Worst Nations in Each Era

[Baalz]

In a 3 way brawl I think it's more likely Oceana and R'yleh view each other as imminent threats and they both try to get Atlantis to help them jump on each other. Not that it couldn't happen, but seems pretty shortsighted to both jump on Atlantis. In a 1 on 1 EA Oceana in the water is a beast, no doubt. I do think though that the deep atlanteans could be pretty nasty in this matchup with light research. Not having to worry about their MR, with a good strength + strength of giants + 2-3 attacks each + very low resources and fairly low gold cost I think you might be able to field enough to soak up Oceana's first strike, have enough attacks to overwhelm their (W blessed?) defense and hit hard enough to chip through their (E blessed?) protection. Spam some numbness on them and sprinkle in some earth meld...uphill struggle I'll give you, but I don't see a shutout.

[TheDemon]

The problem with atlantis's units is the low protection and low defense means they soak more hits, which means they hit the "heavy losses" morale check far more often than a unit for Oceania. They're pretty bad troops to be facing down a lance charge + multiple attacks opponent. At the same time, their MR maxes out at 10, and can be as low as 7, which is devestating against R'lyeh. Basically, Atlantis doesn't have the army tools to combat either enemy nation in either age.

In terms of mage tools, you have destruction/earth meld in EA, which will take care of a careless Oceania player, provided you get at least one year to research Alt 4. You have nothing in your arsenal against R'lyeh. In MA, you have Body Ethereal for your lobsters, but your earth mages are 1/4 and don't come in time in enough #s against Ichycentaur spam. In other words, you're relying on luck against Oceania. Against R'lyeh, your MR options are limited to Ench 4 for Antimagic, and even then you don't have any high-morale chaff.

Assuming the underwater war is still in contention after year 1 is pretty naive. To me this means you need a mage solution to your army problems within one 4-level path. MA has a few options for both potential targets, EA has an iffy option against Oceania and no options against R'lyeh. Neither age is terrible, but its an uphill battle in both.

[Baalz]

Question, what does EA R'yleh have to field against several Basalt Kings kitted with a 29-30 MR and other thug gear? With a E4 blessing & summon earthpower along with a girdle of strength they've got a 9 reinvig which will cover a lead shield and armor stacking on the iron will and amulet. Taking something along the lines of an awake ghost king with E4/N4 and whatever else you wanted would give you everything you needed including an early research jumpstart. Throw in some earth and water(ice) elementals for the big fights and I'm not really seeing a helplessness here against R'yleh. If you can get to ench-5 enlivened statues seem like they'd give R'yleh a whole lot of trouble also.

[P3D]

EA Atlantis won't have that gear ready in numbers before meeting R'lyeh. Research-wise it is not problem unless Difficult Research, but even assuming a hammer, that equipment is 10E 3S +12?(armor+helmet+boots+weapon), and 6 months to forge. A lot of E gems.

[Micah]

Baalz: Excellent discussion. Maybe I've overstated my case by getting a bit carried away on Atlantis' weaknesses, but the tweaks I suggested for them seem pretty modest, no? Those were the minor price drop on the Kings (which is somewhat justified in that you lose the 50g I'm suggesting just off your cap's admin value being crap) and the major one: a cost effective researcher.

I'm not suggesting they get anything that wouldn't leave them "somewhat disadvantaged" in a fair fight...BK's don't quite measure up in the SC wars toe-to-toe and Atlantis' troops at large are not well-suited for land combat compared to land nations, especially if you want to win without a ton of attrition. This is as it should be, the mobility advantage and first strike capability make this a very interesting exercise in tactics and target selection and there's a lot of give and take there.

What I think should NOT be is that they have terrible magic diversity (especially in traditional late-game paths) AND what I think may be the worst researchers in the game. That just seems like a screwjob to me, and like it is too much of a disadvantage to overcome unless you simply outclass your opposition. It is also mostly a question of math, not strategy, which doesn't make for a whole lot of fun. (Unless coming up with clever solutions to being magically dominated are fun for you, in which case maybe Atlantis is great as-is...this is said half-seriously, since I think that would be a perfectly good thing to enjoy, but shouldn't be the basis for nation-balancing. Also, again, while it is possible to pull this off it again relies on simply outplaying your opponent on some level) Adding a cheap researcher option gives Atlantis a boost that doesn't show up til mid-late game when upkeep costs are really kicking in (right about when being amphibious starts to be much less dominating than it was), and also gives them additional strategic choices to make...do I build a combat-ready mage, or a researcher? That seems like a good tweak to make to me, and one that would bring them closer to "somewhat" disadvantaged in a fair fight, up from their current level of "terribly."

And I haven't played a proper early game with Atlantis vs the other EA nations (the one I lost was via a backstab) so I will reserve comment on the balance of power there and possible early tweaks to help Atlantis on that front...the late game thing mostly boils down to simple math and looking at their paths, fights versus blessed knights and the mechanics of mind blasts are a bit too much for me to theorize on. =)

[Baalz]

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from on paper Micah, but I'm basing my position on the games I've done well with Atlantis (again, MA), and I just don't see the massive late game power gap you're describing in practice. Part of it is probably lightless lanterns, part of it is (assuming you've made it that far) controlling the water you have a lot more freedom to castle up, invest in research items/mages, not build troops, not forge combat gear, not loose combat mages etc. durring the mid game boom than you do in the wide open melee on land. Even moving fairly briskly to get onto land you can clobber the hell out of somebody already in a tight war without using too many resources. I don't know, I suppose my argument isn't terribly compelling based on foggy recollection from a sample set of two games. My experience actually playing them in MP is early game requires some fancy footwork against the underwater opposition, sneak attack onto land is *easy* gains which can likely be repeated a second time if it's a big game, pulling into late game you've got a lot of raiding mobility, powerful battle evocations and powerful alterations from recruit anywhere mages and a good income (voice of tiamat) on a easier than average to defend kingdom. Granted EA Atlantis does seem a bit weaker on that front, Mages of the Deep are vastly inferior to Kings of the Deep and about the same price so you probably have a point there. EA Atlantis does seem to suffer from having nothing at all exciting to recruit from non-cap forts, a cheap research mage might work well there. MA though I think is fine.

[Micah]

Two questions about your games Baalz: Was there any vet opposition inland in them, and what was the shape and amount of water on the maps? Map layout has a HUGE impact on how well you can do with any water nation...I've been basing my thoughts on a "lake" scenario since that's where I played my game as MA rlyeh (my only real UW nation experience aside from the previously mentioned backstabbing), as opposed to a "river" scenario, which makes a drastic difference in raiding potential and mobility. (random maps tend to be lakes from what I've seen.) If you have a lake that means you lose the advantage of "recruit anywhere" units, since you can't recruit anywhere, just near your cap in the water, as well as the obvious problems raiding and keeping territory the farther inland it gets. I'm certainly willing to believe Atlantis can do great if it has a lot of coast to play with, but that hasn't been my experience in the games I've played. (And I don't think adding the suggested tweaks would make them OP by any stretch in a river scenario, but it would get them to be much more playable in a lake scenario.)

[Zeldor]

Micah:

I wouldn't call river scenario really great. It means you don't have dominion in most of your provs and you need to move your armies for ages. You need backup somewhere - well, 8 turns of mapmove1 and you are there

[Baalz]

Ah yes, I actually haven't been in a lake scenario, I've played in a river scenario and a ocean scenario (where water wrapped around a good part of the edge of the map), and of course Artifacts, so I'm considering a lot of coastline. The MA Atlantis game I remember most clearly is the one I based the guide on, it was the second all-nation mega game (Evermore) so the opposition ran across the entire range of skill and there was a lot of coast to work with. After defeating MA R'yleh (Lingchih) I made arrangements with Velusion (EA Abysia) to jointly attack EvilHomer/Xietor (EA Caelum, Xietor came in to sub) and blitzed something like 25 provinces in the first two turns of the fight, sieging several castle with no troops in them thus crippling his ability to recruit reinforcements while Velusion did the heavy lifting of killing the existing armies after pulling them all over by canceling his NAP and massing his armies across the border. EvilHomer/Xietor played a good game but it was a mighty sucker punch and they never had a chance to recover their breath. Lanka (Hadrian II) attacked before Caelum was finished, but by then my research had ramped up and acid rain + teleporting thugs pretty quickly turned him into my third conquest (deep inland away from the coast) after negotiating another war ally against him (don't remember who..Sauromatia I think) at which point I went to war with EA Oceana (Atul) who controlled the other half of the water. Proved conclusively that buffed monster fish > dual blessed knights of the deep and also Oceana really despises mind hunts. Then went into a cold war with the leading triple blessed LA Mictlan (Admiral Zhao) but he won by province count before I could recover enough strength to attack after a bloody war with Oceana. Ah, that was a good game.

[Micah]

Nicely done Baalz, though of course it sounds like you got exclusively 2:1 wars there. A great tactic, but a bit, shall we say...fishy? to base a nation-balance discussion on. =)