Help vs LA R'lyeh

Trumanator · #1 July 15th, 2008, 02:56 AM

I'm playing a low quality LA hotseat with my brother. I am Ulm and he is R'lyeh. Atm we are semi even with slight advantage to him. How do I counter the chaff protected illithids? Unfortunately I don't have a lot of gems or income since we're playing with fairly low settings, but I have a lot of blood slaves and all blood magic researched. I also have full construction. Please Help!

Kristoffer O · #2 July 15th, 2008, 06:08 AM

Get archers to get rid of his chaff. Or use iron blizzard or some such. His chaff is mostly unprotected I would imagine.

Perhaps a 'bloodletting' to kill all chaff (including yours)

It was a while since I played LA Ulm, so I'm not sure what they have.

Low settings might be harsh on you, since he has freespawns regardless of his income.

Zeldor · #3 July 15th, 2008, 06:59 AM

I think the only option for you is to surrender. When it comes to LA R'lyeh he can beat 3-5 oppponents at once.

Karlem · #4 July 15th, 2008, 10:53 AM

The only way to win that for me is going for quality. Use SCs or thugs with very high MR and enough kiling power to destroy his chaff.

You can also try flying units on attack archers, but I'm not sure if that works 100% (can anyone confirm illithids count as archers?). Otherwise try them attacking back.

Have you tried skelly spamming?

Sombre · #5 July 15th, 2008, 11:05 AM

The answer here seems to me to be getting several of the high power blood summons such as heliophagi, archdevils and so on, kitting them out with anti chaff high mr items and going to town.

The real problem is going to be invading his water provinces. I can't remember if you can send horrors underwater,.... if you can those would be ideal for disrupting him.

thejeff · #6 July 15th, 2008, 11:12 AM

illithids are archers.

I've used this. It works. Especially if he's using the low resource unarmored ones.

Summon vampires lords and have them summon vampires.
Dominion push so you can use your vampires in dominion. This takes a while to build up, so if you're already pushed to the wall it won't help, but flying immortals are great on defense.

For offense, you'll need SCs.

Zenzei · #7 July 15th, 2008, 11:48 AM

Thugs/SCs are definitely way to go and I suggest using GoRed gargoyles(fairly easy to do with LA Ulm). Gargoyles are lifeless and mindless which makes them immune to LOT of nasty stuff, just kit them out with anti-chaff and MR items.
Beware stellar cascades for it's the best thug/SC killer in the game imo.

Regarding the attack underwater, just pillage each and every province you manage to get under the waves because you can't hold them for long anyway. Also remote bombard sea provinces with plagues and such in order to ruin R'lyeh's economy.

Trumanator · #8 July 15th, 2008, 12:34 PM

I'm starting to think that the attack rear command is bugged, everytime I use it my guys ignore it and just attack closest. Also, how do you counter someone spamming DoR? I was going to research enchantment and try putting up some domes, but i don't know how effective that will be, especially with my not too good gem income. One more thing, he somehow dispelled my Looming Hell enchantment with only 101 pearls even though the enchantment cost 150 blood slaves.

thejeff · #9 July 15th, 2008, 01:01 PM

A squad set to attack rear has to make a morale check for each squad it passes on the way to the rear, or they'll attack them instead.

As for the dispel, I don't remember offhand how much the base cost for Looming Hell is but if those were the total gems used, it doesn't look too unreasonable. Only gems above the base cost of the global are considered for a Dispel. Dispel is 30 so he had +71 gems. If Looming Hell costs 80+, he'd have a good shot. Pathlevel of the casters also figures in.

Tifone · #10 July 15th, 2008, 01:23 PM

Looming hell costs exactly 150 blood slaves, and it is a global EVERYBODY HATE, exactly like astral corruption. So, you aren't supposed to cast them when you reach the exact amount. As in many MP games the players will gather together the pearls for a very good Dispel, you need to pump in it AT LEAST 100 more slaves to make it very difficult to dispel - it will usually take you just one more turn of blood hunting.

thejeff is right, the dispelling mechanics are difficult but you can search the manual, the FAQ and a previous thread for them. Anyway they surely consider the path level of the caster and MAINLY the gems/pearls/slaves the caster of the global put IN SURPLUS of the initial cost in the global itself, compared to the pearls the dispeller puts IN SURPLUS to the dispel.

If I understood correctly, you put exactly the 150 slaves for the Looming Hell in your global, and he pumped in it 71 more pearls to be sure to dispel it. At this ratio, the dispel was obvious, but if it can comfort you somehow he quite wasted those 71 gems in surplus as putting just 10 in the dispel would have made it a quite sure dispelling too

P.S. damn, I want a brother to play this game with me too

maybe if I ask my girlfriend... mmh better not