Pretender Design: Water Cults

[Boron]

Hm i think there is no use for watercult at all Chazar .
The 50 points are e.g. 1 scale and something .

If you play without water nations there are then much cheaper ways to kill the indy water provine guards like using an ID or some mech men .

All your watermages can go into the sea also and almost every nation can forge a waterbreath item which is enough to bring with enough good troops to kill the underwater indies .

Finally you will likely find a coast province with shamblers or other amphibian creatures which are enough to conquer the water also .

If Water cult would grant Water breathing to all your units then i would consider it . But as it is you better invest the points in an additional scale or something similiar .

[Chazar]

Boron said:
Hm i think there is no use for watercult at all Chazar

I fear that as well, but Dom2 would not be Dom2 if there would not be certain special case which warrants some usefulness to the weirdst of feature or creature... Gandalf???

So where are the experts that confirm that Illwinter has made the WaterCult rightly cost its design points? (In 2.14 it is 50, but I think with the Oceania mod enabled in 2.15 it is only 25 points. And doesn't the required magic scale cost additional 40 points as usual? or are there some nations that get discounts on these themes? I'll need to check that...) Otherwise for some wishful thinking, would it be too cheap to pay 50 design point to turn all national troops into poor amphibians within friendly dominion only?

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The only real benefit that comes to my mind so far would be the possibility to go underneath the sea early one, which might be nice for maps with almost guaranteed access to the sea from the initial starting position...

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Endropez made a point I am thinking about myself: if you depend on sacred units, one should go for a bless effect as well, while the water blessing means that the pretender can bring along non-sacred units...

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[Jack Simth]

It might be useful in a low magic, difficult research game when there are no water nations playing, as it could allow a player to get established underwater before anyone else could.

[Truper]

Water Cult is pretty hard to use. I've never seen anyone take it, and have barely toyed with the notion myself. Not many nations have sacred troops and sacred leaders that can stand up to masses of poisonous flyers. If you want to get into the water early, taking a Wyrm pretender is a simpler solution.

[Cainehill]

I've gone Water Cult with Marignon - it let me grab a couple of water provinces fairly early, unfortunately Vanheim, Caelum, and Ermor also also got into the water not long after.

[Taqwus]

Might be interesting with good stealthy sacreds for achieving a beachhead somewhere utterly unexpected, but this will cut you off from supplies and probably isn't very efficient.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think of it as a surprise tactic. Any game which agrees ahead of time to have no water nations or you are the last guy into the game see thats the case. You have this thread "Why Water Cult could be fun or worth it" and you have many threads asking "how can I get my nation started into the water quickly" which usually recommends the use of water mages and mercenarys. So being able to enter the water right away without waiting and bidding on the mercs that everyone else is hoping to see would seem to be an advantage. Being able to put my priests into the water next to someone and build temples in every water province on their border would seem to be at least a nice irritant (does water cult allow building castles? I dont remember). It might work best on a small tight map where provinces will be in short supply.

So the "what good is water cult" side by side with "how to I get in the water" seems to be the answer. Maybe not a great one, but a tactic worth keeping in the card file?