[Edratman]

Gandalf, of course, is correct, but what he left unsaid is that water nations are a stout foe in the oceans. If you play a nation without water magic and you don't get independents with water magic available, water nations are pretty invulnerable in the water provinces, especially on a large map with 10 or more adjacent water provinces.

Even with independent water magic and one or two provinces of water-capable units, the water nations always seem to overwhelm my relatively meager forays with armies of 1000+ units accompanied by some powerful water magics. Additionally, they are constantly harassing the entire coast with invasions, tidal waves and the extremely painful global of "Sirens", which effortlessly kills off major quantities of significent units. If you run out of gems to dispel Sirens, you are in for a major challenge.

I've only found three successful strategies for combating water nations:
1. Choose your opponents and don't set up any water nations. (Most effective)
2. Hope you get water-capable mercanaries combined with a conquered water capable independent province in the first couple of turns and knock out the water nation very early. Or have a water capable pretender and set him up as a SC early and knock them out early. (Least effective)
3. Suffer until you can make several water capable SC's and then knock them out. (Painful, but effective)