The scale settings I found especially informative, although taking misfortune makes me shiver. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Heh. I virtually always take Misfortune 2 or 3, since Order is such a great gold boost and Luck feels like a waste when combined with Order. Rarely get more than 3 (slightly-inconvenient, rarely even troublesome) bad events per turn. So a bandit nest shows up, big deal.
But I wouldn't be doing that if I also took Death scales. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif -Max |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
I have added several new sections, feel free to tell me how they turned out and what you think about them.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Salamander, i was refering to the fact that the generic 50 gold priest is all the sacredness MA Ulm gets other than indies.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
well the fact that ulm is not at all suited to a bless is no reason to use a bless with rlyeh. Simply do not consider bless with either nations.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Just avoid elephants/mammoths. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
You can do that with most nations bob http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Also you can get alot of free points by taking Drain-3, Misfortune-3. So you can have a really, really good awake pretender. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Please try to keep this thread about MA/LA rlyeh. The viability of a bless strat for ulm can be discussed in another thread.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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One thing I always wanted to know R'lyeh is a natural to cast Call Abomination, what does anyone think of this spell? Has anyone gift of reasoned one, if so what slots does it get? Huge hps, gaze of death, 3xlife drain, amph, fear+3, reg+10, looks like a mega SC to me. Could it be a end of game winner? |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
I personally love call abomination. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
2 misc item slots. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
It gets 2 misc slots. As for using it as an SC the lack of slots combined with its low protection and low defense makes it a bit unsuited (maybe if you went a bit crazy and gave it some magic on top). It is a good summon but on the other hand it is level 9 and at that point there are several other viable choices to spend astral gems on as rlyeh. I tend to put my astral into gem wishes most often at that point, but the abomination is an alternative for sure.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Late in the game i like to invest in atleast a couple of abominations. Sending a few of them into battle with your army(and a mage to boost your troops protection) can add a big punch due to their gaze of death. They can also soak up fire pretty well and draw fire away from SCs and thugs.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Not much can stand up one-on-one against a 9 astral void lurker with its resistance halfed. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
I've been doing a bunch of R'yleh lately and was planning on putting something like this together so here are a couple of my thoughts – I won’t repeat what Homer’s already covered (great job!), but there are a couple of my favorite things that didn’t get mentioned.
A guide to R'yleh needs a discussion of one of the central aspects of being R'yleh – being aquatic. This may seem too obvious to even mention, but there are a couple of implications with are not as obvious and lend themselves to some powerful strategies, and also some underwater strategies which R’yleh is much better suited for than other underwater nations. Other water nations are going to generally default to war with you, and indeed you’ll generally have a good motive to take out the other water nations as fast as possible, but if there are large bodies of water allying with another underwater province can prove to be a powerful move. The big thing is almost none of the land nations are going to be eager to pick a fight in the water any time before late game. Consequently, you have a powerful negotiation tool which often means you don’t need to sign NAPs with any of your land neighbors which will be important in a bit. What you should do is focus on establishing your underwater territories as rapidly as possible, but avoid taking many land provinces early on. The key to remember is the land nations will often see any move to land to be very aggressive on your part even if you’re just attacking indies. You also give up your best defense, your water. In general, only take island provinces, or perhaps isolated land masses which you can defend from land attack by holding only a single province. Of course this is just a rule of thumb, so use your own judgment. Fighting between the water nations is much like playing many other nations, and Homer has covered the basics (though I personally value the national troops a bit differently). As he mentions, having an awake SC pretender helps greatly (I’m a fan of the ancient kraken), and having a good gold flow is essential. When I find it gets interesting is once you’ve secured your watery kingdom, either through conquest or alliance and start eyeing your first major land campaign. At this point you should have a long shore border, a good gold and gem income (thanks to voice of tiamat) and several neighbors which you have no NAP with. Now is when the true beauty of R’yleh begins to shine – freedom. Watch for your opportunity – which of your neighbors is on the losing side of a war? Watch the score graphs (if enabled), use astral windows (or it’s not a bad idea to forge a couple stone spheres), watch the forums and bide your time. Remember, half your opportunity is going to be swooping in to aid somebody already in a war, so make sure you leverage this into the groundwork for future alliances and trading partners. Now, another great thing about R’yleh is the abundance of fairly stout astral mages (even more so with EA R’yleh…but that would be another thread). This expands upon the freedom theme – pairs of your starspawn can teleport anywhere and take out most PD with the right equipment and script (one idea is to give them bottles of water elementals, script body ethereal then falling frost X4, you get the idea). This can easily be followed up by the construction of a laboratory and the gatewaying in of your real armies. So, as you’re looking for opportunities use your scrying and negotiation and don’t confine yourself to nations bordering the water – there is a lot of joy in attacking somebody who has no way to attack you back and the best they can hope for is to repulse your attack. Use intel from your newly found allies (who will be overjoyed to have you join them in a fight they’re already bogged down in), and teleport into the rear, lightly held territories. Heck, you can likely even get some bribes to join the winning side of a war, or just rent out your Mind Hunter’s services to the right bidder. Speaking of which, R’yleh is the poster child for some of the offensive rituals, namely Mind Hunt and Vengence of the Dead. You’ll have many mages capable of casting each, and both benefit from penetration boosting. Eyes of the Void and Spell Foci are no brainers, but you’ll also want to secure rune smashers if possible. Trade if you can, but if not you’ll likely have a modest fire gem income from voice of Tiamat with absolutely no fire mages, so don’t be afraid to empower one of your starspawn twice and set him to forging them – it’s not a terrible investment for 80 gems. Because of the danger of going feebleminded while casting mind hunt you’ll want to get some way to cure afflictions, the two easiest being the fairy queens or the chalice, both of which are attainable through a slave mage with a nature random. Once you get your artillery brigade set up, it’s a truly awesome apparatus against anyone without a lot of astral mages. SCs will be unable to go anywhere unescorted, hit and run raiders will not be a problem, spies have no chance of sowing unrest, and even larger armies can be split up as you take out some of the commanders leading troops, leaving others to follow their orders. Again, use your scrying to find juicy targets away from the front line once your opponents start expecting it. So, for me, playing R’yleh is defined by two things 1) leveraging your underwater defensive advantage and 2) a handful of spells: voice of Tiamat, teleport, mind hunt/vengeance of the dead. It’s all about freedom, mobility, and surprise because against an evenly skilled opponent you’re likely not going to be able to hold your own on the ground in a straight fight. R’yleh is a submarine, keep your opponents guessing as to where you’re going to surface next. You should have a great gem income, very good research and a lot of magic versatility. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Thanks for the feedback baalz. I agree on most of what you have said but I will give some feedback on some parts where our opinions differ.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Very nice guide Evilhomer. I'm kinda scared of being next to you in the 62 player game now...
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
I'd add that I have had decent results with MA R'Lyeh landside. Much in the way that Evilhomer does (although I need to work on my magic use to improve it even more). EA R'Lyeh is another story, but that's for another thread. The use of the excellent starspawn mages, lots of chaff troops, and some of the lovely void gate summons, combine into a very effective war machine. Blocks of Lobo Guards and the Hybrid freespawns, backed up by higher-quality melee groups (like Greater Othernesses and Formless spawns as examples), with Illithids and Vastnesses as artillery, all led by Starspawn mages and Illithid Lords (with decent items) make an impressive landward military.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
This is why I like guides like this, even when you're experienced with a race it's eye opening to see how other people play them well. Just like I haven't yet really worked an effective big army land game yet(never thought to use darkness and really big buffs for the lobo guards) I think you'd be surprised with how effective a teleportation offensive can be, I've deployed it very effectively against some good opponents. The thing you have to keep in mind is you're not trying to drop an overwhelming force on a well prepared opponent, you're waiting on an opportunity to hit somebody when they'll have a hard time responding effectively (I really like the submarine analogy). The beauty of it is you can drop on absolutely anybody at their weakest moment. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly better if your opportunity comes along your long coast but there is almost always (on large games) a war going on somewhere which will be quickly decided if you jump into the fray and if you play your cards right you not only gain several lightly defended territories, you also make an ally who goes on to finish your mutual enemy and make sure he never does take those territories back. Teleportation and Gateway I find are surprisingly economical, you shouldn't have a problem dropping 10-20 starspawn for an initial attack (2-3 per province, make sure you target just PD), then several (plus an army or two gatewaying) every turn thereafter. I find astral pearls are seldom the limiting factor when I do this unless I'm also trying to aggressively Mind Hunt at the same time.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
I like to use the Illithid troops and anti archers. I got kinda lucky and summoned 3 of the giant blob monsters(greater otherness?) in 1 go, and set them, and a bunch of the freebie nut bag troops out front set to charge. Then I set up a line of the meteorite guards, slave guards, lobos, the blue fish guys and what not on the far north and south set to Hold and Attack the rear. The Illithid line is set up behind this, set to fire on archers, and well, they do. Numerically superior archers and indies get rolled while firing at the chaff(which doesn't seem to take many losses)while the artillery line bakes everything in it's path. By the tume the blobbies and the wack bag troops actually clash with the main body of the enemies, they're running scared or dropping like flies.
What I want to know is whats a good thug or SC build for the Illithid commander, or the traitor prince, mine seem to get rolled real easy. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Newbie here.. these types of guides and insight are GOLD. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon41.gif[/img]
Thanks Evilhomer! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Your very welcome, thats why i wrote it after all. Several new section was just rewritten as well as added today, more will probably be added during this weekend.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Diseased units is probably either due to a lack of supplies or an undiscovered disease spreading magic site.
The reference to death scales could be due to the fact that death+misfortune can have some pretty bad events(oh look, i just lost 50% of my capitols population on turn 3). |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
lol i think that is me! I get hit with some nasty events where I lose 1/5 of population all the time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif It's the death scales that cause this?
Also, i know this is completely unrelated, well kinda but... I am playing a random SP map and I was curious how many sites there are that actually require a high lvl of magic to find on most random maps? I've gone searching with mages that might have 1 pt in astral, or 1 pt in earth, or 3 in water for example. Are there that many sites typically that are really good but do require a high amount of magic to find? |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
It is your combination of death + misfortune
I prefer the combo growth/misfortune myself, but to each his own. No site requires higher than lvl 4, so if you use a mage with s4 to search you will find all astral sites for example. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
I must say I have enjoyed this thread. R'lyeh being one of my favorite nations to play since Dom2, I have still learned a few tricks from this one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I have tried out Teleporting in Starspawns with great success. 8-10 of them, with 3 forming a communion, 2 raising undeads and 3 simply chaincasting soul slay works great to punch through lightly defended provinces. 1 turn later I will have gated in enough forces from my capital to defend it against anything but a major attack with mages and SCs from a good human opponent. This does not work against a fortress though, since the Starspawns can't breach the walls by themselves. But in multiplayer I can see the advantage of having 2-3 groups of these raiders as a mobile reserve to bolster the defences where you 'think' the enemy will strike next. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Another idea is to teleport in one s4 and one s5 mage at the opponents largest army. Place the mages at the back, and have one cast astral tempest and the other cast doom. Every unit will become cursed and the 1 AN damage battle field effect causes massive amount of afflictions toghether with the curse. It is serious fun, and your mages can even escape unharmed in turn 3-4 with returning.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
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I guess I'm wondering if using a low lvl mage is more cost effective than using the spells to find the sites. |
Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Lvl 4 sites are quite rare and most of them don't seem worth the trouble to me. Lvls 2 and 3 are a different matter.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
If i have site searched with a lvl 3 mage i don't bother casting a site search spell there. I tend to do some manual site searching, but then its usually a case of my starspawns returning from battle doing some on the way. That said i would really recommend having voice of tiamat as a rather high research priority, it is a great spell.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
Seconded on tiamat - it's crazy for gem income.
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Re: MP gude to Rlyeh MA/LA
It's been a while since I played Rlyeh, and it was nice to see what someone who knows more about them does.
I found that, in late game with LA Rlyeh (which, at least in 3.4, was still killing its own people off faster than it could replace them with high Dominion and growth 3) that the vast majority of the new mages I was adding to my forces were Void Spectres. Once you get a clam economy in full swing, they're not at all pricey, and while their lack of magical diversity hurts they can do all the astral-brutalizing-at-range tasks you might possibly need without incurring additional upkeep (at least, I think so... it's kind of hard to track upkeep for LA Rlyeh). |
Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
I am a prototypical explorer type player and I recently decided to try my hand at LA R'lyeh since it seems like a very interesting nation. Due to an extreme aversion to the long term commitment of Dominion MP games however, my experience is restricted entirely to SP play, but some of it may be helpful in MP nonetheless. If I may chip in, using the format of the OP...
------------------------------------------------------- Units Illithid Soldiers - Despite the high resource cost, I found that these units made good decoys for enemies set to attack/fire largest/archers, which is an otherwise difficult role to fill. I would consider recruiting these instead of Meteroite Guards in LA due to the abundance of freespawn chaff. ------------------------------------------------------- Commanders Star Child - I think these are the only commanders worth recruiting on land, unless one needs Hybrid Lords to transport regular units. Although they could be used for research and communion, I think they can be better deployed as cheap battle mages. Stick them in the frontline within groups of chaff with orders to spam Body Ethereal or Luck can significantly delay the progress of enemy ground troops. They can also be paired up with SCs, thugs, or void spawns to provide these two very valuable buffs. Light of the Northern Star will allow these to spam Stellar Cascades too. Starspawn Priest - These are the most efficient researchers available for R'lyeh at 1.25 upkeep/RP versus 1.89 for Star Children and 2.33 for Starspawn mages. They are my default underwater recruit unless I have other urgent needs, and they will never become obsolete since they are the best communion thugs in game. ------------------------------------------------------- Scales Dominion 10 - This will give abundant free spawns and drive enemy commanders insane. One important benefit of this is that your territory will be almost impossible to infiltrate with scouts, spies, or stealth troops. Having a full dominion of 10 is necessary since the chance of a temple check succeeding is still determined by the base dominion level of your pretender. Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat/Cold 0 - I am not familiar with the quality of underwater provinces in MP maps, but I found most of my SP maps to have rather poor underwater provinces, and that land provinces have always constituted the majority of my income. A play-to-win strategy in MP should recognize that most provinces of the eventual winner are likely to be on land rather than underwater too. The suppply penalty for Heat/Cold scales is also brutal in LA due to all the freespawns and should be avoided. Growth 3 Luck 3 - I have been convinced that the luck scale has a very large impact on R'lyeh. It definitely helps the Void Gate by improving the quality and frequency of void summons, reducing the number of attacks, and preventing your Starspawn priest from getting feebleminded or lost in time and space so often. Most importantly though, I found that Luck 3 dramatically increased the frequency and quality of LA free spawns to the point that one could keep pace with LA Ermor in terms of quantity. Magic 1 ------------------------------------------------------- Pretender In my comparison of the expansion rate for R'lyeh with or without an awake SC pretender, I have found the bottleneck to always be the number of Illithids I could hire, and once I did have enough Illithids (20 to 30 is sufficient to form one expansion army), it didn't really matter if the SC was present or not. As such, I generally go with an imprisoned and immobile pretender. The Monolith with a base dominion of 4 has served me well, since it will still have 133 points left over even after taking the scales above. I think these extra points are most useful in air magic, since that will give access to the Staff of Storms, which is a very important equalizer in land battles and difficult for R'lyeh to obtain early. Wrath of God and Dark Skies are nice globals that can take advantage of high dominion too. I prefer to avoid Earth magic since it is available on Starspawn mages, and the abundance of earth gems underwater allows me to easily empower one up to level 3, often times before I even need a Dwarven Hammer. ------------------------------------------------------- Expansion Turn 1 - Raise taxes, patrol, make scout prophet, and hire lobo guards seem like the standard. I would start hiring Starspawn priests and continue to do so for the first year or two at the capital however. Spare gold would go to Illithids as well. Turn 2 - Put first Starspawn priest on research and send the Illithid Lord and prophet scout to take the first province. Hire more Starspawn priests, lobo guards, and Illithids. Turn 3 - Send a Starspawn priest from the capital with troops to meet the Illithid Lord and prophet in another adjacent independent province. Once that province is conquered, that Starspawn priest can search the new province and then return to the capital for research. Try to use a Starspawn priest with a pick in Earth or Water for these transportation and search assignments. Repeat this process for all provinces adjacent to the capital. You should be able to assemble your first Illithid squad when all adjacent provinces are conquered and be ready to send out a second one in two turns. Building up Illithid squads for expansion and hiring Starspawn priests will slow down your expansion for the first few turns, but Illithid squads can survive indefinitely in the field. That means you can continue to expand past the first year instead of having to stall a few turns and wait for resupplies. My opinion is that the long term benefit of this will outweigh the short term costs, though actual circumstances in game will probably be the deciding factor. ------------------------------------------------------- Research Targets Thaumaturgy 1 - The Returning spell gives safety to your 2S Starspawn priests in the Void Gate. Alteration 3 - Body Ethereal Conjuration 4 - Voice of Tiamat will boost gem income. Light of the Northern Star will allow Starspawn priests and Star Children to spam more spells. Construction 4 - Endless Bag of Wine, Girdle of Might, and Frost Brand are what I usually forge at this level. Alteration 4 - Luck Alteration 5 - Invulnerability for communion thugs Enchantment 3 - Astral Shield for communion thugs Conjuration 5 - Contact Naiads gives access to nature magic. Slave Mages will need construction 6 for boosters, or construction 4 with empowerment to cast this though. Acashic Records is at this level too. Evocation 5 - Stellar Cascades can be cast by all your Starspawn priests and Star Children with Light of the Northern Stars. Even without Illithid mind blasts you can often disable the entire enemy army before they enter melee range. Make sure to spread out your casters since they have a tendency to spam Stellar Cascades on the same units even when the target's fatigue has exceeded 100. Astral Geyser is useful for hit and run attacks on SCs or tough immobile pretenders. ------------------------------------------------------- Communion Thugs Communion thugs are units that can take advantage of personal buffs being shared between the communion master and his communion slaves. Based on previous posts on this topic, this tactic seems to be most popular with Pythium's Theurg Communicants combined with Phoenix Pyre. While Theurg Communicants are cheap to recruit, they are very frail and tend to have a hard time dealing damage consistently, and this weakness has relegated communion thugs to the fun but not practical category of tactics. After some further experimentation however, I have found Starspawn priests to be extremely powerful communion thugs that can easily rival many late game SCs. This is due to the fact that they have a relatively high HP and strength, combined with their availability, moderate cost, and even lower upkeep. R'lyeh's diveristy of magic and abundance of Star Children also signficantly reduce the gem cost of items necessary to make this tactic work on the battlefield. Below is an example of a cheap and accessible communion thug setup using the most common underwater gems (~40% of common underwater sites are earth or water): Starspawn Priest Weapon: Frost Brand (5 water gems) Shield: Black Steel Tower Shield (5 earth gems) Misc: Girdle of Might (5 earth gems) Depending on what unit(s) leads the communion, you can pick and choose from these self buffs to put on the Starspawn priest thugs. The magic bonus from communion means your communion master will not need any boosters either. Path requirements in parenthesis: Astral Shield (S) Breath of Winter (W) Cold Resistance (W) Elemental Fortitude (N) Holy Avenger (HH) Invulnerability (EEE) Personal Luck (S) Personal Regeneration (NN) Quicken Self (W) Resist Fire (WE) Resist Magic (S) Resist Poison (N) Soul Vortex (DDD) Summon Earthpower (EE) Twist Fate (S) My preference is to use a Starspawn priest with an earth pick to lead the communion and script him with Communion Master, Summon Earthopwer, Invulnerability, Personal Luck, Astral Shield, Fire Rear. The reason for this choice is because communion slaves with an earth pick will receive extra fatigue when the master casts Invulnerability, so you might as well have the earth picked priests lead the communion instead. This is also why I try to avoid Soul Vortex; Invulnerability is generally more useful, and a death spell will make it more difficult for another quarter of my Starspawn priests to act as communion thugs. In addition to the personal buffs received from communion, each size 4 Starspawn priest thug can be placed in the same square as a size 2 Star Child, who can then cast Body Ethereal on it. Get some free spawn priests to spread blesses around, and this communion thug will end up as: HP 30 Protection 25 Damage 35 melee attack with AoE cold effect Attack 15 Defense 16 Morale 11 (this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you can fix it with morale boosters or berserk spell/items if you are so inclined) MR 18 Parry 9 (better than Air Shield) Melee Encumberance 4 Reinvigoration +7 Ethereal Lucky Astral Shield I forgot what fatigue level the communion thugs will end up with at the end of the buff sequence, but it will be low enough that they can spring into action immediately due to the +7 reinvigoration. Given the low cost (150 gold, 5 upkeep, 15 gems), high power level, and flexibility of this setup, I think it compares very favorably to popular SCs like Bane Lords. You can easily have dozens of these communion thugs running around before good summons are available to your opponents, and this gives the R'lyeh player another useful option in game. ------------------------------------------------------- |
Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
Just a thanks: I have played a combination of both strategies presented here, and I have to say I like LA R'lyeh. It's a very hard nation to get a good handle on, but this guide has helped immensely. Thanks a ton for taking the time to write it.
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Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
I have tried taking misfortune in MP game and it worst the worst idea EVER.
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Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
misfortune 3 ?
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Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
Thanks for the praise.
About misfortune: Misfortune 2 is rather safe (though many new players fear this pick). If you ask around among experienced players you will see that the combo "order + misfortune" is very common. |
Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
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Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
Well, you do realise that luck comes with a price right ? Thats 5 scales, i.e 200 design points you are giving up. So the question should really not be if you think luck beats misfortune, but if you cannot find something better to put those 200 design points into. In my experience with R'lyeh in multiplayer games, misfortune has always proven to be a good pick (i.e I have always had something more worthwhile to invest those 200 design points into).
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Re: MP guide to MA/LA R\'lyeh
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