Give me good reasons why R'lyeh is a balanced nation.

Gandalf Parker · #1 February 3rd, 2004, 03:09 PM

Everyone always Posts at some time that xxxx is unbalanced. Its usually when they have gotten good enough with that nation to always beat the AI. Such as Ermor being unbalanced until they play against a good human marignon player. Or Ulm being unbalanced until they play against a good human Arcos player.

In the case of Rlyeh Id say try playing against Rlyeh AI using Pangaea Carrion Woods theme.

Arent you the one who tried to challenge everyone to beat your perfect strategy. Is this a troll to get challengers?

[ February 03, 2004, 13:11: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Argitoth · #2 February 3rd, 2004, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
Arent you the one who tried to challenge everyone to beat your perfect strategy. Is this a troll to get challengers?

no more comments on my strategy in this thread please...

Oh. and that Last 1v1 I did I won by a hair.

[ February 03, 2004, 13:34: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Chris Byler · #3 February 3rd, 2004, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Argitoth:

quote:
Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

3) Cast swarm, and interrupt the mindbLasters with dragonflies, forcing them into melee. You can even curse them first, so even dragonfly bites will cause problems...

Damn good idea!

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

These are some pretty simple solutions. The best is probably crossbows, but you seem to have discounted that already.

Crossbows are too expensive and hard to find a high resource province with them, so it's a very rare option.

Unless you are Ulm, or Marignon, or T'ien Ch'i, or any other nation that has a national crossbowman. Longbows (Man) work too.

I also agree with the dragonfly idea; Harpies or Eagle Warriors can do this too, as can any Caelum melee. More expensive flyers like Valkyries aren't as good at it because they will probably only engage part of the illithid force and then some of them will get mindbLasted.

The main thing you have to remember is that illithids cost 50 gold. Each. That's more than Jotuns. Nearly 50% more than Jotuns in fact. You should be able to outnumber them at least three or four to one with infantry, and you'll need to. (Cavalry don't work as well, because their higher cost means you can't have as many, and sheer numbers count for a lot against mind bLasts.)

Taqwus · #4 February 3rd, 2004, 07:42 PM

My main concern with R'lyeh would be scalability. Most of their troops (just about everything but hybrids and star children) can only be recruited either underwater or at certain magical sites (and while there's at least one land-based site that provides Void Summoning, it is/they are rather rare), plus the better ones are magical and require magical leadership.
Protecting territory of decent size on land thus depends on independent units, which may have trouble dealing with the better nationals from other nations e.g. hoplites, Emerald Guard, massed xbows + Flaming Arrows et al. The magical nature of their units also makes them highly vulnerable to non-astral leader-killing tactics, because without mages most of their units will rout or even dissolve, and many indy provinces can't produce mages even with a lab. Risky.
Another bit would be that on high-indy settings, sea expansion is _painful_. It takes a lot of chaff to absorb the initial assault of 100+ tritons long enough for mindbLasting. Getting a second water fortress might take some time.

Bowlingballhead · #5 February 3rd, 2004, 08:29 PM

Actually, I think Rl'yeh's biggest weakness is more subtle. Illithids have a huge upkeep cost. This is far more devastating than their initial purchase cost. You just can't maintain a very large army of them, and the more you buy, the less you're able to buy in the future. They're a gigantic money-sink.

Argitoth · #6 February 3rd, 2004, 08:40 PM

I have nothing left to say except these are good points.

Arryn · #7 February 3rd, 2004, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Another bit would be that on high-indy settings, sea expansion is _painful_. It takes a lot of chaff to absorb the initial assault of 100+ tritons long enough for mindbLasting. Getting a second water fortress might take some time.

High indy settings force the squids onto land much sooner than they otherwise prefer to. And the best way for the squids to take on large masses of tritons is to use summonable sea trolls. Masses of ichthytids, if you can find them, work passably well too.