Mod: Mesothalassa version 1.0 (Underwater Nation)

[Saulot]

First thoughts:
Underwater nation with zombie pirates and robots (golems), pretty cool (all you are missing are ninjas)
The sprites look dominionesque.

Here's what I tried, and some feedback:

NI - Cradle of Dominions Map
vs 8 impos. AI (1 of them being Oceania)
6 indep str
All other standard

Strategy used:
Went with a sleeping D9,S6,W4 Lich with 7 dominion
Max scales in Turmoil, Sloth, Cold, Luck
1 scale in growth and magic

Early expansion with one marrow mage, 2 harpers, and some spearfisher chaff. Extensive use of animate drowned eventually kills everything.

Went for Conjuration 2 asap to get the drowned mage, to make it my prophet for reanimation. Then research became low priority.

Quickly stopped purchasing all troops on turn 3, then went for some sacred razorfins after turn 6. Used money saved from not purchasing troops to start constructing a fort on turn 6. Started site-searching relatively early with one marrow mage and one earth razer.

On turn 9 started using 3 marrow mage, 3 harper groups with 0 other units for continued expansion since sharks or other
undersea creatures no longer fly underwater. This drowned strategy resulted in 0 losses until encountering 2 Oceanian Bishop Fishes.

Around turn 12 I summoned a golem. Frankly I was kind of dissapointed with the underwater penalties, so I decided not to use it in combat.

Final Thoughts:
So after around 25 turns, I have to say that while the atmosphere of the nation is similar to that of other water nations, the play style is more than different enough. So in my opinion you've definitely succeeded in regards to flow/style/gameplay. I confess that I have little experience playing water nations or playing competitively, so while for me nothing was unbalanced, there seem to be things that have potential for abuse by stronger players. I suppose I should elaborate, while no individual part was overpowered, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The assassin, spy/preacher, and 3 different flavors of strong mages just give rise to very broad and flexible strategies to employ against the other water nations. It's difficult to say how the limitations of many of the units being stuck underwater would play out in a competitive game, and I suppose a large part of it would be based on what sort of map it is. I imagine other Underwater nations do not roll over indies in quite the same quick fashion that Meso does, which should give it an early superiority which should lead to a win over the other underwater nation(s). Some more feedback/analysis is probably in order.

Overall, nice job.

[Foodstamp]

Deck that Golem out and send him ashore!

[Juzza]

Something I don't like are your ice tridents, if there're the same weapons Caleam uses then they should not do cold damage and be considered magical weapons. And they look like they're wearing ice armour, but it's just bronze!

I'll give you a bit more feedback later once I get a chance to play it longer. Cool nation!

[Foodstamp]

A wizard did it! Seriously, keep the feedback coming. As soon as I get some more, I am going to compile a list of changes.

BTW, if it is not too much trouble, someone give me some feedback on water to land migration please .

P.S. I really appreciate all of you taking the time to try out my mods.

[Shovah32]

I really like this mod. Haven't tried out too many possibilities or used it in a particularly competitive setting but I've had fun with it.

I think this nation benefits more from clamming than almost any other nation with the possible exceptions of(in order of my expected benefit from clamming)R'lyeh, Monkey Nations(not Lanka) and MA Pythium/Marignon. R'lyeh because of it being underwater and a heavy astral power, the others because of national summons.

With my first game as this nation, I didn't use my pretender at all as I wanted to test out the nation first. I got a Golem out and equipped as soon as I could and then sent it out teleporting all over the place, generally causing havoc.

The golem and clayman summons are great, with the clayman summon in particularly being quite cost effective(with a W2 mage you get 2 claymen per gem, rather than 6 for 5 gems with the regular spell).
I haven't tried the Ice Golem yet(using water gems to outfit my Golems and site-search) but I find the drowned mage spell rather poor for what you get, although they are nice to lead undead - which I tended to have very few of(a reanimator would be nice).
The national battle spell similar to raise dead is also nice(the name escapes me), although the fact that it raises identical longdead makes it seem a little less fun.

The units are nice, particularly the sacreds, they are cost effective being cheap in both gold and resources but their cheapness, aquatic tag and capitol only status means they never become too dominant.

The PD is very vunerable to priests, but against anything else - particularly remote spells - it is nice. Wolves/Hawks are nicely held up by the undead while the mages in the back cast spells - particularly frighten - to turn the battle in their favour.

I'll write more when I have more time - and when I play more with this nation(which I will. Earth, Death and Astral magic make it very fun for me).

One thing that bothered me was the complete lack of non-indy recruitables in land forts - although iirc(I could be wrong) that may be unmoddable.

[Foodstamp]

Shovah32,

Excellent, I am really glad you are liking the mod.

I am thinking of adding a few new underwater undead summons in the next version of this mod, including a very affordable priest meant to spam reanimation.

How is your transition to land progressing, and what is the composition of your land army? Is it primarily geared out golems or a mix of undead and indies?

Thanks again for the great feedback. Pretty soon I will compile some changes for the next version of this mod

[Juzza]

I find the transition from water to land particularly difficult with this water nation. However I find that transition hard anyway. I think adding more undead summons would make the transition far easier.