EA Oceania - Knight of the deep too good?

[Haruhi_Suzumiya]

well...

im R'lyeh in that game konming talking about...

im defeated in the 24th turn ...

how can u beat Oceania?

Oceania's dom designs:
o3p2c3g2m3d2
dom str:7
god designs:
Sacred Statue
w9s9,imprisoned

btw: research is difficulty

[Sombre]

I don't think you can explain a logical difference between barrel of air and a theoretical 'barrel of water' style item, because barrel of air already defies logic. How does a magic air barrel allow a bunch of fully armoured mounted knights to charge around underwater as if they were on land?

Because it's magic, of course.

Similarly a 'barrel of water' item would work because it's /magic/. Simple as that. It allows underwater stuff to act as if they're in water when they aren't, breathing and moving as normal.

It's an item I'd like to see in the game and unless it was seriously undercosted (not an issue with 90% of items in basegame) it shouldn't mess with balance too much.

[thejeff]

You could also have it grant the equivalent of "poor amphibian", but in reverse. The unit is at a penalty out of the water.

[cleveland]

Haruhi_Suzumiya said:

how can u beat Oceania?

Haven't tested this extensively, but an ice elemental approach could be an effective defense against the initial rush.

Strategy is simple: take Cold-3 with high dominion and access Conj-5 as quickly as possible. With Magic-3, you can open it on turn 14 with 1 Slave Mage/turn; with Magic-1, you can open it on turn 13 with 1 Mind Lord/turn.

Recruit Lobo Guards & the Net-wielding Mermen at a 3:1 ratio. When the rush comes, assign to your mages in mixed squads, form a line in the back row (with gaps in between!), Hold & Attack closest.

Put your mages in the gaps with 3 water gems each. Script (Summon Water Power)(Summon Water Elemental)(Summon Water Elemental) Spells.

Since you took cold scales, your water elementals will be ice elementals: high-protection trampling thugs. They've also got a cold aura, decreasing enemy defense.

The lances of the KoDs will be absorbed by the lobos. The mermen will intermittently entangle them, muting their effectiveness. Your chaff will keep the elementals from being overwhelmed, and shouldn't rout too quickly, as the lobos have morale=50.

It's a reasonable strategy that certainly doesn't cripple Rlyeh. It actually synergizes with them: underwater, so lots of water gems and no penalties for cold scales; no production scale needed; conjuration school, so voice of tiamet will keep the front lines stocked with water gems.

It's not offensively viable, but it should hurt Oceania enough to make him think twice about pressing the attack. You then have some breathing room to dive into thaumaturgy for mind burn --> paralyze --> soul slay --> enslave mind, all of which will be relatively successful thanks to the penetration bonuses of your high magic scale & Light of the Northern Star.

Thoughts?

[Baalz]

Don't forget to, EA Oceana has some real difficulty getting astral mages so mind hunting should be a field day if you can last that long. Not only do none of thier nationals have astral, as far as I know none of the underwater indies have it either. Outside of thier pretender...I guess they could give waterbreathing rings to lizard shamen if they managed to get out of the water at all...

[atul]

You really did wait your while to tell that tidbit, didn't you? ;p

After initial rush, Oceania doesn't have that many things going for it. Magic-wise, against Atlantis, hm, guess only nature. Against astral. Yay. But it sure takes a while to get there.

[Baalz]

atul said:
You really did wait your while to tell that tidbit, didn't you? ;p

I would never think of denying you the joy of finding out what I've concocted as it's dropped on your head! Besides, this is a 'how to beat Oceana' thread, not a 'how to help Oceana beat the snot out of Atlantis'

I've only hit you with one so far though, I guess we'll test my thesis as to how effective it'll be in the coming turns. Nice thing about Atlantis though, easy access to rune smashers, eyes of the void and spell foci as well as the boosters to get failry cheap astral-4 casters. Even if a couple do get feebleminded, easy enough to swap all the equipment over to another 180 gold guy and reforge the eye of the void.

The down side is the research required for mind hunting takes doubly long as it's two schools that are otherwise very low priority for Atlantis (you also need construction, but you already need that anyway). But, as I said you should have a mage (and consequently research) lead on Oceana, so do your best to stall them until you can leverage it. Don't like to think how things would have played out if I'd started next to you....

[Salamander8]

I was EA R'Lyeh in Evermore next to Atul's EA Oceania, and it was far uglier than I would have guessed (I still have not done many MP games as of yet).

I'm not naysaying you here Sombre, I am instead agreeing with you, but why is it like this?:

EA Oceania is supposed to be the shizzle underwater.

A game as complex and variable as D3 can't expect balance in all things, but having 1 of 3 water nations clearly better then the other 2 (and having 1 of those clearly better than the other) seems off. EA R'Lyeh is one of my personal favorite nations to play, but the sound thrashing that EA Oceania gave me, and this was after I pulled almost every mobile caster off research and hurled all my 2ndry force and home units at the multi-blessed knights, was terrible. My main force was way out west when he attacked, but I had at least 1 or 2 Mind Lords and several Aboleths with freespawns and other built melee troops to hold a line and it was quite one-sided. Those knights just screamed across the battlefield and none (or almost none) of my mind blasts or enslaves, or even my water-gem equipped shark summoners helped.

Having the aquatic only sacreds may not help in the mid-late game, but it sure as heck is rough for the other water folks early. I had a very similiar land experience vs DR P's multi-blessed giants in sophistry as Arco. Even with several casters and lots of national troops, it was a slaughter (of Arco by Niefelheim).

Baalz said:

Don't like to think how things would have played out if I'd started next to you....

Oh, it wasn't pretty. We (EA R'Lyeh) started really close to Atul's EA Oceania and even with an awake (if immobile) pretender to manufacture freespawn and give myself a research boost, it went badly. I'm still pretty green, but man was that ugly.

[Loren]

Baalz said:
Don't forget to, EA Oceana has some real difficulty getting astral mages so mind hunting should be a field day if you can last that long. Not only do none of thier nationals have astral, as far as I know none of the underwater indies have it either. Outside of thier pretender...I guess they could give waterbreathing rings to lizard shamen if they managed to get out of the water at all...

Yeah, I'm taking a second crack at EA Oceania against the AI's, this time against a pack of impossibles. At this point I have one astral mage--by empowerment from clams.

[atul]

I think the placement of the sea nations by DrP was quite deliberate - 2 duels in the early game, and sea winners duel at the mid game. In hindsight I should've just run over EA R'lyeh instead of wasting few turns trying to see whether there was any good opportunities to surface. Oh well, next time I know.

EA Oceania is really strong early on, but on sufficiently large maps/seas it starts to show they're the only underwater nation without Astral.