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[Rez]

A W9 blessed gibodai and slave guardian army might be interesting.  It looks like it's impossible to get them out of the water though.

[Frumple]

Yeah, pretty much. The non-triton slave guardians, sure, but not the gibodai. Well, unless you GoR'd the gibodai and stuck fish amulets on them, I guess. Sorta' looks like they don't even have misc slots, though. Gem inefficient doesn't even begin to cover that, though.

[Rez]

Might as well just recruit polypal mothers then.

ed: oh no map movement

[Rez]

The idea is probably more viable for MA and LA R'lyeh, losing the bless aspect and just using illithids.

[Frumple]

Yeeup. If you're going for non-aquatic sacred mindblasters, I think your only option is argathan olms.

[Elfeater]

Im playing as the ape deamons, how on gods green earth do I beat the EA Abyisians? fire too stronk.

[Rez]

What are you trying to do?  It looks like you're supposed to build blood economy and spam thuggy summons.  Given that, I'd try to develop some fire-resisting gear for my thugs to wear.

[Elfeater]

I was pushing south with two armies and some mercenaries, and ran into their armies, we managed to win one battle, but our forces got decimated in the process.

[Shadowlord]

Mind blast units are relatively expensive to archers and they seem like they're better for supporting your heavy infantry than doing damage of themselves.

Playing r'lyeh actually left me kind of curious on that subject -- not nearly curious enough to run the ridiculous amount of number crunching that would be involved to find out in any definitive way, but curious. Mindblasters definitely have a higher upfront cost and immediate upkeep, but I've also found them considerably less vulnerable to attrition and also notably more capable in general of combat-killing (not necessarily removing something's HP, but paralyzing them long enough for something else to kill them). There's probably all sorts of weird breakpoints where mindblasters become more cost efficient than archers and vice versa.

S'like. In one fight, is five archers (nevermind the significantly higher resource cost) going to be able to cause the death of more critters than a single illithid? Which will survive more fights? How much gold is it taking to keep those five archers around (i.e. maintain them in the face of combat losses) compared to that illithid? The equation almost certainly changes when there's 50 archers vs 10 illithids, or 500 vs 100, but... how much?

And naturally enough, those illithids are going to be massively more effective against certain types of armies... and the opposite is also true. It's an incredibly messy thing to consider, heh.

Also potentially better against trampling and flying SCs, where you don't want to lose your troops to friendly fire from archers - if the SC's MR isn't so high that it just ignores all the mindblasting, anyways.

I got the impression your illithid+lobo armies were pretty squishy from the early-mid (TC etc) battles in 404 (and when you fought MA Ulm), but Ulm especially is tough (and TC looked pretty tough too). But I was comparing it with how mine were doing, and I know I had a lot tougher troops, but you were able to mass produce yours on a much greater scale, which let you attack all over the map simultaneously by the end, whereas I had basically two large armies, and a bunch of marble oracle SCs. How many armies was that, around a dozen?

For my part, I think the olms seemed to work pretty well together with the longbowmen, with sentinels and SGs in front to catch charging troops. The longbowmen did much of the killing, and the olms paralyzed things. They didn't have to sit there and mindblast the same things over and over as much because it would get killed by arrows. I'm not sure if being paralyzed made them any easier to hit or harm, though. If it's just a roll against size and fatigue (IIRC?) to see if it hits them or empty space you wouldn't think it would matter if they were paralyzed (unless paralysis maxes out their fatigue?).

I definitely like using line formations to minimize casualties from arrows and spells - the morale hit seems unimportant when you have a bunch of H2 or H3 casters to cast sermon of courage (or fanaticism if you have an H4).

[Shadowlord]

Magic duel doesn't work if the enemy army doesn't have any astral mages in it, right?

[Frumple]

S'far as I'm aware, yeah. Also won't work on mindless astral mages, ala golems. It's strictly anti-astral, and one of the reasons taking astral (particularly low astral) on a combat pretender is incredibly risky.

[Neonivek]

S'far as I'm aware, yeah. Also won't work on mindless astral mages, ala golems. It's strictly anti-astral, and one of the reasons taking astral (particularly low astral) on a combat pretender is incredibly risky.

Its rather Master of Magic in a sort of way.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Im playing as the ape deamons, how on gods green earth do I beat the EA Abyisians? fire too stronk.

I don't have experience with Lanka much, but a few basic things you might not be aware:
1) Dakini are awesome. Whether you use them for raiding or army casting, they're a ridiculously good way to spend your slaves
2) EA Lanka is one of the few nations that can reanimate the dead with their living priests, use this to your advantage. Spam indie priests from non-fort temples like there's no tomorrow

[Mindmaker]

What do your endgame formations looks like?

Mainly asking because it becomes such a pain to position huge numbers of mages without bunching them up (so they aren't attractive to spells and ranged attacks) and placing them away from regular troops so they don't get hit by strays.
Also it becomes increasingly difficult to not turn your army into a blob, since each and every gap becomes progressively filled out.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Chaff up front. "Real" troops and archers in some kind of NOT-blob behind them (leave some room for overshot arrows/evocations). Some rearguards in case of fliers/battlefield summons (Howl etc.). I usually leave my mages in a long line, either filling up squares or just 1-mage/square, depends on my numbers. Slaves, enchantment casters and long-range evokers get placed far back. Others generally get placed in the sides or rear of the "real" troop formations. If possible try to have some big bags of HP in your chaff (trolls etc.) as lightning rods.

Idea is that the chaff gets shot up so that the better troops can advance relatively unharmed. Shots aimed at the better troops will hopefully hit them and not the mages in the edges of the formations.

Getting some buffs on your mages really ups their survivability. S9 bless, battle fortune, wave warriors, anything you can cast. Really easy if you have communions or battlefield wide stuff available.

It's definitely tricky, I'm not honestly sure I'm even doing a great job of it.

I guess the easiest way to un-blob your army would be to divide it. Break your army into smaller splinters if you can get away with it. Instead of taking province per turn from the enemy, take three or five. Hundred guys and some mages x3 gets more done than three hundred guys and a blob of mages. Admittedly that depends on the relative strengths and the geography of where you're fighting. I've seen some players (on bay12 and elsewhere) to get reeeally fixated on big blobs. There's a time and place for those, certainly. Can't break a castle with fifty dudes. But being flexible enough to hit multiple targets at once can be a great income denier for your enemy.

Best way to fight an unholy lategame doomstack is to go around it if you can. Either that or turn-1 earthquake