Counters to Niefelheim

[Zylithan]

Quick Version
How does Arcosephale (or anyone) counter Niefel giant armies (like 30) with good bless (regen, etc.)

Long Version
I was playing a game recently vs. another player (we're both noobish). I was arcosephale and he was niefelheim, and there were several average AIs. I was doing very well, huge research lead, good land lead, but falling behind in gold because I was stuck in wasteland and crazy independants (vampires, bogus and his heros) took all the provinces surrounding my capital. Anyway, I was still doing very well, but then got hit with ~ 30 giants. I threw hundreds of troops (mainly Cardaces, because I had low resources because of Bogus and vamps..) with a bunch of Oreliads and lesser mages at the giants and killed like one or two. Despite having 6+ research in just about every path I found my magic pretty useless. I hoped by outnumbering and using the magic I had I could fatigue or wear down the giants, but no such luck. Did I just not have enough troops? I did not have a SC.. would that have helped a ton? My pretender was a rainbow mage, I had no special heros. I know at least 3 big mistakes I made in this game, so I would do better a second time around.. but I'm just wondering was I doing the right thing, just not well enough, or was I doing completely the wrong counter.


------
Thanks, and apologies for my noobishness. I'm trying and learning and hoping to join you folks in some "real" games eventually.

[thejeff]

Arcosephale?

The chaff troops will do little to nothing. Might slow them down long enough for mages to kill them.

Soul Slay. Enslave Mind. Paralyze. Petrify. Use penetration boosters and/or communion to boost your chances.

Don't fight them in cold dominion if you can afford it.

Fire spells do extra damage. Flame Storm?

Does EA Arcosephale have elephants? Probably wouldn't be too effective anyway.


Mind Hunt his commanders!

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Niefelheim has above average magic resistance... But at that age and game stage it may be worth mind hunting them. It's pretty inexpensive at 2 pearls, and they aren't likely to have many ways to boost their magic resistance, while you're likely able to forge eyes of the void for a penetration bonus, maybe something else. Though I can't remember the requirements for mind hunts...

In general, counters depend on the bless. If its just nature, I'd focus on damage and numbers.

If they have a heavy water bless, ranged may be your best option.

As Agartha, I'd focus on armor of Achilles and other armor destruction spells.

[Zylithan]

Thanks for your advice.

I'll read up on the spells you mention. My guess is many are astral and many are single target? So I'd need a lot of astral mages? I still need chaff to slow the giants from getting to my mages I imagine. Dominion was neutral or warm, I didn't have anything beyond fire 1 (except on my pretender, who was far away, but had fire 6 after multiple items buffing him). I had tried using "Fire from afar" with my pretender, but that would usually weakly injure a few units, and kill none according to my opponent. My Oreliads had lots of air magic, but I had trobule using them. As a tangent - what is "Breath of Dragon" spell supposed to do? It seems like my wizards always cast it (even if I script something else) and I have never seen it do any damage to any troop.

For units, I thought having the bigger arco units (aside from myrmidons, which I couldnt resource afford because my cap had only 2 wasteland neighbors, one ruled by Bogus) wouldn't help because of the giants' size.

[Zylithan]

thanks perfectionist.. hadn't seen your comments when I posted. I'll look into those spells also. I'm not sure their exact bless, but I know earth and nature are common on giants and water is just always popular so I should know how to stop that.

[Baalz]

The strength of Niefelheim's troops is really their cold aura. What you want roughly (specifics will vary depending on what you have available) is a couple of cold immune guys (undead, or give them relevant items) with high defense (25+). Because the giants are so large, only a few can attack at once, so for relatively cheap you can get a couple of linebackers that'll hold them back for a good amount of time so your mages have a chance to work. The typical bless for Niefelhiem is N/E, so I'm assuming its something like that. With Arcoscephale what'd work well is a communion of 8 or so mages casting..say...orb lightning. 4 masters + 4 slaves makes orb lightning practically free (you can cast it all day long) and if your masters start at 3a (seems like that's what EA Arco has available) you're throwing down 20 or so AN attacks per round. Fried giant in no time!

[thejeff]

I'm more familiar with the later Arcosephales. Wasn't it an astral nation in EA?

Try Charm as well. It's nature but short range. If you can make it work, they'll fight for you.

Air Magic? Thunderstrikes are good if you can get a lot of them. Fog Warriors might help, but not if he's got a F9 bless.

Against Neifel giants, single target one shot kill spells are what you want. They regenerate too fast to try to whittle them down.

Fires from Afar will damage a few troops. It'll kill normal humans, but the giants are too tough.

Breath of the Dragon does poison damage. It's nice, but does damage overtime and it probably canceled out by their regen.

Tougher/higher protection human units will still die in one hit so they aren't much use. Go for numbers but only as a meat shield. The mages do the killing. Massed summons can work too. Vine Ogres can make a decent wall. Living Statues or Mechanical Men if you've got the Earth magic.

[Saint_Dude]

Conventional forces are not effective vs. Niefel giants.

However, Your rainbow pretender as well as the Oreiads and Astrologers should be effective with the with the right scripting.

Some spells to consider:

Conjuration: Phoenix Power (F2), Summon Earth Power (E2), Power of the Spheres (S1), Light of the Northern Star (S3), and Will o' the Wisp (F1)

Alteration: Curse of Stones (E3) and Destruction (E3), Swarm (N1)

Evocation: Magma Bolts (E1, F1), Falling Fires (F3), Magma Eruption (E3, F1), and Thunder Strike (A3)

Thaumaturgy: Rage (F2), Prison of Fire (F3), Paralyze (S2), Confusion (A1), Soul Slay (S3), Enslave Mind (S4), and Hydrophobia (F1)

A couple of cold resistant thugs would be very helpful, especially if equipped with Fire Brands.

Fire Snakes also work pretty well vs. Niefels.

[Zylithan]

Thanks for the comments all. I've been avoiding learning about communion because it sounds tricky, but that's a lame excuse. Time to learn it. I did try orb lightning a little, but perhaps throwing it harder would have worked better.

Thanks!

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

What spells have you tried in combat?

If money is limited, but recruitment points aren't, consider mage engineers. You can also bootstrap fairly high into earth, though you'll be restricted by gems and fatigue limits.

Summon Earthpower will take you to earth two, and you can use further gems to cast as high as earth three. As many as two gems per spell, but earth three. So no fatigue 300 spells, since you can't use the minimum gems. Fortunately, a lot of earth spells are low fatigue, and you can cast some worthwhile ones without additional gems.

Earth Meld should be ignored, however, as should air's Fetters. They roll against strength and magic resistance.

That's about all I can offer at the moment, w/o a manual at hand or an online spell listing to refresh my memory.

[Zylithan]

P.S. This community rocks. I've played other 4X type games, and I'm very impressed with the friendliness and helpfulness of the dominions community. I look forward to joining you useful folks.

[Micah]

Flaming arrows and indy archers will crushinate the sacred giant troops. With communion available or just a simple F2 + phoenix power + extra gem in casting it shouldn't even take much mage power. Just get some chaff to soak up the giants attacks halfway down the battlefield and watch the pain.

[thejeff]

I'm not sure Flaming Arrows is that effective against Neifel Giants, but it's worth trying if you've got the mages.

Since you've got Air mages to spare, use Wind Guide to make every arrow count. (And minimize friendly fire.)

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I hadn't noticed the mystics had a chance at fire, along with the mage engineers.

I don't particularly recommend this for arco, I'd ruther spend gems on air elementals before I'd forge eyes of aiming on a nation with powerful air magic, but its good for some others, and you can use Wind Guide as effectively, I believe. Moreso, perhaps, because you're not wounding your mages to put it into use, and taking any attack or defense penalties.

Units with 8 to 10 precision capable of casting magma bolts will benefit greatly from an additional five precision. Most earth magic has a short range, however, and you might not be willing to move your mages so close to the front lines.

You won't get pinpoint accuracy, but bolts will be much more tightly grouped, and you'll be fearing friendly fire less.

[thejeff]

I still think the best counter to Neifel Giants is to one-shot them. Even with a good mr, at least the ones you get die. (Or get enslaved, even better.)

With their regen you're going to have to hit them at least 2-3 times in quick succession to kill with magma bolts, or lighting, or fire arrows.
Maybe falling fires or better yet, magma eruption. Decent area, good damage and leaves a heat aura behind.

[Folket]

I would say that Charm, Thaumaturgi 7 is your best bet.

A N3 oreiad have 18% chance to charm a Niefel giant. With eye of the void (5 astral pearls) it is increased to 30%.

For the cost of fielding 30 niefel giants and a niefel jarl you should be able to field 10 oreiads with eyes of the void.

Just put the mages close to the enemy with chaff with hold and attack orders in front, so that they are within your 20 range.

With three giants deserting every turn you should be able to win the battle.

Your average Oreiad should be able to cast charm 5 times before passing out. Those with nature random should be able to cast it 9 times.

You can also forge rune smashers and spell focus with your mystics. With spell focus, rune smasher and eye of the void your Oreiads will charm 54% of the time.

I think your second best shot is living clouds and lightning.
With storm and storm power your Oreaiads with air random should be able to cast living clouds twice. On average it will take the niefel giant 13 attacks to kill an air elemental. Slightly less if the elemtal is attack several time a round. So if you manage to summon 30 air elemental, the giants will be stuck for a while. The air elementals will do AN damage and will not be hurt by lightning spells you cast. Air elementals will also work well as chaff if you are casting charm.

You can give a crystal matrix to an Oreiad with air random. Use her with 8 mystics casting communion slave. After storm power each casting of living clouds will give you 7 air elementals. Theoretically you should be able to cast living clouds 8 times before your communion is to tired. But the AI will probably burn to many gems for that to happen. On the other hand if the AI burn more gems then needed you will get 8 elementals.

[Juzza]

To get neifel giants have a fire bless, takes them down so easy, if your not planning on fighting them before game though, flame arrows a re good too, um the incinerate spells.

Oo maybe a thug commander with something like a Gate Cleaver, half there health down in one hit from him, even if he hits the shield

[OmikronWarrior]

I've been messing around with the Sons of Winter a lot lately, single player only but I'm scheduled to be in an MP game with them sometime soon. Anyways, others have already suggested ways to handle them in battle, so I won't elaborate there. Except, they are incredibly tough with a good bless and you're going to have to pull out all the stops to beat them. One thing to keep in mind is their stats (Strength, Attack and Defense Skill, and AP) are all adjusted by the temperature scale. So, lure them into a hot territory (or make the territory their in hot) to get a much better shot at beating them. The difference between a 3-cold and 3-hot territory is -6. That isn't cheap change.

On the broader strategic level, Neifelheim's key weakness is its incredibly poor PD. Yeah, I know the manual says they have great PD, but its dead wrong. Developers must have changed something. Use stealth or flying troops to RAID, RAID and RAID some more. I see you're getting a new hard drive, considering a RAID configuration? Whats with all the bugs in the bathroom, somebody needs to spray some RAID. Pop in some of your own PD (assumming it isn't worthless), raise taxes, and make his economy cry.

You see, those sacred ice giants cost 150 gold apiece. To assemble 30+ in a single battle represents an enormous amount of resources. So, he's likely not producing much of anything else. Convince him he has to be in two, or three, or four places at once and he'll start spliting that giant army up into peices (of course, putting 30 of those guys together in one place is criminally inefficient anyways, but thats another story), to sizes you can actually have a shot at beating. Didn't say it'd be easy, but it would be doable.

[Baalz]

The thing is, fire is AP (or regular damage) while lightning is AN. With an earth bless in a cold dominion the giants have over 20 protection so even with their fire weakness you've got quite the uphill battle...plus AOE is less effective because theres only one per square. Lightning, OTOH, benefits by there being only one per tile (damage is concentrated) as well as the air mage prescison bonus. Throwing down ~20 orb ligtnings per turn and you won't have much trouble lighting up each giant several times in short order. Besides, you're generally gonna have to hit each one several times to make a soul slay stick as well...

[Micah]

Given that Niefel's sacreds should have a 19 MR after Antimagic goes off I really can't get behind an MR-spell based counter to them.

It might work in this case since the Niefel player is new, but it's not a good general strategy.

[Nikolai]

Strange, no one seems to have listed my favorites. Mages with two earths are common randoms in Arco. So mages with one fire and one astral.

(With a Oreiad casting Wind guide and one mage casting Light of the Northern Star)
Two earth mages: Summon Earthpower, Gifts from the Sky
Fire/Star mages: Astral Fires
Oreiads: Lightning bolt/Thunder strike

Dead, dead giants.

Forgot to say: All above are armour negating, or don't matter (150 damage kills giants, or anything)

[Micah]

Good call on Gifts from Heaven.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

In the category of smackdown...

The original poster mentioned an army of giants... I'd made a mistake. I'd thought of them all as a giants, but the op was probably refering to the Niefel Giants, not Jotun Huskarls.

Well... I'll withdraw from commenting for now. My advice was geared to somewhat wimpier units. I don't have much experience facing the big guys with a regen.

[Folket]

For Niefelheim to cast anti magic you would need a rare S2 Gygja or a Gygja casting power of the spheres and then sleeping a turn before casting anti magic. Arco should be able to kill the Gygja with magic duel.

I would like to compare lightning spells to fire spells against Niefel giants.

Niefels with E9 blessing have 18 in protection. Could be more in cold provinces.

Fire darts, evocation lvl 1. 3 x 15 damage against niefel giants. That is 18 damage after armour.
20 fatigue. F1
range 25+
precision 4

lightning bolt, evocation lvl 2. 14 damage
10 fatigue, A2
range 35+
precision 4

Two out of three mystics will be able to cast fire darts. I do not see why I would like to recruit an oreiad for 400 gold to get some more range over a mystic for 150 gold.

Seems to me that most things will be cost effective against niefel giants this late into to the game. Earlier in the game it would have been hard to mass the mages needed.

[Nikolai]

Folket, one does recruit Oreiads rathers than Astrologers in capital because one can recruit Astrologers everywhere else. It's nice to have many Oreiads. Once you got, and giants are stomping your troops, you just use them. When giants come, and you have research, you send a castle of mages to the fight, and each script for whatever is best.

(EE) -> summon earthpower, gifts from the sky
(FS) -> astral fires (with Light of the northers star)
(FF) -> phoenix power, falling fires
(F) -> fire darts
(AAA) -> thunderstrike
(AA) -> lightning bolt
(NN) -> thorn storm (won't hurt much, but will waste a move)
(S) -> soul slay
(-) -> mind burn

Last ones suck, but hey, you fight with what you got. If you have bow and flaming arrows, you are better with them on the field than with them a province apart.

[HoneyBadger]

I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, when it comes to air counters. Roughly a fourth of all Niefel Jarls will have access to air magic, and that's roughly enough to ruin your day if all you're trying is lightning bolts and shock spells.

The biggest weakness Niefel has is it's provinces. Province defense sucks bigtime, you need a huge amount of gold and supplies to purchase and field your troops, and it's very hard to defend that huge area with those few, expensive troops. So, the best advice is to attack the infrastructure-hit them in their income and their bellies.

Spellwise, curse works really well. They can also be Feared out of existence, so consider horror helmets. They have really good morale, but not ironclad, and less ways to boost it-no morale, low numbers-than other nations.

Etheriality is great: 1 because if they don't have fire bless, then it makes your troops a lot harder to hit, and 2, if they DO have it, then you don't even need to research it, it's already done it's part since Fire bless is not the best bless out there for Niefels. It's not bad, but it's definitely not 1st choice.

Barbarians are terrific, and fairly cheap, against small parties of giants, or individual Niefel Jarls-even really tough, boosted, SC Niefels. Get enough barbarians together, supported by heavy calvaly, and you can pick Niefels off. Wolf Tribe warriors are even better, in numbers.

Provinces being hard for nIEFELHEIM to defend over a large area, also leaves them somewhat vulnerable to dom-killing. The cheapest Niefel priest is 200 gold a pop, so consider a praying war, especially since every unit they use to counter you is another few pounds of gold you've just committed to *not* building an unstoppable army. It's worked against me, and it should work against your opponent.

Finally, consider mass-producing the shields that inflict curse and blindness every time they're struck. These are great to pepper in with your chaff. So are medallions of vengeance and any cursed items you have lying around that a Niefel Jarl might pick up.

[Saxon]

This won’t help in this game, but you might want to re-examine how you research. You state you have level 6 in almost all the areas. There are times that strategy is useful, but there are other times that you would prefer to have a certain high level spell and have built a strategy around it.

Next time you are creating your nation, think about where you want there magic to be in mid game. Look at the high level spells and how they will work with your nation. Then plan your research to get those spells early, focusing all your research on those key spells. What usually happens to me is that I get “the spell” and can implement a powerful strategy much earlier than if I spread my research around.

Many people plan an early, mid and late game plan, even as they are designing their god and nation. What you need and what you have available at each stage is different.

[Edratman]

I am a little surprised that I haven't seen very many prior posts about problems with Nief giants before. As a SP, I have found them to be all but invincible against the AI. And I would just use a relatively inexpensive rainbow FWEN (4 to 6) bless.

In games when I would play myself, I found a death bless very effective in stopping invincible forces. You may not kill them right away, but if you can pile up 3 or 4 afflictions on a unit, they soon become quite vulnerable.

But this isn't useful to the chap who originally posted the question.

The advice previously given that you attack Nief's provinces is probably the easiest to implement. You should be able to take 2 or 3 provinces for every one that you lose. It is a permutation of Russian strategy where you retreat to win, but it is effective. No one likes to lose 2 provinces for one, so that should reverse the advance. Then you will have the time to acquire the manpower and research to use the spells that were suggested. A good variant of this is to attack a province just behind the unstoppable force. Set the tax rate to 200. If they turn to attack you, you just keep your army moving through his provinces avoiding battle and he wastes his good army taking back his provinces unopposed.

Another stategy that might work is to put up a castle in a wasteland or marsh if it has good blocking capability. Fill the castle with enough troops and engineers to offset the besiegers, give cauldrens and wines sacks to every commander and hope your opponent is foolish enough to starve himself into serious affliction issues. If this works it also buys you time to acquire effective head-on counters.

[Folket]

I do not play with blesses against the AI. The AI has no way to adapt. Once you defeat him without looses you will not have any more looses.

[SelfishGene]

The real key to beating Niefelheim is making them build those Niefel Giants; it's almost impossible for Niefelheim to afford both building lots of giants and fortifying his conquests. When Niefelheim a dramatic reverse, a Giant based strategy tends to suffer total collapse syndrome and crumples not long afterwords.

[HoneyBadger]

That's a good point. You can't play Niefelheim successfully or competitively, purely by creating Niefel giants.

As tough as they are, they're too expensive to use as a main army until late game, and you've got lots of other tough, useful troops.

Niefel giants are there to make a good army unbeatable, they're not there to provide that army, all by themselves.

To do so would be like building a navy that consisted only of battleships.

[Sandman]

A very effective tactic against Niefelhiem is ritual spells which cause unrest. Get unrest to over 100 in their capital and keep it there. Boom, no more Frost Giants. Rain of Toads, Raging Hearts, Plague of Locusts, Baleful Star, Blight and Hurricane are the spells you want.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Foul Air may be nice... Incredibly slow, but nice. And not readily available to you.

How good are these giants at sieges? Can they be starved easily? I know I tend to take death scales as Agartha and I have a province as low as 86 food- and this is only two provinces distant from my capital. Size five, 30 Niefels, 120 food? You could probably starve them.

On the other hand, with a strength of 25, they'd have a siege strength of 6.25 x 30, or 187. It would be difficult (though not impossible) to hold off that force, but if your armies will be defeated in the field, than why not fort up? (other than losing the chance to counter-raid).

[Meglobob]

I had a 50 or so giant army of sacreds with a N8, E9 bless destroyed very easily by EA Ctis casting darkness and spamming raise skeletons.

Up till then the army had been virtually invincible.

EA Niefelheim is powerful but has many exploitable weaknesses. Many of which have been listed already.

EA Nielfelheim can recruit specific troops for sieging, the rock hurlers. They get a decent siege bonus.

[Micah]

Quite right Folket, I'd completely forgotten about magic duel for some reason. That'd pretty much gank their MR though.

I still stand by Flaming Arrows though, they cut through E9N4 giants without any trouble at all...maybe the extra regen at N9 changes things though, I haven't tried it. A couple of volleys and their whole army is on fire though, which helps negate some of the regen. Even if you're doing some other strat dropping a FA only takes a single mage, so why not add it on?

[Saint_Dude]

Of course, as Niefel, you are always concerned about Flaming Arrows and other instances of concentrated fire magic. Casting Rain on the first round of combat is a good idea for the Niefel player. With Rain and a nature bless, Niefel giants can hold up to large volleys of Flaming Arrows.

[Tuidjy]

When I play Niefel, I seldom, if ever, buy the Niefel giants. I stick to the
Jotun hirdmen. In the early game the big guys are too expensive. In the middle
game, buying Niefel jarls at the capital is so important that there is no money
to spend on Niefel giants. In the late game, the Niefel giants are irrelevant.
Nice to have, maybe, but if my opponent is worth anything, he is loaded for jarl,
and in that case the giants are just chafe. The Jotun hirdmen do most of what
Niefel giants do, at a fraction of the price.

[BigDisAwesome]

They were spamming disintegrate too Meglobob. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Xietor]

I have often blamed KO for prejudice in favor of the cold races. There is a cheap spell that can be cast before battle to allow the battle to be in a cold climate, but no similar spell for heat?!

I would like to drag KO out of his cool climate and have him live here in New Orleans for a year. He would have a new appreciation for Swamps!

[Meglobob]

Xietor said:I would like to drag KO out of his cool climate and have him live here in New Orleans for a year. He would have a new appreciation for Swamps!



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

There is a spell that heats up the entire world to be fair, second sun.


BigDisAwesome said:
They were spamming disintegrate too Meglobob. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Oh, how did I miss that? Where any disintegrated? I thought your skele hordes hacked them to death.

[jutetrea]

But when he found that the lack of world affecting cold he invented Ilearth!

[Jazzepi]

Xietor said:
I have often blamed KO for prejudice in favor of the cold races. There is a cheap spell that can be cast before battle to allow the battle to be in a cold climate, but no similar spell for heat?!

I would like to drag KO out of his cool climate and have him live here in New Orleans for a year. He would have a new appreciation for Swamps!



I'm really glad that the spells aren't symmetirical. There's nothing as boring as a game that has.

Fireball and Iceball
Fireblast and Iceblast

No, fire and water are completely different paths, and I like it that way! Also, fire has firestorm, and water has a semi-similar spell that deals /fatigue/ damage, but is not nearly as good.

Jazzepi

[Xietor]

Good point Jazz. Just a tad suspicious that KO resides in the dreary north, and the MA cold races appear to be far better than the MA heat races. Obviously someone who lives in New Orleans, if he was a developer, might favor some swamp race!

Instead of Vans being feared, people on the forums would be crying about the unstoppable nutria of MA Ctis!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[jutetrea]

While i agree on the theory I think there should be an equivalent in power, possibly not necessarily the same power battlefield spell but possibly a ritual or buff for example.

I do find water to be a relatively weak path unless a water nation, but if a water nation its fine.

For instance, summon earthpower, summon phoenix power, the astral one... all pretty easy to cast and do similar things (astral is the more powerful version but has drawbacks such as gem and fatigue). Summon earthpower probably the best due to reinvig.

Then you have
Air, needs storm, but 1A only?
Water, needs to be in water - real bummer.
Nature, needs high research/paths
Death - nothing?
Blood - horrors, cost, fatigue

Or site searching
A,F,E,N - all thaut 2, nice
D - conj 2, fine, death has very good summons and still early
W - conj 3? WTF?
B - blood 2, makes sense
S - evo 2 - huh?, but still only lvl 2 and evo is pretty popular early

Why does water get screwed here?

There are certain spells where I think parity would be good. Although only the 2 water versions of the 2 above categories annoy me.

Then there are some that kind of make no sense -
Why is murdering winter 50 gems and flames from the sky 35? Level earlier? Aren't both boosted by the temp of the target province? I'm just unaware of the reasoning, although it probably exists.

I can definitely see the draw of having the two paths be different in some sense, but when you have 2 spells that essentially do relatively similar affects, I think it would be nice to have more reasoning behind the different requirements.

[Lingchih]

Xietor said:
Good point Jazz. Just a tad suspicious that KO resides in the dreary north, and the MA cold races appear to be far better than the MA heat races. Obviously someone who lives in New Orleans, if he was a developer, might favor some swamp race!

Instead of Vans being feared, people on the forums would be crying about the unstoppable nutria of MA Ctis!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



The unstoppable nutria gave me quite a chuckle. I can see them now, with their big, nasty fangs and miasma auras. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Kristoffer O]

> Why does water get screwed here?

Because it is way more difficult to tap into the dreams of Apsu, the underground ocean, than it is to speak with the dead. To listen to Tiamat, a being of eaven greater powers, is even more difficult, thus it is more difficult to cast voice of Tiamat, which might seem strange http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

In short: balance has little to do with it.

I have had thoughts about making voice of Apsu 2W1E, but that might be going a bit too far.

> Then there are some that kind of make no sense -
Why is murdering winter 50 gems and flames from the sky 35? Level earlier? Aren't both boosted by the temp of the target province? I'm just unaware of the reasoning, although it probably exists.

Flames have no temperature effects. It is not armor negating. There is a Wolven Winter to pre-boost the climate for ideal casting temp.

> I can definitely see the draw of having the two paths be different in some sense, but when you have 2 spells that essentially do relatively similar affects, I think it would be nice to have more reasoning behind the different requirements.

Mechanic-wise or thematically?

[Kristoffer O]

Xietor said:
Good point Jazz. Just a tad suspicious that KO resides in the dreary north, and the MA cold races appear to be far better than the MA heat races. Obviously someone who lives in New Orleans, if he was a developer, might favor some swamp race!

Instead of Vans being feared, people on the forums would be crying about the unstoppable nutria of MA Ctis!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif



You are wrong! It is the fire nations that have no protagonist.

I'm in favour of cold, but JK likes swamps and mud-baths. He was the one that made the swamp feature and the Quagmire spell. It was he who went to India, although he didn't like the crowds and all the people. He prefers undisturbed festering swamps. He's also allergic to fur animals, so he probably likes lizards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif JK is the friend of swamps!

I prefer mooses.

[HoneyBadger]

Mooses? You mean meese?

[HoneyBadger]

Comparatively, although Niefelheim seems strong because you get big huge tough giants etc. they're actually the weakest of the Heims.

The Niefels themselves are far too specialized to taking on individual, tough foes with their axes, one at a time, but they're so expensive that you're pretty much going to be throwing them against masses of troops.

It's like outfitting someone with an elephant gun and having him go shoot rats.

To expand upon this: the fact is, giants-especially Niefels, do NOT need to be specialized. They're big, tough, powerful, etc.

They're basically tanks.

To maximize their abilities and strengths, they should be equipped much differently than they are, with metal armor-preferrably scale, blunt impact weapons with spread effect-appropriately designed maces, flails, hammers, etc., and mounts, to increase their speed and protect their biggest weakness-their knees.

It's doubtful they'd even see a real need to invent a combat axe or a sword, let alone use them exclusively in combat. Axes and swords are far too precise of weapons, not to mention fragile and expensive, and they do different kinds of damage-axes increase damage from impact, swords are versatile-than what such large beings would want to do in combat.

Smaller giants might use those kinds of weapons for some combat purposes, but for Niefels, it's really inappropriate and wasteful. Swords and axes of that size would become stuck in bodies, especially armored bodies and mounts, which would leave the Niefel vulnerable and off balance in the middle of a combat.

[Kristoffer O]

> Mooses? You mean meese?

What??? For real? Is meese the plural form? Gosh! I will say 'meese' a lot the upcoming week http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NTJedi]

Kristoffer O said:
> Mooses? You mean meese?

What??? For real? Is meese the plural form? Gosh! I will say 'meese' a lot the upcoming week http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



The plural of the word moose is still moose. Meese is not in any of the official dictionaries I have checked.

[Kuritza]

A two-handed sword would make a really good weapon for a giant. A giant two-handed sword. Armed that way, a Niefel giant might fend off all these little pests, or cut their heads off if they are stupid enough to step closer.
That requires a very good quality blade, of course, not some crude blades availiable in the early age. Ah, the sweet tragedy of a whole nation - being so well-suited for wielding zweihanders and being extinguished long before these are invented!..

[Kristoffer O]

> The plural of the word moose is still moose. Meese is not in any of the official dictionaries I have checked.

Aha. But it doesn't matter. I will still say MEESE! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Xietor]

Are you sure KO?

If the plural of mouse is mice, should the plural of moose not be mice as well?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[BigDisAwesome]

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/6731/250pxpixiedixiejinksql1.png

I hate meeses, to pieces!

[thejeff]

No, no, the plural of moose isn't mice, that's silly.

Reasoning by analogy:

goose:geese -> moose:meese

mouse:mice -> house:hice

[Kristoffer O]

But I do live in a hice!

Edit: several I mean http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[DrPraetorious]

I disagree that Niefel is the weakest heim, especially now that glamour is nerfed.

Firstly, the cold aura actually does kill people. It takes a while, but once it kills it kills a lot of people at once.

Secondly, who kills large numbers of enemy troops with *swords*? This is a magic game with armies - you kill the enemy army with Falling Frost, or Soul Vortex or the like.

That said, I agree that Niefel Giants are not that hot in the late game. They cost 150 gold for which you could buy an independent mage who could cast useful and destructive offensive spells.

However, the Niefel Jarl, at only 500 gold, is still a bargain! You can get way more of them than any equivalent thug chassis, and five of them at once, equipped with items, will devastate equivalent late game armies. And with minimal effort you can outfit them with winged shoes, and they switch to utterly unstoppable raiders with ease.

I should be clear that I am in-no-way calling for Niefelheim to be nerfed even a little bit. However, the other EA nations should get, I dunno, national summons or combat spells and things that make every one of them an equally fearsome proposition.

[Xietor]

I really only play the MA. In the Big Game i have had to run several test games to scout out the various races I have encountered-and test ways to stop them.

It is my humble opinion that no race I have EVER seen compares to EA Lanka. my gawd, what a juggernaut.

[RonD]

Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...

[HoneyBadger]

I was actually thinking that zweihanders would be fine weapons for Niefelheim. No finer than, say, a properly designed mace, though, since opponents would sortof slide right off a smooth mace-head, so that you could attack several at once.

The real ability that Niefelheim should have-and lacks-is a natural area 1 effect attack. This is just from a physical standpoint, since they weild (or have the potential to weild) weapons large enough, and designed, to hit more than one opponent at a time.

[Baalz]

Xietor said:
It is my humble opinion that no race I have EVER seen compares to EA Lanka. my gawd, what a juggernaut.



I dunno, I think there are *several* tier 1 EA races. Helhiem, Vanhiem, Neiflheim, and Lanka all tend to inspire "OMG, what the heck do I do now?" when you start next to them. Even the arguably second tier EA races (Mictlan, Sauromatia, etc) can certainly inspire terror in reasonably skilled hands.

Of course everyone's opinion will differ on who fits into what category, but given lots of strong choices I think it can't really be argued that anybody is head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd.

[Xietor]

My poor MA Ctis lizards started out next to both EA Lanka and EA Sauromatria in the Big Game. Talk about lucky starting positions! Can anyone say Blood!

Despite sending out my scouts far and wide, there was no sign of MA Ulm(:

[Baalz]

HoneyBadger said:
I was actually thinking that zweihanders would be fine weapons for Niefelheim. No finer than, say, a properly designed mace, though, since opponents would sortof slide right off a smooth mace-head, so that you could attack several at once.

The real ability that Niefelheim should have-and lacks-is a natural area 1 effect attack. This is just from a physical standpoint, since they weild (or have the potential to weild) weapons large enough, and designed, to hit more than one opponent at a time.



Well, you presuppose that the giants' warfare was evolved to fight man sized opponents. Seems more likely to me that outside of ascension wars the Jarls generally fight each other for power and the axe/Jotun sword is a natural weapon to fight other well armored giants.

You're probably the first one I've heard complain that Neiflheim needs a buff. AOE would mean defense is useless, so if you coupled that with their strength it'd give them offensive power to match their natural defense strength - a very overpowered result. I always thought the boulder throwers should have AOE1 though...

[KissBlade]

Agreeing with baalz's point about Niefel's weapons should be designed more in line of fighting other giant size people. I can't see why the heck Giants would design weapons to clobber tiny humans when stepping on them or kicking them would do much the same. Also Vanheim in EA has NEVER inspired much fear in me.

[Saint_Dude]

Neifelheim is extremely powerful in the early game, slightly above average in the middle game, and fairly weak in the late game. They are ultimately done in by low troop numbers and pathetic PD.

The Niefel giants which cause so much havoc in the early game are an expensive non-factor in the late game. The Jarls may be a good deal at 500 gold, but stocking up on them dramatically cuts down on the number of mages recruited for research or battle magic.

[Meglobob]

Jarls at 500gp are a good thug chasis but if you had the equivilant number of S3 mages equipped with eye of the void + spell focus + rune smasher all guarded by undead chaff (100% cold resistance), scripting soul slayx5, retreat.

Who would win?

[Kuritza]

Not many EA nations can field A3 mages easily, so in many cases these thugs can stay rather powerful in late game too, at least on paper.

[DrPraetorious]

Depends on how you equip the Jarls.

Anticipating combat with astrals, my Jarls are MR 29, and could be higher. That means with a meager penetration basis of 15, you need to beat my DRN by 14 points. Odds of success are lt. 1%.

Jarls have the same weaknesses as any other thug chassis and if you don't diversify you will lose, it's true. For example, in the above combat obviously I'd want to bring counters of my own: astral tempest maybe, undead mastery.

So, yeah, Jarls are not *unbeatable*. They remain, well into the late game, a force significant enough to force your enemies to contort their strategy as-described. You can take advantage of this in turn, which is the strength of LG Niefelheim. That and the raiding, once they fly.

And this is a 4X game, so the provinces you conquered earlier on give you more money and gems than your opponents, an advantage which propogates into the late game.

So I don't think late game Niefelheim is weak. I'll agree that it is not as devastating as early game Niefelheim.

A somewhat more successful counter I found was -
F2 mystics spamming pillar of fire,
Oreiads spamming Charm backed up by the penetration suite, and a *huge* communion (boosted the penetration bonus all the way to +8). I got a couple of his Jarls, and since he was MR-focused rather than fire focused, I even managed to keep them as I killed the rest (pity my bless sucked.)

I still lost that game, though, as Ermor then proceeded to eat me alive with darkness + life after death (all of his magicians turned into soulless - who can then see in the dark! Ouch).

[HoneyBadger]

I was reading through the various strategy guides, and I thought I'd add a few late comments on here, considering the tactics that have been suggested already.

First of all, I always seem to forge lots of copper plate for my Jarls. It's an easy forge for Niefelheim, almost to the point of being a no-brainer. It's not the best armour in the world for them, but it's cheap, and better than what they have--they've got the air gems to spend, and it takes care of lightning threats. So that's another reason that shock attacks aren't always the best choice, unless you can deny them air gems.

It's a lot harder for Niefel to defend itself against fire, than it is lightning, *IF* you're not using Niefel recruits as your main force. The best thing you can do is spam Lightning AND Fire. Even then, expect Niefel Pretenders to come with fire magic.

Secondly, Fear Helmets seem like a good choice for them too-and are-but the death gems you spend now are the death gems you don't spend later on. I honestly think they're a superb item to give your Jarls, because they help a lot to keep your giants from becoming surrounded, and they sync with the Jarls' natural Death magic. One of the best items you can give them, for the money, especially since they have the death gems to spend, but they're expensive! and they're low-level items. So one thing you really want to develope is a death-gem income, because you *need* death gems now, and you need them even *more* in Late Game-where Niefelheim starts to fade.

Denying Neifelheim death-gems hurts them.

Niefelheim wants Luck 3. That's, in my opinion, the single most important scale for Niefelheim to max out. Everything else, even Magic, is secondary (you have natural access to the two best research-boosters, skulls and quills). You don't want to build those lovely Niefel recruits, when you can build a Jarl, so Order and Production aren't as important. Not when you can expect 3000 gold atleast once a year (either as a chunk, or in dribs and drabs). You just can't suffer barbarian raids. They'll cut through you like butter, unless you have a decent army in place to compliment your PD.

And that 3000 gold event comes with both a magic item, and lots of fire gems-which is great for a Nation that doesn't otherwise get a lot of fire gems.

Niefelheim PD is worth at best half, at worst a third as much as the PD of almost any other nation-even monkeys!-so you need 1: time to consolidate your forces, and 2: you need your temple and lab to stay in tact until you can purchase atleast 2 more heavily guarded temples and labs. Niefel doesn't care about resources, because while high resource troops are nice, it can always fall back on boulder-throwers and skinshifters, both of which make beautiful PD boosters. And every single PD needs boosters-and needs to be raised up to *atleast* 36, if you expect to hold a province. In SP games, I've been known to literally station a single, kitted out Niefel Jarl, in every single province I own, when using high levels of Misfortune, because barbarian raids are just so devastating. That's extreme, I admit, but it's very expensive for Niefel to hold on to territory. Niefelheim lives and dies on gold income-deny them gold and they're a paper tiger.

Niefelheim, for 200 gold a piece, has a very respectable H2, decent stats, priest. Niefelheim's going to want to build a *lot* of them. Dominion Death is a real risk for Niefelheim, because again, holding territory (and the temples thereon) is hard for them. And with two heavy blesses-Earth and Nature-you aren't guaranteed an awake Pretender with high Dominion. Masses of undead chaff can also be a threat, as mentioned. And while those 200 gold priests are great, they're still 200 gold a pop. Niefelheim is going to want cheaper priests if it can get them, if only for Dominion-maintenance. Deny them cheap priests, destroy their temples whenever possible, and attack their Dominion, even if it's good-force them to maintain it.

Starvation's nice, but I've never had a *real* problem with starving Niefels, because I've always managed to forge wineskins and cauldrons with my Gygjas-and it's really easy to stick one of each on their high movement, holy, stealthy, tough scouts, and ship them out wherever needed--and easier, once you can give the scouts winged boots. I *love* Niefel scouts, by the way. If you can ever figure out a way to make a bunch of them, like 25, they make beautiful raiders-raiders that can carry around cauldrons/wineskins, or maybe a skellspam amulet and a bottle of water (water elementals are tougher when they're frozen)-Equipped, they can support your outlying provinces all by themselves, and your Skratti can follow, supporting them with spells.

Deny them Nature gems, and you're not only denying them food items, you're denying them healing, and one of the best spells for Niefelheim-perhaps the best global-Gift of Health, which not only heals them, it gives them even more HP.

Niefelheim doesn't have good access to healing-the best it can manage, bar Globals, is Fairy Queen. Curse the crap out of their commanders, their units, their pets, the rats in their cellars, whatever they have, whenever you can. Horror-mark is ok too, but not as nice, because a Niefel Jarl can take out a lesser Horror very consistently, unless you catch them early (without a magic weapon), and are lucky. A well-equipped Niefel Jarl can even give a Doom Horror several afflictions, before it's taken out, so horror marks aren't the best tactic to use against them. So skip horror marking, unless you can *really* spam it, and always focus on Curse, Curse, and more Curse. Afflict them, and deny them healing, whenever you can. A severely afflicted giant is actually better than a dead giant-because it's still drawing a paycheck. Disease is nice enough, but *always* expect a regeneration bless. Once Niefel breaks into healing, it really becomes a powerhouse.

When considering Darkness as a counter to Niefel, don't be surprised with Niefel starts building it's own undead. Breaking into undead is a great tactic for Niefel-cheap skellspam amulets become invaluable, when each one produces an endless stream of human-sized darkness/cold immune chaff units. Fun to stick on non-death mage scouts, and the weakest Jotun commanders (which are still both Sacred). And while Niefel might not have many good paths to the water, they do have the Wyrm Pretender, and they have *plenty* of water magic to use when they get there, so undead can help there too. Banes are my favorite, because you not only get a tough, powerful undead unit, you get a tough, powerful undead unit with a vicious magic weapon, which solves problems like Etherial units, and any lingering horrormark problems, and deals out painful, lingering death.

So again, deny Niefelheim death gems, prepair for undead, and deny them a foothold in the water-because once they get there, they can start spamming sea serpents and krakens (tons of them-water gems aren't otherwise all that useful to Niefelheim, compared to most of the other gems, and they get lots), recruiting chaff, and all the rest. And they can *easily* forge both water and air breathing items, so they can put critters *in* the pool, and take them *out* of the pool, pretty much at will.

Three units are particularly ignored as Niefel powerhouses, and particularly nasty, because they're ignored, and because they mesh well with seldom taken Blesses that Niefel has access to:

The first is the aforementioned non-capital sacred Scout. Scouts are stealthy, no surprises there. But they're also sacred, with all the fun that entails. And while weak compared to most Jotun commanders, they're still Jotuns, which makes them ridiculously better than the average human. Another nice feature is that they've got javelins. Slap a shield on them, and an eye of precision, and those javelins are mean!
They're so mean infact that a Death bless isn't entirely out of the question, since with the damage they dish out, you're pretty much ensuring an Affliction with every single javelin. These guys are straight up your best option, if you want to take a Niefel Pretender (ironically, not a common choice), because they mesh the best with a Death+Water Bless. You still want Nature, though, and since these guys aren't casters, Berserk is a great option if you want to spend the points for it. You can go with Horror Helmets for these guys, or better yet, Horned Helmet, if you've got a high Water bless going, that you can take advantage of. And the spears, while actually not that bad, can be traded out for swords of swiftness. Scouts should carry around food items, and either a skellyspam amulet, or a bottle of water-waterbottle Scouts should be equipped with Rime Hauberks whenever possible, so you can freeze the water elementals they produce, immediately. And Skratti can follow scouts, and spam Quickness.

2-the Niefel Priests (I forget their name). Not as good as a Niefel Jarl, or even a Jotun Jarl, out of the box, they're still Sacred, have better stats than a scout, and they're still Holy 2. If I expected undead units, or lightning attacks, I'd be thinking "hey, what if I took a high Air bless?". They lack shields, but with an Air bless (and they're self-blessing), who needs a shield? And shock's no longer a big deal, when you're 75% resistant to it. And these guys are non-Capital, so build to your heart's content! You can decimate any undead you encounter with them, Dominion's no longer a problem, because you're not concentrating on Niefels anymore, and while they might not be "as good as a Niefel Jarl" in combat, they're still pretty damn good, right out of the box, with an air bless-and you're building 10 of them to every 4 Niefel Jarls. With those numbers, they're arguably better than Niefels, if you want to concentrate on non-Niefel units, like skin-shifters, since they can spam Sermon of Courage. These guys are great, if you want to go with a Titan Pretender. High Earth/Air Bless is beautiful for these guys. Expect to forge helmets for them, though. And since you don't need a shield, you can consider 2 frost brands-cheap and easy for Niefelheim. Rime Hauberk is another nice option. It's cheap, and it gives them the cold aura they lack, in combination with decent Prot. High Air bless also makes your Niefel recruits a lot more palatable, in that they're now going to shrug off cold *and* lightning, which more or less neuthers Caelum against them, and all those fancy missle-tactics that everyone has so painstakingly crafted to work against you, aren't working so well, anymore.

But the *BEST*, most wonderful, glorious, all-round good thing about high Air+Earth bless is that your Pretender can now summon the ultimate PD booster-Watchers.

Watch closely as a half dozen cheap Watchers turn Niefel PD from grungy to great in seconds!

The third, and best, unit is the Skratti. I loooooove Skratti. They're good researchers, they've got access to multiple paths, they're your key to a blood economy, they can shapeshift into not one but two extremely useful forms, including a stealthy wolf, and they're fast-not just Jotun fast either, they're one of the fastest units in the entire *game*. Have them cast Quickness and the Chill Aura spell (they can do that by themselves), and give them two Swords of Swiftness, a horned helmet, and an amulet of reinvigoration, in their were-jotun form, and they're basically quisinarts of death, with 4 sword attacks, a bite, and a gore attack, all at Jotun strength, times whatever Quickness gives them, plus the same cold aura that the Niefels are always bragging about. And they've still got armour, boots (*flying* quisinart of death, anyone?), and 1 misc slot to fill. At 250 gold a pop, properly equipped, they might actually be *better* for the money than a Jarl, considering that Jarls need Earth/Nature blesses to come into their own, and Skrattis aren't even sacred. On top of all that, they're a stealthy caster-be careful with that last, though, Skrattis in wolf form drop most of their equipment. Again-provided you can find a way to forge Shrouds-a good unit for taking advantage of Death+Water, with Nature bless optional, since they're even better as melee fighters than they are as mages. Air + Earth won't hurt them, either, since they'll otherwise be vulnerable to missles, shrouds only offer 8 Prot, and they need all the Reinvigoration they can get. IIRC they get natural Regeneration, too. If so, and if you *can* Shroud them, they don't even need a Nature bless. With their extreme versatility, and furious speed, Skrattis are, hands down, a better choice for Prophet than a Niefel Jarl.

Now, Death, Water, and Air are three paths that Niefelheim definitely doesn't need to break into, but they've got some interesting Pretenders that come with exactly those paths, so it's something to give some thought to.

[Dedas]

Thank you so much Honey!

[HoneyBadger]

You're welcome!!!

(what'd I do???)

[HoneyBadger]

I was going to add this to the "Low cost tactics", but it's pretty expensive, especially for Niefelheim. Fun to pull off, though, and it gives Niefel Hags better synchronicity with the Skratti:

Niefelheim's known for a lot of things, but most of those things are huge, straightforward, and obvious. One thing they aren't known for is Nature magic, except as a path to a decent bless.

Another thing they aren't known for-being huge, lumbering giants-is being particularly stealthy.

But Niefelheim does have 1 National summons-Pack of Wolves, which is Conj3/N2, costing 25 gems for 20 reasonably tough wolves. Not cheap, but fine damage-soakers, with Forest and Mountain survival, and stealth. They're also extremely fast on the ground, at Move 28, meaning archers aren't going to get much chance at them. Not as good as flying, but not subject to stormy weather, either.
To these can be added the following units, which Niefelheim has easy access to, and which don't require venturing further than 4 levels into any magic path:

Bind Fiend-1xfiend of darkness, 5 blood slaves. Fiends of darkness are Imps' bigger, older brothers-older brothers who like to shoot steroid-pcp cocktails into their eyeballs and then mug bengal tigers at the zoo. They fly right out of the box, which keeps the enemy's mages occupied-by-means-of-evisceration, and they've got x2 poison claw attacks, which makes things more interesting for mages who only thought they'd be dealing with the cold, and maybe lightning.

Black Servant-1xblack servant, 5 death gems. Always a good unit to have access to, and a commander. They'll eat up your death gems, though, which is a problem for Niefelheim. Still, it's a great opportunity to add a few thugs with bows to your stealthy forces-but once you've got access to storm bows, give them to your scouts. They're also good out of the box, with etherial + lifedrain, and 18(!) hit-points.

Summon Shades-3xshades, 5 death gems. Expensive for what you get, but etherial, with most of the advantages of a shade beast. Shade beasts are far better, though, so wait for them if you can afford to. They do have a slight niche use as arrow soakers, since they're slower than shade beasts, and their etherialness should keep them safe from most arrows for a long time. Not really worth it though, in most cases.

Summon Shade Beasts-15xshade beasts, 20 death gems. Requires Conj 4, but probably Niefel's best all-around option. Your etherial, cold resistant Shade Beasts are fast, and amphibious, which means they can follow your Niefel Giants anywhere, if you need to team them up, and you don't have to worry about killing them with a cold-aura booster, with skratti. These guys aren't as fast as your wolves, but next to Fiends of Darkness, they're your fastest choice.

Spirits of the Wood-5xhama dryads-the most expensive option, in terms of research and path availability, but the gem cost isn't exhorbitant, and they're etherial units with natural regeneration, recuperation, and poison resistance 100%. Definitely worth the price, as a niche unit, and far better than shades. Note: They're not terribly fast, either in combat, or on the move, and I'm pretty sure they'll eventually die, if you lead them away from where they're summoned, but with some stealthy allies, they make great seige-crashers to keep around your Capital, or other major strongpoints, to get the drop on poison-using foes. They lack cold resistance, though, so keep that in mind-combines well with undead/dire wolves, and their Steal Strength weapon will take the punch out of giant-killing SCs.

These all come with Stealth, meaning not only can your Skrattis (in wolf form) lead them, you can also bring along some Scouts-which, if you're using a Prophetized Skratti to lead them, gives you instant, all-access Bless, and buffs, like Quickness and Sermon of Courage.

And later on, you can trick your stealthy units out with powerful mages and SCs like Wraith Lords, Harvester of Sorrows, Kokythiads, and Spectral Mages.

Again, it's not the cheapest way to go, or the easiest, but being able to field a few very mobile, stealthy, and quite powerful bands of bushwhackers can give Niefel's enemies a fatal surprise that they never saw coming.

[MaxWilson]

Comparatively, although Niefelheim seems strong because you get big huge tough giants etc. they're actually the weakest of the Heims.
*snip*
To maximize their abilities and strengths, they should be equipped much differently than they are, with metal armor-preferrably scale, blunt impact weapons with spread effect-appropriately designed maces, flails, hammers, etc., and mounts, to increase their speed and protect their biggest weakness-their knees.

IMHO, the leather armor is pretty good for Niefels because it means they're 0 enc with an E9 bless. It's okay that their axes don't kill chaff effectively because, in critical mass, the cold aura will be doing most of the killing (as soon as opponents hit 200 fatigue).

I like the Skelly Spam + (Darkness OR Iron Bane) strategy here.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

Well, I'm not talking in a game sense here. I'm talking in terms of real-world equipment. If such beings existed, and were using ancient/midieval weaponry and armour, the types of weaponry and armour they'd be suited for. Pure speculation, in other words.

[Agrajag]

If such beings existed, they would probably be too weak to use armor or weapons made from anything other than light wood or leather.
This is because as a creature grows in size (assuming his build remains the same), his strength/weight ratio decreases.
(This is because the strength of a muscle is determined by its cross section)

(With some reservations, of course. The way I put it isn't too accurate and doesn't really consider everything :P)

[thejeff]

But your speculation does rely on them equipping for fighting human size creatures. Their gear makes more sense for fighting each other.

Regardless of justifications, they are equipped that way for thematic, mythological reasons, not practical ones. They match the mythological images of Norse giants.

[Gregstrom]

And there's the factor that wearing lots of metal in a seriously sub-zero environment has quite a few drawbacks.

[thejeff]

I thought about adding that, but they're immune to cold.

I don't know if that makes them immune to having their fingers freeze to sub-zero metal :)

[HoneyBadger]

Actually, they match the historical images of vikings. I don't believe there's a whole lot of information on Jotun arms and armour. Some did apparently use swords (Surtr, for instance), but that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot.

And you can't apply human physiology to Niefelheim giants, because they're fashioned from ice, and primordial, semi-divine beings, as well. You might imagine them, for instance, with entirely different molecular structures-stronger cells, harder, denser bones, better muscle-bone architecture, etc. Plus, even a humanoid of gargantuan size is going to have a different body structure than an average sized human. Gigantopithecus, for example, although very similar to humans, compared to most other animal species, also has a very distinct anatomy, in part, due to it's enormous size.

[Tifone]

The fact that an elephant can usually lift around the 3/4 of his weight, and an ant 50 times its one, remains, HoneyBadger :D

[HoneyBadger]

3/4th the weight of an elephant is a whole lot of ants, Tifone... So I think Niefels could do better than balsa wood and wicker weapons. Not to mention that Niefel Giants aren't as big as elephants.

As far as them fighting each other, who's to say they ever did? Unlike the humans and gods in the Norse sagas, the Jotuns themselves were quick to ally with all manner of beings. And I can't recall any specific instances of them fighting amongst themselves. And it was the Norse gods who started things by killing Ymir, the father of *all* Jotuns. It was also the gods who instigated Ragnarok, for that matter, by betraying Fenrir, beheading Mimir, burning Angrboda, and imprisoning and torturing Loki.

[HoneyBadger]

Actually-to correct myself and prevent some confusion, it was the Vanir, not the Aesir, who beheaded Mimir. So not precisely the gods of the Norse, more like the cousins of the gods of the Norse, who were responsible for that particular act.

[Lingchih]

This discussion seems immaterial.

C'mon you all. Jarls are almost gods themselves. They don't abide by any of the normal rules of physics. Give it a break.

[HoneyBadger]

It's just fun to think about, Lingchih :) Postulating on the physiology of mythological creatures might seem irrelevant, but it's great for getting the mental gears turning. And the more mine turn, the more mod Nations I seem to come up with-and now that I'm making major progress on some of them, I don't have to feel too bad about that.

[Gregstrom]

I thought about adding that, but they're immune to cold.

I don't know if that makes them immune to having their fingers freeze to sub-zero metal :)

There's that, and there's the mechanical properties of the metal. EA is bronze and some iron. Neither of those behave terribly well at Jotun temperatures, and they'd be likely to shatter under a heavy impact.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, giants-Jotun or otherwise-were often depicted as wonderful smiths. The sword that slew Grendel's mother, for instance, was a giant-forged blade.

Iron-nickel alloys are actually pretty cold resistant, and although certainly rare (only found naturally on Earth in the form of meteors), they *were* available, and used, in ancient times. So who's to say they're not getting their metal from meteors stuck in Niefelheim's ice?

As Niefelheim isn't necessarily a terrestrial location, since it's outside the boundaries of atleast Midgardt, it's a possibility.

[JimMorrison]

Theoretical mythology! :shock:

[HoneyBadger]

Yep! I'm working on my PH.D. :p

[Aezeal]

phd's are overrated anyway :D, I never could get myself to bother with it :D

[ExHeretic]

I know that this is old post and i know it is derailed for many pages =P But since this is in the strategy index and nobody has yet given this solution to the orginal question i still want to post it :D

So how to beat niefel giants whit EA acro? Short answer: chaff and reversed communion of mystics casting Gifts from heaven :p

The little longer answer is: In my opinion when playing acro (any age) you should be bying mystics from every castle exept capital. Mystics do 3 things... Research, forge and defend ur castles. About 60% of the mystics have atleast 1 earth magic and can be used for gifts communion.

Here is example of how to pull this off... Lets say u have 10 mystics, some oreiads and 2 turns to prepare... 6 of ur mystics have atleast 1 earth. We will use those. Forge 2 crystal matrixes. Put those on two lowest mystics on ur commander list. Script first four mystics to cast communion slave and then gifts (slaves will cast two gifts and pass out). Script fift mystic to cast power of spheres and then gifts. Script last mystic to summon earthpower, Gifts. Make oreaid cast wind guide to help giving those gifts to the giants. This will give u 14 guaranteed casts of Gifts each summoning 3 damage 150 meteors. Thats enough fun to smash 42 giants ;)

More mystics = more fun :D

If you forget about that wind guide then this strategy is usable quite early in the game.. All you need is Thamaturgy 1 conjuration 3 evocation 5 and some mystics.

[13lackGu4rd]

unfortunately Gift of Heaven has been mentioned before. here is the first post in which it was mentioned, afterwards there are a few more.

Strange, no one seems to have listed my favorites. Mages with two earths are common randoms in Arco. So mages with one fire and one astral.

(With a Oreiad casting Wind guide and one mage casting Light of the Northern Star)
Two earth mages: Summon Earthpower, Gifts from the Sky(should be Heavens, was a typo of his)
Fire/Star mages: Astral Fires
Oreiads: Lightning bolt/Thunder strike

Dead, dead giants.

Forgot to say: All above are armour negating, or don't matter (150 damage kills giants, or anything)