easiest way to get air magic as Atlantis?

[Witch ~]

Just trying something out

[Draken]

"Easiest" is a bit of a stretch.

Outside of simply taking a pretender with air.

I see three ways:

1. Ether Lords, with the Ether Gate spell. They can random in Air 1. Pretty expensive and you aren't getting a lot of air, but the fastest way. The only upside is that it can be cast underwater.
Requires: Conjuration 6, Astral 4, Death 1, 90 Pearls

2. Fairy Queens with the Faerie Court spell. They can random in Air 2. Again, expensive, a bit more air, but takes longer. It also requires two magic paths that neither Atlantis has access too.
Requires: Conjuration 8, Glamour 4, Nature 1, 60 Gems, cast in a forest

3. Tartarians with the Tartarian Gate spell. They can random up to Air 7. Expensive to research, cheap to get, difficult to make use of thanks to the whole feeblemind and shattered soul thing. Though you also can't do it under water for some reason. It also requires very high death, which you don't have national access. Well, might be easier for LA Atlantis.
Requires: Conjuration 9, Death 7, 7 Gems

Everything else that can summon high air kind of requires you already having high air.
Like the Magic Lamp or the Queens of Air.

There is also a Daemon Lord with high air, but I suspect you do not want to go to blood 9 as Atlantis.

[Ragatokk]

Easiest: pick a pretender with air.

[Mali Belizec]

Easiest way is to get hero with A2 and you get great air income by early searching for air. It happened to me in one game. I got so much air gems that air was second after earth. I say easiest as youn don't have to prepare for it or invest points into pretender.

If it is ea Atlantis more important than air is death income. Casting Darkness gives EA Atlantis great advantage over most nations.

[Witch ~]

Damn :(
I wanted to play awakened Octopus beast but without air I cant craft that land breathing misc item.
And I HATE playing pearlkings. Their units feel really weak

[Draken]

You could make a beeline to Voice of Tiamat. That would give you a good air income without needing air, giving you enough gems to empower someone in air.

Still would take a while, but would probably be the quickest.

[Rethias]

As others have pointed out, pretender with air. You can also invest in air as well with empowering. Not a great option since it's very gem intense.

[Uncle Al]

Ideally a pretender with Air 4+, as that allows them to craft air boosters and make any other air mages you can get your hands on a lot more useful.

As noted above, you can get an OK air income by casting Voice of Tiamat to site search, so it's OK for the pretender to take a while to wake up. There will be gems for them to use when they wake up.

Often when you're using a pretender to break into a totally new path, you need them no more than dormant, as they'll be the only way you have to search for sites of that element and make the path fully useful.

[ulzgoroth]

Dom6 seems to have more unhidden gem sites, and maybe more random gem events too. Not enough that you don't need to search, of course, but if your path has an accessible mage summon you might be able to afford a cast of it before getting the search going.

[Ica]

If it's the amulet of the fish you want, that only requires A1W1. You might be abler to get there with just using Voice of Tiamat to search for air sites and then empower a water mage with air once you have enough gems. Empowering is expensive but this might be one of those times when it's worth it. It doesn't sound like you're interested in higher air anyway.
Luck events will also occasionally give you random gems so luck scales can help, but that's a very unreliable way.
There are also some independent air mages you might find especially in land provinces that could sitesearch on land, since Voice of Tiamat won't work there.

[Mog Flintlock]

Play late age.
Find a site/throne that lets you make air mages.
Take a Crystal Amazon/Bone Tribe province.
Take a Wolf tribe province and get a 10% random.
Take a pretender with air
Take a pretender that can summon Fairy Queens
Take a pretender that can summon Gnomes and craft something that boosts Nature (to summon Fairy Queens)
Empower using gems from Voice of Tiamat
Empower using gems bought off another player
Download and enable the debug mode mod

[boozermonkey]

Not really needed with Atlantis, but EA Ryleh requires air if you really want to get on land. Only way to get your aquatic fishies out of the pond you have to make amulet of the fish for each one. Once you can make an amulet every turn then you can really start the ball rolling. Having 3-4 mind lords steamrolling the map with several hundred mindless troops while spamming soul slay/enslave mind/master enslave is just pure evil.