Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Alright, I hadn't really taken a look at MA Oceana before I drew them in Kingmaker, and all I can say is wow. I can't think of any nation - land or sea which is weaker and I say that with some pretty strong credentials of making weaker nations shine. I got to thinking about the points brought up in the MA Man thread, and I have to say everything brought up applies even more to MA OCeana. This is a nation which does just fine against indies but steadily and rapidly declines in power after that point.

EA Oceana is a one trick pony with a very good pony. MA is the same only without the pony. Most everyone knows of the terror of EA Oceana's dual bless knights, they are (outside of the significant drawback of being aquatic only) definitely on the short list of best recruitable units in the game. A devastating early game, and easy access to clams gives you a viable strategy, if not much versatility.

Now, anybody who hasn't looked too closely might think MA Oceana is fairly similar. The problem is, the sacreds have two critical differences from EA - twice the encumbrance, from 4 to 8 (!) and loss of the lance first strike charge (they use tridents). The absurd encumbrance means that even with an earth blessing they don't have the staying power to fight heavily outnumbered, and the loss of the lance (devastating at the speed of the EA knights) means they don't have the power to punch through tougher foes. They're just not effective at their cost.

Ok, looking at the rest of the roster, MA Oceana does have two fairly decent units. Their heavy infantry is good, but so resource intensive that even with production-3 you won't be fielding large numbers of them. The other unit, surprisingly (to me at least) effective is their amphibious centaurs. They've got a light lance (first strike bonus), good defense and decent hitpoints - they do a pretty respectable job of clearing indies so long as you dump gold into getting critical mass of these 40 gold units. They've got light armor though, and no hoof attack or berserk so they struggle against any real army which can blunt their initial charge.

So, after you're done with your initial expansion you've got some heavy infantry and flankers - nothing that will cause any nation to pause as they run over you with their best stuff. Look to your artillery to see what you have to bring for support in your underwater fights....do you hear crickets? Outside of level one randoms all you've got to use is nature and water. There are a couple combat spells you can cast that are better than useless, but not by much considering you've got no poison immune troops.

Ok, most people seem to disagree with my assessment of MA Atlantis, and [sarcasm]everybody knows R'yleh's weak[/sarcasm], so lets say you manage to somehow control your entire body of water. Here's the nice surprise - those mages you were already struggling to put to use are completely castrated out of the water. They lose one to *every* magic path, which means completely losing the level 1 randoms they got and dwindling down to mediocre strength in their primary schools. You're best mage is a 350 gold ~2N 2W guy (depending on randoms). Not a one of your mages can cast falling frost without boosters. You've got no poison resistant troops to leverage the obvious thing W/N is good for on the battlefield.

Alright, lets say half the board dies a dominion death and you manage to survive dragging yourself onto the land and everybody ignored you into late game. Now you've got the joy of having not a hint of astral, blood, death or fire, and not even enough earth & air to site search with. I'll go ahead and put it this way - there is not a *single* top tier combat spell your mages can cast, even with any reasonable boosters. Not a single top tier summon. Not a single top tier ritual. There's not even really many good ones. Adding insult to injury, lots of stuff can't be cast underwater, so even the paths you nominally get are crippled. Plus, between wings and fins, you're short on slots.

Well, at least you can forge clams....unless they're uber nerfed by a mod. :/ Not that you really have a use for pearls anyway - there aren't even any indie astral mages underwater...


So, I think there are significant changes which need to be done to bring this nation up to a playable level. A lot of the complaints I list above are thematic, and thus unlikely to change.

The sacreds are mostly crippled by the encumbrance. This is logical as they're centaurs and carrying the weight of the armor rather than being mounted. In practice though it totally hoses them to have an encumbrance this high. Dropping it from 8 to 6 would make them viable with an earth bless, though still not nearly as strong as the EA guys.

Ichy-centaurs should get a hoof attack when on land. They're green tailed centaurs but don't use their hooves. They also should get a berserker flag - why are they so much weaker than regular centaurs while costing the same? No hoof, no berserk, no javelin...but they cost the same.

Since its unlikely the mechanic which castrates mages out of water will be changed, they need to be made more powerful in the water to compensate. Capricorns should have a higher randomness and be able to achieve E3 (they can't use boots underwater, and loose a level on the ground), and W5 so some of them could actually cast water spells out of the water (I mean really, compare them to the Kings of the Deep!). Sirens should get A2 on land (maybe bumping up in cost). Sirens should also have a chance to seduce but not immediately drown enemy commanders - this would go a loooooooong way towards helping with diversification and getting some support on land.

National spells. They need an amphibious, poison immune summon of reasonable toughness so their mages can effectively use the few spells they can cast. They need a few unique high end mage summons who are not crippled out of the water (along the lines of Tloques). Maybe a battlefield enchantment to level the field a bit since they're so tied to the water to help level the field a bit. Viscous mists: +4 encumbrance & reduced AP for non amphibious/aquatic troops, also reduced precision.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

I don't find MA Oceania that weak, underwater at least. Above water, I agree they have more trouble than any other water nation.

The two strengths they really have to play to are easy searching for kelp forests, and their 2 resource super-tritons. With a bit of luck this can result in a turbo-start they can coast on for quite a while.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Evilhomer played Ma Oceania in a MP I was in and thrashed everybody. In the late game he had Seraphs, hordes of iron dragons and tarrasques. He had more gems than the gnomes of Zurich and they have alot of gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

This was down to Ma and Ea Oceanias main late game strengh, clamming, they can use it to overwhealm the world and reach godhood.

Your main problem Baalz is clamming in Kingmaker has been utterly nerfed, thus destroying Ea & Ma Oceanias late game completely.

There is no way I would play Ea & Ma Oceania in any game where clamming has been nerfed, as it destroys those 2 nations.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

EH also played MA Oceania in Fallacy, and that did not work out so well. Though again, with a clam nerf mod. But with clam nerf mods on the rise, should a race be solely dependent on them for survival past the early game?

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Well, I get the impression that EH would support my premise rather than refuting it. Dominions has enough of a random element that even a weak player (which EH is not) can start next to an even weaker player, and another who stales a lot and another who is already fighting on three fronts and before you know it stumble into a win even with good players on the map. I guess my point is, the fact that somebody won with them once doesn't really mean too much.

@QM: Yes, the kelp fortress is a nice boon (if you don't also happen to be playing with very difficult research. :/ ), and they've got a couple decent options for fairly rapid expansion against indies. The problem is, what then? And it doesn't start when they try to leave the water, it starts as soon as any amount of research is done. Even if you luck into a couple kelp fortresses very early and leverage it into a redneck rush I can't see you having any chance against the second nation you fight with, assuming reasonable skill levels all around. You've just got nothing to back up your troops (which while not terrible, aren't great), and not even anything to look forward to as research progresses. If you consider the situation out of water this goes from terrible to absolutely ridiculous.

@Xietor and Meglobob: clam nerfs do hurt Oceana, but I think that's a bit of a secondary issue. I don't even think Oceana is a particularly good clam hoarder. With just a little bit of work (or a little bit of luck) any nation can scrape together a couple clam forgers which is all you generally need to exhaust your water income. Oceana can't even forge hammers.

The thing is, even without the clam nerf you've got to survive quite a long time before clamming can give enough income to be a central facet to your power in a totally non-astral nation. Yeah, chain wishing is nice, but clams don't really do too terrible much for you up until that point.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

As far as underwater combat, your mages can hold their own. I mean, you can do shark attacks, foul vapors, charm, living water and water strike in a pinch. I agree getting far above water takes a rather large component of luck.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Clam nerfs were put in with the Ryleh in mind, not Oceania. Oceania just gets some of the effect.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

You can Charm like crazy if land nation tries to invade you.

But if you ask me I don't like underwater combat at all. My solution would be to make underwater stronger but also entering water easier. Especialyl for nations that have bad access to water/air forgers.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

While this is absolutely true (I was the main beneficiary of said seraphs, dragons and tarrasques http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) EH was served by circumstances. (quite apart from being a top notch player of course. ) He got an ally to help him defeat the only other water nation, and was then left alone for half an eternity with several globals running (don't remember which ones, no nexus until very late at least, but he might have had the forge up. If not at least a couple of gem producers. ) while the other strong nations duked it out in a massive mellee in the middle of the map.

I haven't tried to make MA Oceania work myself, but on paper it looks like I have to agree with Baalz. They do seem to have a better shot at land expansion against indies/weak or half defeated players than many other water nations, but apart from that? I don't see any real strenghts to take advantage of. (and having played EA Oceania myself in the last megagame, I do agree that the oceania don't really have much of an advantage on the clamming field either. )

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Considering Ichtycentaurs - it would probably be more thematic to give them tail attack instead of hoof. Stats could be the same or little better. I don't remember whether berserk is thematic for them (probably no), but they could get more Protection, being covered with scales, not horseskin.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

So, the more I play with these guys, the more they confirm my initial impression. I just don't understand how anybody could play these guys competitively without counting on extreme luck of the non-scale variety. If you do it right you can get a very impressive initial expansion. You've got *nothing* to take out elite troops though - which of course you'll be facing just as soon as the indies are gone.

The kelp forests are nice, and they help you with your fast expansion against the indies. Even with an *overwhelming* economic and production advantage though you've got not a single effective thing to spend it on once you start fighting another nation. Super triton are above par as far as low resource chaff goes (not *great*) - but low resource chaff will never win all by itself unless your opponent is asleep at the wheel. Similarly, none of your other recruitable troops will take out : high protection troops, high defense troops, enemy chaff (quickly enough to get to the mages), high damage dealing troops....elite troops of any kind or enemy mages will slaughter you, and you've got absolutely nothing to counter with even if you know exactly what your enemy will be fielding.

Shark attack - as anyone you'll be fighting can cast the same thing, I don't see this is really any advantage outside of fighting off invasions by land races (the very least of your worries). This is, of course assuming you can even get to conj-5 before you're crushed. Additionally, this spell has been recently nerfed.

Foul vapors - with no poison immune or even resistant forces, no thugs (recruitable or summonable), and no battlefield summons (other than water elementals - a total gem sink for general purpose use) I fail to see how this can be leveraged outside of tiny niches. Underwater troops tend to have higher hps, making it pretty difficult even to use this as a hit and run.

Charm & Living water - I have to laugh a bit at the thought of living long enough to use cross school level 7/8 spells as the first effective thing your mages can do. Even at that, both are niche spells at the point in the game where people start laying down fog warriors or firestorm.

Water strike - Ummmmm, maybe CBM changes this spell, but 13 damage to a single target is called a spear, not a mage. I can't imagine any situation that this spell would have any noticeable effect on the battle even with a large number of mages.

I maintain my assertion, you've got no viable combat spells combined with no elite troops. That's *before* you try climbing out the water where your useless mages are further crippled and you can only recruit indie troops. Clam hoarding is a red herring even if you can live long enough to make it worthwhile, and you've got nothing significant to even look forward to up the research tree.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

What are your thoughts on a Kydnid-spam strategy?

I know Kydnids are normally ignored ("Summon Naiad Warriors," Conj5, W3N1, 30W(!) to cast) but each casting gets you fifteen Awe+3 amphibious heavy infantry with recuperation.

1) It's castable underwater, so 25% of your Capricorns can do it w/o boosters
2) It's in the Conjuration tree, which you'll definitely be researching as an underwater nation
3) They aren't unreasonably priced (2W per Kydnid) and as an underwater nation you can swing the steep 30W pricetag

Regardless, I agree that MA Oceania is weak, and would propose changing the Capricorn randoms from (100% +1 AEWN, 10% +1AEWN) to (100% +2 AEWN) as a means to rebalance them. This would allow the Capricorns to take their Earth and Air magic on shore, and access Falling Frost & Bone Melter w/o boosters, giving them a fighting chance up there.

Thoughts?

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Hmmm, seems like its gonna be kinda hard to spam Kydnids given the cost. The do make a decent summon and one of the few reasonable things to do with your mages, but the numbers you'll be fielding make it kinda hard to have a Kydnid 'strategy'. I guess I feel like they make a capable supplement...but the problem is that there's not much to supplement.

I like your suggestion on the Capricorns, although I don't think it goes far enough. Obviously not everything matches up between nations, but compare the Capricorn to the (arguably) two closest mages to him.

Atlantean King of the Deep. 290 gold. 3W + 2 FWSE + 10% FWSE. Full slots. This gives you teleporting thugs, 5W falling frost, acid rain, boots + summon earthpower, etc. etc. etc. I go on at length in my guide to Atlantis.

MA Pan: 350 gold. 3N 2E + 1 EDNB + 10% EDNB. Generates Maenads and summons national reanimators. Aside from the Maenads you get a solid earth mage and enough death and blood to bootstrap yourself into them. You'll get easy N5 mages to cast and early Mother Oak, and Faery Trod later on.

Capricorn: 350 gold. 3N 2W + 1 WANE + 10% WAFE. No foot slot (fairly significant on a potential E mage). Looses 1 to each path on land and stealth.

So, assuming that the mechanic which makes them lose 1 to each path on land is not going to change, their paths in Air is pretty much useless. They can't remotely site search underwater (not that there are any air sites underwater anyway), and even with your proposed change they couldn't do it on land without a very expensive A booster. In combat they can't boost the path, and again there's not much they can cast underwater anyway. So, no gems for summoning/forging and no combat potential.

Being able to get E2 would help, though as I mentioned having no foot slot hurts a lot. Landing W4 would help to, though they're still dreadfully behind the cheaper Kings of the Deep for Falling Frost. They're on par with the Kings who *don't* get a water random, and 60 gold more.

Given the lack of Maenads, lack of foot slot, and crippling out of water I think it's a mistake to try to make them 1 for 1 the same as Pans magic wise. Given the staggering cost they should be very good underwater and at least useful out of it. Perhaps 3n + 1w + 3 NWEA? This would at least make the A viable (still weak), make them able to cast mother oak/faery trod, and let them summon earthpower/falling frost out of the water without boosters. In the water this would give them a decent orb lighting and a shot at thugging out (mistform + regen + shockwave)

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Baalz:

Hmm... didn't you make too many enemies in Kingmaker there? Big plans, fast start, raiding land nations etc?

But still, I cannot imagine how Oceania can survive in water with R'lyeh. Your troops and mages will be dead before they can make anything useful.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Nah, Kingmaker actually went as good as I could have hoped. Top of the charts in expansion, made a couple good allies (or at least friendly NAPs willing to work with me on successful looking wars) and voluntarily launched a 2 front war against opponents significantly smaller than me who I lined up theoretical support against. Both opponents initially crumbled as I overwhelmed their PD....then crushed everything I could field in every single fight against a real army despite the fact that I had more income and castles than both of them combined. In this case I'm fighting heavily blessed EA Oceana knights and MA Argatha heavy infantry bolstered by summoned statues, a Risin Oracle, and earth mages. What, in my arsenal can even scratch any of that? This is not through sneaky tactics that outmaneuvered me or even bad luck, this is just marching their basic troops straight towards me and crushing my numerically superior armies. Before commenting that I shouldn't pick a fight with people who can field things I can't kill....my other choices were to fight EA R'yleh under the water, Helheim, Mictlan or Arco on land, later Sauromatia and Neifelheim...so who exactly fields something I can kill? I suppose I could have meekly sat around and wait for research to make me even more obsolete....things certainly don't look any better as research progresses.

This is, I think a really good illustration of the points I made above. MA Oceana just doesn't have anything to fight a real army with, even with significant research done.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Kydnids are cool and very hard to kill with their heavy armor, high awe and good protection. I summoned a lot as MA Oceania in a MP game far back and didn't regret it. Just remember to watch their fatigue though...

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Baalz,

My experience is restricted to SP only so my comments below may be completely off the mark - I hope you won't be offended if they are.

1. Bishop fish should be a good counter to both EA Oceania knights (when defended against flanking) as well as Agatha statues (with amulet of the fish). If you had allies you might have considered trading for air gems to make amulet of the fish to use your bishop fish on land. At sea EA Oceania has bishop fish too but if you had an overwhelming economy you could field far more bishop fish than he can to overcome his superior numbers of knights.

2. Your economic advantage might not be as great as you think. EA Oceania must have sacrificed his scales to get his heavy bless, so his true strength could be more than 50% greater than his raw numbers. If your Agatha opponent also follows a heavy bless strategy, you might actually be significantly weaker than their combined strength even though the raw numbers might say otherwise.

If the above were true, then your problems with Ma Oceania might have nothing to do with MA Oceania being hopelessly weak.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

A Knight of the Deeps (KotD) has base MR of 14, so the odds of successfully connecting with a Smite are only 18%. If, of course, the EA Oceania player didn't take an Astral bless.

But let's assume he didn't and that conditions are ideal, i.e. the battle takes place in a Magic-3 province. The KotD MR drops to 12, so each Bishop Fish has a fighting 30% chance to connect. But the KotD has 16hp, so a Smite will only one-shot-kill a KotD about 86% of the time.

So - under absolutely conditions - only 30% * 86% = 25.8% of the Smites will work. Under normal conditions, 18% * 86% = 15.5% will work. And that's before factoring in the effects of any Astral or Nature (i.e. regen) bless.

I don't like this, it's argumentative & borderline insulting.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

I don't mean to sound confrontational, but I don't find any of these suggestions viable.

Kydnids: These *are* good, but too easy to counter in the numbers you can field. Assuming you've got no more than about 120 N gems to play with for the early part of the game you're talking about a total of 60 Kydnids - basically one smallish army. Lets just take a look at all my neighbors this time to see what the army I'd been building up over dozens of turns would face:

R'yleh - mindless tramplers backed by mind blasters. Dead Kydnids.

Oceana - The knights have the moral to ignore the awe and the first strike damage to punch through the armor. Dead Kydnids (good luck killing the 23 defense 17 protection knights - they can just let the Kydnids fatigue out if nothing else)

Helheim - very similar to Oceana using their heavy blessed sacreds, only they'll supplement it with raining down lighting.

Argatha - sacred statues backed by destruction casting mages. Dead Kydnids.

Mictlan - triple blessed jaguar warriors will destroy Kydnids. Dead Kydnids.

Sauromatia - Androphag archers and hydras supplemented by skellispam while the Kydnids die from poison and exhaustion. Dead Kydnids.

Nefelheim - Frozen dead Kydnids.

Arcoscephale - Kydnids would probably do a decent job against elephants, up until my opponent started fielding heavy infantry backed by small communions. Dead Kydnids.

In all cases my enemy can replace his army in a couple turns while that's all the Kydnids I have available.

Bishop fish - assuming I sacrificed *all* of my research I'd still not be able to recruit a bishop fish every turn (for the first few turns while I'm expanding as fast as possible and recruiting a few mages for site searching). Oceanic Knights have a (unblessed) MR of 14 and 16 hp, so each smite has an 18% chance of causing damage and will on average have to hit each knight twice to kill them. This means best case scenario 10 bishop fish will kill one knight per turn, although in practice it will be nowhere near this good as they won't all focus on one knight until he's dead, they'll end up mostly wounding two knights per turn. As the knights do so much damage that battles don't last more than 2-3 rounds I don't see how it would be possible to field enough bishop fish to make a difference against 40+ knights.

Yes, obviously my income vs a heavy bless nation is not directly indicative of actual strength, my point is that I don't think I could have played MA Oceana better nor had better luck and there is now *nothing* I can reasonably field against any of my neighbors. In a 60+ person game I had the *top* province count. After successfully raiding their PD, at the point I had no choice but to start fighting real armies I had more than twice their *combined* province count and income - both gold and gems. I had more than twice their *combined* research. I had almost twice their *combined* number of forts. This was not a slight lead, it was an overwhelming economic advantage, and I also had production-2 scales. I've thrown everything I could think of as an experience player and been totally crushed every single engagement by the sophisticated strategy of marching straight towards me.

Now to be clear, I'm not complaining about a specific game, but rather using this as a good example to illustrate my point - rather a best case scenario for MA Oceana. I'm far from an infallible player, but I maintain that even with an overwhelming economic advantage there's not really any feasible thing I can field against any of my neighbors (which are a reasonably diverse sample). This would be 10X worse later in the game with more research done....where I've still got nothing to field and everyone else's power has scaled up.


*edit*

Cleveland is correct, my math is a bit off on the smite but the sentiment is still correct.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Yeah, I can confirm. When it comes to skill Baalz is few classes higher than his opponents he is fighting there. Well, Baalz is certainly in Top10 best Dominions players now. If HE says smth sucks it must really suck http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Cleveland,

I am shocked and surprised that you consider my comments to be "borderline insulting". There is nothing further from my intentions and to misrepresent it as such is not helpful. I have prefaced my comments by saying that I could be completely wrong and that my conclusion was "... MAY have nothing to do with Oceania being hopeless weak." and only "IF" my reasoning was right. In fact, my conclusion is only a logical conclusion IF my reasoning is correct. It is completely neutral and has no implied disrespect, much less insult.

I have no doubt that Baalz is an excellent player - his excellent guides provide ample testimony to that. However, that is not to say that one is not allowed to offer a different opinion on specific matters. If you belief that daring to disagree with such an excellent player is "borderline insulting", then I have nothing further to say.

As to your point of Astral bless for EA Oceania, I have considered the possibility but feel that an EA Oceania player is unlikely to take an astral bless as other blesses - water obviously, but even fire and nature - are more beneficial.

As to your comment on the effectiveness of smite on EA Oceania knights, please see my reply to Baalz's post.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Baalz,

Given that my previous comment seems to be misinterpreted as being "borderline insulting", I would like to first apologise if it has offended you.

On your point of the effectiveness of the bishop fish, I agree that they would not be effective ON THEIR OWN. However, I am assuming that they would be supported by your own sacred knights. With P2 you should be able to recruit 3 per turn and have 30 or so by the end of the first year since they are unlikely to suffer losses against indies. While they cannot match the EA Oceania knights in a long fight, they should hold up reasonably well in a short fight - certainly more than 2-3 turns even with only a weak bless (say W4E4). This should give the bishop fish time to work their smite. Bear in mind that a EA Oceania knight damaged by smite has a good likelihood of being finish off by your own knights.

Since you had the time to achieve a commanding lead and EA Oceania has the time to accumulate 40+ knights (even though theirs can be recruited anywhere) I imagine that the battle was fought no earlier than sometime in year two. Given your economic strength you probably have 3 or more castles. As battle magic is less important underwater, you should be able to devote at least one if not two castles to recruiting bishop fish exclusively (BTW, IMHO MA Oceania MUST devote his first new castle, and sometimes at his home castle too, to producing bishop fish when in, or anticipate, war). So an advantage of 10 or more bishop fish is not out of the question. In terms of cost one bishop fish is roughly 150% that of an EA Oceania knight (and much less resource). Adjusting for his heavy bless it is not unreasonable to equate them as 1:1. Similarly, 40 of your knights is roughly equivalent to 30 of his after using, say, a 50% adjustment for his heavy bless. So 10 bishop fish, 40 Ma Oceania knights, plus PD against 40 EA Oceania knights is a fair fight under the circumstances - and not taking into account of your superior economic position over and above the adjustment needed to compensate for his heavy bless. I have not tested to see if such a match-up is hopeless on your side but I suspect not. However, this is not the point and one can argue that the 50% figure I am using is purely arbitrary.

You are talking about a 2:1 advantage in economy. If I assume that it is before taking into account EA Oceania's heavy bless, it would still transfer into about 14 bishop fish and 55 knights against 40 EA Oceania knights. Again I have not tested such a match-up, but I would be very surprised if you do not win, especially since you are likely to have first strike (having PD's to screen their first strike).

Your excellent guides (which I have benefitted from and would like to thank you regarding them) have shown that some seemingly weak nations require thinking "outside of the box" to be competitive. I think MA Oceania falls into the same catagory. It has a fast start against indies and this needs to be turned into a lasting economic advantage (I find P3 to be necessary). You might even be able to rush your underwater neighbour if he is not being careful. However, you need to rely on Bishop fish against other players (so growth scale is important). At 120g for H3 it is competitive even against heavily blessed sacreds. Sacrifice you research to get them if you are in a war. Hopefully you economic advantage means that you can do both under normal circumstances. On land you have to rely on Bishop fish even more, but at 120G plus 5A and 5W gems (If you have lots of clams, invest in a dwarven hammer with 30S gems and each amulet would be 6S and 3W) its cost is still reasonable. I am sure that if you stop and think about it, you would probably come up with even better strategies or variations.

Please let me know if I have erred in my reasoning.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

I'd just like to point out that -sometimes- the math can be deceiving. Playing Bandar Log now with an S9 bless, Mictlan invaded me with 16 casters in support of their army. Of course, most of them are H3, and I can confirm that mass Smite can perform quite admirably even against hardened (high MR) targets.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Bandar Log isn't the best example, their sacreds' pitiful base MR of 11 and 10 hit points make White Ones a prime Smite targets. Were you fielding Tiger Riders, well, that is probably the best bang for buck anyone gets from Smite.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Black Knights and Black Templars are also prime targets for a smiting.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Oh no Ming, I wasn't insulted. I wouldn't be posting here if I wasn't inviting people to try and poke holes in my arguments.

Well, I did the test you suggested, and though I have to admit it was more even than I expected, MA Oceana was still crushed.

Setup:
MA Oceana
40 knights - 4000 gold
11 bishop fish - 1380 gold
40 Oceana Tritons - 400 gold
11 PD - freeby
1 troop herder commander (not factored)
total - 5780 gold

EA Oceana
1 bishop fish - 180 gold
40 knights (with an E/W bless) - 3400 gold
1 troop herder commander (not factored)
30 Oceana tritons - 300 gold
total - 3880 gold

Losses -
MA Oceana 1/12 commanders 71/80 troops
EA Oceana 0/2 commanders 29/70 troops (mostly tritons)


Test 1 - Despite everybody being evenly spread out EA Oceana managed to get 3 knights to flank around and kill all the bishop fish due to their amazing amount of movement point. Uuuugly.

Test 2 - I scripted everyone to attack closest so that wouldn't happen again.
Losses -
MA Oceana 1/11 commanders 71/80 troops
EA Oceana 0/2 commanders 29/70 troops (mostly tritons)


MA Oceana got off 7 volleys of smite. As the math suggested generally 1-2 knights were killed by smite per turn when they were targeted, though it often hit tritons decoys because it had more chance of doing HPs of damage. Nothing else caused significant damage to the EA Knights who sported fashionable 22 defense and 21 protection.

Now, on to my reservations.
1) I don't feel like the MA Oceana sacreds are cost effective though they did surprisingly well in this particular setup. Dumping gold into them would have slowed my initial expansion quite a bit. Massing capital only sacreds is a slow process which can't be done after my initial expansion in time to meet my first fight. I also shudder to think how this setup (which takes almost a year to mass up the troops and commanders for) would fare against R'yleh chaff and mindblasters if I'd ended up fighting them.
2) Recruiting a significant number of non-mages in the early part of the game is crippling to research. Granted, one of my bones about MA Oceana is that there is hardly anything worth researching, but still 10 bishop fish is costing on top of the gold 70 research points per turn - *forever* even after they die. Does anyone think landing an extra 14 lightless lanterns in year one might be significant?
3) The idea of landing a significant number of fish amulets to get a dozen bishop fish out of the water, with practically no air income and..well, crippled research from massing bishop fish seems prohibitive. This seems completely infeasible out the water in an early enough time frame to be relevant.
4) I've seen W/S on EA Oceana several times, astral has a good synergy with a water bless on high defense units and Oceana is obviously planning on fighting R'yleh at some point. This would go even worse under that scenario.
5) This tactic has steadily diminishing effectiveness as research progresses. Even if you can somehow manage to leverage bishop fish into an effective initial force, what do you suppose you'll do once shark attacks (smite will almost always target the high HP low MR sharks) and shadow blasts start being cast, vengeance of the dead is being spammed at you, and thugged out high MR kings of the deep start teleporting in? Not to mention fighting above the water once real evocation spells start throwing down massively more damage than our smite can (assuming you get the priests up there in the first place).

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Off topic but curious: what is the quickest way to test these types of situations? Is there a mod somewhere? Everyone seems to do it so quickly I am wondering what I am missing. Thanks

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

DEBUG mod, gives you all research and Wish and GoR for 1S gem.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Baalz,

Thank you for taking the trouble to test my suggested scenario. Adding the Oceana Tritons does seem to swing the result decidedly to EA Oceana's favour for the reason you stated.

Even though I do expect MA Oceania to lose on a fair fight (since their knights are amphibious and has steath underwater while KotD are water only - otherwise MA Oceania would be too strong) I expected the results to be closer. Did the MA Oceania knights have weak EW blesses in your test? They do need E4W4 to be effective - at least to stay alive if not to kill the KotD.

Also, were the MA troops killed in combat or while routing? If it were the latter scripting one bishop fish to cast sermon of courage from turn4 might change the result somewhat.

Another factor that would make the fight more even would be to have a few mages casting tangled vine (I believe it works underwater but correct me if I am wrong). Both sides can do this but it has a more adverse effect on KotD.

BTW, the situation on Test1 can be avoided if half of the bishop fish are placed on the perimeter of the other priests scripted to cast holy avenger on turn one (at the cost of reducing 5-6 smite attempts)

Ultimately I think the conclusion depends on the result of the tests. If EA Oceania still wins hansomely (and consistantly) after taking the above into account, then I accept your position.

As to your reservations, I shall address them in the same order you wrote them:

1. I cannot comment directly on relative cost effectiveness as I do not know how exactly you planned your expansion. In my experience 4-5 knights (one turn's recruitment based on O3P3 scale) with W4E4 bless is sufficient to take over most indie provinces with no loss - although I usually go for a little overkill/insurance in case the scouting report is inaccurate. This compares favourably with most other nations, especially those without a heavy bless. I have found that having the early knights survive and gain three or four stars is a noticable asset, contributing to their cost effectiveness. Against R'lyeh I would simply add a large number of chaff, strategically placed, so that regardless of their script few mindblasts actually target the knights or key commanders. Even when they do, if I win the battle the knights usually survive(I only play SP so maybe you can highlight any nasty surprise that I am not aware of).

2. I agree that it is a major handicap for MA Oceania, but not necessary a crippling one given its advantage in early expansion and clamming ability. I tend to think in terms of having one castle less than what you really have. Since the chance of getting free castles under water seems much higher than on land, it is not too bad. Look at it another way, if MA Oceania can achieve battlefield equality without such a handicap, then it would be too strong.

3. I had assume that all water nations would have trouble expanding on land, except for raiding, until late in the game - certainly well into middle game. If one waits until Maelstrom is up, then the gem cost is no problem at all. Bear in mind that you get your H3 for only 120G, so even 120G and 10 gems is still reasonable cost compared with most other nations. I have always though that water nations cannot (and should not) win on land in an equal fight. they need to cripple their opponent's econonmy and then win on superior numbers. Please let me know if I am missing your point.

4. I have never played MP (or indeed any game across era's) and can only accept your statement. Against a WS KotD strategy one do need to adjust and maybe counter with mermage spamming tangle vine. This reservation should not on its own make MA Oceania unplayable.

5. I agree wholeheartedly that bishop fish is an early to mid game strategy (However, they are not wasted later on as they ensure you have high dominon spread and can still be an effective support force). Early to mid game is the key to a successful MA Oceania strategy. MA Oceania need to leverage on its good start and be aggressive early to conquer the sea (and even some land) before its opponents have enough research for effective battle mages. Having stealth under water is an important advantage for its main fighting forces as it is easier for you pick your fights where you want them.

I confess I do not have much experience with end game strategy with MA Oceania because against the AI it is one of the easiest nation to play and I usually win long before the end game - so boring that I stop playing them. I guess they can rely on the typical water nation raiding strategy so aptly described in you Atlantian guide (or a variation of it) to go on land. It is true that they have nothing as effective as the Atlantian Kings. They are not completely helpless though and can get access to Niefel Flames through Sea Kings and Water Queens and boosters. However, MA Oceania should have superiority in gold and gem income and so can compensate for quality with quantity. If the enemy concentrates its forces, spead yours out and attack where they are not and destroy their economy. If they spread theirs, concentrate yours and hit them one by one - but I am sure you know about all these.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Also might bear in mind that the game was not made with the intent of cross-era warring, and expecting balance along those lines may be far fetched.

What I mean is that the exact details, or the potential options in an EA Oceania vs MA Oceania matchup may be irrelevant. This is not to say that the original tack, pinpointing the effectiveness of the mages specifically lacked merit. Moreso, it's to say that it might be a more reasonable and fruitful point to pursue.

(Oh and sorry about bringing up the White Ones, I could have sworn their base was 13, doh.)

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

MA Oceania is a very different nation to play and is not at all suited for new players in a mp game. In a normal game, i.e not an all eras/nerfed clam mod game they do have two really good strenghts that can be used to win the game however.

1) The ability to fast find kelp fortresses (both games i have played MA oceania I have had 5 forts by turn 15 - all found). This is basically enough to produce good resource heave troops and gain the edge in the underwater fight against Rlyeh or atlantis. If you can secure a large water body in the first 25 or so turns and maybe kill of one of the other water nations you are of to a good start.

2) Underwater nation that can clam. Many will find it tedious to stay at peace for a long time and just mass produce clams, but this is basically a must if you intend to win the end game. MA Oceania has arguably the worst mages from a cost perspective once they leave the water. In order to deal with this you need a strong gem income that can be used to summon SCs/mages in order to combine with your armies. You can get this using clams + wish(gems) and also by putting up the nexus once you can. If you can get the forge up you will be in a very good position to win the end game since you can mass that many more clams. For these reasons I think astral 5 and some earth is a minimum on your pretender.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Jim Morrison,

you were correct about the white ones: 11MP plus S9 bless equals 14MP plus twist of fate. This equates to a 9% kill ratio using Cleveland's figures, going up to 18% in later rounds. This is not materially different from the 15% kill ratio against KotD and may even have more survival probability except in long fights.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

Evilhomer:

You can clam if you survive. And OCeania will survive in water if there is no R'lyeh in it.

Re: Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania
 

I am far from convinced this is true. I would say Oceania has a slight edge fighting against R'lyeh if you can score a few free forts early with site searching (which you should). I have only fought rlyeh in one game using Oceania but that proved fairly easy (and it was not a new player playing rlyeh). Not that one game proves much however......