[shatner]

With LA Atlantis, it isn't a question of whether you are going to expand quickly but in what direction; your national troops are too cheap and kick too much butt not to, especially if you have a halfway decent bless for your cap-only sacreds. Do you rush a neighbor? Do you focus on capturing water territories or land? Do you capture around your capital for the extra resources (the basic non-chaff of LA Atlantis costs 22 resources and the troops you want cost 35) or do you spread outward with the intent to back-fill later?

Anyway, I had a focus on spreading out and going for land provinces over water. I didn't figure I'd have too much competition for water provinces but boy was I wrong! I had to contend myself with a paltry 3 water provinces what with T'ien Ch'i and Jomon snapping up the rest.

I expanded into indies rather than rush a neighbor (last game I played as LA Atlantis, the first neighbor I met immediately declared war on me; I decided to play it diplomatic this game if I could) and made friends with everyone I encountered. Since my troops are cheap but resource intensive, I had money left over that I spent on forts and mercenary mages to help out my otherwise mediocre research (my national researchers only bring in 4rp/turn in neutral scales and aren't super cheap).

Once I was beating up indies on the island, I encountered Patala. They had claimed a good third of the island with a force of elephants buffed with body ethereal (this sort of info is the godsend that is aggressive scouting). My troops carry magical "screw you ethereal" ice weapons and our mages can spam slime so we weren't afraid of ghostly elephants. We declared turf war on Patala and kicked them off the island after a few limited skirmishes. We offered Patala peace in exchange for them leaving us alone on the island (remember, Patala is on the exact opposite side of the map so reinforcements take a LONG time getting over there). They would hear nothing of peace and so we had some truly intense battles at Olypha (97). Patala made very good use of their naga casters (who are early age-caliber mages despite being in the late age) in addition to throwing an unholy number of monkeys at us. We were also fighting in Patala's heat dominion (which lowers the protection of my ice-clad infantry) so the battles were very close but the sheer survivability of our infantry allowed us to last juuuust long enough for the monkeys to route each time.

We invited Patala's neighbors to the brawl because we sure as heck couldn't beat Patala so far from home this early in the game. When the neighbors agreed, we fought defensively and played a game of hit-and-run while we tried to get enough troops and mages across the entire freakin' map to cement our tenuous hold. Fortunately, between Patala losing a few decisive battles against my entrenched forces at Olypha, my surprise attack on their capital (which ended rather poorly but it served it's purpose all the same) and T'ien Ch'i showing up in force, we were able to exhaust Patala enough for them to lose the war.

We didn't make much in the way of territorial gains from that conflict (Marignon got the capital and T'ien Ch'i got most everything else) but it was a proud war for Atlantis all the same. Even if we're cut off, way away from home and fighting in the thrice-cursed heat, we can still kick several metric tonnes of butt. As is, we're mainly concerned with consolidating our holdings and prodding our mages to keep up with the research race.