Worst Nations in Each Era

[Zargen]

I saw the -best- nations in each era. Now whats everyones thoughts on the worst?

Mine would be:

Early - Agartha/Marveni

Mid - Man/Ulm

Late - Hard choice, but in the end for me it was tied between Utgard and Marignon. I'd say Jomon too...But damnit I love Jomon!

[Poopsi]

LA Rlyeh. Not because it's inherently weak.
No, my reason is this: Micromanagement hell.

LA Ermor is also a micromanagement hell to an extent, but at least your commanders dont start dreaming of the void at critical points.

[Zeldor]

Zargen:
You are totally wrong for LA. Marignon and Utgard are top nations there.

EA: Ulm weakest, then also C'tis, Agartha, Marverni, Kailasa are considered weaker
MA: Man is the weakest nation now, level higher is probably Agartha, Ulm is not so bad now [but tough in MP]
LA: Atlantis, Jomon, Bogarus

[Kuritza]

EA: I have yet to figure what to do with EA Rlyeh.
MA: Man, Bandar Log (very fun to play, as I figured out recently, but still somewhat weak imho), Oceania, Eriu.
LA: Man, Jomon (not exactly weak, but very hard to figure out how to play with these), Ulm (same as Jomon).

[Hadrian_II]

EA: Ulm, Yomi
MA: Man, Agartha, Oceania
LA: Jomon, Atlantis, Bogarus

[elmokki]

EA: Ulm/Agartha
MA: Man
LA: Man/Jomon

Maverni is not really bad, they have a decent heavy infantry unit you want to spam and 4S/4E easily accessible. It sure isn't top notch either naturally.

[Meglobob]

EA:- Atlantis, Yomi.

MA:- Man, Machaka, Oceania, Atlantis.

LA:- Atlantis, Man.

[Executor]

EA - Mictlan, Hinnom, Sauromatia
MA - Pythium, R'lyeh, Ashdod
LA - Mictlan, Marginon, Midgard

EA Mictlan is not that bad, they have sort of useful sacreds, but Ashdod totally blows.

[Dragar]

totally

[statttis]

Whats with that hate for Yomi? I wouldn't think a nation with recruitable SCs, strong mages, and powerful demon troops would be considered weak :confused:

[dirtywick]

I find EA Ulm to be pretty average. I'd rate them higher than Atlantis, Oceania, Pangaea, Yomi, Tien Chi, and Kailasa. Those are the weak EA nations to me. Probably around the same power of Ermor, Marverni, Tir na n'Og, C'tis.

EA has a lot of good nations though.

[MaxWilson]

Whats with that hate for Yomi? I wouldn't think a nation with recruitable SCs, strong mages, and powerful demon troops would be considered weak :confused:

I believe it's about

1.) The lack of strategic mobility for the SCs,
2.) The vulnerability of those demon troops to mass Banishment spam from hordes of indy priests.

Mass banishment doesn't really come up in SP, so if you play SP Yomi is fine IME and plenty of fun.

-Max

[Omnirizon]

yep. if it weren't for the easy-to-muster-indie-priest banishment spam Yomi woulnd't be half bad. It's hard to solve the problem without, say, just making demons not vulnerable to banishment (which I think would be an acceptable solution). Something ad hoc like giving demons a +4MR vs banishment only or requiring at least H2 to effect demons is not really modable (I don't think) and not likely to be added by devs.

Demons just shouldn't be effected by banish. Smite Demon should become just a banish for demons while remaining H2. Aside from countering Yomi, banishing demons just isn't a common tactic or one that plays a role elsewhere in the game; ergo demons could be removed from the types of units the spell effects without really impacting the game (aside from making Yomi 'worth it').

Can banish be modded in that way (remove demons as being effected?) I didnt think it could.

[Burnsaber]

Can banish be modded in that way (remove demons as being effected?) I didnt think it could.

It can be modded. Easily. Try this:

#selectspell "Banishment"
#spec 75763712
#end

The spec value makes it: MR negates, only affects hostile, works underwater and works only on undead.

[Kuritza]

You can counter banish spam by casting mist and darkness (lower precision for enemy priests), or antimagic - which is trickier because Yomi lacks national access to astral.

[Poopsi]

I think the point is that it's very easy to spam banish, and not too easy to counter it...

How about giving Yomi a "protection of the sepulchre" equivalent?

[Kuritza]

Its easy to spam darkness, and extremly hard to counter it. ;)
Maybe just raise MR for Yomi smaller demons if Yomi is that weak indeed?

[Wrana]

By the way, Fog Warriors also easily counter Banishment. :)
Of course, Shinuyama is still better. I think the problem is that lesser Oni are just too pricey to be really useful. But then, if they would be more easily massable, it could be overkill... As for Banishing demons it's quite thematic and Oni MR is on par with other Demons.
Considering nations:
EA: Agartha, I think. Maybe Fomoria.
MA: Oceania, until...
LA: Patala. Maybe Arcoscephales - I just don't see Sybils as good substitute for what they had earlier...

[MaxWilson]

Can banish be modded in that way (remove demons as being effected?) I didnt think it could.

It can be modded. Easily. Try this:

#selectspell "Banishment"
#spec 75763712
#end

The spec value makes it: MR negates, only affects hostile, works underwater and works only on undead.

"Only affects hostiles" is a change from the current version. I would leave it at "affects friendlies and hostiles."

Note that once Oni are killed into ghost-form they are undead, not demons. Thematically I like the idea of banishment only working on Oni once they're killed.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

EA: Agartha, I think. Maybe Fomoria.


Fomoria has recruitable, giant SCs which are Mistform + Soul Vortex-capable and can Cloud Trapeze. Not weak.

-Max

[Omnirizon]

By the way, Fog Warriors also easily counter Banishment. :)
Of course, Shinuyama is still better. I think the problem is that lesser Oni are just too pricey to be really useful. But then, if they would be more easily massable, it could be overkill... As for Banishing demons it's quite thematic and Oni MR is on par with other Demons.
Considering nations:
EA: Agartha, I think. Maybe Fomoria.
MA: Oceania, until...
LA: Patala. Maybe Arcoscephales - I just don't see Sybils as good substitute for what they had earlier...

I don't think it's necessarily thematic. it's not too hard to find tales of demons who are not susceptible to generic holy powers, who laugh in the face of such power, even utilize it for their own ends. I think it would be both thematic and more balanced if demons were not effected by banish, leaving only the H2 spell smite demon. Rarely are masses of demons used as troops, therefore banish on demons is really a non-factor for gameplay. Only Yomi will really be effected by this, and since it is banish spam which causes them to be considered weak in MP, I think it would be healthy for game play to simply not have demons effected by banish.

[vfb]

Lanka's Palankasha have MR12 compared to Yomi's 13/14/15 for size 1/2/3 demons.

[statttis]

Yomi's demons already have 14/15 MR. A spell to increase that would probably make them too strong - 17+ MR seems to be reserved for powerful commanders and elite sacred troops. If Yomi had some decent non-demon troops I don't think banish would be a big issue.

[chrispedersen]

EA: Agartha, I think. Maybe Fomoria.


Fomoria has recruitable, giant SCs which are Mistform + Soul Vortex-capable and can Cloud Trapeze. Not weak.

-Max

Great endame with death access, giant chassis, morrigans:

Top third in strength.

[P3D]

EA: Agartha, I think. Maybe Fomoria.


Disagree with Agartha being weakest. With proper pretender design one can address most weaknesses, then you have sacred giants recruitable everywhere and Blade Wind spam.

Ermor is weak in EA. While having good expansion speed, there's not that much for midgame.

[Poopsi]

Don't augurs have potentially (AKA, if all the randoms fit right) 2-3D? that should give EA Ermor leverage to get into death magic.

[chrispedersen]

EA: Agartha, I think. Maybe Fomoria.


Disagree with Agartha being weakest. With proper pretender design one can address most weaknesses, then you have sacred giants recruitable everywhere and Blade Wind spam.

Ermor is weak in EA. While having good expansion speed, there's not that much for midgame.

Middle game with EA-Ermor *is* often a weakness. Yet, I think they are way strong enough not to be considered the weakest.

I wrote up a thread on them - I consider them quite ok.

[MaxWilson]

Rarely are masses of demons used as troops, therefore banish on demons is really a non-factor for gameplay. Only Yomi will really be effected by this, and since it is banish spam which causes them to be considered weak in MP, I think it would be healthy for game play to simply not have demons effected by banish.

Lanka has masses of demon troops, and so does any blood nation spamming Summon Imp or Lifelong Protection, or with Soul Contracts. Thematically I like the idea, but there might be balance problems.

-Max

[Dragar]

I don't see a reason to change how banish works, i think its perfectly thematic and balanced in general. Yomi just needs to be improved a little, either given some reasonable non-demon troops, or improve the demons slightly. That can be MR, a national spell, or some other improvement to balance against the banish susceptibility

[MaxWilson]

Don't augurs have potentially (AKA, if all the randoms fit right) 2-3D? that should give EA Ermor leverage to get into death magic.

Augur Elders have 2F1S2D + 110% FASD, so they can get up to 4D, and can be 3D easily. Ermor will have trouble forging Rings of Sorcery without Pretender help (only 2S randoms reliably, and Starshine Skullcap but not Crystal Coin), so unless they win the artifacts race their best bet for high D is to go through Enchantment to summon demi-liches (3D Augur Elder forges skull staff, use staff to forge skullface to get to 5D, give staff and skullface to demilich to get 6D). May need to empower a lich to get 7D for tartarians, or else empower a 3S Augur Elder to 4S (45 pearls) so he can use a starshine skullcap to forge a Ring of Wizardry. Not prohibitively expensive.

As far as battle magic goes, though, you're probably fine just sticking to 3D or 4D (with staff), which is plenty to cast Rigor Mortis or Plague or Wailing Winds or Wind of Death.

-Max

[vfb]

I don't see a reason to change how banish works, i think its perfectly thematic and balanced in general. Yomi just needs to be improved a little, either given some reasonable non-demon troops, or improve the demons slightly. That can be MR, a national spell, or some other improvement to balance against the banish susceptibility

Agreed! How about giving Yomi "Tempering the Will"? They've got the casters for it, it won't do a whole heck of a lot for them most of the time due to the already-pretty-good MR so it's unlikely to disturb balance.

And while we're at it, give Hannyas +10%W so Yomi can: (1) have a shot at summoning a Kappa without forcing them to take a WN god or pray for amazons, and (2) make rune smashers so "Tempering the Will" has something like a 10% chance of actually increasing MR, instead of just 5%.

[Kuritza]

'Tempuring the will' :)

[Ferrosol]

Weakest nations in my opinion

EA R'Lyeh, Ulm

MA Man, Oceania

LA Jomon, Atlantis

and of course any nation with monkey PD

[Sombre]

You CANNOT win with monkey pd.

It's PROVEN. By CAPS.

[DakaSha]

sorry but looool

[Tolkien]

'Tempuring the will' :)

Tempurang the Will sounds about right.

[Lingchih]

Monkey PD. Heh, that's an oxymoron.

[Kuritza]

Really, monkey army isnt much better than their PD.

[Humakty]

Well, apart for their just scandalous MR, their bandar infantry is quite good. just their MR (8?)... Seeing a 80+ bandar royal swordsman army kill each other because of confusion spam (by A2 mages with no items) is, indeed, painfull.
('test' made with CBM)

I can't remember if all their troops share this most gifted MR, but if they do I rate them last just because of it (in all eras). What a pain it must be in MP...

[Kuritza]

On paper, they look good. On the battlefield they are just a bunch of apes. Just like it should be - gorillas are mighty, but helpless agaisnt armed humans. :)

They are overpriced, large (thus prone to being swarmed) and not as tough, as, say, a Jotun giant to justify the drawbacks.

P.S.
Dont get me wrong, I dont consider Bandar Log pathetic anymore. Not with CBM, anyway. They are quite unique and fun. :)

[Fantomen]

I´m surprised to see LA atlantis considered weak, I think they´re awesome. Especially with the new mages giving them exactly what they lacked before.

[Wrana]

On Fomoria: I agree that they have SC potential. But - 1 eye. And their giant troops are really weak against any decent swarmers. I rushed them once and they just died... An alternative could be to use just Nemedians for expansion - but then, why not play a real Sidhe/Van nation?
ON Yomi: I think something like Tempering the Will may be useful. And they DO have useful troops in their goblins. It's only that Shinuyama is better - and there is fierce competition in EA...
Monkeys are good enough, I think - except Patala with their strong, but overencumbered mages. And cold-blooded with Water magic, no less!
On Agartha I may be wrong. But there are other Earth nations - with better troops.

[Micah]

Playing with Fomoria in Rand I never had an issue with the Fomorian Kings losing eyes...the helmetless giant sacreds did a fair bit, but the kings come with a helmet and can cast air shield. I took out Marverni pretty easily with them, but Mictlan's sacreds tore them up in melee. Luckily thunderstrike solved that problem pretty handily.

[Kuritza]

Patala has encumbered mages?.. Change shape once, and they get rid of these plate hauberks, getting encumberance 4. :)
And water magic allows them to become frost-immune, negating cold-bloodedness.

[Calahan]

And water magic allows them to become frost-immune, negating cold-bloodedness.

Frost immunity does not remove the encumbrance effects cold blooded units suffer in cold climates. Frost/heat immunity only removes the +2 severe cold/heat encumbrance effect you get from +3 cold/heat scales.

Very easy to test, start as any cold bloded nation, give them +3 cold scales, and put a Ring of Frost on one of the commanders. You will see the +2 encumbrance effects of the severe cold disappear, but the unit will still be suffering from the +10 encumbrance caused by the cold blooded tag.

[Endoperez]

Patala has encumbered mages?.. Change shape once, and they get rid of these plate hauberks, getting encumberance 4. :) And water magic allows them to become frost-immune, negating cold-bloodedness.

Only one of the nagas has plate hauberk, and he has it in both forms. All nagas lose cold-blooded when they change form, which leaves them at base 4, or 8 for the armored one.
Frost immunity doesn't usually remove cold blooded.

[Kuritza]

Ah, my bad :) I didnt notice the nagaraja in question has robe of the sea instead of plate hauberk.
Anyway, I dont see how being cold-blooded is a fatal flaw. And your best mages arent wearing plate mail anyway.

[Torin]

EA Agartha is Good Actually.
Their troops do whats need to be done, and actually they are better than most, they have innate siege bonus and dont need to eat so you get a very decent chaff for late game allowing to siege any castle in 1 turn, even you can camp at an LA Ermor fort.
With good hitpoints and cheap they last long enough to let your mages do their job.
If thats a problem with early game you get troglodytes that do what pale ones cant.
And their mages are so cool, powerful magics and giant. You also get your cheap mage for the research job.
And the risen oracle pretender. Jontuns get a similar one but I dont know of other with SC potential and immortal.

[Tyrant]

The Hall of Honor says-

EA- Ermor, Abysia, Tir, Atlantis, Yomi, Oceania

MA- TC, Argatha, Vanheim, Atlantis, Eiru, Bandar

LA- Arco, C'tis, Atlantis, Bogorus

I say-

EA- All three water nations(insufficiently amphibious), Ermor, Arco, Abysia, Ulm

Mid - Man

Late - umm...well...um...err...most of them when compared to other ages or Ashen Empire, none of them when compared to each other? I dunno, i've never really been able to wrap my tiny brain around the skewed strategic situation presented by the late age killer dominion powers.

##########

I've never played LA Atlantis, but i've fought them a few times and definitely do not consider them weak. Also as an amphibious nation with D/W they strike me as having better prospects than most of being able to hold their own against the two twilight powers.

What exactly is wrong with the towering pile of whup that is EA Argatha? I know that they have many "annoyance features" , but their troops are tough, their top caster awesome, and their national summons useful and easily available.

[thejeff]

Since I'm playing them currently, I'm curious why EA Atlantis is considered so bad. They are certainly not "insufficiently amphibious", since they don't have any aquatic only units. Basalt Kings are good thugs/borderline SCs.
Is it just because they lack Astral/Death/Blood for the late game?

[atul]

I assume since they lack the staying power early on above surface, and get their behind kicked by aquatic nations below.

They've got very nice mid/late game magic and sweet forging paths, but having no reliable N magic to find those free forts underwater and having all units in a bit borderline good in their categories makes the early game hard.

But, a nice nation if you can get friends. I had good time playing them in a team game.

[thejeff]

I'm a little suspicious of the "free forts underwater" argument, having just found my first one in an SP test game after searching 33 underwater provinces. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I'm not going to be relying on it.

[atul]

Yeah well, it was just speculation, I wasn't the one tagging Atlantis weak. And having had my behind handed to me by MA Atlantis I wouldn't call that weak, either.

I was swimming in free UW forts in noobs vs vets 2, but that was with high magic sites. But, as with all sites, experiences vary.

[Baalz]

Monkey PD is very bad against some things, but against others it's decidedly above average. Your opponent, unfortunately, gets to decide what he attacks you with, but I've had many an amusing turn where I'm guessing my opponent slapped his forehead and said "Hey! I though monkey PD went down to a strong wind?!?"

[Baalz]

I'm a little suspicious of the "free forts underwater" argument, having just found my first one in an SP test game after searching 33 underwater provinces. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I'm not going to be relying on it.

Yeah, seems like bad luck that one. With no rigorous testing and based only on pure gut feel from playing several games I'd guess a kelp fortress is maybe in something like one in eight underwater provinces. You do get some dry runs though when you're basing your strategy on them....

[Zeldor]

I almost killed QM's Sirrush in one blitz with monkey PD, but their PD is still pathetic. To call it decent you'd want small amount [<5] to reliably stop call of wild/winds and more points to stop indie attacks [barbs, villains, knights at higher PD] and small raiding armies.

[MaxWilson]

I'm a little suspicious of the "free forts underwater" argument, having just found my first one in an SP test game after searching 33 underwater provinces. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I'm not going to be relying on it.

Yeah, seems like bad luck that one. With no rigorous testing and based only on pure gut feel from playing several games I'd guess a kelp fortress is maybe in something like one in eight underwater provinces. You do get some dry runs though when you're basing your strategy on them....

Is Kelp fortress tied purely to ocean terrain, or is it based on a different terrain feature with underwater just as a prerequisite? thejeff, it might depend on your map.

-Max

[Tyrant]

Since I'm playing them currently, I'm curious why EA Atlantis is considered so bad. They are certainly not "insufficiently amphibious", since they don't have any aquatic only units. Basalt Kings are good thugs/borderline SCs.
Is it just because they lack Astral/Death/Blood for the late game?

Absolutely right, my bad, Atlantis' problem is not lack of land power, it's that they are inferior to the other two underwater powers in the sea, I expect they'd be fine if they were the only water nation in play or had an isolated sea start.

[Agema]

I've played LA Atlantis, and whilst I didn't win, I consider them to be potentially very powerful. Bear in mind the Hall of Honour mostly has games that doesn't include the new underwater mages LA Atlantis got which expand it into astral (S1/S2) and fire (F1).

I've played EA Atlantis. My perception is that what you need to get their magic good in the late game tallies pretty badly with the blesses that best benefit the Basalt Kings and sacred troops. Meanwhile the troops are too weak against Oceania and poor MR makes them a liability against Rlyeh. Basalt Kings are wonderful, but the nation as a whole left me underwhelmed.

[thejeff]

I'd agree that EA Atlantis isn't a good candidate for a strong bless. The Living Pillars are too high resource for early expansion and the low MR will cripple them later, especially with R'lyeh. The Kings can't self bless.
They're plenty tough without a bless though, once you've got a little research and some gear for them.
It would be hard to defend against an Oceania bless rush, I'll admit, but if you're not relying on sacreds, there are plenty of decent MR troops so I'm not convinced that R'lyeh would pose a special problem.

[Agema]

The best MR EA Atlantis has on its base troops is 10, and the deep Atlanteans are lower (7-8?). I can quite assure you from experience that a roughly equal gold cost of Ryleh mind blast things with a melee screen versus EA Atlantean troops of any type will tend to end in a big defeat for Atlantis. If you stick high HP thugs with good MR (+MR boosts by spell, bless or item pretty much required) they suck up a lot of the hits and help. If you can recruit enough Pillars, give them a massive S bless and use your god to cast Antimagic, that would get them high enough MR. But good luck getting enough of them.

[Zeldor]

Yeah, Pillars are a cool unit, but totally useless, even in CBM. No way to recruit enough of them [and for almost every nation bless negates productivity, too many points to waste]. I will have to poke QM about that.

[thejeff]

Isn't 10 average MR? It's the best many nations get on basic troops. Are they all helpless against R'lyeh? Kings & Mages can easily be boosted to draw some of the fire as well.

Having low mr troops available doesn't really matter. You just don't use them against R'lyeh. Save them for when you need cold & fire resistance.

I haven't used them against R'lyeh. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic.

Would Pillars be too strong if made non-capital? You still wouldn't be able to rely on them for early expansion. They'd only be available in the water and they're slow on land. It would be different to have a strong non-rush bless nation.

[Zeldor]

Living Pillar has 8! MR. It's elite unit for a nation that needs magic scale [so make it 7]. Elite unit with animal-level MR! Their non-sacred mages cost 250 gold for 6 RP. SCs are much much worse than Niefel giants, can't self-bless and cost as Niefels - 500 gold. H3 guys are 300 gold and cap only, so pretty much unusable. No N for free forts. Almost no S. No D. No B. No clams.

[Humakty]

One could add their mages have under average precision... Or is it only MA ?

[Agema]

No, I think Atlantis other eras have slightly subnormal precision too, but I don't think it's a big deal.

It's true that 10MR is basic. But Rlyeh just sits at the back of the battlemap and blasts away. Against 10MR, a unit hit by mind blast takes about 45% chance paralysis and about 45% chance 1AN damage (which is surprisingly painful). You don't have spells that have enough range to hit back, no flight, and no bowfire. Add to that, Atlanteans are medium to heavy infantry, which means fairly slow so they'll be a long time to close and take a lot of hits on the way. Oceania can at least cross the battlefield pretty quickly.

Pillars have 3 big problems: Massive resource cost (50+), massive encumbrance (10), and bad MR (8). Even with non-capital production, they would arrive very slowly - EA Atlantis' underwater forts have low admin, so pull in few resources from surrounding provinces. Okay, 10 encumbrance isn't completely as bad as it seems as they get 2 attacks, but with low numbers still need to do a lot of killing, and fatigue=criticals which will badly undermine their excellent armour. And why do they have a shield? They've only got 5 Def with it anyway, whilst it's encumbering them and adding to their res cost. It's not like that shield saves them from mind blast, or that any EA bows are going to do much against their massive armour if they get out of water.

Making them useful pretty much demands high E&S bless, and + production. You should be thinking about a minor N bless as well. Once you've spent all that, you've got virtually nothing left to afford stuff EA Atlantis also really needs, like money - lots of it. Oh, and you've got just about one pretender choice that isn't either W, D, or W&D, and it's the S1N1 monolith.

[Micah]

I actually tried to field pillars in one game when I was new to Dom, and I found out the hard way that Atlantis gets a 20-admin cap, which makes the pillars even more unusable. Plus what's up with them not having helmets?

Making them recruit-anywhere wouldn't be OP at all, but it would be incredibly unthematic given the description.

I'm not sure if Atlantis needs magic-3. They're pretty screwed in research regardless, and that's a lot of points to blow to be slightly less sucky, especially with the MR issue.

The Basalt kings should probably be compared to Dai Oni, not Jarls, due to much more similar pathing. Doing that makes it much easier to see how bad they are.

Basalt king pros: better natural prot (largely irrelevant with E magic though), no horrible starting armor (largely irrelevant in an SC context), CR instead of PR, amphibian, not a demon, no research malus (but Atlantis' non-cap mages are both horrible in general and overpriced), 1 point of str, one more hp (not QUITE as trivial as it sounds since it changes 10% regen from 5 to 6 points, although at 4 stars this evens out).

Not too much going for them, it seems.

Oni Pros: 2! less enc, 1 more magic path, better path distribution (E3 base is overkill with summon EP, and Dai Oni all have the critical F2 for phoenix pyre), can self bless!!!, 1 more MR, 2 more base attack, 6! more base defense (4 after the W magic), 4! more morale (What's up with a 14 morale on basalt kings?), mountain survival, 1 more precision, 2nd form (crappy, but better than nothing). Minor A access.

We'll call W versus D a wash (soul vortex versus cold resistance and quickness is a hard call to make in terms of SC potential)

Looks like Atlantis could use some love, for sure.

[Amorphous]

Living Pillar has 8! MR. It's elite unit for a nation that needs magic scale [so make it 7]. Elite unit with animal-level MR! Their non-sacred mages cost 250 gold for 6 RP. SCs are much much worse than Niefel giants, can't self-bless and cost as Niefels - 500 gold. H3 guys are 300 gold and cap only, so pretty much unusable. No N for free forts. Almost no S. No D. No B. No clams.
Looking at it, the above seems unreasonable.

Living Pillars being elite units does not mean that they should be used for everything. Indeed, a situation where someone is spamming MR spells is exactly the situation where you do not want to use them. They are rather cost effective castle defenders and make for decent bodyguards in a pinch, but that is pretty much it.

You are also not being consequent. If Living Pillars are counted as MR 7 units, Mages of the Deep should be counted as 8 RP units.

Although Basalt Kings can be seen as inferior to Niefel Jarls, they are definitely not "much much worse" and, quite frankly, if you need to look at Niefel Jarls to find something more powerful, you are not exactly scraping at the bottom of the barrel.

In light of your comparison with Niefelheim it is also somewhat strange that you lambast their H3 priest for being unusable. I cannot say that I agree, but even apart from that, Niefelheim does not have any H3 and Atlantis has no less access to H2 and H1 than anyone.

So let us look at what EA Atlantis actually has when it comes to what is discussed here.

Speaking of research, their mages are expensive, but not particularly slow. And they have both the path and the gems for lanterns.

Apart from being rather decent SCs after a quite modest investment, Basalt Kings are also very good battle mages. Things like blade wind sort of speaks for itself in the early era, but the kings also have a broad range of troop buffing options and access to the very effective acid line of spells (combine for more fun when some opponent thinks that heavy infantry is good against the former).

The everywhere recruitable Mages of the Deep are no slouches on their own and their astral pick make them very good complements to the Basalt Kings. You do e.g. not need a god to cast antimagic, the mages can do that just fine when needed.

As for diversification into nature, that is easily accomplished. I happen to think that a modest investment in the nature path for the Atlantis god (I really recommend Dagon) is a good idea, but even discounting that, it is easy enough to find any of the numerous tribes with nature mages on land.

The thing about R'lyeh is also widely blown out of proportion in my opinion. I consider Atlantis a more powerful nation than R'lyeh in the early era overall. If we, for just a moment, discount the giboleth and gibodai, R'lyeh troops are just a speed bump for Atlantis. This is actually the case above water, which happens to be one of the major strengths of Atlantis - it is the only fully amphibious nation. R'lyeh needs its mind blasters to keep up. Without magic support, using deep ones aginst R'lyeh is not a particularly good idea - so use your ordinary MR 10 troops and better mobility - but as soon as antimagic or iron will enters the picture that changes.

Just looking at the raw numbers of antimagiced deep ones against giboleths is informative. The mind blasters have 10 shots and about 30% chance of going through MR which will paralyse the deep one for about 5 turns. At any given time a single giboleth is not likely to have paralysed more than two deep ones and you get 4 deep ones for the price of one giboleth. The real advantage of the paralysis is that it will help break the formation of the deep ones and make it easy for the R'lyeh infantry screen to kill them. However, the AI likes to target things with lots of hp. Atlantis can field a number of ordinary shamblers with MR 10 and with antimagic or iron will up, only about every 5th blast will go through. Add luck to make it every 10th hit if you can. These shamblers will draw a lot of the attention from the deep ones and let these wreak havoc on R'lyeh troops.

It is by no means a cake walk and to be safe you probably need to spend a bit more money on your army than R'lyeh, but that is mitigated by the fact that Atlantis does not need to spread its forces as thin. Being able to retreat to and attack from land is a great advantage.

[MaxWilson]

Living Pillar has 8! MR.

<geek humor>Wow, 40,320 MR??? Awesome.</geek humor>

-Max

[Micah]

Amorphous - I think the comparison to Yomi is a better one than to Niefel. And Yomi isn't generally regarded as a superstar nation.

Apart from that you are giving way too much credit to the mage of the deep. They're pretty much irredeemably horrible. They're massively overpriced, can't cast antimagic like you say without some sort of boosting (cons-6 for skullcaps? Good luck with that. POTS? You're dead to a magic duel before you get to your 2nd round even on defense, plus antimagic requires a detour up enchantment research-wise, which has little else of much use to Atlantis) and are magic-duel fodder if you can somehow last long enough to even get to them, especially since you're having to spend 1000g to get a single point of astral on average. Their non-sacred status also means they're an upkeep sink with their insane pricetag. W2 as their base is also incredibly uninspiring.

The other major issue fighting rlyeh is that their mind blasters tend to get away fairly intact if they lose a battle, meaning they're around the next turn with a fresh screen of PD chaff to hide behind, whereas Atlantis' troops have to get up close and personal to do much of note, and thus take a large beating in every engagement even if they win.

[Sombre]

Atlantis needs a better starting fort. Or maybe a site that produces resources.

[Baalz]

Well, let me preface this by saying I've never played EA Atlantis, and don't even have a crystal clear idea of what they have so I may be a bit off on this. I did write guides for MA and LA though, and some of the thinking on those nations might be relevant (or not). I think Micah's comparison to Dai Oni misses an extremely important facet...well, not so much misses it as downplays it. The Basalt kings are amphibious. This is a defining characteristic even moreso than Dai Oni being demons. I go into this in a good amount of detail in my MA Atlantis guide, but the way a game with EA/MA Atlantis must go you've got really three different games to play (if you go all the way to a win) - underwater vs R'yleh/Oceana, attacking from the water to the land, & holding a big piece of land. For the first two stages the comparison between Dai Oni and Niefels isn't appropriate because of the difference in how the units are used and what they're fighting. For underwater/early fighting the basalt king with light equipment and buffs is the best recruitable SC chasis available to any nation. For sea to land attacking (before end game) the comparison still isn't fair because the water attacker almost always has the luxury of choosing his fight so having half a dozen Basalt Kings ready to blitz one of three coasts pending a good opportunity is a very different thing from how Dai Oni or Jarls are deployed. You have to play Atlantis like a submarine and hit your opponents with overwhelming torpedoes when they don't expect it. Slugging toe to toe with a land nation on the land you're usually gonna lose, so don't do that. A submarine attacking a battleship.

[thejeff]

No, a better starting fort would let you get more Pillars earlier, but they're still not worth the massive bless you need to make them useful. S8 just to bring them up to par with most sacred's base mr?

A cheap research mage would help. (A reef dweller mage, recruitable in coastal forts?)

A price break on Mages of the Deep would be nice.

[P3D]

Basalt kings have similar stats to the Niefels (or the other recruitable SCs) without the cold aura and less HP (50 or so).
Magi of the Deep are OK thugs but they are expensive for research.
A 10HP-ish Reef Dweller Mage with W1+100%FEW for 80gp is indeed what they need, as they cannot recruit anything useful in coastal forts.

[Agema]

I think Basalt Kings are fine for the price. They're extremely powerful. Similarly, Deep Mages are uncomfortably expensive for research, but Atlantis isn't the only nation in a similar situation (e.g. Vanheim).

[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.

[Baalz]

Well, to be fair at the point I suggest you can figure out what to do I've set you up to presumably hold all the water, have a good chunk of land, have negotiated a good ally or two, have a virtually unlimited supply of teleporting thugs, have batteries of very powerful artillery mages and are obviously in a position that has to be played very much contingent on what your very few left opponents are doing. At the point you've exhausted your sneak attack you should be controlling 3-4+ capitals and have got to the point where national troops aren't really too significant.

[Micah]

Baalz - Taking a closer look at the guide I don't see anywhere where you address Atlantis' (both eras) cripplingly bad gold:RP ratio other than to say "get lots of money."

You also suggest a 0-magic kraken pretender, which leaves you without any D access to speak of, and that's the premier path that makes "national troops insignificant" by virtue of tarts. You're also short of N, which is the OTHER major late game path for SC chassis-making and is vital for a lot of items, like regen. (Though once you make landfall you can at least manage some tribals.) Again, your guide does a great job getting to midgame, especially if you have to contend with the other W nations, but I'm not seeing a great path from there assuming a land nation plays equally as well...they're likely to have just as much territory, better magic diversity (and hence gems, most likely) much better research, and, evidently, better SC chassis.

This isn't supposed to be a dig at your guide, I think you did a great job working with the little bit you have to work with, but that's why I'm stating my opinion that Atlantis (both eras) could use a bit of love. They're not in need of a huge overhaul, but I think a slight price drop on the Kings to say, 450, would be justified, and some cheap researchers for both eras would be a godsend.

EA also doesn't have S access for any purposes other than site searching and light forging, so all of the teleport and gating ideas are off the table. The mages of the deep are also much worse than the kings, since they lose a W path off the bat and don't have linked randoms, meaning they're more likely to end up with a less useful assortment of abilities...E1 in particular is a wasted path.

[Baalz]

At the risk of sounding argumentative I do feel the need to defend my thesis here. The question of N gems does come up in the thread of that guide and I suggest using the small N income you'll get from level-0 underwater N sites (and possibly conquering Oceana lands) to eventually empower a king, and summon a Niad or two using water gems. You won't be fielding much combat nature but you'll have plenty to site search your empire and spend your income, cast GoR, whatever and shouldn't have much trouble having a very solid N income by late game. Lack of D is definitely in the "con" column, but not every end game strategy has to center on Tartarians- particularly with an obvious good tartarian counter (ubiquitous teleporting thugs who can quicken self and F magic for flambeauxs/scourges). What type of national troops you've got isn't significant not just because of SC's but also because of spells like army of lead, will of the fates, weapons of sharpness coupled with acid storm, niefel flames, etc. Obviously I'm not suggesting you're in an unbeatable position, but you've certainly got the tools to fight the good fight against any nation provided you've entered late game in style. It's also disingenuous to dismiss my suggestion as "get lots of money". To be fair my suggestion is to go for excellent scales and push your dominion hard to make the most of it, sharply limit how many troops you're buying, castle up quickly, pump out mages as fast as you can to the exclusion of everything else if possible, and tightly limit what you're researching to the essentials. You're not going to be leading in the research department but you shouldn't be dominated either.

FWIW, I have implemented this strategy verbatim successfully (finished second in a very large game).

[P3D]

I looked at Atlantis again, and experimented a bit.
Problem with EA Atlantis is their early expansion. Why?

The troops have mediocre protection and abysmal to mediocre (7-12) defense meaning they won't last long. Perhaps their most decent unit is the War Shamber, but that sacrifices the extra attack of the Shambler for some armor and shields - and won't get the Coral Glaive hinted in the description. Glaive, an extra point of attack/defence and a sharkskin cap would help them a lot.
Coral Guards/Pillars have just too high encumbrance to be useful with their single attack of 10. The two shamblers of the deep have abysmal defense scores besides their similar MR.
They have serious problems against Triton Guard and Amber clan independents unless they attack in great quantities (which Atlantis cannot afford with 250g non-sacred magi and 500gp BKs). And underwater capitals with the usual 3 neighbors means they will have strong independents next door.

The usual E9N4 giant bless is expensive, as none of the available pretenders start with Earth magic. And the BKs need magical armor to utilize it as all their starting equipment is a quarterstaff and a loincloth. They have a natural protection of 16 (with Earth) but they face either poison or tridents on the stronger independents. Some starting equipment armor+helmet, would help a lot - just slap on some Boots of the Behemoth and go. I'd also change the Dagon pretenders magic to W1E1 from W2, that'd fit better with the Basalt City thematic.

This means Atlantis needs a SC to start with, i.e. mediocre scales and restricted paths on the pretender - and they can afford neither.

[Micah]

I saw the N bit after I posted, but like the rest of the guide I see it as making the best of a bad situation, not finding some secret. Having access by turn 30 (25 turns or so assuming you find 2 level 0 sites early) is not really a noteworthy way to break into a path, since that's about when you can get the booster rings to pretty much bootstrap anything, but especially N with shaman available for recruitment. Using the booster rings and 2 shaman and making 2 thistle maces gets you 2 haruspex casters as well, but saves you 43N, they can also start manually searching as soon as you get a lab + temple up (and they make fairly cost-effective researchers for most nations as well). If you're specifically going for clam production the Naiad is a better buy (arguably, I usually empower W, not N if I'm going for clams), otherwise you're blowing your N gems on top of being slow out the gate compared to other nations.

As far as D access...well, artifacts is warping my perception a little bit, since it's high-gem, low gold, but I'd have to say that tartarians are a vital part of late-game strategies, though obviously not the only one. They are simply amazingly cost effective, and they also have the benefit of providing their own counter-counters, since all of the less-useful chassis immediately pick up the job of damage sinks. Anything that's countering a tartarian is going to be a glass cannon and getting tied up in tartarian chaff is going to get them killed.

The other obvious addition to tarts are abominations, which will just eat anything that's kitted to take down tarts. Add in some darkness for extra fun. And of course by forcing your opponents to gear the 3x damage weapons you're drastically cutting down their strategic options.

Oh, and of course EA doesn't have teleporting thugs anyhow, making most of that previous discussion moot.

Army buffs are nice, but Atlantis isn't gonna be the nation that gets there first, research wise. Quickening and Weapons of Sharpness are pretty awesome though, I give them that. Outside of those two they do have issues casting Will of The Fates in EA, and Army of Shock Vulnerability is always a risky call against a smart opponent with access to Wrathful Skies.

As far as the gold strat...You're right, there's a little bit more to it than "get lots of gold" but not enough to cover the g:rp shortfall. The "standard" MP build people generally use for scales is Order 3, Sloth 3, temperature 3, misfortune 2, magic 1. Growth and temperature give about 25% more gold (20% base since temperature scales fluctuate so counting the full 24% the scales say isn't justified, so we'll call 25% a happy medium due to the ongoing growth effects.) Castling up is mostly meaningless with 10-admin forts, and keeping low troop numbers is standard practice, I loaded up a random game I finished a while back and my troops account for about 15% of my upkeep, so there's not much fat to trim there. (That was with LA ulm pumping out ghoul guardians too, in artifacts I have 53 militia, 2 men at arms, 1 xbowman, 6 trolls, and 8 voi axemen to my nation's name. Enslave mind and events account for all but the trolls.)

Assuming a magic-1 scale the mage of the deep yields a 35.7 g:rp return. Pulling out a few other EA comparisons: Ulm's shaman are 34.5 and are sacred (I'm giving them credit for the 50% random path here). Yomi's Hanneya are 25, Arco's mystics are 23, Augur elders are 27.5, Marverni's druids are horrible at a 42, but are sacred, Enaries are 21.4, anathemant salamanders are 26, and sacred. Hell, PANS, renowned for how horribly bad they are at research for their cost, still clock in at a 34.7. Sacred nations are paying about half what Atlantis is in upkeep, non-sacred nations around 2/3rds..even with 25% more gold than them they STILL have a research edge, and that's blowing 120 design points on growth, and assuming all you provs are in the water and thus not temp-sensitive, or another 120 points on that scale. I also made sure to pick combat-ready non-cap mages for the comparison...spire horn seraphs clock in at 15, Masters of the way at 25/sacred...Mictlan priests at 15/sacred, so the numbers are even worse in a real game when people have devoted researchers. The Heims are the only nations even close to Atlantis' suckitude research wise, and they're still winning the race due to sacred upkeep.

Again, your guide is fine, and makes reasonable sacrifices to do what it has to do to get the nation by, but I maintain that the nation itself could use a little bit of a boost. Player skill matters for a lot more than nation strength in dom, and you're one of the better players around. It's not surprising you did well with them in a larger game. Looking at the Hall of fame MA Ermor and MA Ctis have the same number of wins, and are clearly very different power levels...a couple of results don't prove much.

[Zeldor]

I agree pretty much on everything with Micah. I am playing both EA and MA Atlantis now, so I can make some comments:

General:
- resource-heavy uw nations just don't work, with 10 admin forts, 20 admin cap you can recruit ****, and you are not guaranteed 4-5 uw neighbours like land nations get
- W on SC/thug is really bad path to have, unless you can get lots of reinvig on your gear and don't put really heavy gear, otherwise no quicken self for you

EA Atlantis:
- no N, no free forts, no reinvig gear for BKs, no quicken self for them
- you need pretender to get starshine caps
- good paths for some forging [brands, hammers, golden shields for fear+awe on BKs]
- H3 priests fighting for recruitment with BKs
- totally useless units, the more expensive the worse they are
- crap research [really, just because you have F on mages to research it does not mean you are research powerhouse, you will need to use all F on lanterns to just catch with middle of the pack]
- Kings of the Deep are no thugs at all, but are more expensive than most of them
- no D, B, real S
- nothing to fight Oceania early on
- nothing to fight R'lyeh early on [8 MR elite troops? haha, you'd also want more MR on BKs before sending them alone agaisnt all that nasty stuff, so you'd want starshine or rainbow on top of AmA]

MA:
- no SCs here
- troops as sucky as in EA
- cannot forge hammers before const6 for E booster
- very bad paths for forging thug gear [W3S2, W5, W3E2, W3F2 is all they get]
- no N [no free forts, no reinvig for thugs]
- highly overpriced thugs
- no viable reseachers [60gp W1 mage is cap only, lol]
- no D,B
- at least some S...

If you take awake Kraken with EA or MA Atlantis, even if you win uw race, you are just doomed. You have totally no diversity, no important paths to use or site search for. Stuck with some useless pile of HP and being on mercy of other players to sell you gear you really need [cool uw indie mages are pretty much non-existant]. Your Kraken would get owned by EA OCeania knights anyway, or vs good mass of gibodais.

Baalz:
Your guide is a bit about hoping that someone you attack is blind. Sure, you can teleport in MA [only with const6], but good luck attacking someone with S mages. It will work once, on a limited scale. Later all your thugs are owned by Magic Duel. You will have much less mages than your opponent, less research and hard way to move any of them. You can use only those that are in your provs near his shore, moving anything through 5-6 water provs takes ages. And all forts you conquer will be useless - only indies to recruit and -15% income from cold3. You will have very limited mobility and for enemy it will be enough to put water breathing ring and trapeze/teleport into your uw provs to face just tiny PD.

Atlantis cannot and shouldn't win any uw wars assuming Oceania/R'lyeh are played by competent players. If you get small lake alone it means you have small area, small gem income, huge dominion problems. If you get big lake and kill other uw nations then... well, it's like assuming Marverni rulz as Hinnom player went AI and got conquered by them.

[Torin]

E9 blessing + summon earth power + girdle of might + boots of the messenger
thats enough.

[Zeldor]

Gimme a chassis for E9 for Atlantis. And N mage for boots. Unless the start is called "be lucky and find indie mages that fill your holes".

[Amorphous]

Look I do not want to give the wrong impression here. I do not consider EA Atlantis the most powerful nation ever, but I do also not consider it hopeless. I am all for critique of it - it is often a good opportunity to learn - but it needs to be reasonable.

I agree pretty much on everything with Micah. I am playing both EA and MA Atlantis now, so I can make some comments:

General:
- resource-heavy uw nations just don't work, with 10 admin forts, 20 admin cap you can recruit ****, and you are not guaranteed 4-5 uw neighbours like land nations get
EA Atlantis is certainly not resource heavy. Decently cheap troops requiring all of 1 resource with two or three attacks (including a magic one if you need it) makes it pretty much a poster nation for sloth 3.

As an aside, land nations are not guaranteed 4-5 neighbours, as far as I know. I have certainly played plenty of games where that was not the case. A lot of maps people are using probably use that as a start condition, but presumably you could demand exactly the same for water starts.

- W on SC/thug is really bad path to have, unless you can get lots of reinvig on your gear and don't put really heavy gear, otherwise no quicken self for you
There are other spells than quicken self that require only water magic - I have used e.g. breath of winter to great effect. Regardless, Atlantis does have access to reinvigoration.

EA Atlantis:
- no N, no free forts, no reinvig gear for BKs, no quicken self for them
Say what?
All Basalt Kings can cast summon earthpower and without even the slightest shred of diversification, Atlantis can produce girdles of might. That is 7 reinvigoration right there on a 3 encumbrance unit.

- you need pretender to get starshine caps
Or just cough up 30 perls for an empowerment (to W2E1S2) if you cannot trade for any kind of S-booster. From there on the mages of the deep can keep on forging coins and caps without any further empowerment.

- good paths for some forging [brands, hammers, golden shields for fear+awe on BKs]
I also like staffs of corrosion. The mages can quicken themselves and then proceed to fire off two acid bolts each turn. (It sometimes happens that I have a mage present that has a path combination that is not that well suited to the battle at hand; a staff makes them into decent artillery.)

- H3 priests fighting for recruitment with BKs
Yes, but since Atlantis is not a bless nation, there is not that great a need for H3s. If you happen to have some minor bless for your kings, your ordinary priests can handle the blessing just fine.

- totally useless units, the more expensive the worse they are
They are hardly useless.
Even apart from the obvious hyperbole in the statement, I have a hard time seeing it. The various versions of deep atlanteans certainly have weaknesses, but they also have strengths. Darkvision and elemental resistances have their uses and their offensive power is absolutely top-notch for the price. Due to at best average defence and protection they tend to die a lot, but that is quite all-right as they are easily replaceable and give as good as they get.

- crap research [really, just because you have F on mages to research it does not mean you are research powerhouse, you will need to use all F on lanterns to just catch with middle of the pack]
Atlantis does not have good research, but it is not a catastrophy in my opinion. Mages are expensive, but not particularly slow.

The expensive mages are at least in part mitigated by the constitution of atlantean troops. You can levy a lot of them very quickly, so you can save quite a bit on upkeep.

- Kings of the Deep are no thugs at all, but are more expensive than most of them
With a bit of gear, they can be used as thugs, but I tend to use them more as battle mages, summoners and forgers. What they are good at depends on what paths they have, but they can all be used for cold spam. The ones with a astral pick bears special mention as they can access a lot of the more demanding spells through communions. If you absolutely need to get one off in the first round you can always forge a matrix.

- no D, B, real S
Quite.
Personally, I tend to take some nature on the pretender and then go as far into S as is feasible through clams via Naiads (this also nets me a late entrance into air). D and B are pretty much just viable if I find useful sites or commanders.

- nothing to fight Oceania early on
Oceania is certainly a lot better under water, but that is as it should be. Oceania does not have anything on Atlantis above the waves, so having them equal beneath them would be rather imbalanced.

- nothing to fight R'lyeh early on [8 MR elite troops? haha, you'd also want more MR on BKs before sending them alone agaisnt all that nasty stuff, so you'd want starshine or rainbow on top of AmA]
I really do not understand what your hang-up is with the living pillars. Why try to use them in a situation they are clearly not suitable for? It just does not make any sense.

While MR 10 troops are not ideal in fighting R'lyeh, they do work as long as you consider what the mind blasters like to target. Mixing in high-hp troops will make it possible to include numerous of the cheap MR 8 deep ones for cheap offensive punch. You will lose some, but again, they are easily replaced.

EA R'lyeh differs markedly from LA in that it has to actually pay for its chaff. And it is still rather bad. Counting on retreating and hiding behind PD is a losing proposition as the concentration of blasters (which is what R'lyeh has going for it) will go down and the PD itself pretty much explodes when coming in contact with Atlantis' offensively minded units.

Understand that I am not saying that Atlantis is horribly more powerful than R'lyeh under the waves. Indeed, it is probably at a slight disadvantage. However, it is a lot closer than the comparison to Oceania and R'lyeh certainly fares no better than the other on land.

Atlantis cannot and shouldn't win any uw wars assuming Oceania/R'lyeh are played by competent players.
I cannot agree.

Of course, Atlantis has to use what it has and not just pine for what it lacks. You should always keep in mind that you are the only fully amphibious nation in the age. Just as you use the relative safety of the water when attacking land nations, you should use the relative safety of land provinces when attacking your under water rivals. Carving out a big land empire early is probably not a good idea - you will be a too juicy target for real land nations - but a couple of coastal provinces is fine. Taking them from you will generally be more trouble than it is worth as it will inevitable result in you raiding them from your safe under water position.

This strategical advantage is huge.



@P3D: I agree with the part about slow expansion and need for an SC god. I do think that it is affordable, though. I usually go for a dom 10 Dagon with some earth and nature. This allows me to research straight up the conjuration school for Voice of Tiamat and pick up reinvigoration and regeneration on the way. This also lets me summon Naiads and get into nature in a big way as well as providing a rather slow but effective development of astral through clams, if nothing else.

Atlantis needs high order, but very little resources and taking cold 3 has a couple of advantages: you do not suffer financially under the waves and while you have cold resistant troops your under water rivals do not. Especially Oceania has quite a lot of high encumbrance troops and they are not happy with the extra encumbrance - it is not much, but every bit helps.

Before mid- to late-game craziness sets in, you should have won (or lost) the sea, so from there on you can leverage yourself to further victories through superior gem income.

[Agema]

As a minor point, Atlantis is not the only fully amphibious nation in EA: Agartha also is. Also, I found expanding with War Shamblers extremely easy as EA Atlantis.

I took on 70 mind blasters and a melee screen with about 250 MR-10 units, about 80 War Shamblers, 80 Triton Guards and 80 Atlanteans. I lost my army and barely scratched the melee shield. It would be interesting to see if a few Basalt Kings up front with Iron Will could take the punishment instead and let the army get through. On the other hand, you'd still be in trouble going on the offence, as with MR-17 against enough mind blasters the Basalt Kings will almost certainly be paralysed before they can cast it and very vulnerable. Successive paralyses when you're already paralysed can cause damage as I recall from the rulebook, plus the 1AN MR additional damage, which can add up to plenty of pain.

Bear in mind also, those nice, juicy high-HP units are begging to receive special attention from Rlyeh's astral mages: paralyze, soul slay, horror mark, mind blast.

[vfb]

Sea Trolls are great at eating Illithid (or Gibbodai) fire and diverting attacks from your mages. They've got regen, 14 MR, nice HP. They're only expensive in terms of mage time to summon, assuming you're in an early fight and can't get the whole court.

Atlantis units are just too slow, so hire a crapload of cheap indy Tritons, cast a few School of Sharks if you have conj-4, and you should be okay. If you've gotten some N, then a couple Summon Animals helps too, especially if you get lucky with a lot of Hippocampus.

[Sombre]

Sea Trolls are only an early game option with CBM on though, where the individual summon is lower research. In vanilla I think they're just going to come out too late to help against rlyeh.

[Baalz]

Well, I don't disagree with many of your points Micah/Zeldor, and as I mention I'm talking more of MA Atlantis and the conversation is getting a bit crossed. I will say, having played a fair number of games as aquatic nations I find it impossible to overstate the strategic value of attacking from the water to land the first (and possibly second) time. As I say with that sub/battleship analogy you're pretty undeniably weaker than a top notch land nation all things being equal. That said, I've never (in say 10 games) gotten to the point that I controlled the seas and didn't relatively shortly attack someone on the coast in an overwhelming sneak attack, which generally leads to a very good sized empire difficult to attack (because it's 2/3rds underwater) and a war ally. Given this massive strategic advantage I think it's appropriate that the underwater nation be somewhat disadvantaged in a fair fight. I'll concede you've got an uphill fight to get to that point as EA/MA Atlantis given their underwater opposition, but it's not a shutout and is appropriate for a more experience vs less experienced matchup.

[Sombre]

I think it kinda is a shutout if it's atlantis vs oceania in EA in the same sea. The knights of the deep are just savage and generally Oceania can go right for you without having to worry about overextending and getting ganked by someone else (unless rlyeh is also underwater and next to them rather than you, if they're next to you, you just get double stomped in a joint attack).

[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. =)

[Baalz]

Well, that's rather my point isn't it? If you can manage to control the water (the hard part) you don't have any business fighting a fair fight on the land (easy part). The war with Caelum was negotiated before I ever set slimy toe out of water, the fight with Lanka (sorry, didn't mention this) I didn't line up a war ally until I had soundly thrashed his attacking forces (I think he expected me to be much more tied up with Caelum) and basically just trolled around for somebody willing to grab some land from his other side while I did most of the killing which I was able to do because I was at this point much bigger than him and using the income I'd grabbed from my rapid land grab to pump out Kings. Part of my negotiation with Sauro was "even if I'm wrong and he defeats me he's going to have to leave a large amount of forces guarding his coast", which made it a pretty good no-brainer on their part.

[Tolkien]

The arcane workings of diplomacy are just as important as the art of warfare.

:)

[Micah]

Ah, I thought you meant "fair" in the sneak attack sense, not the ganging sense, since diplomacy and lots of borders cuts both ways. See: Artifacts. It is true that you do have a nice diplomatic status as any aquatic nation given your defensive advantage and the thought that you'll be easy pickings later once more of your holdings are on land, but that can evaporate very quickly once you start to do well.

[Baalz]

Well, both actually. At the point you're controlling the water you have the luxury of naming who and when you fight. Coasts are generally long enough that you've got several options and nobody is realistically going to be attacking you at this point. In the vast majority of cases you can just sit there until you can surprise attack someone who is already in a fight with no real need to defend your long border. Even once you've got a big bite of land you've got serious negotiating leverage as nobody really wants to fight with you when 2/3rds of your territories are underwater, and you can also potentially attack on another coast which doesn't touch your other land holdings. Artifacts was (is? ;) ) hideous in how quickly everyone piled on anyone who got at all ahead but in my experience this is not how things usually play out. It seems to me much more common for you to make a good war ally in your first or second war and have solid backup going forward.

[Amorphous]

As a minor point, Atlantis is not the only fully amphibious nation in EA: Agartha also is. Also, I found expanding with War Shamblers extremely easy as EA Atlantis.
Well, apart from troglodytes you are quite right. I rarely find them a problem, though, as they are not that hot under the water to start with and really bad as soon as they are in a cold dominion.

War shamblers are nice, but I have not been able to expand that well with them. It could just be a question of bad scripting on my part, though. I am not that good a player.


I took on 70 mind blasters and a melee screen with about 250 MR-10 units, about 80 War Shamblers, 80 Triton Guards and 80 Atlanteans. I lost my army and barely scratched the melee shield. It would be interesting to see if a few Basalt Kings up front with Iron Will could take the punishment instead and let the army get through. On the other hand, you'd still be in trouble going on the offence, as with MR-17 against enough mind blasters the Basalt Kings will almost certainly be paralysed before they can cast it and very vulnerable. Successive paralyses when you're already paralysed can cause damage as I recall from the rulebook, plus the 1AN MR additional damage, which can add up to plenty of pain.
That AN damage is painful, but I am astounded by that result. I have never encountered anything like it in this matchup.

I experimented a bit after seeing your post, but I just cannot get my head around it.

About the only thing I can think of - apart from using just a couple of Basalt Queens as commanders and have them be killed by mindblasts - is that R'lyeh was using mostly slave troopers as screen and managed to mindblast all the shamblers (fire at big monsters?) - leaving you with decidedly sub-par damage against decent armour, but you should still have been able to make quite a dent in the screen.

What sort of screen was it? And how much of it?

I set up an experiment with similar numbers but with changed troop composition to make it cheaper and a bit more effective (I think, but I welcome critique). I used 40 War Shamblers (5 of them were actually Warriors of the Deep), 40 Triton Guards, 145 Deep Ones (with and without spears) and about 15 Shamblers of the Deep mixed in with the Deep Ones. I used various scripting and placement for the R'lyeh, but the best I managed to do was losing the battle, 26 Giboleths and about half the mêlée screen. Atlantis lost about 75 units, mostly Deep ones and Tritons.

The general idea with this, was to have nice diversions for the mindblasters whatever their scripting and manage to arrive at the screen with units that can hurt them. The tritons high speed (relatively speaking) make them excellent flankers and diversions for mindblasters on fire closest. Deep ones are tempting targets, but there are a lot of them, and they pack quite a punch. Shamblers of different varieties are good damage dealers and quite nice as damage sinks.

I am probably just missing something obvious when it comes to scripting the Giboleths, but I tried with both fire closest and large enemy monsters in different combinations.

There are just too many targets for the mindblasters to be able to paralyse them all and it is too easy for Atlantis to deploy troops (using differences in size, hp and MR) so that large chunks of the army will start killing the screen.


Bear in mind also, those nice, juicy high-HP units are begging to receive special attention from Rlyeh's astral mages: paralyze, soul slay, horror mark, mind blast.
Basalt Kings and Queens are very easy to target, but Mothers and Mages of the Deep are next to impossible to single out. They are neither bigger nor have more hp than ordinary shamblers and they have better MR, which seems to make them less likely to be targeted by the AI.

Things ought to look better for R'lyeh when H2 priests can be used, though.

I am probably doing something wrong, somewhere, but I do not know what it is.

I also see it as something of a problem that the numbers we are talking about here implies that there should be at least some magic researched on both sides and that can of course change things around a bit.

[Agema]

Tactics will have mattered. Neither of us brought much magepower to the fight, as neither of us had many effective combat spells as it was early.

I can't remember the battle that well, but I reckoned that the gold cost of each army was roughly similar - within about 10%. I certainly had sub-optimal unit divisions as I was restricted by only one quality commander (Ldr-80+) and a load of Ldr-40 otherwise. I can just tell you the tritons routed very quickly, the War Shamblers and Atlanteans engaged the melee shield briefly before routing. It may have been fought in Rlyeh's Dom, and maybe magic-1.

[P3D]

As a minor point, Atlantis is not the only fully amphibious nation in EA: Agartha also is. Also, I found expanding with War Shamblers extremely easy as EA Atlantis.
Well, apart from troglodytes you are quite right. I rarely find them a problem, though, as they are not that hot under the water to start with and really bad as soon as they are in a cold dominion.

I had a battle where my heavy-blessed Agarthans against EA R'lyeh slaughtered a similar sized Slave Troll+Mind lord army. Granted, my opponent was even newer to MP than me (no cold dominion+drain scales).

[Agema]

In my opinion EA Agartha is as good underwater as on land. They have flaws in either sphere (like cold dominion), but are still competitive and certainly not easy victims. They've still got fully effective bless troops, thugs, most of their magic is as good. Note also Baalz's comments that sea nations have an advantage that they can usually assault a coastline with almost no fear of reprisal, which doesn't apply to Agartha.

[cleveland]

MA: Man
Ugh. I hate the bashing of poor MA Man. *scampers off to write MA Man guide*

Oh, and Omni & vfb: Shame on you for not standing in their defense! ;)




*scampers off to get another scotch*

[vfb]

Well, if I had, then you wouldn't be writing your wonderful MA Man guide!

I agree, MA Man can be a threat, but I think you must have been planning your attacks something like 12 months in advance. Not my style, that's for sure! I can't even remember what I plan from 1 turn ago.

Whollaborg's MA Man also had a leading position in Forseti (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37261), and the only reason he lost was because he got ganked after putting up the Forge.

[TheDemon]

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.

Even with an awake SC pretender, you're good as dead within 16 turns, when you're about halfway to the research needed to kit and buff said thugs. I'm not talking about level 4 research, I'm talking about what you can reach during the first year, which might include one level 4 school if you took a research pretender. Do you have a solution in that scenario?


I should note, I've played water nations four times. Once I started with 3 provs between our caps in an ocean. The second time, I had a 4 prov buffer in an open lake. Third time, 3 prov buffer in an open lake. The last time starts were hand-placed at opposite ends of a river, probably about 10 provs between.

I'm not saying you'll never get to several mid-level research schools, but it doesn't represent the average underwater game at all.

[Baalz]

Yes I have a solution - stall. In theory R'yleh can be at your gates in 12 turns, in practice you'll often have a bit more time than that and can also buy yourself even more. The thing about mind blasters is they have to have critical mass and they're expensive, R'yleh has some built in inertia which makes them a bit slower out of the gate than, say Neifelheim. Even with an expansion pretender it's a pretty tough proposition to clear out indies and mass 50+ mind blasters at 40 gold a pop plus some chaff blockers (while recruiting expensive mages) by turn 8 or so in order to head towards your capital and get there on turn 12. So, assuming they pile everything they've got into one army and rush you you've got the 3-4 armies you were using to clear indies to counter-raid R'yleh while they can't really split up their expensive critical mass group very effectively. Dance around, feint, skirmish and fall back and you can buy your self more precious turns. If they bull rush to your capital cut into their territories with those troops they're ignoring and bleed them while stuffing your capital with some of those low resource high strength guys you've got and let the squids spend several turns sieging you while you pump out the research and forgings. All in all I can't really imagine you'll be forced into a decisive fight until turn 20 or so unless the stars are really just lined up against you.

[Foodstamp]

I have a lot of fun playing MA Man in SP with an s/e/d Master Lich. Of course the AI cannot deal with even massed longbows.

I think I could adapt a strategy to MP utilizing that pretender and taking advantage of bards and some careful diplomacy. I think a strategy based around massing lots of bards with a great economy would be a funny "F#$% You" early to early-mid game.

It's always the late game that gets Man.