A Noobs Guide to: Lemuria

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Hicks
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A Noobs Guide to: Lemuria

Post by Hicks »

Lemuria: Soul Gate
Lemuria is a Dominions 4 nation of immortal ghost-mage priests supported by a ghost legionnaire freespawn army and whatever else you can conjure up with 15 death gems every turn. Or is it? This is a guide for noobs by a noob designed enlighten the reader with a basic understanding of why Lemuria is a nation of summoned immortal ghost-mage priests that aspires to not summon immortal ghost-mage priests.

Leaders of Ghost Men
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"Boo."

The first part of understanding Lemuria is recognizing that this nation eschews "resources" and "production" in lieu of freespawn, priest animated undead, and ghost-mage priests conjured for a terrifyingly mountainous pile of death gems. All of your immortal ghost-mage priests cost death gems and it is absolutely required for your pretender to start the game with at minimum Death 3 for magical paths. The good news is that Lemuria starts with a 15 death gem production site; the bad news is that your conjurable units worth a damn are tremendously overpriced; basic D1H1 Lemur Acolyte costs 15 death gems, and requires D2 to summon. The Lemur Thaumaturge has S1D2H2 but costs thirty death gems, and the Grand Lemur S2D3+100%(WASD) is fifty death gems. Please notice that the resource Lemuria desperately needs is "gold", specifically because freespawn made in fort-less provinces are crappy dispossessed spirits that paralyze on touch and cannot physically damage anything, while your spectral legionaries freespawned in forts are low protection ethereal units that at least have spears and swords and javelins; but there is always a catch, and this time its that every single attack your army does is "MR Negates".

I seriously cannot stress this enough: dispossessed spirits are absolute garbage and you need to put up as many 1000 gold castles in as many high dominion provinces as you can to get enough units that matter so that you won't be steamrolled by nations that have to actually pay gold for their armies. These ethereal legionaries will scythe through indies faster than wheat through a combine harvester.

Other freespawn of note: Apparitions, Ghosts (actual ghosts that are freespawned), and the legionaries with standards get separated out and placed in their own group. They go in your "second wave" after the chaff dispossessed spirits and priest summoned shades to use their stacking fear auras and route your enemies; super-effective against anything that isn't mindless. Finally there is your freespawn commander: the Shadow Tribune. This is an ethereal priest with H1 that leads 80 undead and shares the dispossessed spirits paralyzing touch attack and lack of ability to kill other units; getting them as freespawn is good, because I wouldn't spend actual mage-turns and gems to summon one. Shadow Tribunes are freespawned in provinces with a temple, and can generally take care of shuttling around units with a minimum of muss and fuss.

On the whole, Lemurian armies are really good, except when they aren't. The fact that every single unit in your armies is ethereal means that they steamroll everything that doesn't have magic weapons, but anyone with a D9 or F9 bless and specifically Ulm will bend your armies over the tree stump and make them scream like a piggy, deliverance style. This carries over into Provence Defense, 1 gold will get you a D1H1 ethereal Lemur Acolyte with a fear aura, and having a bunch of PD at a fort guarding a map choke point or throne is generally a good idea; just set up your armies behind the PD and let them die in front of your patrolling forces. Even in fort-less provinces I've seen that 1PD mage stop 60 man armies after Enchantment and Thaumaturgy 1 were researched. Eventually, you will only be able to have 1PD in any province within your dominion without a fort, as everyone who could have been conscripted will be dead; #domkill strikes again.

Now let's talk magic diversity: it's shit. You have death, and astral, and you won't get anywhere with water or air. This means that your pretender is going to have to cover some basic holes in order to be able to exist in the late game. What I find works is an Awake Titan of the Underworld, dominion 10, E2S6D5N2, Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3 (everything you care about has cold resistance or a chill aura), Death 3 (This won't matter as your dominion kills population off even with growth 3), Luck 3, Magic 3. "But Hicks!" I hear you say, "Magic 3 will just make me evaporate when they spam banishment!" and I can honestly say that it isn't that big a problem, +3 research is infinitely more useful and wars of aggression are not fought within your dominion.

That last point bears repeating: wars of aggression are not fought within your dominion. This single, immutable fact means that the whole point of Lumerian leadership (paying more for units that are immortal while in your dominion) is completely invalidated whenever you invade an enemy province. It's not all bad though, as you actually want your high income provinces to have enemy dominion, so those provinces stay high income and you can afford forts and temples in core provinces to produce the good freespawn.

The Plan
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"Not quite this simple."

So we have the unit overview and recommended pretender magic path and scales; the only parts left over is where I break the overall strategy down Barny-style, followed by the conclusion paragraph. More than any other nation, Lemuria is defined by spell research; it has this weird vibe where the more advance your spells become, the less and less you use Lemuria's national spells, and that is because all the national spells are so extremely overcosted for what you want to do. It's the same reason why everybody wants to use cheap and fast palisades rather than expensive and slow citadels; you want more of something lesser than less of something greater, and nowhere is that felt more strongly than with Lemuria's research goals. The Initial goal is enchantment 3.

Turn 1: Pretender researches Enchantment, Shadow Tribune becomes Prophet.
Turn 2: Pretender spends 30 gems to summon a Lemur Thaumaturge, Prophet takes all the spectral legionnaires and carves you an empire in the direction of the nearest throne.
Turn 3: Pretender resumes researching, Lemur Thaumaturge spends 15 death gems to summon a Lemur Acolyte.
Turn 4+: Same as Turn 3.

You do that until you hit Enchantment 3

Turn Enchantment 3: Lemur Thaumaturge spends 9 death gems on Create Revenant. Research Thaumaturgy to 1, excess research goes to Alteration 6. Thaumaturgy 1 is for the Frighten Spell for the Lemur Acolyte you get with 1 Provence Defense.
Turn Enchantment 3 +1 to +3: Lemur Thaumaturge spends 9 death gems on Create Revenant. Put all research to Alteration 6.
Turn Enchantment 3 +4: Pretender spends 15 death gems to summon another Lemur Thaumaturge, first Lemur Thaumaturge spends 9 death gems on Create Revenant.

Then you alternate the second Lemur Thaumaturge between researching and casting another Create Revenant whenever you get 18 or more death gems saved up.

Before Alteration 6, your whole game is land grab followed by defense; grab as much as you can and turtle up as hard as you can as soon as mages start appearing until you hit Alteration 6. Alteration 6 changes your game, because that means your Grand Lemurs can cast Soul Vortex, Invulnerability, Astral Shield, and either Fly + Mirror Image, or Quickness. Basically you get to pop out a Super-Combatant every 3.33 turns.

Next comes, in no particular order, Conjuration 3, Evocation 3, Thaumaturgy 3, and/or Construction 6; the former three are for site searching and teleport at Thaumaturgy 3, the latter is for Skull Mentors. A Skull Mentor forged by a Dwarven Hammer is the most efficient way to turn death gems into research.

After Skull Mentors its straight to the endgame of Conjuration 8, and everything else that comes along the way. Eventually Conjuration 6 brings Summon Specter for 22 death gems, a badly need diversification mage and a forger of jade armor, frost/shadow brands, lead shields, and amulets of antimagic; you should have already dedicated a Lemur Thaumaturge to craft Horror Helms. This is the point where having E2 or E3 on your pretender is so necessary, as Lemuria has no native access to Dwarven Hammers and their forge bonus, and how you can't afford to waste gems. Conjuration 7 sees the beginning of the Summon Mound Fiend spell, and the end of Grand Lemur production; would you rather keep paying 50 gems for an immortal ghost-mage priest or 28 gems for a D3H2 ghost-mage priest when you realize that you don't fight wars in your dominion where immortality can bring you back? Finally there's Conjuration 8, and with it the gem generator we care about, Well of Misery, as well as the Elemental and Fairy Royalty. With the above pretender, you have a decent shot King of Elemental Earth, and Faerie Court, which leads to Queen of Elemental Air, as well King of Banefires, which leads to King of Elemental Fire.

Although Conjuration 9 is ultimately the endgame for Lemuria, and Tartarian Gate requires only D7 and 10 death gems, to truly get a Tart Factory in operation going to get Enchantment 8 for Lichcraft (+skullface, +skull staff) and Gift of Health; you will have a shot at it, and if you miss gift of health you can still just spam Tartarian Gate and hope for the best.

In Conclusion
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"Seriously, it's right under this quote."

And that's it. Not a whole lot there, but then again there wasn't a whole lot there to begin with; Lemuria is very one-dimensional. I like Lemuria, I like the theme, I like the magic, I like the ghosts, I fuckn' hate the garbage dispossessed spirits, but everything else is OK. I understand that the reason behind a Grand Lemur costing 50 death gems is because it totally outclasses a Wraith Lord, which costs 40 death gems; their national summons cost more because they are better, but ultimately you want cheaper specialists doing better in their specialty over expensive generalists that are spread too thin, which is why a nation of summoned immortal ghost-mage priests strives more and more to not summon immortal ghost-mage priests for the entire game.
Last edited by Hicks on Tue Mar 04, 2014 5:33 am, edited 8 times in total.
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Shatner
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Posts: 939
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: A Noobs Guide to: Lemuria

Post by Shatner »

Great guide. Lemuria is a neat nation that is very nearly unplayable against human opposition (though it can be fun against the AI). One thing I'd add is that if the game you're playing lacks any water nations, especially including LA Atlantis, then you can gain a lot of needed territory taking your amphibious ghost troops under the sea. Ghosts do not fear poisonous coral spears.

Hicks wrote:I understand that the reason behind a Grand Lemur costing 50 death gems because it totally outclasses a Wraith Lord, which costs 40 death gems; their national summons cost more because they are better, but ultimately you cheap specialists doing well in their specialty over expensive generalists that are spread too thin, which is why a nation of summoned immortal ghost-mage priests strives more and more to not summon immortal ghost-mage priests for the entire game.
Ah, I see what you mean. That said, I think Lemuria ought to have either priests/mages spawning frequently from the dominion to compensate for their terrible inefficiency at acquiring additional commanders and researchers.
Sddam
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Re: A Noobs Guide to: Lemuria

Post by Sddam »

Really good guide, thanks a lot ! Image
Niles
Apprentice
Posts: 65
Joined: Fri Jul 02, 2010 2:58 am

Re: A Noobs Guide to: Lemuria

Post by Niles »

It's also a Dom4 guide though, so it may steer you wrong in some places if you are playing Dominions 5. I'm not a Lemuria player, but a few things to keep in mind as Changes. an effort was made to make researching with national summon better relative to generic ones, in fact the National summons were revised overall iirc. your immortality works outside your Dom in 5. the blesses have been completely overhauled. Lemuria is considered a fairly powerful nation in Dom5 as opposed to a weak one in 4. and more you'd want a better player more familiar with the nation to explain.

I've heard some players are experimenting with Heat 3 on the theory that many of your worst matchups are against cold loving nations that have magic ice weapons and the cold protection ability and having them fight worse and starve faster in your territory may be better than improving your chill auras.
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