MA Oceania

[Evilhomer]

I have only played one multiplayer game with MA oceania (slow 10 Player) so my experience is a bit limited. I did however end up winning that game, defeating Amhazair in a spectacular end game with seraphs and other nastiness =).

As to pretender I went with an immortal master lich with some magic in all the paths the nation lacked for a stronger end game. This is not a must, but I do strongly recommend you to have high astral access on your pretender (Reason: strong clam nation with no astral mages).

MA oceania measures up very well against the other 2 water nations. I never had the opportunity to fight atlantis in game I played, I did get to fight R'lyeh however. The key to winning that fight is to get access on the spell antimagic (my teleporting immortal pretender helped with that). As always various underwater buff spells like shark attack, friendly currents etc are important as well.

Your first research goal should without a doubt be thaum 2 (haruspex). The reason is that the ocean floor has a lot of kelp fortresses that you want to get for free. In my game I found about 6-8 early fortresses as well as securing a healthy nature income by turn 15-20. Not having to shelf out the gold to build these forts are obviously one great early advantage (resulting in more early mages and high resource troops). After this I would go conjuration for shark attack and voice of tiamat (you want lots of water income).

One thing that is something to keep in mind from the start is the fact that MA oceania mages sucks when they go ashore (getting penalties in their magic paths). In fact I cannot think of any nation that has worse mages above water. Any good dominion player is going to tell you that magic is vital in winning the end game. So in the late game "land" fighting you are going to need a good gem income so you can summon mages to help your national armies.

The path to victory if you are playing for one is in my opinion easiest achieved by these four guide line steps:

1. Secure the water (eliminate Rlyeh/atlantis)
2. Establish a strong clam economy
3. Put up the nexus
4. Summon a lot of mages to help you (including seraphs through wish) as well as tartarians and other good summons.

(of course you need to do alot else, these are just the rough frame of your strategy)

Tip for pretender design/scales:
Go with enough astral so that with booster items you can cast wish/nexus. You can expand fast without an early SC so make it sleepy or imprissoned.
scales: dom 5+
high order
productivity, good if you can afford it, not vital by all means.
pick a heat or cold scale since income is not affected.
growth: I like growth, guess it's not vital however
misfortune: usually my pick with most nations
magic: I recommend getting +1 on research.

[coobe]

Thanks for sharing this homer. Im gonna start playing Oceania some vs the AI and see what i can figure out

[Frostmourne27]

For what it's worth, putting up the nexus in an MP game, especially if its a large one, is usually an invitation to suicide-by-mass-murder. It tends to be something of a "look at me - I'm powerful" sign that usually attracts alot of attention, mostly form things like teleporting SCs. If you do put it up, use minimum gems, then recast it a few turns later, using all of your pearls, to give it a bit of dispel resistance. Of course, the reason its so hated is its crazy awesome ownage, and you can ussually do some pretty crazy stuff with all the gems. If you can, try gem wishing alot, to build up magic diversity.

[tibbs]

If I was the only underwater nation left, I don't think I'd be too afraid to cast arcane nexus. You could always cast sea of ice before or afterwards while you build up and collect gems.

Also, doesn't MA Oceania have the best underwater units for MA? I seem to recall they have some sacred cavalry that would be pretty good for a bless.

[Shovah32]

They have sacred trident knights. They are pretty nice - good all round stats, nice health, recuperation and they are amphibious. However they are 100 gold and capitol only aswell as not being cheap resource-wise.