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

[This is a CBM guide]

MA Oceana has a lot of stuff working against it. By any measure it is one of the weakest nations in the game, but for those wanting a challenge (or perhaps playing against opponents significantly less experienced) this does provide an opportunity to play a handicap match. Let’s see what kind of clever nastiness we can pull with both hands tied behind our back. And no, I’m not forging a single clam.

On first glance the Trident Knight looks like a halfway decent sacred unit. He’s not, he’s bait and a big money sink. He’s got two big problems, his encumbrance and his cost. He’s got a whopping 8 encumbrance which means even with a strong earth bless this is not a long haul fighter. He’s got a single moderately good trident attack (with no first strike bonus), so he is not a big damage output. Though he’s tough enough you can’t kill stuff fast enough to stay ahead of encumbrance unless you field him in numbers which aren’t feasible at 100 gold a pop. Totally not worth investing in a blessing.

Fortunately, his cheaper cousin the ichtycentaur is actually pretty darn good, arguably the best thing about MA Oceana. Good defense, hitpoints, speed, a shield and first strike lance, this guy gives you the first part of your ability for a blistering initial expansion. He’s got a low resource cost and can be pumped out basically limited only by gold as long as you don’t go crazy with the sloth scales. Now, his one weakness is that light lance doesn’t deal very high damage after the first strike which is compounded by his size so you’re gonna struggle against very tough opponents or when heavily outnumbered. This is actually MA Oceana’s Achilles heel, the lack of serious damage output is something you’re going to struggle with all game (not to worry, I’m an evil bastard and have you covered). Against indies though you can almost universally run them over by just sending in enough ichtycentaurs – they do hit hard on their first strike and have enough defense to outlast mediocre opposition. Using a pair of sirens works well for large, juicy farmlands with hoards of heavy cavalry along the coast as well. The siren song is actually a pretty descent deterrent you’ll want to sprinkle in the path of anybody fighting on your coast, it’s basically like casing mind hunt which can be extremely effective in the beginning of the game when MR isn’t buffed much. Astral mages don’t provide cover and unlike most assassins bodyguards don’t help so there’s not much that can be done to counter during the early parts of the game other than staying away from the coast. Domes also don’t help, you can pretty effectively harass capitals or research centers along the coast. If there’s friendly water adjacent just set the sirens to retreat and there’s really no risk even if they’re patrolling for you.

Two other units bear mentioning though they’re not going to play central roles in your indy expansion. You’ve got several flavors of heavy infantry, but I look at it this way – the thing you’re struggling with is damage output. This means you really only want to recruit the trident infantry which come in two flavors. You pay a steep premium for the mermidon over the wave warrior, but I think he’s well worth it with 40% more hitpoints, 18 vs 14 protection, a shield, and 2 more strength (this is a big deal for damage output). Basically, whenever you don’t have enough money to spit out ichtycentaurs or are in peacetime and not clearing indies, recruit as many mermidons as resources allow. They do decent damage and will carry you through most things not requiring a serous punch, and with the high resource cost you’ll want to slowly build them up. Once you start slapping wooden warriors on them they get up into the “requiring a serous punch” range themselves. One thing to keep in mind if you do find yourself in an early war with some heavy guys (Abysia, Ulm, etc) with an earth gem one of the earth random mermages can drop rust mist which can be the best gem you ever spent in some circumstances and is an easy research detour if you need it. You can also, in a pinch, use a gem to summon earthpower, and another gem to lay down giant strength. Expensive and annoying micro, but it can sometimes be the extra punch you need to put you over the top.

Finally rounding out your starting lineup is a unit that will probably slip under your radar on first glance, and probably your second glance as well. It’s the cheapest chaff on your roster, the Oceanian Triton. Before your eyes glass over realize this is not the same unit as the indy tritons you can recruit. This guy has 50% more hitpoints, 20% more strength and 1 more MR plus higher attack and morale. That’s a pretty steep increase for a chaff unit at the same price. Now one of our first goto spells with MA Oceana is barkskin/wooden warriors/mass protection, and with that buff these guys start looking like real good chaff. This is the unit which is going to be your goto for fighting R’yleh – with your buffs your chaff is much stronger than theirs and fielded in large numbers with a 12 MR.

Now, the second prong of your initial expansion is probably the second best thing about MA Oceana – underwater nature mages. The reason is because the N1 magic site “Kelp Fortress” is very common. How this should play out is Ichtycentaurs are expanding in every direction while your first several mermages follow behind site searching. Unless you’re unlucky you’ll never have to build a castle, just plop a lab in the kelp fortresses you get, which should be a few in the first year. This gives you a circular feedback, money savings from not building forts get pumped into the low resource ichtycentaurs you’re now pumping out of your free fort giving you an even faster expansion. Even better, you’re fully amphibious so you really can expand in every direction land or sea. Played right this can easily be one of the best openings in the game.

Now, at this point you might be wondering why in the world I led by claiming this is a very weak nation then proceed to lay out a first class opening. Here’s the problem – there’s no obvious place to go from here. Those ictycentaurs which performed so well against indies are going to be absolutely dominated by the elite units from most nations. Sure, you can outchaff people so long as you stay wet, but you just don’t have the damage outlay to punch through even serious heavy infantry much less dual blessed sacreds or mid level summons. Your mermidons have ok damage output, but the real kicker is that you’ve got no effective combat mages to start with, and this is compounded by the absolutely drastic neutering your mages are hit with if they leave the water.

Your capricorns lose one from every path when they leave the water (mermages lose just a level of water magic). This means even the handful of semi useful things you come up with to use your mages for can’t really be done out of the water. You can’t even self-buff magic paths with the exception of the almost completely useless summon water power, meaning all that very nice amphibious initial expansion you just did is pretty much dependent on none of your land neighbors deciding they can easily kick you back into the waves. Adding insult to injury several of the most obvious things you want to cast (falling frost, mother oak, etc) can’t be cast underwater and your mages aren’t strong enough to cast them out of the water! You’ve got a good gold income (from a good expansion), and good nature and water income from aggressively site searching for those kelp fortresses, but nothing obviously useful to spend it on.

Now is time to consider your pretender. My initial thought was to kit out a badass combat pretender to lend some muscle to the fights that you need it. Problem is, I really think this is a bad long term strategy as you’re always just one bad fight from being neutered. A SC pretender can be an important stopgap if you just need a little time to get something else, but you can’t really keep leaning on them once good research is coming online. So, let’s go forward with the assumption that your pretender will help out in a few critical battles, but isn’t going to be central to our battle plans.

This is very good because as much as MA Oceana wants a good SC, what it really needs is a good lab mage. Not a rainbow mind you, a mage to summon and forge specifically what’s needed to plug the holes in your lineup. Now one of the more frustrating things is that you’re really going to need to take N5 on your pretender. This is a painful expense on a nation with such powerful national nature mages, but the reason you need it is to project your nature power onto land (which your national mages suck at). Just bear with me on it, and I’ll show you why it’s justified.

Now, speaking of projecting your power onto land, what do we do since all our national mages are crippled on land? Well, yes we hope for good indie mages, but we're not going to hang our whole strategy on getting lucky. This leaves summoning mages to do the lifting. You’ve got a good water and nature income, so let’s look at what your options are using those gems. Lets look at what something like an awake ghost king with 5A 3S 3D 5N buys us. He’s awake with the intention of doing some initial site searching, so I’m assuming you’ve got at least a small income in all these paths later on.

Llamia queens – Excellent value, for only 15 gems you get into death and blood using nature gems. This is the first thing that justifies you taking N5 on your pretender, there’s no way you’ll be summoning these ladies without it. Once you luck into a double N random one slap a moonvine bracelet and thistle mace on her and she’ll relieve your pretender from summoning more llamia queens, until then this will probably be his default action every turn. There’s several interesting things you can do with the Llamia queens, - mandragoras for instance make a great partner to ictycentaurs, bringing the offense compliment to their defense, dark vines make excellent decoys (more on that in a moment), and there are several demonic options to give you a good damage output but the really important thing they do (aside from eventually getting you bloodstones) is opening up death to you in a big way. As you start building up a good amount of llamia queens hit that death site searching aggressively. Alteration is your first research goal, so these ladies will add some nice sniping potential with drain life, while also bringing darkness to the party for your blossoming undead component. You should eventually land a 2W Llamia queen (or if not, suck it up and empower a 1W one for 30 gems), and with 2 boosters this gets you into…

Streams from Hades – Gives you a W3 D3 mage for 30 gems. This is a decent choice to get a good death caster using your strong water income. With a staff he can lay down drain life and darkness, and with another booster can start summoning lots of fun stuff. A couple particularly nice options are leviathans (great complement for your amphibious troops who struggle outputting damage) and catoblepas (now we’re getting some more good damage outlay!) as well as the more standard undead. You should at this point be a pretty respectable death power.

Hidden in the snow - You really should end up with quite a strong water income, and in CBM this spell is only 50 gems. This will hopefully get your toe into earth and astral as well as giving you good combat casters to heard the undead and demons you’re summoning. This is an expensive spell, but it does give you 1-2 desperately needed land mages and some pretty decent meatshields in the bargain, there’s worse things to spend your water gems on midgame.

Summon Specter – This is probably where a lot of your initial D gems will end up. They’re not the cheapest things in the world, but like the Unfrozen they will get you dabbling into astral and earth, and build up some more land mages for you.

Faerie Court – The fairy queen often sits around in labs by the time she’s summoned, but she’s going to prove an immensely valuable combat mage for MA Oceana. Slapping an air booster on her and….did I mention Alteration was your primary research goal? Granted, you’ve got to get to conj-8 before you get fairy queens but from the moment you get alt-7 your pretender can drop fog warriors (complemented by mass protection). Down the road you’ll be stacking mass flight on which does absolute wonders for things like dark vines and mandragoras (quickened, of course). You’ll also eventually be looking at nice combos with your other mages like gaia’s blessing + wrathful skies + foul vapors + mass regeneration. Ignore their nature paths, these are your air mages and they are immense force multipliers.

Wind ride – Another spell in the conjuration tree to get you more land mages. Once you’ve researched charm and hellbind heart that is. Now your pretender has a different default action every month. :)

Transformation – Yes, despite the indubitable double take I do classify this as a mage summon. Why? Because with a thistle mace each of your Capricorns can cast it (25% can without a thistle mace) out of the water and…it removes the magic path penalty from leaving the water. Perhaps this is an exploit, but it’d be a cold dude to complain about it given the handicaps Ocean struggles with. Now, this gives you several important things, but it also has some drawbacks. You’ll probably transform into an animal of some kind which has an abysmal MR and very few slots for path boosters. Still, it gives another much needed option for getting viable mages onto land. And here’s the best part – it removes the upkeep cost! This is a *huge* boon on the very expensive 350 gold, non-holy mage for the rock bottom price of 3N gems. This is the holy grail, you’ll want to transform every single one of your mages (pass around thistle maces and moonvine bracelets and even your mermages can cast it), letting you build up pretty sick amounts of mages over time. Note: the thing you transform into is based on the province you’re in, so underwater you’re likely to turn into an aquatic animal like a shark. You’ll want to have some of your mages cast it in the water as well as the land, it’s very likely they won’t be amphibious anymore after you cast it and you’ll want some mages down there to.

Now, I mentioned previously that dark vines make good decoys. Decoys are going to be critical to you for much of the game as you’ve just simultaneously raised your mages hitpoints and decimated their MR for the purpose of fielding them in combat on land. They are going to be prime pickings for astral sniping, so what you’re going to need is to always have plenty of even higher hitpoint low MR decoys around. Dark vines are great for this. Another great option is ice drakes, who you get 3 per pop once your capricorns have access to dragon master. Both these options are cheap enough that you don’t mind several getting popped each fight while still bringing some useful combat skills to the mix. You'll also want to regularly cast howl and/or summon sharks to give those rear astral mages something else to think about.

Also, mind hunt is going to be a particularly viscous landmine if you don’t prepare for it. Fortunately, it takes relatively few stealthy astral specters lurking around to convince most opponents that they're never sure where you’re covered, particularly if you’re clever in baiting some traps to introduce him to the fact you have them. Make sure you invest in some before it becomes a problem, and remember your pretender is a stealthy astral 3 mage out of the box as well.

Alright, now here’s the second reason you got N5 on your pretender – Mother Oak. As you’ve no doubt picked up on by now, alteration is your initial research goal and you’re also going to need a lot of N gems. You’ll very likely be in a position to put up Mother Oak around the beginning of year 2 and it’d be criminal not to do so. You get it up that early along with your aggressive site searching and you should have a couple hundred N gems by the time you want to start mass transforming everybody and then start dropping llamia and fairy queens. Obviously you can’t count on getting and keeping a global and you’re not totally screwed if you don’t get it, but its low hanging fruit in the direction you’re already researching so you’d be a fool not to try.

A couple more things to consider. Your early fighting is going to be helped quite a bit by a quick detour to constr-2 so you can forge ice pebble staffs. Your ichtycentaur have a good defense but fade on the offence after the first strike. Numbness is the perfect complement to this allowing them to wear down the tougher foes as fatigue lets them land numerous critical hits while their ailing adversaries quickly have no chance of overcoming their nice defense score. Just one ice pebble staff is enough to make a significant difference in indie-clearing size squads, while 4-5 can make a drastic difference in early big fights. Make sure to bring along some mermages to cast numbness as well for the really important fights – having 10 guys spamming numbness will cover an amazing number of enemies in the first few rounds of fighting and unless they’re cold immune they better hope they can kill you quite quickly.

Speaking of which, not much *can* kill you terribly quickly. Those ictycentaurs have a defense of 17 (unless you hit them with quickness…which does wonders for their first strike) and once you start dropping wooden warriors (pretty early) they’ve got 15 protection covering their 20 hitpoints….staying power isn’t really an issue for Oceana. When fighting on land stack curse of the desert on as well to make the most of your staying power.

Your pretender brings the following to the table – nature magic gives you mother oak, fairy and lamia queens and by extension Kokythiads and Unfrozen. All of a sudden you’ve got some strength on land! His air magic gives you early access to fog warriors, then air boosters for your fairy queens. His death magic gives you some initial death income to prime the pump for aggressive site searching when the llamias hit the table, leading into being a solid death power. His astral magic gives you moonvine bracelets (so everyone can transform!) and eyes of the void. The void eyes are quite useful because your capricorns will be casting: bone melter, curse of the desert, charm, polymoph (make sure to cast eagle eyes first) while your llamias, kokythiads, and unfrozen and hit the disintegration. Ah god I love the synergy of most of your best stuff snuggling neatly into alteration, you’ll be dropping this stuff pretty early.

Now, rounding the corner into late game you’re going to start feeling that pinch from lacking much astral, but the good news is you should have a pretty decent blood economy and be a very respectable death power, while having enough astral to forge those nice trinkets. Much of the advantage of late game astral lies in its mobility, don’t neglect the tools you have in your arsenal. Faery trod is not always the answer to your dreams, but it is in play a heck of a lot sooner than astral travel and you’re swimming in nature gems. Make the most out of those cloud trapezing fairy queens, and many of your transformed capricorns will be flying and/or stealthy.

It’s hard to overemphasize how important alteration is to Oceana. Every single one of these spells is immensely useful : eagle eyes, numbness, quickness, encase in ice, swarm, bone melter, drain life, wooden warriors, mother oak, frozen heart, darkness, fog warriors, prison of sedna, transformation, mass protection, polymorph, disintegration, quickening. Once you've used your llamia queens to leverage into blood stones, those earth random mermages are now summoning earthpower up to E4 which add lots more nice things under alt, but more importantly the second holy grail for MA Oceana - weapons of sharpness. Once you've got a few guys who can cast that spell (along with strength of giants, and of course all your other buffs) you're now permanently out of the struggling to output damage stage. You can also, of course, add destruction/iron bane in as appropriate.

So let’s recap. Fast initial expansion with ichtycentaur. Fast castling up with free kelp fortresses. Fast research from fast castles. Good water & gem income leveraged into good death and blood income. Solid buffs on solid units supplemented by summons with teeth. Lots of upkeep free mages!

Not a path for the faint of heart, but with a bit of balls this nation’s got some teeth.

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

Baalz found a workable MP strategy for MA Oceania?

You deserve a Klondike bar for that.

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

Baalz,

I generally think you do a good job with guides - but I think you've missed the heart of Oceania. I haven't put all the attention to detail into this that you do - but let me give you my thoughts on Oceania - and perhaps you can develop them.

Death. Death, Death, Death, Death, Death. Can I say Death some more?

Being under water means that you are sheltered from many of the options that people use to remove a global: killing the caster. Many of the spells wont work under water, and most nations will have difficulty entering into water.

So, while I agree that entry to land is difficult for you - make maximum advantage of that by planning to cast spells to take advantage of the corellary - that it is equally difficult for opponents to hit *you*.

Many of your units recuperate. Can you say Burden of Time?
In the same breath, you should be thinking "Death Scales".

In general I completely agree that you need to site search quickly in order to get castles - huge advantage for Oceania.
Plus you need to accomplish the site searching prior to building castles - nothing worse than finding a castle on a square where you've already put one.

You are correct about the lack of damage output. However, nets are an incredibly potent and underappreciated. When you recruit units, alternate nets and non net units - so that when grouped you get even dispersal of both kinds of units.

Nets set defense to zero - allowing that humonguous first strike to hit.

Also as an aside - you have overlooked the benefits of quickness, haste, and friendly currents - which increase the AP of the units and *hence the damage* of lance equipped units.
(I may be wrong on the haste, its not in front of me), yet even so haste at the least give your units better range - and so is still very valuable).

Also consider that you *will* find shamblers - shamblers innately have two attacks so things that increase their strength and or rate of attack scale better for them.

So, where do you go after your initial expansion? Think fortress oceania. Mass undead or mannikens - or X - mass low or no upkeep troops as filler to leverage your troops that *don't* have underwater penalties.

Breakout when you can - and head towards a tartar sauce factory. Which of course dovetails with the nature portion of your plan - Goh! Personally I think you should consider a DxSx pretender (S depending if R. is in the game).

Again its a question of leverage. Your ability to mind hunt underwater makes it more difficult for your opponents to screen with astral mages - and more expensive as they now need underwater equipment.

Plus if you do mindhunt - and they don't have a screening mage - the troops that were reliant on that commander to breath.. die.

So give those ideas a whirl.... and see if you can give them the normal Baalz magic...

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

.....? I thought what I just did was a very decided death slant on Oceana. You've a hard sell to convince me I missed the death angle on them. Your point is I didn't mention burden of time? It's incredibly situational depending on who your adversaries are and who you can afford to piss off, if it's likely to be dispelled, and if you've got pressing needs for your death gems. I try to keep my guides under a certain length so that people will actually read the whole thing, which means I don't go into detail of everything you can do. Yes, I agree that death scales make a whole lot of sense for Oceana, but I didn't really talk about scales at all. Cold-3 also makes a lot of sense for all underwater nations. I think a lot of what you mention is very situational.

I also did, in fact, mention that laying quickness on the centaurs complements their lance nicely. Haste does not affect first strike (it makes you use less AP to move, doesn't give you AP) and friendly currents doesn't make a significant difference.

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

:bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow:

Way to persist! I might actually try them now!

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

What on earth is a Klondike bar? Gold?

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

I´m dissapointed you leave out bog beasts of your strategy.

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

Fantomen nailed it... no bog beast equals fail.


Just kidding! :)

Excellent guide as usual.

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

Heh, yeah I actually did cut out an angle which has some good synergy. With this setup you're nicely poised for a couple different undead + poison deployments. Bog beasts mixed in with bone fiends with an optional dash of foul vapors is one of the things I had in mind when I mentioned throwing darkness down on your blossoming undead. :D Course, poison cloud, dragons breath, etc. works out good to.

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

First, about the haste, I mentioned adding range *is* still useful. And friendly currents in my opinion is significant.

But, let me flesh out my points a little more. When I said Death, Death, Death, Death Death - I wasn't talking about only burden of time - but what I think a main focus should be.

So here we go with a little expansion.

First, I think you absolutely *should* be clamming. And you will be saving up these pearls for..... Armageddon. Not once, but time after time after time.

Essentially for this strategy you are going to need water, death, astral, and nature. Maelstrom is useful: Opponents don't generally wish to dispel it; it has a rapid return in water gems; and it is useful as a global dispeller (if full) or to occupy a slot.

So if you are going to armageddon........ what do you need to survive such a thing. Well first of all who cares about your population. They're already dead! And you got design points for it.

So what else do you need to do: Well, set up soup kitchens. Ie., cauldrons and wineskins. Which you are well positioned to do with your nature mages and nature income.

Thirdly, you may wish to give your research mages water items to help them survive armageddon - or maybe not. Twiceborn takes care of the problem nicely - as does summoning death mages to start with.

You may wish to consider foul air (iirc) - where each unit that gets wounded gets diseased. It dovetails into the next option to consider:

Sirens. Pretty sucky unit - but they have two very nice features.

If you are going to employ the fortress oceania approach, in the midgame, station sirens. Due to the idiosyncracy of the game engine, opponents *have* to pause next to the shore, before they can invade you. Seduce them If your sirens seduce (whatever) your opponent will never know what troops will be stuck on the shore, as their commander drowned. Adds to the cost of invasion.

Another thing to consider - if you take high death, and add battleshrouds to 4-5 mages - and then used seeking arrows (again either alone or in combination with foul air) you vastly increase the efficacy of seeking arrow.

I think the whole faeirie queen route is sub optimal as it is distracting you from what your real focus: Death. Death by undead. Death by dominion projection. Death by global, death by death summon. Death by Armageddon.

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

A few things I do not agree about,

First of all nature pick on your pretender. You will be getting some n4 mages, and with a quick stop at construction 4 you will have nature5 access without having nature on your pretender(thistle mace). This might delay that mother oak strategy you were going for but you also get access to certain items that are valuable to your strategy like clams, wave breakers (gives friendly current - an enchantment lvl 5 spell that is nice for your heavy encumb troops).

While I agree with your basic point that Oceania needs a lab mage to be able to cast spells/forge, I found in my game with them that the most critical paths are astral and death. My personal choice was an immortal lich with S6, death at 5 and low level magic in a few other paths. The basic idea was for him to serve as a site searcher early and a summoner/forger later. Also he serves as protection in your own dominion against rlyeh (immortal +S6 mind duels). Late game his high astral and my clam forging makes him ideal to cast wish ("gems" mostly). Not that this is an optimal strategy by any means, but astral and death will be good to have.

My personal suggestion for research priorities are
- Thaum2 (haruspex, as you mentioned free forts are very nice)
- Conj for voice of tiamat, school of sharks (you want that gem income asap)
- Const 4 for wave breakers, thistle maces, other items of importance.

After that it really depends on your strategy/situation

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

Yeah, these are more or less the same points I would make. If you have R. you go with an immortal pretender with D/S. If R. isn't in the game, you don't need to pay the points for immortal although the various liches are still a pretty reasonable buy.

I also generally agree with the research order, except I believe dark knowledge is more important than voice of tiamat.

Due to my playing around with MA-Oceania a lot the last few weeks, my upcoming CCBM 1.48 has a few tweaks designed to help balance this race.

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

Hmmm, you'll get N4 capricorns often enough, but to cast mother oak you have to have N5 - on land. Since you lose a level going on land that means N5 in the water plus a thistle mace. You've got less than a 1% chance on each capricorn to get N5, so essentially you're scrapping the mother oak early strategy. You're also scrapping the llamia queen farm, and by extension much of your death magic and all your blood magic. You can still squeeze into death using your pretender, but it's an immensely steeper slope to climb than using your nature gems (fueled by the mother oak) to summon mages, while you use your limited death gems to site search. If you're using your limited death gems to summon mages with your pretender this drastically slows how fast you can site search.

As I mention, N5 is an expensive thing to do, but I think what you get justifies the cost. You very likely get hundreds of nature gems from putting the mother oak probably before anyone else can cast it and well before anyone is likely to try and dispel it. You get very solid entry into death, and a respectable one into blood. The alternative suggestion is to go with astral, I just don't see it bringing nearly as much to the table.

As to going for constr-4 first I think this is an expensive thing to do. I look at it this way, for your first engagement you're unlikely to have two mid level things researched, so would you rather have constr-4 or alt-5? Alt-5 brings numbness, quickness, wooden warriors, bone melter, encase in ice (perfect if your opponent has a SC god underwater) and swarm (perfect if your opponent has a SC god on land). Constr-4 certainly does give you a couple nice things, I just think it's better to focus on what gives you the most bang for the buck.

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

To ChrisP:

You seem to want to play the nation like LA ermor, this is not the best of ideas. First of all you dont have a starting income of death so you cannot cast dark knowledge. To add to this problem your only mage with death is your pretender (and if he is a rainbow with death - you move his fat *** out and site search manually). No forget about dark knowledge your pretender has better things to do, go for voice of tiamat, it will drastically increase your gem income.

Also pissing everyone off with BoT is not a good idea if you wish to make friends, the 3 steps of victory with this nation really is:

1. Secure the water (using those extra fort produce ichty soldiers (half the cost of mermidons and not 10 encumb!), and ichtycentaurs - expensive but good / Combine this with various battle spells like friendely current + school of sharks and do your best at taking the water. Easily said than done, but you should have a small edge against rlyeh or atlantis. Are they both in the game dont try to fight them both at once.

2. Build your strenght. Get gem income going with tiamat, haruspex and start clam production (earth on your pretender for hammers is good to consider). Make pacts and alliances and hope that MA oceania is not seen as a threat, and nibble up some provinces from dying nations.

3. Bust out with superior gem income and summon what you need to complement your armies for victory. Try to get the elemental summons like water queens if you are able. Use your high astral to wish for "gems" and if you feel like it you can get a few seraphs or something just for the fun of it.

I really feal your death, death, death! strategy will just turn everyone against you and violate "point 2". To add to this your heavy death dominion will kill off your pop and destroy your income. In my opinion Oceania really is a very late bloomer, and you need to make time your friend not your enemy in order to get the summons and gem income that can secure a win with this nation.

Also I dont think you need to mod oceania in any way, they are fully capable at winning even against good players (I have done so before) if you play them smart and are willing to slow play them a bit and build your strenght before getting into the action.

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

To Baalz:

When fighting underwater I do feel the battlewide effects are so much potent than the aoe1 offensive spells that you suggest. Since the 5th level is so very expensive I can almost have const 4 + conj 4 by the time you reach alt5, basically giving me friendly current (really needed if you want to use encumb10 myrms) and school of scharks and to top that off I do get alot of gems to play with from tiamat.

If you are engaging big battles on land early I really feel you are doing something wrong. A competent player will win against your armies since you are basically fighting without decent battle magic so getting swarm is not a top priority for me.

You are right that nature-5 pretender is needed if you for some reason need the mother oak, but then you need to go for ench5 aswell. personally I would get low nature on my pretender in order to get the moonvine bracelets (sp?) at some point (also various items/summons that need nature in combo with other paths). Sure then I would not get the mother oak as soon but its not so criticall anyway, since you usually get 20 nature or so per turn anyway after all your haruspex casts.

Personally I invested heavily into conjuration when I played them last, you get spells that is just awesome in the water like shark attack, various good summons and later water queens and maelstorm global, and I find this path more needed than alt to be honest.

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

Thanks for another great guide Baalz!

Nitpick: Kokythiads are 'she' not 'he'. If you are going to cast Leviathan with them, see if you can do it at the Water Solstice, for 50% off. It's supposedly a rare site, but I've seen it pop up every time I've been in the water.

Transformation: IMO this spell is still teh suck. Every time I've tried it my mage has just died. Not that I tried it very much after the first few times. If there was just a chance of affliction, I could handle that, but instadeath? That just bites.

Merman Priest: Don't forget to site search with these, Ancient Temple of the Deep are frequent and H1 and give S1W1.

Bishop Fish: Can be used to smite MR5 Krakens and MR8 Sea Serpents.

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

We agree on a lot of items. I definitely agree that your early site searching is done with your pretender. Definitely agree on fort production (in fact, I consider forts to victory to be one of 3-4 general strategies).

I can't see that MA Oceania ever has an edge against MA-Rylleh. R. out chaffs you, out elite you, has easier access to land, and better water mages (iirc). But for the same reason, I think a partial bless increasing your MR valuable for your expensive units.

I agree that Oceani is a late bloomer. I view gold as almost worthless in the late game.

But not everyone is going to be against a BoT. If you snag the agreement of ermor, or niefle or whomever....

The question about the income comes down to this: If Oceania has made it into the endgame - and everyone's population is dead - does it put Oceania at a competitive advantage. I think it does.

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

Mother oak is alt-5, there's no need to go for ench early. I think merms are not a good way to go initially because of a number of factors regardless of if you get friendly currents. Even with production scales you're going to be horribly resource constrained as to how many you can recruit and their encumbrance makes them not terribly viable until you've got something that can lay out damage faster than their staggering fatigue mounts up.

To be sure there's different ways to play most nations and I wouldn't begin to try and convince you that what you're suggesting could not also be effective, but I think we've got two different philosophies. You're looking to play a slow methodical turtling strategy involving clamming and long term investments. This is rather a classical way to play MA Oceana and relies on having complete water domination to comfortably fortify. My outline is a much more hybrid-amphibious approach which plays on different strengths and sets you up to be a solid land power from the beginning as well as a water power.

I disagree that you can't be competitive on land very early using the strategies I outline here, particularly if you're smart about how you expand. Are you really going to declare war on me (Oceana) in order to snatch 3 provinces before you get to the coast and our defacto new border while setting yourself up for constant siren harassment and coastal raids by troops that have no problem at all wiping out your PD? It's also a bit of a strawman to attack my suggestion of swarm, that's obviously not what my priority was, it's a bonus you pick up when you get wooden warriors and mother oak which is very useful in some situations you'll run into early game. I understand you played an effective game focusing on conjuration, but there's more than one way to play effectively. Also, though I didn't spell it out it's obvious from the rest of what I wrote that conjuration is a close second after alteration.

I also don't think you're really seeing the big picture with the mother oak/llamia queen plan. Yes, you have a solid nature income without the mother oak, but I'm suggesting spending a massive ammount of nature gems to transform scores of mages, summon dozens of llamia queens, not to mention the fact that every fairy queen you can scrape up is pure gold. If you can't find a good use for every nature gem then I think you're doing something wrong.

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

But Baalz,

Have you actually cast transformation much? Even with a Luck-3, I seem to end up dead about 10% of the time, and feebleminded about 20%. And there are even more circumstances in which you end up with rather useless forms. Thats a pretty high opportunity cost - plus the mage action, plus the gems - and frankly I don't think you can really afford a +3luck +3magic design.

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

I'm looking forward to see how this goes in WildRed, although I can't but think Baalz will be altering this strategy for the game, its hard to believe he'd give the game away just as a MP game starts..

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

One more question ... why go 5A instead of 4A on the Ghost King? It's 40 points from 4A to 5A.

A 4A mage needs 4A gems to cast Fog Warriors instead of 3A gems for a 5A caster. But you'll be at 200 fatigue either way.

For the 5A rituals, you can make a booster.

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

I was wondering about that too vfb :) 4A seems enough to me.

(and if you want really high A you can Wish later for the new A8 LA agarthan commander of CBM!! lolz :D )

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

Well, the thing about transformation is it completely removes upkeep cost. The upkeep cost of a unit is 1/15th it's cost, so if you transform 15 mages your upkeep savings will give you gold for a "free" replacement every turn. I don't know what the failure rate is, but if it's 10% (and you ignore the gem cost of transformation) then it pays for itself in less than two turns. That is to say if you have to pay for a replacement mage 10% of the time you can do it with the upkeep savings after a turn and a half. This also discounts the fact that the mages after the transformation are significantly more powerful if you plan to use them on land. The failure rate is further dropped if you just stash those upkeep free feebleminded dudes somewhere until you've got a bunch of fairy queens sitting around to heal them.

As to the A5, that's a bit of a judgement call but I was thinking about wind ride when I did it. Also, until you get all the way up to conj-8 your pretender is your only air support and it's useful to be able to cast fog warriors and not pass out (A5 with 5 gems) so you can then cast returning the next turn to keep your pretender relatively risk free. You could put the points elsewhere if you want, but it seemed a decent investment.

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

Baalz, I think you missed part of my statement:

thats 10% dead, +20% feeblemind with +3 luck. Don't get me wrong .. I *love* transform - but with a couple of CBM Blood wizard exceptions, I don't generally find it mp competitive.

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

So here's my prospective build for MA-Oceania:

Pretender: F4W4E4A4D4N4, Dom 4
Scales O3 D3 C3

First turn: Prophetize a siren. You could wait for for a bishop
in order have a H4 site searcher - but I find the utility of the siren much higher. Flying move 3. You are going to find a lot of kelp fortresses - the prophetized siren gives you quick options to lab/temple them.

Plus, the sirens can help you quickly find land sacred sites. The first couple of turns Research with your pretender. You don't want to fail a conquest and end up with your pretender twiddling.

With this build, I'd start on Construction immediately, to get the pearl factory going.

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

I don't think you appreciate the implications of what I said Chris. If the failure rate is 3 times what I outlined then it take 3 times that amount to "pay for itself". I don't know what the failure rate is (I don't think luck scales affect it), but something that pays for itself in 2-5 turns is a pretty good investment. Assuming your numbers are accurate, if you plan on eventually recovering most of those feebleminded guys with fairy queens then the transformation is paying for itself in under two turns even if you don't think the new mages are any better at all. Even if you never recover a single feebleminded guy it's still massively worthwhile to start investing in this early on.

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

Well, without a word from the sponsors we'll never know - but lets put it this way - I've noticed it enough that if I am going to transform - I always take +3. Not only to prevent death - but to get cool forms. Like Chimeras.

It isn't a question of how quickly it pays for itself, only Baalz. It also has to be better than all other opportunities. Is it better than simply summoning another Faerie queen, or another lamia? Or invading Russia.

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

Thanks Baalz, that's a whole new way of looking at Transformation!

I didn't consider the upkeep-cost avoidance. I think when I tried it, instead of using it to mass-convert my expensive recruit-anywhere mages into support-free units (not to mention getting rid of the annoying magic path loss), I used it once on a unit with exceptional paths, and once on an summon. Both died, but I was probably just unlucky. I think in the first case, I had to wield boosters to cast Transformation too, and they were lost when the unit just died.

About the A4/A5 ... you could cast Ritual of Returning, I think, and go with A4S4 instead. Any Magic Duels will usually happen in the first round, so if that happens your god is toast either way.

Something else though ... you do get one free get-out-of-death card with A5, I didn't consider that before. If you have to Call God to get him back and you started with A5, it's not as much of a problem as it is if you had taken A4. My plans in one game required extensive modification after my supposedly immortal A4F4 god was killed, bringing me down to A3F3.

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

Sounds like a diseased phoenix problem = ) And if you didn't have +luck I'm not at all surprised at the duel deaths. My #1 use for transformation is if I want to break into blood. I transform CBM Treelords. They retain the blood path, but the unique becomes resummonable. Its the best way I know to break into blood.

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

First, loved your. Big fan.

Second, I haven't experienced the unluckyness that other people have with transform. I usually just end up feebleminded after about 10 castings.

Third, it is clear to me that the angle on this guide is non-standard and worth mentioning. If people want to put forth an astral/death angle, that's great. Just do it in your own guide.

Fourth, have you cast wind ride recently. Last I knew it was worthless as it couldn't transport a unit further then 1 province. This is the second time you've mentioned it recently and I can't be sure you are using the same spells I'm using.

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

Repeat after me, Baalz - "I am sure that you can make that effective if you try, but I am also sure that what I described is effective, but I also found it interesting enough and fun enough to write an actual guide for it".

;)

I am going to put together an SP test to goof around with them, now that you finally got around to this. :p I'll do a bit of a different pretender, but I like your angle a lot, so it'll just be stylistic differences. :happy:

I do think it wasn't stated strongly enough how much you want a good land holding early on, so that you have area to site search, and for Blood Hunting before you intentionally open up a land war. I think key to not being pushed straight into the water again, is to have a decent holding, so it's not just "1, 2, you're out!", but also that they know you are strong enough that even if they push you off, you will harass then and drag them down for the rest of the game. I don't think a lot of people understand that attacking an aquatic nation's land provinces without a clear plan of how to kill them off ultimately just ruins both nations' chances, for little gain.

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

I have used Transformation to good effect, as well.

According to the manual there is a 20% chance of feeblemind or death, but to be honest I have had much better results than that.

In my last game - playing MA Man - I used it extensively with my crones (20+ times or so) and only had 2 of them feebleminded and no death at all. And this was with neutral luck-scales in normal, where Transformation costs 8 nature gems.

Thing is, if you have a sizeable contingent of N3 mages that benefit from Transformation, you probably will be able to summon Faerie Queens eventually, so feeblemindedness is not that much of a problem, as it can be healed. And, as Baalz mentioned, the deaths are very much mitigated by the fact that the mages that do not die are upkeep-free.


This does not mean that using Transformation is always a good idea, but as far as I can see Baalz uses it with good reason here. Oceania needs better magic on land, and Transformation goes a long way towards providing it.



Last, but not least: Thank you for a very good guide Baalz!

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

[quote=JimMorrison;675603]Yes, to me, the ideal situation is to make the other guy look at it like this:

I've only got 3 land provinces I can take before I have to go into the water to pursue this war.

Unless I'm prepared to go underwater and dig him out (!) the best case scenario is I take those three provinces without much fight but then have to defend my whole coast for a very long time while being harassed by sirens, raiders, and rituals. More likely it's going to be a bloody fight for those three provinces.

Alternatively Oceana is offering me a nice NAP and peace of mind to not have to worry about defending my long coast. Plus he's got the paths to forge a couple items I need and might be useful to help me in a fight with our mutual neighbor...

I usually try to expand with this in mind, and play my diplomacy that way. 3-4 provinces on this coast, 2 more over there, and grab that island nobody else wanted anyway. Now, wait for a good opportunity to join a war against somebody who's doing a good job of loosing already...

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

I have massively used transformation with pangaea on Glory of the Gods (so it was really a huge number of pans), and even if I don't recommend using it on a mage having rare randoms, like the ones who get the 10 % ones, it is surely a good thing to do on your every day mage.
The 'every day' of pans being bazillions of non sacred upkeep.

Once you get going, it's really hard to stop yourself casting it on each of those gold robbing bastards.

...very good guide Baalz

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

Full disclosure, I haven't actually done this in practice, just seemed pretty good in theory reading the spell description. If it doesn't work as described then this might not work well. Oh well, was a side bonus strategy anyway, you really took the air magic for fog warriors and boosters.

Were you casting it at size 2, non-ethereal, non-earth mages?

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

On the other hand, if wind ride does only move units 1 province, it's still a good assassination spell on air-breathers on the coast.

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

Awesome stuff, as usual. :up:

I just finished subbing for an MA Oceania position which shared the water with R'lyeh. I completely agree with everything you've said - if R'lyeh doesn't exist. But since it happens, here are a few comments to complement your extraordinary guide:

If R'lyeh is in the game, buckle up. After turn 25, they will dominate you, so kill them immediately.

Picture this: your Grand Army is swimming to meet the Alien Army. But just before the confrontation, 6 of your 10 commanders get zapfried by mindhunts, including the stealty S1 Spectre that was protecting them. So you arrive at the battlefield at half strength, across from a huge hoard of mindless chaff...

Turn 1: a half dozen ichtycentaurs get their minds enslaved, 2 dozen first strikes are spent killing them, as are a few errant numbness-es. Turn 2: repeat, only now the chaff have engaged you.........Eventually your exhausted ichtycentaurs break and retreat into enemy territory, since Imprint Souls can target underwater provinces.

I recommend:
(A) Surge out the the water looking with the singular goal of finding indy astral mage provinces. Forge swim trunks and institute the buddy system.
(B) Beg/Borrow/Steal all the Starshine Skullcaps you can. Put them on A and start every party with Antimagic.
(C) Beg/Borrow/Steal all the Amulets of Antimagic you can. Use 16+4=20MR Bishop Fish to lead your underwater armies, lest you arrive at the field without any troops. Make Lead Shields if necessary.
(D) Get Foul Vapors immediately...I know Alteration is awesome for Oceania, but you MUST get this spell before R'lyeh gets Enslave Mind. Unintuitively, Foul Vapors is castable underwater, and you can cast Poison Ward to mitigate the damage to your troops, he can't. Splurge those Earth gems on some un-mind-burnable, regenerating, poison-immune, zero-encumberance claymen to bolster your frontline.
(E) You need Bloodstones badly, as your Mermages can't wear Earth Boots underwater. Make it a priority, as you can then use Summon Earthpower and get Strength of Giants/Legions of Steel/Weapons of Sharpness underwater. Plus you can then summon Troll Kings.
(F) 20 PD in each retreat route.
(G) Don't cast Shark Attack in round 1. Script your Sirens for (Summon Water Power)(hold)(hold)(hold)(Shark Attack) so that the Enslave Minders are too exhausted for sustained enslavment of your sharks.

One last thought: Sailor's Death (W3, AOE=1, 14+ AN damage) works underwater against troops that are there by unnatural means (i.e. Sea King's Goblet, Wave Breaker, etc)...Summon Waterpower makes every mage you have W3, and most get Eagle Eyes...exploit this. :D

Again, great stuff.

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

Great stuff yourself Cleveland! Have a beer! :beer:

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

Really really great stuff. Makes me excited to try it.

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

A couple good points there Cleveland, particularly about Shark attack and Sailor's death which I didn't know. I will say though that I don't think R'yleh will quite dominate you if you play this right and make the appropriate preparations for a mid/late game fight with the squids. To be sure, R'yleh is one of the more powerful nations in the game and will seldom be a pushover for any nation to fight, but you do have some powerful tools at your disposal using this setup I outlined.

1) Fighting R'yleh you don't want to use ichtycentaurs, use the Oceanian Triton supported by mindless/high MR summons (yeah leviathans!). Those enslave minds/soul slay/mind blasts are now targeting your 12 MR, 10 gold troops who are *very* tough chaff when buffed with mass protection and possibly fog warriors. Using ice pebble staffs and support mages (frozen heart, bone melter, drain life, etc.) you should be able to easily handle the small numbers of elite units R'yleh fields (meteor guards, void summons). Enslave mind is a lot less scary when instead of 100 centaurs you're fielding 400 tritons who have a nice unbuffed 12 MR (ok, probably 11 in a magic-1 environment), flanked by swarms of bone fiends, and remember you're countering with powerful spells of your own. If he's dropping mind hunt and enslave mind (evocation & thuaum), you should be matching with polymorphs & shark attack (alteration & conj)

2) You've got a stealthy astral pretender from turn 1 and if you've got a S1 specter you damn sure better slap two boosters on him. The thing about having *stealthy* astral mages is they work as a wonderful mind hunt deterrent far above the actual number of territories they're in. Think about it, if you're playing R'yleh and you know I've got some unknown number of astral mages hiding in my territory (because you've been feebleminded a couple times targeting apparently "safe" targets) are you likely to drop 10 mind hunts on the high value army that I'm very interested in protecting? Even if I *don't* have a mage there you're likely to assume I do. Remember, your opponent has *no idea* how many stealthy astral mages you've got covering you or where they are, only that that number is greater than 0 and he's got no way to recover from feeblemind. And of course you're not just bluffing, you should stick a specter/your pretender sneaking around with the grand army you really don't want mind hunted.

3) Indie astral mages are certainly a boon, but one of the tenants of this guide is that astral mages are too vital to count on finding indies. Your pretender gives you astral from turn 1. Specters are an early focus for your death economy, and you're also optionally funneling water gems into Unfrozen - you should have a handful of astral mages to work with even if you can't find any indie ones. I certainly don't disagree that you should keep your eyes peeled for indies, but they're not critical. You should be able to forge as many amulets of antimagic as you want, drop anti-magic, and stop mind hunts dead without counting on luck. If you don't have enough astral mages for what you need, well you now know what the top priority is for all your death and water gems.

Yes, I do believe I described blood stones as unlocking the second holy grail for MA Oceana. Couldn't agree more. If you need the extra level of earth that you lose from not being able to wear earth boots underwater use one of your E/S specters to forge a crystal shield.

Foul vapors I don't know if I agree with. Certainly it can be made to be effective, but I don't see it as being a top priority target. It works too slow, requires combos to work well, and still probably will result in friendly casualties until you start getting the real powerful combos (large numbers of poison immune troops, mass regeneration, etc). Certainly it's something you'll want to pick up at some point, but I wouldn't personally drop some of the other stuff I suggest to get it.

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

Baalz,

When I play MA-R - my bread and butter isn't meteorite guards and void summonings. Its the mind blasting illitids. Maxed out as much as I can, and as much chaff as I need to screen them. I don't even know that I've ever build a meteorite guard.

But yes, the critical mass is absolutely necesssary against R. And you do want the 400 chaff rather than the ichy's. Makes it tough to turn around tho against other opponents. Those chaff are aquatic only, and suffer high attrition.

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

I mention the meteorite guards (and other tougher units) because they're the obvious counter to swarms of chaff. Chaff > snipers > elite units > chaff. So, against R'yleh I recommend you skip the elite units since they'll be using lots of snipers. Your (buffed) chaff > their (unbuffed) chaff, so you *in theory* you should have the upper hand so long as your own snipers can handle their elite units. Against real players...actual results may vary. :)

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

Meteorite Guards are excellent resource sinks, I can't imagine not building them with rlyeh unless you're maxing out your resources some other way, which shouldn't be happening once you get a couple of forts up.

Illithids, OTOH, are pretty much crap-on-a-stick for the price. The crab hybrids are much better in the water, and your mages are much better topside (once you get enough commander slots from underwater forts to make building enough of them possible). They'll get you through initial expansion since indies are dumb and static, but illithid troops get overwhelmed by numbers pretty quickly. They're not at all the centerpiece of a good rlyeh strat.

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

Haha, of course nothing I say is going to help if Micah is playing R'yleh.

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

God I hope if we meet in the water, you are playing MA R'lyeh. :p Illithids are bacon savers..... You can't even really effectively stop them with a single high HP/MR unit, like often works against Astral magic spam, as they always spread the love around a bit.

But I do agree wholeheartedly about Meteorites. Most UW castles can only put out a couple a turn anyways, and they're low gold cost, so may as well pile them up until the time is right to put them to good use.

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

Illithids eat too much and are way too expensive for non sacred units.

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

You can, you just need a passive attack. I defeated some Illithid+Troll invaders with a single Wraith Lord who cast Soul Vortex . He was paralyzed almost the whole battle, until the Illithids ran out of bullets. Then they charged forward and got killed too. I think I had something like a Frost Brand, Vine Shield, Starshine Cap, MR Ammy for gear.

I'm not sure if anything else would work as well as Soul Vortex, but you might get equivalent results with Fire Shield and enough Regen and Reinvig.

Like everything, if you just build Illithids (not that that's what Jim said at all), you're gonna be screwed. But it's worth throwing a few into your armies, and target fliers or large monsters or something else you'd like to disable in a battle.

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

I want to elaborate on all of that, but getting way off topic, now. ;)

I tried a start similar to this one last night..... In this game, those Temple of the Deeps are in about 1/5 provinces, WHY have I never heard of them before? It's ridiculous. :p But, overall growth is just a bit slow. I'll try again, fiddle with it a little bit. But not until I start mass Transforming these Capricorns, I'm just too excited for it. I don't know why, but something with such an unknown random factor really makes things a lot more fun for me.

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

Anything about Illithids is not off topic for a MA Oceania strategy thread. :)

Another thing I did fighting MA R'lyeh was to load up a couple Bane Lords with MR items, the works: Lead Shield, Ammy, Starshine Cap (okay, so I didn't bother with armor). Stick him at the front of your forces and watch as all the Illithids target him the entire fight and ignore the rest of your army. Unfortunately if you've got Sea Kings in your army then you need to use one of them as the decoy instead because they have higher HP.

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

This is the Achilles' Heel of this strat, actually. I don't think that it can be downplayed, how useless the Capricorns are. In theory, it is really nice that you can remove their upkeep, and restore their paths, with Transformation. In practice, 90% of your new forms will have 5MR, and even just a random Mind Burn here or there will destroy them.

I think I may try again, but try to work it completely onto the summons angle. I mean, you are probably best off getting Capricorns for your aquatic conquest and early research - and then Transforming them when you get the chance - but seriously, 90% of them can't be committed to combat against a human opponent. So they become upkeep free researchers (that absolutely MUST be well protected from overland spells), and you will have to do all of your battlefield magics with your summons. It just seems..... like a bit of a stretch.

Oh and final tally for this last test, 21 water provinces, 4 Ancient Temples of the Deeps, 2 Kelp Fortresses.

Funny note, I was Transforming at a front line Lab without a castle. One of my Caps turned into a weird form of a Hydra, and I got attacked that turn before I even knew the results of the spell, and lost 2 mages to the poison cloud. :p Also got a bog beast, a Chimaera, 2 Ice Drakes (and a MOOSE)..... Had 0 deaths, and about a 16% rate of Feeblemind. Was using 3 Luck.