Worst Nations in Each Era

[Micah]

Eh, an Oni with poor amphibian penalties is just as good a fighter as a basalt king is normally, so a few water breathing items closes that gap pretty reasonably.

Granted, with Atlantis you have great first-strike capability and mobility in the water, but you're either in a very tough battle down there with the other EA aquatics or you're pretty well short on provinces (Or you did....favors for whoever set up the player choices and map pick, I suppose.)

Glancing at your MA atlantis guide I see your strategy once you've exhausted your sneak attack options are "left as an exercise for the student." At least in EA the end of midgame where you leave off is where the crap really starts hitting the fan. Your aquatic advantage is diminishing both as you get some land territories and as more SCs start showing up, your research is inevitably trailing most every other competitive nation due to mage limitations, and your lack of A, D, N and all but rare and expensive S is really going to kick in. Lack of air and astral also means that you've gone from having movement advantage from being amphibious to being outmaneuvered by teleport spells, more so as your empire gets bigger, especially since you can't recruit out of the water.

So yeah, being amphibians is great if you want to win a war, it starts being a lot less shiny if you're trying to win a game.