LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions

[Zeldor]

Shouldn't you wait with that guide until patch with LA Atlantis improvement comes out?

And I think it is pretty safe to assume that most games will be played with R'lyeh banned, so Atlantis has Patala and Mictlan as main contestors in underwater fight. Ermor sometimes too.

[Baalz]

I'll update it when the patch comes out, and no I don't think it's safe to assume that all games ban LA R'yleh. Besides, nothing I've said is not true without R'yleh in the picture, an astral bless is I feel still the best way to go because it fills in so many of the holes you need filled. Extra MR is *always* welcome.

I actually wanted to give my impressions before KO finalized any changes.

[sector24]

Another enlightening guide! Couple of questions/comments:

1) Death 3 seems pretty severe, especially considering your expansion rate will average at best. You probably know better than me, but I find Atlantis is always a high priority target for other players and Atlantis is usually on their back heels rather than gobbling up new high population territories.

2) How do you deal with early archer spam? The only shielded troops you recommended were the LA shamblers, but they have no synergy with cold 3 and are best used outside your dominion. Again, I find myself on the defensive ~75% of the time. Maybe that's the real question, how do you put yourself in a position where you are the aggressor considering your somewhat average expansion rate?

[MaxWilson]

E9S9N4 bless should work pretty well against archer spam, combined with smart tactical scripting.

[Baalz]

I don't think there's any reason that Atlantis is relegated to a defensive role, though they have some serious home field advantages. Everyone has their own preferences for scales, but I think death has a very good synergy here. Because your troops and mages (other than one) are so cheap, you're a bit less desperate for gold every turn. Your reliance on cheap sacred units and mages means your upkeep will be very low, helping offset the decline from your death scales. You can fuel a very respectable expansion with dual blessed Arssartut, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to field a force every other turn capable of chewing through most indies with very few casualties using archer screens - that twist fate helps a whole lot at this stage. Additionally, with the ease of expanding into the water there's a lot of options on the table.

As to your question about massed archers, you've got several good options. Your shielded Ice Guards are very good against archers even in neutral scales (you'll have to be careful in heat scales). Mournful also do pretty well with a shield, 15 armor and good hitpoints. Clever archer screens make it hard to target the Arssartut as they're not large and twist fate will help a lot vs the stray arrow or two. Finally, if the archers are massed to such a point you don't think screens will be effective just fall back on the fact that you're a nation of heavy infantry....pull your Arssartut out of the fight and let your shielded heavy guys ignore the arrows - they're certainly fairly tough on their own strenghts, and if necessary they can be superb blockers while your mages do the killing.

[JimMorrison]

Just a couple things - first, it seems Ghost Grip is one of those spells I've grown rather fond of, that most people seem to overlook. It's quite powerful when you can really spam it on large enemy forces - especially in this case, with so much cold based fatigue.

Also, the Winter Wolves, in conjunction with the Freezing Mist. Okay, this Mist is devastating! The Wolves make excellent blockers for it. What I've done a few times, is have some Wolves charge in while the rest of my troops Hold, and have several mages all cast the Freezing Mist 2x, then swap to something else appropriate based on the opponent. The Mist will fade before the rest of your line advances, and the enemy will have enormous gaping holes cut in their army.

It's worth to note, multiple Freezing Mist spells stacked on top of eachother, very much seem to stack damage. I've seen units hit for anywhere from 15-30 damage in a turn with even just 2-3 Mists overlapping.

[Ming]

Baalz,

Good guide. I have always struggled to make LA Atlantis work and your guide has some interesting suggestions. A few questions:

A high dominion is needed to make your C3D3 scale work. To do that you�ll probably need to forget about putting N on your pretender. Shouldn�t be a crippling issue though.

C3D3 would annoy your neighbours. More serious than the above but still not necessary crippling.

With D3 you�ll need to expand constantly to keep your economy afloat. Not sure if LA Atlantis has strong enough armies to expand outside of its C3 domain against active players and you don't have strong priests to spread your domain quickly. This could potentially be the single biggest drawback to your strategy � enemies don�t need to attack you in the early to middle game, just defend themselves against your attack and limit your territory growth. They can then attack you with overwhelming force later when you economy is floundering.

Am I missing something?

[Ming]

Come to think of it, if LA Atlantis could be made to prefer cold3 instead of cold2 (artic conditions should be much colder than mountain tops, no?), plus an extra MR or 2 for the sacreds(so S9 would not be necessary), enough design points would be released to avoid death3.