Man against Atlantis

[Louist]

I need some advise with how to deal with Atlantis as Man. The only gold producing provinces I have access too are a few coastal plains, which we are constantly fighting over. While my armies handily beat back the Atlantians, I can't commit enough men to cover each province and as a result a lot of time is being spent chasing down armies and reclaiming lost territory.

What are some options for Man? I have a A4 E9 pretender, but the only gems I have a decent income for are N/A/S. I'm afraid that without and water mages, the men I'll be able to bring underwater won't be better off than the Atlantians are on land.

Thanks,
Louist

[13lackGu4rd]

first of all Man's PD is pretty decent, so to defend those coastal provinces your PD and a few mages should be good enough to defend against Atlantian raids. as for actually taking the fight underwater, you'd need some Water mages and Water income to get yourself some water breathing items for your Thugs/SCs. raid his sea provinces with Thugs/SCs while defending your own coastal provinces should be a solid solution.

more specific solutions would require more information, such as MA or LA(Atlantis and Man appear in both and are pretty different in both), your research levels, Atlantis' previous attacks on you(amphibious armies, raiding Thugs, etc) and other information you can give.

[Makinus]

One of man´s strong points are their castles.... consider the option of building a couple of castles in the contested provinces.... it will serve to slow down any invasion force...

[Louist]

It's the MA.

So far it has just been small and mid sized anphibious armies and a few mages. Most of my territory offers really, REALLY terrible income, despite my Order dominion, so most castles will take me a few turns to save for. PD is an option, as well, but once again I run into gold issues. Most of what I make is going into troop to fight Ulm and Van on my other fronts. Both of them are proving to be much more difficult.

As for magic, I have something along the lines of Construct 4, Enchant 4, Conj 4, Evo 3... Or there abouts. Enough for Wind Guide and Gift of Health, my two main goals as far as research went. Now I'm working on Evocation to open up some options for my Air casters.

Actually, now that I think about it, most of my provinces offer little of anything at all outside a few magic sites. The only thing really going for me are a number of chokepoints between myself and my land-based neighbours.

[13lackGu4rd]

see, fighting on 2 additional fronts changes things quite a bit... also being MA means Atlantis has access to very nice teleporting Thugs/SC Chassises in their Kings of the Deep, which means you need to be wary of raids once he gets enough of them properly equipped. still, PD is probably the cheapest way for you to defend your coastal provinces against regular armies, PD doesn't cost upkeep and it's a 1 time investment per province for pretty solid defense.

also with const4 you should start equipping thugs of your own, mainly against Van and Ulm I guess, but if any of those have enough Air/Astral for Cloud Trapeze/Teleport than you can raid Atlantis as well, just make sure to forge them water breathing equipment so they wont drown.

and yes, you certainly need more castles ASAP, seems like you don't have nearly enough. just recruit mages(no troops) in order to save up for a castle or 2 and that PD for your coastal provinces.

[Squirrelloid]

PD is probably a poor solution, because he'll just blow through it and you've lost the money.

Diplomacy is the best solution - either with Atlantis or with your other neighbors. Make peace somewhere. You're already playing one of the weakest MA nations, no reason to commit suicide by trying to fight multiple wars at the same time.

[Torin]

Barrel of air or whatever the item is called grants water breathing to a group of soldiers.

So you can raid.

[BigDaddy]

If you're having trouble affording the castle, put a bunch of troops on the province and raise the taxes, you can just do it with your capital too. It kills off some population, but nets you an excellent surplus. Use that to castle the coast. Really you just need enough to move to defend, so you might or should be able to leave 2 spaces in between provinces. Then just build/station troops at the castle. 2 castles should be able to get 6 provinces protection. And don't forget to use the PD to augment your defensive capacity.

If you can afford labs, you can put mages in those provinces with some air evos, that pretty much take care of most thugs and many SCs.

If he's not that advanced just use slingers and consider a double tax for those provinces, so you can buy infrastucture... In masses they'll take out regular heavy infantry type armor (protection 13), but they're not very effective at all at 17 or so.

[Squirrelloid]

Why would Man use slingers? He's got longbows...

[thejeff]

Because he's really using them as cheap patrollers to over tax. Defending the province is just a bonus.