Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Yeah, no doubt this is a challenging position to play which has a lot of handicaps which you're hoping to mitigate but will never get rid of. I do, however, think that it's quite possible to have even *more* strong support mages than most nations. That's because of the way you're methodically building an upkeep free nation. What that means is that you're gonna have *so* many more 350 gold powerful mages than other nations could remotely contemplate.

Using them in combat does present challenges, but I think it's absolutely wrong to feel that you can't use them in combat because of their MR. Some of the forms are going to be particularly hard to use in combat (really high hitpoints and low MR), but that's OK you need research mages to. You'll have *plenty* of mages with tiny hitpoints and plenty more with medium hitpoints who have no problem at all blending into the chaff you should be fielding with them. Summon animals, cast crossbreeding etc. and slap an amulet of MR on a mage who transformed into a black hawk and he'll have nothing to worry about. Against anything but concentrated astral opposition you won't have trouble using even the big animal mages by making extensive use of blood vines, ice drakes, etc. You've got plenty of options for good cheap decoys and enough mages that you can afford to use them all over the place.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Well the problem in question, is of course the difficult transition into Blood. In the test I refer to, I only had 2 (land) provinces at the time, and due to struggling cash flow, had not gotten the research to really start grabbing a lot of summons (including, of course, Lamias). Also I tried casting Mother Oak, and 91 gems didn't overwrite the AI's casting. :(

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Oh, I wouldn't generally suggest trying to overcast mother oak. It makes a lot of sense if you have a pretty good chance of being the first one who can cast it (you're researching alt anyway and have a best in class nature gem income), but if you have to fight for it it's just not worth it generally because it takes too long to pay for itself...assuming it stays up.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

See, my take on MA-Oceania sort dovetails with yours Jim.
The whole question of transforming Capricorns is to avoid upkeep.
Generally, I believe the point of the castle strategy is to make mer mages.

Whats the point of taking an expensive research mage, blow 15 gems and transform him into an animal mage.

Why not just make more of the lower upkeep mages? Playing a +3 0 -3 -3 +0 + 0 scales, I generally can't afford to max out production of mages even from the beginning.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

The chance of just losing him aside :( , Trasformation's just 3 gems in CBM

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Yeah it makes a lot of sense at 3N per casting, though the vast majority of the forms, I still feel are wholly unsuited to combat use.

Out of 25 mages (2 died the last turn to Mind Burns, can't remember what they were, but I think they can safely be classified as "MR too low to survive combat" -

3 Foulspawn = 8MR
2 Dragonflies = 3MR
12 various animals = 5MR
1 Winged Monkey (so cool!) = 7MR
1 Bog Beast = 7MR
2 Ice Drakes = 9MR
1 "Hydra Hatchling" (looks like a mature Hydra missing some heads, only 1 form) = 12MR
1 Wyvern = 12MR
1 Chimera = 13MR
1 Amphiptere = 16MR

So if I count the 2 that just died, I had 20% Feebleminded (the Foulspawn and Dragonflies, who are actually at 3MR and -2MR atm from Affliction), and 16% who have >10MR before items. Of those 4, none of them have anything but misc slots, so besides the kind of awesome Amphiptere, none will surpass an unbuffed Capricorn, even with an Antimagic Ammy. (on the bright side, 25 ex-Capricorns with 1 star, and in 1Magic dominion will net you 250RP for free, and cut upkeep by ~583g)

As far as Mermages as support mages..... they are almost identical to a Capricorn out of the water. Without going into length, I'll just say that I didn't think I was the only one that felt that it wasn't just that Capricorns were too expensive once removed from the water, but that their paths just sucked in combat by that point anyways. Not to say that some Mermages wouldn't come in handy, but there is little good they can do that won't have them passed out by round 5, and not much they can do before that. :p

So, trying to look for an angle that allows land to be conquered early on, and Conj to be researched early enough to not only get a good stable of summoned mages up very early, but to make them visible to your neighbors, so they understand the risks involved in trying to marginalize your holdings. All this is a very tough task to accomplish, when it's well known that you won't get better than N2 or W2 for combat magic without your pretender, or summons (or booster items, but Water is way out of early reach, and Nature seems a very poor use for your gems, considering your other goals).

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Wow, you guys are making me want to play Rlyeh. ;)

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Hmmm idea for a new spell.
If an immature hydra gets old enough, it changes to a mature hydra. Unfortunately, I don't know a way to do an "if" statement via spell....

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Hmm, another look at things:

Oceania's problem is essentially this:

Water's gem access is: Water/Earth (great access) Astral/Nature Good access, Poor access: Death, Fire, Air)

This becomes compounded by: Water Nature mages emphasis; no foot slots to boost earth; and a pretty fair combat weakness for water/nature magic.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

I 2nd JimMorrison take on the transformation. The MR hit is a death sentence to your mages in and out of battle. There are so many ways to kill a commander that check MR...
I wouldn't do that unless under extreme circumstances.

IMHO the guide is solid but MA Oceania still remains a weak nation. I'm not sure that its better than taking the water and then spam clams.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Is that not overstating it just a little?

Sure, there are lots of things that kill low MR units, but targeting the right low MR units is not easy. Obviously you do not want to field the low MR mages against someone using Master Enslave, but other than that dummy targets work quite well.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

I don't recall all the MR check artillery spells cast at me over the years. I don't think its overstating though.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Does it bug anyone else that Oceania is mispelled in the title of the post?

Ballz? Ballz?

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

There are also plenty of no MR check artillery spells.

I am not trying to argue that low MR is not a handicap, but calling it a death sentence I do think a bit of a stretch. Of course, in a way bringing mages into battle is a death sentence, but that is rather independent of MR.

My point here is that even though a mage with low MR will in all probability die quicker than one with high MR, this does not mean that the former falls dead in the first fight it gets into. And in the fight it falls in, it probably still has time to get a couple of spells up and working.

In the case of Oceania, it is the question of keeping a balance between more durable and more useful mages.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Well, here's the thing - nobody is arguing that MA Oceana is not crippled on land and that you've got a major uphill fight. The question is, do you 1) not use your national mages at all in combat 2) use them in their magically crippled form with ridiculous upkeep and very limited spells they can cast 3) transform them. To me, clearly #3 is the way to go despite its drawbacks, *particularly* because this also means you'll be fielding *many* more mages.

Look at it this way, when you transform 15 mages you've conceptually just forged a special soul contract which instead of generating demons spits out a capricorn every turn (with the upkeep cost you saved). Looking at it that way you can see why even if you do have a high attrition rate it's better to do it than not just for the upkeep benefit, not even considering the fact that your mages are vastly more powerful on land now. I also think that if you're clever the danger from having a very small MR is more a limitation to where and how you deploy your mages rather than that your mages die left and right. Instead of sneaking around and single handedly clearing PD you've got to keep your mages with a group of otherwise mostly useless animals and crossbreeds, but still a bunch of mages who move at the speed of the slowest dark vine is *much* better than no combat mages at all.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

It sounds reasonable but I'd very much like to see how it holds up in a real MP game.

Had I faced MA O. that opted for mass transformation. I'd have probed all the castles with MH. Every castle that didn't have an astral mage or dome would immediately get MH raining down on it. I'd move a host of assassins with heart finder to its castles. I'd cast leprosy on the castles. Hell, I'd open the manual and look for all the MR check spells, attacks and weapons and I'd bring all that I can get to bear.

In battles I'd use any of a host of spells:
paralyze, mind burn, soul slay, enslave mind, master enslave, charm, sleep, nether darts, disintegrate, astral fires, petrify and I'm sure the list is way longer but my memory ain't.

As I see it, this saves gold (which is not even the main resource in late game dominions, which is of course gems) and opens a huge weakness, just waiting to be exploited.

Bottom line, I have a hard time believing this is viable. Some hard MP proof is required IMHO.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

The crux of the problem, is that you need to get to Transformation fairly early, or your economy will stall out. In order to justify the Transformation strat, and to expedite your UW conquest, it's my understanding you buy Capricorns from the get-go, as you can afford them. So in order to justify the bother of Transforming, you are committing yourself to that course of action.

The problem is, in order to even have then around at all, you are pretty reliant on mid-high level Death summons from Conj to protect from Mind Hunts, and to commit them to battle you are relying on Blood summons that you have no initial access to, which then have a collateral reliance on even more mid-high level Death summons.

I can see this working fairly well overall, should you actually drive straight for Well of Misery, and by some miracle get it up and keep it up. Otherwise, your Death summons, which are in fact the linchpin of the entire strategy, can hardly be numerous enough to fill all of the roles that you need them for. Too bad there's no pretender that auto creates Death gems, or that comes with a "Sickle Whose Crop is Pain" as default weapon. ;)

< Heads off to work on a new concept, the "Screw Combat Magic, here comes the Capricorn Thug Squad" concept. > ;) 9E and Shrouds? Hmmmmm. :p I'm just not sure these guys really can do anything well enough to scare anyone with any skill, after the second year of the game. >.>

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

It bugs me every time when I am reading Abyssia or *hiem or R'yleh or Formoria or Malverni or whatever else some people continue to use. Then again, I have been using Pangea for the longest time, because I somehow wanted to differentiate between the nation and the continent.

Nice illustration of how misspellings can be annoying. ;) Ballz?

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

As this oceania guide was able to go over 7 pages, maybe someone might be interested to try it in a real MP environment.

So please join at: Lapis Game

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Hmm, I have given this some thought, and the death/lamia route sounds great but I too can't see how massed transformation will get you anywhere.


I really like transformation but I don't think transforming all of your mages is a viable route.
First thing is transforming 15 mages doesn't give you an extra mage per turn but exactly 15 new mages. With that it's the cheapest summon but it has a hidden cost in mage and castle turns (move out of the water, heal feeblemind, went wrong). If you start loosing lots of the transformed mages it's hardly cheap.

And while transformation can add some new capabilities to your mages if you do it to every mage the enemy will just know what to expect from you and the stats aren't great for all animals. Add low precision (well, eagle eyes gets you to 10 prec that doesn't cut it imho, especially as it would get a capricorn to 18 prec and since you don't have the most spectacular magic you'd have to hit more often than the enemy) hp, and morale as other weaknesses. Why not transform selectively and give some of the capricorns a booster (water bracelet costs the same as transformation, thistle mace costs 4 gems more) so you can have a mixed force?
Some high nature animals to cast battlefield wide spells and buffs. Some boosted capricorns to cast area effect spells and make mindhunts, succubi, archers, fear not certain win counters. I don't know about battlefield mr spells but a capricorn might just fill the role of soul slay bait compared to your low hp animals.

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Well, to each his own I suppose, but the way I look at it is like this - would you rather have a transformed capricorn or a non-transformed? Low MR is certainly a significant drawback, no doubt. However, you get two huge benefits: +1 to all your magic paths and no upkeep. I've highlighted the compounding nature of the no upkeep benefit (which, if you continue to do it does generate a never ending stream of free mages from a gold point of view as long as you're pumping nature gems in), but I think those of you complaining that transformed capricorns are useless in combat are failing to appreciate how crippled they are out of the water by default.

In the left corner two 1w 2n mages, and a 2w 2n mage with good MR. In the right corner a 2w 3n 1e, 3w 3n, and 2w 3n 1a mages with low MR. In exchange for the low MR you have picked up spells from falling frost to rust mist to freezing mist (hint: did I mention you struggle with damage outlay by default?) and everybody is spamming charm, poison cloud, stream of life not to mention the forging and ritual benefits (like, say the dragon master + ice drakes I mentioned). Yes, low MR is a big penalty, but your mages are next to worthless without it anyway. When you add to that the benefits from having no upkeep your choice is really more like: those 3 high MR, low magic capricorns or 10 low MR guys with the higher paths. Low MR or no, it seems like a no-brainer to me who I'm bringing to battle (most of the time) *despite* the obvious drawbacks.

There are many situations where having a low MR is a critical weakness, but there are plenty when it's not even if your opponent knows your weakness. March against Ulm or Caelum or Man or Eriu etc. with lots of decoys (ice drakes, dark vines, etc) and that low MR is not going to be the end of the world. Plus, if you're fielding many more mages due to lack of upkeep you can certainly still come out ahead after some casualties from the low MR.

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

They're just exceedingly vulnerable, in practice. You don't have 10 anything if they're all dead already.

It's not that there aren't clever ways to protect them from a weak opponent, it's just that there are so damned many clever ways to -kill- them. A human would have to be a fool, not to cause you a high rate of attrition on your "free" mages.

There is also quite a mid game period of vulnerability where you just can't possibly have all of your primary research done, yet you need to be on land already, and posturing as if you are a threat greater than the "wrath of the angry sea that will come back to haunt you".

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Yeah, that is a huge issue. I just pushed a MA Oceania player off of my coast for three "free" provinces because he came on, and conquered the territories, but besides someday threatening me with revenge, it's just not very scary.

TBH, I think most ocean nations suffer from the "I suck on land" effect at the beginning of the game, but Oceanian has it pretty bad.

Jazzepi

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Oreos or Raks with seduction. Sirens. Vengeance of the dead.
Tartarian chains.

Not to mention half the spells in the book are MR. I think its a great idea B. But I don't think it transforms Oceania into a powerhouse. Same strategy works better for Pangaea.

I think you're better off pursueing a death death death strat.

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Yeah, there are some examples were transformation makes a lot of sense (ritual casters, e and a mages) but I think you are overstating the benefit it has overall.
Would you rather have a 3w2n capricorn with a water bracelet or a 3w3n animal to cast water spells? That's just one lost path that you don't plan to use anyway and for that you are sacrificing precision, durability and mobility. What do you do when R'lyeh attacks you and 80% of your mages can't go under the water?

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Since I played Oceania some time ago and was utterly crushed by vfb on turn 8 or so I don't think the Ichtisaytirs are that good.
I have an sp game with a mostly similar setup but completely different indie expansion now and that worked quite well. It still has some problems, though with a high dom it works fine. If you drop only air you can get a wyrm with good dom and n5d2s3 or e3, but imo a high dom alone could be enough.

Maybe it's my inability to use them, but even groups of 10 ichtycentaurs + 2 smiters (=680 gold) are slaughtered by tougher indies and have so many losses against weaker ones that you have to reinforce them soon. And that's something that you never want to do underwater, by the time your reinforcements have reached them indie expansion is finished.

What usually happens is they build up fatigue while only killing a little. And as they do their defense drops faster than the attack of the indies and their prot, too (17 defense is really 13 defense with +4 shield parry which isn't to great against criticals).
And since you'll see very long battles that's bad.
On land they work ok, but underwater there's just so much you have to avoid (chaff, nets, Illythids).

Oceania has a quite good unit that you have overlooked I think though, the Ichtisatyrs.
They cost 8 gold 2 res, with ok stats, except low morale.
I build as much as I can on the first turn and make groups of 10 with my starting army and set them on attack rearmost, spread them in a line.
If you fight in your own dom, with sermon of courage and the tritons to boost morale they usually deal enough damage to all but the toughest indies to rout them before taking much losses themselves. Really, my first party ran out of provinces to conquer before it was useless.

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

why is cold scale a good idea for underwater nations?

nice guide tho, grats! not just for the substance but for the very enjoyable style also!

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

because you don't suffer the income loss of the cold scale in underwater provinces. so it's basically free design points...

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Thanks! that isnt in the manual i think. is there a list for all (most)hot/cold scale effects?

Re: MA Oceana - OMG, I think I've done it
 

but does hot scale still reduce income in water provs?

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

Just for refence for all who read this guide:

CBM 1.6 changes capricorns so that they only lose one water magic when going to land, not -1 on all paths like in vanilla. They also IIRC don't get reduced stats on land.

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

They get reduced stats still-- they're down 7 HP, 1 Att 1 Def 1 Str and 2 Prot.

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

As an interesting pretender option for a variant of this strategy, possible mainly because Oceania gets natural Air/Water mages, you could also go for a Dormant Dom9 N5D3?5 Ancient Kraken without tanking your scales badly.

There are multiple good options for the third path depending on which way you want to go, I think that's more down to personal preference.

I know it's unusual to build a dormant SC, but in this case it's job is to allow you to expand onto land and be a passive threat that can hold what you take while he does lab work. It works because you can have a fish amulet ready and waiting when he wakes.

Re: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it
 

im not sure baalz still reading this, but this strategy seems to have a little built-in weakness: oceania (as every water nation) benefits from taking cold3 or heat 3scales, but the heat3 will hinder the masses of undead mages (it raises their spellcasting enc, right?), and the cold3 will cripple the lamia queens in combat (being coldblooded).