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

[Baalz]

Mother oak is alt-5, there's no need to go for ench early. I think merms are not a good way to go initially because of a number of factors regardless of if you get friendly currents. Even with production scales you're going to be horribly resource constrained as to how many you can recruit and their encumbrance makes them not terribly viable until you've got something that can lay out damage faster than their staggering fatigue mounts up.

To be sure there's different ways to play most nations and I wouldn't begin to try and convince you that what you're suggesting could not also be effective, but I think we've got two different philosophies. You're looking to play a slow methodical turtling strategy involving clamming and long term investments. This is rather a classical way to play MA Oceana and relies on having complete water domination to comfortably fortify. My outline is a much more hybrid-amphibious approach which plays on different strengths and sets you up to be a solid land power from the beginning as well as a water power.

I disagree that you can't be competitive on land very early using the strategies I outline here, particularly if you're smart about how you expand. Are you really going to declare war on me (Oceana) in order to snatch 3 provinces before you get to the coast and our defacto new border while setting yourself up for constant siren harassment and coastal raids by troops that have no problem at all wiping out your PD? It's also a bit of a strawman to attack my suggestion of swarm, that's obviously not what my priority was, it's a bonus you pick up when you get wooden warriors and mother oak which is very useful in some situations you'll run into early game. I understand you played an effective game focusing on conjuration, but there's more than one way to play effectively. Also, though I didn't spell it out it's obvious from the rest of what I wrote that conjuration is a close second after alteration.

I also don't think you're really seeing the big picture with the mother oak/llamia queen plan. Yes, you have a solid nature income without the mother oak, but I'm suggesting spending a massive ammount of nature gems to transform scores of mages, summon dozens of llamia queens, not to mention the fact that every fairy queen you can scrape up is pure gold. If you can't find a good use for every nature gem then I think you're doing something wrong.

[chrispedersen]

But Baalz,

Have you actually cast transformation much? Even with a Luck-3, I seem to end up dead about 10% of the time, and feebleminded about 20%. And there are even more circumstances in which you end up with rather useless forms. Thats a pretty high opportunity cost - plus the mage action, plus the gems - and frankly I don't think you can really afford a +3luck +3magic design.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Baalz

To be sure there's different ways to play most nations and I wouldn't begin to try and convince you that what you're suggesting could not also be effective, but I think we've got two different philosophies.

Repeat after me, Baalz - "I am sure that you can make that effective if you try, but I am also sure that what I described is effective, but I also found it interesting enough and fun enough to write an actual guide for it".



I am going to put together an SP test to goof around with them, now that you finally got around to this. I'll do a bit of a different pretender, but I like your angle a lot, so it'll just be stylistic differences.

I do think it wasn't stated strongly enough how much you want a good land holding early on, so that you have area to site search, and for Blood Hunting before you intentionally open up a land war. I think key to not being pushed straight into the water again, is to have a decent holding, so it's not just "1, 2, you're out!", but also that they know you are strong enough that even if they push you off, you will harass then and drag them down for the rest of the game. I don't think a lot of people understand that attacking an aquatic nation's land provinces without a clear plan of how to kill them off ultimately just ruins both nations' chances, for little gain.

[Baalz]

[quote=JimMorrison;675603]

Originally Posted by Baalz

I think key to not being pushed straight into the water again, is to have a decent holding, so it's not just "1, 2, you're out!", but also that they know you are strong enough that even if they push you off, you will harass then and drag them down for the rest of the game. I don't think a lot of people understand that attacking an aquatic nation's land provinces without a clear plan of how to kill them off ultimately just ruins both nations' chances, for little gain.

Yes, to me, the ideal situation is to make the other guy look at it like this:

I've only got 3 land provinces I can take before I have to go into the water to pursue this war.

Unless I'm prepared to go underwater and dig him out (!) the best case scenario is I take those three provinces without much fight but then have to defend my whole coast for a very long time while being harassed by sirens, raiders, and rituals. More likely it's going to be a bloody fight for those three provinces.

Alternatively Oceana is offering me a nice NAP and peace of mind to not have to worry about defending my long coast. Plus he's got the paths to forge a couple items I need and might be useful to help me in a fight with our mutual neighbor...

I usually try to expand with this in mind, and play my diplomacy that way. 3-4 provinces on this coast, 2 more over there, and grab that island nobody else wanted anyway. Now, wait for a good opportunity to join a war against somebody who's doing a good job of loosing already...