Guide: Bandar Log - you whipped me with what?!?

[konming]

After playing my first ever Bandar game (SP or MP), I must say they have potential but serious weakness.

Typically Bandars are played with either good bless or good scale. Good bless is much weaker for Bandar than for Kailasa, since Bandar's sacred is not nearly as powerful as Kailasa. While Kailasa's sacred has some obvious weakness, it can be mitigated with bless. I have not seen anyone pointing out a great way to bless white ones. Sure with the right bless they smash indies quick, but elephants are just as quick against indies. Against decent human player, who uses arrows, low level evocations,heavily armored troops and so on, they are at disadvantage against most of the middle age nations.

Now about their mages. First, many of their summoned mages cost money to maintain. This is bad after paying 20N, you now have to pay 12G per month for a mage. Second, summons are less numerous than recruits. Can you get as many Yakasha as in Kailasa? And nature gems have many great use, like GOR and GOH. So if you use all your nature gems on summons, you lose out in other important area. Third, all their mages require lab+temple to recruit, wasting lots of money plus valuable time on your summoned mages, since none of your recruited mages is priest.

And there is their PD. Even backed up by Yakasha casting destruction (shouldn't he have better things to do?), 20 PD would be hard pressed to stop a similar cost invasion force. Against small raiding forces, esp. stealth ones, you have pratically no way to counter.

Then there is this ridiculous animal tag on all their troops and commanders. For god's sake, how can an almost transcend rishi be an animal where lowly peasants are "human"? In game term, it make sieging and defending against siege pointless for Bandar. You better recruit a lot of indies if you want to take any castle. And what happened to yogi's 7 morale? Even indy militias are better motivated. Oh, and what's the reason for guru's 2 combat movement? Since only immobile units (like a fountain) has combat movement of 2, are gurus made of stone?

Bandar do have potential in their summon department. But relying only on summon against others who can both recruit powerful mages and troops as well as summon, will not get you very far.

[sum1lost]

I'd say that blesses can be incredibly valuable in BL's late game, simply because their summons are almost always sacred.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by konming

Then there is this ridiculous animal tag on all their troops and commanders. For god's sake, how can an almost transcend rishi be an animal where lowly peasants are "human"? In game term, it make sieging and defending against siege pointless for Bandar. You better recruit a lot of indies if you want to take any castle.

There is a glaring lack of understanding on this siege issue, I've seen this repeated a few times lately.

Let me clarify - Animal (and Mindless) tags ONLY reduce your ability to defend. Animals and the Mindless can't rebuild walls effectively. They can, however, tear them down just fine. Bandar has no problem taking castles without indie troops. No trouble at all.

Defending is indeed another story.


(Edit: Also, they do have severe drawbacks, that's why they're considered harder to play. However, direct comparisions to Kailasa do not hold water, as Kailasa faces entirely different threats in EA than BL faces in MA. They also have a different but overlapping set of tools to use against those threats. Yaksha and Yakshini are not primary mages for BL, but they are powerful methods to diversify magic, and so should be summoned. If I could summon Rishi with Kailasa, I think I would go for it as well.)

[Meglobob]

Just out of curiosity, where in the league of Ma nations would people place Bandar Log?

I have no experience of Bandar Log, I have never played them in SP or MP but I have just started a SP game with them out of curiosity, probably will never finish it but there you go.

From what I remember of Bandar in the Ma MP's I have played in they tend to do somewhere around average. Usually make the mid game and then are eliminated.

[Epaminondas]

Originally Posted by konming

After playing my first ever Bandar game (SP or MP), I must say they have potential but serious weakness.

Typically Bandars are played with either good bless or good scale. Good bless is much weaker for Bandar than for Kailasa, since Bandar's sacred is not nearly as powerful as Kailasa. While Kailasa's sacred has some obvious weakness, it can be mitigated with bless. I have not seen anyone pointing out a great way to bless white ones. Sure with the right bless they smash indies quick, but elephants are just as quick against indies. Against decent human player, who uses arrows, low level evocations,heavily armored troops and so on, they are at disadvantage against most of the middle age nations.

Now about their mages. First, many of their summoned mages cost money to maintain. This is bad after paying 20N, you now have to pay 12G per month for a mage. Second, summons are less numerous than recruits. Can you get as many Yakasha as in Kailasa? And nature gems have many great use, like GOR and GOH. So if you use all your nature gems on summons, you lose out in other important area. Third, all their mages require lab+temple to recruit, wasting lots of money plus valuable time on your summoned mages, since none of your recruited mages is priest.

And there is their PD. Even backed up by Yakasha casting destruction (shouldn't he have better things to do?), 20 PD would be hard pressed to stop a similar cost invasion force. Against small raiding forces, esp. stealth ones, you have pratically no way to counter.

Then there is this ridiculous animal tag on all their troops and commanders. For god's sake, how can an almost transcend rishi be an animal where lowly peasants are "human"? In game term, it make sieging and defending against siege pointless for Bandar. You better recruit a lot of indies if you want to take any castle. And what happened to yogi's 7 morale? Even indy militias are better motivated. Oh, and what's the reason for guru's 2 combat movement? Since only immobile units (like a fountain) has combat movement of 2, are gurus made of stone?

Bandar do have potential in their summon department. But relying only on summon against others who can both recruit powerful mages and troops as well as summon, will not get you very far.

Well-put. You've touched on all my concerns, and then some.