New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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?

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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!!

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

No, you can't queue items.

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

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

> 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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

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.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

That's a bad example that heavily favors Water magic for the following reasons.

1. Your SC is deliberately immune to most low-level Air magic. That heavily skews any comparison, so we can't even pretend it's fair.

2. The best air magic requires communions or more powerful Air casters. One Mists of Deception would kill this guy for only a few gems in cost, but your example won't allow that.

Heck, since we aren't even talking about a specific SC, he might even be vulnerable to Wind Ride.

3. There is no further information on the SC. If he's a Neifel Yarl, an Ice Devil, or one of the many classic undead SCs like a Wraith Lord or Bane Lord, he's actually more immune to Water magic because of Cold Immunty (with the exception of Water Strike, which is both feeble and inaccurate).

Overall, Air compares better than Water because:

A. In combat, you are far more likely to encounter cold-resistant or cold-immune troops than lightning immune troops. Both are essentially single target attack suites, but Air wins handily on this point.

B. Higher level Air battlefield spells win battles. Fog Warriors and Mists of Deception have no equal in Water magic.

C. Most battle magic for Water requires Cold to be truly effective, so you need to burn heavy amounts of Water gems for Wolven Winters or just get lucky with a Cold opponent. If you have a Heat opponent, it's a bad day for you.

D. Low level Air magic makes good SCs as well. Mist Form and Mirror Image can't be replicated by items, so casters who do Air instead of Water have the best of both worlds since the good Water magic can be gained by items.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

Chain Mail of Deception grants Mirror Image. There's no item that grants Water Shield, and whether +4 defence is better than Mistform depends from the situation even though Mistform is generally more useful.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

I assume you mean "Chain Mail of Displacement", since there is no Chain Mail of Deception.

And that's not true. The Chain Mail of Displacement grants a Defense bonus, while Mirror Image grants images that have a chance of absorbing a melee attack. That's two separate effects. They just have similar flavor text.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

> Overall, Air compares better than Water because:

Only true above water. We were talking underwater, last time I checked.

> A. In combat, you are far more likely to encounter cold-resistant or
> cold-immune troops than lightning immune troops. Both are essentially
> single target attack suites, but Air wins handily on this point.

Water strike is not cold based, scales nicely with higher levels, and the damage
is not negligible. I've killed Nycafor in a Cold 3 province with massed
Water strikes. Furthermore, trampling Ice elementals do not care about
cold resistance either. They are lethally brutal against units that do not have
it, and still damn effective otherwise.

> B. Higher level Air battlefield spells win battles. Fog Warriors and Mists of
> Deception have no equal in Water magic.

Fog warriors is not much use against SCs, or cold auras. It is a nice spell to
protect your army, but all you need is to cast it once. And it doesn't do a
thing against the Wolven Winter / Grip of Winter combo.

Mists of Deception is basically cheating in my book. Once it is cast, all you
have to do is retreat the caster to win the battle. Using it in a tactics
argument smacks of desperation.

> C. Most battle magic for Water requires Cold to be truly effective, so you
> need to burn heavy amounts of Water gems for Wolven Winters or just get
> lucky with a Cold opponent. If you have a Heat opponent, it's a bad day
> for you.

Don't know about you, but I usually make my own cold underwater. Many water
using nations (Seraphs, Giants, LA Atlantis) do not mind cold much. And Wolven
Winter is quite cheap.

And for some reason (would it be because cold does not hurt income underwater?)
many water nations choose Cold 3 for their scales.

> D. Low level Air magic makes good SCs as well. Mist Form and Mirror Image
> can't be replicated by items, so casters who do Air instead of Water have
> the best of both worlds since the good Water magic can be gained by items.

I far prefer the Rainbow/Hydra Armours and the Boots of the messenger underwater
than the Rime haulberk and the boots of Quickness (undeads are the exception, and
there are other tricks against them). I also know that the 25% of my
Jarls who have Air magic do not bother with it underwater, because I've found
that water and death buffs are more important. Above water, it's a different
story, but once again, no one argues about that.

And anyway, the tactics I have used in all three games, and worked well enough
to win twice and have my opponents prematurely talking about surrendering in the
third is quad-immune SCs fighting under Grip of Winter and Foul Vapors. Above
water, there will also be a lighting storm going on, but hey, no one said I used
only Water magic.


===================

> Your SC is deliberately immune to most low-level Air magic. That heavily
> skews any comparison, so we can't even pretend it's fair.

He is _completely_ immune to both shock and illusion, except for the MoD cheat.
You cannot pull that trick with most Cold Immune SCs, because underwater, Water
magic has tramplers, ice encasing, and physical damage spells.

Yes, a size 6 Tartarian with Air, Earth and Astral magic will be a problem, but
you know, those usually are.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

Yes, we are. And Air magic is still slightly better than Water Magic.

But Water Strike is not armor piercing or armor negating, so if you have an Armor or 22 or so you don't even care, so SCs laugh that kind of thing off.

And trampling Ice Elementals are nice, but trampling has it's own weaknesses(Size and Defense). It's a gem-heavy tactic that is good for individual battles but terrible for wars.

It's a killer tactic, I agree. If you think it's too good, then play games where it's modded out.

Wolven Winter costs five Water gems. Grip of Winter costs gems. The combo can be easily countered by using cold-immune troops like Wights or Mechanical Men(which are awesome in their own right), or by removing the fatigue by casting Relief, or just winning the battle quickly.

Don't assume a few wins in MP means you have a killer tactic.

Five gems for a three scale drop is not cheap. Assuming a nation has twenty provinces, you are looking at hundreds of gems and dozens of mage turns devoted to chilling things down.

And, just to check, you do know that the Cold-using nations you've mentioned are usually highly Cold resistant, right?

Foul Vapors is a Nature spell. If we want to open up the floor to other ways to kill your SCs, I'd just use Petrify, or Drain Life, or high penetration Enslaves, or any of the dozen other tactics.

You've noted one tactic that works(Neifel Giants with Water magic). For the vast majority of players, that tactic will not work.

Overall, Air magic is sligher stronger underwater for most uses. I'll admit it has no great "kill a lightning-immune SC" tactic other than Mists of Deception or spamming False Horrors until he dies or retreats from Fear or dies from attacker 50-turn kill, but that still doesn't make Water better at troop killing and taking provinces. Heck, with spammed Horrors your Neifel Giant might not even get a chance to cast a single spell (they fly underwater, unlike every other flyer).

I mean, Air has Shimmering Fields. That stuff kills armies with real damage right now and Water has no equivalent.

Fog Warriors at least halves unit losses in every battle it is used. Water has no equivalent.


So now he's immune to illusions as well. Let me guess...as soon as I suggest a tactic he is going to mysteriously be immune to that tactic, right?

Ok, fine, I agree. An SC deliberately designed to fight Air magic can't be hurt by Air magic.

So, I guess it's a good thing that there is no nation that gets just Air magic, right? And they have national troops and indie troops and other paths and a host of tactics that can be used.

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

That being said, I've said my part: Water is the least effective of the magic paths that are effective underwater. It's not ineffective, which is why I didn't say it was ineffective, but it's last on my list.

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

Thanks about the Chain Mail correction. I was sure it gave actual mirror image. Even launched up Dom2, just to find that it doesn't give MI in there either. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: New Player question - taking out Oceania
 

Aaa, good to know. You had me doubting myself there.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif