Lost Lands = Sad Lands

[Babel Builder]

I had thought that the new ritual "Lost Land" was supposed to be a spell to help underwater nations be able to make a play for thrones. We actually got there on my stream last week and I was shocked (shocked I tell you!) that it cannot be cast underwater! The use case for land nations is greatly reduced.

I would like to see this ritual changed to at least be able to be cast underwater, if not requiring it be to cast underwater frankly.

In addition, the text could be made clearer, as it seems to fully remove the local population, rather than the 50% it implies. The other 50% moves to adjacent territories. This results in a 0 pop.

One thing I can confirm: The provinces that are now new coastal are target-able by further rituals.

Has anyone else used this ritual?

[Draken]

I heard from someone who lost 800 units and over 100 mages to a Lost Land as an enemy sunk the province his main army was in into the sea. So if you can cut of an armies retreat paths, it's definitely very effective. Even for land nations.

And yes, it should also work well for thrones.

As to the "can't be cast underwater" that might be a balance thing. Honestly if you are an underwater nation and haven't been able to get a land province by the time you have researched Lost Land, I think you have bigger problems than not being able to cast the spell.

The spell does tell you in the description that the Population will try to escape, but that only half will make it. It's pretty logical that land dwelling population does not survive getting submerged in water. A recent patch helps with the 0 pop province though. The patch notes now mention that after a few months new underwater settlers will arrive.

[timlagor]

It does work on Thrones (and forts survive).

It's an issue that it wipes the population. As Babel said on stream it makes sense for some of the coastal population to be amphibious anyway and survive the change. It would also make sense for (some) new population to arrive immediately.
The real problem though is that the spell is highly misleading so you don't know it's going to happen and may have planned on the assumption there would be some pop left. Once you know you can just work with it.


It does seem completely wrong to me that this isn't an underwater spell. By the time you get it you shouldn't have any real trouble getting one Lab above or below the surface but this spell make so much more sense for underwater casting that (like Babel) I assumed it was right up until he tried to cast it.

From a balance perspective I'm fine with a water nation that cant get onto the land having this by the time they have researched it. I can imagine people might want to argue against that but if it's problematic then I'd contend that the problem is in having the spell at all.

[Selgeron]

Originally posted by Draken:

I heard from someone who lost 800 units and over 100 mages to a Lost Land as an enemy sunk the province his main army was in into the sea. So if you can cut of an armies retreat paths, it's definitely very effective. Even for land nations.

That was me! Should have put up a dome. Of course, you can also cast it on your OWN province say, when you are holed up in a fort with a throne inside, and then you sink your own province.

You can also (if you have an absurd amount of gems) sink multiple provinces in the same turn, guaranteeing that you will cut off retreat from the first province, if you sink that province and all other land provinces adjacent.

You can also, if you open up a gateway to the Nexus from a UW province, the void province where the Nexus is is considered 'coastal' now since it has a connection to UW and you can sink the nexus! Or I suppose, you open the portal and drain the ocean into the Nexus or something.


It's a very much one-of-a-kind spell. I enjoy the finality and epicness of it, but I do think it should instead of sinking them in one turn, give you 1 turn warning- So an opponent cant cut off oyour whole retreat with like 5 casts of some random remote.

So it could be like-

Turn 0 You cast it
Turn 1 'The land is starting to sink into the sea! If we don't leave soon many will drown! 50% of the population migrants. You have a turn to actually move your stuff during the map-move phase
Turn 2 the province sinks into the sea, any who can escape attempt to do so, those who don't drown.

That way you have a moment before you lose an absurd amount of troops. It seems odd when 100 mages and 1000+ troops won't move into an adjacent province because 25 hawks landed there and killed the PD there when the island started to sink, so instead of facing them the army just sunk into the waves.

There should also be a spell for reversing it- either raising land out of the sea with earth magic, or boiling the sea away with fire magic or something.

[powerfinder]

Originally posted by Selgeron:

That was me!

How did the story end, Selgeron? Have you defeated the insidious geomancer?

[tknoff87]

May also be worth noting that in the stream Babel also targeted Hinnoms cap and sunk it. Effectively rendering it unusable I figured you wouldn't be able to target a capital but if you can that makes a capital on the coast potentially really precarious

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

Originally posted by tknoff87:

May also be worth noting that in the stream Babel also targeted Hinnoms cap and sunk it. Effectively rendering it unusable I figured you wouldn't be able to target a capital but if you can that makes a capital on the coast potentially really precarious

Wowie... That's a whole new tier of mean.

[timlagor]

It's definitely a spell that could make some people salty

[Draken]

Originally posted by timlagor:

It's definitely a spell that could make some people salty

True, the ocean is salty. :P

But yeah, it can definitely do some good work.
Still, it requires specific circumstances and costs 100 Earth Gems, so it's not that cheap to use.

[Bumc]

In a long MP game when aimed at cap it would probably hit a dome and fizzle as well. Sinking thrones is devious ofc.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally posted by Bumc:

In a long MP game when aimed at cap it would probably hit a dome and fizzle as well. Sinking thrones is devious ofc.

even non-uw might consider it. i happened to have two uw thrones in a game where there were no water nations. got two ichtyid provinces early as bandar, one of them a good fort spot for other reasons, and thus wound up capturing nearly all of the sea including these two lake thrones. once i got wizard towards up on them, trying to capture either of these would have been miserable for anybody else, and that includes me if someone else had them.

it wouldn't surprise me if this is situationally used as part of a throne rush for land nations in games, even games with uw nations if they aren't nearby the throne. it is possible to breach and capture uw thrones using gate cleaver guys, or indy chaff + army thugs + mage support (with 30-50+ water gems worth of breathing gear to bring enough mages sometimes), but putting that together immediately/reacting to it in time maybe not.

[Kaerbear]

Was used on a friend's capital (went through his dome). Lost the ability to make sacred units, pretty game ending for him hehe