Dominions 6: EA Oceania Pre-game

[@perryshaffer8358]

13:30 I believe upkeep is affected conditions that affect recruitment cost (mountain recruitment, death recruitment, chaos recruitment, etc.). Turmoil 5 would reduce the recruitment to 165 for the Siren, which would bring the upkeep to about 140 for those provinces with turmoil 5. If you took magic scales, the research would raise to 14 or 15, enough to meet your efficiency criteria. Not saying it's a good idea to adjust your scales for a single leader type, but if you're going there anyway, you might as well look at the options.

[@BabelBuilder]

This is the good stuff right here! You appear to be correct. IDK for sure if these were recruited at T3, but most likely were: Capricorn upkeep is 280 and the siren is 164. That actually helps them out a decent amount and really makes T3 the scale I would suggest. Getting those coastal territories for T5 recruits would be even more important now.

[@sherlockjones8389]

Ah, a Christmas miracle, Babel is going to play Oceania and have a great time

[@BabelBuilder]

Just to be clear: no stream is planned for them atm! Perhaps someday.

[@KermodeBear]

@@BabelBuilder Excuse me, sir, the title CLEARLY says "Pre-Game" 😀

[@BabelBuilder]

Every moment before the game is pre-game!

[@Jrob1589]

Hope illwinter makes a return to them and can lean into what makes Oceania different from wet Pangaea and toss them some items and heros. Edit: Also congratulations and thank you for completing summaries on all of the Early Era nations!

[@BabelBuilder]

Oceania isn't the only water nation that feels unfinished. Not sure why either, as they could be cool and could use a little extra umph to help them out. :(

[@dembonesman]

In our MP game where I got stuck playing Oceania, I'm noticing a few things. I had to built a coastal palisade (couldn't get to a forest before another player - looking at you, Rus) and it only grants 1 commander point total, so no bonus point. I gave my holy 2 haliade a shambler skin and it looks like it is letting her move onto land despite her mount, so we'll see next turn what that looks like. The undersea econ is really painful. The sacreds at 50 gold each feel really expensive when you have such low admin, and also when half of your capital's cap circle is not ocean. And when most of the sea is deep so you can't summon in your national fortress. I now control all 14 sea provinces in the game (sorry Pelagia) and my income is still garbage compared to what a land nation would be getting, I feel. On the Capricons, if you get an earth 1 underwater that means he will be e2 on land, where you can boost him to e3 to forge some hammers. It was confusing at first when trying to empower at first because he showed up as e1 when underwater, but the empower option was 2-to-3, so that helped me realize what was going on. A lot of the nature gem income is getting alchemy'd to support other things (like earth empower). Research with this nation is hard. No efficient options just like you said. I am using the research 6 single paths, but it is slow. Which is why I (maybe mistakenly) went with an awake but non-expander pretender, just so he could stay home and research. May have been a mistake as I see a lot of dormant/imprisoned pretenders with strong blesses in MP.

[@BabelBuilder]

Let me know for sure about the shambler skin. It doesn't say it affects mount so that would be a surprise. I guess you could try to lose the mount and not reacquire it.... They really wish they had an efficient researcher. I guess you hope for an indie of some sort. If you are solo ocean, now you play the coastal raider game. Hope you have enough coastal thrones for a chance at a victory!

[@TheRazorTS]

@@BabelBuilder amulet of the fish will let you out of the water as that affects mount too

[@RHort1337]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHH I have been hoping for this for months!!!

[@BabelBuilder]

They said it couldn't be done!

[@AAX11111]

A Wonderful Christmas present for all of us. Thankee Babel.

[@AAX11111]

Also i cant help but notice at 45:36 that SEVERAL of your old pretender designs are now illegal due to the nerfs. Thats is sadge, very sadge indeed.

[@BabelBuilder]

You're very welcome!

[@BabelBuilder]

Those old ones are thing that have fear, lol.

[@AAX11111]

Also, for me at least, it bothers my autism severely that the list was incomplete. Ive said it before and ill say it again. You are doing a massive service to the Dominions community by literally doing ALL of the nations. I do wish to see at the least a pre-game for ALL of the nations. The Oceanians/Pelagias/Vanarus/MA Vanheim - LA Midgard/LA Pythium and several other nations that i cannot remember right now are either 0 vid nations or 1 vid at most nations. The LA Pythium bit hurts me especially cuz they are probably my favorites out of this whole game series, and i have only ever found 1 vid on them from Dom 5 near 9 years back now. Im not gonna put your feet to the fire about it, but i do wish to see a Pre-Game vid for all of the nations eventually (hopefully). 🙏

[@BabelBuilder]

Well, at least EA is now complete!

[@pyrrhicvictory1550]

At last the Mythical Oceania Video surfaces

[@BabelBuilder]

Is that an amphibian pun?!

[@dembonesman]

Follow-up on the haliade aquatic-only H2 + shambler skin = it works! I don't know if it is supposed to or if it is an oversight, but it is currently a way to get your H2s onto the land. She even appears to have a 26 (!) map move...at least without her troops.

[@BabelBuilder]

Way to be the hero we need and test that. You should probably report that as a bug, as the shambler skin should say "Effects apply to mount" or w/e that text says on various rings. I'd assume no pathing change since she isn't supposed to get on land? Great find though!

[@Aliyen]

Regarding the thought at 16:07, I tried out 2x Leadership and it didn't give formations (at 150 Leadership). I know I've tried one level of it in a recent game, and taking the leader to 100 didn't give more formations, only the increase in troops and morale.

[@AAX11111]

Babel is indeed wrong here. Formations are now determined by the number of Stars below the Commander Flag in the stats block at the rec screen only. No amount of Added Leadership gives you Formations.

[@BabelBuilder]

Doh, yeah you are right. Sad. :( Still the morale would help.

[@Aliyen]

100 Map Move on the giant crab head is hilarious, and could be great in a water world. But having an aquatic god with no Holy 3s sounds rough. Imagine being a water nation, and still summoning Bishop Fish with flying carpets to go do your thrones!

[@BabelBuilder]

Theh 80 new path cost really kills him sadly. :(

[@TheRazorTS]

can summon underwater H3 'Bishop Fish' for 15w gems, he will need an item forged to get on land tho

[@Bruh-jz1se]

Omg babel actually did it! He made a nation pre-game!

[@BabelBuilder]

Christmas miracle to be sure.

[@moleman7632]

One thing: Oceania has surprisingly good MR, even the ichtysatyr have base 13MR The Heirophant Priest mages are surprisingly effective: You want high alteration for Mother Oak, and barkskin/mossbody and along the way you get swarm (2gems on a N1) and frozen heart. Makes them a lot more viable. The Hailiads are terrible. So expensive for a aquatic only mage. Pans do the same thing and are actually usable.

[@BabelBuilder]

What could we use the high MR for? I guess if you have a R'lyeh you should try and rush them.

[@moleman7632]

@@BabelBuilder Oceania does pretty good against r'lyeh. Aphroi are very good against the lobo guard for sloth-r'lyel, and you can out spam them with animal summons in the initial pond-war. In many ways the nations are similar: potent but expensive big mages and a struggle in the later parts of the game. Oceania is not as restricted as r'lyeh in getting out the oceans, but has far less magical diversity for the late game and tends to struggle.

[@Elvenkin]

It’s the most wonderful tiiiiime of the year! 🎄🐚

[@BabelBuilder]

Nothing says Christmas like some wet satyrs!

[@Elvenkin]

@ we’re reaching ‘creepy uncle at the Christmas dinner’ levels of icky here!

[@pederw4900]

Undying x5+Enchanted Blood will make those sacreds even more survivable, recuperation patches the only weakness of that strategy

[@BabelBuilder]

That is a pretty good point. Recuperation is really nice. Heroism works well with it too.

[@KermodeBear]

I can't wait for the Oceania game tomorrow!

[@BabelBuilder]

You are going to lose your pool permission at this rate Mr. Bear!

[@Skaven_enthusiast]

Fish do be wilding. A Christmas present

[@BabelBuilder]

Aquatic Skaven when?

[@KermodeBear]

Yessssssss 🎉🎉🎉 Best Nation Ever! 🎉🎉🎉

[@KermodeBear]

I wrote a long reply here about Oceania but it seems to have disappeared, I'm not sure why. )o:

[@BabelBuilder]

Forever lost to the waves.

[@KermodeBear]

I had to rewrite this since KZbin ate it the first time around... I have been playing EA Oceania in MP games the past few months. Here's been my experience: Initial expansion is easy. Turn 1, remove all the satyrs from the commander. Now you have two scouts. Go forth and find coastal forests. Recruit a command and centaurs. Turn 2, you have the saytrs up front, centaurs far back in the field on attack rear. Rinse, repeat. The sacreds are good and worth using. They're not amazing, but they are good. You don't need them for initial expansion though. I've never used the bulls. If you do it would be fun to see. For me, I use the 15 def satyrs, the centaurs, and the Aphroi. It's not hard to hit 12 provinces by year's end. You don't need an awake pretender unless you have a "friend" in the water. I typically go Dormant. You need coastal forts to establish a foothold on land. You also need water forts so you can recruit centaurs. And to make usable forts, you need forests. So... Pray you have some and that you can get them early and hold them. Early research as interesting. You want a few things. Going for Construction, for Quills and Dream Stones, is VERY valid. You can crank out the research. But you also want Group Luck, Group Blur, Voice of Tiamat, and elementals. I have been going Evo 1 first (Water Strike for underwater expansion support), then Conjuration, then Thaumaturgy, but I wonder if I should just rush Evo 1 then Construction. Aphroi Hierophants are great. Only 50 leadership but they get the +1, and they're not useless. The W1 guys can spam Water Strike to help during expansion underwater, it helps a lot. Later they can spam Frozen Heart. The N1 ones can Eagle Eye themselves and shoot poison darts or vine arrows. I've thought about trying to use them as light stealthy thugs, and in MP it might be viable with the right bless, but the Capricorns are better. Sirens are amazing. You cannot have enough sirens. Every army can use more sirens. In combat, they give you blur, luck, illusions, ephemeral blast, slumber. Twilight helps you against archers and buffs your Glamour. They're also great stealthy support if you want to use Capricorn thugs. Let them drop luck and blur, then go invisible and summon illusions while your big goat boy goes stomping. They also craft quills and dream stones. Under water they can spam elementals, too. Since I don't use an awake pretender for expansion, I generally wait to get a siren and prophetize her. Then she can bleat the bleat of her people as she flies around. Lure: Lure needs to pass an MR check *AND* a morale check. Success rates are very low against most troops that matter. But, unless the target has water breathing, failure does NOT result in a fight. You can just keep doing it. I have been able to lure away all commanders from a sieging army then attack with a scout for maximum embarrassment. Niche, but satisfying. It makes prolonged sieges VERY unappealing for your enemies. Capricorns are pricy, but you have luck scales - later in the game you can use Transformation to save on upkeep. They give you bark skin, poison evos, poison / fire / cold / lightning (E2 + boots) resistance. Your troops don't have poison resistance natively, but with a pair, you can drop a turn or two of poison resistance then vapor it up. Good stuff. And they're strong thuggy boys - give them a little gear, then they cast iron skin + regen + temper flesh and go to town. Summons! The sea trolls are great but I also get a LOT of mileage out of the Naiad Warriors. Underwater, the oft-overlooked Sea Serpents are a great way to add Fear to your army. Pretenders, Scales, and Blesses: You will take Turmoil 3 with Luck 2. Anything else is objectively incorrect. You generally want Cold 2. Growth and Magic is nice to have. Not necessary, but nice. It's a shame that they don't get Growth +2 on the nation because that would let you more easily grow forests. Grumble Grumble... Magic Weapons feels obligatory in most games. Aside from that, bless to taste, imo. They don't hit too hard, so strength isn't the worst choice, but the acid weapons bless can be a fun option. Since you probably have Cold 2, then cold res or chill aura is good, too. You could go with stone skin, but you can get bark skin which is almost as good (and fire resistance to compensate) with the Capricorns, so I generally take a pass on that. A defense-focused bless can be worth trying; +5 defense with sirens casting blur+luck on top is pretty tanky. As I mentioned I generally don't go with an Awake pretender here. Expansion is fine, so I grab a Dormant. The Monolith is a solid choice. You get magic weapons plus whatever you want from Nature and Earth, plus he can make crystal gear for you. I would avoid Larger, since that makes your Size 5 sacred into Size 6 and that kills your attack density (unless you don't want to use them). Statue of War is also an interesting choice. Here you could go Heat 2 instead of Cold. Grab heat aura with flame weapons, perhaps. Unexpected. Also rivers won't freeze but your troops don't care about that, giving you a slight mobility advantage on land. But might I entice you with something completely unexpected? The Floating Mind (Dormant). This little huggable jellyfish only costs 80. Consider: Dominion 6, T3 S2 C2 G3 L2 M3, W7 S8, Magic Weapons and Ethereal. You could drop G3 to G0, and W7 to W6, and get 5 in any other path. The Pretender itself won't be great in fights, but he opens up astral for you, can forge shrouds and whatnot, etc. Where Oceania fails... It's okay in the water. Not amazing, but it's okay. On land... Man. You need coastal forests. Nothing else will do. You can build crappy expensive forts, but they're crappy and expensive. You NEED forests. Specifically coastal forests. And even on the coast you can't get your better troops. And once you move away from the coast, uh. Well. Um. Uh. Yeah. That's the biggest problem. You can do okay in the water, you can hold the coasts, but projecting that power inland is difficult. You can claim a throne, but then what? How do you keep it? You need to rely on whatever indie recruitment you can scrape together. You need to import mages. If you have someone with Astral you can Gateway troops in, but it takes mage turns and it's cumbersome. I have tried a Monolith with Blood on it so that I could cast Blood Fecundity to turn coastal provinces into forests. But it's a crap concept. You need to take the research detour for a single spell. You need to blood hunt. You need to build a lab. You need to teleport your Monolith there to cast the spell. Then you need to wait. And wait. And wait. And maybe, if you are lucky, you get a forest. Oceania really needs a "Create Forest" spell or something. Also, oddly, for a nation that relies heavily on glamour, I want you to find the pretender with native glamour. Go ahead, open up the game, take a look! Ha, trick question, there aren't any. No siren pretender. Not even that glamour rock thing. What the heck? Having better access to Glamour would let you produce the Glamour booster and make Glamour blesses more viable. I know you normally don't play with mods, but the Worthy Heroes mod provides us with two very nice heroes: One is a Naiad with astral (super helpful), and the other is an aquatic H4 (!) turtle with inspiring researcher. Both are great. They won't make or break the game for you, but they're better than nothing at all. Anyway, that's my commentary.

[@BabelBuilder]

Ichtybear avatar when? I felt the pain of reading you had lost the comment. Always back up your novel in notepad before submitting it to the ether! Tons of great info here; thanks! I think water nations are very map and lobby dependent. EA Oceania would be alright if you were the lone water nation and the game wasn't too big (since that will have more thrones away from the coast)!

[@kazleelee]

Ayyy sweet merry Christmas!

[@BabelBuilder]

You too!

[@Slice_The_Elder]

Holy crap. I finally get good night's sleep and half the world has already commented. Literally WTF.

[@BabelBuilder]

Gotta be quick around here. Oceania is apparently the most popular nation based on comment speed! :P

[@frantisekprusa4877]

I hope we can get Ys next in MA to cleanse our nautical pallet. XD

[@BabelBuilder]

Ys is a nation I am saving as a treat for myself, so it will probably be a bit!

[@pederw4900]

I’m 99% sure Primitive Forts do still give a commander point, can’t confirm rn cause I’m away for Christmas but I’ve played a lot of EA/MA Mictlan and they get Primitive Forts too and those give a commander point

[@BabelBuilder]

I wanted to make sure so I ran a double check, quick test. You only get a single level of the fortification, palisade. It has 15 administration and 0 commander bonus point. So you only have the base 1 command fort you get from all providences. The summoned bramble fort has 25 administration and 1 bonus commander point.

[@pederw4900]

@@BabelBuilder dang that’s rough, I guess you can also just siege and take better forts from your enemies

[@BabelBuilder]

Now you are thinking like a Pantokrator!

[@edwardzdankiewicz9068]

In the caption paragraph below the video you have "Coming of the Copricorns". Humorous similarity to greek for feces - Copro.

[@BabelBuilder]

I don't make the rules! ;)

[@lazorr3260]

They said it couldn't happen

[@BabelBuilder]

Babel couldn't even....!

[@andrewcole4843]

I guess I disagree quite a lot. I think Dormant Old man the best, with half priced magic paths (!) rainbow/titan defender/researcher (bonus)/searcher (Chill+ spirit sight + att +str note old mans base paths make the first 2 and cheaper, need dominion and SS vital for deep sea and dark so Titan reasonably efficient). Titan also pathed for acid/rust synergy. Streams of hades access vital for death economy using water gems for death mages. Twilight then darkness =>land Wailing winds (using twilight + gem not boosters so Winds indirectly goes with SS). Chill effect only worth 1 point (works OK v enemy flankers) but the 10CR used to get indi sacred Amazons working in cold and allows mix in ice drakes and etheral wolves + Titan can do other fatigue spells. I agree about the way order bonus works if it were MA but EA I had a different result unless later nerf - Chaos discounts and awake scales tanking not worth it as need economy for recruit sacred/ichty... Aphroy's in hall of fame I equipped up and used others with Magic 2 for average research to supplement land mages.

[@BabelBuilder]

Breaking into death with water would help them out a ton! The CR opening up amazon riders is a cool if RNG dependent thing.

[@Blasterbot-ye2uk]

The sacreds are strong. the mages great. but that starting army is painful to try and get any use out of.

[@BabelBuilder]

A better starting army would help for sure. Maybe some of the cavalry to give it some punch.

[@Blasterbot-ye2uk]

@@BabelBuilder It is kind of a pain. on the one hand the sacreds are good enough to build around and the mages have solid if predictable paths. on the other hand the starting army is so bad you need to run a lot of expansion testing to figure out their tolerances and I think having an awake UW god to lock down the ocean is very important. either through research to win the early war or to be a big brick and claim the sea. either way you need a bless that works with the sacred and you need to tune it so that you can consistently recruit 8-9 sacreds a turn out of your cap since you live and die by them.

[@randomxgen6167]

This nation is so broken and neglected. There's a bunch of little things that make this nation seem like its current iteration is a first draft. Satyrs are naturally stealthy but their scouts have 40 which is worse than indies, and you can't even recruit them on land like the rest of the satyrs. Their line soldiers are 9 morale instead of 10 like every other soldier including pan satyr soldiers. I also can't tell if their units are supposed to get weaker when they go on land or if it's just bugged. The satyrs don't get any stat changes when going on land, but the centaurs lose defense and the ichtytaurs lose a whole size class. Ichtytaurs are also using one-handed spear weapons so they're just inferior to regular minotaurs who use two-handed axes. Ichtycentaur commanders just randomly lose morale on land unlike every other commander. All ichtycentaur and aphroi units lose a point on defence on land. Then there's everything else you mentioned like the lack of heroes, lack of national items or spells besides the kelp fortress. Honestly, I could go on, but it's quite clear Oceania was an afterthought with no second pass.

[@BabelBuilder]

Good swimmers get +1 def and some combat speed, conversely they lose it on land. They do feel like a first draft. :(