[Ming]

Baalz,

Given that my previous comment seems to be misinterpreted as being "borderline insulting", I would like to first apologise if it has offended you.

On your point of the effectiveness of the bishop fish, I agree that they would not be effective ON THEIR OWN. However, I am assuming that they would be supported by your own sacred knights. With P2 you should be able to recruit 3 per turn and have 30 or so by the end of the first year since they are unlikely to suffer losses against indies. While they cannot match the EA Oceania knights in a long fight, they should hold up reasonably well in a short fight - certainly more than 2-3 turns even with only a weak bless (say W4E4). This should give the bishop fish time to work their smite. Bear in mind that a EA Oceania knight damaged by smite has a good likelihood of being finish off by your own knights.

Since you had the time to achieve a commanding lead and EA Oceania has the time to accumulate 40+ knights (even though theirs can be recruited anywhere) I imagine that the battle was fought no earlier than sometime in year two. Given your economic strength you probably have 3 or more castles. As battle magic is less important underwater, you should be able to devote at least one if not two castles to recruiting bishop fish exclusively (BTW, IMHO MA Oceania MUST devote his first new castle, and sometimes at his home castle too, to producing bishop fish when in, or anticipate, war). So an advantage of 10 or more bishop fish is not out of the question. In terms of cost one bishop fish is roughly 150% that of an EA Oceania knight (and much less resource). Adjusting for his heavy bless it is not unreasonable to equate them as 1:1. Similarly, 40 of your knights is roughly equivalent to 30 of his after using, say, a 50% adjustment for his heavy bless. So 10 bishop fish, 40 Ma Oceania knights, plus PD against 40 EA Oceania knights is a fair fight under the circumstances - and not taking into account of your superior economic position over and above the adjustment needed to compensate for his heavy bless. I have not tested to see if such a match-up is hopeless on your side but I suspect not. However, this is not the point and one can argue that the 50% figure I am using is purely arbitrary.

You are talking about a 2:1 advantage in economy. If I assume that it is before taking into account EA Oceania's heavy bless, it would still transfer into about 14 bishop fish and 55 knights against 40 EA Oceania knights. Again I have not tested such a match-up, but I would be very surprised if you do not win, especially since you are likely to have first strike (having PD's to screen their first strike).

Your excellent guides (which I have benefitted from and would like to thank you regarding them) have shown that some seemingly weak nations require thinking "outside of the box" to be competitive. I think MA Oceania falls into the same catagory. It has a fast start against indies and this needs to be turned into a lasting economic advantage (I find P3 to be necessary). You might even be able to rush your underwater neighbour if he is not being careful. However, you need to rely on Bishop fish against other players (so growth scale is important). At 120g for H3 it is competitive even against heavily blessed sacreds. Sacrifice you research to get them if you are in a war. Hopefully you economic advantage means that you can do both under normal circumstances. On land you have to rely on Bishop fish even more, but at 120G plus 5A and 5W gems (If you have lots of clams, invest in a dwarven hammer with 30S gems and each amulet would be 6S and 3W) its cost is still reasonable. I am sure that if you stop and think about it, you would probably come up with even better strategies or variations.

Please let me know if I have erred in my reasoning.