Thoughts on balancing MA Oceania

[Baalz]

Alright, I hadn't really taken a look at MA Oceana before I drew them in Kingmaker, and all I can say is wow. I can't think of any nation - land or sea which is weaker and I say that with some pretty strong credentials of making weaker nations shine. I got to thinking about the points brought up in the MA Man thread, and I have to say everything brought up applies even more to MA OCeana. This is a nation which does just fine against indies but steadily and rapidly declines in power after that point.

EA Oceana is a one trick pony with a very good pony. MA is the same only without the pony. Most everyone knows of the terror of EA Oceana's dual bless knights, they are (outside of the significant drawback of being aquatic only) definitely on the short list of best recruitable units in the game. A devastating early game, and easy access to clams gives you a viable strategy, if not much versatility.

Now, anybody who hasn't looked too closely might think MA Oceana is fairly similar. The problem is, the sacreds have two critical differences from EA - twice the encumbrance, from 4 to 8 (!) and loss of the lance first strike charge (they use tridents). The absurd encumbrance means that even with an earth blessing they don't have the staying power to fight heavily outnumbered, and the loss of the lance (devastating at the speed of the EA knights) means they don't have the power to punch through tougher foes. They're just not effective at their cost.

Ok, looking at the rest of the roster, MA Oceana does have two fairly decent units. Their heavy infantry is good, but so resource intensive that even with production-3 you won't be fielding large numbers of them. The other unit, surprisingly (to me at least) effective is their amphibious centaurs. They've got a light lance (first strike bonus), good defense and decent hitpoints - they do a pretty respectable job of clearing indies so long as you dump gold into getting critical mass of these 40 gold units. They've got light armor though, and no hoof attack or berserk so they struggle against any real army which can blunt their initial charge.

So, after you're done with your initial expansion you've got some heavy infantry and flankers - nothing that will cause any nation to pause as they run over you with their best stuff. Look to your artillery to see what you have to bring for support in your underwater fights....do you hear crickets? Outside of level one randoms all you've got to use is nature and water. There are a couple combat spells you can cast that are better than useless, but not by much considering you've got no poison immune troops.

Ok, most people seem to disagree with my assessment of MA Atlantis, and [sarcasm]everybody knows R'yleh's weak[/sarcasm], so lets say you manage to somehow control your entire body of water. Here's the nice surprise - those mages you were already struggling to put to use are completely castrated out of the water. They lose one to *every* magic path, which means completely losing the level 1 randoms they got and dwindling down to mediocre strength in their primary schools. You're best mage is a 350 gold ~2N 2W guy (depending on randoms). Not a one of your mages can cast falling frost without boosters. You've got no poison resistant troops to leverage the obvious thing W/N is good for on the battlefield.

Alright, lets say half the board dies a dominion death and you manage to survive dragging yourself onto the land and everybody ignored you into late game. Now you've got the joy of having not a hint of astral, blood, death or fire, and not even enough earth & air to site search with. I'll go ahead and put it this way - there is not a *single* top tier combat spell your mages can cast, even with any reasonable boosters. Not a single top tier summon. Not a single top tier ritual. There's not even really many good ones. Adding insult to injury, lots of stuff can't be cast underwater, so even the paths you nominally get are crippled. Plus, between wings and fins, you're short on slots.

Well, at least you can forge clams....unless they're uber nerfed by a mod. :/ Not that you really have a use for pearls anyway - there aren't even any indie astral mages underwater...


So, I think there are significant changes which need to be done to bring this nation up to a playable level. A lot of the complaints I list above are thematic, and thus unlikely to change.

The sacreds are mostly crippled by the encumbrance. This is logical as they're centaurs and carrying the weight of the armor rather than being mounted. In practice though it totally hoses them to have an encumbrance this high. Dropping it from 8 to 6 would make them viable with an earth bless, though still not nearly as strong as the EA guys.

Ichy-centaurs should get a hoof attack when on land. They're green tailed centaurs but don't use their hooves. They also should get a berserker flag - why are they so much weaker than regular centaurs while costing the same? No hoof, no berserk, no javelin...but they cost the same.

Since its unlikely the mechanic which castrates mages out of water will be changed, they need to be made more powerful in the water to compensate. Capricorns should have a higher randomness and be able to achieve E3 (they can't use boots underwater, and loose a level on the ground), and W5 so some of them could actually cast water spells out of the water (I mean really, compare them to the Kings of the Deep!). Sirens should get A2 on land (maybe bumping up in cost). Sirens should also have a chance to seduce but not immediately drown enemy commanders - this would go a loooooooong way towards helping with diversification and getting some support on land.

National spells. They need an amphibious, poison immune summon of reasonable toughness so their mages can effectively use the few spells they can cast. They need a few unique high end mage summons who are not crippled out of the water (along the lines of Tloques). Maybe a battlefield enchantment to level the field a bit since they're so tied to the water to help level the field a bit. Viscous mists: +4 encumbrance & reduced AP for non amphibious/aquatic troops, also reduced precision.

[quantum_mechani]

I don't find MA Oceania that weak, underwater at least. Above water, I agree they have more trouble than any other water nation.

The two strengths they really have to play to are easy searching for kelp forests, and their 2 resource super-tritons. With a bit of luck this can result in a turbo-start they can coast on for quite a while.

[Meglobob]

Evilhomer played Ma Oceania in a MP I was in and thrashed everybody. In the late game he had Seraphs, hordes of iron dragons and tarrasques. He had more gems than the gnomes of Zurich and they have alot of gems.

This was down to Ma and Ea Oceanias main late game strengh, clamming, they can use it to overwhealm the world and reach godhood.

Your main problem Baalz is clamming in Kingmaker has been utterly nerfed, thus destroying Ea & Ma Oceanias late game completely.

There is no way I would play Ea & Ma Oceania in any game where clamming has been nerfed, as it destroys those 2 nations.

[Xietor]

EH also played MA Oceania in Fallacy, and that did not work out so well. Though again, with a clam nerf mod. But with clam nerf mods on the rise, should a race be solely dependent on them for survival past the early game?

[Baalz]

Well, I get the impression that EH would support my premise rather than refuting it. Dominions has enough of a random element that even a weak player (which EH is not) can start next to an even weaker player, and another who stales a lot and another who is already fighting on three fronts and before you know it stumble into a win even with good players on the map. I guess my point is, the fact that somebody won with them once doesn't really mean too much.

@QM: Yes, the kelp fortress is a nice boon (if you don't also happen to be playing with very difficult research. :/ ), and they've got a couple decent options for fairly rapid expansion against indies. The problem is, what then? And it doesn't start when they try to leave the water, it starts as soon as any amount of research is done. Even if you luck into a couple kelp fortresses very early and leverage it into a redneck rush I can't see you having any chance against the second nation you fight with, assuming reasonable skill levels all around. You've just got nothing to back up your troops (which while not terrible, aren't great), and not even anything to look forward to as research progresses. If you consider the situation out of water this goes from terrible to absolutely ridiculous.

@Xietor and Meglobob: clam nerfs do hurt Oceana, but I think that's a bit of a secondary issue. I don't even think Oceana is a particularly good clam hoarder. With just a little bit of work (or a little bit of luck) any nation can scrape together a couple clam forgers which is all you generally need to exhaust your water income. Oceana can't even forge hammers.

The thing is, even without the clam nerf you've got to survive quite a long time before clamming can give enough income to be a central facet to your power in a totally non-astral nation. Yeah, chain wishing is nice, but clams don't really do too terrible much for you up until that point.

[quantum_mechani]

Baalz said:

@QM: Yes, the kelp fortress is a nice boon (if you don't also happen to be playing with very difficult research. :/ ), and they've got a couple decent options for fairly rapid expansion against indies. The problem is, what then? And it doesn't start when they try to leave the water, it starts as soon as any amount of research is done. Even if you luck into a couple kelp fortresses very early and leverage it into a redneck rush I can't see you having any chance against the second nation you fight with, assuming reasonable skill levels all around. You've just got nothing to back up your troops (which while not terrible, aren't great), and not even anything to look forward to as research progresses. If you consider the situation out of water this goes from terrible to absolutely ridiculous.

As far as underwater combat, your mages can hold their own. I mean, you can do shark attacks, foul vapors, charm, living water and water strike in a pinch. I agree getting far above water takes a rather large component of luck.

[Xietor]

Clam nerfs were put in with the Ryleh in mind, not Oceania. Oceania just gets some of the effect.

[Zeldor]

You can Charm like crazy if land nation tries to invade you.

But if you ask me I don't like underwater combat at all. My solution would be to make underwater stronger but also entering water easier. Especialyl for nations that have bad access to water/air forgers.

[Amhazair]

Meglobob said:
Evilhomer played Ma Oceania in a MP I was in and thrashed everybody. In the late game he had Seraphs, hordes of iron dragons and tarrasques. He had more gems than the gnomes of Zurich and they have alot of gems.

While this is absolutely true (I was the main beneficiary of said seraphs, dragons and tarrasques ) EH was served by circumstances. (quite apart from being a top notch player of course. ) He got an ally to help him defeat the only other water nation, and was then left alone for half an eternity with several globals running (don't remember which ones, no nexus until very late at least, but he might have had the forge up. If not at least a couple of gem producers. ) while the other strong nations duked it out in a massive mellee in the middle of the map.

I haven't tried to make MA Oceania work myself, but on paper it looks like I have to agree with Baalz. They do seem to have a better shot at land expansion against indies/weak or half defeated players than many other water nations, but apart from that? I don't see any real strenghts to take advantage of. (and having played EA Oceania myself in the last megagame, I do agree that the oceania don't really have much of an advantage on the clamming field either. )

[Wrana]

Considering Ichtycentaurs - it would probably be more thematic to give them tail attack instead of hoof. Stats could be the same or little better. I don't remember whether berserk is thematic for them (probably no), but they could get more Protection, being covered with scales, not horseskin.