Kailasa VS Lanka

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K said:
I probably would have used meatshields of markata. The Def 14 and low costs means that the Rakshasa will actually kill them slower than the armored Bandar, and cost a whole lot less.

Also, rather than enchantment 4, I'd aim for Evocation 5. If that pretender had been spamming Shadow Blast and instead of Yogis you toss down the E3 or W3 guys, I think you'd have seen more Lanka deaths.

Thanks for the tips, K! Actually I was using Atavi warriors in the test, not Bandar, I thought it would take longer to kill them. I didn't even think about using the little monkeys. Too bad the little guys have 14 move, it would be nice if they ran slower so that the Palankas could waste more time on them.

I ran it again, this time with 200 Markata archers as the "meatshield", 100 atavi archers in the backfield, and 1 Bladewind caster, 2 Falling Frost casters, god Shadow Blasting. It looked promising, but the Bladewind was less effective than Falling Frost, and the atavi didn't do much damage without Flaming Arrows.

So I tried one more time, 200 Markata only, 5 Falling Frost casters, god Shadow Blasting. Worked well until turn 6. Then the god decided to start buffing and the mages decided to banish instead of frosting. Bleh.

But if I research both Enchant 4 and Evoc 5, then Lanka dies to the combo of spells and flaming arrows.

[Morkilus]

Pretenders aside, I'd never think Kailasa would ever be a good match against Lanka. Lanka is one of the strongest nations, from what I've heard.

[Kuritza]

And now give Lanka some mages and thugs too, and cry as your monkeys bite dust. I dont understand why is everyone saying 'side A has much stronger troops, but side B can even that with magic'. Magic works for both sides.
Anyway, Lanka has a potential to become very strong, yes, but so far it seems its much weaker than Mictlan so you can go against Langa and win 1 vs1. Monkey demons are harder to amass than Jaguar, early summons are weaker etc.
In one of our games Kailasa actually rushed Lanka early with a Deva god. Defense boosted over 30 and an eye shield took care of the demons easily, while Lanka didnt think of using same eye shields on its commanders against Deva.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

As someone suggested, I can use Markata archers as archer decoys. The problem is those fast low-resource herbivore demons mess up my targetting plans. I did take an awake air pretender for a reason, but place him too close to my chaff. There's nothing to gain by casting aim on Atavi. Because of our close proximity, not much research can be gained. I 'spect alteration 2, maybe.

I think if I replayed the same match, I'd be much more cafeful to have a prophet ready, cut back on the sacred recruits in favor of earlier Earth-Melders and play more defensively, resisting the temptation to rush their castle. Maybe I'd raid their nearby provinces though to cut down on resources, gold. I'd use some monkey PD as a very small speedbump while casting Earth-meld with enough durable bodyguards to prevent an auto-route, and then maybe throw in some archers. I would take that same low air bless, but actually have a prophet on hand..

I expect I might be defeated again, but at least not in such a laughable matter. Because of their runner demons, I ended up targetting the wrong guys altogether.

[K]

Kuritza said:
And now give Lanka some mages and thugs too, and cry as your monkeys bite dust. I dont understand why is everyone saying 'side A has much stronger troops, but side B can even that with magic'. Magic works for both sides.
Anyway, Lanka has a potential to become very strong, yes, but so far it seems its much weaker than Mictlan so you can go against Langa and win 1 vs1. Monkey demons are harder to amass than Jaguar, early summons are weaker etc.
In one of our games Kailasa actually rushed Lanka early with a Deva god. Defense boosted over 30 and an eye shield took care of the demons easily, while Lanka didnt think of using same eye shields on its commanders against Deva.

In our "fight club" scenario, we are looking at ways to defeat the Lanka rush which they do so very well on turn 10.

Frankly, Lanka's main weakness is that they lag in early game research because they have so many competing things to make like blood hunters, Reanimating priests, and Blessing Priests for Tigerhead Armies. On turn 10 they might only have a 1 or 2 in one path.

Kailasa, on the other hand, can start heavy research on Turn 1, and have a 5 on turn ten.

So in our scenario, we are looking at Kailasa's strengths vs Lanka's weaknesses, since we already know that on the flipside Lanka's strengths naturally trump Kailasa's weaknesses.

On turn 30, I'd say it was anyone's game. Player skill, position, and just plain luck in site searching matter more than what nation you are playing, but at turn 10 it seriously is a finite problem of "what did you build and what did you research."

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Interesting way to phrase things, K.

I think I do need to look at it in another light. Although this is a very cramped map, I may consider refocusing. While we both have equivalent stealth forces, a focus on their national sacreds left them with one army about 80 strong. If I focus on my expansion, research, and enough raiding to slow them down, I may be able to change the balance of the game.

Suppose I take one magic scale, do about 8 research a turn from those earth sacred mages.

Go with trying to survive to turn 11... it's worth noting that stealth troops can go into a sieged fortress to reinforce it, or go out to raid/eat.

think of research starting on turn 2, putting sacred troops as a low priority... (8+80)/2*10 = 440 RP. On standard, looking at the aggregate research total 40, 100, 200, 360. That's level four easy, with a little leeway, and if I had went with the standard blitz easy research, even more.

Hmm... that'll give me a lot to think about next time someone wants a "quickie" and I want a Planet of the Apes rematch.

[Kuritza]

For a beforementioned Deva SC you just need construction 2. Quite possible to have on turn 10, right? Awe + fear + eye shield should disperse Lanka's main army.

[Edratman]

K said:
[On turn 30, I'd say it was anyone's game. Player skill, position, and just plain luck in site searching matter more than what nation you are playing, but at turn 10 it seriously is a finite problem of "what did you build and what did you research."

This should be etched in stone as the top line of the forum.

[Morkilus]

K said:
On turn 30, I'd say it was anyone's game. Player skill, position, and just plain luck in site searching matter more than what nation you are playing, but at turn 10 it seriously is a finite problem of "what did you build and what did you research."

Except the problem is infinitely complicated by the "what did they build and what did they research" problem. Which makes it a game. If there was only one way to do this, it would be a broken game.

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Kuritza said:
For a beforementioned Deva SC you just need construction 2. Quite possible to have on turn 10, right? Awe + fear + eye shield should disperse Lanka's main army.

I was trying to come up with a solution that actually used monkey troops though. I do think Kailasa needs an awake pretender to counter Lanka. And Lanka needs an imprisoned pretender to get E9N9 (or W9N9 or W9E9 etc)

Kailasa can research const 4 by turn 10 with an awake pretender. But one problem with using an SC god solution is that there are counters. Lanka can research const 2 by turn 10, and Yogini can make Eye Shield thugs too. Lanka can Spirit Curse by then too.

If you use an AOE weapon like a Frost Brand, do you still lose an eye? Maybe not if you miss the actual hit and only do AOE damage, I'm not sure.

And Awe+0 or Awe+3 is not effective against blessed Palankas, since when blessed they have Morale 16. Fear is that not effective either against Morale 16, and if a N9 Palanka gets wounded but not killed (Frost Brand AOE hit), it berserks.