Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Here is the question. EA Oceana is built to swim and has some great units in the water. However, when it comes time to go on-shore, what do you suggest? My mages either lose power or can not go on land, the same with my troops. Sacred units are water only, so that route does not help. Certain summons seem useful, but many of the most powerful are water only. The usual question is how to get into the water and there are many solutions for that. Today’s question is how to get out!

I am part way through a game right now and have some ideas, but I also have a versatile pretender. I am curious at how others see using this nation.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Its the same problem as land nations trying enter the water. Find a weak province, take it, hold it, and build up land units there to spread out.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

But its much easier getting land units into water then the other way around,seeing as land can take entire armies while ocean can only get single commanders out

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

EA Oceania has a set of units & leaders that change shape and sprout legs to get them on land.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

He already knows about them

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Now that you mention this topic... I notice there are multiple items and commanders which allow land troops to enter water provinces yet the opposite does not exist. There's no commanders or items which allow water troops to enter the land provinces.
Sounds like a good patch opportunity to introduce new features.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Fair enough.

I wanted to clarify that the following was not true for Oceania:

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

I disagree - Water nations have a serious advantage with the water barrier. Basically they are immune from early game rush attacks from all land nations. It should be hard for them to get out of the water.

As for how to get out - the above posts cover it pretty well. My suggestion is to scout the coastal lands well and find a place with good indy troops and good resources. Then take it and immediately build a fort so you can bang out a land army. Additionally, I've been told that Sea Trolls make for a good amphibious force? Then when you are on land you can summon winter wolves with your water mages, perhaps?

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Sea trolls are excellent, no fire weakness like normal trolls, higher HPs, just as good on land as well as sea, 1 sea troll for 1W gem is excellent value. Also sea trolls court is good, did you know the sea troll king produces 1W gem per month? So eventually he repays the 55W gem cost, also what else are you going to use those water gems for?

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

<Insert my gripe about Oceania here.>

In all seriousness, there have been several threads talking about how Oceania underperforms. It is the worst of the three water nations and has the hardest time of the three coming to shore.

Let me look into my crystal ball and give you some insite into how these threads play out...

Someone tries Oceania and realizes that it is not that great of a nation.

Someone who does not play Oceania snaps at the person saying they do not know how to play the game or use the nation to it's full potential.

Several more people chime in talking about the air breathing amulet, the weaksauce troops that CAN come to shore and independent archers being viable alternatives.

-----------------------------------------------------

People who play the nation know that:

Most of Oceania's troops become weak on land, and the ones that do not are weak to begin with.

There is a bug where if a unit that has stealth in the water moves to an enemy land province, or to a province that is taken by an enemy while the land version of the stealth unit is still in the province, it essential dooms the unit to suiciding on the guards or praying the province gets taken back. (Meaning the unit cannot take further actions including "Move" like other stealthed units can)

Sirens have an abyssmal chance to lure a commander.

In the water, Atlantis and Rlyeh say "Here you go, we brought you a gift, your *** on a platter."

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Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Are you talking of EA or MA? It makes a difference. I understand EA R'lyeh is weaker than EA Oceania, and unlike Oceania, EA R'lyeh can't even make Amulets of the Fish.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

EA Oceania WEAK? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!?!?! RIGHT?!?!

In Dawnstrike MP, EA Oceania has stomped all over EA R'lyeh and is now stomping all over me EA Atlantis. Underwater Oceania is AWESOME, I will repeat, it deserves repetition, UNDERWATER, OCEANIA IS AWESOME.

There knights of the deep even with a minor bless are unstoppable underwater. 21 def/21 pro, fast (30 move), 3 weapon attacks (1 magic) and on top of that they have recuperation...ARAAGH! On land I would just blow them up with AOE spells, but underwater...what can you do? Not alot, 40 of those will go through 100's of your best troops as if they were not there, I gathered 12 lvl 4+ water mages, summoned 200+ sharks, had a army of 100+, hit them with dozens of water strikes/sleep clouds/geysers. It did not stop them.

DON'T YOU DARE SAY EA OCEANIA IS WEAK!?!?!

Please note:- Due to the fact Oceania is currently beating me to a pulp, this post may be a tad extreme...

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Bah my stuff is relevant to MA, I missed the EA part. My apologies.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Yes, I second that EA Oceania is not at all weak, in SP as well as apparently MP. Hippocampi sacred calvalry are atleast as good as Helheim sacred calvalry, possibly better, since you can compare rejuvenation to glamour, and glamour may come out a little ahead, but then add on that you get the hippocampus back if your sacred rider gets killed-plus in the water you're not competing nearly as much sacred-to-sacred. I had half a dozen medium-blessed hippocampi calvalry annhilate atleast 12 independent provinces without any of them ever taking an affliction, let alone losing a rider. Even if one of them had, the affliction would quickly be healed, which enabled me to build them up to 3 stars with 0 afflictions very quickly. If Hippocampi-riders were amphibious, EA Oceanea would dominate the entire game since you'd have more time to build up a powerful sacred force and the enemy would have a lot harder time destroying your economy or raiding you.

Even so, you can equip your triton kings with air-breathing which gives you a minimum 4 water caster with lots of land-based spells, and you'll have lots and lots of them, because you've destroyed all independents everywhere, including the sea-trolls and the amber-clan guards and the krackens and the leviathons and the dragon-turtles, and everything else you might or might not encounter, independent-wise, and R'lyeh and Atlantis won't even look at you funny, they're too busy outfitting the cave-fortresses they have to live in now because you're out there and only getting closer. And your triton kings are going to be hella-tough when they get on land because you've got a bless strategy going for them as well. And that's when you start making amulets of air-breathing for your hippocampi-rider CAPTAINS.

It's a good nation.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

I am having trouble as EA Oceana on land in a current game (AI and MP), even though I am leading the score charts in every category.

Playing Cradle, my strategy:
1. Hire land mercenaries whenever possible.
2. Take the port cities for money and blockading.
Lots of money for improvements and castles, and to spread around the map quickly before nations expand.
3. Build temples at every underwater province
I went with Cold 3, Sloth 3, and high dominion to spread those crap scales around)
4. Site search above and below water.
5. 15+ frozen heart casters per army with usually a 50% FR chest or similar protection.
6. Lots of enchantments and remote spells (not here yet)

My land combat is pathetic. I have hordes of archers and heavy infantry, with javelin light infantry mixed with my triton raiders. The armies do ok against independents, but even with my huge income bonus I can't keep up with 4-5 fronts of AIs, which is quite common on Cradle. The frozen heart spam is nice, but took a lot of research (not much useful in alteration) and lots of money and time (tons of castles to make mages). Unfortunately I don't have a large water gem income to consider Sea Trolls yet. I do have a tons of other gems, but no casters to use them other than my god and 2S2A indy mages. Of course I've started boosting and empowering my randoms, but I couldn't have done any of this w/o a good amount of luck. Maybe I've overextended a bit, but I'm not making much progress on land. Luckily most of the opponents are AI, or else I would have given all my indy land and my castles to them without a fight. What combat magic should I use, and how do you expand on land and keep it?

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Good, good, good, all very interesting. To bring the thread back to the original question, how do you lift EA Oceana out of the ocean, what is your mid and late game?

Folks have nicely summarized how they are strong underwater and some have argued that it should be hard to get out of the water. Fine, now what?

NT Jedi has pointed out, and I second, that there are few spells and items to allow water only creatures to go on land. There are a lot of ways for land units to get into the water. To get them, you need to have water or air magic and do a fair bit of research. I agree that this is an area that could be looked at by the devs, as even with research and the right magic paths, I have a tough time getting my troops out of the water. One poster has said that getting units out of the water is the same as getting them in, but I must disagree. Open up that manual and show me the spells and magic items. Really, I challenge you! Partly to prove my point and partly in the hope I missed something you can show me.

Find a good independent province, build a castle and build a new army. As Death Daemon points out, you can grab archers and heavy infantry. Now, those are not bad, but do they stand up against the troops you will find on land? Poison hydras, Vans, Magma Children? I have never seen a thread on “Building a killer strategy based on independent troops!” My point is that these troops are not enough, we need more.

Summons. This is where I think the answer may be, but would love to hear more. Sea trolls are good, but it is a challenge to get enough. Most of my magic is centered around water, so there is competition for those water gems. Clams take 15 to build, which takes time to pay off. Also in the water gem competition are the Kynaiads (spelled incorrectly) These are the 15 units for 30 gems summon that have awe. I find them to be very durable and useful in and out of the water. However, they don’t seem to kill much, so I tend to have them as the center of the army, with my mermen with amour and tridents on the sides.

National units. The mages have a tough time coming onto land, I have yet to find a way around this. The sacred cavalry can not come on land (if you know a way, please tell me!) This is why I argue that you should not use a bless strategy with this nation, as the points you spend will not directly help you in the later parts of the game.

What does come on land are the mermen. The cheap one has a net, which tends to nicely blunt the first enemy charge. However, they then die quickly. The heavy unit is good, no complaints. I buy as many of them as resources will permit, every turn.

Death. I think death magic might be the way forward. Get a pretender with some and get him summoning specters as soon as he can. This gives you a wide range of magic. You can search with the long range spells and then build up an army of the dead. My only worry about this is that it is not thematic! I still want to know how to get Oceana to take over the world, as a water magic and water based nation.

Nature. This one seems to be the second choice of magic that is natural to the nation. I have always used this as a good buff magic, but not a summoning or attack based school. Gift of Health is nice, if you have the dominion to go with it, but not a game winner. How can Oceana use this path to power up?

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

I don't know about death magic not being thematic to Oceanea, it all depends on what you view Oceanea capable of-if you want The Little Mermaid version then no, death magic probably isn't your style, but if you want something dark and cold and deep and chaotic, like the sea itself, then it works just fine. I think it's pretty spectacular to imagine Oceanea sending the corpses of hundreds of drowned sailors out to drag their former friends and neighbers beneath the waves. This could be extended into Unfrozen where the dead of a thousand cruel winters take their revenge on those whose blood still runs warm in their veins. There currently are quite a lot of independent amphibious types of unit in the oceans of Dom3 already though-shamblers, icthys, and the sea-trolls who were already mentioned, not to mention the occasional illithid, which as far as I know are usually found in the water. I do have to say that there should be some high level water spell which allows you to bring troops from the water on to land. I don't think the calvalry commanders are capital only, am I wrong? if not then just use large groups of them for calvalry, they'll be better than the standard anyway. Make sure you get ahold of the Queens of Elemental Water-one of them is already amphibious and she's not a bad target for empowering and prophetizing. It's wasteful but so is most empowering, and atleast she's a good chassis. Are asp turtles amphibious? I've yet to see one, but I think they are. Overall, I think empowering a powerful amphibious chassis and using it to summon land-based troops might be the best thing you can do to support your independents.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Chosing a pretender who can summon mages and/or units who are either good on land, and/or who can summon units who are good on land, are some options. There are some paths like that for even EA Oceania's natural mages.

In my massive EA Oceania SP game, I took my first land provinces using plain trident heavy infantry mixed with turtle warriors and other amphibious fodder. In mid game, I used some nice summons to supplement my natural troops and indy troops - there are some good ones available, especially if you summon from one mage type to the next. Getting into the later phases of the game, I've got strong mages and summons from water, nature, death, astral, air, earth... hmm, all except blood and fire.

I'm also toying with the idea of gifting and equipping some of the more impressive sea creatures with land capabilities... Flying Asp Turtle, anyone?

PvK

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Asp Turtle is amphibious?! Oh goodie, I will have to try that out.

In my SP game, I am using Specters to expand my range of magic and searching everything. I found a Crystal Castle, which gives nice E2S2 mages for 180. With the earth spell that boosts your level and optional boots, I have a nice E4 mage, which is good for buffing troops and destroying enemy armor. I can also Body Ethereal spam, though I plan to use the astral randoms on the Specters for that. Like PvK says, everything but blood and fire. What fire gems I had I spent on lightless lanterns, as I could not see much use for them, even though I have F1 mages in the capital.

Going back to the thematic issue, I agree that the drowned sailors idea has merit. I was just thinking that the mages in the nation seem to be largely water and nature, and death comes from my pretender, so the default theme seemed to be more Little Mermaid than The Black Pearl.

In any case, any other suggestions on getting this nation out of the water are welcome. I am also curious, does Atlantis have this problem? Unless Rhyelh has changed a lot since Dom II, I suspect they are ok.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

All of alantis are generally amphibious. Ea - LA

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

If it were any easier to get sea troops on land many (myself included) would be clamouring for nerfing the sea nations, especially Oceania.

I have only played MA Oceania, and only in SP, but I believe the following strategy works in other ages and in MP with minor modifications (In MP you need to adept to what your neighbours are doing):

Step 1: Dominate the seas. Unless the map is cradle or full of sea squares there are likely to be at most one other sea nation. I believe Oceania has an edge vs either of the other two sea nations. So dominating the seas should not be too challenging.

Step 2: Cast Maelstrom. You should be ahead in both gems and gold even before the spell as the land nations busy themself fighting each other.

Step 3: cast Sea King's Court. With Maelstrom and the Troll Kings' gem production it takes relatively little time to gather a large Sea Troll army.

Step 4: Land. In MA the sacred troops are quite tough on land too.

I have left out a few details in case some of you want to have the fun of discovering them yourself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Actually, those little details you leave out are what I need! I have done all that you describe in dominating the ocean. I am working towards Maelstrom, but it is rather high level (8) and I need something before that. I have troll armies and the Naiad Warriors, but their numbers are not enough to handle armies, especially those with blessed units. Since a fair bit of my old army is still in the water, I am essentially starting to buld entirely new armies halfway through the game. The land nations can do the same to invade me, but with some medium level magic, they can bring their old armies with them.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Asp Turtles aren't amphibious until you cast Gift of Reason on them and then give them an item to let them go on the surface... I haven't tried yet, but I assume this will result in a flying saucer of doom...

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Kydnides are great. Also my Oceania has managed to get (I think more or less as an eventual result of native casters and forging boost items): Naiads, death Naiads, Vine Men & Ogres & Kings, Ether Warriors, Firbolg, Spectres, Faerie Queens, Water & Air (& Earth via pretender) elemental royalty, Djinn... and even without the unique summons I could have several other types but I'm doing fine with these. Wave Warriors and Kydnides make a good army center at least against general foes who don't have too much artillery - human opponents could hurt them easier than the AI. I think it's a bit challenging because one needs to get more creative and mix/match with indies, expensive summons, etc.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Asp turtles with amulets of the fish and rings of regen/lucky pendants might be fun but i dont see them being cost effective.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

That's one exact strategy I have been comntemplating in my current game.

I haven't really noticed any problems bringing Oceania to land, myself. The merfolk are weak, but I have an untouchable set of underwater provinces from which to recruit and afford millions of the little buggers. My plan is to slowly waste away my opponents by taking their lands one by one until my economy eclipses theirs. At some point, I'll have so many more inferior troops, it won't even be funny. Also, there is that one cheap water spell that does strong damage to a single target (I can't find my manual right now) so even the weakened mermages can cast that. Creating armies of Triton Kings to make use water bracelets and fish amulets and casting falling frost is working well, too. When they run out of gems, I'll have them assist my puny armies by casting those dehydration AoE spells.

Of course, this wouldn't work in MP, but in MP I wouldn't pick EA Oceania unless someone else was also playing an underwater nation, in which case my goal would be to dominate the seas to gain safe territory.

Also, I don't know what your earlier strategy has been to this point, but it's well known that Oceanic nations do well with very strong dominion and temples everywhere, since it is hard for enemies to go into the water to destroy those temples. This makes shore assaults pretender and prophet friendly.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

The problem with massing low resource troops to raid enemy provinces and boost your economy is upkeep, 150 10 gold troops will cost you 100 gold per turn, while 150 may seem like alot they will be crushed by better equipped foes(and if they come up against flails/dual wielding units...) so the best idea might be to mass armoured units, just an idea.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Yes, I think Wave Warriors make a fairly good core amphibious troop because of their armor, but they should have at least a light screen of troops with shields in front to protect from archers.

Turtle Warriors on Fire Closest are synergistic with Wave Warriors, but if you don't want them to move together underwater, then dry land shield/javelin Light Infantry tends to be better-equipped.

PvK

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Leviation is fun. The Asp Turtle dies and you summon it as an undead critter, so same flying saucer of doom, but no morale issues...

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

How does one summon up (undead) a specific creature of yours that has died? I haven't figured that out yet.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

By the way, providing you've got mages who can create the shells, Oceania and R'lyeh are both great shell-spamming nations. You can use all those extra pearls to pave the way to landfall in whatever sneaky, diabolical way you see fit.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

You cant. But there's this other spell:

Leviathan. Ench7, D3W1, 15 death gems. Summons an undead asp turtle. Must be summoned underwater, but it's amphbious so you can bring it on land. mindless. hp 143, prot 19, mr 13. 10 action points compared to the asp turtles 14, so it probably tramples slightly less times per round.


It looks *really* neat, especially if you can somehow cast regeneration on it (it's not lifeless). But I haven't used it enough to say if it's worth the gems.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Ritual of Rebirth summons one of your dead commanders that is in the Hall of Fame.

Raise Skeletons et all reanimate different undead based on resource costs of the dead guys. So if you kill group of Ulmish guys, you'll get soulless with boradswords and mail.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Leviathan is a neat critter. They are very slow, so I put them up front on immediate attack and they still get beaten by some troops farther back on hold and attack. Their attack is not so impressive, but they seem to trample everything, especially glamour units! They will get banished a lot, but have a lot of hit points, so they can take it. I am tempted to gift of reason one and see what can be done, though I expect they do not get many slots.

FYI, Asp Turtle is not amphibious, contrary to what someone mentioned earlier in the thread. The Leviathan certainly are and I used them to raid from the water, destroy temples and then scuttle away. I need more support for them, but plan for them to be the center of one of my next armies.

Are they worth the gems? I don’t know, but I like them. However, I also have a pet tortoise, so I am a bit biased…

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

Sorry for the late reply. My internet connection was down due to the damage to the trans-Pacific cables caused by the earthquake nr. Taiwan (most of Asia's connection to the US was impared).

Some of the "details" have already been mentioned by others. eg. build temples on all sea provinces so that land provinces come under your dominion. I shall add a few more:

1. Call Wraith Lord, which in turn generates ghosts. They compliment the Sea Trolls very well.
2. If in war raid coastal provinces with temples to destroy them.
3. Take coastal provinces with longbowmen or xbowmen and fortify them against all but large invading armies. Use the likes of murdering winter against large invading armies. Use these as your base for land conquest.

There are others but ultimately it depends on what your opponent is doing.

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

That's too bad. I know about the Leviathan, it's a good spell. The Behemoth one is also good, and although I love elephants (I actually collect elephant statues, if anyone's interested in a free glimpse into my deeper psyche), I'd be happy to see atleast a handful of the larger dinosaurs in the game.

Atleast one nation out there ought to have access to atleast one spell that summons up an undead dinosaur, don't you think?

Re: Getting EA Oceana out of the water...
 

They would go well with the cave man...