Going Underwater

[Tough Guy]

I have items that let me breathe underwater but I cannot bring troops with me. What else do I need?

My mages have no water magic at all.

[Wyatt Hebert]

You need items that let your troops breathe underwater. Predominantly air magic, or water magic items.

I believe there's a Tome of Water Breathing, and a Barrel of Air. (if you have access to Construction 8, you could forge the Orb of Atlantis with Water Magic, but you don't have those mages, you said).

That's my understanding of it so far.

Wyatt

[Firebreath]

There are several ways of going underwater.

Any leader with water magic can go under water (you can empower them, if you have gems).

There are lots of forged items which let a leader only go under water (e.g. amphibian suit of armour)

There are some some forged items which let a leader take a limited number of troops with him (these start at construction level 4, and you need water gems to make them).

There are lots of troops that you can recruit above ground that can go underwater naturally e.g. Shamblers, fishmen. I think that you don't even need to search for them, them come automatically. Undead can also go underwater (with a penalty). They're easy and cheap to raise, with only 1 point of death magic, even if they're not all that effective.

Some mercenaries have underwater troops.

You can make some underwater mutated troops (something to do with blood magic, which I don't know much about).

[archaeolept]

Also, you can pick the "Water Cult" theme when designing your pretender/scales, which allows holy units to go underwater in their dominion.

the best magic item for someone w/out water magic is no doubt the barrel of air. Of course, you need air magic for that...

[Yossar]

There's quite a few amphibious/aquatic summons that can be led by a water breathing mage.

Almost any water summons, most of the earth summons, Eater of the dead, abomination, most undead, swimmer foul spawn, ice devils, and maybe a few others.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Tough Guy:
I have items that let me breathe underwater but I cannot bring troops with me. What else do I need?

My mages have no water magic at all. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not an expert, but I believe the main ways into the sea are:

* Water magic; some water summons are amphibious, notably the Sea Trolls (Conj 6)

* Air magic and construction.

* Death summons: most undead are poor amphibians.

If you have access to none of the above, you'll have a hard time conquering anything underwater.

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Tough Guy:

* Water magic; some water summons are amphibious, notably the Sea Trolls (Conj 6)

* Air magic and construction.

* Death summons: most undead are poor amphibians.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Also, a SC capable of going underwater. He propably won't be able to cast spells, though, as tritons fly. But you need water for most items letting you breath underwater.

Then there are the few units that can be recruited on land and can go underwater. Tritons and whatever the fishmen are called. But that was mentioned already.

[ April 03, 2004, 19:37: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

[Psitticine]

One particular spell, Thetis' Blessing, lets everybody into the pool. It's a good thing, unless you are Atlantis or R'lyeh, that is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
One particular spell, Thetis' Blessing, lets everybody into the pool. It's a good thing, unless you are Atlantis or R'lyeh, that is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, nice try, but this one requires a high Water magic (5), and is Enchantment 9 (from the Online Grimoire). Not exactly a quick way into the water... plus, if you've got the Water mage for it, you should be able to conjure a few Sea Kings, who are quite good (with their many friends) at conquering indie underwater provinces.

[Psitticine]

Oops, forgot about the requirements of this particular problem! No water magic and fast . . . sorry about that!

Continuing the brief digression, however http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , there are (to me, at least) advantages to being able to take everybody, including all the armies you've already cleaned up the land with, into the water when you take the plunge. Summons are great, no question there, but I like to bring all the lads into the game.

A lot of that is just my play style, really. I tend to keep the aquatic nations at the bottom of my list of targets until I've solidly locked up the land under my control. I find two-front wars are hard enough without making one front above and one front below the water! I also don't bother with indie underwater provinces when playing as a land race because I can't defend them the way I'd like.

[Saxon]

Linked to the underwater question, does anyone have any good hints on how to take out tritons and keep going? Between their flying and the poison, I find that they deal a lot of damage to my troops and occasionally rout them if they get to the commanders. If I run into two or three provinces in a row, it is tough to go through. To me, they are some of the toughest independents. Ok, the dark vines are a pain and so are knights, but the tritons seem more common.

[Scott Hebert]

What I've found is that Tritons are a 2-edged sword. They're _very_ good at routing enemy troops (because of flying and generally high casualty counts), but they're susceptible to the same problems. Generally, when I'm going into a Triton province, I have my commanders in the middle of my troops, and try to bring in a good number more than the report says are in the province. Tritons have very little protection, so it's normally a bloodbath on all sides. Your major task is to break them without breaking yourself. To do that, anything that lowers their morale (Fear) and anything that raises yours (Priests, Standards) are useful.

Just some basic stuff, but generally useful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Master Shake]

does anyone have any good hints on how to take out tritons and keep going? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They are a pain for sure. One way to prevent your troops from routing is to put a small suicide squad right in front of a larger main squad. The tritons will first surround (and likely kill) the suicide squad, while your main squad will take mimium damage from the tritons the first round. When your main squad attacks, they may be able to force the tritons to rout, or kill enough of them so you win.

Another way is to recruit tritons of your own. Use a suicide squad again, and let your tritons surround the indy tritons.

[Taqwus]

Anything undead will ignore the triton's poison, and most undead will never rout. Plus, low-level types can be had cheaply, which lets you wrap your commanders in them to minimize that risk. Mechanical Men have similar properties, and have better prot and resistances.

Triton commanders also are vulnerable to Earth Attack and Mind Hunt, and if memory serves don't have bodyguards if you have a fairly tough amphib assassin like a Ashikagan Jonin.

[Saxon]

I will try the independent squad idea, it will still incur losses, but should allow me to control who I lose and limit them. I tend not to play nations with undead, but perhaps I should make an exception, a la Pirates of the Caribbean…

Hiring tritons is also done, but it depends on how many provinces remain to be attacked. The Ickys I can take back on shore once the ocean is cleaned out, whereas the tritons just patrol aimlessly. If I only have a couple of provinces to clean up, I hate spending a lot of cash, and then upkeep, on tritons.

[HotNifeThruButr]

Shambler Reef and Ichtyid provinces are good for going underwater. You should also check every month to see if Ship Wreckers, Master Gibur, or the Fishermen are available for hire. Those are the only mercs that I can think of right now that can go underwater without a penalty. Master Gibur isn't going to conquer any reasonably strong provinces though, it's just himself a big sized water elemental.