Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN

[sum1lost]

This is stupid. By Lord Bob's argument, a number of nations are worthless, yet I've seen machaka and agartha be powerhouses.

pd strength isn't why nations win or lose.

[thejeff]

I'm no monkey or MP expert, but my understanding is PD is nothing more than a speed bump by mid game anyway. Sure it means you can use cheaper raiders, but those cheap raiding forces can be countered by not much more expensive patrols.
Buy a few archers or infantry to back them up.

How is the VQ an anti-raiding strategy. The VQ is a defensive strategy, sure, but I'll send 5 cheap raiders and she can kill one or take back one province a turn. That's not a plan...

In my last mp game against Bandar Log, they were definitely way ahead. Then the player had to drop and the game dissolved, so there was no official winner. I was Jotunheim and I could take any province I wanted, most only had 1 PD anyway. Then he'd annihilate and enslave whatever I'd sent.

It's an annoyance to have lousy PD. Particularly being vulnerable to cheap castings like Call of the Winds/Wild. But the sacreds, sacred summons and astral power can make up for it.

By late game, PD is unimportant. Casual thugs/raiders will take any reasonable PD untouched and a heavy PD investment will be bypassed or hit with a real army and die.

[Lord_Bob]

That's probably why none of these three nations has ever registered a win in multi-player.

You've made it very clear to me that being completely helpless before raiders is no real problem so long as you invest in defense as much as they invest in offense. And don't mind your provinces being continously overtaxed and captured.

But hey, by Late Game, none of this matters. Of course, gold doesn't really matter in Late Game either. So, do you take 3 Disorder and 3 Luck every game? Since Gold doesn't matter in Late Game, that seems like a strategy For The Win. You have an even bigger edge because all those idiots with multiple wins in MP are taking order! They are handicapping themselves by hundreds of points! You'll clean their clocks good!

[Sandman]

Bandar Log is a fairly good nation. The Markatas are okay chaff, and you can always mind hunt or teleport something nasty onto raiders.

[Lord_Bob]

Bandar Log is a fairly good nation. The Markatas are okay chaff, and you can always mind hunt or teleport something nasty onto raiders.

I would like to emphasize that these forces are not "stealth" in any way and can very easily have an Astral Mage lying around. However, I wouldn't bother with that. Mind Hunt forces me, sob, to add another commander to the force. Total cost:230 gold. But if Bandar Log wants to use 4 astral pearls and 2 mage-turns, I'm sorry, 2 BOOSTED Mage-Turns in order to kill 230 gold, then I think he should. Or does it take 3 castings to kill two commanders? Well then, 6 Astral Pearls. I think that's great. Of course, if I get tired of this, I'll develop the nasty habit of teleporting high Astral Mages onto some raiding groups, thus hopefully feebleminding several extremely expensive mages.

[Sandman]

Lord_Bob said:

I would like to emphasize that these forces are not "stealth" in any way and can very easily have an Astral Mage lying around. However, I wouldn't bother with that. Mind Hunt forces me, sob, to add another commander to the force. Total cost:230 gold. But if Bandar Log wants to use 4 astral pearls and 2 mage-turns, I'm sorry, 2 BOOSTED Mage-Turns in order to kill 230 gold, then I think he should. Or does it take 3 castings to kill two commanders? Well then, 6 Astral Pearls. I think that's great. Of course, if I get tired of this, I'll develop the nasty habit of teleporting high Astral Mages onto some raiding groups, thus hopefully feebleminding several extremely expensive mages.

If the Bandar Log player is going for a mind hunt strategy, they're probably going to have booster items lying about anyway. Risking high level astral mages to support a cheap-o incursion strategy strikes me as foolhardy.

In any case, Bandar Log's troops all have move-2 and forest survival, so they're going to be able to move swifty to counter improvised incursions. And don't forget the recruitable-anywhere sacreds.

[thejeff]

Nonsense. I never said gold doesn't matter. I never said lousy PD didn't suck. I just said the monkeys have some other advantages that can make up for it.
So you have to be more active on defense than some others, who can hide behind walls of PD.

But what do I know? They are completely useless nations and I've been trounced by them, so I must really suck anyway.
Listen to K, he's much better with them than I am. They probably just don't fit my playing style. Maybe they're not right for yours either?


There are ~30 nations listed in the Victorious Nations thread out of 60+. 3 nations not appearing is not statistically meaningful.
Lanka has won. Do they have the same PD?

[Lord_Bob]

Lanka is a blood nation. They can also reanimate undead. While it is true that you need a 90 gold mage on the scene to keep your army of dead operational, it is also true that the 90 gold mage is bloodhunting in that province and has to be there anyway. He needs bodyguards. A bunch of Londead or other summons should do just fine. This won't stop a 200 gold raiding force, it will destroy it. Utterly, while laughing hysterically. Since bloodhunting is required for Lanka to win, Lanka has large amounts of such "PD-Enhanced" provinces quickly.

[Evilhomer]

For some reason you only seem to read and respond to some of the points made in respons to you. First of all as many has pointed out pd is not used very much in mp games among good players, simply because a mobile army is a better buy in most cases.

Also if you checked out some of the nations that has scored several wins (like EA caelum) you will find that those nations has abysmal pd as well and still managed to win. Finally what QM said is very true - there is just to few games played in comparison to the number of available nations in the game to start drawing some statistical conclusions at this point. The monkey nations has some shortcomings (where low pd is just one), but the nations is not as bad as you seem to think.

[Hadrian_II]

I dont think that weak PD is something that counts in MP so the PD of the monkeys has nothing to do with their weakness.
btw. Lanka has the same PD and is not considered weak.

The biggest problem with kailasa is that they are very suspectible to arrows, they have no armor and only bucklers on the basic sacreds, so your powerful armies can easily be shot to peaces by very cheap archers.

But if you survive into the mid game, you can summon gandharvas, and they are about the strongest troop in the game. Sacred, heavy armoured, awe and only 18 pearls for 6 of them.

Also you can summon Kinnaras that are able to cast arrow fend, and then even your sacreds that are recruitable everywhere become useful again.

You have also a national spell that gives all your sacreds quikness.

Then you have some minor benefits like S3 and H3 mages that you can summon and the rudra that has d3f3a3 and makes a very nice SC chassis.

And to the last all your summons are astral based and you have national mages that are able to forge clams, so if you survive the beginning, kailasa will become very strong.

I played them twice in MPs, and in both i was not very succesful.
In one i decided to invade vanheim as he had almost no troops but in the province i invaded i was greeted by 3 E5 bladewind spammers (Worthy Heroes can suck sometimes), and took heavy losses that caused sauromantia to invade me, and i was not able to get back on my feet.
In the other one i started between Nifelheim, Lanka and Helheim and this is not very funny.

Kailasa is for a nation that starts with a dual bless very weak in the beginning, but in the middle game (after conjuration, thraumathurgy and enchantment up to lv 6) they can field f9s9 blessed prot17 troops that have awe +1 and quickness and the basic unarmoured troops have arrow fend and die not so easily either. (w9s9 bless might be better earlyer, but as it does not seem that the quickness stacks, f9s9 should be better after you can cast celestial music).

I think the next EA game that i have time to play, i will try to win with kailasa again.