Fishing for tips (or tips for fish) MA Oceania

[Ferrosol]

I will shortly be playing MA Oceania in a MP game but have never really played as them before in any MP. So I ask the community for any tips they might have. So far the only other water nation is MA Ry'leth so any counters to them would be appreciated.

based on my limited testing it seems that the ichycentuar knights look like my best bet but should I go with the blessable capital only version? and what type of god do you recommend?

[Torin]

There´s a topic about the knights being too good.

Mainly I think the biggest boon that Oceania has is a cheap mage that can forge clam of pearls and Income of water gems.

If you give your knights a useful bless you probably wont have a decent astral mage to use the gems from the clams.
And if you take an awake combat god maybe wont be cheap to give him astral magic.

I would probably go by the bless strategy and forget about astral.
Just expand and fight your underwater fights with your knights and later empower some guy to astral or use astral indies (try to get hammers asap).

Another choice could be a high water and minor astral but im not at home to see the pretenders now.

[llamabeast]

I think the super-strong knights are for EA Oceania, not MA. Not that I know either nation well.

[VedalkenBear]

I'm a bit leery of a bless strategy in general unless you get outstanding rewards. The Knights... well, they _are_ rather up there, but I don't see them as quite good enough.

Personally, I'd go with extremely good scales, and use Mermidons. They're excellent no matter where you go, can be massed fairly easily, and considering the ease that you find Kelp Castles, very few worries about mix/matching. I'll note that your mages aren't that bad at all with helping expansion.

As far as Pretenders, I see two primary options. One is to make an Astral Pretender to take advantage of your excellent Clamming ability. The other is to take a no-magic pretender (like a Wyrm, if you can) to maximize the points you can put into scales.

Regarding MA Rlyeh... IIRC your troops have fairly good MR. The Centaurs can definitely be effective in outmaneuvering Rlyeh, especially when combined with a high-Astral bless to give them even better MR.

Anyway, just a couple of thoughts.

[Torin]

Useful spells would be:
summon water power, school of sharks, frozen heart.

And if you have those triton kings, you could research const 2 to equip them and then:
Quicken self, water shield, personal regen.

you could also mass mages and cast quickness on your troops.

[Shovah32]

The Knights are nice sometimes, but you get a size 3 unit with only 1 attack for 100 gold, so they aren't great offensively.

My opinion on pretenders is pretty much the same as VedalkenBears - take a pretender with astral or a combat pretender.

Torin - Triton Kings are EA, not MA.

If you are fighting underwater, use shark attack. It is THE underwater spell.
Fighting above or under the waves, I suggest a combination of Mermidons(great troops, love them), Wave Warriors(cheaper than mermidons, quite tough, good offense) and Ichtysatyr Soldiers(poor morale, but tough).
Always buff your troops with your lovely nature and water magic(mass regeneration and relief are almost must-haves. Wooden Warriors/mass protection are nice and touch of madness and quickening both have their uses, although can tire your guys out).

Dormant W2E4S6 Dom6 Old Man of the Sea.
You get 120(well 128, 88 if you go W4) points to spend on scales.
Good astral magic means Golem access - your nation lacks the ability to summon SCs and golems can sort of help you spend your pearls.
You get enough earth magic to branch into earth quite well(Troll Kings Court+a pair of earth boots gives you E4, you can boost it to 5 with a ring of wizardry if you want) - a path which is very helpful, particularly for buffing your troops.

He can also fight quite nicely, with 100 health, great access to buffs(protection, reinvig, quickness, BoW, ethereal, luck, astral shield, resist magic) and 2 hand slots(and a few more) he can fight well.
He also has access to plenty of nice magic items, and on that note, a Golem with a skullcap and a crystal coin can become an very durable support caster, with will of the fates in particular being a great spell for them.

If you get earth via trollkings and astral with golems you can have:
Lucky, regenerating Mermidons with great MR(13+army of lead), 16 strength and an armour piercing trident(23AP damage for the win?), 25+protection and who recovers fatigue via relief(and friendly currents, also water ward under water gives them great defence).
Amphibious with great all round-stats and survivability, and with recuperation to convert those good stats into many, many stars of experience.

[vfb]

You can take a W9S9 Sacred Statue, Imprisoned, Cold-3, and have 140 points left over for scales.

Your Trident Knights are a wee bit more expensive than in EA, but 100gold for amphibious 22HP double-blessed sacreds is not terrible.

[Torin]

Maybe they dont have triton kings but they have Capricorns.
for the same spells. plus recuperation.
Bishop fishes are cheap artillary mages from turn 1 also.

Shovah, you dont put very high dominion on your builds, sometimes only 5.
Since your tips are always good I gonna to try lowering my dominion rating.

[Torin]

Corrected, tried in SP blessing the trident knights. they are too expensive. Better an awake pretender.

[OmikronWarrior]

Is there anytime double blessing isn't too expensive? Sometimes the early game advantage is so large as to make it worth it, but unless you capitalize on it the end game will get you. This is particularly pronounced for trident knights as they are strictly aquatic and useless on the land.

Anyways, if you're the only water power, then play the long term: positive scales and a diverse magic pretender (probably asleep). Your national troops ought to be able to handle indies, and Oceania is particularly hobbled in attacking out of the water. After taking all the sea provinces, try to find some land territories by treaty.