I love R'lyeh

[Kamiyama]

I love the void summons and the slave troops and slave mages. I've never seen my upkeep so low before. Also the squid-heads aren't too bad.

Also the sheer sanity of it all. I gave the visitor a copper arm so he can have an arm he never had before, and gave him an eye of aiming so he lost an eye he never had, to gain an eye that is even better than his spirit sight, so he can aim a wand with greater precision. He's an absolute freakizoid now and I love him.

Excuse me while I go back into the void to find more sanity.

[Kamiyama]

Sea of Ice basically gives you the opportunity for a "tech victory" where you focus on research until you're ready to invade the land provinces.

Slave mages are their most efficient researcher thanks to the halved upkeep cost.

I'm sure it won't work in multiplayer but this is fun. I get to play with all the end-game spells.

[Bumc]

AI doesn't really invade underwater regardless.
They do send skeletons there and some other summons, but a massive scale invasion from landlubbers involves some magical items AI cannot really stumble upon.

[Shadowdweller]

I had AI Eriu send successive waves of ichtyids (lead by elf commanders in shambler skin IIRC) at an underwater province of mine in a game a couple weeks back. It was mostly adorable.

[MOTHER LOVER]

Can you tell me your general R'lyeah strategy? I want to like them just because of their unique mechanics but I get easily overwhelmed by them.

[Kamiyama]

Originally posted by MOTHER LOVER:

Can you tell me your general R'lyeah strategy? I want to like them just because of their unique mechanics but I get easily overwhelmed by them.

So I play MA R'lyeh. I'll lay out most of my strat it's going to be a bit jumbled.

I set up a dormant Void Lurker with:
5 dominion, 1 turmoil, 3 cold, 3 luck, 1 magic
F2, A1, W1, E6, S8, B3

3x reinvigoration
Minor Magic Resistance
Major Magic Resistance
Arcane Finesse

So he has all those magic paths for a reason.
F2 is for phoenix pyre
A1 and W1 is for crafting an amulet of the fish
E6 is for meteor shower and earth globals
S8 is one point short of casting wish
B3 is for reinvigoration, blood feast, and crafting the blood stone

The cold scales might seem awful but R'lyeh has slave troops and slave commanders who have half the normal upkeep cost. Only your illithid mages are going to be expensive. For troops they have the amazing meteorite guard who has 12 morale and a whopping 19 protection and a magic weapon. Don't even bother with illithid troops. Just recruit meteorite guards for troops. Also be aware of what summons have upkeep costs. Don't summon trolls.

The turmoil and luck scales let you farm good events which will give you lots of gems and occasionally free equipment or free commanders. This is great if you cast Sea of Ice and just lurk under the ice doing research.

You might think star child is your best researcher but they aren't because they aren't slaves. Slave Mage is your best researcher.

So I have a research queue:

---

Phase 1: early game
Construction 1-4 (amulet of the fish, blood stone, crystal coin)
Thaumaturgy 1-3 (teleport)
Alteration 1-7 (Sea of Ice, Phoenix Pyre)

During this phase you get your level 4 boosters and teleport so you can move your pretender around when he shows up. Make sure to give him his amulet of the fish before you teleport him because he will die if you teleport him on land without it. I like to get him on land quickly so he can start blood hunting. You can't blood hunt under water.

Thanks to the 3 luck scales, heroes will show up sooner rather than later. Shadhul Ummush has W5 and Auluudh has W4. You need W6 to cast your water globals so Shadhul just needs a water bracelet and Auluudh will need a water bracelet and a ring of wizardry. Your pretender is crafting a ring of wizardy in phase 2 so Auluudh can just borrow that to cast the globals.

---

Phase 2: globals
Construction 5-6 (water bracelet, ring of wizardry)
Evocation 1-8 (Maelstrom, Time Stop)
Enchantment 1-7 (Stellar Focus, Earth Blood Deep Well)
Construction 7 (Mechanical Men)

During this phase you craft a ring of wizardry and cast your globals. You will also want a earth mage (probably a boosted starspawn mage) to cast mechanical men each turn to build up an army.

In the endgame phase your pretender can craft a gate stone, which cthugul can use to teleport a massive army of mechanical men and meteorite guards.

---

Phase 3: endgame
Blood 1-3 (reinvigoration, blood feast)
Alteration 8-9 (Wish)
Evocation 9 (Meteor Shower)
Construction 8-9 (Gate Stone, Mechanical Militia)

So you will want your pretender to cast Wish and ask for "ultimate power" which will increase all his magic paths by one. This along with his ring of wizardry will boost him to E8 and S10.

Set his combat orders to:
1. Time Stop (bugged for innate spellcasters)
2. Phoenix Pyre
3. Meteor Shower
4. Reinvigoration
5. Meteor Shower
You will need to put earth gems, astral gems, and blood slaves in his inventory.
If he gets an affliction in battle, he can cast blood feast to get rid of it.

You can also set up your hero Cthugul to cast Wish. You will need to empower him once, and then equip him with a starshrine skullcap, a ring of wizardry, and a ring of sorcery.

Have him ask for "fame" and then equip him with a crown of command, a sceptre of authority, the gate stone, and I like to give him the orb of atlantis so he can summon water elementals.

Then fill up Cthugul's normal leadership with meteorite guards and his magic leadership with mechanical men. He can then teleport this giant army by casting astral projection from the gate stone. For his combat orders I just have him summon whatever he can.

Your illithid mages all have S3 and can be set up cast teleport and fire off spells in battle. You can either boost them to cast evocation spells or you can give them an item like a wand to fire off spells in battle.

---

Basically you cast Sea of Ice to focus on research and then you suddenly teleport armies out of nowhere to invade the land provinces.

Teleporting your earth mage starspawn onto land during the initial invasion will let him summon mechanical men on land. Mechanical militia will also fill up province defense with mechanical men, making your beach-head harder to take back.

It's a little janky though. I ran into problems casting time stop on my pretender and I think I wasn't able to cast mechanical men underwater. Also you can't blood hunt underwater. It's no problem if there is an island on the map, but if you have to do your blood hunting and mechanical man summoning on the continent with the other pretenders then you're really vulnerable during your buildup.

I didn't have any issues with gold because I made a point to mostly just recruit slaves. I don't think the mechanical men have an upkeep cost.

Try to void summon with the starspawn priest as often as you can. Don't give him any equipment but do give him a retinue of 5 bodyguards. Meteorite guards or immobile void summons are perfect for this. They can fight off the weaker void monsters but if he gets attacked by a vastness there's nothing you can do except replace him with the next guy in line.

Overall I think it's a good nation for a "research victory" the Void Lurker is a great chassis for lots of magic paths and casting powerful spells, and by casting Sea of Ice you can wall yourself off from the land nations. Your starspawns can all cast teleport so you can build up an army of teleporting mages and then start your invasion when you think you're ready. But it does have some janky parts that you need to be aware of. What ritual spells can you cast underwater? Where do you blood hunt?

Also again - avoid summoning trolls if you're going to have an income penalty on your scales. I just avoided the Conjuration school altogether. Since starspawns have lots of magic leadership, I think mechanical men is the better summoning spell.

You can also go hog wild with golems. A starshrine skullcap will let them cast teleport and with some gear you can probably make them good fighters.

[Kamiyama]

Problem is when he cast Time Stop he starting casting other random spells while Time Stop was in effect. It shouldn't be doing that. I wanted to get off two Meteor Showers before the enemy army could respond.

I'm wondering if it's bugged or if this is a secret attempt at "balance"

Innate Spellcasters cast all spells in 1 turn and cast their first spell at turn 0 before normal spellcasters start casting their first spell. Turn 0 Time Stop is basically hacks.

But I wanted hacks. Give me the magic hacks with the Time Stop and Void Lurker.

[Shadowdweller]

Don't actually ignore illithid troops. A small brigade of mindblasters in the back of your armies strengthens them considerably. (Plus the basic non-warrior variety aren't resource locked). Mindblast is very strong.

[Bumc]

Illithids are very good against
* Anyone who uses undead. Undead are mindless, commanders are not -- a small squad of illithids deletes the commanders and the undead get dissolved.
* Elephants. Big targets, low MR, get paralyzed forever and become a non-factor. Good luck trying to take on even indies with a couple elephants with just slaves, or even meteorite guards.
* Giants. These have higher MR than elephants, but you can still "fire large monsters" and ignore the human chaff they bring along.

They aren't good against regular enemies, and AI doesn't really fight with thugs or small squads of elite soldiers so I get where the "ignore illithids" mentality comes from.

[Uncle Al]

The intent might have been 'Ignore Illithid soldiers', which isn't bad advice, because:

1. The soldier's mind blast is slightly weaker than regular Illithids (10 paralyse damage instead of 12)
2. You're often resource constrained and instead of spending 50g and 51 resources on an Illithid soldier, you can spend 76g and 51 resources on an illithid + one and a half meteorite guard, which is a far better army composition.

The only time I'd consider the Illithid soldiers is if I'm expecting insane amounts of archer fire, and even then I'm not certain they're a good pick.

Thinking about it, if the illithid life drain attack (presumably their tentacles) was intrinsic, soldiers would be rather tanky line holders and actually have a purpose. I might mod that and see what happens.

[jojeck]

MA R'lyeh is an astral nation first and foremost, possibly the best in the game, and that is the best way to play it IMO. The cap mages are acknowledged as some of the most powerful in the game with diverse and useful high paths and all national mages have the astral path making communions a very easy way to reach high level magic and cast high fatigue spells. The two spells I concentrate on in the mid game are Enslave Mind and Mind Hunt. I can't think of another nation that can make use of these spells better. They allow an underwater nation to exert control over land provinces and armies along with enhancing the other strong aspects of the nation (void summons and meteorite guard). It also follows the national enslaving others theme.

Early armies rely on mind blasters to control the battlefield but these are expensive and have high upkeep so mages should replace them as soon as research allows although they are still useful in a supporting role. Enslave Mind (Thau 6) is a very powerful spell, much more powerful than the ever popular Soul Slay and R'Lyeh can cast it several ways in many battles. All Capital mages can cast it (some with 1 S booster) without a communion with booster support and all mages can use a communion to cast it multiple times in a battle. Many nations are very susceptible to attacks on their MR and penetration aids make that even more telling. Stacking a penetration bless with Rune Smasher and other astral penetration items makes the sacred Starspawn (recruit any underwater fort) formidable communion masters. Banner of the Northern Star is a key mid game item boosting astral and hence reducing fatigue in large battles allowing more casts of better spells. The Rune Smasher is vital for the 2 penetration it gives key mages and the way I usually forge it reliably is by empowering a cap mage with D and W paths, then forging a Flaming skull and water bracelet, The fire gems can come from luck or underwater provinces with Voice of Tiamat, but that is a major mid game objective for this strategy. There are other ways to achieve this but you need luck or pretender paths (but then your pretender is tied up doing this often) because Rune Smashers make Enslave Mind and MInd Hunt much more effective along with the other astral penetration aids that use miscellaneous slots. and a bless that cap mages can use a shroud to get. Enslave Mind means you might not need to recruit troops to invade coastal and inland provinces, you can just enslave the enemies and any that survive the battle join your army for free (although you do pay upkeep).