I'm still on the learning curve for Dominions 3, but I feel I can shed some light on the murky depths of the nation of EA R'Lyeh. Questions, comments, feedback, discussions, and corrections are all welcome.
For MA/LA R'Lyeh, see Evilhomer's excellent guide at:
Post#http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=525893&page=2&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
Evilhomer's guide and conversations with him and others of the Dominions 3 community have helped me test and refine my playstyle and strategies.
Overview:EA R'Lyeh is very different from it's later cousins. It is often considered weak or difficult to use well, but the concept and style of the nation are quite interesting and can be very fun to play. It can frustrate newer players as it is not the most straight-forward nation and is hampered with getting good, solid forces on land. EA R'Lyeh is quite strong underwater, and it's mages are very effective. In many respects, EA R'Lyeh is the opposite of many land nations. Instead of having a hard time massing forces underwater, it has a hard time doing so on land.
Strengths:
-Unbreakable amphibious chaff (Lobo Guards)
-Excellent mages (Aboleths and Mind Lords), that have very long lifespans
-Decent mind blasters (Giboleths and Gibodais)
-Aboleths and Mind Lords are large and have high hit points
-One Pretender Chassis (Polypal Queen) and the Polypal Mother priest units can make freespawn in friendly dominion
-Many units have darkvision of 50 or 100, and some units/pretenders are blind
Weaknesses:
-Best mages are aquatic (slave mages lose some water magic on land) and expensive
-Mind Lords and Gibodai are capital only
-Mind blast units (Gibodai and Giboleths) are aquatic only
-Does not work with a bless strategy very well
-Best priests are immobile (Polypal Mothers)
-Large size of the best mages cause them to be large targets and use extra supplies
-Extremely limited on magic items for the Aboleths and Mind Lords, only 2 misc slots
-Unlike MA and LA R'Lyeh, they have no Void gate and do not get freespawn amphibious hybrids in coastal forts with friendly dominion
National Units:
Slave Troopers and Slave Guardians:
These each come in 3 flavors. All have lackluster morale (8).
Tritons Are aquatic only, but have overall slightly better statistics than the others. They are slightly slower than the Merman, but faster than the Atlantians. Being aquatic, they have a nominal strategic speed of 1.
Merman Are amphibious, but become poor amphibians on land. They are much faster tactically in the water than on land, but gain a strategic move of 2 on land. The Merman Slave Troopers come with nets.
Atlantians Are amphibious and have the highest protection of the 3 types of slave troopers/guardians. They have the lowest magic resistance however. Their speed stays constant and they have a strategic speed of 2. Atlantians have darkvision 50 as well.
I normally build the Triton versions for early underwater expansion. They are not as cheap as the Lobo Guards but are far better at actually killing enemies. I do not build many of the Merman usually as The Atlantians do not get the poor amphibian attribute when they fight on land. Even then, I do not build many of these troops once I have sufficient numbers of summons/special troops. For fodder, I use Lobo Guards (see below). For more solid non-aquatic melee forces, I use summons and/or the more useful indy troops (ex:Jade Amazons).
Lobo Guards:
Ah, lovely little Lobo Guards. Mindless and unbreakable, these little cheapies make excellent chaff and screens for your more important units in the battle. Don't get too attached to these poor guys, they tend to die like mad. But at 5 gold and 1 resource, you can make tons of them. Unlike Militia, they don't panic and run away, which makes them so good at being living shields.
Shambler Thralls:
Overall, I agree with Evilhomer on these guys. They are only size 3, which is not too hot for tramplers. They are not very well protected, so arrows eat them alive. And they cost a fair chunk for what you get (35 gold/1 resource). They can have some use, but watch who you are fighting. They are amphibious and unbreakable and can steamroll human-sized forces, which can come in handy, but if you are fighting, say, Niefelheim, they are not going to do much for you. I do use them on occasion, but the days of me building groups of 100 of these guys are over.
Giboleths and Gibodai:
These are your mind blasters. If you've used Ilithids/Ilithid Soldiers as MA or LA R'Lyeh you know basically what to expect. Their main drawback is that they are aquatic, and thusly lose a lot of utility compared to the Ilithids. I'm a big fan of mind blast as it doesn't rain death on your own troops like arrows do, and large 'artillery parks' of mind blasters can totally ruin an enemy's cohesion as some of them get paralyzed and others do not.
The main differences between these 2 is that the Gibodai cost more (60/1 compared to Giboleths' 40/1), are sacred, have a life drain melee attack instead of the Giboleth's tentacles, and have a mind blast damage value of 10 compared to the Giboleth's 12. Gibodai are in fact your only national sacred other than the Polypal Mothers, and Slave Priests, which is why EA R'Lyeh cannot use a blessing strategy very well.
I usually build quite a few of these guys for underwater expansion, but not too many. I recommend that you try to balance how many you need with the fact that they are only effective under the waves. I build far more Ilithids as MA/LA R'Lyeh than these guys for EA R'Lyeh, simply because they cannot be used in land battles. Having 200 Giboleth's looks cool, and makes a lot of noise in battles, but once you are prosecuting a long land campaign, that is a lot of cash tied up underwater.
Scouts:
Pretty standard scout type. He's amphibious and has darkvision 50, which help, but he has no special capabilities other than those. If sent out just for recon, I stick them on retreat orders so they take off if discovered and survive for more scouting if they can get away.
Slave Princes:
These guys aren't too bad as thugs or to bring larger amounts of standard troops to battle as the Aboleth leaders have high magical leadership, but poor normal leadership. A default magic resistance of 12 begs for +MR items and buffs, but they are reasonably strong and fairly well-equipped out of the box, and have 50 darkvision and are amphibious. I keep a couple of these guys around, but I usually don't build many.
Slave Priests:
Amphibious and sacred, but not much else to crow about. Holy 1 is all they come with. I use them mostly to build temples behind my armies. For those accompanying my forces, they are they to do a bit of holy casting, and to carry gems for my real mages and items like cauldrons of broth.
Slave Mages:
These guys are not too bad overall. They come with 2 Water and 1 Astral as well as 1 random pick of Earth, Water, Nature, or Astral. While vulnerable to mind duels, they can bring some diversity to your magic as the Aboleths and Mind Lords do not get a chance of Nature magic. They lose a water magic level when they venture onto land, and get the standard Merman poor amphibian penalty when on land.
I rarely use these for battle casters. They make acceptable stopgap researchers, and the chance of some nature magic can be a boon, but I prefer Aboleths and Mind Lords for most of my magic needs.
Polypal Mothers:
These are quite odd. They are sacred, blind, have 100% poison resistance, create free Polypal Spawns in friendly dominions, and have Holy 2 magic, but they can't move. I like having a couple here and there to bulk up my aquatic forces with freespawns (I'll go into the Polypal Spawn more later), but I don't advise building too many of these girls. They really are not that bad at helping defend your provinces if you are getting attacked underwater, but their immobility is a major limitation. You normally do not want that many Polypal spawns either.
Aboleths:
They come with 2 water and 2 astral as well as +1 to either death, earth, water, or astral. These are decent mages and have good stats overall (100 darkvision, 54 hit points, 18 MR, 150 magical leadership, mind blast attack, etc). Being size 4 makes them fairly large. The main problems with these otherwise excellent units are the aquatic only limitation and only having 2 misc magic item slots. They are still quite decent and I tend to build quite a few in my non-capital underwater forts.
Mind Lords:
I admit it. I love these guys. 3 water and 3 astral magic +1 to either water, earth, astral, or death and a 10% chance of another +1 to either of earth, astral, water, or death, makes them excellent mages. They are not cheap at 420/1, but that's a lot of magic power, they have good stats (such as 84 hit points, 100 darkvision, 165 magical leadership, and 20 MR) and their ranged attack is enslave mind! These guys are huge at size 6, which is bad for supplies and being a target, but you get a small recompense at the fact that they are hard to trample. The main problems with these guys is that they are, like is too often the case for EA R'Lyeh, aquatic and only 2 misc magic item slots, and on top of that, they are capital only. I still find these very good leaders.
Both the Aboleths and Mind Lords do get a strategic move of 2 when you give them their amulets of the fish, which gives you surprising strategic speed for a nominally aquatic nation.
Polypal Spawns:
You can't build these little things, but the Polypal Mothers and the Queen can spawn them for free in any water province where you have positive dominion. Another aquatic-only unit, they are not very strong and their low hit points hamper them, but they have decent combat skills, are size 1 which helps with the supply issue when you have many of them, they have decent protection, and their MR is slightly above average. Having some can be very useful for fighting in the waves, but I do not feel you would be best served by having too many. You really do not want to go overboard with the Polypal Mothers.
This is going to be huge looking at how far I have gotten already. I'll start a new post for the next section to make it easier to read.
Guide to EA R\'Lyeh
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