"These two nations are heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. While R'lyeh is closer to the Cthulhu mythos with Starspawns and strange beings from the stellar void, Atlantis is a nation of deep ones native to the depths. The early era is more heavily Lovecraftian, while the middle era is more influenced by fantasy concepts and ideas. Atlantis is another nation devastated in the end of the second era. Late Atlantis incorporates Inuit concepts apart from the earlier Lovecraftian elements. R'lyeh is the other nation heavily influenced by the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. While Atlantis represents the more tellurian aspects of the Cthulhu mythos, R'lyeh represents the stranger aspects and beings of the Lovecraftian universe. Starspawns, strange openings and beings of the Void are mixed with a bit of fantasy role-playing game clichés. The nation progresses from a D&D-ish nation of Aboleths to an insane nation of dreaming madmen, mutated lunatics and mind-defying void beasts. F’tagn." - Illwinter

When the Star fell into the sea, the Basalt City and the Dark Crystal were destroyed, the reign of the Basalt Queens was ended and the surviving Atlantians reformed the kingdom. Atlantis is an underwater nation of strange beings resembling a cross between fish, frog and human. Atlantians never stop growing and will live for several hundred years unless killed.

The Atlantian society is organized in a strict hierarchy of size and age. The oldest and most cunning Atlantians are trained as priests or mages. Because the Atlantians find it difficult to use magic, they often capture human children and train them in magic in the Coral Towers. The soldiers of Atlantis use spears tipped with living coral shards and wear armor made of coral chunks. The coral is poisonous and is cultivated solely for purposes of war.

MA Atlantis is an underwater nation of Atlantean shamblers. They have lost the Deep Ones that characterize EA Atlantis, but survive in the shallower oceans as arguably the strongest water-magic nation in any age. Their cap-only mage, Deep Seer, is an unexceptional water/astral caster, but King of the Deep can roll Water 5 and can be recruited from any fort. They can also recruit Coral Queens, any-fort H3 priests.

Shamblers are size 3 Atlanteans, and are thus amphibious and can see in the dark. They make unexceptional troops, and their cap-only sacred, the Mother Guard, is also unexceptional. The true strength of their nation is their mages, with both King of the Deep and Coral Queen recruitable from any fort.

Race	Military	Magic Access	Priests	Buildings
Amphibious Darkvision (50%) -2 PRE vs. Humans -1 DEF vs. Humans -1 CS vs. Humans Junior Atlantians: Size 2 Base 2 PROT +2 HP vs. Humans +1 STR vs. Humans Shamblers: Size 3 Base 6 PROT +12 HP vs. Humans +5 STR vs. Humans Some Humans: Average Poor UW No Darkvision	Poisonous Coral Gear No Ranged Gear Aquatic Tramplers Half-Giants ( Some Sacred) Coastal Humans	5 (rare 6) 2 (rare 3) 2 (rare 3) 2 (rare 3) Hero: 3	Powerful (3)	Castles (Standard) Can build Underwater Forts

None of your Atlantian Mages are guaranteed to have Fire, Earth, or Astral. Your Kings of the Deep have a doubled 100% random and a 10% random with the same paths (); for example, each one has a 2.5% (1/40) chance of having only 1, a 25% (1/4) chance of having only 2, and a 0.625% (1/160) chance of having 3. Your other Atlantian Mages also get a 100% random with those four paths.

The game will try and have you start UNDERWATER, no matter how isolated the province is. It is not unknown for Atlantis players to start in a lake.

General description of the units in the nations rooster, any standouts, shared qualities aka temperature, any foreign rec, what makes a good basis for planning around

Many of your leaders are half-giants,​ so not so easy to be killed by stray attacks. Also many have gift of water breathing allowing you to take land troops underwater. ​This can have tactical applications like introducing air breathing summons like Green Lions to water fights.

MA Atlantis is notable in that its most powerful mages can be recruited from any fort.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Scout 25 1 1	amphibious darkvision(50%) stealth(50)	A basic Atlantian scout. Recruitable from any UW fort, and is amphibious, but lacks any terrain survival traits. It’s usually not worth wasting fort turns on a scout, but given the price of your mages, you may not be able to afford to train one from each fort every turn, leaving gaps that can be filled in a semi-useful way by training scouts. There are no indy scouts UW, so you will end up relying on these guys for your intelligence network.
	Shambler Chief 50 2 1	amphibious darkvision(50%)	A basic amphibious commander with 60 leadership. Not usually worth wasting a fort turn over, since indy commanders can serve much the same role, and you have much better leaders available.
	Consort 115 26 1	1 sacred amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5)	80ld dude and blessers of small Mother Guard parties.
	Coral Queen 265 19 4	3 sacred amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5) Prohet Shape (Queen Mother) Female	A recruit-anywhere level 3 priest with 160 leadership. ​ They lead large armies with excellent morale ​and can bless a battlefield full of sacreds; this would be more important if your sacreds were better. They can preach for quick dominion spread, can claim thrones, and can form a Smite ​battery early game.
	Mage of the Deep 165 4 2	21100% 11 amphibious darkvision(50%) gift of Water breathing(10)	A lesser ​water mage, useful for research or for smaller battlefield use. Still has better-than-human HP and will survive a lot of things ​that will kill human mage stacks.
	King of the Deep 275 5 4	32200% 10% 15 Cold Resistance(5) Darkvision(100%) amphibious gift of Water breathing(10)	5 BABY! Who needs troops underwater when you can get 5+ elites out of Living Water? Once you're on-land, you can spam Niefel Flames! You can recruit this guy from any UW fort. Fire randoms cast acid spells, astral randoms enter communions, earth randoms thug, and water randoms are the biggest water mages in Dominions. Not as strong as the EA super combatant version as this version lost sacred. All random versions have self-buffing magic and unit deleting spells.
	Initiate of the Deep 45 1 2 Coastal Forts Only	1 7 Poor amphibian	Cheap research mages that only require a fort and lab to produce and can defend it with Frozen Heart spam.
	Witness of the Deep 165 1 2 Coastal Forts Only	21 11 sacred fortune teller(10%) amphibious gift of Water breathing(10)	A more capable and sacred coastal human mage, less efficient in research but capable of more things ​in combat.
	Deep Seer 315 1 2 Capital Only	321 15 sacred Cold Resistance(5) fortune teller(10%) Old Age(60/50) amphibious gift of Water breathing(20)	These are an oddity – a cap-only ​mage that is less capable than an anyfort recruit. However, ​they are sacred ​and guaranteed 2 this gives you reliable access to enough astral to form Soul Slay batteries ​and communions.

description of the workhorse options, for the sake of sanity better skip the clearly subpar and generic stuff (common indie like units with no gimmicks), merge units into a single description entry if functionally similar battle roles with only minor differences in gear.

Among the selection of troops, some stand out as being much more useful than others:

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Atlantian Militia 7 2 3	amphibious darkvision(50%)	Basic are not much more than amphibious independent infantry and are unremarkable. They die quite easily to ranged fire or troops with more than average offensive capability. Only use them to break sieges with the sheer weight of bodies.
	Atlantian Shield Bearer 10 3 9	amphibious darkvision(50%)	Better Indies, with average stats and a shield for arrows.
	Atlantian Light Infantry 10 9 9 +Coastal Forts	amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5)	Switches shield for poisonous armour. are an additional recutment option for a coastal fort along with Soldier of the Deep. Counter R'lyeh's thrall chaff by having them get poisoned when killing your chaff. is this actually viable?
	Atlantian Infantry 10 12 9	amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5)	Better Spam line holder, having all armor slots filled.
	Reef Warrior 12 11 13	amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5)	Your land expanders. Javelins are a strong anti-indie tool but only can be thrown above water. Use them to pop elf glamour.
	Shambler 20 1 25	amphibious darkvision(50%)	Getting into the half-giants. Naked shambler's two attacks can maul up low armor enemies.
	Shambler Guard 22 8 27	amphibious darkvision(50%)	The guard is the discounted version of the War shambler. Hard to kill troops out of your lineup (will have the constitution to survive some hits from spells designed to delete human armies, including your own like Acid Storm). Will cut through heavy armor given they can wield a two-handed glaive in one hand while still using a shield to protect from arrows.
	War Shambler 25 19 30	amphibious darkvision(50%)
	Coral Guard 15 15 21	amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5)	The elite Atlantian lineholder. More armor while having the normal 3 per square to be less easily harrased down than shamblers.
	Coral Guard 15 17 21	amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5)	The glaive variant is probably better than other Atlantians at dealing with most troops, given the damage it inflicts with its glaive will kill most humanoids not in heavy armor.
	Mother Guard 40 26 41 Capital Only	sacred amphibious darkvision(50%) poison barbs(5) bodyguard(3)	War Shambler, but even better while also having slightly less upkeep. Limited by being cap only.
	War Lobster 50 6 44	Aquatic darkvision(100%) trample Dying Shape(Giant Lobster) Mounted	The unique size 5, Underwater Trampler, calver. get a very defensive Lobster that can run over even sea horses and then put an Atlantian Shieldbearer on top for so the lobster gets harassment write-off as its uses this decoy dummy for mounted privileges.
	Soldier of the Deep 10 6 9 Coastal Forts Only	Poor amphibian	Trading an Atlantian light infantry for a human trades HP and Str for average Def skill, Combat speed, +2 Morale, and average head prot from arrows. Land chaff that can take shortcuts through water, but with so much Gift of Water breathing on your mages, they are bound to find better indies than them.

King of the Deep provides most of your nation's magic capabilities.

Water randoms have 5, able to cast almost any water spell on their own; for the few exceptions (like Vengeful Water), water boosters are simple to get.

Fire randoms give 2. You can't go further without pretender help; a pretender capable of making Flame Helmet, Skull of Fire, or Staff of Elemental Mastery can get them to 3 and summon Flame Spirits. Otherwise you will need to empower one to 3.

Earth randoms can forge their own Earth Boots and get up to 3, capable of casting Troll King's Court; the troll can then wear Earth Boots and get to 4. One more booster (from a pretender capable of making Staff of Elemental Mastery or Blood Stone) can get you to 5 and thus Earth Kings.

Astral randoms replicate the paths of Deep Seer; they can make themselves a Starshine Skullcap and get to 3.

• Summon Monster Fish 6, Conjuration 6, 3 ( Monster Fishx1) Summons one monster fish. It can only be cast UW. This beastie is a chunky bag of hp with mediocre protection, which is notable for its swallow attack, which targets a whole square on the battlefield and ignores defense skill, instantly consuming the target to be digested inside the fish. This can be useful in dealing with defense-based thugs or high-value, low-size units. They also cause fear, so they can be useful in spreading that effect to enemy lines. Despite these strengths, it’s an aquatic unit and thus only useful during wars against other UW players, and it’s likely the gems spent to summon the fish would be better invested in water elementals, given how overpowered they are UW.

Combat

Generally strong water mages but weaker troops compared to other UW nations and good spells will not come on quick enough. (School of Sharks, Summon Water Elemental, Shark Attack).

Kings of the deep are also kings of water getting random 6 during combat before adding two/three boosters. Casting big spells for minimal fatigue and big overcast bonuses. Late research, if you last that long, of calling down Living Water, Niefel Flames, with like with hitting 6 squares with Ice Strike.

Random Fire is acid damage, Acid Rain and Acid Storm. your Shamblers will take hits while in non-rustable gear.

Earth. With Earth Boots and Summon Earthpower for 4 or 5 with Troll King. Cast the Maws of the Earth, Iron Bane, and the Warrior spells. Even if you are not the one casting it, your shambler can take Earthquake.

Witness of the Deep and Deep Seers are granted Astral caster, or at least before the AOE wipe spell come into the pitcher before going back to Kings that randomized astral. Get the classic Mind Burn, Paralyze, Soul Slay spam. Do be aware that MA has several astral nations especially one cheaper thanWitness of the Deep. Be ready for both sides to spam Magic Duel and your side may suffer more losses in terms of gold spent.

King of the Deep lots of self buffs:

• Astral: Astral Shield, Blink, Personal Luck, Resist Magic,
• Fire: Fire Shield, Phoenix Pyre
• Earth: Iron Will, Ironskin, Temper Flesh, Earth Might,
• Water: Quicken Self, Ice Shield, Water Shield, Liquid Body.

Ritual

Remember you're a nation that can spam Manifest Vitriol for Green Lions. On the way there, there are also Gelatinous Cubes.

Do you have any National items(Construction Level, Price, and required Paths). Any unique generic items few other nations can forge? What item would be useful on your unit lineup (non-standard recommend thug gear)?

• Coral Blade Construction 2 1 4. A gem discount of a cheap and important weapon. A decent low-level thug weapon as it gives attack and defense bonuses plus inflicts the delay bleed affliction. Even good on mages with +8 boost to HP, letting them survive a hit or two longer.

This is probably the most difficult section to get consensus for. Describe how strong the nation is during expansion, the early, mid and late game, and what makes it strong/weak at each of those points. This should give readers an idea of where the weaknesses of a nation lie (if they have not been shown already) and when to take advantage of a nation's strengths.

List some example expansion strategies here. If a strong bless or pretender is required then leave the specifics for the pretender section.

List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.

youtube of someone discussing the nation
guide page on steam??
forum thread or AAR

Nations
Early Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Ulm • Marverni • Sauromatia • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Mictlan • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Agartha • Tir na n'Og • Fomoria • Vanheim • Helheim • Niefelheim • Rus • Kailasa • Lanka • Yomi • Hinnom • Ur • Berytos • Xibalba • Mekone • Ubar • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Therodos
Middle Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Sceleria • Pythium • Man • Eriu • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Asphodel • Vanheim • Jotunheim • Vanarus • Bandar Log • Shinuyama • Ashdod • Uruk • Nazca • Xibalba • Phlegra • Phaeacia • Ind • Na'ba • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Ys
Late Ages	Arcoscephale • Pythium • Lemuria • Man • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Jomon • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Midgård • Utgård • Bogarus • Patala • Gath • Ragha • Xibalba • Phlegra • Vaettiheim • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Erytheia