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 Algae Men are Vine Men with 5 less hit points, but 7 more protection. You should eventually start summoning those as your meat (well, salad) shields."
+"I don't think you need to worry about moonvine bracelets much, any capricorn can boost to N5 with thistle mace and then has access to treelord staff. The nature randoms have enough of that path for any spell in the game outright with treelord's.
+Wyrm and sea dragon make for reasonable awake expanders, the latter because this nation has pretty easy native access to forge amulets of the fish and it costs fewer design points. There's something to be said for Wyrm's immediate access to taking some provinces on land though. There will be a reasonable number of land nations that can't immediately handle it in its dominion in year 1, giving time for a foothold.
+You can get access to all the big earth spells for combat by default with earth boots --> troll king + site search it underwater with the earth random capricorns, but would need one more booster to have access to its high level summons/rituals.
+You also have late game access to air (faerie court), and you can site search it from early so it's worth pursuing as a changeup/extra damage type and the buffs. Very late game armies of gold/lead with fog warriors + mass flight are pretty nasty, and Oceania can reasonably boost for all of this with just their starting stuff.
+Death is more realistic between death + blood, and on land you can summon forest troll tribe to break into it even w/o pretender. The ones that random death 2 can forge skull staff--> summon mound fiends, and those can search underwater if you don't want to cast the searching spell. Taking a pretender with water/death to summon your way into it is reasonable if not doing awake expander.
+Fire + astral are basically off limits w/o pretender or indies/other sources, though you will likely have some fire income from voice of Tiamat. Not very attractive to try to break into fire in particular, but could be a fun surprise on someone if you get mages off a throne or something. Astral is great but you'd have to reach pretty hard for it as Oceania. Running with mostly nature/water/air/earth to boost units in combat and then breaking into death seems like the way to go."
+"EA Oceania can be played in a variety of ways. Ideally find out what your opponents are playing beforehand; if you have underwater competition, it is absolutely necessary that you build with countering them in mind. There are too many examples to go through, so better would be to ask here or on discord about how to counter the particular nation as ea oceania.
+Regardless of pretender design, I would suggest the following scales: Turmoil 3, growth 3, luck 3, drain 3, and an extreme temperature. Turmoil 3 is basically free points on this nation, growth 3 is necessary for many reason but especially for making capricorns, drain 3 isn't per se necessary but it is an easy pick because your capricorns have incredible research which is barely lessened by the drain. Temperature extreme is free points because water lessens its effects. Ideally find out what your opponents are playing before picking temp, but notably with heat rivers can't thaw in your dominion, and with cold your spell Grip of winter will be stronger. Luck has an obvious synergy with turmoil, but more importantly is vital for a particular trick: using transformation. Transformation will strip the massive upkeep cost from each capricorn who casts it and potentially empower them, which is a steal for 8 N gems. Just remember to cast it on land, and only in provinces your luck 3 dom has spread to. Also, make sure to leave some capricorns alone so they have hands for holding thorn staves and other items. The last scale, productivity, can be sunk because your units have mostly low resource costs, however I actually like to have it as high as possible for the extra gold, and because it can potentially affect aphroi recruitment if you go too low.
+For pretenders, your options are limited, but varied enough that selecting a best one can be difficult. You could take the protogenos, and go for quickness. This will require sloth 2 to get him awake, but otherwise the scales really aren't bad for a quickness bless. Quickened aphroi have incredible speed, and can zoom into the enemy's rear lines to potentially cause a rout. They also keep their usefulness for a while, are an asset in an early war, and synergize well with the buffs Oceania has access to later. The protogenos himself is formidable underwater, and can be a great asset in early wars with water nations. Just don't use him too aggressively in expansion, as he can't really fight, only cast.
+Another option is the father of monsters, one of my personal favorites. His paths offer a lot in the late game; fire 4 water 4 means he can craft the staff of elemental mastery. With this you can reach E6 (capricorn holds, makes e boots, equips and makes troll king, moves all items over, troll king summons king of elemental earth, move staff over), reach A8 (capricorn summons faerie queen, holds staff, make helm then bag of winds, makes air queen, moves all items over), F8 (he holds, skull of fire, flame helmet, king of fire, move items), and W8 (hold, water queen, w bracelet, robe of sea, move items). He can also potentially get you to S4, with some difficulty (summons specters, one has S2, makes skullcap, moves to one who has E/S, makes coin). With all this, he provides vast late game potential, while also being a formidable fighter and combat caster in the early game. You can also play around with his death magic, dom, and productivity scales, until you find a combination you like. He can provide stygian skin bless and attack + morale (both relevant for repel), and either defense or big cold res (cold res good for the mid to late game, where you can cast grip of winter. Cold scales would be better with this strategy).
+You have some expander options too, which might be preferable against other water nations, or if you're unsure what to expect. The earth serpent and the wyrm are the best. You could use the sea dragon, kraken, or floating mind, but they are not as good. If you are set on them, then try to get some levels in alt or ench ASAP so they can buff themselves, otherwise they will get hurt and may die. They also cannot expand onto land. Of the wyrm and serpent, I prefer the wyrm. Cheaper, more path diversity, better defender of provinces with high dominion (he will get a big hp boost which will make his regen go quite high). Also, the snake has cold-blooded, the wyrm does not. However, both are quite good. With the wyrm, I would suggest a simple defense +4 str +4 bless. Your aphroi will expand quite efficiently with this, and should the unthinkable happen and your god get killed, you at least won't lose your bless. You also could take cold resistance and fire/shock resistance. This will make your aphroi more relevant in the mid-to-late game, but offers little in the early game. I would not suggest hard skin, because it will be overridden by wooden warriors on the aphroi and by ironskin on the wyrm. Fortitude is viable, but very expensive to take.
+You additionally have some tier 1 options on this nation, which are tempting due to your low native magic diversity. With water/fire you can make the e staff and do the same things mentioned above. With nature 4 you can take major and minor poison res to synergize with foul vapors. If you do this, I would advise putting the last point into darkvision, because it will help the aphroi fight in deep water. I would advise taking 4 or more astral for various utility and to cover your site-searching bases. Magic weapons is not the worst bless for your aphroi, because aside from equipped capricorn your answers to invuln/mistform/etherealness are few. Blood 4 could be worthwhile strictly for the bless; blood surge synergizes well with the charge bonus your aphroi get.
+A final consideration is the monolith. His paths are great and carry well into the late game, plus a variety of useful blesses can be made with them. The inability to move is quite a deterrent, however he has the potential to create a great impact in an early war (esp. with enemy water nation). Once teleport is researched, he can fling himself onto an enemy capital or vulnerable province. With his base 28 protection and earth access, even in enemy dominion he can be a pain to kill. Some research will be needed to make much use of this strategy. Of course, this is a risky trick throughout the game, but it provides a unique option to you which can turn the tide of a war in an instant.
+Onto the last question, how best to use capricorns. The strength of capricorns is that they can do just about anything you need them to, therefore how best to use them varies from scenario to scenario. They can buff your entire army, can poison and harass the entire enemy army, can sneak raiders deep into enemy territory (and then support them with spells), can take on entire provinces or small armies all by themselves, and can threaten even the strongest of monsters with their presence on the battlefield. To elaborate: the mass protection spell, and wooden warriors before it, will give 10 nat prot to your affected units. This can turn into a high final protection score, which for many reasons causes a huge leap in the effectiveness of your army. Other buffs include mass regeneration, army of giants, and gaea's blessing. Against enemies, they have foul vapors to eventually destroy a whole army (while also having the paths to protect your own), and can cast poisonous evocations efficiently due to their very high nature magic. With leadership 80, they will frequently be the ones leading your armies, including the stealthy ones.
+A particular utility of the capricorns is as "thugs." The most common sort of thug is an anti-pd/small army thug. All you need is construction 4 for vine shield, frost brand, and kithaironic lion pelt, ench 3 for personal regen and maybe enlarge self, and alt 3 for ironskin. I would also suggest conj 3 for earth power to avoid the risk of falling asleep. With these, a capricorn can sneak into and attack almost any territory not guarded by a large army, and take it for you all by himself. This, done across multiple provinces simultaneously, can be a devastating way to initiate a war, and works on both land and sea. Once the enemy brings forth their own army, capricorns can use the earlier listed battle spells, but can also be equipped to destroy the enemy's strongest units. Greatsword of sharpness and axe of hate are available to you, and once a capricorn casts ironskin and quicken self, even the mightiest of foes can be brought down quickly. As some capricorns have air magic, you can additionally equip them to go after the enemy's mages/commanders. At the start of battle, they can cast flight and quicken self, and then attack rear. With the right combination of items and buffs, the back line can be destroyed or at least disrupted, and communions may falter. There are too many possible uses of the capricorn to count, so better advice would be to share what you know you're up against with discord or reddit, and ask for advice relevant to that scenario.
+tl,dr: Take turmoil 3, prod 0+, cold 3, growth 3, luck 3, drain 3. Dominion 6+. Father of monsters recommended. Endless uses for capricorns exist, consider thugging them."

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