New Player question - taking out Oceania

[Piet]

My first game - I play Abysia against Oceania, C'tis, and Agartha on a small map. I do fine taking out and taking over all land areas. I learn to empower a couple of my mages to have water skills and figure out how to make water breathing ring. I have a couple of low production amphibian provinces, and keep pumping those armies into the Oceania empire. But my brute force approach is not enough... I can't bring my armies with my water breathing leaders and am scared to commit those mages that have developed water skills.

What did I do wrong? What can I do to finish this map? Is there some way that I can make my armies be water breathing?

[thejeff]

Abysia's a rough nation to go underwater with. Your fire mages are largely useless underwater, even once you get water breathing gear.

There are a number of items that grant water breathing to either commanders or commander and some troops. They require either water or air, neither of which you have much of.
They only become poor amphibians, though and will fair poorly against Oceania's troops. I'd focus on thugs and SCs.

Many undead are also amphibian, so if you can get death magic, you can use that path

You don't say what era you're playing. If it's middle, I'd focus on blood, summon and equip a bunch of the blood uniques and send them in do the killing. Early age I'm not so familiar with.

Also, use your empowered mages to summon water breathers. Sea King's Court and Naiads both are good water mages. Both the Sea Trolls from the court and Naiad Warriors are decent troops, if expensive.

There's also the alternative of going for a dominion victory. Blood sacrifice along the shoreline.

[Piet]

I was playing the early era. Anyway, I was just about to cast Sea King's Court when the dominion strategy came to fruition(blood sacrifice along the shore as you suggested). Thanks for good advise, I was getting frustrated with the micro management.

Speaking of which, I wish that there was a way to "factory" water breathing rings (not that it would have been effective mind you). I could make them, but only one at a time (I think, I didn't try clicking on it repeatedly to queue them up).

Thanks again!!

[thejeff]

No, you can't queue items.

"Forge Monthly" has been a much requested option for quite awhile.

[K]

It's counter-intuitive that Water magic is not that great fighting underwater, but it's true.

What you need is Nature magic and Air magic for battle magic, and death and/or Earth for troops.

Battle magic for underwater includes Lightning Bolts and Poison Clouds, and a few army boosting spells like Fog Warriors and Army of Lead, for example.

For troops, building water-breathing items is a bit of a waste when you can just summon Marble Warriors or undead.

Since you are fighting AI, SCs are the best. Kit out a few Banelords or Elemental Royalty and take it to them.

[Tuidjy]

K, I have to disagree about water magic. It is useful for both summoning
(the shark line of spells), army support (friendly currents) and SCs (quicken
self, water shield, breath of winter) Niefel Jarls, for example, are beasts
underwater. Or anywhere, for that matter, except for hot provinces.

Against the AI, I suggest SCs. If you control the landmass, and have an
abundance of gems, Wraith Lords with firebrand, charcoal shield, spirit helmet,
chainmail of displacement, coots of quickness, ring of regeneration, and amulet
of luck are able to take on any amount of troops.

[K]

Tuidjy said:
K, I have to disagree about water magic. It is useful for both summoning
(the shark line of spells), army support (friendly currents) and SCs (quicken
self, water shield, breath of winter) Niefel Jarls, for example, are beasts
underwater. Or anywhere, for that matter, except for hot provinces.

All of which are useful things, but less useful than any other path except Blood and Fire when used underwater.

I mean, except for Water Shield and the shark summoning, all of the spells you've listed can be put on an SC or other unit through items, thereby saving your unit the fatigue cost of casting them.

I'd put the Paths in order or usefulness underwater as Death and Nature, then Air, then Earth or Astral, then Water, with Fire and Blood being completely useless except for items or ritual summons.

Underwater combat has been called "padded sumo" because of the difficulty of using magic there, so any spells which work underwater with basic mages are rated far more highly than niche tactics like nation-specific SC tactics.

[Tuidjy]

> I'd put the Paths in order or usefulness underwater as Death and Nature, then
> Air, then Earth or Astral, then Water, with Fire and Blood being completely
> useless except for items or ritual summons.

Well, you may file this as "nation specific", but I was recently engaged in some
underwater fighting as Niefelheim in three games. Let see what I used:

1. The combination of Wolven Winter and Grip of Winter is a battlefield wide
killer, and even non-giant water mages can easily protect themselves, and to a
lesser extend, their troops. The only other battlefield wide killer is Foul
Vapors, which requires Water and Nature.

2. The Ice Elementals are a terror, even against SCs, because the minuscule
trample avoidance damage is enough to attract the sharks from Shark Attack.
And when it is not avoided... ouch! And even by itself Shark Attack is one
Hell of a weapon in the Water Arsenal.

3. For single target, direct damage Water Strike and Frozen Heart are great.
And it helps that any water mage can boost them with Water Power.

4. Water Ward and Water Shield stack. Have you seen the Defense on Water thugs
underwater? Slap a ring of water breathing on a disposable nature Skratti, and
he rips troops apart. Sure, he could get Quickness and Breath of Winter from
items, but that's fewer slots for MR and Reinvigoration.. and of course, good bye
shape shifting, in that case. He would have to cast outside of wereform.

5. Encase in Ice and Prison of Sedna work quite nicely if the scripts run out
before the enemy has broken. I admit to never scripting them, but I have
enjoyed seeing them used.

Let me ask you this. You ranked Air Higher than water underwater. All other
things being equal, would you rather have, underwater
A) One A4, three A3, five A2, ten A1, and one W4 mage and a bunch of troops or
B) One W4, three W3, five W2, ten W1, and one A4 mage and a bunch of troops
Assume that the SC/Thug/wimp ratios are constant.

If you went with the Air heavy option, consider what your guys would do to a
Water based SC wearing a Charcoal Shield and a Ring of Shock Resistance.

[Xox]

Shark attack just recently got nerfed. Unfortunatley i think it got nerfed to the point of uselessness.

But its true, before the recent nerf, water was actually quite useful underwater, but mostly for shark attack as Lingchih recently taught me so well in our recent clash.

Now that shark attack has been overnerfed I have to agree with k.

[Tuidjy]

OK, so how do you protect against Wolven Winter and Grip of Winter, without
Water magic? And how bad did shark attack get nerfed? With foul vapors to wound
the enemy, I have been getting nice results even with the last patch... before
that, it was overpowered.

You guys may be right... after all, I have been playing Niefelheim, so I used what
I had, and what I had was Water, in combination with Death and Nature. But in
the three games I played, I decided that cold & water magic rule beneath the waves.