[HoneyBadger]

Atlantis EA is great. One of the things that really helps offset lack of archers are the basalt kings, which are able to cast bladewind and other powerful evocations once they do get on land. You are going to move slow though, which by itself is a disadvantage, however your living pillars get a bonus to defending castles, which means you can hold the territory you do grab. Also, just because you're underwater doesn't mean that spending points on a Pretender with high fire magic/flame blade bless is a waste. You can certainly conquer underwater areas better than any land-based nations, and with your living pillars equipped with flame blades, you can trash most land areas too, providing you can get enough living pillars (which isn't easy). It may not be the best bless strategy for Atlantis, but it's worth considering, and bless strategies should be considered for Living Pillars. You may not want to bother with extremely high blesses though, just make sure you can cast a lot of enhancing magic on them, like quicken, regeneration, berserk, luck, armor, etc. Anything that will help 1 living pillar take out about 12 of the enemy. Asp Turtles I believe are amphibious. If they are not, consider summoning them and then casting gift of reason on a bunch of them and equipping them with amulets of the fish. I hate to say it, but if used wrong, Atlantis can be a weak nation. They're the most similar of the three water nations to an "average" land-based nation, only they're slated towards small groups of tough soldiers. This can be a big disadvantage because it's very easy to get over-extended unless you use what resources you have wisely. Avoid attacking-or in general pissing off-land nations without a good reason, until you're firmly in control of the water and have many (atleast a dozen) castles up and running on the shore. You can grab a land-province if it's out of the way and has independent archers, but keep a strong force stationed there and buy troops on it every chance you get, especially archers. You won't have the luxury of province defence, but I think you can buy castles on land. If you can, do so, and keep a crack unit of living pillars and basalt queens on patrol.
Buy archers on land provinces like you've never bought archers before. Research flame arrows. Combined with batteries of bladewind basalt kings, you'll be able to hurt the enemy pretty good, and the more you hurt them, the better the rest of your guys can hurt them, because pound for pound, you're going to kick explitive against the average land-based soldier. You can even hold your own against Niefels, Helheim, and Abyssians, although they're still going to maintain an edge. If possible, make sure your living pillars go berserk at the beginning of battle. Equip a small squadron of Basalt Queens. You can use them as heavy shock troops against land-nations and then when you push in to enemy territory, have them all start preaching and watch the enemy's dominion crumble. You want to armor them heavily, with shields, and again, if possible, make sure they're berserk when they enter battle, even before they get hit. Don't throw your shock troops away though, only put them in battles where they'll make a big difference, and where you'll win or atleast cripple the enemy. Your basic troops are going to be the little guys with the coral spears and the little guys with the basalt spears, and you want massive amounts of them. Basalt Kings make fantastic-but expensive-tramplers. They're size 5 so they do lots of damage, their morale is way better than an elephant, you can armor them up, and you can use them as artillery platforms in the beginning of the battle. 5 scripted spell slots plus massive trampling. Just make sure you don't put them in risky situations. I think that's enough for now, I'm trying to cut down on the size of my posts. Hope it helps!