Lanka Guide (and Mini-Blood Guide) 3.10 Patch

[Huzurdaddi]

This is a fantastic guide. One of the best I have ever seen. Congratulations.

One suggestion to make it over the top amazing: some screen shots of your troop placement during inital expansion, and maybe a couple of your uber armies (with sub-screen shots of some of the leaders that make the armies go).

[Meglobob]

Great guide.

Its a totally comprehensive guide to playing Lanka. So much that I can't think of anything to add and lots of new ideas for me to use...

[Seve82]

This is nice guide indeed. Would be great if someone added this to this Lazy_Perfectionists list of guides:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[Cerlin]

This is a very useful guide thank you! Before this guide i have never been patient enough to successfully play Lanka. Now that I have read this I had a really fun game with them and I have really discovered how to have fun!

I think this is a great aspect that Dominions 3 always has something new to offer!

[MKDELTA]

Flight is a pretty nice spell for the Raksharajas, I think, at least early on. It's like a sniper attack versus those indies who have their commanders loitering around archers. Bless - Flight (make sure he is enough far away from any troops!) - Attack enemy archers. Tadah. I wouldn't use it against Hoburg Crossbows though, and it's not 100% risk free, but I like it. Much more effective than plain lightning bolt.

Also, for Anusaras, I sometimes make them in the very start when I can't affrod that many tiger heads. I put them on the flanks with orders of attack archers or attack rear. They are pretty fast and then to reach the archers/rear pretty fast. With the tiger heads on the front, it's a pretty tight trap and kills those "medieaval" infantry & archer indies dead. Maybe not world's most effective tactic, but I like it too, so the donkey heads are not completely useless IMO.

[TwoBits]

The donkey-demons also have a strategic move of 3, which might be useful in certain circumstances.

Also, beware of unscripted blood mages. They will indeed "share" other units' slaves (spamming stuff like Summon Imps), often when you'd rather they didn't. And I think the "sharing" range is a way lot more than three - at least I remember it that way the last time I played Lanka (that was a couple patches ago though).

[K]

MKDELTA said:
Flight is a pretty nice spell for the Raksharajas, I think, at least early on. It's like a sniper attack versus those indies who have their commanders loitering around archers. Bless - Flight (make sure he is enough far away from any troops!) - Attack enemy archers. Tadah. I wouldn't use it against Hoburg Crossbows though, and it's not 100% risk free, but I like it. Much more effective than plain lightning bolt.

Also, for Anusaras, I sometimes make them in the very start when I can't affrod that many tiger heads. I put them on the flanks with orders of attack archers or attack rear. They are pretty fast and then to reach the archers/rear pretty fast. With the tiger heads on the front, it's a pretty tight trap and kills those "medieaval" infantry & archer indies dead. Maybe not world's most effective tactic, but I like it too, so the donkey heads are not completely useless IMO.

Unfortunately, these are two ideas I can't really support.

Flight tends to get Raksharajas killed, and at 270 a pop for a capital-only commander you do research and reanimating with, its something I just can't justify. If you were going to do it in an emergency situation, make sure to cast Air Shield first so that you hopefully last a few rounds. In the mid-game when you have equipment and Mistform, this tactic sees use but in the early game an average indie province can be taken by 2-5 Palashankas and an H2 with no losses, so tossing a Rakshraja with no equipment into the mix is just asking for a dead commander with little additional combat effectiveness.

Anusaras are also a bad move if only gold is your limit. For the gold, I'll take two Palashankas for three Anusaras any day of the week. Heck, if you count in sheer survivability and the effects of XP, I'd take one Palashanka over three Anusaras.
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Someone else also noted that Anusara(donkey heads) have a map move of 3. I find that this is pretty useless as the rest of your army is generally move 2, including the Kala-mulka that do most of your magical leadership.

[Tharsonius]

Great guide, it helped me a lot in a war against Lanka I'm fighting right now

To win you have to know your enemy.

[Aezeal]

Do I see it correct that if you have a nature 9 bless (berserk) and a battlefield wide damage spell is cast (earthquake) that you won't cast anything anymore and your mages will probably all die?

[thejeff]

Well, any of your sacred mages that take damage will probably berserk or die, so yes.

Of course, with many nations, your mages will just die. Berserk isn't worse than dead.

You could not bless the mages, but that's tricky if you want to bless sacred troops.