Guide: MA Oceania - OMG, I think I've done it

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Evilhomer

A few things I do not agree about,

First of all nature pick on your pretender. You will be getting some n4 mages, and with a quick stop at construction 4 you will have nature5 access without having nature on your pretender(thistle mace). This might delay that mother oak strategy you were going for but you also get access to certain items that are valuable to your strategy like clams, wave breakers (gives friendly current - an enchantment lvl 5 spell that is nice for your heavy encumb troops).

While I agree with your basic point that Oceania needs a lab mage to be able to cast spells/forge, I found in my game with them that the most critical paths are astral and death. My personal choice was an immortal lich with S6, death at 5 and low level magic in a few other paths. The basic idea was for him to serve as a site searcher early and a summoner/forger later. Also he serves as protection in your own dominion against rlyeh (immortal +S6 mind duels). Late game his high astral and my clam forging makes him ideal to cast wish ("gems" mostly). Not that this is an optimal strategy by any means, but astral and death will be good to have.

My personal suggestion for research priorities are
- Thaum2 (haruspex, as you mentioned free forts are very nice)
- Conj for voice of tiamat, school of sharks (you want that gem income asap)
- Const 4 for wave breakers, thistle maces, other items of importance.

After that it really depends on your strategy/situation

Yeah, these are more or less the same points I would make. If you have R. you go with an immortal pretender with D/S. If R. isn't in the game, you don't need to pay the points for immortal although the various liches are still a pretty reasonable buy.

I also generally agree with the research order, except I believe dark knowledge is more important than voice of tiamat.

Due to my playing around with MA-Oceania a lot the last few weeks, my upcoming CCBM 1.48 has a few tweaks designed to help balance this race.

[Evilhomer]

To ChrisP:

You seem to want to play the nation like LA ermor, this is not the best of ideas. First of all you dont have a starting income of death so you cannot cast dark knowledge. To add to this problem your only mage with death is your pretender (and if he is a rainbow with death - you move his fat *** out and site search manually). No forget about dark knowledge your pretender has better things to do, go for voice of tiamat, it will drastically increase your gem income.

Also pissing everyone off with BoT is not a good idea if you wish to make friends, the 3 steps of victory with this nation really is:

1. Secure the water (using those extra fort produce ichty soldiers (half the cost of mermidons and not 10 encumb!), and ichtycentaurs - expensive but good / Combine this with various battle spells like friendely current + school of sharks and do your best at taking the water. Easily said than done, but you should have a small edge against rlyeh or atlantis. Are they both in the game dont try to fight them both at once.

2. Build your strenght. Get gem income going with tiamat, haruspex and start clam production (earth on your pretender for hammers is good to consider). Make pacts and alliances and hope that MA oceania is not seen as a threat, and nibble up some provinces from dying nations.

3. Bust out with superior gem income and summon what you need to complement your armies for victory. Try to get the elemental summons like water queens if you are able. Use your high astral to wish for "gems" and if you feel like it you can get a few seraphs or something just for the fun of it.

I really feal your death, death, death! strategy will just turn everyone against you and violate "point 2". To add to this your heavy death dominion will kill off your pop and destroy your income. In my opinion Oceania really is a very late bloomer, and you need to make time your friend not your enemy in order to get the summons and gem income that can secure a win with this nation.

Also I dont think you need to mod oceania in any way, they are fully capable at winning even against good players (I have done so before) if you play them smart and are willing to slow play them a bit and build your strenght before getting into the action.

[Evilhomer]

To Baalz:

When fighting underwater I do feel the battlewide effects are so much potent than the aoe1 offensive spells that you suggest. Since the 5th level is so very expensive I can almost have const 4 + conj 4 by the time you reach alt5, basically giving me friendly current (really needed if you want to use encumb10 myrms) and school of scharks and to top that off I do get alot of gems to play with from tiamat.

If you are engaging big battles on land early I really feel you are doing something wrong. A competent player will win against your armies since you are basically fighting without decent battle magic so getting swarm is not a top priority for me.

You are right that nature-5 pretender is needed if you for some reason need the mother oak, but then you need to go for ench5 aswell. personally I would get low nature on my pretender in order to get the moonvine bracelets (sp?) at some point (also various items/summons that need nature in combo with other paths). Sure then I would not get the mother oak as soon but its not so criticall anyway, since you usually get 20 nature or so per turn anyway after all your haruspex casts.

Personally I invested heavily into conjuration when I played them last, you get spells that is just awesome in the water like shark attack, various good summons and later water queens and maelstorm global, and I find this path more needed than alt to be honest.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Evilhomer

To ChrisP:

You seem to want to play the nation like LA ermor, this is not the best of ideas. First of all you dont have a starting income of death so you cannot cast dark knowledge. To add to this problem your only mage with death is your pretender (and if he is a rainbow with death - you move his fat *** out and site search manually). No forget about dark knowledge your pretender has better things to do, go for voice of tiamat, it will drastically increase your gem income.

Also pissing everyone off with BoT is not a good idea if you wish to make friends, the 3 steps of victory with this nation really is:

1. Secure the water (using those extra fort produce ichty soldiers (half the cost of mermidons and not 10 encumb!), and ichtycentaurs - expensive but good / Combine this with various battle spells like friendely current + school of sharks and do your best at taking the water. Easily said than done, but you should have a small edge against rlyeh or atlantis. Are they both in the game dont try to fight them both at once.

2. Build your strenght. Get gem income going with tiamat, haruspex and start clam production (earth on your pretender for hammers is good to consider). Make pacts and alliances and hope that MA oceania is not seen as a threat, and nibble up some provinces from dying nations.

3. Bust out with superior gem income and summon what you need to complement your armies for victory. Try to get the elemental summons like water queens if you are able. Use your high astral to wish for "gems" and if you feel like it you can get a few seraphs or something just for the fun of it.

I really feal your death, death, death! strategy will just turn everyone against you and violate "point 2". To add to this your heavy death dominion will kill off your pop and destroy your income. In my opinion Oceania really is a very late bloomer, and you need to make time your friend not your enemy in order to get the summons and gem income that can secure a win with this nation.

We agree on a lot of items. I definitely agree that your early site searching is done with your pretender. Definitely agree on fort production (in fact, I consider forts to victory to be one of 3-4 general strategies).

I can't see that MA Oceania ever has an edge against MA-Rylleh. R. out chaffs you, out elite you, has easier access to land, and better water mages (iirc). But for the same reason, I think a partial bless increasing your MR valuable for your expensive units.

I agree that Oceani is a late bloomer. I view gold as almost worthless in the late game.

But not everyone is going to be against a BoT. If you snag the agreement of ermor, or niefle or whomever....

The question about the income comes down to this: If Oceania has made it into the endgame - and everyone's population is dead - does it put Oceania at a competitive advantage. I think it does.