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.

[vfb]

I agree!

You can also try an E4D4S4 Master Lich: Dom7, Order-0, Prod-2, Cold-3, Growth-1, Luck-3, Magic-1. I don't think you need an N4 bless, and an N2 Mermage becomes N5 with a Thistle Mace and 2 rings. Your god does not need to be awake to site search either. Your Amber Mages and a Priest can already find many UW sites, and you can send a couple out early behind a few expansion squads of KoTDs. Then when your god wakes up you can send him to the provinces where you haven't found any sites yet.

Prod-2 gives you a horde of Turtle Warriors and Wave Warriors to take any indy land province. But what about gold? You will still have tons! Even without random events. You get free forts UW, and your land forts are dirt cheap. And the gems from random events from L3 really help. Don't build land forts anywhere you don't get a useful indy mage though! Especially if it's not on a coast.

[Baalz]

Also, another thing I have yet to see actually used is what occurs to me right off the bat - way, way, way better than an expensive dual bless is KotD with a bit of support magic. Friendly currents/wave breaker drops your enc by 2 bringing you to a net 0 with a modest E4 blessing. Stack on Wooden Warriors (or iron/marble warriors) and that's even better than an E9 blessing. Quickness is much better than a W9 bless. With a support mage or two just a handful of KotD go a long way.

You know whats a much, much nastier idea though? Leveraging the same logic with your extremely affordable, recruit anwhere Triton Princes. Pass out wave breakers, frost brands, lycantrhop amulets, rhime haubriks, etc. drop iron warriors and quickness...and I don't think you really need to think about a blessing at all...but a light blessing is so cheap why wouldn't you? Set up 2-3 castles without even having labs in them - that will easily give you more military strength than you could spit out cap only Knights of the Deep constrained by your dominion score (you can also spit out some bishop fish if you're so inclined). And what's that? You can slap amulets of the fish on them as well? Well damn son, that sounds like if you leverage it properly it looks a hell of a lot like EA Oceana projecting its charateristing early game might onto land.

Does this sound like a prohibitive amount of resources? Well, it's not really. If you nab a couple kelp fortresses all you've got to do is plop up a couple temples. You should have a solid water income and enough earth to spit out a slow but steady stream of dwarven hammers. Those very low upkeep triton princes steadily pile up along with a pile of 3 gem frost brands, demon whips, amulet of the fish, and lycanthrop amulets (stacks very nicely with a light nature bless). For the special forces needs you shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever outfitting some of them with rhime haubriks, wave breakers, lead shields, etc.

Now, with all that in mind consider what it looks like to have a dozen of these guys with some mages dropping quickness, iron warriors, iron will (if you're fighting R'yleh). Stack on a few more tasty boosts from whatever light blessing you go with...naaaasty.

Yeah, it's an uphill fight as Oceana, but you could have some fun with something like this.

[Tolkien]

Riches from Beneath?

Hmmm, you may have found an actual use for it.

Note to self, try out EA Oceania sometime later.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by vfb

You can also try an E4D4S4 Master Lich: Dom7, Order-0, Prod-2, Cold-3, Growth-1, Luck-3, Magic-1. I don't think you need an N4 bless, and an N2 Mermage becomes N5 with a Thistle Mace and 2 rings.

And how would that Mermage get D magic for Lamia Queens? Although "Prot heavy" luck build could work, since you are likely going o recruit KotD just for the fisrt 6 turns (once you have the expansion power you need, you should diversify to Tritons to avoid being so counterable.

Originally Posted by vfb

Your god does not need to be awake to site search either. Your Amber Mages and a Priest can already find many UW sites, and you can send a couple out early behind a few expansion squads of KoTDs. Then when your god wakes up you can send him to the provinces where you haven't found any sites yet.

Eh, In my tests he really needed to be awake. You need to get "lucky" to get E1 Mermage/King so early. Ideally your god should already be forging hammers when the first year is over. That sort of Earth income is not going to happen unless you get E mage searching early. You need your hammer, now and badly in order to some thug presence on land to prevent land nations simply laughing you out of your beach-hold. Trust, Oceania needs to forge a *lot* of fish amulets, frost brands and lanters.

Originally Posted by vfb

Don't build land forts anywhere you don't get a useful indy mage though! Especially if it's not on a coast.

Yeah. For those who do no know, Oceania ges no national recruit on land forts, unless hey are coastal. And even if the for is coastal you get Mermages (175g for 3 sucky picks!) and Turtle Warriors (Medicore!). I'd advise against building forts at all, it's simply better to build one UW and recruit your mages there (more research that way).

Originally Posted by Baalz

Also, another thing I have yet to see actually used is what occurs to me right off the bat - way, way, way better than an expensive dual bless is KotD with a bit of support magic. Friendly currents/wave breaker drops your enc by 2 bringing you to a net 0 with a modest E4 blessing. Stack on Wooden Warriors (or iron/marble warriors) and that's even better than an E9 blessing. Quickness is much better than a W9 bless. With a support mage or two just a handful of KotD go a long way.

You know whats a much, much nastier idea though? Leveraging the same logic with your extremely affordable, recruit anwhere Triton Princes. Pass out wave breakers, frost brands, lycantrhop amulets, rhime haubriks, etc. drop iron warriors and quickness...and I don't think you really need to think about a blessing at all...but a light blessing is so cheap why wouldn't you? Set up 2-3 castles without even having labs in them - that will easily give you more military strength than you could spit out cap only Knights of the Deep constrained by your dominion score (you can also spit out some bishop fish if you're so inclined). And what's that? You can slap amulets of the fish on them as well? Well damn son, that sounds like if you leverage it properly it looks a hell of a lot like EA Oceana projecting its charateristing early game might onto land.

Does this sound like a prohibitive amount of resources? Well, it's not really. If you nab a couple kelp fortresses all you've got to do is plop up a couple temples. You should have a solid water income and enough earth to spit out a slow but steady stream of dwarven hammers. Those very low upkeep triton princes steadily pile up along with a pile of 3 gem frost brands, demon whips, amulet of the fish, and lycanthrop amulets (stacks very nicely with a light nature bless). For the special forces needs you shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever outfitting some of them with rhime haubriks, wave breakers, lead shields, etc.

Now, with all that in mind consider what it looks like to have a dozen of these guys with some mages dropping quickness, iron warriors, iron will (if you're fighting R'yleh). Stack on a few more tasty boosts from whatever light blessing you go with...naaaasty.

Yeah, it's an uphill fight as Oceana, but you could have some fun with something like this.

I have to admit, Princes really are promising. With just a moderate bless and Frost Brand, those guys can be devious. Amber Clan Mages also have pretty thuggable stats and are able to buff up with Quicken Self, Breath of Winter and Barkskin (Fireshield on land). However, they will need some low enc armor with their Frost Brand though (Rainbow Armor?).

If I were to play Oceania, I'd likely rush for con6 (lanterns and full thug gear) first, perhaps side-tracking for buffs to Alt3. Going for cheap Prince Thug hordes, supported by KotD and lots of Tritons sounds like a nice plan.

After that, I'd hit Con 6 for Lamia Queens and Spectres (+Shark Spells for UW). After that, I'd likely hit more alt for buffs or deeper conj for Living Water (which is nasty in your cold dominion).

[Squirrelloid]

Lamia Queens are nice, but there are other options for breaking into D in a serious way.

Streams from Hades gives you W3D3 mages, and you can cast it UW. Cost is a mere W4D1 and 30 water gems. Now, while its certainly more expensive than Lamia Queens, it has a number of advantages: (1) No hoping for good randoms, (2) castable UW, (3) guaranteed D3, (4) less required investment on the pretender to summon (W2D1 is sufficient), (5) costs w instead of n.

And while you will be using your w gems for brands, you'll be using your n gems for shields, possibly armor, and various other things. In the post-clam environment, w is worth a lot less than it was, and thus 30w might be 'cheaper' in real terms than 15n.

[vfb]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

And how would that Mermage get D magic for Lamia Queens? Although "Prot heavy" luck build could work, since you are likely going o recruit KotD just for the fisrt 6 turns (once you have the expansion power you need, you should diversify to Tritons to avoid being so counterable.

Anyone who is in Mooseknight, please stop reading now.

Lamia Queens are not part of my strategy, that's all. I've got other things to spend my N gems on. Total KotD at month 13: 22, so I think I only recruited them for 5 turns at the most. 17 UW provinces, 4 land.

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Eh, In my tests he really needed to be awake. You need to get "lucky" to get E1 Mermage/King so early. Ideally your god should already be forging hammers when the first year is over. That sort of Earth income is not going to happen unless you get E mage searching early. You need your hammer, now and badly in order to some thug presence on land to prevent land nations simply laughing you out of your beach-hold. Trust, Oceania needs to forge a *lot* of fish amulets, frost brands and lanters.

Well, I'm lucky, then. 5 Triton Kings with E1, 2 Mermages with E1. My god built a hammer the month after he woke up, and now he's going to do a little searching. I totally agree about the massive amounts of Fish ammies. Good thing I don't need to save those W for clams!

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Yeah. For those who do no know, Oceania ges no national recruit on land forts, unless hey are coastal. And even if the for is coastal you get Mermages (175g for 3 sucky picks!) and Turtle Warriors (Medicore!). I'd advise against building forts at all, it's simply better to build one UW and recruit your mages there (more research that way).

I don't like to erect temples that aren't in a fort. It just says "raze me", and then you're in a war. A fort is cheap (default=ramparts), and allows you to recruit more useful indies: some tribal archers, or amazons, perhaps. I agree there's not much point in recruiting Mermages in coastal forts. 175 for 6 RP (magic scale) is not great, 110 for 4 RP is better, especially for upkeep since all the tribals are sacred.

Originally Posted by Baalz

You know whats a much, much nastier idea though? Leveraging the same logic with your extremely affordable, recruit anwhere Triton Princes. Pass out wave breakers, frost brands, lycantrhop amulets, rhime haubriks, etc. drop iron warriors and quickness

Quickness gives them move 60. With a lance, that's entertaining! They've already got a magic weapon and a spear, and high attack (esp Quickened), I don't think there's a need for a Frost Brand. But yeah, they are pretty cool guys.

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

I have to admit, Princes really are promising. With just a moderate bless and Frost Brand, those guys can be devious. Amber Clan Mages also have pretty thuggable stats and are able to buff up with Quicken Self, Breath of Winter and Barkskin (Fireshield on land). However, they will need some low enc armor with their Frost Brand though (Rainbow Armor?).

You want to thug out a mage? Well, how about a 45HP mage instead? Who is also sacred, so gets your minor bless (but does unfortunately need an accompanying priest). He's the guy who gets to wield the frost brand! Pop an air gem on a W4A king, and you've got Mistform.

Anyway, I agree about the massive fun potential here.

[KissBlade]

Haha, this guide is 100% my kind of guide. Hilarity xD! Btw, there's a bunch of typos in this guide so you might want to look it over when you get a chance.

[Sombre]

Burnsaber lacks the appropriate paths for typo free english. Much like oceania.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Lamia Queens are nice, but there are other options for breaking into D in a serious way.

Streams from Hades gives you W3D3 mages, and you can cast it UW. Cost is a mere W4D1 and 30 water gems. Now, while its certainly more expensive than Lamia Queens, it has a number of advantages: (1) No hoping for good randoms, (2) castable UW, (3) guaranteed D3, (4) less required investment on the pretender to summon (W2D1 is sufficient), (5) costs w instead of n.

And while you will be using your w gems for brands, you'll be using your n gems for shields, possibly armor, and various other things. In the post-clam environment, w is worth a lot less than it was, and thus 30w might be 'cheaper' in real terms than 15n.

The thing is, you need the N bless and get the D for free with the the pretender chassis, so it's not as expensive as you think. Why is the N bless so crucial? In my testing, the KotD's expansion parties sometimes ran into horrible casualies because of poison. You can't avoid those few lucky 1-3 point damage hits form coral weapons. If you don't have N bless, a few of those lucky hits will kill them. A high N will also allow access to some nifty globals if the opportunity presents iself.

Also, W gems are suprisingly tight with Oceania. The amount of Water Bracelets, Frost Brands and Fish Amulets you *need* to build is staggering.

Originally Posted by vfb

Anyone who is in Mooseknight, please stop reading now.

Lamia Queens are not part of my strategy, that's all. I've got other things to spend my N gems on. Total KotD at month 13: 22, so I think I only recruited them for 5 turns at the most. 17 UW provinces, 4 land.

How did you avoid losses of expansions squads due to coral weapon hits? Alhought this is somewhat luck based I admit. If you just get shamblers as independents, you don't need to wory about this.

Originally Posted by vfb

Well, I'm lucky, then. 5 Triton Kings with E1, 2 Mermages with E1. My god built a hammer the month after he woke up, and now he's going to do a little searching. I totally agree about the massive amounts of Fish ammies. Good thing I don't need to save those W for clams!

Eh. I just like to cover my bases. I'd hate to lose because I couldn't beat the 25%(for mermages)/33% (Kings) for E random in say ~10 turns. Also note that you won't be building a mage out of your cap each turn, since you need Bishop Fishes too. So it's more like 6 chances at geting that E random before it's sort of too late. IMHO, you need to move fast with Oceania. If start diversifying on turn 40, it's just too late.

Originally Posted by vfb

I don't like to erect temples that aren't in a fort. It just says "raze me", and then you're in a war. A fort is cheap (default=ramparts), and allows you to recruit more useful indies: some tribal archers, or amazons, perhaps. I agree there's not much point in recruiting Mermages in coastal forts. 175 for 6 RP (magic scale) is not great, 110 for 4 RP is better, especially for upkeep since all the tribals are sacred.

If you hit nice indy mages (like Lizard Shaman), yeah, build a fort. I don't see much point in recruiting 1N shamans.

Originally Posted by vfb

Quickness gives them move 60. With a lance, that's entertaining! They've already got a magic weapon and a spear, and high attack (esp Quickened), I don't think there's a need for a Frost Brand.

Lance is just for one hit. Brand gives them much better def and damage output for just 3 water gems. IMHO it's very smalll investment for big gain.

Originally Posted by vfb

You want to thug out a mage? Well, how about a 45HP mage instead? Who is also sacred, so gets your minor bless (but does unfortunately need an accompanying priest). He's the guy who gets to wield the frost brand! Pop an air gem on a W4A king, and you've got Mistform.

Anyway, I agree about the massive fun potential here.

Kings are cap only and don't ge access to teleport spells. Combine this with the low movement in UW provs and you rarely have them in the places you need them to be. If you have a good tactical mind, you can start moving them 3 turns before the action starts, but that's not something that everyone has. It would be good to spread them around to each of your forts, but that costs research turns.

Originally Posted by KissBlade

Haha, this guide is 100% my kind of guide. Hilarity xD! Btw, there's a bunch of typos in this guide so you might want to look it over when you get a chance.

Yeah, I'm typing this from my parent's house and their keyboard has a broken "t" key - hat's why you see so many "he" and "hey". However, I took a quick look and ifxed some typoes.