LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions

[cleveland]

Awesome guide Baalz, as usual.

I'd like to point out one neat trick that few apart from LA Atlantis (and some of the Heims) can pull off. I'll preface it by mentioning that most raiding nations have a lot of trouble reinforcing after the initial raid, and almost no ability to break down castle walls.

The trick:
Surprise-attack a coastal fortress with sailing raiders while simultaneously hitting it with an amphibious Bane Venom Charm holder, or (later on) Black Death/Tidal Wave . The following turn, cast enough Carrion Reanimations (3D, so 1/4 of your Angakoks can cast it) to turn all those corpses into Soulless @ 100 per 10D. 500 Soulless will bring a mage-factory down pretty quickly. Now you've got a base of operations on your opponents side of the lake 3 turns into the war. Worse comes to worst, demolish it as you sail away.

P.S. Carrion Reanimation also gives you something to do with all those dead R'yleh chaff.

P.P.S Edited yet again in response to Max's comments.

[MaxWilson]

Cleveland,

Isn't that a trick that any Death nation can pull off? Stygian Paths + Black Death + Carrion Reanimation... all pure Death magic. Substitute Astral Travel for Stygian Paths if you've got it, or just use an SC + Teleport. It's a good trick, but available to many, many nations.

-Max

[cleveland]

Sure. But most Death nations don't have much raiding capability. Similarly, most raiding nations don't have much castle-breaking capability.

I'm presupposing that a "raiding nation" is one which has the ability to hit multiple fronts unexpectedly. Sailing grants that, stealth grants that, flying grants that, teleporting grants that.

I absolutely concede that any nation casting Black Death can also cast Stygian Paths. But slip a Bane Venom Charm & some swim trunks on someone who lands onshore at the same time as your sailors...that only takes Const4 & Ench7 (which you'll be going for to get those Leviathans), totally doable in year 3. Thoughts?

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm, okay, I think I see the distinction you're drawing. Nevertheless, I suspect that Niefelheim, Fomoria, and Ashdod (recruitable thugs w/ Teleport or Cloud Trapeze access) all have good reason to want castle-breakers handy.

I haven't played much with Bane Venom charms. How many corpses do they produce?

-Max

P.S. You're definitely making me want to try some bigger maps (400+ provinces), just so I can try attacking across the globe.

[cleveland]

I'd guesstimate that they kill ~5% of the population per turn. Not bad if it's an enemy capital...

[konming]

How do you deal with LA R'leyh if you want to go into sea at all?

Sure your troops are amphibious, but they also have low MR. Even with S9 bless, 14 MR (maybe 13 due to magic scale) will not last against mind blasters. Anti-magic both take time to research and only your (most likely) imprisoned god can cast it. You do not get quickness, so while you can kill all the chaff, you just do not do it quickly enough, giving plenty of time for mind blasters. Also your denfense is not high, leaving 16 protection (again E9 bless) as your only saving grace. 16 protection is good enough for R'leyh free spawn, but their slave guardians should have no problem killing them. Even all those coral spears can do enough poison damage.

Needly to say, your commander will go mad pretty quickly in R'leyh domain, and you cannot even forge amulet of antimagic yourself.

Without the water part, I just do not see how they match up against most of the stronger land nations. Maybe I am missing something?

[Dedas]

Magic 1 doesn't give -1 in MR.

[Baalz]

konming said:
How do you deal with LA R'leyh if you want to go into sea at all?

Sure your troops are amphibious, but they also have low MR. Even with S9 bless, 14 MR (maybe 13 due to magic scale) will not last against mind blasters. Anti-magic both take time to research and only your (most likely) imprisoned god can cast it. You do not get quickness, so while you can kill all the chaff, you just do not do it quickly enough, giving plenty of time for mind blasters. Also your denfense is not high, leaving 16 protection (again E9 bless) as your only saving grace. 16 protection is good enough for R'leyh free spawn, but their slave guardians should have no problem killing them. Even all those coral spears can do enough poison damage.

Needly to say, your commander will go mad pretty quickly in R'leyh domain, and you cannot even forge amulet of antimagic yourself.

Without the water part, I just do not see how they match up against most of the stronger land nations. Maybe I am missing something?

Well, I haven't gone up against a clever player in this matchup yet, but I have tested it out against large masses of mind blasters/chaff and all I can say is go ahead and try it out - 14 MR makes all the difference in the world. Arrsatut's absolutely *destroy* chaff, the front line disintegrates each turn and the small regen goes a long way towards offsetting minor poison damage. In my tests a group of about 50 Arrsatuts killed 200+ groups of chaff blocking 50+ blocks of mind blasters without breaking a sweat - a handful got paralyzed each round but never critical mass. I've yet to see somebody play LA R'yleh without sloth-3, so I'm not too worried about overwhelming amounts of slave guardians (who have an 8 defense and will on average be killed in one hit by Assatuts with a couple experience stars - which they rack up quite fast). Slave guardians also have an 8 moral and are *perfect* targets for the fear spam I mention above if your opponent is fielding any significant numbers of them. Terror/frighten spam + low moral + rapid casualties....I don't see them causing too much trouble.

[Jazzepi]

I don't think your pretender can go insane in R'yleh dominion.

Jazzepi