Noob's shot at an R'lyeh AAR

[GavinWheeler]

The lower income might be due to the scales on your province varying.

I'm also surprised to see that you don't appear to have set your starting army to 'patrol' so you can jack up taxes for the first few rounds. Population wastage is much less important than the extra cash for a quick start, in these early game.

For your scales, I've always avoided taking Order+3 with Luck+3. If you are spending lots of points on Luck to get good events, you want to get a lot of them, so you want turmoil (Order-3, or possibly less if you don't want to live dangerously). This has the advantage of Luck+3 being balanced by Order-3 (design point wise) giving you plenty of points to spend on Growth (for example) to slightly counterbalance the income hit of Turmoil, and help feed your hungry squidheads too.

Name: Cthulhu? tsk tsk!

Next we'll have pretenders called Drizzt dual wielding - thankfully we don't have scimitars in this game, do we?

I tend to restart games a lot as I try out different mixes of scales and pretenders. If you do restart, here are a few suggestions:
- Cthalamari (still clearly derivative, but more fun, if more appropriate for an Ancient Kraken)
- Deep Mushroom
- Bathomycetis (snobby Version of the one above)

I'm waiting to be able to rename commanders, so I can have 'Gift of Reason'ed Things That Should Not Be called "Semi Skimmed Milk" "Tepid Coffee" "Christmas Jingles" and so on.

[CharonJr]

Yup, just read about a bug concerning the scales changing on turn2 in another thread.

I have read about the tax-raise/kill the dissenters with troops approach. But since I have not tried it before I have no idea how many people I will kill with this tactic.

But this AAR might be a good place to give it a shot in order to show me and some other people who have not tried this one before the additional income one can generate this way and the consequences one is faced with (lower pop + unrest).

In some of my earlier games I have tried to play around with turmoil-3/luck-3, but in the end I kept losing most of my population and income due to bad events. This is the reason why I wanted to give Order-3/Luck-3 a shot here (my first try actually).

I agree that the name is not exactly original but I am even thinking about modding R'lyeh to be even more Lovecraftian, Shoggoths, Deep-Ones, Elder-Things, Mi-Go...

Thank you for the feedback

CharonJr

[von_Schmidt]

Regarding random numbers/ dicerollers:
http://www.amicron.com/diceroller

Funky program to roll several types of die.

[Wendigo]

I wouldn't say that R'lyeh is a very analyzed nation, in this forum it has not really been discussed to much, apart from the Void gate novelty.

I'd rather say it is however a difficult nation for a newbie, because her biggest strength lies in her Starspawn mages, and playing those right requires a good knowledge of spells & magic items.
The military in itself is kind of weak, & the Void Gate is a gamble. Being underwater & the magics are the real (& always reliable) strengths that make R'lyeh IMO one of the top nations.

On the matter of your pretender I prefer a combat oriented one for R'lyeh, for 2 reasons:
-My general rule when choosing a pretender is to go for multiple complementary magic fields when playing nations with narrow magics, and to go with a SC when playing nations with powerful & broad spellcasting choices. R'lyeh is definitely one of the 2nd.

-In MP there is a high probability that you might end up fighting Atlantis (or even Ermor) for the seas early on, and a SC adds some much needed muscle here while you develop your magics.

Your scale choices are very good for a noob. I would have done some things differently, but that's more because of my personnal style of min-maxing the scales to get more design points, which might not really be for everybody. Heh, I am playing a MP game as R'lyeh right now and if I were to start another one I would change half my scales with new ideas!

Maybe you can get Nagot to chime in, he can give you the best R'lyeh advice as far as I know.

[GavinWheeler]

We already have Elder things (called exactly that) as one of the Void Summons.

Shoggoths also have a clear analogue in the Lesser and Greater Othernesses, or the Formless Spawn

Deep Ones could be represented either by the Atlantians or by the hybrids that pop up in any coastal (on the land) forts you may build - that bit in the national description is not just there for colour!

This is not to say that there is no point in adding on your own personal interpretation of these. Personally I saw the Shoggoths as something the Elder Races made, rather than calling through a portal, so would have represented them as a High-level construction item, similair to Golems. But no two Dominions/Lovecraft fans would ever agree on the 'right' way to represent R'lyeh!

Mi-Go would be nice (for R'lyeh) in that they would be (if I recall correctly) cold-loving land-based troops that would nicely complement a R'lyeh taking a cold scale, as it often does since its sea-based troops are snug and warm under the waves. But does R'lyeh really need more strengths?

[Norfleet]

What would be really fun would be Stealthy void gate Things, such as the "Thing That Goes Bump In The Night".

One of the downsides of being underwater is that most Underwater indies tend to be Tritons, and if you're doing an SC, you run the risk of a severe mauling before you can get your spells up. A heavier pretender chassis can help, but R'lyeh doesn't exactly have a very wide variety of pretender options to choose from.

[CharonJr]

Turn 3

C’tis declared a Lizard Hero as a prophet this turn and my thaum got up to 1. Due to bad intel my attack was a semi-desaster, but this is offset by Altanasha – my summoner – successfully summoning 2 Things from the Void and Auluudh offering his services.

Treasury: 150
Income: 188
Upkeep: 40
Resources: 72

Water gems: 6 (+2)
Astral gems: 9 (+3)

Looks like I have been the victim of the “vanishing scales on turn 2” bug. My order-3 scale simply vanished and from what I have read it might take quite a number of turns before the scale starts to go up again, let alone being back to order-3. But it seems I was lucky and at least got it back to 1 on this turn.

Due to my bad intel about Dunheim I recieved a beating there. Instead of the 30 expected light and heavy infantries I was meet by 40 ememies, including 5 crossbowmen and 3 commanders. The mindbLasts were actually working fairly decent vs the infantries, but due to their large numbers quite a lot got into melee range.

The first spear volley by the light infantries killed 11 of my 20 slave troopers and 1 Shambler, causing the immediate routing of my troops (except for the Last remaining Shambler who stood his ground, but was killed during the next turn).

The ememy has lost nobody till this point and were in hot pursuit of my fleeing troops. My commander and the Illithid Soldiers stood their ground and bLasted some more infantries.

When the infantries got into melee range they inflicted some wounds on the first round, but the rearguard stood their ground and even managed to kill 1! infantry.

During the enemies next turn they managed to kill one of the soldiers which sent the rest of my troops into a route, too. While fleeing they managed to kill another Soldier.

Overall I lost 11 slave troopers, 2 Shamblers and 2 Illithid Soldiers due to rushing into a fight without having decent intel – kids, don’t try this at home

OK, I was a bit unlucky to lose such a huge number of troops to the first volley of spears, but I am fairly sure that I would have lost the fight anyway.

Updated province information:

Devourer (6) – 40(s) -50(g) Trition Troopers and Triton Guards – Sea
Tiash (15) – 30(s) – 40 (g) Militias and Heavy Infantries – Forest/Swamp – general intel – Heat 2
Dershid (20) – 40-50 Tribal Warriors and Tribal Archers – Plains – general intel – Dom1, 6k pop, 29 inc, 12 res
Dunheim (28) – 34 Light/Heavy Infantries + 5 Crossbowmen – Farm Lands – confirmed
Gol Phalas (26) – 50 Militias, Longbowman and Knights – Farm Lands – general intel – Dom1, 13k pop, 66 inc, 9 res
Vepitre (14) – 40-80 Tribal Warriors and Tribal Archers – Plains – general intel – Black Candle1, Order1, Magic1
Kolermegor (5) – 40-50 Crossbowman, Militias and Heavy Infantry – Forest – general intel – Dom1, 9k pop, 46 inc, 34 res

East of Vepitre is province 12 which has a dominion of 5 with scales of O3, P2, C3, G3, Mi3 and Ma3. Due to the scales I dare to say that this is the capital of Jotunheim, which might be an interesting matchup for my mindbLasters.

To the north/northwest a 3 dom1 black candles have appeared in the coastal provinces bordering Dershid (20).

In the northeast bordering Gol Phalas there are 2 more black Dom1 candles.

I think that it is safe to say there are at least 3 enemy races in fairly close proximity to me and one of them is Jotunheim.

My error about attacking without proper intel will enable me to take a shot at the raise taxes/kill dissidents approach. I will raise my taxes to 150% and patrol the province with the rest of my army (14 slave troopers and 4 Illithid soldiers). My current pop in R’Lyeh is at 30.130, lets see where it will end up after this little stunt.

Since I AM desperate now I will take a look at possible mercs to hire and it seems that Lady Luck is really favoring the stupid. Sho’guu and The Fisherman are up for hire. 25 troops for 120 gold. I will offer 130 for them and hope that Atlantis is either not needing mercs or unwilling to pay more than those 130.

For the remaining 20 gold I will buy a scout.

In addition to Cthulhu I assign my Star Child and Auluudh to research who add 6 and 13! research respectively for a total of 29.

Auluudh is a water/astral 4 mage with 110 HP and a decent magic resistance of 19. This opens up new options to me. Now I might be able to try to take on Atlantis after some spell research.

I want to get Quickness next, so I will need Alteration 2. Enslave Mind is a big temptation with Auluudh to back me up, but I first want to see what happens during the next turn before I decide on any spell research past Alt2.

Altanasha recieved the 3 pearls needed to cast Returning, was put at the back of the battlefiled and will cast Returning.

CharonJr

To be continued...

[ February 12, 2004, 18:09: Message edited by: CharonJr ]

[CharonJr]

Turn 4

Oh joy, Atlantis declared war on me. On the bright side I got the mercs and my Alteration is up to 1 already.

Treasury: 224
Income: 188
Upkeep: 41
Resources: 72

Water gems: 8 (+2)
Astral gems: 9 (+3)

The 150% tax worked very nicely. My treasury is up to 224 and I only got an unrest of 2. I will switch the tax rate back to 100% this turn. My pop is down to 29.660 which is better than I anticipated.

Updated province information:

Devourer (6) – 40(s) -60(g) Trition Troopers and Triton Guards – Sea
Tiash (15) – 20(g)/30(s) – 40 (g) Militias and Heavy Infantries – Forest/Swamp – Heat 2
Dershid (20) – 40(s) – 60(g) Tribal Warriors and Tribal Archers – Plains – Dom1, 6k pop, 29 inc, 12 res
Dunheim (28) – 34 Light/Heavy Infantries + 5 Crossbowmen – Farm Lands – confirmed
Gol Phalas (26) – 20-50 Militias, Longbowman and Knights – Farm Lands – general intel – Dom0, 13k pop, 66 inc, 9 res
Vepitre (14) – 40-80 Tribal Warriors and Tribal Archers – Plains – general intel – Black Candle1, O1, P2, G2, Mi1, Ma1
Kolermegor (5) – 40-50 Crossbowman, Militias and Heavy Infantry – Forest – general intel – Dom0, 9k pop, 46 inc, 34 res

Northwest of Dershid (20) I can see the C’tis capital now in province 27. Either they own province 25 to their west, too, or they are still stuck with just their capital.

Looks like Jotunheim’s dominion is spreading to my east

Sho’guu and his Fisherman are amphibious. This gives me 2 options:

Go after the tritons in Devourer (6) with an unknown income or repeat my attack on Dunheim (28) where I at least can be fairly sure that the income is decent due to it being a farm land.

With the declaration of war from Atlantis and my need for money I decide to gather my forces and attack Dunheim (28). This way the indies might prove useful as a buffer between me and Atlantis.

Due to my mindbLasters I actually prefer to fight Jotunheim first and hope that C’tis, Atlantis and the unknown third party will not come after me.

With a bit of luck I might even be able to salvage enough troops to be able to attack Gol Phalas after Dunheim since the actual number of troops there might be around 30. In order to not repeat my earlier mistake I will send my new scout there and get decent intel about the forces there.

In the meantime I will move my first scout from Dershid (20) to Talito (36) to the northeast in order to get some information about the third enemy around here.

Sadly I am lacking 2 research for getting Alt2 this turn, but since I will not need my magic in this fight anyway it is not that bad. But when I confront Jotunheim I want to have some nasty astral surprises for them. Due to this I will get another Star Child for better research this turn in addition to 2 Illithid Soldiers in order to fry the minds of some Jotuns later on.

CharonJr

To be continued...

[CharonJr]

Turn 5

Marignon declared war on me.
Altanasha managed to summon 3 Things from the Void and Cthugul decided to join my cause.

The battle went fairly well with the mindbLasts doing their job. Since I put up the mercs as a screen in front of my troops I lost not a single one of my troopers. Even the mercs only lost 3 men.

Provinces: 2
Treasury: 181
Income: 231
Upkeep: 61
Resources: 71

Water gems: 10 (+2)
Astral gems: 12 (+3)

Unrest went down to 1 and order is stuck at 1.

Updated province information:

Devourer (6) – 40(s) -60(g) Trition Troopers and Triton Guards – Sea
Tiash (15) – 20(g)/30(s) – 40 (g) Militias and Heavy Infantries – Forest/Swamp – Dom1, 2.5k pop, 10 inc, 45 res
Dershid (20) – 40(s) – 60(g) Tribal Warriors and Tribal Archers – Plains – Dom1, 6k pop, 29 inc, 12 res
Gol Phalas (26) – 20-50 Militias, Longbowmen and Knights – Farm Lands – general intel – Dom0, 13k pop, 66 inc, 9 res
Vepitre (14) – 40-80 Tribal Warriors and Tribal Archers – Plains – general intel – Black Candle1, O1, P2, G2, Mi1, Ma1
Kolermegor (5) – 40-60 Crossbowman, Militias and Heavy Infantry – Forest – general intel – Dom0, 9k pop, 46 inc, 34 res
Talito (36) – 30 Milita, Light and Heavy Infantries – Plains – scout intel
C’tis (27) - ???
Abysia (40) - ???

Right to the north of Gol Phalas my scout in Talito is able to see the capital of Abysia (40).

Due to the light loses from the attack on the knight supported force in Gol Phalas (26) is tempting me very much, especially with the mercs hopefully being able to take the brunt of the attack. Actually I am more worried about the longbows than about the knights. My scout reports the enemies strength to be at 40.

Cthugul’s appearance is giving me another choice to make here. He is a lvl3 priest in addition to a 2W/4As caster, which would make a nice addition to my invasion forces, especially since he could bring the 2 Illithid Soldiers along I have hired Last turn.

On the other hand he has a research value of 11 which would be a nice addition to my magic boosting program. Since this AAR is about making mistakes, too, I will keep on playing this one risky. Cthugul will stay at home and support the research, even if this means having less firepower/morale in Gol Phalas.

My orders for the troops will remain unchanged, the mercs as a screen, my fighters behind them and the commander and bLasters to the rear.

I will send my scout from Talito (36) back to Dunheim (28) in order to start a little bloodhunt there since I can afford to expand to the north at the moment anyway. Jotun is my target of choice for now. With a bit of luck this will leave C’tis and Abysia enough room to expand and hopefully leave me alone, or even better fight each other.

The other scout will head to Vepitre (14) in order to get a closer look at my potential Jotun friend.

I will spend the Last missing 2 points for getting Alt2 and will pump the remaining 44 points into construction in order to get to Con2 as soon. I want to be able to forge some Clams of Pearl soon and start to get some decent astral gem income before starting to research conjuring for acashic record.

I will recruit one more Star Child for faster research and 1 Illithid Soldier for additional firepower this turn.

CharonJr

To be continued...

[CharonJr]

double-post

[ February 13, 2004, 18:19: Message edited by: CharonJr ]