I have played rlyeh before in mp, I can say one big weakness not brought here is the low morale on the slave mages, so you either spend gems on improving that morale or pray that the enemy doesn't have a fear spam strat (think wailing winds). Oh, and the coast recruit are actually pretty good with their AP attack plus buffs (strength of giants). Anyway, my two cents.
Great guide. I think one pretender potential that didn't get mentioned is embracing the insanity fully and going with a high death pretender; you can site search death well enough, so when the god breaks free you can leverage some of the most toxic globals in the game while being both less affected and being hell to invade and counter. Dropping Utterdark as R'lyeh is monstrous, and even Burden of Time harms you way less than it does most nations.
Oh and BTW, one nifty trick one can do early in terms of early game defense is communioning your star priests to rain smite or banishment. Just two star children is enough to raise any number of priests up to H3, allowing them to smite, and since it's a holy spell the fatigue buildup is miniscule. It's especially noteworthy if you encounter Ermor; while mind blast is great if they don't bring ghouls, if they do bring ghouls then a half-dozen H3's dropping Decree of the Underworld does wonders.
I think a major omission from your analysis is Enslave Mind at Thau 6. That is the reason you should research Thau in the early/mid game not Soul Slay. That is your most effective battle spell in many situations and greatly inhibits enemy tactics for fear of giving you free troops and especially mages. All your mages are astral and Enslave Mind can easily be cast by Cap mages on their own and non Cap mages can cast it with communions or boosters. Light of the Norther Star and Power of the Spheres are other ways of raising astral levels in battle. It is much better to capture an enemy unit than just soul slay in in a battle and in some situations you can get better troops at the end of a fight than you started with. This includes enemy mages which can be GoR'd to add magical diversity. You don't have to wait for the Late game for Master Enslave to devastate enemy armies, Enslave Mind gives access to a simpler version of that effect much earlier. In the late game you can combine one or two casts of Master Enslave with many follow up Enslave Minds picking off the left overs. No other nation in Dominions has as powerful a set up for mind control in the middle game. Edit: Reposted this with rest of comments.
I absolutely get that enslave mind is useful...I'm just not a huge fan of it for reasons that I think i'll explain around turn 30ish of the the game. I think that's a personal preference though, I won't try and defend it as optimum strategy. I like having SS because of the mind hunt application, but even that's only a later game priority. Again, personal preference. Master enslave is a joy, but again, not normally my first L9 research.
It's worth noting that the armored illithid troopers have a weaker mind blast than the unarmored ones. Unarmored has 12 paralyze damage, same as abolethians and starspawn, while the armored have 10 paralyze damage, same as star children and olms.
Absolutely an error. I was confused because i've used spare rings of sorcery to power mind hunts in test games when they weren't needed for something else ,but that is obviously highly inefficient. Slave mages are workable though with the right randoms.
Good luck with your country Perun! hope it gets some rain soon. Else. Hate to nitpick on insignificant lore details. But i dont think the meteor lands on the Basalt city. At least according to MA atlantis lore its just abbandoned. Likely because the basalt kings flee into the zotz caves?
I know this vid is 2 years old, I'm pretty new to the game, but I gotta say in my experience playing R'lyeh, my favorite faction, the traitor princes seem good. Like, really good, at least for production R'lyeh. Because of meteorite guards good morale, it doesn't seem to matter if they're taskmaster or not, mind blaster's are overrated and take up cash that could be spent on more starchildren and slave mages/starspawn. I think line formation cannot be understated. It's EXTREMELY useful. So useful I am genuinely sad whenever a commander DOESN'T have it. I'll take a solid amount of attrition in the later stages of the game, but by then I'll have forts pumping out Meteorite guards for a resupply. For early expansion and protecting your mages from any "rear most enemy" charges, Triple Lines walking as an, effectively, layered wall is way more valuable than I think you're giving it credit for. Mind blasters are OK but they do seem more like a Sloth R'yleh thing from beginning to end. I even throw my first commander and his garbage units into death just to get them off my screen while I recruit actually useful units and commanders. Just run everyone around with a slave mage or starspawn and you'll be fine for most all of the water stage, make sure they actually have spells though, and make sure to tell a slave priest you might run with your army NOT to run it down with the infantry like the chad he is. Mine love doing that. Boxes just allow cavalry charges to eat your illithids. I've seen it TOO MANY TIMES to believe it's acceptable. The issue I have with mind blasters in conjunction to Meteorite guards, is that the mind blasters just cost gold for a minimal increase in survivability. Why would I need mind blasters if that gold and upkeep cost could just be spent on monthly starspawn, slave mages, or even Starspawn for research, crafting, rituals, etc. Plus I just like the RP aspect of Production R'yleh more. Illithids are supposed to be powerful and amazing. Using Mind blasters as part of your normal forces doesn't make much sense, why would the octopus god man need to be out there fighting with or commanding the dirty mind slaves. No they only come out as powerful mages accompanied by their trusted meteorite mind slave body guards, providing mind breaking magical support for the traitors of Atlantis with their retinue of seasoned Meteorite Guard. Sloth R'yleh is more like a "Desperate attempt for the illithids to become relevant in a war they're losing." Using Mind blasters with Filthy lobo's and having to don armor as desperate Illithid commanders.
Is this the video you churned out drunk? Anyway, as a player of that GC game (Ctis) I appreciate leaving out the precise pretender build. I don't like to spoiler myself. In DoYouEvenLift I waited with watching all the video's until it was finished, like the good boi that I am.
I think a major omission from your analysis is Enslave Mind at Thau 6. That is the reason you should research Thau in the early/mid game not Soul Slay. That is your most effective battle spell in many situations and greatly inhibits enemy tactics for fear of giving you free troops and especially mages. All your mages are astral and Enslave Mind can easily be cast by Cap mages on their own and non Cap mages can cast it with communions or boosters. Light of the Norther Star and Power of the Spheres are other ways of raising astral levels in battle. It is much better to capture an enemy unit than just soul slay in in a battle and in some situations you can get better troops at the end of a fight than you started with. This includes enemy mages which can be GoR'd to add magical diversity. You don't have to wait for the Late game for Master Enslave to devastate enemy armies, Enslave Mind gives access to a simpler version of that effect much earlier. In the late game you can combine one or two casts of Master Enslave with many follow up Enslave Minds picking off the left overs. No other nation in Dominions has as powerful a set up for mind control in the middle game. A few mind blasters combine especially well with mages using Enslave Mind as they paralyse their targets and cause further disruption while the Enslave Mind spells enslave various troops including the paralysed ones. Commanders with mind blasters (including the coastal commander) are even more useful as they can be set to target rear enemies and that means you can often paralyse mages and they can then be enslaved before routing away. I like to use a bless that includes Arcane Finesse and Recuperation (dormant or imprisoned) as this makes Mind Hunt much more effective and allows Cap mages to recover from the occasional feeblemind or other afflictions. It also gives easy use of Tartarians in the late game by use of a shroud on some of them to remove any bad afflictions. A simple way to use a small group of Traitor Princes in the late game is to put them 2 on a tile and buff them with Body Ethereal and Iron Skin or Stygian Rain (use a Kokythiad to cast). These supplement lines of Meteorite Guard you advocate and can be given a few items to add other effects like dancing trident, vine shield and so on. They thrive in the same environment that favour Meteorite Guard (Darkness and Styian Rain, Fog warriors, Vampires and Ethereal enemies) and can provide some anti-thugging abilities by equipping suitable weapons.
Man its so sad Perun isnt making these. His best video series.
I have played rlyeh before in mp, I can say one big weakness not brought here is the low morale on the slave mages, so you either spend gems on improving that morale or pray that the enemy doesn't have a fear spam strat (think wailing winds). Oh, and the coast recruit are actually pretty good with their AP attack plus buffs (strength of giants). Anyway, my two cents.
Great guide. I think one pretender potential that didn't get mentioned is embracing the insanity fully and going with a high death pretender; you can site search death well enough, so when the god breaks free you can leverage some of the most toxic globals in the game while being both less affected and being hell to invade and counter. Dropping Utterdark as R'lyeh is monstrous, and even Burden of Time harms you way less than it does most nations.
Oh and BTW, one nifty trick one can do early in terms of early game defense is communioning your star priests to rain smite or banishment. Just two star children is enough to raise any number of priests up to H3, allowing them to smite, and since it's a holy spell the fatigue buildup is miniscule. It's especially noteworthy if you encounter Ermor; while mind blast is great if they don't bring ghouls, if they do bring ghouls then a half-dozen H3's dropping Decree of the Underworld does wonders.
Good ideas. Thanks bro
43:33 "because nothing is sacred" so true in every meaning ;-)
I think a major omission from your analysis is Enslave Mind at Thau 6. That is the reason you should research Thau in the early/mid game not Soul Slay. That is your most effective battle spell in many situations and greatly inhibits enemy tactics for fear of giving you free troops and especially mages. All your mages are astral and Enslave Mind can easily be cast by Cap mages on their own and non Cap mages can cast it with communions or boosters. Light of the Norther Star and Power of the Spheres are other ways of raising astral levels in battle. It is much better to capture an enemy unit than just soul slay in in a battle and in some situations you can get better troops at the end of a fight than you started with. This includes enemy mages which can be GoR'd to add magical diversity. You don't have to wait for the Late game for Master Enslave to devastate enemy armies, Enslave Mind gives access to a simpler version of that effect much earlier. In the late game you can combine one or two casts of Master Enslave with many follow up Enslave Minds picking off the left overs. No other nation in Dominions has as powerful a set up for mind control in the middle game.
Edit: Reposted this with rest of comments.
I absolutely get that enslave mind is useful...I'm just not a huge fan of it for reasons that I think i'll explain around turn 30ish of the the game. I think that's a personal preference though, I won't try and defend it as optimum strategy. I like having SS because of the mind hunt application, but even that's only a later game priority. Again, personal preference.
Master enslave is a joy, but again, not normally my first L9 research.
Hell yeah, very excited for a Ryleh game!
It's worth noting that the armored illithid troopers have a weaker mind blast than the unarmored ones. Unarmored has 12 paralyze damage, same as abolethians and starspawn, while the armored have 10 paralyze damage, same as star children and olms.
Nice video, thanks. 28:00 - Mind Hunt is Astral 4, so I don't think Star Children could cast it without artifact-level items (S1 + Coin + Cap = S3).
Absolutely an error. I was confused because i've used spare rings of sorcery to power mind hunts in test games when they weren't needed for something else ,but that is obviously highly inefficient. Slave mages are workable though with the right randoms.
Question off topic for anyone willing to answer, what is that gorgeous map in the background?
Good luck with your country Perun! hope it gets some rain soon.
Else. Hate to nitpick on insignificant lore details. But i dont think the meteor lands on the Basalt city. At least according to MA atlantis lore its just abbandoned.
Likely because the basalt kings flee into the zotz caves?
im an atlantis fanboy. clearly we would have won if not for the giant rock falling from the sky.
_Iä R'lyeh! Pretender ftagn! Iä! Iä!_
I know this vid is 2 years old, I'm pretty new to the game, but I gotta say in my experience playing R'lyeh, my favorite faction, the traitor princes seem good. Like, really good, at least for production R'lyeh. Because of meteorite guards good morale, it doesn't seem to matter if they're taskmaster or not, mind blaster's are overrated and take up cash that could be spent on more starchildren and slave mages/starspawn.
I think line formation cannot be understated. It's EXTREMELY useful. So useful I am genuinely sad whenever a commander DOESN'T have it. I'll take a solid amount of attrition in the later stages of the game, but by then I'll have forts pumping out Meteorite guards for a resupply. For early expansion and protecting your mages from any "rear most enemy" charges, Triple Lines walking as an, effectively, layered wall is way more valuable than I think you're giving it credit for. Mind blasters are OK but they do seem more like a Sloth R'yleh thing from beginning to end. I even throw my first commander and his garbage units into death just to get them off my screen while I recruit actually useful units and commanders. Just run everyone around with a slave mage or starspawn and you'll be fine for most all of the water stage, make sure they actually have spells though, and make sure to tell a slave priest you might run with your army NOT to run it down with the infantry like the chad he is. Mine love doing that. Boxes just allow cavalry charges to eat your illithids. I've seen it TOO MANY TIMES to believe it's acceptable.
The issue I have with mind blasters in conjunction to Meteorite guards, is that the mind blasters just cost gold for a minimal increase in survivability. Why would I need mind blasters if that gold and upkeep cost could just be spent on monthly starspawn, slave mages, or even Starspawn for research, crafting, rituals, etc.
Plus I just like the RP aspect of Production R'yleh more. Illithids are supposed to be powerful and amazing. Using Mind blasters as part of your normal forces doesn't make much sense, why would the octopus god man need to be out there fighting with or commanding the dirty mind slaves. No they only come out as powerful mages accompanied by their trusted meteorite mind slave body guards, providing mind breaking magical support for the traitors of Atlantis with their retinue of seasoned Meteorite Guard. Sloth R'yleh is more like a "Desperate attempt for the illithids to become relevant in a war they're losing." Using Mind blasters with Filthy lobo's and having to don armor as desperate Illithid commanders.
Because of the high speed on mermen and tritons I guess you could use them sort of like underwater cav? Just set to hold and then attack rear.
I _think_ it's pronounced Rr-le-ah?
Be safe man
Is this the video you churned out drunk?
Anyway, as a player of that GC game (Ctis) I appreciate leaving out the precise pretender build. I don't like to spoiler myself. In DoYouEvenLift I waited with watching all the video's until it was finished, like the good boi that I am.
I tried to post a comment on Enslave Mind but TH-cam eats my post :(
the cancer is real
I think a major omission from your analysis is Enslave Mind at Thau 6. That is the reason you should research Thau in the early/mid game not Soul Slay. That is your most effective battle spell in many situations and greatly inhibits enemy tactics for fear of giving you free troops and especially mages. All your mages are astral and Enslave Mind can easily be cast by Cap mages on their own and non Cap mages can cast it with communions or boosters. Light of the Norther Star and Power of the Spheres are other ways of raising astral levels in battle. It is much better to capture an enemy unit than just soul slay in in a battle and in some situations you can get better troops at the end of a fight than you started with. This includes enemy mages which can be GoR'd to add magical diversity. You don't have to wait for the Late game for Master Enslave to devastate enemy armies, Enslave Mind gives access to a simpler version of that effect much earlier. In the late game you can combine one or two casts of Master Enslave with many follow up Enslave Minds picking off the left overs. No other nation in Dominions has as powerful a set up for mind control in the middle game.
A few mind blasters combine especially well with mages using Enslave Mind as they paralyse their targets and cause further disruption while the Enslave Mind spells enslave various troops including the paralysed ones. Commanders with mind blasters (including the coastal commander) are even more useful as they can be set to target rear enemies and that means you can often paralyse mages and they can then be enslaved before routing away.
I like to use a bless that includes Arcane Finesse and Recuperation (dormant or imprisoned) as this makes Mind Hunt much more effective and allows Cap mages to recover from the occasional feeblemind or other afflictions. It also gives easy use of Tartarians in the late game by use of a shroud on some of them to remove any bad afflictions.
A simple way to use a small group of Traitor Princes in the late game is to put them 2 on a tile and buff them with Body Ethereal and Iron Skin or Stygian Rain (use a Kokythiad to cast). These supplement lines of Meteorite Guard you advocate and can be given a few items to add other effects like dancing trident, vine shield and so on. They thrive in the same environment that favour Meteorite Guard (Darkness and Styian Rain, Fog warriors, Vampires and Ethereal enemies) and can provide some anti-thugging abilities by equipping suitable weapons.