Going Underwater

[Tough Guy]

I have items that let me breathe underwater but I cannot bring troops with me. What else do I need?

My mages have no water magic at all.

[Wyatt Hebert]

You need items that let your troops breathe underwater. Predominantly air magic, or water magic items.

I believe there's a Tome of Water Breathing, and a Barrel of Air. (if you have access to Construction 8, you could forge the Orb of Atlantis with Water Magic, but you don't have those mages, you said).

That's my understanding of it so far.

Wyatt

[Firebreath]

There are several ways of going underwater.

Any leader with water magic can go under water (you can empower them, if you have gems).

There are lots of forged items which let a leader only go under water (e.g. amphibian suit of armour)

There are some some forged items which let a leader take a limited number of troops with him (these start at construction level 4, and you need water gems to make them).

There are lots of troops that you can recruit above ground that can go underwater naturally e.g. Shamblers, fishmen. I think that you don't even need to search for them, them come automatically. Undead can also go underwater (with a penalty). They're easy and cheap to raise, with only 1 point of death magic, even if they're not all that effective.

Some mercenaries have underwater troops.

You can make some underwater mutated troops (something to do with blood magic, which I don't know much about).

[archaeolept]

Also, you can pick the "Water Cult" theme when designing your pretender/scales, which allows holy units to go underwater in their dominion.

the best magic item for someone w/out water magic is no doubt the barrel of air. Of course, you need air magic for that...

[Yossar]

There's quite a few amphibious/aquatic summons that can be led by a water breathing mage.

Almost any water summons, most of the earth summons, Eater of the dead, abomination, most undead, swimmer foul spawn, ice devils, and maybe a few others.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Tough Guy:
I have items that let me breathe underwater but I cannot bring troops with me. What else do I need?

My mages have no water magic at all.

I'm not an expert, but I believe the main ways into the sea are:

* Water magic; some water summons are amphibious, notably the Sea Trolls (Conj 6)

* Air magic and construction.

* Death summons: most undead are poor amphibians.

If you have access to none of the above, you'll have a hard time conquering anything underwater.

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Tough Guy:

* Water magic; some water summons are amphibious, notably the Sea Trolls (Conj 6)

* Air magic and construction.

* Death summons: most undead are poor amphibians.

Also, a SC capable of going underwater. He propably won't be able to cast spells, though, as tritons fly. But you need water for most items letting you breath underwater.

Then there are the few units that can be recruited on land and can go underwater. Tritons and whatever the fishmen are called. But that was mentioned already.

[ April 03, 2004, 19:37: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

[Psitticine]

One particular spell, Thetis' Blessing, lets everybody into the pool. It's a good thing, unless you are Atlantis or R'lyeh, that is.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
One particular spell, Thetis' Blessing, lets everybody into the pool. It's a good thing, unless you are Atlantis or R'lyeh, that is.

Yeah, nice try, but this one requires a high Water magic (5), and is Enchantment 9 (from the Online Grimoire). Not exactly a quick way into the water... plus, if you've got the Water mage for it, you should be able to conjure a few Sea Kings, who are quite good (with their many friends) at conquering indie underwater provinces.

[Psitticine]

Oops, forgot about the requirements of this particular problem! No water magic and fast . . . sorry about that!

Continuing the brief digression, however , there are (to me, at least) advantages to being able to take everybody, including all the armies you've already cleaned up the land with, into the water when you take the plunge. Summons are great, no question there, but I like to bring all the lads into the game.

A lot of that is just my play style, really. I tend to keep the aquatic nations at the bottom of my list of targets until I've solidly locked up the land under my control. I find two-front wars are hard enough without making one front above and one front below the water! I also don't bother with indie underwater provinces when playing as a land race because I can't defend them the way I'd like.