Any map that eliminates water provinces...and limits rivers...

[MythTrip]

I am playing middle age Ulm and dont see how to deal with water provinces. All the vanilla maps seem to have some lakes. They seem impossible to attack, I have to wait for the fish guys to come out then knock em.

are there any maps (maybe in mods) that eliminate lakes all together, and limit rivers? I think a good game would be to have no lakes at all. If you have rivers, enable a mason to build a bridge, but make it very expensive so you just cant spam bridges.

thanks everyone!! what a great community..

[Mormacil]

Use undead and bridges can't be implemented, river connections are fixed. But they're meant to be, they're the opposite of mountain passes. Good maps utilize both so different temperatures and seasons open different routs.

I once kept an enemy at bay as Xibalba using my hot dominion to keep rivers unfrozen and raided across the river. Gotta use your tools in a smart way.

[Quillithe]

In game setup you can hit shift L to make all opponents land nations. And you can uncheck rivers on a random map

[Necroscourge]

Ulm is in a nasty position because you're all wearing metal that can rust; you would need to use water summons to go amphibious. A large part of the game is clear separations between the caves and oceans. Another option is to simply not go in the water at all and just try to domkill enemies in the water.

[MythTrip]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

In game setup you can hit shift L to make all opponents land nations. And you can uncheck rivers on a random map

Ok so if all opponents are land nations then what happens with water territories? I assume there is no possibility to occupy them, and they are essentially terrain features for strategic planning...is that correct?

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

In game setup you can hit shift L to make all opponents land nations. And you can uncheck rivers on a random map

Ok so if all opponents are land nations then what happens with water territories? I assume there is no possibility to occupy them, and they are essentially terrain features for strategic planning...is that correct?

You can still get into them - some shore provinces will let you hire mermen or shamblers, water mages can summon units that can go underwater, undead can mostly go underwater, magic items let you take troops underwater, etc.

But generally they're kinda hard to take, AI rarely will, and you can kinda ignore them if you take the land provinces of your enemies. And if you set water to 'few' there probably won't be many to start with.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

In game setup you can hit shift L to make all opponents land nations. And you can uncheck rivers on a random map

Ok so if all opponents are land nations then what happens with water territories? I assume there is no possibility to occupy them, and they are essentially terrain features for strategic planning...is that correct?

A bunch of land nations can go or want to go underwater. LA Jomon has great units underwater, EA Agartha simply goes underwater, LA Lemuria can just go underwater, etc. I once got caught off guard by LA Agartha by them simply going underwater to assault my capital.

[eddieballgame]

Using the Random Map Generator (via the Tools & Manuals) one can fine tune the amount of terrain/seas/water, etc more so than the default 'RMG'.

[MaGicBush]

Why can we not build bridges at least? I am playing as Ulm as well, and I cannot even cross a river most of the year(I have to wait for it to ice over). It cuts me off from most of the map. I feel like I need to start over because of the terrain.

[Andkat]

I do wish that you could specify percentage cave and water during the built-in new game autogeneration rather than it only being available with the custom map gen tool.

[Antpile]

This is one of the major downsides of a magic weak nation. Ulm has armor for days, but crappy magic. The nations with weaker units need some advantage to use.

Most nations have some sort of access to water traversal. Air, water, nature, death, and probably astral and blood (I don't play those schools a lot), can solve water issues in one way or another. Only fire and earth cannot, pretty sure.

Actually, earth can probably make some sort of amphibious constructions, but you'd still need a general. Can they construct a magical general?

In the end you just need a single water or air to make items that can allow any general to bring troops underwater with him. If you can't find that in a neutral mage or a mercenary hire, you could always empower it through alchemy if need be. It'd take a lot of gems, but it is doable.

[Kamiyama]

MA Ulm's national mages can summon clockwork units and mechanical men. These units are poor amphibians and can enter underwater provinces. The mechanical men don't suffer from exhaustion like the clockwork units do and would be the better choice.

The hard part is finding a commander that Ulm can summon which can breathe underwater who can lead the mechanical men.

There are items which grant gift of water breathing like the barrel of air, pills of air, sea kings goblet, and manual of water breathing. But these require a water mage, air mage, or nature mage and you don't have those.

Recruiting the master smith can very rarely luck into one with A1, but that's not good enough you would need A2 to craft pills of water breathing or the amulet of breathing.

Your best bet would be to somehow find a W1 mage who can craft a ring of water breathing. There are several possibilities:

1. Lucking into a province that has a recruitable water mage. Some indies may have amphibious races which could have water mages. Kappas, shamblers, and mermen and such. You might find them at swamps or coastal provinces. There is also a magic site which lets you recruit water mages.

2. Have a pretender with water magic or air magic who can craft the water breathing items.

3. Empowering a mage in W1. This is the most expensive option.