How does one fight the sea?

[Dinedel]

I'm a very new player, so please excuse my inexpiriance. I am currently playing a small game in the Middle Ages with one of my friends, whose nation is R'lyeh.

I am playing as Machaka, and despite having the upper hand at the moment, I have no foreseeable method of getting under the sea and attacking my foe directly. Instead, I suffer constant raids on my sea facing provinces.

What can I do to get under the water? As Machaka, I'm having a really tough time getting water magic, and I regret not taking it with my pretender, a lesson I didn't learn until later.

Do I need to forge items that let my commanders breathe underwater? What about my troops? Do I need to summon troops and commanders that are capable of fighting under the sea? How do I get the needed water gems if this is the case?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Loren]

You can forge items although without water magic this will be hard--look for mages you can recruit in various provinces.

Beyond that, in a few coastal provinces you'll find troops that can go into the water.

[Jazzepi]

The two realms of magic that deal with breathing underwater are air and water. There's also a nature based item, manual of water breathing, that requires nature and water. So you really need access to one of those three schools to bring regular troops underwater.

That said, most undead are amphibious, so if you can summon large amounts of undead you can get underwater as well.

There's also a "ring of water breathing" and a multitude of different items that will allow individual commanders to go underwater.

Jazzepi

[sum1lost]

Crush him with an absurd number of blood sacrifices to dominion kill him. If you can keep him from expanding, line your borders with temples, and blood sacrifice at them repeatedly.

This is the cheapest way to kill him.

[Shovah32]

Machaka isnt a blood nation. Are you sure you arent thinking of mictlan(and machaka is MA. MA Mictlan has no blood magic).

[sum1lost]

Whoops.

I misread that- thought it was mictlan.

sorry.

[Edi]

Hordes of undead could do it, but the problem is that most amphibian undead are of the brittle variety. Ghosts and spectral mages would probably be the best bet.

[Chris_Byler]

First of all, fortifying some coastal provinces (or all, if you have the time and gold) can help with the raiding problem. To strike back, though, you'll need some waterbreathing troops or items.

Indies can also help a lot - jade amazons have water, a type of site-based enchantress that comes from a couple of nature sites has random elements.

Some constructs are amphibian or poor amphibian, so one water-breathing mage (including some summonable undead mages, if they have non-Death magic skills) can lead a bunch of Crushers into the sea. However, mindless constructs have the same problem against R'lyeh as mindless undead - the one guy with the mind takes all the mindblasts.

If you can't get anything else sooner, Faerie Court can get you an air mage, which you can then use to Auspex for air gem income and eventually forge some breathing items.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

You may be able to blight their production provinces- given the common nature of amphib indies, not the best strategy. But keep in mind that the only place they can get mages underwater is from forts or magic sites.

Putting aside the fact that R'lyeh doesn't have capital only units, you can often gain quite a few advantages by causing tons of unrest in an enemy capital, the least of which is decreasing their gold income.

[Slough_Gairn]

You can also alchemize some astral gems and empower a commander with water (but that will take 100 gems each).