EA Oceania on land

[Methel]

I'm having some trouble following the evolutionary steps here, my water based nation seems ill equipped to bring the glory of me to the landlubbers.

I have 3 kinds of amp. troops, that are.. about on par with light, medium and heavy independents infantry. Not too impressive.

I have several water mages, so can go for the ice spells obviously. But I seem to lack any kind of real power spells for the end game.

Sure I can put up a few globals making the costal provinces mine, but after those I'm SOL.

Am I missing something here?

[BandarLover]

No..your not missing anything. I hate EA Oceania for just that reason. All your best troops are water only.

I'm by no means an expert, but the few times I did play them, I had to ramp up my conjuration and construction. That way, you summon up some armies that can compliment your pitiful lack of land troops (Sea King Court is a nice one) and forge some fish amulets so your more powerful underwater only mages and bishops can go on land.

That's pretty much all I can tell ya. Maybe someone with more knowledge will come along.

[MaxWilson]

What about summons? I've never played Oceania, but Trolls are great and Sea Trolls should be similar. From what I understand you should be rolling in money and gems because you're mostly unopposed by the land nations, and summons seem like a logical thing to make with all those gems. You should be able to use the acid-type Evocation spells on land (not sure offhand whether Amber Clan mermages can do this without item boosters, but if you're rolling in gems a few water bracelets/robes of the sea should be easily doable), and you have enough N2 mermages to cast Wooden Warriors, which is a good buff together with Quickening-type spells. Murdering Winter is a map-killer, and it turns out that the D9 bless works with map-killer spells if the caster is blessed (Prophet or shroud of the what's-it-called).

I agree that Oceania looks pretty bland (much like EA Ulm). I'm not really into scalemonster nations, but it looks like one to me. Find a lot of gems, crank out lots of troops, bootstrap yourself into a couple of new paths (Death, summon Mound Fiends, have them summon more Mound Fiends and build item-boosters to be able to summon Demi-liches, etc., up to D6), and use your economy to beat down the other nations. I'm sure the ice spells are pretty good if you use enough mages.

-Max Wilson

[Nick_K]

Sea trolls are quite weak, especially against land armies of HI etc. They don't even come close to their earth-magic equivalents. If you have water/nature mages I recommend Kydnides instead - size 2, well armoured for EA, awe, decent weapon... an excellent unit. The sea king is a powerful battlemage though.

[Rytek]

Try a cold 3 dominion. winter wolves summons. use the winter wolves on your flank and a little behind. set one pack for attack rear. the other on attack closest. put whaterver chaf you come up with all the way in the front in the center. set them to guard commander. put your mages in the back spamming Falling frost. your chaff will slowly move back towards the commanders in the back, drawing fire. the wolves move in and are immune to the falling frost artillery. a few mages set behind the wolves scripted for protection.

[Eressil3]

I agree. The sea king is good but the sea trolls aren't. Bad defense, bad attack. Their only strength lie in their life points so they're good for making a front line wall and that's all.

I don't like Ice drakes (they are routing to much IMO).
Winter wolves can be useful, depending of what you're facing : don't use them if your opponent can crush through their etheralness with magic weapons or spells.

I'm not an expert at all, but found the water nations good at the start since you're not so likely rushed. It can be, but it's less likely. I mean it's easier to negociate a NAP with one or two players than with 3 or 4 players... Sometimes you're even alone underwater.
But indeed, you pay this advantage later when you want to put your feet (fish tail ?) on land...

Designing a pretender with something else than water magic may be the key to get effective land summons. Or your may rely on indie mage.

[Methel]

Saying summons is well and good, but the only halfway decent summons i can put on land with my out of the box mages is... Kydnides, and while good they feel like bringing a knife to a gunfight for the end game.

Makes me kinda sad that a frost ward more or less nullifies my magic

[Gandalf Parker]

The Early Era of a nation like Oceania would tend to be more water oriented than it would be later in its history. Getting onto land is an effort. On the other hand, undoing its limitations would probably be too powerful considering the advantage of taking all the water provinces as a strong base.

I wouldnt consider Oceania was able to "get onto land". More of a nation capable of getting a foothold on land. Then you have to hold it and expand on it using the land resources. Generally Id tend to try that early on when you can do it against independents rather than other nations.

On the other hand, later in the game you might have to shift focus. You do have advantages in the water. Structures, PD, etc. You might need to shift to a defensive strategy to hold the waters while working on alternate methods of escape (such as research).