EA Oceania PSA: How to not lose on turn 1.

[Burnsaber]

There are few games with EA Oceania, and that is very understandable, if you know the current state of the nation. However, sometimes people play with random nations and perhaps you typed "I'd like EA Oceania" in the game thread while drunk and now you find that it's too late to edit your post.

Whatever the scenario, you now find yourself playing EA Oceania and would like to try to win with it. I'm not going to lie, that's going to be hard, to the power of hard. But really this post isn't a guide. It's more like a Public Service Announcement to get EA Oceania that minimal chance, instead of losing instantly like 100% of Oceania players I've seen.

So, how to say this..

If you take a double-bless with EA Oceania, you have lost the game. I'm serious. You're basically a walking corpse of a nation on turn 1. Why? Let me tell you in simple points:

1) You cannot win the game by taking over the seas. Note that this is just the best case scenario for taking double bless on KotD's. There is no map in MP that could give you the needed resources (gems, money) to win just by holding sea provinces. By double-blessing you are spending ungodly amounts of design points for units that you cannot use to actually win the game. To make my point clear: After you took over the seas and get your *** handed to you in the land, those dozens of KotD's will just stand there being useless.

2) EA Oceania has magic access of F1A1W4E1N2 (not accounting <2% chances with randoms on Kings). Let that sink in for a while. Think of all those awesome things you can do with your national mages. That's right, they can't do jack sheit. There isn't a single competitive late-game play you can do with that and even mid-game is a pain. Sure, your S9E9 god can cast some globals, but with what gems? It's not like you can search for those good paths. Using Voice of Tiamat will get you mediocre income in earth, but that's not nearly enough. Besides, you really don't have the resources to try win by a shock global (like say.. FoA or AN) since you won't have sufficient astral income. Even if you casted FoA, how would you win? You really don't have the forging paths to abuse it. The point: Your national mages need heavy support to be useful. This is not something that double-bless god can provide.

3) KotD's don't need double-bless to be effective. Even without bless, they are simply the best recruit you have. By double-blessing, you are just placing all of your eggs in one basket. Also note, there are many effective counters to KotD's, so double-blessed KotD's don't necessarily even give you the seas. With simple E4N4, 4 KotD's can beat 90% of UW independents and your god is cheap enough to be awake and can do other things than just not being there for a whole half of the game.

I have a special guest star to tell what KotD really are:



Thanks, Admiral. Let's move on.


So if double-blessing is so bad, what options do you have? Your mages suck, Your path access sucks, your land access sucks, your troops suck.. Wait a moment there. Your troops do not suck. In fact, you have the best UW troops available. See Baalz's guide on MA Oceania to see how much naked tritons kick ***. By complementing your slightly blessed KotD's with Triton hordes, you have a decent chance of beating the UW wars while having an awake god that actually does something. For land stragedies, you can sort of follow the guidelines Baalz set out in his MA Oceania guide: fight with summons and diversify with Lamia Queens and Spectres.

But I'm not really here to write a guide. I'm not really good enough of a player for that. I just wrote this because this insane double-bless strat for Oceania just keep coming up like a bad meal. Now is he time to brain-storm and see if we can come up with something else than insta-lose on turn 1. To get things started, I'll list some good things that Oceania has (besides good troops, we know that already).

1) Triton Kings: These guys are recruitable thugs, which also happen to be your lowest upkeep researchers, so you will have a good amount of them lying around. There must be a way to thug these guys out, especially when combined with a good support bless (like E4N4). You can also forge some good gear for them, like rainbow armors, frost brands and eye/vine shields.

2) Amber Clan mages are pretty decent land battlefield mages with Water Bracelet, since they can cast acid spells.

3) W4E1 Triton Kings are very good at spamming Clay Men.

4) F1 is enough to find all UW fire sites, so by just sending one Amber clan mage to site search early, you can get decent fire income (=lanterns) and also find Kelp Fortresses as long as CBM 1.6 is up.

5) Riches from Beneath has a potential for his nation. Amber Clan Tritons could be absolutely brutal if they could be massed, you also have some other good options in Enchantment (like Quagmire and Clay Men). Likely just a dream thought, since you need heavy con and conj for lanterns/boosters/thug gear and diversification summons.

6) KotD's are awesome. I told that I won't bring this up, but they really are. Even with *just* a minor bless, 4 KotD's are a viable expansion party (they can take everything except amber clan tritons). You can build 4 KotD's easily in one turn. Always remember to wield your expansion KotD's in even numbers! If you take uneven number, there is one without a "partner" to divide up hits into his square, and that single guy often gets taken down. So even if you have 5 KotD's build, only take 4 with the Bishop Fish, since the fifth will become a casualty in the next battle anyway. Better to bring "fifth" KotD as a "sixth" to the next squad.

Some staring builds (these are only slightly tested, just examples for getting brain-storming started)

Before I present them, note that E and N are pretty much the best blesses you can get and also needed for Oceania. E on pretender allows for Hammers for your massive Fish Amulet forgings and high N allows you to summon Lamia Queens. Slight N bless is also needed to make KotD's practically immune to the poison weapons that are popular in UW.

You also need awake pretender to site search you some D income. You are going to need a lot of Spectres to get the astral magic you need.

E4D4N4 Ghost King, Dom 6

Order 3 Sloth 1 Cold 3 Death 1 Misfortune 1 Magic 1

Order 3 is a no-brainer, as is slight sloth. Your heroes are sheit, so some misfortune won't hurt (that much). Magic is a absolute necessity, since you have a lot of research to do, and you need to do it now.

This build allows for easier expansion to land. Slight D bless also helps your KotD's against thugs. Basically, compared to other builds I'll suggest, this exchanges S access for some SC capability.


E4S3D4N4 Master Lich, Dom 6

Order 3 Sloth 1 Cold 3 Misfortune 1 Magic 1

Astral allows you access to ROS and ROW (through coin and cap, of course). Use is quite same as with the GK. Site search early for income, then forge hammers, then move to land to do summons. S3 makes him vulnerable to duels, but he's immortal, so who cares?


F1W1E4S3D3N4 Arch Mage, Dom 6

Order 3 Cold 3 Misfortune 1 Magic 1

This build is like custom made to find most of UW sites. You also can lose the sloth scale to get some use out of the armoured tritons when your gold is tight. He will get you better income, but needs a fish ammy to get to land and is vulnerable to mind duel.